Chapter Twelve

"So how is it?"

"It's... weird," John admitted after a long pause.

There was a light cover of snow on the grounds, ice and frozen blades of grass crunching underfoot as he ambled out toward the pond. He looked out across the water that was covered with a thin sheet of ice. The man-made body of water was just big enough and just deep enough that it took a real good freeze to make it safe and stable enough for a grown man to venture out onto the surface—of course it could support the weight of a young boy just fine.

"It's really weird," John amended, watching the way the tiny twinkling bands of Christmas lights bounced off the pond's icy surface. It was all perfectly coordinated and impeccably decorated, like it had been since as long as he could remember. Not a single bow out of place, or a strand of tinsel tucked wrong—the picture of the perfect Christmas.

The very best that money could buy.

"Is that a good weird or a bad weird?" Carson's voice over the phone's earpiece sounded distant and tinny. John wasn't sure if it was from the overseas connection, or the reception on the large sprawl of land known as the Sheppard homestead. "You didn't exactly look overjoyed after that phone call."

"It was just the shock," John said lightly, earning what may have been a disbelieving snort over the other end of the line. He added, a little more reluctantly, "It's been pretty tame so far."

It had been awkward and uncomfortable trying to figure out how to talk to two people he had essentially cut out of his life, but they had made the overtures and reached out, so John was trying to try.

"It's a little far for me to mount a rescue mission."

"I'll be fine," John insisted. "There are plenty of socialites here tonight to distract them. Christmas Eve with all the wealthy politicians and bureaucrats—just like old times."

"There's the Christmas spirit," the Scot remarked sardonically.

"That's Rodney's special brand of holiday cheer, it's catching."

"Lord, I knew you should have caught a cab."

"Ah, he wasn't that bad." John kicked at an errant pile of snow, disrupting the pretty composed picture before him. "There were only four bah humbugs between the office and the airport."

"You're kidding me."

"Maybe a little." Despite himself, John cracked a grin. "Seriously, Carson, I'm fine. This isn't anything new for me."

Carson believed that about as much as he believed in Rodney's royal tequila status. "If you insist... I probably should wrap this up. We've got a full house here tonight."

"The whole Beckett clan's there, huh?"

"Aye." John could hear the smile in the warmth of Carson's voice, and couldn't help but reflect that with one of his own as he stared off into the twinkling icy pond. "Been a while since Mum's had all of us under the same roof."

"Sounds like you've got a lot of catching up to do. Don't let me keep you."

"Sure thing. Oh, John, do me a favor?"

"What's that?"

"If you're going to play hermit out in the cold much longer, consider putting on a thicker jacket," Carson clucked, and John shook his head ruefully. "I can hear your teeth chattering all the way over here."

"Yes, Mother."

"If you catch your death, it's your own fault."

"I've just acclimatized to the desert is all." John trapped the phone against his shoulder and shoved his hands deep into his pockets as the winter chill started to numb the tips of his fingers. "I'll take it under consideration though."

"And knock off the mother cracks," Carson added.

"Only if you do me a favor."

"And what's that?"

"Give the Grinch a call tomorrow and see if you can't rouse him from his Cave of Scrooge."

"Mixing your Dickens and Dr. Seuss metaphors? You must really be out of sorts there."

"Hey," John protested lightly, "this isn't about me."

"If you insist."

"I'll play Ghost of Christmas Present if you take Christmas Past."

"I'll call him, but only if you stop assigning us literary roles. It's unsettling."

John shrugged his free shoulder, his small smile unseen by the other member of the conversation. "Night, Carson."

"Merry Christmas, John."

It should have been easy to return the well wishing, but flubbed too long and the click on the line let him know the call had been disconnected. John fished a hand out of the safe warmth of his pocket to stow his phone, and let his gaze wander back over the shoreline. The snowfall was just deep enough to discourage John from rooting through the icy flakes to find a rock to skip across that perfect restrained sheen of the pond and send a million tiny cracks through the deceptively simple picture it presented.

"I thought I'd find you out here."

John didn't jump at the sound of the voice, just waited for his father to join him at his side, dressed for the weather in a long coat and gloves gripping a glass filled with a mixture of water and overpriced Scotch. The years since John had last seen the man hadn't been kind; there were more lines and wrinkles than a man of sixty-seven should have.

"Am I that predictable?" John asked lightly.

"A little," his father replied, taking a small sip of Scotch water. "You never were big on mingling."

"Small talk's not my thing."

"Never has been."

