Email Me, Okay? - Loss of Identity
Dec. 12th, 2011 12:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinkhcTitle: Email Me, Okay?
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Sheppard, McKay, Jeannie Miller, Lorne
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay, Lorne/Parrish (implied)
Rating: PG
Orientation: Slash
Word Count: 3,855
Notes: Happy Holidays forfairjennet.
Prompts: Hurt Comfort Bingo Fill: "Loss of Identity"
~30 June ~
When they sent John through the Gate to the SGC, a lot of people in the Atlantis Gate Room were pretty upset. He was hugged, a lot. People looked at him oddly; John even saw a few tears. Teyla clasped his face in her hands, pressed her forehead to his and then went up on her tiptoes to kiss his forehead. He thought it probably meant something, most of the things people did meant something other than what they seemed on the surface. He wondered if he used to know about the hidden things, before, when he knew the other things they told him he didn’t know anymore.
Rodney shuffled his feet and started to say something, then just awkwardly hugged John, pinning his arms down so that he couldn’t even attempt to return the hug. He didn’t mind. Rodney was his friend; he’d been his friend before too, except John didn’t remember any of that. But Rodney, Teyla, Ronon and Evan were all his friends now. He liked them best of everyone on Atlantis, and talked to them the most. They didn’t get as frustrated with him because he couldn’t remember the before time. They tried to help him adjust.
After a minute, Rodney released his hold and pulled away. “I’ll write to you. I’ll send you emails, so look for them, okay? Do you remember how to check your SGC email?”
“I remember, Rodney. It’s the old stuff I forgot, not the new stuff you showed me, you just taught me that last week.”
“Jeannie is going to pick you up at Petersen in three days.”
“I know Rodney,” John sighed, Rodney fussed at him sometimes. He wondered if Rodney used to worry about him so much before. He gave a small wave to everyone watching him leave and stepped through the wormhole.
~3rd July~
“Would you like to call your brother?” Jeannie asked after John had finished unpacking his things, which didn’t take long because he only had a duffel bag and a rolling suitcase. Rodney had refused to let him take the skateboard and surfboard from his quarters in Atlantis because he said John “Already had enough brain damage, thanks very much!” John suspected that if he felt about things the way he used to, he might have been upset, but instead, he had only shrugged and left the things behind, since it seemed to make Rodney feel better.
“Dave is already at the conference in Munich. He said not to call unless it was an emergency. I can email him if I need to,” John gestured towards his laptop.
Jeannie stood in the doorway, her arms crossed over her middle as she looked at him sadly. A lot of people looked at him like that these days, with what he had come to recognize as pity. He tried telling them it wasn’t so bad; he didn’t remember what he’d lost, so he wasn’t really upset about it. Sure, it was annoying sometimes, relearning stuff took a lot of time, but since he had nothing better to do, it didn’t really bother him too much.
So far, Rodney’s sister had been very welcoming, and his niece was cute and didn’t treat him with pity or like anything was wrong with him. She called him Uncle John and had taken him on a tour of the house.
When Rodney had told Jeannie that John’s brother Dave was going to hire nurses to look after him while he was away on business, she had insisted that John go to stay with her and Madison instead. It had not mattered to John where he stayed, since he knew Dave as well as he knew the nurses or Jeannie. But according to Rodney, Jeannie had been upset, so John had agreed to go to Canada to recuperate.
~14 July~
Hi John,
Radek blew up his lab yesterday. Well, fine, okay, it wasn’t entirely his fault, but let’s just say it was all his fault to make the argument short, shall we? Besides, all the explanations I would give would be edited out of this email for security reasons anyway. Stupid military censors.
I got an email from Jeannie, you know you can tell her if you don’t like something she made you to eat, don’t you? You never liked eggplant, John, there’s no reason why you would have suddenly, magically started liking eggplant, it used to make you gag.
Torren still asks for you. He started walking.
Everyone here misses you.
Rodney
Closing the email, John smiled. Rodney had done something to the SGC email settings so that the emails he sent through for John in the monthly databurst would be sent one at a time to John so that it seemed like Rodney was writing to him from Atlantis every day. When he had casually mentioned to Jeannie over dinner one night that he got an email every day from Rodney, she had given him a very strange look, and her lower lip had started to tremble before she smiled and remarked that Rodney must really miss John.
He opened the physics textbook Rodney had tossed into his duffel bag to replace the book on international diplomacy Mister Woolsey had given him and Rodney had taken away in disgust. “You’re smart enough to figure this out,” Rodney had said. It was interesting, at least, and kept him from being bored. He was about a quarter of the way through the book. It was helpful having Jeannie here, he asked her questions at the dinner table when he got stuck on something; she knew a lot about physics. Rodney said the SGC wanted her to work for them; she was still considering an offer to freelance for them.
