vain_glorious

Men in Stiff Procession Part 3
Part 1 for header info

There wasn’t anything Cameron could do about McKay and Dex’s secret rogue mission. They were out of contact and Zelenka claimed no one actually know where the two men were. Partly due to the whole ‘plausible deniability,’ which made Cam so mad he couldn’t even articulate why. Well, he could, but not without sounding like an IOA puppet, so he kept his mouth shut. McKay and Dex’s movements were also unpredictable, based half on intelligence they gathered as they searched, so even if they theoretically filed a mission plan, they weren’t necessarily sticking to it.

The theoretical mission plan, or more simply what Dex had told Emmagan before they departed, was to return by Friday. That meant Cameron had three days to stew in his juices before he would even get the chance to confront the two. He forced himself to the put it out of his mind, concentrating instead on organizing the recovery of the city in the aftermath of the attack. There was the possibility that whoever had sent the projectile attack – be it an anonymous Wraith hive or Michael – had had other ways besides the destroyed transmitter to track its destination. More, or something different, could be on its way. Cam cancelled all off-world activity for his team and the every other, making defense of the city the priority.

But on Friday, after typical ‘Gate activity hours, Cameron planted himself near the ‘Gate. He dismissed the techs, who halfheartedly resisted but scattered eventually. Dex and McKay had confined their ‘Gate travel to odd hours, so that they arrived at and departed from Atlantis when most people were asleep. Cameron was going to need a lot of coffee, but he was going to stay awake and make sure he was the first thing the men saw when they came through.

He’d only been there alone for a few hours when he heard footsteps click on the floor. Cameron looked up to find Emmagan entering.

“May I join you?” she asked, politely from a distance.

Cam nodded his assent and she approached, carefully taking a seat in the empty tech’s chair next to his. There was silence for a few minutes, Emmagan looking at her knees with great interest.

“You must think I’m a total idiot,” Cameron said, when she didn’t speak.

Emmagan looked up. “I do not,” she replied.

“McKay’s studying, what did you call it, energy properties of gigantic alien berries?” Cam went on. “And I fell for it.” He shook his head. “I was distracted. Shiny new city.” he told her. “I promise I’m not usually that stupid.”

“I do not think you are stupid,” Emmagan said, clearly. “You were deliberately mislead.”

“Yeah,” Cam snapped. “I didn’t expect everyone – everyone – to lie to me. I’m trusting like that.” He made a fist against the top of the station he was sitting at, stared down at his hand.

“That was not our intent,” Emmagan began, taking a deep breath.

“What?”

“It was necessary,” Emmagan tried again. “I do not think you are stupid, Colonel Mitchell. I did not wish to deceive you, but it was necessary.” Cameron grunted, because her apology was sucking. “You should know,” she continued, earnestly. “That I and the rest of the city do respect and admire your command. Particularly after the attack.” Cam glanced at her, waiting. “And personally, I am sorry,” she said, finally. “For lying to you.”

Cameron shook his head. “You aren’t sorry,” he said, knowingly. “Because you don’t actually think you did anything wrong.”

Emmagan sat up straight. “Fine,” she said. “You are correct about that. I am sorry that I was required to lie to you. That is genuine.”

“Appreciate it,” Cam said, even though her honesty actually made him even angrier. “How long has this been going on?” he asked.

“Since the beginning,” Emmagan answered, understanding the question. “Since the day the IOA called off the search.”

“Okay,” Cameron said. “My predecessor – the one that only lived three months – his death have anything to do with it?”

“No!” Emmagan was staring at him. “His death was an accident. He was a poor commander but we would never -”

“I had to ask,” Cam interrupted her denial. “Because a few days ago thirty-nine people got hurt because a guy that’s supposed to be here to protect them was off doing God knows what.”

“Radek –” she began.

“I know,” Cameron went on. “Zelenka did fine and we are damn lucky to have him. But I know and you know and Zelenka knows that McKay probably could have deactivated that thing a hell of a lot faster.”

Emmagan snapped her lips shut. Her eyes were wide and a muscle in her jaw was twitching.

“Say it,” Cam said. “Permission to speak freely, if that’s what you need.”

