Title: Passing of an Enemy
Rating: K+
Notes: Tag for 'Irresponsible'.
Disclaimer: None of them are mine.
He meditates with Teyla for a while. He's never been the sitting-still type, but she invited him, and he needs her to believe that he is dealing with things.
He sits still, breathing in the pattern she has directed, hands resting lightly on his knees. He's had practice at this, in the Sanctuary. For six months all he'd done, he thinks, was sit and try to meditate.
For a while it works – everything fades apart from the constant hum of Atlantis, and his own breathing.
Then all he can hear is a gunshot, all he can see is Kolya, and his eyes open. He scrambles to his feet, trying to control his breathing, and leaves before Teyla can say anything.
He hangs around in the labs, waiting for Rodney to notice him and yell for him to get out. Instead Rodney, with a sharp look, shoves a laptop into his hands and orders him to do the equations for him.
He sits in a corner of the lab, for a while oblivious to the noises of the scientists. He only looks up a few times, usually when Rodney is berating one or other of his associates.
He looses himself in numbers, letting the familiarity soothe him.
Then someone drops something, and he leaps up, hand going to his weapon. Radek comes towards him, hands outstretched, assuring him that nothing was wrong, but once again all John can see is Kolya, so he flees.
Ronon beats the shit out of him, then tells him that everyone regrets something – this regret isn't worth thinking about
He gives his report to Elizabeth personally, setting it on her desk, aware of her eyes intent on him. He smiles his easy smile, leans against her desk and fiddles with one of the ornaments before she takes it from him with a frown. He talks about the new marines, the kitchen roster, and whether they should trade for more of the grain from M4X-864 – anything except what she wants to hear.
He is good at not talking about anything important.
She asks, again, what happened with Kolya – he hadn't debriefed her, couldn't face it – but he just shrugs and tells her that it was all in his report.
Carson wants to give him something to help him sleep, but he refuses. He can't afford the luxury – knows that if he takes a sleeping pill, he won't be able to wake up if there's an emergency.
The doctor frowns at him, checks his pulse, and wants to know if he's scheduled an appointment with Heightmeyer yet.
He smiles and nods and pretends that he can't feel a hand pressed against his chest, pretends that he can't hear the gunshot.
He checks in with Lorne, in the practice range, making sure there were no problems when he was gone. His second in command looks gravely at him, offering silent support, but he doesn't need that. He asks again about problems, and for a short time he hears about the minutiae of running a military operation out here.
He flinches when one of the marines fires a gun at a paper target, and makes his excuses.
Heightmeyer smiles her bland smile at him. He tells her what she wants to hear and leaves.
In his dreams, Kolya is returned. In his dreams the single bullet did not kill the enemy commander, and Kolya prowls after him, hunting him down.
He wakes sweating, goes running for hours before Ronon joins him. He goes through his day mechanically, aware of the odd looks that people give him.
He doesn't care.
Rodney corners him and demands to know what's going on in his idiotic brain – his words – but he has nothing to say to his friend. There is no comfort he can give, Rodney will have to find that elsewhere.
He never expected anything like this.
He never expected to mourn the passing of an enemy.
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