In Heaven and Earth by Friendshipper (Supernatural Challenge)
I think I creeped myself out writing this. *stares at doorway*
Title: In Heaven and Earth
Author: Sholio, a.k.a. friendshipper
Rating: PG, gen
Word Count: 1800
Characters: John, Rodney
Spoilers: Through "Lifeline"
Summary: It gets bloody creepy here at night.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
-Hamlet
They walk behind him, or to the side, never in front. Often John doubts their presence; often, he doubts himself. He thinks he figured them out long ago, but then he wonders if all he's doing is rationalizing the slow fragmenting of his own mind.
He has only asked Rodney about it once, back in their first year on Atlantis, some months after Rodney got the gene therapy. The natural ATA bearers are all jumpier on Atlantis than they have any cause to be -- It gets bloody creepy here at night, Carson once said to Elizabeth, a long time ago. And while John has never felt comfortable bringing up the subject with his own men, he's caught half-overheard snatches of conversation that lead him to believe his own experiences are not unique.
If Rodney has the artificial gene, then maybe he also shares the burden of its curse. Maybe he can explain the phenomenon in brutally pragmatic terms, as he explains everything else. So John asked him.
Do you ever see ghosts, Rodney?
He'd asked it half-seriously, one late night in the rec lounge, with The Phantom Menace (which they'd both already seen fifty times) winding down on the jury-rigged big screen. It was just the two of them -- Ford and Zelenka had finally wandered off to bed, and Teyla had begged off during the first scene of the movie, explaining that her people believe a full night's sleep is critical to maintaining a pure heart and body. (That she will now, easily, match the rest of her team on their late geek-nights -- John is not sure whether to consider it a victory for team spirit, or another small crack in the wall of Teyla's eroding cultural beliefs.)
Rodney was curled up on one end of the couch, laptop casting a blue glow over his face. Behind him, Sumner leaned on the doorframe, in a pose of casual readiness, visible in the reflected light of the LCD screen. John knew from months' experience that his dead CO would only be visible as long as he didn't look directly at him, so he kept his eyes averted, figuring that the guy deserved to hear the answer even if John hadn't liked him much when he was alive.
Do you ever see ghosts, Rodney?
Rodney's answer, after the moment that it took the question to sink in, was a snorted laugh, derisive, with something indefinable and dark underneath. I hardly think I'm that far gone yet, Major.
It hadn't yet been long enough since Abrams and Gaul, since Dumais ... and it would be months more before they'd really begin to understand that pain and loss were constants in the Pegasus Galaxy, not to be measured by the standards of the world they used to call home. And he hadn't meant it to be a pointed question; he'd only wanted to know ... but you couldn't expect another person to know everything, or anything, inside your own head. Sorry, John had said, lifting his eyes to Rodney's, and to the empty doorway yawning dark behind the scientist's head.
Well, when I go insane, I'll certainly let you know, Rodney had said.
John had laughed, slapping on the joker's mask, and said something he couldn't quite remember, about Rodney being mostly crazy already. As they walked part of the way back to their quarters that night, before going off their separate ways, he was acutely conscious of the dark flickers at the very edge of his awareness, and found himself instinctively placing himself between Rodney and the shadows of dead men that, apparently, only he could see.
Wraith illusions, he might have thought, except that the first night in Atlantis he'd woken from a dreamless sleep to find Marshall Sumner standing at the foot of his bed, hideously aged and bleeding from his naked chest. John had bolted upright with a scream he couldn't contain, and as his breathing slowed, he'd realized the bedroom was empty.
In their first month on Atlantis, he hadn't slept a lot, but the ghosts grew familiar even as they grew in numbers. Slowly he'd begun to realize that they were harmless, and much later, he found that he'd stopped looking over his shoulder as if he could catch them in the act of following him.
He didn't start to understand their nature until after the Daedalus came, until after Ford. But when his ghostly entourage included not only Ford, but also the shades of perfectly healthy soldiers reassigned to Earth, he began to understand.
It is Atlantis.
He can't precisely say what causes it, or why the shades are stronger for some than others. But he isn't the only one who sees them. He's seen Carson jump and look over his shoulder in the infirmary, seen Lorne casting nervous glances around the gym without realizing anyone is watching him, caught glimpses of Miko huddled on a stool in the labs with every light turned up bright about her slender form.
