part three
Ronon didn't remove his foot from the chair, but Teyla stepped around him, pulling out the chair opposite. "Ronon…" she began.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"You won't get rid of me that easily," Teyla said, and Ronon remembered suddenly a sight seen through a red haze of drugs and fury: Sheppard sitting calmly by his bed, as Ronon screamed and screamed at him, telling Sheppard that he was going to kill him.
"I'm good," Ronon said, echoing words that Sheppard often said, sometimes when he was anything but. So she'd know the truth of it. So what? It was stupid to hide things. When you were hurting, you bellowed aloud to the stars. When you hated, you drew your blade and tried to kill.
"No," Teyla said. She had food on her plate, but was making no attempt to eat it. "What would you think," she asked, "of a warrior who went up against a vastly superior force, and got defeated? What would you think of a warrior who suffered a sword thrust through the chest, and fell? Would you think any less of them?"
Ronon shook his head. "These things happen."
Some of the younger soldiers on Atlantis, he knew, saw him as some sort of killing machine who despised anyone who ever lost a fight. But no warrior could get through his life without enduring defeat. Sometimes your body betrayed you. He himself had been captured and scarred. Until McKay had removed them, he'd worn those scars, because what else could you do?
"And what would you do," Teyla asked, "if you were fighting an enemy, and detected a weakness?"
"I'd exploit it," Ronon said. "What's this got to do with anything?"
Teyla smiled. "You know." She reached across the table, almost touching Ronon's hand. "I know that words are not likely to make you feel better. I know you like to work things out in your own way. But she was an enemy. She attacked you in overwhelming force in a way you were not expecting, and you went down. These things happen."
He almost answered harshly, but snatched the words back, remembering that she, too, had more than once been forced to act against her will.
"She took your measure," Teyla said, "and knew where to attack. It was probably easier for her to push where there was already an opening. She used John's sense of responsibility for those under his command, and she used your desire to have someone to hate."
His hand closed on his beaker of water. "Are you saying that I--?"
"No," she said firmly. "I do not for one moment believe that you genuinely wanted to hurt John, just as he never believed it. But you spent many years finely honed, ready to fight. In our strengths can lie our weaknesses. It is nothing to be ashamed of. It is just something to understand."
Water splashed onto his hand. He turned to look out of the window, at this huge alien city that sometimes, even now, felt strange to him. He thought of Tyre, at first so desperate to fight the Wraith, and then so desperate to please them. He remembered the Wraith who had tortured him, how it had told him that his strength would be his undoing. He remembered the woman's grip on his mind, how she had searched around his memories, how she had found his hatred and his skill with blades…
"You are no more easy to turn that the rest of us, Ronon," Teyla said firmly, "but perhaps, when extreme circumstances happen, your particular skills mean that you are most effective." She looked at her hands. "As was I."
Ronon watched a jumper return from the mainland, gleaming in the dying light. He remembered the words the woman had forced him to speak. He would never have said them, and he didn't really believe them, but they were true all the same. He'd argued with Sheppard more than once about his lack of ruthlessness. Sometimes, when awake in the dark, he wondered if Atlantis really was the place for him, and if things would have turned out differently if he had spent longer searching for fellow survivors. He thought of the tribunal that had claimed to speak in his name, and in the name of all the people of his galaxy. They had blamed the Atlanteans. Ronon didn't, and he counted Sheppard as his commanding officer and his friend, but perhaps, sometimes, deep down…
"It is nothing to be ashamed of," Teyla said. "I believe she took things that were already there and twisted them to an extreme, and turned them into actions that neither of you would ever have done by choice. That was why what she did has left scars."
He pushed the chair away, putting both feet on the ground. "But…"
"What she did, Ronon," Teyla said. "Remember that." She touched his hand. "It is not wrong to feel these things sometimes, in the darkest hours of night. The Ronon Dex I know would never act on them. I know that, and John knows that…" She paused; gave a sad smile. "I hope that soon you will accept that, too."
Apparently, he had taken a turn for the worse in the night. The next time Sheppard was fully aware of his surroundings, he felt as weak as a wrung-out dishrag, and the doctors emphasised that although his life hadn't been in danger, there would be no more excursions from his bed for a few days, at least.
Moving his left arm hurt. The hand sat on top of the sheets, looking atrophied, as if it wasn't there. Kolya had stalked his dreams, trailing the stench of rotting flowers.
When he opened his eyes from dreaming, McKay was sitting in the chair beside his bed. "I've been thinking…" he began.
