stillane | Fic Post: Apitherapy, SGA

Oh, god. I'm not sane. It's four in the morning, I've just been driven from my room twice by false-alarm fire drills, and I've got so darn much work to do I should be shot. So, what am I doing? I'm writing fic. Really, though, I can explain. I finally got back to my joyous campus connection, and thus finally saw The Hive. Haven't gotten to much of the fics yet, which I'm sure are marvelous, but I want to post my version before I get to second guessing it. As such, it is unbeta'd. Sorry. Constructive criticism is, as always, greatly appreciated. I reserve the right to revise this puppy til kingdom come, when I'm back in my right mind. Author's notes are at the end, by the way.

Fandom: SGA
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: The Hive
Summary: What came during and after. Or at least what should have.

Apitherapy

He hadn’t known. A lot of things, as it turns out.

The first one is a big enough thing. The Daedalus. He hadn’t known it was there, when he’d made his run on the hive ship. He’d hated the dart’s opaque canopy from the start, distrusted anything that relied so heavily on mechanics alone; come to think of it, he’d never been a big fan of autopilot or cruise-control, either. A system that took away his sight only to filter it through a machine’s awareness and sense of importance rubbed him all kinds of the wrong way.

Not surprisingly – old Murphy would have had a field day out here – he’s proven right. They get clear of the hive, but they aren’t free yet. Any one of the darts around them could take theirs out, given the proper motivation. It’s not even worth mentioning how quickly the hives themselves could dispose of them. And flying merrily off in any direction but the planet about to be culled would almost certainly be proper motivation. The kamikaze stunt he pulls is his frantic response to these odds. If he’d known they had allies right there, he never would have taken the chance. He’s no stranger to suicide runs, when necessary, but taking his team into the line of fire when the Daedalus has been proven capable of outrunning a hive ship? That’s not the kind of game he plays.

The dart doesn’t register the Earth ship, though. Not in any meaningful way, not to him at least. It’s just a big blip on the canopy, indistinguishable from those of either hive ship. Maybe the Wraith pilot it had been designed to carry could read it better; god knows the damn thing could have been spelling out the ship’s name, for all Sheppard could translate of the readings. So, he takes the information he has, and he goes with it. He does what he always does when the situation is this desperate: he crosses his fingers and shoots like hell. It’s been a surprisingly effective strategy thus far, and it works this one more time.

*******

When the crossfire starts, he gets gone. He takes the ship to the gate, and he dials back to Ford’s little retreat. He’d gotten the coordinates from the lieutenant in one of his more lucid moments during their enforced vacation. By then, Ford’s body had been failing, but it was the most Sheppard had seen of his right mind since the enzyme got hold of it. For a little while, he was with the old Ford, the one who knew that they didn’t leave people behind.

Sheppard especially doesn’t. They go back to the planet, back to the caves, before heading for Atlantis. There’s nothing in the code, though, that covers what to do when the left behind aren’t where you left them. And, sure, Rodney’s a resourceful guy, but this… this is bad. This doesn’t look like an escape. It looks like a culling.

The caves are empty. He goes in with Teyla and Ronon, all three in stealth mode, only to find it’s been entirely wasted. Other than the people, the place seems normal enough. There’s still food on the table, not yet gone putrid. The training room looks undisturbed, and the barracks don’t show any signs of a panicked exodus. The laboratory is fully stocked, waiting for a kid who’s on the bottom of a hive ship now. The only living things they find, though, are the Wraith Ford’s group kept for enzyme stock. They’re still chained to the cave walls, but awake now. Since they’re not the talkative sort, they aren’t much help.

Given what he’s seen of Wraith interactions, Sheppard’s not convinced this is evidence against a culling. They’d turn cannibal when the human supply ran out, and it didn’t take all that much convincing to get them to blow each other up, apparently. Leaving a few strangers to fend for themselves would be par for the course, as far as he can tell.

When he kills them, even he doesn’t know whether it’s self-preservation or fury. The one thing it isn’t is mercy.

After, they dial the gate with the dart’s controls and head home. He’s not surprised that Elizabeth greets them at the gate, looking thrilled to see them alive. It’s getting to be a habit, this sort of entrance. The quip he gives her is standard operating procedure, too. What does surprise him - knocks the air right out of him, in fact - is the weight he feels when he realizes Rodney isn’t beside her. He hadn’t thought he’d had the hope to lose until it was gone.

He doesn’t ask. He’s not sure if it’s because he’s afraid she’ll say she knows or that she doesn’t. He isn’t prepared for either response, really. Teyla seems to understand, veteran that she is of survival. She’s used to people being gone without explanation, and to not needing to ask.

