Recovery
Chapter Nine
"It's about time you pulled this out." Aiden said to Casie as he handed her guitar case to her. "I've been wanting to hear it. Do you sing too?"
She took the case and shooed Aiden over, giving her room to sit with her back to the log. "Let me sit there so I can lean back a little, hon." Carefully, she pulled the musical instrument out and sat down between John and him. "Only if I have enough to drink!"
"Where's her cup? Zelenka… pour the lady a long one!" John said to Radek.
After a few minutes of tuning the strings and a few explanations to Teyla, Casie plucked a few chords. "Don't expect much, I haven't played for anyone, 'cept myself, for a long time."
"What kinda music do you play?" Aiden asked her.
"Everything from classical to rock…"
From the moment she started playing a song that had been recorded by Carol King, they were mesmerized by, not just her skill in playing, but her clear voice. By the time she struck the last chord, they were all speechless.
Seeing the looks on their faces, Casie grabbed her cup and took a large gulp.
"That was incredible!" Radek finally said.
"I have never heard anything like it!" Teyla sighed. "Please, continue playing."
Feeling a little bit embarrassed by their responses, Casie looked over and saw that crooked smile on Rodney's face. He said nothing, but nodded his head to her.
"I don't know why you guys are so surprised!" John said. "I haven't seen anything this lady doesn't do well."
"OK, this might be something you guys know…" Rolling her eyes at John, Casie started a new song, this time it was an old song recorded by The Mamas and the Papas. She soon found she wasn't singing alone. Even Rodney and Zelenka added their voices to 'California Dreamin'.
They sang into the evening, having more fun than they could remember. Everything from Gordon Lightfoot and The Beatles to Jimmy Buffet and Three Dog Night was covered.
As it turned out, John was an excellent singer. He and Casie took turns singing harmony. Their voices blended beautifully.
"OK, this is the last one… I'm getting horse!" Casie laughed.
When she finished the old Celtic song, she set her guitar back into the case.
"How do you do that?" Aiden asked Casie.
"Do what?"
"Be able to sing so many different kinds of music."
"Oh, that…" She chuckled, "Lessons and lots of work."
"Another degree?" Asked Rodney sounding exasperated.
She smiled at him through the flames. "Na, just a love of music and the ability to make strange noises with my mouth. Would you believe, I took Chinese in high school?"
"Oh now, there's a picture." John giggled, obviously feeling the effects of the alcohol. "A pretty lady making strange noises with her mouth…"
"Well, that's a sexual innuendo, if I ever heard one!" Casie threw a handful of sand at him.
"Hey, you said it, I didn't!"
"Not to change the subject, but…" Rodney's eyes drifted from the fire to Casie. "You know what we needed to bring from Earth? Marshmallows! Silly thing really, but I miss marshmallows."
"Ya!" Aiden responded enthusiastically. "Roasted marshmallows, God, I love em… roasted golden brown and all gooey inside!"
"Stop! You're making my mouth water!"
Casie said nothing, but Rodney noticed a slight twinge around her eyes.
"Where's that boom box of yours?" Said John. "We need more music!"
"The hills are alive…" Radek sang.
"Oh joy… this should be fun." Smirked Rodney.
"Cut that man off!" Casie laughed. "No more booze for you."
"You don't like musicals?"
"Depends on the musical and if I'm in it, and then, only when I'm sober. I was in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar one summer... back in… gees, must have been '76. The summer before I started at the UW."
"Somehow, you don't look like a Judas to me." Said Radek.
"I was in the chorus. It was a really horrible production, but then, half of us were stoned all the time." They all laughed.
John sat back down after finding the boom box and Casie's stash of music CDs. "How did you smuggle all this to Atlantis?"
"Started out as one CD in an ultra-compressed format tucked into the lining of my guitar case. When we got here I just expanded and re-recorded them."
"Like McKay did with the message we sent back to Earth?"
"Ya, but his is much more efficient. He's a lot better at it than I am too." She smiled over at Rodney.
"Your taste in music really is eclectic." John said, as he thumbed through the CDs. "John Denver, Celtic Lullabies, Carlos Santana… Three Dog Night, Nat King Cole and… DIRT?"
"Nitty Gritty Dirt Band… and this one is Creedence Clearwater Revival..."
"What's this one, it's not marked?"
She shrugged, "Don't know, probably a blank I stuck in by accident." Casie grabbed it and tossed it aside. "How about some Jimmy Buffett, that's some good beach party music?"
John grabbed the unlabeled CD back and loaded it into the player, "Let's just see what she's trying to hide…" And hit the play button.
"Hey! I said it was nothing!" Casie tried to recover the CD before it began to play, but John, playfully, blocked her attempt.
Music began. Not what John had thought would be a recording of Casie, but what sounded like a professionally orchestrated piece.
"Oh, I know this… Phil Collins." Stated John smiling. "Wait, who's that singing? That's not him… but he's good."
Rodney knew exactly who it was. He had heard Peter Grodin singing quietly as he worked on various projects since they arrived in Atlantis and knew that he and Casie had been close friends. They were often seen in the commissary talking quietly at an out of the way table. There had been rumors about the two, that perhaps there was a budding romance there. But for some reason, Rodney had dismissed this as mere gossip. Then they had lost Peter when the weapons array had been obliterated by the Wraith. Rodney had been there, watching from a distance, when the array was targeted by one of the remaining Wraith destroyers. He still felt pain and guilt at his loss, Peter had been as close to being a friend to him as anyone in Atlantis. Kate Heightmeyer had called it survivor's guilt.
