A/N: Big thanks, as always, to my beta LadyRiesling. You remain my pillar!
This piece was written to fill the "Tortured for Information" square on my Bad Things Happen Bingo Card. The request was for the fic to center around Rodney McKay. Being a hard core ShepWhump fan, I had to throw in a little John whump for good measure. I hope my requester does not mind. Also, this is my first shot at McShep. And while it doesn't feature heavily here, I hope what I did include works.
The Kulber-Ross model theorizes that there are five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and then finally, Acceptance. In high school Rodney McKay wrote a paper on the model, attempting to disprove it. He'd done it as a kind of joke. A bit of a fuck you to his pretentious psychology teacher. The soft sciences, after all, were just that to him: a joke, and hardly worth his time.
It's not until the third round of torture, when blood is dripping from his chin and he knows he's screaming loud enough to be heard by John, who's still back in the small cell they've been sharing for going on two days now, that he realizes perhaps there is more to this Kulber-Ross model than meets the eye. And that perhaps it has further applications than just grief. Which is just as abstract an idea to him as that whole empathy thing people are always accusing him of not having. When something stabs into his arm, right through the bones of his wrist and into the chair arm beneath it and he makes some inhuman noise he's never heard himself make before, and reality splinters into a million pieces for a moment and he finds some quiet place between the shards to think for a moment, a theory starts to form.
I. Denial
The first thing that happens when their party walks through the gate, is an ambush. The blue of the event horizon dissolves, he recoporializes, and suddenly there's a gun in his face. A real crude one, too. Like someone had scavenged several different technologies from several different planets and soldered it all together into a rather dangerous looking mash-up of P90 and slingshot. It was Rodney and John and a handful of scientists, and not even their mission. The planet was deemed uninhabited. Rodney was there to check out some rock formations the scans had picked up that may or may not have been ancient ruins. John was there to... well Rodney wasn't really sure why he had tagged along. He was bored? Needed a break from the mounds of paperwork he was preparing for the next scheduled data burst to Earth? Whatever the reason, he was there, too. Not that Rodney really minded. He only pretended to despise Sheppard. He actually found the man quite fascinating. Like a science project. Especially now that they were apparently sorta dating.
But back to the gun. It's in his face and before Rodney can even protest, the butt of said gun is slamming into the side of his head. He crumples, stinging remarks about their welcoming party's lack of decorum dying on his lips before he can even set them free. He loses track of everything until it all finally knits back together sometime later and he discovers he's tied to a chair.
It reminds him of a scene from one of those horror movies his sister used to make him watch when they were kids. Dirty, crumbling walls. Water trickling down from huge brown stains in the ceiling and eroding the plaster and forming canyons in the walls. Each trench sporting its own little ecosystem of mold and tree roots. There's one solitary light bulb swinging slightly from its wire above his head and only one way in or out of the room: an ominous looking metal door with a place to slide a food tray through that looks to be made more of rust than of metal. There's a slit of a window, too, but it's high up and appears to be covered up from the outside. It is, truly, worthy of B movie horror flick status and just happens to contain all of Rodney McKay's worst nightmares. So. Many. Germs.
His skin is crawling even as their captors throw back the bolts on the door and enter the room. They want the usual information: Where is he from? How did they find this place? How did they get the ring of the ancients to activate? The same ignorance from the same locals Rodney has faced since the day he arrived in Pegasus with a bigger brain and more toys.
He is a compliant guest. Even though he has questions of his own - like how in the hell did these people avoid detection when they scanned every inch of this planet - and is more than willing to give them all the answers they want. It's just that… they don't believe him and that's when the first blow lands. It's not a love tap. It's vicious and knocks all the air out of Rodney's lungs in a rush. His eyes water as he wheezes it all back in again. He doesn't understand. He gave them what they wanted. He answered all their questions. And yet they still hit him.
This can't be happening, he decides. It must be a dream, he convinces himself. Any moment now he's going to wake up and find himself asleep in his bed. Or maybe Sheppard's bed, because they're apparently doing that now. Yes. Civilized people don't go around beating up other civilized people who have just given them all the answers to the questions they asked. So it all just has to be a dream.
II. Anger
"I answered all of your questions, oof!"
They like hitting him in the face the most. They're not all that muscular, so it doesn't cause as much damage as one might think, but it still hurts. The blows across his face still draw blood and snap his head back, and send his teeth cutting into his cheek. If he were John, he might have thought to spit a mouthful of that blood defiantly at his captors feet. But he is not John, soldier extraordinaire, protector of men. No, he is Rodney McKay. A coward. The kind of person people like Sheppard are sent in to protect. Someone who avoids pain at all costs. He's trying to avoid pain at all costs now, but they just won't listen to him.
