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“Ow.” It’s all
Rodney can say right now and he’s not sure that he doesn’t immediately
regret it. Such a momentous occasion should surely call for more --
something profound or heartfelt, or at least something more than such an
abysmally small excuse for a word. It’s not like this sort of thing
happens every day and, really, it could be the last thing he ever says.
“Rodney?”
He looks around at the voice. It’s good old John. Rodney likes John
because John is strong and intelligent and has enough heart, sense and
conscience for the both of them. Rodney has come to rely on him for more
than just his skill with a gun and his military tactics. John is his
friend. John cares. John protects. John saves him.
But not today.
“Oh.” And there he goes with another staggering understatement. Why
can’t he say more? Why can’t he say everything that he needs to say?
They’re wrong. Whoever they are, they’re wrong. Your life doesn’t
flash before your eyes when you face the end; it empties. It bleeds you
dry, sucks away your life-force and leaves you with nothing.
Speaking of which, Rodney looks down, craning his neck to see what is
making his hip and tummy feel so warm when the rest of him feels so
cold. “Oh.” What’s with the single syllables, Rodney, huh? If you’re
gonna die, at least die with the vocabulary of someone who actually made
it through high school.
“Shit.”
Ah, John’s doing it, too. Good. Rodney thinks it makes him feel better,
but he can’t entirely remember why. His perspective has been taken and
the lights are dimming all around, inside and out, here and over there;
everything feels too close, but when he reaches out it’s so far away.
Rodney racks his brains and decides that he’s falling now and he reaches
out again, maybe for balance because everything is spinning now, or
maybe to just touch because it’s the last time he will. And he touches
John, or John touches him; Rodney isn’t sure if there’s even a
difference and all he knows is that he hasn’t hit the ground yet.
John has held him like this before, Rodney remembers. Some thoughtless,
idiotic waste of space clearly decided it was time for Rodney McKay to
get shot with an arrow. How terrific for them. John had dragged Rodney’s
very sorry ass back to the gate and Rodney spent the next five
hours wondering where he’d left his messy haired guy.
“Rodney, say something. Don’t get shy on me. Come on, McKay!”
According to the rest of Atlantis, getting shot with an arrow is
incredibly funny. Rodney is positive that this time it’s a bullet and
he’s damn sure it isn’t funny. It hurts and not like the arrow did. It’s
not like slicing your thumb with a kitchen knife or dropping a piece of
ancient equipment on your foot.
Rodney remembers slamming his hand in a car door when he was six; he
remembers the pain like it only happened yesterday, and he’ll never
forget how much he screamed, how he closed his eyes and convinced
himself that he’d lost his hand and broken his dinosaur. Rodney thinks
he would like to go back to that moment just to feel what normal pain
is, just to compare.
“Oh. Oh, god.” It’s really all he can manage now. Rodney’s hands go to
clutch at his hip, but John’s are already there. Everything is spinning
faster, but when he looks at John they are both stock still. The world
twirls behind them; it fades in and out, green turning to grey and black
and then back to a muted green, but John is there and he’s so clear and
so still. There’s silence then and it feels nice. It feels like the edge
of sleep.
It feels like blessed nothing.
“Don’t you dare go anywhere, Rodney.” A hand touches his face and that’s
when everything crashes in again. The hand is shaking and so is the
voice.
Rodney opens his eyes and he sees the sky. He doesn’t remember hitting
the ground, and he doesn’t care if it hurt because his body is at its
pinnacle of pain and he’s sure that it’s sensory overload and he
wouldn’t be able to feel a truck if it ran tracks over his body. Rodney
is hardly ever wrong, but he discovers he’s wrong about this when
someone lifts him and all he wants to do is die. He wants Sheppard to
put a bullet in his brain and make it all stop because someone is
carrying him like a damn child and it hurts.
He hears John next to him but the voice is quieter now. Rodney suspects
that’s a consequence of dying rather than John learning to keep his
voice down. “Teyla…ahead. Dial the gate and…”
“He’s heavy.” That voice is deep and serious and it has to be Ronon.
Suddenly, Rodney doesn’t care that he’s being held like some kind of
girl because Ronon shifts his grip and finally, finally Rodney
has it in him to scream; it’s long and loud and it makes John pet him.