Apparently that was what she needed. “Rodney is not ‘doing God knows what.’ Rodney and Ronon are searching for Colonel Sheppard,” she said, hotly.

Cameron lifted his elbow on to the console surface, avoiding the controls. He leaned his head into his hand. She really didn’t understand. Emmagan was bright and intelligent and smart as a whip about pretty much everything else. This was willful ignorance.

“Teyla,” he said, too aggravated to soften it. “John Sheppard is dead.”

“You do not know that. There is no proof.”

“How long has he been missing?” Cam asked, trying to get some of the harshness out of his voice.

“One year and…” Emmagan paused. “A year and a half,” she said. “Just over.”

“John Sheppard is dead,” he repeated. Emmagan began to reply, but shut up with an audible click of her teeth when he went on. “I know it. You know it. He’s dead. They killed him. If they didn’t shoot him in the head or slit his throat immediately, they sent him somewhere that he’d starve or freeze to death.”

Emmagan’s eyes started to glitter and for a second Cameron regretting being that brutal. But there was a giant hole in his city and almost forty of his people in the infirmary, and she had to get this.

“I know you’d still want to bring him home,” he continued. “But his body, his corpse, is not worth one life in this city.” Emmagan didn’t say anything. “He’d be the first to say that, too.”

“He and I often disagreed,” she replied, the wetness vanishing from her eyes. “It makes no difference.”

Cameron lifted his head, stared at her. He couldn’t believe she was this stubborn.

“Yeah,” he said. “It makes a difference. Now, I can’t control Dex. But I am officially in charge of McKay. And the way I feel right now, I’m thinking he’s going to be spending some considerable time in the brig.”

Emmagan just stared at him. “You would not –” she began.

“Yeah, I will,” he retorted. “Do you know how badly he endangered this city? I’m not just talking about a few days ago when we needed him. What if someone unfriendly captured him? The Wraith? This Michael guy?”

For some reason, Emmagan was looking at him like she’d just decided that Cameron was well and truly stupid. “Yes,” she said. “I do. That is why Ronon is with him.”

It was Cam’s turn to stare at her. “Well,” he said, finally. “I don’t know Ronon. I’ve seen him twice in the whole time I’ve been here. Because of this brilliant secret plan, so I don’t know him. Forgive me if I don’t have that kind of faith in him.”

“You do not know him,” Emmagan said, like that settled everything.

Cameron just shook his head. He wasn’t sure arguing with her any further had a point. He’d really misjudged the personnel files. It wasn’t just Dex that was fiercely loyal to Sheppard; McKay and Emmagan were, too.

“Can I ask you something?” he said, after a few minutes of frustrated silence.

“Certainly,” Emmagan replied.

“So,” Cam said. “You agreed to join my team. Was that just a ruse to make sure I didn’t happen to notice what the rest of Sheppard’s team was up to?”

“No,” Emmagan said, plainly. “I would not have joined if I did not wish to serve with you.”

“Thanks,” Cameron said, “but that’s not what I’m asking. Why aren’t you out there with Dex and McKay, looking for him?”

“Oh.” She pursed her lips, tilted her head to the side.

“Well?”

“Because he would be furious with me,” she answered, speaking with a noticeable certainty.

“Sheppard.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“He would not find it an acceptable risk,” Emmagan said. “I might be permanently separated from my son.”

“He wouldn’t find any of it an acceptable risk,” Cameron retorted. “Not you, not McKay, not Dex. Not anyone.”

“I am certain he will tell them so when they find him,” Emmagan replied, her tone booking no argument.

Cameron would have argued, though, except that the console beneath his fingers suddenly registered an incoming wormhole. Emmagan peered at the screen.

“That is them,” she told him.

“Let ‘em in,” he replied, rising and walking down towards the ‘Gate. He heard the computer activate, the ‘Gate lighting up before his eyes.

Cam crossed his arms, standing a good bit back from the wormhole. He just wanted both men to see him, the moment they came through. Shortly, two figures emerged from the ‘Gate’s threshold. Side by side, the smaller man clinging to the larger one. Their voices came next, the sound of pain and stress in McKay’s unmistakable. The guy was injured.

