xanphibian / Fic: Sword (McKay/Sheppard, PG-13)

Title: Sword
Author: xanphibian
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay friendship/preslash
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Thank you to Cynara for beta reading.

***

Sometimes, Rodney wishes he could just take a break. A moment. A breath. But he can't, because when he does, if he dares to, people die.

People die even if he gives it everything he has, and he can't stop that. Can't stop thinking of that. Because here he is, quite possibly the most intelligent, the most knowledgeable person on Atlantis, and it just isn't enough.

He pushes his team harder, relentlessly, because that's all he can do sometimes. He snaps at Radek. He glares at Miko. He wants to pull Kavanagh's trachea out with his bare hands to shut him up. Actually, he wishes everyone would shut up and just let him think, because the thinking is getting harder, more intense. He feels as if he is Dionysius, sitting on his own scientific throne, but with the sword of Damocles hanging just above him by only a hair. Wraith hair, that would be, not horse hair, but those were just semantics, and he shouldn't even be thinking of mythology now, only the scientific and ...

He's just so tired. And no matter what he does, no matter what great insights or possibilities or solutions he comes up with, it will never be enough. Because he is not a god. There is no god, and there is nothing standing between the lives of thousands, millions and total annihilation. Nothing but himself, and the inhabitants of Atlantis. Human beings, so fundamentally flawed that they are all almost laughable.

Too flawed to be of any help to anyone, he thinks in the darkest hours, when the rest of his team is taking their rest and he's still in the lab, tapping at one of his laptops or trying desperately to solve an equation at the whiteboard.

The equations themselves give him no pause. At least, not the mathematical ones. It's the unsolved, unsolvable, realization that he is as helpless as anyone else here. It's a hopeless thought, one he tries not to indulge too often. He's their best shot at survival, he knows that. He knows. He's reminded of it constantly.

Fix it, Rodney. Fix it! Save us, Dr. McKay.

They aren't the exact words he hears on a daily basis, but the meaning is clear. He is responsible. He is ... so. damned. responsible.

Help me! Rodney! Help me!

Soundless words that haunt him. One more death he could not prevent.

Is this what he signed up for? Exploration, yes. Discovery, yes. The promise of fame in the future, yes, that too. But this? This constant pressure, pressure to be everything he could be, only more? He's trying. He keeps trying, but it's not enough. Never enough to save everyone.

John. John could have died because he couldn't do something. Wasn't fast enough. Wasn't smart enough. John would have flown the jumper right into the Wraith hive ship, would have gone up in the suicidal mission he chose because he had too, because Rodney hadn't been good enough.

Why should the thought of a death that didn't even occur hurt him more than the ones that had?

***

He's spent the night endlessly tapping at his keyboards, looking through raw data, reading field reports of Wraith behavior, re-examining every piece of Wraith technology he can get his hands on. He even has Dr. Beckett's notes on Wraith biology, what little of it there is.

"You look like shit, Rodney," are the first words he hears after what seems like minutes but must be hours and hours of time - time wasted, in his estimation, since he's come through with absolutely nothing new. Nothing.

"Same to you," Rodney answers, before he even looks up.

It's John, of course, the only one fool enough to visit him in the lab at four in the morning. Everyone else knows not to bother him; it's an unspoken law of sorts. No one would interrupt Dr. McKay's work and live to tell the tale.

"When's the last time you slept?" John asks.

"Why does everyone keep asking me that? Is it that important? Do you see me going around asking everyone if the bedbugs are biting?"

"McKay," John says, and his voice has dropped an octave.

"What?" Rodney answers irritably.

"What are you doing here?" John asks. "What's so damn important that you have to kill yourself to get it done?"

As if whatever Rodney is doing is nothing in comparison to something so trivial as sleep.

He grinds the heels of his hands against his closed eyes, willing away the bleary exhaustion. "I have work. I have to ..."

John steps around him, looks at the whiteboard. "This is nothing, Rodney. Why are you working on problems you already have the answers to? I could do this one in my head, you know, and if that doesn't tell you something, maybe you're just too sleep-deprived to think."

Rodney shakes his head bitterly. "If I sleep, if I ..." People will die. "I'm not working at equations, Colonel, I have ... other things."

Not that he can describe what those things are. He's only going over and over the same material he's already been over a thousand times before. He is looking for a problem to be solved, for the information to suddenly become a puzzle to him that he can finally piece together. He is waiting for a breakthrough. A solution. Salvation.

"If you were one of my men, I'd order you to your quarters," John says quietly. "And if you refused, I'd have you put there forcefully. Maybe brought up on charges for disobeying a direct order."

Rodney snorts. "Good thing I'm not one of your men, Colonel. I wouldn't be any good at following orders that could put the future of Atlantis at risk."

John is suddenly very close, and very, very angry. "What are you hoping to find, Rodney?" he asks. "One perfect way to save us all?"

One swipe and the medical folders are off the desk, their contents fluttering everywhere.

"You aren't going to find it, Rodney, because it doesn't exist. You aren't going to find it because there is nothing to find!"

John's eyes are wild and intensely focused. Rodney has never seen him this way before, had never thought the laid-back commanding officer could lose it enough to be so bare. And that's exactly what he is. Bare, open, hurting, bleeding in front of Rodney of all people.

"There's something, John," Rodney says, a little more quietly. "There has to be something."

"What? You're going to suddenly come up with the perfect counterplay to the evil, technologically advanced space vampires? No, Rodney. Not like this. Not by expending every amount of energy you have in this lab, looking for the damn answers."

"But if I don't," Rodney tries to explain. "If I don't, and there is something I missed, something so simple I would have known if I had just tried harder ..."

"What, Rodney? What will happen if you don't beat yourself to death?"

"You'll die!" Rodney yells. "You, and Weir, and Zelenka, and Teyla, not to mention thousands, millions of people all through this goddamned galaxy, you'll die, John. People have already died because I wasn't smart enough, didn't work hard enough, didn't try ..."

"Didn't try, Rodney?" John says incredulously. "You didn't try? That's ridiculous! You try harder than anyone else here!"

"But don't you see," Rodney says, needing John to see, needing him to understand, "it isn't enough! It's never going to be enough, not until I find a way to do it, to save us all, to keep us safe, so I never have to watch someone die again. So I never have to see you try to kill yourself because I wasn't good enough!"

John swears, and then before he knows it, Rodney is being held tightly in his arms. A hug. A hug, as if that's enough to make everything better, everything safer. As if ...

But it does, Rodney thinks with wonder, and then relaxes into John's arms, letting himself just be. He thinks that if John lets go, he'll fall and fall and never stop.

"I watched you," Rodney says after a while, when he thinks he can trust his voice. "I watched you fly away, and I thought ..."

"I know," John says.

"I can't do it again," Rodney confesses. "I can't watch anyone else ... can't watch you ..."

John is leading him, guiding him toward the door. Rodney is so wrung out and depleted that he doesn't argue.

Rodney blinks and realizes he's in his own room. He must have slept on his feet, walking down the corridor. He can't believe it, can't believe he trusted John so much that he could actually have fallen asleep ...

No, believe it. You trust John that much. More than that, even.

He's in his own bed, shoes and jacket off, and John is just pulling a comforter up and over him.

"John?" Rodney asks. His voice sounds fearful, and that's not right, he can't show any fear right now. Can't relax, can't stop, can't ...

"Shhh. It's okay, Rodney. Rest," John says, like he's giving his permission.

Oddly enough, it works, and Rodney finds himself drifting fast.

He doesn't know if he's dreaming or still awake when he feels the gentle touch of warm, smooth fingertips on his forehead.

END

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