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Ficathon story #4: Shattered Things (3 of 3)
Continued from Part Two.
The sight of the puddlejumper circling above him was the most gorgeous thing Rodney had ever seen. At the familiar sight, a cascade of fragmentary memories crashed down on top of him. It was all bits and pieces, but he remembered Atlantis, and Elizabeth, and Teyla and Ronon; he remembered what it was like to fly the jumper and feel it respond beneath his hands like a living thing; and for an instant he forgot his discomfort and his fear and the heat of Carson's life seeping away into the cold mud.
From one moment to the next, it shimmered and vanished, and that was when he remembered that the jumpers could be cloaked and wondered why it hadn't been in the first place. Then he choked as a hard hand yanked on his collar and a gun was thrust into his line of vision, angled down at Carson.
"Hey--" Rodney managed.
"Be silent!" the Commandant snarled at him, and she shouted, "Can you hear me, people from another world? I demand that you leave this place! I am not lying to you. Are you listening? Are you watching us? I will kill this man!"
Rodney was half-expecting Sheppard's voice, but he jumped at the sound of Elizabeth's. As he listened to her laying out her demands -- and couldn't help a slight grin, despite his fear, at Sheppard's typically violent caveat -- he realized that he wasn't nearly as surprised as he ought to be, to have them all here. They came for us.
His moment of euphoria vanished when the Commandant hauled him backwards, tearing him away from Carson; he tried to hang on but had to let go. The doctor's head fell back into the mud.
"If you will not let us have your doctor, I will make sure no one on your world can, either!"
Rodney couldn't talk, could barely breathe, with the gun pressing against his throat so hard that it was cutting off his air supply. No one had responded to the Commandant's demands, and he wondered what crazy thing Sheppard was planning now -- because he was, without a doubt, planning something.
When things started happening, they happened very fast. Rodney, his head tilted back, had a gorgeous view of the jumper's hatch opening. Even though he'd seen the effect before, it was still extremely disconcerting to see the interior of the jumper floating in midair -- especially at a 90 degree angle to the ground.
The Commandant looked up with a gasp just as a human body crashed into them and sent Rodney sprawling in the mud. He rolled over and pushed himself up on his hands, to see the Commandant grappling in hand-to-hand combat with an unfamiliar Marine.
"Rodney! Are you all right?"
The voice was Zelenka's. Startled, Rodney looked up; the Czech scientist had just risen from the co-pilot's chair and started down the length of the jumper towards Rodney, his body parallel to the ground. Despite understanding the physics of the jumper's artificial gravity generators , Rodney found it deeply disconcerting to see the jumper's internal gravity at such a wildly different orientation than the planet's.
"Yes, yes, never mind about that. Carson --" Rodney turned to look out through the approximately two-meter gap between the bottom of the jumper and the street. Elizabeth and another Marine were dragging Carson towards the ship.
Above him, Zelenka cried out sharply, "Colonel!" Rodney looked up and caught a split-second glimpse of everything above him, including Zelenka, starting to tumble towards him just as the lights went out.
It seemed like the entire world avalanched down on top of him, all in a wave of mud and sound and vibration. Then everything was still, silent and very nearly pitch-dark, except for a shaft of moonlight filtering down through the jumper's windshield, high above them. Rodney's ears were ringing and his mouth tasted like very unsanitary mud. There was an elbow in the small of his back, with what felt like several hundred pounds of Czech on top of it.
"What the hell happened?" Rodney demanded, spitting mud.
"The Colonel passed out, I think," Zelenka's voice said from atop him.
"Oh well, thank you very much, Sheppard!" Rodney yelled up into the darkness. "Great rescue! One for the record books! Wait -- Radek, what's wrong with him?"
"He was drug--" Zelenka began, but just then a gunshot went off, deafeningly loud in the enclosed space. In the muzzle flash, Rodney caught a glimpse of the Marine staggering backward, a spray of blood flying in the air, and then they were plunged into darkness again.
Hell. They were trapped in here with one very pissed-off enemy soldier; Elizabeth and Carson were trapped outside with an armed mob. And, Rodney realized as more fragments of memory fell into place, he was the only conscious person in the jumper -- or, hell, on the planet -- with an ATA gene.
"Radek, get off me." Without waiting for a response, Rodney shoved, hard; the weight vanished with a loud splash and an equally loud Czech curse. Reaching up, he groped until he caught hold of the cargo netting with mud-slippery hands and began to climb.
John's been shot. It was the only thing Elizabeth could think, staring at the defunct jumper.
Bradshaw suddenly let go of Carson's shoulders, and Elizabeth lunged instinctively to catch him before his head could fall in the mud. Fixated on the jumper, terrified of what might be happening to John and the others inside it, she hadn't even noticed the rebels closing around them with weapons drawn. P90 in hand, Bradshaw stood over Elizabeth and Carson, sweeping the weapon slowly around the circle of rifles pointed at them.
"I have no desire to hurt you." The speaker, the dark-haired woman from before, looked genuinely regretful. "But you cannot be allowed to continue what you are attempting."
Elizabeth had begun to shiver, as the chill of the mud seeped through her pants. She could only imagine how cold Carson must be -- the only thing he wore was a pair of loose pants, and the bandages around his chest were soaked with mud and bright patches of blood. His skin, under her hands, felt as chilly as the air. If we don't get him to Atlantis soon, we won't be rescuing a friend; we'll be recovering a body.
She clenched her teeth against a fresh wave of shudders, and tried to keep her voice calm and level. "We came here peacefully, to recover our missing friends. Believe me, if we had come as enemies, you would have known it. One small ship, such as the one you see here, has the power to destroy your village with a single shot. We asked to have our friends returned to us, and instead, your people attacked them."
The dark-haired woman shook her head. "You are already allied with our enemies. You attacked the barricade at the Ancestors' Ring, destroying it. Then you attack us with your ship, and now you mean to convince us that you come in peace?"
"If we wanted to kill you, you would already be dead. All we want is to leave here with our people."
Carson moaned softly and stirred against Elizabeth's side. She reached down and lightly stroked his muddy hair without taking her eyes off the dark-haired woman's conflicted face. Please listen to me. Please believe me.
In the darkness, Rodney climbed, trying desperately not to think of what was happening below him, or outside the jumper, or ... anywhere, really. The seventy-fifth digit of pi is 8. The value of Planck's constant is --
Below him, there were scuffling sounds and someone gave a cry of surprise or pain -- he thought it sounded like Zelenka. Then his fingers closed over the back of the pilot's seat, and he let out a soft breath of relief.
Now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, the silvery moonlight filtering in through the jumper's windshield was bright enough that he could make out Sheppard sprawled in the seat, one lanky arm dangling over the side. "Idiot," Rodney muttered, his fingertips brushing Sheppard's neck and relaxing to feel the strong beat of a pulse there. There was no way in hell that he could remove the unconscious pilot from the seat, not without running a very large risk of dropping him down the length of the jumper, so he braced himself between the two seats and leaned over Sheppard to activate the controls. Okay, start, damn you --
As the interior lights came on, the gravity did too, and suddenly he was bracing himself at entirely the wrong angle to the new direction of "down" -- he fell forward onto the console and cracked his chin painfully on a protruding lever. As his head rebounded from that, Sheppard's torso slumped forward on top of him and smushed his face against the console again. At least this time he managed to bring up his hand to catch most of the weight. Pinned between Sheppard and the controls, he cursed softly, and wriggled his way free of the unconscious pilot. Suddenly remembering the life-or-death struggle going on at the other end of the jumper, he looked back along its length -- experiencing another surge of vertigo at the sight of the muddy "floor" rising vertically across the back of the hatch.
