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erda-3.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
sga_flashfic2007-09-14 10:48 am
(no subject)
Title: Stained Glass Window (wordless challenge)
Author: keefaq
Rating: G
Warning: Major character death
Word Count: ~2000
Pairing:McKay/Sheppard
Disclaimer:I protest the notion that universal archetypes can be owned or controlled.
SUMMARY: "People are like stained - glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the
darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within." Elisabeth Kubler-ross
Note: Story is set about 50 years after the Declaration of Galactic Sovereignty in Speranza's Victorsverse.
Title courtesy of my daughter, who spent a long time using her advanced social skills on gtalk trying to politely explain to me why I am a member of the set of people who cannot name things. As if I didn't already know.
There is no particular point along the slow downward spiral of a terminal illness at which one can say, here, this, now we see and understand the inevitable. Rather there are many points along a continuum of descending plateaus. Somewhere along that continuum Rodney could no longer sit up in their bed even with help, and they set up the hospital bed they rolled in from the infirmary in the living area, pushing the couch back against the wall to make room for it.
John found he couldn’t rest in their old bedroom, disturbed by the thought that Rodney might be lying awake, thirsty, in pain, afraid or just bored. He’d always slept better with Rodney nearby. He had a small cot moved in next to Rodney’s hospital bed and found he could rest much better knowing Rodney could callout to him at any time if he needed anything. He wanted to bring some of the paintings from their bedroom in but Rodney demurred. Later, though, he asked to have just the small photograph he had kept by his bed for decades, the one of John standing, grinning joyfully in front of the ZPM maker.
At first there were visitors every day. Teyla, and Ronon when he wasn’t off world, children and grandchildren, of course, and others they barely knew, people who had come to pay their respects, to help ease the boredom, as Rodney grew weaker. Then Rodney asked them to restrict visiting to just the family. A while later he didn’t want to see anyone except John. Everyone respected his wishes. They told John to take as much time as he needed, and if at first he yearned for someone or some task to free him from the sickroom, he didn’t let on to anyone how trapped and exhausted he felt. There were just as many times when he savored the intimacy of being left alone with Rodney, not having to see pity or sorrow on anyone else. His own body and its demand for activity, was slowing down with age, making it easier to sit for long periods of time dozing with Rodney.
They watched movies, the old favorites as well as some more recent, homemade productions. Sometimes Rodney would laugh and joke about them. In time, less and less.
The nurse listened to his heart and tried to talk to John, saying something about pulmonary hypertension, but he didn’t need any details. The world had slowed to this room and the two of them. Everything else seemed far away and long ago, and John was content to live indefinitely in this space of Rodney and John, quiet together. This between time, between now and everything that was coming felt infinitely precious, more lustrous and full than anything they had ever done across the long years of a lifetime together. John clung to it with no thought of the future, no goals, no plans, no wants, just this right now, this shared suspension of time between times, after but still before.
When it got harder for Rodney to balance his coffee cup he switched to a more solid mug with a straw, then to letting John or the nurse hold it for him. When it got hard to swallow, they ground his food to a pudding like consistency resembling jarred baby food.
John thought Rodney would protest being treated like a baby or, at least joke about it, but he said nothing. Even the mashed foods got harder to swallow and he ate less and less.
Mornings when the nurse bent to empty the catheter it had already been done and though she told John that she would take care of that it was always recently emptied when she arrived. She realized eventually that it was important for John to do some things, and she stopped mentioning it.
It got harder for Rodney to help with turning over to be cleaned up so John and the nurse worked together. “Get another nurse, “ Rodney said. “I don’t want you to have to…”
But, “Rodney,” John whispered, “I don’t mind, really, just let me…” because he fiercely, didn’t mind- in fact- savored the opportunity to protect Rodney as he’d always done.
So Rodney accepted that indignity, too, and it quickly became just another part of the routine.
Rodney’s voice grew weaker. First he whispered. Eventually it was so hard to hear him that he took to spelling out the first few letters of what he wanted and letting John guess. That worked surprisingly well for a while, his wants were simple and easy to figure out with a few hints. Finally he no longer had the strength to speak audibly, though he could still gesture a bit.
John was restless, standing at the window of the small room leaning on his cane, turning back to the bed where Rodney was sleeping. The nurse urged him to get out and move around Atlantis a bit. “You can’t stay in here all the time. It’s not good for you, and if you don’t take care of yourself you’ll be no good to him.” He went, gratefully with only a twinge of guilt because Rodney couldn’t go, couldn’t get a break from the boredom, the weakness, the slipping away of himself. John walked the private corridors near their rooms. Corridors he had once run along, his boots cracking against the floor that was his, his city, his people. He remembered the rush of breath in young lungs from so long ago as if there had been no gradual progression of age, as if he had been transferred directly from that young, vital body into this old aching one by one of the many crazy ancient devices they had tamed together. His mind was flying back to Rodney, wondering if he was awake, if he needed…which was silly, the nurse had promised to call if Rodney needed him, but would the nurse really know, would she wait to call him in order to give him a break? He had already turned and begun walking back to their rooms, his steps speeding up, breath going tight until he was back at the bedside; Rodney was still sleeping, and he settled into his chair beside the bed with a profound relief.
