Next Offramp (Wish Fulfillment Challenge)
Jan. 26th, 2009 10:02 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
kriadydragon.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
sga_flashficTitle: Next Offramp
Rating: PG, Gen
Characters: John, Rodney, Ronon, Teyla
SPoilers: Vegas
Summary: John is reluctant, Rodney doesn't get why and there's a road trip involved. Rodney POV. Vegas-verse - yes another one, but with Ronon and Teyla included. For all those who wanted to see Ronon and Teyla in this verse. Guess that would make this a team fic=D Huge thanks to my betas![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wildcat88 and reen212000 for helping me mend its many flaws.
Next Offramp
McKay took the hospital halls at a forced walk that was attempting to burst into an all-out run. He was excited, prematurely according to Jennifer who could see through him like a window, and also according to her that was bad luck – not bad luck in the sense of an actual superstition; bad luck in terms of life not being so regularly accommodating because it preferred being ironic. He was jinxing his own goals, she'd said.
Rodney had just laughed. Jennifer was beautiful, intelligent, quirky. And yet when she had talked of bad luck and self-jinxing, she had done so with such a dead-pan look Rodney had honestly thought, for about three seconds, that she was being serious.
Of course she was kidding. This wasn't a coincidence nor could it be life jerking him around. He completely ignored any thoughts aiming toward “too good to be true.”
Taking a sharp right had Rodney doing a little skid down the hallway. He counted four rooms in, was reaching for the handle of the fifth door when it opened on its own. A female doctor – petite, brown-haired, tan-skinned – stepped out, all five-something feet of her blocking his way.
“Dr. McKay?” she asked.
Rodney beamed, rocking back on his heels, not even trying to curb his enthusiasm. “That's me.”
The doctor looked him up and down. “And you're acquainted with Mr. Sheppard how?”
“Oh, uh...” Rodney stopped rocking. “He helped us out with something a while back. The company I work for, I mean.”
“So you're not a relation?”
“No. No, I'm not.”
The woman's eyebrows arched high into her hairline. “A lawyer? Case worker?”
“No. Why? Do I need to be?” Rodney's enthusiasm started to drain, frustration taking its place. “Hey, look, your people contacted my people who then contacted me. Which, by the way, is not that easy and resulted in me being dragged away from some very serious work. If I came all the way from... where I came from just to be turned away -”
The doctor raised her hand, cool and composed in the face of Rodney's mounting wrath. “Dr. McKay, I'm not turning you away. Mr. Sheppard had no contact information in his files. He did have a card with a contact number and your name on it and, well, frankly, I felt it was better than nothing at the time.”
Rodney puckered his brow. “At the time?”
“Mr. Sheppard was unconscious for three days, waking up only yesterday. He was – still is – ill and coupled with his records telling us that he'd just been released from a lengthy hospital stay after surgery a month ago, needless to say it had us a little concerned.
Rodney's enthusiasm dropped like a rock into his gut. “So... you called the contact number? Sheppard didn't have you call it for him?”
The doctor – Rodney finally took the time to read her name tag – Dr. Cartwright, nodded. “Yes.”
“Well, what happened? Some kind of relapse?” Because if it was a relapse, no words would accurately describe how pissed he was going to be. He hadn't been exaggerating about his work. He never exaggerated about his work, and Atlantis wasn't the kind of place you could pop in and out of on a whim. The damn quarantine was aggravation enough. Being waylaid on Earth for mundane reasons while who the hell knew what was taking place on Atlantis multiplied it by ten.
“We think he may have been mugged,” Dr. Cartwright explained. “He hasn't been forthright with the details. All he'll say is that he had the hell beat out of him. He refuses to press charges, let alone give any kind of statement. If you think you can get him to talk, by all means please do so. If not,” she shrugged, “then I'm truly sorry I wasted your time.”
Rodney aimed a glare at the door. “I won't hold it against you.”
The nurse gave him a twitch of a nod then left him to it. Rodney straightened, smoothing out his suit and shoving back the frustration that wouldn't change anything should he give into it. He'd come here for a reason. Maybe that reason hadn't turned out how he'd planned (and he had no intentions of telling Jennifer that) but that didn't exactly, entirely, make it a lost cause.
Over two months ago, an ordinary man with a lot of cracks in his personality had damn near given his life to save the world. A little over two months ago, Rodney had offered that man a home among the stars, literally in a galaxy far far away.
A little over two months ago, a complete and utterly brainless lunatic had declined that offer, quicker than the offer had been offered.
Okay, so maybe Rodney was judging him too harshly – presenting a man with a complete lack of interest in sci-fi a job in another galaxy had to be overwhelming. It had been overwhelming to Rodney for a short time, before potential outweighed the risks and possible discoveries had smothered most of his fear.
Most.
A little over two months ago, Rodney had left that man his card to contact him if he changed his mind. A lot could happen in two months' time: a lot of thinking, realizing, mind-changing.
Rodney gripped the handle and opened the door.
John Sheppard was how Rodney remembered him, if a little more bruised, battered and pale. Possibly thinner, but that could just be the hospital gown – they made everyone seem smaller than they were. Sheppard's arm was still in a sling, his face still shaded with stubble and his hair still a mother's nightmare. It hit Rodney with a lot of deja vu.
Sheppard's eyelids parted; the right one did, the left one was drowning beneath one hell of a shiner, barely able to manage a slit. No doubt Sheppard was up to his neck in pain medication, but there wasn't anything hazy or drugged in the way he regarded Rodney.
“What're you doin' here?” His voice was another matter.
Rodney clasped his hands behind his back, business-like and betraying nothing. “You tell me? I thought you'd be out of Vegas by now.”
John lifted his good shoulder. Otherwise, he didn't answer. He did look away.
“So, what was the detour? Poker? Black jack? A hooker?”
Despite the drugs, or maybe even because of them, the look Sheppard gave him could have stripped paint off metal. Rodney ignored it, waving his hand dismissively.
“The hooker thing was out of line. I apologize for that. The fact is, I'm not supposed to be here; that's obvious. The hospital contacting me was a fluke and a very pointless fluke because, harsh as this may be to say, we've pretty much washed our hands of you. You helped us, we're grateful and in turn we helped you by paying your hospital bills and then some. And giving back that money we found in your car. Once I left, that was it and whatever else you've managed to get yourself into, we can't help. Again, harsh as it is to say, it's none of our concern.”
“Don't want your help, anyway,” Sheppard said.
“Good. Then we each know where we stand. Have you given any more thought into what I'd said two months ago?” Rodney never could practice the patience for beating around the bush.
Sheppard shifted with a wince of discomfort. “Answer's still no.”
And that shot Rodney's frustration right back to the surface. “What? Why the hell not? Sheppard, you're passing up the opportunity of a lifeti-”
“I have my reasons.” Sheppard's working arm flopped his hand over his body en route to the side table. “Seeing as how they're my reasons, I don't have to justify them.” He winced each time his hand landed a little too hard on his chest, gasped when he was forced to roll onto his side just to reach the plastic cup of water sitting there.
An empty plastic cup, with the pitcher just out of his reach. It was all horribly pathetic and demeaning, and as much as Rodney wanted to play the hard ass and just watch, he couldn't.
Rodney had been the one to demand a med unit be sent out after Sheppard. Somehow, for reasons Rodney couldn't pin down, Sheppard taking on that Wraith had felt like Rodney's fault. Logically, it had been Sheppard's fault – Rodney had told him not to go. And yet, even to this day lingered an obnoxious little voice in the back of his skull that begged to differ. Jennifer had named that voice compassion, Rodney delirium brought on by the energy-sucking relief that the world wasn't ending after all.
Rodney, however, had had nothing to do with Sheppard's recent hospital stay. He could honestly say, without remorse, that this wasn't his concern.
“Yeah, you do,” Rodney said. He filled the cup, shoving it into Sheppard's hand, feeling slightly vindicated when some of it slipped over the edge even if none of it landed on Sheppard.
“Why?”
“Because it's the chance of a lifetime. One you're going to regret passing up.”
“Regret passing up life-sucking aliens.” Sheppard took a sip. “Yeah, I can totally see how easy that is to regret.” He took another, longer sip interrupted by coughing. He set the cup down in order to bring his fist to his mouth and hack into it. It was a wet cough, chest deep and definitely not the jag of a man choking on water.
“Flu?” Rodney asked.
When John was done, he answered hoarsely, “Left over pneumonia.”
“Oh, lovely. So, when do you get out of here?”
“Thursday, maybe Friday.”
“Two to three days, gotcha. And then what, head to the nearest casino? Drop your ass back in here soon after? We let you keep all that money - even paid your debts - and the first thing you do is exchange it for chips? You are most definitely a class act, Sheppard.”
Sheppard flopped back onto his pillow with an exhausted exhale, draping his arm over his eyes. “You're a very judgmental man, Dr. McKay.”
“I'm just making assumptions based on what I've been given. Feel free to enlighten me otherwise.”
