over the edge

They arrive back in Atlantis some time in the in the afternoon, muddy and bruised and already fighting Elizabeth to go back.

Even while he's shouting at her, Rodney's floating up out of his body and thinking he must be totally crazy to want to go back to the planet of the apes. His instincts tell him to block out any thoughts of people that like to cattle prod you first and ask questions later, but he can't.

Sheppard is still there. He's still there in loonsville and they're probably doing torture type things, pulling fingernails and whatever it is those kinds of people go for in the whole torture department. Whatever it is, it's bad and apparently, to Rodney's surprise, he doesn't leave people behind.

Elizabeth tells him to calm down and he really has to wonder where the hell she's been living all this time because 1) Rodney McKay does not do calm and 2) telling him to calm down is tantamount to telling him to freak out, which he would like to do with great flair and volume.

Actually, what he really wants to do is have an honest to god tantrum, complete with jumping up and down, stomping, flailing and being utterly unbearable.

Instead, quite pathetically, he feels his exhausted and aching body slump a little as he looks at Elizabeth and hears his voice crack when he tells here, “We have to go back.”

Elizabeth's a smart woman - though he would never tell her because telling women they're smart is just asking for all kinds of trouble - and he sees the briefest frown touch her forehead as she watches him. Maybe she's thinking the old 'oh how Rodney's changed' or maybe she's thinking 'since when did he become such a hero?'. Possibly she's wondering if he has an ulterior motive.

Of course, being one of those smart women, she could know, because maybe Rodney has a tell. Maybe she can hear exactly how hard his heart is beating because he's scared to death.

“He...he'd do it for us,” Rodney stammers, before Elizabeth can offer some platitude or reassurance. Those things only work on idiots.

Plus, he doesn't want her to ask her, 'you're not completely and utterly gay about Sheppard, are you?' because he just might have to tell her how head over heels...gay, about Sheppard he is.

It's not even funny how much, though John would probably laugh. He laughs everything off. It's his thing.

Elizabeth says she has every intention of bringing Sheppard back and there's a whole lot of shuffling in and out of her office involved. There's lots of posturing between her and Caldwell about resources and viable rescue missions, while Teyla tries very hard not to lose her temper and Ronon doesn't try at all.

Ronon might be Rodney's favorite person ever because he all but threatens to tear Caldwell a new one.

Finally, when no one seems to be agreeing on whether this is a rescue mission or a mission to make sure their new friends don't have any sensitive information about Atlantis, Lorne steps in and announces that he'd have no problem for the mission to be a bit of both. Some search out and destroy with a little rescue on the side.

He's goes on to give a remarkable accurate lay of the land, even though he and his team were only there long enough to lay down cover and get Rodney, Ronon and Teyla out.

Elizabeth smiles and Rodney can see the layer of smugness because Caldwell is looking his usual constipated self again.

Suddenly, 'you have a go' become the sweetest words Rodney's ever heard and he starts to follow everyone out.

But Elizabeth has to spoil it all with an ugly accompaniment of 'Rodney, not you.'

He's pissed off at Elizabeth for casting aspersions on his manliness, making him stay home, while the tough guys get to be heroic. He's a part of the team, he can do this, he's been doing this. He fires guns now. Guns with bullets that kill.

He's fired at Wraith with the intention to make something stop being alive. With the intention to make it dead.

And he'd probably shoot at non-Wraith things too. Maybe human things. The Genii certainly didn't think twice before shish-kebabing him even though he wasn't a Wraith. There's no reason he can't shoot humans too. Maybe he'll just do it for fun, starting with some of his staff.

Having taken all the evidence into account, he announces he can do this and twists around to go before limping towards the door.

He stops and stares out at the control room, where he can see the others on their way to get ready to go back.

Right. Of course.

Elizabeth is suddenly behind him and he can only assume she has some kind of freaky ability to creep up on people without their noticing, because he's not completely out of it. Not really.

Her hand is on his shoulder when she tells him, “I think you ought to go see Carson, Rodney.”