Now that the lights were on, Rodney saw Zelenka slumped in the mud next to the apparently unconscious Marine. One hand was pressed against the side of his head; Rodney could see blood on the side of his face. Several feet away, the Commandant held a gun on the two of them. It was obvious even from here that she was totally bewildered as to what was going on -- the lights going off, the jumper falling on top of her, now the lights coming back on again ... it was probably all one step removed from magic for her, but Rodney didn't really care. Any minute now she'd figure out that he was the one in control of the ship, and then her gun would be pointing at him.
He slammed the controls forward. The jumper shuddered and then lifted free, with a great tearing shriek of metal that made Rodney wince. As far as he could tell out of the corner of his eye, the ramp had been crumpled and partly torn off when the weight of the jumper came down on it. Now, as they lifted free, it was tearing the rest of the way off. For an instant it clung to the back of the jumper by a few slowly shearing bolts, and then it came loose. The Commandant flung herself to the side, very nearly avoiding a messy death.
What a shame that would have been, Rodney thought as he guided the damaged jumper to a more conventional, horizontal landing, trying to ignore the fact that he was half-reclining in Sheppard's lap to do so. Due to his awkward angle on the controls, his "landing" of the jumper was really more of a graceless belly flop, but that worked to his advantage as well -- the rebels in the street had to scramble to avoid another cascade of mud.
"What are you people waiting for!" Rodney yelled over the jumper's external speakers.
There was a flurry of activity. Zelenka staggered to his feet and dragged the Marine into the open back of the jumper, while Elizabeth caught hold of Carson and began hauling him towards the ship. The other Marine covered Elizabeth, and Rodney -- amazed and suspicious -- saw that no one in the street opened fire. Dalan merely stood there and watched them retreat, while the others seemed to take their cue from her.
All but one. The Commandant picked herself up out of the mud. "Damn you!" she shouted, and fired wildly into the jumper. Rodney saw it happen in slow motion, but trying to throw himself out of the way was like moving through syrup. One bullet hit the windshield, and a star pattern sprang out from the point of impact. Another shot went spang! off the co-pilot's console in a shower of sparks.
"Rodney, go!" Elizabeth cried as she and the Marine tumbled into the back of the jumper with Carson between them.
He did so, lifting off into the night sky with his chest braced on the pilot's console and his hips across Sheppard's knees. Trying to shift his legs into a more comfortable position, he felt a wave of weak giddiness at the hot slippery wetness where his leg rubbed against the side of Sheppard's seat. Oh my God, I've been shot.
"Rodney, go!" Elizabeth got the words out as she sprawled on the jumper's deck plating, with Carson across her chest and Bradshaw somewhere around her legs. Twisting her head to one side, she saw Zelenka holding onto the cargo netting with one hand and, with the other, clinging to a handful of Corporal Aymes' uniform. There was blood all down the side of his face and more blood pooling on the floor beneath Aymes.
Elizabeth pushed herself up on her elbows and then wished she hadn't, as a wild panorama of rocks and trees spun through her field of vision. Everything had happened so fast that it took her a moment to realize why the scenery was dancing in front of her eyes and her hair was whipping around in a wind that shouldn't have been there. The hatch -- we lost our back door. The jumper did a lazy roll and she got an all-too-close look at a tree, the branches brushing past her face.
"Get farther inside!" Bradshaw shouted. Elizabeth wasn't sure if he was talking to her, or to Zelenka, but both of them grabbed hold of their unconscious charges and dragged them away from the too-close opening.
"Who's flying?" Elizabeth called, looking over her shoulder. From here, she couldn't tell who was in the pilot's chair.
"Well, excuse me for being shot!" came Rodney's voice, sounding panicky.
Elizabeth shrugged quickly out of her jacket and used it to cover Carson; then, hanging onto the side of the jumper, she made her way up to the front. For a moment all she could do was stare at the sight of Rodney, covered with mud from head to foot, sprawled across John's lap as he tried to control the jumper without really being able to get a good grip on the controls.
"What in the world happened in here?"
"Tell you on Atlantis," Rodney gritted between clenched teeth. "Dial the gate, would you? Ow! My leg!"
Elizabeth punched in the gate address and her IDC. Through the cracked windshield, the valley was laid out below them, a panorama in the moonlight. "Rodney, how badly are you hurt?"
"Oh right, because I can stop flying to triage myself -- not!" The gate rushed up at them, and Elizabeth fought the temptation to close her eyes.
"Dr. Weir, this is Atlantis -- we just received your code --"
"Yes, we're coming in with wounded, lower the shield!" she shouted, before the jumper's nose broke the event horizon --
-- and they were emerging in the gate room. Elizabeth caught a glimpse of startled faces staring at the battered, mud-covered jumper before it rose through the ceiling into the jumper bay. Rodney sighed and slumped away from the controls, and Elizabeth remembered John saying that the process was automatic once the ship was in Atlantis.
"Control room, this is Weir. I need a medical team in the jumper bay."
She caught hold of Rodney and helped him into the copilot's chair. He sighed, leaned back and closed his eyes, then opened them again, looking up at her. "How's Carson?"
"I don't know." Elizabeth looked over her shoulder, at Carson on the jumper's floor with Sgt. Bradshaw kneeling next to him. Zelenka had sagged down to the floor beside them. At this point, though, she didn't know what she could do; Bradshaw's first-aid skills were probably better than hers anyway. "How's your leg feeling?"
"Hurts." Rodney's pants leg was soaked with mud and the warm wetness of blood. Elizabeth decided to leave it for the medical staff, and she leaned over to take John's pulse. His skin was cool to the touch, but his heartbeat was strong.
"What happened to him?"
"Dunno. He just fainted and lost control of the jumper."
Just then the medical staff descended on them in a whirlwind of activity. Elizabeth found herself pushed to one side, watching as her injured team members were loaded onto gurneys. Rodney was helped past her, one arm over a nurse's shoulder, limping and protesting about mud and infection and the dangers of walking on an injured limb. He reached out a hand to stop his forward progress, though, when they arrived at Carson's gurney. The doctor was bundled in warming blankets so that only his head showed. IVs snaked underneath the blankets.
Rodney leaned over the injured man, heedless of the mud dripping off his clothing to soak into the white blankets. "Carson? Hey ... Carson?"
Elizabeth came up behind him, unnoticed and quiet. She could see Rodney's mud-splattered face in profile, the long lashes downcast, lips tight as he searched Carson's pale face for a response.
"Excuse me, Dr. McKay. You're in the way." One of the nurses tried to move Rodney out of her path, only to find out what an immovable object he could be when he really wanted to. The look that he gave her made her recoil.
