A/N: For Gate Geek, who is the source of John's pain for this little ficlet, as I transferred her injuries onto him. Hope you feel better soon!
That's What Friends Are For
To say I felt out of sorts was pretty much an understatement. This sucked. This completely blowed. This both sucked and blowed. The part that sucked was that I had taken a nasty spill from the top of 'Jumper One. What was I doing on top of a Puddlejumper instead of being safely inside behind the controls? Why else? McKay.
"I need your help to run a diagnostic on Puddlejumper One, Colonel." Humph! I thought he meant he needed my piloting skills, or my gene. Nope.
"Well, Colonel, the access panel is on top of the 'Jumper. You don't expect me to climb up there do you? I might fall off and break both my legs!" So I'm the idiot balancing on top of the damn 'Jumper switching crystals while he sits inside running diagnostics. I still don't know what he did, but the 'Jumper suddenly moved. One moment I'm trying to figure out which of the four identical crystals is 'the pink one' and the next, I'm flying sans spaceship. He might break his legs? I'll break his damn legs when I can walk again! He at least had the decency to go ghost white and launch into one of his panics. He should feel bad, it's all his fault. He called a med team down to me, as I had stupidly tried to land on my feet. Can you believe that? Do I look like a cat? Damn lucky I didn't bust both my kneecaps.
The med team wheeled me into Carson's voodoo lounge, as Rodney calls it. Don't get me wrong, I actually like the Doc. Just not when I'm the patient. Well? He fusses. I hate being fussed over, especially when it's because I can't do something for myself. I loathe being helpless. So what does he say? Three days minimum! I can't walk for three days? What am I supposed to do for three days? I know Atlantis loves me, but I can't think stuff to happen. Well, except the doors. And the lights. And I'm pretty sure I could fly the 'Jumper without actually having to use the controls if I wanted to. But this is different dammit. I'm gonna have to ask people to do stuff for me all the time.
Of course, as soon as he left me alone for a moment I tested it. I was sure he was being over-cautious. He does that. So I lifted my legs off the gurney and put my feet on the floor. It hurt, alright. Both my feet were swollen and starting to go an impressive shade of purple. Apparently I'd sprained the left ankle too. But what's a sprain and some bruising? I'd done worse than that to myself before and still been able to walk. I gently lifted my ass off the gurney and put my weight on my legs. Went down like a tonne of bricks. Didn't even have time to swear, just flat on my back with an incredibly uncool expression on my face and a wheeze 'cause I'd winded myself. I stared up at the cute blond nurse, Gigi.
I spent that night in the Infirmary. Normally when I'm in the med-lab I'm either in way too much pain really care, or I'm recovering from way too much pain and feeling pretty grateful. This time, I was in pain, but not the just-been-tortured or blew-up-my-spaceship kind. That kind got me the happy pills and a night in loopy town. Not that I really liked that either, but at least I wasn't really noticing the pain, right? This was the awful you-don't-qualify-for-the-good-drugs-and-you're-a-big-colonel-now-so-suck-it-up-and-stop-being-a-royal-pain-in-my-lilywhite-Scottish-arse type pain. I couldn't even make a jailbreak, because I couldn't walk as far as the door. Not happy. Even Gigi was starting to avoid me.
I must have been really annoying Carson, because he released me from the Infirmary the next day. What? All I did was ask for some painkillers. Okay, maybe I was a little repetitive. And I really didn't mean to snap at Dr. Biro like that. I know she was just needed more blood to do more tests on the ATA gene. It wasn't like it was the first time the Docs have needed some of my blood. I just said she was sucking the life out of me- I really didn't mean to imply she was like a Wraith. Especially since she'd worked so closely with Carson on Michael. It really just came out wrong. So, Carson kicked me out, said I could recuperate just fine in my quarters, as long as someone was with me to help out. That was cool. I had plenty of friends.
