Secrets

Chapter Seven Home

Sheppard stood for a moment in the shadow of the gate, watching as the gurneys carried away Keller and Rodney — Rodney still talking, arguing with Carson even as the doors slit shut behind them. To have him back, alive and himself again, at least mentally: he’d begun to fear that was impossible, that he might have to do the unthinkable, and he knew the smile he gave Ronon was tinged with relief.

“Good job, buddy.”

“Yeah.” Ronon didn’t smile back. He looked pretty beat himself, and John gave him an appraising glance.

“You OK?”

“Yeah,” Ronon said again.

Woolsey was coming down the steps, Zelenka at his heels, and Carter appeared on the balcony.

“Colonel Sheppard,” she called. “I heard —”

Sheppard couldn’t repress his grin. “We got McKay back. In one pretty Wraithy piece, but in one piece. And very much himself again.”

“Wonderful,” Carter said.

“A very good job,” Woolsey said, to Ronon. “Well done indeed.”

“It is good to have him back,” Zelenka said. “For so very many reasons.”

Carter came to join them. “What’s the prognosis?”

“You’ll have to ask Carson for the details, how long it’s going to take to get him back to normal physically,” Sheppard said, “but it certainly sounds like Rodney.”

“Doesn’t look so much like him,” Ronon said. “But, yeah, it sounds like him.”

“That’s really good news,” Carter said.

Sheppard looked at Ronon. He was looking — odd. More than merely tired and hungry and worried — he looked like he had when he’d first come to Atlantis, lines of stress making him look older than his years. “Ronon,” Sheppard said, and the Satedan’s eyes flicked toward him, and then away. Not good, Sheppard thought, and laid a carefully casual hand on the other man’s shoulder. He could feel the tension even in that touch, said, “Come on. We need to debrief.”

Carter gave him a quick look at that, and Sheppard risked a fractional shake of his head. Her eyes widened just a little, and she looked away.

“What?” Ronon said.

“Debrief,” Sheppard said again. “Let’s go.”

He hadn’t had much of a plan to start with, but by the time they’d reached the doors, he’d figured out the place he was least likely to be bothered. His office was in its usual state of disarray, but the city did its best to make it inviting, adjusting the lights and the heat and sliding back the shutter that closed the single long, narrow window. Outside, the sun was shining, striking sparks from the ice, and a stiff wind blew gusts of new powder sparkling past the window. Some of the stiffness eased from Ronon’s face, seeing that, and Sheppard swept papers from the spare chair.

“Sit.”

Ronon glanced at him then, but did as he was told. Sheppard reached into the drawer of his desk, pulled out the jar of moonshine that had found its way to him through unofficial channels. After a longer search, he found a clean-looking mug and poured a stiff shot, slid it across the desk toward the Satedan.

Ronon took it warily, sniffed at it. “Aren’t you drinking?”

Sheppard reached into the little portable refrigerator, pulled out a beer and held it up. “You can have a beer if you’d rather, but I thought you liked this stuff.”

Ronon took a sip. “It’s — smooth.”

“Yeah.” Sheppard twisted off the cap of his beer. It was earlier in the afternoon than he would have chosen, but he was pretty sure Ronon didn’t need to drink alone. “You want to tell me what happened?”

Ronon shrugged. “We couldn’t get out, so we found a lifepod, ejected in that. McKay got us down safely, and we walked to the Stargate.”

Sheppard lifted his beer as much in salute to the masterful understatement as to the actual actions. “Does that mean McKay had started to remember who he was?”

“Yeah.” Ronon nodded. “So I guess that whole Gaffen thing wasn’t a trap.”

Sheppard had guessed as much, but the confirmation still made a little warmth spread through him.

“That’s —” Ronon stopped, made himself go on. “That’s part of the problem. Was part of the problem, and still is. It’s McKay, or he thinks he’s McKay, but physically he’s still a Wraith.”

“Beckett says that will wear off,” Sheppard said. “That he’ll be back to normal eventually.”

“Sheppard. He’s been a Wraith. You don’t get to be ‘normal’ after that.”

“Hey.” Sheppard glared. “This is Rodney we’re talking about.”

“Sheppard, he —” Ronon took another swallow of the moonshine. “He fed. On Jennifer.”

Sheppard froze, the bottle halfway to his lips. “She was fine.”

“She’d taken that retrovirus of hers,” Ronon said. “A new version. Well, it worked. And McKay fed.”

