SGA-fic: Transformation Theory 3/3

[zinnith]

When John woke up the next morning, Rodney was still asleep and snoring, his mouth slack against the pillow. Waking him up felt like a cruel thing to do, so John slid out as bed as quietly as he could and carefully padded over to the bathroom to take care of business.

It was much later than he’d thought. The garden that had been bathed in moonlight the night before was now bright with sunshine, and it was a testament to Rodney’s exhaustion that the scent of brewing coffee had failed to wake him up.

John debated for a while whether he should wake Rodney or let him sleep, and then decided on the latter. He got dressed and went downstairs, thinking about the night's events. He had told Rodney that he didn’t think a lot about the Air Force, and that was true. In a way, it was like he’d tried to cut himself off completely from that life after his move to Sacramento. He’d thrown himself headfirst into his friendship and, later, his relationship with Rodney, spent so much energy on creating a new life for himself that he’d completely ignored his old.

Maybe it had been intentional, he thought. The military lifestyle didn’t really match the new one he had chosen for himself. Even though the Air Force had been his home for over twenty years, there had always been something there that kept him from relaxing completely, from melding into that existence like it was where he truly belonged. Maybe it had been that part of himself that he hadn’t even known existed before he met Rodney, the part he had kept so deeply hidden that he’d even failed to realise it was there himself.

John had joined for the flying. Nothing else had mattered. Now, without his wings, he’d found other facets of John Sheppard, things that had never really been allowed out in the daylight before.

But it didn’t change the fact that he’d been happy with his life in the Air Force, such as it had been. It had taught him things about himself and about other people that he would never had learned otherwise, had allowed him a glimpse of the innermost parts of the human soul that only ever came out when you challenged death on a daily basis. He’d made friends, good friends, men he could rely on, whether it was to watch his back in battle or offer up a couch to sleep on after a few too many.

When he had left the Air Force behind, he had also left those friends. Hawk hadn’t said anything, but John knew that he was a little hurt that John hadn’t kept in touch after his discharge. The first time they’d seen each other after the accident had been at Pete Garfield’s funeral the year before, and then John had been far too occupied missing Rodney and trying to blend in and pretend he didn’t have a boyfriend waiting for him back home to really have time to catch up.

Hawk had had to figure it out for himself. The one person before Rodney that John had been able to tell anything, and John had kept him in the dark about such a huge thing. It made him feel ashamed of himself and, at the same, time scared. What if he’d told before? What if not only Hawk had found out, but Sokolski and the rest of the guys? On the other hand, what kind of person couldn’t be out to his closest friends?

There had to be a way to fit it all together, John mused. To merge his old life with his new, take the best of both worlds and turn them into a good life, a life he could be comfortable in. The big question was just how to do it.

Megan was alone in the kitchen when John had slowly made his way down the stairs. She was simultaneously reading the paper and scribbling on a shopping list, and the cup of coffee beside her looked like it had gone cold a long time ago. She looked up and smiled when John entered. “Hey there, sleepyhead,” she teased.

John scratched his neck and made a beeline for the coffee pot. “Yeah, I guess we overslept,” he said. “Sorry. I’ll wake Rodney in a minute but I don’t dare unless I have coffee to offer.”

“Oversleeping is what Sundays are for,” Megan stated. “Anyway, Rudy had to go out to Pope for a few hours to get some stuff, and I need to get some shopping done or there’ll be no lunch. Would you mind keeping an eye on Anna for a little while? She’s napping right now and she should stay asleep until I’m back.”

“Oh,” John stopped dead in his tracks, halfway to the counter. “Um, sure. If you’re, um, sure. I mean, I’m not, we’re not exactly... it’s not like we babysit a lot.”

Another one of Megan’s pearls of laughter filled the kitchen. “Rubbish, you’ll do just fine. She’s not a fussy baby. There’s a bottle of milk in the fridge if she wakes up hungry, and I’m sure between the two of you, you can figure out how to change a diaper. But like I said, she’ll probably sleep until I’m back.”

“Well, I guess.” Diaper changes wasn’t a factor that had been a part of John’s life so far and he wasn’t looking forward to the prospect. “If you’re really sure.”