Since it seemed only fair that he write back to Rodney, every night before he turned in, he wrote an email. He forwarded them to the SGC for Rodney, knowing that all the messages would be held to go in the monthly databurst to Atlantis. He really didn’t have too much to say, since he didn’t really do much except read and help Jeannie around the house.
Her husband, the no-account English teacher according to Rodney, had left to move in with a TA at the local college where he taught. The whole situation sort of confused John, but since it seemed to make Jeannie mad and Rodney even madder; John never mentioned anything about F’ing Kaleb F’ing Miller. Jeannie seemed happy to have his help painting, carrying heavy stuff around and fixing things. He had helped her carry a whole bunch of heavy boxes out to the driveway just that morning.
He wasn’t entirely certain of what was going on. Before he found out, the policemen that came to the house when the strange man came and started shouting at Jeannie told John to go back in the house or they would have him up on assault charges for breaking the strange man’s nose. John and Madison had watched through the living room window as the policemen had talked to Jeannie and the man had packed the boxes in his car. Madison told him the man was her dad, and John felt a little bad for bashing him in the face while his kid might have been watching. When Jeannie came in the house, she had hugged John, kissed his cheek and thanked him for sticking up for her. John wrote about all of that in his email to Rodney that night.
~15 August~
Hi John
Lorne got into some trouble on a mission. He got pretty roughed up. Everyone else is okay. Ronon and I should be out of the infirmary soon.
Everyone here misses you.
Rodney
It was the briefest email John had received from Rodney. In just the short time since John’s accident, he had learned that Rodney tended to complain a lot and talk a lot, but most of it just bluster. The brevity of the message and the fact that he hadn’t complained about whatever injuries had caused him to be in the infirmary with Ronon concerned John. Three of his friends were hurt, and he couldn’t do anything for them, he couldn’t even find out how badly hurt they were.
Usually, Rodney wrote a lot of scientific stuff and gossip about people John only vaguely remembered from after the accident, but was starting to know just from Rodney’s messages. The short note made him worry.
That evening, John took Maddie for a walk to the park. He couldn’t stop thinking about what might be happening back on Atlantis. He pushed her on the swing and his mind started to wander. He remembered walking around the city. He remembered sitting in the pilot’s seat in a puddlejumper. At the memory of flying, he felt a sudden sharp sense of loss, and it was hard to breathe. He grasped the chains of the swing in his hand, causing Maddie to stop moving.
“Uncle John? Why’d you stop pushing?”
“Huh?” He let go of the swing and stepped back.
Maddie pushed the soft sand with her toes and stared up at him, concern on her tiny face. “Are you okay?”
He shook his head. “I have a headache. Maybe we should go home now.” Madison climbed off the swing and took his hand, leading him to the sidewalk. They walked slowly, Maddie unusually subdued until they reached the house and darted up the walkway.
“Mommy! Uncle John needs a Tylenol!” Madison screamed as she ran into the house ahead of John.
“I’m sure he does now,” Jeannie said as she came out of the kitchen, “Maddie, don't yell and don’t slam the doors. John, what's wrong?”
He gingerly sat on the sofa and rested his forehead in his hands, his head was pounding. “Headache.”
A minute later, pills were pressed into his left hand and a cup of water into the other. Madison climbed up beside him and put a damp washcloth across his forehead. She hit his eye while arranging it, but he appreciated the effort just the same.
He wrote about puddlejumpers in his email to Rodney. As he drifted off to sleep he thought he might understand the reason some people looked so sad when they looked at him. He’d lost puddlejumpers. Now he sort of remembered them, and it made him ache. That night, he dreamed about flying.
When he woke, his face was still damp.
~1 September~
Hi John
You’re an idiot. If you’re having flashes of memory, you have to tell the doctors! They said you wouldn’t remember anything, they said everything was gone. If there’s something there, then they were wrong about that. If they were wrong about that, the quacks are probably wrong about everything.
Call the SGC, talk to Carolyn Lam. She’s got half a brain. Tell her about your puddlejumper dreams, and the headaches. I’m not psychic, Jeannie’s emails mentioned them. Lam might be able to do something for you, so call her.
Everyone here misses you and wants you back.
Rodney
Since that day in the park, John had remembered sitting in the chair and flying in the city. He remembered how it felt to touch the walls, to have the warm thrum of the city under his hands. He remembered the balconies at sunset and the breeze off the sea; he remembered how the lower levels smelled of must and old salt.