Sheppard cleared his throat. “Still got the money minus what I'd used to pay for a hotel. I was heading out of town, ran into some... people I knew. I'm pretty sure you have enough to make the safe assumption about who those people were.”
“Probably. I thought we helped you with that?”
“That's the problem with some of these people. Give them what they want, they find reasons to make you give them more. The rest is history.”
Rodney frowned. “What, were they following you or something? How'd they find you so easy?”
“Maybe they followed me. I don't know. I hadn't gotten far. It's a pain in the ass to drive a car you don't know with one hand. Then this... flu or something tries to drop me. I didn't have a choice - hole up or wrap the new car around a light pole. Not that I'd care. I hate that car. I want my damn Camero back.”
“Too shot up, we told you. Cry a river about your car later. You got sick? It's been a while but if I recall correctly, you were supposed to head back to the hospital if your temperature was so much as one degree over the norm.”
“Couldn't drive.”
“And, what, you forgot the number to 911? Or did you merely wish against a return trip to the emergency room?”
Sheppard lowered his arm just enough to look at McKay. “Can you blame me?”
“Yes, actually, but then you did prove that I have more common sense than you.”
Sheppard sighed, long and world weary. “I'm not him, McKay.”
McKay, momentarily distracted by the non sequitur, blinked and said, “Him, who?”
“That other Sheppard.”
Rodney scowled. “DNA would beg to differ. The rest... yes, you're not him. Not by a long shot.” The words were out before Rodney realized just how much of a hypocrite it made him sound. It wasn't all that long ago he'd told Sheppard the complete opposite: that he was that man, just on a different path. But then persistence had been making Rodney say a lot of things. Alternate versions of oneself didn't change the self's genetic make-up. Alternate Sheppard had manipulated Ancient technology like putty, and that little attribute made this world's Sheppard something incredibly useful. The Ancient gene was rare enough as it was; no way could Rodney in good conscious not at least attempt to recruit those who had it.
“But you could be,” he said.
Sheppard's arm slipped from his face, flopping boneless on the bed. “You don't have to stick around.” Translated, according to the cool tone: get the hell out.
Rodney easily obliged. “Continue to think on it,” was all he said, too pissed to say anything else. He hated failure, and hoped Sheppard got it through his punch-drunk head to eventually toss the card and spare Rodney another pointless trip, or use it for the reason Rodney had given it to him. Rodney was surprised Sheppard hadn't tossed it already, unless he'd just forgot and kept forgetting, which wouldn't be a surprise.
Rodney had done what he could and failed, again. He was definitely washing his hands of this guy.
------------------------
Two days later – still stuck in Area 51 for reasons beyond his control (which annoyed him more than the conundrum that was Sheppard's stubborn refusal) Rodney returned. And for the life of him couldn't figure out why, or why the hell he even cared.
No, not cared. This wasn't about caring. If anything, it was probably about pride and that stubbornly obnoxious persistence Jennifer insisted was a good trait, when utilized right, which was very fifty-fifty. But so said she... and Zelenka and a couple of other people. Yet what did they know? Even more mind-boggling was the fact that Rodney remembered at all that Sheppard was supposed to be released today – Rodney had never had a head for dates and would admit it.
He should have just called the Daedalus to beam him to Cheyenne Mountain and taken the 'gate back to Pegasus the moment he left that hospital. Problem was, Teyla had joined him on this journey as spokesperson for the galaxy, Ronon with her because the man refused to leave her side (she'd saved his ass twice, endearing her to him for life). Carter had asked Rodney to stick around for their sakes as spokesperson for them in case the IOA tried to back them into a corner for whatever reason. The IOA had a very bad track record when it came to people from other worlds. They labeled it as “standing their ground.” Everyone else labeled it secret bigotry and not-so-secret mistrust. Rodney blamed it on Coolidge being a practiced ass on a regular basis. Whatever the reason, it had kept Rodney within the vicinity of Sheppard's hospital, Sheppard himself, and a third chance at being a little more persuasive.
Rodney walked into the room and found Sheppard dressed in a sky-blue button shirt and jeans, packing up his scant belongings. Rodney had been right the first time - Sheppard was thinner by a couple of degrees. He'd been a slob dresser when Rodney had met him, now his clothes looked like hand-me-downs from an older, larger brother. Illness did that to a body.
Rodney wondered if that was what had brought him back after all – other than his so-called obnoxious persistence: pity. Or ensuring that his investment survived. They'd done a lot for Sheppard; it wouldn't be right to let all that effort go to waste.
When Sheppard finally looked up, he did a double take, then continued packing. “You really can't take no for an answer.”
“Not really.”
“Learn to.”
Rodney scrubbed his hand over his face. Why the hell am I here? But since he was here, he might as well not waste it. And he'd come prepared – more or less by accident when the Daedalus had been called away on an impromptu mission (i.e. a stranded team on a world with a broken 'gate) but neither was he going to waste it.
“Maybe I'll get used to it. Hurry up so we can get out of here.”
John paused to give him a suspicious look.
“I'm your ride. And a generous one at that. I have some friends I'm taking out to breakfast before we head back to Pegasus. You can join us, if you want, before I take you... wherever it is you want to go.”
Sheppard's right eyebrow cocked. “Bribing me with pancakes?”
“No, taking pity on you by helping you remedy your little problem of looking half starved and pathetic.”
Sheppard's gaze turned cool. “You're too kind.” He closed his bag with a pointlessly hard tug on the zipper.
Rodney easily ignored it. “Don't mention it. Now move it.”
The hospital was anal, as hospitals are wont to be in order to avoid lawsuits and repeat offenders, and insisted that Sheppard ride out in style in a wheelchair. While Sheppard didn't protest the entire time, the stony scowl on his face betrayed just how much he wanted to. Or maybe it was because Rodney was present, or a combination of both. Rodney would admit he hadn't won any points with Sheppard two days ago. Sheppard could just get over it.
The rental was parked just outside the hospital doors, ready, waiting and occupied. Rodney, under the duress of orders (more like badgering) from Carter, had promised Teyla and Ronon a quick trip into town, proving to them that there was more to Earth than anal bureaucrats. Teyla was in the front seat, Ronon the back, neither looking remotely happy. But on approach to the car Teyla's face lit up with what Rodney knew to be her expression of mild curiosity aimed at Sheppard. Ronon spared one semi-interested glance at the former detective then immediately lost interest.
Sheppard's shoulders visibly tensed. Otherwise he barely reacted. “Back up?”
“Envoys. Well, one of them's an envoy, the other her body guard. Both of them friendly Pegasus natives. Okay, Teyla's the friendly one, still not sure about Dex.”
“They're aliens?” Sheppard asked with a lot of incredulity.
“As close as you're going to get, yes. Sorry that they're not short, bald and green. Now get in the back. Don't worry - you don't try to bite Teyla, Ronon won't try to blast you into next year.”
Which was very much the wrong thing to say to a guy who'd had his ass handed to him, no doubt, by thugs as big if not bigger than Dex. Sheppard was painfully reluctant about getting into the car, his movements deliberate and his eyes never leaving Ronon, all while Ronon ignored him. Once seated, buckled in and obviously not going to bolt, Rodney jumped into the driver's seat before anyone changed their minds about remaining seated.
“John Sheppard,” Sheppard said. Rodney saw through the rearview mirror Ronon turn his head long enough to lift his chin in greeting.
“Ronon Dex.”
Teyla, on the other hand, being far more polite and inquisitive, turned half-way around, extending her hand. She only ever used the traditional greeting of touching foreheads on Atlantis, and only with those she was more deeply acquainted with. It was a constant sore spot with Rodney – she never used the greeting on him.
“Teyla Emmagan.”
They shook hands then John's hand went to the back of his neck in an act of blatant awkwardness. “So, um... McKay tells me you're from another galaxy.”
“That is correct,” Teyla said. “We are here on a diplomatic mission.”
John nodded. “Cool. So how're you liking Earth?”
Teyla took a deep, hesitating breath and curled her lips into a very polite smile. “It is nice.”
Rodney had to swallow a couple of times to keep from barking up a laugh. He respected Teyla, he did, but she was proof that people could be polite to a fault. You had to be blind and deaf not to see through all that painted civility. She hated it here, or she wouldn't have sighed so much during the short trip from Cheyenne Mountain to Area 51. And why the IOA had wanted to conduct the interview at Area 51 was beyond Rodney, unless they really were that bad a bunch of paranoid control freaks. It was a lot easier to ensure interplanetary guests stayed put when they were holed up in a facility in the middle of the desert.
But like that would have stopped Ronon if he'd been so inclined to take off. The IOA needed to thank their lucky stars Ronon hadn't ever hit that level of desperately bored.
Sheppard, not being blind and deaf, must have caught on to what Teyla wasn't saying. The car fell silent and stayed that way all through the short trip to the nearest IHOP about four blocks away. Ronon had an almost unhealthy obsession for pancakes, and when Rodney had made mention of a restaurant dedicated to pancakes, it was the first time since coming to Earth that the big guy had perked up.
