AUTHOR: Wraithfodder
RATING: T
CATEGORY: Angst, drama
SPOILERS: Season two episode "Trinity"
Copyright Disclaimer: See part 1.
SUMMARY: Tag of sorts to "Trinity." The damage is done. Can Sheppard's team pick up the pieces?
PART 3
The corridor which led down to the south pier was extremely long, and best of all, devoid of any human activity. That was good, as 'Wilson' sailed far into the distance and rebounded off a wall near a turn in the corridor.
Sheppard had explained to her that Wilson was the name given to a volleyball by a character in a movie called "Castaway." A man had been stranded on an island, alone, for years. He'd turned the inanimate object into a 'friend' in whom he could confide his fears and work out problems.
However, this Wilson was definitely not being treated as a friend. Sheppard had kicked the ball with all his might. Teyla felt that he was focusing all his frustrations and anger on the hapless item, which, if the abusive treatment did not let up, would not last long.
Teyla wondered if the ball was a substitute for Dr. McKay.
It was obvious that Sheppard was angry at McKay for what had transpired down on the planet, but less obvious was the fact that Sheppard had been hurt as well. Not physically, but emotionally. The Colonel was a private man who let only a small number of people past his self-imposed barriers, and McKay was one of those few. Otherwise, he projected an exterior of casual indifference that belied the deep care he had for those around him. Time and again, he demonstrated that concern by taking chances when others wouldn't.
But betrayal of that confidence could be costly.
Teyla watched Sheppard as he walked down the corridor to retrieve the ball. He hadn't answered her last question, and actually seemed to be ignoring her. "Colonel."
He kept going. He snatched the ball off the floor.
"John."
Sheppard looked up. Wary.
"Do you still have trust in Dr. McKay?"
Sheppard simply stared at her. A hard, unflinching gaze locked on her, one that only served to empathize his troubled feelings.
"No. Yes. I don't know." Sheppard slammed the ball into a nearby wall, catching it on the rapid rebound.
Teyla felt her own mood falter at that admission. Sheppard's confusion matched her own. She had put trust in Ronon, only to have it violated in a manner that she would not have thought possible. Perhaps on his home world, it was acceptable to use an unwitting friend to lure another to his death, but it was not that way on Athos. Although she understood his motive for the revenge killing, she could not condone the manner in which it was carried out. She also knew that if Sheppard were told of the incident, Ronon would be off the team, or worse. But for the moment, this was her burden to handle alone, and her trust for Ronon to regain.
"What?"
Teyla broke from her introspection, now aware of Sheppard's dark glare. In response, he hit the ball again. It bounced off a wall, ricocheting near her. She picked it up, turning it over in her hands. She realized it was rubber, a substance derived from an Earth plant. While it didn't appear durable, it was flexible and capable of great punishment, unless it was put under too much pressure. She cast a cautious gaze at Sheppard, wondering how much resilience the human soul had before it was too damaged to mend.
She walked past Sheppard with the ball, ignoring his outstretched hand as he expected her to give it back to him. Stopping, she placed the orb in one hand, tossed it up in the air, and struck it with a firm underhand. The ball sailed down the corridor in a very satisfying arc before it struck the floor and rolled toward the outside wall.
"Damn, we need to start a volleyball team," grinned Sheppard.
Teyla offered a brief smile in response, but followed the ball as it came to a halt at the door that led out to the pier. It was often the colonel's response to deflect deep emotion with humor, or to change the topic altogether. It was a trait he shared, whether he cared to admit it or not, with Dr. McKay. The emotional occlusion of Sheppard's people had at first been a shock, but she had reluctantly become accustomed to it, yet knew it contributed to problems such as what she was now witnessing.
Sheppard walked ahead of her and waved his hand at the panel by the side of the door. A strong breeze wafted in as the door opened. He grabbed the ball off the floor and went out on to the pier. Teyla followed, wishing that such a wind could blow away all her problems. The pier was incredibly expansive and open to the elements. She drew in a deep breath, savoring the saltiness of the mist that sprayed over them with another strong gust.
Sheppard dropped the ball and steadied it with one foot. Then, with one strong kick, propelled it over the edge into the ocean. The tiny orb bobbed up and down on the heavy waves below that lapped up against Atlantis.
"Is that what you wish to do with Dr. McKay?" she asked, knowing that bluntness was necessary to pierce Sheppard's self-imposed shell.
He turned immediately. "No!" He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and opened them to stare out over the deep blue water beyond. "I still have faith in Rodney," he replied, a tiredness seeping into his voice. "I just don't have that faith in my trust in him."
His words mirrored her situation with Ronon. "And Dr. Weir?"
