The glimpse was

 

Wooden Horse

There's a photograph in Sheppard's childhood room. It's of a small dark haired boy waving a toy airplane while an older man in uniform holds him and smiles for the boy in his arms and the woman taking the picture. That photograph has been face down for a long time.

There are no photographs in Rodney’s childhood room. They’re packed carefully away in a box under his bed at Atlantis. Rodney’s always known he’ll never go back.


I came out of the darkness
Holding one thing
A small white wooden horse
I'd been holding inside


Sheppard doesn't think of Earth when he flies towards the Wraith ship, doesn't let himself think of the things he will never see again, but he does let himself sink deeper into the controls of the Puddlejumper feeling her become more alive beneath him, more responsive and feels her correct direction minutely, feels her wanting to destroy the wraith just as much as he does. The wraith ship looms until it fills the view with its quiet menace and deadly darts. Sheppard splays his hand across the controls an offer of comfort and the Puddlejumper warms around him, giving him extra speed. If he did let himself think of Earth, think of what he would show his father it would be this: the ships that come alive beneath his hands. The city who comes alive beneath his hands. His home and that she loves him.

Rodney does not think of Earth as he watches the small blip representing the Puddlejumper blink its way towards the wraith Hive ship. He counts the ways Sheppard is going to die. Mass trauma on impact, blood and worse smeared across the pale blue controls. Incineration. Sheppard’s body turned to charcoal and dust over the twisted melted remains of jumper and Hive ship. Suffocation/freezing to death if the jumper tears on impact and there is enough time for Sheppard to be sucked out into vacuum before the whole ship goes up. Maybe the jumper will euthanize him, gas or carbon monoxide poisoning or maybe he would euthanize himself with a bullet. The thoughts flash in horrifying gory detail, but his worst thought is not the half a dozen horrible ways Sheppard will die. It’s that if Sheppard succeeds then he will have to stand here and watch this over and over and over again. Losing everyone. Until his own hands are guiding a doomed vessel. Rodney quite possibly hates Sheppard at this moment.


And in the night the walls disappeared
In the day they returned
"I want to be a rider like my father"
Were the only words I could say


Caldwell’s voice is the last minute reprieve Sheppard never once believed he’d receive. He’s seen enough men die to not understand how it goes, but by the time the Daedalus beams him down to the control room he’s calmed down enough to start feeling cocky instead of disbelieving a feeling which lasts all of the three seconds it takes Rodney to dress him down. Rodney’s hands shake as he finishes and Sheppard involuntarily thinks of Rodney’s hands sweat slick over the controls of a puddle jumper as a Wraith ship looms around him. He turns it into anger, I was buying you time, but they both know that he was buying Atlantis more time and that if it came down to it he’d do it again, sacrifice them both to her and they both know that Rodney would do the same.


And when I'm dead
If you could tell them this
That what was wood became alive
What was wood became alive


When Sheppard finally collapses in his room it's three days later and the adrenaline has worn off leaving him overtired and morose. They’re alive, he’s alive, and there’s a party in the mess room celebrating this fact right now, but Sheppard lies there watching the colours flow through the pipes in his room and remembers Afghanistan and the failure that surrounded him. Imagines what it would be like if Rodney hadn’t saved the day, thinks of what it will be like when Rodney fails, the City dark around them, hurting. Thinks of Rodney, his heart beat slowing, his blood becoming darker as Sheppard fails him until it’s too much and he lets Atlantis's soft heartbeat whisper softly and lull him to sleep.

When Rodney finally collapses it’s under the gentle medication of Dr Beckett and the not so gentle hands of his staff preventing him from returning to his work. He does not know how much time has passed.

Sheppard dreams of showing his father a cricket bathed in Atlantis's glow, wanting to show his father the wings hidden beneath. He tries and tries and when his father finally glances over the cricket has become black and still, the wings hidden forever and Sheppard wakes to his father's disappointment and the bitter taste of having lost something beyond value.

Rodney dreams of warmth and home. Soft touches and spiky hair. Dreams of slow smirks and raised eyebrows.
Rodney wakes to Sheppard’s quiet voice interrogating Dr Beckett and remembers the hurt little boy look on Sheppard’s face after he had pointed out his abject stupidity. Remembers the look of pride, that he’d been able to protect the city. Remembers the warmth of his dream and counts the pointless ways it will never be his. Sometimes Rodney hates his imagination.


