Notes: Thanks to z_rayne for yet another good beta! :D She's like a machine, yo. And of course to seperis for audiencing along my second foray into her adorable little universe here.
Sadly, I took out a lot of the Katie Brown being John's arch-nemesis bits as they didn't really add anything. But there is more of Max the bunny.
by Madelyn
John had never told Dr. Weir about the dreams he'd had for a couple weeks that were in half-Ancient and half-English; he'd been a little scared that those might freak her out. But right now, he'd really like those dreams back, if they'd get rid of the new ones. He drew his knees up to his chest and breathed into his pajama bottoms, closing his eyes against the flash of the white, white skin, the white, white hair, and those horrible teeth, like those posters in the dentist's office that showed what would happen if you didn't floss, only about twenty times worse.
The faces kept coming toward him though, even with his eyes closed, so he moved over to the cage where Max was camped out in his corner and pulled the rabbit into his arms. Okay, fine, vezer beest, but who cared--Max was a rabbit in every way that counted. Max opened his eyes, obviously disgruntled at being awakened, and snuffled in John's arms. John tucked Max into the crook of his elbow, soundlessly got to his knees and rolled under the bed and reached a hand up to blindly pull his blanket down with him. He surrounded himself in the soft warmth and pressed his back to the wall. He could just call Rodney; the radio was right there, only a few feet away, but John wasn't a baby, and he wasn't going to call just because he'd had another stupid dream about the white things and their screaming.
He wasn't going to call about any dreams anymore if he could help it.
Unless clowns made their way into his dreams, and they started speaking Ancient. Then all bets were off, and he wasn't letting anyone teach him anything anymore and they could all just leave him alone. He shivered a little bit and tugged the blanket up to his chin, Max still passed out on his chest.
This room was so boring, John thought, stroking behind Max's ears, and besides that, his quarters were haunted. There were weird voices whispering in the walls and the only reason why he hadn't said anything to Teyla or Rodney yet was--well, one, he was *eight*, and adults were stupid about these sorts of things, and besides that, it wasn't...really scary. The walls just seemed to be saying things like, 'hi!' and 'sweet' and 'no, really, it's bedtime mister.' The room felt a little...worried now, and for some reason, that made John feel better, like it wouldn't let the white, white things near him. He pressed his palm to the wall.
He missed sleeping in Ronon's quarters. He'd had all these cool things with miniature teeth and furs and every drawer he'd looked in, there were knives. He'd said that the next morning, and Teyla had pursed her lips like Rodney did a lot and had said in her Disapproving Voice that Ronon should follow her. Ronon had glared at John, and John hadn't even realized he was saying anything *wrong*, so what gave Ronon the right to glare at him anyway? So they'd put him in Teyla's quarters, but the air down there was strangely dry, so he kept having to get up for water, and then he had to try and compare her bed to Ronon's and hers bounced *way* more, so he'd been trying out mid-air somersaults when she'd come in the doorway and looked at him with her Disapproving Look.
But she hadn't said anything, had only smiled and said, "Beds are not for jumping on, John," and had pulled out a soft, round, tightly woven rug and gestured for him to sit on it.
"Not another meditation," he begged. Teyla arched her eyebrow and sat down gracefully. John sunk to the floor in front of her.
"I think you would do well to see the benefits steady and continuous meditation may bring to you," she said lightly.
"I learned a lot when I was with Elizabeth today," he rushed on. "Did you know they have more letters in the Ancient alphabet than they do in English? I learned that last month, and Elizabeth gave me a spelling test. But I got curious and looked up the Athosian alphabet, and wow, you guys are weird too--you only have twenty! Don't you miss the letters?"
Teyla opened her eyes and sighed a little. She leaned onto her side on the mat and pulled a large pillow off of a chair, propping herself up. "Many cultures have different languages with a fascinating array of letters. Some are even in picture form. In fact, there is a race my people have--"
John grinned and lay down flat on his stomach, putting his arms under his chin. "You don't say, Teyla."
And then they'd said John was "adapting" fine, so he got to sleep in quarters near Teyla's and across the hall from Ronon's.
John knew he was being stupid; it was just a dream, he wasn't going to tell anyone about it anyway, and Rodney would just tell him to go back to bed, but still, John wanted to hear Rodney's voice for a few minutes. So he slid out from underneath the bed, set Max back down in his cage, drew in a deep breath, pulled the blanket around his shoulders and draped it around him like a cloak. It trailed after him, but it made a satisfyingly swishy sound as it slid across the sleek Atlantian floors.
