Title: Compulsion
Author: Cybersyd
Rating: K+
Summary: An episode tag to "The Hive" from McKay's POV. Lo, there be spoilers ahead!
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be, unless I can create that mind control device I saw on Family Guy.
Compulsion
"I want it to be made clear, I don't agree with this."
"With what?"
"Me. Being here."
"It's part of procedure, Dr McKay. Particularly given your recent experience."
"Exactly. That's why this is wrong."
"Because…"
"Because I'm not here for that! You think this is like the 12 steps, which is ridiculous."
"This isn't the 12 steps."
"It amounts to the same thing. I'm here because you and Elizabeth and Carson all seem to think I have a problem."
"An addiction."
"Hah!" I snap my fingers triumphantly. "You admitted it."
Kate sighs, and makes a mark against a paper pad. Its surface is tilted away from me but I can still hear the scratch the pen makes against it.
She's the only one, apart from Carson and Biro, who still prefers the old fashioned method over the laptop. For a while, before the Daedalus arrived, she was forced back onto the computer but with fresh supplies Kate has pulled out her supplies and dusted down her pen holder. It's hideously old fashioned and yet strangely fitting.
Scratch scratch scratch.
"I think our aim for today is for you to be able to admit it."
I snort. "Won't happen."
"Why not?"
"Addiction implies choice."
She raises her eyebrows. "That's surprising. Most people would refer to it as a loss of control."
"That's simply a way of displacing blame. An addict is someone who chooses to take his or her substance of choice, over all other alternatives."
Kate inclines her head in a gesture that isn't quite a nod. "That's one way of putting it. Are you saying you had no choice?"
I fold my arms and stare at her crossly. "Well, I think the gun toting, hopped up goons of Ford's took away any choice I had."
She makes another mark against the pad. "According to the mission reports, Aiden managed to spike yours, Teyla's and Ronon's food without any of you being aware of it."
"That's right. So no choice," I finish, smugly.
"And the last time?"
"What?"
She stares at me, wearing a fixed expression, one that lies between clinical curiosity and shallow projected sympathy. It's a look I'm entirely familiar with and also one I hate. For a while, in the first year here, we had both moved past that - her from her mildly patronizing pity and me from my hostile retorts. Then Cadman inhabited my head and my relationship with Kate was back to square one.
She doesn't say anything.
"Last time?" I echo, playing dumb. I might have allowed Elizabeth to bully me into this meeting but I'll be damned if I'm going to make it easy. "You mean the dose I stole from under their noses?"
I'll give it to Kate, she doesn't give any sign of exasperation. "Colonel Sheppard had negotiated a reduction in your dose?"
"Yes."
"Then you chose to take an overdose?"
"That's not what happened!" I shoot back, then curse, because she's got me on the defensive - exactly where I didn't want to be.
"Then you were forced to take the overdose?"
"No - well…" I stop, and take a deep breath, lowering my voice from a shout. "Someone had to tell Atlantis about the hive ship, and I don't think the two brutes guarding me would have been knocked out by the latest advancements in string theory, do you? It was the only way to get the crystals to operate the Stargate." I pause, briefly. "It wasn't a choice."
"Okay, you can take them out, easy, just a few well placed karate chops and then down they…"
I break off, wringing my hands frantically. Behind a pane of glass sits several dark bottles. They stare at me, promising everything.
The first time I was terrified. Hell, I had reason to be. Ford with this smug face, telling us he'd slipped some enzyme into our food. Ford, with his aged face and that black eye that is always watching, no matter what direction the healthy one is pointing in. Ford - a kid, Sheppard always called him.
The Wraith stole that from him, so he figured he could steal it from us. Feeling twitchy, hyper aware of every movement, every shadow and jumping at every noise. My eyes moving a fraction of a second faster than my visual cortex can process, and my brain moving a mile a minute - more than usual - and knowing…
I'd lost control.
