Title: Nightmares
Author:
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skieswideopenFandom: SGA
Pairing: John/Kate
Rating: R
Disclaimer: They're not mine.
Summary: Kate seeks help for her nightmares.
Notes: This story was originally written for the 2008
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sg_rarepairings Fic Battle for the prompt "darkness."
The first time Kate came to see him, it was in the darkness of the Atlantean night. John hadn't expected her, but realized belatedly that he probably should have. She stepped just inside the doorway when he answered, and stood there silently, shivering, while he watched awkwardly, waiting for her to make the first move.
"I shot him," she said at last, voice flat.
"You saved lives," John said. Which was true, and probably not very helpful under the circumstances.
"He didn't deserve to die."
No, he agreed silently, but that didn't mean they'd had a choice. She'd never killed anyone before, he realized. He felt a certain wonder at that, living as he did surrounded by soldiers and scientists who carried guns as easily as laptops, and with his own first kill so far in the past. But of course, realistically, most of the scientists had never killed. They carried guns, but they didn't use them outside of the firing range. Most of them weren't McKay, weren't driven enough to follow the soldiers into the complete unknown, and those who did tended to leave the killing to their military counterparts. As for Kate, well, there wasn't generally a lot of cause for the base psychologist to leave Atlantis. Until M3X 892.
M3X 892 was a lightly populated world that had been overlooked by the Wraith for generations. Until one day they found it again. The people there had no preparation for that sort of devastation—only a few old stories about a danger they'd mostly believed was myth. The few survivors were numb. Severe PTSD. No coping skills. And so Kate had come, to bring what comfort she could.
"You had no choice."
"He was only a child!" Tears began streaming down her face. She looked up at him, lost and hurting, and John pulled her into a hug.
The boy had been about fourteen in Earth years. Maybe fifteen. His whole family had been wiped out, a too-common tragedy in this galaxy, leaving him one more walking wounded. Until he began screaming about Wraith that weren't there and grabbed a gun from the marine who tried to restrain him. (John would be having a few words with that marine, if he survived his own injuries.)
Things might have been different if Ronon had been there with his stunner or if they'd had a Wraith gun. Or one of those Zats that John had seen at the SGC. But they had had none of those things, and when the boy, still screaming, had opened fire on the Lantean personnel, they'd all ducked and begun reaching for their own guns. Because the boy had a full clip and there was no way for anyone to get behind him. It was sheer bad luck that Kate had happened to have the best angle, had happened to be off to the side where he wasn't shooting. John hadn't driven her too hard on the shooting range; she didn't leave Atlantis often enough to make it worth his time or hers. But she carried a gun, as all the scientists did, and she knew how to use it. And she had.
Kate left his room after the hug, tears more or less under control. He'd offered what reassurance he could, all of it useless in the face of her guilt.
A week later she returned, looking pale and haggard.
"How do you sleep?" she asked when he opened the door. "I know how to deal with PTSD, but this isn't PTSD, it's—" She gestured helplessly. Guilt, he diagnosed. Guilt and fear and regret all tied into a knot not amenable to treatment by propranolol and prolonged exposure therapy. He knew that type of darkness.
He stepped aside, a silent invitation. She came in and the door slid shut behind her.
"Is there anyone you regret killing?" she asked. Not a psychologist's question.
John sighed. "A few," he admitted. She was looking for the secret on how he dealt with it, and there was no secret. Just a lot of sleepless nights and a certain level of desensitization. Enemies could be reframed as targets, but victims were more challenging. "Do you play cards?" Distraction, he'd found, worked well in the short term.
"Cards?" she said skeptically.
He shrugged. "It's something to do when you can't sleep." He searched his desk and found a pack. "And I could use the company." Which wasn't strictly true, but he wasn't going on a mission tomorrow and could afford to be a little short on sleep. He's wasn't fooling her, of course; she knew these tricks. But she played along anyway, because it was better than going back to her room alone.
Two nights later she was back again, and this time he did have a mission to worry about, so after an hour of conversation about nothing in particular, he made his excuses and she left.
He was gone for three days. He went to check on her the night he got back.
"It's the nightmares," she said.
"Have you—" he began and then stopped. There was another psychologist on Atlantis now, a necessity with the growth in population and the degree of trauma typical of Pegasus. She'd probably already talked to him. John knew from experience how little that helped with this sort of situation.
"Do you want some company?" he asked instead. She nodded and let him in.
"I talked to George," she said. "He told me all the things I would say myself. Things I know."
"It can take a while for your emotions to catch up with your mind," he said.
"Do they ever? Do you stop seeing their faces?"
He couldn't give her the answer she wanted. Even when it got better, you didn't forget the faces. You just didn't think of them as often.
She watched him silently for a moment, and then suddenly leaned closer. Her lips were soft and warm and she pulled back almost immediately.
"Sorry," she apologized. "Unprofessional."
The kiss wasn't a complete surprise; there'd been low-level tension since that first night in his room, a growing awareness of Kate outside of her role as psychologist, and an accompanying awareness that she'd been watching him the way he'd been watching her. But he hadn't expected things to accelerate quite this quickly.
It had been a while since he'd done this.
He offered her a lopsided smile. "I haven't been in to see you professionally for over a year. No doctor-patient relationship."
"Until the next time you need me," she said.
"So I'll talk to George." Casually, with a shrug, and he was rewarded with a smile, like the sun breaking through a storm.
They kissed again, and this time he was the one who pulled away as another thought occurred to him.
“Is this just about escaping the nightmares?” he asked. Because yeah, sex was a more effective distraction than cards, but the effects didn’t last any longer, and there were a whole lot more complications.
He could see the hesitation on her face. “I don’t know,” she admitted finally.
John nodded and stepped back, suppressing the urge to kiss her again. “I think we should probably wait until you do know."
Kate looked more thoughtful than upset. “It might help me figure it out if I saw you at some point when I wasn’t a nervous wreck. Something more social.”
“What, like a date?" He felt a little foolish saying the word, not sure that's what she meant, not wanting to push her into something she didn't want.
But Kate was smiling at him like he'd said the right thing. "A date might be good," she said.
“I’m off tomorrow night."
“Nineteen hundred hours?” she suggested.
“Sure,” he said easily. “What do you want to do?” How did one date on Atlantis, anyway? He knew other people managed it, but he hadn't given much thought to what activities might be available.
“Surprise me. It will give me something else to think about tonight.”
He laughed, and began thinking about what treats he might be able to coax from the kitchen. As he turned to leave, he asked, “Will you be okay?" Not just meaning tonight.
Kate took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said.
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