Notice Anything?

Title: A World Called Catastrophe
Author: perspi
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 8168
Pairing: Gen
Summary: When the world ends in a flash of orange and yellow, the last thing John feels is the sensation of flying.
Relates to Episodes: Through Season 2
Disclaimer: Me, I own nothing.
Notes: Thanks as always to my stalwart First Readers, who ask Excellent Questions, and especially deelaundry for the postcard-pulling at the end. Title comes courtesy of a Matthew Good song--oh, those Canadians! Team friendship, hurt/comfort, nobody dies.

Comments and concrit always welcome.
 

A World Called Catastrophe



When the world ends in a flash of orange and yellow, the last thing John feels is the sensation of flying.

---

John, can you hear me? John?

Sheppard!

Oh God he's not moving

McKay, we need to go!

We can't, we can't move him—

No choice

At least a backboard—

If we do not go now, we will be cut off from the gate

Ronon!

Come on, McKay!

 

---

John wakes to the sound of a whispered argument and for a moment, all is right with the world. A soft beeping next to his ear keeps time to the argument; Rodney's voice rises and falls in a syncopated rhythm, Teyla murmurs a velvety counterpoint and Elizabeth adds the high notes. John lies still, listening to the familiar cadences of Rodney winding himself up, and for a moment, he is home.

Until he tries to say hello, and he becomes aware of something snaking up his nose and down his throat, and his mouth tastes of plastic and electricity. His mouth is full of plastic, pressing down on his tongue and keeping him from swallowing. He tries to pull the plastic out—tubes, they're tubes—but his arms won't move. Nothing will move.

The beeping speeds up.

The argument fades into background noise under the roaring in his ears; he tries to open his eyes but they feel weighted, taped shut. He's trapped and numb and he can't—he can't even draw a deep breath for a scream; a machine keeps his chest pumping steadily with a soft hiss in his ears. He tries to thrash
to move
to get up
to get out
he tries so hard and finally, finally he sees a sliver of light, white and clean and searing, through the crack between his eyelids.

"He is waking," Teyla's voice cuts smooth and low under the rest of the noise.

"Everybody out," Carson says, sharp and commanding, and of course, it's his infirmary. Not even Rodney will argue with that voice in here.

---

After Carson leaves him alone to rest, John catalogs again, for himself this time, what he can feel. Tingling on his head and neck like he's got grit stuck to his skin, the rub of a tube against his collarbone, and inexplicably, the cool sheets against his left shin and ankle. He tightens the muscle, feels the sheet move a little as his foot twitches.

You should regain some feeling once the swelling is gone.

His world seems suddenly very, very small.

---

Teyla is first to visit him the next day. She greets him with a genuine smile and pointedly ignores the bandages and the lack of verbal response, confidently meeting his eyes with her own. She tells him news from the city like they're gossiping at breakfast, and doesn't stop talking when a nurse comes in to check him over. Before she leaves, Teyla leans in to gently touch her forehead to his, as close as she can get below the brace around his head. John is silently thankful to feel her warm breath on his face.

Carson is next, checking bandages and sensation and charts and machines. He rearranges the bed so John is sitting up a bit, enough that he can see out the window. This is when John knows he's in for a long haul, when he realizes he gets a room with a view.

Elizabeth comes late in the morning. She can't seem to stop looking at the bandages, at all the parts of John he can't feel and can't move. She doesn't meet his eyes as she tells him what he already knows: They don't have the equipment for his long-term care, the SGC wants to recall him to Earth, she's trying to come up with a way to keep him here. Pull the plug, he thinks, but she won't look at his face, and she leaves with a brisk goodbye.

Rodney is sitting in the visitor's chair the next time John wakes up. The windows are dark, the room lit with a single lamp over the bed. Rodney looks him in the eye and asks, point blank, if he wants to go back to Earth. John slowly, deliberately blinks twice. Rodney takes a deep breath, like he's steeling himself for the next disaster, and nods. He rests his hand on John's ankle, warm and heavy and solid, and promises he will find a way to keep John in Atlantis.

Ronon doesn't visit.

---

When they change bandages, John sees the raw flesh of his right side where the grenade burned away his clothes and skin. For a moment, he's glad he can't feel anything.

---

The 'blink once for yes and twice for no' thing is getting old really fast, so John spends the next morning remembering his Morse code. When Rodney comes he actually brings a lunch to eat while he visits, and John tries out the first thing that comes to mind.

"...and it's obvious they have no clue what they're doing, but does that stop them? Does that even make them pause? You don't have to flutter your lashes at me, Sheppard, I'm not bringing you nubile alien—" Rodney stops and tilts his head.

Come on, Rodney, John thinks. You're good with patterns. He blinks again.

Rodney watches closely, then nearly launches himself out of the chair. He hits his radio with one flailing hand. "Carson, get in here. Sheppard's blinking an SOS." He turns to John, asking, "What's wrong? Are you in pain?"

John scowls and discovers he can grunt, a little, if he times it right with the exhale hiss of the machine. He starts blinking, and Rodney stops his flailing to watch. It's a little unnerving, Rodney looking at his eyes with such concentration.

He's just finished blinking OK when Carson bursts in. "What is it?"