"Rodney." Elizabeth reached out to take his arm gently. "Why don't we get you down to the infirmary and get your leg cleaned up?"
"Yeah," he muttered, not moving. One of his hands came to rest atop the part of the blanket-wrapped bundle where Carson's arm would be.
"Rodney. Come on." Feeling him relaxing against her, she led him away.
After a thorough exam, a shower and a change of clothes, Elizabeth checked in briefly with the control room to make sure that Lorne's team had been recalled -- they were heading back to the spacegate, she was told, and should be back on Atlantis inside the hour -- and then went down to the infirmary. She was surprised, pleasantly, to find Ronon and Teyla awake and out of isolation, sitting on either side of Sheppard's bed. They both looked tired and bleary, and avoided meeting the eyes of anyone around them, including each other.
Sheppard was awake, but had a washed-out, exhausted look about him. Every so often he made a surreptitious move towards getting out of bed, at which point Ronon would plant an implacable hand on his chest and push him back down.
"How are you all feeling?" Elizabeth asked, dragging up a chair to the foot of Sheppard's bed. She got three dirty looks.
"Hung over," Ronon said shortly.
Sheppard had a sheepish expression. "I, uh ... made a poor showing out there, didn't I?"
Seeing the way that he wasn't quite looking at her, Elizabeth realized that he expected ... what? A demotion? A reassignment to Antarctica? She patted his knee and smiled.
"You found your missing people, John, although next time someone tells you to stay in the infirmary, maybe it would be a good idea to do it."
He gave her a lopsided grin, but she had a feeling that he was going to be beating himself up about this for weeks to come. Hopefully Rodney could talk, or yell, some sense into him. Speaking of whom ... the sound of arguing let her know where to find another of the people she'd come to see -- though not the one she was most worried about.
"-- don't need crutches for a scratch, Rodney."
"It's not a scratch, Radek, it's a gaping hole in my leg! Look!"
"Aargh! My eyes! Odporny!"
"Oh ha ha, Radek, very funny. As if you've never seen a man's shin before."
Elizabeth drew back the curtain, with her eyes shut. "Rodney, are you decent?"
"He is ever?" Zelenka countered.
"Radek thinks that being hit in the head gave him a sense of humor, but he's wrong," Rodney informed her.
Zelenka, with a bandage on the side of his head and looking a bit pale, was sitting on the edge of Rodney's bed. Rodney himself looked reasonably healthy, although in an even worse mood than usual. "Elizabeth, help. I'm being held hostage."
"Excuse me?"
"The medical staff wishes to keep him for an observation period, since Colonel Sheppard has already passed out once," Zelenka told her.
"He fainted," Rodney said with relish. "Let's get our terminology straight here, Radek. And, aside from the gaping leg wound, I'm doing fine. The hillbilly communists gave me their antidote. My memory seems to be intact. Like I said ... fine."
"The last time that Sheppard told me that he was fine, Rodney, he then crashed a puddlejumper on top of you and Zelenka, so I'm perfectly happy to let the medical staff keep you for a while."
There was a sudden, rattling noise behind Elizabeth. She looked around and then did a double take at the sight of Sheppard's bed, rolling along smoothly on its castors, being pushed by Ronon and Teyla. Sheppard looked as if he would have happily sunk through the floor and vanished. Teyla held back the curtain while Ronon gave the bed a final hard shove; it clunked against the wall next to Rodney, who just stared. "And stay there," Ronon informed his mortified-looking team leader.
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow.
"Colonel Sheppard will not stay in bed," Teyla explained, breathing heavily. Just the exertion of pushing the bed a couple of yards had worn her out. "We thought that if we moved him here, then he would ..."
"...settle down and stay in bed." Ronon glowered down at Sheppard. "Gonna get some chairs." He ducked out of the curtained area again.
Elizabeth sighed, and sat down on the edge of Sheppard's bed, much as Zelenka was sitting on Rodney's. She really needed to stop even trying to understand or anticipate these people. It was much more interesting, and less stressful, to just watch them do their thing.
At the moment, Sheppard was plucking at his bedsheet and looking everywhere but at the other people in the room. "Er, Rodney ..."
"Oh God," Rodney said, loudly. "Please tell me there isn't some kind of awkward and hopelessly embarrassing apology staggering inappropriately in the direction of this conversation."
"Well, not now," Sheppard retorted snappishly. "Wait just a minute ... was that a butchered Blackadder quote?"
"What is ..." Teyla began, and then shut up quickly, but not before Sheppard started trying to explain it to her.
Elizabeth shifted about until she found a more comfortable position, and lulled by the familiar sound of arguing, she settled in with the rest of them ... to wait.
The first thing that Carson became aware of was a sudden, loud voice, saying, within inches of his face: "I think he moved!"
Carson flinched despite himself. It was hard not to.
"There! I'm sure he moved that time!"
"Rodney, for God's sake, give the man some air." The lazy drawl was both annoyed and indulgent. "If the first thing he sees is an intimate view of your nostrils, he'll lapse into a coma and never come out."
There was a rustling sound from just a little farther away, as of someone shifting position, and a deep, irritated voice grumbled, "If you two keep it up, you'll both be in a coma." This was followed by an immediate smack, and a low growl of, "Teyla, stop it."
"I will stop it when you cease interfering with my ability to sleep."
"Wasn't me that started it. They did."
Eyes still closed, Carson felt a grin tug at the corners of his mouth.
"Colonel! Now he's smiling!"
"Probably laughing at you, McKay."
"I said smiling. Not laughing."
"He's laughing on the inside, then."
As tempting as it was to just keep his eyes shut and drift back to sleep, Carson could feel himself getting more awake, not less. He was also becoming aware of a dull ache every time he inhaled, and an annoying tickle in his throat. On the other hand, opening his eyes would mean giving Rodney satisfaction.
"He's awake, Colonel; he's listening to us just to mock us."
"Well, mocking you is such fun, Rodney; how could he resist?"
"Oh, you're funny, Sheppard. The rapier-sharp wit, it wounds me."
"Would you two shut up?" Ronon demanded
The tickle in his throat finally became too insistent to ignore. A muffled cough turned into an uncontrollable wracking spasm, sinking claws of pain in his chest that seemed likely to tear him apart.
When he'd ridden the tide of pain to its end, he found that arms were holding him upright, and someone had tilted a cup of water to his lips. He sipped -- Slow and easy, he reminded himself -- and then opened his eyes, squinting against the infirmary lights. The person holding the cup of water was Elizabeth, her eyes crinkled with worry as she smiled at him. "Good morning, Carson. We're all glad to see you."
"Morning?" he croaked, stirring.
"Morning, yes, Carson, you know, the thing that comes after night." Rodney's voice came from just above his head, and he realized that it was Rodney's chest he was leaning against. He could see Sheppard out of the corner of his eye, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. They'd both lunged forward and caught him when he started coughing.
Swallowing, he took a deep breath and steadied his voice enough to ask, "What have you two done with my staff? Chased 'em off, eh? A real nurse might be nice about now -- no offense to you, Elizabeth dear."
