The staccato wrapping on the door only barely distracted the focus of Atlantis' chief science officer. The familiar voice followed with, "McKay, let's eat." He looked up at the laptop and checked the time. Shit. It was approaching 1900 hours and he'd been at it, mostly huddled over the notebook computer, non-stop, for nearly twelve hours. No wonder he was feeling stiff, light-headed, and just a little sick to his stomach. He needed to stop doing this.
"Beckett's going to rig you up a permanent feeding tube if you keep doing this," John Sheppard said, startling the physicist as he looked over McKay's shoulder to see what had the scientist so enthralled that he would risk hypoglycemic shock.
Rodney jumped in his seat and turned to look up at his team leader. "Do you have to do that?"
"It's fun. Come on, I'm hungry. You're starving," John said knowingly.
"I'm starving?" Rodney asked as he rose from his chair. He grabbed hold of the desk's edge – he really was feeling dizzy – as he heard Sheppard head for the door. He doubted he could make it to the exit of his lab, let alone to the commissary. But that was a truth that Rodney McKay would rather not admit.
"Of course you are. Don't try to deny it," the colonel said as he turned back, a little annoyed that McKay hadn't started following him yet. He shook his head as he watched the man holding tight to the desk. John walked back to his friend.
"Here," Sheppard said as he handed Rodney a power bar. "It's not filet mignon, but you weren't likely to get that tonight anyway." Rodney took a bite but he didn't seem to be enjoying it very much. Within a few minutes he felt slightly steadier on his feet and headed for the exit.
"What's so important…" Sheppard started. A clearly irritated Dr. Rodney McKay quickly cut him off.
"Everything. Everything, colonel. Every single thing that I am working on here is important," Rodney said, anxiety, frustration, urgency…concern coming through in the response.
"Okay, okay. I get it. But you have a staff, right?"
McKay stopped in the hallway and turned to face Sheppard. "Gaul, Abrahms, Dumais, Hays, Peterson, Grodin, Lindstrom…" Rodney paused, and then choked out one more, "Collins." Rodney could see in John's pained expression that he got the point. "We had to send some home," Rodney added.
"Kavanaugh," John responded.
"He was worthless, really, but getting these new people up to speed is complicated, at best. And you know I'm not great with people."
That wasn't the first time that he'd heard Rodney use that turn of phrase lately. They would need to get into that sometime, Sheppard knew. "You're better than you think, Rodney. It's just as important for people to learn to deal with you as it is for you to deal with them. More so, when you think about it. You're the glue that holds all of this together."
Rodney looked John in the eyes and said, "I don't know that I'm as effective at that as I used to be. I worry…"
"Don't," John said earnestly. Rodney looked perturbed, ready to fight back for being cut off so brusquely. John put his hands up in appeasement. "You shouldn't have to worry. At least not about some of this stuff." He needed time and he needed privacy to talk about this with McKay. "Look, let's go get some food, take it back to my quarters. We can talk." John looked to Rodney for signs that he would accept the offer. McKay was tired, that was obvious, and probably not feeling very well for failing to supply his body with sustenance for far too long. But Rodney nodded faintly. Sheppard placed his hand firmly on McKay's shoulder and steered him toward the commissary.
John had been worried about Rodney for some time. It had been a rough and worrisome time to be Rodney McKay's friend. Patching up the mess of what had become of their friendship after Arcturus was complicated and had taken far longer than either man expected. Sheppard had finally admitted his culpability in the long delay, realizing that he had been the primary reason for the lack of progress.
Unfortunately, what John had wrought in his behavior towards Rodney, combined with the recent situations that Rodney had been faced with regarding the Wraith enzyme and whatever internal struggles he faced while almost dying in the sunken jumper, resulted in a man whose confidence had been fairly well shattered. McKay was not questioning his genius, and it was clear that no one else on Atlantis had lost faith in that brilliance either; the go-to guy was still Rodney McKay for things small and large, for solutions both mundane and for matters of life and death.
No, it was not the great mind that had been affected by John's mental battering of his friend. It was his confidence in his own judgment - his self-confidence when working with his team, the growing skittishness and defensiveness that was most evident, and that John Sheppard knew he needed to work on with Rodney to help his friend come back into himself.
There were those in Atlantis who might say that John Sheppard was exactly the wrong person for this job; that he screwed it up pretty royally with Rodney in getting them to this point. But the fact was that even after all of their recent troubles, it was still John Sheppard who Rodney trusted most, and it was John Sheppard who would be able to most easily get the old Rodney McKay back. Sheppard knew this to be so, but he had recently had a conversation with the only other person who knew as much about Rodney McKay, and even she had been forced to seek John's help with Rodney.
Kate Heightmeyer had come to John, concerned at how Rodney had become less open and more angry during their sessions, although John felt that he'd seen a change in the better in his friend after they'd rescued him from the drowned jumper. Kate was concerned that the progress that Rodney had made in therapy with her was slowly but surely canceling itself out. She couldn't give John any specifics without breaking Rodney's trust or compromising her own professional ethics. But whereas McKay was the go-to guy for every problem large and small in the Pegasus galaxy, John Sheppard was the known expert on the very complex and hard to handle territory known as Dr. Rodney McKay.
Rodney had remained fairly quiet on the rest of their journey through Atlantis. He spoke briefly to various personnel, but ventured no further than common courtesy before breaking away from conversations. He didn't complain to the servers when they were out of something he wanted, which was so far off the normal range on the 'Rodney meter' to worry John more than he already was. And that was saying a lot.
By the time they'd reached Sheppard's quarters, McKay had gone a full fifteen minutes without saying a word.
Not good.
They sat and ate in continued disturbing silence. Rodney was eating, barely, and without the abnormal for the rest of us but normal for McKay fervor he usually displayed at mealtime.