There are fingers in his hair and Rodney nearly doesn’t hear the whoosh
of the Stargate. He lets the pain take him because it doesn’t matter
anymore. John is here and his friends are here and that means something
special. It means that he’s not going to die alone.
Rodney thinks his eyes are open now but he can’t see anything but
fathomless black. But he can hear John and suddenly he can hear
everything around him. It’s so loud, so clear and precise and Rodney is
sure he can hear the little hand ticking on his watch.
“Rodney, no. Stay with me. Stay with me. Jesus, this is a bunch of
bullshit. Goddamn it, Rodney, you stubborn bastard! If you die on me
I’ll…I have no idea what I’ll do, but whatever it is you are not going
to like it! You hear me?!”
“Be calm, John. Doctor McKay will be alright.”
“Don’t tell me to be calm, Teyla! I’m about to lose the one person
that…the one person…”
“You will not lose him.”
The Stargate gurgles and gloops as Rodney is carried through. Everything
rushes at him and when he reaches the other side he’s still awake and
still wishing he wasn’t. He knows he’s not in control now and it’s
probably a good thing that he can’t think straight enough to speak.
There are footsteps all around and it sounds like a herd of elephants
are rushing to greet him. Rodney flinches away, tries to run, but it’s
all in his head and his legs aren’t going anywhere.
“Come on, Rodney. You’ve made it this far. You’re home now. We’re home.”
Those hands are in his hair again and Rodney’s body starts to tingle,
starts to relax. There’s something over his mouth and he can smell the
disinfectant of the infirmary. Someone is tugging at his body and then
it feels cool over his chest, something interrupting the sauna he’s been
sweltering in but didn’t realise because he thought he felt so cold.
There’s a sting in his arm and Rodney coughs. It tastes unpleasant and
it hurts his throat, and that’s good because he’s thinking he could
really use a nice cherry flavoured cough drop before he coughs himself
hoarse. It’s so much better than thinking about the bleeding, about the
pain and about the fact that he can feel the blood leaving him but can’t
work out where it’s going.
Rodney opens his eyes as much as he can and he’s not too sure what he
can see. It’s like a photograph taken with a bad camera and an unsteady
hand. Nothing is in focus and it’s all so confusing. Everything is
closer than it should be and makes him feel nervous and suffocated.
The pain is subsiding now and Rodney really hopes that it’s because the
sting in his arm was major meds. The thought that it could be because of
something else scares the hell out him. He doesn’t really want to die,
even though if he’d had a gun in his hand five minutes before he would
have shot himself in the head without a second thought.
He probably would have missed anyway.
“Stay with me, Rodney.” It’s so clichéd, Rodney thinks, but what else
can John say? What other comfort can he offer? It’s okay, though: he can
hear John’s voice and feel the continuous touch and brush of his fingers
and that’s enough. It’s enough for Rodney to know that if this is his
time, he’s not going to go alone. John will be here.
“Don’t…” John’s voice catches and falters.
Rodney can’t speak, can’t move, can’t understand what is happening
around him, but he can hear John clearly through the fuzz around him and
he knows that John really wants him to stay.
Rodney knows he’s a difficult man; he got that trait from his father and
he hates him for it everyday - hated him even when he died. I love you,
Dad, but I really, really hate you.
There’s sudden pain and Rodney is sure all the drugs in the world can’t
take it away, because it’s the pain of his life being ripped from him,
the pain of all his blood rushing from his body and his internal organs
closing down for business.
Rodney is so scared now and his chest is heaving like it’s fighting and
trying to prove that it can and will go on, a last ditch attempt to save
his life.
“Don’t go.”
He pulls in a long ragged breath and turns his head to John. He’s
grateful that John has given him this gift, that he’s been here to
comfort and give unknowing reassurance that Rodney is not his father who
died alone in the snow with nobody to hold his hand or hush away the
pain.
It’s time to slip away, time to close his eyes and go, but he can’t. He
won’t. He’s a stubborn bastard and he’s come too far to leave now.
Rodney has always gone against the grain. He has always done his best to
defy everyone and everything in his path, and not just to be
bloody-minded, but because he’s always had a purpose: to be brilliant,
to shine brighter than the others, to stand taller and change the world
through hard facts and science, to be more than the short little queer
boy.
When Rodney wakes, John stays by his side and calls him a drama queen.
Rodney murmurs something about winning an award.
The End.
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