"And this is the thanks we get for staying up all night, watching him sweat," Rodney complained. Sheppard gave a snort of laughter. "What? ... Oh. You have the sense of humor of a ten-year-old, don't you?"
"Teyla's gone to find a nurse, Carson," Elizabeth told him, setting the cup of water somewhere out of his line of sight. "Most of your staff has been working around the clock ... things've just now settled down."
Carson's stomach lurched, a host of worst-case scenarios spinning through his hazy brain. Disease, mass injury ... "What ... happened?"
It took Elizabeth a moment to realize why he looked so worried. "Oh! No, I didn't mean ... When John's team came back from P1R-4P2 with the drug in their system, we thought there was some sort of contagion, and then your staff was scrambling to try to figure out what the drug was, so that we could treat it. It turned out that it was largely harmless, though."
"Speak for yourself," Sheppard muttered.
Elizabeth ignored him. "The worst injuries are yours, Carson. One of the Marines was shot rescuing you, but not severely."
"I was shot too," Rodney protested in a peevish voice.
Elizabeth smiled at him, a trifle wearily. "Yes, Rodney, we know."
At that point Teyla came back with not one but three nurses in two, all of whom descended on their startled boss in a flurry of concern. Unlike certain other people's underlings, Carson's people adored him ... sometimes a little too much, when he was on the opposite side of the infirmary bed. On the infrequent occasions in the past when he'd actually managed to get himself hospitalized for one thing or another, he usually ended up checking himself out early just to escape the stifling mothering.
Fortunately in this case, Sheppard's team finally came in handy for something -- they saw his distress and, once he'd gotten another dose of morphine and fresh pillows, chased off the nurses. Carson felt vaguely guilty about it -- after all, the lasses liked taking care of him, and it didn't hurt him to indulge them every once in a while -- but the drugs were taking effect, and he drifted on a warm, pleasant sea of painkiller.
"Oh my God, look at his eyes," Rodney said, sounding disgusted. "They're crossed. What did they give him?"
"The man's recovering from two bullet wounds to the chest." Sheppard sounded lazy, relaxed. "I'd say he's earned the good drugs."
"Nobody gave me the good drugs."
"That's because you got winged with a bullet on the shin, Rodney."
"Hey! I got shot while I was valiantly covering your body with my own after you fainted, Colonel."
"You were doing what with his unconscious body, Rodney?" Teyla sounded drowsy, and perfectly innocent.
"Aaargh!"
A shadow fell across Carson. He blinked and discovered Elizabeth leaning over him. Her hand brushed his forehead. "I need to head back to my office. I'll stop by to visit later, Carson. Get some sleep."
Rodney snorted. "Have you looked at him? I don't think that's going to be a problem."
"You get some sleep too, Rodney." Carson could hear the submerged laughter in Elizabeth's voice. "As you said, you were up all night watching him sweat."
"Oh, ha ha, it must be pick-on-Rodney day again," Rodney grumbled as Elizabeth's quick, clicking footsteps faded.
"Every day is pick-on-Rodney day; you know that." Sheppard's voice was a lazy murmur; he sounded halfway to sleep himself.
"And now you're falling asleep too. What's the deal here? Did someone pipe sleeping gas into the ventilation system while I wasn't looking?" Rodney interrupted himself with a loud yawn; Sheppard laughed sleepily. "Great! Now you've got me doing it!"
There was a low growl, not too far away, and Teyla said, "John, Rodney, Ronon seems quite cross. I believe he is trying to sleep, as am I. Please do not make him come over there."
Something warm was resting against Carson's hand. It had been there for some time; he'd only gradually become aware of it. Sneaking a peek from under the edge of his eyelids, he saw that it was Rodney's hand -- Rodney was leaning on the edge of Carson's bed, with one elbow propped on the bed and his free hand curled up lightly next to Carson's ... just, incidentally, brushing against the back of the other. Rodney wasn't looking at Carson; he was directing a withering glare at the other occupants of the room, marred somewhat by the fact that his head was propped up on his arm and he looked as if he was one step away from falling asleep.
"I'm not the problem here. Sheppard is the problem."
"Mm-hm," Sheppard mumbled. "Blame the sleeping man."
"Sleeping men don't talk, Colonel. You're obviously awake." Pause. "Sheppard. Colonel. Hey! Don't you know it's rude to fall asleep in the middle of a conversation? Teyla, kick him for me, would you?"
Teyla let out a long sigh.
And Carson finally fell asleep himself -- floating away to the sounds of the obnoxious, bickering, loyal family that he trusted more than he could ever find words to say.
~fin~
*odporny- Czech for "disgusting" or "horrible" (according to the Internet, anyway). Sorry for butchering the spelling; there's a little symbol over the "y" that I couldn't manage to get the word processor to spit out.
The Blackadder quote referenced in the infirmary conversation is: "Am I jumping the gun, Baldrick, or are the words 'I have a cunning plan' marching with ill-deserved confidence in the direction of this conversation?"
The basic idea of two characters with amnesia who accidentally get their identities flipped is one that had come to me several months ago when I was reading someone else's story (and now, I honestly cannot remember WHICH story) in which Sheppard and McKay are stranded somewhere without their memories. I was originally going to do it with the two of them, but it actually worked better with Carson and Rodney -- I don't think I ever realized how many similarities there are between them until I wrote this story.
The sight of the puddlejumper circling above him was the most gorgeous thing Rodney had ever seen. At the familiar sight, a cascade of fragmentary memories crashed down on top of him. It was all bits and pieces, but he remembered Atlantis, and Elizabeth, and Teyla and Ronon; he remembered what it was like to fly the jumper and feel it respond beneath his hands like a living thing; and for an instant he forgot his discomfort and his fear and the heat of Carson's life seeping away into the cold mud.
From one moment to the next, it shimmered and vanished, and that was when he remembered that the jumpers could be cloaked and wondered why it hadn't been in the first place. Then he choked as a hard hand yanked on his collar and a gun was thrust into his line of vision, angled down at Carson.
"Hey--" Rodney managed.
"Be silent!" the Commandant snarled at him, and she shouted, "Can you hear me, people from another world? I demand that you leave this place! I am not lying to you. Are you listening? Are you watching us? I will kill this man!"
Rodney was half-expecting Sheppard's voice, but he jumped at the sound of Elizabeth's. As he listened to her laying out her demands -- and couldn't help a slight grin, despite his fear, at Sheppard's typically violent caveat -- he realized that he wasn't nearly as surprised as he ought to be, to have them all here. They came for us.
His moment of euphoria vanished when the Commandant hauled him backwards, tearing him away from Carson; he tried to hang on but had to let go. The doctor's head fell back into the mud.
"If you will not let us have your doctor, I will make sure no one on your world can, either!"
Rodney couldn't talk, could barely breathe, with the gun pressing against his throat so hard that it was cutting off his air supply. No one had responded to the Commandant's demands, and he wondered what crazy thing Sheppard was planning now -- because he was, without a doubt, planning something.
When things started happening, they happened very fast. Rodney, his head tilted back, had a gorgeous view of the jumper's hatch opening. Even though he'd seen the effect before, it was still extremely disconcerting to see the interior of the jumper floating in midair -- especially at a 90 degree angle to the ground.
