Warnings: Angst. Violence. Torture. Drinking. A few mild swears.

x-x

John followed Rodney into the room, leaned against the doorframe, and folded his arms. "You all right?"

Rodney slid into the chair behind Radek's desk. Opening the top drawer, he pulled out a bottle and the lone glass. Filling it, he immediately emptied the glass in two quick gulps, and only then did he nod. Holding the glass out toward John, he beckoned with it.

As John stepped into the dim lab, Rodney poured another shot and pushed the glass across the desk. He kept the bottle for himself.

John moved a pile of papers to the floor, then settled in the guest chair. "Thanks," he said, lifting the glass to his lips and downing the entire thing in one go. Glass to the table, he leaned forward across it, closing the distance between them. "You don't seem all right."

Rodney felt the side of his mouth curl up. "What was it that gave me away?" he asked, sarcasm turned on high. "Was it the screaming match I had with Elizabeth, or when my computer hit the ground?"

John pushed the glass across the desk and Rodney filled it, tossing the shot back quickly. Eyes watering and throat burning, he filled the glass again and left it on the desktop.

"I'm not quite sure," John replied. He smiled a bit, but his eyes remained cold. "I actually think it was when you punched Radek that did it."

Rodney nodded mock-sagely. "I can see how that -

"What the hell is going on with you?" John asked, interrupting.

"I'd really..." Rodney paused. "I don't want to talk about it."

John raised an eyebrow. "I don't see that you have much choice." When Rodney tried to interrupt, John went on. "Listen, either you go to see Heightmeyer willingly, or I'll drag you in there."

"You're not -

"Now, McKay," John said, and Rodney could hear the edge in his voice despite his calm demeanour.

"Fine," Rodney spat, rage surging through him with a suddenness and force that took him by surprise. "Whatever you want, Colonel." He stood so suddenly that his chair fell to the floor behind him. "Are we done here?"

John stood slowly, body suddenly tense and face guarded. "Yes."

Rodney lifted the bottle to his mouth and took a swig before he slammed it back to the desk. "Good," he said, stalking out of the lab with John at his heels.

x-x

Rodney ran rough hands through his hair. Pacing the length of his quarters, too restless to work even if he hadn't nearly destroyed his laptop, he reached the wall and pushed a fist against it, turning himself in the other direction. Maybe if he kept moving he could exhaust himself, and he could finally get some damn rest. Maybe he'd even be too tired to dream.

It was always the same, the dream.

Rodney shook his head against the thoughts. "This isn't working," he muttered, his voice sounding loud in the silence of his dim room. It was getting late - past midnight, anyway, and he could feel exhaustion tugging him down. But sleep meant dreams, and dreams meant nightmares, and he'd really rather not.

Stepping to his desk, he opened the top drawer and pulled out a box. Placing it on his desk, he slid the lid aside to reveal an unopened bottle of Jack Daniels that he'd received as a Secret Santa gift last Christmas.

"God, I hate this stuff," he said, wishing that he had something a bit smoother than the Jack. He didn't normally drink much, not even in his off-hours, and never alone, but today...today was different. And he really needed to sleep, and he wasn't sure he could handle that dream again.

Grabbing the bottle from its container, he slumped onto his bed. Cracking open the cap, he took a long pull from the bottle, gasping at the harshness of the liquid inside. But needs must, and so he took another sip, thinking of his day and hoping for oblivion.

After his time with Heightmeyer in her office, which Rodney had spent leaning back in his chair and calculating the mass of the ceiling above him, the psychiatrist had let him go.

Well, perhaps "let him go" was a bit optimistic. She'd actually had him escorted back to his quarters, where he was to remain until his visit with her tomorrow. He'd been taken off active duty at least until then. Heightmeyer had said something about "Post Traumatic Stress," but Rodney had been purposefully ignoring her at the time. Now he wished he had his laptop so he could look that up.

He'd admit to being a little anxious. And yes, punching Radek may have been a bit of an overreaction, but the man had startled him, coming up behind him like that, and... He was just jumpy, he thought, taking another sip, this one going down a bit easier than the last.

Rodney stood and walked to the dark window, staring at his own reflection in its surface. Maybe she'd been right. While he'd never been the model of mental health, he'd been way out of line in that meeting. Between yelling at Elizabeth and his reaction to Radek... God, poor Radek. He glanced down at the bottle in his hand. He should probably have given this to Radek, rather than drinking it himself.

He shrugged and took another sip, his eyes returning to meet those of his reflection. He looked the same - tired, but the same. But he could feel that something had changed. He wasn't sure what. Something.