Sheppard set his beer down untasted. “Why?”

Ronon’s face twisted. “He was starving. She said he wouldn’t make it, wouldn’t survive the change if he didn’t. I tried to talk them out of it, but — she wouldn’t listen. And I couldn’t figure out another way.”

“Ronon,” Sheppard said, but the words were tumbling out of him.

“I didn’t want to leave him with her — I didn’t know if the virus had worked, and I didn’t know, McKay didn’t know, if he could restore her if it didn’t work, so I didn’t want to try to go for help. Maybe I should have — if I had, maybe he wouldn’t, she wouldn’t have —” He shuddered. “I couldn’t watch. I know, you know, what it feels like, I couldn’t see Jennifer go through that —”

And then he stopped, shaking his head, his face open and vulnerable for the first time since Sheppard had known him. Oh, boy, Sheppard thought. This wasn’t his strong point at the best of times, and Ronon — well, it was bad enough for him to see Rodney as a Wraith, to know that he must have fed, but to know that his teammate — his friend — had fed on the woman they both loved… No, that was more than anybody should have to deal with. He took a sip of his beer, buying time.“She volunteered, right?” he ventured.

“Keller?” Ronon blinked.

“Yeah.”

Ronon shrugged. “So?”

“She volunteered, and you tried to talk her out of it,” Sheppard said. “And I bet Rodney did, too. So it was her choice.”

“I was in charge.”

“She’s the doctor.” Sheppard made his voice hard. “This was her call. She’s the one who knew whether or not McKay could make it to the gate, she’s the one who invented this damn retrovirus. It was her call, buddy. Not yours.”

“If you’d been there —”

“I wouldn’t have liked it much either, no,” Sheppard interrupted. “And I’d’ve tried to stop her, and she’d still have done it, and it still would have been her call.” He stopped, fixed Ronon with a stare, willing him to believe. “And she was right.”

Some of the tension had eased from Ronon’s face. He took another sip of the moonshine, grimaced as though he was tasting it for the first time. “Would you feed on the woman you love? I mean, that’s just — not right.”

Sheppard paused. It was a fair question, and this didn’t seem to be the time to explain about vampires or the dreams he had where Steelflower was a true Wraith queen. But maybe that was part of the key, even if it did take them onto very dangerous ground. “I don’t think — look, if it was Teyla, if she needed to feed on me.” He shrugged, the words still terrifying. “She can have my life anytime. And so could you.”

Emotions chased themselves across Ronon’s face, almost too fast to read, visceral fear, disgust, sympathy, and he nodded slowly. “OK. I — OK.”

Sheppard reached for the jar of moonshine, and Ronon nodded, held out his mug. “Look,” Sheppard said, pouring. “We got McKay back. We got him back alive and sane. That’s a win in anyone’s book.”

Ronon lifted his mug in answer, and drank deep.

Rodney hunched himself further up in the awkward hospital bed, the knobs of his spine digging into the mattress. The laptop slid down his upthrust knees, and he caught it with his off hand, hissing softly in frustration. And he was going to have to stop doing that. It only made people look oddly at him, made them see the Wraith, not him.

He glared at the screen, happy to turn his anger outward. He needed a real computer, one that was networked, that had all the data he needed to get back up to speed. He needed to know more about how this mechanical iris worked — Zelenka hadn’t done a bad job with it, but he suspected there were improvements they could make. And there he stopped again, unwilling to follow that thought to the end. He had this computer because he had been Quicksilver, because he’d proved he couldn’t be trusted. Because he’d killed.

He set the laptop aside, squirming against the pillows. He needed at least a couple more, could feel the bed frame through the layers of padding, and for a disorienting moment he was almost homesick for the hive, for his niche shaped to his body. He grimaced at that, made himself look around. At least he was getting used to the level of light. It no longer made him squint, or made his eyes water: a sign he was starting to change back, or so he hoped.

At the far end of the long room, blue curtains were drawn around a single bed. Jennifer lay there, resting, Carson had said, though whether she was drugged or sleeping naturally Rodney had not been able to bring himself to ask. He closed his eyes, remembering the feeling of her life flowing into him, clear and strong without stint. Ember would have had the words for it, that quality of sustenance — Quicksilver had had them, but Rodney wouldn’t look. Jennifer had saved his life, and he was grateful, as grateful as he’d been after the brain parasite. It wasn’t that much different, after all.