The Commandant looked up with a gasp just as a human body crashed into them and sent Rodney sprawling in the mud. He rolled over and pushed himself up on his hands, to see the Commandant grappling in hand-to-hand combat with an unfamiliar Marine.
"Rodney! Are you all right?"
The voice was Zelenka's. Startled, Rodney looked up; the Czech scientist had just risen from the co-pilot's chair and started down the length of the jumper towards Rodney, his body parallel to the ground. Despite understanding the physics of the jumper's artificial gravity generators , Rodney found it deeply disconcerting to see the jumper's internal gravity at such a wildly different orientation than the planet's.
"Yes, yes, never mind about that. Carson --" Rodney turned to look out through the approximately two-meter gap between the bottom of the jumper and the street. Elizabeth and another Marine were dragging Carson towards the ship.
Above him, Zelenka cried out sharply, "Colonel!" Rodney looked up and caught a split-second glimpse of everything above him, including Zelenka, starting to tumble towards him just as the lights went out.
It seemed like the entire world avalanched down on top of him, all in a wave of mud and sound and vibration. Then everything was still, silent and very nearly pitch-dark, except for a shaft of moonlight filtering down through the jumper's windshield, high above them. Rodney's ears were ringing and his mouth tasted like very unsanitary mud. There was an elbow in the small of his back, with what felt like several hundred pounds of Czech on top of it.
"What the hell happened?" Rodney demanded, spitting mud.
"The Colonel passed out, I think," Zelenka's voice said from atop him.
"Oh well, thank you very much, Sheppard!" Rodney yelled up into the darkness. "Great rescue! One for the record books! Wait -- Radek, what's wrong with him?"
"He was drug--" Zelenka began, but just then a gunshot went off, deafeningly loud in the enclosed space. In the muzzle flash, Rodney caught a glimpse of the Marine staggering backward, a spray of blood flying in the air, and then they were plunged into darkness again.
Hell. They were trapped in here with one very pissed-off enemy soldier; Elizabeth and Carson were trapped outside with an armed mob. And, Rodney realized as more fragments of memory fell into place, he was the only conscious person in the jumper -- or, hell, on the planet -- with an ATA gene.
"Radek, get off me." Without waiting for a response, Rodney shoved, hard; the weight vanished with a loud splash and an equally loud Czech curse. Reaching up, he groped until he caught hold of the cargo netting with mud-slippery hands and began to climb.
John's been shot. It was the only thing Elizabeth could think, staring at the defunct jumper.
Bradshaw suddenly let go of Carson's shoulders, and Elizabeth lunged instinctively to catch him before his head could fall in the mud. Fixated on the jumper, terrified of what might be happening to John and the others inside it, she hadn't even noticed the rebels closing around them with weapons drawn. P90 in hand, Bradshaw stood over Elizabeth and Carson, sweeping the weapon slowly around the circle of rifles pointed at them.
"I have no desire to hurt you." The speaker, the dark-haired woman from before, looked genuinely regretful. "But you cannot be allowed to continue what you are attempting."
Elizabeth had begun to shiver, as the chill of the mud seeped through her pants. She could only imagine how cold Carson must be -- the only thing he wore was a pair of loose pants, and the bandages around his chest were soaked with mud and bright patches of blood. His skin, under her hands, felt as chilly as the air. If we don't get him to Atlantis soon, we won't be rescuing a friend; we'll be recovering a body.
She clenched her teeth against a fresh wave of shudders, and tried to keep her voice calm and level. "We came here peacefully, to recover our missing friends. Believe me, if we had come as enemies, you would have known it. One small ship, such as the one you see here, has the power to destroy your village with a single shot. We asked to have our friends returned to us, and instead, your people attacked them."
The dark-haired woman shook her head. "You are already allied with our enemies. You attacked the barricade at the Ancestors' Ring, destroying it. Then you attack us with your ship, and now you mean to convince us that you come in peace?"
"If we wanted to kill you, you would already be dead. All we want is to leave here with our people."
Carson moaned softly and stirred against Elizabeth's side. She reached down and lightly stroked his muddy hair without taking her eyes off the dark-haired woman's conflicted face. Please listen to me. Please believe me.
In the darkness, Rodney climbed, trying desperately not to think of what was happening below him, or outside the jumper, or ... anywhere, really. The seventy-fifth digit of pi is 8. The value of Planck's constant is --
Below him, there were scuffling sounds and someone gave a cry of surprise or pain -- he thought it sounded like Zelenka. Then his fingers closed over the back of the pilot's seat, and he let out a soft breath of relief.
Now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, the silvery moonlight filtering in through the jumper's windshield was bright enough that he could make out Sheppard sprawled in the seat, one lanky arm dangling over the side. "Idiot," Rodney muttered, his fingertips brushing Sheppard's neck and relaxing to feel the strong beat of a pulse there. There was no way in hell that he could remove the unconscious pilot from the seat, not without running a very large risk of dropping him down the length of the jumper, so he braced himself between the two seats and leaned over Sheppard to activate the controls. Okay, start, damn you --
As the interior lights came on, the gravity did too, and suddenly he was bracing himself at entirely the wrong angle to the new direction of "down" -- he fell forward onto the console and cracked his chin painfully on a protruding lever. As his head rebounded from that, Sheppard's torso slumped forward on top of him and smushed his face against the console again. At least this time he managed to bring up his hand to catch most of the weight. Pinned between Sheppard and the controls, he cursed softly, and wriggled his way free of the unconscious pilot. Suddenly remembering the life-or-death struggle going on at the other end of the jumper, he looked back along its length -- experiencing another surge of vertigo at the sight of the muddy "floor" rising vertically across the back of the hatch.
Now that the lights were on, Rodney saw Zelenka slumped in the mud next to the apparently unconscious Marine. One hand was pressed against the side of his head; Rodney could see blood on the side of his face. Several feet away, the Commandant held a gun on the two of them. It was obvious even from here that she was totally bewildered as to what was going on -- the lights going off, the jumper falling on top of her, now the lights coming back on again ... it was probably all one step removed from magic for her, but Rodney didn't really care. Any minute now she'd figure out that he was the one in control of the ship, and then her gun would be pointing at him.
He slammed the controls forward. The jumper shuddered and then lifted free, with a great tearing shriek of metal that made Rodney wince. As far as he could tell out of the corner of his eye, the ramp had been crumpled and partly torn off when the weight of the jumper came down on it. Now, as they lifted free, it was tearing the rest of the way off. For an instant it clung to the back of the jumper by a few slowly shearing bolts, and then it came loose. The Commandant flung herself to the side, very nearly avoiding a messy death.
What a shame that would have been, Rodney thought as he guided the damaged jumper to a more conventional, horizontal landing, trying to ignore the fact that he was half-reclining in Sheppard's lap to do so. Due to his awkward angle on the controls, his "landing" of the jumper was really more of a graceless belly flop, but that worked to his advantage as well -- the rebels in the street had to scramble to avoid another cascade of mud.
"What are you people waiting for!" Rodney yelled over the jumper's external speakers.