Breath fogged the air in front of them, and the ice in his father's glass clinked together as he absently rattled the cup. Not that any ice was necessary to keep the drink cold out in this weather, which made John wonder if this actually wasn't one of Patrick Sheppard's carefully thought out plans. Maybe the old man had a little wild streak to him after all; and here John had thought he had gotten all of that from his mother.

He pulled away from the pond's edge, slowly ambling back up the path toward the party still going strong back inside the house. His father kept pace with him, seeming content to let John lead the conversation for once. It was so bizarre, he was starting to wonder if the real Patrick Sheppard had been kidnapped by aliens and replaced with a more patient, less controlling model.

John could have commented on the decorations, the extensive and exclusive guest list, or the quality of hor d'oeuvres being served—but that superficial chit-chat was only one of the many things about this world that had started John on his drifting path over twenty years before. His mind was blank on safe conversation topics and so he remained silent, wondering if it had always been this difficult.

Maybe sensing that John wasn't sure where to start, his father continued. "So, how is work?"

"Good," John answered, thankful for the prompt and something to work with. "Although it feels like I've been stuck in a simulator for over a month."

"Test piloting, right?"

John nodded. "We're getting close. We'll probably have our maiden flight early January if everyone signs off on it."

"Sounds like you're enjoying your work then."

"I'm still flying." And somehow, that wasn't enough. Almost a year to the date, and John still felt like he was missing something vital. Something that even working on the coolest plane on the planet for nine months straight wasn't able to fill. "It pays the bills."

"You're not happy then?" His father sounded so disappointed that John risked a glance over to see that the older man was deep in thought.

"I'm..." John thought about lying and saying 'content', but he couldn't pull it off. "I'm okay."

"Okay wasn't what I was hoping for."

"Hoping for?" John frowned, a tingling of suspicion coloring his tone. He had never known his father to be that concerned about John's personal happiness. Which may have sounded a little harsh, but so had been the last exchange between the two of them so many years ago. "Exactly what were you hoping for?"

"That you might be a little grateful, that it might help you transition back into the real world."

"Whoa, whoa." John's shoes stomped the life out of several unsuspecting snowflakes as he came to an abrupt halt. "What are you talking about?"

His father took a large swig of his whiskey, staring stonily back at the frozen pond. "When I heard about your reluctant 'retirement' through my contacts—"

"Wait, you've been having people watch me? My career?"

"You're my son," an undercurrent of possession warred with parental righteousness in his tone, "and so that makes it my business."

"I really don't follow that logic."

"Maybe you would if you and Nancy had ever had any children."

"Oh, I'm not listening to this, not again." John surged forward, but his father grabbed his arm as if he were still the gangly teenager pushing at boundaries. Years of military training made his first instinct to break the hold and possibly the hand along with it, but he squashed it down and instead just stared at the hand. "Let go."

"Damn it, John, I'm trying here."

"From where I'm standing," he said carefully while pulling his arm free, "the only thing you're trying is to be the same man who tried to have my enlistment papers shredded."

"Obviously that was a mistake."

The angry retort John had planned on following up with died on his lips as the words registered. He simply stared, hoping his astonishment was hidden under a glower of suspicion. "A mistake?"

"I'm allowed to make them."

John shook his head. Definitely an alien abduction, because this was not the way his father had approached life while John was growing up. "I'm finding that hard to believe."

"Believe what you will, you always do."

John jammed his hands further into his pockets, trying to warm up his frozen fingers as the surreal conversation continued.

"I thought I was doing you a favor."

Something ugly and angry started coiling in John's gut but he firmly clamped it down, schooling his features as the politician formerly known as his father appeared. The other shoe was about to drop, so why keep it waiting? "And what kind of favor would that be?"

"To keep you flying, since it seems to be the only thing you care about—but maybe do it someplace safe instead of rushing headlong into gunfire again."

Seeing as how John still had the ugly yellow traces of the bruise on his chest courtesy of VerTech's mystery guest, the "safe" part of that statement was definitely in question.

"I really hope I'm not hearing what I think I'm hearing," he retorted, as the hands inside his pockets clenched into fists.

"Vertrauen is practically leasing an entire power plant from us. We had leverage, so I called in a favor."

Like flipping a switch, all the little oddities added up. The call out of nowhere, the cushy salary, why John never had any real heavy lifting in the test flight department, why Langham probably put up with his attitude without any real reprimand, and why Dave had started playing messenger boy in the first place.

"A favor," John spat, whirling around to face the man who, twenty years later, still hadn't gotten the clue that John's life was his own. "You and your damn favors."

