With a Whimper
Fic!
With A Whimper
Ratings and People: 14A, John/Rodney (not explicit), Lorne, Chuck, Miko, Carson
Disclaimer: Not mine
Summary:
“The end of the world? No one ever tells me about these things.” Lorne said, rolling his eyes.
“I never see it coming.” John turned to the rest of the group. “The end of the world is supposed to be fire and brimstone, explosions and sonic booms. Not this stillness. We have to find out what is going on.”
John drifted in and out of sleep, safe and warm in his bed. His body felt heavy, melting into the mattress, and his eyelids stayed closed, hoping to prolong sleep. Rodney’s arm was heavy across his back, pushing him further into comfort and the still quiet of the room. He stayed like this, aware that he was awake, but wanting to be this peaceful for a few more minutes. Deciding that there wasn’t enough time to have sex plus more sleep, John slid sleepy kisses along the side of Rodney’s face, ending with a lingering press on the mouth.
John pulled back, puzzled. Rodney wasn’t moving, no answering press on his lips, or a fumbling, groggy grope. He wasn’t breathing. John put his hand to Rodney’s chest, there was no rise and fall and no comforting thump of his heart.
“Rodney” he whispered, “Wake up.”
Rodney’s face didn’t move.
John slapped him, hard, across the face. Rodney didn’t move. John, feeling the sting against his palm, began to realize that not only was Rodney not waking up, but he wasn’t changing position at all. Not a wisp of hair had moved, no flush where he’d been slapped, and John realized that when he’d moved to slap Rodney he’d had to work around Rodney, that Rodney's arm hadn’t given an inch.
John slapped Rodney again, desperately this time, his other hand pulling at Rodney’s shirt. His fingers brushed against the material, but the cloth didn’t move. John tried to sit up, but was trapped by Rodney’s arm. The comforting weight of the morning had been replaced by a dead weight, and John struggled against the arm before flopping back onto the bed, tired.
John had to slide out from Rodney’s arm, body pressed against the mattress, blankets pushed up like a wall. He fought his way out of the bed and fell out onto the floor, blankets thudding back into the same exact position on the bed. He skittered backwards, staring at the bed, the only noise the drum of his heart in his ears. Rodney hadn’t moved, the blankets hadn’t moved. John could see the space of his body in the blankets, the outlines of his legs and back, and Rodney’s arm was curved in a half circle and John could practically feel the press of fingers on his back.
He couldn’t bear to touch Rodney again.
*
They had defeated the Wraith. In the end it was easy, they hadn’t lost anybody. It hadn’t been done by the military. The scientists had taken all their Star Trek experience and brought it to life, writing tactics and plans that had military men sobbing with laughter in their rooms. But it had worked and the scientists had saved the galaxy just like they had all imagined back in elementary school. The marines had been in charge of the after-party, hanging streamers and conscripting iPods. John had moved through the night in a bright whirl of happiness. He had his back slapped and his cheek kissed, and no one had ever seen his smile so wide or his cheeks so pink. He hadn’t even gotten a glimpse of Rodney until the end of the evening - he’d been the star of the night and an impenetrably tight knot of scientists had flanked his every move. John could hear his laugh clear across the end of the room.
Party kicking up in a second wind and Elizabeth dancing with Zelenka, twirling around in her sparkly dress and John danced with Teyla whose eyes were brighter than he’d ever seen. Rodney was dancing with Dr. Simpson until Sergeant Stackhouse cut in - but partners were being traded so liberally that no one could have guessed these two were meant for each other. Rodney ducked of the dance floor, weaving a bit, and John pressed Teyla into Ronon’s willing arms.
Rodney, red and glowing, says ‘I love you,’ laughing with dizzy relief. John hugs him and feels like he’s flying, light as air and going faster that he’s ever gone. He kisses Rodney, swallowing his laughter, tasting it fizzy on his tongue. Someone behind him whoops and as they break apart John can see Caldwell looking at them with a smile.
*
John walks through the halls and sees the aftereffects of the party, frozen. Motionless statues of people in mid step, talking, yawning. John rounds the corner and sees two scientists trapped mid kiss and John pauses just staring at them.
He blinks, and fumbles with his earpiece, trying to find a live channel. He checks for his gun, for the thousandth time, at his thigh holster when he comes across Lt. Cadman. She’s frozen mid turn and her hair fans about her face. Feeling dirty, John slowly knelt down and started to unbuckle her left handed thigh holster. “I need another gun” John told himself out loud “this is what I need to do.”
*
He pauses at Elizabeth’s room and John tries to think back to his health classes and what constitutes as an invasion of privacy. He pushes the door open and she’s asleep on her bed. John takes two steps inside the room and he can hardly breath because he can see that she’s not moving and that she has ‘Menstruate with pride’ written on her night shirt. He closes her door as he leaves.
He passes people in the halls and he almost expects them to somehow wake up and finish their motion. He slaps a few on the shoulder as he goes by, but none of them even tip.
*
He hadn’t known they were in love until this second. Ronon and Teyla are fighting in the gym - or at least they were fighting, John amends in his head. Hair whipping around, staring into each others' eyes, Teyla is suspended in mid air and John wants to throw up when he sees the softness in Ronon’s eyes and the tiny smile on Teyla’s lips.
John should have told Rodney he loved him.
*
The fact that Chuck is moving seems so normal that John doesn’t even notice at first. He burst into the gateroom and moves toward the Stargate, his eyes passing over Chuck’s flailing hands, and over to the Marines standing frozen in the corner.
It isn’t until Chuck starts yelling that his brain catches up and he realizes that he isn’t all alone. He’d never realized it before, but right now, Chuck is the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.
“John! John!” and that’s all Chuck’s said, but it doesn’t matter because at least it’s something.
John strode over too him, eager long steps and grabbed him up in a tight hug, burying his face in Chuck’s neck. Chuck’s hands patted his back awkwardly and this wasn’t what John wanted.
He stepped back, quickly, cheeks colouring with embarrassment and asked “Who? Who else is there?”
