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Title: Hegira - Part Seven
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: John/Rodney
Rating: Adult Themes
Word Count: 3,959
Spoilers: None
Category: AU
Notes: Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter borrowed from SG-1.
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine
Summary: “Now, a smarter man would have realised that the life he was leading was just plain bad for him by now.”
“We were friends once, Bart.”
The balding man with the look of an old warhorse gone to seed spun around, hands still on the tie he had been fixing in front of his bedroom mirror.
“Jesus, Jack, give a guy a heart attack!” he breathed, hand stealing out towards the top drawer of the bureau behind him.
“Looking for this?” Jack reached into the back of his pants and pulled free a small revolver and waggled it. “Really Bart, I’m hurt.”
“Look, it was good of you to come, Jack.” General Fielding said, eyes darting to the door which Jack was standing in front of. “There was a bit of a mix-up-“
“Don’t insult us both,” Jack growled, raising the revolver and then motioning to a chair in the corner of the room. “Have a seat.”
“Jack, honestly-“
“I’m not sure you know the meaning of that word, General,” Jack snarled. “I’d really like to know just what is going on. Lie to me and I’ll start with your kneecaps and kinda work my way up.”
Fielding’s face tightened and it looked like he almost braced himself before speaking. “Alright, have it your way. To be blunt, we are decommissioning you,” he said.
“The hell?” Jack growled.
“Look, Jack, this whole thing has been a cock-up from the get-go. The higher-ups have decided to bury the whole thing, including everyone involved. Things have… changed.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?” he grated.
“Part of the NID’s operations has been controlled by private interests for a little while now. They are more interested in profit than anything else. They want this mess cleaned up as quietly as possible.”
“We served together. How could you set me up?”
“There was more than a little loss of confidence in your abilities when we discovered one of your previous termination orders was still walking around.” When Jack paled, Fielding sighed and rolled his eyes. “You exposed her to bring your other targets in. We noticed.” Fielding picked lint off his shoulder as he said, “Besides, times have changed.”
Jack leapt the space between him and Fielding in one smooth movement and had his hands around the man’s throat before the General had finished the action of gaining his feet. Jack spun with the man held aloft and took a couple of steps backwards. They both pitched over the bed and landed on the carpeting behind, Jack pinning the smaller man. Fielding looked up at his attacker with surprise and dawning horror.
Fielding gagged and clawed ineffectually at the powerful hands throttling him. He squeaked and Jack loosened his grip a little. “What was that?” Jack prompted.
Fielding gasped a few times before trying to speak. When he did his voice came out in a harsh croak. “It’s not up to me. The decision has already been made. I just… facilitated.” Jack relaxed his hands completely and stood. The other man scrabbled backwards, rubbing his neck and coughing. He looked up at Jack and his eyes were hard and flinty. Gone was the polite veneer.
“The NID has been out of purely governmental hands for some time now. Look at what you do. Surely this doesn’t come as a complete surprise.” He picked himself up from the floor and eased himself onto the end of his bed, watching Jack warily the whole time as if he was expecting a repeat performance.
Jack dropped into a chair opposite the bed, feeling at a loss.
He was built to take orders and carry them out with skill and little emotion. He had not had to think for himself for a long time and he had very nearly forgotten how. He was a creature of habit and little imagination. He was the weapon. A weapon was useless when there was no one to wield it.
Jack felt sick inside, but mostly he felt old. Thoughts of retirement were cast aside as quickly as they surfaced. He was supposed to die in battle, on his feet with a weapon in hand.
Fielding sat forward with his elbows resting on his knees. His face softened and he looked as if he were treating with a wounded animal rather than a person. Jack was beginning to feel like a whipped dog by this time so it wasn't any wonder.
"We're not ogres and we’re certainly not the enemy. We're just realists. We've lost count of the number of times we've nearly had to close up shop because of the cost involved."
"You’re creating monsters," Jack interjected coldly.
"As you will," Fielding sighed as Jack lapsed into black silence. "Be that as it may, there is no alternative and we’re simply looking for the solution where everyone wins. You have no idea what we’re up against, what’s out there." Fielding took a moment to stare at Jack steadily. “There are other worlds out there that have become a resource that we are willing to exploit.”
“Other worlds? Jesus, are you talking aliens?” Jack breathed, feeling ill.
Fielding shrugged. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the finer details with you. You’re a marked man Jack, but a man who knows how to disappear. Take my advice and get the hell out of Dodge. Of course, I know you’ll resurface sooner or later because you’re a dumb shit, I’d just rather it didn’t happen on my watch.”
