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zinnith“John, wake up.”
Who? Dave? No, it can’t be. Dave left, just like Sumner and Ford and Holland.
“You need to get up and keep going. If you do not, you will die.”
John knows that voice. He’s heard it in his dreams for weeks. But it’s impossible, it can’t be...
He opens his eyes. “Teyla?” His voice is all but gone now, only a weak whisper of sound makes it over his torn and cracked lips.
She’s sitting by his side, smiling down at him. One hand is resting on her round belly and the other one is hovering over John’s face. He can almost feel the cool caress of her palm.
“Yes, John, it is me. You must get up.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. You have to, or you will die here.”
It’s so fantastic to see her again that he can barely pay attention to what she’s saying. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry I didn’t find you earlier.”
Teyla leans down over him. A strand of hair that was tucked behind her air falls forward, almost brushing his forehead. He can’t take his eyes off her.
“You still haven’t found me. Now get up, you have very little time left.”
He never could refuse Teyla anything. She coaxes and encourages him until he’s managed to get into a sitting position. Everything hurts, every bone and muscle and sinew in his body, and his head is spinning so badly that he can barely remain upright.
“Do you have any water left?” Teyla asks.
Water? He can’t remember. John reaches for his canteen and shakes it. There’s a sloshing noise, a few mouthfuls left on the bottom. It takes a long time to get it open, but then there is water trickling down his throat. It’s not much, just enough to wet his mouth, and it’s warm and tastes like plastic, but it revives him a little bit.
“That is good.” Teyla stands and holds out a hand. “Now, you must get up. The gate is near.”
John looks up at her, doubtful. “I’ll never make it.”
“One step at the time,” she smiles. “Start by getting up.”
It takes a tremendous effort of will to get his spent muscles to move again, but he makes it to his knees, and then to his feet, stands there swaying for a minute or two. He can see the meandering trail of his footsteps in the sand in the direction he came from.
Teyla takes a few steps onward and then turns around, waiting for him to follow. “Come,” she says. “We must go this way.”
John forces his feet to move. One step at the time. “I’m coming,” he says. “Just don’t leave again.” He’s not sure he would be able to take her disappearing.
She smiles, that gentle, compassionate smile he’s been missing for so long. “Do not worry, John. I’m not going anywhere.”
* * *
The simple task of putting one foot in front of the other is getting increasingly difficult. If it wasn’t for Teyla, John would have keeled over ages ago, but she keeps her promise and stays close, helps him keep his focus.
He’s pretty sure he’s imagining things that aren’t there, dark, wraith-like shadows out of the corner of his eye. The ocean keeps roaring back and forth in his ears and every now and then he gets the impression that he’s not walking in sand, but wading through ankle-deep water. If he closes his eyes, he can almost smell the salt and hear the cries of the birds they have reluctantly decided to call gulls. There’s a shallow pool on one of the smaller piers, just deep enough to dip your feet in to cool off after a hot day. It’s always fun to splash some water in Rodney’s direction and watch him yelp and jump out of the way.
“John.” Teyla’s gentle voice wakes him and he blinks his eyes open and finds that he’s veered off a bit.
“Sorry. Sorry. I’m awake.” John adjusts his path. His skin is hot and tight and feels like it’s going to burst open. The little water he had earlier wasn’t nearly enough. He’s hit by the sudden thought that he might be dead already, that this is his afterlife. Doomed to walk forever under the punishing sun as payment for his sins.
“They will come for you,” Teyla says, prodding him to keep moving. “You will not be left behind.”
“I know.” That’s the only reason that he hasn’t given up yet.
“So why is there so much doubt in your mind?” She does that little raised-eyebrow thing that always accompanies the hard questions.
“There isn’t. They’ll come.” The question is when. He has no idea how long it’s been, if anyone is even missing them yet. And he knows from his own experience that sometimes it doesn’t matter how hard you try or how good your intentions are. You might fail anyway. “They’ll come,” he repeats.
A few more steps, and then John stops dead in his tracks just before the ground falls away in front of his feet. It takes a moment to register the fact that he didn’t just nearly step off the edge of the world, but that he’s reached a deep wadi, an old dried-out riverbed, that cuts through the terrain like a ragged wound.