Despite that mild show of enthusiasm, after arriving, the four remained wrapped in quiet as they waited for their food, then more quiet when the food arrived: the uncomfortable quiet of knowing something should be said for the sake of being courteous, yet no one brave or inclined enough to say anything. Not that they really had a choice unless they wanted to give the entire restaurant clearance.
Ronon had ordered enough food to bleed Rodney's wallet dry – the big man had hording issues, as though harboring a secret fear that he could be back on the run at any moment. Looking on the positive, Rodney knew not a drop of that food would be wasted. Sheppard was a different story. He'd ordered like a man taking advantage of the finer things in life – steak and potatoes – and picked at it like a man who'd already eaten and realized he'd made a big mistake.
Actually, more like Sheppard had run out of the energy to eat. That world-weary exhaustion of two days ago was still there, still a veiled weight slumping his shoulders and bending his back. And the funny thing was, when Rodney thought about it, he couldn't recall having seen Sheppard look any other way.
What Sheppard didn't eat, Ronon took care of. Teyla had the meatloaf – her Earth food of choice other than potpies and carrot cake.
“So,” Rodney said, tiring of the silence. “After we drop you off, then what?”
Sheppard shrugged. “Rest. Take off when I'm able.”
Rodney frowned severely. “Rest. In the same hotel where those people found you. Where they could still locate you if need be.”
“They won't,” Sheppard said with a nonchalant shrug. “They made their point clear. I have two weeks, tops, before they make another call back. I should be gone by then.”
Should. Sheppard should be gone. The man's indifference toward his own well being was staggering, not to mention irritating, and it was all Rodney could do to keep from throwing his fork down. Living in Pegasus was living on the edge, and Rodney had skimmed the precipice of death enough times to have a hell of a monolithic love for life. When life gave you second chances, you took them and never looked back.
If Rodney didn't know any better, he could have sworn Sheppard didn't give a damn that he was still alive. But whether Sheppard gave a damn or not wasn't the issue. Rodney had saved his life, and didn't care if the ungrateful bastard didn't appreciate it. Rodney wasn't letting that kind of hard work go to waste.
Crap, he really was stubborn.
“Tell you what,” he said, clipped and flat. “I'll do you another favor. One more, on the house. We have to head head out to Colorado today. You can come with us. Get out of Vegas, get out of that hotel, get where certain 'people,'” Rodney arched his fingers into air quotations, “can't find you. Sound good?”
Sheppard shrugged again – Rodney was getting really sick of that. “Yeah, sure. Just need to drop by the hotel to grab a few things.”
Rodney snorted and resumed attacking his meal, muttering, “Tone the enthusiasm down, why don't you.” If Sheppard heard, he was ignoring him.
-------------------------
The hotel was on the outskirts of the city, with an indoor and outdoor pool and a few slot machines scattered throughout the lobby. Sheppard's room was on the fourth floor, still under his name having booked himself a two weeks' stay, with two days left to go. Sheppard doubtless knew everything there was to know about the world of loan sharks; that didn't stop Rodney from asking Ronon to keep watch outside the door, just in case.
“They didn't take the money?” Rodney asked. “They put all that effort into tracking you down and kicking your ass, and didn't take the money?”
Teyla's eyebrows arched high up her forehead. “John's injuries are from being attacked? Over currency?”
“Long story,” Sheppard said, vanishing into the closet. “You don't want to hear it. They didn't know I had any money. They jumped me outside. The money I kept in the safe.” He emerged a minute later with the bag in hand. Dropping it on the bed, he zipped it open, rummaged through it, then with a satisfied nod of his head closed it back up. He went back to the closet and removed a duffel, the extent of his belongings. It added to the mural of John Sheppard's pathetic existence.
And it really was kind of sad. Everything anyone needed to know about John Sheppard was spelled out in a file, a file the SGC had gotten their hands on as easy as grabbing candy from a vending machine. Read the file once, and the blanks became pretty damn simple to fill.
“Ready?” Rodney asked, even more anxious to leave.
John didn't answer, just nod.
Rodney nodded back. “What about your car?”
John still didn't answer as he led the way out.
The trip out of Vegas was packed with even more silence of the kind that flipping on the radio couldn't break. There came a lull when Sheppard insisted they listen to one of his CDs; most of them Johnny Cash, big surprise. Sheppard probably had the poster all safely rolled up and tucked away in his bag. Rodney himself had no real opinion of the man in black. Teyla, either, but that was just Rodney making assumptions again.
Ronon, on the other hand, actually perked up. “I like this music.” It brought a smile, an honest to goodness smile, to Sheppard's face. When they stopped to fuel up, Sheppard repaid the comment by buying Ronon a double-stacked ham sandwich.
Four hours later Ronon was hungry again and in the mood for another sandwich. They stopped at a Subway but took their food to a nearby park with a picnic area under man-planted trees. The chipped and warped tables were questionable, but keeping the sun off their backs was keeping the sun off their backs. Being the hottest part of the day, the picnic area was deserted, leaving them free to talk about whatever.
And the topic just had to be Ronon's blaster, because Ronon just had to bring it with him since they weren't technically in a public place - even the man's trust issues were a hazard – and Sheppard just had to regress into a ten year old, go all bug-eyed on seeing it and ask all about it.
Ronon whipped it out a little too eagerly for Rodney's liking. “It has two settings. One kills, the other stuns.”
Much to Rodney's chagrin that almost led to a heart-attack, Ronon demonstrated, letting rip a stun blast that knocked an owl from its perch on a nearby pinon tree.
“Are you nuts! Someone might have seen you! That's probably an endangered species you just bushwhacked!” Rodney shrilled.
Ronon shrugged, twirled his gun and shoved it back into his holster. “Just stunned it.”
“Yes, stunned it nice and immobile for some coyote or cat to pick off later.”
“Then we will wait until the stun wears off,” said Teyla in that incredibly reasonable tone of hers, the one that could make anything sound logical.
“No, we can't. We're on a schedule. We're supposed to be back... Sheppard, what are you doing?”
Sheppard had moved over to where the owl had dropped without Rodney realizing it. He stood there, hand on hip, staring at the bird.
Then picked it up and brought it to the table.
Rodney stiffened in alarm. “Hey, trying to eat here, Sheppard. Dirty your hands with diseased bird after we're finished. Crap, do you know what kind of plagues that thing could be carrying? What is wrong with you?”
But Sheppard wasn't listening, holding the bird out for Teyla and Ronon to see. Without having heeded Rodney's warning of diseases, Teyla went so far as to brush her fingers over the gray and brown mottled feathers. An almost child-like wonder brightened her features with a smile.
“It is very soft.”
Rodney rolled his eyes and fished through his pockets for the wet wipes he always carried with him. They left the bird on the table as they finished eating, and were just throwing away their trash when the owl flinched awake. It blinked drunken eyes, surveyed its surroundings then flew away, whole and healthy if a little uncoordinated.
Sheppard watched it with a look of wistful fascination and a small smile on his face.
Without thinking about it, Rodney blurted, “It can fly, you know.”
“Obviously.”
“No, not the owl. I'm talking about the city, Atlantis. It's a city about the size of Manhattan and it can fly.”
“Cool,” was all Sheppard said. It was getting to be just as annoying as all his damn indifferent shrugging.
Because they'd started late, and thanks to Ronon's happy trigger finger, night came fast and they weren't even out of the desert, yet. Chances were getting better and better that they might have to stop for the night. But then Rodney managed to stop at a gas station with coffee that didn't taste like he was poisoning himself. The gas station also had the bonus of a little diner next door that didn't smell half bad, where Teyla was given free run to talk about her people (sans words like 'planet' and 'Ancestor ring') and life lived under an 'oppressive enemy' (aka, the Wraith). She was quite adept at saying much without saying too much, and Sheppard's first run-in with the Wraith filled in what she was leaving out. He paled a little when she talked of being 'rounded up' for 'storage and processing.'
“So um – uh... people are basically like cattle to these, um... people?”
Ronon's grin was cold and feral when he replied, “Cattle with claws.”
“We are fighting back,” said Teyla.
John grimaced and nodded. “Good to hear.”
Rodney rolled his eyes, lamenting that this probably wasn't helping his sales pitch any.
Fueled up on stimulants and food, Rodney was dead set on nipping the rest of this trip in the bud. The others weren't quite as gung ho. Teyla had stepped outside to walk off most of her meal, accompanied by John and without a lot of reaction on Ronon's part. But then this was Teyla they were talking about, who really could lay a man flat with nothing but a stick.
Rodney left Ronon to his seconds while he scoured the area for the two. He found them a short ways away, off the pavement and on the sand, talking.
“... desert much like this one, only the sand is like deep amber crystals and when the sun rises, it is like looking upon a field of molten gold. Then there is Gallas where the trees are always the color of trees during the harvest season...”
