Chapter Text
The steep, twisting staircase looked like Everest, but Ronon wrapped a strong arm around John and half-lifted him up each step, his easy intimacy and softness as ever confounding John as much as it warmed him. One crutch did the rest of the work, the other waiting at the foot of the stairs for Ronon to bring after.
Ronon eased John onto the bed. He felt kitten-weak and pathetic as Ronon carefully unlaced and removed his shoes and gently lifted his dressed and braced leg up onto the bed. There were extra pillows so he could sit up, leaning against the headboard.
“Rest, cuz. I’ll bring you food in an hour.”
John looked around the room. Ronon had painted the lumpy old walls a leafy green, and the duvet covers were yellow with fine white stripes, but the furniture was the same as had been in here when John was six; a battered old oak chest of drawers with fancy handles against the far wall under the window overlooking the garden. It sat between the square-panelled footboards of a duo of 1930s single wooden beds. On a simple dark wood side table between his bed and the door stood a bottle of water, a glass, and a bowl of fruit. John’s laptop, camera and books had been stowed on the lower tier of the table.
“Ronon…” John stopped him before he left. “This is… thanks, it means a lot.”
His eyes were watery, and Ronon turned back and gave his bicep a squeeze, leaned down and pressed a kiss to his temple. John was eternally amazed by his cousin’s easy affection, and right now so thankful for it.
“Sleep,” he ordered, and John obeyed easily.
The next day, John woke from a long afternoon nap to the sound of knocking.
“Yeah?”
“You’ve got a visitor,” Ronon said gruffly as he poked his head round the door. “It’s McKay.”
So Ronon wasn’t done being angry.
“Send him in,” John said, feeling somewhat mixed feelings towards Rodney himself.
Towards all of them.
Rodney’s presence filled the room, though, in a way that had John’s heart doing funny things. John took in his wavering smile and his twitching fingers and melted way too easily. He carried a large cardboard box under one arm.
“Have a seat, Rodney,” John said gently.
“Oh, um…” Rodney grabbed the simple rush-seated chair from the far corner of the room and pulled it nearer, sitting down with the box on his lap.
“I, um, brought you some things to borrow.”
He was so shy and hesitant, so obviously, and unsurprisingly, unsure of his welcome.
He pulled out comics, DC and Marvel, and the rest of the Farscape dvds. Cool. Then he handed John another DVD in a clear jewel case, spiky black handwriting on its surface proclaiming simply “films”.
“There’s a bunch of stuff on there, including some new releases,” Rodney said, only letting himself smile when he saw John’s grinning response.
“Very cool, McKay, thank-you.”
Rodney looked in the box as if the remaining contents might be explosive or something. Eventually, he pulled out some chocolates and a jam-jar with the label soaked off, stuffed full of white roses and the big oxeye daisies from his garden.
“I know you like flowers, given the photos and your liberating of these from the Martian weed that was taking over my garden. And who doesn’t like chocolates, right?”
John looked at the large purple box. Cadbury’s Milk Tray. Those were Granny’s favourites. John suddenly had a memory of the ads from the 70s, some spy-coded guy in a black turtle-neck daring shark infested waters to bring an unseen woman a box of these chocolates. ‘And all because the lady loves Milk Tray’. He gave a little snort.
Rodney deflated.
“I know they’re not fancy, but Spar doesn’t really do fancy…”
“I like these ones, Rodney, I was just reminiscing. And I like the flowers, too.”
He put them on the bedside table, feeling awkward about the implications of Rodney bringing him flowers, but also? It was sweet. Rodney might genuinely have some asshole qualities, he now realised, but underneath it all, the guy was basically marshmallow.
“I don’t know if Ronon’s going to forgive me, is he? Or you…” Rodney said sadly. “I should’ve thought of the impact of what we were asking before I opened my big mouth…”
He stopped mid-sentence, pulling the alien device out of the box and sweeping the room with it.
“A mission to Kazakhstan wasn’t the thing to open with, not to two veterans of Afghanistan. I’m sorry.”
