(no subject)
"Tick, tock, Rodney." John's prodding just a little, because Rodney's been bent over the engineering console for what feels like hours. Minutes, more likely, but John's never been good at helpless. It's always been his job to save the day, and he hates sitting on the sidelines, watching someone else take up his slack.
"Working," Rodney says through gritted teeth. The panic seeping into his body language isn't helping John's tension level. From eagerly sniffing out the necessary console, Rodney's now making his frowny face of frustration. And they've got nothing to show for it but Rodney's increasingly profane muttering and more frantic one-handed typing.
Rodney lets out a frustrated sound, shaking his head. "Fran's ship had a purely Ancient system, but this is different. Only the core is Ancient; the rest is layer on layer of Asuran programming."
"But you've dealt with that before," John says, trying to sound confident.
Rodney sighs, scrubbing at his eyes with his good hand. "It's not that simple." John's deliberate stare prods him to add, "I know, I know, now stop distracting me."
Fran's hanging back, her face expressionless. She's neither helping nor hindering, but every passing second is wide open for something to go wrong. The Sybil thing worked out for them once before, but John trusts her stability about as much as he trusts any of the Replicators, which is to say not at all.
Every passing second is just more time for Weir's side, for her tactical advantage to win out in a battle John has no control over and can't even see. It's all making him restless and twitchy as hell.
A wild shift of the deck beneath them nearly sends Rodney off his feet. He crashes into the console, letting out a pained sound.
"Damn it," Rodney says under his breath. John helps him up, trying not to wince as his own ribs protest the movement.
"Okay?" John stays close, right behind Rodney, steadying him on his feet.
Rodney mutters irritably in response, already absorbed in typing.
John peeks over Rodney's shoulder, eyeing the screen he's working on. It's crowded with Ancient text, mostly Greek to John, except the peculiarly smug-looking string of characters that pops up, denoting "access denied."
He knows that phrase like the parts of his sidearm, learned the hard way, from countless other frantic moments back on Atlantis. He squashes the memory of Elizabeth, her flicker of amusement when she told them the phrase literally translated as "your purity remains in doubt."
Rodney lets out a frustrated snarl and then turns to look over his shoulder at John, his profile pale. "John, I don't think I can--"
"Don't give me that," John says. "Don't tell me you can't figure this out, Rodney."
"Fine, I won't tell you I can't figure this out." Rodney waves a hand at the console in front of him. "But it's taking too long. Weir's got everything locked down tighter than my old landlady's repair budget."
"Are you the fastest brain around, or not?" John says. "You can do this, Rodney."
He's reached out to touch before he can stop himself, his hand on the curve of Rodney's back, where he's hunched over like a chipmunk. Rodney's eyes go wide, but John doesn't pull back. He can feel the old crazy ass smile taking over his face, adrenaline and flying high. Déja vu, they've been here before, and they always come out ahead, even when it seems impossible.
The deck tilts crazily, and this time John doesn't keep his balance, his arms flailing. When he shifts his weight, his feet tangle together, and then it's somehow inevitable that he crashes into Rodney. They end up closer than close, John's front plastered against Rodney's back, his arms wrapped around Rodney's waist, his nose pressed behind Rodney's ear.
John breathes in the sweaty smell of Rodney and stifles a laugh, half desperation, half relief. This might be their last chance, and he can't get the memory of Fran's emotion--love and pain, two sides of one coin, a flash of treacherous thought--out of his head.
He knows what he wants. He's known for years now.
For even longer that that, his whole life, practically, he's known about all the things he can't let himself have. Years of want, tamped down, treacherous arousal, suppressed.
It sabotaged his marriage, made him wary and careful. And now it's all washing over him, cutting through him, waves eroding a cliff face. It's not worth resisting anymore.
Fate is giving John a taste of what he's tried so hard not to want, and who is he to deny it. Rodney's right there, the fragile skin of his neck offered up, and John can't help it. He leans forward, inexorable as gravity, goes in for a taste, slides his tongue over warm skin.
John wonders what it says about his own psyche--his ribs are throbbing, it's crunch time, life or death with a turncoat Replicator watching, and he's turned on. But it feels like now or never, the razor edge of mortality. If it's time for their luck to turn belly up, then he's got nothing to lose.
"John, what--?" Rodney cuts himself off, his breath coming in sharply, almost a gasp, and John's stomach tightens and threatens to go sour. He tries to make himself stop, to wait for Rodney's reaction, but his tongue flickers out again.