Rodney throws up both hands to slow Carson down. "He's fine, he's fine. Of course he wants to use Morse code to communicate, but he picks the worst thing to start a conversation."

Stopped in his tracks, Carson says, "Huh. That's a good idea." He looks over at Rodney, who rolls his eyes and goes back to flailing.

"Yes, it's an excellent idea," Rodney says as he heads for the door. "And why didn't I think of it? I'll tell you why—" and Rodney's voice fades a bit as he walks around in the main infirmary, "—I was a little busy with twenty other tasks vital to keeping this place up and running." Carson follows him out, and there's a murmured conversation.

Rodney comes back with a pen and notepad in hand. He sits down on the bed next to John's legs and stares hard at John's face.

John stares back. It's still unsettling, on the receiving end of Rodney's concentrating look.

Rodney snorts and waves his pen impatiently. "So talk."

John blinks out his first real communication since the grenade; Rodney watches closely and writes down the dits and dahs before translating them on the paper. "ITCH Y EYEBRO? The hell is an eyebro?" he says at the page.

It's not his fault he can't remember the Morse code for W. John grunts, even managing to sound irritated. He waggles his eyebrows at Rodney, who, for all his genius, is sometimes really slow.

"You want me to scratch your eyebrow?" Rodney's voice climbs in pitch as it increases in volume. "You can finally communicate after four days of nothing and you ask me to scratch your eyebrow?"

John turns on the puppy-dog eyes. It's not as effective with the plastic in his mouth, but it works. Rodney huffs and leans forward.

"Which one?" John looks to the right, and Rodney finally scratches his eyebrow with the end of his pen.

He closes his eyes with the sweet, blessed relief.

---

He coughs himself awake in the afternoon, fighting against the new sensation of the machine alternately pushing air into and sucking it out of his lungs. He doesn't want to open his eyes; they ache from all the blinking at Rodney.

Suddenly there are nurses on either side of him with their hands on his face. A voice above him says, "It's all right, Colonel, don't fight the machine. Give us a minute to unhook you."

A voice from his other side says, "This might be a little uncomfortable, Colonel, now breathe out on three. One...two...three." He peels his lips back in a grimace as the tubes come free and slither up out of his throat.

When they raise the head of the bed, he sees Teyla standing at the foot of it, an expectant, anxious look on her face.

John coughs, once, twice, then takes a deep breath and holds it for a beat before letting it out in a long, slow sigh. He swallows and it hurts and feels fantastic, then one of the nurses presses an ice chip against his lips. He sucks it in and realizes he was wrong. That feels fantastic.

He works his jaw open and closed, then smiles at Teyla and says, "Hi."

---

Rodney comes rushing in late in the evening, snapping his fingers to wake John from a light doze. "Sheppard, wake up, wake up wake up wake up."

"What?" John snaps and opens his eyes.

This stops Rodney up short. "Oh, right, the—the tubes, right," he says distractedly. Then he picks up John's unbandaged left hand and lays a smooth metal orb in his palm.

"What the hell, McKay?" John glowers up at him.

Rodney holds his fingers closed around the orb. "Yours is still the strongest ATA gene in the city. So turn it on."

John keeps glaring. Rodney rolls his eyes and doesn't let go of his hand. "Oh, for Pete's sake, you can still think, can't you? Turn. It. On."

"What does it do?"

"No idea."

John looks down to where Rodney's fist is wrapped around what he knows is his own, except he can't feel a damn thing. He thinks at it for a moment, concentrates harder than he used to need, feeling like he's shouting down a long tunnel. Suddenly a pale orange light glows out from between their fingers.

"HA!" Rodney's half-shout startles him and his left foot twitches. "It worked! Are you getting anything, any idea what it does?"

He has to focus, to reach out to the device, but eventually he can tune out McKay and sense a little bit. "I think it belongs in hydroponics, goes in the water and...I don't know, measures something?"

Rodney takes it back and starts muttering about how that makes sense, given where it was found and what could the botanists do with it. He doesn't even look back as he barrels out the door.

---

He wakes late that night (or very early the next morning) to see Ronon standing at his window, looking out over the city. John is lying on his left side, his head suspended in its apparatus, and what little of him he can feel is surprisingly comfortable.

As soon as he feels John's gaze, Ronon turns and heads for the door.

"Ronon," John says roughly.

John can't see him, but he hears Ronon stop.

"It's not your fault."

"It is," Ronon replies quietly. "I carried you. McKay wanted to backboard you, anything, but I didn't listen and I carried you through the gate."

John stares at the smooth surface of the low bedside table. "Would we have made it back if you'd done anything differently?"

"No." Ronon's reply is swift, sure.

"Well, then, it was—"

"But you would have...more." Ronon's voice is tight and harsh; John hears the same what-ifs that plague his own memories of decisions made.

"No, I'd be dead," he says loudly, doing what he can to stop those what-ifs. "So would you, and Rodney, and Teyla."

Ronon's boots scuff against the floor. "Maybe that's better."

Long after he's left, in the early morning dark, John wonders if maybe Ronon was right.

---

The next day Teyla brings a breakfast tray loaded enough for two. In the middle of her morning report, she leans forward with a slice of fruit, and John interrupts her. "You don't have to do this."

