Kicking The Wall In
AN: I wrote this pretty much straight after seeing 'Trinity', but then I was away, so couldn't get it up till now. Anyway, my other episode tag, 'A Moment of Weakness' for 'Intruder' sort of spawned this. It's written along the same lines, anyway, with Elizabeth and Rodney, only this time focusing on Rodney's emotional aftermath because of the events of the episode instead of Elizabeth's(we get some of Elizabeth's too, but that's not the point), the point is, if you liked 'A Moment of Weakness' you'll like this. If you didn't like that, you might like this anyway. :) The rating is for two... no, three words most civilised middle class parents would get uppety about if youwere to use themaround kids under a certain age. They'd know them anyway, but, you know, offend the middle classes at your peril, man.Have fun, and leave lots of reviews!
Disclaimer: Suing me is as pathetic and pointless as Elizabeth considersRodney's actions throughout the majority of this fic. I don't own the characters. I have no money. Don't sue.
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Rodney was taking his frustrations out on a wall.
It was not a particularly remarkable wall. It touched the floor, it met the ceiling, there were windows at regular intervals along it's length, and it was white, tinted vaguely yellow by the early evening sunlight pouring through the afore mentioned windows. In fact, the only abnormal thing about this particular wall, was the irate scientist standing at it's midsection, apparently hell bent on kicking it down.
Elizabeth stood at the end of this particular wall, in this particular corridor, and watched. It wasn't that she didn't feel adequate pity for the wall to wish to save it from such needless abuse, it was just that she needed to think through a number of strategies for bringing about an end to the situation whilst minimising the damage to the wall, herself and the scientist in question.
"Rodney?" she enquired, delicately.
No response. Either he couldn't hear her, or he didn't want to. Stupid, stubborn man.
Elizabeth approached, taking due care to avoid Rodney's flailing feet. If she stood still, sooner or later he'd fall flat, or break his foot, or knock a hole in the wall, or a combination of the above. She didn't care for any of those outcomes. Walls were expensive to repair, scientists even more so. Then again, she didn't want him to inflict that kind of frustration on anything sentient enough to feel pain. She wouldn't submit the dead cacti in her office to that sort of torture.
"Rodney? Rodney, listen to me," she edged nearer, paused again, and reassessed her options. "Rodney!" Yelling wasn't working… normally that worked like a charm. Or a quick jab in the ribs… no, it was going to take more than the old ruler-to-the-gut method, so affective in early morning meetings, when he was falling asleep over his coffee. Rodney wasn't asleep. He was going nuts. This was a whole different ball game.
"Alright, McKay, if you want extreme measures…" Elizabeth set her left foot firmly on the ground, placed her right foot slightly ahead of it, grabbed Rodney by the back of the neck with one hand, drove an elbow into his kidneys, thrust her right foot between his shins, twisted, let go of his neck, grabbed his left arm, twisted harder, and deftly brought said irate scientist to his knees.
Rodney screamed like a girl, but didn't bother thrashing.
"Rodney, are you going to listen to me?" Elizabeth enquired, calmly.
Rodney continued to scream like a girl.
Elizabeth dug her nails into his wrist, kneed him in the small of the back and forced him onto his front. To drive home the point, she kept one knee in the afore mentioned area of the back, pinned his arms behind him with an expertly placed elbow, and pressed her free hand to the back of his neck, sandwiching the unfortunate scientist's nose to the floor.
"Mmmmph!" Rodney moaned and kicked ineffectually.
"Rodney, are you going to listen to me?" Elizabeth repeated.
"Mmmmph!" Rodney's neck muscles spasmed in a way that suggested he was trying to nod.
"Alright," Elizabeth released his neck.
Rodney gasped for breath, twisted round in a vain attempt to see her, "you're insane!"
"No, Rodney," Elizabeth replied, patiently, "the last time I checked, you were the one screaming whilst trying to destroy a perfectly innocent wall, not me."