"Tell me something new," Sheppard said. "You want to utilise the power--"
"No, no." McKay flapped his hand. "I mean, of course, I've been thinking about things like that, because, hello? genius, but I mean…" He shifted awkwardly in his seat. "About what you said." It was little more than a mumble. "About Kolya."
The drugs were thick in his bloodstream; they brought Kolya close. Sheppard shook his head. "We're not having this conversation."
"No," McKay said. "Please. I…" He moved his hand in a circle. "I'm not good with people – you know that. Insights don't come easily, not when it comes to how people react. I could be wrong, but do you know what I couldn't stop thinking about when I woke up in the middle of the night?"
"I don't think I want to know." Sheppard managed a smile.
McKay looked at him. "About how I don't think I'd have been able to escape if someone had cut my hand off."
He could feel his heartbeat throbbing pain through his body. "But he didn't--"
"But that doesn't matter." McKay looked down at his own hands. "Does it." He didn't frame it as a question. "It felt entirely real, with Zelenka. It still feels real. You thought he'd cut your hand off. You felt the pain for real. And you still escaped. You still killed all his men." He swallowed; shook his head. "I couldn't have done it."
"Because you can't shoot straight." He was careful not to think too much about the rest of it.
"Hey, I'm getting better," McKay protested, then let out a breath, shaking his head. "That's not the point. I… When he took Atlantis, I lasted thirty seconds before I told him what he wanted to know, and you… God, Sheppard, he cut your hand off, and you still didn't break."
Someone had attached him to a monitor, and he could hear it beeping faster and faster. A nurse walked past, looked at him in concern, then moved on. Her perfume smelled of pollen and roses. "It wasn't real," he said. "It doesn't matter what I did."
"That's not the point!" Rodney leant forward urgently. "Look, Sheppard, you said that the worst thing was knowing that it all came out of your mind – that, deep down, you wanted to torture yourself. But that's not how it was."
Sheppard looked at his immobile left hand. "With all due respect, Rodney, you weren't there."
McKay subsided. The nurse came back, bringing Keller, and McKay got up and hurried over to her, whispering in sharp tones about how he needed to hear this, how it was important, how he just needed a few minutes. Keller looked unconvinced, but withdrew a little. By the time McKay returned, Sheppard had managed to get his heartbeat under control.
"No," McKay said, his fists clenched at his side, as determined as a stubborn child, "I wasn't there, but I know what you said. And here's the thing, Sheppard. Zelenka proved me wrong. He bugged me, and I wouldn't listen – I was quite arrogant, really – but in the end he was right, and I was wrong. Of course, he cheated, since he wasn't really Zelenka, and the AI knew exactly what to look for, but…" He flapped his hand. "This isn't easy for me. I'm not used to… you know… feelings. But then Zelenka told me I was brilliant. Several times, actually."
"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Sheppard managed a sharp chuckle.
"No, really, it's the same thing, although, well, with less amputation involved. I created a scenario in which Zelenka told me I was brilliant. Of course I did. Who wouldn't want to be told that – although, really, Zelenka! That's like…" He let out a breath, twisting his hands. "But before that I created a scenario in which Zelenka proved me wrong."
Sheppard breathed in and out until he knew his voice would be under control. "It's hardly the same as torture."
"Huh. Then you don't know me. I mean, it was Zelenka."
Keller took a step forward. Sheppard could see his vision beginning to blur around the edges. When he got things back into focus again, McKay was closer, looking even more flustered. "My point is," he said, "that you didn't just create the torture; you created a situation in which you escaped. And that's a bit like my own subconscious telling me I'm brilliant – which I am, of course, but… well, it sets up the fall, so the triumph will be all the greater."
Sheppard shifted position, fighting to keep from moaning aloud with the pain. Light slanted down from above.
Perhaps it was true. Perhaps McKay, in his inept, ridiculous way, was right. He'd tortured himself, yes, but he hadn't broken. You can tolerate more than any man I've ever known, Kolya had told him. He hadn't broken. He'd fought through, and fought back. So he regretted past mistakes? He knew that already. That those mistakes might make him bend at times, but couldn't make him break…?
"You don't deep down want to be tortured," McKay said, "any more than I want to be proved wrong by Zelenka."
You can tolerate more than any man I've ever known, he heard again. If he had created the torture, then he had also created that. Fucked-up would be dreaming up the torture, and then being broken by it. Fucked-up would be lying there against the tree and agreeing with everything Kolya said. Fucked-up would be saying 'yes, yes, I deserve this', not getting up and fighting back.
