A Matter of Trust (Criminal Challenge)
Title: A Matter of Trust (Criminal Challenge)
Sheppard was not happy about something, and Rodney noticed. Not that Rodney was always watching Sheppard or anything, he just happened to glance up from his laptop and he just happened to notice that little worry line Sheppard sometimes got between his eyes. Sheppard’s lips were pressed thin and his eyes had that blank look that told the world he was thinking nothing, which always signaled trouble ahead. When Sheppard left the room a bit suddenly, not that he had any reason to say anything to Rodney just because he wanted to leave a room, Rodney was a little curious. So he just took a brief glance at Sheppard’s laptop, since he’d left it sitting there, and well, he ought to make sure there was nothing classified or anything that he might have forgotten to shut down. It only took a minute to see Sheppard had closed whatever he’d been looking at, but he hadn’t shut down the computer or anything, so it was easy to recover the last document. It was a list of personnel and equipment due to arrive the next day on the Daedalus. There wasn’t anything about that that seemed worrisome, so Rodney shut it down and went back to his own work.
The next morning Sheppard was fidgeting around the lab again while Rodney was trying to work so everything seemed back to normal. Then there was the confusion of new personnel and new supplies when the Daedalus arrived. After that, Sheppard seemed to vanish, but Rodney figured he had some work he couldn’t get done in the lab. That happened every once in a while. Rodney was busy putting the fear of himself as god into the new scientists, so he didn’t have much time to worry about it.
But the next day, the WHOLE day, Sheppard never stopped by the lab, not even once. That was strange. And the following day, it happened again. So Rodney had to stop his important work and traipse around looking for Sheppard and it wasn’t supposed to work like that. He was a little exasperated by the time he found the Colonel in, of all places, his office. ‘What are you doing in here?” he demanded.
“Uh, working?” Rodney leaned over to look at Sheppard’s laptop, and by gosh, it looked like he really was working.
“So what’s wrong with you?”
Sheppard flinched, then tried to get all innocent and casual. “Whaddya mean?”
“Come on,” Rodney huffed. “You’ve been acting all weird. And I know it has something to do with the Daedalus arriving so you might as well just tell me. I’m not going to let it go or anything. So what, WHAT? Didn’t get the right kind of hair gel? Old girlfriend chase you down?” And whoa, Sheppard really flinched then.
“So that’s it huh, some old flame after you?”
“No, Rodney, do you mind?”
“What then? It’s something to do with the new personnel right? I’m right, right?”
“Ok, ok, jeez stop badgering me. I’ll tell you alright?” Sheppard looked so serious, and so, really worried, that Rodney stopped kidding around. He sat down next to Sheppard and tried to look supportive and stuff, even though he didn’t really know how to do that.
Sheppard got up and ran his hand through his hair nervously. He walked over and closed the door. Then he just stood looking at Rodney for a while, which was nerve wracking, but Rodney controlled himself admirably. Finally he sighed and said, “Look, one of the new scientists, I knew him back when I was in school. Not like a friend or anything, just an acquaintance. We traveled in the same circle, more or less. But not really because, uh… I don’t know how to explain this…”
“You could try using, those things, what are they called? You know, words?”
John rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard of them.” He seemed to steel himself to meet Rodney’s gaze. “See this guy was a, uh, he was very politically active. An activist, you know?”
Rodney nodded as encouragingly as he could. Sure, sure, an activist, he knew what an activist was.
“Uh, the guy, Borden’s his name, he was pretty radical. He was one of these guys that thought he had a moral obligation to out people, you know, whether they wanted to be outed or not. To make a political point.”
Rodney was nodding along earnestly, and gee, Sheppard was, wow that was something, Sheppard was worried that this guy might out Rodney, that was really supportive of Sheppard and he hadn’t even been sure Sheppard knew about him. But really, Rodney, wasn’t exactly in either, he really wasn’t that concerned about it. Sheppard didn’t need to get that little worry line for his sake, though it was really really nice of him to care that much about Rodney’s privacy; he ought to know Rodney was hardened to people disliking him for all sorts of silly reasons.