One of the marines on patrol duty jumped a little bit seeing John appear around the corner. John stopped in front of him, and looked up--and up--and further up. This guy was almost as tall as Ronon.
"Shouldn't you be harder to surprise?" he asked the marine.
"Sir! Yes....sir!" The marine saluted, and John drew his blanket in a little tighter.
"....okay," John said under his breath. The marine looked a little surprised and confused for a moment, but let him get on the transporter.
John went directly to the labs. It was pointless to bother with Rodney's quarters; it was only a little after midnight. He asked Atlantis very politely to open the doors for him and she hesitated a moment, but went with it.
He missed those first few days where he barely even had to think at anything; it all just happened even before he knew he'd wanted it too. Rodney probably had done something, but John tried not to hold it against him.
Nobody else was even in the lab, John realized, looking around. Rodney was right; they all really *were* slackers. He moved carefully around the stools and workstations until he came to Rodney's. He was passed out, half on one of the lab tables, half drooping in his chair.
John bit his lip, a little unsure. Rodney should probably sleep. If he saved the city half as much as he'd told John he'd saved the city....hmm. Oh well. If Rodney wanted actual sleep, he should just sleep in his own quarters like normal people.
Rodney was drooling a little bit and it was gross, so John moved over to his other side and peered at his ear. He poked very lightly, only nothing happened. He even waited a couple moments.
"Wake up, Rodney, waaaaaakeeee upppppp!" He let loose a tiny kick to Rodney's thigh. Only a very little one. Rodney half slid off the table, back jerking up in a motion that looked sort of painful to John. John backed away a little bit and smiled hopefully; he'd heard Rodney mumbling something about 'gap-toothed menace' before and John thought maybe that meant it was something he could *use*.
"What are you, Rosemary's baby?" Rodney floundered, gesturing wildly in the air.
John shook his head and crawled up onto the chair next to Rodney. "Can I watch you work? Just for a little while?" John asked.
"I--I--why?"
John shrugged, the blanket loosely pooling to the floor. "I'm not sleepy anymore and I thought maybe I could keep you company. Elizabeth can't do Ancient lessons this morning and Teyla and Ronon said they'd be working late, so it's not like I have to be up early or anything."
"Teyla and Ronon are wor--oh." Rodney blushed a little around his ears.
"What's so funny about them working?" John asked curiously.
"Absolutely nothing, hey, hold this," Rodney said, biting on his pen and tapping a few keys on his laptop.
"It's not doing anything," John said, turning it around to look at it.
"Oh, sure it is," Rodney said, voice muffled around the pen.
John looked at it a little closer. "Rodney, this says 'Made in China'," he sighed and set it down next to Rodney's arm. "If you don't want me in here, you can just say so. I'm not a baby; I'm eight." He picked up his blanket and swallowed hard and promised himself that he'd ask Elizabeth if there were even such things as Ancient clowns or evil catfish when he saw her in the morning.
"Hey, wait, it's--" Rodney sighed. He wrapped his hands around John's waist and settled him back into the chair, tucking the blanket in around John's arms. "Just sit there and don't ask too many questions."
"How many is too many?" John asked cautiously.
"You get seventeen total," Rodney said, typing quickly. "And that was your first one, so sixteen."
John frowned, but mostly, it was okay. He'd just have to be really careful with his sixteen. He peered closer to Rodney's arm and looked at the screen.
"I like the vectors on the puddle jumper you have on the page," he said carefully, propping his chin up on Rodney's arm.
"They're not for the puddle jumper, they're for the--oh, *nice*," Rodney said, and John smiled because he could tell Rodney really meant it.
"Here, finish these," Rodney said, sliding a thick sheaf of papers to John's side of the table.
"Oh, wow, you're going to let me do multivariable calculus?" John asked, already paging through.
"...yeah, you're a lucky kid, John. And check out page twelve."
John flipped through eagerly. "Metric spaces? That's boring."
Rodney propped his chin onto his hand. "You and I are going to have a very, very long discussion about this someday," he said and reached up and over to tuck a piece of John's hair behind his ear.