“I am,” Megan assured him, and John caved. After all Hawk and Megan had done for him, an hour or so of babysitting wouldn’t even begin to pay them back. The thought of being responsible for their child for an ever so short time, however, made him nervous. So far he and Anna had gotten along just fine – like Megan had said, Anna was not a fussy baby. From what John had seen, she smiled almost non stop. Even though she wasn’t old enough to be her own person just yet, John was looking forward to see the little girl she would grow up to be, could almost imagine a dark-haired whirlwind, a mix of Hawk's quiet, steady self-confidence and Megan's sunny, energetic attitude. He would have to check up on child-sized skateboards as soon as he got back home...

John poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table opposite Megan. She passed him the newspaper and offered breakfast, but he didn’t really feel hungry and politely declined.

From the look of the news, it looked like the world was still standing. John had just started to plan the logistics of negotiating the stairs with a pair of crutches and a coffee mug for Rodney when the boyfriend in question turned up in the kitchen, sleep-rumpled and grumpy.

"I woke up and you were gone," Rodney muttered, wrapping his arms around John's shoulders from behind and rubbing his nose against the top of John's head. "Mmmm. John-hair. Is there coffee?"

John felt himself blush from the toes up as a smiling Megan went to pour Rodney a mug. "Um, not alone here, buddy," he hissed.

Rodney murmured something inaudible and squeezed John a little harder, then let go and sat down on a chair, yawning loudly. There were pillow creases on his face, his hair stood up in funny little spikes, and he looked utterly adorable, not that John would ever voice such thoughts out loud.

"Here you go," Megan said, putting the coffee down in front of Rodney. He grasped the mug with both hands, gazing dreamily at the fragrant beverage. Then Megan leaned over the table for her shopping list. "I'll just go out for a bit then. You have my number if anything should happen, right? Thanks again, John!"

With that, she was gone, and John had a brief moment of panic, half convinced that Anna would wake up the next second, screaming her lungs out. When he was done with his moment, Rodney had inhaled his coffee and stalked over to the counter for a refill. He looked a little more awake and aware now. "What was that about?" he asked, motioning with his head towards the front door through which Megan had disappeared.

"We're babysitting," John told him, waiting for the inevitable explosion.

Rodney blinked. "She left us alone with the kid? What is she, crazy?"

"Apparently she trusts us," John replied dryly.

Rodney helped himself to a second cup of coffee while he seemed to ponder the information. Then he shrugged. "Ah, well. We shouldn't be able to corrupt her within the foreseeable future, I suppose. And if she does end up hopelessly damaged as a result, I blame you."

"Me?" John sputtered. "Kids love me!"

"Correction - kids love watching you doing insanely reckless things like trying to get yourself killed on that skateboard ramp thingy you have at the centre, and by 'kids' I mean 'twelve-year-old boys with a deathwish'. And don't tell me you're not freaking out, because I know you."

"Maybe a little," John admitted, and got a wry smile from Rodney in return.

Rodney proceeded to shamelessly ransack the cupboards for something edible while John finished the newspaper. He passed it over to Rodney and went to rinse his cup and make an honest effort of clearing the dishwasher, even though most of the clean dishes ended up on the counter for Megan to put back where she wanted them. John had learned the hard way not to mess with her cupboards.

After he'd finished his breakfast, Rodney went to check his e-mail and grab a shower. John wandered aimlessly around the house in the meantime, just breathing in the calm atmosphere, the deep seated feeling of home that impregnated every piece of plank and every nail in the house. John fondly remembered Hawk and Megan carrying that feeling around with them, present everywhere they put down their roots for a little while. He quietly snuck into the nursery to check up on Anna, who slept through his visit without a peep, even though he might have spent a little longer than necessary leaning over her crib, listening to her breathing, stroking a careful finger over her cheek to feel the soft, soft skin there.

Eventually, he sprawled on the couch downstairs and grabbed a magazine from the table, something bright and glossy which seemed to be mostly about shoes. He flipped through the pages without even trying to feign interest and waited for Rodney to be finished with his shower. They still had stuff to talk about from the day and night before, and John half suspected that one of the reasons Hawk and Megan had vacated their home this morning was to give John and Rodney space to do just that.

He must have dozed off for a moment, because the music woke him up. John blinked at the ceiling and hoisted himself up to peer over the back of the couch, trying to discern where it was coming from.