Chuck’s hands were still at his sides, and he sat back down onto the console chair. “I don’t know. I - I thought it was just me, Kate was gone and-”
“Gone? Like disappeared?” Disappeared gave him something to work with, gone just meant more of this.
“No, just. Just still and she wasn’t moving, and I ran to the med lab, but they were all frozen, and”
“Have you been anywhere else?”
“I came here. This is my job.” Chuck put his hands on the console and looked at the Stargate “I didn’t know where else to go.” Chuck’s face was blank and John remembered the months after Peter died when he hadn’t bothered to find out Chuck’s name. He looked at Chuck’s still hands.
“We have to find out what is causing this.”
*
They searched every room and John never became less anxious about walking into everyone’s private moments. Chuck had no such preoccupation, and John would scuffle his fingers over his thigh holster as Chuck marched in, jabbed the occupant of the room, and walked back out again.
Carson’s room was more of the same. John and Chuck pulled the door open, Chuck marched up to the bed as John dawdled in the entranceway. A swift slap to the face, a lift of the covers, and they were off to search the next room. Except for they never made it out the door.
John had his gun trained on Carson before he found his voice to shout. Carson had leapt on Chuck’s back and was fighting him down while trying to stick a syringe in his neck.
“Carson, Carson!”
Chuck yelled it too, and Carson tensed and rolled off of him.
“Well what in the hell was that for” Carson panted from the floor. “You don’t wake a man up like that.”
John was somehow not surprised that Carson wore footie pajamas.
John opened his mouth to explain that the whole world had frozen, but all that comes out is “I need to go.”
He’s glad Carson is alive, but he’ll let Chuck explain. He takes deep breaths in the hall and checks his gun for bullets.
*
Miko was brushing her hair in the mirror when they walked in on her.
John wasn’t surprised to see that her quarters were twice the size of his with a view of the ocean and a balcony. Elizabeth wasn’t subtle about empowering women; the women also got six days a month to go renew their souls in a womanhood workshop on the mainland.
“What are you doing in my room,” Miko asked, pulling at her neckline. “Where is Dr. McKay?”
John’s insides tightened. “Everyone’s frozen.”
“Frozen,” Miko raised her eyebrows, “Is the heating broken? That’s what’s his name’s job down in the South Wing.”
John tried to articulate it with his hands. It was harder than Rodney made it look.
“They seem to be in some sort of paralysis.” Carson motioned at curtains paused mid wave, “The whole world has just stopped.”
Miko was tiny and looked very young with her hair down around her shoulders.
“Ah.” Mido says, so calmly John didn’t think she understood so he started “Frozen -“
Miko walked over to her bedside table and pulled out a 9mm. John stopped talking and stared at Miko again. He suddenly remembered the siege, and how Miko needed someone to strap a thigh holster on for her. But she had been so, so brave, all the scientists had been, and Bates had told him that she had killed a wraith.
She was checking her gun with sure fingers and John felt the tension leaking out of his shoulders as he watched her.
“Miko, take point.” John strode out of the room.
“Take what?” Miko looked at him questioningly.
John felt his stomach sink a little. “Never mind.”
The first person they saw when they left Miko’s room was Dr. Kavenaugh and Miko turned into a blur as she hurled herself into his arms. “Oh Michael!” and John felt oddly betrayed as she fell to pieces.
*
Lorne is in bed with some woman John vaguely recognizes as an Athosian. He had sat up as soon as the door had opened, trying to cover himself with a sheet that wouldn’t move.
“The hell!” John’s 2IC had just stepped into his pants, which had been crumpled, and was trying to pull them up, “What is going on?” and he managed to pull the pants up, but the force knocked him back on his bed.
“The world’s frozen.”
Lorne looked at the girl, back at John, and then back at the girl.
“Her too.”
“Well I guess that saves me from having to give her the good morning brush off.” Lorne hopped out of the bed, grabbed his gun and a knife from under his bed.
As they went out the door, John felt glad that at least somebody was acting as they were supposed too.
*
They went to the conference room where they found four more people.
“Hello,” said Lt. Edison, “Something odd has happened.”
Everyone nodded their heads.
“I’m having a strange sense of déjà vu about this whole thing though, it’s the weirdest thing,” said Abby Madison.
Eight pairs of eyes swung towards her.
“That is odd.”
This wouldn’t be happening if they had more military, John thought idly, they’d be shooting a lot more instead of this awkward, forced politeness.
“We searched the city,” John started, taking a step towards Edison.
“Well you obviously didn’t do too good of a job of it” said a woman whose name he didn’t know and John thought it was wise to not go down this path.
“Who are you.” He demanded abruptly. Maybe this strange woman was a spy sent from somewhere who had cast a magic spell. “What are you doing here?”
The woman gaped at him.
“She’s - she works here John.” Chuck said quietly. “She went on two missions with you.”
John had a brief flashback of excitement over turnips. He eyed the woman. He was a good leader, he was sure of it.
*
They all sat down around the conference table and looked at John. John looked at Lorne and wished very hard he wasn’t the acting commander of Atlantis.
“So, Carson” John said abruptly, “What caused this?”
Carson looked shocked and then flustered and then started sputtering. “I’m a genetic scientist! This is obviously not a medical problem!”
“Actually,” Lorne broke in, “it kind of reminds me off the end of the world.”
No one paid attention for a moment, and then “Could you repeat that?”
“You know,” Lorne said grimacing. “If I didn’t know better I’d think this was the end of the world.”
John stared. “What,” he enunciated, “Are you talking about.”
“Teleology. I remember it from my religious studies class.”
“You took religious studies? What kind of Marine are you?”
“Not all of us are plucked from obscurity, Sheppard. Some of us have appropriate backgrounds, and are prepared for new cultures.” Lorne leaned back and crossed his arms. “Some of us actually had to work to get onto this mission.”
John stared some more. “End of the world. Teleosomething.”
“It’s sort of” Lorne put his hands on the table “it’s sort of the theory that everything in the world is headed towards something, to some perfect moment where everything is as fate intended.”
