Understudy

Author: Cheryl W.

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Chapter 3: Cheap Knock Off

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John woke to a beeping sound, white sterile walls and a big man with dreadlocks, his head bowed in sleep, sitting by his bed. Moving his hand, John was surprised to find it clasped within the big man's paw. The small movement stirred the giant at his side, had his head swinging up and his eyes finding John's. A joyous smile turned the giant persona into a big excited teddy bear. "Sheppard, you're awake!"

John didn't have a comeback for the obvious and he didn't know where he was or who this guy was so silence seemed safer. But even had he wanted to talk, his mouth felt like he had licked the sand off the desert floor before he died…or not died. Wait…he thought he had died out there all alone. But that wasn't right either…he hadn't been alone. His eyes narrowed at the man at his side and he remembered him being there, with him, maybe in his final moments. His voice, his entreaty, the same big hand encasing his hand now had been on his face, grounding him. Then medical personnel were surrounding him, doing that medical stuff with him then…nothing. Figured his next layover: the Great Beyond.

"You were …there," he croaked out, holding the big man's eyes, question there in the words of 'why'.

His hand was finally released and the man leveled a spoon at his mouth. Seeing it had ice on it, he obediently opened his mouth. As the coldness seeped onto his tongue, he felt like it wasn't on that desert floor anymore. While he enjoyed the ice like it was heaven, the big man spoke.

"Yeah, McKay gave me your coordinates."

Like that explained things. Suddenly John tensed, tried to sit up but the man's hand pushed him back down onto the bed. "The ….Wraith…his trailer…his ET message…did it…" he stammered, knew that mattered the most. Didn't know if he was waking up into a world being attacked by the Wraith because he had done what he always seemed to do: failed.

"You stopped him before he could complete the transmission," something almost like pride in the man's tone and the look he was leveling at John.

A depreciative smirk pulled onto John's pale features. "I didn't stop him. The drones blowing his tin can trailer up did that."

"We wouldn't have known where he was without you or had the time to stop him if you hadn't distracted him by getting shot and nearly dying." An edge of reprimand there mixed with the praise that John didn't get, either emotion, really.

"You make it sound planned out and heroic. Which I haven't been accused of being for a long time," John scornfully returned, didn't know what the guy's game was…anymore than he understood McKay's 'you have the same strength of character' bullcrap.

Instead of being pissed at John's deflection, Ronon smiled. "Consider yourself accused of it then."

Deciding to not get into the why he was suddenly being on the receiving end of compliments instead of high stacks of reprimands, John let his eyes drift behind the big dreadlock guy to take in his surroundings. Found everything was painfully sterile grey, not white, and more cylinder quarters than the sharp corners of every hospital he'd ever been in. "Where am I?"

"Aboard the Daedalus…"

"Aboard …like a ship…that floats on the water?" he slowly asked with a tinge of hope in his tone for a simple "yes" to his question because he really needed something sane about now. Course expecting a boat near Vegas that wasn't a dingy in Lake Mead wasn't sane either but…

"Space ship, actually," Ronon supplied, wasn't known to coddle people from the truth and he wouldn't start now.

John noted that the big guy had said that like the statement wasn't ten shades of crazy. Course so were space aliens and one had kicked his butt to the curb. "I was afraid of that. That guy McKay…he's part of this."

Ronon nodded. Wanted very much to say, 'And now you are too.' To link John to Stargate Command, to their mission, to him. But he wouldn't push. Yet. Remembered when the roles were reversed, when John asked him to join the Atlantis team, when he was the one alone and lost and needed a new family. He recalled the words John didn't say, that his friend quietly let him read between the lines. But this John wasn't his. Didn't understand his importance, to Ronon, to the mission, to Atlantis, didn't accept how heroic he truly was. That his actions out there on the desert, they had saved earth. He wanted him to get that but he didn't press the issue now, felt John was…fragile now, in ways his John never was. Course his John hadn't been broken by life in the ways this John had been.

