Slipstream III: Atlantian Interlude, Part Ten

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."

Rodney regained consciousness to the waltz of beeps from the heart monitor.

"I guess Slipping is harder on humans than I thought," said a voice softly, and Rodney wasn't sure if it was far away or if it was just his hearing that was muffled. He wanted to turn his head towards it, but feared that vertigo might seize hold, so he held still.

He recognized the ambient sounds and scents of the infirmary before he realized who the voice belonged to, which, yeah, probably said a lot about his life these past two years. Antiseptic, cottony gauze, the faint tang of bleach meant to cover an even fainter tang of copper, the soft shuffle of shoes on linoleum, the clink of metal tools in metal trays on metal trolleys. And the woman speaking was…

Something itchy, just above his collarbone, throbbed.

Ah, Marie. Right.

Marie and Mary Sues and Vampires and the TARDIS and Rodney had shown the Doctor howto build a Stargate and he'd been given a Flux Capacitor in return, and Marie had fucked Jack Harkness and Rodney… had banged his head against the wall, a lot.

Literally and figuratively, because being with Marie, loving her and wanting her to love him back just felt so natural, and he couldn't seem to make her want it in return. It really did feel like he was bashing headlong into brick walls, constantly.

He was starting to wonder if he was getting enough of a figurative concussion to give up. Then he wondered if, with the Mary Sue around, he would have the option or luxury of deciding to give up. What if he was compelled to keep running into that particular brick wall until he smashed open his skull?

Okay, now the metaphor was not only being stretched, but it was also getting gruesome.

Perhaps this was what The Doctor had meant by "she can't stay."

Rodney forced himself to blink a few times until the horrendous imagery faded and he was just staring up at a plain old boring infirmary ceiling. Which, incidentally, did not look like the one that he usually stared at in Atlantis.

Oh crap, Rodney thought. Where are we now? Did something go wrong? Will I be condemned to Slide forever until I find home, like Marie?

Then he blinked a little more and realized, through the harsh haze of panic, that the ceiling incidentally did looka lot like the one in Cheyenne Mountain. His hypothesis was confirmed when Doctor Janet Frasier poked her head into his line of vision and said, "Hello, Dr. McKay. How are you feeling?"

"Uhg," Rodney said, which he felt summed it all up quite nicely.

Frasier smiled at him, soft and beaming, and she had way better bedside manner than Carson. Possibly because she had tits, but Rodney wasn't going to admit that out loud.

She helped him into a sitting position, pushing pillows in behind his back, and went about the usual doctorly poking and prodding so deftly and subtly that Rodney barely realized it was happening until she shone that silly little penlight in his eyes. "Uhg," he repeated when she was done, just for good measure.

She double checked that the IV needle sticking into the bend of his elbow was still secure- it was, though jiggling it like that made it hurt, thankyou very much! – patted the saline bag it was attached to, then stepped back. His visitor, who had been hovering out of his periphery for the duration of Frasier's poking, stepped forward.

It was, of course, Marie, looking flushed and healthy and glowing and ever so slightly contrite. "I've never Slid with a full human before," she said softly. "I'm sorry it keeps knocking you out like that."

Rodney licked his lips and swallowed, trying to moisten his mouth enough to speak. Marie caught on and reached for the cup of water that was waiting patiently on the bedstand. She held it to his lips and he reached up and took it out of her fingers, because he'd just been unconscious, he wasn't an invalid and could feed himself.

He took an annoyed slurp, and then another, and before Marie could admonish him to go slowly, he set the cup aside, still half full. Then he said: "Well, it's not like I'll be doing it again."

Marie looked like she was about to say something, then stopped and licked her own lips and said, "No, I suppose it's not."

Rodney pushed himself upright a little more, just so he didn't feel so prone in front of Marie. He tugged at the collar of his shirt, so that it covered the fresh gauze patch that someone had put over his latest hickey, along with something that smelled faintly of creams and antiseptic. "I'm too important on Atlantis to go anywhere. Hell, I'm too important to the SGC, too, the way they keep sending me messages and notes to look over, and now that I'm here they're probably going to want me to stay for at least a week to look over everyone's reports, and I'm going to be away from my lab for even longer I'm going to get so far behind on my own paperwork that Elizabeth will probably bar me from doing off world missions for at least a month."

"Well, we wouldn't want that, now would we? Better get Dr. McKay home ASAP," someone said from the door way, and Marie turned to look at the new arrival. Her face lit up, a genuine smile crossing her features that made Rodney's gut twist with what he now recognized as jealousy.

"Daniel!" Marie said, and dove into the hug that Doctor Jackson offered.

Rodney forced his fists to unclench themselves, and his jaw to relax.