John remembered the smiles on everyone’s faces last night with a sickening horror in his stomach.
“And then what.” It wasn’t a question.
“Everything stops at that moment, they got where they were supposed too -“
Everyone was looking at Lorne and Miko had put her head in her hands.
Lorne bit his lip and rubbed his jaw. “Look at it this way. It’s like the universe is taking a picture, and it waits for everyone in the picture to finish brushing their hair, and sneezing or making a face. When everything looks just right, it takes the photo; and everything is stuck like that, the perfect moment frozen in time.”
John thought back to the thousands of times his mother had tried to force his hair into submission and begged him to smile for the camera.
But that’s scientifically impossible!” exclaimed Dr. Manwarring. “That just can’t happen!”
“Why not?” John demanded, hopeful that it was not, in fact, the end of the world.
“I… don’t know.” Dr. Manwarring (Talia, John amended. If it was the end of the world, they were all automatically on a first name basis) “I’m a biologist. I can tell you all about plants.”
“But then why are we here,” demanded John; this could not be possible. The end of the world was supposed to be fire and brimstone, explosions and sonic booms. Not this stillness. “Why are we still moving?”
The room went uncomfortably silent. Carson looked down at the tabletop and Miko traced her fingers up and down her arms.
“Lorne.” It still wasn’t a question.
“It was one class! Nine years ago! How much do you remember from college?”
John considered, and secretly agreed. But a leader could never back down - he’d learned that from Elizabeth. “I remember everything.”
Lorne rolled his eyes, which was a movement John had seen many times from him. Maybe he had a facial tick.
Edison slapped the table top. “We have the gene.”
John rolled his eyes. “Lots of people have the gene - a quarter of Atlantis.” Rodney had the gene.
“No, no,” Carson’s accent was thickening, “We all have the natural gene, were born with it. We are the only ones who had it naturally.”
“Accept no substitutions!” Lorne smirked.
Abby looked up. Everyone around the table had been twitching and fidgeting more than usual, but Abby had gone completely still.
“I think,” she said slowly, “that you are completely right.”
Lorne looked uncomfortable. “I’m not you know, I have no problem with the fake gene, some of my best friends have it, I just wouldn’t want -“
Abby stood up abruptly. “I think - I - Come with me.” and she walked out of the room.
John checked his sidearm and with the rest of the group followed her out the door.
*
John hadn’t been in the map room since they had first arrived. But Abby moved with swift certainty to the console and keyed up the hologram.
The same woman started to speak, but this time she was wearing different clothing and was speaking Ancient. Abby’s fingers flew across the console, and the hologram began flicking through different people, wearing different clothing.
She stopped abruptly and told John to shut up before he could even ask his question.
“I have to listen.” The man in the hologram had a pleasant expression on his face, and John thought that Ancient sounded a little bit like French. The man’s face was so benign that this freezing thing had to be some temporary hiccup, John thought idly.
Abby’s face was pale and she was muttering in Ancient alongside the hologram. The hologram finished.
“Put it on again” she ordered roughly.
“What did it say?” Carson touched her shoulder, but she flinched away.
“Just - put it on again.” Her face was set and Edison reached over her to press the start button.
She didn’t look any happier the second time through and John thought that he should make sure the whole team was properly armed.
She sat down on the floor when it was over, knees pressed up to her chest, twisting her hair in her fingers.
“Lorne was right,” she said, and John had to kneel awkwardly down to hear her. “It is the end of the world. The Ancients knew this would happen; they were working toward it.”
“But surely the Ancients wouldn’t want this for themselves.” Carson had slumped down against the wall.
“They didn’t want this for themselves.” Abby pushed her hair back and then combed it forward again, “they were going to have ascended.”
“Then why -“
Carson broke in, answering Edison’s question. “People with the gene were supposed to have ascended. We’re supposed to be on a higher level. This is bad, this is very very bad.”
Lorne straightened his shoulders and looked to John.
“Maybe it’s just Atlantis.”
“It could be just Atlantis.” Miko says suddenly, “someone in the labs could have activated something - Dr. Kavenaugh was working on a thing -.“
“It doesn’t have to be the end of the world.” Chuck was already out the door and moving toward the DHD console, sliding into the chair and touching the DHD lightly. “This could just be some Atlantis thing.” The wormhole burst open and John inadvertently took a step towards the blue shimmer.
“Where” he gestured towards the wormhole “is this?”
“PX2 419.” Chuck said. “Friendly natives, primitive technology, that meat that tasted like bananas.”
“Close it down.” John ordered.
Lorne who had been walking towards the Stargate turned to him. “Sir - “
“We’re going. We just need to get some stuff.”
*
No one had wanted to walk down the almost empty halls alone, so they had gone in pairs to gather their equipment.
It reminded John a little bit of elementary school, girls with girls, boys with boys, walking so close together as to be practically holding hands, heads bent together and skipping rather than walking. It was nice to have a plan.
Pairs peeled off from the pack at regular intervals, off to lab and armaments lockers, Carson muttering something about a portable MRI machine.
John went alone back to his room. He put his hand against the closed door, feeling like he should knock, and leaned his head against the smooth plasticky metal of the door before pushing it open.
Rodney was still there, face smooth and unworried, arm that should have been curled around John curving over the bed. The blanket had been left on the ground and John stepped over it to sit on the corner of the bed.
“Rodney.” He remembered their first kiss, a tipsy Rodney had kissed his way through Atlantis that night, but John had been waiting for that kiss and he’d pulled Rodney into a closet because he had finally gotten the sign he had been waiting for.
“I’m just going for a while.” He touched Rodney’s forehead, traced the line of his back. John picked the blanket up of the floor, fitting it into the grooves of Rodney’s (well loved) body. John fitted his fingers through Rodney’s and leaned down to whisper against his ear “I’m coming back.”
*
PX2-419 was a pretty planet, smooth mountains rising on the horizon, wild flowers brightening the landscape. It was a popular place for a romantic date in Atlantis, more than one scientist had gotten lucky while looking up at the stars.