"Oh my god, what do you people want!?" he screams after a particularly nasty blow to the jaw that makes him see stars. "I told you everything you wanted to know! What do you want me to do? Write it in blood?" Another blow, this one near the eye, and Rodney can feel the exact moment the skin splits and the blood starts sliding down his face. "You're morons! Ignoramuses. My sister's pet rock was smarter than you bunch!" The next fist breaks something in his face. "Do you even have any idea who I am? The kind of people who are going to come after you for treating me this way? I demand you let me go. I want my phone call. You just can't do this to people!"
He's normally so good with words. Normally, they drip from his mouth as easily as the blood is dripping now. Some people mold clay. Rodney molds words, insults really. And he's always been good with them. Not with the people he's speaking them to, per se, but he sure as hell knows how to use his words against them. How to manipulate them in just such a way that they pack the ultimate punch, cause as much damage as one Sheppard's fists, if not more. Sometimes they are so sharp they even draw blood, reduce high school psychology teachers to tears. They are a weapon. His weapon. His only defense against a world he could never possibly hope to win against in a physical altercation. Don't these people know who they're dealing with? Who he is? How important he is?
They don't, and they make that point very clear with their fists. Relentless fists that drive his head back again and again until all he sees are those stars. Until something shakes loose and he forgets where he is for a moment and retreats into blackness to fume at the injustice of it all. At the unfairness.
III. Bargaining
"Seriously, call Samantha Carter, she'll straighten all this out…" They're going to inject something into his arm. It's been two days of this, and now they've apparently resorted to drugs. He's only seen John once since all this started, when they threw him back into that cell and John gathered him up in his arms and promised him that everything was going to be ok. That he and the other scientists were working on a plan to get them all out of this. Rodney fell asleep like that, his last fleeting thought about how John looked perfectly fine and how it was entirely unfair that he was the one being tortured for information and not their fearless leader.
The needle was hardly sanitary. It came in on a dirty tray, covered with an even dirtier cloth and his captors seemed entirely too pleased with that fact. They've stopped asking questions and Rodney doesn't know what to make of that.
"You really don't want to do this. I can get you anything you want. Just call Samantha Carter, the woman I told you about earlier. She can get you anything you want. She can confirm everything I told you is true. We come from the Ancient City of Atlantis. We're a peaceful people just looking to trade! We can be partners! Buddies! I can give you creams to clear up those… conditions of yours. We can give you tech that will change your life! You've just gotta let us go!"
There are three men in the room at all times. One behind him, one beating the ever loving crap out of him, and one standing in the corner with his arms crossed, trying to look important, asking the occasional question. They are dressed similarly, which suggests some sort of military or, hell, maybe something as asinine as a secret torture club. But social structure would suggest intelligence. And these men anything but intelligent. They don't ask the right questions and beat him when he tries to suggest the ones they maybe should. So he amends his previous conclusions and hypothesizes that they are a rogue group either on the run or marooned on this planet for a reason. Based on their obsessive questions about reactivating the gate, he's leaning more towards the latter.
"Please don't. Please?" he begs, squirming against his bonds that are chafing his wrists so badly, they're nearly bleeding. He's not above begging. Stoicism is the province of people like Sheppard. Rodney knows the kind of man he is and has made a sort of peace with it. "Please don't do this. I've told you everything I know. It's the truth. Just please call my people."
It doesn't work. Their apparent leader approaches with the needle. He pulls a mad scientist cliche moment and squirts a bit of liquid out the top as he sneers. Rodney leans as far to the side as he can manage, but it's no use.
"Stop," he says weakly. "I'm allergic." The needle slides into his skin and Rodney has to look away. His stomach churns as tears leak from the sides of his eyes, stinging the open gashes on his face. He can feel the hepatitis flooding his bloodstream. The terminal illnesses burrowing into his tissues and taking root, multiplying exponentially even as he sits there. He's going to die in this fetid place before he can even win the Nobel Prize.
IV. Depression
When they're finally done with him, Rodney can't even walk. They drag him back to his cell by the armpits and throw him in like a pile of rags. He hits the ground hard, possessing neither the energy nor the muscle strength to alter his trajectory or momentum. Lucky for him, soft hands are there to catch him.
"Rodney? Buddy? Oh god. Can you hear me?" He's rolled over, ever so gently. He has no assistance to offer and so just goes with it until his head is pillowed on something soft and warm and no one makes him move any more. Pain hides just below the the heavy layer of drugs surrounding him. Like a predator hiding in a fog, stalking him, just waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. And the perfect moment is coming. He can feel it. It will arrive sooner than he can ever imagine. The attack will come and he will be taken down by the pain of countless blows to the face and stomach. Bruises will throb, internal injuries will make themselves known. He will be overwhelmed, devoured. And he will have no defense against it. His words will be useless then.
There are other things in the fog. Hands, for one - big ones that feel familiar - on his face, and in his hair, running over his limbs with a clinical yet concerned efficiency. When the hands are apparently convinced he has no urgent injuries they still and come to rest on his cheeks.
