Thank you so much for all your comments. I was away yesterday, literally underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Imagine my pleasure today, returning to the office and reading through all your notes!
Here's the next chapter.
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John struggled to wakefulness, his head an agony. The room, wherever he was, felt small. It was dark. There were either no windows, or it was nighttime.
He heard something scrape across the floor. His heart rate moved from sluggish to jackhammer fast in an instant. Someone was there with him. He tried to sit but fell back, nausea roiling.
The person must have realised that he was awake, because he started speaking. "I'm not sure what do with you." John heard fabric rustling as the man shifted. "I'd wanted keep a few of you for use as bargaining chips, but ending up with only a blind man - probably not worth much to your people."
Now John did manage to sit. He pushed back slightly until his back impacted a damp wall. He leaned against it, feeling woozy.
"I can tell you weren't always blind."
John didn't speak. He recognised the voice now. It was the man from McKay's lab.
The person shifted again, getting closer. John could feel hot breath in his face. "You were a soldier before." It was a statement rather than a question. The man kicked his foot. "Not much of a soldier now, are you?"
There was a huff and the person pushed away. A door opened in a rush of light, then shut, leaving John alone in the dark.
x-x
John paced the length of the room. It was a good twelve strides square and completely lacking in furnishings, and he could move about freely so long as he kept himself away from the hole in one corner of the floor. His nose usually notified him of its presence well before he reached it.
They kept the room dark, and it was quiet. Not entirely lacking in sound, though - there was the occasional rustle as some local creepy crawly made its way along a wall. Other noises, too, which he preferred not to think about. And the smell - that was a bit overpowering. The hole in the corner was there for obvious purposes, and it had been well-used even prior to his time in the cell.
This was his first time in real darkness. It was always light in Atlantis - he just hadn't realised it before now. The lights of the city reflected on the water, even at night, casting their soft glow throughout.
This room was so dark that he couldn't see anything at all. It left him oddly grateful he'd been left with some sight. He couldn't imagine living in complete darkness. He wasn't sure of how he'd deal if he'd been made one of the few blind people who actually saw nothing.
He'd actually been surprised, when he'd first been injured, that he could still see light, even though Carson had described him as "blind". He'd always thought - he supposed he'd assumed - that being blind meant a person saw nothing. But in his case he could see light and dark, even shapes and forms if there was enough contrast. He could actually read a bit if the contrast was high enough, the text large enough, the thing he was reading close to his face, and he tilted his head just so. But he was functionally blind. Not enough vision left to be a soldier. Certainly not enough to be a pilot.
Reaching a wall, he lowered himself to the floor, not caring as the damp seeped through his clothing. The man who'd been in the room when he'd first woken here - that man had never returned. The only person who ever came now was some random flunky who opened the door in a flash of light, shoved food in, and took away the old tray. Otherwise, John spent his time in silence and darkness. It gave him lots of time to think. He'd learnt this was not necessarily a good thing.
"John?"
Oh, crap, John thought, his head snapping up. Here we go again. He started humming, then singing an old lullaby, anything to fill the cell with noise because he was sure he didn't want to hear whatever he was hearing.
He didn't know if these were auditory hallucinations or real, or some sort of blending of dream and reality. He'd been hearing voices calling his name, starting him out of sleep. Shufflings in the dark. They were getting stronger and coming more often. If this were Buffy, he'd worry about vampires and ghosts, but it was not. This was not a T.V. show. This was Antarti...
No, wait. No it wasn't. He rubbed a rough hand across his eyes. Right. Not Earth. Not Atlantis, either. He was...somewhere else.
How long it been? He'd lost track of the days, here in the dark.
He cocked his head. There was something... Right. Crawling to the wall, he let his hand trace the bottom edge until he found the door. Moving two feet to the left, and there - yes. Scratches he'd made in greasy dirt on the floor along the edge of the room, one mark for each day. On hands and knees, with very gentle fingers so as not to wipe them out, he counted. One two three... Good fucking Christ. Twelve. Twelve days he'd been here, alone, the only voice he'd heard his own, the only things he saw when they opened the door once a day to feed him. No wonder he was going a bit nuts.
Or he thought it was twelve days. He actually had no idea of when he'd last added a notch. Was today the thirteenth day? Or even longer? Hell, he wasn't even sure he was counting a "day" right.
No matter, it was the best he had. He made another scrape, then crawled away so he wouldn't disturb his make-shift calendar.
If it really had been thirteen days, that placed it at...October twenty-third. Almost Halloween. He used to love that holiday as a kid. Ghosts and goblins, spooky crap. Monster movies.