It was usually a loud planet, bugs and birds and giant purple bison things, but today it was silent.
“Why can we hear each other? Sound requires waves. Waves that move.” John gestured with his P-90 towards Lorne. “Why can we see? The light is still moving.”
Lorne blinked. “I have no idea. I did my final paper on paganism.”
“There’s light in a photograph.” Chuck said. “Or when you pause a movie.”
“I think it’s a special thing.” Abby said.
“Science!” Miko said throwing up her hands , “it used to be useful. I knew I should have listened to my father and become a wife.”
“Let’s just keep going.” John said, and moved Edison to point so he could take six.
*
They passed a river, and John picked up some of the froth. It felt like the plastic grass his mother used to line his Easter baskets with. It didn’t dissolve when he touched it to his tongue, but it crunched under his teeth.
Talia trailed her fingers through a waterfall. “This reminds me off my ugly bead curtain in college.”
“We’re going to have a problem.” Edison said, putting down his P-90 and grabbing fistfuls of water droplets “if we can’t find drinkable water.”
“Let’s not worry about that now and keep moving.” John touched his sidearm, pulling at the straps of his thigh holster. “Maybe there are other people who can tell us what’s going on.”
*
Lorne found the first indication that they were not alone. He’d walked right into an arrow, falling forward onto the arrow head just hard enough to draw blood. “Ow!” he said. “God damn son of a bitch.”
“It really is amazing.” Carson said, leaning forward to examine the arrow protruding from Lorne’s chest. “It’s almost like it’s being suspended by wires.”
John followed the line of the arrow and found them, a group of young men, poised and ready.
“Crap.”
*
It was easier to poke and prod at these people. They were awake, for one thing and they looked mean; grimacing and squinting against the sun. And they looked more like wax figures than people.
Carson took their blood pressure, and looked for a heartbeat while John squinted at the horizon looking for any movement.
“Col. Sheppard,” Carson appeared at his elbow, “I want to bring one of these back to Atlantis.”
John looked at Carson, looking for a flower or some odd piece of technology. It took him a moment to realize Carson was talking about the hunters.
“Why, it’s not like we don’t have enough,” John waved his hands towards the hunters, “of these at home.”
“Well,” Carson said, looking down at his hands and then up at John’s left ear “I want to take some internal samples.”
“You can’t draw blood he-“ and then it hit John and he felt sick to his stomach. “You want to autopsy someone.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. I think - I think we could learn a great deal, provide some clues -“
Carson’s hands were tugging at his stethoscope.
John’s voice felt very far away, and the leaden pit in his stomach didn’t go away. “You’re right. It’s what we need to do.”
He and Lorne awkwardly circled the group of men. One of the men was stretched out on the ground, with his head propped up on his hands, looking through a pair of what looked like binoculars.
“This one,” Lorne said, motioning at him, “Easier to carry.”
The man wasn’t that heavy, but John was panting by the time they reached the gate. It had been a quiet trip back. John hadn’t had to tell the expedition what they were bringing the man back to Atlantis for. When Lorne and John had struggled to pick up the man, Miko had pursed her lips and Edison had crossed himself, but no one had asked any questions.
Chuck was walking over to the DHD to dial the gate when he turned and called over his shoulder “Hey, so why are we bringing this guy back to Atlantis anyways?”
John really, really hadn’t wanted to go over this.
Everyone sort of stared at Chuck awkwardly. Chuck stopped walking and fiddled with his cuff, “I mean, shouldn’t we leave him with his friends?”
John wanted to step forward, put his hand of Chuck’s shoulder and say the something with the perfect blend of compassion and strength. Instead he looked at Lorne. “Um.”
“I mean, what are we going to do with him.”
“We’re going to find out what the problem is.” It rang not quite right to even John’s ears.
“But what do you mean - why do we have to bring him back for that?”
Carson stepped forward, and put his hand of Chuck’s shoulder. “Look, son, we’re just going to do a wee operation on laddie here, see if this is a medical -“
Chuck shook the hand off his shoulder, his features twisting. “But that - it’s not right!”
“Dial the gate, Chuck.” John put his hand on his gun, looking for comfort.
Chuck’s eyes went straight to John’s gun and his face went pale. He turned and dialed the dhd and walked straight into the wormhole. John pretended he didn’t see the tears forming behind Chuck’s eyes.
“Come on everybody. Let’s go home.”
*
John watched from the viewing room while they autopsied the hunter.
Carson cut in with no hesitation. “There’s no blood flowing!” John could hear over the intercom. “It’s all there, in the veins - look here you can see …” Chuck, who had insisted on viewing as well, sat stone-faced at Carson’s mounting excitement.
John felt sick to his stomach and really wanted to make sure his sidearm was still attached.
*
They gathered once again in the boardroom.
“It doesn’t appear to be biological, there’s no natural cause for this, I can’t imagine what pathogen could cause this anyways.” Carson was still in his scrubs, which were pristine.
Miko laid her hands on the table. “I think,” she paused, and John missed how Rodney would jump quickly from brilliant thought to useful logic, words fluttering through the air. “I think,” she continued “that we need to consider all the possibilities.”
Lorne thumped his hands on the table. “We don’t need to think about the possibilities, we need to find a solution.”
“We need to go back to earth.” John leaned back in his chair, considering. “We need help, we don’t have - we need to see if it’s just us.”
“Sir,” Lorne said, looking at him like he was a six year old who was begging for a cookie, “we can’t get back to earth. We don’t have a ZPM and there’s no way we can get to the Daedelus.”
“We can find one.”
“Find a ZPM!” Chuck, his face turning red, leaned forward. “I have been looking through the records for weeks, months, looking for a ZPM. You think we can just find one!”
“We know where they are, we just couldn’t get to them.”
Lorne looked up. “The kid planet.”
“And Dagan. The monk planet.”
Miko was scribbling furiously on the tabletop.
“We don’t know if we can find the Dagan’s ZedPM - the kids, well we can’t just take it from them, what if they wake up and the Wraith come.” Chuck’s mouth was set in a thin line.