There was a flurry of activity. Zelenka staggered to his feet and dragged the Marine into the open back of the jumper, while Elizabeth caught hold of Carson and began hauling him towards the ship. The other Marine covered Elizabeth, and Rodney -- amazed and suspicious -- saw that no one in the street opened fire. Dalan merely stood there and watched them retreat, while the others seemed to take their cue from her.
All but one. The Commandant picked herself up out of the mud. "Damn you!" she shouted, and fired wildly into the jumper. Rodney saw it happen in slow motion, but trying to throw himself out of the way was like moving through syrup. One bullet hit the windshield, and a star pattern sprang out from the point of impact. Another shot went spang! off the co-pilot's console in a shower of sparks.
"Rodney, go!" Elizabeth cried as she and the Marine tumbled into the back of the jumper with Carson between them.
He did so, lifting off into the night sky with his chest braced on the pilot's console and his hips across Sheppard's knees. Trying to shift his legs into a more comfortable position, he felt a wave of weak giddiness at the hot slippery wetness where his leg rubbed against the side of Sheppard's seat. Oh my God, I've been shot.
"Rodney, go!" Elizabeth got the words out as she sprawled on the jumper's deck plating, with Carson across her chest and Bradshaw somewhere around her legs. Twisting her head to one side, she saw Zelenka holding onto the cargo netting with one hand and, with the other, clinging to a handful of Corporal Aymes' uniform. There was blood all down the side of his face and more blood pooling on the floor beneath Aymes.
Elizabeth pushed herself up on her elbows and then wished she hadn't, as a wild panorama of rocks and trees spun through her field of vision. Everything had happened so fast that it took her a moment to realize why the scenery was dancing in front of her eyes and her hair was whipping around in a wind that shouldn't have been there. The hatch -- we lost our back door. The jumper did a lazy roll and she got an all-too-close look at a tree, the branches brushing past her face.
"Get farther inside!" Bradshaw shouted. Elizabeth wasn't sure if he was talking to her, or to Zelenka, but both of them grabbed hold of their unconscious charges and dragged them away from the too-close opening.
"Who's flying?" Elizabeth called, looking over her shoulder. From here, she couldn't tell who was in the pilot's chair.
"Well, excuse me for being shot!" came Rodney's voice, sounding panicky.
Elizabeth shrugged quickly out of her jacket and used it to cover Carson; then, hanging onto the side of the jumper, she made her way up to the front. For a moment all she could do was stare at the sight of Rodney, covered with mud from head to foot, sprawled across John's lap as he tried to control the jumper without really being able to get a good grip on the controls.
"What in the world happened in here?"
"Tell you on Atlantis," Rodney gritted between clenched teeth. "Dial the gate, would you? Ow! My leg!"
Elizabeth punched in the gate address and her IDC. Through the cracked windshield, the valley was laid out below them, a panorama in the moonlight. "Rodney, how badly are you hurt?"
"Oh right, because I can stop flying to triage myself -- not!" The gate rushed up at them, and Elizabeth fought the temptation to close her eyes.
"Dr. Weir, this is Atlantis -- we just received your code --"
"Yes, we're coming in with wounded, lower the shield!" she shouted, before the jumper's nose broke the event horizon --
-- and they were emerging in the gate room. Elizabeth caught a glimpse of startled faces staring at the battered, mud-covered jumper before it rose through the ceiling into the jumper bay. Rodney sighed and slumped away from the controls, and Elizabeth remembered John saying that the process was automatic once the ship was in Atlantis.
"Control room, this is Weir. I need a medical team in the jumper bay."
She caught hold of Rodney and helped him into the copilot's chair. He sighed, leaned back and closed his eyes, then opened them again, looking up at her. "How's Carson?"
"I don't know." Elizabeth looked over her shoulder, at Carson on the jumper's floor with Sgt. Bradshaw kneeling next to him. Zelenka had sagged down to the floor beside them. At this point, though, she didn't know what she could do; Bradshaw's first-aid skills were probably better than hers anyway. "How's your leg feeling?"
"Hurts." Rodney's pants leg was soaked with mud and the warm wetness of blood. Elizabeth decided to leave it for the medical staff, and she leaned over to take John's pulse. His skin was cool to the touch, but his heartbeat was strong.
"What happened to him?"
"Dunno. He just fainted and lost control of the jumper."
Just then the medical staff descended on them in a whirlwind of activity. Elizabeth found herself pushed to one side, watching as her injured team members were loaded onto gurneys. Rodney was helped past her, one arm over a nurse's shoulder, limping and protesting about mud and infection and the dangers of walking on an injured limb. He reached out a hand to stop his forward progress, though, when they arrived at Carson's gurney. The doctor was bundled in warming blankets so that only his head showed. IVs snaked underneath the blankets.
Rodney leaned over the injured man, heedless of the mud dripping off his clothing to soak into the white blankets. "Carson? Hey ... Carson?"
Elizabeth came up behind him, unnoticed and quiet. She could see Rodney's mud-splattered face in profile, the long lashes downcast, lips tight as he searched Carson's pale face for a response.
"Excuse me, Dr. McKay. You're in the way." One of the nurses tried to move Rodney out of her path, only to find out what an immovable object he could be when he really wanted to. The look that he gave her made her recoil.
"Rodney." Elizabeth reached out to take his arm gently. "Why don't we get you down to the infirmary and get your leg cleaned up?"
"Yeah," he muttered, not moving. One of his hands came to rest atop the part of the blanket-wrapped bundle where Carson's arm would be.
"Rodney. Come on." Feeling him relaxing against her, she led him away.
After a thorough exam, a shower and a change of clothes, Elizabeth checked in briefly with the control room to make sure that Lorne's team had been recalled -- they were heading back to the spacegate, she was told, and should be back on Atlantis inside the hour -- and then went down to the infirmary. She was surprised, pleasantly, to find Ronon and Teyla awake and out of isolation, sitting on either side of Sheppard's bed. They both looked tired and bleary, and avoided meeting the eyes of anyone around them, including each other.
Sheppard was awake, but had a washed-out, exhausted look about him. Every so often he made a surreptitious move towards getting out of bed, at which point Ronon would plant an implacable hand on his chest and push him back down.
"How are you all feeling?" Elizabeth asked, dragging up a chair to the foot of Sheppard's bed. She got three dirty looks.
"Hung over," Ronon said shortly.
Sheppard had a sheepish expression. "I, uh ... made a poor showing out there, didn't I?"
Seeing the way that he wasn't quite looking at her, Elizabeth realized that he expected ... what? A demotion? A reassignment to Antarctica? She patted his knee and smiled.
"You found your missing people, John, although next time someone tells you to stay in the infirmary, maybe it would be a good idea to do it."
He gave her a lopsided grin, but she had a feeling that he was going to be beating himself up about this for weeks to come. Hopefully Rodney could talk, or yell, some sense into him. Speaking of whom ... the sound of arguing let her know where to find another of the people she'd come to see -- though not the one she was most worried about.
"-- don't need crutches for a scratch, Rodney."
"It's not a scratch, Radek, it's a gaping hole in my leg! Look!"
"Aargh! My eyes! Odporny!"
"Oh ha ha, Radek, very funny. As if you've never seen a man's shin before."