"D'you think Woolsey's going to believe that?" He tried for a shrug, pushing aside the rest of those thoughts for later.
"Woolsey doesn't know you the way we do." McKay let out a breath. "Listen, Sheppard… John… I didn't really believe that you were… you know." He mimed with a pointed finger, filling the gap. "It… I don't normally say things like this, but it scares me, sometimes, how strong you are – you and Ronon and Teyla. I'm the weakest link. Of course, in many areas I'm the strongest, but not in some things. I'm a glass half empty kind of guy. I sometimes get… flustered. I'm not good with pain. If we got captured and tortured, I'd be the first one to break. But you… God, Sheppard, you keep going all the time, even after what Kolya and Todd did to you. You're always positive. No matter what happens, you have a solution. Sometimes I wonder if I can live up to that."
Sheppard opened his mouth to offer reassurance, but McKay held up his hand. "No. Strange as it might sound, I don't want to hear it. I just wanted you to know. They chop off your hand, and you still keep going. That's why I didn't believe it, not as such, but I thought that maybe, just maybe, after five years of that, you…"
"I haven't," Sheppard could tell him. He remembered untying himself, tricking the Genii, ambushing Kolya. He remembered hanging on one-handed from the cliff, even then hanging on. "I haven't."
Rodney looked at him. "But it wouldn't matter if you had. It would be okay."
Sheppard raised his hand – his real, whole left hand – but Keller rushed forward, berating McKay for taking too long, for bothering him. "No," Sheppard tried to say, as Rodney retreated; he caught a glimpse of him biting his lip. "I'm good."
"So that's what she looks like."
Rodney jumped, gasping. "Shouldn't you be in the infirmary?"
"Probably." Sheppard grinned sheepishly. "No, actually Keller let me out as long as I promised to come back like a good boy. She seemed to think it would be good for me to come here. Closure, or something like that."
The woman still lay in the middle of the room, clothed in a white robe and her long black hair. Sheppard moved closer to her, made as if to touch her, then drew back. "I saw the pod just before she took me over. I didn't know for sure, but it was all I could think of. When I got control back, I didn't think I'd have it for long. Just as well I was right, huh?"
Rodney wiped a hand over his face. "Or I'd be dead."
Sheppard touched her hair, just with his fingertips, then he raised his fingers to his face, as if smelling them. "No roses," he said, with a wry smile.
Rodney felt awkward, choked, remembering all the things he had said – all the uncharacteristic, awful, embarrassing things. "I guess we'll never find out why she did it."
"To protect herself," Sheppard said without hesitation. "She tried to turn us against each other, and then when Ronon was… eliminated, she tried to kill me using the only weapon she had left. You were extras – not supposed to see that show."
"Oh." Rodney swallowed. "I thought it was just because she--"
"That, too," Sheppard said. "She enjoyed it; I could tell that much." He reached towards her hair again, then stepped backwards. "But I didn't get any sense of who she was or why she was there. I guess that's for the geeks to find out."
Rodney busied himself with reaching for a mug of coffee, but found it cold. "Are you…?" But he had already said too much, far too much. All he could do was gesture with one hand. "You know?"
He heard Sheppard move up behind him. "Yeah," he said. "It helped, and, uh, thanks."
Sheppard had dreamed up hideous torture for himself, but Sheppard had overcome it. Sheppard had tried to kill himself, but that had never been him, not really. But Sheppard had stood on a balcony and begged Rodney to find him answers. Sheppard had been genuinely afraid of what his hallucination revealed about himself. That had been real. Rodney would never talk about it, but he would never forget it.
Rodney had screamed for Sheppard again and again when he'd been losing his mind, but had always thought that Sheppard wouldn't have called for anybody, if the situations had been reversed. But perhaps that was wrong. Perhaps Sheppard felt all the doubts and fears that Rodney did, but was just better at hiding them. Perhaps they were more alike than he had ever realised.
And perhaps the others had understood all this years ago, but Rodney wasn't good with people, and now he knew.
"Oh. Colonel Sheppard." Woolsey looked up form his work. "Shouldn't you be…?"
He had a lie for that, too. He welcomed the offer of a chair, though.
"Here's my report," he said, "on both incidents. I hope you'll find them adequate."
He tried to keep his thoughts surface ones while Woolsey read the file. Through the door, he heard the familiar sounds of the control room at work. Woolsey flinched half way through, presumably when he got to the bit about the hand. Sheppard looked at the spines of Woolsey's books, and wondered if they were real ones, or a façade to cover the lurid paperbacks behind.