"You have a job; a damn good one."

"And what do I have to give you for it?"

"Nothing, John," his father insisted, frustration mounting, "absolutely nothing."

"It's never nothing with you."

"You're almost forty—I'd hoped you would have learned to show a little gratitude by now."

"Gratitude?" John seethed. It always started out this way, an innocent favor or gift, followed by an equally innocuous request within a few days. Gratitude beget obligation, obligation became duty. John had never been one to shirk his duties, and his father knew that.

"That job is the best you're going to get—"

"I think you should have the car brought around."

"What?"

"I'm leaving."

"And where are you going to go?"

"Home." The concept was still hazy and off in the distance. So much so that John still wasn't sure what it was exactly, but he could tell what it wasn't.

"This is your home."

"No. It's not."

It was far too early in the morning—or maybe afternoon, Rodney noted unable to make out the time on the clock on his nightstand in his bleary half-wakened state—for someone to be causing such a racket. Wearily he dragged himself out of bed and staggered through the minefield of laundry in his bedroom as he made his way toward the front door.

"Oh, for... I'm coming!" he grumbled as he stumbled over to the door.

It usually took at least fifteen seconds to unlock the various latches and deadbolts Rodney had installed without the complex's approval after the unfortunate ninja incident. His brain was still muddled with sleep, so it was taking longer for him to work that dad-blasted chain that he had installed as an afterthought. Not that the paranoid number of locks would do him any good if someone was waiting for him when he got home, but it gave him a little piece of mind if not necessarily his security deposit back.

After an epic struggle, the chain had been dispensed, Rodney turned the last deadbolt, and whoever the hell it was still hadn't tired of rapping out "Shave and a Haircut" in rapid staccato. So sleep addled, it didn't even occur to Rodney to use the peephole to make sure he wasn't about to be greeted by the Christmas Day Slaughterer. He simply flung the door open, ready to take the uninvited solicitor and show them a little McKay brand of Christmas spirit. Those plans were dashed as he was blinded by unnaturally white teeth flashing an impish grin.

Rodney's finger, pointed and ready to start giving a lecture to end all lectures remained poised in the air as he tried to reconcile the improbable image of a travel-rumpled John Sheppard on his doorstep with a plastic "thank you" bag from some corner store in one hand and another smaller, more colorful bag in the other. He held them up like some conquering hero, and all Rodney could do was blink in utter confusion.

"You're not in Virginia?"

"Nope."

"But your flight back isn't for another two days."

"That was the original plan, yeah."

"But you can't be here."

"Can't I?"

"No... you don't have a ride, and you're supposed to be on the other side of the country, and... and why are you here?"

"Change of plans." Sheppard shoved the colorful bag into Rodney's hands.

He accepted it, still utterly befuddled. "I don't understand."

"Christmas present."

"But... but..."

"Open it." Sheppard quirked an eyebrow, clearly expecting Rodney to investigate the contents.

Starting to wonder if he was perhaps having some waking dream, Rodney gingerly reached into the bag as if expecting something to leap out and try to eat him. His fingers brushed against something small, plastic, and odd-shaped. Furrowing his brow, Rodney pulled it free and held the item up for inspection.

"You got me a keychain?"

"It's a monkey!" Sheppard grinned. "I thought he looked like you."

"It's a keychain—from the," Rodney crumpled the bag, peering at the logo emblazoned on the side, "DFW International Gift Shop? What the hell were you doing in Dallas?"

"Layover. Do you know how hard it is to get a direct flight to Tucson on Christmas Eve?"

"You've been flying since last night?"

"Well, not me personally—"

"I still don't understand..."

Sheppard seemed to think that non sequitur was an invitation, and shouldered his way in, holding his convenience store bag high. "I also brought food."

"Food... you're not answering the question!"

"You like spam?"

"You mean 'Stuff Posing As Meat'? No, and stop avoiding—"

"Too bad, that's the only thing they had left that wasn't expired. You know that no one's open on Christmas Day?"

"This makes no sense."

"Christmas spam rarely does."

"Why are you doing this?"

Sheppard simply shrugged and pulled out a few more boxes from his plastic bag. "Macaroni and cheese, food of the gods."

"Are you physically incapable of answering the question? Is that what this is?"

"Rodney," Sheppard paused, an unreadable expression settling on his face, "I just..."

The shadowy expression remained as he stared at the blue box of cheap pasta, and a strange, uncomfortable fluttering took up residence in Rodney's stomach. Damn it... that shuttered expression was just unnatural on a laid-back kind of guy, and Rodney shouldn't care about that at all.