He could make out movement behind the curtain, a shift of light more than a shadow, and then Carson slipped between them, pulling them tight behind him.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, as he came down the length of the room.

“Fine,” Rodney said. God, it was good to see Carson, someone who knew him, who recognized him as Rodney McKay. “Except I could use some more pillows.”

“All right,” Carson said, and swept one off the neighboring bed. “Lean forward.”

Rodney did as he was told, one hand on the laptop to keep it from falling. He felt the thin fabric of the johnny open over his spine, felt Carson looking at the ridges even as he set the pillow in place. “What?”

“It looks as though the — protuberances — are shrinking,” Carson answered. “I want to document the progress.”

Rodney rested his arms on his knees, the points of the calipers cold on his skin. Carson made a note on his tablet, then nodded.

“Definitely progress. They’ve gone down about three centimeters since you were brought in.” He tucked the tablet under his arm as Rodney settled himself back against the pillows, squirming a little to find the most comfortable spot. “No aches, pains, any other symptoms I should know about?”

Rodney shook his head. “Well, I’m tired all the time, which I assume is part of this whole transition thing. And I’m — my gut keeps twinging, you know, pains and gurgles.”

“That’s encouraging,” Carson said, with a quick smile. “Not pleasant, I admit, but that should mean that your digestion is starting to work again. Are you hungry at all?”

He’d fed too recently for that. Rodney winced, shook his head hard. “No. No, not at all. Just tired. A lot tireder than I’d expect to be, really, unless you’re drugging me —” That had slipped out without his having meant to say it, but now that it was said, he watched Carson for any reaction. It would make sense to drug him, to keep him from being able to betray them again — to keep him from feeding, if they had to —

Carson shook his head. “No, Rodney, I’m not drugging you. In fact, I’m trying to avoid giving you anything more than the serum we used to support Michael in his transition. I don’t want to risk unpredictable reactions as your system continues to revert to human norms.”

Michael. Lastlight. It was no comfort to think of him, and Rodney bared teeth. Carson blinked, visibly startled, and Rodney shook his head. “No, no, sorry. How’s — how is Jennifer?”

Carson’s face softened. “She’s a brave girl, brave and smart. She’ll be fine as soon as she’s had a chance to rest.” He glanced down at his tablet. “In fact, the retrovirus — unless there are further side effects that aren’t yet evident, it seems to work as planned. She’s lost some weight, which she didn’t have to lose, and her blood pressure was high — it’s falling now — and there are some issues with electrolyte balance that I’m keeping an eye on, but, in the main, it works. I’m — well, I’m hugely relieved, for one thing, and cautiously optimistic. This may actually be a good thing.”

“Yes,” Rodney said, but couldn’t project the confidence he meant. He could still feel his own terror, his hunger, knowing that he would die if he didn’t feed, and would kill Jennifer if he did. The image was too clear, fueled by all the dead men he’d seen since he’d come to Atlantis, by the withered husks dragged from the feeding cells by the drones. It so easily could have been Jennifer lying like a mummy in his arms, only her hair still young and golden, spilling over his arms.

The infirmary door opened with a soft sound, and he looked up, desperate for any interruption. Lorne stood in the doorway, leaning on a tripod cane, a rather sheepish look on his face. “Got a minute, doc?” He stopped abruptly. “Oh. Hi, Dr. McKay.”

“Major,” Rodney said.

“What have you done now?” Carson asked, and waved Lorne to the next bed.

“It’s, um.” Lorne stopped. “I know you warned me about overdoing it, and I didn’t think I did, but — it’s hurting pretty good right now.”

“Let me take a look,” Carson said.

Rodney looked away politely, but not before he’d seen Carson unfasten the straps of a leg brace. He could see a raw scar, too, a couple of them, pink against Lorne’s skin. Nobody ever said duty on Atlantis was easy.

“Well, Major,” Carson said, “I won’t say I told you so because it won’t do any good, but I did. And what you need to do is stay off your feet for twelve hours.”

“I’m not sure I can do that,” Lorne said.

“If you don’t,” Carson said, “you’re going to be back on crutches. I guarantee you that. Look, I’m going to give you something that will help the pain and decrease the inflammation, but it won’t help if you don’t rest that leg.”

Lorne gave a reluctant nod. “OK, doc. I’ll do my best.”

“You’ll do better,” Carson said, and turned away to rummage in one of the cabinets.

