A/N: First, I'm not a neurologist, doctor or psychiatrist. This is an AU work of fiction. Please remember that when you read. ;) Reviews are welcome, even if it's to point out things you don't like.
The nurse went through her routine as she had 136 times before. In all those days, nothing had changed. Every single day was the same. Exactly the same. He had no phone (his caregivers were issued a cell phone set to vibrate), no one ever came to the door, there were no interruptions. The man moved when guided, but initiated nothing. He didn't so much as cough. The total silence was creepy, in her opinion. No music, no background noise. Nothing. Just the sound of a nearly empty house, the clock ticking and whatever the weather outside chose to contribute.
And the routine was never to vary. She came at the same time, fed him, washed him, and doled out medications at the exact same time every day. The only difference from day to day at this job was the date she filled out on his chart. Day 137 was going to be the day that changed that.
She was getting his dinner when her phone rang. She nearly had a heart attack. Why was it set to ring? It should have been on vibrate. As it was, she nearly dropped his tomato soup in her haste to answer it, splattering them both. The man had looked at the soup with suddenly burning blue eyes and said, "Oh my god."
She ran to her purse in the foyer. She worried that the man would be upset by this change in routine. That he would become violent as the doctors warned her he could be. She had to turn the damn thing off! It stopped ringing before she managed to dig it from her purse, however- her voice mail had already picked up the call. She cautiously entered the kitchen and stared in shock.
The man had taken the pen from his chart on the table and begun scratching what at first glance looked like scribbles all over the walls. No, not scribbles, she recognized some of the writing from her one (failed) college semester of calculus. The rest? Well, she'd never seen them before.
She wondered if she should call someone. But who? Her boss? The man's emergency contact? Emergency services? No, she'd call Dr. Beckett. The drunken jerk. She backed out of the room and called his office.
"Dr. Beckett, this is Lindsey, you know, I'm the day nurse for Mr. McKay? Yes. Well, no." She let him ramble on. "OK, here's the thing. He's writing all over the walls, I think it's math but I have no idea. Anyway, I was wondering... Yeah, the phone rang... No, he said, 'Oh my God', I went to answer it, and then when I came back in, there he was."
"Thank you." There was a niggling worry in the back of her mind. Dr. Beckett had never sounded so urgent, and he was already on his way. She'd known her patient was important. All his medical bills and her own not so small fees were paid by the American government. She'd seen his paperwork, so she also knew that several other countries paid various expenses, including his very expensive security system.
She'd also seen him when washing him. Scars marked him. Some small, like the small ones on his forehead, some disturbing, some that contrasted terribly with his status as scientist. She'd seen bullet holes before, and the man had several, along with various thin silvery lines, just like a knife would make. Whatever he'd done for the government had been dangerous.
When she'd taken the job, there had been a stack of papers for her to sign. They included papers stating that if he began to speak, she'd not repeat anything he said. Ever. To anyone. The penalty for doing so was to be charged with treason- by two different countries. Serious stuff.
She sat at the chair in the foyer (where she had a clear view of her patient) and waited until she heard the car pull up into the driveway. Not for the first time, she wondered at the story behind these two men. Dr. Beckett only had about a dozen patients, one of whom was M. Rodney McKay.
Dr. Beckett took the stairs two at a time, and- her eyes widened- he looked sober. Her heart began to race. Whatever was happening with her charge, it was big. As the physician ran past her, she smelled coffee.
"Did he say anything other than what you told me?" The doctor didn't look at her as he entered the kitchen.
"No, he just said it and started writing on the walls." She looked at both men, seeing for the first time that they appeared to be around the same age. She'd always seen Dr. Beckett as being older, not just because he referred to Mr. McKay as 'lad' but also because of the worn look in his eyes, as if life had been very hard on the doctor.
Of her charge, she knew almost nothing more than his medical history and that he was a scientist. He had broken completely with reality. He didn't interact with anyone. It would be a terrible way to live, she thought, trapped in your own mind. The caregiver who was here nights said he had terrible nightmares- the kind of nightmares that scared people who were awake. She had told Lindsey that the poor man spent hours at night screaming. Hours. That was one of the reasons his bedroom had been lined with soundproofing materials, and why he lived so far out in the middle of nowhere. Once, Lindsey'd asked why they couldn't give him something, a sedative or tranquilizer of some sort, and she was told that they had tried once. Dr. McKay had nearly died.
"Rodney, can you hear me?" Dr. Beckett was using a voice she'd never heard from him. It was almost...tender.
"I tried, I really did. It came to me, right as I died. The fix. Work, I have to work. But it didn't work. I'm broken. I have to show Carson." Rodney scribbled furiously. "I tried to show him, but he got it wrong, wrong, wrong. You forgot something, now we have to fix it."
"Rodney, lad, calm down. If you tell me what you wanted to show me, I can help you." Carson laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"NO! I need to finish this, finish this, uh, um, before I go away again." Rodney slammed his hand into the wall. "I need Radek to look. Oh, Carson, it's you! He can see it, I know he can. I can't find it, but he can. Czech bastard."
"Dear God." Dr. Beckett whispered. "Tell me what Radek has to find."
"Radek will see it. Oh, no, no, no. I have to show him. Don't let me go away, Carson. Please!" Rodney turned his face towards Carson. His voice became urgent. "Make Radek look here. Make him see it. God, I don't want to go. Carson!"
Almost as if a switch had been flipped, he stopped moving and became blank and robotic. Lindsey took Mr. McKay's hand and led him to his chair. She went to the sink and wet a dishrag. Just as she was about to wipe some of the ink from the walls, her hand was gripped in a vice of iron.
"Do not touch it!" Dr. Beckett's voice was as cold as ice. "No' until I say. Do ye understand me?"
Lindsey nodded, and rubbed her wrist when the physician let go. He blew out a gust of air. "I need a minute. Just finish feeding him. We don't want him skipping a meal."
She finished her task, her mind wandering. Her eyes swept the long, seemingly impossible equations on the walls. The way Mr. McKay had seemed to know Dr. Carson. The one sentence, "It came to me, right as I died." Had it been a terrible accident that caused the brain damage to the man? One thing was for sure, she doubted she'd ever know who Dr. M. Rodney McKay really was.