We imprint ourselves on Atlantis, like those shadows burned on the walls at Hiroshima, he'd written one night in the private journal that even Elizabeth didn't have the privilege to read. He paused for a moment, looking back at his own words, the stark and horrible metaphor, the casual offensiveness of it -- wondering what his words would say of him, if they were found after his death. Eventually, letting them stand to condemn him like so much else, he added: It remembers us. It recreates dim reflections of us, maybe because the artificial intelligence that drives it believes we want to see them.
He sometimes believes that the Ancients fell so easily to the Replicator invasion of Atlantis because the city itself has somehow imprinted on the Earth expedition, and when the Ancients came home, it knew them only as intruders.
The first ghost to speak to him was, unsurprisingly, the ghost of Rodney McKay. If John hadn't already realized that the living cast shadows on Atlantis as well as the dead, he might have done a lot more freaking out during his time recovering from Carson's retrovirus -- because he spent more than a little of that time in the company of his ghostly team. For a while, drifting in and out of lucidity, he couldn't tell the difference between the real and the false, which scared him in a way that the ghosts themselves didn't. What if they need me, and I can't tell which ones are really them?
But the fear passed, like the retrovirus. By now, three years and more after first closing his eyes and stepping through the Stargate, John is not sure if the ghosts have grown fewer, or if he merely doesn't notice them anymore. He's not sure if he welcomes them, exactly, because they still give him the willies sometimes. Carson's no longer around to say it, except for his mostly-silent shadow, but it's still bloody creepy here at night. However, John acknowledges them as a sign of home, something he isn't sure he likes but can't help missing whenever he's away.
After Elizabeth goes missing and they crash on their new planet, he spends days deep-sunk in a morass of paperwork and delegation. He can't remember the last time he got a good night's sleep, and the only reason he remembers to eat is because Teyla and Ronon drop by occasionally to bring him food. But as much as he finds himself hating the job he's inherited, at least it gets him through these interminable days. Often Elizabeth herself keeps him company, just behind his left shoulder, a more persistent ghost than many. He supposes that with her indomitable spirit, it was only to be expected.
It's the middle of the night and he's bent over a laptop in Elizabeth's office, struggling through yet another requisition form to submit to the IOA, while Elizabeth watches in silence with her chin resting in her hand. Her eyes look through him blankly; the wall behind her reflects the light of the laptop screen, but she does not. He chooses not to look at her.
A soft throat-clearing noise draws his attention to the doorway. Rodney stands there, one hand curled around a cup of coffee, looking uncomfortable. John takes care to meet his eyes, to see the human being looking back; it never hurts to be sure, on these dark nights.
"Hey," John drawls.
Rodney raises a hand in a little wave, and stands in silence for a very long, very awkward moment before finally saying, "So."
John raises an eyebrow. He hopes this isn't about to turn into one of Rodney's unbearably clumsy attempts to apologize. For one thing, they've done that, and as far as John's concerned, it's over. He just doesn't want to have to say so.
Eventually, Rodney clears his throat again. "So, um, I just came here to say -- I mean, yes. The answer's yes." And he turns to go.
Yes? John's brain goes totally blank as he desperately tries to remember what suggestion he'd made, probably quite ill-advised, in the last few days of stress and sleep deprivation. "Hey! Wait! The hell? Yes what?"
Rodney pauses, reluctantly, and looks over his shoulder. For a minute John thinks he's not going to answer, but, predictably unpredictable, he does. "You asked me a question, a long time ago." He breaks off, wets his lips. "I just figured, you know, after all we've been through and ... stuff, I owed you an honest answer. So, yeah, back when you asked me that ... that thing in the lounge -- The answer's yes."
John still wouldn't have the slightest clue what he's talking about, except then he notices that Rodney's not really looking at him, but rather, just off to his left -- looking directly at Elizabeth.
And Elizabeth, he sees in his peripheral vision, has raised her head and is looking back at Rodney with her blank, unreflective eyes.
Rodney drops his gaze, and, shoulders slumped in weariness, he leaves. After a moment, Elizabeth rises in perfect silence and glides after him.