“You guys ready to go?” Rodney interjected. He was well aware that it was probably rude but at this point didn't care. He had no idea how long all that coffee was going to keep him going.
Teyla dipped her head toward him. “If you are.”
“Very. Better go get Ronon. Last I saw he was eying the pie case with too much interest.”
Grinning, Teyla left, making for the diner. Rodney turned his attention on John and narrowed his eyes. Far be it from him to judge anyone, except he didn't know Sheppard, and on first meeting him had pegged the guy as a possible flirt – among other things. It never hurt to be cautious.
“She was giving me the unfiltered version of Pegasus life,” Sheppard said, scuffing the ground with his heel. “Telling me about some of the planets in the area.” He'd have been easy to miss if there hadn't been a full moon out. The night was deep, the sky a rich black that swallowed the distant mountains, surrounding John in starry infinity. “Sounds cool.”
“It is,” said Rodney. “See it to really believe it kind of stuff.”
The universe was incredibly full of itself. Men built towers and spaceships to heaven, ancient races gates connecting worlds, life filled planets and yet despite it all, that life was still little more than a bunch of ants existing on borrowed time, ants included. Crap, McKay hated it when the universe made him that kind of contemplative.
That didn't stop him from looking at the stars. More specifically the vague section of sky where Pegasus would be. The universe may have been full of itself, but Rodney supposed it had every right to be. It was and always would be a gorgeous thing to look at. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Rodney wandered idly away from the obscuring lights of the diner, letting infinity swallow him, too.
“It's funny,” he said. Now that he was on a pensive roll, it was hard to stop. “Our first year in Pegasus we were cut off from Earth and all I could think about was getting back. But I look up at a sky like this, and all I can think of is Atlantis. Its towers, tech. It floats on the ocean, you know. Just like in the stories – well, okay, the fantasy stories, not really the legends... I think. And if you get up early enough, just as the sun's rising... I can't even describe how beautiful it is. Like... like it's... on fire. No! Like it is fire, and gold and... like it's the sun. Oh, and it has spaceships. Little spaceships you can fly anywhere: underwater, into space. Their overall aesthetics leaves something to be desired, but it's for a purpose. And they -”
John's moonlit outline twitched its chin toward the sky. “So where is this galaxy of yours?”
Rodney pointed. John glanced up, briefly, then dropped his gaze back to the ground and his scuffing. It was picturesque solitude: all that universe overhead and one lone man beneath it. It made Sheppard even smaller, frailer.
Rodney suddenly realized how little notice Sheppard was taking of the sky, and, also suddenly, he wanted to know what the man was thinking. Him, Rodney McKay, actually giving a damn about the gears turning in other people's heads. Mostly he still wanted to know what the guy's problem was, why he was passing up on an adventure of a lifetime.
He wondered if, out here in the preening infinite, Sheppard thought himself unworthy... or something; like he didn't deserve it, like he didn't belong. As though everything that came before – the things mentioned in that file – still dictated what he could and could not do, as though saving the world only made up for part of it.
Which was ridiculous. Rodney wasn't a religious man. All the same: casting the first stone and all that. By Sheppard's logic, not a single member of the expedition belonged on Atlantis, Rodney included. Hell, there were probably people way less deserving than Sheppard thought himself. A lot of people: people who saved the day only because they wanted to live. Sheppard had saved the day because he'd made a choice, a choice to be the one to die so everyone else could live.
How was that not deserving?
“Sheppard -” Rodney began.
“We should head out,” Sheppard said, heading back to the car.
The silence of the rest of the trip had more to do with Rodney's passengers being asleep than an actual choice not to talk.
On finally reaching the vicinity of Cheyenne Mountain, Rodney detoured to the nearest, nicest, hotel. Ronon and Teyla waited in the lobby to stretch their legs as Sheppard checked in then Rodney helped him carry the two bags to his room. Before which, Sheppard said his goodbyes. Teyla even touched foreheads with him (lucky bastard).
Rodney deposited both bags on the bed, turned and stood there.
“Well,” he said, “Okay, then?”
“Yeah,” John said, rubbing the back of his neck. The long drive had worn them all out, but on Sheppard it actually showed.
“If you change your mind, you know where to reach me.”
John nodded. “Yeah.”
Rodney nodded back, scrounging for words that wouldn't come, words that were supposed change Sheppard's mind. For the first time that Rodney could recall, his mind went completely blank.
There was really no point in trying anymore, but Rodney had to accept the fact that he really could be stubborn to a point that defied even his own logic – on occasion. Yet this wasn't one of those times. This was logical. Sheppard was useful, could be useful, and what Rodney had been offering anyone else would've (and, in fact, had) killed for.
And Sheppard deserved it. He'd almost died saving the damn world, for crying out loud.
“You sure...” Rodney began, then thought better of it. No point, remember? He turned to go, Sheppard standing there looking ready to collapse, the epitome of exhaustion. It made Rodney wonder if Sheppard really did buy into his own assessment that saving the world wasn't penance enough, and wondered if it was possible to regret second chances. Which was wrong, so very, very wrong. It made Rodney stop, uncomfortable to leave. He didn't think Sheppard rash enough to do anything, well, rash. Neither did it feel right, just leaving, washing his hands of him like promised. Rodney stopped.
He turned back around, opened his mouth, closed it, impersonated a fish two more times then, “You are like him, you know.”
John's eyebrows raised in confusion.
“You are like that other John Sheppard. You are him, actually. Just... walking a different road, that's all. And I'd like to think that just because certain choices create detours doesn't mean we can't find our way back and try again. Or that other detours won't lead to that missed road, or something better. Not all the time, of course. But, sometimes, you know?” He shook his head, scowling at himself. “Sorry, I suck at analogies. What it all basically comes down to is that you are that John Sheppard.”
Sheppard sighed. “Rodney -”
Rodney held up his hand, stopping him. “This isn't another sales pitch, I promise. I'm just saying.” He then tucked his hand back into his pocket. “So, just out of curiosity, what are your plans from here on out?”
John shrugged. “Convalesce.”
“After that?”
“Get my pilot's license renewed, open up a sky tour or fly choppers for a news crew or something.”
Rodney nodded. “Cool. You know, the the people I work for are always in need of competent test pilots, in case you're interested.”
“Cool.”
“And,” Rodney cleared his throat, “if you ever change your mind... and I'm just saying. You could drop by, give it a try. You wouldn't have to stay if you didn't want to. We wouldn't make you. It's just, Atlantis is the right kind of place for people like you.”
“People like me?”
“Yes, people like you.”
“People with that Ancient gene thing?”
“No,” Rodney blurted. “People who take on life-sucking aliens instead of run from them. People like you. Not that that's all Pegasus has to offer. It does kind of helps, though.”
It coaxed a small but still amused smile out of John. He looked at Rodney full in the face and said, “I'll think about it.”
Which, at this point, could mean anything. Rodney was leaning toward “no.” All the same, he bobbed his head. “Okay.” Then he left, unable to think of anything else to say. Except, “If I'm ever on Earth again, I'll look you up. You can take me on a plane tour or chopper ride or something.”
“You should bring Teyla and Ronon.”
“Sure.” Yet Rodney continued to hesitate. “Um, you're all right, here? I mean... you'll be all right? You all right?”
Sheppard nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I'll be fine.”
“Good,” Rodney said. He waved. “See your around, Sheppard.” Then he left.
-------------------------
The disgustingly cheery chirp of a cell phone yanked Rodney from one hell of a dream, featuring him, Carter and a jacuzzi. Groaning, he grabbed the damn interloper, jamming his thumb into the buttons. The caller I.D. read anonymous. He rolled onto his back and placed the phone to his ear, cursing the SGC for providing cell phones that could be reached anywhere, and anyone being able to reach him even miles under the earth.
“What!”
The reply spoken in a familiar, slightly nasal drawl, was five hesitant words. “I'll give it a try.”
Rodney grinned - happy, but not with himself. “Took you long enough.”
The End
Rating: PG, Gen
Characters: John, Rodney, Ronon, Teyla
SPoilers: Vegas
Summary: John is reluctant, Rodney doesn't get why and there's a road trip involved. Rodney POV. Vegas-verse - yes another one, but with Ronon and Teyla included. For all those who wanted to see Ronon and Teyla in this verse. Guess that would make this a team fic=D Huge thanks to my betas
wildcat88 and reen212000 for helping me mend its many flaws.McKay took the hospital halls at a forced walk that was attempting to burst into an all-out run. He was excited, prematurely according to Jennifer who could see through him like a window, and also according to her that was bad luck – not bad luck in the sense of an actual superstition; bad luck in terms of life not being so regularly accommodating because it preferred being ironic. He was jinxing his own goals, she'd said.
Rodney had just laughed. Jennifer was beautiful, intelligent, quirky. And yet when she had talked of bad luck and self-jinxing, she had done so with such a dead-pan look Rodney had honestly thought, for about three seconds, that she was being serious.