Jack sat looking at the man before him for a few moments, unsure of how to proceed. He was right, of course he was right. Jack needed order and an avenue to channel his aggression, but most of all he didn't want to die an old man, wasting away in some forgotten old-people's hell hole. Dying that way wasn't really dying. It was much, much worse.
Jack stood slowly. “Who are these guys, the private interest?”
“Jack, I can’t tell you-“ Words disappeared into a surprised wail as Jack pulled the trigger twice.
As promised, he’d started with the kneecaps.
~~~
“Now, a smarter man would have realised that the life he was leading was just plain bad for him by now.”
Rodney recognised the voice and thought, or hoped, that he was merely in the grips of a nightmare. He was vastly disappointed when he opened his eyes and found this was not the case. The grey-haired man was sitting in his hospital room on a cracked chair with his feet up on Rodney’s bed. Rodney couldn’t see the weapon he had been nursing the last time he had woken up to him, but he knew it wouldn’t be very far away.
“Do you ever enter rooms with awake people in them?” he asked dryly. It hurt slightly to talk and Rodney felt fuzzyheaded. When he’d tried to break the bedhead in the motel room to free himself from his handcuffs, he’d managed to splinter it and ended up with a big piece of wood through his forearm for his trouble. He’d bled, a lot and the hotel manager, all the while probably thinking it had merely been some kind of kinky sex-act gone wrong, had insisted on Rodney going to the hospital. He’d been dehydrated and had low blood pressure so the doctor in the emergency room had been adamant about an overnight stay.
“Usually. Not my fault you sleep a lot,” Jack quipped. He swung his legs off the bed and leaned forward, steepling his fingers under his chin.
Rodney sighed. “Come to finish me off?” he asked simply.
Jack smiled at him. “Don’t jerk me around, I know he’s here somewhere. Boy strikes me as crazy loyal and I can tell that he’s certainly attached to you.”
Rodney’s eyes widened. “What are you saying?” he breathed, not really willing to believe yet that perhaps John wasn’t dead or recaptured. If this man had come back to him then it was possible. Hope flared in Rodney’s chest.
“Hmm, interesting.” Jack tapped his lip with a finger, regarding Rodney carefully, giving the impression that he was reading what was written under Rodney’s expression. “He’s not here then?”
“No, not that I would tell you if he were. You are trying to kill him aren’t you?”
“Not exactly. I’ve been doing this stuff for way too long and my employers have gotten their moral compasses all screwed. There’s a new breed of gluttony that’s running the place. I don’t expect you to believe me, but here’s a little coinage towards maybe buying myself some penance.”
Jack tossed a folder onto the wheeled table that was across Rodney’s bed. Rodney fingered the corner, noting the fine spray of red across the cover. “What’s this?” he asked, his brow furrowed.
“I know you’ve got some files from the Scottish doctor. This might go towards filling in more blanks. It’s details on the Project, straight from the horses mouth as it were.”
Rodney blinked and wondered if the drugs he had been given for the pain were affecting his hearing. He couldn’t quite believe or truly digest what he was being told. He knew that too much had happened over the last few weeks for him to process properly and he wished he could be granted even a small respite. “Why should I believe you?”
“I know it all sounds a little far-fetched, but there’s a very good reason I won’t hurt either of you.”
“Why’s that?”
“Every now and again, some innocent gets dragged into all this. There was this scientist, smart as hell and tough to boot. She got in over her head and tried to leave these people and they let her go with a smile and a pat on the shoulder and then hired me.”
“Samantha Carter,” Rodney hazarded.
Jack looked down at his hands and then back up at Rodney. “He could have run, gotten away clean. He went back to save her.”
Rodney’s mouth had dropped open halfway through Jack’s story and he closed it now with a snap. “Is he alright?” he pressed.
“I want to think of him as a monster, some kind of creation. Reading that file,” Jack continued, flicking the folder with a disdainful finger, “More so now than ever. But he was a person once, had his life stolen from him. No matter how far from true he’s been skewed by their… experiments, there’s still something of a good guy there. The way he is with you and going back for her, there’s no other conclusion.”
“Is he alright?” Rodney winced at the shrillness in his tone, but he didn’t like the way the older man was talking around his question. It gave him a queasy feeling deep down that maybe John was still in danger.
“If it makes you feel any better, I can swear I would have left her if she wasn’t just on the way to my freedom.” Jack didn’t look surprised at the sudden presence of John at the doorway. He simply smiled a secret smile and stood.
“That would ease my mind greatly,” Jack said and drew the weapon out of this jacket that Rodney had seen only once before. Rodney started in horror, thinking everything had been a pretty lie to lower both his and John’s defences, but Jack laid the weapon on the second wheeled hospital table in the room beside him and pushed it out of his immediate reach. “I know you could get to me before I could get to it. I thought I would ease your mind in return.”