It takes John some time to lower his watchful gaze from the doorway and return to his reports. After another little while, Carson comes to keep him company.
Title: In Heaven and Earth
Author: Sholio, a.k.a. friendshipper
Rating: PG, gen
Word Count: 1800
Characters: John, Rodney
Spoilers: Through "Lifeline"
Summary: It gets bloody creepy here at night.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
-Hamlet
They walk behind him, or to the side, never in front. Often John doubts their presence; often, he doubts himself. He thinks he figured them out long ago, but then he wonders if all he's doing is rationalizing the slow fragmenting of his own mind.
He has only asked Rodney about it once, back in their first year on Atlantis, some months after Rodney got the gene therapy. The natural ATA bearers are all jumpier on Atlantis than they have any cause to be -- It gets bloody creepy here at night, Carson once said to Elizabeth, a long time ago. And while John has never felt comfortable bringing up the subject with his own men, he's caught half-overheard snatches of conversation that lead him to believe his own experiences are not unique.
If Rodney has the artificial gene, then maybe he also shares the burden of its curse. Maybe he can explain the phenomenon in brutally pragmatic terms, as he explains everything else. So John asked him.
Do you ever see ghosts, Rodney?
He'd asked it half-seriously, one late night in the rec lounge, with The Phantom Menace (which they'd both already seen fifty times) winding down on the jury-rigged big screen. It was just the two of them -- Ford and Zelenka had finally wandered off to bed, and Teyla had begged off during the first scene of the movie, explaining that her people believe a full night's sleep is critical to maintaining a pure heart and body. (That she will now, easily, match the rest of her team on their late geek-nights -- John is not sure whether to consider it a victory for team spirit, or another small crack in the wall of Teyla's eroding cultural beliefs.)
Rodney was curled up on one end of the couch, laptop casting a blue glow over his face. Behind him, Sumner leaned on the doorframe, in a pose of casual readiness, visible in the reflected light of the LCD screen. John knew from months' experience that his dead CO would only be visible as long as he didn't look directly at him, so he kept his eyes averted, figuring that the guy deserved to hear the answer even if John hadn't liked him much when he was alive.
Do you ever see ghosts, Rodney?
Rodney's answer, after the moment that it took the question to sink in, was a snorted laugh, derisive, with something indefinable and dark underneath. I hardly think I'm that far gone yet, Major.
It hadn't yet been long enough since Abrams and Gaul, since Dumais ... and it would be months more before they'd really begin to understand that pain and loss were constants in the Pegasus Galaxy, not to be measured by the standards of the world they used to call home. And he hadn't meant it to be a pointed question; he'd only wanted to know ... but you couldn't expect another person to know everything, or anything, inside your own head. Sorry, John had said, lifting his eyes to Rodney's, and to the empty doorway yawning dark behind the scientist's head.
Well, when I go insane, I'll certainly let you know, Rodney had said.
John had laughed, slapping on the joker's mask, and said something he couldn't quite remember, about Rodney being mostly crazy already. As they walked part of the way back to their quarters that night, before going off their separate ways, he was acutely conscious of the dark flickers at the very edge of his awareness, and found himself instinctively placing himself between Rodney and the shadows of dead men that, apparently, only he could see.
Wraith illusions, he might have thought, except that the first night in Atlantis he'd woken from a dreamless sleep to find Marshall Sumner standing at the foot of his bed, hideously aged and bleeding from his naked chest. John had bolted upright with a scream he couldn't contain, and as his breathing slowed, he'd realized the bedroom was empty.
In their first month on Atlantis, he hadn't slept a lot, but the ghosts grew familiar even as they grew in numbers. Slowly he'd begun to realize that they were harmless, and much later, he found that he'd stopped looking over his shoulder as if he could catch them in the act of following him.
He didn't start to understand their nature until after the Daedalus came, until after Ford. But when his ghostly entourage included not only Ford, but also the shades of perfectly healthy soldiers reassigned to Earth, he began to understand.
It is Atlantis.
He can't precisely say what causes it, or why the shades are stronger for some than others. But he isn't the only one who sees them. He's seen Carson jump and look over his shoulder in the infirmary, seen Lorne casting nervous glances around the gym without realizing anyone is watching him, caught glimpses of Miko huddled on a stool in the labs with every light turned up bright about her slender form.
