A/N: Thank you so much for all the wonderful reviews! You're all lovely.
The Puppet Master
Chapter Fourteen - Conversations with Dead People
"Kate."
Carson looked up from his computer to offer her a smile. She gave him a nod, appreciating the effort. Knew that it was only a matter of time before the entire city would treat her like an outsider.
"Carson. Is he awake?"
"For a while now. He's responsive, but he hasn't said a word." The man gave a sigh, looking haggard, rubbing a hand over his beard. "I've taken some blood, but I'll leave the rest 'til tomorrow."
"You should sleep," she advised him.
"Aye, probably." He gestured at the bed. "The Major's with him."
McKay was lying on his side, facing away from the Major, large, padded cuffs tying his wrists to the bed rails. Sheppard sat in a hard backed plastic chair, slouched in a position that made her own joints ache in sympathy. He looked up at her approach, gave her a breezy grin that did nothing to mask the hostility in his eyes.
"Here to question the prisoner?"
To an observer the greeting might have seemed jovial, but she frowned, responded: "I want the same as you, Major."
His grin disappeared, and he pushed back his chair sharply. The legs made a high pitched shriek against the floor. "Which is?"
She ignored his glare, kept her tone cool. "To help Dr McKay."
Sheppard dropped his head. "Of course." He gestured at the chair. "Take a seat. Though I should warn you, he won't speak to anyone."
"That's alright." She sat, waiting as Sheppard lingered.
He patted the bed awkwardly, assured its occupant: "I'll be back." Then he turned and headed for the door without once looking back.
Kate waited until he had left before releasing a long breath. "Well," she said, addressing McKay, "I'm hoping you'll be a little more vocal with me. You may not believe it but I was telling Major Sheppard the truth, I really am here to help."
There was an indistinct mumble from the bed, and she leant forward. "I'm sorry?"
"I said," and he turned his head to stare at her from a pale face and a purple bruise on his chin, "tell me what I have to do to get out of here."
She inhaled sharply, and nodded. "That's a fair question."
"So?"
"So," and she ticked off on her fingers, "agree to Dr Beckett's tests, talk to me, talk to the Major, and be patient."
"I'm talking to you," he said sullenly, "Isn't that enough?"
Kate signed, pointedly. "Aside from him being your team leader, he's also your friend."
"No, he isn't." And McKay tried to roll over, his progress halted by the cuffs as they held back his arms.
Kate doodled on her notebook casually. "Why not?"
"I don't have to tell you."
"Yes, you do. Step two in getting out of here."
"Fine." He huffed into the pillow. "He's a liar."
"What did he lie to you about?"
"Wanting to help me. He thinks he knows me but he doesn't and I can't trust him. Not like I'm supposed to."
"He trusts you," she responded, mildly.
"Shouldn't. I'm dangerous."
She stiffened, wary of treading too far. "I don't think of you as dangerous."
"Then you're an idiot." He turned back to look at her. "You'll tell Elizabeth I'm sorry?"
"You can tell her yourself." She stilled the movement of her pen against the paper. "Since you've brought it up, do you want to tell me why you attacked Dr Weir?"
"She was trying to shut me up." He glanced at her. "They lied, her and Sheppard. Made up a lie to keep me in the city, keep me under their control. But I won't be locked up. Just wait. I won't be here long." And he tugged hard on the restraints to demonstrate. "He said they were my friends," he continued, absently. "But I don't listen to him anymore."
She scribbled on the notebook, 'voices?' "Listen to who?"
He shot her a dark look, and again pulled against the restraints. "I'm not stupid," he snapped. "If I tell you you'll keep me here forever, or send me back to that box."
"You said you'd talk to me," she reprimanded gently.
"Just to get out of here." His fingers tapped against the railing. "Tell you the answers you want to hear, right? Then you'll sign me out. You'll have to. Can't keep me here forever, not if you think…" and he trailed off.
"We're not trying to hurt you, Rodney," Kate said, leaning forward in her seat.
"No, that's a side-effect, right?" The finger tapping increased in its intensity. "Guinea pigs, that's the phrase you use. Prod and poke and make me run round a little maze." He turned his head towards her, eyes glittering. Stuttered: "Th-that's all it's ever been. And I know I don't belong here, but this is the f-first time it's ever, ever seemed real."
She remembered his words from their last conversation. "You said you don't feel you belong here."
"I don't belong here," he corrected. "I don't. You think you can talk to me and, and pills, right? P-pills and talking and tests and you'll get him back. Good 'ol McKay. But there's no normal and you can't go back. Not ever." He looked up at the ceiling. "That's why I can't be trusted. D-dangerous." Then, conversationally: "I've killed people."
Kate paused, laying both pen and paper down on her lap. "Dr Weir is going to be fine," she assured him, at a guess.
"Not her." He sounded annoyed.
Another guess. Kate felt she was making blind stabs in the dark. "Gaul and Abrahms. Tomei and –"
"Names," he interrupted. "Like they're supposed to mean something."
"Can we talk about them?"
"You can, if you like."
She recognised stubbornness, and changed the subject. "Why do you think you're here, Rodney? In Atlantis?"
"Didn't have a choice." He shifted restlessly against the restraints. "Never had one. No one ever asks me what I want. My p-parents –" And he stopped, pressing his mouth together, and twisting in the bed so he faced the opposite wall.
She winced, but pressed on, intuition overriding her sense of caution. "Tell me about them."
His response was little more than a whisper, spoken into the pillow. "They never asked me. They were scared of me, always were, keep me apart. Pretend like I'm every other kid. Then he died and they panicked. Like a n-nightmare. They shut me up, locked me away and forgot about me. I'm always being forgotten." He paused, then burst out with a soft half-sob: "I died…"
Kate shifted nervously in her seat, aware she was losing control over the conversation. "But you're here. You realise this is real, don't you?"
"An accident," he whispered into the mattress. "Trapped for all that time and then an accident and – and it's not real." He twisted suddenly back to look at her, insisted: "I'm fine." His thumb resumed tapping a nervous rhythm against the railings. "Just need some sleep. But hey, that's normal, right? Everyone's always busy, there's always something, y'know…" Broke off and stared at his fingers. Finished: "To do."
Inwardly Kate sighed. Despite McKay's willingness to talk to her she felt lost, adrift amidst a jumbled sea of nonsensical phrases. Nothing to help her bring focus to McKay, nothing except emotions – paranoia, anger, self-doubt – but there was an absence of anything concrete. Only assumptions.
"What do you remember about the nanovirus? Was that real?"
He stiffened, right hand clenching and unclenching spasmodically. "I don't remember."
"If it was real or –"
"I don't remember," he repeated, and tugged on the restraints so hard the bed rattled. "I want out of these things."
She looked down at his right hand, and the neat white bandage tied around it. "How did you hurt your hand, Rodney?"
He shook his head violently, then started thrashing, kicking at the mattress, twisting his head frantically into the pillows and pulling so hard against the cuffs she was afraid he would hurt himself. "Let me out of here." And he shouted, a gurgle at the back of his throat: "Let me OUT!"
She rose from her seat, alarmed, turning towards the nurses' station to see Beckett running. He knocked her shoulder as he brushed past, without apology, shouting orders. Kate stepped back, helpless, watching a nurse plunge a needle into McKay's arm, listening to Carson's mantra repeated softly as the man laid his hands on his friend's chest to restrain him.
"It's okay. Rodney, it's okay –"
No, she thought, watching the man in the bed slump back into drugged slumber. Nothing will be okay again.