So here I am in my quarters, two days into my three day enforced lie-in, with my feet absolutely killing me, and considering myself damn lucky to get so much as a Tylenol from the Infirmary. So that is the part that sucks. The part that blows? Well, after two days my friends have all deserted my like rats off a sinking ship, and who do I have as a babysitter? You guessed it.
"Oh, stop whining, Colonel. You can't really expect me to be at your beck and call for every single sad and lonely idea that crosses your pitiful excuse for a mind. I'm a genius, not your nanny." And he went back to furiously typing on his laptop. I only wanted a glass of juice. Another one, that is. Okay, I guess I want to piss him off. I suppose misery does love company after all. But he should know that better than anyone. No-one loved to share their misery like McKay. This was more like payback than anything else.
"Why can't Teyla stay for a while if you're so busy?" I snapped.
"Teyla looked after you yesterday morning when you first got out of the Infirmary. You whined so much about not being able to walk that she'd had enough of you by lunchtime." He looked up from his laptop. "You're very unpleasant at the moment, Colonel." He added, sounding almost happy about it. Hmm, actually Teyla had been getting rather snippy around lunchtime yesterday. Since about mid-morning her eyebrow had been almost permanently raised. Humph. I thought she was more patient than that.
"What about Elizabeth?" Elizabeth had come in after lunch and spent yesterday afternoon with me. She'd had to leave after tea, though, because she had to get some work done. I could understand that. She was a busy woman. Atlantis didn't run itself. "She said she'd come back after she caught up with her work." And yeah, that might have come out sounding cranky, but God help me, if I had to spend too much more time with Rodney, I was going to commit justifiable homicide.
"Yeah? Well, her work must be running the 1500m because last time I saw her, she was heading away from this room at high speed, looking relieved to be off the hook." He sighed and shut his laptop. "Okay, Colonel. How about chess?"
"Jesus, Rodney! No more chess, already. What about Ronon?" This was ridiculous. I wasn't being that difficult! Was I? Actually, now that I think about it, I was pretty rough on Ronon. Sending him back to the mess hall three times because I didn't like the food was perhaps a bit out of line. And I had been pretty frustrated over the last two days, which usually makes me pretty snarky...
"Puh-leese! He lasted less than two hours and then headed off to the gym. From the steady stream of limping and bruised marines coming from that direction he's still trying to fight the urge to throttle you." He put the chess set down, and picked up the deck of cards. "Go fish?" He asked chirpily.
"Lorne?" I asked, a little desperately. He just waggled the cards at me. Yeah. Justifiable homicide. My holster was hanging over the back of the chair. I could crawl that far. I was sure of it. He put the cards down again and rolled his eyes.
"Look John." That got my attention. He never called me by my first name. "You've managed to get everyone well and truly pissed. You've been even worse than me when I'm sick, and that's saying something. I know I can be difficult occasionally." Occasionally? Crap. If even McKay thought I was worse than he was, I'd been a huge pain in the ass. I leaned back on my bed and sighed.
"So why are you still here?" I asked. I know we had to put up with each other on missions, and when we were working on Atlantis, and we really tried to get along with each other at those times. And the times we actually hung out together, we spent all the time arguing and bitching at each other. Like on the weekly team-bonding nights, Teyla and Ronon always sat and talked quietly to each other like grown-ups, while McKay and I spent all night arguing like five year olds. I mean really, who else has a three hour argument over a flux capacitor? I couldn't remember the last time we actually had a rational discussion without snarking and bitching at each other. He gave me one of his crooked grins, and turned his laptop around so we could watch a movie.
"Because I'm used to you being a pain in the arse, Colonel." He said. And he put on Back to the Future.
So the part that both sucked and blowed? I just realised that Rodney McKay was my best friend. And don't tell him, but I really enjoyed arguing about the movie.
Disclaimer: SGA and all it's characters belong to MGM andSciFi. It's their playground, I'm just playing in it.