Fighting Condemnation – Chapter 7 – Goddess47

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Rodney took a long, hot shower after looking thoughtfully at the tub. But he needed hot food before even thinking about taking a long soak. So, a shower it was.

John, Ronon, and Teyla were already eating when he got to the Mess.

“It’s not-turkey today,” John announced.

“That’ll be good,” Rodney said, remembering the meatloaf from earler. Wait. That was just today? He shook his head. It had been a very long day.

He got several slices of the not-turkey, sweet-potato-like mash, and two scoops of assorted vegetables. And coffee. Two cups. He was entitled to that.

He settled into a chair next to John. The others were almost finished eating as he started.

“Don’t stay, if you have somewhere to go,” Rodney offered to the others. “I’ll be fine.”

“Nah,” John shrugged. “Thought you could use some company.”

The words were easy but there was a shadow in John’s eyes.

Rodney pointed his fork at John. “You and I will talk. Later,” he said firmly.

The shadow eased, and John nodded.

“You are a Protector,” Teyla said softly as she looked speculatively at Rodney.

“We call them Sentinels,” Rodney replied. “But, yes.”

“And John is as Paired One?” she asked, looking between them.

“Guide,” John corrected. “Yes.”

Ronon looked thoughtful at the word John had used.

“You have not talked about this before,” Teyla said leadingly.

“A Guide is better with a Sentinel,” John admitted. “There are… things I could not do without a Sentinel.”

“Protectors are special,” Teyla said. “The Wraith target them.”

“Olesia has Sentinel and Guide pairs,” Rodney said. “Eldon is a Guide and his mate is a Sentinel. If we can, we need to go back and see if we can at least rescue his family.”

John winced. “Elizabeth isn’t going to like that.”

“I know,” Rodney nodded. “But without Eldon, we wouldn’t have gotten away.”

“What did he do? At the end, that is. Something… happened?” John asked.

“Turned out there was a machine that did something to suppress radio signals,” Rodney said. “Eldon knew about it but, well, it didn’t affect anything he knew of, so he let it be. He disabled it at the end so that the Jumper could see our transmitters.”

“Ah,” John nodded.

“What about Eldon?” Ronon asked.

“Carson is keeping him in the infirmary for the night,” Rodney said. “He’s been on that island for a while and can use some food, at the very least.”

“I put a guard on him, so he doesn’t go wandering around,” John added.

“He’ll stay put,” Rodney replied. “He wants to get back to his family and know he has to behave to do that.”

“What else did you learn from Eldon?” Teyla asked. “You seem… protective of him.”

Huh. Rodney ate more of his dinner. “Part of it is that I’m a Sentinel and Eldon is a Guide. There is a… protective element of being a Sentinel that makes us predisposed to be protective of Guides. All Guides.”

Teyla nodded.

“The other is that, in the end, Eldon helped save us,” Rodney admitted. “He knew about the jamming field and was able to turn it off.” He grinned. “I think there was some brute force used but it’s what saved us.”

“Why was Eldon on the island?” Teyla asked.

“His Sentinel was asking questions about the so-called criminals that were being sent to the island,” Rodney said. “LIke we have seen on Earth, it is difficult to silence a Sentinel who sees an injustice. However. Eldon and his Sentinel have children. He called them ‘halflings’ so I’m guessing they are teens?” A shrug. “And, Eldon evidently works for the government in one of their labs and has been ‘on assignment to a high security lab’ at the same time. So the double threat, to Eldon and the children, is meant to keep the Sentinel quiet. The struggle will be between protecting the tribe and protecting the family.”

John winced, understanding the dilemma.

Ronon looked interested in that. “Eldon wasn’t a criminal at all?”

“No,” Rodney replied. “And I’m certain of that. He was there as a hostage to his Sentinel.”

“Why would he cooperate?” Ronon asked. “It was his fault we were shot out of the sky.”

“Eldon is an educated man who was unjustly thrown into prison,” Rodney shrugged. “He would do almost anything to stay alive and go back to his family.”

“What about that speaking thing that Sheppard did?” Ronon frowned. “Why didn’t he do that?”

“He didn’t know he could do it, and it works better with the support of a Sentinel,” Rodney replied. “And, especially for the untrained Guide, the Guide Voice doesn’t work on everyone. Luckily, the command to leave the island supported the desire to leave the island. On the other hand, someone like Torrell, who is likely really a criminal, was the only one who really fought the Guide Voice. Torrell was invested in being in charge and while he knew he wanted to leave, he wanted to remain in charge more.”