"Huh!" Rodney wriggled his arms, but failed to loosen her grip on them, "you're just assaulting a ranting scientist! I'm allowed to rant! All scientists rant! If we didn't rant, we'd implode! And, for your information, that wall is not innocent. That wall embodies everything in the world, including you, that is out to get me!"
"Me?" Elizabeth was momentarily hurt, "I'm not out to get you!"
"Says the woman now kneeling on my back!" Rodney snapped, "could you get off me? That's a very sensitive area for me!"
"No," Elizabeth carefully increased the pressure on the floundering scientist's back, "not until you've calmed down."
"Aaargh!" Rodney yelped in pain, "you are not helping in that department!"
"Live with it," Elizabeth decreased the pressure again.
Rodney was quiet for a few seconds, breathing hard. He was struggling to keep his already sour temper under control. Elizabeth could feel him trembling, until his breathing evened out again. He turned his head, resting his cheek on the floor.
"So," he began, in a conversational tone, "been taking lessons from Teyla too? Half the base seems to be at it. I might sign up myself, the rate this is going. Just to keep the occurrence of these incidents from going up, you know?"
"Actually, I took self defence classes back on Earth," Elizabeth told him.
"Really?" Rodney seemed slightly surprised.
"Of course," Elizabeth, becoming aware that she was probably trapping more nerves in his back with every passing second, shifted her weight a little, "I was a single woman living alone. And I was bored. I thought it a necessary precaution."
"Oh, right," Rodney actually managed to sound half-way normal, "that's… that's very intelligent of you."
"You're not trying to get into my good books, are you, Rodney?"
"Of course not," Rodney squirmed, "why would I want to get into the good books of the woman currently in a position to snap my neck at a moment's notice?"
"Trust me, Rodney," Elizabeth told him, "if I wanted your neck snapped, I could have had it done a long time ago."
"How reassuring," Rodney muttered.
Another pause. Rodney pressed his forehead to the floor again and closed his eyes. Elizabeth wondered vaguely how long they'd be like this. She hadn't actually been thinking much more than five minutes ahead when she's taken the current course of action, which wasn't like her. Rodney needed to talk, obviously. She wasn't surprised, given recent events. But she wasn't really the person he should be talking to. She was as pissed off with him as the next person right now, and didn't think she really wanted to listen to him whining anymore. Yet she couldn't leave him to break his foot. That was both pathetic and pointless.
"Okay, Rodney, here's what we're going to do," she began, breaking the silence, "I'm going to get off you're back, and then I'm going to get up, and then you're going to get up. Then you're going to limp to Beckett, and get him to check your foot out. Then you're going to Doctor Heightmeyer, and you are going to talk this thing out until you feel the urge to kick down walls slacken, do you understand?"
"Fine," Rodney replied, sounding sullen.
"Good," Elizabeth prepared to let go of his arms.
"It's just," Rodney began again, and Elizabeth fought the inner need to groan, "everybody hates me."
"Oh, for God's sake, Rodney…" Elizabeth moaned.
"It's true!" Rodney cried, "Radek's all passive-aggressive sulky, John doesn't want to talk to me, the whole lab wont look me in the eye, even you've taken to assaulting me in the corridors…"
"To stop you doing yourself an injury!" Elizabeth cried, "Rodney, nobody hates you! And if they do it's not without reason!"
"I know!" Rodney kicked, irritated, "I blew up half the freaking galaxy! I get it! I do! No one feels worse than I do right now!"
"Rodney!" Elizabeth smacked him between the shoulder blades, "for Pete's sake! That's half the problem!"
"What!"
"You're too busy feeling sorry for yourself to haul yourself onto your feet again!" Elizabeth told him, somewhat exasperated.
"I'd have a lot less of a problem getting onto my feet if our expedition leader wasn't kneeling on my back!" Rodney yelled.