Rodney had been insensitive, for sure, thinking two ex-servicemen would be excited by the idea of a foreign mission to central Asia. John still couldn’t quite explain why he’d been triggered into flashbacks so badly that night, though. Sometimes he thought the flashbacks came worse when he’d not thought about any of it for a while, as if they built up behind a dam somewhere in the back of his brain. All he could remember after that was Ronon growling at them all.
“He’s not ready for this. For fuck’s sake, let the man have some peace!”
Ronon was probably right.
“Kazakhstan isn’t Afghanistan, and the mission isn’t military, I get it, I just… I’m sorry,” John said tiredly, “I’m still pretty broken.”
“Not broken…” Rodney’s face grew even unhappier, and he played with his cuffs awkwardly. “God, in my line of work, everyone has trauma. That’s why I was so careless, see, I don’t always plug my feelings in when I’m talking, sometimes it’s easier not to.”
“Okay, I get that. And Ronon’ll come round, he’s just being protective.”
He tore the cellophane off the chocolates and offered one to Rodney, who scrutinised the legend on the inside lid for a long time before choosing. John just took one at random. Mmmm, hazelnut swirl.
“I’m sorry we have to keep so much under wraps,” Rodney went on. “It might make more sense if… but Ronon’s right, you both need this peaceful life. I wouldn’t say no to that myself.”
“Gotta say, global travel doesn’t feel so doable just now,” John admitted. “And not just because I’m laid up after an operation and my brain is foggy as hell.”
“No, I don’t suppose it is. And, well, mitigating factors… there are things you really should know, but they’re not for me to tell.”
“So, when are you gonna leave?” John asked him, taking another chocolate to distract himself from the ache that thought set off.
Strawberry cream. Yeah, he liked those ones more than he was supposed to.
He shoved the box at Rodney, who made his second selection a little quicker, his brow furrowed.
“Leave?” he sounded confused by that. “We aren’t going to leave. We bought up the cottages and the rights to study the shell Wisht left. Our former employers get a cut of any new tech we create from it, and that was enough to convince them we had a legacy plan now Wisht is gone.”
“Strange place to use as a base for travel,” John pointed out, ignoring the flood of relief that his friends were staying.
“You have a point,” Rodney admitted, “but we like it here.”
That last was said with a look that John could only describe as hopeful.
“I’m sorry I’m not ready to…” John trailed off, eating another chocolate instead of finishing the sentence.
John woke to dawn light flooding through the gap in the curtains, lighting the little jam jar of flowers with a bright streak and creating delicious shadows. John groggily reached for his camera and started to take arty little shots of the light on the petals, the contrast of the shadows. He felt like crap still, but as ever viewing the world through a camera lens distracted him. And the flowers made him smile.
Rodney McKay was a conundrum. John wished he was ready to leap into what seemed to be simmering between them, but there was nothing to be done right now about these feelings.
No guy had ever brought him flowers. Not even Nancy had done that.
As John took another shot of where a rose petal had dropped, bisected by the curtain’s shadow, he noticed a ring mark on the table, and realised that had already been there when he stayed in this room as a kid. It gave him an odd feeling, like vertigo. He lay back, suddenly exhausted, and contemplated the room he was in.
There were two bedrooms in the cottage, and a little upstairs bathroom that had clearly been a later addition, although it predated John’s time. His Granny might have once bathed in the kitchen, in an old tin tub, and somewhere in the garden, probably where the woodshed was now, there would have been an outside toilet. John realised, remembering boxes under the beds and shelves full of books, that this had been his mom’s room, his room, after the father he’d never known had been killed and his mom had come to live here before her ill-fated second marriage to Patrick Sheppard.
One day, he thought he might trace that side of his family, but his heart couldn’t take more of that, not just now. He might go see his Great Uncle’s farm, the one that his mom and her sister grew up on, too. But for now, he was still bracing himself for meeting Peggy, Ronon’s mom.
And then back in ‘76, his mom had fled here, fled from Patrick with him and Dave, and they had stayed, the three of them, in this one room, Davey in a cot at the end of Mom’s bed. They hadn’t had much, just what Grace had packed for a holiday, and she’d never told them what was going on. It had seemed like a never-ending holiday to John, the spring and summer of 1976.