Sheppard's gaze followed the tiny ball as the large waves began to carry it away, out into the open ocean, just like in the movie. "Rodney asked me to trust him. In turn, I asked Elizabeth to trust me." A cheerless smile crossed his face and vanished as though taken away by the wind. "The fat's gonna hit the fire when this all gets back to Earth. We blow up potentially the biggest weapon we've ever come across, but then, that's not really the issue, is it?"
Teyla said nothing.
"Hell, Rodney's saved my life, more than once," admitted Sheppard in an almost regretful tone. "But on Duranda… he was blinded by the Ancient technology down there. It wasn't that he didn't care if we died but that he was so consumed with solving the damned problem that he nearly killed us. That he didn't have the solution but would have killed us if I hadn't stopped him. I've seen pilots who have done the same thing. They're dead."
Sheppard turned to face her, raw emotion lining his face as a strong wind tousled his unruly hair. "How can I know that he won't do it again?" he asked, waving a hand toward the ocean. "It's not just his life at stake, or mine, but the team's lives. Or even all of Atlantis."
Teyla knew he hadn't expected a reply from her. It was an answer he had to reach within inside himself to find, or solve with McKay, for no one could order him to trust another on that deep a level.
"Will he remain on the team?"
A lengthy, almost painful pause, before he forced himself to reply. "Yes."
"But?" she prodded. His answer was welcome, yet she knew there was more to come.
"I don't know," he replied honestly. "He's on the team because of who and what he is. The most brilliant mind on Atlantis and..."
Teyla did not feel she had to guess in order to continue his sentence. "A friend." Sheppard's nod was a gesture filled with sadness, for the trust between the two men had been splintered, and the pain of that division hurt all the more so because of that friendship.
She'd noticed the widening chasm between the two men since they'd successfully fought back the Wraith from claiming Atlantis. It was not glaring, but there, just simmering beneath the surface, noticeable to those who worked closely with the two men. Ford, were he still with them, would no doubt have detected the subtleties as well.
"I have to look out for all of the team, not just McKay," said Sheppard.
"He has been through much in recent months."
"Haven't we all?" Sheppard replied bleakly. He went back to studying the waves.
Teyla walked over and planted herself right in front of his field of vision. "Yes, as have you."
"Meaning?" he questioned, looking down at her.
"That it must have been difficult to reconcile yourself to death, yet still live."
Sheppard blinked, not prepared for that particular statement. Teyla pressed on. "Yet we did survive the Wraith's siege."
Sheppard shifted uncomfortably, but didn't change his gaze. "Yes, we did," he added.
What he didn't say was how many had died. Too many. While many survived, the mourning was short. His people had held a brief memorial for those lost, while she had gone to the mainland, spending several days with her people remembering the lost ones. When she came back to the city, Weir and her key command people returned to Earth. She hoped that in that time, they could find solace on their home world, but that did not seem to be the case. The colonel, propelled by his own private demons, held fast to his desire to find Ford and return him to Atlantis. Dr. McKay seemed even more frenetic than before, perhaps due to the near disaster that had occurred onboard the Daedalus right before their arrival on Atlantis.
"I too, miss the Lieutenant."
Sheppard closed his eyes at the mention of Ford, perhaps lost in a memory of a better time. "I'll find him."
Teyla simply turned, letting a gust of wind blow the hair over her face. She pushed it aside, sighing. Before he would have said 'we,' not 'I.' It had been on that inhospitable world, where a deranged Ford had held McKay captive for many hours, that others had witnessed the schism widen between the two men. Major Lorne had wondered what was up with Sheppard and McKay, as he'd heard stories about them being friends, but he hadn't seen much of that on that world. When Sheppard had returned to the jumper, sans Ford but with McKay and Ronon in tow, he'd said barely a thing, except to acknowledge Ford's unknown fate aboard a Wraith dart.
After that, the two men had gone back to a comfortable yet empty tableau of light banter and, when stress came, arguing, such as she had witnessed on Olesia when Torrell's men had held them captive.
It pained her to see their friendship strained, and that fracture was bleeding over into their relationships with others as well. It was almost as if surviving the Wraith had pushed them apart. She knew from what others had told her that both had 'witnessed' each other's death – from the jumper impact on the hive ship, to the dart impacts on the city – only to realize seconds later that each had survived. It was almost as if by isolating their emotions they felt they could spare themselves any further grief from the pain of loss.
She had witnessed that sort of behavior in some who had lost loved ones to the horror of the Wraith, and in time, it had just left those individuals lost and hollow inside. No resolution. A life lived but only as a shell of their former selves.
