SGA/ND: The Light Inside (gen)

[10leaguesbeyond]

Title: The Light Inside
Author: mad_maudlin
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis, Night Watch: Nochnoi Dozor
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: SG-1 5x14 "48 Hours," SGA 3x10 "The Return," and Night Watch: Nochnoi Dozor if you squint.
Summary: Three meetings and two very different men.

A/N: So this fic exists because David Hewlett kind of, a little bit, maybe sorta resembles Konstantin Khabensky. And I am an awful person. Note that I play fast and loose with the Gateverse timeline, and gratuitiously mix book-canon and movie-canon in the Watchverse. (And that I've only ever seen/read ND in translation, at least what's available of it in English. I repeat: awful person.)

The Light Inside
by Mad Maudlin

1. 2002

Rodney has been keeping a list for most of his life, and it is getting unwieldy long, but he nevertheless maintains it carefully: it is the list of People He Is So Gonna Get (possibly with the Nobel prize money) and he has recently added a number of new entries. Most of the SGC is on there now, Samantha Carter gets asterisks and a double underline, and at the moment, the entire nation of Russia is bidding for a sub-heading of its very own.

He's already been traveling for almost twenty hours when they stop in Moscow for the night, something to do with his papers and his assignment and a Very Important Meeting with the diplomats in charge of the Russian Stargate project. These people are all going on his list, once he figures out how to pronounce their names. He is bone-weary and a little hypoglycemic, and positive that the plush hotel he's been put up in is really a cover for some sort of nefarious KGB operation and if he goes to sleep, he's going to wake up naked in a secret lab somewhere, chained to a folding chair and hopped up on sodium pentathol while large blond men ask him pointed questions about Canadian and American national security as part of a prelude to, I don't know, taking back Alaska or something. The fact that he's going to a secret lab somewhere in the morning anyway, with or without the truth serum and blonds, only depresses him further. He mentally calls up the list and adds a few more aggressive wingdings to various members of the SGC, including Hammond, and Jackson, and oh, especially Carter. Wasn't there a better way for her to sublimate their obvious unresolved sexual tension?

He's tired and his brain is doing that slow-motion thing it always does when his blood sugar is down, even though he'd eaten on each of his last three connecting flights. He's somehow restless, though, jittering around the room, rooting through his bag for a Snickers or something and then checking the legs of all the furniture for listening devices. He's afraid to turn on his laptop, even though he wrote his own firewall, because he just knows there are spies in the room next door (one can never trust the KGB, except wait, were they still called that? Oh, doesn't matter, they're Russians and they're going to lock him up in a gulag and inflict all sorts of unspeakable torture on him, the naqadah generators are only the beginning)…what was he thinking about? The spies, right, the spies and the hidden cameras in the light fixtures, that sort of thing, god, he can't even take a piss in this room without wondering if there's a camera in the toilet. And he really does need to pee.

He'll go downstairs, that's what he'll do, and he'll pee in the alley. That'll show the goddamn voyeurs.

(Rodney will be inclined to blame this plan on his blood sugar, later on.)

Rodney is traveling with an assortment of Americans and Russians who are more or less tangentially related to the Stargate projects of their respected nations. He really should just complain to one of them about the spies and the cameras and his outrageous lack of Snickers bars. Only the Americans all started tuning him out over the Atlantic, and the Russians just pretend not to speak English (oh god, he hopes they're pretending) so it seems once again the most natural thing in the world to slip by their rooms silently, hands stuffed in his pockets, half-buried in his hastily-purchased stock of warm clothing because, hi, going from Nevada to Russia in the winter here. (He suspects Napoleon might've had better luck if only the French army had had access to synthetic fleece. Oh, and nukes.) Rodney slips into the elevator at the end of the hall and examines the buttons, but mercifully the numbers are still the same even if the words are in whatever made-up alphabet they use over here. Someone sounding far away calls out to him, maybe to hold the door, maybe to stop or they'll shoot, Rodney doesn't know, he just knows suddenly that he's got to find an alley before his bladder explodes.

There's a funny dark spot on his upper lip when he sees his reflection in the elevator doors. Blood. Nosebleed. Huh.

