“The Inner Light” (1/1)
May. 27th, 2008 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kristen999Title: “The Inner Light”
Author: Kristen999
Word Count: 5368
Rating: T
Spoilers: None
Warnings: A tad dark
Summary: John decides to live inside his dreams, knowing all that is left is to chew on his fingers and watch his mind slip away. This is a remix of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
iamrighthere/skypig21's "The Known World".
Notes: I was extremely hesitant to touch what I consider one of the best SGA stories out there. This is more of an extension within the original and I hope I did it justice. Your enjoyment of this one shot will be made better if you have read the "The Known World". If you have not read it, then go do so.
Written with permission of the author. Some dialog and snippets used from “The Known World”.
Big thank you to my betaswildcat88 and everybetty
John stares at the ceiling for many hours, counting the imperfections and losing count after twenty-two. He starts over, doesn't remember what number comes after sixteen, and begins again. His eyes roll to the back of his head after gazing up for too long. The line between being awake and asleep is blurring more each minute. The walls whisper to him, taunt and challenge him to do things that will piss off the disciplinarians. He has a personal record for how many stunnings he can receive before passing out; the worry is trying to find the number that won't let him get back up again.
Good behavior earns him precious minutes to speak with Teyla and Rodney. John allows the machine to do whatever it does to his mind in order to see them. They sent Rodney to the clinic a few weeks ago. His breathing had gained an odd whistle and his clothes had become way too big. Teyla had been the only one allowed to visit their teammate and told John that the doctor never looked at his patient, writing away Rodney's life in a chart, simply waiting for him to die.
Ten days before, a thief stole Rodney away from the clinic in the black of night. John hopes the person will come back and take Teyla next.
John draws designs in the dirt, not sure if he's making a rectangle or a square, the filthy floor filled with scribbles. He sucks on his hand under the meaty part of his thumb, finding a hilarious irony in the act. His cellmate, Pistoule, sucks on his all the time, crying and sobbing to himself. They have something in common now.
The rail-thin little man sniffles and mumbles incoherently in the corner most days, and John wonders how long before they become mirror images of each other. Pistoule's wispy hair sticks out all over the place from running his hands through it nonstop. John hasn't begun pulling his out—yet.
The disciplinarians drag John to the Warden's office where he's tied to a chair. The Warden screams questions at him that he has no answers for.
“Who took him?”
Stun.
“Who took him?”
Stun.
John comes to, passes out, comes to again while the Warden enjoys a meal between sessions. Time passes; the light comes through the window in new patterns, but his answer stays the same.
“I don't know,” John repeats robotically.
Something happens later. Something bad. The Warden whispers an inconceivable thing in his ear, and John comes undone in a red, blinding rage.
He wakes up in his cell, his pants soiled, his arms and legs refusing to move. A stun to the base of the skull has turned John into a puddle on the floor.
The thief comes back and takes Pistoule; the little man didn’t want to go but couldn't coherently protest his kidnapping.
The thief can't hear John's silent scream that never makes it past paralyzed lips. He knows he has no value, but he's begging, pleading to be whisked away, too. The next day he finds out that the thief has taken something very precious to both him and the Warden, leaving John all alone to face the man's wrath.
That night he imagines the various ways in which to die even though he's already failed at a few of them. He doesn't know if he can handle more time with the machine, thinking of Pistoule's insane mumblings, the rocking back and forth, back and forth in the corner. John decides to live inside his dreams, knowing all that is left for him is chewing on his fingers and watching his mind slip away.
--------------
Teyla stands before him, a wide open field of cool green grass in the background. She clutches a yellow and pink flower between her slender fingers. “I am leaving,” she says, plucking a delicate petal and pressing it against the barrier.
The force field pops and snaps at the contact; John brushes his fingertips over it, tracing it from the other side. He pretends to feel the silky plant instead of the painful friction. “I'm glad,” he tells her. And he is.
“When I get home, I'm going to order a large pizza with extra cheese.” She continues to pull apart the flower.
The sky is a rich sapphire color above; he remembers that the reflected ocean gives it that deep tone. There are no bodies of water here so it makes the sight even more magical. John wants to remember what it was like to fly among the clouds.
A wind gusts, blowing strands of Teyla's bronze hair across her face. “Do you need a gun?”
John squeezes his eyes closed; the current increases, sending a tingle up his arm. “Will you forgive me?”
“Of course I will.”
Her cheerful words don't alleviate the guilt; he opens his eyes to her beautiful face.
The pistol passes through without a problem. John curls his hand around the cold grip, never brushing any of Teyla's warm skin in the process. He masks his disappointment, his right arm dangling loosely, clutching his key to freedom. “Don't come back.”
The breeze strips away the remains of the flower and carries pieces into the air. “I'll miss you,” Teyla confides.
“No, you won't.”
Teyla is off, running in the beautiful field. He watches her strong legs carry her across blades of grass that never end. He eyes one of the Loza bugs crawling over the dirty floor and crushes the ugly insect with his foot. “I've set you free,” he tells it.
The next time he peers out, Teyla is pushing Rodney down a hill in a wheelchair. He can't hear them but imagines his friend's shrill voice telling her to watch out for rocks and holes. John laughs with them, sharing in the joy from behind the barrier. He blinks, and Rodney and Teyla are next to a funeral pyre, watching plumes of smoke drift into the air. Ronon Dex is running for the very last time.
“I'm coming,” he tells his Satedan friend.
The muzzle of the weapon fits perfectly in the indent of his left temple.
“She is gone. And you know who took her,” the Warden tells him.
John squeezes the trigger, but nothing happens. He trembles because the only thing left for him now is to wait for death.
-------------
John doesn't believe in Heaven or Hell and that rules out Purgatory. He thinks this place, wherever it may be, is especially reserved for cowards. He deserves to be lost in this nothing place. Pinching his earlobe doesn't cause pain; neither does biting his finger.
It used to work in his other life.
The missing part of his pinky has grown back; he flexes the shiny new tip. It's the first clue that this isn't real. He bites down, really hard, to see if copper fills his mouth, but nothing happens.