Elizabeth drew back the curtain, with her eyes shut. "Rodney, are you decent?"
"He is ever?" Zelenka countered.
"Radek thinks that being hit in the head gave him a sense of humor, but he's wrong," Rodney informed her.
Zelenka, with a bandage on the side of his head and looking a bit pale, was sitting on the edge of Rodney's bed. Rodney himself looked reasonably healthy, although in an even worse mood than usual. "Elizabeth, help. I'm being held hostage."
"Excuse me?"
"The medical staff wishes to keep him for an observation period, since Colonel Sheppard has already passed out once," Zelenka told her.
"He fainted," Rodney said with relish. "Let's get our terminology straight here, Radek. And, aside from the gaping leg wound, I'm doing fine. The hillbilly communists gave me their antidote. My memory seems to be intact. Like I said ... fine."
"The last time that Sheppard told me that he was fine, Rodney, he then crashed a puddlejumper on top of you and Zelenka, so I'm perfectly happy to let the medical staff keep you for a while."
There was a sudden, rattling noise behind Elizabeth. She looked around and then did a double take at the sight of Sheppard's bed, rolling along smoothly on its castors, being pushed by Ronon and Teyla. Sheppard looked as if he would have happily sunk through the floor and vanished. Teyla held back the curtain while Ronon gave the bed a final hard shove; it clunked against the wall next to Rodney, who just stared. "And stay there," Ronon informed his mortified-looking team leader.
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow.
"Colonel Sheppard will not stay in bed," Teyla explained, breathing heavily. Just the exertion of pushing the bed a couple of yards had worn her out. "We thought that if we moved him here, then he would ..."
"...settle down and stay in bed." Ronon glowered down at Sheppard. "Gonna get some chairs." He ducked out of the curtained area again.
Elizabeth sighed, and sat down on the edge of Sheppard's bed, much as Zelenka was sitting on Rodney's. She really needed to stop even trying to understand or anticipate these people. It was much more interesting, and less stressful, to just watch them do their thing.
At the moment, Sheppard was plucking at his bedsheet and looking everywhere but at the other people in the room. "Er, Rodney ..."
"Oh God," Rodney said, loudly. "Please tell me there isn't some kind of awkward and hopelessly embarrassing apology staggering inappropriately in the direction of this conversation."
"Well, not now," Sheppard retorted snappishly. "Wait just a minute ... was that a butchered Blackadder quote?"
"What is ..." Teyla began, and then shut up quickly, but not before Sheppard started trying to explain it to her.
Elizabeth shifted about until she found a more comfortable position, and lulled by the familiar sound of arguing, she settled in with the rest of them ... to wait.
The first thing that Carson became aware of was a sudden, loud voice, saying, within inches of his face: "I think he moved!"
Carson flinched despite himself. It was hard not to.
"There! I'm sure he moved that time!"
"Rodney, for God's sake, give the man some air." The lazy drawl was both annoyed and indulgent. "If the first thing he sees is an intimate view of your nostrils, he'll lapse into a coma and never come out."
There was a rustling sound from just a little farther away, as of someone shifting position, and a deep, irritated voice grumbled, "If you two keep it up, you'll both be in a coma." This was followed by an immediate smack, and a low growl of, "Teyla, stop it."
"I will stop it when you cease interfering with my ability to sleep."
"Wasn't me that started it. They did."
Eyes still closed, Carson felt a grin tug at the corners of his mouth.
"Colonel! Now he's smiling!"
"Probably laughing at you, McKay."
"I said smiling. Not laughing."
"He's laughing on the inside, then."
As tempting as it was to just keep his eyes shut and drift back to sleep, Carson could feel himself getting more awake, not less. He was also becoming aware of a dull ache every time he inhaled, and an annoying tickle in his throat. On the other hand, opening his eyes would mean giving Rodney satisfaction.
"He's awake, Colonel; he's listening to us just to mock us."
"Well, mocking you is such fun, Rodney; how could he resist?"
"Oh, you're funny, Sheppard. The rapier-sharp wit, it wounds me."
"Would you two shut up?" Ronon demanded
The tickle in his throat finally became too insistent to ignore. A muffled cough turned into an uncontrollable wracking spasm, sinking claws of pain in his chest that seemed likely to tear him apart.
When he'd ridden the tide of pain to its end, he found that arms were holding him upright, and someone had tilted a cup of water to his lips. He sipped -- Slow and easy, he reminded himself -- and then opened his eyes, squinting against the infirmary lights. The person holding the cup of water was Elizabeth, her eyes crinkled with worry as she smiled at him. "Good morning, Carson. We're all glad to see you."
"Morning?" he croaked, stirring.
"Morning, yes, Carson, you know, the thing that comes after night." Rodney's voice came from just above his head, and he realized that it was Rodney's chest he was leaning against. He could see Sheppard out of the corner of his eye, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. They'd both lunged forward and caught him when he started coughing.
Swallowing, he took a deep breath and steadied his voice enough to ask, "What have you two done with my staff? Chased 'em off, eh? A real nurse might be nice about now -- no offense to you, Elizabeth dear."
"And this is the thanks we get for staying up all night, watching him sweat," Rodney complained. Sheppard gave a snort of laughter. "What? ... Oh. You have the sense of humor of a ten-year-old, don't you?"
"Teyla's gone to find a nurse, Carson," Elizabeth told him, setting the cup of water somewhere out of his line of sight. "Most of your staff has been working around the clock ... things've just now settled down."
Carson's stomach lurched, a host of worst-case scenarios spinning through his hazy brain. Disease, mass injury ... "What ... happened?"
It took Elizabeth a moment to realize why he looked so worried. "Oh! No, I didn't mean ... When John's team came back from P1R-4P2 with the drug in their system, we thought there was some sort of contagion, and then your staff was scrambling to try to figure out what the drug was, so that we could treat it. It turned out that it was largely harmless, though."
"Speak for yourself," Sheppard muttered.
Elizabeth ignored him. "The worst injuries are yours, Carson. One of the Marines was shot rescuing you, but not severely."
"I was shot too," Rodney protested in a peevish voice.
Elizabeth smiled at him, a trifle wearily. "Yes, Rodney, we know."
At that point Teyla came back with not one but three nurses in two, all of whom descended on their startled boss in a flurry of concern. Unlike certain other people's underlings, Carson's people adored him ... sometimes a little too much, when he was on the opposite side of the infirmary bed. On the infrequent occasions in the past when he'd actually managed to get himself hospitalized for one thing or another, he usually ended up checking himself out early just to escape the stifling mothering.
Fortunately in this case, Sheppard's team finally came in handy for something -- they saw his distress and, once he'd gotten another dose of morphine and fresh pillows, chased off the nurses. Carson felt vaguely guilty about it -- after all, the lasses liked taking care of him, and it didn't hurt him to indulge them every once in a while -- but the drugs were taking effect, and he drifted on a warm, pleasant sea of painkiller.
"Oh my God, look at his eyes," Rodney said, sounding disgusted. "They're crossed. What did they give him?"
"The man's recovering from two bullet wounds to the chest." Sheppard sounded lazy, relaxed. "I'd say he's earned the good drugs."
"Nobody gave me the good drugs."
