Disclaimer: I don't not own Stargate Atlantis or any of it's characters. Do you THINK I would be here if I did?! So I do not in any way shape or form own any of the plot or the characters. They belong to whoever owns 'em. I just took the general idea for a test jaunt. So, don't sue me...not that it would be beneficial, as I am a poor university student, yadda yadda yadda.
Authors Note: Please read and review. I am excited to see what you all think. I am open to comments, advice, and constructive criticism. I want to thank all my reviews for following this story thus far. Expect one or two more chapters and then I am going to wrap it up, this story is almost at a close.
Those Were Not His Hands
Chapter Eight – Twisting Blue and White Spirals in an Alien Sky
He played the video exactly eighteen more times, and by the final three he knew the words off by heart. He knew the moment of every pause and stutter, every hesitant movement or gesture. But yet despite this he still played the clip over and over again, watching and listening until he wasn't exactly sure why, but he did it regardless..The truth being that he didn't want to stop.
And while regret and guilt battled for dominance in his unsettled gullet, there was now a small glimmer, a warmth that heated his veins once again. Maybe it was relief? Relief to know that in some small way his feelings had been returned? Maybe it was love...He didn't know, but at the moment the feeling that was warming him, bringing life back into his cold fingers, and traveling upwards to spark in his arms and chest was enough. It was enough for this moment, a moment that was irrevocably, and totally his own.
Later he knew there were be despair and regret, the cursing of missed time and the chance for something more...but not now. For now he remembered the man, a man with an ego to match the numerous degrees and PHD's he held, and a man that secretly had a heart to match them both. He remembered Rodney Mckay.
It was many hours later, coming on 0300 before he finally moved from his desk chair, taking his exhausted eyes off the screen he paused the video as Rodney was in mid-word, his expressive hands caught risen in mid-movement, the sight so familiar that he couldn't help up smile. There had been times in the past where he had sworn that the man could mime out an entire opera if given half the chance.
Wincing slightly as his back cracked, he stumbled awkwardly to his feet, briskly rubbing life back into his tingling legs, shaking and stretching the kinks out of his body that had formed from sitting still for too long.
He crossed to his bathroom and took care of his nightly absolutions, finally feeling for the first time since he had stepped back on Atlantis, that it was actually possible for him to sleep once again. Finishing scrubbing at his face he threw the face cloth back on the rack, slipping out of his shirt he left the sweats on as he slumped into bed, deliberately leaving his laptop open so that even from his bed, he could still see Rodney's slightly blurred figure. A moment caught in time, a gift Rodney had given him.
Diving slowly into bed, he rustled around, twisting in his sheets, his brain and body tired, but his eyes still drifted open...refusing to completely close. So he watched the shadows, his eyes following the darkness as it slithered across the ceiling, making every nook, every corner turn sinister and dangerous. It had even claimed the desk chair, distorting and morphing the shape in the near light, with the only light in the room being that from his laptop, the brightness of Mckay's tan and blue science uniform lightening the surrounding space. But even it was unable to pierce the darkness that lurked in the room's farthest corners, the kind of darkness that unconsciously made one reach for the light switch, or call for a parent... But then again..he had never really been afraid of the dark.
The utter darkness was banished when his mind recalled all those uncountable times he and Rodney had been stuck in the dark together..on Atlantis, on an mission.. The Canadian had always pressed in close in those moments, or maybe it was he that had made sure he had always been close to him? Now that he thought on it he couldn't tell..
Either way, each time his senses had been hyper-aware of the scientist at every turn, detecting the motion of his warm breath against his neck, recognizing the subtle scent of the man, his strong presence at his side, even the sound that his callous-roughened fingers had made on his template or against the trigger of his P-90. Sometimes, despite the pitch blackness he would have bet his last pay check that he could even call the mans facial expression!
Besides...how could he fear the dark when Rodney had always been there? Always right beside him? Rodney might have feared the dark, or whatever might have lurked unseen within it, but he had never let that stop him. Never.
Sometime Later..
He knew he must have finally drifted off, because his mind eventually dreamed. He dreamt of twin spirals of sapphire blue and pristine white that exploded upwards, lighting up the overcast sky. But instead of the reddish-gray Obasan sky, the spirals stretched up into the Atlantian sky, the sheer power of the blast engulfing the world in a echoing roar of sound, making the city herself flicker and glint with an impressive ice-blue tinge as the spiralling lightening flashed, over-exposing the entire city in light.
He didn't understand it...Yet his brain scrambled for answers, sending him running from balcony to balcony in the dream, eyes frantically searching for something...anything...But what?!
His dreams were jagged, colliding with each other and pelting his unconscious mind with a piece-meal shrapnel of thoughts and images. But it wasn't till later that he dreamt of him...of Mckay.
His first dream of Rodney was of the husk. He watched as the shell reached out for him, leaning out of the half-unwrapped shroud. His dry, cracking mouth moved soundlessly, forming silent words...mime silent pleads as the burnt portion of his face glowed an angry ember-red, pulsing as his charred black fist clenched at empty air before it finally fell, slumping nerveless off the slide of the gurney, dieing uncomforted and so bleakly alone that it hurt to watch.
Then the dream changed, and he watched as Rodney died, watching as he threw himself at him as the fiery plume enveloped him time after time. Again and again..as if someone was rewinding a tape to play the same scene over and over..
He watched the scene as a observer to his own memories, audience to the memory of Rodney and himself from that moment as it replayed again and again in front of him, never changing. The outcome all ways the same. Always.
The dream morphed and changed again, as another Rodney, a dream-Rodney, appeared by his side, his arms crossed over his BDU tac-vest, a smirk on his lips and a smile in his eyes. "You always were self-condemning type weren't you Sheppard?" He commented idly, his face twisting in a sympathetically wince as he watched the moment where the other Rodney threw himself at him, sending them both airborne as the Canadian's pained scream echoed across the geyser field.
"You know there was nothing you could have done. Really. I made my choice. I chose that." The image remarked, his arm whipping out to point at the scene before them, his form rippling as the gaseous flumes wavered thickly through the air.
"Now that's not to say that this would be my ideal way to go..." He said with a smirk. "But hey, look at you, your still here. And that was the whole point." He pointed out, his face taking on a childishly pleased look, the kind that was usually reserved for winning one of their remote controlled car races, or discovering the secret to some mysterious piece of ancient technology.
He didn't know what to say to that...in fact he wasn't sure if he could even bring himself to speak...half-afraid that if he opened his mouth the dream would end, and he would be back in his room..alone. Back to a reality where McKay was lying down in the morgue..alone and unmoving.
So they stayed in companionable silence for a time, watching as the scene in front of them played out a number of times..each man caught in their own thoughts. He took the moment to study the man out of the corner of his eye. He was very Rodney, the image of the man that had stepped out of the wormhole and onto Atlantis with him nearly 4 years ago now. In fact he was half-surprised not to see him decked out in orange fleece...this was his dream after all!
Suddenly however, the scientist's face furrowed with worry, his mouth twisting as he whipped around to face him, his hand beginning to move erratically as his worry grew. "Wait...why are you still here John? I am not really here...But you still are...Why are you still here? You shouldn't be here. You left, everyone left...But your still here." The man questioned sharply, his eyes growing dark with confusion, his mouth opening to say more, only to have his words drowned out as the real Rodney's pained scream once again echoed all around them. He scrambled to move, to speak...to do anything, but he was only an observer to his own memories, trapped inside a moment he could not change. And as suddenly and as silently as the image had arrived, it flickered out and died a moment before the dream it self went dark, and he was submerged into a blessedly dreamless form of sleep.