So Far Away

by DeniseV

It had become to feel like home, Atlantis had. Then circumstances made it seem so different. John Sheppard and Rodney McKay need to help each other after the events in the episode Sunday. Spoilers through Vengeance. Rated K for some language.

Many's the time I've been mistaken

And many times confused

Yes, and I've often felt forsaken

And certainly misused

Oh, but I'm alright, I'm alright

I'm just weary to my bones

Still, you don't expect to be

Bright and bon vivant

So far away from home

So far away from home

Home…

It had begun to feel like home. Even with all of the dreadful, frightful, awful things that had happened to them since their arrival in the Pegasus Galaxy, it seemed that they had finally found themselves, found their place, made Atlantis their home. Some of them, those that held a more pessimistic view of life, would say that they had made their bed coming to Atlantis, that they had earned the horror that they'd been dealt. Most of those that had felt that way had made their way back to Earth, some more ingloriously than others. Those were not the ones all that remained on Atlantis thought of very much. Hardly at all. They, those that had lost faith in the wonder and the awe and the potential that Pegasus clearly still offered in spite of the danger that it also persistently held, would be but a footnote in the story, in the documenting of this adventure. It would be the others, the ones no longer with them but for bad luck, bad choices or great courage, who were thought of in between the moments of challenging exploration, continued feats of unparalleled bravery, enormous strides in scientific discovery, instants of sheer terror, life and sometimes death battles, and the unbearable occasions when you forgot that your colleague, or cherished friend, was really gone.

Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard had still not dealt with his feelings regarding his good friend's death. He knew that he hadn't because he was constantly forgetting that he couldn't go to him, for simple things like the cut he'd sustained while working out with Teyla and her damned sticks, or for more complex topics, like how best to convince Rodney to eat and get more rest. That last one had become a particularly sticky issue for Sheppard, and had been Carson's job, before.

Before…

It had been such a rough time, this last year or so. The incident with the Arcturus project had changed so much for the Air Force man. It had taught him to be more circumspect, in every possible way. He hated that. His superiors would undoubtedly be pleased to know of the change, would indeed hail it as the expected results of an honorable military career, borne of the inherent discipline required of an officer, in spite of the more than a few deemed failures along the way. He was pretty sure that Weir approved of the change. But John had never worked like that. He'd always gone about his business on gut instinct, his training and his intelligence usually working well enough to cover his six with his seat of the pants approach. No, it didn't always work, Afghanistan was proof positive of that. But it seemed to have done the trick here in the Pegasus Galaxy, waking the Wraith notwithstanding, until Rodney and Arcturus blew it all to hell.

Now everything, every decision, seemed harder, more complicated. Second guessing sucked. After time, and necessity, he'd gotten back into a kind of groove, but so many things had messed with his head lately, he felt that he was slipping again, back to how he'd felt right after the Dorandan catastrophe.

From the Asurans, or rather, the Replicators mind games, and being captured by Kolya, and fed on by a Wraith over and over, to the giant cluster fuck that caused him to shoot two of his team, and then nearly losing Mckay. Again. And now Carson. John Sheppard hadn't really known how much he relied on his physician friend, how much a part of his life the man had become. How important to Atlantis he had become. But he knew now, because he was the one left holding the bag with Rodney McKay. Within that bag was a train wreck waiting to happen, he knew it. John just didn't know what to do to stop it – he was barely making it through the days himself.

For reasons none of the Atlantis contingent fully understood, Dr. Carson Beckett's death was not discussed. Once all of the evidence of the Scot's life had been removed from Atlantis, once the memorial service was over, once the casket was sent through the Stargate, and once the team had returned home from Earth, it seemed that not mentioning Beckett had become de rigueur. It was weird, John thought. Kate Heightmeyer had a harsher definition for it. But Kate couldn't help John, though the colonel knew that the psychiatrist would be pleased to know that John recognized that he needed help. But the only person who could help Sheppard now was the one person on Atlantis who needed help even more.

Sheppard and his team had been on four, or was it five – six? – missions since returning from Carson's funeral in Scotland. The missions had all been challenging, or provided complex issues to be dealt with. A couple of them were dangerous. But somehow it all just seemed to add up to busy work.

