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sga_flashficChallenge: Search and Seizure
Title: Piecemeal
Author: Brighid
Summary: Rodney is broken.
Rating:R
Pairing: none
Spoilers: Duet
Notes: This has dark themes that may upset some, although not explicitly written. It's an elliptical interpretation of the challenge.
Ownership: Those what made 'em. Not mine, no money.
Piecemeal
by Brighid
Most of what Rodney remembers about Eseron is from what others tell him after. How it has all been going well enough, or so it seemed, until something had caught Rodney's eye and he had stopped, looked through an open doorway, gone in.
Minutes later their escort became their captors and Rodney had been dragged off somewhere else in the Eseronians' warren of interconnected buildings and bunkers that made up the Government Enclave. Teyla said that they had been forced to sit on the floor in a cell for about three hours, until guards had brought Rodney back unconscious. Ronan had carried him out under armed guard, and they made their way back to the Stargate. Murran, their guide, had gravely asked them to leave and never return.
She said it all very gently, her hand touching him only once and then withdrawing when he flinched.
Her eyes were very, very bright.
It was Carson who detailed his injuries, explaining the bruises from multiple injection sites, and the prints of the hands that had obviously, at some point, held him down, as well as the chafing marks from straps across his ribs and wrists and hips and ankles. There were perfectly round burns on his temples, and on the three shaved patches on his skull, as though monitors of some sort had been attached.
Because of the mix of mostly unidentifiable drugs still lingering in his system, Carson insisted that Rodney stay in sickbay under observation until they were all cleared out. Ronan came in on three separate occasions over the next three days and produced contraband food -- a pudding tube, half a chocolate bar, a real apple -- from the depths of his pockets, each time with nothing more than friendly nod before disappearing out again.
John brought him bad SF on a laptop and belittled the science for both of them.
The first day out of sickbay he went to John's quarters and told him he didn't want to go offworld for a little while. That he didn't feel up to it, not yet.
John had stared at him seriously, his gaze too sharp and keen. Rodney forced himself not to look away, even though it felt like John could see right through all the holes in Rodney's head, down into something dark and coiled and nasty. "For now," John agreed finally. "But not forever. I need you out there, Rodney."
Rodney forced himself to nod, to lie. "Of course not, Colonel. I just need a little time. For my hair to grow back, if nothing else," he said.
)0(
There was always something to do in the lab. Rodney found it almost easy to hide there, except that the others scientists treated him like he was made out of glass. Which ... maybe he was. Everything had that distortion to it, that surreality of looking through old windows. His first week back, Miko kept him supplied with hot tea and Zelenka brought him impossible equations like they were bringing flowers to the dying. A week before he would have yelled at them to stop wasting everyone's time, but suddenly it just didn't seem worth the breath. He thought, maybe, the Eseronians took that part of him along with whatever else they'd stolen out his head. He stayed up late in the labs like he had always done, and he got work done, and he avoided his quarters and his team and just tried to exist.
)0(
Two missions passed without him before John cornered him in his lab. "When are you coming back, Rodney? Elizabeth says you're still requesting to stay on Atlantis." John's normally still hands fingered the items on Rodney's bench, moving lightly from one to the next.
"I'm not ready yet," Rodney said truthfully, not looking up from his monitor. That he never would be ready, ever again, went unspoken.
"One more mission, Rodney," John said finally. "You get one more, and then you and I are going to talk this thing out." He pushed the monitor on the laptop down, leaned into Rodney's space just a little. Before it would have been ... natural. Now it made Rodney's mouth dry and cold sweat prickle on his back.
"Talk what out?" Rodney asked, voice utterly flat, but his hands betrayed him, brushing his wrists, tracing the last remnants of bruising. Sheppard's gaze slipped down to the restless motion, and something in his eyes fragmented, broke apart.
"I'm so sorry, Rodney," he said finally. His voice was rougher, softer than normal. Sandpaper on stone. "Jesus. I'm so fucking sorry."
"It wasn't your fault," Rodney replied, reaching out to touch his shoulder, but unable to. He let his hand drop. "I don't blame you." And he didn't. He didn't feel much of anything at all. Something else missing, one more thing stolen. "Really. I don't."
"I blame me," John said after awhile. "One more, Rodney. I'm serious."
"I know you are, Colonel," Rodney nodded. "Now, I have work to get back to." He flipped up the monitor again and pretended to work until he heard the door close behind John, and then he just stared at the screen until it all blurred together.
)0(
There was someone at the door.
Rodney rolled off the bed, stumbled blearily across his quarters. "What?"
Laura Cadman was standing there, hand raised to knock again. She wore sweatpants and a T-shirt with daisies. Her feet were bare and she held her shoes in her other hand, the one not raised. "I wanted to talk to you," she said. "Jesus, McKay. You look like crap."