John had never asked when they were going back, though. He’d never wanted to leave here.
This should have been his home, but his father had stolen that from him, stolen his mom’s right to die in the place of her choosing, have her kids raised in kindness.
He curled up, feeling nauseous and heartsore and like nothing could ever be put back together the way it needed to be.
Sometime later, he heard Ronon’s soft tread coming up the stairs. Which was odd, because he didn’t hear Ronon going down the stairs.
“Morning,” he called out.
Ronon put his head round the door, looking sleepy, his wavy hair bed-tousled.
“Hey, you’re awake early,” he said.
“That was gonna be my line. Didn’t even hear you go downstairs.”
“Didn’t. I sleep downstairs.”
“Huh? Where?”
“The shed,” Ronon said with a grin. “Well, what was a shed, then was converted to a studio years ago, then my room when I came back here.”
John remembered the stone lean-to along the side of the house as a store-room, full of curious clutter. He realised it would make a nice-sized room, but still…
“What about the other bedroom up here?” he asked gently.
“Granny’s room,” Ronon said, ducking his head and scrubbing at his face. “I… didn’t get around to clearing it out yet. I cleaned, you know, cos I thought she was coming home. Cancer’s quick, in the end. Mum didn’t even make it back in time.”
Oh Ronon. John hadn’t really seen his grief until this moment, so wrapped up in his own. But he knew that thing with cancer, how it goes on forever and then the end is sudden, swallowing up the person like wildfire. It had been like that with his mom.
“Must’ve been hard.”
His words felt empty but what was there to say? Ronon heaved in a breath and looked at him, face soft.
“You can go look, if you like. It’s just like she left it.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“Course not. She was your granny too. Maybe you can help me sort things, when you’re ready?”
John couldn’t believe he was being let into this so open-heartedly.
“Sure, cuz, I’d… I’d be honoured to help.”
“Cool… that’s cool. I’m, uh, gonna…” he waved his hand towards the bathroom. “Then d’you want some breakfast?”
“That’d be good. Ready for a cup of tea and all.”
Ronon turned to leave.
“Hey, Ronon,” John said softly.
Ronon turned back.
“I’m… I’m sorry you lost her.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
Each time after that when John got up to go to the bathroom, he stared at the closed door of Granny’s room, willing himself to go in. Just a year and change—that was all the time he’d missed her by. Did it even make sense to grieve for a woman he hadn’t seen in half a lifetime?
But if this wasn’t grief, what was the endless ache he felt, this fear of opening a door, looking inside and finding her gone?
“I knew she and Dad—Patrick—didn’t get along,” he told Kat over Ronon’s cordless phone at his therapy appointment on Monday morning. “I thought she played a part in staying away. Didn’t know I’d been stolen from her home.”
“I can hear the anger in that loss, John.”
John knew he was angry, but he didn’t want to be. He’d always been told he was an angry kid, an angry young man. He tried to explain that to Kat.
“Well, maybe you had reason,” she said simply.
After that, John wrote Patrick Sheppard a dozen uncensored emails, and deleted each one. Words like bastard and kidnapper and not my real father and controlling, abusive piece of shit.
Patrick had never hit anyone. He’d never needed to. He left deeper bruises, ones you couldn’t see.
After two more days of being chickenshit, John went into the room.
The smell was the thing that hit first—cigarettes and lavender, still lingering even after all this time. It was odd how comforting he found it. The small room was dominated by a single bed with an emerald-green bedspread, embroidered with thick darker green and blue thread. John sat on the bed, propping his crutches, and took in the room. An old seventies fitted wardrobe down one side, the doors uneven and chipped. An antique dressing table with an upholstered stool in front of it; faded, worn velvet that might once have been purple. A wooden triptych mirror on top. On one side of the mirror hung a small selection of hippyish necklaces, colourful beads and pendants on leather thongs. On the other, a larger selection of scarves. Granny had loved scarves, worn round her neck or tying her hair back. Here, they were a colourful display of blues and greens and purples, each a little piece of art, a little piece of her.