And then there was Michael. Meeting up with Michael again had been its own form of hell. John thought that maybe his team was a little bit in shock still after the mission, the reminders of Carson everywhere, though none of them seemed willing to admit it. Or verbalize it. Rodney, specifically, just kept on going, expressing no emotion at all when Teyla mentioned Michael's comments on Carson's experiments. It was as though avoiding mention of Beckett had become some kind of surreal game.

Now that they were back on Atlantis, through with the strangeness of post-mission exams performed by someone other than their friend – John was sure none of them would ever get over the disconnected feeling of going through that – Rodney was back in his lab, where he spent most every waking moment when not on a mission. He was, in fact, spending more and more time there and less and less time sleeping and eating and participating in anything else. If it wasn't mission-related, or research, or fixing something else that had failed, as ten thousand year old equipment was wont to do, then it didn't seem to interest the genius.

John Sheppard didn't need Kate Heightmeyer to tell him how unhealthy that behavior was.

The colonel stepped across the lab's threshold. It was dinnertime, and boy did he wish he'd had a chance to place a bet on what he would find: Radek Zelenka and Rodney McKay were the only ones in the room.

If he had a nickel lately for every time…

Zelenka turned and saw Sheppard watching his friend. John caught the Czech's eye and smiled, a sad smile presented just for courtesy's sake; there really hadn't been all that much to smile about lately. Radek returned a slight grin, but then shook his head back and forth. The scientist turned back and spoke to his colleague.

"Rodney, the colonel is here." There was no response from the man sitting hunched over two data screens. "I am going to eat." Again, no reply. "Rodney, come to get something to eat."

"Not hungry," was the reply. McKay's head remained down and focused on the numbers and graphs and other seeming gibberish on the screens, both Ancient and not.

"Rodney, I have seen you eat only power bars for the last day and a half."

"Hm. So?"

Zelenka looked to Sheppard for help.

"Go ahead, Radek. McKay and I will be along soon."

Zelenka looked suspect, fairly confident that Sheppard would not be successful in his efforts to move McKay from his spot. He mumbled in his native language as he stormed from the room.

John walked over and stood next to Rodney.

"So," he said casually.

"Not hungry," McKay said, answering the question before it was asked once again.

Sheppard looked at the mess surrounding the two computers: three empty coffee mugs, a series of wrappers from assorted flavors of power bars, as well as one Milky Way Midnight. John grinned. Rodney still had some of the candy bars that Sheppard had ordered and were delivered on the Daedalus' supply run following the scientist's near drowning in the puddle jumper. It was a small gesture, John felt, to get his friend the treats. Rodney had taken a while to snap back from that terrible experience, his own inner demons plaguing him, as had the loss of Griffin, for some time thereafter. McKay had practically giggled with glee when John gave him the full case, less one bar. John's grin turned quickly to a frown as he realized the nutrition his friend wasn't getting by eating this way. Carson would come back to haunt him for sure if he let this go on much longer.

"Hey, come on," Sheppard said, putting his hand on McKay's back and rubbing it slightly. The tension was painful to feel. Rodney's head went up and John was pretty sure he heard a slight groan. Frowning, Sheppard asked, "Are you okay?"

McKay turned his neck to the right, bones cracking loudly at the forced movement. "Just a little stiff."

John raised his eyebrows in agreement at the veracity of McKay's words juxtaposed against what his body had to say. He stood back and surveyed the setting again.

"How long have you been here?"

Rodney finally turned to look at the colonel. Man, did he look tired. Really, really beat. John sighed and looked at his friend sadly.

"Don't say it," McKay warned, putting his hand up to emphasize the order.

Rather than saying what he wanted to say, even though it was evident that someone would eventually be forced to tell Rodney how really bad he looked, John said, "I was just going to invite you to eat with me. We haven't had a meal together in a while."

The scientist nodded his head. He took his left hand and swiped it over his face. He looked at Sheppard again, smiled sadly and said, "How have you been?"