He could remember a lot of things about the city, but he still could not remember his life. He didn’t remember being John Sheppard.
John trusted Rodney and his advice, even though Rodney called him an idiot; he knew that part was just bluster. He didn’t know how he knew that, he just did. He plucked his very rarely used cell phone from the charger and held it in his hand and stared at it for a while as he thought about using it. Should he call the SGC and Doctor Lam? Could they help him be John Sheppard Again? Maybe, if he remembered enough, they’d let him fly again. He flipped open the phone and scanned down the short list of contacts for the SGC. He almost pressed the send key. He clicked the phone closed and flopped back on the bed.
~13 September~
Hi John
I’m attaching an article I found in one of the medical journals. It’s all mumbo jumbo quackery and head shrinker stuff, but it pertains to memory and memory loss, so it might be of interest to you.
Jeannie emailed me that you’ve actually been working through the textbook I gave you and you’re almost done. That’s pretty unexpected and damned impressive, flyboy. I always knew you were smarter than you were letting on.
The rest of the email was about a problem they were having with the sewage filtration system, and had more than the usual amount of SGC security censor-edit blackout messages on it. As always, Rodney had signed the email that everyone missed him and wanted him back. He couldn’t help but wonder how true that was. He got emails in the databurst from quite a few people. His friends didn’t write to him as often as Rodney did, but they did write to him. He got occasional emails from Evan including scans of drawings Evan did of plants grown by his boyfriend that wasn’t his boyfriend as far as the Air Force was concerned.
Ronon never wrote, but Rodney usually added a comment onto his messages that said things like; ‘Ronon said hey’ or ‘Ronon said you owe him a whoopee pie when he comes to see you’ or ‘Ronon said he missed you on the mission today.’
Sometimes Teyla sent messages, but they came translated through Evan or Rodney because she still had trouble writing English. He could hear her voice though, in the words. As he reread the message that had come in this last bunch of emails, he felt his eyes start to sting. He missed Teyla. He missed all of them.
He closed his laptop and put on his sneakers and a sweatshirt. He needed to run. He passed Jeannie on his way down the stairs. She reached out to clasp his arm gently. “You okay John?”
“Yeah, yeah, I just need to burn off this thing…” he waved his hand around near his head and went outside, leaving Jeannie on the stairs staring after him. The air was refreshingly brisk as he took off at a jog down the driveway.
The run to clear his mind wasn’t working. Memories started to assault him as he ran, of other times that he ran. He remembered running through the city with Ronon. Running through trees as gunfire snapped around him. Running in the sand away from his downed bird; trying to get to his team before the hostiles did. He remembered running the obstacle course at boot camp, his lungs burning as he gasped for air, pushed past even his runner’s endurance. He remembered running the track at high school, his mother waiting, smiling, clapping and laughing with delight as he won the 500 yard dash in freshman year.
John stopped running and stood bent double on the sidewalk, panting for breath as he rested his hands on his knees. He remembered his mother. He could see her face in his mind; eyes the same as his own, dark hair, pink lipstick, a quirky smile and husky laugh. He remembered the way she always smelled of flowers, even in winter.
He straightened up and ran back to the house. Yanking open the screen door, he dashed in, startling Jeannie who was sitting on the couch watching the news. “Jeannie, I remember my mother!” He flung himself onto the cushion beside her and she hugged him as he laughed.
~1 October~
Hi John
Jeannie said you left, but she wouldn’t tell me why in her email. I’m surprised to find nothing here from you about it in the September packet.
Did I piss you off or something? I know I can be a jerk and insensitive sometimes. Did I write something that made you mad?
Please write me back; at least tell me what I did this time.
I still miss you.
Rodney
~8 October~
“Unscheduled offworld actrivation!” Chuck called. The senior staff had been gathered in Woolsey’s office, going over personnel assignments and supply requisitions, again. Glad for the distraction, Lorne and Rodney leapt up and ran to the Gate Room.
“SGC IDC!” Chuck hollered.
A trolley of munitions thundered through, followed by a squad of marines. A sergeant walked over and saluted Lorne. “Major Lorne, I’m Sergeant Halprin, we’ve got the delivery that would have been on the Daedalus for you. A few weeks early but the SGC figured you wouldn’t mind. The Daedalus is going in for a minor refit and will be out of service for a while.”
“Early coffee? Never!” Lorne laughed and looked over at McKay, nodding in agreement.
“Coffee, munitions, some personnel, and your Military Commander. General Landry figured you might not want to wait for him until the refit is finished.” Trolleys of supplies rolled noisily through the Gate.