Teyla hesitates, but doesn't lean away. "It is not a burden, Colonel Sheppard. Doctor Beckett suggested that you might like some breakfast."

He can't turn his head away to hide the flush heating his cheeks, so he looks down. "I don't want—" you to feed me, to see your pity, to be like this. "Teyla—"

"John," she says, and lays a hand along his left shin, where she knows he can feel her touch. She waits until he looks up. "I will not abandon you to the care of virtual strangers. We are a team."

Something in his expression must satisfy her because she leans forward again with the fruit. "Now eat."

---

Not long after Teyla leaves John realizes he can feel the collar not only on his head but where it rests against his shoulders. Carson is inordinately pleased that John will be able to shrug his shoulders once the apparatus comes off.

When, after a long morning of tests, Carson tells him that he shouldn't expect any more gains in sensation or movement, John forces himself to say, "Yeah, okay," instead of "Fuck off."

---

Elizabeth comes just as the setting sun lights purple streaks in the sky behind her. The sky isn't the only thing that glows as she tells him that the SGC has agreed that John can remain in Atlantis.

"Carson argued that there's no telling what any kind of intergalactic travel would do to you," she says.

"Would it—"

"You'd probably be fine, but they don't know that," she says with a smile. "Carson and Teyla laid out a plan for your..." and John can't help noticing the hesitation, "...care that makes the penny-pinchers happy—it's cheaper for the SGC to keep you here. And then Rodney argued them to a standstill. You should have heard him, John."

She sighs and walks over to the window. She suddenly sounds like she's speaking through a cardboard tube. "He didn't let them.."

Her voice fades as she fades out of focus. John feels hot, and cold, and dizzy. The lights flicker oddly, and a bead of sweat drips onto his eyelashes. Elizabeth is still talking, but her voice has become a buzz in the room and she's somehow made her skin light up like a lightning bug.

John smiles. "You're beautiful, 'lizbeth. How'dyou do that?"

Then everything is on fire. His whole body is aflame, sharp, hot pain chasing up his legs and arms and out through the top of his head. John has only a breath to realize he can feel everything before he screams.

---

he's staked out on hardpacked desert earth, the sun beating down and Rodney's shouting at him, always shouting, and burned men with white eyes in blackened faces are watching him, always watching, asking Why didn't you save us? and children grown old with sucked-out pale faces are watching him, always watching, asking How could you do this? and he's
running
flying (it's a bird)
falling (it's a plane)
on a Ferris wheel in the desert oh God it's so hot
and then he's cold, so cold when his toes dip into the event horizon he's on his back and Ronon's pushing at his shoulders until the wormhole takes him and he's getting pulled through the gate, he can feel his atoms being ripped to shreds his toes his legs his guts all gone before the rest of him is even through and oh heck oh heck it's up to his neck but he's
stopped.
He's stuck.
Like that goddamned puddle jumper stuck and his thirty-eight minutes are almost up and McKay is shouting at him again, always shouting, so he shouts back because Rodney can fix this he always fixes things and saves the day so why can't he save him and the light of the horizon shimmers and dances and blue

and Rodney says sadly, "I can't fix this, Sheppard. I wish I could."

The wormhole closes with a zzzzzip and all that's left is his head so he begs Rodney to put it in a jar somewhere where he can watch out a window he begs Elizabeth he begs Teyla he begs his mother and father and everyone watching, always watching, he begs them not to leave him in the dark.

---

John wakes to a pounding headache and a matching scratchiness in his throat. His scalp feels itchy and his eyelids feel crusted together, and it takes him a moment to remember why he can't rub the sleep from them. He groans in spite of (because of) the sore throat, and suddenly his face is covered with a warm, damp washcloth.

"You're okay, Sheppard," Ronon rumbles softly, as if he's said it a hundred times already. The washcloth sweeps over his forehead, across his eyes, down his cheeks.

"That's debatable," John replies just as softly. He opens his eyes to see Ronon sitting beside him on the bed, one knee drawn up close to John's shoulder.

"Welcome back." Ronon doesn't smile, but he's not frowning either; he simply watches John intently. "Feel okay?"

"My head hurts. What...?"

Ronon rests an elbow on his knee. "Infection. Fever. You were pretty out of it."

John winces. "How long?"

"Four days," Ronon tells him.

John looks longingly at the water bottle next to Ronon, and eventually he gets the hint and brings the straw to John's lips. The water is warmish and tastes like plastic, but John drinks greedily.

When he's finished he asks, "My throat..."

Ronon shrugs and nods. "Nobody paid any attention. You were delirious. Doc didn't want to sedate you; said he didn't know how you'd handle it." He gets up as if to leave.

John squints. "Ronon—"

"You've never been alone, Sheppard," Ronon says quietly and taps John's shin. "And I won't leave you in the dark. Just gotta go tell Doc you're awake."

---

The next morning John wakes before anyone comes to his room, and by the time a nurse arrives, he's feeling downright irritable. When Carson follows her in John snaps at him, "How long do I have to wear this goddamned collar?"

Carson smiles a patient, thoroughly frustrating smile and says, "Actually, Colonel, I was just about to remove it."

