Chapter Eleven
John didn't get to go golfing.
He lived in the middle of the desert, and the one weekend in months that John was both free and able to hit the green, the sky decided to open up and leave the grounds muddy and unusable. It was probably just as well, he thought as he took a seat at the table set in the back of the bar. His encounter with VerTech's mystery patient had left him with more than a few bruises. It would've wreaked havoc on his average trying to compensate for the soreness.
"You look overjoyed to be here," Carson noted as he took a seat next to John. "Something wrong?"
"No." He had to resist rolling his shoulders to try and relieve the tension that had crept up since the fight. "Just the lousy weather, I guess."
Carson pursed his lips, tossing a look to the window where it was still lightly showering. "Not exactly great weather for your vehicle of choice."
"I got a ride," John hitched his thumb towards the entrance. "Paranoid Peter is trying to find the parking spot furthest from the door."
"Rodney hates sports. How'd you manage to convince him to come along?"
"Guilt." John sat back, lacing his hands behind his head as he watched the Cardinals take the field up on the big screen behind the bar.
"Guilt?" Carson grimaced. "Please don't tell me you two are at it again."
John tried to school his face, really hoping he wasn't that transparent. Yes, he was still annoyed that Rodney was holding back on him. John didn't like being lied to, but he also wasn't going to force the issue. If Rodney needed his help, all he had to do was ask, otherwise John would mind his own business.
Like the man said, John wasn't his big brother.
"Oh, god, you are," Carson moaned, and too late John realized he hadn't been schooling his expression well enough. "You're worse than a pair of grade schoolers!"
"We're not fighting," John insisted quickly as the third member of their trio ducked into the bar, looking wet, disgruntled, and put out. "You can ask him yourself."
"No way, I'm staying out of this." Carson shot him a look. "I'm here to watch the game, not mediate petty squabbles between two grown men."
It wasn't petty, but John didn't say that aloud. Instead he simply made room for the irritated scientist as he took his seat.
"I want both of you to know that every one of us has a perfectly functioning television at home," Rodney groused as he ran a hand through his short cut, knocking several stray droplets out of his hair and onto John who brushed them back onto their original owner. Rodney shot the pilot an annoyed glower. "What exactly is the point of having to drive here?"
John bit back on the automatic response of "to make you whine and cry", especially since Carson was giving him a measuring look. So instead he stretched out, purposefully thrusting an elbow into McKay's personal space. It was none-too-gently shoved out of the way.
"It's not as fun to watch it alone." Carson looked like he was barely checking the urge to roll his eyes. "Although, I reserve the right to retract that statement at any point tonight."
"What is he on about?" Rodney grumbled, finally managing to get comfortable.
"Nothing," John insisted. "Oh, look, the game's on."
The none-too-subtle hint was taken, and the attention shifted to the game rather than the dark cloud hovering over the table.
McKay didn't exactly get into the spirit of the evening, but he didn't offer as much scathing commentary on the game as John had expected. He, however, did not refrain from offering his enlightened opinion on the pitcher of brew they had chosen for the night. "This stuff is disgusting."
John confiscated his mug. "Good thing you're designated driver tonight."
"Hey..."
"Need to put those new glasses to the test."
"They're just temporary. I have a very rare prescription that's very hard to track down."
"Exactly where did you order the things from? Timbuktu?"
"None of your business," Rodney snapped.
"It doesn't matter anyway because it's your turn to do all the driving."
"Exactly who was sitting in the driver's seat during your medically enforced carpool? Oh, wait... that's right, it was me."
"That's because your choice of music would put me into a coma before we even got out of the apartment complex."
"It's not my fault you have the listening tastes of an—"
"Oh, for crying out loud!" Carson snapped. "Enough! Both of you!"
They both fell silent as the third member of their trio pinned them with an irate stare. The angry doctor vein hadn't made an appearance yet, but John was sure that it might pop out soon if he was provoked much further.
"I don't know what it is this time, but I don't care."
"I have no idea—" Rodney started, but stopped upon having the glare directed at him. "Okay, maybe I do."
"Is it too much to ask you two to act your age, even if you're squabbling about who knows what?" Carson took a large swig of his beer. "My flight is out Monday morning, and I'd prefer to have an enjoyable evening with my friends rather than playing referee."
"You're leaving?"
"I'm heading back home for Christmas." Carson's tone suggested his world-class patience was severely tested. "You might remember that if your nose wasn't always buried in a notebook or some scientific journal."
Rodney's jaw flapped silently, as if he were unable to come up with a coherent reply. John might have felt sorry for him, but it was true. Trying to get McKay to pay attention during a conversation he wasn't interested in was like pulling teeth: painful and best conducted under anesthesia.
"It's the end of December already?" Rodney looked amazed. "How did that happen?"
"It generally comes after November," John muttered into his beer.
"Thank you, Mr. Calendar, I would have never figured that out on my own."
"Any plans?" Carson interrupted quickly, shooting John a warning look.