“Very generous of you,” he replied, but didn’t move further into the room, just as Jack did not move around from the window. Both hunter and hunted were very used to the art of not being cornered. Rodney watched the scene play out before him with more than a little interest. The expression on John’s face was inches away from being the baring of teeth. Rodney had spent weeks with the man in the doorway, but he had never seen an expression even close to it. John’s whole face pulled upwards in a watchful wariness that would have looked at home on a lion and he had to admit to himself that it scared him a little. He had to wonder if this was the true face of John, forced to the surface under duress.
John smiled and the expression made him all the more predatory. Jack’s knowing little grin faded and his gun-hand tightened in a silent wish that he still had the comfort of his weapon at his side. Jack seemed to realise that he could have misjudged the situation and pay for that mistake with his life very shortly after.
Just at that moment, however, John dropped whatever instinct he had been holding onto and warmth flooded back into his features, his entire countenance relaxing. He moved forward and placed a cool hand on Rodney’s forehead. “The Government huh?” John prompted, only looking up at Jack after Rodney had treated him to a smile.
“Some new power has swooped in and seems to be responsible for most of the funding the NID utilises to make its programs possible and I’m not sure how high up their influence goes, but enough that a full bird Colonel with the ear of the President was quaking in his boots.”
John held up one hand and moved towards him. Jack immediately became wary but the air he wore was not one of malice. John advanced upon him and Jack had no choice but to stop edging away when his back came up against the window. He put one hand behind his back and undid the latch so if he had to go backwards, it would be through an open window and not glass.
John reached out and placed two palms against his chest. He ran them down his coat and John’s brow furrowed. His hands snaked behind Jack’s back and the older man’s own shot out and grasped John around the throat instinctively. John didn’t flinch or back away, but kept up his exploration. Jack’s hands gripped tighter, threatening violence with violence.
John’s finger snagged on a small hole in Jack’s coat and John poked inwards, his exploration finally bearing fruit it would seem as he pulled backwards. Deep bruises bloomed around John’s throat where Jack’s hands had pressed and understanding hit Rodney that any normal man would have been choked to death with the pressure he had been exerting. John took no notice however, but held his finger in front of Jack’s face.
A tiny square, only a little bigger than a pinhead was stuck to it. Jack had to squint to see it. John squeezed his thumb onto the finger and there was a tiny crackle. “They’ve been bugging you. Chances are they know where you are and what you’re doing right now,” John said angrily.
“And who you’re with.” Rodney piped up from the bed. He tried to sit up but the drugs he had been given made him dizzy and he fell back against his pillows.
“You’re an old war dog right? Don’t take none of that new fangled technology crap?” John dropped his voice to a gravely rasp with mocking in his tone. “Doesn’t stop other people using it on you apparently.” John’s tone rose as he began unhooking Rodney from the machines that monitored his life signs. The sound of Rodney flat-lining filled the room as John tore the heart monitor from his chest.
“John, what-?” Rodney protested.
John ignored him and went through the bedside drawers and found Rodney’s wallet. He tucked it in his back pocket. “Ready?” he said as he slid his arms under Rodney’s back and legs. Rodney was going to protest, but then he was reminded of all the times he had had to do the same thing for John, removing him when he just couldn’t wake up. Saving him from danger.
Two nurses and a doctor slid to a halt in front of Rodney’s door with a crash cart between them, all of them wild-eyed and pumped with adrenalin. The two nurses stopped and stared mutely at the lean man with another full-grown man in his arms, lifting him as easily as a child. The doctor was not dumbstruck however and strode into the room like someone who was used to having his every order obeyed. “What the hell are you doing? Put him back in bed for chrissakes!” he barked.
John eased Rodney back onto the bed and then seemed to move in a blur. There was a cracking sound and the doctor slid bonelessly to the floor. John turned to the nurses and they both yelped and scurried out of the way, screaming for security. John edged out of the door and spotted the fire stairs directly opposite Rodney’s room. John turned to pick Rodney back up, who was already on his own feet and made shooing gestures with his hands. John nodded and made for the firestairs.
~~~
“So, the sunlight thing?”
“Huh?” Jack started, horrified to realise that he had almost been dozing on his feet. They had all bundled into a beat-up pickup he had been using and Jack had driven as long and as fast as he could. When his eyes had become too grainy and he had wandered across three lanes of traffic without realising it, he knew he had to pull over and take a rest. The pickup was currently standing under a large oak tree in a shady rest stop.
Jack had been running on pure adrenalin and he knew it was almost tapped dry. He hadn’t slept in over forty eight hours but dawn was still three hours away, and dawn would be the only time he would truly feel safe catching some sleep. Mainly because, although John seemed harmless just standing next to him, it didn’t change the fact that he was a deadly killer and could end his life faster than he could blink.