"If you finish those in an hour, I'll see to it there's chocolate chips in your waffles."
"Please. I can do these in fifty." John said, already biting his lip and gripping his pencil tightly.
Rodney took a quick look down at his watch. "12:23 right now," he said.
"1:13 then," John said resolutely, scratching in the answer to the first problem. "So what are the vectors for?"
"You're down to fifteen," Rodney reminded. "And you see, Dr. Zelenka and I had this idea...."
John woke up on the futon in the chemistry labs, head on a pillow on Rodney's thigh; Rodney twisted up against two propped up body pillows.
Dr. Kavanagh entered, intently looking at a clipboard, stopping and doing a double take at Rodney still sprawled out and John blearily trying to wake up.
"Rodney and I were having math contests until three in the morning," John explained and stood up to stretch a little. "And then I think we fell asleep."
"Obviously," Dr. Kavanagh laughed. "Hey, how's Max liking his ramp?"
"Oh, he fell off it the one time, but after that, he was fine. He likes looking down at people," John grinned.
"Yeah, well, I found some more cardboard for us to make that castle, if you wanted."
"If John's going to be making a castle, he'll be doing it with me," Rodney said, stirring, suppressing a yawn on the futon.
"Hmm. Well, good luck finding some cardboard. It took me ages to even get what I have," Dr. Kavanagh said, pushing his glasses up on his nose.
"You two are dorks," John said, rolling his eyes. "I'll see you and your cardboard before dinner tomorrow."
"And you--you need to grow up," he told Rodney, picking up his blanket. "And I'm going to take a shower and get dressed and you promised me waffles with chocolate chips," he reminded, staring at both of them right before he exited.
John folded up his blanket as he walked, not wanting to look odd in the daylight. His nose was running and he dabbed a corner of the blanket underneath it.
He frowned as he realized the spot on his blanket was red.
John held his head back when he took his shower and decided to use the Sesame Street bubble bath stuff Miss Laura had given him, and wished only for the hundredth time that the Ancients had had enough intelligence to build bathtubs. They could build things with humming *walls*; but no bathtubs, and everyone here thought the Ancients were pretty awesome, but John privately thought there were a lot of things around here that could've been done better, like bathtubs and *definitely* a ferris wheel.
He dried himself off and pulled on his favorite pair of pants and an old T-shirt, because if his nose was going to keep doing this, he didn't want to get anything on his shirt. He grabbed a towel and held it close to his nose, tilting his head back again. He was getting a little dizzy.
He left his quarters and didn't see Rodney, eyes focused on the ceiling as they were.
"John, what do you think you're--" Rodney broke off and grabbed the towel from John's hand.
"Hey!" John protested, "You're supposed to hold pressure when these things happen!"
"How long has your nose been bleeding? Jesus, this is a lot of blood," Rodney was muttering, and he was kneeling in front of John, peering into John's eyes, refolding the washcloth so a fresh side was up and pressing it gently to John's nose.
"Only since I left the lab," John said, muffled, feeling Rodney lift him up. "Aww, come on. Breakfast is going to be over soon, and if you make me go see Carson, we won't have any waffles," John said, pressing tighter and tilting his head back again. It just seemed to bleed more.
"Try tilting it forward," Rodney suggested, walking down the corridors faster.
"That's not how you're supposed to do it!" John argued.
"Hey, humor me, okay?"
Sighing, John tilted his head forward, and felt even dizzier at the change in position.
"Not helping," he muttered a minute later.
"Okay, fine," Rodney sighed, and pushed John's head back again.
John hadn't realized Rodney could walk this fast; they were at the infirmary before John knew it. "Carson! Carson!" Rodney called and deposited John on the bed, refolding the washcloth yet again.
"I'm here, I'm coming.... what happened?" Dr. Beckett looked down at the towel in Rodney's hand.
"He's been having a bloody nose for about twenty minutes," Rodney said. "Is it a tumor?" he asked anxiously.
"I'm sitting right here, you know?" John said, trying to wipe away the blood with his hand.
Dr. Beckett glared at Rodney and handed a fresh cloth over to John. "Let's take a little look," he said, easing John onto his back. Rodney hovered anxiously.
"Hmm. I guess we'll be doing a few scans, just to make certain everything's all right then," Dr. Beckett said cheerfully. John moaned, startling them both.