John thinks about his last conversation with Rodney and remembers his friend’s pale, sweaty face and hollow eyes. He recalls an illness that made Rodney's shoulders poke out in sharp angles under his shirt and his pants sag around his waist. Both ignoring his friend's odd wheezing, they would talk of escape plans that never had a chance. The stargate was buried underground; there is no going back through it.
Now John hangs in the dead time, dreaming of his other life.
“You gave up, Sheppard. When did you lose your backbone?” Rodney's voice hisses in his ear.
John's cheeks turn bright pink, matching the tips of his ears. There's no one around, but the phantom voice of his teammate doesn't stop.
“I waited for you, waited for a plan while I withered away in that bed. They took me away because you tried to find an easier way out.”
John wants to know if Rodney really did escape, that the Warden’s fury meant something. Is Teyla with him? It's hard to keep track of time between 'here' and 'there'. And when Rodney was taken and when Teyla was.
“Do you know where you are? Can you feel my hand on top of yours?”
There is only darkness, and he can't feel anything or see Rodney's accusing face. Is he still on the floor, counting spots on the ceiling?
“No, Sheppard, that was days ago, when you stopped eating. You're in the clinic where they force feed your body. My favorite doctor checks your vitals but his eyes never wander past the machines, or look at the face of his patient. You're alive; they've kept you from dying. They won…. I’m sorry.”
Rodney doesn't stop yammering and won't appear so he can see him one more time. John holds onto the words even if they're berating. It's better than the dead time when nothing exists at all. Then Rodney's voice stops talking, and John misses his company. His muscles do not obey his commands, not when he tries to pull free the tube connected to his gut or when he knows people are finally here to rescue him.
He thinks maybe he's inside the machine. He never felt anything when they connected him to it. After he tried to die the first time, they’d doubled his time with it. It’s how he feels now - empty, like the little black box.
John remembers asking Teyla outside the barrier. “What would you do if I was dead?”
He wants to tell her how sorry he is for saying that. He had waited until she was taken away from this place before giving up totally.
He thinks she's crying over him, whispering, “We did not forget.”
A part of him thinks everyone did; he's finally being rescued and doesn't care. He had allowed hope to be taken away from him, one piece at a time. He deserves this and waits for either the dreams or the dead time to come.
--------------
Someone's weeping in the background, and, at first, it sounds like Papa's tears. John smells the lilac shampoo and rosewater that is Elizabeth. She's sharing a secret with him about his other life.
Her voice is honey and cinnamon, and she finishes with, “We need you, John. I need you. We're all waiting for you to come back to us. Everyone loves you, and we're not giving up.”
John doesn't remember when he allowed the Kalians to strip away his optimism. Maybe that's what the machine did, took away his determination. He'd made scratch marks in the dirt representing the days in his cell, little x’s counting out the days between times he’d been allowed to see Teyla or Rodney. Months went by, and the scratches became gibberish.
He'd never been comfortable with intimacy or physical contact. But when ten days passed without seeing either of them, John would gladly have taken electrocution from the shield for one touch.
Ronon's spirit beckons him from the afterlife to wake up. That's a silly thing for Ronon to do when all he wants is to join him in death. His ex-cellmate, Pistoule, cries and sobs, desperately calling out, “Come back.”
John doesn't remember the last time Pistoule spoke to him without breaking down. During the last days, when John's mind became more fractured, the babbling little man got worse, running into walls until he knocked himself out.
John's other lifetime fades away, and he follows the sounds of singing and giggling in his new one.
He loves playing with a group of kids that seem so familiar; they jump rope outside by a large leafy tree. John watches all their pale little faces smile and laugh. No one has a name; it would be hard to memorize any since all the children look alike. He looks at his own tiny hands and caresses the milky white skin in wonder.
His short legs run until they give out, and he lies flat on his back under the beautiful lemon sun. John will get up and run again because he can, knowing his body is actually inert and still.
It's time to go inside the cottage with the green braided rug, but a group of men walk out, carrying all of Papa's books. There's a whole pile of them in the grass, and one of the strangers lights a match and lets it fall. The bad man watches the flames grow, eating up a lifetime of precious words.
The government men nail notes to Papa's door, which is very strange because they all work in the same building. When Papa comes home he grabs John's tiny body close to his chest and cradles him. “Did they hurt you, my child?”
John hugs back until his arms shake because it's been five months since he's touched anyone. He doesn't tell Papa how one of the bad men came over, petted his hair, and told him to forget every lie and evil song Papa ever taught him.
The sky is black, covered by large clouds of smoke from multiple fires all over town. Music, poems, volumes of work about love and peace burn away, never to be read again.
“I'm scared,” John whispers in a child's voice.
“Fear nothing in life; only try to understand,” Papa says, squeezing John tightly.
Something takes out the sun, and John is left in darkness, where he's numb and floating.
----------
John has known love a few times in his life; it is a powerfully addictive emotion. When it's taken away, the pain is so bad that he has to crawl further and further to distance himself. He thinks it is a deceptive feeling, not worth the danger of seeking it out. Love has left many hidden scars all over him that have never fully healed.
Dad wasn't a believer in open acts of affection, and it's harder to remember his mother's kisses with every passing year. Women never stuck around more than a night with a man who has trouble dealing with personal space. Add in one failed marriage, and the only lover John's still intimate with is the sky.
John's friends stroke his dead arms, card fingers through his hair, and kiss his temples. He knows these things but isn't able to feel their lips or hands on his skin. John is dying, and he wants to run away from the pain but doesn't have anywhere to go. He wants to speak to his faithful friends one last time before the dead time comes back and never leaves.
The last thing he’d said to Elizabeth had been over the radio. “The Kalians are acting weird.”
He cries in the darkness, tears that don't really slide down fevered cheeks. Something grants him one last reprieve; his tiny hands wipe the moisture from his face.
“Toma? I am looking for you little one.”
John smiles ear to ear, running towards wide open arms.
“Papa!” he yells.
“My beloved child! You are here!”
“I waited for you, Papa. Please take me home!”
“We will go home together, Toma….”