“I don’t think there’s much chance of them just spontaneously waking up.”
“And the wraith are frozen too.”
Chuck looked over at Edison accusingly. “How do you know that.”
“We’ve had monitoring camera on their ship for ages. Didn’t you know?”
John looked over at Edison. “I didn’t know and I’m the military commander of Atlantis.”
Lorne raised his eyebrow and smirked “I knew, sir.”
John raised both his brows and decided he better get back to the topic at hand. “But the ZPM on M7G-677 is almost depleted.”
Miko looked up. “It would work.”
She held up her pen and started tracing shapes in the air. “The compression caused by the frozen time will allow extra power to be generated by the ZPM’s. We should get much more capacity.”
“Huh,” said Abby. “I have no idea what you mean. But I guess the sciences aren’t as useless as I thought.”
John could practically hear Rodney’s derision for the social sciences. Before he could open his mouth, Lorne jumped in “So we could make it to earth?”
“And back,” Miko said. “Maybe three trips, if we hurry.”
John remembered other times he had sat around the conference table. He had sat brainstorming around this table countless times, and many of those times had been closing in on a near death experience. He’d been close to dying more times than he could count.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like the people who were sitting around the table discussing the physics of extending wormholes, but he really wished everything was something else.
*
In the end it was easy to get the ZPM’s. They had expected the kid’s planet to be easy, and it had been. John had decided to just bring Lorne and Edison and they had just walked in and taken the ZPM.
Edison hadn’t been able to come in to the village. There had been a girl, about six or seven, eyes open, flower in her hands, lying on the grass and Edison had decided that it was necessary to have someone guard the gate. Lorne told John later that Edison had volunteered to come to Atlantis because his family - wife, and two little girls had been killed in a car accident.
John had brought anyone who would come to Dagan. Chuck had stayed behind, not meeting John’s eyes as he volunteered to monitor the city.
It hadn’t been hard to find the ZPM. The new order of the priesthood had obviously decided that the Potentia was better protected with brute force than with stealth.
They were probably right, as well. Elizabeth had stuck trackers on every single member of the priesthood that had been in the clearing that day.
The Potentia was in a looked room guarded by guards posted in more locations than John bothered to scout.
As he picked up the ZPM and tucked it under his arm, his team wandered around the room.
“Hey,” said Abby, “this room is better guarded than that thing in that Indiana Jones movie. You should be dead by now.”
“Huh.”
“Can I take this?” Lorne held up a wicked looking knife.
“No,” John said walking towards the door, arm steadying the ZPM “we can’t steal from them.”
Lorne rolled his eyes.
“It’s the principle of the thing. Be a marine, Lorne.”
The women laughed and Lorne rolled his eyes. This felt oddly familiar and John felt sick to his stomach. He moved one hand to his sidearm, just in case.
*
“Does anyone want to stay in Atlantis?”
Everyone looked back at him. They hadn’t gone to get any more gear, except for a couple of radios that were already in the control room.
“Lorne, Edison. Go in first. The rest of us wait thirty seconds and then we’ll go. This has to be fast people.”
Lorne and Edison turned and saluted. “See you on the other side.” They went through with a wince. It hurt more the further you went and Earth was a hell of a long way away.
Chuck and Carson went through together, and Talia and Abby after them. John waited a minute and looked around the control room. “Keep the porch light on.”
He didn’t know what he was waiting for, so he turned and closing his eyes, stepped through the iris.
*
The first thing he heard on the other side were footsteps, but they turned out to be Miko’s so he lowered his gun. The second thing he heard was the cock of a gun so he raised it again.
It was Jack O’Neill, and they lowered their guns at the same instant.
Lorne snapped to a salute, and John noted with faint amusement that it was the polar opposite of the lazy smiling salute from the other side.
Miko threw herself onto O’Neil, sobbing “I’m so happy to see somebody.”
O’Neill looked a bit flustered, and awkwardly patting Miko’s hair he asked “What is going on here?”
The question was directed at all of them but everyone looked at John.
“Is - is everyone all right sir?”
“To hell they’re not. I thought it was bad traffic this morning when none of the cars were moving.”
John deflated a little bit. “Atlantis too, sir.”
“What’s going on here. Why are all these people” he gestured at a soldier that John hadn’t even noticed, “stuck.”
John didn’t bother listen to Lorne’s calm description of the situation interspersed with Carson’s chatter. He walked up to the control room and looked at the computer screens. There was nothing out of the ordinary.
“Chuck,” John leaned past Walter’s body to use the microphone. “No one’s on the other side to close the iris.”
Chuck jerked his head towards the Stargate and then stared at his hands.
“Huh. I guess there’s not.”
“So, Chuck, what’s going to happen.”
“Well” he said, still staring at his hands, “it’ll shut down in about 35 minutes.”
Miko disentangled from Gen. O’Neill. “It’s all right,” she called up. “It just means we can only make one more trip instead of two.”
The rest of the group (John couldn’t use the word team, it just didn’t fit) didn’t look too worried. None of them looked like they were feeling the same panic John was. He stared at the wormhole, and had to consciously tell his feet not to run toward it.
“But why waste all that power on making another gate trip?” Carson asked.
”Surely we could find a better use for it.”
“No”
John jerked his head toward Lorne, surprised to hear him speak.
“We should be able to go back to Atlantis if we need too.” Lorne’s face was grim and John felt a tug of relief that Lorne had said it, and not him.
O’Neill’s eyes darted towards John.
“I’m going back.” John’s voice was strangled, but he knew what he wanted to do. “I don’t know what’s happening -“
“We do know what’s happening.” Lorne said with frustration. “The world has ended and we’re the only survivors.”
Lorne smiled suddenly and smiled at the women, who were clustered together around a computer. “Time to repopulate the earth.”
“I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were the last man on earth!”
Lorne leered at Miko and cocked his brow.
“Chuck! He’s a man!” Miko blushed furiously and looked at Chuck, who had raised his eyebrows and was slowly backing away.
O’Neill looked at John. “The end of the world? No one ever tells me about these things.”
