It starts with a headache, dull but steady, working from the point where the skull meets the neck, moving up and forward, right to the temple. Rodney squints a little, but shakes it off. He’ll worry about it when he’s dead, which, considering how he’s currently trapped in a room with no doors or windows or visible release mechanism, may not be all that far off. The room is just large enough to provide them with enough air to die of thirst before they asphyxiate. It’s not a comforting thought.

John swings his legs back and forth, kicking the cold metal of one of the rolling infirmary carts with a steady rhythm. He hums a little, which earns him warning looks from some of the nurses.

It’s not long before Carson bustles in. He doesn’t look tired, but he’s annoyed, rushed in that ‘I’m being professional, which is another word for cold’ way that some doctors idealize.

“Lay back on the bed, lad. You’ve lost a lot of blood and I cannot have you up and running about like a spoilt child.”

John looks down at himself speculatively, itching at the thick wrap of bandages that cover his forearm. It doesn’t really hurt – while he’s in the infirmary they keep him on the good drugs. “I didn’t think sitting on my ass staring at the wall counted as strenuous activity.”

Carson harrumphs, checking monitors and pulling out a blood pressure cuff. “Aye, though it’s only a matter of time before you get other ideas in that head of yours and go wandering off.”

John shrugs. “I’m fine, Doc. Just another cut. We’ve been through this song and dance before. I know the routine by heart.” He flashes his best charming grin, knowing already that it’s not at its regular brilliance. He just needs to get out of here – get out of here now before the patient sleeping soundly in the bed beside him wakes.

“Not so fast,” Carson grabs for him as John pushes off the bed, managing to land without losing his balance.

“Relax, I’m just going to use the bathroom.”

“Aye, and I’m Marilyn Monroe.”

John rolls his eyes.

“Well, before you go, I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that Rodney’s fine. You kept him together long enough – unconsciousness, but no coma.”

“I know.”

Carson looks slightly put-off. John understands – usually he’d be incessantly bugging Carson for news of Rodney’s condition. But right now he can’t . . . he just can’t.

“Well, I’d best be checking on my other patients then. But don’t be thinking you can sneak out of here, now.”

John nods absently, looking down at Rodney’s pale features, his long eyelashes and his wrinkled mouth – worried looking, even in sleep.

He knows Beckett will catch him, but he sneaks away anyway.

After the headache comes the dizziness. He stands and staggers, leaning hard against the wall and breathing deep. No, no, no . . . he needs to think. He’s their only chance out of this and he knows . . . he just knows that he can fix this if he could just wrap his mind around it. Then there’s a warm hand on his shoulder. Somewhere far off Sheppard asks if he’s okay. Fine, fine, they’re about to die, but he’s fine. Rodney nods and gets back to work, drinking in the warmth of Sheppard’s hand still resting carefully where it’s perched. John always finds a way to give him strength.

John’s quarters are dark and they don’t lighten when he steps in the door, willing the darkness to continue. He sighs, sinking down onto his bed, muscles sagging instead of releasing smoothly. He feels a wind whisper in from some otherwhere. The windows are closed, but he shivers nonetheless.

Of all the things he thought he’d never do, never see, never imagine, this is just another to add to the list.

Military glory is made of strength, of fraternity, of fearlessness, willingness to act in the face of necessity.

He doesn’t feel glorious. He feels tired. He feels numb.

But then there’s a knock on the door and he has to force the lights on, so whoever it is doesn’t think he’s cracking up – sitting staring in the dark.

“John?” Elizabeth’s voice is too soft. She reminds him so much of his mother – worried, loving in her own way, but also detached.

“Here.”

She slinks in like a sigh, setting herself on the bed next to him. “How are you, John?” He doesn’t like the way she says his name. He never has. She says it like it means something.

“Tired.”

She nods sympathetically, like she could understand. And maybe she can. Elizabeth too has grown to know necessity. She’s probably made peace with it, the perpetual diplomat. John, as always, can never fully lay anything to rest.

“Well, I don’t want to keep you from much needed sleep, John, but this is the first opportunity I’ve had to speak with either of you and . . .”

He holds up a hand. “We got beamed into the chamber by an Ancient device. There were no markings, no doors, no windows, no way out.”

“Why?”