We imprint ourselves on Atlantis, like those shadows burned on the walls at Hiroshima, he'd written one night in the private journal that even Elizabeth didn't have the privilege to read. He paused for a moment, looking back at his own words, the stark and horrible metaphor, the casual offensiveness of it -- wondering what his words would say of him, if they were found after his death. Eventually, letting them stand to condemn him like so much else, he added: It remembers us. It recreates dim reflections of us, maybe because the artificial intelligence that drives it believes we want to see them.
He sometimes believes that the Ancients fell so easily to the Replicator invasion of Atlantis because the city itself has somehow imprinted on the Earth expedition, and when the Ancients came home, it knew them only as intruders.
The first ghost to speak to him was, unsurprisingly, the ghost of Rodney McKay. If John hadn't already realized that the living cast shadows on Atlantis as well as the dead, he might have done a lot more freaking out during his time recovering from Carson's retrovirus -- because he spent more than a little of that time in the company of his ghostly team. For a while, drifting in and out of lucidity, he couldn't tell the difference between the real and the false, which scared him in a way that the ghosts themselves didn't. What if they need me, and I can't tell which ones are really them?
But the fear passed, like the retrovirus. By now, three years and more after first closing his eyes and stepping through the Stargate, John is not sure if the ghosts have grown fewer, or if he merely doesn't notice them anymore. He's not sure if he welcomes them, exactly, because they still give him the willies sometimes. Carson's no longer around to say it, except for his mostly-silent shadow, but it's still bloody creepy here at night. However, John acknowledges them as a sign of home, something he isn't sure he likes but can't help missing whenever he's away.
After Elizabeth goes missing and they crash on their new planet, he spends days deep-sunk in a morass of paperwork and delegation. He can't remember the last time he got a good night's sleep, and the only reason he remembers to eat is because Teyla and Ronon drop by occasionally to bring him food. But as much as he finds himself hating the job he's inherited, at least it gets him through these interminable days. Often Elizabeth herself keeps him company, just behind his left shoulder, a more persistent ghost than many. He supposes that with her indomitable spirit, it was only to be expected.
It's the middle of the night and he's bent over a laptop in Elizabeth's office, struggling through yet another requisition form to submit to the IOA, while Elizabeth watches in silence with her chin resting in her hand. Her eyes look through him blankly; the wall behind her reflects the light of the laptop screen, but she does not. He chooses not to look at her.
A soft throat-clearing noise draws his attention to the doorway. Rodney stands there, one hand curled around a cup of coffee, looking uncomfortable. John takes care to meet his eyes, to see the human being looking back; it never hurts to be sure, on these dark nights.
"Hey," John drawls.
Rodney raises a hand in a little wave, and stands in silence for a very long, very awkward moment before finally saying, "So."
John raises an eyebrow. He hopes this isn't about to turn into one of Rodney's unbearably clumsy attempts to apologize. For one thing, they've done that, and as far as John's concerned, it's over. He just doesn't want to have to say so.
Eventually, Rodney clears his throat again. "So, um, I just came here to say -- I mean, yes. The answer's yes." And he turns to go.
Yes? John's brain goes totally blank as he desperately tries to remember what suggestion he'd made, probably quite ill-advised, in the last few days of stress and sleep deprivation. "Hey! Wait! The hell? Yes what?"
Rodney pauses, reluctantly, and looks over his shoulder. For a minute John thinks he's not going to answer, but, predictably unpredictable, he does. "You asked me a question, a long time ago." He breaks off, wets his lips. "I just figured, you know, after all we've been through and ... stuff, I owed you an honest answer. So, yeah, back when you asked me that ... that thing in the lounge -- The answer's yes."
John still wouldn't have the slightest clue what he's talking about, except then he notices that Rodney's not really looking at him, but rather, just off to his left -- looking directly at Elizabeth.
And Elizabeth, he sees in his peripheral vision, has raised her head and is looking back at Rodney with her blank, unreflective eyes.
Rodney drops his gaze, and, shoulders slumped in weariness, he leaves. After a moment, Elizabeth rises in perfect silence and glides after him.
It takes John some time to lower his watchful gaze from the doorway and return to his reports. After another little while, Carson comes to keep him company.