“I never see it coming.” John turned to the rest of the group. “I’m going back to Atlantis. Maybe it is the end of the world, and maybe that’s it. But I’m pretty sure we’re more likely to find an answer on Atlantis.”
Abby looked up. “Actually, that’s not necessarily true -“
“And if we can’t find the answer,” John raised his voice “I’d rather be in Atlantis.”
Everyone was silent. “You’re right,” Chuck said. “Our best chance is in Atlantis.”
“I don’t want to go back.” Edison said. He hadn’t spoken since they had stepped through the gate. “If this is going to be the end - I want to be here.”
“Well I’m staying too.” O’Neill said. “I’ve never been to Atlantis and I’ve never wanted too. I’ll see if I can go through Daniel’s records.”
“We can check in.” Chuck said “If you find anything, the radios are working.”
John could feel the tension rolling off of Carson. “I’m staying here. Me mum, I don’t want to…”
John hadn’t expected Carson to ever want to leave Atlantis. He’d never thought anyone would want to leave. John tried to speak, but when he opened his mouth nothing came out. He closed his mouth and felt roughness in the back of his throat.
“I’ll take you.” Edison said. “I’ll take you to your mom. I mean, if I can get something to work.”
John was pretty sure Edison would be going to find his family too, even if it was to only sit at their graves.
“Can you take me too?” Edison nodded at Talia, and John remembered that she’d only been in Atlantis for less than a month.
“We need a plan.” Lorne said. “We can’t just keep running back and forth like this, we need to do something.”
And then it clicked.
“I know what we need to do.” John said, and he knew with every fiber of his being. “We need to make everything a little less picture perfect.”
Chuck looked at John’s hand, which was touching his gun, warily. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” John said slowly “the universe made everything perfect and then it stopped.”
“Yes, but we knew that.”
“So we have to make everything a little less perfect.”
John had been expecting silence but everyone had started speaking, shouting over one another.
Lorne spoke the loudest. “You want to change the plan of the universe? You want to change the meaning of life itself? Should we do that?” Lorne’s face was drawn and he was staring at John intently.
John thought of Rodney’s quick hands and brilliant flashes of smile. He looked Lorne straight in the eye. “Yes.”
*
They went back to Atlantis and John had closed his eyes as he stepped through the Stargate, hoping that when he opened them again, everything would go back to normal.
It wasn’t back to normal, but at least he was back home in Atlantis. He turned to the much diminished group.
“So. We’re going to make things a little less picture perfect.”
The metal of his sidearm was cool under John’s fingers. “If this is the plan of the universe, we need to screw it up a little, see if we can’t knock everyone back to life.”
Chuck walked over to a computer and threw in onto the floor. John looked toward the frozen soldiers and tensed. Nothing happened.
“Something bigger, something that changes everything, that’s what we need.” John looked at Lorne. “What’ve we got?”
Lorne raised his brow and said carefully “Nothing huge, we could maybe cause a rockslide?”
“No, we need something bigger than that.” Miko tapped her finger against her arm. “To change the fundamentals.”
John closed his eyes. “We have a nuke.”
“Blowing out a planet? That’s pretty extreme.” Chuck said nervously, “Do we really want to do that?”
“We have to do this. It’s the only thing.” Rodney was so still, it was the most unnatural thing of all, bigger than any nuclear explosion. “It has to be big and it has to be done.”
John started walking towards the armaments room. “Lorne, come with me, Miko, go hook up some sort of remote control.” John looked at Chuck, who was twisting his hands. “Chuck, check for life signs and then get ready to dial the gate.”
*
John thought it would take longer to get everything together, but it felt like barely any time had passed before everyone was assembled in front of the gate.
Chuck was sitting at the console staring hard at the nuke. Miko was gingerly checking the wiring, attaching the remote control.
“Dial M7G-677.”
Chuck looked up sharply. “But that’s the planet with all the children!”
John swallowed. “I know. Dial the gate.”
“But -“
“Dial it now, Chuck.” It came out as a snarl and Miko put her hand over her mouth as Lorne studied his feet.
The gate burst open and John picked up one side of the platform the bomb was sitting on. Lorne picked up the other side silently and they walked through the gate, Miko and Chuck following behind.
*
“We can’t do this.”
Lorne and John had walked all the way to the middle of the village. A tiny pixie of a five year old girl was mid twirl in front of them and all around was tiny children in the middle of all sorts of games. John put down the platform.
“We need too.”
“We - look at them!” Chuck looked around despairingly, “There has to be another way.”
“Will the remote work as far as the Stargate?”
Miko’s face was drawn and her lips were a pale line across her face. She kept her gaze on the bomb. “Yes, but not through the Stargate, I can’t be sure -“
“Fine. Let’s go.” With one last look around the village, John turned and began the short walk back to the Stargate.
“Why this planet? Why not an uninhabited one? Why -“
John turned around. “We need to screw up the plan, we need to do something -“
He was interrupted by Chuck. “We’ll be killing a lot of people, we’ll be killing all of them!”
“They’re already dead Chuck.” John’s voice sounded tinny in his ears and there was lead in his stomach. “They’re just statues, they’re not people or alive.”
Chuck looked at John and lowered his eyes and followed as John began walking back to the Stargate.
They reached the Stargate and Miko handed John the remote control.
“We can’t do this.”
John sighed, “Chuck.”
Chuck walked up to John. “This isn’t right, we are not murderers.”
John opened his mouth but Chuck grabbed the remote. “We can’t do this, this is not who we are.”
John put his hand on his sidearm, and this time he didn’t know if it was only for comfort.
Chuck looked down at John’s gun and then back up at his face. “We can’t do this, I won’t let you.”
And then he froze.
John didn’t realize it for a moment, but then he tried to grab the remote out of Chuck’s hands. John pulled back like he’d been burnt.
“He’s frozen.”
Lorne walked up to Chuck and prodded him. “He’s gone.” He looked sideways at John. “Should we go home?”
“We need to finish what we came for.”
Miko was crying. “We can’t just leave him here!”
