elementalv

Title: Sacrifices
Author: elementalv
Fandom: SGA
Pairing/Characters: John Sheppard, Carson Beckett, Rodney McKay
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: Stargate: Atlantis and its characters are the property of MGM.
Prompt: Prompt 1225 — Stargate: Atlantis, John Sheppard. The one good thing his father had ever done for him was cover up his original gender and the surgery. With the Air Force’s policy against transgenders, he never would have gotten to fly without his help.
Summary: John has always been willing to pay the price for his career and to keep his people safe, but he’s just found the one price he’s not sure he can afford.
Author’s Notes: Written for lgbtfest. Huge thanks to sabinelagrande for handling the beta. The story itself is set in the second season, several months after the events of Trinity. 2,645 words.

~*~*~
For the most part, John doesn’t think about it. His life is pretty much okay when he’s not in the air and fantastic when he is. And if, sometimes, he does think about it, does wonder, then he forces himself to think about what his life wouldn’t be if not for his father. It isn’t easy, exactly, but he regularly reminds himself that he wouldn’t have been allowed to do half the things he’s done since joining the Air Force, and that makes it all just that much more acceptable.

~*~*~
“Colonel.”

John heard Carson trying to get his attention but didn’t care enough to respond. Sleep was good.

“Come along, Colonel. Time to open your eyes.”

Carson was a persistent bastard, but really? He was going to lose this one. No way in hell was John going to respond. He was ready to sink all the way back under when —

“Son of a —” Carson jabbed John’s foot again, and John tried to pull it back to safety. He was too weak, though, and all he could manage was to open his eyes to glare at Carson.

“Nice to have you back with us again,” Carson said, without a trace of apology in his voice. If anything, he sounded pissed off, which didn’t make any sense, accept that it did. Carson was never happy when anyone came back too broken, and from what he could remember, John was probably in that category.

“Hurts,” he said.

“That’s hardly surprising, considering the damage that was done to you.” John blinked a couple of times at Carson’s tone and revised his condition to really fucked up.

“I’ll be okay though, right?”

Carson’s jaw clenched. “That’s up to you.”

“Okay,” John said, wondering what drugs Carson had him on, because the conversation was surreal. “Then I vote for being fully recovered.”

“Aye, I thought you’d say that. But before you make that your final answer, you need to be apprised of all the facts,” he said, sounding pissy as hell.

John frowned a little. “What’s to know?”

“Quite a bit, actually.” Carson pursed his lips before continuing. “You sustained extensive damage to your left leg, and it’s a bloody miracle your femoral artery didn’t get nicked by the shell fragments. The muscles in that leg, however, didn’t fare so well. We’ve done what we could do to repair the worst of the damage, but you’ll need additional surgery and physical therapy. Even so, you’re unlikely to go through the gate ever again.”

“Jesus,” John said, his mouth and throat dry. “How does that translate into me being okay?”

“It doesn’t,” Carson answered, his voice flat. “You might recall, however, the healing pod we found last year.”

At that, John’s heart rate sped up again. “You and Rodney finally approved it? I can use it?”

“You can, but there’s a bit of a problem, which is why we haven’t simply fixed you with it already.”

“What problem?”

~*~*~
When John marries Nancy, he thinks it might be the happiest day of his father’s life — not that he gives a shit. He marries Nancy to please himself, because marrying her means he has another bit of proof that he’s just like any other man. And Nancy? Nancy is understanding about John. She gets that an old injury means they won’t ever have kids together, which is fine. John is off doing his bit to protect America while Nancy climbs the bureaucratic career ladder in D.C., so kids have never been on the table. It helps that she, like John, doesn’t think sex is the be-all and end-all to a relationship, that she values spending time with John in other ways. They don’t have sex all that often, but when they do, John is more than able to compensate, and Nancy is satisfied. If John isn’t ever particularly satisfied, well then, he always knew he would have to endure a certain amount of sacrifice to be part of the Air Force.

~*~*~
“Have you ever heard the term pseudohermaphroditism?”

John felt like he’d just been punched in the gut, because this couldn’t be happening. Carson didn’t check chromosomes, not on expedition members. There was no way in hell he could have figured it out. It wasn’t an effort to look and sound confused when he said, “What are you talking about?”

“I think you know perfectly well what I’m talking about,” Carson said.

“I don’t — I really don’t know,” he repeated. Deny, deny, deny, was his father’s motto, and John thought it was a good one.

