sga_flashfic | Heat Source by bluenight361

bluenight361.livejournal.com posting in

Title: Heat Source
Author: bluenight361
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Wordcount: ~2500
Summary: They originally wanted to leave me on a planet that makes the Sahara look wet, but I explained about my skin and eventually I made them leave me here.
Warnings: Some mild language.
AN: Since some of you said you wanted a sequel, I decided to oblige! Hope you enjoy! :D

Prequel: Residual Heat

They found him on MX-8021, at the very edge of the sector that MX-3981 was located in.

Getting there hadn’t been easy, not at all. When John had gotten down to lab 42 he’d found Zelenka shaking his head sadly as he poked around the prototype and Beckett making startled noises whenever something sparked, and when Elizabeth had gotten down there she’d insisted on hearing the tape for herself, which meant that John had to haul all three of them back to Rodney’s quarters and hear the whole thing out again, which meant listening to Rodney’s unsure and stuttering voice and every moment passed that they weren’t using the damned prototype to find him meant that the vise around his vital organs closed a little tighter, until he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to breath.

And even when the tape had played out Elizabeth had looked at him skeptically. “John, you’ve been looking for Rodney for over four months, do you really think he might still be out there? Besides, he himself says that we should be careful about wasting a naquadah generator—”

Christ, he’d never wanted to strangle anybody more in his life.

“We wouldn’t be wasting it because Rodney is worth more than twenty naquadah generators,” he said carefully. “And yes, I do think he still may be out there and needing our help, which is what we should be concentrating on. Zelenka,” He turned to the scientist, “You can make this work, can’t you?”

“Yes, yes, I think so, but McKay is right. It will take an enormous amount of power, but on the other hand you would be able to scan entire planets within—hours, perhaps—”

“That’s great, then.” John said. “Get started.”

“Colonel, I must warn you, even if I pull every scientist off their project and begin working on this immediately, it will most likely be a week before we can get it up and running, not to mention getting it to interface with the puddlejumper so you can take it off world.”

“Which means you better not waste any more time, right?” John gritted out. Zelenka met his eyes gravely, then looked at Elizabeth. John rounded on her, ready to argue the point, but Elizabeth took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and nodded.

“We need Rodney back, Dr. Zelenka. If there’s even the remotest chance that he may be out there, we must pursue it.”

“Of course.” Zelenka hit his radio, said curtly, “Attention all scientists, please report immediately to lab 42. We have an urgent situation that requires all our efforts.”

After that, it was only a matter of waiting impatiently while the scientists worked 24/7 (eight hour shifts, although somehow Zelenka’s shift never seemed to end) somehow jury-rigged a naquadah generator into the entire mass of wires that sprouted from the prototype, in the process apparently breaking several laws of physics and likewise nearly shorting out all the power to Atlantis. Meanwhile, John and Teyla and Ronon made a list of all the planets in sector MX, crossed of all the planets that were uninhabitable, and plotted the most efficient path to visit and scan all of them. When they were done, John eyed the zigzagging pattern, knew that they’d have to take at least two week’s worth of supplies in the puddlejumper.

After that, it had been a mere matter of getting Teyla and Ronon to load the prototype along with two crates of MREs and a several boxes of powerbars into one extremely crowded puddlejumper. Then the three of them were off to sector MX, and so began the long process of settling into orbit around each planet and scanning it, waiting and waiting as the blinking red lights slowly signaled the scanner’s progress. Every fourth planet or so, they landed, got off the puddlejumper, ran around a bit to refresh (and relieve) themselves, then got back on and started for the next four planets, and the next four after that, and the next four after that.

They couldn’t even really take proper shifts, since John was the only one who could actually fly the puddlejumper, which meant that John took catnaps while the scanner was working, Teyla and Ronon taking turns keeping an eye on it. Which meant that on the eighth day, on the seventy-sixth planet, it was Teyla who shook John gently out of his exhausted stupor.

“Colonel—Colonel Sheppard—” She said quietly, although John could hear a contained excitement in her voice. He squinted through sleep-heavy eyes to see the prototype blinking green. “Colonel, we’ve found him!”

MX-8021 was full of lovely, lush forest—not tropical, but cool and misty and full of what looked like pines and firs and other evergreens.

“Someone’s been here recently,” Ronon said, kneeling on the forest floor and looking intently at a few broken twigs.