John feels with every fiber of his being the encompassing love of father and son. He embraces it with both arms, breathes in the warmth, soaks in as much as he can. Pistoule's voice is filled with happiness; one of his plump little hands tousles John's hair.
Love is all around him, and he holds on to it, clings greedily to it. Love is also waiting for him in his other life, beckoning him back.
Pistoule and Toma lead John back to Atlantis and settle him there. Then they are gone forever.
----------------------------
There has been death and dying, love ---and now John has been set free. Rodney's talking with his usual gusto, rarely stopping to take a breath. Vowels jump and skip; meanings of words get jumbled within the complexity of language.
“Slow down,” John tells him.
Two simple words flip a switch to the reality of IVs, wires, tubes and machines. For a scarce second, he's back in the clinic with the soft restraints pinning him down. John waits for syringes and the unkind doctor, staring at Rodney the whole time, wondering when the hallucination is going to end. He must have asked Rodney to talk more because his friend stammers on, and it's the most wonderful music to his ears.
He waits for the lights to go out, only to be rewarded with a beautiful accent; Carson's Scottish brogue is a sharp contrast to the stony silence of his last caregiver. John answers all the doctor's questions, flinching when the bell of a stethoscope rests over his heart.
“Sorry, sorry. It's okay, Colonel; you're home,” Carson reassures him.
Home. Atlantis has been nothing but a frayed thread of hope that'd been cut away long ago.
Carson's soft murmuring slowly uncoils withered muscles that had braced for an assault that never came. He relaxes into the cool, clean bed sheets. Rodney never strays from sight, a tether to this reality. It's not until John musters enough strength to lift up his hand and he notices the missing part of his finger that he starts to believe that he is really home.
When he sees the fried remains of the black box, his eyes get very large and his breath catches in his throat.
“It's broken; it can't hurt you anymore,” Rodney promises.
John nods his head, trusting him implicitly; the broken, smoldered pieces don't appear very frightening in the bright infirmary. He doesn't know why his friend wants to repair something so hideous.
“Like many things in science, this was supposed to be used for good, to spread knowledge,” Rodney says, picking up a blackened part. “It’s a beautiful machine, really. The ability to download knowledge right into the brain. Can you imagine the advancements in science and medicine if it was ever perfected?”
On the edge of John's consciousness is a ghostly image of Pistoule, full of excitement over his newest invention. “Words are only blurbs on paper unless they are shared; once spread, they become a powerful force. They can change the world.”
“I know about the flaw. I think I can isolate it. Of course, there's the matter of the transfer mechanism being fried,” Rodney mutters. “Then again, I think that's what needs to be replaced.” For the first time the scientist looks over, raw sincerity reflecting in his blue orbs. “The machine was used on Pistoule's son. It—it took his mind away and stored it inside the box.”
Tears pool in Rodney's eyes; his hands start to shake again. “They killed his son by putting the boy's consciousness inside... I mean... of course, you know, since it was transferred into...” He stutters, clutching a silver chain with a small die attached to it. “A little boy, how-- how could they?” Rodney's face is puffy, his eyes wet; his still thin body trembles.
If John closes his eyes, he can feel the young boy hooked to the machine, his father begging, screaming in the background. “Punish me! Not my child!”
They are both mourning the same tragedies, but John is too weak to reach out and offer comfort. The chair makes an awful scraping noise, and the bedrail is lowered. Rodney drops his head onto John's bony shoulder, and John leans into him, enrapt by the warmth and the feeling of contact.
Any moment the light will go out and the dead time should begin again. When it doesn't, John gets unbelievably happy. “I'm really home.” He thinks of childlike hands. “We all are.”
------------------------
The pain of being a part of the real world makes itself known in healing bed sores, lungs that don't know how to breathe very deeply, and organs that are trying to get used to working at full power. John fights Carson about wanting to eat real food and getting rid of the tube. He doesn't talk about the forced liquid feedings, or about consuming Loza bugs, hoping their tiny poisons sacs would be enough to take away his suffering.
He’d spent days curled up on his side while he starved himself, imagining steaks, lobsters, fried chicken, and endless bowls of spaghetti. Now John would do anything for applesauce or even plain yogurt. In time he'll be allowed to taste again but not today.
The nurses that tend to him are so warm and compassionate that he feels himself coming undone at such kindness. The last thought he’d had about doctors was his desire to place a bullet in the brain of the guy in charge of the clinic. The scars on his wrists from the restraints are all faded; at night, he still struggles against them.
A black pall taints his thoughts; Rodney tells John that long-term exposure to the machine causes depression, but it’s another loss that weighs heavily on him. That's why, when the ghost of Ronon Dex sits on his bed, John thinks he's back in his cell.
“Bet you thought I was dead, huh?” Ronon says.
It takes a while, but he realizes Ronon is very much alive, that even falling out of a jumper hundreds of feet in the air can't kill him. John is overwhelmed again. This whole breaking down in front of teammates and gentle nurses freaks him out. There used to be a barrier inside him that kept intense emotions at bay. Maybe the machine extracted it and his defenses are just slow in rebuilding.
Ronon tells John how he and Teyla had never forgotten about him and how they took John away from the terrible prison. Ronon was the thief, only able to rob the prison of one person at a time. John thanks him, falling asleep after all those unfamiliar feelings zap him of strength.
Exhaustion sends him into another dream state, and he's back in the tiny room with the wooden table. John's strapped in the chair; his head flops against his chest, drool dribbling down his shirt. His hearing is off because one of the disciplinarians thought it would be fun to stick one of the stun rods near his ear. They've already used the machine to liquefy his brain.
Explosions rock the walls; the single light bulb above flickers off and on. Teyla and Rodney burst through the doors like the proverbial cavalry and cut away his bonds. John babbles nonsense, sucking on his hand since his mind isn't really there.
Teyla caresses his face. “We have you, John.”
Rodney takes a hammer and slams it repeatedly into the evil black box.
John lies in Teyla's arms like a broken puppet. The room goes dark and fills with his teammates' screams of horror. John tries to yell, too, but his jaw remains slack and he can only make useless noises.