The second time…
It got easier. Sure, it was harder to concentrate - thoughts and theories running through my head so fast I couldn't keep up, couldn't focus on the dart, and its engines. But there was a sense…
Like I was standing on the precipice of something huge. Bigger than a Nobel Prize, bigger than Arcturus, bigger than the whole of the Ancient database. And I'd have given anything to take that last step.
"What are you, an idiot?"
I hate the way it makes me feel, but I want it. I need it. And I want more - more than what Ford was giving me, more than the meagre doses he's been feeding me since Sheppard made his deal. I want it in my veins, in my heart, I want to lose myself in it, take a dive.
So, I move my hand.
It's red. Appropriately.
Sheppard's overdue. He's on a hive ship with only Ronon and Teyla for back up and I've seen the way they are - they've had more, it's affecting them more than me. They're not in control - or maybe, maybe they're not restrained, they're not holding themselves back anymore. I don't think they'd turn - they're still them - but whether Teyla can stop herself from taking revenge, whether Ronon can stop himself - hell, at all…
They're trapped on a hive ship. If I can get to Atlantis I can get them help. We can use the Daedalus to rescue them.
Someone needs to know…
I want the needle. I'm repulsed by the way it slides through my skin, but it's thrilling, exciting. I've made the choice, I know what I'm doing, I know that for all that I hate it, for all that I hate what it makes me - I don't want to stop.
"Desperate times…"
Scratch scratch scratch.
I look away from Kate, my lap suddenly fascinating. "I saved the day. In case you've forgotten."
"I haven't forgotten," she says.
Not that I feel much like a hero. I crash through the 'gate too far gone to be of any use, and by the time I manage to say anything coherent it's almost too late. I convince Beckett to give me a clean bill of health long enough to join the Daedalus on its rescue mission, spend most of the time feeling pretty powerless, then get treated to a Kirk Special from Sheppard when I think he's gone for another suicide run.
Yeah, Kirk. He's got that whole, coming back from the dead thing.
Except Kirk died, in the end.
"Good," I mumble. "Because that was the point."
"That's why you had no choice?"
"Exactly." I look at her, in the hope that meeting her gaze will convince her I'm telling the truth. It doesn't work. All I see is blue with flecks of grey and that same, clinically removed compassion.
And I can feel it.
With my regular dose - and god, how strange does that sound - it was barely there. More like a steady thrum beneath everything, like the way the city feels in the basement levels, near the stabilizers. It was there, but it didn't control me.
I could see it in Teyla and Ronon. Ford - that's all he was.
Rage.
I could take on anything.
Forget Ford's men - give me a Go'auld give me a Wraith give me an army of Wraith. Give me something to fight give me something to hit make me feel better.
For Sheppard for Teyla for Ronan for me for Sheppard for Ford for me.
I hit the first. It's easy to knock him down. Rage makes me cocky and I miss the guy behind me and take a blow to the jaw. It fuels me and makes me stronger faster stronger and I hit him and he lies on the floor and doesn't move and I want to stop. I want to stop. I can't breathe and the rage is beating hard in my chest and I think my heart is going to explode if I don't move but I want to stop everything and I can't. I can't take the minute I need to take it all in to take the two goons lying on the floor and I realise I could kill them. I could kill them right now and I want to.
The others are probably dead. I want them to be too.
"Did you like it?"
"What?"
"You admitted that without the enzyme, you would not have been able to take on your two guards. We both know you're not a soldier, Rodney. Being able to do more than just protect yourself must have felt satisfying."
"Satisfying?" I mull over the word. It doesn't begin to describe anything, but it will do. If it keeps her happy, if Kate gets to tick one more box on her paper. "Yes, I suppose."
Scratch scratch scratch.
"Come on, anyone would feel the same. Especially after the siege. I could have taken on a Wraith with one hand tied behind my back - don't tell me that wouldn't make you feel great?"
She nods, and for a brief minute she's almost human. "Being able to protect myself? Yes, it would." Then her face changes minutely and she's back to being the professional. And Elizabeth wonders why I fight these meetings. "Is that all you felt?"
"Yes." I keep the answer clipped and terse, so she can't read anything into it.
"And afterwards?"
