Here and Now – Redux (Another Night…)

His eyes snap open at the sound of voices echoing in his ears. The words seem nonsensical and don't fit together. John pulls himself further awake and there it is, the knife in his back, hot and sharp between his shoulders. He can see it. The gleaming steel blade of panic, buried to the hilt in the meat of his back. Feels it. Burning straight through, inciting his heart to pound adrenaline through his veins hard enough to shake the small bed. His fight or flight kicks in and has him sitting up on the edge in seconds, gasping for breath as his pulse thunders up to drum behind his eyes. The tightening in his chest robs him of precious air and he's sure it's Rodney's voice he hears, Rodney's voice above the others, the same ones that wake him every night.

Satisified there's no immediate threat, John lies back to listen, but there's only the darkness as it hovers – palpable, almost sentient. Frustration laces his heavy sigh as he finally breathes deep, trying to will his heart back to a normal pace. He should know by now the futility of trying to sleep through the night – ever since the mission.

Now that he's awake, he could get up, try to get through a few pages of War and Peace or finish one of his overdue reports, but instead the burning what ifs and the dark what might have beens paralyze him. He's good for nothing until this passes.

The loss of sleep he can live with, he just doesn't want to think about that day. But his brain isn't playing nice and why should tonight be any different? Resigned to it, he exhales, staring helplessly into the ghostly strands of Lantean moonlight. It was just a routine science mission to M3X-778. Christ, all the intel pointed to a mission so fraught with certainty he'd been perfectly at ease not leading the military contingent; sending another team in place of his own.

Tunara hadn't been visited by the Wraith in hundreds of years – not since the great culling that nearly took the village's entire population. The Tunarans were another race who had wisely chosen to rebuild and advance their civilization underground - living and thriving, albeit still well behind the curve. How could anyone have guessed Rodney would lead an exchange team of scientists to the quiet village the very day the Wraith decided the Tunarans needed a wake-up call? And that's it right there, no one could have. But it's his job, he's the guy.

Remnants of panic still course through him, burning echoes wax and wane before he's finally able to move his arms. Memory. It's like a video loop, night after night. He rakes both hands through his hair and grinds the heels against his eyelids as if somehow that might keep the memories at bay.

That day he'd sooner have stood at the mouth of Hell than in the control room with the others, trying to comprehend the garbled transmissions once the video feed had failed. His heart had slammed his chest relentlessly and the itch to take off after the teams had chased adrenaline through his veins – not unlike this feeling that wakes him. But through it all, he'd stood by, useless, waiting. Because he couldn't leave, couldn't move until he'd heard that one frazzled, high-pitched voice above the others. Needed to hear some indication of we're not dead.

Only, that voice never came and he'd taken a rescue team to Tunara knowing only one thing for certain: there were dead. Not the entire team, of course, but too many. Jesus Christ, too many.

He takes a deep breath and winces at the metallic sting of bile in his throat. It's the same reaction every time he thinks of passing the responsibility of command to Lorne that day, every time he thinks about his failure to fulfill his duty. He hadn't protected the civilians or the Tunarans. He hadn't been there to protect Rodney.

Even with his eyes open, images of the fallen roam freely through his mind. When he does sleep, it's only to greet the ghosts of those he'll never see again. Lofton, Wilmot, Andrews, Torres, Saito, Lenowski, and Nishimura among them.

John suddenly feels sick and he wishes to God it could be that easy – wishes he could just splatter the floor with his guilt, his remorse, the unutterable feeling that he's to blame – all of it – purged from him, slick and putrid on the floor. But nothing's ever that easy… or that simple.

Turning on his side, he draws his knees up, needing to be warm. Carter has begged him to see the base psychologist, but he adamantly refuses. He's not about to park his ass on a comfortable chair for two hours a week to let someone manhandle his brain, poking and prodding it until the images are erased – nice and neat – scrubbed clean like it's all okay and not his fault. Fuck that.

What would be the point? So he can lapse back into complacency – let down his guard again?

Never.

He steels his jaw. He'll keep it all, thank you – the guilt and the blame. John swallows hard and pulls the blanket up around him. The only therapy he needs or wants sleeps soundly on the other side of the residence wing. Alive and safe. His one-man clarion for vigilance.