Lifting his free hand, he rested his palm against the window, fingers splayed against the glass. He watched himself as he took another long drink.

It had been a hell of a week.

x-x

x-x

He could still remember the feel of the place. The team had been walking down a worn path away from the Stargate, Ronon on point, he and Teyla just behind Sheppard. Rodney remembered being tense, but it was the normal tension of a mission to a new planet. They weren't really expecting any trouble. This place Teyla knew of through past trading contacts, and although she'd never been there herself, all of their intelligence showed that it was relatively peaceful, the people interested in trading.

As they entered the forest Rodney was overwhelmed by the familiarity of it all. The scent of pine in the air, needles soft underfoot; if he blurred his vision just a bit, it almost seemed like home. Almost.

He remembered saying something inane as a way to burn off some of his nerves - something about fir trees being a universal constant - when Ronon tensed and raised his weapon.

Rodney heard noise above him and looked up to see people coming down from the trees; men in dark clothing, dozens of them. They were all around him, hands reaching for him as he struggled, shouting to his teammates. He felt something touch his neck and he fell, the green of the leaves above him filling his eyes as he spiralled downwards.

The next thing he remembered was sitting slumped against a wall in a tiny room. The drug or whatever they'd given him was starting to wear off, but the space felt too bright around him, every sensation just a bit too intense.

He heard voices nearby and winced at the sound. Squinting and shielding his eyes with one hand, he looked up to see a group of men surrounding Teyla, but no sign of Sheppard or Ronon.

Moving slowly so as not to draw attention, he checked his jacket. He'd been stripped of his radio, his weapon, even the damn life signs detector. Exhausted even by that small effort, he pulled his legs up in front of him and wrapped his arms around them, resting his chin on one knee.

Their attackers still seemed to be focused on Teyla, although one of the men had broken away and stood at a small table, pawing through their tech.

So, not so much interested in "trading" as in "taking".

The voices went up in volume, drawing Rodney's attention. One man shoved Teyla and she stumbled into another, who grabbed her and pulled her in close. As she stared up into his face, her eyes blazing their defiance, the man lifted a hand.

Rodney saw a flash, light hitting the blade of the knife as it sliced into her cheek. He watched, mesmerised, as blood dripped from the cut. "Stop," he said, or tried to say. Whatever noise he managed to make, it drew the men's attention to him.

The man with the knife released Teyla and stepped in front of him, squatting in his line of sight. "Why?" the man asked, dark eyes burning in his pale face.

"Because she doesn't - " was all Rodney was able to get out before the others were beside him, pulling him up from the floor, shoving him down into the only chair in the room. And then they were surrounding him, barraging him with questions he wasn't quite able to follow. He felt a touch to his neck, which first sent him spinning, then shocked him into crystal clarity, his heart racing in his chest as they -

Rodney shut his eyes, lost in the memories.

They had asked him the usual questions - where he and his teammates were from, who they were working for, why they were here - and he'd spoken words, and words, and words. Thousands of words; all of them meaningless. He'd had to keep talking bullshit, or else he might start talking truth, and he couldn't let that happen.

He had felt another touch to his neck and everything got too bright, too sharp, all jagged edges and broken seams, and he lost track of just what he was saying, his entire focus taken by the knife as it danced across his flesh, and the harsh voices of his captors.

Time had gotten kind of blurry on him, and he wasn't sure of what happened next. All he really knew was that the lights were too damn bright, and his skin felt like glass, and the knife kept moving, and cutting.

He heard someone burst into the room. When his torturer's attention had gone to them, Rodney had reached out blindly and grabbed the knife and started stabbing blindly, his arm coming down again, and again, and again, until finally Teyla and Sheppard pulled him away.

He didn't remember anything then, his memory blank until they were suddenly stumbling back to the gate, and he was aware of the hand at his elbow, steadying him as they moved. Aware of his team's concerned glances.

He wouldn't look at them, instead staring down at his bloody hands.

x-x

Rodney let his palm slide down the window until it fell to his side. Opening his eyes, he turned and capped the bottle before slumping onto the bed, crossing his legs in front of him as he leaned back against the headboard.

It had taken forever to wash the blood off his hands. It had got into the pores of his skin, the folds in his knuckles, the creases along his nails. He must have stood in front of the sink in Beckett's washroom for hours, trying to scrub away the last of it. It was under his nails. In his cuticles. Between his fingers. On the cuffs of his shirt...

...Rodney felt the knife slice through the skin on the back of his arm, and he was barely able to react, his whole consciousness taken by the shock, the drugs, the questions, and the cutting. He was frozen there, his eyes tracing the graceful movement of the blade across his skin, through it, the blood... And darkness, and...