"Oh." John blinks and suddenly remembers the Ancient bone-knitting gewgaw they'd discovered not long after they had arrived. "Then, by all means."

John spends the rest of the afternoon nodding his head, rolling it from one shoulder to the other, and using any excuse to turn from side to side. He pulls one shoulder up, then the other, until his muscles burn.

---

By the next morning, John is ready to get out of the infirmary (he'd crawl the walls if he could), and he tells Carson so when he arrives for his morning visit. Carson's busy listing all the reasons why he's not going to let John out when he suddenly touches his earpiece and starts repeating himself.

He doesn't talk long before Ronon and Teyla burst in. "Get him ready," Ronon growls.

"You can't, the risk of infection," Carson protests as Teyla starts releasing the locks on the bed's wheels.

"What's going on?" John yells, practically tasting adrenaline.

Teyla tucks a radio gently over his ear. "I have you on the command frequency; tell me if it's too loud."

"Yes, it's here, goddamnit, it's entering orbit right the fuck now, and no, I don't know how the hell that happened," Rodney's voice shrieks over the radio as Teyla and Ronon push the bed out of the infirmary and down the hall. Carson follows alongside them, his arguments falling on three sets of deaf ears.

"Can you cloak us?" Elizabeth's voice cuts in.

"No good," Zelenka says. "They know our position, we need the shields." The bed careens around a corner; Ronon's dreadlocks brush against John's cheek.

"Rodney, how much time?" John asks.

"In range in two minutes," Rodney shouts back. "I need your ass in that chair now, Sheppard!"

"Working on it," Ronon grits out.

"The bed will not fit in the transporter," Teyla huffs, and Ronon stops pushing and lifts John in one smooth movement.

"Wait, wait!" Carson yells, and quickly disentangles the tubes connecting John to the bed. He follows Ronon closely, carrying the rest of the tubing and plastic bags.

"Keep up," Ronon says, and takes off with long strides.

John would feel embarrassed about being carried through the city, barefooted and with his ass hanging out, if he could feel the breeze. He can't though, and that lets him focus on the chatter coming through his radio.

"One minute," Rodney calls.

"Shields?" Elizabeth asks.

"Shields are good."

"Why only one?" Zelenka wonders.

"Who c—" the transporter blinks and they're right outside the control room; Rodney's voice is in stereo now, "—is quite enough to deal with, thank you very much. Finally!" Rodney shouts as they enter and points at the control chair.

Carson cushions his head as Ronon drops him on the chair; Teyla is already arranging his hands on the panels and the display lights up.

Atlantis wakes beneath him, whispers as always in the back of his mind, cool and blue-grey and welcoming. She responds to his requests for weaponry and power with yellow and a taste of spice, with excitement. Underlying it all is something different, a red-copper taste of something new, but John doesn't have time to wonder about it.

Rodney's voice echoes in his ear, telling him what's needed and where, and he and Atlantis cut through the Wraith cruiser with her sword in the sky.

---

John is reluctant to leave the chair; he luxuriates in the stretch to his senses and forgets, for a moment, the prison his body has become. Atlantis also seems more reluctant than usual to disconnect; the red-copper taste is stronger just before John tells the chair to incline and turn off.

He slowly becomes aware of the happy whooping around the control room and of Teyla and Ronon grinning down at him. He grins back, elated that he was able to help, that he wasn't stuck in his room for this, waiting on everyone else to save the day.

Carson is kneeling next to him, checking his bandages and tubes to make sure they survived the mad dash from the infirmary. Rodney and Zelenka are frowning at their laptops and the consoles.

"Good work, John," Elizabeth says in his ear.

"Yay, we're alive," Rodney says derisively. "But that took way too much power."

"What?" John asks. "There's no way; I did the same thing I did last time."

Zelenka's shaking his head. "No, Rodney is right, that took considerably more power than the last time we used the weapon."

"But I only fired it once!" John protests.

"Rodney, what's going on down there?" Elizabeth asks sharply.

"Sheppard used more power than he should have," Rodney snaps.

"I did not!" John shouts back.

"John," Teyla gasps. The room falls completely silent and still; even Rodney stops moving to stare at John.

"Colonel," Carson says quietly.

"What?"

"Do that again, Colonel," Carson orders, his eyes wide.

"Do what? Yell at McKay?" John is confused, not sure what they're asking, but he shouts over at Rodney. "You figure it out yet?" And his left elbow lifts like he's trying to ward off an attack or wave his arm in exasperation.

"Huh," he grunts.

Carson takes his right arm and peeks under the bandages, then starts unwrapping them.

"Easy, now," Carson mutters as the bandages come free. The burns are now scars, covered with fresh pink skin. "Rodney, I think I know where your power went."

---

"Exactly how did this happen?" Elizabeth asks incredulously as she strides into the control room.

"Best we can figure, the chair stimulated growth on a cellular level," Carson answers.

Elizabeth stops in her tracks and turns to frown at Carson and John, who's still sitting in the dark command chair. "What?"

John raises his left elbow again and grins at her.

"Oh my God," she says, very softly, and comes to stand next to the chair. "You're...healed?"