Of course she was kidding. This wasn't a coincidence nor could it be life jerking him around. He completely ignored any thoughts aiming toward “too good to be true.”
Taking a sharp right had Rodney doing a little skid down the hallway. He counted four rooms in, was reaching for the handle of the fifth door when it opened on its own. A female doctor – petite, brown-haired, tan-skinned – stepped out, all five-something feet of her blocking his way.
“Dr. McKay?” she asked.
Rodney beamed, rocking back on his heels, not even trying to curb his enthusiasm. “That's me.”
The doctor looked him up and down. “And you're acquainted with Mr. Sheppard how?”
“Oh, uh...” Rodney stopped rocking. “He helped us out with something a while back. The company I work for, I mean.”
“So you're not a relation?”
“No. No, I'm not.”
The woman's eyebrows arched high into her hairline. “A lawyer? Case worker?”
“No. Why? Do I need to be?” Rodney's enthusiasm started to drain, frustration taking its place. “Hey, look, your people contacted my people who then contacted me. Which, by the way, is not that easy and resulted in me being dragged away from some very serious work. If I came all the way from... where I came from just to be turned away -”
The doctor raised her hand, cool and composed in the face of Rodney's mounting wrath. “Dr. McKay, I'm not turning you away. Mr. Sheppard had no contact information in his files. He did have a card with a contact number and your name on it and, well, frankly, I felt it was better than nothing at the time.”
Rodney puckered his brow. “At the time?”
“Mr. Sheppard was unconscious for three days, waking up only yesterday. He was – still is – ill and coupled with his records telling us that he'd just been released from a lengthy hospital stay after surgery a month ago, needless to say it had us a little concerned.
Rodney's enthusiasm dropped like a rock into his gut. “So... you called the contact number? Sheppard didn't have you call it for him?”
The doctor – Rodney finally took the time to read her name tag – Dr. Cartwright, nodded. “Yes.”
“Well, what happened? Some kind of relapse?” Because if it was a relapse, no words would accurately describe how pissed he was going to be. He hadn't been exaggerating about his work. He never exaggerated about his work, and Atlantis wasn't the kind of place you could pop in and out of on a whim. The damn quarantine was aggravation enough. Being waylaid on Earth for mundane reasons while who the hell knew what was taking place on Atlantis multiplied it by ten.
“We think he may have been mugged,” Dr. Cartwright explained. “He hasn't been forthright with the details. All he'll say is that he had the hell beat out of him. He refuses to press charges, let alone give any kind of statement. If you think you can get him to talk, by all means please do so. If not,” she shrugged, “then I'm truly sorry I wasted your time.”
Rodney aimed a glare at the door. “I won't hold it against you.”
The nurse gave him a twitch of a nod then left him to it. Rodney straightened, smoothing out his suit and shoving back the frustration that wouldn't change anything should he give into it. He'd come here for a reason. Maybe that reason hadn't turned out how he'd planned (and he had no intentions of telling Jennifer that) but that didn't exactly, entirely, make it a lost cause.
Over two months ago, an ordinary man with a lot of cracks in his personality had damn near given his life to save the world. A little over two months ago, Rodney had offered that man a home among the stars, literally in a galaxy far far away.
A little over two months ago, a complete and utterly brainless lunatic had declined that offer, quicker than the offer had been offered.
Okay, so maybe Rodney was judging him too harshly – presenting a man with a complete lack of interest in sci-fi a job in another galaxy had to be overwhelming. It had been overwhelming to Rodney for a short time, before potential outweighed the risks and possible discoveries had smothered most of his fear.
Most.
A little over two months ago, Rodney had left that man his card to contact him if he changed his mind. A lot could happen in two months' time: a lot of thinking, realizing, mind-changing.
Rodney gripped the handle and opened the door.
John Sheppard was how Rodney remembered him, if a little more bruised, battered and pale. Possibly thinner, but that could just be the hospital gown – they made everyone seem smaller than they were. Sheppard's arm was still in a sling, his face still shaded with stubble and his hair still a mother's nightmare. It hit Rodney with a lot of deja vu.
Sheppard's eyelids parted; the right one did, the left one was drowning beneath one hell of a shiner, barely able to manage a slit. No doubt Sheppard was up to his neck in pain medication, but there wasn't anything hazy or drugged in the way he regarded Rodney.
“What're you doin' here?” His voice was another matter.
Rodney clasped his hands behind his back, business-like and betraying nothing. “You tell me? I thought you'd be out of Vegas by now.”
John lifted his good shoulder. Otherwise, he didn't answer. He did look away.
“So, what was the detour? Poker? Black jack? A hooker?”
Despite the drugs, or maybe even because of them, the look Sheppard gave him could have stripped paint off metal. Rodney ignored it, waving his hand dismissively.
“The hooker thing was out of line. I apologize for that. The fact is, I'm not supposed to be here; that's obvious. The hospital contacting me was a fluke and a very pointless fluke because, harsh as this may be to say, we've pretty much washed our hands of you. You helped us, we're grateful and in turn we helped you by paying your hospital bills and then some. And giving back that money we found in your car. Once I left, that was it and whatever else you've managed to get yourself into, we can't help. Again, harsh as it is to say, it's none of our concern.”
“Don't want your help, anyway,” Sheppard said.
“Good. Then we each know where we stand. Have you given any more thought into what I'd said two months ago?” Rodney never could practice the patience for beating around the bush.
Sheppard shifted with a wince of discomfort. “Answer's still no.”
And that shot Rodney's frustration right back to the surface. “What? Why the hell not? Sheppard, you're passing up the opportunity of a lifeti-”
“I have my reasons.” Sheppard's working arm flopped his hand over his body en route to the side table. “Seeing as how they're my reasons, I don't have to justify them.” He winced each time his hand landed a little too hard on his chest, gasped when he was forced to roll onto his side just to reach the plastic cup of water sitting there.
An empty plastic cup, with the pitcher just out of his reach. It was all horribly pathetic and demeaning, and as much as Rodney wanted to play the hard ass and just watch, he couldn't.
Rodney had been the one to demand a med unit be sent out after Sheppard. Somehow, for reasons Rodney couldn't pin down, Sheppard taking on that Wraith had felt like Rodney's fault. Logically, it had been Sheppard's fault – Rodney had told him not to go. And yet, even to this day lingered an obnoxious little voice in the back of his skull that begged to differ. Jennifer had named that voice compassion, Rodney delirium brought on by the energy-sucking relief that the world wasn't ending after all.
Rodney, however, had had nothing to do with Sheppard's recent hospital stay. He could honestly say, without remorse, that this wasn't his concern.
“Yeah, you do,” Rodney said. He filled the cup, shoving it into Sheppard's hand, feeling slightly vindicated when some of it slipped over the edge even if none of it landed on Sheppard.
“Why?”
“Because it's the chance of a lifetime. One you're going to regret passing up.”
“Regret passing up life-sucking aliens.” Sheppard took a sip. “Yeah, I can totally see how easy that is to regret.” He took another, longer sip interrupted by coughing. He set the cup down in order to bring his fist to his mouth and hack into it. It was a wet cough, chest deep and definitely not the jag of a man choking on water.
“Flu?” Rodney asked.
When John was done, he answered hoarsely, “Left over pneumonia.”
“Oh, lovely. So, when do you get out of here?”
“Thursday, maybe Friday.”
“Two to three days, gotcha. And then what, head to the nearest casino? Drop your ass back in here soon after? We let you keep all that money - even paid your debts - and the first thing you do is exchange it for chips? You are most definitely a class act, Sheppard.”
Sheppard flopped back onto his pillow with an exhausted exhale, draping his arm over his eyes. “You're a very judgmental man, Dr. McKay.”
“I'm just making assumptions based on what I've been given. Feel free to enlighten me otherwise.”
Sheppard cleared his throat. “Still got the money minus what I'd used to pay for a hotel. I was heading out of town, ran into some... people I knew. I'm pretty sure you have enough to make the safe assumption about who those people were.”
“Probably. I thought we helped you with that?”
“That's the problem with some of these people. Give them what they want, they find reasons to make you give them more. The rest is history.”
Rodney frowned. “What, were they following you or something? How'd they find you so easy?”
“Maybe they followed me. I don't know. I hadn't gotten far. It's a pain in the ass to drive a car you don't know with one hand. Then this... flu or something tries to drop me. I didn't have a choice - hole up or wrap the new car around a light pole. Not that I'd care. I hate that car. I want my damn Camero back.”
“Too shot up, we told you. Cry a river about your car later. You got sick? It's been a while but if I recall correctly, you were supposed to head back to the hospital if your temperature was so much as one degree over the norm.”
“Couldn't drive.”
“And, what, you forgot the number to 911? Or did you merely wish against a return trip to the emergency room?”
Sheppard lowered his arm just enough to look at McKay. “Can you blame me?”
“Yes, actually, but then you did prove that I have more common sense than you.”
Sheppard sighed, long and world weary. “I'm not him, McKay.”