"I was busy trying to fix the 'gate."
This part, at least, is true.
"In his report, Colonel Sheppard reported seeing the way the drug affected your ability to concentrate. That was why he arranged for you to have a lower dose."
It was like skipping stones across a lake. I had thoughts for a second and then I'd lose them again, pick them up several seconds later and have to struggle to remember where I'd left off. Putting the crystals back into the gate should have been simple - about as challenging as a wooden jigsaw for toddlers - but I could barely tell the colours apart, much less tell how each one functioned.
That should have scared me. It didn't.
"What did you feel then?"
"Nothing," I answer, again honestly.
Her pen bobs. "Angry? Afraid?"
It was hard enough to keep my thoughts straight without room for emotion.
"Nothing. To be honest I don't remember it."
Hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts.
Everywhere there is bright light and noise and touch and pain. All over my body. In my fingers and toes and hairline and mouth and legs and everything. There is something over my face and it's cold. It's the only cold thing. I'm on fire.
Burning. I'm burning and pain and light and noise. The enzyme pumps within me and my heart thunders and I can feel it. Like fire. It makes me fight and it makes me scream and it makes me cry and if anybody is there I don't know it. All I know is the drug and the pain and the burn.
Screaming want want want want.
My stomach cramps and I try to curl up but I can't. There are straps on my wrists and straps on my ankles and I can't curl up. I scream and I howl and I twist and my stomach cramps and I throw up. There is vomit on the sheets and on the pillow and on me and I still twist and scream and howl and burn burn burn and want want want. My stomach cramps and I throw up, I throw up a power bar and stew and an MRE and something that might have been a Snickers and I throw up until there is only bile and spit and red. Red in the MRE and in the Snickers and in the metal bowl that Carson holds out for me.
The enzyme was red.
I have been throwing up for hours for days for weeks. I have been here for ever. My stomach cramps and then I throw up and then I burn and shake and cry and then my stomach cramps and I throw up and then I burn and shake and cry.
Sometimes I fall asleep. It doesn't last very long. I dream of Wraith with white hands and Ford with his black eye and Sheppard dead and dry and a husk. I dream of being back in the cave and going to the lab and taking out all the enzyme every bottle every bottle and taking it all until it takes me. Until it kills me.
I ask Carson to kill me.
He is the only thing that stays with me, other than the want and the rage. He holds the bowl for my vomit and he reattaches the IV when I rip it out and he presses the oxygen mask over my face when I can't breathe and he changes my scrubs when I sweat through them and he tucks the blanket around me when I throw it off.
He holds my hand when I'm asleep.
It feeds the rage. It is all that is left when the enzyme starts to burn away. It is adrenaline in the place of a drug. My heart is still thundering and it still wants to explode and I can still feel my veins and my muscles and everything is still loud and bright. And I'm angry.
I think… I know… I owe him an apology.
It's his fault. It's his fault I'm like this. Him and Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Carson and the nurses and the guards and Zelenka with wide eyes and open mouth and no words. I want to hurt them.
They don't understand. They're doing this they're making me feel like this. They could make it end.
And I want the enzyme. I want to feel strong again. Super McKay. Captain Invincible. Not this.
I'm not dying. I want to be.
I want…
"I have seen your medical files."
"Carson thought they'd be helpful, did he?"
"We're treating an addiction, Dr McKay."
"This isn't an addiction," I snap back.
She changes tactic. "It must have been very traumatic."
"You tell me," I tell her. I can feel the rage humming beneath me, and I want to indulge it, give in.
I don't.
"Rodney?"
"I'm guessing you did a module about Addicts, in whatever college handed out your PhD as a bar promotion?"
She doesn't even flinch at the insult. I don't blame her - she's too used to them, and this one is weak.
"I have studied the subject, yes. But everyone's experiences are different."
"And you thought my medical files might help?"
Kate tilts her head to one side. Her pen is poised above the paper and still. "You're being very hostile."
"I'm answering your questions," I retort.
She ignores me. "You're not naïve, Rodney. You know what this would involve. Your recovery is not based entirely on the physical but the one does affect the other."