“Fuck.” He’ll never make it across that. The edges of the wadi are steep and it has been hollowed out by the wind. He might make it down, but get up again on the other side? No way. Not with just one good arm and no handholds to speak of.
“One step at the time,” Teyla says by his side.
John looks at her, then down over the side, and then at her again, hoping against all hopes that she’s joking. It’s a long way down and the ground is rocky and uneven. There must have been a huge river here once, before this world became an arid wasteland. There’s no possible way he’ll make it.
But it’s not like he has much choice. The cramps are getting worse, the nausea is rolling in his gut, and he stopped sweating some time ago. If he doesn’t go for it now, he won’t even be able to make a try later.
One step at the time. There’s only one way he can think of to make it down in one piece, undignified as it is.
“If anyone asks later, this never happened,” John tells Teyla. He slowly gets down on the ground until he’s sitting on his butt with his legs dangling over the edge.
She smiles in return. “Of course not.”
Even this way, it’s a difficult. There’s nothing to hold on to. He has to sit on his ass and scoot down, digging his heels in to slow his descent. Every movement makes his shoulder explode in fresh waves of pain.
Teyla matches John’s pace, walking down on light feet, and he finds it wildly unfair that even heavily pregnant, she’s still more graceful than he can ever hope to become.
His black pants are getting red-brown with fine dust and his boots are full of sand. He’s only halfway down, but his good hand is getting torn up from sand and sharp little rocks. He’s been trying not to pay attention to the horrific sunburn that’s formed on his face and forearms, but now all the dirt is aggravating the sensitive skin and it makes him want to grit his teeth. He’s pretty sure not even Rodney’s home-made sunscreen would have helped against this.
The thought of Rodney makes him lose his concentration for a moment. He reaches for a rock that looks solid, but when he moves it comes off in his hand. He loses his balance and before he knows it, his feet hit the slope in a near-run. The impact makes his teeth smash together and for every downward step he’s convinced that he’s going to fall and break his neck.
He can barely believe it when he reaches the bottom of the old riverbed and he’s somehow still on his feet. His head and his shoulder is pounding in counterpoint and he can’t breathe, but eventually he manages to stumble and stagger to a stop. He has to lean forward and rest his elbows on unsteady legs until everything stops spinning. His arm has come loose from its temporary binding and the pain is the kind he just can’t get used to.
“You know, I wouldn’t mind the infirmary right now,” he tells Teyla once he gets enough air into his raw lungs to breathe again. “No more walking. Good drugs.”
“You don’t usually admit that,” Teyla responds. She stays close, one hand hovering just behind his bad shoulder, not touching yet, just there in case he should stumble again.
“Guess not.” John hesitates, unsure if he should continue or not. But if he can’t tell Teyla these things, then who can he tell? “I’m used to taking care of myself. Don’t like being fussed over.”
“But it can be a comfort, being cared for. You always give the impression that you don’t need other people. It can be very offputting.” She smiles to soften the criticism.
“I do,” he almost chokes on the words, thinking about all the people he’s lost over the years, about how important Rodney has become and how even he seems to be slipping further out of reach for every day. “I’ve always needed people. I just never thought I could have them. It tends to end badly.”
Teyla walks up to stand in front of him, blocking his path. “That is not true, John. You have many friends willing to be there for you. You just have to let them. What about Rodney?”
“I’m not sure he even cares anymore.” Just voicing the thought makes him feel sick all over again. He never expected the thing with Rodney to last this long. They’ve never talked about it, not in terms of commitment and long-term plans. John somehow always figured the day will come when Rodney meets a woman brilliant enough to keep up with him and John will be shuffled off to the sidelines. He thought the affair with Katie Brown was it, the inevitable end, but now it seems like whatever it is they have together is about to just fizzle out and die all on its own.
Teyla frowns. “Then you don’t know him very well. There are very few people Rodney cares more about than you. Maybe if you just told him that you need him?”
“Yeah. Easier said than done.” John makes a little turn to get around her. His head is killing him and it suddenly became very hard to breathe. He can feel his pulse pounding in his hears, much faster than it ought to be. He’s almost made it across the old riverbed, but he’s been hanging on to the end of his tether for a long time and any minute now, he’ll lose his white-knuckled grip and drop to the ground.
“You don’t like to admit to weakness,” Teyla continues. “We all know that. But if you persist in going on like this, you will lead a very lonely life.”
