Title: To hell they went
Author: Illman
Beta: Not beta read.
Date: 02/04/2005
Warnings: whumping , darkfic
Spoiler: general events up to end of season one
Disclaimer: It's their universe, not mine.
Summary: Rodney has to deal with his guilt while he waits for John to wake up.
A/N: This follows an earlier story of mine, Good Intentions. Good Intentions was supposed to be a one shot, but looking at it again, I realized that it did call for a sequel. Now it's turned into a multi-chaptered story. The story is set post 'The Siege', but contains no specific spoilers for the season finale. It's a AU version of events.
'...to our colleague Rodney McKay who linked Ancient and Earth technology to create a weapon to defend us against the Wraith. I'm only speaking what is on everyone's mind when I say that it is only because of him that we are here now.' Zelenka's speech was uncharacteristically formal, but the occasion was unexpected and everyone was a bit off. No one had expected their victory. It was at the proverbial last minute that Rodney had come through with the weapon that had destroyed the wraith ships hovering over the City and had saved them all. The wraith had obviously gotten the message; no new ships had arrived since then. That had been about 24 hours ago, now assured that they had indeed won, Weir had decided that a celebration was in order. Atlantis' chef had baked chocolate cakes with real ingredient obtained from their trading partners. There had been speeches. Rodney had only half listened. He knew that people were praising him for his work, they attributed the victory to him, and they thought he had saved them. On the surface he had, it were his calculations for the shield frequencies that had made it hold as long as it had. The evening john had come to his office, the evening it had happened; he had started working on those calculations. After what had happened, he couldn't abandon them, he had not put them away, every available minute at work, he had spent perfecting the shield, making at as strong as possible at the lowest possible energy consumption. It had bought them vital minutes. It hadn't saved them in the end, but without those minutes they would have been dead. In the end it was the bomb that saved them. The weapon he had made from the Ancient interface that had taken John from him. He should have never taken another look at the fateful device, but in a cruel way, it had captured his interest. Being connected to John, for even the brief time, had changed it, it had been charged, and the amount of energy transferred to it was enormous. It was as he understood the Ancient writings, a device that was powered by a living user. The Ancient's didn't believe in self-sacrifice, all their equipment had safety measures built into it. They had probably never used this device on a wider scale; It was without a doubt a very powerful weapon. It wasn't Rodney who had saved the City, John had saved it, again. It was his sacrifice that had given the energy that had allowed the weapon to be fired. Rodney didn't say anything. He didn't explain that the device had been powered by one of their own, one who was now lying in the infirmary, unconscious for days. They felt save with the weapon at their disposal. Rodney felt guilty for having gained from what he had done. Rationally he knew that not using what he had learned would have been foolish, he had done the right thing and saved the city. He wiped his forehead, he was tired, it had been a hard time for everyone, working long hours with only the most minimal amount of sleep. Survival had been the priority, everything else was extraneous. Rodney hadn't been to see John in days. He was going to, as soon as he could sneak away. he didn't feel like food anyways and all the music did was hurt his head. He was just about to head for the door when Carson made his way towards him. This was the last thing he wanted to deal with now. Carson was bearing a plate with a piece of cake and thrust it towards Rodney,
'The cake is excellent Rodney, you should really try it. Here have a piece.' Carson handed him the plate. Rodney tried to hand it back, but the Doctor refused to take it, 'Carson, look, I have something important to take care of, I'll be back later,'
Rodney had no intention of doing so, but if it would appease the doctor, he didn't care.
'Just where are you off to? You haven't had a decent meal today, am I right?'
'I'm off to see John' Rodney saw no reason to hide to truth. I'll eat something when I get back. He wasn't so sure about that part, at the moment he felt rather nauseous and the thought of food disgusted him.
'I know you haven't been to see him the last few days.' Carson said, 'But don't..'
Rodney cut him off.' I know that, what to do you think I was doing. Playing Minesweeper? Someone was saving the City!' Rodney marched out of the hall plate still in his hands.
John was lying in bed, still as always lately. The nurses shaved him, but his hair was starting to get long. Rodney was almost too lost in his thought too hear the footsteps behind himself. Only when Carson was almost standing behind him, he whipped around.