Accepting that he was now hip deep in this twisty reality of space aliens, space ships and intergalactic threats, John decided to take things back to the simple stuff. Like why this guy he'd never met before was hovering at his side, had been there with him on the desert while he bled out and said…what he had. Though maybe he was half gone by then, didn't get the words right. "Not that I don't appreciate the company but…who are you and why are you here?

"Ronon Dex and I'm …" Ronon ached to claim a kinship to John but didn't. "I'm on Dr. McKay's team.

John shifted in bed, winced in pain at the movement but it was minor compared to what his stunt to try and sit up had cost him. Sighting on his visitor, he drawled, "'Kay. So what, you got the short straw of having to do guard duty?"

"I'm not guarding you." Ronon was a little affronted John assumed that before he reminded himself, this John didn't see himself as a hero, probably thought he was in trouble. For what…saving the world?!

But John scathingly drawled, "Rrrright… I'm not stupid. You don't want me getting more of a look around your space ship, becoming more of a security risk than I already am." Had been involved in enough black ops to know you never wanted to uncover a truth someone in the upper ranks didn't want you knowing. You just knew what they told you and that was the safest thing for you. And this, whatever the heck he was neck deep in, it was about as covert as you could get. He had thought they were going to throw him in some black site when he refused to sign the non-disclosure for that stuffed shirt guy Woosley while he cooled his heels in their interrogation room.

Suddenly, Ronon couldn't dispute John's assumption. When he had first arrived in this universe, he had been the one who wasn't trusted, was guarded around the clock, everywhere he went. At first it had angered him until he remembered being shadowed by guards when he first came to Atlantis by John's invitation, John's reply when he had said the guards weren't necessary. "Yeah, I know that or I wouldn't have invited you here. But …let's just say my boss isn't so trusting …of my judgement, not your character."

Meeting this John's suspicious gaze, he revealed, "If you weren't trusted, you wouldn't be here anymore, would have been transferred to an earth hospital." He didn't say that's what the new Atlantis commander, Dr. Weir, had wanted to happen. But he and McKay had venomously protested that idea along with Dr. Beckett who insisted it would greatly lessen Sheppard's chances of survival to not have Ancient and Asgardian medical advancements continue to stabilize his condition.

"I wouldn't hate that, you know. Being on earth.." John confessed, wanted off this sci fi ride. Maybe take a week long bender and convince himself it was all heat exhaustion, that he had gotten lost in the desert and hallucinated all of this.

'I would hate it,' Ronon thought, sick at the idea of John leaving his side. 'I got you back…a version of you and I'm not losing you again. Not to your injuries and not to let you slip back into 'civilian personnel I'm prohibited to associate with.' That was how it was stated in the Stargate Command codes McKay had made him memorize so he wouldn't track down this world's John Sheppard.

Instead of speaking of the personal, Ronon stated the practical. "You would be dead right now if they had moved you to an earth hospital. The doctors here have medical practices and equipment that kept you alive." (That's what he had convinced himself of the long three days John's life had teetered on the brink of death, that they would save him. Had to.)

John thought that was probably some military bullcrap so he didn't rant and rave about being held in military custody. "Sounds expensive," he quipped before that statement sunk in. "Great …and me having up and quit my job and now being without medical insurance. They say timing is everything and trust me, they don't have that wrong." His timing had been shot to crap seven years ago on a doomed rescue mission in Afghanistan, and it hadn't gotten any better in the reconvening years.

"Timing…" Ronon said the word like he didn't know the meaning until he gave an example John wasn't expecting. "Like you tracking the wraith in time to stop his transmission."

John let that go unprotested, was suddenly tried to death of treating that like it was some hero move when all he got was a bullet to the chest and bleeding out in the desert. The drones, they stopped the transmission. Hadn't he already confessed that?! "Say I believe that you're not my guard…then why are you here?" Seeing the way the tall guy shifted uncomfortably in his chair with the turn of the conversation, John made a leap of logic. Said with resignation and a little ticked off heat, "Oh. Let me take a stab in the dark. You knew another version of me. Think that makes us…what, buddies?!"