And, yes, Rodney's muscles relax all at once, his breath coming out in a groan, and he's not pulling away. Not pulling away at all, in fact he's pressing his ass against John's groin, a grind dirty enough that John wonders if Rodney's done this before.
"You can do this." It comes out rough and low, because John's riding a burst of insanity or hope or both. The crazy smile hasn't left his face the whole time, and he can feel it getting even wilder. "You just need incentive."
"Oh," Rodney says, almost under his breath. "You, this. I didn't know." His voice is shaking, but John doesn't think it's from fear. "Why didn't you...damn it, John," Rodney says, sheer surprise and want mixed in together.
His thoughts are cut short when Rodney's hand reaches back to grip his hip, fumbles back to grab his ass. It's clumsy but there's no hesitation in how Rodney's fingers dig deep, pulling John closer. Rodney takes in a sharp breath through his nose as his head turns to the side, so that he's looking over his shoulder at John.
The tip of Rodney's tongue sneaks out to wet his lips, and John takes that as an invitation. John leans in too fast and ends up smashing his lips against the corner of Rodney's mouth. Rodney huffs a little, a puff of air against John's cheek, almost a chuckle, and then settles into it.
It's not the greatest kiss, a little stiff and tentative, but the underlying affection is obvious.
Then Rodney's mouth opens to let John in, and that triggers something, in spite of chapped lips and Rodney's twisted position. There's heat and rising tension, and John's getting hard, just from this. Rodney's into it, too, his hand moving over John's ass, groping hungrily, and John can hear himself let out a groan against Rodney's mouth.
It's a sign of how far gone John is that he's completely forgotten about Fran until she speaks. "That is called a 'kiss.'"
His head snaps around so fast his neck twinges, to see that she's been standing by, watching them avidly. She's tilting her head at them, nodding, as if connecting her word to their action is the last piece of a puzzle, or the final line of a proof, QED.
"Dr. Zelenka taught me the word. He had a photographic rendering of his ancestors engaged in this activity," Fran explains.
"'Ancestors'?" John repeats stupidly. "His parents, you mean?"
She nods. "He said it was a sign of their love."
"Whoa, there," John says, his face heating up. His hand goes up, palm out like a traffic cop, stop, stop, and she subsides obediently. He's about to try to laugh it off when his mouth snaps shut.
Because he sees that she's touching her own lips, looking utterly broken. Stretched beyond her limits, and he's really, really glad Replicators can't cry. The thought brings with it a strange prickle of shame, which he tries to ignore.
Her expressions are subtle to the point of invisibility, and he's not even sure how he knows what he knows. But he doesn't doubt that Fran's hidden depths are real, and they keep taking him by surprise. It's more disturbing than enlightening, seeing her like this, and he's glad when Rodney interrupts.
"'Ancestors,'" Rodney blurts, his head jerking up, his fingers snapping. "That's it." He leans over the console, fingers flying.
"You figured it out," John says, and the smirk that takes over his face is comforting, a refuge. "Must've been good incentive."
Rodney lets out a nervous little laugh, and a flush stains the part of his cheek that's all John can see of his face. There's a pause in his typing, and then Rodney says, "Don't let it go to your head, Sheppard. It was Fran, really, that got me thinking. I was trying to tackle the Replicator higher level computer systems--navigation or defense, something like that."
"But?" John prods, because Rodney's getting lost in typing before he can finish his explanation.
"Hah," Rodney crows as the screen blinks. "I knew it. What's the one constant whenever the Ancients dealt with the Replicators?"
It's a rhetorical question, apparently, because Rodney doesn't even pause. "No trust. They were weapons, no more, no less, even before they started turning on their makers. Dangerous weapons, requiring safeguards."
John can't help glancing over at Fran at that. Her reaction is hidden from him, though. She's turned away from them, staring off at nothing, as far as he can tell.
He sighs, but then he goes back to peering over Rodney's shoulder, so he's watching when the screen finally pops up.
He recognizes it instantly, an almost painful jolt. It's a program interface that he knows like the back of his hand, something that's featured prominently in his nightmares.
"Self-destruct sequence," he breathes, and from the corner of his eye, he sees Fran stiffen.
"Triggered by an Ancient," Rodney says. "Or someone with the gene in this case. A failsafe beyond the reach of any Replicator tampering, hard wired into the ship itself."
"I'll stay--" John starts to say, but Rodney shuts him up bodily, with a hand over John's mouth.
"Don't even go there, you idiot," Rodney snarls. "The day I can't extend a simple delay sequence is the day I'll let Zelenka take over as chief of science."
John tries to smile with his eyes, deliberately giving Rodney's palm a wet swipe with his tongue.
