Author's Note: Yet another old songfic posted here without the lyrics. This is the prequel to "Forsaken Future". There's a link just before the story to where you can find it with lyrics; just remove the spaces. I think it's a lot better with the lyrics, but whatever floats your boat. Hope you enjoy!
Spoilers: Most of S1. THIS DOES NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT "THE SIEGE" or "HOT ZONE".
littleknux2008 . livejournal . com / 6626 . html
"Cold…so…cold…" the soft, sobbing words came from the diminished frame of a man, huddling in the corner of his unsanitary cell. As he rocked back and forth, the fresh blood that stained his torn, dirty uniform wiped onto the grimy tile wall. Deep purple bruises covered his face, arms, and legs. There were a few bandages wrapped around his body in various places, but most of them were fraying and the for the most part, the wounds beneath had bled through the meager dressings. His eyes focused on the ground in front of him. In the long days that he'd spent here, he'd memorized the texture of the concrete, focusing on that instead of the biting cold and the stabbing pain.
Today is no different than any another day. He wakes up to the cold in the cell and the stinging in his wounds, and he can do nothing to combat it. He waits for them to come; for them to crack their fists and weapons across old wounds. And then he is left alone. Alone with nothing to do except torture himself with memories of how it was before he was here.
They fed him – greasy, hardly edible food - and gave him a generous bucket of water for the day. His body stayed alive – but his mind was another matter completely. His mind; it had been something he prided himself on. He had always been the one with an answer, ready for every problem, until he was faced with this. There was no way to prepare someone for this.
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Sometimes he wondered if it was all a dream: Atlantis, AR-1, everything. And in those frightful moments, he would clutch the necklace around his neck, holding it so tightly that it imprinted itself onto his palm. He would know then that it was real. If he strained, he could remember her angelic face, pained with unspeakable memories, as she handed the necklace to him. 'She gave it to me…after Kolya nearly killed me…' the thoughts would come staggered, but they came all the same. 'She wanted me to know how valuable I was to Atlantis; to her…' Back then, back in that perfect world, there were times that he needed it to reassure him that there was someone who did care about him. Now, however, he truly needed it. The necklace was the only thing keeping him from straying into complete insanity. When he was on Atlantis, he'd kept the necklace in his pocket; his little secret. Days after he'd gotten here, he began to wear it around his neck, the feeling of the metal against his skin providing him with a sort of strength that he couldn't put into words. But even the necklace's power seemed to be wearing out these days.
After a length of time the memory of when he'd received that gift would become clearer to him. He could remember her pressing the necklace into his palm, her hand lingering longer than a friendly touch should. He remembered wishing her fingers to stay – and not just then. Holding that necklace and thinking about her brought back so many memories. Sometimes it was almost enough to make him believe that he was normal – that he was still Rodney McKay. He could remember standing out on the balcony with her, comforting her in the late hours, and she doing the same for him. A small smile twisted its way onto his face. The gesture was cruel and deformed, the movement foreign to his battered body.
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He went to rest his chin on his nearly shattered kneecaps, but retracted his head after a sharp stab of pain ran through his body. Physical pain had begun to be something he tolerated. It didn't make the blows any easier, any less painful…but he dealt. He had no other choice. Sumner… He recalled reading about the death of that man. John had shot Sumner when the Wraith was feeding off of him. The details were hazy at best, but he found himself wishing John was within shooting range. This was far worse than being fed on by the Wraith. At least death came easier, quicker, without the torture that plagued him even when he was alone – especially when he was alone.
At the same time that Elizabeth Weir brought him closer to his 'old self', it drove tears to his eyes. He was no longer ashamed to cry for all of the things that he could not do; that he could not change. There was no one to see him cry. The last day…the day before he was stunned and carried here… It was among the few clear memories, though he wished it wasn't. He and the rest of AR-1, if AR-1 was even real, had been trying to get a ZPM from a planet to power a weapon on the mainland they'd found. The planet's people did not use the ZPM, nor did they need it, but they would not give it up. He'd approached Elizabeth with the idea of replacing it with a fake. Elizabeth had turned him down ferociously, and he'd lashed out at her. Even now, he could hear his precise words as if he'd spoken them minutes ago. He'd told her how much of an idiot she was being; how many people she was dooming with this ridiculous decision… It had taken him months in this dark cell to realize that she was right in her decision.