Carson holds up John's right arm. "Not completely, but he's regained a little movement and the burns are better."

"Atlantis did this?" Teyla asks.

"And used a lot of power to do it," Rodney says from the console. "Did you even think about what you were doing before you started healing yourself?"

"Excuse me, I was busy," John shouts, "shooting a Wraith cruiser out of the sky and saving your ass!"

Rodney glares back at John, but Elizabeth cuts in before they can start arguing in earnest. "Exactly how much power are we talking about?"

Zelenka answers, "Beyond what the weapon used—"

"—almost four percent," Rodney finishes sourly.

Ronon is the first to break the silence. "Could this heal him completely?"

"The damage to his spinal cord was—" Carson says just as Rodney yells, "Maybe if we want to drain an entire—"

"Gentlemen!" Elizabeth shouts. She points at Carson. "Doctor Beckett?"

Carson clears his throat. "I'll know more after I run some tests. The damage to your spinal cord was severe, Colonel."

"And it took four percent of a ZedPM to fix some skin and give him a twitch!" Rodney adds loudly.

"Perhaps that is because the control chair was not designed for it," Zalenka muses.

"Of course it wasn't designed for it!" Rodney shouts. "It doesn't say 'let the cripples rise and walk,' does it?"

The word hits John like a physical blow; his chest tightens in a vise-grip and he struggles to breathe. Cripple. Trust Rodney to call him what he is.

"Rodney, Radek," Elizabeth says tightly, rubbing one hand over her eyes. "See what you can do about the power and the sensor arrays. I want to know how a Wraith ship nearly landed on top of us. Carson, keep me posted. I will check the Ancient database; perhaps there's something there about..." She trails off, waving her hand to encompass John and the chair.

The trip back to the infirmary is considerably calmer.

---

For the next week, every time John makes noise about getting out of the infirmary, Carson sidesteps the issue and suggests another test. Elizabeth refuses to allow him back into the chair until they know more; everyone is shocked when John agrees with her. He wants to walk again, but not at the expense of the city.

His visitors increase, now that Carson's declared he's no longer at risk for infection. Lorne brings by paperwork and reluctantly accepts his congratulations on being promoted. Teyla continues her breakfast visits. Ronon begins to join him for late-evening movie watching (sometimes he drags Rodney along), and it doesn't matter that they've watched them all before.

---

The next time Rodney visits, he practically sidles into the room, which is different enough from his usual full-steam-ahead that John is instantly suspicious. "Morning, McKay," he says.

"Hi," Rodney greets him. He stops at the end of the bed and stares out the window.

"Rodney," John says sharply, causing Rodney to twitch. "What's going on?"

"Um, right," Rodney replies and scratches his eyebrow. "I...well, see, we've been working on this for a while now, and we were going to try this earlier, but then there was that thing with the command chair and I had to tweak—"

"Rodney," John interrupts wearily, "just tell me."

"Actually, it's easier to show you." Rodney holds the door open, and John hears a soft mechanical whirring that stops near the foot of his bed. Rodney steps over and raises the head of the bed so he can see.

"It's...a wheelchair."

"Yes, well, it's not just a wheelchair," Rodney says with a mix of indignance and barely-contained excitement. "We're still working on how the Ancient tech interfaces with thought patterns, so this was a legitimate experiment in blending Ancient tech with ours. We're going to have to tweak it, naturally, but you should be glad my second degree is in mechanical engineering. You're going to love it, wait'll you see—"

"McKay!"

Before he knows it, John is strapped into the chair with brisk efficiency by a pair of nurses. He watches them with confusion, as no wheelchair in his (admittedly limited) experience has ever required a five-point harness and straps around a person's knees.

Rodney notices him watching and explains, "The harness is a little different, yes, but that's because the chair is so awesome. Come on, we need some open space for this. Just...think about moving forward, and follow me." He disappears out the door after the nurses, and John is left alone in the room.

Frustrated, John snorts and wishes he could follow Rodney and pound some manners into him. He's startled when the chair smoothly rolls forward.

It takes some trial and error to go around corners, but soon he's rolling through the corridors with Rodney walking easily alongside him. The chair translates his thoughts about motion effortlessly; it's almost as easy as walking used to be.

"Are these MALP wheels?"

"Yeah, we scavenged a bit," Rodney admits. "Oh, and don't worry about your batteries. Ever."

"I've got a load of naquadah under my ass, don't I?"

"Mmmm, just a small one," Rodney says, waving dismissively. "Here we are!"

The doors slide open to reveal a large paved courtyard set with small pylons to resemble a go-kart track.

"I've tried most everything else, had to test it, see, but I still don't know how fast it'll go." Rodney waves at the track. "Oh, but first, you've got to...here." He reaches over and hits a little button next to John's left elbow. "Only for you would anyone have designed a mechanical wheelchair built for speed."

It's like being strapped into a Transformer. The seat of the chair sinks as the wheelbase stretches; soon John is reclined and his chair has become a Pegasus-galaxy go-kart with no steering wheel blocking his view of the floor between his feet.

"Cool," he breathes just before he takes off.