'What are you doing here? Can't you leave me alone for once?' Rodney snapped, the stress from the last weeks showing through. His mood was at an all time low. Ever since John was in the infirmary, he had hardly spoken to anyone and when he had, he had snapped at them. His staff had stayed even further away from him than usual. Only Zelenka had dared to occasionally wander into his office and check up on him. But he had received nothing but snide comments either.
'What I wanted to tell you back at the party. John is doing a bit better. The irregular brain waves that I told you and Dr. Weir that I was worried about, they have normalized almost completely. There isn't any brain damage that I can detect.'
Now that Carson was talking about John, the one subject that he cared about right now, Rodney was listening very closely and he had not missed that there was something that Carson had not said.
'Out with it! There is something you haven't set yet.'
'You're right. His brain activity pattern is way off. I even repeated the CAT scan. There is no damage to explain it, there is no medical explanation that I can think of, but I have as theory that it has to do with the interface. I thought maybe you could help me with...'
'No. Take your theories elsewhere. I'm handing in my resignation tomorrow,'
'Does Dr. Weir know about this?'
'She knows that I want to resign, I should have lost my position because of what happened, but because of the situation we were in, we couldn't afford it. Now, I'm resigning altogether.'
'I assume you were responsible for what happened, but how?'
'I didn't bother to completely translate the writings that were found with the device and the interface before I ask John to try it out. You know best what happened.' Rodney said dejectedly.
Dr. Weir looked at him sternly.
'I see. I can't say this came unexpectedly. The situation with John is hard on all of us. He has many friends here. But I know that you feel responsible for his condition.' Weir didn't mention that there was definite truth to his feeling. 'I'm not letting you leave the City, and I'm not accepting your resignation, but I'm willing to give you time off. Carson's current prognosis isn't optimistic but he is still working on something. Take some time off, Rodney. But I want one thing. You never turned in a report on how you saved the City when the Wraith attacked. I want that report. We are going to need to know how that weapon works, I want to have a team investigate it further, just in case we need to use it again.'
'Thank you.' Rodney had no intention of writing the report. He had committed enough crimes and the universe had made sure he would be punished for them.
Weir argued, threatened, even yelled, but eventually gave up. There was nothing she could do to make Rodney write the report. She now understood what General Hammond had meant when he had told her that Rodney could be difficult to work with. And she thought she had seen it before. In the end, he had agreed to come back to work in a crisis situation. Meanwhile, Rodney had other worries. He had spent the majority of his time with John, talking to him or sitting silently at his bedside. He refused to listen to anyone trying to talk him into taking a break from his vigil. Ford and Teyla had been to the infirmary frequently to visit the major, and it was only when they or other visitors where there that Rodney willingly left during the day. After a huge argument with Carson, he spent the nights in his quarters, but he was bent on spending the day on John's side. Carson kept him updated on John's condition, but Rodney wanted to hear nothing about his research into the Ancient interface and Carson didn't ask him for help again.
Two days after Weir had given up on ever getting her report, Rodney sat next to John's bed recounting his conversation with Bates during lunch.
'Then it turned out it had been a lizard, a harmless lizard. They had been freaking out about a lizard. I wish we had been there. I'd have loved to see the expression on his face...' Rodney trailed of as he caught a look of John's face. He was frowning, there was no doubt about it. The relaxed, almost serene expression that had been on his face for the past weeks was gone. Rodney's hovered close, hardly daring to breathe. Carson hadn't had much hope that John would wake up in his current condition, but couldn't you always hope for a miracle? John's frown relaxed and his eyes flickered open. John gazed up at Rodney, his eyes seeming unfocussed.
'John?' Rodney whispered, but got no response, as John's eyes moved around the room. Rodney hit the call button.
'Eat John.' Rodney encouraged the man sitting opposite from him.
In the two weeks since John had woken up in he infirmary, he had making steady progress. Rodney tried to be happy about every step that John took, but he was more sad than ever. With every day, he realized that John as he knew him was never coming back. John reacted to his voice and seemed on some level understand what he was saying. He reacted differently well to different people. Rodney figured it just took him time to get used to a new voice. John seemed to do best around him and Carson, to two people he had the most exposure to. John still slept a lot. His motor skills were still improving after the long disuse of his muscles, He hadn't spoken a word so far and Carson had no idea whether he ever would. There was a lot Carson didn't know, they would have to just wait and see. Rodney knew that considering the circumstance John's recovery to this level was amazing in itself. There was no question that he would burry his sadness and stay. He would never abandon John, especially not now.
TBC