Ronon looked thoughtful. He turned to John. “You can do that?”

John waggled a hand. “We were in a dangerous situation,” he said. “Rodney was there as a Sentinel and Eldon had already used his Voice on Torrell. I mostly finished the job, so to speak.”

“And there are limits,” Rodney said. “It is easier to manage a single person than it is to manage a larger group. And some people are… immune isn’t the right word but some people are harder to manage. So there is no magic where the Guide Voice can be used to control everyone.”

“We will have to learn more about such things,” Teyla said. She stood. “I will see you in the morning.”

Ronon looked like he wanted to ask more questions but wasn’t sure what he wanted to ask.

Rodney took pity on Ronon’s confusion. “Let Sheppard and I talk first,” Rodney said. “Like anything, we need to determine if this works well for us. Once we have that, we will work out what we can do together. Then we will discuss what we can with you and Teyla. There are some things we may be able to do that will help the team. But we also have to figure out what that might be.”

“That’s a good way to put it,” John added. “We are learning some of this as we go along. It’s like any training. There will be things we can do well and other things we might not be able to do.”

Rodney was heartened by the automatic we that John used.

Ronon nodded. “It is like how I am learning how your people work together and what they are looking for in Pegasus.”

John nodded. “You fit this team well, which makes it easy to forget that we only met you a few months ago.”

Rodney was startled to realize John was right. Ronon had only joined the Expedition in the past six months and their team within the past month. It was like Ronon had been with them from the beginning.

Rodney pointed his fork at Ronon. “And just because your brawn didn’t save the day, today, doesn’t mean it won’t the next time. You listened to Sheppard and you stayed alive. Sometimes, that’s the point.”

Ronon looked startled, then pleased. “I… I thank you,” he said. “I look forward to learning more about Protectors.” With that, he got up and left the table.

John huffed. “I have to admit that I need to learn more about Sentinels myself,” he said. “I know the basic theory but have never had to do anything with it.”

Rodney finished his meal. “Let’s take this somewhere private,” he suggested. “This is a conversation we need to have.”

John nodded. The silence between them as they walked through Atlantis was comfortable, something Rodney realized had always been there.

“Let’s go to my place,” Rodney said. “Your munchkin bed always feels… sad.”

John rolled his eyes. “It’s a bed. I sleep on it,” he said. “I don’t let it bother me.”

“If you say so,” Rodney shot back. But John didn’t protest as they went to Rodney’s room.

They settled on opposite ends of the couch in the living room space Rodney regularly used as a second office. They had to move papers off the furniture in order to be able to sit. Huh. For their limited contact with Earth, there was a lot of paper laying about.

“Where do we start?” Rodney asked. “I had no idea that I even had Sentinel genetics. Canada isn’t as assertive about testing as the US, so to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never been tested.”

“Surprised the SGC didn’t test you,” John replied.

“Same,” Rodney nodded. “So. Where do we start?”

“I have some training manuals we should review,” John admitted. “The military has manuals on everything, so the S&G manuals are part of the collection.”

“That will be a start,” Rodney said.

“How are you managing?” John asked. “For a newly online Sentinel, you’ve managed your senses really well.”

“It was… wonky at the beginning,” Rodney admitted. “But, well, we didn’t have time for me to figure much out. I’ve pretty much dialed everything down so that I could function. Eldon being a Guide was helpful, since I could ground some of my senses on him. But that was more instinct than deliberate.”

John frowned at that.

“Hey! Don’t worry about Eldon,” Rodney said firmly. “He has a Sentinel, one he wants to try to get back to. Although I should ask if you think there are other Sentinels or Guides on the Expedition.”

“I’m pretty sure Stackhouse and Markham are a pair,” John admitted. “The Sentinel regs and the damned Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell essentially contradict each other. A Sentinel and Guide pair that is a man and a woman is perfect as far as the military is concerned. It’s the same sex pairs that give them fits.”

Rodney had to think through who Stackhouse and Markham were but nodded. “Yeah, I can see that is an issue.”

“While the Expedition Charter is multinational and firmly protects Sentinels and Guides, I don’t have a good read on Dr. Weir’s opinions,” John said.

“Do you think she’d go against the Charter?” Rodney asked. He frowned. “I didn’t even read that section of the Charter.”

“You need to read that as soon as possible. And Dr. Weir wouldn’t do anything overtly, but, well, she can make things uncomfortable for us,” John shrugged. “But if we have at least a small group of Sentinels and Guides on the city, it would be more difficult to ignore the protections that the Charter gives us.”