---

The interface for the chair still needs some tinkering, but John doesn't give it back quietly. He only shuts up when Rodney pulls out a second gadget and straps it over John's shoulder and down his left arm. He has to flex and relax his shin muscle to open and close the brace around his hand, but it's enough. It's so much more than he thought he'd ever have again, and John is excited and bitter all at once.

Rodney leaves him with a laptop and a bowl of popcorn, and John spends the afternoon watching whatever he can find on the server and feeding himself.

---

By the time Rodney comes back with the fully-operational wheelchair, John and Carson have hammered out John's schedule. Carson insists that John sleep in a bed, which requires a visit by someone to help him into and out of said bed (John had been reluctant at first, until Carson had mentioned bedsores, which caused John to shudder and agree very quickly). Carson also wants daily infirmary visits, but John manages to talk him down to every other day.

John surprises Ronon outside his quarters when he steps out for his morning run. John knows he's surprised by the grunt he gets, but Ronon quickly recovers and shoots him a grin. "Try and keep up!" he says as he sinks his chair into the 'go-kart' position.

---

It's not long before John is bored out of his skull and hanging out in Rodney's lab just for something to do. He's not sure how it happened, but within a week John has his very own workstation and six projects in which he's 'checking the math.'

"Are you kidding?" Rodney is incredulous when John asks. "You're hanging out here anyway, and you can do basic calculations, of course I'm going to take advantage!"

"Yeah, but," John drawls, "I'm not so sure I want to work here. You know, permanently-like."

Rodney stills, as completely as if John had hit an 'off' switch. Anguish crosses his face for just a moment. "I know, Sheppard. I like having you in the lab, just...not like this."

"Hey, McKay, it's all right," John says quietly. "I'm glad to have something to do, really. I just...wanted to know if this was my job now, you know?"

"Well, I don't think anything's official," Rodney says. "Which is why I haven't gotten on your case about your hours."

---

"When do we get to the sinking?" Ronon grumbles.

"Oh, for the love of God," Rodney whines and pops a few more M&Ms into his mouth. "Why are we watching this, anyway?"

"Apparently only twenty people voted," John murmurs, reaching for the popcorn Teyla's holding between them not because he's hungry but because he can.

"You do not enjoy this movie, Rodney?" Teyla asks mildly.

"Pffft, I think not. It's overblown, melodramatic, pompous dreck that got way more attention than it deserved—"

"Kinda like you?" Ronon mutters with a grin.

Rodney shoots him a look. "And the physics suck. They actually—"

"Why don't you tell us when we get there?" John asks, which thankfully shuts Rodney up, at least for a moment.

Most of the expedition is lounging in the newly-discovered auditorium, the wide stadium steps providing a perfect place to pile pillows and blankets and giving everyone a perfect angle to watch Titanic sink. John is reclined in 'go-kart,' parked next to Rodney and Teyla on the highest step, partly because that's where the door is and partly because Rodney wants to keep an eye on the projection equipment.

Rodney groans. "Who actually used some of their limited space to make sure THIS came to Pegasus?"

"Dr. Weir," Ronon answers him, earning surprised looks from all three of them. He shrugs and leans across both Rodney and John to score some popcorn.

Teyla winces at the screen as Rose is laced into her corset. "That does not look at all comfortable."

---

"Sheppard?" The voice is quiet, tentative...and right next to his bed.

John comes awake with a start. "Rodney?"

Rodney shushes him. "Be quiet! C'mon." Suddenly John can smell Rodney, sweat and soap and coffee and gunpowder, as Rodney slides his hands around John's chest and sits him up.

"Hey, what—"

"What part of 'be quiet' don't you understand?" Rodney hisses. He hitches his grip into a bearhug and stands up. John's arms hang over Rodney's shoulders as Rodney takes his weight. He can feel his shin brush against Rodney's as his feet drag across the floor.

"Maybe if you told me why you're dragging me off in the middle of the night?" John hisses back, directly into Rodney's ear.

Rodney steps back and turns, staggering a little before he less-than-gracefully drops John into his chair. "We just got back; we've got two hours before our debriefing and I had an idea."

While Rodney struggles to get him straight in the chair, John observes, "Ronon could have done this faster."

"Ronon has other business right now," he pants. "Just, trust me, and come on."

"Oh, that's comforting," John mutters, but he follows Rodney through the corridors until they reach the control room.

Rodney makes to lift him out of his chair, and he tries to back away, but the chair doesn't move. "What the hell, Rodney?"

"Trust me," Rodney murmurs next to John's ear as he pulls John out of the chair. Once again he takes John's weight in a bearhug grip and he steps them over to the control chair.

"No," John says firmly. "No way, McKay. We agreed—What the fuck is that?"

Ronon appears at the foot of the chair, pulling a ZPM out of a knapsack. "What's it look like?" he asks with a smirk.

"Where—"

"Took it off a Wraith." Ronon grins ferally.

"Apparently they know we are searching for them," Teyla explains from behind Ronon. She takes the ZPM and plugs it into the console Rodney points at. "They believe that it will give them an advantage if they find them first."

"Well," John mutters. "Shit."

"So, this one's almost fully charged," Rodney says cheerfully from behind his laptop. "All right, we're just about ready, Colo—"

"NO, McKay!" John shouts. "I can't, you know we can't—"

"Do you not want to be healed, Colonel?" Teyla asks.