“Ronon and Teyla-” he starts.

“Have bruises. They didn't come back limping,” Elizabeth says.

Rodney straightens up, knows she's right, but decides he's going to take it personally anyway, for now.

Elizabeth asks him if he wants her to go with him to the infirmary and Rodney makes a point of rolling his eyes and snorting. She just smiles and he instantly realizes his mistake. Being stoic is John's thing.

“No, thank you, I'm sure I can just hop to the infirmary if my foot falls off,” Rodney says for good measure.

But it's too late, because Elizabeth knows that was for her benefit. Damn smart women. They're the worst, they really are.

Rodney just shakes his head and starts to leave.

“Rodney.”

He doesn't want to turn around and hear it, he really doesn't. What's the point? In simple terms, it's not over until it's over, and once it's over, it's over. Simple. So, really, there's no point.

“I'm sure they'll find him,” she says.

He really wants to ask her if it's tiring being eternally optimistic, but he knows she'll just ask him if it's any better being eternally pessimistic, to which the answer would be, no, it's terribly exhausting.

“Well, we'll see,” Rodney says with a nod and leaves.

Even with the transporter, the infirmary feels like it's on the outer reaches of the Pegasus Galaxy and by the time he gets there, he really is in the mood to bitch at someone.

Unluckily, no amount of bitching seems to get under Carson's skin. He checks out Rodney's ankle in methodical fashion, wrapping it up tight and making his foot throb, telling Rodney it's a nasty sprain and he should keep his weight off it.

“Thank you. Any other obvious tips you'd like to give me?” Rodney asks, wincing as he sits up.

Carson looks all sympathetic and with the bedside manner. He's not going to fall for the bait. Rodney knows he'll just take whatever it is Rodney has to say and smile it off.

This is what it must be like to be a widow. God, how annoying. Sympathy's fine when you want it, and when it comes with casseroles, but Rodney's not a widow and more importantly, John is not dead. In fact, if he had to choose, Rodney would choose John over the sympathy casserole.

John would probably laugh at that too. It would be one of those laughs where he can't help himself and just suddenly does it, going a little pink around the cheeks. It's where he intends to be laid back and cool and nonchalant, but Rodney says something and he just laughs and...

Oh god, I'm a fifteen-year-old girl, he thinks. That's what he is. From physicist to hormonally challenged teenage girl.

Carson looks baffled, asking, “Rodney? What did I say?” as Rodney gives a 'hmph' and stomps out of the infirmary, totally mad at himself for being this pathetic.

This must be where all bad music comes from. This must be the pit from where things like cuddly toys and anything pink springs from. This is where crappy songs like Heartbreak Hotel come from. This is the reason why Barbara Streisand keeps making music and no one stops her.

And now, this, is Rodney. This is Rodney, losing it, totally losing it and falling overboad, right over the edge into grand insanity central.

He is now a product of the pit from whence came cuddly toys, pink things and Barbara Streisand. It's not fair if John's not at least half as crazy as he is. Rodney can't be the insane one in the relationship.

Rodney stops in the middle of the corridor. He's just staring ahead at the transporter doors, which are miles away from him and moving even further, while the walls kind of close in and the ceiling lowers itself. Under the dirt on his face, his skin is warm and trying to sweat the fear away.

Why hadn't someone told him this was a relationship? In fact, why didn't that parrot-haired bastard stuck on a different planet tell him anything? Since when were these things supposed to be discovered when the relationship was in serious trouble of being forcibly ended?

Rodney decides this is possibly the worst day of his life ever. Miserably, he limps to the transporter and then out towards his quarters.

He decides he's going to refuse to wait and think about the rescue mission. He's just going to push it out of his head. He clumsily showers and dresses, takes some painkillers and then limps out of the unbearably quiet room to head to his lab.

There will be people there that he can shout at and it's okay because they expect it and they ignore it and carry on with their work.