McKay, momentarily distracted by the non sequitur, blinked and said, “Him, who?”
“That other Sheppard.”
Rodney scowled. “DNA would beg to differ. The rest... yes, you're not him. Not by a long shot.” The words were out before Rodney realized just how much of a hypocrite it made him sound. It wasn't all that long ago he'd told Sheppard the complete opposite: that he was that man, just on a different path. But then persistence had been making Rodney say a lot of things. Alternate versions of oneself didn't change the self's genetic make-up. Alternate Sheppard had manipulated Ancient technology like putty, and that little attribute made this world's Sheppard something incredibly useful. The Ancient gene was rare enough as it was; no way could Rodney in good conscious not at least attempt to recruit those who had it.
“But you could be,” he said.
Sheppard's arm slipped from his face, flopping boneless on the bed. “You don't have to stick around.” Translated, according to the cool tone: get the hell out.
Rodney easily obliged. “Continue to think on it,” was all he said, too pissed to say anything else. He hated failure, and hoped Sheppard got it through his punch-drunk head to eventually toss the card and spare Rodney another pointless trip, or use it for the reason Rodney had given it to him. Rodney was surprised Sheppard hadn't tossed it already, unless he'd just forgot and kept forgetting, which wouldn't be a surprise.
Rodney had done what he could and failed, again. He was definitely washing his hands of this guy.
------------------------
Two days later – still stuck in Area 51 for reasons beyond his control (which annoyed him more than the conundrum that was Sheppard's stubborn refusal) Rodney returned. And for the life of him couldn't figure out why, or why the hell he even cared.
No, not cared. This wasn't about caring. If anything, it was probably about pride and that stubbornly obnoxious persistence Jennifer insisted was a good trait, when utilized right, which was very fifty-fifty. But so said she... and Zelenka and a couple of other people. Yet what did they know? Even more mind-boggling was the fact that Rodney remembered at all that Sheppard was supposed to be released today – Rodney had never had a head for dates and would admit it.
He should have just called the Daedalus to beam him to Cheyenne Mountain and taken the 'gate back to Pegasus the moment he left that hospital. Problem was, Teyla had joined him on this journey as spokesperson for the galaxy, Ronon with her because the man refused to leave her side (she'd saved his ass twice, endearing her to him for life). Carter had asked Rodney to stick around for their sakes as spokesperson for them in case the IOA tried to back them into a corner for whatever reason. The IOA had a very bad track record when it came to people from other worlds. They labeled it as “standing their ground.” Everyone else labeled it secret bigotry and not-so-secret mistrust. Rodney blamed it on Coolidge being a practiced ass on a regular basis. Whatever the reason, it had kept Rodney within the vicinity of Sheppard's hospital, Sheppard himself, and a third chance at being a little more persuasive.
Rodney walked into the room and found Sheppard dressed in a sky-blue button shirt and jeans, packing up his scant belongings. Rodney had been right the first time - Sheppard was thinner by a couple of degrees. He'd been a slob dresser when Rodney had met him, now his clothes looked like hand-me-downs from an older, larger brother. Illness did that to a body.
Rodney wondered if that was what had brought him back after all – other than his so-called obnoxious persistence: pity. Or ensuring that his investment survived. They'd done a lot for Sheppard; it wouldn't be right to let all that effort go to waste.
When Sheppard finally looked up, he did a double take, then continued packing. “You really can't take no for an answer.”
“Not really.”
“Learn to.”
Rodney scrubbed his hand over his face. Why the hell am I here? But since he was here, he might as well not waste it. And he'd come prepared – more or less by accident when the Daedalus had been called away on an impromptu mission (i.e. a stranded team on a world with a broken 'gate) but neither was he going to waste it.
“Maybe I'll get used to it. Hurry up so we can get out of here.”
John paused to give him a suspicious look.
“I'm your ride. And a generous one at that. I have some friends I'm taking out to breakfast before we head back to Pegasus. You can join us, if you want, before I take you... wherever it is you want to go.”
Sheppard's right eyebrow cocked. “Bribing me with pancakes?”
“No, taking pity on you by helping you remedy your little problem of looking half starved and pathetic.”
Sheppard's gaze turned cool. “You're too kind.” He closed his bag with a pointlessly hard tug on the zipper.
Rodney easily ignored it. “Don't mention it. Now move it.”
The hospital was anal, as hospitals are wont to be in order to avoid lawsuits and repeat offenders, and insisted that Sheppard ride out in style in a wheelchair. While Sheppard didn't protest the entire time, the stony scowl on his face betrayed just how much he wanted to. Or maybe it was because Rodney was present, or a combination of both. Rodney would admit he hadn't won any points with Sheppard two days ago. Sheppard could just get over it.
The rental was parked just outside the hospital doors, ready, waiting and occupied. Rodney, under the duress of orders (more like badgering) from Carter, had promised Teyla and Ronon a quick trip into town, proving to them that there was more to Earth than anal bureaucrats. Teyla was in the front seat, Ronon the back, neither looking remotely happy. But on approach to the car Teyla's face lit up with what Rodney knew to be her expression of mild curiosity aimed at Sheppard. Ronon spared one semi-interested glance at the former detective then immediately lost interest.
Sheppard's shoulders visibly tensed. Otherwise he barely reacted. “Back up?”
“Envoys. Well, one of them's an envoy, the other her body guard. Both of them friendly Pegasus natives. Okay, Teyla's the friendly one, still not sure about Dex.”
“They're aliens?” Sheppard asked with a lot of incredulity.
“As close as you're going to get, yes. Sorry that they're not short, bald and green. Now get in the back. Don't worry - you don't try to bite Teyla, Ronon won't try to blast you into next year.”
Which was very much the wrong thing to say to a guy who'd had his ass handed to him, no doubt, by thugs as big if not bigger than Dex. Sheppard was painfully reluctant about getting into the car, his movements deliberate and his eyes never leaving Ronon, all while Ronon ignored him. Once seated, buckled in and obviously not going to bolt, Rodney jumped into the driver's seat before anyone changed their minds about remaining seated.
“John Sheppard,” Sheppard said. Rodney saw through the rearview mirror Ronon turn his head long enough to lift his chin in greeting.
“Ronon Dex.”
Teyla, on the other hand, being far more polite and inquisitive, turned half-way around, extending her hand. She only ever used the traditional greeting of touching foreheads on Atlantis, and only with those she was more deeply acquainted with. It was a constant sore spot with Rodney – she never used the greeting on him.
“Teyla Emmagan.”
They shook hands then John's hand went to the back of his neck in an act of blatant awkwardness. “So, um... McKay tells me you're from another galaxy.”
“That is correct,” Teyla said. “We are here on a diplomatic mission.”
John nodded. “Cool. So how're you liking Earth?”
Teyla took a deep, hesitating breath and curled her lips into a very polite smile. “It is nice.”
Rodney had to swallow a couple of times to keep from barking up a laugh. He respected Teyla, he did, but she was proof that people could be polite to a fault. You had to be blind and deaf not to see through all that painted civility. She hated it here, or she wouldn't have sighed so much during the short trip from Cheyenne Mountain to Area 51. And why the IOA had wanted to conduct the interview at Area 51 was beyond Rodney, unless they really were that bad a bunch of paranoid control freaks. It was a lot easier to ensure interplanetary guests stayed put when they were holed up in a facility in the middle of the desert.
But like that would have stopped Ronon if he'd been so inclined to take off. The IOA needed to thank their lucky stars Ronon hadn't ever hit that level of desperately bored.
Sheppard, not being blind and deaf, must have caught on to what Teyla wasn't saying. The car fell silent and stayed that way all through the short trip to the nearest IHOP about four blocks away. Ronon had an almost unhealthy obsession for pancakes, and when Rodney had made mention of a restaurant dedicated to pancakes, it was the first time since coming to Earth that the big guy had perked up.
Despite that mild show of enthusiasm, after arriving, the four remained wrapped in quiet as they waited for their food, then more quiet when the food arrived: the uncomfortable quiet of knowing something should be said for the sake of being courteous, yet no one brave or inclined enough to say anything. Not that they really had a choice unless they wanted to give the entire restaurant clearance.
Ronon had ordered enough food to bleed Rodney's wallet dry – the big man had hording issues, as though harboring a secret fear that he could be back on the run at any moment. Looking on the positive, Rodney knew not a drop of that food would be wasted. Sheppard was a different story. He'd ordered like a man taking advantage of the finer things in life – steak and potatoes – and picked at it like a man who'd already eaten and realized he'd made a big mistake.
Actually, more like Sheppard had run out of the energy to eat. That world-weary exhaustion of two days ago was still there, still a veiled weight slumping his shoulders and bending his back. And the funny thing was, when Rodney thought about it, he couldn't recall having seen Sheppard look any other way.
What Sheppard didn't eat, Ronon took care of. Teyla had the meatloaf – her Earth food of choice other than potpies and carrot cake.