It’s Ronon who slants a look at Weir as they walk toward the infirmary and says quietly, “McKay?”

Elizabeth’s smile doesn’t waver, and Sheppard feels his knees go weak before she ever says a word.

*******

It’s an accident, the way he finds out. A fluke. It happens late that first night back, when he’s too damn keyed up to sleep and too damn tired to do much else. He’s sitting in his quarters, killing time and waiting for the buzz to wear off, and decides that he should catch up on what he’s missed. He’s not up to conversation right now, not when it will turn into interrogation. They mean well, but everyone who hasn’t been recently missing in action is dying to hear the details. Elizabeth may have been willing to postpone the in-depth briefing until they’d all gotten some rest, but he’s already repeated the basics so many times he’s drafted the memo in his head. It would circulate faster, at least.

He wants to know what happened to Rodney. He knows the basics: Rodney got away from Ford’s crew without much fuss, and definitely before whatever made the place a ghost town. McKay got back to Atlantis, got help headed their way in the form of Caldwell’s cavalry, and showed up just in time to watch him run the gauntlet. The shock on his face in the infirmary was amazingly satisfying, on a petty level. It’s something young and childish in Sheppard that thinks Rodney could at least have left a note.

Beyond all that, though, he’s lacking a whole lot of detail. Between the chaos of their collective resurrections and Rodney’s disappearing act, that’s all he’s got. McKay had lurked in the background while the well-wishers descended like cheerful vultures. He'd been looking at the three of them with a kind of intensity that would have maybe bothered Sheppard, if he weren’t aware he kept watching the other man right back. Then Sheppard had glanced away for a moment, and when he'd looked again Rodney hadn't been there anymore.

By the time he’d finally gotten loose and found the quiet of his room, he couldn’t bring himself to face the horde again. Besides, human contact wasn’t the only way to get intel. He’s head of the military contingent here, after all. The job comes with some perks, maybe to make up for all the ways it can really suck. He may not get cable in the Pegasus galaxy, but the security feeds from all over the city are entertaining enough in their own right.

After the mess with the Genii, a monitoring system for Atlantis took on a whole new priority. It wasn’t until after they’d gotten the ZPM that they’d found it. With the new power source, the city had produced a number of surprises, and visuals from strategic points in the city were among them. It had taken Rodney and Zelenka the better part of a day to interface the feeds with the Earth tech, but since then Sheppard’s had his own private view of the world.

At the moment, he’s concentrating on the gateroom, watching the feed in reverse. The angle is facing the gate itself, and he sees his arrival with Teyla and Ronon. There’s nothing for a while, and then a cluster of people around something on the ground, panic written in their body language. Some part of him understands immediately, because the images are slowing down as the Ancient technology responds to him not wanting to see any more. It’s not a conscious decision, however, and the scene doesn’t stop playing entirely. He watches Rodney stand up slowly, knowing that he’s really falling. He does stop it then, goes back in jumps until the gateroom is empty again, and watches the whole thing happen in the right direction. Several times.

He knows where to look next. He checks each of the infirmary views until he gets the right one, and then skips back until he finds the time signature to match the gateroom’s. He watches Rodney twist and arch, watches Beckett frantically do nothing, and is absurdly glad they weren’t able to link a sound component to the visuals. He very much prefers his nightmares silent.

He keeps watching until Rodney bullies Beckett into letting him leave the infirmary, sits through it all in real time. It feels wrong, somehow, to speed it up – too much like a betrayal, or a dismissal. It’s hours later when he looks away, and doesn’t go to sleep.

*******

He’s standing outside Rodney’s door, just staring at him, when he finally gets it. The biggest thing he hadn’t known.

Rodney’s looking back at him, rumpled and in no way fresh from sleep. The bed isn’t made, but Sheppard’s willing to bet that’s only because it rarely is. Sheppard takes the step inside, and lets the door shut behind him. Neither of them says a word, and the staring continues. John takes another step, into personal space this time. Finally, he finds the words.

“You dumb shit.” It’s hoarse and low, and not at all strong enough for what he means.

Rodney gets it, though. “You too.”

John nods and brings his arms up, grabbing fistfuls of the back of Rodney’s shirt. He feels the hand on the back of his neck, and the arm low around his waist. They’re leaning into each other, and no one’s falling any farther tonight.

*******

Author’s Notes:

So, this whole thing sprang from two thoughts: one, Sheppard didn’t have R2 in that second dart with him, and two, wow, did that story need some closure. Also, I tend to think Ford’s boys would have been far more susceptible to the mind-wammie than Sheppard, and that the Wraith would have been exceedingly stupid not to use that. As such, I don’t think their base camp’s got a long shelf-life.

Finally, the title refers to the medicinal use of bee products, usually their venom.