"Something hurt?" Dr. Beckett asked, hand already moving toward an alarm.
"No. I just--*waffles*," John said feebly.
"Well, we'll worry about that after your tests, lad," Dr. Beckett said, and led John further into the infirmary. "We'll be out in about half an hour, Rodney. You know the routine, out. Go do something useful."
The bleeding stopped pretty much right after Dr. Beckett had started his scans, and John was left only feeling a little light-headed. Dr. Beckett pressed four lollipops into his hand though, and that wasn't so bad at all.
He heard Dr. Beckett yelling how no, John didn't have a tumor, no John wasn't dying, and no, John wasn't developing a spontaneous allergy to Max, all things Dr. Beckett had already told him, so John sucked on his grape lollipop contentedly, until Rodney poked his head in around a curtain and seeing John kicking the side of the bed, bored, but finished with his tests, he ducked back out for a moment, and reappeared with a tray of chocolate chip waffles.
"You're the best," John said, already tugging out the lollipop and setting it to the side for later.
"Yes, yes, I know," Rodney smirked, but John could tell Rodney was still a little worried.
"It's really not a tumor," John reassured, digging in with his fork. Rodney poked at his own plate with a sigh, but was soon eating just as quickly as John.
Five Days Later
"Looking stylish, John," Elizabeth grinned, coming out from around a corner.
"Oh, um, thank you," John said, walking a tiny bit faster.
"So what are you up to today?" She asked, falling into step beside him.
He wished he had longer legs, because outpacing her was just impossible. His fingers tightened around his backpack strap. "Rodney asked me to read a few books, and my arms get tired," he explained.
She frowned a little bit and slowed down, and with a sigh, John matched her pace now. "Nothing too hard, or too much, right?"
"Nah. Just heavy." John smiled up at her and she laughed.
"Okay, good. Well, sweetheart, you have fun with that," she said, turning to wave as she got on the transporter and John breathed a sigh of relief. He jogged back to his room so he wouldn't be stopped again and gently set the backpack on his desk.
He ran his fingers over the smooth exterior of the laptop as he powered it up. He had about ten minutes at least before he had to get it back to the lab. There was carrot cake in the mess today, and Rodney liked to linger over that. He'd watched Rodney enough over the last couple weeks to memorize his password, but when he looked at the interface, he started typing a different sequence, and it worked. He found the folder he was looking for after a few minutes and stared at it for a moment.
Sheppard, John. He had a folder just like everyone else on Atlantis; he could see Rodney's and Elizabeth's, and he caught one right below his name--Sumner, Marshall, and his fingers turned cold and clammy. He'd have to ask who he was, because John had thought he knew everyone here. He took in a deep breath and clicked on his own file.
Edit. Find, both clicked with his mouse, and he typed in 'Afgh' in the tiny search box, before he could change his mind.
He read the words over and over again and touched his side, small fingers tracing his stomach.
It wasn't another weird dream. It *hadn't* been another dream, not like the Ancient words or the evil catfish.
He'd been shot. John sat very still because his head hurt and his eyes felt funny. He remembered lying on the sand--and it was still him, only it wasn't, it was more like a guy who looked like his dad and Uncle Thom, only *he* could feel it, sprawled and groaning in the desert, the heat of the bullet both weirdly cool and numbing, and fiery hot, and all he'd been able to think about as he crawled, the hot sand blistering his palms, his fists, was he had to get to them, have to move.
John couldn't stop touching his own stomach, because the scar was missing. There was a loud scratching sound coming from Max's cage, so John opened it up, stroked his ears for a couple seconds, and left Max on the floor, chewing contentedly on a corner of John's copy of War and Peace.
He wasn't sure why he didn't want to read the rest of the file, but he thought he might change his mind later, and man, this had been hard enough to do one time, so he copied it all to a disc and logged back out, powered it down, and tucked the laptop into the backpack.
There was a knock at the door and John made sure the backpack was zipped and the CD was tossed underneath his pajamas, but Rodney was already rushing in and eyeing the backpack.
John stood, blocking Rodney's view, hoping Rodney just might forget. Rodney sighed and tried to move around John, but John threw an arm out and asked, "Hey, what are you doing?"
Rodney's eyes glittered and he wordlessly lifted John out of his way and unzipped the backpack smoothly. "Want to tell me why you took my laptop?" Rodney asked, not looking at John.