The two moved gingerly away from the ‘Gate, the wormhole dying behind them. McKay was grunting and wincing, but went totally silent when his eyes landed on Cameron.

“Oh, shit,” McKay said.

Cameron did not get to throw McKay in the brig. The inclination mostly faded, too, since it was immediately apparent that McKay was in bad shape. The guy was pale in the face and his left leg hung limply as he refused to put any weight on it. His clothing was covered in mud.

“Infirmary,” called Cam back to Emmagan, who began speaking into her headset. “We’ll meet them in the corridor.”

Without asking, he insinuated himself under McKay’s right shoulder, taking half the man’s weight from Dex.

“What happened?” he asked, not really directing the question at either man in particular.

“He fell,” answered Dex, curtly. “It’s broken.”

“Yes,” McKay said, voice high and unhappy. “It’s broken and I need morphine, I need so much morphine right now.”

Together, Dex and Cameron maneuvered McKay to the door. Neither of them tried to explain to Cam why they were arriving in the middle of the night from a mission he hadn’t been supposed to know anything about. In return, he didn’t ask.

A medical team met them before they were halfway down the hallway, carefully transferring the whimpering McKay to a gurney. Cameron stood still, watching the medics move swiftly towards the transporter. To his surprise, Dex stayed by his side instead of following McKay.

“You are so busted,” Cam told him, some of the earlier anger making its way back into his voice.

Dex just looked at him, then nodded. His face didn’t display guilt or worry or much of anything. Emmagan arrived on their heels, glancing around.

“Is Rodney alright?” she asked, concerned.

“He fell,” Dex said, again, without much inflection. He looked at Emmagan. “Something happen while we were gone?” He flicked a glance at Cam.

“Yeah,” snapped Cameron. “Something happened.”

“Much,” replied Emmagan, sighing.

The confrontation finally happened nearly a day later. It wasn’t ideal. For one, McKay was lying in an infirmary bed with three screws holding his leg bones aligned. He was awake, but pumped full of drugs. Cameron was still really pissed off at everyone, but he knew personally what it was like to have metal piercing your flesh to keep your body together, and suddenly it was a lot harder to yell at McKay like he’d wanted to before.

Dex, Emmagan, and Woolsey were all gathered around McKay’s bedside before Cam got there. He imagined they’d had an interesting conversation about what to do if Cameron reported all of this to the IOA.

Cam arrived in the infirmary and pulled up the only remaining free stool.

“You get a good look at the damage?” he asked Dex, since unlike McKay the man hadn’t been in the infirmary the whole time.

Dex glanced at him and nodded. He didn’t say anything, though. He could almost give Teal’c a run for his money in some kind of silence contest.

“They told me about it,” McKay said, miserably. He met Cam’s eyes from his position on the gurney. “Zelenka did the same thing I would have done,” he offered, and it almost sounded like an apology.

Cameron stared down at him. “I don’t care,” he said, flatly. “Why do none of you get this?” he demanded. When no one answered him, he turned to Woolsey. “Especially you?”

Woolsey looked over at him, chin resting on his hand. “Believe me,” he said. “I get it.”

“But you let –” Cam began.

“He didn’t let us do anything,” McKay interrupted, making a face.

“Just couldn’t stop us,” concurred Dex. Cameron looked at him hard, trying to read his face. It almost sounded like a dare.

“The IOA was wrong to stop the search,” Emmagan spoke up, her argument the same as it had been yesterday.

“Well, I think it’s stopped now,” Cam said, ignoring her. He looked back at McKay. “You’re out of commission for what, eight to ten weeks?”

McKay nodded against his pillow, exhaling.

“I’m fine,” Dex said, softly. It was barely above a whisper, but it was totally a challenge.

Cameron stared at him, and then something dawned in his head. Dex looked back at him, face unmoving.