The light turns on, and the Warden stands over him with a glint in his eyes. There is blood splatter all over his clean uniform. “I told you I would kill anyone who came for you.”
“No!” John screams, unable to bolt up in bed.
Ronon is still there and grabs John by the shoulders, holding him until the shaking stops. This is the most fucked up thing ever, but he curls his fingers into the fabric of the bigger man's shoulder. “I never thought anyone would come for me,” John confesses.
Other people enter the area, but Ronon keeps them away. “We did, Sheppard. We came back,” he whispers.
“I didn't want you to.... I knew it'd be a trap. I—I gave up.” John chokes on the last word. “You… you never did; you rose from the dead, and I wanted to… I wanted to--”
“--Doesn't matter,” Ronon interrupts. “You're alive. We're alive.”
John doesn't think it’s enough. He gave up hope once. What's to say it won't happen again? Carson and Rodney can blame the machine all they want; it was his will that had been broken. Ronon fell out of a jumper, and the only thing he has to show for it is lost weight and dreads sheared by garden tools.
Ronon lowers John down gently onto the bed and looks at him with eyes that have lost even more. “I think... I think it’s not what we take but what we sacrifice that makes us strong.”
John wonders if Ronon will ever tell him more about his time after the crash when he was separated from them all and forced to depend on strangers. He taps Ronon on the arm since that's all he's capable of. Ronon tries to flatten pieces of John's hair that won't stay down then gives up with a laugh.
---------------------
Weeks of muscle atrophy have left him weak and unable to move his arms or legs properly. John sits in a chair, the red scrubs making his skin stand out even paler. Carson promises he can switch into a lighter pair after they get their linen back from the laundry. John feels thirty years older than his age, with slippers and a robe thrown over his shoulders to ward off the chill. Teyla is in the next chair, aiding his arm exercises to strengthen the putty into something useful.
“Carson says I'll be able to walk around with some help in a few days,” John says, making conversation. Later on they will strap light weights to his ankles, and he'll lift his legs and try to keep them up in the air for five seconds.
Physical therapy is a blessing and a curse; the rehabilitation will be another triumph over the Warden's deeds. Flinching every time the PT people touch him reminds him of how close the Warden came to winning.
If it’s Teyla's, Rodney's or Ronon's hands, his body reacts as if it is still starving.
“You will be sparring before you know it,” Teyla says knowingly, flexing his bicep.
Her voice is filled with optimism, but Teyla's eyes betray what they can't hide. None of them can conceal the windows to the soul, no matter how hard they try to draw the shades. John flexes his arm, up and down, up and down. Memories hit him in the middle of the day as often as they do at night. They're like files scattered on a hard drive, slowly returning to their rightful spot. He furrows his brow; the synapses of his brain start, stop, start, stop.
“I never got to thank you,” John says.
“There is no need.” Teyla smiles, stretching his arm all the way out.
“But what all of you did to save me, what you---”
Teyla shushes him. “We all sacrificed for each other, John. It is what we will always do.”
John remembers tracing his fingers over the barrier between them, longing to feel something. He's suddenly hit with what the Warden had whispered in his ear, about what Teyla had done to protect him and Rodney.
He can feel the newly energized muscles in his arms form tiny knots, the phantom metal restraints chafing his wrists. “Teyla,” he whispers.
She lays her hand on top of his, their faces inches apart, her eyes naked and bare. “I would do it again. There is nothing more to say; to do so would give him victory.”
“I'll kill him,” John seethes, face twitching.
“I killed him already, John. He will never harm again. Not you, not Rodney.” Teyla holds John's hand between her smaller ones. “No one will ever taint this,” she says, squeezing and channeling things that words can't convey.
John bows, touching his forehead to hers, letting it rest there for eternity if need be. Teyla lifts her head after a long while, eyes glistening. John presses a single kiss to her cheek. “Hope repairs the body and the soul,” he says, quoting Dinstard Pistoule.
-------------------
John Sheppard walks down the hall with his team to the mess hall; it’s his favorite part of his recovery. He likes to sample every type of food and takes his time chewing and experiencing the flavors. What he really enjoys is watching Rodney’s body lose all the points and edges and take on rounder curves. Teyla hands John a second cupcake with strawberry icing, and he licks the top while Rodney rolls his eyes at him.
John sees Dr. Heightmeyer three times a week, and the other two days he spends time with his PT. The therapist forces him to do one more stretch or one more weight lift; now he doesn't flinch as badly at the occasional shoulder pat.
Rodney loves going outside and sitting on the pier, breathing in ocean air with lungs that are not ravaged by sickness. John lies there, basking in the sun, while Rodney takes long, purposeful breaths. They'll stay here half an hour to give John enough time to gain energy for his walk back to his quarters.
“Are you still trying to fix the machine?” John asks, without getting physically ill thinking about the box.
“No, I'm not,” his friend replies.
“Why not?” John asks curiously.
“As long as we can read great words, we can share them the old fashioned way. They're just as powerful.”
“Pistoule?”
Rodney looks at him; his face always gets that far away look at the mention of his hero. “No, just McKay logic,” he responds, pointing at his temple.
John still dreams about playing board games with tiny hands and calling the great Kalian leader, Papa. He'll feel himself well up with profound sadness at the emptiness left there when they moved on. Then he'll close his eyes and feel great, great joy from their reunion. These are just ghost images; he has his own life to experience now.
Seven months after a trade agreement fell through, his team eats dinner together, the night before their first mission back. They sit there until the mess hall empties and they are the only ones left. The four of them don't say anything; deep discussions and small talk have dwindled down, and there is no need for more. Still, each of them remains, basking in each other's company.
There were many days when John spoke to no one for hours on end, having imaginary conversations with his team. During the really dark times, he’d wished never to see them again after each of their escapes, to ensure that they would be free. Upon reflection, John thinks he's been wrong about giving up. He held on to a shard of hope even when he wanted to die. Why else did his mind and body hold on for so long?
John looks at Ronon, Teyla, and Rodney; his mouth never opens, but his message is understood loud and clear. He slouches in his seat, flexing his little pinky finger, and they talk the rest of the night without words.