As his eyelids grow heavy, he knows what awaits him if he closes them. The stricken look on Rodney's face when John had finally reached him ranks right up there with Holland and that last defiant glare from Ford, and not even the shadow of relief that had finally crossed those terrified blue eyes can redeem that look.

But he'd found Rodney alive – that was the important thing – nothing like the too many papery casings, left dust-colored and dull against the vibrant hues of the Tunaran garments, ashen next to the vivid blue and tan uniforms or the dark BDUs. His stomach knots painfully, drawing him up tighter.

Strange, the panic and the images are nothing compared to what comes next. John tries to stop it, but he can't. Just another cog in the wheel of this crazy fucking loop, he has no choice but to let it play out. Thoughts of how Rodney had hovered after being released from the infirmary and watching him come closer and closer to a realization in those first few days after the mission.

He still sees the look on Rodney's face when he'd stormed into his quarters, saying things like "no more," and "this shit stops right now." Caught off guard, John's impotent protests had fallen on deaf ears – Rodney had refused to take his unconvincing I don't know what you're talking about for an answer.

Tightness pulls across his chest as he recalls how his heart had threatened to betray him as he stood there, how it threatened to unlock his stubborn Pandora's Box of emotions and let everything out, everything he'd managed to dam up for so long. The more Rodney had backed him into a corner, the more mutinous John's heart had become. The key was there, turning in the lock, the lid mere seconds from lifting when the iron hand of his will clamped down on it, tighter and tighter with each forced word: I'm sorry, Rodney… It's not like that… you must have gotten the wrong idea…

That hidden hand had wasted no time turning the key back and snatching it away. Not caring that it had left his heart to deal with Rodney's confused expression and stuttered apologies, had left his eyes to deal with the defeated slump as Rodney turned away, or that it had left him with an ache as big as Atlantis itself… but his secrets were safe once again.

Gently, he presses fingers to his mouth, still able to feel the ghost of Rodney's lips. Closing his eyes, he recalls the warmth in the way Rodney had held him, even for that brief kiss. God, to have that one moment to hold onto and he hopes against hope that Rodney remembers it too – holds on to it like he does, until… What?

Isn't it enough Rodney's alive? That his team is intact? That's the important thing, right? His team – The Fantastic Four. His responsibility to Atlantis.

He knows you put the needs of your people first before anything else, including and maybe especially before your own – it's what he does best. If he forgets it for one minute, something like Tunara occurs, and he will never, never again let that happen.

Right. That's all the therapy he needs – Rodney alive, his team, taking care of the city.

Rodney: his touchstone, his rock, the one constant in his entire fucked up life that defies all the odds. And it has to be this way until… until they're finally safe? Until he's no longer strangled by archaic social mores and restrictions? Until the day that iron hand softens, finally allowing him to turn the key and lift that lid, because then there'd be no going back.

And that day will come. One day they'll be safe, one day repressive regulations will no longer rule his behavior and he'll be free to tell Rodney everything. He rolls onto his back as the stranglehold of the knot inside forces him to straighten out into a ramrod of submission, if only to take a few deep breaths. When that day does come, maybe it won't be too late – maybe it'll never be too late.

But a dim shadow of reality passes over that hope and the dry lump in John's throat crashes in his ears as it goes down hard. Always up for a gamble – in this case, he doesn't like his chances.

He swings his legs over the side and he reaches to the nightstand for the packet of pills Keller had given him, still unopened. Staring at them, he hesitates then tosses them back, watching them clip the edge and fall to the floor. Thankfully, the heaviness of sleep finally begins to stalk him and anyway, the pain serves him well as a reminder, a force to be reckoned with. He lies back and lets it complete its ritual.

It'll go away eventually – it always does, once he's pushed it down far enough. Shoved it back into the long, dark corridors where it will remain, rushing forward again whenever his heart has desires of freedom, that hidden voice of reason his will can always call upon to stop him from doing something foolish.

His breathing finally evens out and he starts to drift. As expected, the pain eases and for this moment, as he slips back into sleep and maybe for the few more hours until the sun rises, when uncertainty will again be his companion, and diligence his watchword, he's free.

Free from whatever might be waiting on their next mission, free from the specters that secrete themselves in the dark recesses, free even from the self-recrimination he dons like a second skin.

Free – if only just for another night.