"That's because you got winged with a bullet on the shin, Rodney."
"Hey! I got shot while I was valiantly covering your body with my own after you fainted, Colonel."
"You were doing what with his unconscious body, Rodney?" Teyla sounded drowsy, and perfectly innocent.
"Aaargh!"
A shadow fell across Carson. He blinked and discovered Elizabeth leaning over him. Her hand brushed his forehead. "I need to head back to my office. I'll stop by to visit later, Carson. Get some sleep."
Rodney snorted. "Have you looked at him? I don't think that's going to be a problem."
"You get some sleep too, Rodney." Carson could hear the submerged laughter in Elizabeth's voice. "As you said, you were up all night watching him sweat."
"Oh, ha ha, it must be pick-on-Rodney day again," Rodney grumbled as Elizabeth's quick, clicking footsteps faded.
"Every day is pick-on-Rodney day; you know that." Sheppard's voice was a lazy murmur; he sounded halfway to sleep himself.
"And now you're falling asleep too. What's the deal here? Did someone pipe sleeping gas into the ventilation system while I wasn't looking?" Rodney interrupted himself with a loud yawn; Sheppard laughed sleepily. "Great! Now you've got me doing it!"
There was a low growl, not too far away, and Teyla said, "John, Rodney, Ronon seems quite cross. I believe he is trying to sleep, as am I. Please do not make him come over there."
Something warm was resting against Carson's hand. It had been there for some time; he'd only gradually become aware of it. Sneaking a peek from under the edge of his eyelids, he saw that it was Rodney's hand -- Rodney was leaning on the edge of Carson's bed, with one elbow propped on the bed and his free hand curled up lightly next to Carson's ... just, incidentally, brushing against the back of the other. Rodney wasn't looking at Carson; he was directing a withering glare at the other occupants of the room, marred somewhat by the fact that his head was propped up on his arm and he looked as if he was one step away from falling asleep.
"I'm not the problem here. Sheppard is the problem."
"Mm-hm," Sheppard mumbled. "Blame the sleeping man."
"Sleeping men don't talk, Colonel. You're obviously awake." Pause. "Sheppard. Colonel. Hey! Don't you know it's rude to fall asleep in the middle of a conversation? Teyla, kick him for me, would you?"
Teyla let out a long sigh.
And Carson finally fell asleep himself -- floating away to the sounds of the obnoxious, bickering, loyal family that he trusted more than he could ever find words to say.
~fin~
*odporny- Czech for "disgusting" or "horrible" (according to the Internet, anyway). Sorry for butchering the spelling; there's a little symbol over the "y" that I couldn't manage to get the word processor to spit out.
The Blackadder quote referenced in the infirmary conversation is: "Am I jumping the gun, Baldrick, or are the words 'I have a cunning plan' marching with ill-deserved confidence in the direction of this conversation?"
The basic idea of two characters with amnesia who accidentally get their identities flipped is one that had come to me several months ago when I was reading someone else's story (and now, I honestly cannot remember WHICH story) in which Sheppard and McKay are stranded somewhere without their memories. I was originally going to do it with the two of them, but it actually worked better with Carson and Rodney -- I don't think I ever realized how many similarities there are between them until I wrote this story.
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the obnoxious, bickering, loyal family that he trusted more than he could ever find words to say.
That's them all right! :O)
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I'm glad the identity-switch plot device worked. I was a little worried it'd be too gimmicky.
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The plot device worked fine for me. It's not whether the thing is workable IMO, it's how the writer puts the thing on paper. You write these great adventures, so it's fun to ride the wave of the story.
It would be fun to try a similar identity-switch thing with about 10 people, with Ronon thinking he's Rodney and Teyla thinking that she's Elizabeth and Zelenka thinking that he's one of the cooks and so forth. In fact, it would be fun to try it with all of Atlantis mis-knowing each other and themselves and, oh, what a mess that would be!
But your story was just a nice, zippy read, with enough whump to keep me satisfied for a while, and enough tension to make me feel pleasantly drained. *smiles*
Uh-oh
Re: Uh-oh
Re: Uh-oh
My sister and I were discussing doing a bodyswap-fic awhile back that she wanted to write, but I think she dropped the idea. She was going to do it to the whole team, and then keep switching them (hadn't quite figured out what was causing it, though) so just when they'd start getting used to it one way, they'd all change again.
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Feedback
Re: Feedback
Fabulous as always!
"-- don't need crutches for a scratch, Rodney."
"It's not a scratch, Radek, it's a gaping hole in my leg! Look!"
"Aargh! My eyes! Odporny!"
Of course, I love Radek even more than Sheppard, and you write him with just enough edge to make it right!
You know, I think I read that Sheppard/McKay switched identity fic, too. They were on a planet...and McKay was the one the natives wanted? Maybe not. It was by an author I like, though...Maybe they'll see this story and pipe up! I wouldn't mind reading it again.
Also, thanks for explaining the Blackadder quote - I have only seen snippets of that series. I actually like your version better!
Re: Fabulous as always!
I love writing Zelenka. He's incredibly fun, and so few fanfic writers really do much with him.
So glad you've enjoyed the story!
Switch-fic
http://sg1-heliopolis.com/atlantis/archive/2/swapmeet.php
The Stargate goes wonky and everyone on SGA-1 gets switched: John in Teyla's body, Rodney in Ford's, Teyla in Rodney's, Ford in John's...It's not the one I was thinking of, but weird to run into it, huh?
Re: Switch-fic
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I love when Rodney gets protective of his team so so much.
... Now, off to get some sleep, myself.
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(Anonymous) 2006-12-04 07:25 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
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This was just a lovely fic and thanks for sharing. ^_^
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Carson's and Rodney's arguement over accents put me in stitches.
Everybody in the fandom always makes such a big deal over Carson's accent, but nobody ever deals with the idea that to HIM, everyone else has accents that are just as strong! So I couldn't help myself. Glad you liked it!
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I really like to see Rodney protective in this strange way of his. He is there for Carson, even if he covers it with a lot of bickering :)
Great story :)
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And yes, I can't help thinking of the Sateda scene, where Rodney is willing to go charging out into a bunch of Wraith to stop Carson from doing it. He really *is* a loyal friend, if a very whiny one. ;)
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the "leave a comment on my livejournal" link on your website for this story isn't working.
But I finally got around to reading this fic and, well, YAY! I love how you write the team and hurt/comfort and I admit to early on guessing the Rodney-Carson switcheroo but you still pulled it off really well and I loved how Rodney dealed with it and the whole creativity with landing the jumper the way the did.
*squishes team*
(also, as much as I love your John and Rodney, I love how you write all the other characters so very much)
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::headdesk:: Thanks! I am SUCH a flake when it comes to keeping my website updated and all the links working.
But thank you for coming and leaving feedback anyway, and I'm really happy that you liked it, especially since this is no longer your main reading fandom (and I know from experience that it takes more to engage me with fic for a show that's not the main focus of my fannish attention). So thank you very much; the amnesia character switch is one I've been wanting to do ever since the first amnesia fic I read in this fandom, though I'd originally envisioned it with John and Rodney ... but it worked better this way anyhow!
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