"McKay?" Sheppard's crackling voice washes over him, penetrating the fog. He's safe. He's out of that room. He's in the arms of someone who… likes him enough at the moment to sleep with him. Someone who can get him out of this mess. The only other person in Pegasus Rodney wants to be with at the moment.
"I answered all their questions," he says a little slurred, cracking his eyes open, taking some comfort in the fact that they stay open. Sheppard's own perfect eyes meet his, a little red rimmed perhaps, but still perfect.
"I know you did, buddy," Sheppard replies, even though Rodney knows that's a lie. John wasn't in that room. He didn't get strapped to a chair and tortured for unimportant information Rodney had no problem giving up.
"Questions. They had so many questions. And I answered them. They were easy," he lets out his breath along with the tears the drugs have seemingly conjured. "But they didn't believe me. They didn't listen. Fists, needles… Why are they doing this to me, John?"
Sheppard's eyes get misty. "It's going to be alright, Rodney. Atlantis knows where we are. We missed check in and they're already looking for us. This will all be over soon." Sheppard runs trembling fingers across Rodney's brow and then down the side of his face. It's intimate and soft and Rodney closes his eyes at the sensation.
"Even I didn't know these people were here," he says tiredly. "If I couldn't even find them, then how will Atlantis?"
What if no one is coming? What if this is the end? These things he leaves unsaid.
The drugs are so heavy. They dampen everything. His senses, his ability to move. He wants to press closer into John but he just can't get his body to do it. He settles instead on opening his eyes and looking up into the face of his new lover. What a strange thought. What a strange word. He is Sheppard's lover. And Sheppard is his. They'll call each other that in conversations with other people going forward. Except… there will be no going forward. This is it and there's nothing either one of them can do about it. Their love affair is over. And it ends in a dirty cell with no windows before it even has a chance to get started.
"I think," he says without thinking, "... I think I could have loved you."
He's not sure where the words come from. There is more to his life than just Sheppard. Things he wants to do and accomplish before the end. But instead of lamenting the accolades that will never be, this is his deathbed confession. That missing out on a chance to love a soldier with hair that he's pretty sure is scientifically impossible, is the one thing he is going to regret the most. He says it and it's out there, and there's no pulling it back in now.
Sheppard's eyebrows chase up after his hairline. He doesn't seem to know what to do with this new information and that doesn't bother Rodney all that much. It was wrong of him to say. All of this is so wrong.
"I'm going to die here, aren't I, John?"
"Not if I can help it, buddy."
Rodney closes his eyes. Goes back over the events of the day, and strangely, thinks of old Mrs. Verbinski and the day he made her cry. How he stood in front of the class and began his presentation as expected. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It's funny, but he's pretty sure he just went through all of that within the past three days. All of them except one. Is this grief that he's feeling? Grief over the loss of the life he will no longer be able to live? Of the things he's left undone and the people he has yet to meet? Of the things he'll never have, or even know that he wanted to have? Was old Mrs. Verbinski and her stupid model right?
V. Acceptance
"Rodney, I need you to open your eyes."
He forces them to. But it's hard.
"Ok. Just checking."
They fall closed again. John doesn't say anything about it. It's day four. They gave up torturing him a few hours ago and now he's back in the cells again with his head in John's lap. There is a new hole in his arm where they stabbed him, a torn piece of John's t-shirt wrapped around it and already soaked in blood. He started shivering about an hour ago and hasn't been able to stop. He's pretty sure he's been taking to himself too, because John as taken to stroking his forehead and humming some soft, tuneless melody that is somehow impossibly comforting.
"Sam is close," John promises between refrains. "You just have to hold on a little bit longer, Rodney. Help is on the way."
He has been holding on. Or at least has been trying to. His body burns with fever and he can't even remember the last time he had a sip of water or ate something. His lips are dry and the cuts there have long since stopped bleeding. He may not have much faith in modern medicine, but even he knows enough to understand that none of these things are good.
And he's ok with it. He's lived a good life. One that some might even call impossible, and who else in the world can claim that? He's in another galaxy. Has dined with alien races and the dignitaries of alien worlds. He has said the wrong things and gotten in and out of scrapes and gone on wild adventures most men could only dream of. He's destroyed whole solar systems and been loved in spite of it. He's made mistakes and made history, changed the course of science. It's been a full life, a rich life, at least to his standards. Well, the standards he set and retconned into his life's canon about thirty seconds ago. That half a minute ago when the black spots started showing up every time he managed to get his one working eye open. When the pain actually started going away and he stopped being able to pull the proper amounts of oxygen into his lungs to stay lucid. When John finally linked their hands together, pressed his thumb strategically to the pulse point in his wrist, and started asking him to open his eyes every few minutes. And he still hasn't let go.
But it would be ok to die like this. With the man he loves. Even if it's far from home and in less than desirable conditions. It's ok. He can rest. Everything is going to be just fine, just like John said.