He limped over to them, running fingers through the silk, bringing them up to his face and inhaling their lingering scent.
He could remember her arms around him, even now.
“You’re a special one, Johnny. So sensitive. Don’t let the world tell you that’s a bad thing to be.”
He almost scoffed at her remembered words. He was a hard bastard who’d taken lives and dragged a dying comrade through the desert with a busted knee. There was nothing sensitive about John Sheppard. Not anymore.
But he was still recovering from surgery, so if he needed to lie down on Granny’s bed and rest, well, that was only natural.
Ronon found him there, later, fast asleep on top of the bedspread.
“Made soup,” he said, showing John a tray with crusty bread and a bowl full of something intensely green.
John wriggled himself into a seated position and took the food gratefully, dipping the bread into the thick green soup, savouring the rich, herby flavours that broke across his tongue.
“Damn, Ronon, this is so good.”
Ronon looked around the room, his face sad and clearly full of memories.
“She thought the world of you,” he said eventually. “Missed you.”
John didn’t know what to say and couldn’t trust his voice in that moment anyway.
Teyla turned up the next Friday, on a gently sunny day, to find John downstairs doing his physio, and Ronon out in the garden harvesting peas. Ronon was a fraction less cold with her than he had been with Rodney, but remained wary. He came in with a basket full of peapods and dumped them on the old coffee table—the one that had one leg worn down by the claws of long departed felines.
“I would like to tell you a little more,” she said, “although I am not planning to mention any overseas plans.”
Ronon tensed, but then his shoulders sagged.
“If you help shell the peas,” he said.
“You have a deal, my friend,” she responded with a smile.
While Teyla released her device to check the house again for bugs, Ronon made them tea and brought bowls for them to shell the peas into, and separate ones for the pods.
"Gonna make wine outa them," Ronon said with a grin.
John had already tried Ronon's dandelion wine, and one made from tea, both unusual but kinda good, so he was prepared to suspend judgement about the peapods.
He also brought out a packet of custard creams, which he’d bought just for John’s six-year-old tastebuds. John surreptitiously dunked one in his tea and let it melt in his mouth. It didn’t taste anything like custard or cream, just a cheaper, vanilla version of an Oreo cookie, but he liked it just the same. Liked the memory of his first taste of them, smiling up at Granny not just because of the biscuit but because she always seemed so joyful from his small pleasures.
He set about the assigned task, enjoying watching the pods separate under pressure, sliding his fingernail into the gap and splitting the seam open. Then he pushed the row of peas out from the silky insides, a satisfying, sensual motion. The repetitive process grounded him.
“We are all very sorry to have caused you such distress, John. Please trust me that we will not attempt to ask you to go overseas again. This is only a part of our intended work, and we will find another way.”
“But you still want him to work for you,” Ronon said, full of suspicion. “And you still won’t tell us who you’re working for.”
“There is only so much I can risk sharing until we have a written agreement,” she said, “and even then… some of what we know, we are bound to keep to ourselves. But the existence of the Ancients and their technology, your genetic heritage, that you already know about and we cannot hide.”
“You’re working for powerful folks who keep this stuff from their own people, that much I can figure out,” Ronon said, his face hardening. “Already been a pawn in international power plays once, not gonna do it again.”
“I can see how that reading makes sense,” Teyla admitted. “And you are somewhat right about our past. We are doing our best to extricate ourselves from that very situation and are ourselves at risk for keeping so much from our former employers, but it is necessary, important, to disentangle what we do from Earth politics. One benefit we do have is that Atlantis is no more and its offspring, Wisht, is gone, meaning a power once desperately sought for is perpetually out of reach.”
As she spoke, she carefully watched John shelling his peas and copied, as if she had never done such a thing before. John wondered again just where in the world she was from.
“You didn’t tell them about the other ships that were made from Atlantis,” he observed.
“We did not. They know there are more ships, of course, but not that others came to Earth. I think it serves their ways of seeing things to imagine this only happened in Europe.”