“You read the file right? What the hell is it?” he repeated, blinking long lashed green eyes at him. Jack regarded him quickly, trying to catch a glimpse of the monster so carefully hidden under the guise of a young man and just the very normalness of John made the whole situation harder for him. He had always been very comfortable with the kill or be killed resoluteness of his line of work. He didn’t want to get to know anyone. The last time he had done that, he had ended up with a cracked skull for his trouble.
Jack mentally shook himself, trying to fight of the fogginess sleep deprivation was affecting him with and tried to concentrate on what John was asking.
“I guess they needed to assert a modicum of control and were planning on making a whole stack of… you. Being able to knock you into a coma with just a simple burst of UVA light must have seemed like a good idea at the time. I just hope they weren’t planning for you guys to be fighting in, you know, the daytime.”
He watched as John’s eyes ticked back toward the truck the two of them had vacated. The drugs had reclaimed Rodney who had passed out shortly after they had quit the hospital. He was now stretched out across the bucket seat and all that could be seen was the top of his head and one arm, hanging over the end.
“So they’d what, put us in sunbeds whenever they had to ship us anywhere?” John snorted and Jack had to fight the urge to do so himself. It all seemed ludicrous in the harsh light of… well, night.
“I’d assume you were mostly envisioned for wet work, covert work. Stuff usually done under the cover of darkness. From what I read, this whole thing was all very preliminary anyway. I imagine there were a lot of improvements planned.”
“I guess that fits,” John said and Jack was a little confused by the wry smile that touched his lips. “Thinking about myself as something someone dreamed up makes this whole thing easier, and harder at the same time. How can you do something like that to a human being?”
“You think of yourself as human?” Jack laughed despite himself. He covered his mouth with a hand when he saw John’s hurt.
“Is that so hard to fathom?” John demanded, suddenly angry. His eyes flashed and Jack took an involuntary step backward. He had dropped his guard for one moment and he thought that he was going to pay for that mistake, but the fight went out of John as soon as it had surfaced.
“I know you have this life mission and purpose and all kinds of nifty stuff like that. It must be nice to know where you fit,” John said, pulling his jacket about himself in an almost defensive pose. “I don’t fit anywhere. According to you I’m not human, and I don’t think I classify your typical, what…alien either. All I’ve known is loneliness and being hunted like an animal. Do you think it’s easy to accept that there is a whole organisation bent on destroying me, and I haven’t even seen any of these people?”
“I want to see it.” One hand snapped out and flicked towards the truck. “Get it and show it to me,” he demanded.
“Do you mean this?” Rodney had come to when they were talking and had retrieved the blood speckled folder from the glove box. He held it out in hand in John’s direction. Jack stepped towards him but Rodney pulled the folder back towards his body. “I think he deserves to see it,” he snapped, extending the folder in John’s direction again. Jack put his palms up and took a step backward. John closed the distance in four quick strides and took the folder from Rodney. He tucked it under one arm and retreated from them both to the other side of the truck, throwing a glance behind him at Jack that he couldn’t interpret, but knew wasn’t good.
“If there’re any pictures that aren’t flattering, you’re in big trouble,” Rodney warned. Jack huffed and lowered himself to the ground with his back resting against a tyre. Rodney dropped out of the truck onto his feet. He was still wearing a hospital gown and so one hand drifted to the back and held it closed. “Does this weird you out?” he asked.
“Sure. I’ve got something else you can wear,” Jack said absently.
“Not this,” Rodney said, gesturing at himself with his free hand. “The whole situation. I mean, I know you’ve helped someone in the past but I understand it’s not exactly your normal way of doing things.”
Jack looked back at the young man that was now sitting up on his truck’s seat, looking a little more alert. It dawned on Jack that Rodney didn’t have any real idea of what he was dealing with, or had gotten very used to deluding himself. Jack thought wryly that some would forgive anything, just to have a person in their lives.
“He’ll never be a regular guy,” Jack said, jerking his head in the direction where John had disappeared. Rodney opened his mouth to argue and Jack cut him off. “You can kid yourself all you want, play house with him or whatever, but he’s not really a person anymore. Do you think he’ll just wake up one day and be, what...better?”
“He saved Doctor Carter,” Rodney snapped, getting angry.
“Yeah, and he waded through four guys to do it, tossing them aside like they were ragdolls.” Jack hadn’t been sure, but when he saw Rodney hesitate he knew he had guessed right.
“Goddamn, how did you think this was going to end?”
Part Eight
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: John/Rodney
Rating: Adult Themes
Word Count: 3,959
Spoilers: None
Category: AU
Notes: Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter borrowed from SG-1.
