Chapter 3

Rodney panted where he was kneeling down on the floor in the middle of a room full of bodies. Blood steadily pooled around Teyla, Ronon and Sheppard, but none of the weapon's fire had hit him. He was unsure whether to be grateful or horrified, or even slightly terrified that he was the only one left now.

He tilted his P90 up at the man coming towards him, but a stun blast came from the shadows and struck him in the chest before he could pull the trigger. He fell backwards with a cut off yelp and landed in a crumpled, limp heap. He was still fully conscious, he just couldn't move.

The man stepped into the light and fear coursed through Rodney like daggers of ice running in his veins.

Michael.

The Wraith hybrid crouched down next to him and pulled out a syringe, he didn't even flinch as he jabbed the painfully wide needle into Rodney's chest so that it stabbed him in the heart. He depressed the plunger and Rodney's body convulsed uncontrollably as fiery pain spread throughout every vein, muscle and internal organ. It was so agonising, he couldn't even get sufficient breath to scream from it.

Michael withdrew the needle, which was so thick that it hadn't even snapped at Rodney's shuddering. He called out to some shadows that had appeared behind him, "Take this one to the experimentation chamber, and strap him to the table ready for me. Dispose of the others."

Rodney fell down into darkness.

"Why do you use the wheelchair, Rodney?"

He stared back at Heightmeyer defiantly and answered, "Because I can't walk and it hurts like hell."

Heightmeyer may be blonde, but he was in no way attracted to her. No siree, absolutely not! What with her harsh analytical exterior, piercing gaze and the lengthy interrogations she enjoyed performing on him. Maybe if she didn't spend every moment they had together questioning his sanity, while trying to trick him into revealing his emotions. Or maybe it was because she got so much glee from probing his mind for information.

"Is that the truth, or just what you believe?"

He narrowed his eyes at her and the light streaming through the blinds in Kate's treatment room cast deep shadows from across his pale features. "Are you calling me a liar?"

"Not at all. I'm just curious because Jennifer has told you that you shouldn't be feeling as much pain as you are, and that your physiotherapy is now at the stage where you should be able to walk with very little trouble."

"So you've been talking about me behind my back? How is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"You know all of these things already, Rodney. I'm hiding nothing from you, so why are you so defensive about it?"

Rodney folded his arms over his chest and glared back at her with his chin lifted, "I'm not being defensive."

"Well then talk to me. Why are you still insistent on using the wheelchair to get around?"

Rodney allowed his arms to drop down and folded his hands in his lap. He looked out of the window as he said, "I don't know why Keller discharged me from the infirmary. I still feel like crap."

"Go on."

He inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly, but noisily. "It's just… well, it does hurt. But at least in the wheelchair, people know that it hurts."

"And that you were tortured?"

Rodney tensed up and grimaced, "Don't use that word."

"Sorry. Perhaps I should say that you were held against your will?"

"That's not really any better."

Kate frowned at him and narrowed her eyes as she studied his face. She said, "So you're still using the chair so that people know you're hurting. But it's not just the physical pain they need to be constantly reminded about is it?"

Rodney sighed, "No. Being in the chair somehow makes it easier not to talk about it."

"So they see you in it… but surely you're more likely to attract attention and pity that way, unless that's what you want?"

"Not really."

"Then why not get rid of the chair and be how you used to be?"

Rodney looked up from his lap where he had been twisting his fingers together and stared right back at her as he said in disbelief with a hint of sarcasm, "An arrogant man who always finds the very best thing about every situation?"

Kate gave him a small smile, "I'm not trying to make you an overnight optimist, Rodney." That would be impossible. "My role in your treatment is to get you back to how you were before it happened, functioning and thinking the same way."

But Rodney knew that getting better and managing to do his work would put him in ever increasing danger. If that happened he would soon be signed off to go through the gate with his team again. He wasn't ready. He didn't ever want to be ready if there was a risk that he could be captured and held hostage again. Tortured to within an inch of his life and nearly losing his sanity from it.