It was a good question. And it was very true, as the question suggested, that Rodney probably wouldn't know how John really was. They had all been running on auto-pilot these last weeks, ignoring their pain and their loss. Ignoring each other. It was far easier, safer, not to deal with the hurt and the hole that Carson's passing had left in their lives. It seemed better to ignore it, to not allow the numbness of the original shock to go away. And truly seeing one another only brought the pain to the forefront. It was better to not think about it, to not see your own pain reflected back in your friends' eyes. The shock was better. It was like a sedative. It was just like sedative.

Unfortunately, a person could only work so long and so well in such a 'drugged' state. John Sheppard knew, and Elizabeth Weir agreed, that the team needed to deal with their pain – John and Rodney in particular – let the release of talking about Carson and not pretending like he never existed be their way to healing. A sedative only worked to hide the pain of the suffering. They needed to learn to deal with it. It was the advice that Dr. Carson Beckett would have given…it was the therapy he would have prescribed. The only thing missing was the kind and gentle care Carson would have used to dispense that prescription.

"I miss seeing you," John answered. It was hard to admit, but even harder to say. McKay put his head down, accepting his culpability, his guilt, in how Sheppard was feeling.

"I, um," Rodney started. "It seemed…easier to just, you know, work."

"Easier to forget," John said knowingly.

"Right."

Sheppard crossed his arms over his chest, shook his head and said, "You see, I'm not sure that's what we should be doing."

"No?" McKay asked as he stepped away to view a third computer screen.

"No. I think Carson would be pretty pissed at us right about now."

Rodney turned quickly to catch the look on John's face. "You do?" he asked worriedly.

"Yeah. Of course, he wouldn't have used quite that phraseology." Rodney smirked. "I think that Beckett would not want us wallowing. He wouldn't want us walking around like…" Rodney cut him off.

"Like someone died."

"Yeah," John agreed.

McKay busied himself again with the monitors. It was an avoidance tactic that Rodney used often; the scientist was accomplished at making those around him understand that his work was the most important thing, even while he sat back and let himself die inside, a little at a time. Sometimes Rodney McKay didn't act as smart as the smartest person in two galaxies really should. Genius and advanced degrees didn't equip you with the skills to deal with a broken heart.

Sheppard stepped up close to his friend.

"It would help me, I think, to talk about this. About him." Rodney looked up and saw the hurt, the need, the confusion…the earnestness in the colonel's eyes. God damn if it didn't perfectly reflect the burden McKay now carried in his heart.

Talking was really not something that the two of them were all that great with. Together. Bantering and sniping? Sure. Feeling and doing? They were better at those, too, despite others expressed opinions on the 'feeling' subject. But it was finally clear to Rodney McKay, certified genius, that what he'd been doing up until now wasn't helping. He hadn't felt good in weeks. He hadn't gotten over losing his best friend. He was weary and sick at heart. Something had to give.

And if Sheppard felt the need to talk, then they should talk. And maybe, just maybe, they could help each other recover a little of the humanity that they'd lost, or at least misplaced, when Carson Beckett died.

"Would it be okay if we didn't eat in the commissary?" Rodney asked quietly, hopefully.

"Yeah, sure. Anything you want." Anything to get McKay to talk. "Should we go to my room?" John knew that Rodney felt comfortable there.

"That would be great," McKay answered, his relief more than clear. "I'm, um, still not real hungry," Rodney admitted.

"Well, we'll go slow, soup and half a sandwich maybe?" John asked.

"We'll see."

We'll see…

John added milk, a piece of chocolate cake and an apple and a banana to Rodney's tray, much to McKay's chagrin. If the physicist didn't eat the fruit now, he'd at least have something decent to snack on later. "Hm. This smells…" Rodney paused, looking for the right words.

"Good enough to eat?" John finished helpfully.

"It smells like Campbell's. Looks like it, too."

"Tastes like it, too," Sheppard said with a wry grin. "Try it."

"Mmm. Good," McKay said. The colonel choked. "What?" Rodney asked, oblivious.

