AN: Just a quick note thanking nebbyjen, linzi and kylen for being my beta's and helping me improve this fic! Also, thank you guys for reading, I know deathfics are...eeek...just painful, and I hope I've done Rodney's death justice by making this incredibly painful (if that makes any sense)! There are 9 parts total it looks like, so I have all done but the last. It should be posted tonight, barring any unforseen catastrophes. (hey, at my house, you never know.)

Chapter Five

Waking up was kind of a surprise. When the impact rattled me down to my teeth, and I flew higher than I'd ever done outside of a machine, I'd really rather thought that was the end. Not to say I'd wanted to die, but it might be true to say I didn't want to live.

A beeping sound speeded up, and my mind processed the uncomfortable feeling of EKG pads stuck in my chest hair. The last time I'd woken to those, I'd promised Beckett if anyone ever stuck them on me again without first shaving a small spot, I'd mutiny. He'd humored me, and apparently that was all he did, because I could feel the sticky glue over hair. Taking them off was going to hurt.

"John?"

I moved my eyes, then realized they were still closed. Huh. I opened them, blinked at the bright light until my eyes got the message, and adjusted. Teyla was leaning over me, and she was studying my face to the point where I wondered if I'd lost part of it.

"What?" I asked, trying to move my hand up to check, just in case.

A worried frown marred her face. "You should not have missed the presence of the other animal."

My hand hadn't moved, and it took a minute for me to realize it was because of the sling. There wasn't a cast, instead, some kind of temporary splint, and if I folded my chin to my chest really flat, I could see the edges of deep purplish-black bruising. I knew it should be throbbing, but I wasn't really feeling a thing. "I missed?" I said.

The frown deepened. "Do you remember what happened?"

I closed my eyes again, trying to reverse back through memories; I'd taken Radek through the gate. Cake walk. Time to go…oh, yeah, there we were. I'd emptied my ammunition clip into Junior, and been surprised by Momma. If I hadn't been higher than a kite on whatever the drug de jour of the day was, it would've bugged me a lot more that Teyla was right. I should've caught the presence of the other one.

The sudden spike of fear was accompanied by an increase in beeping. I saw alarm overcome the frown, and then Beckett was running up, his eyes searching me from toe to head. "Radek?" I demanded. I tried to see in the infirmary, but all I saw were empty beds, and that made the beeping even faster.

Beckett's face blanched when he realized what I thought. "No, no – he's fine. You took the hit, Colonel," he explained, fumbling with the heart monitor, until finally, swearing about bloody machines and smacking it hard, it emitted a last whining beep before falling quiet. "Radek is with Elizabeth and Ronon doing the debrief."

I nodded, trying to relax my breathing, and calm down. God, there for a moment I'd thought –

"I should go," Teyla interrupted my thoughts. "Rest, John."

I watched as she left, wanting to call her back, but not being able to. She was bothered by what'd happened, and I saw it written all over her. Did she think I screwed up intentionally, or that I was losing the ability to do my job? And really, was either one of those options better than the other?

There was a deep need to get out of here; I needed to be alone. I needed to talk to Rodney, and God knows, if I did it here, with the built-in audience, it'd be a long, long time till I walked through that gate again.

Beckett breathed deep, and shook his head. "Nothing major was damaged. Broken arm, deep bruises – you'll live," he told me. "I'll release you tomorrow if you improve, but the swelling in that arm has to go down before we can put a permanent cast on. You'll be off duty for about six weeks."

Six weeks? I moved my head in frustration on the pillow. Six weeks. I had to blink hard to avoid embarrassing myself. I'd hoped that getting back into a routine, going on missions, doing my job – hoped for it to keep me going, keep me busy, keep my mind off of what I wanted to run away from. I thought I was actually pulling it off…till now. The drugs were blunting everything, and I still felt that crawling panic resurfacing.

A hand on my shoulder drew my eyes upward, and I met Beckett's gentle look with a scared one of my own. His smile was bittersweet. "I know it's not fair," he admitted.