"Well, yes," John answers. The control chair thrums briefly beneath him; he feels it as a soft pulse at the base of his skull. "But you said it yourself, Rodney—Atlantis would drain the whole thing trying to fix me and Carson doesn't think I can be fixed, not completely."

"Look, Sheppard," Rodney cuts in, exasperated, "we're going to need you to be able to use the control chair, so you have to, at some point. I just want to—"

"Rodney," John tries to interrupt, but Rodney keeps talking.

"—test this, and the second ZPM gives us the opportunity and we don't need approval if we do it before anyone's awake, right? Ronon?"

Ronon's face is grim as he kneels next to John. He raises a knife between them, a slim, wickedly curved dagger, and John imagines the sting of Wraith blood in his nostrils.

"Oh, hey now," John says, his voice wavering a little, as Ronon asks, "Where he can feel it?"

"Yes, I think so," Rodney says quietly from behind John's head. "I'm sorry, Sheppard, but this is going to hurt."

"Wait, you need my approval, and I'm not giving it!" John shouts. "McKay! Ronon, you do not want to do this!" He pulls away as much as he can, but Ronon catches his left arm easily. Suddenly Teyla is at his other side, holding his head still.

"Trust us, John," she murmurs in his ear.

"No, no, no," John pants. "Maybe if you told me what you're trying t—" he sucks in a long hiss of breath as the knife slices coldly above his collarbone. The knife is so sharp John feels the blood slipping down his chest before the pain of the cut begins to register.

"Activate the chair, Colonel," Rodney orders sharply, and John obeys in a reflexive reaction to that tone of voice. Atlantis hums to life, the cool blue of her greeting undercut by the red-copper taste he'd felt before.

"Think about healing that cut, and while you're there, pull up the sensor arrays, would you?" Rodney asks. John can hear him typing, clickety-clacking on his keyboard and the different clicking of the Ancient input buttons. He sends his thoughts out and up, reaching to the end of Atlantis' internal sensors and beyond, to the dark purple taste of the sensor arrays. He can feel what Rodney's doing, a recalibration that gives the sensors a sharp apple tang.

It takes him a moment to pull back into himself enough to hear Teyla calling his name. As before, the red-copper touch of the city is strongest just as he's disconnecting, but he powers down the chair when Teyla asks.

"You mind telling me what the hell, McKay?" John asks loudly as soon as he's upright.

Teyla and Ronon are on either side of him, sitting back and looking to Rodney as he comes around to crouch next to Teyla. She pulls away from John, taking the bandage she'd been holding over John's neck with her.

Rodney looks from Teyla to Ronon before looking back at John. "It seems...I was right," he says quietly. He ghosts his fingers over John's neck, and John realizes that it didn't hurt a split second before he sees Rodney's fingers are clean.

"What?" John suddenly feels stupid and slow.

"I cut myself the other day," Rodney says in that same quiet tone and pulls up his sleeve to reveal a large bandage around his forearm. "Big nasty thing; I was trying to pull my arm out of a broken console in the middle of a firefight."

"M5X-994, I read the report," John says.

"This morning I had to use the chair to address a power drain, and this," Rodney waves his arm, "is still cut."

"So, what? The chair heals only me?"

"No," Rodney says with a shake of his head. "I think the chair tries to fix what the user wants fixed. I didn't think about my arm; it didn't heal. You asked it to heal your cut, and it did."

"So you're saying," John asks, "if I want to use the chair again without draining power, I need to...what? I didn't ask the first time!" He clenches his left hand into a tight fist, belatedly registering that he can feel it in his fingertips, and in his surprise his right arm swings up and smacks into Ronon's chest.

"I didn't ask for that either!" John half-shouts, and his right elbow flails again before Ronon catches it gently.

"But you wanted it," Teyla points out. "We believe Atlantis may have been responding to a deeper desire, even without a conscious decision."

"So I need to...be happy with—" John waves his now-fully-sensational left hand over his utterly useless legs, "—like this."

---

The highest tower isn't accessible with the chair, so John has to make do with a balcony he can reach. He spends ten minutes cursing the railing blocking his view.

He stays there until his fingers begin to get numb from the cold, until he starts to wonder if he'd rather they'd stayed senseless, if dying of malnutrition is better than outright starvation.

---

"Hey." Rodney's voice is soft in the dark of John's room, eerily similar to the week before. Unlike the week before, though, John can maneuver himself into a half-sitting position and turn on the lamp.

Rodney blinks in the sudden harsh illumination of the desk lamp.

"Here to make the cripple rise and walk, are we?" John asks tightly. He's been avoiding Rodney for the better part of the week, and would wheel away if he was in his chair. As it is, they haven't worked up to chair transfers yet in PT, so he's stuck.

"Just, I just wanted to see how you were," Rodney says, tentative in a way John rarely sees. It doesn't help his mood.

"Well I'm right as rain, Rodney, thanks for asking," John snarls viciously. "Heightmeyer wants me to keep a journal about how I'm adapting, Elizabeth wants monthly tests in the control chair so she'll know when I'm finally..." he waves his hand in a wild circle, "and today I learned how to catheterize myself, ain't that great? I've even got enough use of my hands I could jerk off if my dick still worked."