He cuts through the lobby of the hotel like water, and outside, oh hell, it really is Russia in the winter. The cold hits his lungs like a punch, the wind is trying to gnaw his face off, and for a crystalline moment he thinks, what the hell am I doing out here? Then he remembers the possibly-former-KGB and the spies and the cameras, the lack of Snickers bars and Anglophone company, and how it's important to find an alley, right now. He doesn't quite remember why, something to do with sticking it to someone, and his list-that's good enough for him for the moment, anyway.

He's shivering before he makes it a block, nearly shaking himself apart after two, but somehow he keeps his legs moving, hands clenched in pockets, head scrunched down like a turtle. People occasionally try to talk to him-an old woman, an Australian tourist, a wino in a hooded sweatshirt and a cloud of boozy fumes-but it's not like Rodney knows what they're saying anyway, so it's easy to tune it out. The cars are a little harder to ignore, and seriously, was the entire driving population of Moscow insane or something, but Rodney finds that he can blunder through intersections on sheer force of will alone, almost daring someone to hit him, because he is busy, dammit, he is on his way, he has somewhere to be and all the suicidal Russian drivers in the world are not going to stop him, even if half of them are probably KGB agents or Goa'uld spies or somebody else who'd just love to see him run down in the street with his enormous brain splattered on the pavement. He fearlessly steps in front of some kind of utility truck, a truck that won't dare run him down, because he's a man on a mission and he has got somewhere to be.

The fact that he is not sure where that place is doesn't bother him in the slightest. He will know when he's arrived there. He is, after all, a genius.

It briefly occurs to him to take the subway-the signs with the big capital Ms are obvious enough-but a quick sweep of his pockets turns up no cash, not even a handful of loose change from the vending machine at JFK, and he may be a man on a mission but he doesn't think he wants to start his exile off by jumping a turnstile. There's another clear moment of what the hell, McKay? before he resigns himself to walking, a lot of walking, just because he can't feel his feet doesn't mean he can stop now. He passes another hoodie-clad wino, or maybe the same one, who peers at him over the tops of his sunglasses (at night? Of course sunglasses at night, these people are insane, after all, they have to be if the actually live here) before vanishing again. There's another utility truck, too, that brakes wildly for him as he crosses another street and pushes against the flow of traffic for another series of icy blocks. Rodney tastes metal, realizes his nose is bleeding again. Huh.

He knows where to stop abruptly, like a sharp whack on the back of the head, and he stops at the edge of a construction site, which really shouldn't be this shabby-looking, not so close to such a fancy hotel. Or maybe they're not that close, because he really doesn't know how long he's been walking, just that it's getting hard to feel his face. The complex of buildings is only half-done and there is snow piling up around the naked foundations, but it's ridiculously easy even for Rodney to find a gap in the rickety chain-link fencing that surrounds the site. There's nobody around but one truck, a bright yellow monstrosity with a lightbulb logo on the side and a word that looks like FOPCBET and seriously, how is anyone supposed to pronounce that, made-up alphabet or not? He elbows his way through the gap and oh, okay, that's loud, and he nearly strangles himself loudly when his outermost layer of fleece gets hung up-but there's nobody around, no sign of life from the lightbulb truck, nothing but a stumbling drunk on the opposite side of the street, and wait a minute, that guy actually might be familiar…

But he doesn't have time for this. He's got somewhere to be. Stuffing his numb scratched hands in his pockets, he circles the skeletal buildings until he comes to a door, and of course it's unlocked, and of course this is where he's supposed to go inside. It's dark inside, impenetrable, but Rodney strides in sure-footed right up to the moment when the door slams shut behind him.

Then his first thought is Jesus Christ, McKay, what have you done? Because he's cold and his feet are killing him and he is miles from his hotel and he doesn't have a clue where he is or why or what was so damn important at the time, he is probably creating an international incident just by being here, and so if the pseudo-KGB wasn't already after him (and what was he thinking, of course it's not the KGB anymore) then they sure as hell are now.

There's somebody down here with him. He can hear it, almost see it, somehow feel it.