Lorne, Woolsey and McKay exchanged a look. They had been waiting for this day to come; John’s replacement had been expected on the next Daedalus run.
“Don’t look so glum, guys, it won’t be so bad,” a familiar voice drawled.
“John?” Rodney exclaimed, his mouth falling open as Sheppard walked towards them.
Sheppard smiled and jumped out of the way of a munitions cart. “Yup. Landry didn’t want me, so I asked to come back here. Colonel Sheppard officially reporting for duty, Mister Woolsey.”
“You’re back!” Lorne pounded on John’s back after giving him a quick one-armed hug. Rodney’s jaw was working, but no words were coming out as he stared at John.
The Gate Room erupted into chaos as word spread that Colonel Sheppard was back. Getting out of the way of the supply delivery, John awkwardly met each greeting the same way he would have in the past; with his ‘meet the natives’ smile plastered firmly in place, a duck of his head, a rub at the back of his neck, a chuckle here and there and a stiff hug in return to those few that were comfortable enough to embrace him.
It seemed like John. When Ronon grabbed him and swung him in a wide circle, John laughed heartily. Once he was set back on his feet, he pushed his hair back to show Ronon his new scar, one that had not been there when he had left that summer.
Sliding slowly to the back of the crowd, unsure what to say or how to act, Rodney let everyone else welcome Sheppard home. He ducked out of the Gate Room and escaped to his lab, but couldn’t concentrate on anything. He went to his quarters and put a movie in his DVD player and sat there on his bed, not watching it.
The door chimed. He hollered “Come in!”
“Hey Rodney.”
“John.”
“You mad at me?” John asked, leaning on the wall beside the door. It was a casual slump, so like the old John that it hurt Rodney to look at him, so he looked away.
Rodney shook his head and fiddled with the keys on his laptop. “I figured you were mad at me actually, you stopped answering my emails.”
“I was in the hospital, Rodney.”
“You were?”
John swept the hair back and showed him the scar he had showed Ronon earlier. “Brain surgery. I called Lam and the next thing I knew, I was off world at some alien medical facility. It all happened so fast, I didn’t have a chance to tell you.” John reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a stack of folded papers and held them out. “I wrote these when I was in the hospital. They wouldn’t let me have a laptop,” John shrugged.
Swinging his legs off the bed, Rodney got up and walked up, taking the letters, his curiosity wouldn’t let him not do so. “I thought… I really thought you were mad at me.”
“You missed me,” John said quietly. “You said so in your emails.”
“Of course. Everyone missed you.”
John smirked and tilted his head. “You missed me the most.”
“Maybe,” Rodney admitted with a shrug.
“I missed you too, Rodney. I guess I’ll see you later.” John waved and ducked out the door while Rodney was staring at the letters in his hand.
He looked over as the door swished closed. “John…”
He walked back to the bed and unfolded the first letter and started to read.
~8 October~
Dear John
In your letters, you said a lot of the things I should have said. I didn’t say them because it seemed like it would be cruel to you, like I was expecting something from you that you couldn’t possibly give. Not after everything that had happened to you. So I said nothing.
I thought I lost you. I thought you were dead, and nothing in my life has hurt as much as that did. And then when you weren’t, when they brought you back, I was so relieved. But then it turned out I did lose you after all, because you weren’t you anymore.
Now you’re back, you’re really back, and you’re you. And I don’t know what to say. I don’t want things to be that way they were before. I can’t go back to the way it was, it hurt too much.
Rodney
John sat back and stared at the screen, disappointed and focused on the end of the message. He had hoped Rodney would understand what he had been trying to say in the letters. He had written them by hand and brought them in person so that for once, no one could censor or edit him. But Rodney didn’t want him. He shut the laptop off and walked out onto the balcony to stare at the water.
“I forced the door, you didn’t answer the chime,” Rodney said from the doorway, startling John from his reverie.
Without turning, John said, “I didn’t hear it.” He was leaning on the railing, and kept his face turned away. It was better this way; he couldn’t face him, not yet.
Rodney walked up to stand beside him, resting one foot on the lower railing. “So, I’m a greedy and selfish man. You probably know that already.”
“You do have your moments,” John agreed.
“I can’t go back, John.”
“I get that. Don’t worry about it, Rodney, forget I said anything. I was halfway stoned on pain meds when I wrote most of that stuff. I get that you don’t… just forget it.”
Rodney grabbed his arm. “I don’t want to forget it. I want more. I said I’m greedy, I want everything.”
When John glanced over and saw Rodney staring at him hopefully, he breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Rodney leaned over and kissed him, tentatively at first, and then greedily.