John stops. His legs are about to give out so he decides to spare himself that indignity and just sits down instead. His stomach is rolling and he can feel the familiar sour taste in his mouth. “I’m going to be sick.”
“I am merely stating a fact, there is no need for that kind of...oh, that does not look good.”
There isn’t much in his stomach to bring up, just bile and water he can ill afford to lose. John might be exhausted and delirious, but he’s still lucid enough to know that this is a bad sign. He’s not going to make it much longer.
“I’m in trouble,” he croaks, looking up at Teyla. She’s watching him with a little wrinkle of concern between her eyebrows. “I’m not... I can’t...”
Teyla crouches down beside him, far more easily than her pregnant belly should allow for. There’s something vaguely wrong with that, John thinks. Then she reaches out an arm and points and the thought slips away. “Can you make it over there?” she asks. “There is some shade underneath that rock.”
John raises his head and tries to see it. His vision’s gone all fuzzy but he can see a darker spot on the ground on the other side of the riverbed. A large slab of stone has gotten stuck in the sand of the old riverbank, forming an overhang. It’s not big, but it might provide enough protection from the sun to keep him alive for a little longer.
He can’t get up again, his legs simply won’t hold him, so he crawls on arms and knees and tries to use the excruciating pain in his shoulder as a focus to take his mind off his frighteningly fast heartrate and the creeping suspicion that he might have to throw up again.
“You are doing very well, John,” Teyla encourages. “It is not far, you can do it.”
He can’t spare enough air for an answer, not when he has to struggle for every breath, but he does make it. It’s still stiflingly hot along the riverbank and John uses the very last of his energy to drag himself in under the rock, out of the worst sun, where he collapses in a trembling, panting heap. There are black spots dancing in his vision and Teyla is fading in and out. She needs to get into the shade too, John realises dimly. She’s been out in the heat almost as long as he has, and she has the baby to think of. He scoots to the side enough to free a little space for her.
“Here, there’s room for you too,” he tells her. His tongue trips over the words and they come out in a slur.
Teyla kneels beside him, half in and half out of the sun. It’s lower in the sky now and the rays surround her hair like a halo. “There is no need to worry about me, John,” she says.
“I do. All the time.” He gasps for breath. His heart is trying to beat its way out of his chest. “I miss you.”
She cocks her head to the side and smiles again. “It may not seem that way now, but everything will be all right.”
It’s like she’s inside his head, as if that psychic Wraith thing suddenly started working on humans too, and John actually welcomes it. He’s run out of breath to talk anyway. If she can just read his mind, it’ll just make it easier to talk to her.
How can it be all right? I screwed up.
“They will come for you, John, just like you will come for me.”
I’m so sorry. I never meant for you to have to wait this long.
“Shhh. I have faith in you. You just need to have faith in us in return. Rest now, everything will be all right.”
When it comes from her lips, he can almost believe it. John holds onto the words, grips them tight and holds on until the dark spots in front of his eyes start to multiply and take over his entire field of vision. Teyla’s face fades away in front of him and the hot wave rises up one last time to drag him down into darkness.
* * *
There are people talking around him, but he can’t make out the words, only the voices. One is high-pitched and anxious, the other one low and concerned. There’s a sense of urgency mixed with the overbearing heat, but it’s so far away that he can’t find the energy to care.
“Colonel? John? Can you hear me? Crap, he’s dying isn’t he? I knew we were taking too long.”
There’s a light touch at his throat, pressing against his racing pulse. “Relax, McKay. He’s still breathing.” The voice doesn’t sound entirely convinced.
“You call that breathing? Please remind me to never trust your questionable first aid skills again. Jennifer, hurry up!”
John wishes they would just be quiet and let him sleep. Then he realises that he hasn’t heard Teyla for a while and forces his eyes open. It's extremely bright and he can't see anything but two darker silhouettes outlined against the sun.
“Oh thank God, he’s waking up. Where’s the water?”
An arm snakes around John’s shoulders. “Sheppard? I’m gonna sit you up.” The sudden shift in position makes the nausea flare up again and he lets out an involuntary moan, but then he’s propped up against something broad and strong, and someone holds a bottle of water to his lips. He can actually smell it. The bottle tips and the lukewarm water trickles into his mouth. He swallows greedily, can’t get enough of it.