Author: Kristen999
Word Count: 5368
Rating: T
Spoilers: None
Warnings: A tad dark
Summary: John decides to live inside his dreams, knowing all that is left is to chew on his fingers and watch his mind slip away. This is a remix of
iamrighthere/skypig21's "The Known World".Notes: I was extremely hesitant to touch what I consider one of the best SGA stories out there. This is more of an extension within the original and I hope I did it justice. Your enjoyment of this one shot will be made better if you have read the "The Known World". If you have not read it, then go do so.
Written with permission of the author. Some dialog and snippets used from “The Known World”.
Big thank you to my betas
wildcat88 and everybettyJohn stares at the ceiling for many hours, counting the imperfections and losing count after twenty-two. He starts over, doesn't remember what number comes after sixteen, and begins again. His eyes roll to the back of his head after gazing up for too long. The line between being awake and asleep is blurring more each minute. The walls whisper to him, taunt and challenge him to do things that will piss off the disciplinarians. He has a personal record for how many stunnings he can receive before passing out; the worry is trying to find the number that won't let him get back up again.
Good behavior earns him precious minutes to speak with Teyla and Rodney. John allows the machine to do whatever it does to his mind in order to see them. They sent Rodney to the clinic a few weeks ago. His breathing had gained an odd whistle and his clothes had become way too big. Teyla had been the only one allowed to visit their teammate and told John that the doctor never looked at his patient, writing away Rodney's life in a chart, simply waiting for him to die.
Ten days before, a thief stole Rodney away from the clinic in the black of night. John hopes the person will come back and take Teyla next.
John draws designs in the dirt, not sure if he's making a rectangle or a square, the filthy floor filled with scribbles. He sucks on his hand under the meaty part of his thumb, finding a hilarious irony in the act. His cellmate, Pistoule, sucks on his all the time, crying and sobbing to himself. They have something in common now.
The rail-thin little man sniffles and mumbles incoherently in the corner most days, and John wonders how long before they become mirror images of each other. Pistoule's wispy hair sticks out all over the place from running his hands through it nonstop. John hasn't begun pulling his out—yet.
The disciplinarians drag John to the Warden's office where he's tied to a chair. The Warden screams questions at him that he has no answers for.
“Who took him?”
Stun.
“Who took him?”
Stun.
John comes to, passes out, comes to again while the Warden enjoys a meal between sessions. Time passes; the light comes through the window in new patterns, but his answer stays the same.
“I don't know,” John repeats robotically.
Something happens later. Something bad. The Warden whispers an inconceivable thing in his ear, and John comes undone in a red, blinding rage.
He wakes up in his cell, his pants soiled, his arms and legs refusing to move. A stun to the base of the skull has turned John into a puddle on the floor.
The thief comes back and takes Pistoule; the little man didn’t want to go but couldn't coherently protest his kidnapping.
The thief can't hear John's silent scream that never makes it past paralyzed lips. He knows he has no value, but he's begging, pleading to be whisked away, too. The next day he finds out that the thief has taken something very precious to both him and the Warden, leaving John all alone to face the man's wrath.
That night he imagines the various ways in which to die even though he's already failed at a few of them. He doesn't know if he can handle more time with the machine, thinking of Pistoule's insane mumblings, the rocking back and forth, back and forth in the corner. John decides to live inside his dreams, knowing all that is left for him is chewing on his fingers and watching his mind slip away.
--------------
Teyla stands before him, a wide open field of cool green grass in the background. She clutches a yellow and pink flower between her slender fingers. “I am leaving,” she says, plucking a delicate petal and pressing it against the barrier.
The force field pops and snaps at the contact; John brushes his fingertips over it, tracing it from the other side. He pretends to feel the silky plant instead of the painful friction. “I'm glad,” he tells her. And he is.
“When I get home, I'm going to order a large pizza with extra cheese.” She continues to pull apart the flower.
The sky is a rich sapphire color above; he remembers that the reflected ocean gives it that deep tone. There are no bodies of water here so it makes the sight even more magical. John wants to remember what it was like to fly among the clouds.
A wind gusts, blowing strands of Teyla's bronze hair across her face. “Do you need a gun?”
John squeezes his eyes closed; the current increases, sending a tingle up his arm. “Will you forgive me?”
“Of course I will.”
Her cheerful words don't alleviate the guilt; he opens his eyes to her beautiful face.
The pistol passes through without a problem. John curls his hand around the cold grip, never brushing any of Teyla's warm skin in the process. He masks his disappointment, his right arm dangling loosely, clutching his key to freedom. “Don't come back.”
The breeze strips away the remains of the flower and carries pieces into the air. “I'll miss you,” Teyla confides.
“No, you won't.”
Teyla is off, running in the beautiful field. He watches her strong legs carry her across blades of grass that never end. He eyes one of the Loza bugs crawling over the dirty floor and crushes the ugly insect with his foot. “I've set you free,” he tells it.
The next time he peers out, Teyla is pushing Rodney down a hill in a wheelchair. He can't hear them but imagines his friend's shrill voice telling her to watch out for rocks and holes. John laughs with them, sharing in the joy from behind the barrier. He blinks, and Rodney and Teyla are next to a funeral pyre, watching plumes of smoke drift into the air. Ronon Dex is running for the very last time.
“I'm coming,” he tells his Satedan friend.
The muzzle of the weapon fits perfectly in the indent of his left temple.
“She is gone. And you know who took her,” the Warden tells him.
John squeezes the trigger, but nothing happens. He trembles because the only thing left for him now is to wait for death.
-------------
John doesn't believe in Heaven or Hell and that rules out Purgatory. He thinks this place, wherever it may be, is especially reserved for cowards. He deserves to be lost in this nothing place. Pinching his earlobe doesn't cause pain; neither does biting his finger.
It used to work in his other life.
The missing part of his pinky has grown back; he flexes the shiny new tip. It's the first clue that this isn't real. He bites down, really hard, to see if copper fills his mouth, but nothing happens.