The End
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Sheppard, McKay, Jeannie Miller, Lorne
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay, Lorne/Parrish (implied)
Rating: PG
Orientation: Slash
Word Count: 3,855
Notes: Happy Holidays for
fairjennet.Prompts: Hurt Comfort Bingo Fill: "Loss of Identity"
~30 June ~
When they sent John through the Gate to the SGC, a lot of people in the Atlantis Gate Room were pretty upset. He was hugged, a lot. People looked at him oddly; John even saw a few tears. Teyla clasped his face in her hands, pressed her forehead to his and then went up on her tiptoes to kiss his forehead. He thought it probably meant something, most of the things people did meant something other than what they seemed on the surface. He wondered if he used to know about the hidden things, before, when he knew the other things they told him he didn’t know anymore.
Rodney shuffled his feet and started to say something, then just awkwardly hugged John, pinning his arms down so that he couldn’t even attempt to return the hug. He didn’t mind. Rodney was his friend; he’d been his friend before too, except John didn’t remember any of that. But Rodney, Teyla, Ronon and Evan were all his friends now. He liked them best of everyone on Atlantis, and talked to them the most. They didn’t get as frustrated with him because he couldn’t remember the before time. They tried to help him adjust.
After a minute, Rodney released his hold and pulled away. “I’ll write to you. I’ll send you emails, so look for them, okay? Do you remember how to check your SGC email?”
“I remember, Rodney. It’s the old stuff I forgot, not the new stuff you showed me, you just taught me that last week.”
“Jeannie is going to pick you up at Petersen in three days.”
“I know Rodney,” John sighed, Rodney fussed at him sometimes. He wondered if Rodney used to worry about him so much before. He gave a small wave to everyone watching him leave and stepped through the wormhole.
~3rd July~
“Would you like to call your brother?” Jeannie asked after John had finished unpacking his things, which didn’t take long because he only had a duffel bag and a rolling suitcase. Rodney had refused to let him take the skateboard and surfboard from his quarters in Atlantis because he said John “Already had enough brain damage, thanks very much!” John suspected that if he felt about things the way he used to, he might have been upset, but instead, he had only shrugged and left the things behind, since it seemed to make Rodney feel better.
“Dave is already at the conference in Munich. He said not to call unless it was an emergency. I can email him if I need to,” John gestured towards his laptop.
Jeannie stood in the doorway, her arms crossed over her middle as she looked at him sadly. A lot of people looked at him like that these days, with what he had come to recognize as pity. He tried telling them it wasn’t so bad; he didn’t remember what he’d lost, so he wasn’t really upset about it. Sure, it was annoying sometimes, relearning stuff took a lot of time, but since he had nothing better to do, it didn’t really bother him too much.
So far, Rodney’s sister had been very welcoming, and his niece was cute and didn’t treat him with pity or like anything was wrong with him. She called him Uncle John and had taken him on a tour of the house.
When Rodney had told Jeannie that John’s brother Dave was going to hire nurses to look after him while he was away on business, she had insisted that John go to stay with her and Madison instead. It had not mattered to John where he stayed, since he knew Dave as well as he knew the nurses or Jeannie. But according to Rodney, Jeannie had been upset, so John had agreed to go to Canada to recuperate.
~14 July~
Hi John,
Radek blew up his lab yesterday. Well, fine, okay, it wasn’t entirely his fault, but let’s just say it was all his fault to make the argument short, shall we? Besides, all the explanations I would give would be edited out of this email for security reasons anyway. Stupid military censors.
I got an email from Jeannie, you know you can tell her if you don’t like something she made you to eat, don’t you? You never liked eggplant, John, there’s no reason why you would have suddenly, magically started liking eggplant, it used to make you gag.
Torren still asks for you. He started walking.
Everyone here misses you.
Rodney
Closing the email, John smiled. Rodney had done something to the SGC email settings so that the emails he sent through for John in the monthly databurst would be sent one at a time to John so that it seemed like Rodney was writing to him from Atlantis every day. When he had casually mentioned to Jeannie over dinner one night that he got an email every day from Rodney, she had given him a very strange look, and her lower lip had started to tremble before she smiled and remarked that Rodney must really miss John.
He opened the physics textbook Rodney had tossed into his duffel bag to replace the book on international diplomacy Mister Woolsey had given him and Rodney had taken away in disgust. “You’re smart enough to figure this out,” Rodney had said. It was interesting, at least, and kept him from being bored. He was about a quarter of the way through the book. It was helpful having Jeannie here, he asked her questions at the dinner table when he got stuck on something; she knew a lot about physics. Rodney said the SGC wanted her to work for them; she was still considering an offer to freelance for them.
