Fighting the Good Fight

by

Stealth Dragon

Rating: T for mentions of torture but no actual torture, and language.

Disclaimer: I do not own SGA.

Summary: Some days, the fight just doesn't seem worth it. John/Rodney friendship. Set in season three, before Sunday.

SGA

Rodney hugged the uneven wall as he crept down the cave-temple tunnel. Very convenient, this cave system with its natural vents and crystals, refracting sunlight through those vents at just the right angles to cut through the gloom. Everything else, obviously – the weather-softened pillars and bas-relief sculptures interrupting the natural wall every ten feet – were man-made and would eventually fade.

The pillars felt a bit much. It wasn't as though the ceiling needed support. At least the sculptures had a purpose, or did back in the days when they were fresh with identifiable forms...

Rambling, he was rambling. Verbally or mentally, it was Rodney's comfort zone, but now wasn't the time to indulge. He had to concentrate.

McKay's fingers wandered lightly over rust-red stone winking at him with quartz, the sculptures doing the same, a pillar, then back to regular rock. He cleared his constricted throat.

Keep it simple, calm. Don't say too much, but say something. "Um, Sheppard? Sheppard, you down here?"

He was answered with silence, and if it stayed that way then he was going to have to say "screw it" to Lorne's caution and rush in.

No, not rush in – hesitate. Hesitate and call out until he received an answer, or give up and let someone else risk their neck He trusts you, McKay his ass. Sheppard would have called out by now if he...

"McKay?"

Rodney sucked in a deep breath that made his heart flutter in relief or alarm, he couldn't decide. Maybe both? "Yeah. Yeah, it's me. I'm coming down, just so you know." The tunnel curved a gradual turn that continued to block Sheppard from his view.

"They gone, then?" Sheppard's voice echoed; it sounded high, strained: hysterical and exhausted.

"Yeah, they're gone. They're all gone. Just you, me, and the cavalry."

Another moment of silence, then, "Um... That wasn't you guys I was shooting at, was it?"

Keep it simple, keep it simple, keep it simple... yes, you lunatic! "No. No, of course it wasn't. Last minute rescue. You scared the bad guys off and we chased them away. Lorne says good job, by the way."

More silence, which was really starting to grate on Rodney's already chafed nerves.

"You suck at lying, McKay."

Rodney shrugged despite how pointless it was with Sheppard not yet in sight. "Depends on what kind of day..." he finished rounding the bend and slowed, jaw dropping, "I'm having."

The tunnel opened up into an amphitheater of a cavern, very Temple of Doom without the lava and giant Kali corpse. There were more pillars and even more carvings less eroded and grotesquely disturbing: bodies being dismembered for the most part, and the rest Rodney didn't want to ponder. Sadism must have been hereditary on this world because it explained a lot.

Only when McKay tore his gaze away with a curled lip of disgust did he finally see Sheppard, and he was just as unpleasant to look at. The Lt. Colonel was pacing with a stubborn fervor that really shouldn't have been possible for him. Rodney cursed under his breath and wished for a culling to descend on this world. Men, women and children or not, it wasn't doable to be in a forgiving frame of mind at the extreme moment; not with Sheppard looking disturbingly underfed and overly abused. Although, maybe the blood staining his face, neck and hands wasn't all his.

Rodney came to a stop seven feet from the dais where John paced before a cracked alter. "Hey Sheppard." He flicked his eyes from the battered body to the rather startling item clutched in broken hands to a thin chest. "Is, uh... is that the ZPM?"

Sheppard didn't look at him. He did smile, and Rodney wished he wouldn't. He looked so damn manic smiling like that, though Sheppard probably didn't realize it.

"Yep," John said.

Rodney nodded. "Bet it wasn't easy to get."

Sheppard faltered, stumbling, and had to lean up against the alter to catch his balance and breathe. It lasted only seconds before he pushed away with a wince, pulling one hand from his prize to press to his side. He resumed pacing.

"No, wasn't easy." He shook his head. "I waited. Pretended I was too weak. Pride was their problem. That guard didn't think to check his pockets for the key after I stumbled into him. He just shoved me off. I got out, grabbed his gun... they had my stuff. They really need to stop thinking they're better than anyone else. Did you know they kept using this thing as a paper weight?"