"I'm recovered."
"Dr Beckett has scheduled several further appointments with you…"
The rage spikes, briefly, enough for me to snap: "Are you giving Ronan and Teyla the same treatment?"
Kate purses her lips and frowns. "I can't discuss my work with them, Rodney, you know that."
"They went through the same as me," I persist. "But I don't think you'd be interrogating Ronan in the same way!"
Scratch scratch scratch.
"You think this is an interrogation?"
"For Christ's sake!" I bolt upwards from my chair and slam my fist against the table. A pencil tin skitters to the edge and falls off, bursting open as it hits the ground. Pens go everywhere.
Kate doesn't say anything. She doesn't even move from her chair.
I stop, deflated. The rage disappears. "Sorry."
Her expression softens. "Sit down, Rodney."
It takes a moment before my body obeys, but then I drop into the chair as bidden.
The rage has gone. All I feel is tired.
When I first wake up, Carson is sat by the bed.
He's asleep.
It looks uncomfortable. He's sat on a stool with his chin resting on his chest. Every thirty seconds or so his chest hitches and he snorts, quietly.
I watch him.
I still want the enzyme. I still need - I feel it, in my veins, in the hole in my arm the needle made, in the way my fingers twitch against the covers uncontrollably.
If Ford were to arrive with a fresh batch of the stuff, I'd drown in it.
But for the first time, the need isn't everything.
I watch Carson until I fall asleep.
"Carson says the last of the enzyme has left my system. He says I'm fine."
"It's not that easy, Rodney. You know that."
"You think I still want some of it? After what it did to me?"
"I don't know. Do you?"
It was only the fourth or fifth time that I started to remember things.
Carson was awake, shining lights in my eyes, feeding me ice chips. I'd been out for a long time, he said, but it was a sign that my body was recovering.
He told me how I had stumbled through the Stargate, alone, babbling nonsense to a confused Elizabeth before passing out. He told me I had high levels of enzyme in my blood, almost as high as Ford, but I was going to be alright.
He didn't tell me the rest, but I saw it. His face was haggard and his lab coat rumpled. Last time I saw him look like this, Sheppard was turning into a bug.
So I knew it was bad, even before I started to remember.
The bed was surrounded by machines. I felt like I had run a thousand laps, like my body had been stretched and pulled about like taffy. My nose felt dry and uncomfortable - the after effects of oxygen - and my stomach felt oddly hollow and tender.
There was still want and need, beneath everything. But then I remembered.
"Sheppard."
I grabbed his arm.
"Sheppard's on a hive ship with Ford. We need to rescue them."
"Are you kidding?"
"It's a fair question, Rodney. You chose to take the overdose."
"It wasn't like that." I take a breath. "Someone had to rescue Sheppard and the others. It was the only way."
She eyes me cautiously. "Was it?"
"What?"
"Was it the only way?"
I stare at her, running through options in my head. Anger rises. What did she want? For me to try and take out the two goons under my own power? They'd have beaten me to death, and then no one would have told Atlantis about the hive ship. I could have tried to build a weapon, or a distraction, something with the technology there - but they would have seen me, and then… yeah, the beating.
Or maybe I should have done nothing. Waited for a rescue like a good little scientist.
I take a deep breath, squash the anger down, and answer.
"I chose to take the overdose."
For a moment I hate her.
Scratch scratch scratch.
"Happy now?"
She looks at me for a moment, her expression unreadable, then asks the one thing I wasn't expecting.
"Have you talked with Colonel Sheppard about what happened?"
"Are they okay?"
Sheppard shrugs, glancing back at Teyla and Ronon. "The enzyme wore off while we were in the ship. It was rough on Ford, but they hadn't been taking as much as him. Carson seems to think they'll be fine."
Rough on Ford. I don't want to think about it. From what I've been told, he was alone for the worst of it.
Sheppard is still talking. "I'm going to make the most of it - this might be the only chance to beat Ronon in a fight."