“Okay,” he said, slowly. “I see how this works. I could tattle on you all to the IOA.” Woolsey let out a loud, worried breath. “They’d be pissed. You two –” he pointed to McKay and Woolsey – “would be out on your asses. There might actually be some prison time in it for you.” McKay shifted tensely against the sheets and he must have jostled his leg, because he hissed in pain. “I know my contract has some lines about how I’m not supposed to lie to or directly disobey orders from the IOA, and I bet yours do, too.”

“I don’t have a contract,” Dex interrupted. He was still staring challengingly at Cam, like Dex really didn’t think Cameron could do anything to him. Anger sliced through Cameron’s chest and he glared.

“Ronon,” McKay snapped, while Emmagan put a restraining hand on Dex’s knee.

“Nor do you have any right to live in this city,” retorted Cam, the man’s antagonism getting to him. And of course, Dex just shrugged.

Cameron saw Emmagan’s nails digging into Dex’s pant leg and forced himself to back off.

“I could do that,” Cameron continued. “You two, back to earth and in prison. You two, out of Atlantis.”

“You will not do such a thing,” Emmagan said, voice just as calm as Dex’s had been. But she wasn’t challenging him.

“Yeah,” Cam said. He looked pointedly at Dex. “No matter how tempted I might be.”

“Wait,” McKay said, perking up. “You aren’t going to tell on us?”

“No,” Cam said. “Because if I do that, the rest of the city will never accept my command.”

Woolsey nodded. “Now you understand the position I have been in,” he said.

“If I stop the search for him,” Cameron said, “I become the man that killed John Sheppard.”

No one said anything, but Cam thought they all looked just the slightest bit smug. Which just made him mad again. “But this,” he went on, “this stops.” He pointed at Dex and McKay. “No more secret missions. No more lying to me.”

It was better after that.

The change was palpable. People were warmer to Cam, not just warmer but…well, it felt like everyone was just realer. For most people who weren’t Vala Mal Doran, lying was hard and complicated. Cam got now that the distance that had existed between him and the rest of the city hadn’t just been because he was the new guy, the unproven one. It’d been because he was the outsider to their giant secret. And now he was in on it, not just in on it, but had essentially authorized it. Mostly because he didn’t have the choice to put a stop to it, but they didn’t know that part of it.

Things were a little tenser with Emmagan, because despite her apology, Cameron hadn’t quite forgiven her. It was worse, somehow, that’d she been cooperative and friendly to his face, while manipulating the hell out of him at the same time. He understood why, that she apparently felt she could serve along side him and lie to him happily, at the same time. He just didn’t get it.

He was still baffled by the mass willful ignorance the entire city was operating under. John Sheppard was dead and the people he’d left behind were willing to endanger their own lives to bring back his body. And they didn’t see anything wrong with that.

Cameron didn’t get much time to focus on the newly exposed conspiracy, which might have been for the better. He didn’t understand it, and the more he thought about it, the more it pissed him off.

There was another attack. The space missiles, rockets, torpedoes, whatever the hell. Projectiles. Guided, shield-penetrating projectiles that were intent on blasting holes in Cameron’s city.

More of them, this time, and Cam still couldn’t do anything except watch as Puddlejumpers scrambled to defend the city and Lorne raced off to the Control Chair again.

He didn’t wait for the city to start burning, this time. Cam ordered an immediate evacuation of non-essential personnel, sent department after department through ‘Gate to the Alpha site as fast as they would go.

Though there were more projectiles this time, for some reason the attack wasn’t as bad. Cameron didn’t have to watch another spire fall into the ocean.

Cameron and Woolsey – who refused to evacuate to, which was both admirable and infuriating – found a window and watched the siege from a part of the city where the rockets weren’t falling. And then all of sudden, the rockets weren’t falling at all. The ones not shot down by the Puddlejumpers or the drones were changing course, veering away from the city and heading up towards the sky.

Later, Cameron found out that was the difference between not having Rodney McKay in the city and having him trapped in his lab, unable to leave Atlantis because his leg was still in a couple different pieces.

“We reprogrammed their navigation and sensor systems,” McKay explained, at the staff meeting a couple hours later. He looked exhausted and sweaty, and not particularly comfortable in the wheel chair he was using to get around. Cam knew he wasn’t allowed to put weight on the leg in the immobilizing brace; crutches were probably too painful.

