kageygirl | SGA ficlet: Touching, Strange Things (McKay/Sheppard, G, spoilers through 4x04 "Doppelganger")

Managing to post an episode tag before the next episode airs. I'm so proud of me! (Well, in a mocking, sardonic kind of way. I have a complicated relationship with me.)

Huge thanks to

misspamela for betaing and to

shetiger for her customary hand-holding and making things approximately seventeen times better than they started out. She knows how. *g*

McKay/Sheppard, 1000 words, G-rated. Spoilers up through "Doppelganger."

Touching, Strange Things

"No more touching strange things." Dr. Keller, 4x04 Doppelganger

Three days out, Rodney's the only one who still shows up and joins John in the mess hall in the middle of the night.

John thinks he gets it; Rodney's the one who had that thing in him after they knew it could kill, the one who flatlined and had to get his heart restarted. It's kind of a big thing to wrap your head around.

He doesn't say anything for a while, just watches Rodney over the top of the book he's not really reading. (Robinson Crusoe; after six months stranded with the near-Ascended, he kind of lost track of the story of War and Peace, and when he came back, he picked this up instead. Sometimes he wonders if anyone's noticed, and if they have, whether they think it's funny the way John does.)

Rodney's uncharacteristically quiet. He keeps staring out at the ocean of New Lantea, in between scooping up absent forkfuls of mashed potatoes and stuffing.

He looks tired, but the same goes for a lot of people on Atlantis. It's the faraway look that finally gets to John, makes him break the silence. With Kate... gone, they're going have to take care of each other right now.

"We left the whales behind, you know," John says, casually turning a page for show.

"Sorry?" Rodney says, frowning, really looking at John for the first time tonight. He blinks a few times on his way back from wherever he'd gone.

John rests an elbow on the railing, waving the scrap of paper he uses as a bookmark at the night-dark sea and the sky above it. "The whales. We left them back on Lantea."

"Oh," Rodney says, looking momentarily stricken. "So we did."

"I thought you'd be happy." John raises his eyebrows, angles his head to one side. "This means they can't eat you."

"You'd think so, but try telling that to my subconscious." Rodney twirls the tip of his fork in a quick little circle, vaguely indicating his own temple. "The whales always find a way."

He shovels in another couple of bites, then stops and fixes John with a concerned, slightly fuzzy look. "Do you think I should tell Colonel Carter that I named one of them after her?"

"No." John doesn't even want to imagine that conversation. "I really wish you hadn't told me."

"Oh." Rodney looks away, back over the railing. "I do feel kind of bad, though. Sam did save my life. Twice."

John feels his face twist into a grimace. "Seriously, stop that."

Rodney shoots him a weird look, a what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you kind of look, and wow, if that isn't the pot calling the kettle creepy. Then he shakes his head and points his fork at John. "I mean it. What are they going to do the next time the Lantean sun flares up?"

"In another fifteen thousand years?"

Rodney lifts his chin, a familiar stubbornness in his eyes, the way he sits up straighter. "It's still a concern."

John slips his bookmark back into the book and slides it onto the table. "Well, we'll just have to move the city back there before that happens."

The way Rodney stares at him is like a warm-up scoff before the main event. "Oh, so we're just going to beat the Wraith, and the Replicators, and whoever else we manage to piss off along the way, find a new ZPM or three, and fly the city back to Lantea."

"Sounds about right." John folds his hands on top of his book and watches Rodney serenely. Rodney stares back at him, eyes narrowed.

John just gives him a close-mouthed little smile, and Rodney finally breaks, huffing out a breath. "You're interminable. Just looking at you is tiring."

"Then my work here is done."

John eases back in his seat as Rodney scoops his tray off the table. Flipping open his book, he listens to Rodney's footsteps fading behind him, each one clear and discrete in the silence of the mess hall.

Then the footsteps come back.

"You should try to get some sleep, too, you know." The words come out clipped, matter-of-fact, but Rodney's voice is soft and a little distressed.

John doesn't look up. "I will. Just as soon as I finish this chapter."

"I've got a good bedside lamp," Rodney says, even more quietly, and suddenly the weight of John's book is foreign and awkward. Like he needs to do something with his hands, and holding a book is the wrong thing to be doing.

John swallows, but his mouth remains dry. "I thought you didn't do the staying-over thing."

"Well, technically, I wouldn't be staying over; you would--" Rodney stops himself, slows down. "Besides, I only said that because I didn't think you did."

"But now you figure, since we've been in each other's heads and all, we might as well...?" John lets the question hang in the air, keeping himself still, head down, eyes front.

"Fine, sorry, it was a bad idea, I don't know what I was thinking--" Rodney starts to turn away, but John snags his wrist with one hand.

And finally looks up at Rodney, letting himself lose the fight to keep from smiling. "You know, the lighting does kind of suck in here."

Rodney's giving him a sour look. "That's not the only thing in here that sucks." But he curls his fingers around John's wrist in return, and helps John pull himself to his feet. And just after he gives John's wrist a "follow me" tug, just before he whirls away with a desperately casual set to his shoulders, John sees a happy grin start to spread across Rodney's face.

***