"Thank-you. Very helpful. You can go now," Rodney said, stepping back, waving the door closed but she stepped in, and it closed with her on the wrong side of it.
"I still want to talk to you," Cadman said stubbornly.
"But I don't want to talk to you," Rodney said, frowning. "I know everyone thinks sharing my body was a bonding experience and all, and I'm sure you have some military insight that you'd like to bring to bear on all this, but really? Thank-you. No."
"I was raped when I was twenty-two," Cadman blurted out, not looking at him.
"Oh," Rodney said. The silence stretched out after that. "I have no response to that, I'm sorry."
Cadman huffed out a dry, humourless laugh. "Most people wouldn't, so that's okay. But I wanted to tell you. I was twenty-two and my younger sister, Sara, talked me into going on one of those wild and crazy weekends, lots of sun and sand and young people behaving badly. It's the only way my parents would let her go. Only, the last night, at one of the local bars, some guy slipped roofies in my drink." She walked over, looked at the pictures on his wall, the doctorates, as though she were making sure that he was everything he said he was.
"I don't really remember much after that, just waking up on the beach without my panties, everything hurting and pretty sick to my stomach. Sara was great, you know? She got me in to a doctor there, made them take samples, reported it to the cops. Got me back home on the first flight out and right into the clinic. I had to take a million tests and got three stitches and was on enough antibiotics I puked for three days straight." She turned back to him, and her pretty pink and white face was red with humiliation, as though she were the one with something to be ashamed of.
"I don't remember what was done to me, I just know it was done, and for a long time I just wanted to ... curl up and die, you know? Because I was fucking Air Force. I was smart and strong and capable and I still ended up like that. I got taken." She looked at him then, right in the eye, challenging him.
"Why are you telling me this?" Rodney said finally, a little lost, but with growing understanding.
"Because I figured out that if I let that asshole take everything else, too, he won. And I wasn't going to give him that. I goddamn refused to give him that, too." She shrugged. "I know you're tougher than all this. I've ridden shotgun with you, you know?" She smiled wanly at him. "And I'm around, if you need to talk, and maybe I'll even understand it, a little. Right?"
"Right," Rodney said. She nodded then, abruptly, and turned back towards the door. "Laura?" She paused, but didn't look back at him. "I'm sorry."
"Me too, Rodney," she said, and then she was gone.
)0(
The door slid open and John was half-asleep and glowering in the doorway, but his expression quickly slid into concern. "Rodney? What's up?" He stood back, making room for Rodney to come in.
Rodney sat down in the room's only chair, and said nothing for a long, long time. "Can we talk?" he asked finally, and he hated the way his voice cracked in the middle. John came over, touched his shoulder briefly, carefully, on a place where there hadn't been any bruises.
"Hell, yeah," he said, and sat down on his bed, and waited patiently until Rodney could begin to find the words.
)0(
End
Title: Piecemeal
Author: Brighid
Summary: Rodney is broken.
Rating:R
Pairing: none
Spoilers: Duet
Notes: This has dark themes that may upset some, although not explicitly written. It's an elliptical interpretation of the challenge.
Ownership: Those what made 'em. Not mine, no money.
Piecemeal
by Brighid
Most of what Rodney remembers about Eseron is from what others tell him after. How it has all been going well enough, or so it seemed, until something had caught Rodney's eye and he had stopped, looked through an open doorway, gone in.
Minutes later their escort became their captors and Rodney had been dragged off somewhere else in the Eseronians' warren of interconnected buildings and bunkers that made up the Government Enclave. Teyla said that they had been forced to sit on the floor in a cell for about three hours, until guards had brought Rodney back unconscious. Ronan had carried him out under armed guard, and they made their way back to the Stargate. Murran, their guide, had gravely asked them to leave and never return.
She said it all very gently, her hand touching him only once and then withdrawing when he flinched.
Her eyes were very, very bright.
It was Carson who detailed his injuries, explaining the bruises from multiple injection sites, and the prints of the hands that had obviously, at some point, held him down, as well as the chafing marks from straps across his ribs and wrists and hips and ankles. There were perfectly round burns on his temples, and on the three shaved patches on his skull, as though monitors of some sort had been attached.
Because of the mix of mostly unidentifiable drugs still lingering in his system, Carson insisted that Rodney stay in sickbay under observation until they were all cleared out. Ronan came in on three separate occasions over the next three days and produced contraband food -- a pudding tube, half a chocolate bar, a real apple -- from the depths of his pockets, each time with nothing more than friendly nod before disappearing out again.
John brought him bad SF on a laptop and belittled the science for both of them.
The first day out of sickbay he went to John's quarters and told him he didn't want to go offworld for a little while. That he didn't feel up to it, not yet.