Since it seemed only fair that he write back to Rodney, every night before he turned in, he wrote an email. He forwarded them to the SGC for Rodney, knowing that all the messages would be held to go in the monthly databurst to Atlantis. He really didn’t have too much to say, since he didn’t really do much except read and help Jeannie around the house.
Her husband, the no-account English teacher according to Rodney, had left to move in with a TA at the local college where he taught. The whole situation sort of confused John, but since it seemed to make Jeannie mad and Rodney even madder; John never mentioned anything about F’ing Kaleb F’ing Miller. Jeannie seemed happy to have his help painting, carrying heavy stuff around and fixing things. He had helped her carry a whole bunch of heavy boxes out to the driveway just that morning.
He wasn’t entirely certain of what was going on. Before he found out, the policemen that came to the house when the strange man came and started shouting at Jeannie told John to go back in the house or they would have him up on assault charges for breaking the strange man’s nose. John and Madison had watched through the living room window as the policemen had talked to Jeannie and the man had packed the boxes in his car. Madison told him the man was her dad, and John felt a little bad for bashing him in the face while his kid might have been watching. When Jeannie came in the house, she had hugged John, kissed his cheek and thanked him for sticking up for her. John wrote about all of that in his email to Rodney that night.
~15 August~
Hi John
Lorne got into some trouble on a mission. He got pretty roughed up. Everyone else is okay. Ronon and I should be out of the infirmary soon.
Everyone here misses you.
Rodney
It was the briefest email John had received from Rodney. In just the short time since John’s accident, he had learned that Rodney tended to complain a lot and talk a lot, but most of it just bluster. The brevity of the message and the fact that he hadn’t complained about whatever injuries had caused him to be in the infirmary with Ronon concerned John. Three of his friends were hurt, and he couldn’t do anything for them, he couldn’t even find out how badly hurt they were.
Usually, Rodney wrote a lot of scientific stuff and gossip about people John only vaguely remembered from after the accident, but was starting to know just from Rodney’s messages. The short note made him worry.
That evening, John took Maddie for a walk to the park. He couldn’t stop thinking about what might be happening back on Atlantis. He pushed her on the swing and his mind started to wander. He remembered walking around the city. He remembered sitting in the pilot’s seat in a puddlejumper. At the memory of flying, he felt a sudden sharp sense of loss, and it was hard to breathe. He grasped the chains of the swing in his hand, causing Maddie to stop moving.
“Uncle John? Why’d you stop pushing?”
“Huh?” He let go of the swing and stepped back.
Maddie pushed the soft sand with her toes and stared up at him, concern on her tiny face. “Are you okay?”
He shook his head. “I have a headache. Maybe we should go home now.” Madison climbed off the swing and took his hand, leading him to the sidewalk. They walked slowly, Maddie unusually subdued until they reached the house and darted up the walkway.
“Mommy! Uncle John needs a Tylenol!” Madison screamed as she ran into the house ahead of John.
“I’m sure he does now,” Jeannie said as she came out of the kitchen, “Maddie, don't yell and don’t slam the doors. John, what's wrong?”
He gingerly sat on the sofa and rested his forehead in his hands, his head was pounding. “Headache.”
A minute later, pills were pressed into his left hand and a cup of water into the other. Madison climbed up beside him and put a damp washcloth across his forehead. She hit his eye while arranging it, but he appreciated the effort just the same.
He wrote about puddlejumpers in his email to Rodney. As he drifted off to sleep he thought he might understand the reason some people looked so sad when they looked at him. He’d lost puddlejumpers. Now he sort of remembered them, and it made him ache. That night, he dreamed about flying.
When he woke, his face was still damp.
~1 September~
Hi John
You’re an idiot. If you’re having flashes of memory, you have to tell the doctors! They said you wouldn’t remember anything, they said everything was gone. If there’s something there, then they were wrong about that. If they were wrong about that, the quacks are probably wrong about everything.
Call the SGC, talk to Carolyn Lam. She’s got half a brain. Tell her about your puddlejumper dreams, and the headaches. I’m not psychic, Jeannie’s emails mentioned them. Lam might be able to do something for you, so call her.
Everyone here misses you and wants you back.
Rodney
Since that day in the park, John had remembered sitting in the chair and flying in the city. He remembered how it felt to touch the walls, to have the warm thrum of the city under his hands. He remembered the balconies at sunset and the breeze off the sea; he remembered how the lower levels smelled of must and old salt.