Rodney sat in front of the piano, his broad shoulders hunched over the keyboard while his fingers moved effortlessly over the keys, a little uncertain at first, but every note rang clear and true. It was the first time John had ever heard him play and he was struck by how similar it was to Rodney writing. The same pose, the same elegant motion of his hands, the same beautiful results. John was the first one to admit that he had absolutely no ear for music - he liked Johnny Cash and country, and some classic rock from time to time. He played the guitar badly and his singing was even worse. Music, for John, had never been more than a soundtrack, something to accompany life and give it that little extra touch that it sometimes needed.

For Rodney, however, it was different. Just like writing was never just about the words or physics never just about the formulae, music was something he lived. John had often seen him sit back in a chair, listening to a record with a peaceful and sometimes slightly regretful expression on his face. Those times, it always seemed like he just shut the rest of the world out, like the only things existing were Rodney and the music.

This was one of those times. Rodney's eyes were closed and he was breathing in time with the music, like his body was one with the instrument. He might not even have noticed that John was awake, and John wasn't about to announce it, not until Rodney had finished the piece and slumped slightly over the piano as if exhausted.

"That was..." John started, but couldn't figure out how to continue. There were just no words.

Rodney grunted, his fingers moving over the black and white keys again, just improvising now. "Flat," he said, a hint of bitterness in his voice. "Technical. No passion, no feeling. Pretty much everything Kavanagh says about my writing."

John carefully rolled off the sofa and got to his feet to sit down beside Rodney on the edge of the piano stool. "Kavanagh is a jealous ass," he said, fully aware of how much Rodney always let that particular critic's reviews get to him.

Rodney ignored the remark. "I took lessons, you know," he explained. "I wanted to be a concert pianist. But my teacher was..." Rodney's fingers struck a particularly violent chord. "She explained to me why I'd never make it. So I gave it up." The pain was so visible in his voice that John just wanted to hold him tight and soothe it away.

"How old were you?" he asked instead.

"Nine."

"Nine? And she told you that you'd never be a professional in those words?" John spat, suddenly furious. He could see things a little clearer now, could understand Rodney's constant need for recognition, the way he was always the first to praise his own achievements. Those traits must be the leftovers from a child who had been told one time too many that he was not good enough.

Rodney just shrugged and kept playing. "She was right. She told my father the same thing and we decided that I should concentrate on science instead, so that's what I did."

"But you couldn't give it up," John said softly, leaning against his side. "Not completely, or you'd never have started writing."

Rodney chuckled darkly. "Well, dad... he lived long enough to see Entangled Particles published. I don't think I've ever seen him so disappointed. Not exactly Nobel prize material, you see. That was all that ever mattered to him, that we'd be famous, Jeannie and I. He stopped talking to her for a long time after she got married and put her career aside." Suddenly, Rodney's fingers stilled on the keys and he sat quiet, chewing on his lower lip. "I hadn't thought about it until this weekend. I was so determined to put it all behind me when he passed away. It was difficult enough to change careers in the middle of life, I didn't have the energy to deal with the memory of all his demands as well. Jeannie had it easier, she was always a lot tougher than I was. She didn't care what he thought. And I think..." there was a long pause. "I think he always liked her better. I'm not... I was never..." Rodney quieted again, swallowing the end of the sentence, but John could hear the unspoken words. I was never a likeable person.

John wanted to protest, to tell Rodney that it didn't matter that he could be bad-tempered and impatient, that he was single-mindedly obsessed with the things that were important to him, that there were moments when he was an overbearing arrogant jerk, he was still perfect just the way he was. He didn't say that though. What Rodney needed right now was not to have his faults pointed out to him.

"They were wrong," he said instead. "Both your teacher and your dad. That was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard."

"Well." The corner of Rodney's mouth quirked upwards, just the slightest hint of an earnest smile. "There might be a certain degree of bias involved in that statement."

"There might," John agreed, asking himself why he couldn't just come out and say it. I love you, dumbass. I want to hunt down every single person who ever hurt you and do violent things to them. He should be able to tell Rodney these things outside of bed, but it was like every time he tried, his tongue became glued to his mouth. Instead, he leaned his head against Rodney's shoulder and reached out to take his hand and knit their fingers together. Rodney needed words like he needed breathing, had to hear them or see them to believe in them, but he'd gotten quite good at reading between the lines. Sometimes, things were clear without having to say them.

Rodney understood. He knew where John was, because he was in the same place himself, struggling to piece together his life and history, his thoughts and feelings and experiences, into the person he tried to be. And maybe they weren't the only ones. Maybe they shared the road with billions of shadowy figures, every single one of them trying to take the different stages of their lives so far and transform them into one journey. It was an oddly comforting thought, not being alone.