"John?"
This kind of spooky, though - spooky of the "imaginary disembodied voice" kind - he could do without.
"John?"
John sat heavily, clenched his hands in fists, and refused to answer.
"John?"
"What?" John finally spat in reply. Of all the voices he had to choose from, his subconscious had to pick Rodney McKay. He was going well and truly nuts. Certifiable.
"Found a way out of here yet?" McKay asked from directly beside him.
"No," John said, drawling out the syllable in that way he knew Rodney hated.
"Why not?"
"I don't even know who these people are -
Rodney spoke on top of him. "You should really get off your ass and do some -
"Which part of 'I'm blind and trapped in a locked cell' is confusing to you?" John shouted.
McKay shut up, or disappeared, or whatever at that point. Just as well.
John took a slow, shaky breath. As he exhaled, he purposefully relaxed his shoulders. These hallucinations were freaking him out. He wasn't sure if they were from the sensory deprivation or…
The door creaked open in a flash of light, and he heard a tray being kicked through the opening. The door shut again.
Drugs in the food. God, he was slow. Of course they were drugging his food. Why the hell not? Keep him complacent, unable to find his way out of a paper bag. The voices were probably just an unintended side-effect.
Standing, he grabbed the tray and shoved the food down the hole in the floor, flinging the tray back toward the door. He started pacing. Twelve steps to one wall, then a slow circuit of the room, his fingers tracing the rough, damp stone as he moved. Twelve steps, twelve, twelve. He reached his hands up and could just brush the ceiling with his fingertips. They came away slimy, so he wiped them on his pants.
The food probably was drugged. If he wanted to get out of here, he couldn't eat it.
"Not that getting out of here is really a possibility," said a voice from beside him.
John paused his walk and turned slowly toward the voice.
"You have no idea where you are," McKay who was not-McKay said. "You're locked in a room. You don't know where the gate is. And you're blind."
John could actually see the man in his head, counting each point off on his fingers. "Nice to see you too, McKay."
"Lovely to be here." Rodney sniffed. "Nice place."
"Sorry," John answered, thinking about the smell. "Not much in the way of facilities."
"Suppose not. So, how are you planning to get out?"
John smiled into the darkness. "Aren't you usually the one with the brilliant ideas?"
"Well, you know I'm not really here, right?" The man almost sounded apologetic.
"Yeah," John replied softly. "I know that." Then he forced a hint of joviality into his tone. "You never call me 'John'. Not in real life."
Rodney paused. "I don't?"
John shrugged, sank to the floor and leaned back against the wall. When Rodney settled beside him, he murmured, "Why the hell are you here?"
"Me?" Rodney answered. "I don't know. You're the one who conjured me up."
"I think this is a side effect of the drugs," John said. Pulling his legs up, he draped his arms across his knees and let his chin rest there. "Or I really am going nuts."
"Because I don't call you 'John'?"
"Yeah," John answered vaguely before he snapped to the present and realised just what Rodney had said. "No," he added hastily. "I don't know."
"Maybe you were hoping, if you projected me onto you, you could figure your way out of this?"
John shrugged noncommittally.
"Or maybe you just needed someone to talk to."
"So I picked you?" John asked in surprise, turning to face Rodney.
John could almost hear Rodney's answering shrug.
John decided to risk a question that had been bugging him for a while. "Why were you so concerned in the first place?"
"What?" Rodney answered. "You're the one - "
"No, not now," John said quickly. "Earlier. Back on Atlantis."
"Ah. Right."
When Rodney didn't say anything else, John added, "It seems unlike you."
"Why? 'Cause I'm an uncaring bastard?"
"Honestly?" John gave a twisted smile. "Sometimes, yeah."
"Gee, thanks," Rodney answered, clearly sounding put-out.
John let the silence rest between them.
After a few minutes, Rodney's voice came quietly from beside him. "Maybe I recognised the signs."
"Oh," John said. There was nothing else he could say. Almost numb, he wondered just what signals he'd been sending - letting others know things he didn't even really know himself. And Rodney - God, how had he, of all people, picked up on that? There must have been some time in the man's past when...
"Oh," John said again. Now he got it. Someone Rodney knew had been sending signals. Rodney had missed them. He'd missed them, and... Jesus.
He tilted his head down and rubbed the back of his neck. "Rodney?" He finally said. God, he was tired.
"Hmm?" came the response.
"Thanks."
"Go to sleep,"
John nodded and let his thoughts drift.
x-x
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