Still, he snapped out a disgruntled, "Macaroni and cheese? Seriously?"

The shadows retreated and Rodney was treated with a genuine smile. It wasn't boyish, impish, sardonic or any of the not quite sincere expressions that he was usually treated with. He dropped his eyes to the keychain currently hanging off his finger and the cartoonish monkey that was covering his eyes, one third of the "do no evil" trio.

"This thing looks nothing like me."

"Sure it does. Of course you've got a little less hair on the top—"

"Excuse me, but if we're going to start calling out hair atrocities..." An angry trill came from the bedroom, and Rodney sighed heavily. "What now?"

"Do you have any pots and pans?"

"Um, I don't know. Just look around." Rodney called and once again braved through the explosion of laundry in order to reach the phone on his nightstand and snapped it open. "What?"

"Well, Merry Christmas to you too."

"Carson?" Rodney belatedly grabbed the glasses on his bedside. Putting them on still wasn't an ingrained action yet, but he was almost beginning to get used to the weight on the bridge of his nose. This pair was just a simple set of clear lenses to keep up appearances. To say that Lorne had been displeased with having to find another pair to replace the broken ones was putting it lightly. "Why are you calling? Isn't it like ungodly expensive?"

"Thought I'd make sure you hadn't drowned in that mountain of research in your apartment."

"Since I'm talking to you on the phone, obviously that's a no." A loud clatter and crash had him tripping his way back out of the bedroom, poking his head out of the doorway to try and peer into the kitchen. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"It's just a phone call—"

"Not you."

"Do you have company?"

"Try not to sound so surprised," Rodney grumbled. "I can have company over if I want to."

"Found a pot!" Sheppard called.

"I have a pot?"

"Well, it's a pot now."

That did not sound encouraging. "Sheppard, you better not burn down my kitchen!"

"Wait," Carson interrupted, "John's there?"

"Do you know any other Sheppards?"

"What's he doing there?"

"I don't know," Rodney insisted, pitching his voice lower so it wouldn't carry across the small apartment. "He just showed up on my doorstep a few minutes ago with a monkey and Christmas spam and boxes of macaroni with questionable expiration dates and who knows what else he has in that ratty gym bag—"

"He brought a monkey?"

"Well, it was a keychain of a monkey. It's actually kind of ugly and a little frightening, but he insists there's some sort of resemblance. Honestly, I don't see it and—Sheppard, what are you doing with that?"

"Maybe I should let you go."

"Yes, because I'm about to be burned out of house and home because—no, that's not a chafing dish!"

"Do I want to know?"

"No," Rodney said quickly, "er, I've got to save my apartment, bye!"

A small kitchen fire, two blackened pans, and three boiled over pots later, John had managed to produce a Christmas feast that would make Jimmy Stewart and his wonderful life proud. Since the kitchen table was dominated by a mountain of notes and drowning in old takeout boxes, they sat on the balcony, overlooking the city and the desert beyond.

Decked out in a light windbreaker, eating spam off of a Dixie plate, and nursing a lukewarm beer wasn't John's picture of a perfect Christmas, but then again, he'd never been big on the holidays himself.

"Nice view," John remarked before taking a quick swig of the strange Canadian brew that Rodney kept stocked in his fridge. "Why don't you come out here more often?"

"Too windy," Rodney returned, spearing a bite of macaroni on his plastic fork. "It would be a shame to suddenly discover unifying string theory only for the proof to flutter away in the evening breeze."

"Ah, you'd catch it in time."

"Yes, because I'm the daredevil type."

"I don't know," John paused before taking another swig of beer, "you're handy in a fight when you want to be."

"I thought we weren't going to bring that up again," Rodney grumbled and stuffed the large bite of macaroni in his mouth.

"Sorry." John shrugged. It had just been one of the many things that had been running through his mind during his long hours at the various airports around the country. The little monkey keychain was currently looped around the neck of Rodney's beer. At first glance it looked terrified behind the covered eyes, but the grim set of the mouth indicating there was more to it than just fear... and the unhappy grimace really did look a lot like Rodney.

Rodney screwed up his face in disgust, unconsciously mirroring the monkey's expression. "This pasta tastes funny."

"That might be because the box said it expired two months ago."

The mouthful of food was spit back onto Rodney's plate, and he began wiping his tongue in earnest with one of the leftover Burger King paper napkins. John managed to hide his snicker behind the pretense of taking another bite out of the pan-fried spam.