"Hello?" he calls into the shadows, "Hello, um-there seems to be a, a misunderstanding here-"

And then he feels it, hands on his shoulders, a body pressed against him, though he's so cold right now nothing else could possibly be warm. There's a voice saying something to him, a woman's voice, and even though it's a snarl of Russian consonants Rodney's attempted protest withers in his throat. Half of his mind is going on vacation again, shorting out and letting him fall slack against this tall woman's cool body, even while the other half is wondering what is wrong with him, is he going insane, is this some kind of trick of the not-anymore-KGB or the Goa'uld or oh, God, don't let it be worse, there really couldn't be anything worse than a snake in his brain, the universe was not cruel enough to allow it. Not that he really wants a snake in his brain, or anything in his brain, or anything anywhere-he jumps when he felt a mouth on his neck, but it's too big for a symbiote (he hopes) and it's not the back of his neck anyway, it's closer to his throat, to the jugular-

It suddenly occurs to Rodney that he should scream-

And then the door slams inwards, and the building is flooded in light.

Rodney has a glimpse, just a glimpse, of his personal wino charging down the stairs, shouting in Russian and weilding-what the hell, a flashlight? There's more light pouring through the window holes of the foundation, light from where, Rodney can't tell, and he doesn't have time to figure it out because the voice next to his ear is screaming, screeching, and sudden it isn't a mouth on his neck anymore, it's a clawed hand like iron. Rodney can't move, and Rodney can't breathe, and Rodney can't follow what the hell is going on when flashlight-weilding winos come to rescue him from mind-bending not-as-evil-as-Goa'uld, or at least he hopes this is rescuing. His chest pumps but he couldn’t breathe, it's like anaphylaxis, only at least anaphylaxis is about something he ate and not something trying to eat him-wait, what, why would he think that-not important, important thing is not to die, to get away, twist out of the cold hands clamped on his wrists and neck and get out-

Oh. There we go.

His hands hit the far wall, burning where they scrape (and not just burning, no, but cold, a weird cold that went past the skin) but the important part is that he's breathing and free. The room sounds full of people and noise, even though it was just him and the wino and the very strong woman with cold hands a second ago. Rodney scrambles around a corner, thinking about head injuries and back injuries and national security and planetary security, and should he try to call someone? No, of course, no cell phone reception, he’s whole hemispheres out of his coverage area. He’s got his back to the cold wall and hey, wasn’t it bright in here before? Way too bright, more light than he could stand-but now it was more like twilight, a sort of murky light without direction, barely even casting a shadow. He waves his hand in front of his face, wondering when his clothes had found time to fade, and watched a single mosquito settle lazily on his sluggishly-bleeding palm.

Mosquitos in Russia in the winter.

Rodney takes a deep breath.

He inhales and he looks around the corner because, okay, maybe his blood sugar was playing games with his brain earlier but he's fine now and he needs to know what the hell is going on because he really should be back in that fancy hotel right now, sleeping or peeing on cameras or just generally living it up before the plane leaves for Siberia, it’s just that first he has to figure out where he is and what the hell is going on and maybe the wino will share whatever is in his bottle because Rodney could really use a drink. Rodney looks around the corner and sees the wino holding down a woman, a very pretty woman, sort of Samantha Carter’s Amazon cousin really, except for the whole part where she's snarling with a mouth like a Great White, all ivory fangs and damn, no blonde is worth that. The woman's squirming and snarling and spitting up Russian at the wino, and a guy in a utility jumpsuit, and a bear.

Rodney goes back to his corner, exhales. Trying that again.

Yes, there is still a bear. A bear, a wino, and an electrician, what the hell kind of joke does that make? They walk into a bar and say "ow"? Nobody seems too terribly upset by the bear, though, or the lady with the mouth full of death-the utility guy is actually taking notes on something. The wino has her arms and the bear is now holding the flashlight. Oh god.

"Um," Rodney says, because this is not going away, and pinching himself isn’t helping to clear away the mosquitos or the shadows or the bear. He stumbles to his feet, feeling half-drunk, half-frozen, weak and foggy and very, very, very, very scared. The four of them look up like he's the crazy one. "Excuse me. Um."

The wino says something to the electrician. The electrician says something back. The bear growls.

Rodney takes another deep breath, closes his eyes (because this is so much easier when he's not looking at the goddamn bear) and reels out the little speech he put together from his Berlitz phrasebook on the most recent plane. "Yah Canaditz," he says, "yah nee goveryoo pa-russkee. Can anyone explain to me in English what the hell is going on?"

The wino, quietly, says "Fuck."

Rodney agrees.