Only, when he gets there, Radek asks him about John, about what happened, what's happening and something Rodney doesn't hear because he squeezes his eyes shut, grimaces and pretends that when he'll open his eyes he'll be in the Playboy mansion. As Hugh Hefner.

He opens his eyes and tells Radek that the natives weren't friendly and they all barely got away alive. Except for John...

Rodney feels himself zoning out a little in which time he wonders if he should 1) shout at Radek for standing around gossiping instead of working 2) go down head first when he passes out, so he can crack open his skull and fast forward to waking up from a coma, wearing a turban made of bandages and looking noble like Jane Wyman while John can be his Rock 3) cuckoo! Funny farm!

“Rodney?” Radek asks, watching him closely.

Rodney points to the door. “I'm...uh...I'm going to go...”

Then he leaves, aware that Radek is probably watching him, looking like a goldfish at feeding time. He's probably celebrating on the inside, his dreams of Rodney's untimely breakdown finally coming to fruition.

It's not supposed to make you lose your mind, is it? That thing from whence the pink, cuddly, Barbara heartbreak hotel springs from. It's not supposed to make you feel this insane. Is it?

If not, then why is he thinking about going to John's quarters and just lying there on his bed. Not even doing anything weird or stalker-like, but just lying there and staring at the ceiling, which is just like Rodney's ceiling, but in John's room.

Why is he thinking about turning over in that bed and breathing in deep enough to catch that scent belonging to John? It's not like it's even been more than a day since he saw John last. It's only been hours.

He feels bad for whining at Cathy Bradshaw, his one time blonde, pagan girlfriend. In hindsight, her wearing of his favorite T-shirt wasn't such a big deal. Maybe she just really liked him.

Great, I am a pig, he thinks.

Then again, John's T-shirts are nowhere as cool as his own. It's a whole different issue there.

His almost manic episode having passed, Rodney grabs a coffee from the mess, not because there's none in his lab, but because it adds a considerable amount of time to his journey, especially with the limp.

He returns to the lab, pushing John from his mind, because it's not over until it's over and when it's over, it's over. There's not much he can do until then, but wait. And since waiting is not an option, he sits in front of his laptop, looking at things that made sense once, but today just look like funny shapes. His coffee grows cold, Radek eyes him now and then, the sun goes down.

Three in the morning and Rodney is still in the lab, not even bothering to stare at the laptop. He just stares ahead, his mind so tired that the hamster wheel has come to a stop, finally unable to spin, the hamster lying on its back with its little legs in the air.

He knows Elizabeth's still awake, waiting in her office, but he doesn't call her and ask for news because he knows that 1) no news is good news and 2) as soon as there's news, Elizabeth will call him.

It's four twenty-five in the morning when her voice buzzes in his ear. He wakes up to find himself slumped over his laptop, his ear-piece half out.

He sits up immediately, his mind fuzzy with strange dreams that featured T-shirts, blondes and smoking pipes. Tapping the ear-piece, he manages to clear his throat and answer at the same time.

When Elizabeth says they're bringing John home, Rodney thinks 1) he's alive and 2) I'm going to kill him.

On the way to the infirmary, Rodney tells himself that it's not John's fault. He didn't mean to scare the crap out of Rodney. It's a hazard of the job. Any of them could get bruised, maimed or dead. It's not like John goes out of his way to attract danger. It just seems that like most of Atlantis, danger also finds John really hot.

There's no sign of Carson in the infirmary, in fact it seems quite lacking of staff altogether. He thinks about asking someone, if there's anyone around at all, whether patients will now be expected to treat themselves, when it occurs to him there's probably a team by the gate, waiting to bring John in.

For a moment he doesn't know where to place himself, limp down the corridor and meet them half way or stand aside and wait.

The decision is out of his hands when he hears the voices down the corridor. Carson's issuing instructions, while Elizabeth is having questions answered by Teyla, Lorne and Ronon.

The only voice he doesn't hear is John's. There's a terrifying moment where Rodney is unsure if he wants to see what they bring through the door, because in his mind John looks like John, lying and smirking on a stretcher.