There is a very real moment when he thinks the Atlantis infirmary is heaven. It's a weird sort of moment, until he remembers that he doesn't believe in heaven and gets a hold of himself. Rodney McKay is a rational human being. And knows the difference between alive and dead, and this is very much alive.
The bed sheets are scratchy and Jennifer has put him in that one pattern of gown she knows, for a fact, that he detests. He's also hooked up to IVs and oxygen and everything itches, like some incompetent nurse scrubbed him down with a citrus based body wash. He's going to have words with someone about the state of things, but that is going to have to wait because there is a particularly amused looking John Sheppard currently staring at him from a chair beside his bed.
"What?" he snaps irritably, not missing the fact that Sheppard looks like absolute crap.
"Only you would come out of a coma as grumpy as you went into it," John chuckles, seemingly impervious to Rodney's mood.
"They tortured me. I think I have a right." He searches around his space for something to drink. There's a jug of water and a cup on a table beside his bed. He shoots Sheppard a look and he passes it over. "And besides, you don't get an opinion on the subject. From the looks of it, they didn't touch a hair on top of that perfectly coiffed mop of yours." His arm is in a sling. He hadn't noticed that before. It's going to make pouring a glass of water impossible. He stares at the jug in his good hand for a moment. Sheppard takes pity on him and takes it back, filling a styrofoam cup with water and putting it Rodney's hand, all without saying a word. Rodney drinks and it's delicious.
"Well, you might as well spill it," he says when the cup has been returned to the bedside table and he feels a bit more human. "Regale me with the incredible tale of our miraculous rescue." He's not really sure why he's being an ass. Maybe it's because he's pain free for the first time in days, thanks to drugs - the right drugs this time. Maybe it's because he doesn't know what to do with the things he knows transpired between the two of them while they were held captive. Or his lingering resentment at Sheppard for not throwing himself at the mercy of the guards on Rodney's behalf and begging them to torture him instead. For not convincing them he was the one they really wanted. For not protecting him. And he's in too altered of a state to make sense of any of it. So he settles into default mode: surly with a side order of self importance.
"They found some kind of Ancient lab with shields that didn't show up on our sensors. That's where they were keeping us. Lorne and his team searched for us for days and only found the place by sheer luck. One of his guys stepped in a hole and found the entrance. They showed up a little while after you passed out… the last time."
"And we were saved," Rodney finishes for him.
"And we were saved," Sheppard repeats with a hint of sadness in his voice. So maybe Rodney isn't the only one unsettled about how things went down.
He sighs. "Is anyone else hurt?"
"Few cases of malnourishment and dehydration, but other than that, everyone's alive."
"Well that's lucky," Rodney says, and the words come out a lot sharper than he intends. Sheppard visually flinches but keeps taking.
"You're going to be ok. They broke your arm and that bone around your eye in a few places. You're going to be really sore for a while but you hung on. I don't know what I would have done if they…" he stops here and like an idiot, Rodney bulldozes over the moment, too lost in painkillers and not too distant memories to think about what Sheppard is really trying to say to him.
"Why me? Why did they choose me to torture?" He glances down at his splinted arm. At least both of his eyes are able to open now, though he can feel the cuts and bruises on his face every time he speaks. Even the painkillers can't touch that
"I don't know Rodney," John replies as he continues his inventory. "Maybe they thought it would…"
"I mean," Rodney interrupts, "isn't that your job? Aren't you the one they're supposed to go after? Or at least the one trained to distract them from torturing the most vulnerable of the people you've been sent in to protect?" He knows his words are awful, but they're all he has. His only defense against the confusion swirling around in his brain.
"I did everything I could to get them to stop, Rodney. But they knew. They knew exactly what buttons to push." Sheppard shifts on his chair, pulling at the sleeves of the jacket he's wearing. All it does is rile up Rodney even more.
"Look, Sheppard, I'm tired. I just came out of a coma, or whatever. Why don't we talk about this a little later when I'm feeling a bit stronger?"
Sheppard stares at him for a moment, those red-rimmed eyes of his doing something that sets guilt to stirring in Rodney's heart, though he has no idea what he has to be guilty about. They've just been through hell. The people he thought he could count on most inevitably failed him and, well, this is just how he is, dammit. And if John can't accept him for who he is, what in the hell are they even doing?
"Ok, Rodney," Sheppard eventually says, his eyes back to baseline bemused indifference. Like Rodney is just some thing he hasn't quite figured out just yet. "I'll send Jennifer in and then come and see you again tomorrow. I'm really glad you're ok You had me really worried." He reaches out a hand and touches Rodney's leg, just below his knee. The heat of the contact feels like its burning his skin. Like John is saying so much more with the gesture then just a simple wish for a speedy recovery. But all Rodney can manage to rustle up is his best version of a grunted goodbye as he watches Sheppard walk away. He blows past the nurses' station, not even bothering to stop and let them know Rodney is awake like he promised, and then is gone from his sight completely.