"Oh, for..." Rodney says, pulling his hand away. He wipes it on John's shirt, looking flustered. "You're insane."
"And you're blushing," John says dryly. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Fran watching them, her eyes dark.
"Do not," Fran starts to say, and then clears her throat noisily. "Do not forget to disable the monitoring program."
"Monitoring program?" he and Rodney say in near unison.
"No, no, no." It's shock, not denial in Rodney's words. He's gone so pale that John instinctively reaches out to press a hand to the small of Rodney's back, a helpless show of support.
Rodney doesn't seem to notice. He fumbles at the screen even though he's never clumsy with Ancient tech. When he looks over at John, She's right, is the appalled look in his eyes.
John's feeling a little sick himself. It's sobering enough that Rodney's injuries and fatigue have caught up with him to the point that he's making mistakes, but now their debt to Fran has gotten even deeper. He numbly watches Rodney bend over the console once more.
Fran pauses for a moment, her attention directed inward. "My counterpart," she says, her eyes unfocused, "was the captain before your Dr. Weir took her place. She knows much about this ship, some of which I have access to. She knew about that self-destruct program, and she took precautions."
John's brows go up. "The old captain? Weir was getting rid of her competition, wasn't she? When she copied your...I mean when she put you in there." He nods his head awkwardly at her. He's not sure what makes him change his wording, but he can't bring himself to be too brutal with her.
"Yes," Fran says. The flatness of her tone reveals as much as it conceals, but John shakes off the thought as Fran continues. "Your Dr. Weir is an excellent liar. My counterpart was entirely unsuspecting, which gave Dr. Weir an enormous advantage."
"Kind of Machiavellian," John says before he can stop himself, which earns him a cool glance.
"A human talent, then," she says after a beat, moving to Rodney's side. John watches her with narrowed eyes, but she just bats Rodney's hand away and then presses a sequence of buttons.
She presses one final button before meeting John's eyes. "There. Check it, if you like."
"No. I trust you, Fran," Rodney says slowly, his expression gone thoughtful.
Her lips tighten, almost too quickly to notice, and then she gestures at the console. "You may start your sequence now."
Rodney nods, and it's not long before he's placing his hand deliberately onto a shiny metal plate that's set into the console, something John would have assumed was purely decorative. He holds his breath, but the results are anticlimactic; Rodney must have muted the noisy countdown he'd been half-expecting.
"Go, go, go," Rodney's yelling then, and John moves too fast, the ache in his chest flaring hot and bright. "We've got ten minutes," he hears through the momentary breathlessness.
Fran hesitates as they move past her, and John finds himself grabbing her hand on the way out. He ignores the sudden brightening of her expression when Rodney takes her other hand.
John's itching to run, but they can't afford carelessness now. They creep through the hallways, and Rodney's looking increasingly freaked out. John wonders if it's just the usual death-defying escape sort of panic, or if this is a special my best friend just had his tongue in my mouth sort of panic.
He shakes his head to try to clear it, because the here and now is tough enough. There are a million different things that can go wrong before they ever see home again, and it's a pretty sad commentary on his life in Pegasus that the threat of imminent death isn't enough to keep his thoughts occupied in the first place.
And hey, if they both end up dead, then at least John doesn't ever have to actually talk about the kissing thing, or god forbid, what he's feeling.
Then he thinks maybe the tension and unrelenting ache in his ribs might be making him a little morbidly punchy.
They're still nowhere near the lifeboat bay when Fran seems to pick up something completely off John's radar. She freezes, and then makes John's heart rate shoot through the roof when she shoves them through an unmarked door.
"What's going on?" Rodney says breathlessly. She lays a finger over her lips.
The warning is unnecessary, because they can all now hear the thud of heavy footfalls outside. He and Rodney exchange wide-eyed glances. John fights back the rising tension, pasting on what he hopes is a slow, easy smile. The wait ticks by, minutes that feel like hours, and John's forcing himself not to look at his watch every few seconds.
"They've gone," Fran says finally, and John's sigh of relief is echoed by Rodney's. Rodney smirks at John, his lips red and chapped from nervously biting at them.
Rodney's lips on his, rough and warm and wet, and it goes right to John's gut. His face goes hot, and he has to look away, and he really shouldn't be looking at Rodney's mouth if he wants to stay focused.
Rodney nudges him sharply with an elbow, rolling his eyes at John when he looks over. Get a grip, although Rodney himself is looking a little flushed.
John blows out a rueful sigh, and he can see Rodney stifling a laugh. Fran triggers the door mechanism, and their shoulders are touching when they head out into the corridor.