Well, that made a certain kind of racist sense, John thought glumly.
“When you are better, John, I’d like you to see what Wisht has left us with and help us decide how to use this legacy for good” she said simply. “And you, Ronon, if you are willing. That is all I ask, and you have some time to decide.”
John was restless after Teyla left. Something in him was called towards the idea of being involved in some amorphous, unclear good cause. Another part of him felt, like Ronon did, the risk of being used, ultimately for harm. He needed purpose, though, was sick of feeling rudderless.
He slung the camera over his shoulder and went out with just the one crutch, opening the side gate and letting himself out into the lane. The cottage’s abundant garden was raised above the road, enclosed by a beautiful old granite wall. John leaned his crutch against the wall and began taking close-up studies of the landscapes in the stonework, the moss and lichen-covered highlands and verdant valleys, full of fern, herb robert, stonecrop.
John picked his crutch back up and wandered further down the narrow lane, stopping to take pictures of bugs and leaves and the wildflowers in the hedgerows. A couple of kids, boys of around ten, came past on their bikes, stopping to size him up.
“You taking pictures of flowers?” one asked.
John nodded.
“That’s gay,” the boy said.
John tensed, but let his face smile at the boy.
“And gay is bad because?”
The boy frowned, unable to answer.
John wanted to patiently explain to the kid how he was a war vet. Tell him when he inevitably got all wide-eyed that none of it mattered, it never helped a damn thing. Nothing. The world wasn’t safer because he’d killed. What he was doing right now—making art—was far more meaningful, and the bravest thing he’d ever done was letting himself love Lyle.
He shook his head and gave a sad smile. This boy would likely be the kind of man he needed to be for those who had authority in his life. Nothing John said would make a damn bit of difference because he had no power here. People believed what they needed to believe to get through the reality created for them. He turned back to his photo, focusing the macro lens on the tiny hogweed florets, contrasting with the dark inner shadow of the hedge.
When he got back, tired and sore, he wrote another unmailable email to his dad, a torrent of fuck you ’s.
John went home after a fortnight. He loved his cousin, but he needed to be more independent, even if it was Ronon who dropped him back at Radek’s place. The Bonnie would be idle for a while yet.
Radek hugged John warmly when he arrived.
“Welcome home, John. You’ve been missed.”
Neither John nor Ronon had the temperament to hold a grudge for long against any of their mysteriously-employed friends, though Ronon was still cool towards Rodney. And John had missed the little Czech, missed the life he’d made for himself here. Some things were still the same, even if his worldview had been upended.
“I have made a roast beef dinner. Is traditional for returning prodigal, yes?”
John chuckled.
“Sounds good to me.”
“And Ronon, my friend, you will stay? And I’ll ask the others too.”
Ronon nodded, his resentment slowly wearing away.
John eyed the plate Radek put in front of him hungrily. Thinly sliced beef, pink in the middle, roast spuds and Yorkshire pudding, greens on the side, swimming in home-made gravy. Granny had made a roast every Sunday, like clockwork, serving up cold leftovers and salad each Monday.
He reached for the horseradish sauce, remembering the hot nose-tickle it had given him as a kid. He’d shied away from it since, but now he wanted to see what his adult palate made of it. Smearing some on a slice of beef, he nibbled at it carefully. The sensation was there just the same, like a sneeze that wouldn’t come, but the taste was good, blending perfectly with the beef and gravy. Also, it was familiar.
“Where do I know this taste from?” John asked, because this wasn’t his six-year-old memory at all.
“You like sushi?” Rodney asked, somewhat confusingly.
“Yeah,” John answered, his face a question.
“Wasabi,” Rodney explained.
Of course. John helped himself to a large dollop of the white, creamy stuff that looked nothing like wasabi.
“So, I spoke to Peter Grodin,” Elizabeth said.
John’s head jerked up at the name, remembering a muggy night in Exeter and a man’s soft, lost, kisses.
“I hope he’s not feeling too bruised that we weren’t able to honour his contract,” Radek said.
So, Peter had been going to take the fourth cottage and join their research before Wisht flew away.