He had known that Peter was likely the key to restoring her memory, but up to this point, he hadn't seen much progress in his subtle approach to the problem. Had it been a coincidence that she had included this CD with the others? Or had she unconsciously brought it along…
Rodney looked at Casie from across the fire, she had turned pale and her breathing appeared ragged.
"I need to get away from this fire." She stuttered as she got up. "The smoke is getting to me…" Casie walked, with difficulty, down toward the water.
"Is she alright?" Asked John as he watched her go.
"That's a recording of Peter Grodin." Rodney told him as he rose to follow.
"Oh gees, I'll turn it off."
"Leave it on, this may be… just, leave it on."
When he reached Casie, she was rocking back and forth, staring out at the water, her mouth moving as if to speak, but no sound emerged.
"Casie…" He began gently, reaching out to her.
"No… no no… no no no…" Panic was etched on her face as she backed away from him and bolted down the beach as fast as she could run. Rodney, amazed at the speed her short legs could manage, chased after her, the others not far behind.
She had gone at least a quarter of a mile before her legs buckled and she fell to her knees on the wet sand. Seeing the pain and devastation on her face, Rodney knelt down and wrapped her in his arms. He heard the approach of the others and waved them off as Casie, clinging to him, let out the most blood chilling and anguished cry any of them had ever heard. The explosion of emotion shook Casie's body, all McKay could do was hold her while all the grief she had held in for the last few weeks was expelled through her tears. Not realizing, Rodney also added to the tears that fell to the sand, his grief being released as well.
"Rodney?"
Shaking his head at John's quiet inquiry, he heard his friends back away and return to camp.
They held each other this way for what seemed like hours. The reality of their surroundings becoming clear as the tide came in. Casie continued to cling to him, her sobs subsiding to quiet tears.
Rodney looked around him, bleary-eyed, when he felt the gentle waves soaking them both. "Casie…" He said, gently stroking her hair. "Hey… we need to move." He received no response. "Honey, we gotta move… my butts getting wet."
Somehow, the humor of his comment reached her. She said nothing but allowed him to pull her to her feet and move them up the beach to dry sand.
"I need to get you back to the fire." Rodney said as he tried to get her moving toward the camp.
"No!" She said, shaking her head. "I can't… I don't want them to know…" Her voice was ragged, hardly more than a horse whisper from the trauma her throat had suffered.
"They're your friends, Casie, and they're worried about you. You're soaked to the skin and Carson would kill me if you came back sick."
"No…" She sat down against a log, wrapping her arms around her knees.
"OK, just…" He sighed, knowing he would never get her to move in this state of mind, he knelt down in front of her and lifted her face so she would look at him. "I'll go down and tell them you're alright and get a blanket and some stuff to start a fire. Is that OK?" Rodney felt her shivering as she nodded her agreement. "I'll be as fast as I can, you just stay right here." With that, he turned and ran back toward the camp and the people who were waiting there.
John couldn't believe what he was hearing. Once before he had seen such an explosion of emotion from someone. A young Iraqi mother, whose child had been killed by, what the U.S. Government called, insurgents shortly after the fall of Baghdad. That picture had haunted him for years and now he had seen that same grief in the one person he felt could always make it through, no matter what they faced.
Casie Ronin had always had a smile on her face. She confounded many when they first arrived in Atlantis, especially McKay. No matter how blunt and condescending he got, she would shake her head and smile up at him. There had been times when Rodney had been so extremely nasty toward Casie in John's presence, that, had it not been for the chuckle and wink she sent his way, he would have jumped in and defended her. It seemed that she was the last person that needed to be defended. After a week, Rodney had given up his attempts at intimidating the lady and actually appeared to listen to her suggestions.
Rodney wasn't the only one that couldn't intimidate the diminutive Chemist. He had seen one of his men confront her for taking the last of the raisin muffins at breakfast, thinking he could get her to relinquish the pastry. She looked up into the dark eyes of the 6'2" sergent, picked up the muffin, licked it seductively telling him that it was really tasty and it was such bad luck that he hadn't gotten there sooner so that he too could enjoy one. The guy had ended up laughing all the way to his table after taking a plain muffin instead.
She had jumped into his arms and kissed him soundly when he returned from his aborted suicide mission to deliver a nuclear bomb to the Wraith. With tears in her eyes, she told him that a nuclear bomb would seem small, if her favorite poker buddy ever did anything like it again. That, at least, was one loss she didn't have to suffer.
How much had she hidden behind that smile? He knew from experience that grief did strange things to people, would they ever get the old Casie back? Would he ever see the sparkle in her eyes when she listens to Rodney rant about the incompetence of his fellow scientists? All he could do was wait and pray that she would be OK.
He looked at Ford, Teyla and Zelenka wondering what they were thinking. Ford, with his head down, slowly rocked himself back and forth. Teyla looked as if she were silently praying to whatever deity the Athosians looked to for guidance, and Zelenka just kept turning around to look back down the beach, occasionally whispering something in his native Czech.
Glancing at his watch again, noting that it had been over an hour since they had returned to camp, he had just decided that he needed to check on the two scientists when he spotted a shadow approaching the fire. 'A' shadow, not two. John felt panic rise in his gut as Rodney walked into camp, alone.
(Last chapter coming up... ya ya, I know IT'S ABOUT TIME!)