“Do you know of anyone else?” Rodney asked.

“I want to think Dr. Kusinagi is… something?” John hazarded. “She feels locked down, so I can’t tell if she just has good shields or is paired with someone and they work well together.”

“I never noticed,” Rodney admitted.

“You’ve not been online and she’s never had reason to admit anything,” John replied. “And I have no idea who she might be paired with. If she is paired at all.”

“If we get stuck, we might be able to ask her privately for anything she can share,” Rodney said. “What kind of training have you had?”

“Typical rich kid training,” John shrugged. “I didn’t come online until I was in the service. But my family is lousy with Sentinels and Guides, so we automatically got basic Sentinel and Guide training. But, like I said, it’s as much theoretical as anything.”

“We?” Rodney had to ask.

“My brothers and I,” John admitted.

John had brothers? Rodney was going to come back to that at some point.

“Okay, well, what does your training suggest we do?” Rodney asked.

“Well, the first is we need to decide if we want to bond,” John said. “It’s not like the movies where there’s a desperate need to bond. But a bond makes everything work better. You and I can do more, both together and individually, if we bond.”

“And if we don’t bond?” Rodney asked.

“From what I know, Sentinels have more issues if they don’t bond,” John said. “Your senses can go haywire if you don’t have someone to ground on. As a Guide, it’s more that I can’t do some things, like a good Guide Voice. But I’ve been online for years and have had time to learn to manage my shields. So I don’t project emotions, as an example.”

“That doesn’t feel fair,” Rodney protested. “Sentinels need a bond and Guides don’t.”

“It’s not that I… it’s that Guides don’t need a bond as much as Guides can function better without a bond than Sentinels can,” John replied.

“All right,” Rodney said. “Where does that leave us?”

John hesitated.

“If you don’t want to do this…” Rodney started.

“No! Yes!” John stopped and took a breath. “Give me a minute. I want to bond with you, like… a lot. But, well, I also don’t want to be a desperation match. You can do better and I don’t want you to be stuck with me.”

“You idiot,” Rodney said. He moved closer. “What the fuck makes you think I want to do better? You’re… disgustingly brave, smarter than you let on, and… heaven help me, you’re good looking.”

“You’re the smartest person I know, you’re pretty brave yourself, and I’ve wanted to kiss you from the moment you asked me to show you where you asked me to think about where we were in the solar system,” John admitted.

“You are an idiot,” Rodney huffed. He moved closer to John on the couch. He held out a hand. “Guide.”

John didn’t hesitate. He put his hand in Rodney’s. “Sentinel.”

Rodney felt the connection bloom, hard and fast. “We’ve both been idiots.” He used their joined hands to bring John close. He leaned in for a kiss.

A feeling of warmth and happiness and lust moved between them.

“Whoa,” John said softly. He resested his forehead against Rodney’s and they held on to each other.

“We’re going to make this work,” Rodney said firmly.

“Okay,” John nodded.

“Just… okay?” Rodney moved back a few inches. He was amused to see John move closer.

John took a breath. “Oh, it has all the making of a huge disaster,” John admitted with a wry grin. “But, well, between us we can fix anything.”

“True,” Rodney agreed. “We don’t have time for nesting, or whatever it’s called but we can spend the night together. But, well, I’m feeling responsible for Eldon and need to see what we can do there. The longer we wait, the more likely we’ll run into the Wraith culling the planet.”

“We can’t save them all,” John said.

Rodney huffed. “My head knows that, but my heart wants to do what we can,” he admitted.

“They have a Gate and ships, they can get a portion of their population off the planet,” John suggested.

“Well, that Magistrate will likely be the first one out,” Rodney frowned.

“We can only do so much,” John replied firmly. “If there’s a full culling, there’s no stopping the Wraith.”

Rodney rubbed his forehead. “Is it sad that I want to go back there more than I want to have sex with you?” he asked plaintively.

John shook his head. “That’s one of the imperatives of being a Sentinel. Protect the Tribe. Although that you want to protect someone who left us in their prison is interesting.”

“But it was the Magistrate and not the people of the planet,” Rodney shrugged.

“We need some rest, if nothing else,” John said. “We’ll get Elizabeth to let us go back first thing in the morning.”

“Okay, then,” Rodney stood and took John’s hand. “Come on, let’s go.”

“What?” John was puzzled.

“If you think I’m not going to get at least one orgasm out of this tonight, you have another think coming,” Rodney grinned.

John could only smile as he followed helplessly.