Tongue finally clear of the offensive pasta and cheese sauce, Rodney pinned him with an incredulous expression. "Why—why—why would you do that to me?"

"I wouldn't," this time there was no hiding his amusement, "but you're really easy."

"You're evil."

"It's fun here on the dark side."

"Glad that you could get a laugh at my expense, Darth Sheppard."

"Got to get my kicks somewhere," John said lightly, but his gaze drifted to the horizon, where he could just barely make out the tip of the VerTech tower. "You really can see everything from here."

"It's not that great of a view." Rodney poked a fork at another clump of macaroni uncertainly. "You were just kidding me about the expiration, weren't you?"

"Yes, Rodney." John didn't exactly roll his eyes, but the exasperation in his tone wasn't completely forced. "I'm eating it too. Why would I give myself food poisoning?"

"I don't know, you get off on weird kicks like that."

"When have I ever poisoned myself for fun?"

"Well, not poison yourself, but you do seem to look for trouble..." He trailed off, eyes widening and glancing around as if he were expecting some phantom to appear out of nowhere and join their conversation.

There was paranoia, and then there was just being weird. John was thinking to chalk this up to the latter. "How do I look for trouble?"

"Nothing," Rodney insisted quickly, shoving the clump of pasta in his mouth in an attempt to muffle his words. "Forget I said anything."

"You know, it's not very polite to throw out accusations without backing them up with proof."

McKay almost swallowed the clump whole, the bright shade of red his face turned almost made John think he was going to have to perform the Heimlich maneuver. However he managed to get the food down, and chased it with a generous swig of beer. His voice was quiet, although it was unclear if that was due to the near choking incident or the fact that he couldn't meet John in the eye. "I'm sorry, just... forget it. Please?"

Rodney and the word "please" generally didn't go together. The request sounded sincere to John's ears, even if McKay wouldn't look at him. In fact, the entire slumped posture reminded John of that afternoon in the car after the fight. He frowned, trying to hide his scrutiny behind another long sip of beer.

He had two choices: push the issue or let sleeping dogs lie.

Maybe Rodney was a little right—because as far as John was concerned he had been far too lax about sleeping dogs as of late. "I don't go looking for trouble."

"Oh, not forgetting this," Rodney muttered disappointedly.

"No, I'm not." John set his beer down on the concrete balcony landing with a clink, eyes seeking out the distant speck that was the VerTech tower. "There are just too many things that aren't adding up."

"You really, really don't want to talk about this right now." Again the voice was barely a whisper, almost pleading John to stop.

"I think I do." John twisted to where he could pin the scientist with a look. "What I don't understand is why you've suddenly stopped asking questions."

Rodney's face was firmly turned away from him, as if the imaginary point in the distance he was staring at was more worthy of his attention at the moment. The rigid stance of his shoulders clearly indicated Rodney wished this conversation wasn't happening. "Questions? What kind of questions?"

"Like why everything is done just a little bit different on this project. Where all of these miraculous technological advancements are coming from? Who the hell was that guy who tried to choke the life out of us? And why did it look like he was there against his will?"

The shoulders hunched higher, but otherwise Rodney remained still and quiet.

"If you're not going to help me figure it out, I'll do it myself."

"No!"

The vehemence and force behind the order took John aback, and he was caught under the most intense gaze he had seen Rodney use on anyone, including when he had been laying into Langham after the PDE's failed test firing.

"You are not going to do a damn thing," Rodney ground out, "except fly that stupid plane like you're paid to do."

John was a stubborn man, he was quite aware of this. Whenever someone tried to tell him what to do with his life, it was like rubbing a cat the wrong way. His hackles rose, and his feet would plant firmly in the proverbial ground to hold his stance. He was ready to do that just now, feeling a familiar grinding clench to his jaw. Rodney must have been cut from the same cloth, because his jaw was set in the same manner, blue eyes blazing with a protective fury that John had never seen in the scientist.

"Just drop it."

The "for your own sake" remained unspoken, but John could clearly read it in the angry nerve twitching in Rodney's jaw. Despite every nerve ending screaming at him, John let the fight drain out of him. There were more important things than winning an argument and from the looks of things right now, John wasn't sure if winning this one would cost him a friendship.

He almost wished he could read what was behind the emotional storm raging in the other man's eyes because there was a lot more behind the firm order than John just minding his own business. Unfortunately, he wasn't a mind reader, so he couldn't tell what it was.

Yet.

"Fine." The conviction in his voice didn't seem to convince Rodney, so he tried for a softer, "Consider it dropped."