This new openness between us was hard for me. I'd held my emotions tight, sharing little, but Rodney had slithered a way in, and I'd found myself talking to him more than anyone else. We had late nights in front of a movie, in his lab over coffee, lunch, campfire on another world. It wasn't much – talking about how incredibly shitty it was that Abrams and Gaul had died because of us. Rodney confessed that Dumais' death had sent him to a new 'freaked out' place. I'd confessed Chaya had just plain freaked me out. We talked about what a bastard Kolya was, and how best to plan a practical joke on Beckett. Ronon's dreadlocks had been the source of more than one idea, but neither one of us was ready to risk it. Ronon was like the tamed bear, and McKay's idea that entailed sharp scissors was considered for less than a minute, and then we both said life was better lived with all our parts intact. We hadn't found the conversations to have, the conversations had found us.

But ever since that day when Carson had found me in Rodney's lab, a wall had been broken. The mortar cracked, gaps exposed, and I found myself trying to be there for him as much as he was trying to be there for me, because he was right. McKay would expect us to do that. We'd both been his friend.

I motioned towards the cup of water on the table. After he brought it over, and helped me drink without wearing it; figures that the arm I broke was my right; I tried to think of a reply to what he'd said without sounding awkward and emotional. "Fair," I muttered, finally. "I think fair was lost somewhere en route to Atlantis from Earth."

He didn't even reply, just did that thing where a person doesn't really laugh or snort or chuckle, but does a half-laugh, and yet it said it all. "Go back to sleep, son. When you wake up again, we'll see about getting you released to your room." He adjusted the bag of fluids running into my hand, and flipped the heart monitor on again, before leaving back to his office.

I closed my eyes, willing the drugs to escort me back into a world without memories. Thankfully, the drugs did their job.

OoO

Beckett was true to his word, and I was discharged to my room with orders to stay in bed, take my pills (and when he said that everything got all awkward and clumsy because the 'flushing incident' was still too fresh for both of us). I'd given him a twisted grin and said, "My arm hurts bad enough for me to be a good little boy and take my medicine." He'd still looked skeptical, but thrust the bottle of pills in my hand and warned he'd be by to check on me tonight. His hovering almost made me feel warm inside again, but before it could gain significant radiance, Ronon arrived.

Initially, I thought it comforting that he'd come to see me. There'd been a painful distance between us since McKay's death. I hadn't been able to ask him if he blamed me; I was afraid of what he might say. But then Carson had nodded his head slightly at Ronon, and the big guy had come over and started gathering my clothes, pills and papers. "I don't need a bodyguard," I accused, softly, because I wasn't sure my headache could withstand loud voices.

Ronon shook his head at my stupidity. "You've got one arm, Sheppard. Stop acting like a baby."

"Oh," I replied, feeling stupid.

We walked in silence to my quarters, and once in there, I was surprised by how terrible I felt. My arm was throbbing in its temporary cast, my head ached like I'd come off a weekend binge of booze and coffee. I'd gotten a really big bruise on my stomach, right about where my appendix was, and now the pain there had me almost bent double.

The door opened, and Ronon moved in ahead of me, setting my things on my desk. He fluffed the pillow, pulled back my blankets, and went into the bathroom where I heard water running. Smiling weakly, I was surprised at how much it meant to have someone do those simple things for me. Rodney used to. We took turns; if it wasn't me recovering, it was him. Our job wasn't up to OSHA standards. But McKay had also made me laugh. His insults quick-witted and sure. I didn't realize I was staring at the bed until Ronon was back with a glass of water and observed, "It's just a bed."

I shook my head. "No – it's not," I said, crawling in, and being careful of my arm.

His brooding forehead wrinkled at my cryptic statement, but he set the water down, and shrugged a hand at it. "Water, take your pills like Doc ordered. Do you need anything else?"

Funny. That question coming from anyone else would've seen solicitous. Coming from Ronon, it almost seemed like a dare. "I'm good," I assured him.

He hesitated, and I'm not sure if it was because he didn't believe me, or if there was something he wanted to say. Finally, he said, "Okay." He turned, and headed towards my door. It wasn't far, so my window of opportunity to ask was shrinking rapidly, but I wanted to ask if he still trusted me to lead – blame it on the pills making me vulnerable, sappy…stupid.

When the door opened, and he stepped through, all I managed to do was let out the deep breath I'd taken. When it shut, I shook my head again at my cowardice. I needed to know what that wall between us meant. Sure, I'd always kept a distance, friendly, but not open. Ronon and I had never sat around the fire, him listening as I admitted to having sex at thirteen with Jamie Rogers, the hottest girl in eighth grade. Part of the reason was probably because Ronon would've snickered and said he killed his first Wraith at thirteen; what took you so long?

"Rodney," I said to the air. "This sucks."