"Nothin'," John answered, taking a drink of his own milk to hide his amusement at the inadvertent advertisement. "It is good." Sheppard watched as the scientist carefully enjoyed his soup, savoring the vegetable beef richness. It hadn't been on the menu, but John had developed a special relationship with the chef, knowing what Rodney liked and what made him feel better. Food usually had a very positive effect on his friend. There was little doubt that not eating was a side-effect of his still traumatized state.

They really needed to start taking better care of each other.

They sat quietly for a while longer, and then John said, "Carson would have enjoyed this."

"Sure, if the beef was haggis and if we added some 'neeps' in with the 'tatties'," McKay replied, using his fingers, spoon flailing in one hand, to quote around the Scottish terms for turnips and potatoes, a pretty decent Scottish accent accompanying the comment. He smiled at the memory. It often seemed to those not in the know that McKay only ever held Beckett's heritage up to ridicule, the jokes many times coming off as mean-spirited. But John knew that impression was far from the truth. Rodney McKay was sharp-witted and acid-tongued, there was no doubt about that. But he cherished his own Canadian-ness as much as he enjoyed hearing about Beckett's homeland, or listened patiently for the umpteenth time about the greatest football game of all time – Sheppard made a point of bringing the topic up as frequently as he could just to revel in whatever new gem that McKay would shoot back at him. It was always followed by a long, passionate and detailed accounting of the glories of hockey, a 'real man's' sport.

"Have you ever had it?" John asked. Rodney looked back at him, confused. "Haggis," the colonel added helpfully.

"Ew. No."

Sheppard laughed at that, but then grew more serious. "It's weird around here. Without him."

Rodney had committed to talking about this, but now felt nothing but regret at that choice. His throat felt tight, as though he wouldn't be able to get words out even if he wanted to. He kept his head down, looking morosely into his soup bowl.

"Rodney," John said, worried about the silence from his friend.

"It was really feeling like home here. To me. Like we'd gotten over how it felt to move into a new house or apartment. And we'd had our spats," Rodney said as he looked into John's eyes, "and worse, and made it through. We were a family, warts and all."

"We still are, I hope," John said, hoping that his words would encourage McKay to continue.

"I…we…oh, geez," the scientist started. He dropped his spoon and cupped his face in his hands.

"Rodney?" John placed his hand comfortingly around McKay's left wrist. He pulled the hand away from his friend's face; he needed to see what was going on, and Rodney's eyes always told that story so well. "Talk to me," Sheppard added, using his very best powers of persuasion to move this conversation forward.

"I think that I let myself get too close to Carson because I couldn't figure out how to fix you and me. After Doranda."

Sheppard nodded and said, "That was a pretty rough time." He looked at McKay carefully and said, "We are good now, you do know that, right?"

McKay sniffed. This conversation was becoming ever more painful for the physicist. His emotions were pretty raw, but thankfully - finally - he was opening up about what he'd been feeling lately.

"Yeah. Yes. I know that. But I didn't know that we would be okay. Back then. And Carson, he was," Rodney grinned slightly and laughed just a little, and just a bit sadly, "persistent, to say the least. If reincarnation really existed outside of fiction, he should definitely come back as a pet dog for some lonely, nerdy kid He wouldn't let me be."

"Lonely, nerdy kids are hard to resist," John replied wryly.

"Hm."

"He was a good friend."

"He was a great friend," Rodney agreed, barely controlled tears in his eyes showing his grief. "But I've been thinking that it's maybe a mistake to be that close with people. Out here."

"It's a little late for that. We're that close," John reminded helpfully.

"Yes we are," Rodney agreed. "And if we're being honest here, I barely survived losing Carson." McKay looked intently at Sheppard, never losing eye contact, not having to say the next part out loud.

"Rodney, you are way stronger than that," John insisted. Rodney had been very down, and heads-down since Carson's death. Despite his own pain, Sheppard had worked unbelievably hard to keep tabs on McKay, never realizing how hard McKay holing himself up in the lab made that effort.

"I'm not," Rodney argued. "I…" he said, his voice cracking, a tear finally falling from the now shimmering pools of blue. "I have watched as a lot of people die. People that I had grown fond of, colleagues that I admired. Military men who gave up their lives for me. Despite what some might think, I do care about people."