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no offense, no money.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine
Summary: “Now, a smarter man would have realised that the life he was leading was just plain bad for him by now.”
“We were friends once, Bart.”
The balding man with the look of an old warhorse gone to seed spun around, hands still on the tie he had been fixing in front of his bedroom mirror.
“Jesus, Jack, give a guy a heart attack!” he breathed, hand stealing out towards the top drawer of the bureau behind him.
“Looking for this?” Jack reached into the back of his pants and pulled free a small revolver and waggled it. “Really Bart, I’m hurt.”
“Look, it was good of you to come, Jack.” General Fielding said, eyes darting to the door which Jack was standing in front of. “There was a bit of a mix-up-“
“Don’t insult us both,” Jack growled, raising the revolver and then motioning to a chair in the corner of the room. “Have a seat.”
“Jack, honestly-“
“I’m not sure you know the meaning of that word, General,” Jack snarled. “I’d really like to know just what is going on. Lie to me and I’ll start with your kneecaps and kinda work my way up.”
Fielding’s face tightened and it looked like he almost braced himself before speaking. “Alright, have it your way. To be blunt, we are decommissioning you,” he said.
“The hell?” Jack growled.
“Look, Jack, this whole thing has been a cock-up from the get-go. The higher-ups have decided to bury the whole thing, including everyone involved. Things have… changed.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?” he grated.
“Part of the NID’s operations has been controlled by private interests for a little while now. They are more interested in profit than anything else. They want this mess cleaned up as quietly as possible.”
“We served together. How could you set me up?”
“There was more than a little loss of confidence in your abilities when we discovered one of your previous termination orders was still walking around.” When Jack paled, Fielding sighed and rolled his eyes. “You exposed her to bring your other targets in. We noticed.” Fielding picked lint off his shoulder as he said, “Besides, times have changed.”
Jack leapt the space between him and Fielding in one smooth movement and had his hands around the man’s throat before the General had finished the action of gaining his feet. Jack spun with the man held aloft and took a couple of steps backwards. They both pitched over the bed and landed on the carpeting behind, Jack pinning the smaller man. Fielding looked up at his attacker with surprise and dawning horror.
Fielding gagged and clawed ineffectually at the powerful hands throttling him. He squeaked and Jack loosened his grip a little. “What was that?” Jack prompted.
Fielding gasped a few times before trying to speak. When he did his voice came out in a harsh croak. “It’s not up to me. The decision has already been made. I just… facilitated.” Jack relaxed his hands completely and stood. The other man scrabbled backwards, rubbing his neck and coughing. He looked up at Jack and his eyes were hard and flinty. Gone was the polite veneer.
“The NID has been out of purely governmental hands for some time now. Look at what you do. Surely this doesn’t come as a complete surprise.” He picked himself up from the floor and eased himself onto the end of his bed, watching Jack warily the whole time as if he was expecting a repeat performance.
Jack dropped into a chair opposite the bed, feeling at a loss.
He was built to take orders and carry them out with skill and little emotion. He had not had to think for himself for a long time and he had very nearly forgotten how. He was a creature of habit and little imagination. He was the weapon. A weapon was useless when there was no one to wield it.
Jack felt sick inside, but mostly he felt old. Thoughts of retirement were cast aside as quickly as they surfaced. He was supposed to die in battle, on his feet with a weapon in hand.
Fielding sat forward with his elbows resting on his knees. His face softened and he looked as if he were treating with a wounded animal rather than a person. Jack was beginning to feel like a whipped dog by this time so it wasn't any wonder.
"We're not ogres and we’re certainly not the enemy. We're just realists. We've lost count of the number of times we've nearly had to close up shop because of the cost involved."
"You’re creating monsters," Jack interjected coldly.
"As you will," Fielding sighed as Jack lapsed into black silence. "Be that as it may, there is no alternative and we’re simply looking for the solution where everyone wins. You have no idea what we’re up against, what’s out there." Fielding took a moment to stare at Jack steadily. “There are other worlds out there that have become a resource that we are willing to exploit.”
“Other worlds? Jesus, are you talking aliens?” Jack breathed, feeling ill.
Fielding shrugged. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the finer details with you. You’re a marked man Jack, but a man who knows how to disappear. Take my advice and get the hell out of Dodge. Of course, I know you’ll resurface sooner or later because you’re a dumb shit, I’d just rather it didn’t happen on my watch.”
Jack sat looking at the man before him for a few moments, unsure of how to proceed. He was right, of course he was right. Jack needed order and an avenue to channel his aggression, but most of all he didn't want to die an old man, wasting away in some forgotten old-people's hell hole. Dying that way wasn't really dying. It was much, much worse.