"I highly doubt that," I reply, dryly. Ronan is sat on a bed looking uncomfortable as Beckett sticks a stethoscope up his shirt. He's pale and shaky, but his eyes still burn.
I know how he feels.
"Ford's going to be okay," John continues, fervently. "He's a tough kid. He'll have found a way out."
Last time we left Ford, scooped up into a Wraith dart, I thought Sheppard was deluding himself. Now I find myself agreeing with him, and it isn't about the Lieutenant being a 'tough kid'. It's the enzyme. What it makes you feel, what it changes you into, the need that overpowers everything. Ford will survive, because surviving means he gets another dose. That's all that matters to him.
Sheppard doesn't see that.
"So," he says, looking me over in that manner he has of making it seem unconscious and half-hearted, to hide its intent. "Colour me impressed, McKay. How did you escape?"
I don't tell him.
I don't know why, but I don't tell him. I can't say it.
"Oh, y'know," I breeze, "McKay ingenuity takes on two goons, brawn by Schwarzenegger and brains by Mattel."
"No contest," he jokes. He's tense, coiled, like he's still expecting the axe to drop. His slouch and lazy drawl doesn't detract from the haunted look in his eyes, and the way he keeps looking at me.
I guess I'm not the only one who thought the missing members of my team were dead.
"Colonel!"
Carson bellows from within the infirmary confines and Sheppard turns, pulling a face.
"I'm needed."
"Oh." I shuffle my feet. "Better to get it over with."
"Yup." He stares at me for a moment, and I force myself to look back at him. "I promised Ronan a steak when we got back. If you wanted."
"Steak?" My stomach is still empty, and I feel a phantom pain at the thought of anything filling it, but that's not why this is important. "You have steak?"
"Teyla," he says. "There's a farmer on the mainland who is her second cousin, or nephew, or something like that. He's in charge of breeding those camel-cows we got from M5X-224."
Camel-cows, one of Ford's suggestions. Yellow and humped, but still managing to resemble the traditional cattle of Earth. Their milk was weak and a strange orange colour, but they were easy to breed and a valuable source of protein.
"Colonel! I've waited long enough, thank you!"
Sheppard gives a long-suffering sigh, and turns back towards the infirmary. "Later, Rodney."
There is more meaning in that than he might think.
"He'll read the mission report." That will be first, I figure. Carson can be trusted to obey medical ethics, and Elizabeth - from the way she keeps looking at me, it's like she's more eager to forget it than I am.
Kate frowns. "You're not going to tell him?"
"It's not important."
"I don't think he'll agree." She leans forward. "Rodney, what you did was very brave."
I snort. "I thought it was part of my addiction."
"I would still suggest that you chose to take the overdose based on a personal need, at least partially. But you fixed the 'gate and returned here because you wanted to help your team."
It's a compromise. I stare at her, at the earnest look in her eyes. I want to believe her. I want to be sure.
But it's too easy. I could tell myself I fought the guards because I was trying to get to the gate, I could claim that my efforts to repair the DHD were based on my fear for Sheppard, Ronan and Teyla.
But I don't know. I barely remember anything, and what I can - rage, need, the loss of control - it's not as coherent as Kate seems to expect.
I attacked the guards because I wanted to hurt them. I fled through the 'gate because it was the only place I had to go. Because I had used up the enzyme and wanted more.
I haven't told Sheppard. Elizabeth looks at me like I'm a miracle, like I'm a hero - she touches my shoulder, my arm, a brief brush against me in the control room. Carson treats me as though I'm something fragile, too easily broken.
And I don't know which of them is right, or if they're both wrong.
I don't know what I would do if someone offered me another shot of the enzyme, right now.
Kate gives another sigh, sitting back in her chair and glancing at her watch. "I'm afraid I have to cut this a little short, Rodney."
I glance at my own watch. It's been almost two hours - twice as long as Kate requested and four times as long as the time I allocated for her.
"I want to make another appointment with you," she says, getting up at the same time as I do.
"I'll see when I can fit you in," I say, back to being hostile and defensive. "I've a lot of work to catch up on."
