Cooling Off
#8 of The
by Setcheti
“Whoever created it, we’d better hope they’re not still out there.”
Rodney’s pronouncement falls into the room like it was weighted with lead. Of course, after ten thousand years I think we’d already know it if they were still around – I think they would have been here waitin’ for us. But I’m not goin’ to say that, our good Dr. Weir needs to be focusin’ on somethin’ other than the root cause of the bloody mess we just pulled out of.
And on somethin’ other than tryin’ to blame part of it on Major Sheppard, of course. Our showin’ up right when we did, Rodney and I, it wasn’t exactly an accident. I’d already talked to Bates, and he told me what had happened; he was a bit conflicted about the whole thing, I straightened him out. I may not always see eye to eye with the man, but this time he did the right thing and I told him so. Rodney did too, which like to surprised Bates right into havin’ an expression on that dour face of his. But then Rodney’s been surprisin’ a lot of people lately.
And he’s about to do it again. Weir’s makin’ noises about not borrowin’ trouble and I can tell she’s about to flow into a speech about bein’ more careful when we explore the city – no doubt aimin’ to spread the guilt around a bit more – when Rodney pulls out a folded sheet of paper and lays it on her desk. She frowns at him as she picks it up and opens it, not likin’ to be interrupted. “What’s this?”
“It’s a list,” he says, in that way he’s got like it’s nothin’ much to him at all except for bein’ irritated that he has to explain it to you. “Of all the people who would have died if Major Sheppard hadn’t been in a containment suit and free to move around when the city locked us down.”
Och, that one hit her – twice, since I know Zelenka’s name’s at the top of the list, Rodney did it in reverse order for just that reason. Before she can recover I’m puttin’ down my own folded paper right where his had been. “And here’s an outline of the revisions we need to be makin’ with regards to our quarantine procedures,” I say, and how I manage not to smile at the look on her face I truly don’t know. “The city’s automatic internal defenses can be a wonderful thing for us, but we’re goin’ to have to plan around them to prevent another accident like this one from wipin’ us out. It was sheer blind luck we were able to get out of this one, and far too bloody close to us losin’ even more people than we did.” I turn a sharp look on Sheppard, who’s as wide-eyed as I’ve ever seen him; I don’t want him chimin’ in on this, I need him focusin’ on somethin’ else too. “Major, I thought I gave orders for you to be off to bed?” I scold. “And tomorrow you’re comin’ in so I can check you over properly – just because the shieldin’ on the jumper supposedly protected you from the worst of that blast doesn’t mean you’re fine. Tomorrow mornin’ just as soon as you get up, do you hear me? You can have breakfast with me when we’re finished. Now get goin’ before I decide you need to sleep in the infirmary where I can keep an eye on you.”
He goes right along with that and pushes himself up out of the chair, grumblin’ at me. “Yes, Mother, I’m going to bed now. Do you want to come tuck me in?”
“Rodney can do it.” I wave toward the door, makin’ sure the gesture includes the both of them. “He’s headin’ that way anyway, he’s got to be goin’ to bed himself – and he’ll be joinin’ us for breakfast, I’ve got to give him another check-over tomorrow too.”
Rodney goes wide-eyed on me as well and with even more reason, since I know he was plannin’ to go right back to buryin’ himself in work once we were done here, but after just a moment of shock he hauls out the sarcasm and raises one eyebrow in a very characteristic fashion. “Well Jim, it looks like Dr. McCoy has spoken.”
“Yes, Spock, it looks like he has.” Sheppard nods to Weir, then to me. “’Night Dr. Weir. Good night, Bones.”
I let it slide; it’s been a rough few days, they’re entitled. “To bed with you both – I’ll be by in a bit to check on you, just in case either of you have trouble gettin’ to sleep.”
“If Captain Kirk here has trouble sleeping, I’ll just use the Vulcan nerve pinch on him,” Rodney tells me, very seriously.
“And then when I wake up, I’ll stun your Vulcan ass with a Wraith weapon,” Sheppard shoots back. But he claps Rodney on the shoulder and leaves his hand there as they walk out of the room – keepin’ his balance, I surmise, he’s that tired right now. Neither of them looks back.