“They’ve found something else for him to do,” Elizabeth said. “Over in Colorado.”
Rodney looked disappointed.
“Damn. I didn’t want the Americans to get him,” Rodney said.
“Yes, well we couldn’t very well keep him on without raising suspicion,” Radek responded.
John gave Radek a puzzled look, and scanned the room with his eyes, as if for hidden watchers.
“Oh, we swept for bugs,” Rodney assured him. “Turns out the ones in Radek’s house were deactivated. Which is interesting and not altogether reassuring.”
John didn’t know if he wanted an explanation for that, but he supposed it meant his friends had more than one group of people watching them.
“So, this Peter guy,” John said, as if the name was unfamiliar, as if he didn’t remember their bodies pressed together in a dimly lit alleyway.
“Is a smart guy,” Rodney said. “I mean, he’s no me, but he would’ve been a great asset.”
John smiled at the chorus of eye-rolls this comment elicited.
“Rodney, you said the man was only slightly more intelligent than your microwave oven,” Radek retorted.
“Well, that oven’s state of the art, I’ll have you know,” Rodney fired back.
He and Radek snarked back and forth for a while and John watched riveted. So yeah, Rodney really was an asshole, and arrogant as all fuck, and dammit, it turned him on a little. His eyes drifted to Ronon, thinking this would only solidify his cousin’s discomfort with McKay, but Ronon was just watching him with a knowing smile. Everyone else at the table was eyeing Rodney with exasperated fondness.
“Okay, so answer me one thing,” Ronon said finally, breaking through the increasingly incomprehensible bickering.
They all turned to him, suddenly attentive.
“What’s your north star?” Ronon asked. “Cos fuck all the politics and shadowy organisations and what they want. What do you all want?”
“Scientific discovery for the benefit of mankind,” Rodney said without a beat.
Radek nodded vigorously.
“And liberation,” he chimed in. “For people, and for the vessels.”
Rodney’s fingers wagged in agreement.
“Sanctuary,” Teyla added. “For any who need it.”
“Tools for peace that cannot be misused,” Elizabeth added.
“And a Nobel prize,” Rodney concluded.
John smiled. Then he thought of Wisht and its kindred—sophisticated interstellar lifeboats without weapons—and realised the very concept of advanced technology that could not be used to gain power over people might shift so much in human consciousness. But he wasn’t fool enough not to realise some folks might see that notion as a threat, folks who were terrified of equality.
“If I do ever work with you, there’s two conditions,” Ronon said.
“Go on,” Elizabeth answered.
“One, I’m not giving up walling. It keeps my head on straight.”
“Not a problem,” Elizabeth responded. “And the second condition?”
“People need to know. Maybe it’ll take time to figure out how to get it out there, but that has to be the goal.”
“It is,” Teyla said, “and there are plans, but it will take time.”
“Okay, I’m ready to hear more,” Ronon said. “Won’t know for sure til I get a better picture.”
Everyone looked at John. John thought of the way he’d fallen apart that night they first asked to bring him in. He felt through his body and located shaky parts that were still healing, and not just from surgery. He didn’t think there was room for more stress in his life, not yet. He knew he’d never be all fixed, but right now he felt held together with weak string and chewing gum. And he was scared his friends were tangled up with people like his dad, not ready to be caught himself in all that.
“I… I want to say yes, but I’m not ready yet. Gimme time?” and wasn’t that the most vulnerable he’d been in an age.
Rodney reached a hand and closed it over his, firm and reassuring.
“We have all the time in the world, John. There are no deadlines but the ones we make ourselves, and the more the heat goes out of this situation and folks stop keeping an eye on us, frankly the better.”
“He is right,” Teyla said. “Next month, next year, it matters not. Meanwhile we can do what we said we would do, and make breakthroughs based on what Wisht left us that will fund whatever we plan for the future.”
“And I cosign Ronon’s conditions, too. Walling helps me. And I need to know who we’re doing this for, and who we’re working against.”
He still wasn’t sure just what his friends planned, but his trust was growing back a little. His gut told him this was important.