Rodney settles into his scratchy sheets and adds them to the growing list of the things he and Jennifer are going to discuss regarding his stay here. Item number one, the visitors allowed at his bedside while he's unconscious and her virulent lack of taste when it comes to hospital gowns. His list of demands only offers a temporary reprieve, however, as his thoughts slip back to Sheppard. It was sweet, really, that he was here when Rodney woke up. It might have just been out of guilt, but at least it was a nice gesture. And one they could maybe use to rebuild this thing between them.
"Oh great. You're awake." A gruff voice greets him, and Rodney looks up to see Ronon approaching the foot of his bed. The massive Seteden almost looks pleased.
"God, was I really that far gone?"
Ronan shrugs and scrapes John's recently vacated chair over to where he's standing and swivels it around until the back is facing Rodney. He plops down into it the wrong way and folds his arms around the back. "They didn't tell you?"
"I got a run down from Sheppard, but I'm still waiting for Jennifer. Apparently coming out of a coma isn't a very big deal around here!" He finishes his sentence at a yell. It earns him a glare from the nurse manning the station. But it also prompts her to pick up a coms device and start talking into it.
"You saw Sheppard?"
"Well, yeah. He was here when I woke up but I was pretty out of it so I just told him to go." It's a lie. Ronon probably knows its a lie, but Rodney could care less.
"And they just let him?" Ronan asks, almost sounding like he's surprised by this news.
"Well of course they let him leave. Obviously I'm going to survive this. And I'm sure he has other things to do. What I'd like to know is why you and Teyla weren't here when I woke up. I mean, I thought we were friends," he says petulantly. Ronan ignores him.
"He made it seem like they were going to keep him for at least a few days for observation."
"For what?" Rodney asks, nearly rolling his eyes before remembering that his optical bone is fractured. "Dehydration? I don't see anyone else from our mission in here getting treated for that. And it's not like he was the one who got brutally tortured."
Ronan just stares at him, something unreadable there behind his eyes. Rodney has never been able to read Ronan and this time is no different. It's exasperating.
"What?" Rodney asks, after several rather awkward minutes of silence where Ronan just waits there, like he expects Rodney to come to some big revelation all on his own. But he's tired and the pain meds are starting to wear off and he really doesn't have the patience for games at the moment. But Ronon offers no explanation for his odd behavior, just rises from his chair with a growl and stalks out of the infirmary, nearly bowling over Jennifer Keller as she finally arrives. She looks mad and stalks over to Rodney's bed and he's just about to read her the riot act when she unexpectedly beats him to it.
"Where is he?" She demands, her face red.
"Who?"
"Colonel Sheppard. I left him in a chair right here with explicit instructions not to move and his solemn oath that he wouldn't." She points to the empty space where John's chair used to be.
"He left. Your real patient, however, is right here."
"Just… hold on a minute, Rodney," she says, surprising the hell out of him when she holds up a finger to silence him, spins on her heels and heads back to the nurses' station to start whisper yelling at the girl there. Rodney is speechless. This is never how it goes when Sheppard ends up in the infirmary. There are always people around, bedside vigils, nervous hovering and well-wishers waiting around for news. Worrying, fussing. He has none of that. No one even seems to be interested in the fact that he's awake. And where in the hell is Teyla?
"I'm sorry, Rodney," Jennifer says when she returns to his side a few minutes later. Nurse girl has been sent away and they're alone in the infirmary. Jennifer puts a hand on his arm and her features soften. She's back in doctor mode. "How are you feeling?"
"Confused," he answers honestly. Entirely done with this entire situation and ready to let someone know about it.
"I know. Colonel Sheppard wasn't supposed to leave the infirmary," she replies, looking up to check his monitor and fiddle with his IV a bit. "In fact, he promised me he wouldn't. And, well..." she gestures to the empty beds behind her and Rodney is once again reminded that he is apparently the only one who seems to not know what in the hell is going on.
"Any pain?" she shines a pen light in both his eyes and then grabs for the one arm of his that isn't in a sling, seemingly forgetting that even that one is covered in bandages. Thwarted in what he suspects is her search for a place to take his pulse, she gives up looks to his monitor instead. "Your due for another round of pain meds in about an hour. They really did a number on your poor face. Only one cracked tooth, though, so that's good. You're really lucky, Rodney. Really, really lucky. You had some internal bleeding, but that resolved without the need for surgery, thank goodness. This could have been so much worse. For the both of you."
"Yeah, I'm sure Sheppard's dehydration was a real bitch to treat," Rodney says tightly, the pains in his face and arm making themselves known as Jennifer continues her prodding. He's grateful to know that pain meds will be waiting before it gets really bad.
"Oh, he wasn't in here for dehydration," Jennifer says absently, attention focused on the tablet in her hands which probably holds his chart.
"Then what else would he be in here for?"
