Title: Aftermath.
Author: QueanMab
Rating: T
Warnings: Angstfest.
Summary: He never knew it could end like this.
Songspiration: silence.
day 1
Rodney doesn't understand the clean grief of funerals.
Dearly beloved.. brave soldier.
He does not understand the crisply ironed black collars, the white-laced handkerchiefs dabbing at their respective owners' eyes.
Will be sorely missed..
Doesn't understand how it is possible that he is alive while another,
not just another,
is dead.
day 2
He does not understand closure or moving on,
why no one else seems to be shattered as he is,
no one else is drowning as his thoughts rage by;
the world has been thrown off kilter, off balance,
out of order signs must be hanging somewhere in the sky.
He puts himself through the motions as everyone waltzes through wakes and quiet services, and Elizabeth says a few words over a wreath that floats eerily through the event horizon.
A hole left behind, a patch of ice on the heart that will eventually melt, and heal.
He is not sure about ice or healing, but she's right about the hole; a gaping black hole has been razored out from somewhere inside of him.
And true to predictions, it is stretching him like taffy and crushing him into tiny battered pieces; it is pulling him, making him fall, spiraling inward; and there is really no escaping such a pull of gravity that can even capture light.
He does not wake up on the third day because he hasn't slept since the first;
It is incredible:
he gazes with a sort of vague disbelief; does life really plan on continuing on with itself?
The world should have ended in a hail of fire and destruction,
terror and earthquakes, blood and rain.
Instead, everything seems numb, unaffected, untouched. Tuesday is still Meatloaf Tuesday in the Mess Hall, teams are still going off world, Carson still expects him in later that day for a checkup and blood tests.
Blood tests.
He almost laughs at that, but any sound would be torn from his throat and thrown into the empty air, so he decides it would be better to say nothing at all.
By the fourth day, they are starting to worry.
There are concerned glances tossed his way, whispers in the air; he hears something about shock and trauma and others and close.
Carson purses his lips as Rodney calmly says yes, he's fine, with none of the usual spark, hand waving, or whining; the hypochondriac gone clean.
The Athosians have whispers of a different sort; they have superstitions and words such as marked and next. They are generally ignored, as is common concerning such areas.
Rodney laughs at his people who still believe they know everything.
Almost.
On the sixth day, Teyla tries to talk to him. The words wash over him and sound so foreign that he almost asks her what she's talking about, but he finds he doesn't care; it doesn't matter.
It still doesn't matter on the seventh day, when he is sitting alone in his room and staring into the barrel of his sidearm. He looks with interest at the cold steel and feels almost relieved when nothing pulls him back. The city is saved, the power source has been found, the enemy has been defeated.
There are casualties in war, it is to be expected. They shall always be remembered for their sacrifice.
Rodney shuts his eyes and shudders. Oh god, he remembers. That voice.
Nervous, McKay?
He isn't. His senses betray him and lie him something salty and metallic;
it doesn't matter when the world really ended a full week ago, anyway.
We've certainly cheated death enough times, don'tcha think?
He figures, as long as he's overdue.
Can't always be this lucky.
He can't believe it's ending this way,
it ended this way, seven days,
so long was right.
Peace is incomprehensible,
he does not find it as the bullet enters his skull.