“Don’t lie to me,” Carson said, and in that moment, John was afraid of him, afraid of what he was about to say. “I know. I know.”

~*~*~
The divorce sucked — especially when Nancy told him she never realized how much she was missing in their marriage bed — but at least it was amicable. John repeats that to himself on a regular basis when he gets to McMurdo, because in his world, a friendly divorce is about the only thing he has going for him. That and the snow, which is a pleasure to fly over, even if the helicopter has seen better days. Still, he thinks there are worse ways to end his time in the Air Force, so he puts up with it and counts the days until he separates out.

~*~*~
John glanced around to see if there was anyone within hearing distance, and Carson snapped, “Do you honestly think we’d be having this discussion if it weren’t private?”

He muttered, “Sorry. I just — why did you check? You never look for anything but the ATA markers.”

“I didn’t check. We put you in the healing pod, and it started spitting out a report of repairs to be done. First on the list was correcting for hormone-induced abnormalities followed by reconstructing your uterus and ovaries.”

“Jesus!”

“It wouldn’t even let me request the leg repair until the other issues had been resolved.”

“That’s — that doesn’t make sense. Those other things, they aren’t life-threatening.”

“Neither is your leg. We didn’t try you in the pod until after we’d done emergency repairs. We were hoping that time in there could effect full recovery.”

“But it can’t,” John said, more than a little bitter over the fact that Carson dangled full health in front of him without really meaning it. “My leg is shot.”

“I think we’re moving away from the main point, Colonel, which is that as far as your DNA is concerned, you’re a woman, and as far as the Air Force is concerned, you aren’t.”

“My DNA is wrong,” he said, choking on the words as he forced them out.

~*~*~
If sitting in the chair is a revelation, spending time with McKay is something akin to having his head cracked wide open and watching every single assumption he’s ever had about himself turn into so much smoke. For the first time in his life, John understands what real desire feels like, and it scares him more than being shot at ever could. He’s been given another chance to stay in the military, and he’s grabbing it with both hands, despite his feelings for Rodney. They’re just one more sacrifice in a long list, and he tells himself that the Air Force is worth it. He refuses to think about the fact that if he hadn’t had the surgery, if his father had accepted that John was a girl to begin with, then he could be with Rodney and no one would bat an eyelash.

~*~*~
Carson made a noise that sounded like constipation gone wrong and said, “Don’t be stupid. Your DNA is perfectly correct, and since I can’t find evidence of congenital adrenal hyperplasia, I’m going to guess that your mother was on progesterone early on in her pregnancy to prevent bleeding.”

John looked away and didn’t answer.

“Your father very much wanted a son, didn’t he?” Carson’s voice was gentler, and John wanted to hit him. “And I’m going to guess that you very much wanted to please him no matter what.”

When John didn’t respond, Carson prompted, “Colonel?”

“He told me I was a boy from as early as I could remember,” he said, his voice low. “He would spend time with me if I played ball with him or went fishing or did anything else a boy might do with his father.”

“And if you didn’t?”

“Then he was too busy with other stuff to hang around.”

“So you became the son he wanted.” After a moment, Carson asked, “How old were you when you had your breast reduction and hysterectomy?”

“Sixteen,” John said, unexpectedly relieved to be able to tell someone at long last. “We went — there was a doctor in Costa Rica.”

“Easier to hide the records, no doubt.” Carson gave him a long, considering look before adding, “I’ll need to add the details to your medical records, but that can wait.”

“What? No!”

“You can’t imagine I wouldn’t make note of this?”

“Yes, I can! Damn it, Carson, if you put that in my records, they’ll kick me out. You know the U.S. military doesn’t allow freaks like me to serve.”

“They’ll medically discharge you anyway,” Carson said, pointing to John’s leg.

“You said surgery and therapy —”

“I said even with those, you were unlikely to ever go through the gate again. You might some day be able to walk with something approaching a normal gait, but you’ll never be able to run the way you need to.”

“The pod —”

“Will fix your leg completely but not before it fixes the rest of you.” Carson sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Colonel, but no matter how you look at it, I don’t see any way of you staying in the military. The only question now is whether you’ll be happier as a woman or as a man.”

“What kind of question is that?” John felt like he was seizing up, because Carson was suggesting the impossible. There was no way in hell he could become someone else now, not after all this time and not after all the sacrifices he’d made to be John Sheppard instead of Joan.