“He must have passed through here, there are some faint footprints leading away from the stream.” Teyla said, already making her way through the brush.

With Ronon leading the way, mostly, with Teyla to inserting a few comments here and there, they came to a cave that had a small makeshift campfire at the entrance. John stepped towards it cautiously, P-90 raised with Teyla and Ronon backing him up. Then a twig snapped under his foot, and—

“Stop right there, or—or I’ll shoot!” A very familiar voice said, with a very unfamiliar undertone of uncertainty. John lowered his gun, began jogging, then running towards the entrance of the cave.

“Rodney?” A pause.

“John?” A pale, gaunt form emerged from the shadows—it was Rodney, smudged with dirt, dark circles of exhaustion around his eyes, twenty pounds lighter. But alive, and whole. “Teyla? Ronon?” And then Rodney’s face broke out into a broad, delighted smile, and he ran forward and even twenty pounds lighter he tackled the three of them into an enormous hug.

“God, you have no idea how much I’ve missed you all,” Rodney said, his voice muffled in John’s vest, Ronon’s coat, Teyla’s hair. John closed his eyes for a moment, then looked up; it would be unforgivable for his eyes to betray him now, it would be absolutely unacceptable.

Then he felt Rodney’s hands scrabbling at his vest pocket, and John looked back down, bemused.

“Are those power bars you have in your pocket?”

By the time they made it back to the jumper, Rodney had gone through every single power bar John, Teyla, and Ronon had had on them, but then of course when they radioed Elizabeth with the good news, Beckett had immediately insisted that Rodney not touch another power bar for fear that gorging himself would cause his body to react violently. Which meant that besides flying the puddlejumper for four hours to the nearest Stargate, John also had to make sure that Rodney didn’t make himself sick on the remaining food. Which was not as hard as it might have been, since what happened in the puddlejumper went something like this:

“So, Rodney, how’d you end up on that planet anyways?” John asked, his eyes on the navigation screen, plotting out their way home.

“I dunno—those natives who took off with me, they’ve got these teleporter thingy-things, I think, which can’t take them as far as a Stargate but it lets them jump between a limited number of planets. I tried to get a look at their teleporters, but they wouldn’t let me close to them. After dragging me around a while, they just left me behind. They originally wanted to leave me on a planet that makes the Sahara look wet, but I explained about my skin and eventually I made them leave me here.”

“Did they say anything about what they wanted with you?” John asked carefully. Rodney shook his head, flapping his hand carelessly.

“There are a million reasons that any reasonable civilization would want me, but I couldn’t understand what these people were saying, I’m not fluent in crazytalk, sorry… If you want that, Kavanagh’s your man…” When Rodney trailed off into silence, John looked over in panic, then let out a breath as Rodney began to snore.

“I think he’ll be all right now, Colonel.” Teyla said, smiling a little at the sleeping man.

“Yeah,” John said, eyes back towards the stars. “I think he will.”

When they got back to Atlantis, only Elizabeth and Beckett were there to greet them, although the greeting really meant that Elizabeth got in a quick, concerned-but-overjoyed hello before Beckett whisked him immediately to the infirmary for a full check up. Rodney came out looking noticeably grumpier while Beckett told them bemusedly that besides being a little sleep-deprived and perhaps having lost too much weight in too short a time, Rodney was in as good health as ever, even able to handle solid foods.

“Well,” Elizabeth said, taking Rodney by the arm and walking him down the hall, “That’s wonderful news, Rodney, since it means you’ll be able to dig in at your—” The mess hall doors slid open and a riot of color and sound burst out at them. “Welcome home party,” Elizabeth finished, laughing at Rodney’s surprised face.

“Oh, wow,” Rodney breathed, looking around. John felt similarly overwhelmed; it looked like all of Atlantis had crammed itself into the mess hall, the tables lining the sides of the room heavy with food and drink.

“Hey, you want to try some of the cookies that I made from that recipe you left?” Ronon asked, jerked his head in the direction of one of the tables. “They’re excellent, by the way—”

“Ooh, definitely—and um, I wanted to thank you for, um, teaching me some of that runner survival stuff. It, it literally saved my life these last few months.” Rodney looked up. Ronon grinned.

“No problem. Now, try some of these over here, we used an extract from one of the tangerine-strawberry fruits—”

“What?” Rodney squawked. “You saved my life just so you could kill me off with citrus? That’s just—” Rodney’s voice sputtered out into the hubbub of noise as Ronon sighed and pushed Rodney through the crowd towards the food, a trail of well-wishers following after.