"This is very… thorough." Woolsey took his glasses off and wiped them.
It had been easier to write the words than to talk about it. When you put it in cold words, you didn't have to deal with the expressions on other people's faces. You didn't get betrayed by your own voice. It felt like the end of a story, the end of a verse. You clicked 'save', and then it was over.
"So you see," Sheppard said, "that there's no cause for concern. Everyone in a job like mine feels regret when they lose people; if we didn't, then we wouldn't deserve to be in the job. The AI exploited that, but I overcame it. She exploited it, and I overcome her. In both cases, it took some time. That's why the initial impression was misleading."
Woolsey looked as if he was reading sections of the report again. "I don't know…"
"People have tried to get me to see a shrink before," Sheppard said. "Natural side-effect of the job. Sometimes I've gone, and sometimes I haven't. I've got every respect for the people, but it's not for me. I cope with things in my own way."
What are you running away from? he heard Kolya say, but it wasn't running away; it was carrying on. And what did it matter if it was running away? He'd refused to hand over his IDC even when tortured, and he'd refused to break in even when maimed. Rather than hurt McKay, he'd found the strength to break free from the woman's control.
"Doctor Keller says I'll be cleared for light duty in two weeks," he told Woolsey pointedly.
Woolsey opened his mouth, and closed it again. He looked down at the report, his eyes scanning certain lines again.
"Then I will be guided by her professional judgement," he said. "I see no reason for a second opinion."
Ronon wiped his face with his towel, his chest heaving, his fist throbbing from his bout with the punching bag. When the door opened, he knew instantly that it was Sheppard.
He turned around slowly, towel gripped in both hands. "I stabbed you," he found himself saying.
Sheppard shrugged. "I gave you a concussion."
He tightened his fist. "I twisted the blade."
"I repeatedly smashed your head into a wall until you passed out."
They were both silent for a moment. Ronon could hear the rasping sound of his own breath.
"I tried to kill you," he said.
"I tried to kill myself."
Ronon hurled the towel away. His hands felt throbbing, empty.
"It was her, of course," Sheppard said. "It's hard to believe that, isn't it? She makes you say things, and they're not true, but true at the same time, and afterwards you wonder what it meant, that you couldn't stop her. But it doesn't mean anything."
Ronon breathed in and out, each breath slower than the last. "No," he said at last. "It means she was a bitch."
"Yeah, you've got it right there." Sheppard picked up a stick from the side of the room. "Want to spar?"
He remembered clawing at Sheppard's wound, smashing him in the stomach, hurling him into a wall. But he had fought that, screaming, every inch of the way. He picked up a stick of his own. "Doc given you permission?"
Sheppard let out a breath. "No. Best take a rain check. Getting my ass kicked wouldn't encourage people to accept that I haven't got a death wish."
"They think that?" Ronon said. "That's crazy."
"Yeah." Sheppard looked at him, all smiles gone. "Like anyone thinking that you'd really want to kill me."
Oh, Ronon thought, after Sheppard had gone. Oh. And then he laughed.
"They should make the tables bigger," McKay was complaining. "Of course," he added pointedly, "if certain people didn't keep putting their oversized feet in places they don't belong. Ow! He stood on me! Did you see that? He stood on me!"
"I am sure Ronon would never do a thing like that," Teyla said, perfectly straight-faced.
Sheppard looked beyond them, at the moon over the ocean. It was three days since Kolya had appeared in his dreams, and two days since he had woken to the memory of his own gun pressed to his head. The pain of losing a hand was still vivid, but so was the memory of breaking free. That part meant more. It had to.
He listened to his team bantering with each other, hearing their voices but not the words. Everyone was capable of breaking, of course – he'd been taught that much; never to think of himself as invulnerable – and perhaps one day he really would have to take the bullet he had dodged this time, but for now, he carried on.
"And now he's taken my fruit cup!" McKay protested. "Sheppard, stop him."
He looked at Ronon, lounging back in his chair and laughing, and knew that he now bore another scar, but that scars were things that Ronon knew how to live with. He looked at Teyla, who had been through a similar experience with the Wraith, and at Rodney, who had said so much more than he would normally have said, and who, in his own inept way, had said the right thing.
Yes, he thought, he would carry on, and he would never stop carrying on, because he was not alone. None of them were.
END
Note: Although the inspiration for the title was the visual imagery in the first scene, it also refers to a melancholy little song by Robert Burns in which the autumn inspires him to think about past mistakes and the transience of life.
Thanks for reading!