“Look I don’t really care, Colonel. I’ve never busted my ass to conceal my sexuality before and I’m not going to start now. Most of the scientists know already and nobody really cares that much. So if this wise guy thinks he’s going to make trouble for me by outing me, he’s wasting his energy.
Sheppard gave him a startled look, and then the little worry line above his eyes actually got a little worse. “Rodney,” he said, “ I’m not worried about him outing you.” When Rodney gave him a puzzled look he rolled his eyes and said, “Look, I knew him in college, ok, and he knew me. We traveled in the same circles. God, how can you be a genius and be so stupid? I’m worried about him outing me.”
That surprised Rodney, and really, he had no idea what to say. Because he should say something supportive, but his mind was going elsewhere, into a universe where being outed and Sheppard coexisted, and that was a transforming experience that required all of his attention. When he finally returned to full consciousness Sheppard was staring at him a little defiantly. “Uh, I’m sure there’s a way out of , I mean, around this problem, Colonel,” and god he was stuttering and maybe even blushing a little. “We’ll, think of something. I can come up with some reason to get rid of the guy. Meantime, just like stay out of the lab. Oh right, that’s what you’ve been doing. Uh, I’ll, uh…” Rodney found himself trying to back out of the room, eyes darting around for something reasonable to focus on besides Sheppard’s face but then Sheppard looked so hurt that his awkwardness vanished. “Hey,” he said. “This isn’t insurmountable. I’ll help you, we’ll figure it out. It’s just a problem we have to solve. That’s what we do, right?” Sheppard looked relieved, which was a whole lot better than hurt, so Rodney could get out of there and start working on figuring out what they were going to do.
In the meantime, there was an unscheduled dial in from earth, but Rodney was so preoccupied with Sheppard’s little confession that he really wasn’t paying much attention. Radek mentioned something about a confidential message to Dr. Weir, but it didn’t seem to have anything to do with Rodney and he couldn’t be expected to worry about everything that happened.
Sheppard stayed busy away from the lab and Rodney brooded and glared at Borden, but since glaring was his default expression no one thought anything of it.
Sheppard did stop by his quarters one evening and they tossed around some ideas. Rodney was willing to give Borden a bad review and get him shipped back to earth, but Sheppard had all sorts of moral scruples about that so Rodney offered to kill the guy, which considering what happened later didn’t turn out to be as amusing as he’d hoped it would be.
A couple of days after that Rodney was heading down to the mess hall to get some lunch, having wasted the entire morning staring at his laptop and mulling over their problem, when he saw this Bordon guy coming out of Sheppard’s office. That was not good, and worse, the guy looked like he was adjusting his clothes, like maybe he’d recently had his clothes off or something, and what the hell? The guy looked smug in a way that made Rodney feel like punching him except Rodney really wasn’t a punching type of person. He was torn between confronting the guy and storming into Sheppard’s office to find out what was going on, and he ended up just standing in the hall like a stupid replicator getting reprogrammed. John came out of his office and started guiltily when he saw Rodney standing there. Which made Rodney figure he’d been jumping to the right conclusions. “What just happened?” he asked, and yeah, his voice sounded a little accusatory.
Sheppard frowned at him, then opened his door again and stepped back into his office,
motioning Rodney to follow, which Rodney did. Sheppard look so damn guilty you might have thought he and Rodney were in a relationship or something, which was strange. Rodney was certainly furious at someone or something and ever since that damned Borden had arrived he’d been having these episodes of speechlessness, which he’d never suffered from before. That made him doubly angry, because, well, he didn’t really know why, but he must have a good reason to be angry or Sheppard wouldn’t be looking guilty, right?