“Take it easy. Small sips or you’ll get sick,” the low voice, Ronon, says.
The bottle is taken away and John makes a weak attempt at protesting. His eyes are getting used to the light and the figures are beginning to take shape. He’s half sitting up, leaning against Ronon’s chest, and crouching in front of him is Rodney. He’s wearing sunglasses and a floppy-brimmed boonie hat and the bits of his face John can see are shiny with sunscreen. When he sees John focusing, he smiles weakly.
“Hi there. I hope you know that you just took ten years off my life. Imagine all the discoveries I could have made in that time! The world will suffer as a result, and it’s all your fault.”
John tries for a smile in return. It pulls at his split lip and he winces. “Hey Rodney,” he whispers. His voice is so hoarse that he barely recognises himself. “Where’s Teyla?”
Rodney’s eyebrows shoot up in alarm above the sunglasses and he whips his head around. His hand brushes over John’s forehead, stinging the burned skin. “All right. Okay. You’re burning up and you’re delirious, that’s... that’s wonderful.” He turns around again and yells, “Jennifer!”
“We’re coming!”
John makes an effort to raise his head and sees two figures approaching, hazy and swimming in the heat. Keller and Lorne. And in the distance behind them... is that a jumper? But that is... that shouldn’t be possible. Then again, it wasn’t so long ago he was seeing Russian helicopters and dead men.
“Are you guys real?” he asks anyway, just to be sure. He can’t quite believe it yet, that the rescue is finally here. Maybe he’s just imagining it.
“We’re real,” Ronon says and raises the waterbottle to his mouth again. “Drink some more.”
John does. It tastes wonderful and he laps up every drop Ronon will let him have. The next he knows, Keller is kneeling by his side, gently pushing Rodney out of the way. She has a medical bag open beside her and starts pulling things out of it. Standing behind her, poor Lorne looks sweaty and worried and generally terrible. He’s been miserable ever since Teyla went missing. John makes a mental note to try to make his XO’s life a little easier.
Keller takes his pulse and temperature and doesn’t seem pleased with the results. A lot of things are happening at the same time and John can’t quite keep track of it all. He looks around, finds Rodney who’s sitting on his other side and tries to focus on him, his fluttering hands, the stream of words spilling over his lips, too many and too fast for John to be able to pay attention to what he’s saying.
Then Keller’s hands start working on his shirtbuttons and beltbuckle and that’s a little too intimate for John’s comfort. He tries to squirm away, but his limbs are too floppy and he can’t quite control them. Before he knows it, Keller has showed a chemical coldpack down the front of his pants and tucked another two into his armpits. John lets out a small sound that’s definitely not a yelp.
“I’m sorry, Colonel. I know it’s cold, but we have to get your temperature down.” Keller gives Ronon a fourth coldpack and guides his hand to John’s sternum. “Hold that there, don’t let go.”
She takes a quick look at his shoulder and frowns when she finds the broken collarbone. John is busy trying to suck in air and not pass out again. Everything’s blurry and he can’t concentrate on anything except his screaming shoulder. When the pain finally dies down, he blinks and discovers that there’s an IV in his hand and Keller is in the process of fastening an oxygen mask over his face. Usually, he can’t stand them, but now he’s actually grateful. He doesn’t know when he could last breathe properly.
Lorne has a fold-out stretcher ready, and John isn’t sure how he feels about that. He made it this far, he should be able to go on for a little longer.
“I can walk,” he tries to say. It comes out muffled by the mask.
Rodney rolls his eyes. “Oh, I don’t doubt for a second that you’re willing to try, but you don’t have to, so can you please just lie down on the nice stretcher and let us take you home so we can maybe avoid more broken bones today, hm?”
A part of him still wants to protest, because that’s what he does, and he hasn’t located Teyla yet and he needs to do that before they can leave. Getting up to go look for her shouldn’t be a problem, but his limbs don’t seem to agree. Lorne and Ronon transfer him to the stretcher without much trouble, and just that simple movement makes John’s head start spinning again. He lies there and watches the sky, which is beginning to take on a faintly purple colour. The sun must be setting. Good, that means it’ll be cooler soon. Maybe he’ll be able to make it back to the gate after all. He just needs to rest for a little bit and then he’ll be good to go again.