Alive
And I fell under
A moving piece of sun
Freedom


The day Rodney leaves the infirmary he finds Sheppard waiting in his lab with two chocolate bars and his laid back chocolate what chocolate? smile. Rodney blusters about not forgetting about kamikaze pilots, but he takes them and points to a new piece of ancient technology he wants him to touch and Sheppard sits down and coaches the blue glow out of the small spider-like device and Rodney feels his world settle for the first time since he’d watched a little blinking light blink itself out against a much larger light.

One month later a letter arrives from the Daedalus. Sheppard takes to carrying it around, pulling it out and turning it hand over hand while he thinks. There is no return address, but Sheppard knows who it’s from. He doesn’t open it. It's Rodney, six days later, who snatches it out of Sheppard's hand and tears it open. A photograph of a small dark haired boy waving an airplane falls to the ground.

Rodney picks up the photo, but it’s the look on Sheppard’s face, somehow open and vulnerable, which makes him hand it over. Sheppard takes it and Rodney watches silently as he walks away.


I came out of the darkness
Holding one thing
I know I have this power
I'm afraid I may be killed


The email Sheppard writes back is the longest he's ever written and he doubts his father will see half of it, but the message will get through. John picks up the photograph and tapes it to one of the pipes on his wall.

Rodney stands outside Sheppard’s door going over and over words in his head. ‘Colonel, see I remembered.’ No, ‘John, sorry about the letter, well it was more like a photo. That’s not the point. Oh, you want to know why I’m calling you John?’ No, ‘John, I can take you higher than ascension’ Actually, that one had possibilities, ‘You have silly hair.’ Could he sound any more fourth grade? ‘John, about flying into Wraith Hive ships like a--’

“Rodney?”

John leans against the open door, watching Rodney rehearse.

Rodney stops and his eyes travel over John stopping at his wild, spiky hair.

“Your hair is. . .” messy, absurd, the weird hybrid offspring of an alien we’ve yet to meet, “pretty.” and Rodney feels the heat rush to his face. Oh God. Escape now. “Uh, there’s something I left in the labs. I’ll just be.” Rodney backs up half a step and John catches his sleeve.

Rodney can’t read the expression on John’s face as he looks at Rodney

“I. . .” and John’s hand is tense looking for words, and John’s ears are turning pink and Atlantis is glowing brighter around them and Rodney starts counting all the ways he’ll take John higher than he’s ever been before in wonderful graphic detail.


And when I'm dead
If you could tell them this
That what was wood became alive
What was wood became alive








Authors notes:

When I read the song for the first time I saw the wooden horse as a toy airplane for John. And ‘What was wood became alive’ as a perfect line for how John interacts with Atlantis.

I saw the face down picture as a ‘Leave, and take nothing with you.’ command from his father for not following orders, for joining the Airforce instead of the Army, for just being him.

And I see this as something John doesn’t really think about, but it’s there if he could see me now he’d understand. The picture is an apology and at this point I don’t really see his father knowing anything about the Atlantis project other than it’s classified. That’s for John’s email.

When I saw the wonderful picture Threnodyjones gave me a glimpse of. The first thing I noticed was the coin in the back ground. I thought blind justice, but then I actually looked and it was the horn of plenty. My idea was to continue with the family theme. John too little, Rodney too much.

The first Rodney line was going to be

‘There are no photographs in Rodney’s childhood room. They’re out in the living room.’

and start from when the Daedalus arrives with this huge gaudy package from Rodney’s parents.

However I got stuck, the story didn’t seem to want to move further than the gateroom. So I thought about what the horn of plenty would really refer to in Rodney’s life and it was his thoughts. His intelligence. I used the first story as a frame and added in Rodney’s side trying to show that genius is not always a blessing and bringing both John and Rodney closer and closer time wise and relationship wise until John sticks up the photo and opens the door to see Rodney standing outside quietly freaking out and muttering to himself.

I then put it through beta and added two bridging scenes that were missing, originally each verse only had two paragraphs one for John and one for Rodney, condensed two verses into one and rewrote the immensely frustrating ‘three days later’ John paragraph and the ending more than once.

All in all I had fun :)