They're within sight of the bank of lifeboats when Fran starts to withdraw. When John glances over, her face has gone remote and a little resigned, and it's maybe her most human expression yet. It gets him where he lives, and he knows she's expecting to be left behind. It's inevitable, in a logical world. Left alone to die, the sole defender of her human creators, and he feels something tighten inside.
Rodney's eyes are on him, wide and blue and worried, and John's chest hurts suddenly. His ribs catch until they throb, and he knows he's about to do something very, very stupid. He grabs onto Fran's hand before he's thought his sudden impulse through.
"Come with us," he blurts out, and the sensible part of him is flabbergasted. This is officially the stupidest thing you've ever done.
Because it really is. She's a ticking time bomb, a Dr. Jekyll hiding a Mr. Hyde who wants to kill them all. The smart thing to do is to leave her here. The catch--the big, stupid catch--is that the smart thing doesn't feel like the right thing.
Leave no one behind, and somehow she's snuck over the border between them and us, and this is the kind of shit that used to give his COs nightmares.
As it is, Rodney's giving him a look of disbelief. He's not protesting though, not Rodney, the man who made her, who named her, who has a soft spot for her a mile wide.
It's insane, but something in John won't let him do anything else. "Fran," he says more firmly. "Come with us."
It startles her, her head snapping around, as if she hadn't heard him the first time. Her eyes are sad and dark when she looks at him. "You are very kind, Colonel Sheppard. Very kind."
Fran's herding them to one of the lifeboats as she speaks, her movements rough and hurried. Rodney triggers the hatch, which opens with a hiss. A yellow emergency light clicks on, washing the capsule's interior with a dim illumination.
Rodney motions them into the capsule, a quick sort of after you gesture towards Fran. There's a long pause. Fran remains silent, her head tilted as if she's listening to something they can't hear.
"I thank you again, Colonel Sheppard," she says, and there's something in her voice John can't quite decipher. "And I am sorry for this."
She's coming at them, faster than human, a darting movement towards Rodney. Attack, John's instincts flare bright and hot, and he's moving forward without a thought.
But she's not trying to hurt Rodney, far from it. Her hands go up to frame his face, her mouth, christ, her mouth finding Rodney's and latching on, clumsy and desperate.
"Umph." Rodney sounds startled and plaintive, his good hand sliding between their bodies.
But before Rodney can push her away, almost as soon as the kiss begins, Fran ends it, pulling back. Her eyes don't leave Rodney's, a stare that makes John ache inside. It's rousing all sorts of conflicting things inside him; he wants to break their tableau, but something's holding him back, makes him give her this moment.
"Just once." It's almost matter-of-fact, in Fran's quietest voice, and then she's shoving them into the lifeboat. John resists instinctively. He's never taken to being pushed around. But her inhuman strength and speed overwhelm them both, and she practically throws them into the capsule. They both end up on their ass, and Rodney makes a pained sound as John untangles them.
"Fran, no," Rodney says, when her hand darts for the hatch closure, but she doesn't even pause.
And then, as the hatch begins to close in front of him, John sees what's driving Fran's haste, her desperation. Over her shoulder, there's movement at the end of the corridor.
It's Weir, moving fast and stealthy as any predator. She's almost unrecognizable, her expression a scary blankness. John catches only a glimpse, but there's no trace of anything human in Weir's face as she rushes towards them.
Fran whirls to face Weir, her hands coming up defensively--and then the hatch slides shut in front of his eyes, blocking his view.
John stares blankly at the dark oxidized metal, stunned. "Wait," he says, pounding uselessly on the hatch. It's too little, too late, because he can feel and hear their connection to the ship breaking loose.
"The sequence is automatic," Rodney yells. He's sitting at the lifeboat's stripped-down version of a cockpit, his good hand ghosting rapidly over the controls. "John, you need to get strapped in. This thing's got nothing, no gravity, no inertial dampeners."
Reinforcing Rodney's warning is a jolting vibration that rattles John's teeth. The rockets fire before he can respond, and he's slammed into a console.
"Ow." It comes out breathless and weak, because he's managed to bang his ribs again.
"Damn it, John," Rodney snaps, worry morphing into irritation in a predictably Rodney way.
The familiarity is sort of comforting, even as John grimaces. "It's not that bad." It comes out weaker than he likes, and he stifles a wince as he presses a hand gingerly against his side. He gets his other hand wrapped around a handhold, fighting the acceleration that's trying to press him into the bulkhead behind him.
The safety of the chair is still well out of reach when their time runs out.