Don't say too much. Rodney didn't say anything at all, just nodded as he listened. So just how many societies survived on subterfuge and underground bunkers, anyway? This one hadn't even been an Amish community, it had been a village right out of Braveheart sans kilts and blue face-paint. The only reason the rescue team had found Sheppard was thanks to the miraculous reappearance of the signal from his transmitter.

The ZPM had been a decoration in some hut, like a twenty-cent lamp from a flea market - gone after Sheppard's midnight kidnapping for ransom purposes. And they hadn't even stumbled on any bunker hatches this time, not until they actually started looking. Some old lessons weren't meant to die hard.

"For having hydroelectric power, they're pretty damn superstitious," John continued. "They wouldn't come in here all the way. Kept sending a priest or something to "reason" with me. You know, good cop slash bad cop? The bald guy promised they'd let me go if I'd just leave the temple alone." He chuckled, high and throaty. "Except the priest-guy with the beard said they were going to tear me limb from limb and rip out my guts for defiling sacred ground. It's only when I shot up all the pretty pictures that they started playing nice."

Rodney's gaze darted to the nearest mural where some demon-thing doing Rodney didn't even want to know to a young maiden had its face and... other areas... blasted away. His sights moved back to Sheppard when the man nearly took another dive.

"Maybe you should sit down," Rodney said.

John shook his head; Rodney couldn't tell if he was disagreeing or trying to clear it.

"Can't," Sheppard said. "Won't be able to move again." He did slow, however, turning his face away toward the explicit NC-17 murals. "I respect religion, but these people's beliefs suck."

Rodney had no real respect for religion, so could easily agree.

Then, John did stop, leaning all his weight on the heel of one hand against the alter. McKay wondered if Sheppard realized he'd stopped moving, and wondered if the colonel was right about not being able to move again.

Just in case, McKay moved forward, inch by gradual inch in case Sheppard looked back at him. The P-90 was hanging from his chest, the alien weapon tucked into the waist-band of his pants, but getting shot at had become the least of Rodney's worries. Now that he was close enough, he could see the fine tremors vibrating the skinny body.

"They liked what they were doing to me, McKay," John said. Minor quaking climbed to all out shaking. Whether out of anger or fear was Sheppard's business. Rodney just hoped the colonel didn't shake to pieces, if that were possible.

Even closer, now, he could see the tears in the black shirt and BDUs: Blood satins, bruises, lacerations and burns. Broken bones... hell, there had to be broken bones. John's fingers alone attested to it. Rodney stepped up onto the dais and reached out with one hand until his fingers brushed the protruding knot of Sheppard's shoulder. When the colonel cringed, he snatched it back.

John looked at McKay and smiled that sickly smile of his. "But I showed them." He pulled the ZPM away from his chest to thrust it upon Rodney. "Take it, McKay. Take it, get it out of here. Make sure they can't get it."

Nodding numbly, not even sure why he was doing this, he gripped the base with both hands to pry the thing from blood-encrusted fingers. Sheppard cringed again with a broken cry of pain. Rodney stopped.

"Take it!" Sheppard snarled.

McKay flinched and yanked it free. Sheppard pulled his arm back to his chest and cradled it there as he moaned, whimpered, and gritted his teeth through the pain.

Say something. "Oh, gosh." Rodney tucked the ZPM under his arm and pulled Sheppard against him, sliding his free arm around the man's narrow waist. "I'm getting you both out of here." They hobbled off the dais and up the winding corridor, Rodney taking most of John's weight. His arm slid up and pressed against the short ribs, and John cried out.

"Sorry! Sorry, I'm sorry. Just hold on, we're almost there."

He was dragging Sheppard by the time they reached the entrance where Lorne and the others were waiting. Ronon moved fast gathering Sheppard into his arms to take him to the jumper where a back-board and meds were ready to receive.

Lorne clapped Rodney heartily on the shoulder. "Good job, McKay. See? I told you he wouldn't shoot."

McKay wasn't listening. The ZPM was a dead weight under his arm, getting heavier by the minute. He supposed he had better put it in a box or something. Sheppard would be pissed if he didn't.

-------------------------------------------

Rodney turned the ZPM over and over in his hands, warming its amber surface with his skin, as he watched Sheppard sleep off the anesthesia. The nurses kept muttering about how peaceful he looked. Complete bull. He looked worse. Granted, less scary and psychotic, but human beings are creatures of motion, even the ones that move as though walking through water. Without that motion, Rodney couldn't call what he was seeing "peaceful."