“It’s good to have him back, isn’t it?” Elizabeth smiled.

“It is indeed, Dr. Weir.” Teyla said, glancing over at John. “It is indeed.”

Over the course of the next four hours, a steady stream of people—including Teyla and Elizabeth—came up to Rodney, almost all of them offering food, the vast majority offering hugs, and so many offering thanks that John was sure that Rodney’s face was hotter than a radiator, he was such a violent shade of red. If Rodney had had a shirt with a collar on, John was sure that even now he’d be pulling at it uncomfortably.

Fortunately, he returned to a much more temperate shade when Zelenka came up to him with a cheeky smile on his face and evidently said something equally impertinent, since it led to the normal snappy back-and-forth, the kind that McKay was obviously much more comfortable with. John made his way over, grinning.

“Well, we can quibble over credit later, no? But now I wish to give you a cup of Atlantis’ finest coffee.” Zelenka said, handing Rodney a steaming mug. For a moment, Rodney’s face melted in pure bliss as he inhaled deeply. Then his eyes snapped opened and narrowed.

“You realize that now that I’m back, that coffee is mine, right?” He said sharply. Zelenka waved him away.

“Maybe you do not realize this, but it is open secret around here that the rest of science department has been keeping own stash of good coffee away from you,” he said, smiling. “Better than what you have, too.” Zelenka walked away, leaving Rodney sputtering in outrage.

“Can you believe the nerve of that man? I—I—” Rodney shook his head and began gulping down the coffee in huge swallows. “Honestly.”

John chuckled, looked Rodney over with a critical eye.

“You doing all right there, McKay? You’re looking a little tired there.” Rodney nodded, mid-yawn.

“Yeah, I was thinking about turning in, I guess—oh, wait, you, um, you’ve probably already cleared my quarters, then, if you guys got to the second part of the tape—” Rodney said uncertainly. John made a snap decision.

“You know what, Rodney, why don’t you come back to my place? Not that—I mean, um, I’ve got a sleeping bag, I don’t mind crashing on the floor for a night or two while they get your stuff back together.” John added hastily. “I mean, I’ve, um, kind of been using your room to do paperwork, it’s—you’ve got a better view,” he ended in a rush, the tips of his ears turning red. Rodney smirked, which turned into another yawn.

“All right, then, lead the way, colonel.” John caught Elizabeth’s eye, jerked his head towards his quarters. Elizabeth nodded, and John took Rodney by the shoulder, guided him through the crowd of well-wishers that had re-gathered as soon as they realized that Rodney was leaving.

“Good lord,” Rodney said sleepily. “I never realized that being thanked is just as much work as being hated.” John let his hand drop off Rodney’s shoulder, oddly sorry to lose contact.

“Hate to break it to you, Rodney,” John said. “But that little stunt there with the filing cabinet totally blew your cover as a bad guy.”

“Dammit,” Rodney shook his head as he stumbled into John’s quarters. John caught him by the elbow, guided him around the desk, sat him on the bed. “You haven’t thanked me for anything, though—probably because Zelenka hasn’t gotten around to working on your puddlejumpers yet, the slacker—”

“Rodney,” John said, taking off Rodney’s soiled and worn boots, then taking Rodney’s chin so he could look him straight in the eye. “Thank you for staying alive.”

Rodney unaccountably reddened, and seemed to be imperceptibly leaning towards him when suddenly his eyes widened and he scrambled away in a state of near-panic.

“Colonel—I honestly didn’t really mean anything with those pictures, I hope that you haven’t, um, gotten any wrong ideas from them, I don’t—I didn’t—I don’t want to cause you any trouble—” He babbled. John rolled his eyes, kicked off his own shoes before sitting on the bed himself.

“You know what your problem is, McKay?” John grinned at him, wrapped a sure and steady hand around the back of Rodney’s head. “You talk too much.”

“Well, excuse me for being concerned,” Rodney said, sounding affronted. “It’s not like it’s one of the seven deadly sins or anything—”

“McKay,” John said conversationally as he moved closer to Rodney, feeling an unaccountable warmth blooming somewhere deep inside his chest. “Shut up.”

And eventually, he did.

Page 1 of 2 << [1] [2] >>

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

fenris_wolf0

:)

And you got in the 7DS reference!

From:

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags