stillane | Fic Post: Undertow, SGA

Okay, let me preface this by saying this one is a little bit... odd. I blame it on the fact that I haven't slept in a few days. Just a little post-Grace Under Pressure snippet, nothing too grand or monumental. As always, feedback is appreciated above all things.

Fandom: SGA
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Grace Under Pressure
Summary: John makes his peace, and Rodney finds some.

Undertow

John wasn’t used to owing anyone for anything. He was born the active type, usually the first to jump into the fray, and mostly people felt like they owed him.

And then he found himself owing more than he liked to two people he couldn’t ever thank. One of them he’d never met, and the other he’d never meet again. It left him feeling prickly and ungrateful.

Which was what brought him here, to this. The pier was quiet at this time of night, and he’d volunteered to take the only patrol that would come near this sector until dawn. He most definitely didn’t want to be seen, and he didn’t have the explanation he would need to give almost anyone. He sat next to the water, one leg stretched out and the other bent, back against the low sea wall, watching the darkness.

“What are you doing?” The voice came from the shadows at his back.

He answered without really thinking about it. “Saying thanks.”

McKay didn’t push, just gave him that head tilt and quirked lip that spoke volumes. Rodney’d never been one to state the obvious, and Sheppard had already read that book anyway. He’d known he was crazy since he was old enough to think other people were.

Rodney settled next to him on the ground, mirroring his pose. For a full minute he didn’t say anything. “You’ve named it already, haven’t you?”

For a second, John wondered what Ford would have called it. “Well, I’m a little conflicted. See, it depends on whether we’ve got a girl or a boy.”

Rodney groaned. “Let me guess, Nessie’s in the running?”

John granted him a quietly wry grin. “Nah. Beckett would hurt me. I was thinking Moya.”

That stopped him. “Huh. I forget sometimes that you do have some good taste.” He was absolutely serious, so John avoided the easy quip. It’d been a long day, and he was feeling generous, after all. “I always liked the idea of a living ship. Like a huge pet, really.”

“You want to fly around in a dog?”

“Moya was definitely more of a cat.” He stared off into the black ocean. “We do, you know. The jumpers aren’t that far off, when you think about it.”

John had. It was difficult not to bond with something that knew what you wanted before you did, and tried ever so hard to give it to you. He just nodded.

Rodney looked speculative. “I’ve had cats most of my life, back on Earth. Even smuggled one into my dorm in college. Kept him in the closet whenever my hall advisors came around. Of course, they caught on eventually – turned out my neighbor was allergic, started sneezing whenever he was around me - and I had to petition the residential board to keep him. I lost, but that was only because none of them had any background in physics.” The stubborn lift of the chin was in full evidence. “I could have been conducting research. They really didn’t take it well when I told them they’d set modern uncertainty theory back fifty years by opening the door alone.” He was quiet for a moment, then said softly, “I’ve never left a cat under an ocean.”

John understood that, too. Every jumper they lost felt like an odd kind of betrayal, as if they’d failed something purely loyal. “No, but dead cats can’t swim, either.”

Rodney grimaced at him. “Thank you for that uplifting imagery.”

“You’re welcome.” John was relieved to hear the sarcasm, and grinned a little broader in response.

It didn’t last, though, and Rodney’s voice was almost toneless when he said, “He deserved better.”

John had known it was coming, and still had no response. He settled for, “They all do.”

Rodney nodded sharply, swallowing hard. “And that doesn’t bother you? That there’s actually a category for ‘people who stepped in to save the day because McKay was too chickenshit to manage it’? It really needs to stop. I’m sick of people dying because I’m not... enough.”

It wasn't what he'd meant at all, and Sheppard drew breath to stop him there. Rodney waved a hand at him preemptively. “Don’t even. You don’t get an opinion on this. You’re the hero type.”

And the crazy thing was, John knew he wasn’t. The hero type sacrificed, gave up anything to save lives. When it came right down to it, John wouldn’t. He’d take every risk necessary with his life, he’d throw himself before any one of his people in a firefight - hell, he’d be a human missile guidance system if he had to, but he had his limits. At the moment, they were sitting next to him. Because, come hell or high water, he wasn’t trading McKay for anything. Not puddle jumpers or people. It made him selfish and ignoble and a little greedy, maybe, and he absolutely didn’t care.

Finally, he said quietly, “They don’t die because you live. Sometimes, you just live because they die.” He let that sink in. “Sometimes, people live because you do.”

“And sometimes they don’t.” The flat voice was back.

John nodded easily. “And sometimes they don’t.”

Rodney was quiet for a while. Finally, he toed at the line between them, falling into the water. “Where’d you get this, anyway?”

John sighed and embraced the topic shift. “Moore and McNabb had it in their supplies for M8R169. Just thought I’d test it out, give it a trial run through.”

“Uh-huh. And that?” Skepticism rolled off him in waves as he pointed to the case of powerbars at Sheppard’s side.

“In case I got hungry?” He concentrated on looking as innocent as possible.

“Nice try. I’ll give you another one for free.”

It was time to bring out the big guns, then. “Just a little scientific curiosity. I wanted a closer look, and I needed bait.”

The skepticism lightened a bit, but hovered uncertainly. “That explains the water-proof mic, but really, powerbars? Anything with the manners not to eat me has to be beyond them.”

John shrugged. “Closest I could come to candy. It worked for E.T. You try explaining that you want to make off with the next month’s supply of Reeses to feed a whale.”

Rodney shuddered and nodded sagely. “Wars have begun over less.”

Rodney didn’t believe him one bit, but John wasn’t going to remind him of that. They were quiet again for a time, but comfortably so.

“Hey, you never told me the other name.”

“What?”

“The other name for the thing.” Rodney gestured vaguely at the water. “What you would have called it if it were a boy.”

John grinned. “Moby.”

Rodney snorted. “Typical.”

They spent a few hours tossing nutritionally-enhanced offerings to the gods of the deep, and being grateful for the opportunity. If Rodney dozed off at some point with his head against John’s shoulder, and if John closed his eyes to hear the steady breathing next to him, no one was the wiser.