"I think for Rodney, dying in vain would be the worst death," spoke up Sheppard. "I know that Collins' death hit him hard, but…" Sheppard shook his head as if to deny any maudlin emotion. "We're at war, and people are going to die. People die on Earth, in our wars, in the stupidest ways. Auto accidents delivering supplies, friendly fire." Sheppard glanced at her for a fleeting moment, but then back to the more soothing, perhaps less judgmental, waves that lapped up against Atlantis. "Rodney went too far."
"You know that his actions were not done with malice," reminded Teyla.
Sheppard frowned before looking even further away. "Yeah, well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. An old earth saying that holds a lot of merit."
"Yet you will try." Teyla stared at him and he met her gaze, puzzled.
"Try what?"
"To let him regain your trust."
She cocked her head at his abruptly dark expression.
"That's up to him," said Sheppard, almost too quietly.
"However, you must give him the opening." Teyla locked her gaze with his eyes, trying to find an indication within those hazel depths that he would do just that, but instead he looked away.
"Should probably go back inside," he said after a long minute. He turned back toward the entranceway, but then paused for a moment, scanning the darkening waves. "Sorry about your ball." With those words, he ended the conversation, she knew.
"It was not mine."
Sheppard arched an eyebrow. "Oh. Crap, hope it wasn't Dex's. He'd probably shoot me."
Teyla shook her head, too startled for words as he walked past her. His offhand remark had brought the memory of how Ronon had killed his former taskmaster perilously close to the surface, and she wondered if she could follow the advice she had just given Sheppard.
PART 4
It was night, time to hit the sack. Sheppard headed down the corridor that would eventually lead him to his quarters. The talk with Teyla had helped, at least to a degree. The anger he'd felt at the whole situation had run its course, but he still felt drained inside, like someone had torn away something vital from him and he didn't know if he could ever get it back.
Shit.
Sheppard instantly turned on his heels, walking anywhere but straight ahead as McKay was headed right at him. He didn't want to deal with McKay right now, but the scientist kept after him like a damned terrier. "I've been looking for you."
"I heard." Sheppard stopped in his tracks, schooling his face into as neutral an expression as he could attain. He turned and crossed his arms against his chest, a non-verbal hint that he was busy and just didn't want to talk. As usual, Rodney ignored the hint, but at least he understood the motive behind the action.
"I suppose I deserved that," he remarked with a quick smile. He apologized in his own odd way, and passed it off as a joke - just as he had joked about Sheppard being there on Duranda to fetch coffee. Sheppard hadn't been insulted, just put out of sorts by McKay's lack of tact and the nagging worry that doom had been lurking around the corner. He'd hated being proven right.
Yet now, the confidence the scientist had exuded before that world had blown to hell was gone, replaced by an uncharacteristic nervousness. He was barely even making eye contact as he rambled on, but Sheppard didn't want to talk. He simply said "Good one" to McKay's "that's a joke," then turned to leave, grateful for the transporter right in front of him. He had no idea where he was going, but as long as it was without Rodney in tow, it would be fine.
Rodney's voice caught, his words about apologizing to Elizabeth and Zelenka echoing in Sheppard's ears. There was something about Colonel Caldwell and an e-mail, but despite his attentive pose, that went through him. Sheppard stood in front of the transporter, watching, feeling a bit of himself flinch inside as he kept the pain off his face while he watched Rodney crumble.
"I would hate to think that recent events might have permanently - " Rodney paused, his voice almost quavering " - dimmed your faith in my abilities… or your trust."
Sheppard looked away as McKay continued, all pretense of normality gone. "At the very least, I hope I can … I can earn that back."
Sheppard hated himself for the words that left his lips, but he couldn't lie… couldn't pretend that everything was status quo after all that had transpired. "That may take a while."
McKay was crestfallen as he looked down at the floor. "I see."
And in that painful display of emotion, Sheppard saw a glimmer of hope. He let a smile cross his face as he backed into the transporter. "But… I'm sure you can do it…" He reached behind, tapping on a destination on the transporter grid as McKay looked at him. "If you really want to try." Sheppard crossed his arms. As the transporter doors closed, he witnessed a weak smile touch Rodney's troubled features.
Sheppard stepped out of the transporter in another part of Atlantis, blinking as he realized he was far from his desired destination, that of a hopefully dreamless sleep.
He'd hated leaving Rodney like that, hated himself for believing what he'd done was necessary, but what Rodney had spoken were mere words, and sadly, he had learned that words did not always carry truth. It would take actions to convince Sheppard that he could give his trust back to Rodney.
He truly hoped that Rodney could restore his trust, otherwise he didn't want to think of what would happen – to either him or to Rodney – if that didn't occur.
THE END
Note: Thanks for all the feedback:) :)
Oops on the mistake calling Wilson asoccer ball instead of a volley ball.