John thinks about his last conversation with Rodney and remembers his friend’s pale, sweaty face and hollow eyes. He recalls an illness that made Rodney's shoulders poke out in sharp angles under his shirt and his pants sag around his waist. Both ignoring his friend's odd wheezing, they would talk of escape plans that never had a chance. The stargate was buried underground; there is no going back through it.
Now John hangs in the dead time, dreaming of his other life.
“You gave up, Sheppard. When did you lose your backbone?” Rodney's voice hisses in his ear.
John's cheeks turn bright pink, matching the tips of his ears. There's no one around, but the phantom voice of his teammate doesn't stop.
“I waited for you, waited for a plan while I withered away in that bed. They took me away because you tried to find an easier way out.”
John wants to know if Rodney really did escape, that the Warden’s fury meant something. Is Teyla with him? It's hard to keep track of time between 'here' and 'there'. And when Rodney was taken and when Teyla was.
“Do you know where you are? Can you feel my hand on top of yours?”
There is only darkness, and he can't feel anything or see Rodney's accusing face. Is he still on the floor, counting spots on the ceiling?
“No, Sheppard, that was days ago, when you stopped eating. You're in the clinic where they force feed your body. My favorite doctor checks your vitals but his eyes never wander past the machines, or look at the face of his patient. You're alive; they've kept you from dying. They won…. I’m sorry.”
Rodney doesn't stop yammering and won't appear so he can see him one more time. John holds onto the words even if they're berating. It's better than the dead time when nothing exists at all. Then Rodney's voice stops talking, and John misses his company. His muscles do not obey his commands, not when he tries to pull free the tube connected to his gut or when he knows people are finally here to rescue him.
He thinks maybe he's inside the machine. He never felt anything when they connected him to it. After he tried to die the first time, they’d doubled his time with it. It’s how he feels now - empty, like the little black box.
John remembers asking Teyla outside the barrier. “What would you do if I was dead?”
He wants to tell her how sorry he is for saying that. He had waited until she was taken away from this place before giving up totally.
He thinks she's crying over him, whispering, “We did not forget.”
A part of him thinks everyone did; he's finally being rescued and doesn't care. He had allowed hope to be taken away from him, one piece at a time. He deserves this and waits for either the dreams or the dead time to come.
--------------
Someone's weeping in the background, and, at first, it sounds like Papa's tears. John smells the lilac shampoo and rosewater that is Elizabeth. She's sharing a secret with him about his other life.
Her voice is honey and cinnamon, and she finishes with, “We need you, John. I need you. We're all waiting for you to come back to us. Everyone loves you, and we're not giving up.”
John doesn't remember when he allowed the Kalians to strip away his optimism. Maybe that's what the machine did, took away his determination. He'd made scratch marks in the dirt representing the days in his cell, little x’s counting out the days between times he’d been allowed to see Teyla or Rodney. Months went by, and the scratches became gibberish.
He'd never been comfortable with intimacy or physical contact. But when ten days passed without seeing either of them, John would gladly have taken electrocution from the shield for one touch.
Ronon's spirit beckons him from the afterlife to wake up. That's a silly thing for Ronon to do when all he wants is to join him in death. His ex-cellmate, Pistoule, cries and sobs, desperately calling out, “Come back.”
John doesn't remember the last time Pistoule spoke to him without breaking down. During the last days, when John's mind became more fractured, the babbling little man got worse, running into walls until he knocked himself out.
John's other lifetime fades away, and he follows the sounds of singing and giggling in his new one.
He loves playing with a group of kids that seem so familiar; they jump rope outside by a large leafy tree. John watches all their pale little faces smile and laugh. No one has a name; it would be hard to memorize any since all the children look alike. He looks at his own tiny hands and caresses the milky white skin in wonder.
His short legs run until they give out, and he lies flat on his back under the beautiful lemon sun. John will get up and run again because he can, knowing his body is actually inert and still.
It's time to go inside the cottage with the green braided rug, but a group of men walk out, carrying all of Papa's books. There's a whole pile of them in the grass, and one of the strangers lights a match and lets it fall. The bad man watches the flames grow, eating up a lifetime of precious words.
The government men nail notes to Papa's door, which is very strange because they all work in the same building. When Papa comes home he grabs John's tiny body close to his chest and cradles him. “Did they hurt you, my child?”
John hugs back until his arms shake because it's been five months since he's touched anyone. He doesn't tell Papa how one of the bad men came over, petted his hair, and told him to forget every lie and evil song Papa ever taught him.
The sky is black, covered by large clouds of smoke from multiple fires all over town. Music, poems, volumes of work about love and peace burn away, never to be read again.
“I'm scared,” John whispers in a child's voice.
“Fear nothing in life; only try to understand,” Papa says, squeezing John tightly.
Something takes out the sun, and John is left in darkness, where he's numb and floating.
----------
John has known love a few times in his life; it is a powerfully addictive emotion. When it's taken away, the pain is so bad that he has to crawl further and further to distance himself. He thinks it is a deceptive feeling, not worth the danger of seeking it out. Love has left many hidden scars all over him that have never fully healed.
Dad wasn't a believer in open acts of affection, and it's harder to remember his mother's kisses with every passing year. Women never stuck around more than a night with a man who has trouble dealing with personal space. Add in one failed marriage, and the only lover John's still intimate with is the sky.
John's friends stroke his dead arms, card fingers through his hair, and kiss his temples. He knows these things but isn't able to feel their lips or hands on his skin. John is dying, and he wants to run away from the pain but doesn't have anywhere to go. He wants to speak to his faithful friends one last time before the dead time comes back and never leaves.
The last thing he’d said to Elizabeth had been over the radio. “The Kalians are acting weird.”
He cries in the darkness, tears that don't really slide down fevered cheeks. Something grants him one last reprieve; his tiny hands wipe the moisture from his face.
“Toma? I am looking for you little one.”
John smiles ear to ear, running towards wide open arms.
“Papa!” he yells.
“My beloved child! You are here!”
“I waited for you, Papa. Please take me home!”
“We will go home together, Toma….”