Another joined Rodney in his silent vigil, and all he needed was a glance out of the corner of his eye to know it was Elizabeth.

"It's nearly depleted," Rodney said. Carson had said Sheppard would be under for a long while, so there was no danger of making the announcement in his presence.

"Not even enough to use in case of emergencies?" Elizabeth asked.

Rodney stopped turning the ZPM. "Not even that much." He set it down on the floor to avoid throwing it against the wall. "Not even enough to work a light bulb."

Elizabeth placed her hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "We still have a ZPM..."

"That's not the damn point and you know it!" McKay snapped, and didn't care. He dropped his head, letting it hang, keeping his eyes on his knees so he wouldn't have to look at the useless lump of crystal. "Broken ribs, fingers, arm, internal bleeding, damaged kidney, being cut, burned, whipped, drugged and starved... oh, mustn't forget the possibility of infection – that's what depleted ZPMs are going for these days." He looked up at Elizabeth, right in her eyes. "Haven't you heard?"

Elizabeth met his gaze with an amount of sympathy and understanding that was neither forced nor patronizingly overdone, and it pissed Rodney off: because she hadn't been there, hadn't seen Sheppard more broken than what was humanly feasible, so couldn't possibly understand.

She said nothing, looking away at Sheppard, taking his thin-fingered hand into her own.

"Will you tell him?" she asked.

Rodney snorted. "Not much choice in the matter when he catches on to us saying ZPM in the singular."

Elizabeth shook her head. "No, I mean do you want to tell him, or do you want me to? I can, if you want."

McKay swallowed and could feel the blood drain from his face. "You don't think... I mean, I doubt he'd be distraught. Pissed, yes, but," he looked at Elizabeth nervously, "distraught?" Then looked down at the dead ZPM.

"No," Elizabeth said, "Not distraught."

Rodney swallowed repetitively when the aching lump in his throat wouldn't go down. Not distraught, but something. "He said they'd enjoyed... enjoyed hurting him," he said. How could Sheppard not react? Distraught, no. Anger... yes, definitely anger. John was good at anger. Rodney was the prince of lashing out, yelling, cajoling, insulting, but John – John's anger was dangerous, the anger that forced action and got answers, all with a look, a stare, a stance, a single word. Sheppard will be angry, and it will be scary as hell, but if he ends up feeling anything else, the anger will hide it.

Rodney, already rigid, stiffened until his spine ached. "You know, redundant as it is to say, this isn't fair. The things we do for ZPMs... why even try? If all we get for our troubles is broken bones and a dead crystal... what the hell's the point?"

"Rodney, we need -"

McKay waved her off. "I know, we need them, the city needs them, earth needs them. I just... some days, I just wonder, that's all. We've been doing fine with one ZPM, you know? And what if, next time... what if next time is the last next time, for him, us, one of us? I wonder that." And if it ever came to that, there would be no hesitation or second thoughts about smashing that empty ZPM up against the wall.

Slender fingers curled on his shoulder, pressing into the fabric but barely a weight on his skin. "I try not to think about it," Elizabeth said.

Rodney slumped and rolled his eyes. "That easy, huh?"

The hand patted his shoulder. "I wish." Then she left.

Rodney would have preferred the assurances. Sometimes, you could buy into some of them, and they made the things you couldn't change a little more tolerable.

The things he could change; that's what always gave him hope, made the positive a more tangible fact than a state of mind, and made the future less bleak. But he couldn't change an empty ZPM, neither could he fix all the bones Sheppard broke to get that ZPM. And it could happen again, and again, and again.

He said they liked hurting him. Crap, even a fully charged ZPM couldn't be worth that.

Picking up the dead crystal, Rodney stood. He stared at Sheppard's broken body for another minute, shuddering at the recollection of how much more broken it had been before Carson had put it back together, then turned and headed out.

-----------------------------------------

"Sounds much better, Colonel. A few more days and you won't be needing that nasal cannula."

Rodney was pretty sure the the partially folded partition, angled just right for an unobstructed view of Sheppard and Carson, was keeping him relatively out of sight. Watching Carson reposition the stethoscope on John's bare and bruised back hit Rodney with the disgusting self-impression of being a "peeping Tom."