...And the man turned to the door, his attention gone for only a moment before Rodney had the knife. Rodney held it aloft, bringing it down once, twice, and again, glorying in the sensation...

Rodney jerked awake, the bottle tumbling from his hand, off the bed and onto the floor with a thud. He'd been having variations on the same dream since he'd come back to Atlantis.

Heart pounding, he slid off the bed and stood. The dream had left him shaken, the memories within it still fresh in his mind even without the nightly reminder.

When he'd first returned from the mission, Beckett had checked him over. Nothing had appeared physically wrong with him beyond the cuts, and those would heal. And the remnants of the drugs, but those too would pass. He'd been out of the infirmary two days later and back to work snapping at the masses.

That first night in infirmary he'd been blessed with the dreamless sleep of the dead and the very lucky. Since then, it was always the same dream, every time he fell asleep. Hell, sometimes even when he was awake.

The waking nightmares were the ones that really freaked him out. But still, he'd been able to cover them up.

Until today.

Today in Elizabeth's staff meeting, something had happened; he couldn't even remember what. Something had triggered a memory so real he'd thought he was there, back there, in that room, with those men, and when he'd heard Elizabeth calling his name he'd screamed at her, only half realising she was there, that it was her. Standing and sweeping his laptop off the table and to the ground, he'd felt someone move behind him and swung out.

It was only once his fist had impacted that he realised he wasn't back on the mission, but in a staff meeting, and Radek was on the floor in front of him. The entire staff was looking at him, a mix of shock and horror on their faces. Then Carson had approached him, hands up, palms out, and Rodney almost knocked him to the floor in his haste to leave.

As he'd fled the room, his only thoughts were that something was very wrong, and he needed to get out.

x-x

x-x

Rodney glanced at himself in his bathroom mirror and grabbed his toothbrush, getting ready for bed. Grimacing at his reflection, he started brushing.

He'd seen Heightmeyer again today. He still wasn't talking to her. Well, not much; not anything of importance. He'd answered her questions as briefly and succinctly as possible, offering nothing beyond the most basic details. After all, he didn't believe in psychiatry... Well, that wasn't precisely true. He'd had to see her in the past, and he'd found it somewhat helpful, but what he was going through was nothing that he couldn't deal with on his own. He just needed sleep, and maybe a little time to think.

Still, he went because he had to. Because if he didn't, they'd never clear him for duty.

Returning his brush to its glass, he finished up in the bathroom, then slid into bed. Heightmeyer had prescribed some sleeping pills, which she'd said might help him with the dreams. He'd taken two, just as she'd said, but he wasn't feeling particularly confident in their power.

Turning off the lights, he turned onto his side, and -

Rodney felt someone grab his arm, and he twisted in alarm. Heart pounding, breath harsh in his ears, he tried to see where he was. He had no idea where he was. He blinked and his vision tunnelled outward, and he saw Sheppard standing nearby.

The lab. He was in the lab, and -

Rodney cocked his head, puzzled. John's mouth was moving, and he was saying something to him, his eyes showing his alarm.

Rodney felt something slip from his grasp and looked down. There was a knife there on the floor, its blade slick with blood. It looked like his own Leatherman, the one he kept at the bottom of his drawer. Vision greying, he looked up to see John tap his radio and speak, but he couldn't understand the words.

Rodney dropped to the floor and sat, cross legged, staring down at his hands.

Blood again, he thought, his heart beating frantically. What was all the blood from?

With his peripheral vision, he caught John's foot as he kicked the knife away. Rodney smiled. "Good idea," he may have said.

He stared at the blood on his hands as he waited for Carson.

x-x

Rodney could tell he'd been sedated from the feeling of it. Drugs like that left him lethargic, his thinking dopey, and he hated them. He tried to raise his hands but the sharp tug of restraints stopped him, and he hissed at the pain in his arms.

He remembered in a rush: the lab, John there, and then getting to the infirmary and freaking out, but nothing after that.

He remembered cutting himself now, back in the lab. It had actually seemed quite logical at the time. He'd been going stir crazy, and he had been drinking, and he'd taken those pills. So, maybe he wasn't sedated. Maybe how he was feeling was simply a combination of all of that. Maybe he was still kind of out of it. But he hadn't been too far-gone to break through the lock on his room's door, or to make it to his lab.

He'd been working on figures there, calculations, and he couldn't find any paper.

He remembered John's face when he walked into the lab, obviously looking for him.