John feels with every fiber of his being the encompassing love of father and son. He embraces it with both arms, breathes in the warmth, soaks in as much as he can. Pistoule's voice is filled with happiness; one of his plump little hands tousles John's hair.
Love is all around him, and he holds on to it, clings greedily to it. Love is also waiting for him in his other life, beckoning him back.
Pistoule and Toma lead John back to Atlantis and settle him there. Then they are gone forever.
----------------------------
There has been death and dying, love ---and now John has been set free. Rodney's talking with his usual gusto, rarely stopping to take a breath. Vowels jump and skip; meanings of words get jumbled within the complexity of language.
“Slow down,” John tells him.
Two simple words flip a switch to the reality of IVs, wires, tubes and machines. For a scarce second, he's back in the clinic with the soft restraints pinning him down. John waits for syringes and the unkind doctor, staring at Rodney the whole time, wondering when the hallucination is going to end. He must have asked Rodney to talk more because his friend stammers on, and it's the most wonderful music to his ears.
He waits for the lights to go out, only to be rewarded with a beautiful accent; Carson's Scottish brogue is a sharp contrast to the stony silence of his last caregiver. John answers all the doctor's questions, flinching when the bell of a stethoscope rests over his heart.
“Sorry, sorry. It's okay, Colonel; you're home,” Carson reassures him.
Home. Atlantis has been nothing but a frayed thread of hope that'd been cut away long ago.
Carson's soft murmuring slowly uncoils withered muscles that had braced for an assault that never came. He relaxes into the cool, clean bed sheets. Rodney never strays from sight, a tether to this reality. It's not until John musters enough strength to lift up his hand and he notices the missing part of his finger that he starts to believe that he is really home.
When he sees the fried remains of the black box, his eyes get very large and his breath catches in his throat.
“It's broken; it can't hurt you anymore,” Rodney promises.
John nods his head, trusting him implicitly; the broken, smoldered pieces don't appear very frightening in the bright infirmary. He doesn't know why his friend wants to repair something so hideous.
“Like many things in science, this was supposed to be used for good, to spread knowledge,” Rodney says, picking up a blackened part. “It’s a beautiful machine, really. The ability to download knowledge right into the brain. Can you imagine the advancements in science and medicine if it was ever perfected?”
On the edge of John's consciousness is a ghostly image of Pistoule, full of excitement over his newest invention. “Words are only blurbs on paper unless they are shared; once spread, they become a powerful force. They can change the world.”
“I know about the flaw. I think I can isolate it. Of course, there's the matter of the transfer mechanism being fried,” Rodney mutters. “Then again, I think that's what needs to be replaced.” For the first time the scientist looks over, raw sincerity reflecting in his blue orbs. “The machine was used on Pistoule's son. It—it took his mind away and stored it inside the box.”
Tears pool in Rodney's eyes; his hands start to shake again. “They killed his son by putting the boy's consciousness inside... I mean... of course, you know, since it was transferred into...” He stutters, clutching a silver chain with a small die attached to it. “A little boy, how-- how could they?” Rodney's face is puffy, his eyes wet; his still thin body trembles.
If John closes his eyes, he can feel the young boy hooked to the machine, his father begging, screaming in the background. “Punish me! Not my child!”
They are both mourning the same tragedies, but John is too weak to reach out and offer comfort. The chair makes an awful scraping noise, and the bedrail is lowered. Rodney drops his head onto John's bony shoulder, and John leans into him, enrapt by the warmth and the feeling of contact.
Any moment the light will go out and the dead time should begin again. When it doesn't, John gets unbelievably happy. “I'm really home.” He thinks of childlike hands. “We all are.”
------------------------
The pain of being a part of the real world makes itself known in healing bed sores, lungs that don't know how to breathe very deeply, and organs that are trying to get used to working at full power. John fights Carson about wanting to eat real food and getting rid of the tube. He doesn't talk about the forced liquid feedings, or about consuming Loza bugs, hoping their tiny poisons sacs would be enough to take away his suffering.
He’d spent days curled up on his side while he starved himself, imagining steaks, lobsters, fried chicken, and endless bowls of spaghetti. Now John would do anything for applesauce or even plain yogurt. In time he'll be allowed to taste again but not today.
The nurses that tend to him are so warm and compassionate that he feels himself coming undone at such kindness. The last thought he’d had about doctors was his desire to place a bullet in the brain of the guy in charge of the clinic. The scars on his wrists from the restraints are all faded; at night, he still struggles against them.
A black pall taints his thoughts; Rodney tells John that long-term exposure to the machine causes depression, but it’s another loss that weighs heavily on him. That's why, when the ghost of Ronon Dex sits on his bed, John thinks he's back in his cell.
“Bet you thought I was dead, huh?” Ronon says.
It takes a while, but he realizes Ronon is very much alive, that even falling out of a jumper hundreds of feet in the air can't kill him. John is overwhelmed again. This whole breaking down in front of teammates and gentle nurses freaks him out. There used to be a barrier inside him that kept intense emotions at bay. Maybe the machine extracted it and his defenses are just slow in rebuilding.
Ronon tells John how he and Teyla had never forgotten about him and how they took John away from the terrible prison. Ronon was the thief, only able to rob the prison of one person at a time. John thanks him, falling asleep after all those unfamiliar feelings zap him of strength.
Exhaustion sends him into another dream state, and he's back in the tiny room with the wooden table. John's strapped in the chair; his head flops against his chest, drool dribbling down his shirt. His hearing is off because one of the disciplinarians thought it would be fun to stick one of the stun rods near his ear. They've already used the machine to liquefy his brain.
Explosions rock the walls; the single light bulb above flickers off and on. Teyla and Rodney burst through the doors like the proverbial cavalry and cut away his bonds. John babbles nonsense, sucking on his hand since his mind isn't really there.
Teyla caresses his face. “We have you, John.”
Rodney takes a hammer and slams it repeatedly into the evil black box.
John lies in Teyla's arms like a broken puppet. The room goes dark and fills with his teammates' screams of horror. John tries to yell, too, but his jaw remains slack and he can only make useless noises.