He could remember a lot of things about the city, but he still could not remember his life. He didn’t remember being John Sheppard.
John trusted Rodney and his advice, even though Rodney called him an idiot; he knew that part was just bluster. He didn’t know how he knew that, he just did. He plucked his very rarely used cell phone from the charger and held it in his hand and stared at it for a while as he thought about using it. Should he call the SGC and Doctor Lam? Could they help him be John Sheppard Again? Maybe, if he remembered enough, they’d let him fly again. He flipped open the phone and scanned down the short list of contacts for the SGC. He almost pressed the send key. He clicked the phone closed and flopped back on the bed.
~13 September~
Hi John
I’m attaching an article I found in one of the medical journals. It’s all mumbo jumbo quackery and head shrinker stuff, but it pertains to memory and memory loss, so it might be of interest to you.
Jeannie emailed me that you’ve actually been working through the textbook I gave you and you’re almost done. That’s pretty unexpected and damned impressive, flyboy. I always knew you were smarter than you were letting on.
The rest of the email was about a problem they were having with the sewage filtration system, and had more than the usual amount of SGC security censor-edit blackout messages on it. As always, Rodney had signed the email that everyone missed him and wanted him back. He couldn’t help but wonder how true that was. He got emails in the databurst from quite a few people. His friends didn’t write to him as often as Rodney did, but they did write to him. He got occasional emails from Evan including scans of drawings Evan did of plants grown by his boyfriend that wasn’t his boyfriend as far as the Air Force was concerned.
Ronon never wrote, but Rodney usually added a comment onto his messages that said things like; ‘Ronon said hey’ or ‘Ronon said you owe him a whoopee pie when he comes to see you’ or ‘Ronon said he missed you on the mission today.’
Sometimes Teyla sent messages, but they came translated through Evan or Rodney because she still had trouble writing English. He could hear her voice though, in the words. As he reread the message that had come in this last bunch of emails, he felt his eyes start to sting. He missed Teyla. He missed all of them.
He closed his laptop and put on his sneakers and a sweatshirt. He needed to run. He passed Jeannie on his way down the stairs. She reached out to clasp his arm gently. “You okay John?”
“Yeah, yeah, I just need to burn off this thing…” he waved his hand around near his head and went outside, leaving Jeannie on the stairs staring after him. The air was refreshingly brisk as he took off at a jog down the driveway.
The run to clear his mind wasn’t working. Memories started to assault him as he ran, of other times that he ran. He remembered running through the city with Ronon. Running through trees as gunfire snapped around him. Running in the sand away from his downed bird; trying to get to his team before the hostiles did. He remembered running the obstacle course at boot camp, his lungs burning as he gasped for air, pushed past even his runner’s endurance. He remembered running the track at high school, his mother waiting, smiling, clapping and laughing with delight as he won the 500 yard dash in freshman year.
John stopped running and stood bent double on the sidewalk, panting for breath as he rested his hands on his knees. He remembered his mother. He could see her face in his mind; eyes the same as his own, dark hair, pink lipstick, a quirky smile and husky laugh. He remembered the way she always smelled of flowers, even in winter.
He straightened up and ran back to the house. Yanking open the screen door, he dashed in, startling Jeannie who was sitting on the couch watching the news. “Jeannie, I remember my mother!” He flung himself onto the cushion beside her and she hugged him as he laughed.
~1 October~
Hi John
Jeannie said you left, but she wouldn’t tell me why in her email. I’m surprised to find nothing here from you about it in the September packet.
Did I piss you off or something? I know I can be a jerk and insensitive sometimes. Did I write something that made you mad?
Please write me back; at least tell me what I did this time.
I still miss you.
Rodney
~8 October~
“Unscheduled offworld actrivation!” Chuck called. The senior staff had been gathered in Woolsey’s office, going over personnel assignments and supply requisitions, again. Glad for the distraction, Lorne and Rodney leapt up and ran to the Gate Room.
“SGC IDC!” Chuck hollered.
A trolley of munitions thundered through, followed by a squad of marines. A sergeant walked over and saluted Lorne. “Major Lorne, I’m Sergeant Halprin, we’ve got the delivery that would have been on the Daedalus for you. A few weeks early but the SGC figured you wouldn’t mind. The Daedalus is going in for a minor refit and will be out of service for a while.”
“Early coffee? Never!” Lorne laughed and looked over at McKay, nodding in agreement.
“Coffee, munitions, some personnel, and your Military Commander. General Landry figured you might not want to wait for him until the refit is finished.” Trolleys of supplies rolled noisily through the Gate.