Kate waited a little while longer, but Rodney said nothing. "You can go back to how you were before this happened. And I already know that you have determination and resilience to do so. Stubbornness will be a big help, but you'll still have to follow my instructions."

Rodney's mind felt like no more than many tiny pieces forced apart by the spikes pushed into his body. He couldn't see how it could be put together as it once was. Could he ever be made whole and go back to the brilliant genius he once was? Kate seemed to think so, and she was the one who spouted all the psychobabble as she buried her claws in his head.

Rodney nodded slowly, wondering what mind controlling substances Keller was feeding him to make him suddenly so complacent and able to talk so openly. But then again, maybe he was just fed up with the nightmares and pain and needed to get it all off his chest. He'd reached such a low point that in desperation he was willing to try anything.

Evidently he really needed the help if he felt like that.

Rodney grunted in frustration as he slipped out of John's hands where they stood in the gym. John was helping Rodney through the exercises provided by the physiotherapist, but Rodney seemed to be having a particularly bad day today.

Rodney's legs folded, and as he sunk down to the floor, he cried in despair, "I'm going to be like this forever!"

He shut his eyes and hung his head down, cradling his face in one hand while shielding himself from John by holding his other hand up. "There's no hope, just send me back to Earth and lock me up, there's no other option! I don't deserve all this attention. I don't deserve anything. I shouldn't even be alive."

John crouched down and grabbed Rodney's shoulders and held onto him tightly. "What the hell, McKay?! Why would you think stuff like that?"

"Because it's true!"

Rodney lay on the bed in his quarters and stared up at the ceiling. It was early evening and the sky outside had now blackened to full darkness.

He'd done as Heightmeyer suggested and tried to go without the chair for a few hours. But now his entire belly was nothing more than a pool of fire spreading its agonising tendrils throughout his lower half, down both legs and up into his chest. His legs throbbed in time with the steady heartbeat relentlessly hammering away against his ribs.

Surely if he could walk again, then he can get away from all these annoying people? The ones who keep on assuring him that if they poked and prodded and questioned him enough, he'd be fine, when all he wanted to do was run away from how pathetic he was. But his stupid, useless, betraying body wouldn't let him, at least not without making him curse and spit in bitter pain.

He muttered angrily at the ceiling, "Hop out that chair, McKay. You'll feel so much better, McKay. Back on your own two feet again."

He glared up at the dark ceiling and gritted his teeth. He couldn't take it any longer and had to go into the bathroom where he promptly threw up.

He washed his mouth out and cleaned himself off before he stumbled back into the main room and collapsed onto the bed again. He shut his eyes, but all that he saw when he closed them was Michael standing over him holding a knife in one hand and a long, thin spike in the other.

Rodney's heart sped up and he opened his eyes, thinking the lights on with his gene. The lights did come on, but not as brightly as he wanted them too. A hazy figure was standing over the bed and Rodney's eyes widened in terror. He called out in fright, "What do you want? Who are you?"

The figure drew his hand up and thumped it down into the soft part of Rodney's midsection, right over the most painful place where his spleen had once been. Rodney cried out in agony and his eyes streamed from the pain. "Wh-who…?"

The figure coalesced into a full Wraith. It was Michael as he had once been before the Lanteans had tried to change him into one of them. He drew back and then brought up both his hands and plunged a spike as thick as Rodney's forearm down into Rodney's stomach. He tensed up briefly as sparks of light danced around the edges of his sight. The pain was intense and sharp and it consumed both his body and his soul in that single brutal stab. Then there was nothing.

Rodney opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling in his quarters. He glanced across at the clock and saw that it was 1am. And he knew then that he would get no more sleep tonight as morbid and painful thoughts chased themselves across the wasteland of his fragmented and traumatised mind. The haunting images fought for his attention as he lay there weak and vulnerable in his exhaustion as they tried to seduce him into thinking of them only, so that he would never think a happy thought ever again.