Rodney said, “What happened?”

Lorne gave him a strange look. “Um. Right. It happened when you — when the Wraith attacked through the gate, and got away in a jumper. I tried to go after them, and got wrecked. Busted my leg pretty good.”

“Oh,” Rodney said. He remembered that, all right, or Quicksilver did, the flight with the ZPM, the last second decision to try a jumper and the savage pleasure when he’d realized the ship answered to him. He vaguely remembered that there had been pursuit, but didn’t remember wrecking a jumper. “I — look, I–I’m sorry.”

Lorne shrugged, looking just as uncomfortable as Rodney felt. “It’s OK. Things happen.”

Yes, but not like this. Rodney swallowed the words as Carson returned with a bottle and instructions, and Lorne worked himself upright, leaning on the cane while Carson lectured him again about needing to rest the leg. Lorne kept nodding, and limped at last toward the door. I did that, Rodney thought. It’s my fault — a man I would consider a friend is badly hurt, and people are dead because of me. Carson gave him a smile and a nod, and settled himself at his computer to enter his evening’s notes. Rodney forced a smile in answer, and reached for his laptop again. He’d fix it. Somehow.

Lorne made it about halfway down the corridor toward the transport chamber before his leg spasmed again. There was nothing much he could do except wait it out; he braced himself against the wall, cane in his opposite hand pressed hard against the floor, and made himself breathe. He would take the pills, he needed to take them, but if he didn’t wait until he got back to his quarters, he was going to fall over. And that would be — well, at best it would be undignified, and at worst it would break something else, and all in all, he’d just rather it didn’t happen. Dr. Beckett would have words for him if it did.

It was weird having McKay back — no, he thought, be honest. It’s weird having him back as a Wraith. Weird and not very pleasant: not only did it remind everyone that McKay had been turned, it reminded Lorne of the experiment with Michael, and that had been a very bad choice. He hadn’t been involved in it, not directly, but he had met “Michael Kenmore,” followed orders and treated him as human, as part of the expedition, and he still felt guilty about that one. He wondered if there was a Wraith somewhere who was having the same worries about McKay, and shoved that thought aside as way too disorienting. The pain in his leg was starting to ease. Now the trick was to get moving again before anyone saw him and reported him unfit for duty.

Light spilled from an open door ahead of him: one of the lounges generally used by enlisted personnel. Somebody had started calling it “Vegas” because they said the stained glass looked sort of like a casino carpet. The comparison still made Lorne twitch, but he knew better than to say anything. He could hear voices, loud and cheerful — one of the new Marines, he thought, dredged the name out of the depths of his memory. Hernandez.

“When I was in Afghanistan, that whole sheep’s-eyeballs-are-a-delicacy thing, that was top of the weird-o-meter. Now? I don’t think that would even register.”

There was a burst of laughter, all male.

“Still,” someone else said, “this has got to be about the weirdest, right?”

There was a confused noise of scuffling and curses, a muffled ‘ow’, and another voice said, “Get a clue, dude.”

“He’s got a point, though,” Hernandez said. “I mean, this thing with Dr. McKay, it’s pretty weird.”

“We’ve had weirder,” somebody said, but he didn’t sound all that certain.

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like, I don’t know —”

There was a rather sober silence, and Hernandez said, “So what are they going to do with McKay now that they’ve got him? Ship him back to the SGC?”

“No way.” Lorne recognized that voice: Elton Sandoval, an Air Force sergeant who’d been with the expedition from the beginning. “That’s Dr. McKay you’re talking about.”

“But he attacked —”

“He’s been —”

“He was brainwashed,” Sandoval declared, his voice riding over the others. “He’s all right. As soon as he gets back to normal, he’ll be fine.”

“Derek was killed,” someone protested. “Come on, Sarge, they’re going to let him get away with that?”

“It wasn’t him,” Sandoval insisted.

“It was.”

“He wasn’t in his right mind,” Sandoval said. “Give me a break, Ray.”

That was as much as Lorne could afford to hear. He straightened, deliberately letting his cane fall hard against the floor. It was definitely more than he’d wanted to hear, and he groaned softly at the thought of the conversation he was going to have to have with Sheppard. He took a careful step, leaning hard on the cane, and down the hall someone closed the door to Vegas. He limped past it, let himself into the transporter. The guys had one thing right, though. This was a long way off the weird-o-meter.