2. 2004

Rodney has never liked Moscow, ever, and the fact that he is here again is proof of the wicked wiles of Elizabeth Weir. She disarmed him with genuine compliments about his genius, seduced him with the idea of a city full of Ancient tech, and went for the gut with a few well-placed comments about clean slates, new opportunities, and his heretofore dubious ability to play well with others. And then, only after he'd taken the bait and the chief scientist job, only then did she mention, oh yeah, they had to stop by Russia on their way to the Antarctic. This is why Rodney avoids the politicians. (It helps, of course, that they also avoid him.)

It's a diplomatic thing, this mission, because the Russians have their panties in a wad over something Atlantis-related and Weir and Jackson have to help smooth it out. Rodney is not entirely certain why he's here, except possibly as a form of purgatory, atonement for his sins against the idiots of the world so that he can go on the expedition with a clean slate and a gold star from Human Resources. For one thing, he doesn't actually know what the problem is, since he's been up to his eyeballs in ZPM schematics and fragments of database for months on end, and for another, well, it's a diplomatic thing and he's him. This isn't going to end well. Jackson said something vague about Rodney having "contacts" from The Siberia Incident, which makes Rodney wonder how many brain cells Jackson has lost due to various deaths. He doesn't quite know how to explain in any greater detail that these people were on the verge of killing him in his sleep when he got recalled the last time, and his presence is absolutely not going to solve any problems. If anything, in fact, it's going to create new, more complicated hybrid problems, with nasty pointy teeth. He tried to explain this on the last plane ride, but Elizabeth just gave him an indulgent smile and Jackson waved him off. In the interests of gold stars and clean slates, Rodney settles for complaining loudly about everything and savaging Grodin's latest act of idiocy with a red marking pen.

He doesn't even say I-told-you-so when they meet with the Russians and more than half of them flinch at Rodney's mere name. The pleasure of being right doesn't last, though, because he's right about being despised by some of the finest minds in the hemisphere, and he is not at all sure that none them have and FSB connections. He only pretends to drink the tea they're offered.

The last straw is it becomes clear that Jackson and Weir intend to conduct this discussion in Russian. Rodney can say about a dozen things in Russian, but most of them are ungrammatical and half of them are rude. He sneaks out at the first opportunity, loiters in a lobby for all of ten minutes while surly soldiers give him suspicious looks, then checks his pocket for his passport and heads out of the building.

This is Moscow in the spring, which is slightly preferable to Moscow in the winter in that there’s actual sunlight. Rodney’s intention is to get back to his hotel, because the Ancient technology interface protocols are still glitchy as hell and apparently it falls to him to debug what the trained chimps at Area 51 produced while flinging feces at their keyboards. This is his intention, and it’s a very good intention, but he still finds himself stopping at a little kiosk near a metro stop and peering at the menu for something that isn’t drowning in sour cream. He hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, after all, and it was almost ten o’clock, and he had to keep his blood sugar stable if he was going to face the ineptitude of his coworkers.

Yeah, right. Of course.

Rodney ends up buying a pathetic excuse for a slice of pizza and a bottled water, and is completely unsurprised to find a crumpled wad of rubles in his pocket to pay for it all, even though he knows he didn’t convert any cash. He leans against the railing at the mouth of the metro station and prods at the little rubbery bits on the top of the pizza masquerading as mushrooms, and is completely unsurprised when a man in a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses appears at his side in a little burst of magic and vodka fumes.

"Mr. Gorodetsky, what a surprise," Rodney says, without looking up from his investigation of the pizza.

"Dr. McKay," Gorodetsky says, just as easily.

They stand like that for a while, until Rodney says, "I suppose I should thank you for the money. I mean, I really think I’ve discovered a fascinating new material heretofore unknown to science in these mushrooms. If it’s a superconductor, I’ll even thank you in the paper."

Gorodetsky snorts. "Is nothing," he says. "You did not check in with Watch."

Rodney decides to venture the superconducting mushrooms and takes a bite of the pizza; it’s lukewarm and curious bland, sort of rubbery. "I’m only here for a few days," he said. "Business trip."

"Few days is long enough."

"I was getting around to it."

"Is required-"

"Yes, yes, yes," Rodney says, not caring to keep his voice down, because Gorodetsky had probably taken care of that just like the cash. "I remember the regulations, thank you very much. It’s just a little difficult to put in a call to the Batphone when I’m surrounded by my coworkers, involved in a top-secret project, and on the tab of the U.S. government. I believe we’ve talked about this secrecy thing before, hmm? Unless you killed those brain cells on your latest bender?"