“What about the transmitter…thing?” Woolsey asked.

“It, too,” McKay assured him. “They were programmed to look for a frequency broadcast from the shield. Zelenka managed to interfere with the transmission from the last one, so we already understood their electronics. It wasn’t hard to get in there, again, and tell it to do something else.”

“Where did you send it?” Emmagan asked, sounding concerned.

“Uninhabited moon a couple thousand light years away,” McKay replied.

“We still don’t know who sent it?” asked Woolsey.

“My bet would be on Michael,” said McKay, causing Emmagan to lean her head back and shut her eyes. “The Wraith are probably more interested in using us to find a way to Earth. And this attack was dumb.”

“Dumb?” questioned Cameron. His heart was still pounding, so he didn’t particularly agree with assessment.”

“It was dumb to assume we’d still be in the same place,” McKay answered him. “If we’d taken that last attack seriously, we’d have gotten the hell out of dodge. And sending another bunch of winged monkeys instead of the wicked witch probably means the wicked witch doesn’t have a broom.”

Cam stared.

“Michael does not have a hive,” Emmagan translated for him, like she’d understood the comparison.

“He just wants to terrorize us,” Woolsey said.

McKay shrugged.

“Until he gets a broom,” Cam muttered.

“Yeah,” McKay said, “probably.”

Cameron saw more of McKay, now. Since he wasn’t going on secret clandestine missions Cam didn’t know about. The guy wasn’t nearly as irritating as Cam had predicted he’d be. He also didn’t complain about his broken leg nearly as much as Cameron expected, and he would have expected a lot since Cam knew personally how much of a pain in the ass wheelchair confinement was. And how much of a pain in the ass and every other body part the physical therapy was that McKay had to be undergoing.

And so the man got some of Cam’s grudging respect, both for saving the city and for not whining excessively about his leg.

He did not see any more of Dex, who was still going on missions Cam now knew existed but still didn’t know very much about. The casual disinterest Dex had extended to him before continued now, maybe with a slightly harder edge. Cam wasn’t sure that was deserved. Maybe it was just the difference in Dex’s behavior between trying to keep Cam from catching on then and no longer needing to care what he thought now.

It irritated him. There were about fourteen thousand worse ways Cam could have reacted to finding out about the whole massive conspiracy against him, and he knew that because every one of them had gone through his mind. It wasn’t that he wanted bootlicking gratitude for not tattling to the IOA and completely up heaving the lives of everyone on Atlantis…he just wanted a little acknowledgement that he, Cam Mitchell, was not the bad guy here.

Some how, Cameron ended up mentioning this to McKay. They ate dinner together sometimes, along with Emmagan. It was almost friendly, even if it had totally different dynamics than eating a meal with SG-1. Cam was good-natured enough to get McKay seconds so he wouldn’t have to wheel through line again, but that didn’t stop McKay from stealing stuff (usually dessert) from Cam’s own tray or Emmagan’s, or hell even Emmagan’s son’s tray.

“Stealing from a baby? Tsk-tsk,” Cam said, when he came back to the table with McKay’s second helping of Pegasus lasagna and McKay had taken the kid’s fruit cup.

“He didn’t want it,” McKay defended himself.

Emmagan raised a dubious eyebrow. “You tricked him, Rodney,” she said.

“I’m teaching him,” McKay said. “He wants to eat, he won’t fall for that again.”

At the moment, Dex wandered into the mess. He glanced at the table where Cameron was sitting with McKay and Emmagan, then made a beeline towards the busy serving area. But when he had his tray filled, he walked right out of the mess again.

Cam watched him go, a little hurt. Dex never stayed if he saw Cameron sitting there. It wasn’t a particularly overt thing, but it was noticeable nonetheless.

“What,” he muttered, as Dex vanished through the door. “I got cooties or something?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have threatened to kick him out of Atlantis?” retorted McKay, swallowing a mouthful of purloined diced peaches.

Cam glared. “Remember the part where I didn’t actually do that?”

“Ronon is slow to trust,” Emmagan said, reliably nicer than McKay. “It is not personal.”

