Human Deep-Sea Sound, by Malograntum Vitiorum, for the Swimming/Water challenge

Title: Human Deep-Sea Sound
Summary: The battle's won, but the dead have yet to be buried. Water, fire, drinking, and other things.
Notes: Spoilers through "Siege 2." Thanks to doorrepairgirl for the beta.
Warnings: Well. . . death (offscreen). A good deal of it. Death happens to people who are around when tens of thousands of life-sucking aliens stop by. Also, there are a couple bad words.


Most of the military casualties were given burials at sea on the first two days, eulogized by those who knew them best. There were no flags to fold, no dress blues, and in some cases no bodies to inter, but Dr. Stein played "Taps" on her violin, the only musical instrument on Atlantis, and the civilians stood by quietly and watched what was left of the ritual. Rodney thought about buoyancy, and how much weight it must take to keep a body from floating back up.

The chaplain said the same words over every dead man, never seeming to tire of the liturgy or find less meaning in it with repetition.

Early on the third day, they took Corporal Uqdah's body to the mainland wrapped in a plain white cloth and the clothes he died in, and Dr. Blake recited endless prayers in Arabic, words that, of the people stationed on Atlantis, only Dr. Blake now understood. The women in attendance, their hair covered in scarves and bandanas and berets, stood to one side as a few of the men laid the body in the soil, and Rodney wondered who would say the prayers for Dr. Blake if she died here.

That evening they scattered Dr. Mbeki's ashes to the wind, and while a few fragments of bone fell with gentle splashes into the water, the lighter dust in the urn flew back to them and over them, swirling up and across the pier to float down on the other side. Some of it didn't quite clear the mourners. They looked at each other, unsure what to do, until Father Pullman smiled gently and said, "Under the circumstances, it would not be irreverent to help this dust find its way to the sea." They brushed Dr. Mbeki out of their hair and clothes and let the wind take him.

They scattered Dr. Heightmeyer later that night, with closer attention to wind vectors. Dr. Miko read a poem that was about six words long. Something about cherry blossoms and tides. Rodney had had a crush on Dr. Heightmeyer, and some very interesting dreams about her, when she'd been alive. He didn't know how to feel about that.

Every day between services it was a crazed mess of activity, with everyone who wasn't actively engaged in doing something for a dead person at work rebuilding, repairing, assessing priorities, redistributing the duties of the dead, getting the Daedalus working again so that those going home could get there. Rodney delegated as much as he could stand to, which wasn't much. The military reinforcements from Earth were already talking about aborting the Atlantis mission and taking what was left of the team back home.

They'd get away with that shit over his dead body.

On the fourth day at sunset they set Dr. Kavanagh's remains afloat and afire, per the verbal request for a "Viking funeral" that he'd been heard to make in life. Also per his request, as the flames lit up against the darkening sky, Dr. Simpson led a few other engineers in a surprisingly moving rendition of the Betelgeusian Death Anthem from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which she translated as saying that after this, things could only get better.

There was nothing left of Peter Grodin to release to the waves, but later on the fourth night Father Pullman took out the Book of Common Prayer and did the whole bit for him, and Dr. Stein played some hymn called "O Thou Who Bidd’st the Ocean Deep," to which only the padre knew the words. Rodney said a few words about Peter, at first reading with false confidence from index cards, then setting the cards aside, speaking haltingly, no idea what the hell he was saying, meeting no one's eyes, just remembering and hoping that he was making some kind of sense.

When that was done, they all went to the upper balconies and most of them got blind drunk, and people came up to Rodney and said what a beautiful eulogy he had given. After a few drinks, he almost believed them.

One flight of stairs down and about a city block south of where they were holding that night's wake, there was a spot along the pier with a kind of shelf that extended under the water. Rodney found himself there, looking over the water and holding the railing for support, and he hoped he hadn't caused any alarm by wandering off.

It was on this side of the water that the first of the two hive ships had gone down. Just like on Dagan, John had gotten to the answer when Rodney couldn't. On Dagan, when Rodney couldn't think fast enough, John had saved his own life. This time, because Rodney couldn't think fast enough, he'd sacrificed it.

That was what John had been there to do, of course. There was no comfort in that, but it was true. Endangering his own life to protect others--that was pretty much the job description.

It hadn't been Elizabeth's job description, and they'd lost her too.

Rodney ducked under the railing and sat just on the edge, letting his feet drop into the water. He'd had enough to drink that the cold didn't much bother him, nor did the vague awareness that he'd eventually have to walk back to his room.

It was a good thing that he'd sneaked off to where he didn't have to talk to anyone; when he got drunk he got maudlin, dwelling on the past, having stupid ideas. He looked up at the stars and wanted to name constellations--there, that's the Warrior, spread in pieces to light up half the sky, captured forever in his moment of glory; there's the Scientist, far-off and impossibly bright; there's the Leader, those few well-placed stars in the west that seem to anchor the sky--

In that still moment when the coast was clear and the dead had been counted, Ford had been the one to turn to him and say, "I guess you're in charge now." Part of him had resented Ford then, as if it wouldn't have been true if he hadn't said it.

Rodney stood on the underwater ledge, steadying himself on the railing, water up to his waist. He'd drowned once before, apparently, and he had no intention of doing it again. He planted his feet and let the waves rock him slowly back and forth. The cold was starting to soak into his skin.

Tomorrow they would give Elizabeth to the sea, to commingle with her own ashes from the last time she'd died, when she had told herself that her life was just beginning. He would say something about her, god knew what. He wouldn't talk about the times late at night when he'd railed against her for leaving him like this and gotten so pissed off he'd scared himself. Wouldn't talk about how fast the SGC would have nixed this project if they'd known that after sending a diplomat to lead it, they'd wind up with Rodney McKay in charge.

Tomorrow morning he would tell the Earth contingent once again that no one was going to send his people home if they wanted to stay. He'd meet with Teyla and Ford and Radek, separately from the Earth interlopers, to keep abreast of the worst crises. He'd inspect the Daedalus again. He'd--

"Dr. McKay?" Teyla was standing behind the railing, watching with gentle concern. "Are you all right?"

"I was just--" He took in the sky with a sweeping gesture of his free hand, and almost lost his balance. "On Earth, I know the night sky the way I know my ABCs. Sirius, Orion, Cassipo--Cassopi--shit, I am drunk. Cass-i-o-pei-a. Nasedha, the sitting hen--that's what they call the Pleiades in Russia. The Pleiades are what's known as an open cluster, like that shark-looking thing up there." He pointed unsteadily.

"My people name constellations after the heroes of legend," Teyla answered, looking out at the stars. "They have not yet named this sky."

"Yeah, mine too. I mean--not the last part, we've been cataloguing the celestial bodies since we arrived, that shark-looking thing is PM27, which you lay people may not think is very poetic. But we also..." He felt a solid hand on his shoulder. Teyla was standing in the water next to him, her shoes set aside on the dry ledge. This is impossible, he tried to say. I can't do this job. We should all go home while we still can. What came out of his mouth was, "You see those three bright stars in the west?"

She stayed with him until the sun came up, standing together in the cold water, naming stars.

-end-


Then if time and space
Have any purpose, I shall belong to it.
If not, if all is a pretty fiction
To distract the cherubim and seraphim
Who do so continually cry, the least
I can do is to fill the curled shell of the world
With human deep-sea sound. . .

- Christopher Fry