I do smile now, just a little bit – mostly because of how flummoxed that little exchange made Dr. Weir, but she’s not to know that. “Did you have anythin’ you wanted to ask me before I go back to work?” I ask her.
I know I’ve got that look again, but
“I think the last twenty-four hours have shown us that it’s imperative we do so.” I’m not smilin’ now. “I wasn’t part of drawin’ up the last set, and no one had any clear idea of what we’d be dealin’ with before we got here. We should have been revisin’ these sorts of things months ago, I consider it a personal oversight that I didn’t think of it – and believe me, when the city wouldn’t let even those of us who were suited up out of the contaminated area, I knew just how big of an oversight it had been. I’ll get back to you on when we can meet to go over everythin’, but right now I’ve got autopsies to finish up – and while I’m thinkin’ about it, Dr. Peterson died from the nanovirus, not from the major’s shootin’ him.” Considerin’ what got set into motion when Dr. Gaul’s body came back, I’d already made up my mind to be headin’ off this witch hunt before it can start. “So there’s no need for an inquest, Dr. Weir. All the deaths this time are on the heads of whoever created those wee deadly little machines.”
“I wasn’t planning on questioning that.” I cock an eyebrow at her, lettin’
just a hint of disbelief show, and she frowns at me. “I was just talking to Major Sheppard about
him trusting me. Do you and I need to
talk about that too,
Bless her, she’s tryin’ to pull the same thing on me she was tryin’ to pull on him.
Pity it won’t work. I shrug. “Maybe it’s somethin’
we all need to talk about,
She just looks at me for a long minute, and when I don’t give way she drops her eyes back to the papers and sighs. “You know, I think you might be right.”
I don’t say anythin’. Because I know I am.
I leave right after that, not havin’ anythin’ more to say to her right now, but before I can head down to the major’s quarters I find myself bein’ waylaid by Dr. Zelenka. Took me a bit to figure out what he was so bloody excited about, but then he finally said somethin’ that I recognized. “Wait, you mean that thing Rodney wanted you to tell someone if he died?”
“Yes, yes, that!” He’s all but hoppin’ up and down – I suppose I should be glad he’s found somethin’ to keep his mind off almost dyin’. “Rodney gave me his notes right after you cleared me to come back to this part of the city, he said someone else zhould know vhat he was doing, just in case – he had his vork hidden, you see, and he knew he didn’t haf time to tell me how to get at it.” All right, maybe I was glad too soon. “I’d thought he vas just…vell, being Rodney, but this…” He shakes a sheaf of papers at me. “Dr. Beckett, he may not be inches from the theory of unification, but he’s not more than a few feet off at best!”
I will not laugh, I will not laugh…but I have to smile. “And so he’s sharin’ it with you?”
“Yes!” He shakes the papers again. “I’fe got to go through it more thoroughly, of course, this is just a synopsis of his notes that he printed out for me to look over; but if we can crack this, powering the zhield – or the Stargate – might cease to be a problem.”
“Just make sure you remember to eat and sleep while you’re tryin’ to crack it,” I tell him. Although if he’s workin’ with Rodney I won’t have to worry about him rememberin’ to eat, since Rodney never forgets that himself and doesn’t let his people forget either…
Rodney’s people…half of whom are waitin’ to be buried. I’ve got to go, now. I pat Zelenka on the shoulder. “I’ve got some things I have to be checkin’ on, but I’m glad he’s lettin’ you help him.” I lower my voice. “You just be sure to keep it away from Kavenaugh, he’d snatch it out from under the both of you if he got the chance.”
Zelenka nods and makes a face,
clutches his papers tight to his chest and takes his leave of me. Young Dr. Kavenaugh
hasn’t exactly endeared himself to a lot of people since we got here – includin’ Dr. Weir, thank goodness. He was the one pushin’
for the inquest after Dr. Gaul died on the last mission, tryin’
to say that Rodney had somethin’ to do with it – tryin’ to get rid of Rodney, if you ask me, but I couldn’t
make Weir see that. When she forced
Rodney to testify to everythin’ that had gone on leadin’ up to
They were nothin’ to the look Sheppard was givin’ her, though. Not that she paid any attention to that – or maybe she did, and her tryin’ to emasculate him just now was payback.