“He’ll be killed.” With that, Lorne picked up Chuck and straining, carried him toward the gate. Miko dialed and ran through the Stargate without looking back.
John walked towards the gate. He thought of Rodney and pressed the trigger. John could hear the sound of thunder and a flash of heat as he stepped through the gate. It was over.
*
John looked at Lorne and Miko, with their tense drawn faces and said “Lorne, you’re in charge.”
“When you will be back?”
“No.” John straightened. “You’re in charge for good, no matter what.” He saluted Lorne and held it until Lorne saluted back.
“Where are you going?”
John turned and walked towards his room. He could hear Lorne and Miko speaking and he could hear when Lorne cut off in the middle of a word and when Miko started yelling his name over and over again. He heard, but he kept walking.
He put his head against the door when he reached his room. He waited in the space of a drawn breath, listening for something, anything.
He opened the door and Rodney was still in bed, face still slack with sleep, arm still curved over the bed.
John didn’t speak as he pulled off his clothes and crawled into bed, inching his way under Rodney’s arm. He stared at Rodney’s face, serene and quiet. The long lashes, the faint pink of his cheek, the bow of his lips.
“I love you.” John whispered. “I love you.” And the world ended.
With A Whimper
Ratings and People: 14A, John/Rodney (not explicit), Lorne, Chuck, Miko, Carson
Disclaimer: Not mine
Summary:
“The end of the world? No one ever tells me about these things.” Lorne said, rolling his eyes.
“I never see it coming.” John turned to the rest of the group. “The end of the world is supposed to be fire and brimstone, explosions and sonic booms. Not this stillness. We have to find out what is going on.”
John drifted in and out of sleep, safe and warm in his bed. His body felt heavy, melting into the mattress, and his eyelids stayed closed, hoping to prolong sleep. Rodney’s arm was heavy across his back, pushing him further into comfort and the still quiet of the room. He stayed like this, aware that he was awake, but wanting to be this peaceful for a few more minutes. Deciding that there wasn’t enough time to have sex plus more sleep, John slid sleepy kisses along the side of Rodney’s face, ending with a lingering press on the mouth.
John pulled back, puzzled. Rodney wasn’t moving, no answering press on his lips, or a fumbling, groggy grope. He wasn’t breathing. John put his hand to Rodney’s chest, there was no rise and fall and no comforting thump of his heart.
“Rodney” he whispered, “Wake up.”
Rodney’s face didn’t move.
John slapped him, hard, across the face. Rodney didn’t move. John, feeling the sting against his palm, began to realize that not only was Rodney not waking up, but he wasn’t changing position at all. Not a wisp of hair had moved, no flush where he’d been slapped, and John realized that when he’d moved to slap Rodney he’d had to work around Rodney, that Rodney's arm hadn’t given an inch.
John slapped Rodney again, desperately this time, his other hand pulling at Rodney’s shirt. His fingers brushed against the material, but the cloth didn’t move. John tried to sit up, but was trapped by Rodney’s arm. The comforting weight of the morning had been replaced by a dead weight, and John struggled against the arm before flopping back onto the bed, tired.
John had to slide out from Rodney’s arm, body pressed against the mattress, blankets pushed up like a wall. He fought his way out of the bed and fell out onto the floor, blankets thudding back into the same exact position on the bed. He skittered backwards, staring at the bed, the only noise the drum of his heart in his ears. Rodney hadn’t moved, the blankets hadn’t moved. John could see the space of his body in the blankets, the outlines of his legs and back, and Rodney’s arm was curved in a half circle and John could practically feel the press of fingers on his back.
He couldn’t bear to touch Rodney again.
*
They had defeated the Wraith. In the end it was easy, they hadn’t lost anybody. It hadn’t been done by the military. The scientists had taken all their Star Trek experience and brought it to life, writing tactics and plans that had military men sobbing with laughter in their rooms. But it had worked and the scientists had saved the galaxy just like they had all imagined back in elementary school. The marines had been in charge of the after-party, hanging streamers and conscripting iPods. John had moved through the night in a bright whirl of happiness. He had his back slapped and his cheek kissed, and no one had ever seen his smile so wide or his cheeks so pink. He hadn’t even gotten a glimpse of Rodney until the end of the evening - he’d been the star of the night and an impenetrably tight knot of scientists had flanked his every move. John could hear his laugh clear across the end of the room.
Party kicking up in a second wind and Elizabeth dancing with Zelenka, twirling around in her sparkly dress and John danced with Teyla whose eyes were brighter than he’d ever seen. Rodney was dancing with Dr. Simpson until Sergeant Stackhouse cut in - but partners were being traded so liberally that no one could have guessed these two were meant for each other. Rodney ducked of the dance floor, weaving a bit, and John pressed Teyla into Ronon’s willing arms.
Rodney, red and glowing, says ‘I love you,’ laughing with dizzy relief. John hugs him and feels like he’s flying, light as air and going faster that he’s ever gone. He kisses Rodney, swallowing his laughter, tasting it fizzy on his tongue. Someone behind him whoops and as they break apart John can see Caldwell looking at them with a smile.
*
John walks through the halls and sees the aftereffects of the party, frozen. Motionless statues of people in mid step, talking, yawning. John rounds the corner and sees two scientists trapped mid kiss and John pauses just staring at them.
He blinks, and fumbles with his earpiece, trying to find a live channel. He checks for his gun, for the thousandth time, at his thigh holster when he comes across Lt. Cadman. She’s frozen mid turn and her hair fans about her face. Feeling dirty, John slowly knelt down and started to unbuckle her left handed thigh holster. “I need another gun” John told himself out loud “this is what I need to do.”
*
He pauses at Elizabeth’s room and John tries to think back to his health classes and what constitutes as an invasion of privacy. He pushes the door open and she’s asleep on her bed. John takes two steps inside the room and he can hardly breath because he can see that she’s not moving and that she has ‘Menstruate with pride’ written on her night shirt. He closes her door as he leaves.
He passes people in the halls and he almost expects them to somehow wake up and finish their motion. He slaps a few on the shoulder as he goes by, but none of them even tip.
