trinityofone | Control, Part II

Back to Part I: Control (These Hands)

Part II: Control (Bring Her Down)

I.

You can go blind staring at the expanse of snow just like you could peering at all that sand. He’s learned not to look too hard, or too close. He keeps his eyes open behind his sunglasses and brings the chopper down, adjusting for the icy Antarctic wind just like he did for the hot desert one. Clean and smooth, easy and slow. Every time.

Except.

(The jumpers have inertia dampeners, so: no noticeable thrust. Flying over that endless sea of blue, feeling like Noah after the Flood, he knows that they’ll be either gliding or falling. No in-between.)

II.

In about half an hour, give or take, he’s:

*Almost been shot down on a routine transport run, nearly killing himself and General O’Neill;

*Casually had his security clearance upped and immediately been left to wander alone around a strange government facility;

*Paused for a moment--just to rest his feet--only to have his world tilt on its axis as he watched the universe open up all around him. From anonymity to the center of attention, and so fast, he doesn’t know if he can compensate at these speeds.

But he thinks he handles like it’s no big deal.

III.

Heads:

The same, everything stays, he stays, same life same job same routine--automatic, McMurdo, this is chopper six (a perfect number, it all adds up) do you copy?--safe and smooth, all the way down.

Tails:

No more bottoming out at the bottom of the world. Instead: back in their sights, under their scrutiny, their staring eyes. Stiff shirts with high collars, backs rigid, shoulders steady. Yes, sir. No, sir. No evasive maneuvers.

But.

And yet.

New people, new equipment, new galaxy, new start, new expectations. No test run.

No parachute, but then, he’s never much liked those, anyway.

IV.

He likes the adrenaline of surprises, the rush, like your stomach dropping, your body lifting, even though both feet are planted firmly on the ground. Certain vistas, alien and otherwise, have done that for him; things of incredible beauty, of fresh experience, have brought him there. People so rarely do.

McKay steps into the surging black, only a flickering layer of green between him and endless dark. Shoulders stiff and head held high, small and alone and afraid. One second he’s there, and the next he’s not.

When the darkness recedes, John feels the floor sway slightly beneath his feet.

V.

(John is so frustrated he wants to scream. He paces back and forth across the gym, furious, fuming under the oppressive weight of Teyla’s calm stare. Someone has to do something, he says.

By which he means: I have to do something.

Rodney and Ford are out there, in danger. He doesn’t leave men behind.)

I said don’t go there! he shouts, staring at McKay’s face: his smug chin, his mouth like a ragged wound. Then Chaya’s standing there in the doorway, and it’s so much easier to turn his back and go to her--no thought, just action. Momentum.

VI.

There are moments when it all snaps crystal clear, what it is he has to do. Bank right, roll left; pull up, aim, fire. There are no options (the Colonel looks him in the eye), no choices (the iris closes with a quick flick of a switch). Just a very straight path.

Teyla watches him with eloquent eyes. I could be saving everyone in the damned galaxy if we could, he snaps, and looking at her, he knows: he’s not the man that she thought, that she needed him to be.

But there’s nothing he can do about that now.

VII.

So long, Rodney, he says, ‘cause this is one of those times when the sole solution is laid out in front of him like the fucking yellow brick road. Except this is a path he has to walk alone, so he bids his Cowardly Lion goodbye--quickly, because it wouldn’t do to let conscious thought catch up with instinct--and straps himself in, and takes off.

He’s resolved. Even with the hive ships looming, he finds it oddly peaceful.

It’s easier to do what needs doing than to stay behind and have to watch others risk themselves in your place.

VIII.

In the heat of battle, there’s no time for introspection. You take the hits and move on. One moment you’re making your peace, and the next--if you’re lucky enough to have it--you’re putting all that behind you. Moving task to task, objective to objective, until you can’t move any more.

(He wants to stop and say something to Rodney, but there’s too much to do. No time. The sky above them is like the Fourth of July, and he can feel Rodney watching him out of the corner of his eye. His equilibrium shudders under every new explosion.)

IX.

Ford disappears in a blaze of white light, like a camera flash, like a Polaroid in reverse. There one second and gone the next. He could still be alive, John tells himself, like he told himself in those pregnant seconds after his friends’ choppers went down, their descents so slow, like Mulciber plummeting, heaven-spat, to earth.

He can, it seems, keep himself in the air even with logic and reason against him. Pity the protection doesn’t extend to his friends.

He looks at Rodney and Teyla and all he can think is, I wonder which one will be next.

X.

He asked me to trust him, he told her, but that’s not it, John thinks as the sky heats up, that’s not the problem, because he already did. If anything, he was too trusting, too willing to sit back and let Rodney handle things once in a while. What would McKay do? Make the wrong choice, it seems. Be too cocky. Fly them right into the ground.

Be sure not to fly in a straight line! says Rodney McKay, backseat pilot, and John figures he’d want to hit him, if he weren’t so busy saving both of them from themselves.

XI.

The transporter doors slide shut and John can finally relax the smile that’s straining at the edges of his lips. His casually crossed arms sag to his sides and for the few seconds when he exists as nothing but particles, molecules floating in subspace, he closes his eyes and tries to stop seeing the expression on Rodney’s weary face.

(He can’t trust Rodney to keep them (himself) safe. And yet (too late) he can’t not trust him.)

He can’t. Not when keeping everyone in one piece is no longer a job he wants to reserve for himself and himself alone.

XII.

“Let go of me,” Rodney says. Not struggling. John shakes his head and pushes him, arms around his back and fingers splayed, filling the gaps. Into the chair, the jumper controls, the flash of anger in Rodney’s eyes. “You’re going to learn this, so help me,” he says, and Rodney just sighs and sinks back. “You trust me with this?”

“Not yet,” says John. “But...”

He guides Rodney’s fingers, stroking the knuckles, willing them to stay loose. A deep breath, and together they think On. “...If you let me show you how to handle it, maybe...”

Rodney stares. Time to let go, John thinks, but his hands stay put.

“I can handle anything,” Rodney says.

Current Mood: nervous
Current Music: The White Stripes, "My Doorbell"