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He hadn't meant it when he attacked her morals, her decision, like that, but he'd said the words just the same. Before now, he'd tried to convince himself that Elizabeth knew him. She had to know that he was just angry that they weren't getting a ZPM; that he was desperate to have one so Atlantis could be saved. He hadn't meant to call her those things, but he'd been so angry…so angry that she couldn't put morals aside for just one moment for the safety of the people on Atlantis. That was just one thing among many he wished he could tell her. He'd come to the realization long ago that he would never be able to tell her any of this. If no one had found him yet, then it was unlikely that they ever would. Atlantis had bigger things to worry about. Had the second Wraith attack hit yet? Had Atlantis survived? He would never know the answers. As he slowly rotted away here, he hoped that if Atlantis had been incapable of surviving another strike that they'd all had quick, painless deaths.
After his spat with Elizabeth, he'd returned to the planet to have a final word with them, when the Genii showed up. John and Teyla – he winced now at the names, only vague images of his former close friends coming to mind – had been talking with the leader, pleading a final case. Their voices had begun to rise as the leader continued to deny them the ZPM. He had drifted away, knowing for certain that the leader's decision could not be reversed, and observed the immediate area, contemplating angrily how close the ZPM was. It had been so easy for the Genii to pick him off. He'd felt a shock to his whole body a moment before everything was paralyzed. The next thing he knew, he'd awoken here.
Here, where he had been for months. He had tallied the days on the far wall of the cell with his own blood, but he'd stopped long ago. Each stroke simply strengthened the feeling that he belonged somewhere else; that no one was coming; that the tallies would continue to go until Kolya and the Genii got tired of him.
"I love you, Elizabeth…" he muttered, his throat dry and his voice drastically changed from lack of speech over the last hundreds of days. Those were the words that he wanted to tell her. If only he'd spoken those to Elizabeth instead of the ones he had. The words gave him a brief feeling of hope, but like a candle unprotected in the wind, it soon went out.
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He slid his back down the wall and curled into a ball, resting his head on the floor. He was always tired, but sleep was evasive. His eyelids flickered shut, and again he thought of the people he'd left behind – or believed he'd left behind. What if he had truly gone crazy? What if this was nothing but a figment of his imagination? Blindly, his hand touched the necklace. No, it was true. He wondered if they were still looking for him. Had they stopped? Did they even suspect the Genii of taking him? If so, what had then done about it? So many questions that would never be answered...
Footsteps reached his ears. He had no reaction but a small sigh, knowing what was to come. He continued on his thoughts, ignoring the approaching procession. Was it fair of him to hold her memory so dear? She probably believed him to be dead. Was there a difference between death and the state he was in? He wondered what she would think if she saw him now. He was definitely not the Rodney McKay she knew. Maybe it was for the best if he was not found… He couldn't do that to her. He had to be the proper Rodney McKay or not Rodney McKay at all. To stay in this state of simply being while holding the memories of Rodney so clear in his mind… If Elizabeth came, she would never forgive herself for what had happened to him. At the same time, he knew that he could not be the same Rodney McKay. There was so much here, so much that had gone on behind these bars that he couldn't have not changed. Wouldn't it be best if everyone just forgot who Rodney McKay was, if they could just move on with their lives?
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The bars creaked and the footsteps neared until they stopped just before his body. A boot collided with his ribs, and he inhaled sharply, a burning pain searing down his spine. "Get up," a low voice hissed. He simply moved his hand back to the necklace, fingering it gently for a long moment, thinking of her face. He could see tears in her eyes, the tears she had cried for every life that had been extinguished during the expedition's long journey. Had she cried the same tears for him?
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Elizabeth would have been right, then, to cry tears of death. Rodney McKay was dead. He pulled the necklace, the chain snapping, and let it fall from his fingertips. Rough hands grabbed him, yanking and pulling until he found himself sitting in a chair. Slowly, he opened his swollen eyes. He opened his mouth, and he laughed. His laugh was hollow, the sound bewildering the two young Genii soldiers. They looked at each other nervously. They'd seen a lot of reactions – rebellion, acceptance, anger, sadness – but never this. He continued to laugh. They thought they were in control, but they were wrong. He had no identity, no friends, no family, no love… He was free.
He was invincible.