Episode Tag: S2 Grace Under Preasure

Characters: Rodney McKay, Radek Zelenka
Themes: Episode Tag/Missing Scene, Friendship, Some Angst, Drabble

ESRB Ratings: Everyone 15+

Season: S2
Spoilers: Ep - Grace Under Preasure

Written: August 06

“Why would Griffin do that?”

Now that Rodney’s back in the real world, a world where he’s being buried under emergency blankets, Sheppard is maneuvering the Jumper back towards the surface and the feeling of Samantha Carter’s palm cupping his cheek is fading into an all encompassing icy-heat, Rodney asks.

He asks in the gate room, he asks as he’s whisked through the halls of Atlantis in a stretcher, he asks as he’s lifted into an infirmary bed and Dr. Beckett begins the tedious task of fixing Rodney’s broken body.

Rodney tries to explain how he had been mocking the pilot, chastising him in his fear about tomatoes while the pressure of the ocean bore down on their craft. And how Captain Griffin had shoved him back into the cargo space and manually sealed the bulkhead from the command seat. “Good luck, Doctor McKay,” he’d said.

“Why would Griffin do that?” But Carson and his staff can’t listen just yet. Rodney is in the second stage of hypothermia and is looking down into the abyss of Stage 3 if they don’t get to work quick. He has a severe concussion, blunt force trauma to the head, has lost considerable amounts of blood and what blood is left has elevated levels of CO2 and lowered levels of glucose. McKay’s lips, fingers and toes are blue when they strip him out of his uniform and he’s shaking violently, almost arching out of their hands and onto the floor. Their touch burns him, but he asks them anyway.

Now he was asking it of Zelenka, the scruffy scientist sitting at his bedside as a nurse finally needled a sedative into his IV.

“Radek, why would Griffin do that?”

Dr. Zelenka is the first person to give Rodney’s question genuine thought. His mouth thins as he thinks, one hand running through his wiry hair distractedly.

“In Czechoslovakia, you are compelled to serve at least two years in the military. Is compulsory. In America, there is no such law.”

Rodney’s mouth slides into a perplexed downward slant. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Reaching out, Radek pulls the electric blanket tighter around Rodney’s chest, consciousness already beginning to slip away from the pale man. But even as they lose focus, cornflower blue eyes are still waiting for an answer, haunting Radek’s. The Czech smiles wanly, almost reluctantly.

“When duty, honor and courage are allowed to be expressed voluntarily, is amazing what sacrifices a military man will make to protect his charge.”

The words slur together, but Rodney’s egocentric world view doesn’t let a small thing like diminished capacities slow it down. “Tha’s th’ stupidest thin’ I’ve’er h’rd. Plus,” an uncoordinated finger thrusting itself up to make a tent in the bedding. “Not ‘merican.” Zelenka smirks in wicked indulgence; not even morphine can stop Rodney McKay from proclaiming someone a moron.

“Sleep, Rodney.” His square hand pats at where he knows a shoulder lurks under thermals. “Maybe you will get it when you wake up.”

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