"I get it, you know," Rodney said, somewhat redundantly, since John had already figured it out for himself.

John gripped his hand a little harder, twisted around on the stool so that they were face to face, and let their lips brush together. "Yeah," he breathed. "Me too."

Rodney smiled, slipped an arm around John's waist and deepened the kiss. If Megan hadn’t chosen just that moment to come back from her grocery run, John’s resolve to wait until they got home would’ve flown right out the window.

* * *

"So," Hawk said, sitting down in a chair on the deck and taking a sip of his beer. Lunch was over, Megan was tidying up in the kitchen and Rodney had went to pack his and John's bags. In John's opinion, it was a rather transparent conspiracy to give him and Hawk a moment to themselves, but he wasn't complaining. "How do you want to tackle the rest of this?"

John thought about it and got to the conclusion that he didn't know, so he just answered with a grunt. So far he'd just been focusing on getting through this weekend. He hadn't given the future much attention. Just thinking about the fact that coming out to Hawk meant that he'd sooner or later have to come out to the rest of his old friends as well had made him nervous, so he'd just tried not to think about it too much.

"Chad will be pissed," Hawk noted.

"Yep," John agreed. "Question is what he'll be the most pissed about." Chad Sokolski was one of those people who were very hard to figure out. John was pretty sure there were more to him than the macho posturing and all the women, but he had never been able to decide if those condescending comments about 'fags' were something Chad really thought, or if he just believed it was expected of him.

"Never know with him," Hawk said, echoing John's thoughts. "But I figure if he really has a problem with it, he'll eventually put it aside 'cause it's you. Might sock you one first though."

"Yeah," John smiled. Chad had a tendency to let his fists speak for him. In his opinion, second thoughts were something that happened to other people.

"You haven't decided then?" Hawk asked, turning to face John.

John shook his head. "No, I haven't. Hell, I was half afraid you'd freak out."

Hawk waved dismissively with his beer bottle. "Nah. Nothing to freak out about. I always thought it had to be something like this."

”Well.” John was quiet for a while, contemplating his own beer. “I still should’ve told you. I’m sorry.”

“McKay suits you,” Hawk said, looking at the apple tree instead of John now. “You’re more relaxed with him. Happier. I haven’t seen that smile reach your eyes since Afghanistan. It does now. And if he’s the one who’s put it back on your face, well, then you have nothing to apologise for.”

John didn't know what to say. He'd always known that Hawk cared but well, they were guys, and guys didn't talk about things like this. John definitely didn't. That was the thing about Hawk, however. He knew how to say the things that needed to be said, and how to accept John's own lack of words. "Thanks," he said softly, figuring the least he could do was to try. "It means a lot to me."

The next moment John found himself enveloped in another Hawkish bear hug, the kind where there was no shame and no awkwardness afterwards, and he had to struggle hard to keep the tears from his eyes.

* * *

Rodney was a lot more talkative during the drive back to the air port than he'd been when Hawk had picked them up. This time, it was John and Hawk's turn to sit quiet in the front, but the silence felt comfortable, and Rodney and Megan's chatter in the back seat didn't leave much room for additional words.

John hadn't been able to come to a decision about telling Chad and the rest of his old friends, but he figured everything would work out in the end. He'd just begun to piece his life back together into something whole, and he didn't want to make a rushed job of it. Maybe in a couple of months he'd feel more secure, maybe in time for the summer, for which Rodney and Megan were already making plans.

They checked their luggage and headed for the gate, promising Hawk and Megan that they'd stay in touch, something John privately vowed to do even if it killed him. Rodney needed coffee, the strap of John's backpack broke, and Anna decided it would be a good time to start wailing after having spent the entire weekend being happy. They were running late, everything was hectic and chaotic and Rodney became more and more sarcastic, but John just went through it all with a smile and a strange sense of peace until they were through the gate. It had been a great weekend, but he couldn't wait to get back to Sacramento.

Megan waved until she couldn't see them any longer. Then she took Hawk's hand and they walked away together, pushing Anna's stroller. John watched their retreating backs until they were gone. He felt Rodney's fingers knit together with his own, Rodney's palm warm against his, Rodney's very presence, solid and safe, holding him up through everything, walking beside him every step of the way. He turned to Rodney, smiled and said, "Let's go home."

- fin -