“So,” Rodney said, tiring of the silence. “After we drop you off, then what?”
Sheppard shrugged. “Rest. Take off when I'm able.”
Rodney frowned severely. “Rest. In the same hotel where those people found you. Where they could still locate you if need be.”
“They won't,” Sheppard said with a nonchalant shrug. “They made their point clear. I have two weeks, tops, before they make another call back. I should be gone by then.”
Should. Sheppard should be gone. The man's indifference toward his own well being was staggering, not to mention irritating, and it was all Rodney could do to keep from throwing his fork down. Living in Pegasus was living on the edge, and Rodney had skimmed the precipice of death enough times to have a hell of a monolithic love for life. When life gave you second chances, you took them and never looked back.
If Rodney didn't know any better, he could have sworn Sheppard didn't give a damn that he was still alive. But whether Sheppard gave a damn or not wasn't the issue. Rodney had saved his life, and didn't care if the ungrateful bastard didn't appreciate it. Rodney wasn't letting that kind of hard work go to waste.
Crap, he really was stubborn.
“Tell you what,” he said, clipped and flat. “I'll do you another favor. One more, on the house. We have to head head out to Colorado today. You can come with us. Get out of Vegas, get out of that hotel, get where certain 'people,'” Rodney arched his fingers into air quotations, “can't find you. Sound good?”
Sheppard shrugged again – Rodney was getting really sick of that. “Yeah, sure. Just need to drop by the hotel to grab a few things.”
Rodney snorted and resumed attacking his meal, muttering, “Tone the enthusiasm down, why don't you.” If Sheppard heard, he was ignoring him.
-------------------------
The hotel was on the outskirts of the city, with an indoor and outdoor pool and a few slot machines scattered throughout the lobby. Sheppard's room was on the fourth floor, still under his name having booked himself a two weeks' stay, with two days left to go. Sheppard doubtless knew everything there was to know about the world of loan sharks; that didn't stop Rodney from asking Ronon to keep watch outside the door, just in case.
“They didn't take the money?” Rodney asked. “They put all that effort into tracking you down and kicking your ass, and didn't take the money?”
Teyla's eyebrows arched high up her forehead. “John's injuries are from being attacked? Over currency?”
“Long story,” Sheppard said, vanishing into the closet. “You don't want to hear it. They didn't know I had any money. They jumped me outside. The money I kept in the safe.” He emerged a minute later with the bag in hand. Dropping it on the bed, he zipped it open, rummaged through it, then with a satisfied nod of his head closed it back up. He went back to the closet and removed a duffel, the extent of his belongings. It added to the mural of John Sheppard's pathetic existence.
And it really was kind of sad. Everything anyone needed to know about John Sheppard was spelled out in a file, a file the SGC had gotten their hands on as easy as grabbing candy from a vending machine. Read the file once, and the blanks became pretty damn simple to fill.
“Ready?” Rodney asked, even more anxious to leave.
John didn't answer, just nod.
Rodney nodded back. “What about your car?”
John still didn't answer as he led the way out.
The trip out of Vegas was packed with even more silence of the kind that flipping on the radio couldn't break. There came a lull when Sheppard insisted they listen to one of his CDs; most of them Johnny Cash, big surprise. Sheppard probably had the poster all safely rolled up and tucked away in his bag. Rodney himself had no real opinion of the man in black. Teyla, either, but that was just Rodney making assumptions again.
Ronon, on the other hand, actually perked up. “I like this music.” It brought a smile, an honest to goodness smile, to Sheppard's face. When they stopped to fuel up, Sheppard repaid the comment by buying Ronon a double-stacked ham sandwich.
Four hours later Ronon was hungry again and in the mood for another sandwich. They stopped at a Subway but took their food to a nearby park with a picnic area under man-planted trees. The chipped and warped tables were questionable, but keeping the sun off their backs was keeping the sun off their backs. Being the hottest part of the day, the picnic area was deserted, leaving them free to talk about whatever.
And the topic just had to be Ronon's blaster, because Ronon just had to bring it with him since they weren't technically in a public place - even the man's trust issues were a hazard – and Sheppard just had to regress into a ten year old, go all bug-eyed on seeing it and ask all about it.
Ronon whipped it out a little too eagerly for Rodney's liking. “It has two settings. One kills, the other stuns.”
Much to Rodney's chagrin that almost led to a heart-attack, Ronon demonstrated, letting rip a stun blast that knocked an owl from its perch on a nearby pinon tree.
“Are you nuts! Someone might have seen you! That's probably an endangered species you just bushwhacked!” Rodney shrilled.
Ronon shrugged, twirled his gun and shoved it back into his holster. “Just stunned it.”
“Yes, stunned it nice and immobile for some coyote or cat to pick off later.”
“Then we will wait until the stun wears off,” said Teyla in that incredibly reasonable tone of hers, the one that could make anything sound logical.
“No, we can't. We're on a schedule. We're supposed to be back... Sheppard, what are you doing?”
Sheppard had moved over to where the owl had dropped without Rodney realizing it. He stood there, hand on hip, staring at the bird.
Then picked it up and brought it to the table.
Rodney stiffened in alarm. “Hey, trying to eat here, Sheppard. Dirty your hands with diseased bird after we're finished. Crap, do you know what kind of plagues that thing could be carrying? What is wrong with you?”
But Sheppard wasn't listening, holding the bird out for Teyla and Ronon to see. Without having heeded Rodney's warning of diseases, Teyla went so far as to brush her fingers over the gray and brown mottled feathers. An almost child-like wonder brightened her features with a smile.
“It is very soft.”
Rodney rolled his eyes and fished through his pockets for the wet wipes he always carried with him. They left the bird on the table as they finished eating, and were just throwing away their trash when the owl flinched awake. It blinked drunken eyes, surveyed its surroundings then flew away, whole and healthy if a little uncoordinated.
Sheppard watched it with a look of wistful fascination and a small smile on his face.
Without thinking about it, Rodney blurted, “It can fly, you know.”
“Obviously.”
“No, not the owl. I'm talking about the city, Atlantis. It's a city about the size of Manhattan and it can fly.”
“Cool,” was all Sheppard said. It was getting to be just as annoying as all his damn indifferent shrugging.
Because they'd started late, and thanks to Ronon's happy trigger finger, night came fast and they weren't even out of the desert, yet. Chances were getting better and better that they might have to stop for the night. But then Rodney managed to stop at a gas station with coffee that didn't taste like he was poisoning himself. The gas station also had the bonus of a little diner next door that didn't smell half bad, where Teyla was given free run to talk about her people (sans words like 'planet' and 'Ancestor ring') and life lived under an 'oppressive enemy' (aka, the Wraith). She was quite adept at saying much without saying too much, and Sheppard's first run-in with the Wraith filled in what she was leaving out. He paled a little when she talked of being 'rounded up' for 'storage and processing.'
“So um – uh... people are basically like cattle to these, um... people?”
Ronon's grin was cold and feral when he replied, “Cattle with claws.”
“We are fighting back,” said Teyla.
John grimaced and nodded. “Good to hear.”
Rodney rolled his eyes, lamenting that this probably wasn't helping his sales pitch any.
Fueled up on stimulants and food, Rodney was dead set on nipping the rest of this trip in the bud. The others weren't quite as gung ho. Teyla had stepped outside to walk off most of her meal, accompanied by John and without a lot of reaction on Ronon's part. But then this was Teyla they were talking about, who really could lay a man flat with nothing but a stick.
Rodney left Ronon to his seconds while he scoured the area for the two. He found them a short ways away, off the pavement and on the sand, talking.
“... desert much like this one, only the sand is like deep amber crystals and when the sun rises, it is like looking upon a field of molten gold. Then there is Gallas where the trees are always the color of trees during the harvest season...”
“You guys ready to go?” Rodney interjected. He was well aware that it was probably rude but at this point didn't care. He had no idea how long all that coffee was going to keep him going.
Teyla dipped her head toward him. “If you are.”
“Very. Better go get Ronon. Last I saw he was eying the pie case with too much interest.”
Grinning, Teyla left, making for the diner. Rodney turned his attention on John and narrowed his eyes. Far be it from him to judge anyone, except he didn't know Sheppard, and on first meeting him had pegged the guy as a possible flirt – among other things. It never hurt to be cautious.
“She was giving me the unfiltered version of Pegasus life,” Sheppard said, scuffing the ground with his heel. “Telling me about some of the planets in the area.” He'd have been easy to miss if there hadn't been a full moon out. The night was deep, the sky a rich black that swallowed the distant mountains, surrounding John in starry infinity. “Sounds cool.”
“It is,” said Rodney. “See it to really believe it kind of stuff.”
The universe was incredibly full of itself. Men built towers and spaceships to heaven, ancient races gates connecting worlds, life filled planets and yet despite it all, that life was still little more than a bunch of ants existing on borrowed time, ants included. Crap, McKay hated it when the universe made him that kind of contemplative.