"I'd dare say not long before you're back in your quarters," Carson added. He lowered the scrub shirt then adjusted the pillows and foam padding arranged to let Sheppard sit up while taking the pressure off his tenderized spine and ribs. It didn't stop John from wincing when he was eased back against the mound.

"I need to check your scans," Carson said. "Elsy'll be bringing you some soup here in a bit. So no dozing off until you eat." He gave John's shoulder a light pat, then wandered off past Rodney's hiding place. Rodney ducked into the shadows until Carson was out of sight.

Now or never, McKay. Rodney would have preferred never. Problem was, he'd ended up digging his own grave by staying away from Sheppard to avoid any accidental topic-shifting to the ZPM. In turn, Sheppard had been asking about him, and Sheppard was anything but dull-witted. If he hadn't put two and two together by now, then Carson had lied about there being no brain damage because Rodney wasn't as good at being opaque as he'd once thought.

Avoidance wouldn't hold out for much longer, plus Elizabeth was insistent about John having the right to know about the ZPM, the sooner the better.

Taking a fortifying but rattling breath, Rodney straightened, tucked the case with the dead ZPM behind his back, and emerged from the safety of the partition.

Although less pale, John was still a skinny, bruised and exhausted-looking mess of a man that barely managed to perk-up when Rodney stepped into sight.

"Hey," Sheppard croaked, "if it isn't the ghost of Atlantis."

Rodney scowled, perplexed and annoyed. "And what, pray tell, is that supposed to mean? I may not be barbarically obsessed with the outdoors as some, but I do get out. You know my skin burns easy, and you're one to talk -"

"McKay!" John barked, and it shouldn't have been possible for a voice that weary to have that much of a punch. "I'm talking about the way you like to hover out of speaking range and when you think I'm sleeping."

Rodney gaped, and that made John smirk.

"I'm busted up and sick. I'm not blind and deaf." He gestured at the stool always on hand by the bed. "You'd better sit before you decide to vanish again."

Rodney dropped like a rock onto the stool, setting the silver case beside him.

John arched his eyebrow at the box, then lifted his eyes to Rodney. "Come bearing gifts, too?"

"Something like that," Rodney stiffly muttered.

"Cool." John's eyes moved back to the case, back to McKay, then the case. Each brief gaze - a visual process of Sheppard adding up the evidence - made Rodney's heart falter, and he could feel the moisture of his palms accumulate until it soaked into his pants.

And yet he still couldn't bring himself to just spit the words out. Knowing that John would react wasn't the same as knowing how he would react, and "how" held a little more weight than "would". Five days of recuperation hadn't taken away from John the likeness of a dried leaf ready to crumble.

"John can take it," Elizabeth had promised, "he's strong." McKay knew that – crap how he knew that since there'd been so much worse that should have killed the pilot by now, but it was a little tricky seeing that strength behind the pallor, bruises and shaper-definition of collar-bones.

John's gaze flickered faster between man and case. "McKay...?"

Rodney's heart skipped several beats, like a meaty double-punch to his sternum, and he finally - helplessly - blurted in a cracked voice, "It's depleted."

John's eyes finally stilled, locking onto Rodney with the solidity of an iron chain. "Depleted?"

"The ZPM. It's dried up, useless... dead."

When John's eyes lowered – not to the case but the bed rail – Rodney's heart pounded faster. This was the moment of truth, and whatever happened next, Rodney thoroughly intended to hold it against Elizabeth for not letting him wait until John was a little stronger.

"Oh," John quietly said. "That sucks."

Rodney's thought-processes jolted. "That sucks?" Trepidation flipped to confusion, confusion gradually infusing Rodney with anger because he hated it when nothing fit into logical placement. "You get the hell and then some beat out of you and risk your ass for a useless ZPM, and all you have to say is that sucks?"

John's affirmative nod was slow, as though he lacked the energy for such a simple task. "I think that about covers it, yeah."

Words for a rebuttal crowded Rodney's brain, clogging his throat. Accustomed as he was to most of John's asinine outlooks and responses to all things monumentally "bad," this one he could not possibly let slide. Torture and pain and fear all for a useless hunk of crystal... it was unfair, agonizingly ironic, a cruel joke, and not something that Rodney could let John take lightly.