Jack stood slowly. “Who are these guys, the private interest?”
“Jack, I can’t tell you-“ Words disappeared into a surprised wail as Jack pulled the trigger twice.
As promised, he’d started with the kneecaps.
~~~
“Now, a smarter man would have realised that the life he was leading was just plain bad for him by now.”
Rodney recognised the voice and thought, or hoped, that he was merely in the grips of a nightmare. He was vastly disappointed when he opened his eyes and found this was not the case. The grey-haired man was sitting in his hospital room on a cracked chair with his feet up on Rodney’s bed. Rodney couldn’t see the weapon he had been nursing the last time he had woken up to him, but he knew it wouldn’t be very far away.
“Do you ever enter rooms with awake people in them?” he asked dryly. It hurt slightly to talk and Rodney felt fuzzyheaded. When he’d tried to break the bedhead in the motel room to free himself from his handcuffs, he’d managed to splinter it and ended up with a big piece of wood through his forearm for his trouble. He’d bled, a lot and the hotel manager, all the while probably thinking it had merely been some kind of kinky sex-act gone wrong, had insisted on Rodney going to the hospital. He’d been dehydrated and had low blood pressure so the doctor in the emergency room had been adamant about an overnight stay.
“Usually. Not my fault you sleep a lot,” Jack quipped. He swung his legs off the bed and leaned forward, steepling his fingers under his chin.
Rodney sighed. “Come to finish me off?” he asked simply.
Jack smiled at him. “Don’t jerk me around, I know he’s here somewhere. Boy strikes me as crazy loyal and I can tell that he’s certainly attached to you.”
Rodney’s eyes widened. “What are you saying?” he breathed, not really willing to believe yet that perhaps John wasn’t dead or recaptured. If this man had come back to him then it was possible. Hope flared in Rodney’s chest.
“Hmm, interesting.” Jack tapped his lip with a finger, regarding Rodney carefully, giving the impression that he was reading what was written under Rodney’s expression. “He’s not here then?”
“No, not that I would tell you if he were. You are trying to kill him aren’t you?”
“Not exactly. I’ve been doing this stuff for way too long and my employers have gotten their moral compasses all screwed. There’s a new breed of gluttony that’s running the place. I don’t expect you to believe me, but here’s a little coinage towards maybe buying myself some penance.”
Jack tossed a folder onto the wheeled table that was across Rodney’s bed. Rodney fingered the corner, noting the fine spray of red across the cover. “What’s this?” he asked, his brow furrowed.
“I know you’ve got some files from the Scottish doctor. This might go towards filling in more blanks. It’s details on the Project, straight from the horses mouth as it were.”
Rodney blinked and wondered if the drugs he had been given for the pain were affecting his hearing. He couldn’t quite believe or truly digest what he was being told. He knew that too much had happened over the last few weeks for him to process properly and he wished he could be granted even a small respite. “Why should I believe you?”
“I know it all sounds a little far-fetched, but there’s a very good reason I won’t hurt either of you.”
“Why’s that?”
“Every now and again, some innocent gets dragged into all this. There was this scientist, smart as hell and tough to boot. She got in over her head and tried to leave these people and they let her go with a smile and a pat on the shoulder and then hired me.”
“Samantha Carter,” Rodney hazarded.
Jack looked down at his hands and then back up at Rodney. “He could have run, gotten away clean. He went back to save her.”
Rodney’s mouth had dropped open halfway through Jack’s story and he closed it now with a snap. “Is he alright?” he pressed.
“I want to think of him as a monster, some kind of creation. Reading that file,” Jack continued, flicking the folder with a disdainful finger, “More so now than ever. But he was a person once, had his life stolen from him. No matter how far from true he’s been skewed by their… experiments, there’s still something of a good guy there. The way he is with you and going back for her, there’s no other conclusion.”
“Is he alright?” Rodney winced at the shrillness in his tone, but he didn’t like the way the older man was talking around his question. It gave him a queasy feeling deep down that maybe John was still in danger.
“If it makes you feel any better, I can swear I would have left her if she wasn’t just on the way to my freedom.” Jack didn’t look surprised at the sudden presence of John at the doorway. He simply smiled a secret smile and stood.
“That would ease my mind greatly,” Jack said and drew the weapon out of this jacket that Rodney had seen only once before. Rodney started in horror, thinking everything had been a pretty lie to lower both his and John’s defences, but Jack laid the weapon on the second wheeled hospital table in the room beside him and pushed it out of his immediate reach. “I know you could get to me before I could get to it. I thought I would ease your mind in return.”