Sheppard wouldn’t meet his eye. “Look, Rodney, I need to keep this guy happy, ok? I can’t afford to be a prick to the guy.” He was doing that nervous thing with his hair again, running his hand through it and making himself look even more disheveled than usual. “ I think, I think it’s going to be ok. He’s mellowed, I think I can make him see reason, see that what we’re doing here is important, that it’s important that I stay here. Rodney…” Sheppard was up against him now, still not meeting his eye, so it was quite surprising that Sheppard was kissing him, and not at all unwelcome or anything, of course, but Sheppard shouldn’t feel he had to, he shouldn’t be, something just wasn’t right here.
Rodney was really feeling simple rage by this time. So it was easy to shove Sheppard away, it was easy to ignore the look Sheppard gave him and it was easy to storm off and leave the asshole to figure it out for himself.
Rodney was returning to the lab the next day after a brief meeting with Elizabeth and a detour to his room to do some reading and thinking which left him feeling more confused then ever, when he saw Borden striding purposefully down the hall and decided to follow the guy a bit and see what he was doing. He wasn’t sure what he would do if the guy was after John again, but he had to start doing something. Rodney had learned a surprising amount about sneakiness during his time in Atlantis so he was fairly confident that he could trail Borden, and maybe he could gain some useful information. Down through a bunch of hallways and then out into an area of the city Rodney had never seen went Borden all unaware of Rodney right behind him.
A door slid open to their left and Borden ducked into a room without closing it. Rodney hesitated a moment. He knew Borden didn’t have the ATA gene because he’d been all over his personal files, so how did the door open like that for him? Rodney knew he hadn’t opened it, which meant…
He was in the doorway so fast that he had an uncommonly clear view when John shot Borden. Borden sure looked unarmed and John shot him bang, bang, bang three times total, even though the first shot looked completely deadly. John had his executioner face on, the one Rodney had nightmares about, and Rodney just reacted, running into the room and giving John’s wrist a shake, making him drop the gun. Then Rodney picked it up and started trying to wipe fingerprints off of it, until he saw the gun was covered with tape so there was nothing to wipe. Which, jeez, premeditation much. “This isn’t your gun,” he said, his voice hardly shaking at all, “Where did you get it?”
John looked stunned at Rodney’s sudden appearance. “From the armory,” he replied.
“Anyone know you have it?”
John shook his head. “I’m not that stupid, Rodney. The gun can’t be traced.”
“Okay,” Rodney said. He checked the room, everything looked normal outside of the dead blackmailer, so he grabbed John’s arm and pulled him out into the hall. “Let’s go. Hurry. Go and get your laptop and bring it to my room. Make sure no one sees you, ok? Quickly now, ok?” But John was just standing there, not really getting it. Rodney grabbed him by his shoulders and gave him a little shake. “John,” he said, and it was easy to make his voice urgent, there was no other way for his voice to be, and he needed to wake John the hell up. “John, you’ve got to go right now.”
John finally nodded and shrugged off the glassy stare, visibly pulling himself together, then heading off down the hall in the direction of his quarters. Rodney raced back to his own room and fired up his laptop. There was something he could do now, something he knew more about than anyone else, so it was easy to fall into staving off catastrophe mode. He didn’t try to process what was happening. He couldn’t afford to do that now. He was just reacting, desperately trying to fix things as best he could. He filed the data about John being a cold-blooded murderer away in a back room of his mind to examine later. It wasn’t as if he’d never seen John kill anyone before.
He was checking the feed from all the security cameras, making sure there was no tape showing John or himself in the hallways over the last few hours, when John slipped quietly into the room and pulled up a chair next to him. He watched silently as Rodney pulled up the picture of John entering Rodney’s room and doctored the tape to make it look as if it had happened hours ago. John no longer had terminator face, in fact he looked extremely freaked out, and after a moment he leaned over and put his head against Rodney’s shoulder. It seemed natural when he finished with the security tapes to slide his arm around John and hold onto him. “You’ve been here all afternoon, ok? We’ve been getting caught up on our reports. We came in here so we wouldn’t get distracted.” John nodded. He seemed to be in passive mode, willing to follow Rodney’s lead. Fortunately, Borden had put such a crimp in their regular goofing off time that they really had been getting a lot of work done on reports, so that lie should be relatively easy to pull off.