But in his moment of frustrated silence, Rodney was drawn to the squirming movements of John's fingers; the way they curled into the blankets like he was holding on for dear life; the cording tension of the muscles and tendons of his wrists and arms going all the way to his shoulders; the set and twitch of his clenched jaw; the increased speed of the heart monitor.

"That sucks" wasn't an understatement, it was just words said to be saying something. Rodney's rebuttal spiraled down the drain.

It was a long moment of silence later, when the tension hesitantly, it seemed, eased from John and the heart monitor slowed, that Rodney felt it safe to talk again.

"You okay?" he asked.

John nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm good." Then he wrinkled his brow. "You know what really sucks, though? I think I knew it was dead. I mean, I didn't know for sure, I just remember thinking 'with all the crap I'm putting up with to get the stupid thing, how much do you want to bet it won't work?' I didn't really think much about it after you found me. When you didn't drop by like everyone else when I woke up, I had the feeling..."

Rodney winced. John shook his head and continued.

"You'd think I'd be all nicely prepared for the let down, that it wouldn't be so bad. I can't say I was surprised, but..."

"It still sucks," Rodney said.

"It still sucks."

"But you're okay? Or will be?"

John gave him a quizzical look. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, considering everything. You said it yourself – all that work for a dead ZPM. Plus the fact that it seems we never get a break when it comes to finding one. They're either useless or get taken from us by fascist cults that think they know better. Or end up being drained by projects that nearly rip universes to shreds and toss smarmy, stuck up, ass-hole alternate versions of ourselves into our realities -"

John grimaced. "Yeah, I get the picture McKay."

"...And it's not worth it," Rodney stated. "None of it. You'd think, with that many misses, we'd at least get one hit. Just one. We shouldn't... you shouldn't... you shouldn't have to have gone through that, is all. Or at least you should have gotten something for the trouble... I guess."

John's head dropped back against the pillow hill and he sighed, "That's just life, McKay."

"Yeah, a sucky kind of life."

"Depends on how you want to look at it. I will admit, though – we do get a lot of misses."

"Exactly."

"And, yeah... some of them," the tendons of John's neck stood out when he swallowed, "some of them don't seem worth it."

"They aren't worth it."

"They are if you finally get a hit, which you never get if you don't try." John lifted his head, then his limp hand to give Rodney's knee a weak thump. "Hey, at least we got a couple of ZPMs out of that Asuran invasion, not to mention got rid of a couple of Asurans."

"And almost "got rid" of our jobs in the process."

"But we got the ZPMs."

Rodney scowled. "Why must you be so sickeningly optimistic all the time?"

John scowled back. "Why do you have to be so pessimistic? Look, Rodney, the attempt never seems worth the effort when we fail. Doesn't mean we should stop trying. You stop trying and you miss the one time the effort doesn't fail."

"But you almost..."

"I know. But I didn't. You guys came, you didn't let me."

"And next time?"

"Next time, you guys still won't let me. You haven't yet. Next time's not going to be any different."

Rodney sighed feeling suddenly weary. "Yeah, no pressure there."

John huffed, whether in amusement or annoyance, Rodney couldn't tell. Probably both.

"Well if it makes you feel any better," Sheppard said, " and if you think about it, I mostly do fine when it comes to saving my own ass. The pressure's usually on me when it comes to saving your's."

Rodney immediately bristled. "Hey! I save my own back-end just fine, thank you very much."

John patted Rodney's knee. "You keep telling yourself that, McKay."

"Put a sock in it, Colonel." Rodney lifted the ZPM case onto his lap. "And I wasn't kidding when I confirmed this was a gift. It's yours to do whatever you want with. Throw it against a wall, chuck it into the ocean... the ZPM, not the case."

"I know, McKay. How about we keep it, instead. You never know when we might stumble on a ZPM-recharge factory while running from another angry cult."

It was impossible to hold back a chuckle at that, because what with their fractured luck, Rodney could totally see it – possibly, maybe - happening. Then, of course, they'd end up losing it either to yet another cult, Wraith, Asurans, an explosion; but not before recharging one ZPM half-full or less with no time to refill another.

Rodney set the case back on the floor with the intent of storing it in Sheppard's room later. It was John's spoil of war, and his right to take it to the recharge factory and fill it up when they finally scored that next hit.

If not, it would still make for a nice paper weight.

The End