John had stared at him seriously, his gaze too sharp and keen. Rodney forced himself not to look away, even though it felt like John could see right through all the holes in Rodney's head, down into something dark and coiled and nasty. "For now," John agreed finally. "But not forever. I need you out there, Rodney."
Rodney forced himself to nod, to lie. "Of course not, Colonel. I just need a little time. For my hair to grow back, if nothing else," he said.
)0(
There was always something to do in the lab. Rodney found it almost easy to hide there, except that the others scientists treated him like he was made out of glass. Which ... maybe he was. Everything had that distortion to it, that surreality of looking through old windows. His first week back, Miko kept him supplied with hot tea and Zelenka brought him impossible equations like they were bringing flowers to the dying. A week before he would have yelled at them to stop wasting everyone's time, but suddenly it just didn't seem worth the breath. He thought, maybe, the Eseronians took that part of him along with whatever else they'd stolen out his head. He stayed up late in the labs like he had always done, and he got work done, and he avoided his quarters and his team and just tried to exist.
)0(
Two missions passed without him before John cornered him in his lab. "When are you coming back, Rodney? Elizabeth says you're still requesting to stay on Atlantis." John's normally still hands fingered the items on Rodney's bench, moving lightly from one to the next.
"I'm not ready yet," Rodney said truthfully, not looking up from his monitor. That he never would be ready, ever again, went unspoken.
"One more mission, Rodney," John said finally. "You get one more, and then you and I are going to talk this thing out." He pushed the monitor on the laptop down, leaned into Rodney's space just a little. Before it would have been ... natural. Now it made Rodney's mouth dry and cold sweat prickle on his back.
"Talk what out?" Rodney asked, voice utterly flat, but his hands betrayed him, brushing his wrists, tracing the last remnants of bruising. Sheppard's gaze slipped down to the restless motion, and something in his eyes fragmented, broke apart.
"I'm so sorry, Rodney," he said finally. His voice was rougher, softer than normal. Sandpaper on stone. "Jesus. I'm so fucking sorry."
"It wasn't your fault," Rodney replied, reaching out to touch his shoulder, but unable to. He let his hand drop. "I don't blame you." And he didn't. He didn't feel much of anything at all. Something else missing, one more thing stolen. "Really. I don't."
"I blame me," John said after awhile. "One more, Rodney. I'm serious."
"I know you are, Colonel," Rodney nodded. "Now, I have work to get back to." He flipped up the monitor again and pretended to work until he heard the door close behind John, and then he just stared at the screen until it all blurred together.
)0(
There was someone at the door.
Rodney rolled off the bed, stumbled blearily across his quarters. "What?"
Laura Cadman was standing there, hand raised to knock again. She wore sweatpants and a T-shirt with daisies. Her feet were bare and she held her shoes in her other hand, the one not raised. "I wanted to talk to you," she said. "Jesus, McKay. You look like crap."
"Thank-you. Very helpful. You can go now," Rodney said, stepping back, waving the door closed but she stepped in, and it closed with her on the wrong side of it.
"I still want to talk to you," Cadman said stubbornly.
"But I don't want to talk to you," Rodney said, frowning. "I know everyone thinks sharing my body was a bonding experience and all, and I'm sure you have some military insight that you'd like to bring to bear on all this, but really? Thank-you. No."
"I was raped when I was twenty-two," Cadman blurted out, not looking at him.
"Oh," Rodney said. The silence stretched out after that. "I have no response to that, I'm sorry."
Cadman huffed out a dry, humourless laugh. "Most people wouldn't, so that's okay. But I wanted to tell you. I was twenty-two and my younger sister, Sara, talked me into going on one of those wild and crazy weekends, lots of sun and sand and young people behaving badly. It's the only way my parents would let her go. Only, the last night, at one of the local bars, some guy slipped roofies in my drink." She walked over, looked at the pictures on his wall, the doctorates, as though she were making sure that he was everything he said he was.
"I don't really remember much after that, just waking up on the beach without my panties, everything hurting and pretty sick to my stomach. Sara was great, you know? She got me in to a doctor there, made them take samples, reported it to the cops. Got me back home on the first flight out and right into the clinic. I had to take a million tests and got three stitches and was on enough antibiotics I puked for three days straight." She turned back to him, and her pretty pink and white face was red with humiliation, as though she were the one with something to be ashamed of.
"I don't remember what was done to me, I just know it was done, and for a long time I just wanted to ... curl up and die, you know? Because I was fucking Air Force. I was smart and strong and capable and I still ended up like that. I got taken." She looked at him then, right in the eye, challenging him.
"Why are you telling me this?" Rodney said finally, a little lost, but with growing understanding.