“It’s the only question left to you,” Carson said firmly. “And it’s a question you need to consider carefully before answering.”

“I’m a man,” John said, hoping the words sounded firmer to Carson than they did to his own ears.

“I’m not entirely sure I agree with you.”

“I have a penis. That —”

“You have an oversized clitoris, no doubt owing to the progesterone your mother took. I’m guessing she had at least one miscarriage before she gave birth to you.”

“Three,” John corrected. And then he absorbed the first part of what Carson said. “Clitoris?”

“Aye. The progesterone confused things, and I don’t doubt it’s why your father decided you were a boy despite later evidence to the contrary. How old were you when you had your first period?”

“Thirteen. Carson, I can’t —”

“Colonel, you need to start thinking in terms of what will make you the happiest — continuing to live as a man or living as the woman you were meant to be.”

“I’m not a woman!”

“Really? And if your father had accepted you as a girl, do you honestly think you’d have ever thought of yourself as a man?”

Every muscle in John’s body clenched, and he honestly didn’t know if it was so he could launch himself out of bed to slug Carson or if it was so he could launch himself out of bed to hide somewhere. “How can you say things like that?”

“The question is valid, even if you’ve never asked it of yourself before.” Carson fiddled with his tablet and added, “Regardless, you’ll need to talk to Dr. Heightmeyer before making any decisions. I don’t need one from you immediately, but if you want your leg to be fully healed, we’ll need to put you into the pod before the Daedalus returns.”

“Why?”

“If you opt for the healing pod, your status as a transgendered male will come to light.”

“Maybe — maybe you could say the machine screwed up and turned me into a woman,” John said. It was clutching at straws that he wasn’t sure he wanted a part of, but it seemed to be the best option available.

But no. Carson was shaking his head. “Rodney did too much work making certain it functioned properly before we put you in there for anyone to believe that it could mistakenly reassign your gender.”

“And if I don’t? If I decide to go for more surgery — Look, Carson, I may never be allowed to go through the gate again, but I could probably stay in Atlantis as a desk jockey, as long as you don’t tell anyone,” he said, desperate for Carson to go along with him on this.

Carson put his hand on John’s right leg. “You’d honestly prefer to stay a man with a severely damaged leg than have your leg fully healed?”

“I don’t — I only ever learned how to be a man,” John said, feeling as completely lost as he had when his first period started.

“Talk to Kate,” Carson finally said on a sigh. “She’ll keep your discussion out of your permanent record.”

“And you?”

“I’ll hold off for the time being,” he said reluctantly. “I don’t like it, but I think I can understand your reasons.” He turned to go then stopped. Without looking at John, he said, “For what it’s worth, I think you’d be a happier person if you would allow us to put you in the healing pod.”

~*~*~
John loves Atlantis. He feels more at home here than he has anywhere else, and he finds comfort in the way the city connects to him each time he comes back through the stargate. If his life isn’t perfect, it’s damn close, and he doesn’t regret any of the sacrifices he’s made to get to this point. As for Rodney — at least he’s become a friend, much the way Nancy did, and John is grateful for that human connection. It balances him in a way he’s never really experienced before.

~*~*~
“Um.”

John looked up to see Rodney standing at the foot of his bed. “Hey there.”

“Hey.” Rodney looked everywhere but at John. “I just — I wanted — I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Because honestly, John couldn’t think of a damn thing for Rodney to be sorry for at the moment, unless Lorne had been keeping reports from him again.

“That you don’t trust me enough to believe the healing pod works,” Rodney said, his mouth turned downward. “I know Carson pulled you out the first time because it was giving him strange feedback, but I’ve spent the last month making sure —”

“Stop already, would you?” Of all the possible ways this could have played out, John never once thought that Rodney would blame himself like that, though after the hell Arcturus played with their relationship, maybe he should have. “Look, the equipment is old. Really old, and that’s why I’m reluctant to use it. Not because of — just — just don’t beat yourself up over it.”

“But Carson said he isn’t sure you’ll be allowed to stay here, and if you go back to Earth, you might not —” Rodney clamped his lips.

“I know.” He’d been back and forth on the issue so many times he couldn’t keep track anymore, but when it came down to it, there was no way he could remain in Atlantis if he used the pod.

Not using it gave him at least a small chance to stay in the city, to be near Rodney, and that was a chance he was willing to take.

~*~*~