Borrowed
And Stolen
by
Jargonelle
Summary: 'It seems that Rodney McKay, through a combination of genetics and some somewhat dubious lifestyle choices on occasion, was never going to live to a hundred anyway.' Carson Beckett / Rodney McKay.
Spoilers: Rising, Hide and Seek.
Warnings: Slash, character death.
Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate Atlantis.
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The first shuddering contact. Ten, maybe twenty minutes.
He could have, no wait, he should have left by now. He should have ignored the innocuous little 'bleep' from his scanner and followed the others along the passageway. Rodney had been certain though, had been confident that he would only be away for a minute, had assumed he wouldn't be missed.
He could have been back on Atlantis, being greeted warmly by Elizabeth, perhaps by Carson if he didn't have any emergencies to distract him. A cup of coffee too, that would have been good. A decent cup of coffee. With plenty of sugar.
He struggles, panics, futilely tries to pull away. Five days gone by.
They're celebrating - it could be an Athosian festival, it could have just been the end of a particularly bad week – it doesn't matter; they're having a party. Carson has a bottle in one hand and a slice of cake in the other. Rodney has two slices of cake.
It isn't great. It's dry and crumbly and has not enough chocolate in it for it to be technically considered a cake in Rodney's opinion, but the cream on top is gorgeous. So he eats and eats, until the final bite unaware that Carson has been watching him the entire time.
"What now?" he asks, suspecting a forthcoming lecture on diet or manners or something equally unimportant.
"You've got something on your nose."
Rodney draws away, wiping a hand in what he hopes in a surreptitious fashion across his face. "I do not!"
Leaning forward, Carson dips a finger into the cream of the top of his own untouched cake and dabs it lightly against Rodney's warm skin. "You do now."
It's teasing… but Rodney doesn't mind.
The shocks wear off. It hurts. Blood runs from his bitten lip and his fingers lock in a death grip in his assailant's long hair. Three weeks this time.
He's working on one of the generators. It's not functioning correctly and he doesn't know why, which is irritating at best and possibly disastrous at worst.
He's alone. Only Zelenka and a couple of other guys, with even less memorable names but who he thinks could also possibly be useful, are aware of the situation and he's sent them to check on the other generators. There's no use going to Elizabeth until he has a full report.
"Rodney, catch!"
Shocked, he looks up just in time for a MRE to hit him in the face. He doesn't welcome the intruder, the distraction, until realises it's Carson who has interrupted him and for some inexplicable reason that brings a smile to his face.
"Ow," he says, complaining out of habit, "ow, but thanks."
"No problem, what are you doing?"
Rodney ignores his question, "How did you know where I was?"
"The Ancients didn't need to label the dots on their life-sign detectors, who else would be all the way out here in the dead of night?"
Who knows how this is going to end? The problem with the generators might be nothing at all or it might trigger an all-out panic and the possible destruction of their cosy little colony.
Rodney doesn't care particularly – Carson brought him food and came to keep him company in the early hours of the morning. It makes him feel happily invulnerable, but without the hunger that came with the personal shield device.
His eyes are squeezed tightly shut and he realises that he's never going to see anything else, ever. A year, perhaps less.
Carson is asleep.
Carson doesn't even know he's there, but Rodney can't take his eyes away and he's sure that the image will be burnt into his brain forever. He doesn't think he can understand the enormity of why.
He feels slightly stupid, just standing watching, but it's not half as stupid as he feels when an alarm sounds and he realises he going to have to explain to Carson precisely what it was he was doing.
"Hey Rodney," Carson says immediately upon waking, almost as if he expected Rodney to be there. He instinctively reaches for his stethoscope, but equally as naturally places a quick kiss to Rodney's cheek before he heads out of the doorway. "Maybe you should head to the control room," he suggests gently when it becomes obvious Rodney is too shocked to move.
"Er.. I will, I'm going, I'm going."
Rodney remembers the other times he has seen Carson asleep – but he's not sure if they're actual memories or just dreams. He isn't quite sure where he is any more either.
He can't help it. He screams loudly and desperately, because it's the only thing he has left. It seems to take forever – a few years possibly.
This is it. This is the end.
Rodney steps through the Stargate for the last time (but he thinks dully that maybe that has already happened) and arrives back in the SGC. His part in the dream is over and it's time for him, however reluctant he feels, to pass the torch,
He doesn't know what to expect. He doesn't know whether the programme's gone public or whether the whole Atlantis experience will just have to be another bland, non-descript project in his chequered classified history.
He doesn't know who's Prime Minister – since even though the new American President was considered news worthy of the Pegasus Galaxy, nobody bothered to find out who is running Canada. Or even if the country still exists.
He knows one thing: Carson's still with him, still by his side. He doesn't know how he was ever lucky enough for that to happen though.
It flies by so quickly. It seems that Rodney McKay, through a combination of genetics and some somewhat dubious lifestyle choices on occasion, was never going to live to a hundred anyway. Try as he might, the Wraith cannot suck any more life out of him – the final few years were the most painful, but they were also the fastest, so in some ways, the best.
They live in Canada. Rodney's addled brain doesn't know enough about Scotland to dream a life for them there. He would have moved there for Carson though, given the chance.
He was trying to write a book, that was how he had passed his last couple of years, crafting a treatise of his work, of his theories and advancements that weren't property of the United States Air Force. It would never be finished now.
Carson sits by his side, holding his hand, but Rodney feels too weak too hold him in return. Instead he listens as Carson talks – reminiscing perhaps or just talking in that soothing bedside manner he has never abandoned – and strains to hear the words.
Eventually it becomes too much, too painful, too much of an effort and he just… slips away.
John Sheppard returns too late; his instincts, his reactions that little bit too slow. It isn't the same as Colonel Sumner… Rodney's already dead, but he feels the same crushing hopelessness… as if time has sent him back exactly to where he started.
If anything, it feels worse. He never meant to let it happen again.
THE END