He tossed and turned, but only succeeded in twisting himself up in the covers, they clung to him and crushed him. Any moments of semi-conscious floating he ever had were soon torn away from him by memories that didn't even feel like his. Of being tortured and of agonising and endless pain and torment while he was tied down and alone while Michael ran spikes or knives or needles into his body, without mercy or an end to the brutality in sight.

He howled and writhed in his half wakeful dreams, never sure if he was asleep or if any of it was real. He screamed as he was cut and stabbed, although he was unsure whether the sound came from his physical body or just his mind. It happened over and over again, until he wasn't sure whether he was human anymore or just an animal being used purely to extract pain and blood in a never ending cycle.

In between the dreams his mind spoke to him in a loop of guilt and depression. Why was I chosen? Why did he take me and hurt me like that? Is it because he chose the weaker one, the one he could get the most reaction and pain from? The one who would cause the most anger from the people of Lantea? But they didn't care about him that much, did they?

Michael had seen it, even if he couldn't.

He lay there for hours, too depressed to move, and with only the surrounding nightmares for company.

Keller's sleeping pills helped to an extent, but it was still like this every night and he could see no end to it. Unless someone could invent a machine to extract all of his memories and emotions so that he would become nothing more than a hollow empty shell to start all over again.

Start all over again…

"Of course!" Rodney sat up in bed and shook off the remnants of the last nightmare. "The ascension machine! If I can get my DNA changed again, I can fix the scars and get rid of the pain. Good as new!"

Rodney pushed the covers back and pulled on his clothes. It was 4am now, so not many people would be about to see him. But the pain was so intense he soon collapsed back down onto the bed and breathed heavily, concentrating on the pulsing throb in his midsection, arms and legs where he had dared to move. He couldn't face getting up again, if ever. It just hurt too much. His long sigh ended in a frustrated growl, but he soon gave up and just lay there doing nothing for hours and hours, the fear of the nightmares returning stealing away his exhaustion and keeping him wide awake.

John eventually swung by at 8am, not bothering to knock. Rodney was still lying on the bed staring up at the ceiling.

"Time to go, McKay," John said, as he pushed the hated wheelchair over and helped Rodney up. "Food, check in with Keller, food, physio, food, off to Heightmeyer for another mental workout. More food. Sounds like an action packed day. Did you notice how much food's scheduled in there? More than the other stuff!"

Rodney groaned and clutched his middle, the pain suddenly so intense and sharp it stole his breath away and he started to shake.

John looked him over intently. "On second thoughts, Keller first today."

"Why are you still using the wheelchair, Rodney?"

"It hurts, I can't walk."

"Is that what Dr Keller and the physiotherapist have said?"

Rodney fiddled with his hands nervously and fell into a pensive silence, only broken by the soft hitch of his breathing.

The scanner tracked along Rodney's body where he lay on the bed in the infirmary. John stood off to one side, holding the handles of the wheelchair, like he was a taxi driver waiting for his fare to return.

Jennifer's smile broadened as the scanner finished tracing its path and a 3D image of Rodney's insides appeared on the screen. She turned to him as he gazed back at her in puzzlement. "Much better today. I should be able to sign you back to light duties soon."

Rodney grimaced, "Why does it still hurt so much then?"

Jennifer furrowed her brow down at him, "Where?"

"All over."

Jennifer frowned, "Well…" She glanced at the screen and pointed at the scan of his upper leg before looking down at him again. "What about your left thigh, does that hurt?"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "No. But that bit didn't have a metal spike driven through it like a pincushion now, did it?"

"No, maybe not, but in that case it doesn't hurt all over does it?" Jennifer smiled at him as though she had just taken not only the biggest, but also the last giant chocolate cupcake right out from under his nose in the mess hall.

Rodney sighed and conceded, "It's worst here," he moved a hand up and placed it directly over his stomach.