"I'm sorry about earlier," John began. "I didn't mean to bring up bad memories. I know that you've lost some people." So had John. But the difference between Rodney McKay losing men to death and the way he was used to losing a staff member…Sheppard knew how hard it was to lose a man. But at least he had been trained, however inadequate that training might have been, in how to deal with it. John Sheppard was military; there had always been the knowledge that this could happen, even if he didn't already have far too much practical experience in it than he ever wanted.
"We all have lost some people," Rodney said quietly.
John saw the pain that Rodney felt talking about this. He felt Rodney's pain, in every word, in every slight grimace as his friend tried so stoically earlier to run through the names of the colleagues that he'd lost. This discussion hadn't really been part of Sheppard's game plan. Not today. But there was something Rodney needed to know that both he and Dr. Elizabeth Weir had neglected to recognize until now.
"We have all lost people. But you're right, you've got a much harder job replacing yours. Elizabeth and I, well, we should have seen that. I'm sorry."
"There's nothing to be sorry about. We're all busy…"
"No, Rodney. I mean, yes, we are all busy. But we need to get out of this rut that we've fallen into; we have to correct our bad habits. We can't rely on you…" John saw Rodney's expression change quickly and he realized that he had used the exact wrong word. McKay was so smart and so quick; John needed to be more careful of his word choice. The wrong word could cut a wound as deep and painful as any knife.
"That's not what I meant," John said as he shook his head and laughed derisively at himself. "What's that line from 'The Music Man'? 'Watch your phraseology!'" John grinned at his friend, and was glad to see the familiar smirk on the scientist's face.
"Something like that, though I admit it's a little disturbing to me that you know that," Rodney kidded.
"Hey, it's a great musical. A classic."
"I agree. It's just…I never pictured you as the type."
"I like lots of things, Rodney." John watched as Rodney continued to grin. "Can we get back on topic?" Sheppard pleaded.
"Hey, you took us off topic."
John shook his head, still grinning, but forged ahead into tougher territory. "What I meant was that we have to stop expecting you to fix all of our problems. Just because you'll have the answer faster, and more likely better than anyone else, doesn't mean that some of these things can't wait for one of the lesser geniuses to come up with a solution.
Rodney nodded his head in understanding and said, "That was probably true…before..." - before the litany of the dead scientists John managed to comprehend without Rodney verbalizing it.
"Hey," Sheppard said, placing his hand on Rodney's forearm. McKay looked up at his friend. "I am promising that we will do better. I'll talk with Weir and we'll help you through this. It's easy for me to get trained replacements…I can't believe that I didn't see this sooner," he confessed and quickly added, "You should have said something sooner."
Rodney again nodded his agreement but answered, "I had other things on my mind."
John rubbed Rodney's arm sympathetically. "I know." He watched his friend carefully. He really looked exhausted. "Look, why don't you lie down here. You look beat."
Rodney tapped Sheppard's hand, a signal that he appreciated both the sympathy and the comfort, and started to rise. "No, thanks. I am tired, but I really don't need to wake up to a broken back. I'm going to head to my room."
John stood up and smiled. "I'll walk with you."
McKay grinned. "You don't need to. I can make it there on my own."
"I know I don't need to. I want to."
"And I should encourage you to think that you will get what you want…why?" Rodney asked lightly as he walked to the door.
"I wouldn't say that I've actually gotten what I want all that much lately. My last three postings were certainly not what I wanted," John admitted.
"I thought you liked Antarctica?" Rodney asked companionably.
"It was an acquired taste," John smirked as Rodney cocked his head up once in understanding.
"And here?" Rodney encouraged. The scientist knew better than to ask about that fateful posting that had ultimately sent Sheppard to McMurdo.
"I'm not here without some arm-twisting from Elizabeth."
"Hm. But you've been here a while. How do you feel now?"
This wasn't what was supposed to be happening. Sheppard was supposed to be getting Rodney to open up, not the other way around. Kate was going to kick his ass. But walking down the hallway, just talking about…stuff – the fact was that this felt good. It felt right. And that Rodney was talking at all, that he was interested and concerned and funny and engaged…that John Sheppard knew was good news.
"Honestly?" John asked.
"I hope you always will be," Rodney replied with sincerity and hope.
"Well, Rodney, even with the Wraith and the Genii, killer storms and viruses, bad decisions and sometimes only making it by the skin of our teeth? Even with all of that, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."
McKay smiled as he reached the entrance to his quarters.
"Me, too," he said.
"Of course, it wouldn't be anywhere near as much fun or as challenging without you here," Sheppard said with a devilish grin.
"Me, too," Rodney replied, a playful frown gracing his face.
"I mean it affectionately, Rodney." John kept steady eye contact to make sure Rodney understood. And then he added, the grin now completely lopsided, "You know that you're a handful, right McKay?"
Rodney tilted his head, almost shyly, lifted his head back as he laughed and said, "You, too, Colonel."
"Hmph," John offered as he held back a laugh of his own. He put his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out a wrapped object, the noise it made grabbing Rodney's attention right away. He shoved it into McKay's chest. Rodney put his hand up and caught the wrapped gift just as John released his hold on it.
"Milky Way Dark?" Rodney asked, incredulous. "How…"
"I have spies everywhere, McKay, as well as a contact on the Daedalus," he said as he walked away. Sheppard knew Rodney would eat it the way he'd only picked at his dinner. "I'm watching out for ya, buddy," he added as he turned the corner back toward his room.
Rodney looked at the candy, his mouth already watering, and then looked to where he'd last seen Sheppard. McKay knew that his friend was already out of range, but he said out loud anyway something that he knew life in the Pegasus galaxy had proven would always be needed and true.
"Me, too."
The End.