John thinks it was a prison, because trapped there, he felt like a prisoner, but there are so many things it could have been. They’re no closer to understanding the Ancients than they ever were. Their technology tells them only what they did, not why.

“We never figured that out. There wasn’t anything there, Elizabeth. Rodney can solve almost any problem, but there wasn’t anything to solve. We’re just lucky the Daedalus was close.”

“But, John . . . how did you get that cut if there was nothing there to figure out?”

John closes his eyes with a sigh. Of course Elizabeth will go straight to that. Blood in the water, and she’ll hunt him down, find out every dark secret eventually.

“Standard-issue field knife.”

“It was self inflicted?” Elizabeth’s voice is choked up but not judgmental, if that’s any consolation at all, which it isn’t.

John just nods. There are problems you can’t solve.

Confusion sets in next, if it wasn’t already there before. Sheppard’s talking to him constantly now, asking him questions he can’t answer. How is he? Can he get them out of there? Does he forgive . . . forgive what? Will he forgive? How long do they have? Can Rodney hear? Does he understand? No, no, no, it’s all wrong and the shapes that float in front of him, the questions that bombard him like hail, like bombs falling . . . no!

Rodney storms into his quarters, squawking loudly about the lack of lighting. John doesn’t move from where he’s laying back on the bed. He’s been in the same position since Elizabeth scurried away, moderately horrified, but as accepting as always. She would forgive even the Wraith, he thinks, if it were needed of her.

“Come in,” John says, after Rodney’s standing expectantly at his feet, arms crossed over his chest. He doesn’t look away from the harsh shadows of the ceiling, sensing Rodney’s movements without watching.

That’s how they are together - sense, trust, knowledge. They would do anything for each other and they have. John’s just proven that, if nothing else.

“Why are you avoiding me?” Rodney demands. He’s trying for angry, but John can hear the hurt lurking just beneath.

“I’m not . . . look, I’m tired, okay? I just wanted to go somewhere dark and quiet to get some sleep.”

Rodney’s rationality won’t buy it, because John has been bone-tired before but still stuck by his side. But Rodney will still believe, because he wants to believe as much as John needs him too.

“Okay.”

Rodney’s familiar weight settles down on the bed.

“I’m tired too,” he says.

They’re lined up, knee to knee and shoulder to shoulder. John feels sick to his stomach. He feels like he did when he was being pulled into the time-dilation field, with one part already healed, needing more than anything to be closer, and the other part, still on the outside, pulling away with all its might, still disgusted with himself . . . and disgusted with Rodney, too.

He shouldn’t be ashamed – he did the right thing. But still he feels it, a deep soul-shattering wrong written into his very genetic code. Social taboos come from biological taboos, which are designed to help the species survive. Odd that this time, survival demanded the opposite.

Rodney’s hands trace his cheek as he leans to the side, looking John in the eyes. “What happened to you?”

“You don’t remember?”

Rodney shakes his head, fear flashing in his eyes.

From the depth of his ever-growing toolkit of things necessary, John draws an indifferent shrug. “Nothing interesting. I cut myself trying to get another panel open. You went into hypoglycemic shock. The Daedalus beamed us out, just in time.”

Rodney’s eyes narrow for a second, scrutinizing. John prays for the power of persuasion, prays that the lie doesn’t show on his face, that Rodney will never have to feel this same feeling of disgust, curling through and around and into everything, slithering.

Then Rodney smiles, settling down against him. “Another disaster narrowly averted, another day.”

His hands traced down from John’s cheek, over his chest, over the good, non-bandaged arm. And then his teeth scrape up against John’s neck, sucking, suckling. John feels the pulse point pound against Rodney’s soft, soft lips, his wicked tongue. He remembers . . . god, in a flash, he remembers it all.

He fights down the nausea. That Rodney doesn’t remember is a blessing. It might even be necessary in the whole grand scheme of their survival, but it’s still not fair.

Coma is supposed to come next, and then death. Both are things that Rodney finds hugely distasteful, if not disgusting. But then comes his salvation, thick and rich, metal, copper and iron forged on his lips, slipping down his throat like a salve, pulsing, in and out, as smooth as John’s kisses. He coughs a little, sucking it in, nourishing himself. He thinks, suddenly, about Teyla, what she once said about the Wraith – that she hates them with all she is, but that she cannot fault them for wanting to survive. Survival must taste like this – like blood.