"Borrowed," John corrected and Rodney stared at him.
"Borrowing generally denotes both the borrower and the lender being on the same page, and actually agreeing that something is allowed to be borrowed."
"Like you borrowed my M&Ms?" John tried, looking at the wall behind Rodney's head.
"Hey. You look at me," Rodney said, and surprised at the level of anger in his voice, John snapped his eyes up and stood straighter.
"Do you have any idea what could have happened if you'd lost this? If something had happened to it?"
"You back up everything!" John protested.
"There are some things that aren't so...easy to back-up. Do you have any idea how irresponsible this was? Why did you even think you were going to get away with this? Why do I suddenly sound like my father? And also, why did you think you were getting away with this? I live on that thing!"
"I know! You were supposed to be eating cake! I was going to bring it right back!"
Rodney's mouth was all tight and John really wanted to say that if you make an awful expression, your face just might get stuck that way, but he hated it when his mom said it to him and Rodney was pretty angry already. Instead, he tried, "I took it. I'm done with it. So just take it back!"
"Why did you even take it in the first place? Why didn't you just ask me for what you wanted to see?"
"I just--I. Rodney. Why did they shoot me?" John yelled, swallowing hard.
Rodney blinked and sat down heavily at the desk chair. "Shoot you?" he asked carefully.
"Here." John lifted up his t-shirt just enough to show. "There should be a scar. This long," he showed with his fingers. "I asked Dr. Beckett how scars disappear and he said they didn't and then I asked him why all mine are missing but then he had to go check on a patient, so he didn't get to say and I just--I wanted to know." John said this all so fast he wasn't sure Rodney even understood, because he just sat there blinking at John, hands clenching in his lap.
"All of your scars are missing?" Rodney repeated lightly.
"Here." John pointed at his arm. Shot there too, but it hadn't hurt much at all. He touched his face, took Rodney's palm, and brought it up to his neck. "Blue. All blue. And black. All covered in it. And when it went away, my skin was cold and it hurt to breathe for a long time," John whispered.
Rodney's hand was warm around his neck, and it helped. "John." Rodney said, but his voice seemed a little funny, and that was weird, because John had never seen Rodney this quiet. Rodney moved his palm to the back of John's neck and pulled him a little closer, and looked at John so intently that John felt warm and a little shy, but it was *Rodney*, and so John reached out his arms and climbed onto Rodney's lap and buried his face in Rodney's shoulder. "I'm sorry I stole your laptop," John said.
"Borrowed," Rodney sighed, rubbing a hand down John's back. "You were bringing it back, after all."
"Okay, John, look at me," Rodney said, peeling John away after a few moments. John hopped up on his desk and sat patiently, legs dangling. "You know--you're a special kid." Rodney started, and then blinked. "Okay, let me start over with that, so we don't go completely after-school special on you. But--don't think you're not special, because you *are*, and that's not what I--oh, fu--okay, you know what?"
"You said 'okay' like, four times," John said gently. "Breathe, Rodney."
"Three times," Rodney automatically corrected.
"Fine, three," John conceded, sighing, legs dangling not so patiently now.
"Fine. So you're special. And--really special, yeah. So you're going to have--times, like this. Where you're confused. And maybe you've been having some bad dreams and some scary dreams, and you're not sure what they're about?"
John nodded, and watched as Rodney's ears turned completely red, fascinated.
"And I really can't explain all of this to you now, but...sometimes, you're going to remember these things, and when you do, I need for you to come talk to me or Elizabeth or Teyla."
"Why not Ronon?" John asked.
"Because Ronon would just ask you what sort of gun you used in the dream and be generally useless," Rodney said sincerely.
"Yeah, because you're doing really great here."
Rodney narrowed his eyes. "I--you know this is not my strong suit, so just be quiet for a second and listen here. This isn't going to last much longer. When it's all done, you're going to be okay."
"How do you know that?" John whispered. Rodney's face--he looked so *sure*, and he wasn't just saying one of those things grown-ups tell little kids to make them shut up either. John could tell.
"I...promise." Rodney jutted his chin up and put his hand on John's knee. "I promise you, that no matter what, this is going to be okay."
"All right," John nodded.
"Because you trust me, right? And--all right?" Rodney parroted.