He was half asleep there when he sensed Rodney stirring. Rodney’s eyes opened suddenly and he leaned his head forward slightly, it was hard for him to move that much; he was straining. He opened his mouth and tried to speak. No sound came out but he was clearly mouthing words. John leaned closer, listening and watching intently, “Say again, what?” Rodney tried to speak again but there was no sound at all. His expression was intent, whatever he wanted to say was very important to him, and John put his hand to his own chest to stop the wrenching pain there of want, of need, to understand. He motioned to the nurse and she bent over Rodney also, straining to understand. “What is it?” he asked again, but Rodney’s eyes had gone shut and he had sagged back onto the bed, clearly frustrated with his inability to make himself understood.
A few minutes and his eyes opened. He tried again to speak. John and the nurse started guessing. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? Cold? Want coffee? Someone you want to see?” Rodney shook his head wearily, negating all their guesses. Finally he sank back again, defeated and exhausted. He slept, as he’d been doing more and more. John was relieved to be able to stop struggling to understand. He sank back in his chair and was soon dozing himself.
The next morning Rodney seemed calm at first, even took a sip of coffee from a spoon before feebly pushing it away. But then he tried again to speak, and John’s chest was filled with a tight ball of rage and grief that the man who had spoken so volubly through his entire life now could not communicate a single thought or need. He bowed his head over their clasped hands trying to contain his rage. “ Rodney…” Rodney continued struggling to speak. “Rodney!” His voice was shockingly loud in the too silent room. Rodney finally paused. John leaned over, close as he could. “Listen,” he demanded. “Listen to me, Rodney.”
Rodney went still, studying John’s lined and weathered face. “Whatever it is, whatever you want to say. Listen to me. I already know. Do you understand me? I already know.”
He tightened his grip on Rodney’s hand, willing his own intensity into those still lucid blue eyes.
Finally Rodney relaxed back into the bed, satisfied. John placed his head down on the bed almost on top of their still joined hands, and Rodney’s fingers brushed the nape of his neck weakly. They remained there until the between time was over.
John sat immobile, studying Rodney’s too thin hands lying open on the bed sheet, which was dyed a shade of blue never seen in the Milky Way. Those mighty hands that had shaped a young and vital galaxy, stilled at last and for good. Much, much later, when the evening nurse entered the room, he was still sitting, content in the space between. The nurse roused him gently from his reverie and he rose quietly to rejoin the living.
................................................................................
After the service Teyla found John in the bedroom he’d shared with Rodney for almost four decades. He’d fallen asleep in Rodney’s armchair wrapped in Rodney’s blanket, hands folded over the picture from his bedside table.
The walls of the bedroom were covered with paintings depicting all the worlds Rodney’s ZPM making machine had allowed them the power to construct. The idea of transforming worlds culled by the wraith into single function habitats- giving the small surviving human populations a concerted industry to build and work in -had been all Rodney’s. First to be built was a mining world, most of the manual labor done by ZPM powered machines, leaving the human population to plan, arrange and tend the industry. Most of the mining worlds were paired with a nearby manufacturing world, turning out the machines to power other worlds. Eventually the survivors of the various worlds had begun to shift about, traveling and settling on worlds they were comfortable with. Some were drawn to the shipbuilding world, some to the artists’ colonies, others to one of the academic worlds.
The first picture John had given to him as a kind of gag gift at the first of several retirement parties which they had thrown for Rodney, not that he ever really succeeded in retiring. A large painting from the first farm world showing an orchard of coffee trees, swaying drunkenly under the weight of bulging clusters of bright red coffee beans. But Rodney was thrilled with it, thought of it as a real testament to his accomplishments, and after that friends and family commissioned paintings of many of his manufactured worlds as gifts. Teyla had given him the painting of children’s world, which had started as a huge playground and eventually sprawled across hundreds of miles filled with museums, hands on educational exhibits, educational wildlife preserves as well as gymnasiums and game centers. Rodney had spent almost six years there while the children were young, consulting, designing, and enjoying the exhibits.
Teyla picked up the picture from John’s lap and found herself smiling down at Rodney holding the infant Jean Louise in one capable arm, bending over to look down at John Junior beside him. Junior’s hazel eyes were gazing worshipfully up at Rodney, his little hand tenderly engulfed by the hand that had shaped the Pegasus Renaissance.
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