He'd been very, very drunk, and very, very stupid. "Gonna do something like that, not in public," he said, realising that he was whispering aloud only as the slurred worlds came forth. "Gotta do it where no one can find you."

He tried to lift his hand, giggling when he realised that he'd again forgotten about the restraints. He'd just wanted to see what he'd "written" on his arms. He wondered if the scars would fade away, or if he'd always be left with his random scribbling.

All of that seemed more than a bit mad, thinking about it now. It certainly was unlike him. The drinking, the anger, the...everything, lately. He supposed he should be worried, but he wasn't, and he was not sure if that from the drugs or something else.

He heard rustling just as Carson came into view.

"Rodney," Carson said, eyes on the monitors beeping away above him. "Good to see you back with us."

Rodney went right into it, never one to beat about the bush. "Something's wrong with me, but I can't figure out..." He lifted his head, and let it fall back with each of his next words.

"What"

"It"

"Is."

He pulled against the restraints.

"Rodney, everything will be all right." Carson signalled to someone across the room, and Rodney saw a medic come to his side.

He watched as the medic inserted something into his IV line, injecting a clear liquid into the tube going into the back of his hand. "No, it won't," Rodney said, just as the medication hit and he spun away.

x-x

Rodney felt a hand being placed on his, holding it still. "Rodney, stop that."

He snapped to the present, realising that he was no longer in the infirmary, but in Heightmeyer's office. His hands were out of restraints, and he was picking at the bandage on his hand.

"Sorry," he said, stilling his movement with some effort.

"...Can be managed, sometimes even overcome, with treatment."

"What can?" Rodney asked, feeling as if he were arriving in the middle of a conversation.

The doctor cocked her head, peering at him intently. "What have we been discussing for the past half hour?"

Rodney cocked his head right back at her, about to respond with a crack, when he realised that he couldn't actually remember. He couldn't even remember coming here.

"Wasn't I just in the infirmary?"

"That was earlier."

"Oh." He blinked. "Okay." He stared down at his bandaged arms, wondering what he had written there with his knife. He remembered doing that. The "why" was getting a bit fuzzy.

"Maybe we should break for now."

His head snapped up. "Yeah, sounds good."

x-x

The first visitor Rodney could clearly remember was John. He was surprised to open his eyes and see Sheppard sitting there in the infirmary, chair drawn up beside his bed and book in hand. As John had read aloud, Rodney had simply shut his eyes again, letting himself drift with the flow of the words.

Next was Ronon, who incongruously apologised for not recognising the problem from the start. Rodney wasn't even awake enough to realise what "problem" Ronon was referring to before the man said that it was something he'd seen on Sateda, and he should have known. As Ronon continued talking, Rodney realised that it was the longest speech he had ever heard Ronon make, and he really wanted to stay awake for it, but...

The last was Teyla, standing silently beside him with her arm in a sling. When she saw that he was awake, she smiled gently.

"Are you okay?" he asked, nodding to her arm. He thought he remembered her being injured on the mission, but he wasn't quite certain.

"I will be fine," she replied, and her smile fell away. "I hope you are recovering as well."

"I'm not sure," Rodney replied. "Kind of..." he let his voice fade off, hands swirling around his head as he tried to explain what he was feeling.

Teyla took one of his hands, stilling it. "My people have a ritual," she said, her voice pitched low as she placed his hand on the bed, hers resting on top of it. "We feel that war is polluting," she said, squeezing his hand. "It requires us to act outside the boundaries set by society. It's as if one puts on a persona, necessary for war, but inappropriate for life," she said, emphasising the final word.
Rodney nodded, not quite sure of where she was going with this.

"Before a warrior can return to her community, she must spend time with others who have shared that experience." She smiled softly. "We need space and time, ritual and ceremony to reclaim ourselves; to shed the warrior persona that is no longer appropriate, and which may be dangerous to ourselves and others."

"You've been through this ritual?" he asked.

"I have," she replied, her eyes serious. "And I would offer it to you, Rodney, if you'd be willing."

Rodney squeezed her hand, interrupting her. "I'll think about it. Thank you."

Teyla smiled, this one lighting her eyes. "You are quite welcome."

x-x

Rodney walked into Heightmeyer's office without knocking; already talking by the time she looked up from her paperwork.

"Teyla told me about this ritual," he said, stepping to her desk and sitting in the chair in front of it.

The doctor raised an eyebrow, but pushed her work aside. "Yes," she replied, waving a dismissing hand to the medic who'd accompanied him. "She'd mentioned it to me."

"What? When?" Rodney asked, turning to the door when it clicked behind his escort, then back to the doctor.

"Today. She thought it might be helpful to you."