Rodney's gone pale but he's holding his ground. "Tell me how you really feel," he says with a hint of sarcasm.

"Get over here so I can punch you." John's surprised when Rodney quickly sits in arm's reach.

"Go ahead, if it'll help," Rodney says. "I already know life sucks beyond the telling of it, so you don't have to pretend everything's fine, not with me."

John feels like his world just tilted a few degrees and a weight he hadn't known was there begins to slowly slide away. After a long moment, he says quietly, "I miss running."

Rodney stays.

---

One morning Ronon shows up to transfer John into his chair carrying a mess of bright blue nylon webbing. He efficiently helps John into his clothes and then starts strapping the harness around John's hips.

"Jeez, Ronon, I'm not your GI Joe," John complains as Ronon snaps the buckles closed; they probably would pinch if he could feel them.

"You up for an offworld trip?" Ronon asks with a glint in his eyes.

"Offworld?" John can hear the blood pounding in his ears; he's so ready to see something different. "Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise," Ronon answers, then he scowls and crouches down so he's eye-level with John. "Do you trust me?"

It's so different from the last time, from demand to question, that John doesn't hesitate. "Absolutely."

Ronon's smile is wide and excited, and he leads them to the 'jumper bay. He points at 'Jumper Three and says, "We're taking that one. I'll be right back." He disappears around a corner, and John is alone.

The hairs on the back of John's neck feel electrified as he rolls into the 'jumper, and he wipes his left palm on his knee. He looks longingly at the pilot's seat, but there's no way his chair would fit; he parks himself in the rear compartment instead.

"Oh, no, that's not right," Rodney says when he steps into the 'jumper and spots John. In two strides he's next to the chair and unbuckling the chair's straps.

"Oh, hi, Rodney," John greets him and grabs his wrist. "How's your personal space bubble today?"

Rodney looks up and smiles. "You're in the wrong seat."

John has to tighten his hold on Rodney's wrist. "I'm—"

"Our pilot," Rodney finishes. "Well, I can fly if you'd rather not try; I've gotten a lot better the last couple w—"

"Not a chance."

They've got John settled into the pilot's seat by the time Ronon returns with Teyla and a couple of large packs. They run through preflight fast fast fast; John can barely contain himself and Rodney's just as bad, twitching in the copilot's seat. Teyla's hand is warm on his shoulder as John requests a go from the control room. He can hear applause in the background when Chuck tells him, "Jumper Three, you have a go. Have fun, sir."

The 'jumper responds as it always did, and John can't resist pulling her into a tight spiral as they fly toward their destination, a small island on a planet of ocean.

---

John smells the warm spice of Ronon crouching next to him before he opens his eyes. They're on the foredeck of a large sailboat, knifing through the waves, and John's been relishing the whip of the wind and the sun on his face.

"Good?" Ronon asks.

"Mm," John agrees. "You?"

"Yeah," Ronon says. "Kelin says he'll come back to the island twice a year, if we want to do this again." The people on this planet live on the sea, in boats and floating cities, and are thus rather difficult to track down for friends and Wraith alike. The island is one of their few meeting-places.

"Thank you," John tells him.

"The flying was Rodney's idea, the sailing was Teyla's," Ronon rumbles and ducks his head.

"I'll thank them, too," John says with a little shrug. "Only they're not out here at the moment. What was your idea?"

Ronon doesn't look up. "It's...nevermind." He moves to stand up, but John grabs his arm.

"You got me in this harness for something."

They look at each other for a long moment before Ronon unbuckles him and lifts him out of the chair. After a few nudges from Ronon, John has his arms around Ronon's neck and Ronon's got a big hand under each of John's thighs.

John feels like the world's biggest four-year-old—he remembers being carried like this when he was little—but Ronon's acting like he does this with everyone he knows, and that makes it better. Ronon turns to carry John to the bow and huffs, "Close your eyes."

John does, resisting the urge to lower his head and bury his face in Ronon's dreads. "Hold onto me," Ronon orders before sinking carefully to his knees. John tightens his grip around Ronon's shoulders as he's laid onto his back. Then Ronon's hovering over him, one hand supporting John and the other buckling straps into place.

It's a weird sensation—if anyone says the words "sex swing" John will drag himself off the boat by his fingernails. Just when he's about to say something, the last strap is buckled and Ronon lets John's head settle against the deck.

"I wish—," Ronon says quietly, "It should be me."

John replies, "A wise man on my planet once said you can wish in one hand and crap in the other, see which one fills up first."

Ronon's laugh is a low rumble quaking up from his belly to shake them both. Suddenly there's a big hand around the back of his skull and a wet, smacking kiss to his cheek before Ronon moves away.

John's world tilts crazily and Ronon shouts, "Open your eyes, Sheppard."

John feels whirling dizziness for a second before his heart resumes a wild beat. Ronon's strapped him to the bowsprit; the tilt was Ronon flipping him from the top to its underside. He's hanging thirty feet above nothing but ocean as the boat skims over the waves.

He can't help screaming the joy of it, stretching out his arms and flying.