Jennifer's head snaps up at that and if Rodney wasn't so ready to just check out and be done with this entire mess, it might have perturbed him.
"You don't..." She starts to ask, then stops, realization spreading across her face. "You don't know."
Rodney wants to throw something. To grab the jug of water on the table beside his bed and chuck it across the room. Jennifer is oblivious as she turns Ronan's backwards chair around and sits down. "And he probably didn't explain it to you either, did he?" she finishes with a slight shake of her head.
"Tell me what?" Rodney all but growls.
Jennifer looks conflicted for a moment. Like she's reluctant to tell him anything. Rodney understands what's going through her head. Jennifer has always been an easy one to read.
"Oh come on, since when have we ever paid attention to doctor/patient confidentiality around here? And besides, if someone doesn't tell me what in the hell is wrong with Sheppard, I am going to disconnect my IV and go find out for myself. And I don't care how many of your crazy nurses or Sheppard's little minions I have to take out to do it."
"Honestly, Rodney, calm down. You couldn't walk out of here even if you wanted to," she laughs, but her words sting.
Rodney has always been good at death stares. He's been getting his way for most of his life with them and not even Jennifer is impervious.
"Rodney, I'm serious. Calm down. You suffered a terrible trauma and your body and mind need time to rest and to heal. Don't worry about the Colonel. He's going to be just fine. His wrists will heal and whatever cocktail of drugs they used on him is already working its way out of his system. I was just keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn't have another seizure or that no other side effects to whatever it was they gave him showed up. He's also pretty broken up over what he had to watch them do to you, so you can imagine that we're all a little worried about him.
"But I'm sorry, Rodney. That was no reason for me to act like that when I got here. I was on my way back from the debrief on what happened to you guys out there when I got the call that you were awake. It threw me off my game."
Jennifer finishes her speech and Rodney doesn't know what to say. He's been operating under the delusion that he was the only victim here. That everyone he depended on failed him. Classic Rodney. Always assuming the world revolves around him. Always ready to condem everyone else, even when he doesn't have all the facts and is too stupid to even realize it.
Realization dawns cold and cruel. Its icy fingers freeze his blood and send shivers down his spine. They tortured John, too. They forced him to watch while they did it to Rodney, too. And maybe even others. He's not sure how they pulled it off, but it's possible. Hidden cameras. A secret two-way mirror. The ancients usually covered all their bases when it came to their research facilities. That's what that place felt like. A place where things happened in another time but whose energies were still lingering, like the echoes of screams in the hallways of buildings long since abandoned. It would make sense that there were cameras.
The scientist in Rodney examines the facts: the state of Sheppard when he woke up a few minutes ago, his red eyes like he'd been crying, the jacket he was wearing. Then there was the tightness in his voice when he spoke to Rodney in the cell…
"I answered all their questions."
"I know you did buddy."
"Why me? Why did they choose me to torture?"
"I don't know Rodney. Maybe they thought it would…"
"I mean," Rodney interrupts, "isn't that your job? Aren't you the one they're supposed to go after? Or at least the one trained to distract them from torturing the most vulnerable of the people you've been sent in to protect?"
"I did everything I could to get them to stop, Rodney. But they knew. They knew exactly what buttons to push."
"...Oh god."
"What is it? Are you ok? Are you in pain again?" Jennifer asks when his heart rate monitor gives an errant squawk. He shakes his head and waves her off when she starts retrieving a syringe from the pocket of her lab coat.
"I'm ok. I just need to speak to him. Now"
"That might be… difficult."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, no one is really sure where he is at the moment."
It turns out that John's version of his injuries was not quite so accurate. His arm and his eye socket are fractured, but he hadn't been in a coma. That was a symptom entirely fabricated by John. Though the fracture in his arm and the wound in his leg had become infected during their captivity and he had gone into shock and lapsed into unconsciousness because of it. John had also failed to mention that Teyla had been the one to discover them and that Rodney was not the only one they'd found unconscious. John was too, after reacting badly to some of the drugs their captors had used on them. He'd had two seizures since, another fact he failed to mention.
Said captors are currently waiting it out down in cold storage, their identities and purposes on the planet still a mystery. As is the details of their demise. Official records will say that they were unfortunately taken out in the resulting fire fight when the attempt was made to rescue Dr. Rodney McKay and Colonel John Sheppard (and various other unnamed personnel) from the perpetrators. The marines on Lorne's team all have a different story to tell. About how those three men never stood a chance, especially now after Lorne and Teyla came across their little torture room and the cells where everyone was being held. Rodney doesn't care which version is correct, he's just happy it's over.
Well that's not entirely true. He was tortured. He gave his torturers the information they asked for and when they didn't believe it was true, they kept on torturing him. For someone who deals in absolutes, in infallible constants, events like these are not easy to forget. They are earth shattering, axis shifting, and it is going to take Rodney a very long time to heal from this.