"Yep. Like you said, I trust you. So I'm not having stupid dreams for no reason, and I was shot, but I'm going to be okay. And you're going to finish the first set of schematics for the puddle jumper next week," John said, hopping off the desk and standing in front of the door.
"I am? Yes. I am." Rodney looked a little dazed, but he stood too.
"I'd like cake," John said, opening the door. Rodney started to follow, nodding.
"Um. Don't you want to take your laptop?" John asked.
"Yes, I rather suppose so. I left my piece by my workstation when I realized my laptop was missing, you know."
"It's long gone," John said sadly, walking alongside Rodney toward the transporter, who put the backpack over one shoulder.
"They probably descended on it, the moment I stepped outside the door," Rodney muttered, pushing the panel buttons.
"Like vultures. Fortunately for you, you're with me, and I've been known to get a couple extra slices of things every now and again," John said, staring down at his shoes.
Rodney was smiling when John finally looked up, so John smiled too, and everything felt lighter.
John padded over to Max's cage, two freshly washed carrots in his hand.
...only, Max wasn't in there. He hadn't put him back in, he remembered suddenly. Shoot. Shoot, shoot, shoot! John dropped the carrots on the table and got to his knees frantically. War and Peace was missing its whole top right corner, but John didn't care.
"Max, you'd better not be eating any wires! Rodney will kill you if you don't get electrocuted first!" John called, peering frantically under the bed.
For any other rabbit, John might feel a little self-conscious about talking to him in English, but Max was *smart*. John could tell every time he looked at him, that his pet was special.
"Max!" John called again, and shoved aside chairs, turned over boxes, checked in the shower.
Ten minutes later, still no rabbit. John sighed and stared down at his radio. Time to tell Rodney. He fit the set over his ear and said, "Rodney? If you're not busy, I kind of have something to tell you."
"I'm always busy, but tell me anyway," Rodney said distractedly.
"See, the thing is, Max sort of--" John broke off, hearing a scream in the hallway.
"Rodney, someone's yelling in the hallway!" John said, rushing to the door.
"What? Wait, John, don't go outside your--sh--John, you're already in the hallway aren't you."
"I was going to say Max is missing, but he's not anymore," John said quietly, looking up...and up....and up.
"What, did someone step on him and scream in the hallway?" Rodney said, and he sounded a lot calmer.
"...not exactly. He's sort of....bigger," John said, walking very, very slowly, so he wouldn't startle Max. Uh oh. Dr. Zelenka was sprawled out on the floor. Wincing, John stepped closer, hoping to be able to see if he was breathing.
"John, go back in your quarters right this second," Rodney yelled, and John winced because it was right in his ear. John held up his hands and ignored the shouting.
"Max!" he said, and kept his hands up, like all the mediators did in the movies, so they wouldn't scare the terrorists.
Max's mouth was covered in greens and oranges, his chest littered with stems. He stared fixedly down at John, and John could see the recognition in Max's eyes.
"That's right. It's me, John. Now--you can't get back in your cage because you're a little too big, but you can't just be out in the corridor and stomping on people."
John really, really hoped Dr. Zelenka wasn't hurt too badly.
Max was staring at him, his whiskers twitching.
"Um. And if you hit people or whatever, there are a lot of people here with guns. I don't want there to be any sort of accident."
Max's ears drooped a little, like they did whenever he wanted John to pet him. If he got closer, he might be able to see Dr. Zelenka better. He kept his hands up, no sudden moves, no sudden moves, and finally, Max's leg was right in front of his palm. His hand disappeared in the soft white fur. "That's it, Max. It's John," he said slowly, petting harder than he normally would, so Max would feel it.
Max bent his head down, chin on the floor, ears hunched close to his head, so John could pet him right behind them, just like he liked. John had to reach up on his tippy-toes, and just barely managed it. He stroked the smooth fur in long, sliding caresses. "Uh. So I don't suppose you want to tell me how you got so big."
Max's nose twitched and he coughed really hard. John heard a plinging sound against the floor. He turned around to look, and there was a....
"Max, you ate something *Ancient*?" John shrieked, running to pick up the piece, touching it first with his T-shirt just in case it turned him...really, really big too.
Max sneezed, and more metal pieces fell to the floor.
"Ewwwwwww," John said, but wow, this was so cool. Bad. But *cool*.
"John!" Rodney rushed out of the transporter and did a complete body jerk, pulling out his gun and aiming it at Max wildly. "John, you get away from it right this second!"