“Very generous of you,” he replied, but didn’t move further into the room, just as Jack did not move around from the window. Both hunter and hunted were very used to the art of not being cornered. Rodney watched the scene play out before him with more than a little interest. The expression on John’s face was inches away from being the baring of teeth. Rodney had spent weeks with the man in the doorway, but he had never seen an expression even close to it. John’s whole face pulled upwards in a watchful wariness that would have looked at home on a lion and he had to admit to himself that it scared him a little. He had to wonder if this was the true face of John, forced to the surface under duress.
John smiled and the expression made him all the more predatory. Jack’s knowing little grin faded and his gun-hand tightened in a silent wish that he still had the comfort of his weapon at his side. Jack seemed to realise that he could have misjudged the situation and pay for that mistake with his life very shortly after.
Just at that moment, however, John dropped whatever instinct he had been holding onto and warmth flooded back into his features, his entire countenance relaxing. He moved forward and placed a cool hand on Rodney’s forehead. “The Government huh?” John prompted, only looking up at Jack after Rodney had treated him to a smile.
“Some new power has swooped in and seems to be responsible for most of the funding the NID utilises to make its programs possible and I’m not sure how high up their influence goes, but enough that a full bird Colonel with the ear of the President was quaking in his boots.”
John held up one hand and moved towards him. Jack immediately became wary but the air he wore was not one of malice. John advanced upon him and Jack had no choice but to stop edging away when his back came up against the window. He put one hand behind his back and undid the latch so if he had to go backwards, it would be through an open window and not glass.
John reached out and placed two palms against his chest. He ran them down his coat and John’s brow furrowed. His hands snaked behind Jack’s back and the older man’s own shot out and grasped John around the throat instinctively. John didn’t flinch or back away, but kept up his exploration. Jack’s hands gripped tighter, threatening violence with violence.
John’s finger snagged on a small hole in Jack’s coat and John poked inwards, his exploration finally bearing fruit it would seem as he pulled backwards. Deep bruises bloomed around John’s throat where Jack’s hands had pressed and understanding hit Rodney that any normal man would have been choked to death with the pressure he had been exerting. John took no notice however, but held his finger in front of Jack’s face.
A tiny square, only a little bigger than a pinhead was stuck to it. Jack had to squint to see it. John squeezed his thumb onto the finger and there was a tiny crackle. “They’ve been bugging you. Chances are they know where you are and what you’re doing right now,” John said angrily.
“And who you’re with.” Rodney piped up from the bed. He tried to sit up but the drugs he had been given made him dizzy and he fell back against his pillows.
“You’re an old war dog right? Don’t take none of that new fangled technology crap?” John dropped his voice to a gravely rasp with mocking in his tone. “Doesn’t stop other people using it on you apparently.” John’s tone rose as he began unhooking Rodney from the machines that monitored his life signs. The sound of Rodney flat-lining filled the room as John tore the heart monitor from his chest.
“John, what-?” Rodney protested.
John ignored him and went through the bedside drawers and found Rodney’s wallet. He tucked it in his back pocket. “Ready?” he said as he slid his arms under Rodney’s back and legs. Rodney was going to protest, but then he was reminded of all the times he had had to do the same thing for John, removing him when he just couldn’t wake up. Saving him from danger.
Two nurses and a doctor slid to a halt in front of Rodney’s door with a crash cart between them, all of them wild-eyed and pumped with adrenalin. The two nurses stopped and stared mutely at the lean man with another full-grown man in his arms, lifting him as easily as a child. The doctor was not dumbstruck however and strode into the room like someone who was used to having his every order obeyed. “What the hell are you doing? Put him back in bed for chrissakes!” he barked.
John eased Rodney back onto the bed and then seemed to move in a blur. There was a cracking sound and the doctor slid bonelessly to the floor. John turned to the nurses and they both yelped and scurried out of the way, screaming for security. John edged out of the door and spotted the fire stairs directly opposite Rodney’s room. John turned to pick Rodney back up, who was already on his own feet and made shooing gestures with his hands. John nodded and made for the firestairs.
~~~
“So, the sunlight thing?”
“Huh?” Jack started, horrified to realise that he had almost been dozing on his feet. They had all bundled into a beat-up pickup he had been using and Jack had driven as long and as fast as he could. When his eyes had become too grainy and he had wandered across three lanes of traffic without realising it, he knew he had to pull over and take a rest. The pickup was currently standing under a large oak tree in a shady rest stop.
Jack had been running on pure adrenalin and he knew it was almost tapped dry. He hadn’t slept in over forty eight hours but dawn was still three hours away, and dawn would be the only time he would truly feel safe catching some sleep. Mainly because, although John seemed harmless just standing next to him, it didn’t change the fact that he was a deadly killer and could end his life faster than he could blink.