And then there is the matter of Sheppard. Member of the armed forces Sheppard ignoring the direct orders of his superiors to answer the hail already before he's stripped of his rank and brought up on charges and sent back to earth. All empty threats of course. John Sheppard is the best thing to ever happen to this place and everyone knows it. But to a man like Sheppard these are the worst threats one can make. So the silence on the other end of the coms link is disquieting.
Teyla sits with him while the rest of Atlantis searches as if in penance for her earlier absence, even though Rodney has already forgiven her seeing as how she was in the same debrief as Jennifer.
Neither of them speaks, which is a first for Rodney. Normally he'd be chattering away incessantly, filling up the scary empty spaces with words because that's just always better than the alternative. The truth can't sneak in if he doesn't let it get a word in edgewise. But this time is different. This time he's too lost in barely masked pain and guilt over how he acted, and worry over Sheppard, to hold an actual conversation. He isn't even complaining to Teyla about the horrid conditions in the infirmary. And they are horrid. The medications make him fuzzy, steal time from him, or just plain trick him into falling asleep even when he doesn't want to. He's sometimes hot and sometimes cold and his sheets are constantly twisted as he tries to right then with his bad arm. So his finger lives on the call button. And he knows he's driving everyone mad. He's driving himself mad, but he can't help it. Annoying people is a coping mechanism. He communicates in barked demands now. It's the only language he knows.
The hours pass without word, and each of them feels like an eternity. Teyla remains by his side, a sentry station of sorts, humming away in an attempt to calm them both, that same out-of-tune melody Sheppard used in the cells. Every so often she touches him on his good arm, like she's making sure he remembers that he's here and that he's safe and that she'll make sure he's never alone again. At least not until he asks to be, or the memories of what he went through eventually fade. He flinches every time she does it. Not because he's averse to her touch, but because he needs it. Because Teyla's intuitions are right. Sometimes he forgets. Sometimes he just needs to be reminded.
Rodney has just managed to doze off when something finally happens. Only he's become so attuned to his surroundings, to every facet of every molecule in this place, that he's awake again before Teyla can even get out of her chair. Ronon and Lorne are under each of John's arms, helping to keep him up on his feet, while Jennifer flits around them like a nervous bird. Rodney tries to sit up farther in bed, but his injuries restrict his movements and his Nurse Ratchet for the evening has deactivated the automatic controls on his bed after an unfortunate incident involving some juice earlier in the day. He has half a mind to tear out his IVs and go see for himself, something he knows will cause an incredible mess and get him into even more trouble with the infirmary staff, but John saves him the trouble. There's a heated debate amongst the people at the door that Rodney he can't hear and then all of a sudden Jennifer is throwing up her hands and Lorne and Ronon and helping John walk over towards Rodney's bed. Behind them, a bewildered looking orderly wheels an unused gurney back into the store rooms behind the nurse's main area.
When Lorne and Ronon help John into the chair, he looks pale. There's sweat on his brow and he looks about as bad as Rodney feels. But it's not going to save him. Rodney has a heart, and John now holds a special place in that heart, it's just not that big of a heart at the moment.
"Where in the hell have you been?"
John's cheeks color a little, and with his already pale face, it's very noticeable. Rodney's mind flits to another time when John colored like that. When he was the one who put that color there, high in his cheeks, right after he had, well he could think back on that moment later. Now was a time for yelling.
"I passed out on the East Dock," John admits, looking down at his boots. "Didn't have my coms in so I didn't know anyone was looking for me."
"Lucky for you that Ronon came by when he did," Teyla says with a hint of admonishment in her voice. It's more kindness than John deserves at the moment - nothing about any of this is okay - but Rodney lets it lie.
"Passed out as in you fell asleep? Or passed out as in you had a seizure on the dock you were hiding out on, on account of the fact that you got tortured yesterday, too?" Rodney asks and everyone seems to get the hint that maybe this would be a good time to leave. Ronon starts backing away first. Lorne follows suit, but only after the Seteden grabs him by the arm and pulls him along. Everyone exits the infirmary except Teyla, who walks with Jennifer over to the nurse's station and engages her in conversation. Rodney doesn't know what they talk about. He doesn't care. Teyla is making sure that he and Sheppard get the time they need to work all this out before she lets Jennifer swoop in and do her doctor thing.
"I didn't fall asleep," John says pointedly and Rodney is suddenly very tired. The weight of the past few days and his worry over John comes crashing down on top of him and he finds he doesn't have the strength or endurance to be mad. He lets every preconceived notion, every pledge he held in his head about what he was going to do to John for scaring the shit out of him like that, roll off his shoulders like water and when it's done, he feels a bit lighter. It's hardly a solution and hardly the end of it all, but it's something.
"Show me," is all he says, inclining his head towards John's sleeve-concealed wrists. Sheppard only looks reluctant for a moment, then pulls them up with fingers that shake and can barely grip the fabric. Each of his wrists are covered in the same white bandages as Rodney's, only blood is clearly visible on John's. Rodney can only imagine the damage concealed by them. He couldn't look at his own when the afternoon nurse changed his. He has no point of reference and so his hypochondriacal brain supplies all manner of gruesome theories. "And why did you have a seizure?"