Gorodetsky grimaces, or maybe he’s smiling; Rodney’s never bothered to investigate the difference. "Yes, your work is very secret, very important," he mumbled. "Your work give headaches to Watches in three countries already, and you are not even initiated two years."

Rodney fumbles with the paper plate and dumps it off to the side, sort-of aiming for a trashcan, not really. "What do you know about my work?" he asked quietly, worriedly.

Gorodetsky smiles for real, and pushes his shades up his nose. "I think we have this discussion in private, yes?"

"Fine," Rodney says, "but it’ll have to be quick and to the point, as difficult as that may be for you, because you know I can’t-"
"I know," Gorodetsky says. "Follow me."

Rodney wraps his hand around his tepid bottle of water. The plastic is firm and smooth under his fingers, the label a little wrinkled, and his fingers press whitely into the molded ridges. He can handle, he thinks, a bottle of water. It is a normal think, even for him, and part of a rational world with physical laws and universal constants and a minimum number of Russians. He knows there is this other world, has known ever since this alcoholic idiot with a flashlight and a funny badge had pulled him out of it and explained in halting English that, sorry doctor, you’re not in Kansas anymore. Rodney knows about the other world and he hates it and he tries to ignore it, and it’s actually pretty easy most of the time, to pretend nothing ever happened-because aliens are real but vampires are not, and magic is just science that hasn’t been properly understood. He’s M. Rodney McKay, Ph.D., Ph.D., genius and physicist and rational man, and he believes in a world of laws and constants and plastic water bottles.

Unfortunately the other world doesn’t give a damn what he believes. Anton Gorodetsky, third-level magician of the Light, reaches out a hand and raises his shadow from the blunt-edged puddle at their feet. It twists, thickens, like a charmed snake or a plume of smoke, and it ripples a little Gorodetsky steps into it, like the negative image of an event horizon. Rodney takes a deep breath, gets a firm grip on his water bottle, and steps into Gorodetsky’s Twilight.

It’s always quiet here, quiet and oddly still. The rest of the world churns on sluggishly around them, and Rodney has the itch to ask about time dilation and subspace envelopes and a thousand other things he already knows he can’t. Can’t ask, without giving away classified information; can’t ask, because Gorodetsky wouldn’t know anyway; can’t ask, because if he did any one of the experiments he wants to do in a government lab he’ll either be sent to prison or abandoned in this smudged gray place of silence and inconstant light. He’s triple-bound by his job and their Treaty and the staggering stupidity of everyone around him and this, this is exactly why he hates Russia so much, because Russia only serves to remind him.

Gorodetsky takes off his sunglasses here, revealing eyes shot through with fat red veins. In the Twilight Rodney can see Gorodetsky’s aura, strong and Light and flickering wildly with the intensity of his hangover. "The Watches are aware of the work you do," Gorodetsky says softly. "These-zvjozdnye vrata-Starry Gates."

"That’s impossible," Rodney blurts. "The Stargate program is the most high-security-"

"They know," Gorodetsky says firmly. "How I do not know, and in truth I do not think it matters. But they, Geser and Zavulon, they are very interested with it."

"Of course they are," Rodney says, "it's probably the single greatest discovery in the history of this planet, culturally and scientifically speaking. I just can't fathom what a bunch of magicians could possibly want with it."

Gorodetsky looks idly at the sky, and Rodney wonders if he was seeing something there besides the clouds, darker than the air, like a photo negative. "You know the Treaty," he says, non sequitur.

"Of course I do," Rodney says. "It's the little piece of magic paper that prevents me from doing the handful of constructive things I might actually be capable of us with this-this-" power, this magic, all the things that weren't real, "because if I do then I'm going to be hauled off by the Inquisition and subjected to unspeakable horrors."

"And," Gorodetsky says, sounding a bit annoyed, "you let Day Watch do something to maintain balance."

"That too," Rodney mutters.

He gets a look that's a little too piercing from those bloodshot eyes, and he wonders-again-what Gorodetsky sees that he can't, if the Twilight looks different to a third-level (real) magician than it does to someone who barely registers at level seven. Just enough to jump into his shadow when a vampire had him by the throat. Just enough to turn everything he held dear upside down.

"I don't know how you are Light One," Gorodetsky says suddenly. "I have known Dark Others less selfish."

"I guess I'm just special," Rodney says, and turns away to watch a cop make an incremental descent into the metro station.