“You read the file right? What the hell is it?” he repeated, blinking long lashed green eyes at him. Jack regarded him quickly, trying to catch a glimpse of the monster so carefully hidden under the guise of a young man and just the very normalness of John made the whole situation harder for him. He had always been very comfortable with the kill or be killed resoluteness of his line of work. He didn’t want to get to know anyone. The last time he had done that, he had ended up with a cracked skull for his trouble.
Jack mentally shook himself, trying to fight of the fogginess sleep deprivation was affecting him with and tried to concentrate on what John was asking.
“I guess they needed to assert a modicum of control and were planning on making a whole stack of… you. Being able to knock you into a coma with just a simple burst of UVA light must have seemed like a good idea at the time. I just hope they weren’t planning for you guys to be fighting in, you know, the daytime.”
He watched as John’s eyes ticked back toward the truck the two of them had vacated. The drugs had reclaimed Rodney who had passed out shortly after they had quit the hospital. He was now stretched out across the bucket seat and all that could be seen was the top of his head and one arm, hanging over the end.
“So they’d what, put us in sunbeds whenever they had to ship us anywhere?” John snorted and Jack had to fight the urge to do so himself. It all seemed ludicrous in the harsh light of… well, night.
“I’d assume you were mostly envisioned for wet work, covert work. Stuff usually done under the cover of darkness. From what I read, this whole thing was all very preliminary anyway. I imagine there were a lot of improvements planned.”
“I guess that fits,” John said and Jack was a little confused by the wry smile that touched his lips. “Thinking about myself as something someone dreamed up makes this whole thing easier, and harder at the same time. How can you do something like that to a human being?”
“You think of yourself as human?” Jack laughed despite himself. He covered his mouth with a hand when he saw John’s hurt.
“Is that so hard to fathom?” John demanded, suddenly angry. His eyes flashed and Jack took an involuntary step backward. He had dropped his guard for one moment and he thought that he was going to pay for that mistake, but the fight went out of John as soon as it had surfaced.
“I know you have this life mission and purpose and all kinds of nifty stuff like that. It must be nice to know where you fit,” John said, pulling his jacket about himself in an almost defensive pose. “I don’t fit anywhere. According to you I’m not human, and I don’t think I classify your typical, what…alien either. All I’ve known is loneliness and being hunted like an animal. Do you think it’s easy to accept that there is a whole organisation bent on destroying me, and I haven’t even seen any of these people?”
“I want to see it.” One hand snapped out and flicked towards the truck. “Get it and show it to me,” he demanded.
“Do you mean this?” Rodney had come to when they were talking and had retrieved the blood speckled folder from the glove box. He held it out in hand in John’s direction. Jack stepped towards him but Rodney pulled the folder back towards his body. “I think he deserves to see it,” he snapped, extending the folder in John’s direction again. Jack put his palms up and took a step backward. John closed the distance in four quick strides and took the folder from Rodney. He tucked it under one arm and retreated from them both to the other side of the truck, throwing a glance behind him at Jack that he couldn’t interpret, but knew wasn’t good.
“If there’re any pictures that aren’t flattering, you’re in big trouble,” Rodney warned. Jack huffed and lowered himself to the ground with his back resting against a tyre. Rodney dropped out of the truck onto his feet. He was still wearing a hospital gown and so one hand drifted to the back and held it closed. “Does this weird you out?” he asked.
“Sure. I’ve got something else you can wear,” Jack said absently.
“Not this,” Rodney said, gesturing at himself with his free hand. “The whole situation. I mean, I know you’ve helped someone in the past but I understand it’s not exactly your normal way of doing things.”
Jack looked back at the young man that was now sitting up on his truck’s seat, looking a little more alert. It dawned on Jack that Rodney didn’t have any real idea of what he was dealing with, or had gotten very used to deluding himself. Jack thought wryly that some would forgive anything, just to have a person in their lives.
“He’ll never be a regular guy,” Jack said, jerking his head in the direction where John had disappeared. Rodney opened his mouth to argue and Jack cut him off. “You can kid yourself all you want, play house with him or whatever, but he’s not really a person anymore. Do you think he’ll just wake up one day and be, what...better?”
“He saved Doctor Carter,” Rodney snapped, getting angry.
“Yeah, and he waded through four guys to do it, tossing them aside like they were ragdolls.” Jack hadn’t been sure, but when he saw Rodney hesitate he knew he had guessed right.
“Goddamn, how did you think this was going to end?”
Part Eight
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
*eyes wide*
o.O
So much love for this story.
Can't wait for Rodney's answer. Have to... don't wanna... but will.
*pouts*
;)
-----}-@
From:
Re: *eyes wide*