They come into the infirmary, huddled together, and Carson along with his staff wheels John away so fast, that Rodney shouldn't have even been able to get a single glimpse.

Only, he does. He sees John's face turn towards him, just a fraction of a turn. His sleepy eyes connect with Rodney's and then he's gone.

A second later, Rodney can't even remember what he's just seen. Was John injured? Was there any blood? All he can remember is a pair of eyes looking directly at him.

There his heart goes again, beating out of control, hard against his chest and making his face feel too warm. Stupid heart. Funny how you can only feel it when something's wrong. Not that he ever wants to feel it. He's quite happy to not have to feel it at all.

“Look, this is going to take a while, you all better leave and get some sleep. Rodney, I told you to keep off that foot,” Carson's saying, standing a few feet away.

Rodney thinks he must be touched if he didn't even notice Carson within mocking distance.

“Keep us updated on his condition,” Elizabeth says, and Carson gives a quick nod before rushing away.

Elizabeth looks at the rest of them; Sheppard's team and Lorne. “I suspect that you'll be staying until they bring him back out?”

Teyla smiles and gives a nod. “If that is all right.”

“I think Dr. Beckett just implied it wasn't,” Lorne says with a knowing smile.

“Nobody listens to him,” Rodney says indignantly. “Do we even know if he has any real qualifications?”

“I think you all need to be resting,” Elizabeth says reasonably.

“Aren't you headed back to your office, Dr. Weir?” Lorne asks with amusement.

She gives him an arched eyebrow. “Yes, and then to bed, Major.”

Lorne just shrugs and is plainly holding back a smile.

“Fine,” Elizabeth says. “Just make sure you all get some rest eventually. Major?”

Lorne gives her a nod and follows her out of the infirmary, while Ronon sits down on an empty bed and Teyla slumps down in a chair next to it.

Rodney really notices them for the first time, Teyla looking smudged with her hair in loose strands and Ronon looking smudged with his hair...in loose strands.

They look worn out and worried, their hands dirty, Ronon's knuckles looking bruised. Rodney's almost glad he didn't have to be there when they found John, whatever state they found him in. He's glad to have his mind clouded by sleepy eyes that are infused with too many colors to count.

He wants to ask Ronon and Teyla about John, how he is, if he said anything, if he's okay, but to be honest, he really doesn't have the balls to do it, because he's still scared from hours ago, scared from that moment when he thought John was dead.

Only, then he was numb and now it's catching up with him and he's scared like maybe John might even be dead right now.

Rodney swallows and leans against the bed Ronon is sitting on, blinking a few times to shift the fear fuzz in his brain that is making him giddy.

“You okay?” Ronon asks, his voice low as ever.

Rodney gives a nod. “It's my foot. I think Carson's actually trying to make it worse.”

Teyla and Ronon give each other one of their sly looks because apparently they're about twelve years old and everything's oh so funny.

Rodney decides this is the time to go for it. He's in pain, he's tired and he hasn't eaten for he doesn't know how many hours. He's zombie-like enough to ignore the terror in his tell-tale heart.

“So, um...how-?”

“He'll be fine,” Ronon says flatly. Great, everyone's a doctor now.

Rodney just nods, even though he wants to explain that just by saying something will be fine, doesn't mean it will be fine. Denial and optimism are the last bastion of the idiot.

He doesn't ask more questions because he doesn't want to sound overly concerned. He can't let them see that his actual urge is to run and fling himself onto John, like some crazed widow on the corpse of her husband in an open casket.

He knows he has taken up permanent residence in that place from whence the pink, cuddly, Barbara heartbreak hotel sprung. His brain now has a sign that says 'Rodney McKay does not live here anymore'. People do not need to know this.

Rodney does not need to know this.

