Warnings: Death fic. Angst. LOTS of angst. Buckets o' angst.
Pairing: Nominally this is a Gen fic but I've been told that it could easily be read as Het - McKay/Weir
Season: Set some time in or after season two
Spoilers: minor spoiler for "Intruder"
Disclaimer: SGA and all it's characters are not mine.
Author's notes: Thanks to my beta imskysmom. All remaining errors are mine. I wrote this because I was having a bad day, not a very bad day, just a bad day. lol. When I'm having a really bad day I don't put pen to paper, don't worry, John and Rodney are safe, well relatively.

An Unfamiliar Wilderness

He sat in his living room, boots on, laces undone. He had just wanted to go next door, to see how his cat had been getting on with the neighbour. He couldn't have him back, not now; he could barely look after himself. He sighed in frustration; he wanted to pick up the boots and throw them across the room in anger but he couldn't. Instead he pulled his feet out of them and laid down on the couch.

He drifted through painful dreams of the SGC and Atlantis, of operating theatres and field surgery, of Carson's face, of pitying eyes. As he clawed his way back into consciousness, his hand stung, a sharp searing pain, it flickered, it died. He moved his hand into his field of vision, to see only the stump of the wrist, he could have sworn… He always forgot when he awoke. Remembering was like losing them all over again, like the first moment stuck on that god forsaken planet with his hands being crushed under the slab of rock when he realised he wouldn't, couldn't, escape scot-free this time. In the following weeks there had been ceremonies, farewells, he couldn't even pack his own belongings; he couldn't even open the door to his quarters anymore. He felt like a child, but worse than a child; he knew what it was like to be able to do these things, his independence had been stripped from his bones.

He saw it as a prison, he couldn't even hold a gun to fire the fatal shot deep into his brain, he couldn't form a noose, there were ways and means, there always were, for here he was useless, a spare part. He had seen how Elizabeth had looked at him, he believed her when she said he could go back eventually, he knew what they meant when they said they couldn't 'cater for his needs' on Atlantis. It would be years, if ever, he would be allowed back, he wasn't sure he ever wanted to go back; he wouldn't be able to go on missions, he wouldn't be able to fix things. Whilst prosthetics, he had been told, could offer some limited use of both limbs, his manual dexterity would be insignificant when compared to what it was like to have full use of his hands, to have hands. All he was capable of now was shouting, talking, into a head set at people, but where his patience was previously short, now it was non-existent. He would have previously just done the task himself when his patience ran short, but now he couldn't; now he couldn't do anything.

He was dozing again, he didn't do much else these days, sleep wasn't a relief, it was hell revisited, only unconsciousness was relief, but it never lasted long enough.

He saw the falling slab and he instinctively put his hands out to stop it before it could impact the body beneath. His action hadn't slowed its fall; instead he was pulled to the floor as it smashed his hands to smithereens at the same time as it killed the injured man lying beneath. Colonel John Sheppard. His skin was quickly slick with his own blood, the burning pain immediate, breathtaking; it took all his energy to fight to stay conscious. Through a cacophony of pain he heard Carson's arrival; he had been on the way to tend to John before, before, the accident.

He drifted in and out of consciousness, it hurt every minute, hearing the grating sound of the hack saw cutting through bone, his bone, made him retch but it was shortly followed but a further dose of sedative snaking its way through his veins.

The few moments before Carson's arrival were the ones that stuck in his nightmares, in his nightmares it didn't hurt, it was an eternal torture, trapped there, inches from his friend's crushed form, in his dreams he watched the blood flow from under the slab, in his dreams he heard John's voice and turn to see him in the doorway. "What you crying over Rodney? I'll be fine, it was nothing," he'd say with a shrug. The one time in all his life he wished he could run, faster than the wind, he couldn't move, not even centimetres, he was trapped there, with his friend's brutally dismembered corpse. Sometimes he saw that place as his grave too, his life had been changed irrevocably after that day, the loss, the sense of grief, they seemed unending.

Rodney, still lying on the sofa, lifted his arms into his field of vision and saw only what had been taken, his fingers, his thumbs, his hands, he saw no use in the two stumps that remained. He heard a knock at the door, he didn't move, it was open, if they wanted to come in they could.

"Rodney," it was Elizabeth, "are you in there? Rodney?" He hadn't realised she was back from Atlantis, but it wasn't like he had been kept in the loop. "Rodney?" He didn't look up as the door opened and she entered. "Rodney, everyone has been worried about you."

"Who is everyone? You and yourself?" He snapped back.

Elizabeth made her way over to the sofa and knelt down next to it, reaching out she wiped away his tears, "don't give up."

He heaved himself into the sitting position and she moved to sit on the sofa next to him.

"Your still a valuable asset to the expedition Rodney, on earth or on Atlantis, you will make an important contribution."

"I was given 'time'" he moved his arms trying to make quotation marks momentarily forgetting, he sighed, "'time to recuperate' remember?"

"This isn't the end," she said softly.

"How can you be so sure?"

"It is not the end."

He lifted his head to see the genuine compassion and love in her eyes.

"We all want you back," she continued, he gave her a sceptical look, "whenever you're ready. We will be here for you to help you get there," she paused, "I'm here for you."

He felt the tears flowing freely and as she offered an unprecedented hug he slumped into her embrace, clasping her with his arms as though fighting for dear life.