That didn't stop him from looking at the stars. More specifically the vague section of sky where Pegasus would be. The universe may have been full of itself, but Rodney supposed it had every right to be. It was and always would be a gorgeous thing to look at. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Rodney wandered idly away from the obscuring lights of the diner, letting infinity swallow him, too.
“It's funny,” he said. Now that he was on a pensive roll, it was hard to stop. “Our first year in Pegasus we were cut off from Earth and all I could think about was getting back. But I look up at a sky like this, and all I can think of is Atlantis. Its towers, tech. It floats on the ocean, you know. Just like in the stories – well, okay, the fantasy stories, not really the legends... I think. And if you get up early enough, just as the sun's rising... I can't even describe how beautiful it is. Like... like it's... on fire. No! Like it is fire, and gold and... like it's the sun. Oh, and it has spaceships. Little spaceships you can fly anywhere: underwater, into space. Their overall aesthetics leaves something to be desired, but it's for a purpose. And they -”
John's moonlit outline twitched its chin toward the sky. “So where is this galaxy of yours?”
Rodney pointed. John glanced up, briefly, then dropped his gaze back to the ground and his scuffing. It was picturesque solitude: all that universe overhead and one lone man beneath it. It made Sheppard even smaller, frailer.
Rodney suddenly realized how little notice Sheppard was taking of the sky, and, also suddenly, he wanted to know what the man was thinking. Him, Rodney McKay, actually giving a damn about the gears turning in other people's heads. Mostly he still wanted to know what the guy's problem was, why he was passing up on an adventure of a lifetime.
He wondered if, out here in the preening infinite, Sheppard thought himself unworthy... or something; like he didn't deserve it, like he didn't belong. As though everything that came before – the things mentioned in that file – still dictated what he could and could not do, as though saving the world only made up for part of it.
Which was ridiculous. Rodney wasn't a religious man. All the same: casting the first stone and all that. By Sheppard's logic, not a single member of the expedition belonged on Atlantis, Rodney included. Hell, there were probably people way less deserving than Sheppard thought himself. A lot of people: people who saved the day only because they wanted to live. Sheppard had saved the day because he'd made a choice, a choice to be the one to die so everyone else could live.
How was that not deserving?
“Sheppard -” Rodney began.
“We should head out,” Sheppard said, heading back to the car.
The silence of the rest of the trip had more to do with Rodney's passengers being asleep than an actual choice not to talk.
On finally reaching the vicinity of Cheyenne Mountain, Rodney detoured to the nearest, nicest, hotel. Ronon and Teyla waited in the lobby to stretch their legs as Sheppard checked in then Rodney helped him carry the two bags to his room. Before which, Sheppard said his goodbyes. Teyla even touched foreheads with him (lucky bastard).
Rodney deposited both bags on the bed, turned and stood there.
“Well,” he said, “Okay, then?”
“Yeah,” John said, rubbing the back of his neck. The long drive had worn them all out, but on Sheppard it actually showed.
“If you change your mind, you know where to reach me.”
John nodded. “Yeah.”
Rodney nodded back, scrounging for words that wouldn't come, words that were supposed change Sheppard's mind. For the first time that Rodney could recall, his mind went completely blank.
There was really no point in trying anymore, but Rodney had to accept the fact that he really could be stubborn to a point that defied even his own logic – on occasion. Yet this wasn't one of those times. This was logical. Sheppard was useful, could be useful, and what Rodney had been offering anyone else would've (and, in fact, had) killed for.
And Sheppard deserved it. He'd almost died saving the damn world, for crying out loud.
“You sure...” Rodney began, then thought better of it. No point, remember? He turned to go, Sheppard standing there looking ready to collapse, the epitome of exhaustion. It made Rodney wonder if Sheppard really did buy into his own assessment that saving the world wasn't penance enough, and wondered if it was possible to regret second chances. Which was wrong, so very, very wrong. It made Rodney stop, uncomfortable to leave. He didn't think Sheppard rash enough to do anything, well, rash. Neither did it feel right, just leaving, washing his hands of him like promised. Rodney stopped.
He turned back around, opened his mouth, closed it, impersonated a fish two more times then, “You are like him, you know.”
John's eyebrows raised in confusion.
“You are like that other John Sheppard. You are him, actually. Just... walking a different road, that's all. And I'd like to think that just because certain choices create detours doesn't mean we can't find our way back and try again. Or that other detours won't lead to that missed road, or something better. Not all the time, of course. But, sometimes, you know?” He shook his head, scowling at himself. “Sorry, I suck at analogies. What it all basically comes down to is that you are that John Sheppard.”
Sheppard sighed. “Rodney -”
Rodney held up his hand, stopping him. “This isn't another sales pitch, I promise. I'm just saying.” He then tucked his hand back into his pocket. “So, just out of curiosity, what are your plans from here on out?”
John shrugged. “Convalesce.”
“After that?”
“Get my pilot's license renewed, open up a sky tour or fly choppers for a news crew or something.”
Rodney nodded. “Cool. You know, the the people I work for are always in need of competent test pilots, in case you're interested.”
“Cool.”
“And,” Rodney cleared his throat, “if you ever change your mind... and I'm just saying. You could drop by, give it a try. You wouldn't have to stay if you didn't want to. We wouldn't make you. It's just, Atlantis is the right kind of place for people like you.”
“People like me?”
“Yes, people like you.”
“People with that Ancient gene thing?”
“No,” Rodney blurted. “People who take on life-sucking aliens instead of run from them. People like you. Not that that's all Pegasus has to offer. It does kind of helps, though.”
It coaxed a small but still amused smile out of John. He looked at Rodney full in the face and said, “I'll think about it.”
Which, at this point, could mean anything. Rodney was leaning toward “no.” All the same, he bobbed his head. “Okay.” Then he left, unable to think of anything else to say. Except, “If I'm ever on Earth again, I'll look you up. You can take me on a plane tour or chopper ride or something.”
“You should bring Teyla and Ronon.”
“Sure.” Yet Rodney continued to hesitate. “Um, you're all right, here? I mean... you'll be all right? You all right?”
Sheppard nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I'll be fine.”
“Good,” Rodney said. He waved. “See your around, Sheppard.” Then he left.
-------------------------
The disgustingly cheery chirp of a cell phone yanked Rodney from one hell of a dream, featuring him, Carter and a jacuzzi. Groaning, he grabbed the damn interloper, jamming his thumb into the buttons. The caller I.D. read anonymous. He rolled onto his back and placed the phone to his ear, cursing the SGC for providing cell phones that could be reached anywhere, and anyone being able to reach him even miles under the earth.
“What!”
The reply spoken in a familiar, slightly nasal drawl, was five hesitant words. “I'll give it a try.”
Rodney grinned - happy, but not with himself. “Took you long enough.”
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-27 04:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-27 11:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-27 04:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-27 11:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-27 06:36 am (UTC)Your muse is kickin' ass and takin' names!
This was brilliant, snarky and a joy to read.
Thank you!
Now....carry on kickin' ass.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-27 11:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-27 08:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-27 11:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-27 08:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-27 11:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-27 02:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-28 12:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-27 02:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-28 12:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-27 02:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-28 12:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-27 05:10 pm (UTC)I'm having a fun time imagining how this John will fit into Atlantis, any chance of a sequel?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-28 12:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-28 02:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-28 04:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-29 12:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-28 05:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-28 09:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-28 11:22 pm (UTC)Fantastic fic.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-29 04:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-29 09:27 pm (UTC)I completely lost it with that sentence. I started laughing like an idiot, probably frightened my flatmates.
Great fic. Thanks for sharing!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-30 06:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-30 03:42 am (UTC)Thank you so much for writing!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-30 06:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-31 11:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-01 02:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-05 11:52 pm (UTC)As much as I would have liked to see Ronon and Teyla in "Vegas" I agree with Cooper that they would have never joined Atlantis without John..but they fit well in your verse.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-09 10:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-12 02:09 am (UTC)So I guess this is a case of fan fiction inspiring fiction. You made me believe: I thought John was not going to take up Rodney on his offer. He seemed so world weary. But he came through and as usual we are not exactly sure why he chose to do it. Just like the scene in the first episode when he's tossing the coin. Was that what he was thinking about or was it because the General said 'I don't even want you'?
Rodney, too, not sure of what to say to win his argument. Wanting to play nice and still lashing out with his true feelings.
You nailed the characterizations!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-16 03:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-19 01:23 pm (UTC)This is fabulous. I came here via someone looking for this fic. Iz wonderful - just what I needed. Thank you!!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-19 01:41 pm (UTC)*claps enthusiastically*
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-11 04:20 am (UTC)I knew Sheppard would finally give in........
Loved it!!!
BTW I loved the reference to Ronon's unhealthy obsession for pancakes
ROFL
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-30 12:23 am (UTC)I hate to think of this John Sheppard eternally grounded, cut off, alone. He needs his team, even if he doesn't know them yet.
Yay, good stuff!
:)