He sat back with a huff, trying to hide his annoyance behind his mug of beer. It wasn't like John was trying to be an ass; it just sort of came out naturally, especially when McKay was acting like one himself. He watched with half-interest as a cycle of almost undecipherable emotions flickered across the scientist's face. Something told John that Scrooge had planned on working late into Christmas Eve.
"I'm too busy to have any sort of 'plans'—"
A buzzing in his pocket saved John from having to hear the tired old monologue about sacrificing anything resembling a personal life in the name of science for the umpteenth time. Grateful for the reprieve, he snapped his phone open without even checking the caller ID. "Sheppard."
"John?" The voice sounded older, more haggard and tired than John remembered, but the deep boom that had echoed through the halls of his childhood home was unmistakable.
The years fell away and suddenly John was a teenager again, feeling vulnerable and exposed like he had been caught sneaking out again. "Dad?"
Carson and Rodney had fallen silent, both of them eyeing John closer than he would have liked. Not even bothering to wait for Rodney to get out of the way, John started to slide out of the booth. The scientist seemed to give deference to the subdued mood, and let him try to seek some privacy.
"What are you... is something wrong?"
"Your brother tells me you won't visit unless I called... so I'm calling."
Later, John would come to the realization that he would have to give his old man some credit. His timing was impeccable, ambushing John into a conversation that probably would have taken several more months to happen naturally. He wasn't even sure what was said, just that a few minutes later he took his seat back at the table, both looking and feeling shell-shocked.
"What's wrong?" The concern in Rodney's eyes and the sudden switch from his irritated demeanor might have surprised John if he hadn't just been bushwhacked via cell phone.
"I'm, uh, going home for Christmas it seems."
"Home? Isn't this your home?" Rodney asked peevishly.
John didn't know actually where that mythical place was. He hadn't thought it was back in Virginia with a life he had abandoned long ago. Of course, he had left that life for a career that never really gave him a chance to settle anywhere permanently. And now he didn't even have that career. He'd been a vagabond for almost his entire adult life by a choice that didn't even matter anymore.
Rodney was looking at him expectantly, and John opted to take a large swig of beer before correcting his previous answer. "My family's home, I mean."
"You have a family? Ow!" The scientist rubbed his shin and shot a venomous look across the table at Carson. "What the hell was that for?"
"You have the sensitivity of a tree stump," the Scot returned, before turning to John. "So, you're going to visit your folks?"
"Yeah." Although for the life of him, John couldn't figure out how the hell that had happened. He had been trained to be able to withstand torture, but a short conversation with his father had been able to break his resolve faster than Rodney could put his foot in his mouth.
"Isn't that a good thing?"
"I don't know?" John tried not to grimace. That hadn't meant to come out as a question.
"How the hell can you not know?" Rodney didn't seem very sympathetic to the shocked state any longer. If John gave it more than a few seconds' thought, he probably preferred it that way.
"Lot of history there," was the explanation John decided to settle with, and to his relief, was accepted by his two companions. "Guess you're on your own here for the holidays, Scrooge."
"Honestly, I expected better out of you than a Charles Dickens insult. Where's the creativity? Furthermore, as I was explaining to Scotty here before you took your phone call, I don't do holidays."
"They just do you?"
"What? No—wait a second..."
There was no better way of trying to regain his mental equilibrium than by throwing McKay for a loop. As Rodney was still trying to decipher the meaning of John's comeback (there was none, take that, genius), John chose to refill his mug. He needed a lot more beer if he was going to have a chance at keeping introspection at arm's distance for the rest of the night.
Rodney continued to sputter, trying to regain the upper hand in the conversation as John sipped on his beer, trying desperately not to think about family, drifting, and the definition of home.
With the exception of the sick day called in on his behalf, Rodney hadn't taken any time off since he started at Vertrauen. It wasn't that he was saving up his vacation time for something spectacular, mostly because he didn't plan on working at this place any longer than necessary. Still, if he was going to use some of his personal time to take Sheppard to the airport for his impromptu Christmas visit, the least the man could do was not disappear into thin air when it was time to leave.
Grumbling to himself, Rodney slinked out of the pilot's office, eyes unconsciously drifting up to the nearly hidden recess where the blast door was stowed. The gray metal almost seamlessly blended in with the rest of the doorframe. He still hadn't figured out why they had these in the R&D wing, and Rodney was still waiting on his replacement glasses from Lorne before he could take any pictures.
No proof of anything still, just another weird assorted fact to file away. It was like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle without the full picture for reference, and every now and then someone might hand you a corner piece from a completely different puzzle—just to screw with you.
Of course, this wasn't finding him Sheppard, so he dragged himself down the hall, muttering curses and searching his pocket for his cell phone. After this, he was done granting favors. No more rides to the bar because it was raining, no more grabbing extra muffins from Starbucks since he was going there anyway, and definitely no more airport shuttle service.
He finally managed to free his phone by the time he reached the doorway separating R&D from the rest of the building. Cursing his phone, his sticky pockets, and chronically lazy pretty boy pilots, Rodney dialed up his wayward passenger.