The light turns on, and the Warden stands over him with a glint in his eyes. There is blood splatter all over his clean uniform. “I told you I would kill anyone who came for you.”
“No!” John screams, unable to bolt up in bed.
Ronon is still there and grabs John by the shoulders, holding him until the shaking stops. This is the most fucked up thing ever, but he curls his fingers into the fabric of the bigger man's shoulder. “I never thought anyone would come for me,” John confesses.
Other people enter the area, but Ronon keeps them away. “We did, Sheppard. We came back,” he whispers.
“I didn't want you to.... I knew it'd be a trap. I—I gave up.” John chokes on the last word. “You… you never did; you rose from the dead, and I wanted to… I wanted to--”
“--Doesn't matter,” Ronon interrupts. “You're alive. We're alive.”
John doesn't think it’s enough. He gave up hope once. What's to say it won't happen again? Carson and Rodney can blame the machine all they want; it was his will that had been broken. Ronon fell out of a jumper, and the only thing he has to show for it is lost weight and dreads sheared by garden tools.
Ronon lowers John down gently onto the bed and looks at him with eyes that have lost even more. “I think... I think it’s not what we take but what we sacrifice that makes us strong.”
John wonders if Ronon will ever tell him more about his time after the crash when he was separated from them all and forced to depend on strangers. He taps Ronon on the arm since that's all he's capable of. Ronon tries to flatten pieces of John's hair that won't stay down then gives up with a laugh.
---------------------
Weeks of muscle atrophy have left him weak and unable to move his arms or legs properly. John sits in a chair, the red scrubs making his skin stand out even paler. Carson promises he can switch into a lighter pair after they get their linen back from the laundry. John feels thirty years older than his age, with slippers and a robe thrown over his shoulders to ward off the chill. Teyla is in the next chair, aiding his arm exercises to strengthen the putty into something useful.
“Carson says I'll be able to walk around with some help in a few days,” John says, making conversation. Later on they will strap light weights to his ankles, and he'll lift his legs and try to keep them up in the air for five seconds.
Physical therapy is a blessing and a curse; the rehabilitation will be another triumph over the Warden's deeds. Flinching every time the PT people touch him reminds him of how close the Warden came to winning.
If it’s Teyla's, Rodney's or Ronon's hands, his body reacts as if it is still starving.
“You will be sparring before you know it,” Teyla says knowingly, flexing his bicep.
Her voice is filled with optimism, but Teyla's eyes betray what they can't hide. None of them can conceal the windows to the soul, no matter how hard they try to draw the shades. John flexes his arm, up and down, up and down. Memories hit him in the middle of the day as often as they do at night. They're like files scattered on a hard drive, slowly returning to their rightful spot. He furrows his brow; the synapses of his brain start, stop, start, stop.
“I never got to thank you,” John says.
“There is no need.” Teyla smiles, stretching his arm all the way out.
“But what all of you did to save me, what you---”
Teyla shushes him. “We all sacrificed for each other, John. It is what we will always do.”
John remembers tracing his fingers over the barrier between them, longing to feel something. He's suddenly hit with what the Warden had whispered in his ear, about what Teyla had done to protect him and Rodney.
He can feel the newly energized muscles in his arms form tiny knots, the phantom metal restraints chafing his wrists. “Teyla,” he whispers.
She lays her hand on top of his, their faces inches apart, her eyes naked and bare. “I would do it again. There is nothing more to say; to do so would give him victory.”
“I'll kill him,” John seethes, face twitching.
“I killed him already, John. He will never harm again. Not you, not Rodney.” Teyla holds John's hand between her smaller ones. “No one will ever taint this,” she says, squeezing and channeling things that words can't convey.
John bows, touching his forehead to hers, letting it rest there for eternity if need be. Teyla lifts her head after a long while, eyes glistening. John presses a single kiss to her cheek. “Hope repairs the body and the soul,” he says, quoting Dinstard Pistoule.
-------------------
John Sheppard walks down the hall with his team to the mess hall; it’s his favorite part of his recovery. He likes to sample every type of food and takes his time chewing and experiencing the flavors. What he really enjoys is watching Rodney’s body lose all the points and edges and take on rounder curves. Teyla hands John a second cupcake with strawberry icing, and he licks the top while Rodney rolls his eyes at him.
John sees Dr. Heightmeyer three times a week, and the other two days he spends time with his PT. The therapist forces him to do one more stretch or one more weight lift; now he doesn't flinch as badly at the occasional shoulder pat.
Rodney loves going outside and sitting on the pier, breathing in ocean air with lungs that are not ravaged by sickness. John lies there, basking in the sun, while Rodney takes long, purposeful breaths. They'll stay here half an hour to give John enough time to gain energy for his walk back to his quarters.
“Are you still trying to fix the machine?” John asks, without getting physically ill thinking about the box.
“No, I'm not,” his friend replies.
“Why not?” John asks curiously.
“As long as we can read great words, we can share them the old fashioned way. They're just as powerful.”
“Pistoule?”
Rodney looks at him; his face always gets that far away look at the mention of his hero. “No, just McKay logic,” he responds, pointing at his temple.
John still dreams about playing board games with tiny hands and calling the great Kalian leader, Papa. He'll feel himself well up with profound sadness at the emptiness left there when they moved on. Then he'll close his eyes and feel great, great joy from their reunion. These are just ghost images; he has his own life to experience now.
Seven months after a trade agreement fell through, his team eats dinner together, the night before their first mission back. They sit there until the mess hall empties and they are the only ones left. The four of them don't say anything; deep discussions and small talk have dwindled down, and there is no need for more. Still, each of them remains, basking in each other's company.
There were many days when John spoke to no one for hours on end, having imaginary conversations with his team. During the really dark times, he’d wished never to see them again after each of their escapes, to ensure that they would be free. Upon reflection, John thinks he's been wrong about giving up. He held on to a shard of hope even when he wanted to die. Why else did his mind and body hold on for so long?
John looks at Ronon, Teyla, and Rodney; his mouth never opens, but his message is understood loud and clear. He slouches in his seat, flexing his little pinky finger, and they talk the rest of the night without words.