The jumper turns out to be real after all and it makes no sense. They set him down on the floor and Lorne heads up to the cockpit. A rats’ nest of cables and wires are hanging out from the ceiling panels. Zelenka will be furious. The jumpers are his babies and he’s going to strangle whoever did this. There’s a strange whirring overtone when Lorne powers up the little vessel and she seems unsteady somehow. Or that might just be John’s head that’s still spinning.
The back hatch closes. They can’t go yet, there’s something they haven’t done, something they’ve forgotten.
“Wait.” John’s arm feels like it weighs a hundred pounds, but with a herculean effort he manages to move the oxygen mask aside so he can talk. “Teyla. We can’t leave her.”
The corners of Rodney’s mouth turn downwards. He’s taken off his hat and his hair is a sweaty mess underneath. “You really did boil your brain, didn’t you? There’s no one else out there.”
“But...”
Rodney sighs and puts the oxygen mask back on. His look softens a little bit. “Don’t worry about it. Just... just rest, okay? We’ll be home soon.”
There’s still something wrong about that statement, but John can’t figure out what it is. Then Keller sticks a needle in his arm and, God, he had no idea how much he was actually hurting until he doesn’t anymore. This time, there’s no boiling hot wave, just a soft cool nothingness that closes around him.
* * *
Atlantis is a calming, humming background noise in his head when he wakes up. John can’t feel much of anything and that’s nice for once. He doesn’t really want to open his eyes, but someone seems to be very insistent that he does. Why can’t they just let him sleep?
“Colonel?” He knows that voice. “I know you’re tired, but I need you to wake up for me for a little bit, okay? Can you do that?”
All right, he’ll give it a try. Getting his eyes open shouldn’t be that hard, he does it every morning and he’s (mostly) always managed before.
Everything is blindingly bright and he wonders if he’ll ever get out of this damn sun. He’s getting tired of it. Then someone moves to stand in front of the light, shading him, and he can see again. He’s back in Atlantis, in post-op from the looks of it, and there’s something slightly disturbing about the fact that it’s so familiar.
“Welcome back, Colonel.” Keller smiles down at him. “How do you feel?”
John’s mouth is fuzzy and dry and tastes like something died in it. “I’m... uh.” Is that his voice? It sounds terrible. He probably should try to come up with something more intelligent to say. If only his brain worked the way it’s supposed to.
“It’s all right, you’re probably a bit disoriented right now. You had to have surgery on your shoulder to get your clavicle back in the right position, but you pulled through just fine. I’m going to let you rest a little more and you’ll feel better when you wake up.”
There are things he needs to ask, things he has to do, and he can’t shake the niggling feeling that there’s something he’s forgotten, something important. But he’s blessedly pain-free and his body overrides his brain and informs it that they’re just going to enjoy that feeling for a while. His eyes slide shut again.
* * *
The next time John wakes up, he doesn’t feel better at all. Every muscle hurts and his face and hands feel hot and grotesquely swollen. He’s incredibly thirsty and his head is pounding.
He’s in the infirmary. The lights are dimmed and everything is quiet, so it must be late. Also, someone is snoring nearby, and John would recognise that rusted chainsaw of a snore anywhere. True enough, when he turns his head, Rodney’s sitting curled up in one of the plastic visitor’s chairs, arms crossed over his chest and both feet propped up against the side of John’s bed. His head is hanging down in an uncomfortable angle and he’s going to complain about his back when he wakes up. There’s a red blush of sunburn over his nose and cheeks. It’s peeling a little and John can only imagine how much it must be bothering him.
There doesn’t seem to be anyone else around. On the bedside table, there's a glass of water and John tries to reach for it. The moment he moves, Rodney's head shoots up and he blinks his eyes open.
“Oh. Oh, you’re awake! I should probably say ‘good morning’ but that’s not for another...” he glances at his wristwatch, “...two hours or so. Depending on your definition of ‘morning’ of course, but we both know how insanely early you like to be up.”
That’s a lot of words to be dealing with right now, so John just lets them wash over him and allows himself to take comfort in the Rodney-ness of the babbling. “Hi Rodney,” he says and gets a wide, beautiful smile in return.
“Hi. How are you feeling? Better than you look, I hope?”