"Nobody thinks that you don't care," John assured his friend, a tinge of anger to his voice. It made him mad that there might be some out there who thought that of McKay, though Rodney himself oftentimes perpetuated that belief. The scientist's harsh manner with his staff and others was all a front, his way of not letting anyone too close. Rodney had learned so many lessons out here in the Pegasus Galaxy, mostly the hard way. John Sheppard would deem anyone who thought that Rodney McKay didn't care as someone who was missing out at knowing the real Rodney McKay.

"My point is that losing Carson has been…harder than I expected. I'm not really used to feeling like this. Well, that's not altogether true, because when Kolya had you, and he let that Wraith…" he paused, trying to retain his composure as he bled his heart out to his friend and team leader, "I was…it was…I never wanted to…k…kill…" Rodney blinked some more, more tears falling over his cheeks. "I wanted him to die a painful, painful death."

"He's dead now," Sheppard reminded him. God how he hated hearing Rodney talk like this.

"That's only nominally satisfying to know, knowing what he'd done to you."

"I'm okay. Better than ever." Well, probably not mentally, but in every other physical sense.

"Yes." Rodney sniffed again, wiping his eyes with his napkin. He looked at his tray and said, "And now I'm really not hungry."

"Sorry, that's probably my fault. We'll give it a while."

"No, it's not your fault. Talking about it is probably cathartic in a horribly, wrenchingly painful sort of way."

John gave Rodney a crooked grin. "Remember, 'Out of life's school of war: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.'" And though Sheppard delivered the famous quote with a grin, his eyes told McKay that the Air Force man was completely serious.

Rodney gave a reluctant smile back to his friend and said, "Quoting Nietzsche, are we? Very impressive. I have some favorites, too. 'You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.'"

"Wow. That's like it was written just for you. Did you know him in another life?"

"Ha, ha."

"Here's one: 'The secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is – to live dangerously.'"

"Touché. That one is perfect for you. Friedrich Nietzsche was way, way ahead of his time. I have more," Rodney noted, smiling a real smile, a true smile, a not sarcastic smile for the first time since…

Since…

"Fire away," John suggested, enjoying the banter and his pleasure in finding another Nietzschean in his midst. How had he missed picking up on that over the years?

Well, they had been kind of busy.

"How about, 'A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions – as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.'"

John nodded in agreement. Rodney kept picking the Nietzsche quotes that so perfectly described the man sitting before him. John chose not to verbalize the next one that came to mind: 'It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right – especially when one is right.' Being right still hadn't helped Rodney in his attempt to finish what the Ancients had started with Arcturus. Sheppard, rather, chose one that he knew McKay would agree with.

"'To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.'"

Rodney picked up his sandwich and took a bite. After chewing once or twice, his mouth not quite full anymore, he said, "It's always about competition with us, isn't it?"

John sat forward and used his fork to swipe a huge chunk of McKay's chocolate cake. He leaned back, holding the fork carefully, balancing the sweet treat and said, "No. Sometimes it's just about friendship." He put the large bite of chocolate in his mouth.

McKay smiled at that. He said, "Here's another one: 'When one has much to put into them, a day has a hundred pockets.'"

Would that a lifetime held just one more chance.

John looked sadly back at his friend. "Carson would have agreed with that one."

"Yes he would have," Rodney replied and then added, "Let's finish this up with a Nietzsche gem in honor of Carson Beckett."

"Sounds like a plan," John agreed. He was pretty sure he knew which quote Rodney was thinking of. It was perfect for Carson and the man that he was, and the man that he had remained, against all odds out here in the Pegasus Galaxy.

"'What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.'"

The two men took their milk cartons and clacked them together in a toast, the soft rap not loud but symbolically representing the sound of roaring, sustained applause. Or maybe just one last warm embrace of fellowship for their lost friend.

"To Carson," one said.

"To Carson," the other followed.

The End.

Author's note: In this story I have quoted from two great philosophers, the aforementioned Friedrich Nietzsche and at the beginning, the more recent philosopher Paul Simon, whose "American Tune" is excerpted at the beginning.