Jennifer nodded and studied the scan again, "The surgical incisions made while removing your spleen are almost fully healed. There's nothing there to indicate you should be in as much pain as you are."

Rodney bristled and John sensed a rant coming on, so he let go of the chair and moved closer. But Rodney was too fast for him, "You're just like Heightmeyer! You think I'm lying about it too?"

Jennifer laid a hand on his shoulder placatingly. "Of course not. I'm just trying to find out what's wrong to make it better. On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain?"

"Eleven!"

Jennifer blinked at him and resisted the urge to roll her eyes with great difficultly, but she managed, "How bad, when ten is the worst pain you've ever been in?"

Rodney sighed and relaxed a little, "Maybe a seven?"

"Alright. I'll increase the meds, but I want you to move your next schedule with Dr Heightmeyer forward to this afternoon. I'll pass her all your records."

Rodney frowned, "You think this is all in my head? How could you think that?"

Jennifer furrowed her brow, "If I truly thought you were making it up, then I wouldn't be giving you these, would I Rodney?" she waved a new box of pills and handed them to Sheppard.

Rodney sighed and huffed, "Are we done here?"

Jennifer nodded and John wheeled the chair over. Rodney hefted himself up and grimaced as he stumbled over and then collapsed into the chair in relief.

"So you're in the chair because it still hurts?"

"Yes, I told you already, I can't walk."

"Your physio records and Jennifer's analysis of your scans show otherwise."

Rodney frowned at her in fury. "You've been reading through my medical records?! Who gave you those?"

"I'm your doctor, Rodney. Jennifer is healing you body…"

"And you're rummaging around in my mind?"

"If that's how you see it. But I want to know why you're still in that chair when you're already sufficiently healed and strong enough to walk around."

She suddenly dropped her pen on the floor with a loud clatter, but Rodney didn't move. She quickly retrieved it and made a note on her clipboard.

Rodney eyed her suspiciously. "What're you writing?"

"Just a reminder."

He lifted his chin indignantly, "So that you and Keller can compare notes about me again?!"

"In order to provide you with the best treatment? Yes."

Rodney sighed and looked away from her. His eyes glanced over to the wheelchair itself, sitting nearby like a faceless, looming monster. The wheels shone in the light streaming through the window and it continued to remind him of his ongoing and what he'd now come to think of as a permanent infirmity. But maybe that's what it was. He voiced his thoughts outloud. "It's not just for me. It hurts everywhere all the time. But no-one can see how much."

"And the chair makes them remember?"

"Something like that, yes. Physically it's not so bad anymore after those horse pills Jennifer gave me, but if feels like I'm going around in circles…" he trailed off, afraid of revealing too much and showing weakness.

"It's alright, Rodney. Go on."

Rodney sighed and shut his eyes in anguish. "I have these nightmares. Terrible, horrible nightmares about what happened. At least I think it's what happened, I can't remember anymore and they're all different."

"And you feel that the chair will help those around you to remember that you're hurt and still hurting. A constant reminder to them and yourself to tread carefully?"

"Yes. That's it."

"And how long do you intend to stay in the chair?"

"For as long as it takes."

"And if that's for the rest of your life?"

Rodney leant back in his chair and folded his arms as he said, "So be it."

"And what do you think the people around you think when they see you in the chair?"

Rodney gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes at her. After a few seconds his eyes suddenly widened and he said, "Oh… you think I'm weak and pathetic and not worth bothering with!" He looked away and gestured with his hands as he gabbled, "Everyone's thinking, 'Yep, there goes that Rodney McKay weakling. So pathetic, he broke under torture and never got better!'"

"Is that what you want people to think about you?"

"No. Absolutely not."

"Then leave it behind and walk."

Rodney looked at the chair wistfully and his expression changed into one of realisation.

Kate suppressed a smile as she wrote on her clipboard: Full recovery anticipated in time. Light duties fine.