John takes a moment to take stock of everything. All limbs seem to be attached. He’s wearing a nasal cannula and one of those clip things on his finger and his lungs are scratchy and raw. His shoulder aches, but it’s a distant kind of pain, likely cushioned by all sorts of good drugs. There’s an IV-line in his arm and now that he takes a closer look, his hands look about as bad as they feel, red and blistered.
“Bad?” he manages to croak out.
Rodney does a little shrug and reaches for a glass of water on the bedside table. “You look well done,” he says, clearly trying for a joke but failing to give the words the right kind of levity. “Do you want some water?”
“Yeah.”
Rodney has to hold the glass to help him drink; his arms are still so weak. The water is wonderfully cool and he wants to just gulp the whole glass down in one go, but Rodney takes it away before he has a chance.
“That’s enough for now, I don’t want you to be sick all over me.”
John smiles and winces when it pulls at the burned skin on his cheeks. “How long?” he asks. He needs to know how much time he’s lost, how much time he’s wasted.
“You’ve been out for a day, give or take.” Rodney puts the water glass away and leans forward in the chair. He looks tired, more so than usual. Has he been here the entire time? “You, uh, you had a rather impressive case of heatstroke and then there was the concussion and the smoke inhalation and the surgery and, well, all things considered, Jennifer said you needed the rest.”
John tries to wrap his mind around the information. His memories of what happened in the desert are blurry at best, with certain details standing out bright and clear, but he has no idea what actually happened and what was just a side effect of the heat and the head injury. “What happened? How did you... I thought the atmosphere on that world...”
Rodney sits up straighter in his chair and beams. “I rebuilt a jumper! In five hours!” An expression of equal parts triumph and glee creeps into his face. It’s been a long time since John saw him look like that. “It would have taken a less brilliant person the better part of two days to make those modifications but you are lucky enough to have me!”
John is more than willing to agree with him. He’s a very lucky man indeed. And he will never cease to be amazed over Rodney’s ability to come up with miracles. “That’s... that’s good work. I never thought...”
“What, you thought we wouldn’t come for you?” Rodney interrupts, looking genuinely hurt. “Seriously, what is wrong with you?”
“No,” John hurries to say. “I knew you’d come, sooner or later. I just...”
Rodney leans forward, resting his elbows on the side of John’s bed. His face is suddenly very close and John is reminded of their last kiss before this catastrophe of a mission started. He’d like to go back in time and do it properly. Or maybe just make up for it now. As soon as his lips have healed.
“Do you seriously believe there’s anything, anything at all, I wouldn’t do to get you back?” Rodney asks. “Because if you think that, Colonel, then you really don’t know me very well.”
John has to smile a little at that. “Yeah, that’s what Teyla said.”
Rodney’s eyes widen and he raises his head and looks around. “Teyla? Are you still hallucinating? I’m going to go wake Jennifer.” He rises to get out of his chair.
“No, wait.” John holds out a hand to stop him. “I meant... that’s what Teyla would say. If she... if she was here.”
It takes a moment for Rodney to calm down and take a seat again. He must be even more tired than he looks because he slumps a little in the chair, rubs a hand over his face and lets slip an exhausted little laugh. “She would, wouldn’t she? God, I miss her.”
He sits silent for a while, seemingly deep in thought. John is beginning to question this whole being awake thing; his eyelids are heavy and he’d like to go back to sleep. But first things first.
“Rodney,” he says, as gently as he can. “Why don’t you go get some rest? In your bed, not the lab or the stasis room.”
Rodney looks up. His hair is standing up a little bit in the front and he looks like he desperately needs to sleep, like that big brain of his isn’t quite firing on all cylinders. “How did you...” Then he sighs, buries his head in his hand again and yawns. “You know what, never mind.” It comes out a little muffled. “It actually sounds like a good idea right now. Are you going to be all right here?”
John can’t quite contain a yawn of his own. “I’m going to sleep too, McKay. I’ll be fine.”
“Oh. Well, okay. I’m just going to stay here until you fall asleep, then I’m going straight to bed.”
John raises an eyebrow. “Promise?”
“Cross my heart and hope do die. Which I don’t, by the way. Who came up with that stupid saying?”
Rodney settles in, crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in the chair. He doesn’t look like he’s planning to move anytime soon but John is too tired to start an argument right now. To be honest, he doesn’t really want Rodney to leave. Having him close provides that last little bit of comfort John needs to be able to close his eyes and slip back into sleep.
Part 4
