2. Ancient Mariner

McKay had John by the balls, and not in that happy-fun way that “Little Johnny” enjoyed so much. No, John’s balls and ass and everything else belonged lock stock and barrel to a man who, as far as John could tell, had as much respect for John as for gum stuck on the bottom of his $500 leather shoes.

John recognized good shoes. It was one of the few things he really missed about his silver-spoon upbringing, and it was something he discovered as a detective was a sure-fire way to get the measure of the person he was talking too. People could wear fake diamonds and knock-off designer suits but there was no way to hide cheap shoes.

McKay’s suit was off the rack even if it was quality, but his shoes? John bet they were custom made.

He saw them a lot during recovery, because for some reason McKay showed up regularly, pulled two chairs together and made himself a little lounger where he propped up his well-clad feet and proceeded to ignore John’s drugged out ass for hours while working on his laptop. At the point where the nasogastric tube finally came out, which was weeks down the line, John tried to ask McKay why he was around. He got a lot of nothing for an answer, and it was too much effort to try and ask twice. John settled back down to let the nurses torture him some more.

No one else came to visit him, which was exactly what John expected but still disappointed him, deep down in the part of his heart he could not fully cauterize. He did not expect a near-death experience to bring his father running to his bedside. Even if it did, John suspected his father would mostly make noise about how disappointed he was that John survived. Since his younger brother David’s death all those years ago, John had remained forever tainted and unforgiven.

John sometimes wondered about that day out on the boat, the split second moment of hesitation in the face of the squall that had cost him the mainsail and toppled him and his brother into the unforgiving water. John had been the only one to come up for air, and his father never absolved him of that sin. On a good day, John replayed that moment until it drove him insane, trying to think himself into the past to change his actions. By careful analysis he figured the mainsail was a goner no matter what he did, and the boat with it, but if he had simply reached out and grabbed David in that precious nano-second of time, he might have save him. Or gone down with him. John would have been fine with that.

On a bad day, John replayed that moment until it drove him to the bottom of a bottle. Sometimes he thought those were the good days.

Trapped in the hospital bed while half of his organs tried to regroup, he had nothing to do but think about it, and how different his life might have been had David survived. The other John Sheppard, the one from the alternate universe that McKay seemed to have a hard-on for, probably saved his brother. Probably still talked to his father, and knew what it was like to be loved. Or at least, not despised. He probably never got a black mark on his record, and had the sense not to fall in love in a war zone.

Instead, John thumbed his nose at his father every chance he got, and when he couldn’t do that anymore thumbed his nose at his commanding officers instead. He still tried to do the right thing, but the ghost of David Sheppard hung around his neck like an albatross, his bad luck charm that ruined every bit of good that fell into John’s life simply because John had let his brother die.

At some point once John was lucid again, McKay sharply told him that his actions had saved the planet, that all six billion people on Earth owed their lives to John Sheppard.

John laughed at him. Even six billion lives were not enough to satisfy the ghost of a boy who died when he was ten, twenty eight years ago.

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