Now, Cameron redirected his gaze across the table at her. It felt pretty damn personal.

“He is dedicated to his task,” she continued, at that glance.

“Pilgrimages,” he said, and Emmagan looked embarrassed. “Hey,” he said. “I fell for it.”

She nodded, then tilted her head thoughtfully. “It is not that far from the truth.”

“Yeah,” Cam agreed.

“Perhaps if you two spent more time together,” Emmagan suggested.

“He is dedicated to his task,” Cameron recited her words back. Then, he paused. “Hmm.”

“What?” asked Teyla.

“Don’t spar with him,” McKay said, seriously. “He’ll kill you.”

“Yeah, Sam did warn me about that,” Cam told him. He stood up, balancing his empty tray on one hand. “Excuse me.”

Cam bussed his tray, then quickly left the mess. He walked swiftly to Dex’s quarters, half afraid the man would have already managed to vanish.

But Dex was home and answered on the first chime. Cam was silent for a second, genuinely surprised Dex was both there and that responsive. Dex peered at him in confusion, clearly not expecting to find him at the door.

“Hey,” Cam said, striving for cheerful.

Dex just looked at him, so Cameron dived right in.

“Your next trip through the ‘Gate,” Cam said. “Looking for Sheppard. I want to come with.”

“Huh?” Dex’s eyebrow crept up in confusion. He didn’t look like he liked that idea at all, but then Cameron hadn’t expected him to.

Drawing himself to his full height, which was still substantially shorter than Dex, Cameron crossed his arms over his chest and set his chin. “I’m not asking,” he said.

Cameron hadn’t given much thought to the logistics of Dex’s search for Sheppard. He’d been very caught up in the ridiculous motivations behind it. It wasn’t until he actually came with that the insurmountable odds became clear to him. McKay risking his life, Dex risking his life, the exposure of the city…if that wasn’t enough, they were literally searching the entire galaxy. They had no clue where Sheppard might have been taken – if he’d been taken at all and not summarily executed.

Dex and McKay had narrowed down the planets to places known to be uninhabited based on reconnaissance surveys and Dex and Emmagan’s personal knowledge of their own galaxy. With the Wraith threat and their tendency to eat entire planets full of humans, this was no small number.

Beyond that, Dex and McKay had developed a mission protocol of sorts. If the planet they arrived on did have inhabitants, then the men very deliberately avoided engaging the locals. This also was the case if they encountered Wraith, except that involved some very quick fleeing.

The one sign that they might be in the right place was the absence of a DHD or the presence of one that did not work.

When McKay explained that part, Cam felt like he’d been kicked in the head. It was yet another part of this situation he hadn’t thought about. And it was McKay that explained it, arriving in the Gateroom to see Dex and Cam off. Dex didn’t say very much at all, and maybe McKay had known that would happen.

“What?” he demanded, interrupting McKay. “How- I mean, if you guys did find him, how the hell did you expect to bring him back? Wouldn’t you all be stranded?”

“No,” Dex said, looking at him like he was an idiot.

“Whaddaya mean no?”

“McKay made a portable one,” Dex explained. He hefted a big, square-shaped duffel bag from the floor behind him and held it out for Cam to take.

“Portable what?” Cameron demanded, taking the strap from him. Immediately, he nearly dropped it to the floor, having to grab it inelegantly with both hands. Damn thing was heavy.

“DHD,” McKay said, practically beaming with pride.

“You can carry it.” Dex told him.

Grunting, Cam slung the duffle bag over his shoulder.

Dex also made – well, handed him another piece of equipment and didn’t look like he wanted it back – Cam carry something else, the most vital tool in their search. It was a life sign detector programmed to locate the subcutaneous transmitters implanted in every mission member’s arm. And while the signal was too weak to locate across the entire galaxy, it could be detected in an area the size of a large planet.

And that was all they had. A list of empty planets and a scanner.

Cameron’s first thought was morbid: even with Sheppard were dead and buried, the scanner would find his implant’s signal anyway. He guessed that McKay and Dex knew this, even if they didn’t want to talk about it, so he didn’t say anything about it.

~

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Part 4