“There’s nothing to connect you to Borden, no reason for any suspicion to fall on you. Or me, for that matter. So it’s just the first unsolved murder in Atlantis. I’m sure there will be others.” John looked sad at that, but it was better to be a little sad than to be, well, court-martialed or in jail. “You have some better idea?” he asked. He hadn’t meant to sound so unsympathetic, but that sad look really was getting to him and jeez, what was he supposed to do about it?
“Rodney, are you getting at all that you’ve just made yourself an accessory to murder?”
“Yeah I figured that out all by myself.”
“This…I don’t get it. I don’t get you.”
Rodney was finished doctoring the tapes, so he turned his chair toward John and tried to hug him, but it didn’t work that well because John was all stiff, bony angles that didn’t soften or lean into him, so he let go with a little awkward pat on John’s shoulder. “Look,” he said. Then he pushed off his chair and dug a note out of his pocket, handing it over to John. “Maybe this will help you get it,” he said. He watched John’s face as he read. It was a short note. Rodney remembered every cryptic word some unfortunate future version of himself had written in his easily recognizable handwriting. It said that John knew what to do in order to make sure that future didn’t happen in their time line, and that all Rodney had to do was help John in any way he could. And that John wasn’t possessed or infected by anything. And that he should stop being paranoid and be ready to help John because he could trust John in every timeline. “Elizabeth gave it to me,” he explained. “It came through the gate, sealed, from the future, with instructions for her to give it to me and not ask any questions.”
John’s expression went from sad to resigned. He sighed, then reached into his own pocket. “I guess I should show you this,” he said, and passed Rodney a note of his own. Rodney kind of thought that the note would be in John’s handwriting, that John had written himself a note like Rodney had. But this note was in his handwriting, too, and it was a lot longer and less cryptic than the note he’d left himself, which was only to be expected, since other people always needed a lot more explanation than he did to get things clear in their minds.
Still his own note had been very cryptic, so he read John’s curiously.
John:
I’m writing to you from a future I promise you you don’t want to experience. Everyone on Atlantis is dead or nearly so in this timeline.
I don’t have a lot of time left so I’ll try to make this quick. There’s a guy, one of the scientists, and no, of course, I don’t remember the guy’s name and our records have mostly been destroyed so I can’t look it up for you. I didn't really notice much about him, he's pretty average looking, short brown hair, brown eyes. But the guy was in an accident in the lab the day after he got here, got some acid spilled on his upper left thigh, it had to have left a significant scar. John, I don’t know how to impress this on you, but this guy, he’s got to die in order for all of us, and for Atlantis herself, to survive. I’m sorry John, but it’s up to you to take this guy out, even if it costs you your career, even if it costs you your life.
John, you have to trust me on this, we’re desperate here and I’m all out of better ideas. You can trust me in every time line; I hope you know that. I don’t know what happens to me if this works. Probably my timeline will continue on without change, but in some other line we’ll be alive and Atlantis will go on. That’s good enough for me. Get this bastard for all of us, John. I won’t say good luck, because luck has nothing to do with it.
Always,
Rodney
Then Rodney was hugging John again, but this time John was hugging back, and that was good, it was just what Rodney needed, and it really seemed like they would be more than ok together, at least in this timeline.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Bates had his first murder to investigate, and eventually his first unsolved crime, but unfortunately not his last. Human beings being what they are, they always insist on bringing themselves along wherever in the universe they wander.
If John and Rodney had crossed lines they hadn’t ever thought they would, well, that’s a part of growing up we’ll all experience. They followed the injunction to trust each other more and more in the following years, and that seemed to work out pretty well for everyone.
The End