She doesn't protest, but moves aside to allow me to reach the door. "I'd ask that you think about what we've talked about. I know you're reluctant to believe everything I said but I would at least want you to consider it."
The façade has dropped, and she's speaking honestly, looking at me with a sense of earnestness. It gets to me.
I nod. "I can do that, I guess."
"Good." The door opens. "You know where I am."
"Usually," I agree. She smiles, and then the door closes.
Sheppard is standing in the corridor. His hair is wet, and he's wearing clean clothes. He's staring at me.
Oh.
He knows.
"Rodney…"
He pauses, and glances behind me to Kate's office.
"You okay?"
I hesitate before answering. Kate's office might have been a giveaway, but I know Elizabeth has ordered Sheppard to do the same, so I don't feel that nervous.
I settle for: "I'm getting there."
He nods, uncertainly, his expression shifting to something stony, and hard to read. "I heard what you did."
Frightened. He looks frightened, and he's trying to hide it.
John Sheppard never looks frightened.
I almost say it. I had no choice. But then I stop myself, and remember Kate's words, and think of the way the enzyme made me feel - before and after - and of the strange, physical urge that still drives me to find more.
"I was tired of waiting for you," I joke. It falls flat. John's expression doesn't change.
"You could have killed yourself."
I sober, abruptly. "I know that, Colonel." And I will him to understand, to see that yes - I get it, I know what I did, but I'll be alright. And it won't happen again."
It won't.
He returns my gaze for a long moment, then breaks off, his stony expression giving way to something softer, and more relieved. "You're damn impressive, McKay. Stupid, but impressive."
I feel myself relax a fraction. "Stupid? I sent the Daedalus to rescue you! Where's the gratitude?"
"Hey," he objects, "I was doing fine."
"The Wraith only turned on each other because of the confusion created by the Daedalus!"
He shrugs, and grins at me. "I'd have coped."
I huff, but I feel better. Sheppard is still looking at me as though he's trying to reassess his opinion, but at least he's doing it as a friend, and a team mate, and not…
Not whatever it was that all four of us became, back in Ford's hide-out. Including Sheppard.
"Steak," he says, temptingly.
I consider the offer. I think about steak, and potatoes, and stew and soup and coffee and Power Bars and jello and eating and eating until I can't move, until I explode. I think about the not-so-secret illegal still Zelenka has set up at the back of the pharmacology lab, and drinking enough of that cloudy, vodka-like swill until my legs turn numb and I'm unconscious, or worse. I think about a needle plunging through my skin and the enzyme flooding my bloodstream and being fuelled by emotions out of my control.
But all I feel…
All I feel is tired.
No hunger, no want, no need. My body aches, I have a headache, I'm scared of taking as much as a Tylenol, and all I want to do is sleep.
When I wake up, it will be back. A craving. But it'll be less, something I can cope with, something I can bottle back down and ignore until it disappears.
Not gone. Never entirely gone. But forgettable.
Sheppard is still looking at me, waiting for a response.
"Yeah," I say, slowly. "Steak."
"Then sleep," he tells me, as though reading my mind. "As much fun as bunking with Ronan was, I'd rather have my own bed."
I nod, and yawn, following Sheppard down the corridor. "Those floors may have permanently crippled me. My back has been aching ever since the first night."
He gives another grin. One hand slips down and grips my elbow tightly, as though taking some of my weight as we move down the corridor.
"City gossip tells me there's a great masseur in our midst."
I raise an eyebrow. His fingers are pressing into my arm but I'm not going to mention it. I don't want to. "Really? One of Carson's nurses?"
"Too obvious."
"Not Elizabeth?"
"Possibly, but I wouldn't want to ask, would you?"
"Not Cadman."
He rolls his eyes. "Be serious."
"Fine." I run through a brief list of potential candidates. "I give up."
His eyes glint with evil glee. "Kavanagh."
I stare at him. "That is just…"
His grin widens. "What?"
"Just…"
"Fingers of a miracle worker, I heard."
"I don't even want to know!"