"It's Max! Don't shoot my rabbit!" John yelled back, still trying to figure out what it was exactly that Max had swallowed.
"It's--John, I am so serious. You get away from it, right now." John finally looked up to see Rodney's expression, and he looked like he was going to start screaming or crying if John didn't move, so John sighed and started backing off, only to have one of Max's paws reach out and pull him in, right under Max's chin.
John sneezed; the fur tickled his cheeks.
"Yes, you heard me, Major, the rabbit is, oh, the size of a hippo," Rodney was yelling on his radio.
Suddenly, Rodney was standing in front of Max, arm steadily training his gun at Max. "Okay, listen. You're going to let him go, right now."
John looked up at Max. Max's whiskers were twitching again, and his ears were back up.
"Rodney, you're making him sad!" John hissed.
Rodney's eyelid and check twitched, in opposite directions. It was the coolest thing ever. "He hurt Zelenka, and I don't know what he's going to do to you. So if you don't want something to go down here that neither of us can fix, you really need to try and get away from him," Rodney said.
"Oh," John said. "Um, Max?" He tried to look up but his face was just buried in more fur. John sneezed again, and his eyes felt a little watery. He reached up and scratched Max under his chin, which was Max's second favorite spot. Max made a happy sound, only he tilted his chin down. "Crushing! Ow! Crushing me!" John exclaimed.
"Oh for God's sake--" Rodney was reaching in and pulling John out, holding him tight against him as he backed away slowly.
"Well, it's about time!" Rodney called to Lorne and Ronon as they rounded the corner, guns drawn.
Max shuffled over to an abandoned carrot on the floor and ate it in one big bite.
Lorne was hitting Dr. Zelenka lightly on the cheek, and John sighed in relief as Dr. Zelenka sat up quickly and screamed at Max. Max looked at John with watery eyes, and John could tell his feelings were hurt.
"What are you holding?" Rodney asked abruptly, looking down at the piece of metal still wrapped up in the hem of John's t-shirt.
"Max kind of--sort of swallowed something," John mumbled, handing it up to Rodney.
Rodney peered at it for all of two seconds and then stared up at Max, wide eyed. "Huh. You know, Radek and I thought this might be some sort of mass conversion device."
Dr. Zelenka shuffled over and looked at it too. "Yes. I was chasing after him, he took it from the lab. And then I came around the corner and--"
"Did he attack you?" Lorne asked quietly.
"....I fell down and hit my head against the wall," Dr. Zelenka said sheepishly. "I was surprised, you see."
"Now can you put the guns down?" John sighed. Ronon twitched, but shrugged and reholstered his weapon. Lorne followed two seconds later.
Dr. Weir came jogging lightly around the corner, and stopped in between Ronon and Lorne. "Huh," she said, taking in the scene.
Rodney was pulling the pieces of the Ancient device out of his hands. "You're not going to be able to fix it," John said softly. Rodney blinked at him, startled, but nodded.
"Okay," was all Rodney said.
John had been right; there wasn't any way to repair the mass conversion device, so a few days later, Lorne, Ronon and John had gotten on a jumper with Max and flown back out to the Athosian mainland, and upon John's insistence, found the exact area they'd first found Max.
"Maybe he'll find his mommy," John said, hoping.
"What, and eat her?" Lorne muttered, but his words were cut off when he broke out in a loud gasp. John looked over curiously, but Ronon was standing ramrod straight, and Lorne was wincing, hand on his side, looking at Ronon darkly.
John reached out a hand to pet Max one last time. "I'll miss you," he whispered. "And I'm going to finish our ferris wheel. I think the west pier is gonna work best."
Max nudged John's hand solemnly and bounced off, twigs and branches breaking loudly in the forest as he disappeared from view.
Lorne pointed over in the bushes and said quietly, "Hey, John. If you want, we can get you another rabbit."
John shook his head slowly. "Nah. He might be Max's brother or something. It's too soon." He thought maybe the occasion warranted some words for Max so he thought for a moment. "Max, you were a good rabbit. Okay, the last few moments were a little weird there, but--you know, thanks."
Lorne coughed and Ronon shifted his weight, but they both waited until John was ready to leave.
They each took a position at John's side as they made their way out of the forest and back to the puddle jumper.