"You do not care about our situation."

"No," Rodney says, "I care a lot about our situation, because, see, I don't know if your sources mentioned this, but the Stargate program spends an awful lot of time stopping enormously powerful aliens from attacking this planet. I don't have much time or energy to spare worrying about evil wizards!"

"You are Other," Gorodetsky says, only now he sounds more baffled than annoyed. "You are part of our struggle."

"Yeah, well, our struggle could possibly end in the extinction of the human species."

"So could ours."

Rodney kicks at a balled-up newspaper, wonders what it looks like to the people in the real world, the world he'd rather be in. "So the Watches know about Stargate program," he says. "What's that got to do with me, aside from the obvious risk of having to deal with more of you people on a day-to-day basis?"

"You know that Night Watch will use humans against Day Watch," Gorodetsky says heavily. "Other way is true too. Not just, not just the 'live bait'-humans are beyond the Treaty, beyond Light and Darkness. And your Stargate takes us all very far from Treaty."

"Oh my god," is all Rodney can say for a moment, because for once he'd getting exactly what Gorodetsky means (maybe he's getting too used to him). "They'd have to be monumentally insane to-to, what, take the fight off-world? Use aliens against Others? You don't know the first thing you're getting into! Any of you!"

Gorodetsky smiles thinly. "Ah, however, you do."

Maybe this is what small furry animals feel like when the trap snaps shut. Rodney folds his arms across his chest and looked at Gorodetsky, but no, the guy's totally serious about this. "You are all brain damaged," he announces. "Every single one of you. Exposure to whatever dimensions of parallel space this is has rendered you criminally psychotic."

"You want the Watches should use you? Use your friends?"

"I don't have friends," Rodney says, "and even if I did, I wouldn't-wouldn't-are you seriously suggesting I spy for the Night Watch or something?"

"Spy is not good word," Gorodestky says, "report. Explain," but it's pretty damn clear even he doesn't believe what he's saying.

"I don't believe this."

"You would have protection of Geser himself, I am told."

"Yeah, which will do me a hell of a lot of good in federal prison!" Rodney snaps. "I signed a lot of confidentiality agreements to get where I am today, to do my life's work, and I refuse to give it up just because a bunch of delusional wizards think it's a good idea to invite Goa'uld and Replicators and God only knows what else into their private little war! This is a stupid idea and I refuse to be involved. You want to wipe out the human race? Start screwing around with aliens. There's plenty out there who would be more than happy to help you get started."

Gorodetsky regards him for a moment, and slips his shades back on. "Perhaps you are truly Light One after all," he declares. "Naïve, but Light."

"Don't go spreading that around," Rodney mutters. "I have a reputation to maintain."

"I do not think Geser will like you to refuse," Gorodetsky says. "And I do not think it will stop the Watches from interfering with Stargates."

Rodney sighs. "Well, with any luck, in a couple of months I'll be in another galaxy and thus too far away to give a damn."

"Another galaxy?"

"Atlantis Expedition," he says. He's not sure why, but he wants to explain it, wants to rub it Gorodetsky's face a little bit. Take that for explaining this to me, you son of a bitch. Take that for making me choose. "Ask Mr. Geser if you want the scary details, but the gist is, I'm going to live on another planet and I'm not leaving a forwarding address."

Gorodetsky's eyebrows rise over the rims of his glasses. "Ah. So you could not help us at all."

"I wouldn't if I could."

"What will you do, in this galaxy?"

Rodney hasn't really been thinking that far ahead, because right now it's all about getting there, and they'll figure out the hard stuff when they come to it. "Well, assuming we don't all die, I imagine I'll spend most of my time buried gleefully neck-deep in really cool technology and writing Nobel Prize-worthy papers."

"I mean, what will you do about magic?"

Rodney looks levelly at him, and smiles, because this part he thought through. "I don't intend to do anything at all."

There's no ranting, though, no confusion or argument. Instead, Gorodetsky might blink at him behind those sunglasses, and he most definitely laughs. Rodney finds himself in the middle of a hug. "Da svidanya, Rodney McKay," Gorodetsky murmurs boozily in his ear. "Ne puxa ne pera."

Rodney pulls away and smiles tightly. "Go to hell," he mutters, and steps out of the Twilight, hopefully for the last time.