"Shut up!" Elizabeth finally lost patience, "you're an idiot, Rodney! You're the stupidest genius I have ever met, and there are more than enough on this base to provide a very detailed sample! But you're my idiot! You're Atlantis's idiot! We can't afford to lose you, and I don't want to! Now pull yourself together, for God's sake!"
Rodney was silent. It took Elizabeth a moment to realise that he was sobbing. She sighed, and, gently, released him, rolling to a sitting position against the wall. Rodney didn't move, except to pull his arms into his chest and up to his face, muffling his tears.
Elizabeth drew her knees up in front of her, and stared at her sneakers. They were white, with pink laces, that soft cross-hatching material around the opening, purple and blue lining. Good support for the ankles, because she did a lot of short distance sprinting in this job. She'd brought these back with her from Earth, on her last trip, because the standard issue combat boots, (which she'd been forced to wear after her first pair of sneakers had been ruined by an over-enthusiastic Athosian mud-festival,) gave her blisters. She liked these sneakers. She didn't wear them off base. She'd bought walking boots for that, now. Her sneakers were still white, a little scuffed around the edges.
Rodney's shoulder heaved.
Elizabeth had encountered many things in her career. Distant boyfriends, angry statesmen, manipulative bastards, manipulative bitches, dead gerbils, inter-country crisis's, inter-planetary crisis's, even, finally, space aliens. But sobbing scientists were unexplored territory. She had no idea how to act.
A sobbing friend, however…
Wordlessly, Elizabeth reached out a hand, and rested it on the back of his neck. Rodney stiffened, his elbows drawn up under his chin. Teyla would stroke his hair and murmur soothing words. John would crack a joke. But Elizabeth knew better ways of dealing with Rodney McKay in a crisis, and knew that the only thing that would salve his wounds was silence.
Minutes twisted relentlessly round on Elizabeth's watch. She ran her thumb over his skin, under his hair, waiting patiently. He had stopped crying. A tear ran down one cheek and dried there. He wouldn't be thinking about much.
Then he sat up, drawing a simultaneous breath. Elizabeth withdrew her hand, and didn't look at him.
"I don't want pity," he muttered, not looking at her, either. He still had his back turned, in fact.
"I don't feel sorry for you," she lied, earnestly.
"Great," he mumbled, and wiped his nose on his sleeve, then added, to no one in particular, "I killed him."
Elizabeth didn't tell him it wasn't true, because he was perfectly aware of that fact already. He could never have foreseen the death. It was his later actions that were unforgivable, when he should have known better. She didn't tell him it would be okay, because she wasn't sure that it ever would be. This was forever going to be a wobbly point in the history of Rodney McKay. As time passed he'd be able to make a quick jump over it and move on to stabler ground, but it would always be there to knock his feet out from under him whenever he got too high, or too low. This wasn't about anyone dying, or half the galaxy exploding. As always, this was about the unfaultable Rodney McKay, and his wounded pride.
Except that this time, it was going to take more than a cup of coffee and a serious pep talk for him to bounce back, and she wasn't sure that he disserved either. At least, not yet. Rodney didn't need time to heal, he needed time to learn. Then maybe, just maybe, something good was going to come out of this sorry mess.
"Go and talk to Dr Heightmeyer, Rodney," Elizabeth advised, quietly.
"Yeah, I will," he nodded, picking at his nails. They were bitten down to the quick. Dried blood lined the beds.
"And don't go after any more walls," she added.
The ghost of a lop-sided grin haunted his face, "promise."
"Come on then," she got onto her feet, dusting her hands off, "you alright?"
He struggled to stand up, and she had to grab his arm and pull. He hopped, shaking the foot he'd been using on the wall, "oh, crap."
"Okay, hot-shot, I'll get you to medical," Elizabeth sighed resignedly and held onto his arm.
"Hot-shot?" Rodney blinked at her.
"I didn't say it," Elizabeth told him, firmly, and helped escort the wounded scientist away.