She barely acknowledged what effect the whole thing might have had on Rodney at all, just like she didn’t this time. He’d still been mostly in shock when they’d gotten back from that crashed-Wraith planet, and after bein’ forced to recount the whole incident leadin’ up to Gaul’s suicide under questionin’ like that…well, the major and I dragged him back to Sheppard’s quarters and got him drunk. It was either drunk or sedated, and drunk is less damagin’ to a man’s ego.
With any luck, Sheppard is protectin’ his ego from bein’ damaged again right now, which is what I’m really goin’ down there to check on. I’m not sure where they’ve got the still stashed away, but what they’ve been makin’ isn’t all that bad. My own still makes better, of course, but I’m not about to tell them that – mine’s for medicinal purposes, meanin’ I want to have it to fall back on in situations like this in case somethin’ happens to theirs.
I know this won’t be the last time, you see. I’m just hopin’ and prayin’ that this will be the last time it happens to Rodney for a while. I have to admit I’m worried about how calm he’s been. I don’t think anyone who was there failed to be impressed by how well he handled himself today, but half his team is dead, he came just that close to almost dyin’ himself…and a man can only take so much.
Not to mention that he stood right there and lied about what he wanted them to tell his sister. I know what he really wanted, because he told me right after that big storm and all the mess that came with it got done rollin’ over us. I’ve got a message to pass on to his sister, all right, but it doesn’t have anythin’ to do with some story about him savin’ children or what scientific breakthroughs he was this close to makin’ – what it does have to do with makes me wish I could put his father and Sheppard’s into a room together and…
And find that bloody missile in
Holy crap, would you listen to me? I think maybe it’s all startin’ to get to me too.
I’m in front of Sheppard’s door now, and I announce myself at the same time I knock. “It’s Dr. McCoy, open the bloody hell up.”
The door slides open, and I have to smile at the looks I’m gettin’ from the both of them. “Don’t get used to it, I’m just humorin’ you because I need a drink,” I warn as I drop into the empty chair and hold out my hand for the glass Sheppard is rummagin’ for – no more lab work for me tonight, the only place I’m goin’ from here is to my own bed. “Straight up, no ice.”
“I wouldn’t mind some ice, but we don’t have any,” the major tells me as he hands over my drink. “I miss ice.”
“You should have said something, I could whip you up an ice maker no problem,” Rodney tells him, sippin’ from his own glass. “I could even make us an ice cream freezer, but we don’t have anything good to put in it.”
“I’m sure we could find a cow somewhere.” Sheppard settles back on his bed, lookin’ thoughtful. “Or a cowlike animal…”
That wins him a snort. “With our luck it would turn out to be carnivorous and the milk would have mutagenic properties.”
Sheppard just nods. “True, but that might make interesting ice cream all the same. Not for us to eat, but we could go through the ‘Gate and sell it to people we don’t like.”
“Now there’s a plan. Get rid of the bad guys and make some money at the same time, I like it.” Rodney smiles just a bit. “We could paint one of the jumpers white and play “It’s A Small World” over the external speakers, really drive them crazy.”
He’s smilin’ and playin’, yes, but he’s also rubbin’ his arm, the one with the knife scar. Damn it all. I stretch out in the chair a bit, makin’ myself more comfortable, and trade a look with Sheppard. “Arm botherin’ you, Rodney?” I ask casually.
“Hmm?” He stops rubbin’ it. “Oh, that. No, it just…itches sometimes.”
“Scars like that do.” Sheppard sound just as unconcerned as I do, but I can see that he’s payin’ close attention – I know he hasn’t forgotten the strip I tore off of him after that hostage incident. Unlike Dr. Weir, our major is quick to learn from his mistakes. “Have a few myself, they start bugging me at the weirdest times.”
“I’ve been…noticing that.”