3. 2006

It's not enough that they won't give him the Jumper project. It's not enough that they inflict trained chimpanzees disguised as lab assistants on him. Oh, no. As if the SGC is actively trying to make his unwilling return to Earth as physically painful as possible, they're whoring him out to do briefings to foreign heads of state, and even though he threw a hell of a tantrum about it, it only served to make O'Neill look a little amused, and a little bit like he had heartburn.

The Russians specifically asked for you, he said. Seems they like you, McKay.

If I am assassinated, General, I have left detailed instructions in my will for how I am to be avenged, Rodney said.

They still made him go. He is still outraged about it.

At least he doesn't have to go all the way to Siberia to this one-oh, no, he gets to stay in Moscow, the most magical place on Earth. Possibly quite literally, but Rodney has had over two good years of not thinking-much-about that part of his life, and he would like to keep it that way. It was much easier to not-think about magic on Atlantis, where he was surrounded by technology that does almost everything the Others can do, only better and in quantifiable ways. On Atlantis, there was no Night Watch hounding him, and if he occasionally bent the laws of nature in his own limited capacity-tweaked probabilities, looked through the Twilight to make a lucky choice-there wasn't any Day Watch lurking over his shoulder to extract horrific payment. Just the knowledge that he did everything he could and even that wasn't enough to save Gall and Abrams. Or Peterson, Dumais, Hays, Johnson and Wagner. Or Grodin. Or Lindstrom. Or…

Rodney decides to get a drink. At least then he will have an excuse to be maudlin now, and with any luck, a hangover to justify being extra vicious at his briefing in the morning. In the meantime, he has a government-subsidized credit card and he's in the same damn hotel the SGC always puts him in, the one with the really, really nice bar and the bartenders who actually speak comprehensible English. Not that Rodney can't order a drink in Russian (vodka, at least, although that gives him an especially evil hangover) but it's the principle of thing. Plus, he thinks he's going to drink so much that spitting out an order in Russian will be the equivalent of standing on one leg while reciting every other six-digit prime.

At least, he drinks enough to not be surprised when Gorodetsky finds him. It just wouldn't be a trip to Moscow without him.

"Dr. McKay."

"Mr. Gorodetsky."

Anton's got his drink already, and he looks unspeakably scruffy in his canvas work jacket, Gorsvet printed in Cyrillic on the sleeve. Rodney takes the initiative to turn everyone's attention away from their end of the bar, at least for a little while, because Anton's going to say whatever he has to say and Rodney would like to get it over with as soon as possible. It's the most magic he's done in a month, since Atlantis, and it makes Anton's eyebrows go up. "Thank you," he says.

"How'd you find me?" Rodney asks.

"You checked in."

Right. File travel plans with the American Watch, call into the Canadian Watch because as a citizen he's their responsibility, call into the Russian Watch when he arrived, and he's given up caring whether anyone notices him making these calls, meeting with seedy characters in hotel bars like a bad spy novel. Atlantis has finally driven him insane, see, and he sort of misses running for his life, and if he can't wrangle a spot on an SG team then he might as well cause an international incident by revealing the whole secret-network-of-magicians thing. The inevitable Harry Potter jokes from Sheppard might even be tolerable.

"I suppose," Rodney says while he plays with his drink, "that you're here to prod me about the Stargate Program again."

Gorodetsky shakes his head; he looked tired and miserable, worse than ever. "The Watches are satisfied that the program is no threat," he says hollowly. "They have…bigger worries, now."

"Thank you, Anton, that's terribly comforting."

"What about you?" Gorodetsky asks peevishly. "You are supposed to be in another galaxy, yes?"

"Got kicked out," Rodney admitted morosely. "Original owners showed up and decided they didn't want us eating their porridge and sleeping in their beds."

Gorodetsky nods. "Something like that happened to Ignat once. The real owners were away at their dacha."

Rodney doesn't remember who Ignat is, if he's even supposed to remember Ignat. "Yes, I'm sure it's exactly the same situation," he growls. "And I suppose now Ignat is stranded in some godforsaken hellhole in the desert, working with a gaggle of homunculi who need a babysitter instead of a future Nobel laureate, except when he's being sent on asinine assignments on the other side of the planet to explain technology he doesn't give a shit about to people who couldn't possibly understand it. Yeah, me and old Ignat have a whole lot in common, don't we?"