He didn't wait for a standard greeting, as soon as the line connected he was off. "Where the hell are you? You have to be at the airport in thirty minutes!"
"First off, hi."
"You're late!"
"Secondly, like I said before, I don't need to be there three hours before hand," Sheppard explained patiently.
"I'm not driving all the way back there to pick you up after you miss your flight because you can't grasp the concept of timeliness!"
"Third, turn around."
"What?" Rodney spun around to see Sheppard waving at him, what looked like a ratty gym bag slung over his shoulder. Instead of jumping out of his skin, Rodney ended the call with a savage push of his thumb to the end button. "Okay, are you invisible or something? How did you do that?"
"I'm sneaky."
"And where the hell were you? I checked everywhere."
"We were supposed to meet in your office."
"We were?"
"That's what you said." Sheppard adjusted the bag on his shoulder, and craned his neck as something caught his eye. "You ever wonder about that thing?"
"What thing?" Rodney grumbled, trying to stow away his cell phone.
Sheppard strode past him instead of answering; taking a right turn instead of heading straight through the doors that would lead to the parking lot and the Honda-made chariot waiting to take him to the tarmac. Still struggling to wrangle the phone into his stupid, malformed pockets, Rodney could only waddle after him.
"What are you doing?"
Sheppard casually shifted the bag on his shoulder as he eyed the ridiculously large and imposing door. "You know, I walk by this thing every morning."
"And?"
"And I've worked here almost nine months and I've never seen anyone walk through it."
"Maybe that's because it's locked up tighter than Fort Knox." Rodney eyed the languidly blinking green light on the hand scan panel, its slow pulsing light eerily highlighting the "Authorized Personnel Only" sign above it.
"Why is that?"
"Nine months here, and you decide to ask that right now? When you have a plane to catch?"
"My flight is in four hours."
"And lines are long this time of year!" Rodney hummed nervously. "And you're rounding up! It's only three-and-half when you think about the traffic and that I haven't eaten lunch—"
"Ever since last week, it's just caught my eye that much more." Sheppard was ignoring him. For a door. Granted, a very mysterious and strangely alluring door with colorful lights and biometric sensors and locks, but a door nonetheless. One that was not capable of taking his ungrateful hide to the airport.
"That's because you hit your head during the fight. Now, can we go?"
"What do you think is past it?"
"I don't know," Rodney stressed, "but we're now down to three hours and forty-three minutes."
"Maybe it leads to stairs."
"What? Seriously, why do you care?"
"Because that guy came from this direction," Sheppard shrugged the bag off his shoulder as he approached the door like a starving man sizing up his first meal in days, "and Marrick did say he was part of whatever they've got going on 'Downstairs'."
"Three hours and forty-two minutes; and I really don't think you should be doing that."
"Relax. I'm just looking."
"And making us late!"
"We have plenty of time," Sheppard shrugged and leaned in close to eye the hand sensor. "Too bad it's not a regular lock, otherwise I could pick it."
"Excuse me, Dick Tracy, but did you not notice the sign? The one that says you're not authorized to even be contemplating contents behind that door?"
Rodney could not believe him. Could seriously not believe that he was pushing this, right now of all times, when they had places to be. Oh, and when the walls were listening, but Rodney couldn't mention that part aloud because playing ignorant was the only way he was ever going to get out of this mess. Of course, it was easier to feign ignorance when certain people weren't trying to stir up trouble with their not-so-innocent questions.
"Where's your sense of adventure, McKay?"
"Running to the airport, because it knows that the airlines don't believe in 'leave no man behind'."
"We'll get going in a second. I just want a closer look."
Seeing as how the pilot was actually running a hand up and down the door, Rodney had no earthly clue how much closer Sheppard could get and not physically merge with the door. The hairs on the back of Rodney's neck pricked, and he looked over his shoulder with the distinct feeling of being watched. The hallway was empty, though.
"Look," he snapped, "I didn't take the afternoon off so you could fondle a stupid door."
"Aren't you curious?"
"No! I don't like to get curious about things that people have under such tight guard. It only leads to frustration, and by the way? Time stamp: three hours and thirty-nine minutes."
"What's your problem?" Sheppard shoved away from the door and tossed Rodney a disgruntled look. "Please tell me this isn't about Marrick."
"No, this is about not upsetting the apple cart." As there was more than a hint of truth in that, Rodney felt confident in meeting Sheppard's gaze head on. "Can we please just go?"
Rodney's skin was practically crawling with the sensation of being watched, and he couldn't help but lick his lips nervously as he tried not to shift nervously. With an aggrieved sigh Sheppard scooped up his bag.
"Fine, let's go."
"Thank you," he muttered, altogether too grateful to slip out of the tiny hallway and back into the normal corridors.
Neither men had noticed the camera that was hidden behind a plate of glass in the ceiling above the door, or that it tracked their movements until they were out of line of sight.