Ronon fought back a flinch at this John's rebuke of what he had been offering, wanted to believe existed between them, some…bond, some thread of the friendship, no, brotherhood he had shared with the other. Knew the truth had to come out sooner or later, might as well stop hiding it. "He was my leader, my best friend, my brother."

John had always been a good reader of people, heard the catch in the man's declaration now, knew something had happened to this guy's version of him. Something not good. He bluntly asked anyways, "I'm getting the vibe he's not running around this universe, won't be stopping in for a face to face clone chat."

"He wasn't from this universe, was from mine," and Ronon tried to cover up his pain with gruffness, it usually worked to keep everyone from getting bold enough to ask him more personal questions.

There was a warning in the man's tone that John should have noted but he was stuck on the "this universe" glitch. "Yours…as in…this isn't… Wait, you're not this universe's Dex. Crap, I knew I hated Sci fi stuff, makes everything sound….9 types of crazy."

Even on the strong drugs Sheppard had put the pieces together and Ronon felt pride surge in him. No matter what McKay said, this Sheppard was so much like his own, making mental leaps as quick as a lightning strike on Satedan. So if the man was up to asking…he had to be up to hearing the truth. "There was a rip in the space time continuum, I left my universe and came here to stop the fallout."

John processed that bit of craziness, almost hated that it made sense to him, brought to mind another question. "So you've got another …you running around here?"

Ronon hadn't given that much thought, had been too obsessed with finding this world's John to even contemplate bumping into another Ronon Dex here. "I don't know. I'm not from earth. I'm from the Pegasus galaxy, planet called Satedan."

John's eyes narrowed at the news, the continued pile of truths he wasn't sure he was up to processing. "You are a space alien?" Guy didn't look like he thought they should but then he thought of the Wraith..his eating habits. Remembered sitting propped up against his Camaro, out of ammo, the Wraith standing over him…pulling off his glove. In that moment, John knew he'd rather die by the bullet wound in his chest than get the life sucked out of him. Putting that disturbing memory into a deep corner of his mind, he eyed up his visitor with a bit of trepidation. "But you're not, you don't…," rubbed at the palm of his hand where he saw the wraith feeding mouth.

Ronon smirked. This John was so naïve it was almost funny. "I'm human, same as you."

John nodded in relief, glad the eating habits weren't a trait of all those from the Pegasus galaxy. "So you left your universe…on some save the world mission?" When the man didn't confirm or deny this, John surmised with biting resentment to his words, "And I'm guessing you can't do a return trip. Can't get back to your Sheppard, so what, I'm supposed to be a cheap knock off wing man for you to hit the bars with?!" Crap but now he hated two Sheppards in two different universes for setting the bar so impossibly high and out of his reach. 'And just think, a day ago I didn't know there were other me's in other universes to make me look even more of loser than I already know I am."

Ronon felt gut punched at John's rejection, at his insight, shamed at his own desire for maybe just what this John had said: a "cheap knock off" of his best friend. He wanted to strike out, hit something…someone. "My Sheppard's dead," he growled, got up and left the medical wing but faltered against the wall when he was out of sight. Wanted to go and ached to stay, didn't want to let this John out of his sight and yet…now it hurt…seeing him, wanting….what this John couldn't give him. This was a John Sheppard but it wasn't his best friend…maybe this John would never even allow him to be his friend. He had been so caught up in what he wanted…it never occurred to him that this John would out right reject him, his offer of friendship. Crap he had never had to earn his John's friendship, had been given it freely, even undeservedly.

'So I earn it this time. Don't give up until I get it. Don't let him give up on me…or himself,' he vowed and he wouldn't fail, not this John, not like he had his own.

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TBC

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Thanks for reading and for those so cherished words of encouragement some of you have sent to me!

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.