Rodney looks down into his glass like he’s expectin’
to find somethin’ swimmin’
in it. “When are the funerals going to
be,
I allow the subject change. “Day after tomorrow.” I know he hates it that we have to bury them at sea, but there’s nothin’ else to be done with them here. Let’s change the subject again, shall we? “I’m just glad there aren’t more to be buried. Oh, and that reminds me…Rodney, did you tell the major here about the door controls yet?”
All right, that bucks him up a bit. “Oh, no I hadn’t.” He takes another drink, but this one is to wet his mouth. “The only lockout that would have kept Peterson confined was the one the city instituted, John – like I tried to tell Dr. Weir, he knew almost as much as I did about Atlantean technology. Just having the power off wasn’t going to stop him.”
“And neither was reason,” I put in. Best to hit our major with both barrels at once, blow away the guilt trip Dr. Weir was tryin’ to settle on him. “It wasn’t just the nanites affectin’ him, he’d cracked under the pressure.” I cock an eyebrow at Rodney. “You knew that about him already, I think.”
“He was quiet a lot, I’d been…keeping an eye on him.” Rodney shrugs. “It’s the ones who don’t complain that you have to worry about.” He sees the look on Sheppard’s face, rolls his eyes and groans. “Go ahead and say it.”
The major grins. “Then I guess we’ll never have to worry about you, will we?” Rodney sticks his tongue out at him, and Sheppard chuckles into his drink. “You told me to go ahead and say it.”
“Just once I’d like to make that offer and have nobody take me up on it.”
“Then quit giving me such perfect openings.” Look at him battin’ his eyelashes like that, the man has no shame. “You bring this on yourself, you know.”
Rodney’s tryin’ not to smile. “I hope you know that paybacks are a bitch. Right, Carson?”
I have to laugh, rememberin’ what
we did to those Marines back in
Sheppard pouts. “A man makes one little comment about some monster being on his ship…”
I shake my finger at him. “Oh, you mean sort of like the one wee comment I made about not likin’ to have my atoms scattered out across the galaxy to get from place to place?”
“Or someone’s unfortunate word choice in the infirmary the time I passed out?” Rodney’s own devil is showin’, and I’m glad to see it. He stretches out a bit more in his chair, settlin’ himself more comfortably, and I know the alcohol is kickin’ in. Good, that means we’ll have him to sleep soon; he needs it. Sheppard needs it too, but he’s half there already and I’m just countin’ on the alcohol to keep him under long enough so he’ll sleep himself out.
I drain my glass and wave off a refill; I have to get up early in the mornin’, sleepin’ myself out isn’t an option. I’ve got other people to check on besides these two, autopsy results to go over, burial arrangements to make, and a new set of quarantine procedures to wrangle out the fine details on. I wonder if somewhere in this city there are more containment suits, or somethin’ we could use as containment suits…
A little snore shakes me out of my thoughts – and probably keeps me from fallin’ asleep in my chair as well. It looks like our major has lost the fight to stay awake, and Rodney’s not too far from losin’ it as well. Time to put him to bed. I pry myself up out of my chair and stretch, then lean over to shake Rodney just a bit. “Rodney, let’s get you to bed.”
He blinks up at me, then when another little snore comes he sits up to get a better look at Sheppard. He starts to laugh, but it turns into a yawn. “Oh damn I’m tired.”
“We all are. Now let’s get you back to your room – if you fall asleep in that chair your back will hurt like bloody blazes in the mornin’.”
“Don’t I know it.” He lets me haul him up out of the chair and steady him until he finds his balance, and then we turn down the lights and leave the major’s room. I notice that Rodney uses his ATA gene to lock the door behind us, but I don’t comment; I’ll be usin’ mine to lock his door as well once I drop him off, as I’ve no doubt that so soon as I’ve dumped him on his bed he’ll be out like a light.
I’m not any too certain that sleep will be comin’ so easily to me, however. And once it does come, I must admit I’m just a wee bit afraid of what it might be bringin’ with it – these two aren’t the only ones who’ve had a bloody awful couple of days.
Maybe I should have taken that refill after all.