"Because I figured out that if I let that asshole take everything else, too, he won. And I wasn't going to give him that. I goddamn refused to give him that, too." She shrugged. "I know you're tougher than all this. I've ridden shotgun with you, you know?" She smiled wanly at him. "And I'm around, if you need to talk, and maybe I'll even understand it, a little. Right?"
"Right," Rodney said. She nodded then, abruptly, and turned back towards the door. "Laura?" She paused, but didn't look back at him. "I'm sorry."
"Me too, Rodney," she said, and then she was gone.
)0(
The door slid open and John was half-asleep and glowering in the doorway, but his expression quickly slid into concern. "Rodney? What's up?" He stood back, making room for Rodney to come in.
Rodney sat down in the room's only chair, and said nothing for a long, long time. "Can we talk?" he asked finally, and he hated the way his voice cracked in the middle. John came over, touched his shoulder briefly, carefully, on a place where there hadn't been any bruises.
"Hell, yeah," he said, and sat down on his bed, and waited patiently until Rodney could begin to find the words.
)0(
End
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 04:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 04:54 pm (UTC)"Me too, Rodney," she said, and then she was gone.
First names. I don't know why, but this, this made hurt all the more for Rodney.
What a good hurt.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 04:58 pm (UTC)But I found a great satisfaction and enjoyment in reading this story. I liked it that you sent Cadman to talk to Rodney... and I liked the subtle way you showed us Rodney's fear and pain. Not too many words used but enough to convey the meaning.
I'm very glad I read your story because I really really enjoyed it.
Pls write more?
Take care,
Alex
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 05:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 05:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 05:19 pm (UTC)I liked what you did with Cadman, developing her character while providing impetus for Rodney to begin healing.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 05:22 pm (UTC)Just Oh. Give me a minute and I'll be coherent...
This is very, very well written. It hurts and I just want to scoop Rodney up and hug him. But your descriptions are beautiful and the way you say so much in so few words is astounding.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 05:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 05:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 05:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 05:39 pm (UTC)you create magic with words; I am continually impressed with what you do with small amounts of text.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 06:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 06:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 06:41 pm (UTC)what his says about zelenka and rodney is lovely and poignant: "and Zelenka brought him impossible equations like they were bringing flowers to the dying."
the shift from that mission, to this, to cadman: wow. just incredible, graceful, and peels back such vital layers in them.
john's care in how he touches rodney at the end, and his "Hell, yeah," is *perfect*. you bring these remarkable characters so fully to life. thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 06:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 07:56 pm (UTC)As always, you nailed every single character.
His first week back, Miko kept him supplied with hot tea and Zelenka brought him impossible equations like they were bringing flowers to the dying.
This was such a perfect turn of phrase that I had to read it to my husband.
And Cadman! Cadman...is wonderful. I'm so glad you brought this in from someone other than our main-character pantheon.
Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 08:18 pm (UTC)That he never would be ready, ever again, went unspoken.
Ouch. The part that got me most was Rodney's feeling that something was missing in him, something had been taken and he wasn't himself anymore.
"I'm so sorry, Rodney," he said finally. His voice was rougher, softer than normal. Sandpaper on stone.
Lovely. John would feel responsible and hurt for Rodney.
I was smart and strong and capable and I still ended up like that. I got taken.
Wonderful to have Cadman being able to identify with what Rodney was going through, to reach out to him in a way he could accept.
John came over, touched his shoulder briefly, carefully, on a place where there hadn't been any bruises.
Love John's care. The ending gave me hope that Rodney was taking the first steps to recovery. Beautifully done.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 08:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 09:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 10:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 10:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-02 10:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-03 12:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-03 12:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-03 03:40 am (UTC)Ronon's bringing him food - great touch. And Cadman's story is so well done; in other hands it would not have worked quite so well. But this isn't maudlin, it's hopeful. Cadman is a hero.
And Rodney and John at the end: gorgeous.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-03 04:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-03 04:40 am (UTC)As always, you rock.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-03 05:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-03 05:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-03 02:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-03 03:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-03 06:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-03 06:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-03 09:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-03 09:53 pm (UTC)And Ronan brings him food--exquisite.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-03 10:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-03 10:22 pm (UTC)Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-04 04:07 am (UTC)OUCH....but wow too.
*too incoherent to explain it's impact*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-04 12:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-04 02:30 pm (UTC)Thanks for writing!
~
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-04 02:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-04 08:33 pm (UTC)Beautiful.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-04 08:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-05 05:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-06 04:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-06 08:50 pm (UTC)Great story!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-10 02:29 am (UTC)Poor Rodney and Cadman and John and my heart's breaking for all of them.
*sniff sniff*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-10-12 10:34 pm (UTC)Really incredibly stuff, as always... even with the kind of hurt that breaks your heart and makes it hard to breathe.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-29 12:41 pm (UTC)