He expects a sarcastic comment, maybe because he's spent too much time around Sheppard these past few years, maybe because he wants the excuse to keep stewing. Instead Gorodetsky shoves his empty glass aside and glares at him, looked more beligerently drunk than usual. "Yes, McKay, for you alone in all the world suffer, and you alone are to be pitied for your loss."

That stings, and Rodney nurses his drink bitterly for a few moments, torn between shoving off petulantly and arguing-because hello, it's hard to compare anything to losing Atlantis-but he thinks Elizabeth and Carson and Teyla maybe have rubbed off on him a little too much, because after a while he thinks misery loves company and asks, "So what's eating you?"

Gorodetsky grimaces and looks away, rubbing his eyes. "I…I have made many mistakes," he mumbles. "I lost something I did not know I wanted."

Rodney thinks of Elizabeth and Carson and Teyla, of Sheppard and Ronon and Zelenka and… "Yeah," he says, "I think I know the feeling."

"It does not matter," Gorodetsky says suddenly, brusquely. "Nothing will matter soon enough."

"Oh, please don't tell me you're going to kill yourself," Rodney says, "because for some reason I would feel obligated to stop you, and I was looking forward to drinking tonight instead."

"And you mock me for my vice?"

"Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery," Rodney mutters. He knows, vaguely, that all the Atlanteans drink too much these days, and he wonders if this is one of the stages of grief.

Gorodetsky suddenly pats Rodney on the shoulder, but he's not smiling. "Something bad comes," he says earnestly. "I do not yet know when. Maybe we have years. But…it will not go well for the Light."

Rodney swallows, remembering suddenly that Gorodetsky isn't just a magician, he's got the seeing-the-future thing going on, too. "What do you mean? Are we talking end-of-the-world here?"

"End of the Treaty."

"So, yes, end of the world." Rodney really ought to be getting used to these. "But you don't know when."

Gorodetsky shakes his head. "No. Zavulon has…he does not make his move yet. If Geser knows, he does not say."

"Fuck."

"Yes."

Rodney finishes his drink and rubs his eyes; he's lost his tolerance, after two and a half years of turning down various grades of illicit Atlantean hooch. Or maybe it's something else making the room feel sort of swimmy. "Why are you telling me this? Don't I have enough to worry about with the space crusaders, now I've got the conquest of Darkness to look forward to?"

"I thought…you should not be on this planet, Rodney." Gorodetsky smiles tightly when Rodney looks up. "You never wished to be Other. You should not have to die like one."

"Yeah, well, I don't get much opportunity to see the galaxy anymore," Rodney mutters. "Not since getting send back here."

"Still." Gorodetsky finishes his drink and stands. "I thought you should know. Perhaps you will have second chance?"

"Is this you trying to be optimistic? Because I have to tell you, it's kind of disturbing." Gorodetsky shrugs, and Rodney sighs. "Thank you, though. For the information. Though I really don't know what I'm supposed to do with it."

Gorodetsky claps him on the arm. "Follow the Light inside you."

Long after Gorodetsky went, Rodney remembers to make himself noticable to the rest of the world again-he's getting slightly better at this magic thing, ever since the ATA therapy, and doesn't that send him down lines of speculation he really does not want to pursue? He finishes his drink and goes back to his room and somehow he's still reasonable sober, barely even buzzed, in fact. He sprawls on the bed and boots up his laptop, thinking that if he hacks his plane reservations he can get a layover in the Czech Republic and maybe see Zelenka for a while, just to get an idea of what the university are teaching these days that makes the graduate students so damn stupid. (And if Zelenka is any better than most, maybe Rodney will poach a few of his doctoral students for Area 51. Zelenka will understand. It's the fate of the galaxy and Rodney's sanity in the balance.)

In fact, if he times everything right, he can spend a couple days in Prague or Brno or wherever it is that Radek's hid himself, and still have time to impose some order on the lab before he flies out again. It'll be good to see Sheppard and Beckett again, and Elizabeth if they can wangle her out of her hidey-hole (Rodney knows when he's being snubbed, it happens too often). He'll need the extra downtime first, though, a quick visit to the Czech Republic to bother Radek, who will probably be too irritated to notice if anything's off. He needs to get Moscow out of his system, get the Twilight out from under his skin, so he can go back to ignoring one war to focus on the other.

But after that? He doesn't know. He doesn't think Gorodetsky does either. And that shouldn't make him feel better, but it does.