stargateficrec | Ascension Series by hoktauri (M)

Show: SGA
Rec Category: Sheppard/McKay
Characters:: Rodney McKay, John Sheppard
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Het/Slash/Gen: Slash
Warnings: Highlight: Character diagnosed HIV-positive, character death (not permanent)
Author on LJ:

hoktauri
Link: Ascension Series

Why This Must Be Read:

Although there are many sad moments in this series, it is ultimately a happy-ending. Rodney's (along with the rest of the team's) dedicated efforts to save John from his travails and bring him home is part of what makes this a wonderful read.

Excerpt:

John slipped his radio com-link from his ear and tossed it on his desk. He pulled the envelope from his pocket and stared at it. This wasn't ripping off a bandage. He couldn't just get it over with. Because there was that fifty percent chance that it would never be over, and another fifty percent that it had never even begun.

He stuck his index finger under one corner of the seal and ripped it open in one smooth motion. He fished out the tri-folded printout, covered in numbers and letters he didn't understand, medical codes and billing sequences he didn't care to ponder.

Only one word he cared about, one string of letters he wanted to find, and he didn't see it. In its place sat a completely wrong set of letters. He felt like his chest was caving in as he read that one word over and over. Crumpling the paper in his hand, he looked for something to hit, something to break, anything to get this feeling out of him.

It didn't matter though, how many things he destroyed. That feeling was a permanent resident now.

He punched the wall panel by the door.

It wasn't like he couldn't open the door with a thought. The only people that ever came to his room that would use it were Teyla and Ronon. Those days would soon be a thing of the past. He was sure to be shipped back to Earth and given a medical discharge. Even if he wanted to stay on as a civilian, it would be too dangerous. He'd leave before they booted him out through the Gate; at least he could pretend it was his choice.

He stared at the blood on his knuckles, noted the light glinting off the jagged bits of crystal and glass embedded in the skin. He would need to go to the infirmary for this, which meant he would have to tell Beckett everything before he told his team.

He thought of the clinic in San Francisco, remembered so vividly walking in wearing that baseball cap and hoodie, his Ray Bans attempting to conceal the fact that he was scared truly shitless just being there. But it was a necessary step. Atlantis was leaving for Pegasus in a week and he needed to know before they left.

He hadn't counted on the waiting period. He was on a prescription already, one intended to curtail the infection and by the time he was finished with it, the city was back in Pegasus and he'd had to mail in the next sample through the SGC. As if coordinating that without questions hadn't been nerve-wracking enough, there came the wait for the results, plus time in the mail and three weeks on the Apollo to get to this very moment, one stupid un-marked envelope.

So for two months he lived with that fear, took obsessive precautions to scary lengths, prayed and begged anyone listening, be they god or Ancient, that he wouldn't get injured and knocked unconscious, unable to alert Teyla or Ronon or--Christ, especially--Rodney that he could be dangerous to them. His blood could be dangerous to them.

The fear he felt that entire time was nothing compared to what he felt now. He could feel his heart thumping in his chest like a bird in a too-small cage. Talking to strangers had been the easy part; the hard part would be telling his friends. It was a little too twisted with irony for John's tastes, the idea that the people he was closest to would soon become strangers, that strangers would have to become friends, because soon, he'd have no one else. He'd be on Earth again and everyone that mattered to him would be in another galaxy.

...