"What do you think?" Rodney asked, leaning forward in his chair with his hands tightly clenched.

"What do you think about it?" Heightmeyer parried.

"Not so much," Rodney replied. He leaned back in his chair and, unclenching his fingers, started picking at his cuticles.

"The ritual part isn't the important thing," she said, pushing a lock of stray hair away from her face. "It's the rest of it that's important - sharing your experiences with people who've been through similar things and who can understand. It's a way to decompress, but also to gain some time and distance, and to help you regain your sense of self."

Rodney stood and started pacing the width of the small room. "Do you think it would work?" he asked after a moment, glancing in her direction.

"It might." She looked at him frankly. "Are you okay?"

He stopped in front of her desk. "Yes, why?"

"You seem a bit on edge."

"A bit," he said with a chuckle. He forced himself to sit. "Why is this happening to me?"

Rodney caught a slight frown before Heightmeyer schooled her features. "We've discussed this before. Do you not remember?"

He shook his head, rubbing his face in exasperation. He hated this, these holes in his memory. They were becoming less frequent, sure, but still were a royal pain in the ass.

"In the infirmary," the doctor explained, her voice gentle. "Doctor Beckett said the drugs you'd been given served to enhance the effects of the torture. They made it more vivid."

"Oh," he replied, his voice sounding lost to his ears. "Will I be stuck with all this?" he asked, gesturing to his head.

"The symptoms may abate with time."

"May?" he asked, his voice rising as he stood. "May? What do you mean by 'may'?" He sat in the chair again. "Why?"

She opened her mouth to respond, but he went on in a rush. "I know, the drugs, I know... but that's not really it, is it? Part of this must be me," he said, touching a fist to his chest. "Because why, if Sheppard...? God, he'd been in Afghanistan, and Teyla, with the Wraith, and Ronon, he spent years on the run." His hands, which had been flying as he spoke, now stilled on his lap. "Why are they so together, while I'm coming apart?"

"You're not alone in this, Rodney."

"Yes, I am. They're all fine, while I'm..." he let his voice trail off and he shrugged in defeat. Breaking eye contact, he slumped back in his chair.

"It will happen to everyone," the doctor said, her voice quiet.

"Yeah," he replied, matching her tone. "Anyone who is as weak as..."

"No, Rodney," she said, her voice firm. His eyes flew up to meet hers. "Not anyone. Everyone. Every single person who's put in a situation of such extreme stress and horror will have a reaction to it. No one will remain unscathed."

"Even Ronon?" Rodney asked, turning on his snarky smile.

"Even Ronon," she replied. "Your reaction was amplified by the drugs, yes, but it wouldn't have been an abnormal reaction even without them."

Rodney thought about the others on his team. Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon, each of whom had been through similar, or worse, events. All of whom must, according to Heightmeyer, bear similar scars, even if some of them were hiding them better than others.

He had some things to think about.

x-x

Rodney could feel the warmth of the sun as it poured through the panes of his window, breaking into colours as it fell across his body. The dawn had come in a burst of light, and streams of it were flowing past him as he stood in the centre of his room.

He felt as if he were coming out of a fog. He wasn't sure if it was time and distance, as Heightmeyer had said yesterday, or the medications that Carson had prescribed, but he was starting to feel better, clearer. He was sure that being released from the infirmary, being allowed to be in his own room, alone, had something to do with it. The infirmary made him nuts. He grimaced. Well, crazier, anyway.

His eyes traced one shaft of light as it came in, breaking across his body. Looking down, he saw it curve across his bandaged arms.

Hmm...

He went to his bed and sat cross-legged on the mattress, slowly unrolling the bandage shrouding his left forearm. Once he had the wrapping swirled on the bed in front of him, he lifted the gauze pads and looked at the red welts and cuts scored into his flesh.

"Oh," he said aloud. He'd thought he'd written math - hell, he even remembered the calculations - but, "I dream'd in a dream..." he saw he'd written, and the entire poem came back to him in a rush.

"I dream'd in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth;
I dream'd that was the new City of Friends,
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love - it led the rest;
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words."

He traced a gentle finger across the word "dream".

Maybe Teyla's ritual was not such a bad idea. Maybe his team would be willing to use it; ostensibly for him, to help him get through this. But in reality, it would be for all of them: Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon, and himself. Maybe it would help each of them heal what wounds lay beneath their veneers of civility and sanity.

Because this city itself was not invincible. The people within it certainly weren't. But the friendship, the love - perhaps, if nothing else, that could be.

x-x

Rodney's writing is from "Leaves of Grass," by Walt Whitman.