"We hoped we'd get some time to chat with you, when we heard that you were in Atlantis," Daniel said, "But we didn't expect it to be like that."

Rodney made an impatient sound, and Daniel looked up at him and must have interpreted it correctly because he let go of Marie and explained, "You both dropped into the secondary metallurgies lab."

"Someone sent my research on Marie here when we vanished, I assume," Rodney said tightly, jumping ahead of the tedious conversation that was of course going to occur when Marie asked why.

"Ah," she said instead, following along. "To try to find a way to track where we went?"

Daniel shrugged. "We were going to ask the To'kra, but then you guys rendered it unnecessary. How are you, Rodney?"

Rodney mimicked Daniel's laissez-faire shrug as best as he was able to with the IV still attached to his arm. "Okay. It was fine. I met the Doctor."

Daniel's brow furrowed. "Doctor Who?" he asked.

Marie burst into startled laughter, and Rodney couldn't help it, he had to join in.

Rodney wasn't quite feeling up to walking out of there just yet, so he settled for assuring Elizabeth, via radio message through the gate, that he was just fine and coming home as soon as the SGC had a clear patch in its ingoing/outgoing roster that afternoon.

Elizabeth sounded relieved, and promised to pass the message on to everyone back home. When the Orion limped back to Atlantis two days ago, sans Rodney and Marie, the hope had been that they had successfully Slid, but no one was certain whether Marie would have had a phial to bring them home again. Either that or they had been sucked out into space, but Rodney's subcutaneous transmitter hadn't been located anywhere in the vast coldness of Atlantis' solar system.

Rodney insisted on being wheeled to the primary physics and engineering labs, a task Marie happily took on, as it afforded her the chance to catch up with those few friends she had made while at the SGC. Sam spent all of her time asking Marie questions and taking notes on the answers, and barely even looked at Rodney.

Well, Rodney didn't blame Sam. Jealousy could be a bitter feeling, he knew first hand now, and the gauze on Rodney's neck did make it rather obvious where Rodney's attention had been the last week. Sam would get over it, and when Marie was gone, perhaps she'd finally use this as momentum to confess how in love with Rodney she really was and finally fall into his arms.

Though, the thought of Marie leaving was a bitter pill to swallow, and dampened Rodney's enthusiasm for his Sam fantasy.

Uhg.

They finished the rounds of the labs with an hour and a half before Harriman could slot them into the activation roster, so that left them with enough time to have a meal in the Mountain's commissary. Rodney hadn't browbeaten these particular KPs into the importance and severity of his allergy, and so he didn't trust any of this food not to have citrus in it, and so asked Marie to taste everything first.

"I don't think I remember was citrus tastes like, Rodney," she said with a wink, and licked a small piece of everything he'd taken onto his tray. She never chewed or swallowed any, though. She proclaimed it all safe, and Rodney set to finishing up his last Earth-food meal for a while.

"Psst," he said to Marie. "Go snag as much microwave popcorn as you can carry. I want to bring it back for Teyla and Ronon."

Marie grinned at him and left him to eat, and to watch her walk away. And just like that, Rodney realized that this wouldn't be the last time Marie did walk away from him, but it was darn close. Her back was to him and she was going on without him, head up and eyes sad and fists clenched, because that was the only way that someone like Marie could face the future and it was… depressing.

Because she was nice. Because she had a silly sense of humour. Because she told terrible jokes and did thoughtful things. Because she was tired, and lonely and Rodney…

Wasn't enough for her. Was never going to be enough for her.

And, watching her walk away from him like that, it seemed… okay.

Not okay that she was alone, but okay that it wasn't him who could fill up that space in her. Okay that he finally understood that he… couldn't be what she needed. Ever.

That she would walk away, one more time, and it would be… okay.

It seemed oddly final, even though he knew that she would be back, any second. And she was, arms full of popcorn packages and stunned and charmed kitchen staff behind her.

But when she sat down across from him, Rodney didn't feel the normal tug to get into her space, the urge to lean in and offer up his face for a kiss, or his neck. Instead he just felt…

Sad.

Marie put the popcorn down beside him and, sensing his stillness, went quiet across from him.

"Rodney?" she said after a few moments of silence.

"We should get ready to go," Rodney said softly. "I need to get my stuff. The… yeah."

Marie gathered up the popcorn and silently pushed his wheelchair back to the infirmary. They were both quiet as Frasier ran through one last check up before clearing him and putting all of his pilfered popcorn into a knapsack, along with a supply of antibiotics and candy suckers for Carson and his Athosian patients. The backpack was already full of other things that the SGC wanted to send with Rodney – data sticks and project files and the like. He was told that there was a crate of ammo and other things waiting in the 'Gate room to go through with him.

Marie took the knapsack and there in the infirmaries they made their goodbyes to Landry and SG-1.