"Watch out," Rodney bellows, fear sharp in his voice. In the same moment, the lone porthole flares brilliant white, and John has a numb second before he realizes that it's an explosion, time's up. Weir's ship is going, going, gone, self-destructing.
Oh, shit, is John's last coherent thought before something hits them like a giant hammer. He can't hold on, he's going down, and that's the last thing he knows before everything goes black.
***
When John surfaces from the darkness, it's to a headache so bad he feels like puking and Rodney, his good hand skating over John's chest and neck, careful and fluttery as a bird.
Rodney's words are in contrast to the delicate touch. "Wake up, you son of a bitch. If you die on me, I'll kill you myself," he says, his voice cracking.
John wants to point out just how nonsensical that last bit is, but he can only manage a weak laugh. "I'm okay," he says, but before Rodney can respond, the buzz of the radio distracts them.
"Lifeboat occupants, identify yourselves." It sounds like Ellis, at his most stiff and officious, and it's the best thing John's heard in a long time. Ever since they'd had to split the team, their fate had been a nagging worry, forcibly pushed to the back of his mind. Only now can he finally start to relax.
Rodney turns toward the controls, and John can hear him flipping switches. "Finally," Rodney says into the radio, and John can hear the relief threaded through impatience. "McKay and Sheppard here. Sheppard tried to bash his brains out over here so if you could hurry it up, that'd be great."
"You're welcome, Dr. McKay." Ellis' dry-as-dust tone has Rodney rolling his eyes. "We'll have you in a jiffy."
Rodney's mouthing the word jiffy at John when the radio crackles to life again.
"You'd think all that hair would cushion his skull." It's Ronon, breaking radio protocol, but John wants to grin.
"You're one to talk, Conan," Rodney shoots back. "Teyla?" he adds in a more sober tone.
"I am well, Rodney. It is good to hear your voice." Teyla's voice is low and calm, but there's depth of feeling peeking through: she rarely uses Rodney's first name on missions.
"We'll see you soon enough." Ellis cuts through the chatter, but he doesn't seem impatient. In fact, John would swear he's trying not to laugh. "Over and out."
Rodney swivels back towards John, wincing as he crouches down beside John's shoulder. He closes his eyes as Rodney reaches down to touch his forehead.
"Strap in, I tell you. But you never listen. Moron." Rodney's shaky fingers brush over John's temple, terrifyingly gentle. They flinch away from the hot wet trickle that's dripping down annoyingly close to his ear.
"Love you, too, Rodney." John's going for easy and flippant, but it comes out more serious than he'd intended.
Rodney starts, his hand clamping down on John's shoulder in that strong grip of his. He lets out a little huff of breath, relief and annoyance mixed together. "That's the concussion talking."
"Maybe," John says, and even with a head like a three-day hangover, he has to keep the smile out of his voice.
Rodney hears it anyway. "Asshole," he says, but it sounds fond. "I don't tinker about with my sexuality for just anyone, you know. Not since grad school, at least, and after eighty-three hours straight in the lab even Nathan Ackermann starts to look good."
There's a long silence, and then he can hear Rodney's hard swallow. "Unless that was just...incentive. Back there. And you don't really want--"
John reaches up, fumbles for Rodney's face--and flicks him, hard, on the forehead. "Shut up, Rodney," he whispers.
"Yes, yes, yes," Rodney says, and John has a faint hope that things are all settled. Of course, this is Rodney, who opens his mouth again. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm really bad at this."
John says nothing, and there's a pregnant pause during which he just looks at Rodney.
Something shifts in Rodney's eyes, a flicker of amusement and something more, but John knows better than to expect Rodney, who'll talk about everything, everything except what really matters to him, to talk about this.
In the end, Rodney just snorts. "Then again, so are you."
The lifeboat hums around them, and John lets out a laugh that's a little rueful. He has to look away from Rodney's face just then. There's too much naked hope and need, too much that's vulnerable. Rodney's never been good at hiding anything, and John's got a history of hurting people he's close to.
He catches sight of the porthole. It frames a view of deep space, velvet darkness and icy points of light. In the middle of all the emptiness is an expanding debris field--all that's left of Weir's ship. Nothing left but hard vacuum and ash, almost peaceful.
Peaceful but cold, and it seems like there should be more to remember what they had to do, of who they had to leave behind. After that, it's not hard to meet Rodney's eyes again. Not hard at all.
"We'll just have to be bad at it together, then," he hears himself say. His hand reaches for Rodney's, and their fingers lace together.
They wait for their pickup, holding on tight, tired and aching, but at peace.