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He could still remember the feel of the place. The team had been walking down a worn path away from the Stargate, Ronon on point, he and Teyla just behind Sheppard. Rodney remembered being tense, but it was the normal tension of a mission to a new planet. They weren't really expecting any trouble. This place Teyla knew of through past trading contacts, and although she'd never been there herself, all of their intelligence showed that it was relatively peaceful, the people interested in trading.
As they entered the forest Rodney was overwhelmed by the familiarity of it all. The scent of pine in the air, needles soft underfoot; if he blurred his vision just a bit, it almost seemed like home. Almost.
He remembered saying something inane as a way to burn off some of his nerves - something about fir trees being a universal constant - when Ronon tensed and raised his weapon.
Rodney heard noise above him and looked up to see people coming down from the trees; men in dark clothing, dozens of them. They were all around him, hands reaching for him as he struggled, shouting to his teammates. He felt something touch his neck and he fell, the green of the leaves above him filling his eyes as he spiralled downwards.
The next thing he remembered was sitting slumped against a wall in a tiny room. The drug or whatever they'd given him was starting to wear off, but the space felt too bright around him, every sensation just a bit too intense.
He heard voices nearby and winced at the sound. Squinting and shielding his eyes with one hand, he looked up to see a group of men surrounding Teyla, but no sign of Sheppard or Ronon.
Moving slowly so as not to draw attention, he checked his jacket. He'd been stripped of his radio, his weapon, even the damn life signs detector. Exhausted even by that small effort, he pulled his legs up in front of him and wrapped his arms around them, resting his chin on one knee.
Their attackers still seemed to be focused on Teyla, although one of the men had broken away and stood at a small table, pawing through their tech.
So, not so much interested in "trading" as in "taking".
The voices went up in volume, drawing Rodney's attention. One man shoved Teyla and she stumbled into another, who grabbed her and pulled her in close. As she stared up into his face, her eyes blazing their defiance, the man lifted a hand.
Rodney saw a flash, light hitting the blade of the knife as it sliced into her cheek. He watched, mesmerised, as blood dripped from the cut. "Stop," he said, or tried to say. Whatever noise he managed to make, it drew the men's attention to him.
The man with the knife released Teyla and stepped in front of him, squatting in his line of sight. "Why?" the man asked, dark eyes burning in his pale face.
"Because she doesn't - " was all Rodney was able to get out before the others were beside him, pulling him up from the floor, shoving him down into the only chair in the room. And then they were surrounding him, barraging him with questions he wasn't quite able to follow. He felt a touch to his neck, which first sent him spinning, then shocked him into crystal clarity, his heart racing in his chest as they -
Rodney shut his eyes, lost in the memories.
They had asked him the usual questions - where he and his teammates were from, who they were working for, why they were here - and he'd spoken words, and words, and words. Thousands of words; all of them meaningless. He'd had to keep talking bullshit, or else he might start talking truth, and he couldn't let that happen.
He had felt another touch to his neck and everything got too bright, too sharp, all jagged edges and broken seams, and he lost track of just what he was saying, his entire focus taken by the knife as it danced across his flesh, and the harsh voices of his captors.
Time had gotten kind of blurry on him, and he wasn't sure of what happened next. All he really knew was that the lights were too damn bright, and his skin felt like glass, and the knife kept moving, and cutting.
He heard someone burst into the room. When his torturer's attention had gone to them, Rodney had reached out blindly and grabbed the knife and started stabbing blindly, his arm coming down again, and again, and again, until finally Teyla and Sheppard pulled him away.
He didn't remember anything then, his memory blank until they were suddenly stumbling back to the gate, and he was aware of the hand at his elbow, steadying him as they moved. Aware of his team's concerned glances.
He wouldn't look at them, instead staring down at his bloody hands.
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Rodney let his palm slide down the window until it fell to his side. Opening his eyes, he turned and capped the bottle before slumping onto the bed, crossing his legs in front of him as he leaned back against the headboard.
It had taken forever to wash the blood off his hands. It had got into the pores of his skin, the folds in his knuckles, the creases along his nails. He must have stood in front of the sink in Beckett's washroom for hours, trying to scrub away the last of it. It was under his nails. In his cuticles. Between his fingers. On the cuffs of his shirt...
...Rodney felt the knife slice through the skin on the back of his arm, and he was barely able to react, his whole consciousness taken by the shock, the drugs, the questions, and the cutting. He was frozen there, his eyes tracing the graceful movement of the blade across his skin, through it, the blood... And darkness, and...
...And the man turned to the door, his attention gone for only a moment before Rodney had the knife. Rodney held it aloft, bringing it down once, twice, and again, glorying in the sensation...
Rodney jerked awake, the bottle tumbling from his hand, off the bed and onto the floor with a thud. He'd been having variations on the same dream since he'd come back to Atlantis.
Heart pounding, he slid off the bed and stood. The dream had left him shaken, the memories within it still fresh in his mind even without the nightly reminder.
When he'd first returned from the mission, Beckett had checked him over. Nothing had appeared physically wrong with him beyond the cuts, and those would heal. And the remnants of the drugs, but those too would pass. He'd been out of the infirmary two days later and back to work snapping at the masses.
That first night in infirmary he'd been blessed with the dreamless sleep of the dead and the very lucky. Since then, it was always the same dream, every time he fell asleep. Hell, sometimes even when he was awake.
The waking nightmares were the ones that really freaked him out. But still, he'd been able to cover them up.
Until today.
Today in Elizabeth's staff meeting, something had happened; he couldn't even remember what. Something had triggered a memory so real he'd thought he was there, back there, in that room, with those men, and when he'd heard Elizabeth calling his name he'd screamed at her, only half realising she was there, that it was her. Standing and sweeping his laptop off the table and to the ground, he'd felt someone move behind him and swung out.
It was only once his fist had impacted that he realised he wasn't back on the mission, but in a staff meeting, and Radek was on the floor in front of him. The entire staff was looking at him, a mix of shock and horror on their faces. Then Carson had approached him, hands up, palms out, and Rodney almost knocked him to the floor in his haste to leave.
As he'd fled the room, his only thoughts were that something was very wrong, and he needed to get out.
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