Two hours later, Carson is telling them all to leave, like he told them two hours ago. Teyla asks if they can see John, which is good because Rodney can't be the one to ask. It's stupid, but he can't. John's litany of 'be careful' is scratched into his brain forever and being Rodney, he has to be extreme and interpret 'be careful' as 'be as paranoid as possible'.

Carson explains that John's been sedated, but he's fine and they can see him later.

Rodney seriously wants to slap that part of himself that is urging him to throw a hissy fit and insist that he be allowed to see his lover. That's right, his lover.

Fortunately, the part of his brain that still functions tells him to 1) get out of there before he makes an ass out of himself and to 2) ask him what the hell this lover stuff is about and 3) seriously, cuckoo!

With sour faces, but some kind of relief they all leave the infirmary, knowing that John Sheppard will wake up instead of being dead.

Rodney nods to Teyla and Ronon, telling them 'goodnight or...good morning' and makes his way to his room, but he has a suspicious feeling that once he steps inside, the relief might just kill him. His heart will fail completely and he will die young and unsung.

He ends up in the mess hall, which is deserted. He sits by the window and looks out at Atlantis, proud and tall in the new morning.

She'd miss John, if he died. Rodney and Atlantis light up to the same fingertips. He's sure she doesn't love anyone more than John.

Pound, pound, pound, his heart goes. He has to close his eyes and take a deep breath, because seriously, he's having some kind of stroke.

“I thought you were going to sleep,” Ronon says, falling into the chair opposite.

“I thought you were going to sleep,” Rodney says.

Rodney slumps back. “No point. I'm supposed to be getting up for work in a few minutes anyway. Why are you still up?”

“They start breakfast soon,” Ronon says with shrug.

Rodney frowns when the prospect of food doesn't seem to do much for him. So, apparently, sleeping with John Sheppard causes 1) an irregular heartbeat 2) loss of appetite and 3) insomnia 4) a free ticket to the funny farm.

Well, that's just great. Rodney McKay has become the kind of song that he's never wanted to listen to.

“I see you are both sleeping well,” Teyla says, sitting down next to Rodney, giving them both an amused smile.

“And I assume you're sleepwalking,” Rodney replies.

She arches her eyebrow at him, but continues smiling. Rodney can see that like Ronon, Teyla has simply cleaned up to stay up. Any minute now, Elizabeth should-

“What's this?” Elizabeth asks, walking in and smiling at them all in this annoying, doting way.

Oh, she loves this, Rodney thinks, seeing Sheppard's little soldiers worrying for him. Typically emotionally driven woman, thinking with her heart instead of her brai-

“...so you can all drop by and say good morning if you like,” Elizabeth finishes saying somewhere behind them as they head out of the mess, Rodney ahead of them even though his ankle hurts like a son of a bitch.

What was that you were saying about emotionally driven women? his brain asks him.

He tells his brain to shut up because yes, yes, I'm every woman, it's all in me.

Carson gives them a look and a shake of his head when he sees them walk in. “You've got five minutes and then I want you out.”

Carson walks away to talk to a nurse and Rodney leans back to say to Ronon and Teyla, “Don't worry, as far as I know he can't count or tell the time.”

They walk into the small curtained area together and it's not until he's there that Rodney realizes maybe he doesn't want to see this. But it's too late and they're right there, right by his side, Rodney and Teyla on one side of the bed and Ronon on the other.

John looks like John, only colorful.

There's a constant beeping of the heart monitor, not doing the samba like Rodney's heart and John's hooked up to a drip. His bottom lip is swollen around a deep red split, there's a light blue bruise on his jaw and where the swollen curve under the socket of his right eye meets his cheek bone, there's red, purple, blue bruising.

His left arm is encased in a fresh white cast, his fingers poking out at the end, slightly red, the knuckles scratched and bruised.

Rodney would like to lightly wrap his fingers around John's, because when they're alone and John's not so busy convincing them both that they shouldn't be doing this, they can be tender. It's only embarrassing when you think about it later in the day, that you've turned into this head case who randomly dreams about a certain touch, or a kiss or something silly whispered while fooling around.