Lorne, Woolsey and McKay exchanged a look. They had been waiting for this day to come; John’s replacement had been expected on the next Daedalus run.
“Don’t look so glum, guys, it won’t be so bad,” a familiar voice drawled.
“John?” Rodney exclaimed, his mouth falling open as Sheppard walked towards them.
Sheppard smiled and jumped out of the way of a munitions cart. “Yup. Landry didn’t want me, so I asked to come back here. Colonel Sheppard officially reporting for duty, Mister Woolsey.”
“You’re back!” Lorne pounded on John’s back after giving him a quick one-armed hug. Rodney’s jaw was working, but no words were coming out as he stared at John.
The Gate Room erupted into chaos as word spread that Colonel Sheppard was back. Getting out of the way of the supply delivery, John awkwardly met each greeting the same way he would have in the past; with his ‘meet the natives’ smile plastered firmly in place, a duck of his head, a rub at the back of his neck, a chuckle here and there and a stiff hug in return to those few that were comfortable enough to embrace him.
It seemed like John. When Ronon grabbed him and swung him in a wide circle, John laughed heartily. Once he was set back on his feet, he pushed his hair back to show Ronon his new scar, one that had not been there when he had left that summer.
Sliding slowly to the back of the crowd, unsure what to say or how to act, Rodney let everyone else welcome Sheppard home. He ducked out of the Gate Room and escaped to his lab, but couldn’t concentrate on anything. He went to his quarters and put a movie in his DVD player and sat there on his bed, not watching it.
The door chimed. He hollered “Come in!”
“Hey Rodney.”
“John.”
“You mad at me?” John asked, leaning on the wall beside the door. It was a casual slump, so like the old John that it hurt Rodney to look at him, so he looked away.
Rodney shook his head and fiddled with the keys on his laptop. “I figured you were mad at me actually, you stopped answering my emails.”
“I was in the hospital, Rodney.”
“You were?”
John swept the hair back and showed him the scar he had showed Ronon earlier. “Brain surgery. I called Lam and the next thing I knew, I was off world at some alien medical facility. It all happened so fast, I didn’t have a chance to tell you.” John reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a stack of folded papers and held them out. “I wrote these when I was in the hospital. They wouldn’t let me have a laptop,” John shrugged.
Swinging his legs off the bed, Rodney got up and walked up, taking the letters, his curiosity wouldn’t let him not do so. “I thought… I really thought you were mad at me.”
“You missed me,” John said quietly. “You said so in your emails.”
“Of course. Everyone missed you.”
John smirked and tilted his head. “You missed me the most.”
“Maybe,” Rodney admitted with a shrug.
“I missed you too, Rodney. I guess I’ll see you later.” John waved and ducked out the door while Rodney was staring at the letters in his hand.
He looked over as the door swished closed. “John…”
He walked back to the bed and unfolded the first letter and started to read.
~8 October~
Dear John
In your letters, you said a lot of the things I should have said. I didn’t say them because it seemed like it would be cruel to you, like I was expecting something from you that you couldn’t possibly give. Not after everything that had happened to you. So I said nothing.
I thought I lost you. I thought you were dead, and nothing in my life has hurt as much as that did. And then when you weren’t, when they brought you back, I was so relieved. But then it turned out I did lose you after all, because you weren’t you anymore.
Now you’re back, you’re really back, and you’re you. And I don’t know what to say. I don’t want things to be that way they were before. I can’t go back to the way it was, it hurt too much.
Rodney
John sat back and stared at the screen, disappointed and focused on the end of the message. He had hoped Rodney would understand what he had been trying to say in the letters. He had written them by hand and brought them in person so that for once, no one could censor or edit him. But Rodney didn’t want him. He shut the laptop off and walked out onto the balcony to stare at the water.
“I forced the door, you didn’t answer the chime,” Rodney said from the doorway, startling John from his reverie.
Without turning, John said, “I didn’t hear it.” He was leaning on the railing, and kept his face turned away. It was better this way; he couldn’t face him, not yet.
Rodney walked up to stand beside him, resting one foot on the lower railing. “So, I’m a greedy and selfish man. You probably know that already.”
“You do have your moments,” John agreed.
“I can’t go back, John.”
“I get that. Don’t worry about it, Rodney, forget I said anything. I was halfway stoned on pain meds when I wrote most of that stuff. I get that you don’t… just forget it.”
Rodney grabbed his arm. “I don’t want to forget it. I want more. I said I’m greedy, I want everything.”
When John glanced over and saw Rodney staring at him hopefully, he breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Rodney leaned over and kissed him, tentatively at first, and then greedily.
The End