"Because something in the drugs they gave me is affecting my nervous system. It just kind of… keeps on happening. Jennifer's trying to sort it out."
"And so you just came to the natural conclusion that it would be a good idea to leave the infirmary after we talked, instead of staying here under observation..." he says more than asks.
John is finally at a loss for words and spends a great deal of time seemingly trying to formulate a response. He starts, then stops, several times, opening his mouth each time before closing it again. Eventually he just sighs and collapses back into his chair, his hands coming up to cover his face. He's pulled his sleeves back down over his wrists, but the tops of the bandages still peak out. How lucky he is to be able to conceal everything that has happened to him while all of Rodney's trauma is on full display for anyone to see.
"I figured you wanted your space," John says from behind his hands before running them through his hair and then dropping them. "I couldn't get us out of there. I couldn't even do my job and you almost died because of it. I figured the last thing in the world that you wanted to see my ugly mug and that if I hung around it was just going to remind you of what they did to you. Of what I did to you. So I left."
"Well, you were right." John goes even paler so Rodney continues on quickly. "I did feel like that at first. I was disoriented and in pain. But then someone finally did me the courtesy of telling me exactly what happened and now I understand. All day I've been getting the details about what happened from other people. Now I want to hear it from you."
John's eyes fall to his boots again. Rodney would love to know what's so interesting about them. "Tell me what they did to you, John."
"You don't want to hear it, Rodney," he says, his voice cracking ever so slightly. "And besides, it's nothing compared to what you went through. You were right to be mad. It was my job to keep you guys safe. And I failed. Miserably." John looks up at Rodney then. Reaches out a hand like he wants to touch the side of Rodney's face, but then lets it fall back down into his lap again.
"I tried everything to get them to focus on me instead. But they knew. They could tell right away that torturing you was the best way to get to me. You were their target for about 15 minutes before they realized who they really needed to go after. And I let something slip. Maybe it was when they put me in the room with all the monitors for the first time. They had a camera pointed at every single one of you. And I treated it like I would any other hostage negotiation I've ever been a part of, but I must have slipped. I must have somehow let them see that you were special to me somehow, that you meant more to me than the others… and that was the end of it. Nothing else I tried after that made them stop. Everything that happened to you? It was all my fault."
Rodney watches John's mouth as he speaks, wishing this were an entirely different time and place. One where he had the strength to just sit up in bed, grab the sides of John's face and kiss him. Prove with his lips what he's going to have to try and prove in what he can tell are going to be countless conversations about this going forward. But he can't do that and can only hope that what he says next can get the job done.
"You know what I thought about in that place before we were rescued? What the last thing I remember was?"
John shakes his head. His eyes have gone wide and Rodney is suddenly terrified of screwing this up.
"Thinking about you. About how everything was going to be ok because you were there with me. I wasn't thinking about the Nobel Prize I was never going to win or the work I was never going to finish or get recognized for. It was you. And I'm sorry John Sheppard, but no amount of impossible situations you have no control over are ever going to change my mind about that. I hope you're ready for this soldier boy, because I am yours. Hook, line, and sinker. Or whatever it is the kids are saying these days." He throws that last line in for good measure and suspects he may see one corner of John's mouth quirk up. "Now please, let Jennifer look you over before she has an aneurysm and murders Teyla."
As is often the case, healing comes slowly. Rodney writes Mrs. Verbinski a letter during his long hours in the infirmary, apologizing to her for making her cry all those years ago and telling her that he finally found a practical application for her beloved model, and one that he tried and tested himself. He both hopes and doesn't hope that she remembers who he is, though he supposes most everyone remembers the people who have made them cry. Or maybe she's passed away and the letter won't reach her at all, just confuse one of her surviving relatives. He thinks about looking her up, but in the end is too scared to Google her name.
John recovers first, in body at least. The replacement they sent in for Kate Heightmeyer does a pretty good job, though no one will ever replace Katie. Rodney knows for a fact that John goes to see the new one every week, because their appointments are back to back. John is going as Rodney arrives. He has nothing against psychologists anymore.
They acknowledge each other with nods most of the time, just to be on the safe side. It's never clear what the American military's stance on being gay is from one day to another. But John always finds a way to touch him as they pass. Mostly on the arm. The same place where Teyla used to touch him, back in his infirmary days when the memories were always so close. They've eased a bit. He can close his eyes now and not be transported back to that place. Mostly when John's around, but on his own most of the time now too. John must have seen Teyla doing it and when he tried it too and Rodney didn't deck him, it just kind of became their thing. Rodney doesn't mind. It means he is safe. It means he is loved. It means he will never be alone again, at least until the day he asks to be.
The end.