"Tell Jack I'm sorry I missed him," Marie said softly, and then they were walking down the halls together, descending the stairs into the Debarkation room.

Before they went into the room, Marie reached out and grabbed Rodney's hand. She cupped his cheek in her other hand and turned his head, pulled him down for a soft, sad kiss.

"Marie," Rodney said. "Come with me."

Marie said nothing, but chewed on the corner of her lip and let him tug her into the room and to the bottom of the ramp with their twined fingers.

They paused as Harriman's voice filled the room, announcing the status of the 'Gate's dialing, and then there was the swooshing blowback of the event horizon, and home was twinkling on the other side of a puddle, of another galaxy.

Rodney took a step forward, and was tugged to a stop by his grip on Marie. She hadn't moved.

"Marie," he said again.

There was a soft sobbing sound, and when he turned around, he was surprised to see tears, red and gruesome, sliding down Marie's pale cheeks. "I can't stay," Marie said. "I don't even know if I should come back to Atlantis with you."

"You have to," Rodney said, knowing he was grasping at straws. "At least for your potion."

Marie shook her head and carefully tugged her fingers free of his. He tried to hold on, but he might as well have tried to hold on to a hurricane, her strength was so far beyond his scope. "We were gone too long; it's not a potion any more. Now it's just soup."

Rodney looked at the grating beneath his boots. He felt his cheeks flushing and hated that everyone in the control room would be able to see it, too. He wished that he had a remote so he could close the blast doors in their gawping faces. Instead he turned his own face to the shimmering pool of the Stargate and tried not to notice out of the corner of his vision how it made Marie's eyes refract a nearly white colour, pearly and like the eyes of a dead fish.

Those dead fish eyes blinked and looked away from him.

Silently, Rodney held his hand back out to her.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Rodney," she said softly. "I really don't. I might stay. And I can't."

"You have to find Treize," he sighed.

"I don't know…" Marie said.

"What if you didn't find him?" Rodney asked, suddenly, the thought swelling in him like a fear, like a panic attack, like claustrophobia and anaphylactic shock. "What if you just settled somewhere, instead? What if you just went home? What if you just made a life for yourself. Either he lived and he's out there, taking care of himself right now, or he didn't. Maybe it's time that you stopped running after him."

"Settle with you, you mean," Marie said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. With the ambient hum of the machinery in the room, Rodney almost didn't hear it.

"Why not?"

Marie ran a hand through her hair, pulling it away from her forehead, off of her neck. "Because I've seen the kind of life you lead, Rodney. You're the main character in a sci-fi action adventure. Your life is nuts. I can't imagine what might happen to you if a Mary Sue hung around. Because it's not fair, Rodney, because I can't change the way your friends act, I can't rewrite your personality, because I can't rewrite your destiny simply by being there. Do you want Elizabeth to stay a bitch? Don't you miss spending time with your friends? With John? Having me there…" she trailed off, gesturing flippantly. "I'm never any good for anyone."

She looked down, red tears pooling at the sides of her eyes, and Rodney didn't know what to say, because it wasn't exactly like he could disagree. Marie wasn't good to have around; and yet he still wanted her. Would the wanting fade in time, he wondered.

"Maybe not even Treize," she said. "Maybe it would be … maybe I'll just… go home. I don't know."

"To where nobody knows who and what you are, and doesn't care?" Rodney asked, and flexed his fingers, reminding her that he was still offering her his hand.

Marie smiled, but the corners of her lips barely twitched upwards. "That actually sounds kinda nice. Obscurity is… attractive."

"Just come back," Rodney pleaded. "Just for a while. Just 'till the Wraith come?"

"You'll be fine," Marie whispered. "I trust you to get them through it."

Rodney tried to chuckle, but it burned against the top of his lungs. "Is that a plot hint?"

Marie shook her head and didn't answer.

Rodney dropped his hand to his side, then brought it up again to reach out, cup Marie's cheek in his palm, and kiss her very softly on the lips. "I'll see you in Atlantis," he said, and without looking back, stepped through the wormhole.

There was a cheer when he reached the other side, fingers curled into the palm of his free hand, as if trying to hold the warmth of Marie's flushed skin in his hand. Behind him, the event horizon dissolved.

Looking around, Rodney felt a sort of empty ache build in his chest.

Marie was gone.

She hadn't followed him through the wormhole. He shouldn't have been surprised.

"Hey, Sheppard!" he called into the openness of the Gate Room, hefting the cloth wrapped bundle in his arms. The technicians all perked up, and Sheppard leaned over the balcony between the dialing console and Elizabeth's office.

"What's that?" Sheppard asked.

Rodney forced a watery grin. "I brought you a present!" he called, bounding up the gateroom steps with more joviality than he actually felt.

The End