Actually, he'd like to feel John's pulse, under his thumb, that regular dull tap against his skin saying that this – heart – is – beat – ing.

No one says anything because John's eyes are closed and against his totally fucked up womanly urges to wake him up just to know that he can wake up, Rodney decides to stay silent too.

“John is sleeping,” we should leave, Teyla says, with her obviously lunatic female reasoning.

“Maybe he's just resting his eyes,” Rodney says and oops, was that too loud?

John flinches, opening his eyes and looking startled. Then he notices his visitors and a lazy smile spreads across his mouth as much as it can with the split in the middle of his bottom lip.

He sleepily looks at the three of them. “Hey,” he says, his voice scratchy and rough.

Rodney doesn't trust his voice, now that it belongs to the pit from whence came all things pink, cuddly, Barbara heartbreak hotel. He raises a hand, and gives a single jerk of a wave, while he thinks of something funny to say. Nothing comes to mind. This isn't funny at all.

“What time is it?” John asks, sounding as though he's drifting right back to sleep.

“Too early,” Ronon says, with a hint of a smile, earning a bigger smile from Teyla.

Rodney wants to ask what's with the smiles, because, hello, almost-dead man talking here!

Oh right, he forgot, he's crazy now. He won't be thinking like normal people anymore. Hours from now he'll be sitting in his lab, probably chewing on his own pants with a pencil up his nose.

John's eyes close and he goes still and Rodney just about restrains himself from checking for a pulse. Carson said he was fine, so he'll have to believe it, regardless of his lack of faith in the medical profession.

“We should leave,” Teyla whispers.

Rodney nods as Ronon leaves, Teyla following. He watches them ahead of him, walking off, and wonders if they'd notice if he wasn't there. Though he hopes they wouldn't, he knows they will because, apparently, they all kind of give a shit about each other. It happened when Rodney wasn't looking, but he can't complain. One is such a lonely number.

Screw this.

He turns back towards the bed only to see sleepy, half-lidded eyes watching him.

“You okay?” John asks quietly.

He wants to shout 'no!' extremely loud. Of course he's not okay, what a stupid question. He's brain damaged and the most important organ in his body is broken and beating all wrong just because John Sheppard almost didn't come home today.

He's not okay. He's the total opposite of okay. He is far from okay. Okay...now exists in a completely different galaxy, where it is being mauled to death by giant tribble-like monsters with sharp teeth.

“I'm fine,” Rodney says lightly. “You?”

John smiles, and stiffly gives Rodney a thumbs up.

Rodney nods. “Good. Well, I should...uh...I should probably let you get some rest.”

“Or you could be the first one to sign my cast,” John suggests, blinking slowly, looking rather doped to the gills.

Rodney looks at the cast, all white now, but he can wager it'll be covered in signatures by tomorrow morning.

“Maybe later,” Rodney says, “I can never think of what to write.”

John gives a small nod, his eyes closing slowly and he finally drifts off as Rodney watches. At the same time, all the adrenaline seems to seep through his shoes and into the floor, leaving him dead on his feet.

He feels as beat up as John looks and limps away like an old man whose back has been bowed by a lifetime of burdens. He eventually ends up in his bed and though he's slept alone many times, for the first time, the bed seems too big for one person, which is insane because the beds in the city aren't big enough for Olive Oil to sleep in.

His brain is still damaged, pushing silly thoughts into his mind, thoughts about John grinning and laughing when things go back to normal. Thinking about how he's not going to look at John and say something stupid like 'you almost died and you scared the hell out of me and I think I really hate you'.

Thinking about using sex to make it all better. Yes, sex will be the cure. Sex fixes all. His brain will return to sanity and his heart will stop racing and John will continue with the whole being alive thing.

And Rodney will never worry about something like this happening again. No more days of heart-racing fear.

He's back in the infirmary half an hour later, sitting quietly in the chair next to the bed and even though John's asleep, it seems to be the only place he's not so scared.

- the end -