*
He hadn’t known they were in love until this second. Ronon and Teyla are fighting in the gym - or at least they were fighting, John amends in his head. Hair whipping around, staring into each others' eyes, Teyla is suspended in mid air and John wants to throw up when he sees the softness in Ronon’s eyes and the tiny smile on Teyla’s lips.
John should have told Rodney he loved him.
*
The fact that Chuck is moving seems so normal that John doesn’t even notice at first. He burst into the gateroom and moves toward the Stargate, his eyes passing over Chuck’s flailing hands, and over to the Marines standing frozen in the corner.
It isn’t until Chuck starts yelling that his brain catches up and he realizes that he isn’t all alone. He’d never realized it before, but right now, Chuck is the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.
“John! John!” and that’s all Chuck’s said, but it doesn’t matter because at least it’s something.
John strode over too him, eager long steps and grabbed him up in a tight hug, burying his face in Chuck’s neck. Chuck’s hands patted his back awkwardly and this wasn’t what John wanted.
He stepped back, quickly, cheeks colouring with embarrassment and asked “Who? Who else is there?”
Chuck’s hands were still at his sides, and he sat back down onto the console chair. “I don’t know. I - I thought it was just me, Kate was gone and-”
“Gone? Like disappeared?” Disappeared gave him something to work with, gone just meant more of this.
“No, just. Just still and she wasn’t moving, and I ran to the med lab, but they were all frozen, and”
“Have you been anywhere else?”
“I came here. This is my job.” Chuck put his hands on the console and looked at the Stargate “I didn’t know where else to go.” Chuck’s face was blank and John remembered the months after Peter died when he hadn’t bothered to find out Chuck’s name. He looked at Chuck’s still hands.
“We have to find out what is causing this.”
*
They searched every room and John never became less anxious about walking into everyone’s private moments. Chuck had no such preoccupation, and John would scuffle his fingers over his thigh holster as Chuck marched in, jabbed the occupant of the room, and walked back out again.
Carson’s room was more of the same. John and Chuck pulled the door open, Chuck marched up to the bed as John dawdled in the entranceway. A swift slap to the face, a lift of the covers, and they were off to search the next room. Except for they never made it out the door.
John had his gun trained on Carson before he found his voice to shout. Carson had leapt on Chuck’s back and was fighting him down while trying to stick a syringe in his neck.
“Carson, Carson!”
Chuck yelled it too, and Carson tensed and rolled off of him.
“Well what in the hell was that for” Carson panted from the floor. “You don’t wake a man up like that.”
John was somehow not surprised that Carson wore footie pajamas.
John opened his mouth to explain that the whole world had frozen, but all that comes out is “I need to go.”
He’s glad Carson is alive, but he’ll let Chuck explain. He takes deep breaths in the hall and checks his gun for bullets.
*
Miko was brushing her hair in the mirror when they walked in on her.
John wasn’t surprised to see that her quarters were twice the size of his with a view of the ocean and a balcony. Elizabeth wasn’t subtle about empowering women; the women also got six days a month to go renew their souls in a womanhood workshop on the mainland.
“What are you doing in my room,” Miko asked, pulling at her neckline. “Where is Dr. McKay?”
John’s insides tightened. “Everyone’s frozen.”
“Frozen,” Miko raised her eyebrows, “Is the heating broken? That’s what’s his name’s job down in the South Wing.”
John tried to articulate it with his hands. It was harder than Rodney made it look.
“They seem to be in some sort of paralysis.” Carson motioned at curtains paused mid wave, “The whole world has just stopped.”
Miko was tiny and looked very young with her hair down around her shoulders.
“Ah.” Mido says, so calmly John didn’t think she understood so he started “Frozen -“
Miko walked over to her bedside table and pulled out a 9mm. John stopped talking and stared at Miko again. He suddenly remembered the siege, and how Miko needed someone to strap a thigh holster on for her. But she had been so, so brave, all the scientists had been, and Bates had told him that she had killed a wraith.
She was checking her gun with sure fingers and John felt the tension leaking out of his shoulders as he watched her.
“Miko, take point.” John strode out of the room.
“Take what?” Miko looked at him questioningly.
John felt his stomach sink a little. “Never mind.”
The first person they saw when they left Miko’s room was Dr. Kavenaugh and Miko turned into a blur as she hurled herself into his arms. “Oh Michael!” and John felt oddly betrayed as she fell to pieces.
*
Lorne is in bed with some woman John vaguely recognizes as an Athosian. He had sat up as soon as the door had opened, trying to cover himself with a sheet that wouldn’t move.
“The hell!” John’s 2IC had just stepped into his pants, which had been crumpled, and was trying to pull them up, “What is going on?” and he managed to pull the pants up, but the force knocked him back on his bed.
“The world’s frozen.”
Lorne looked at the girl, back at John, and then back at the girl.
“Her too.”
“Well I guess that saves me from having to give her the good morning brush off.” Lorne hopped out of the bed, grabbed his gun and a knife from under his bed.
As they went out the door, John felt glad that at least somebody was acting as they were supposed too.
*
They went to the conference room where they found four more people.
“Hello,” said Lt. Edison, “Something odd has happened.”
Everyone nodded their heads.
“I’m having a strange sense of déjà vu about this whole thing though, it’s the weirdest thing,” said Abby Madison.
Eight pairs of eyes swung towards her.
“That is odd.”
This wouldn’t be happening if they had more military, John thought idly, they’d be shooting a lot more instead of this awkward, forced politeness.
“We searched the city,” John started, taking a step towards Edison.
“Well you obviously didn’t do too good of a job of it” said a woman whose name he didn’t know and John thought it was wise to not go down this path.
“Who are you.” He demanded abruptly. Maybe this strange woman was a spy sent from somewhere who had cast a magic spell. “What are you doing here?”
The woman gaped at him.
“She’s - she works here John.” Chuck said quietly. “She went on two missions with you.”
John had a brief flashback of excitement over turnips. He eyed the woman. He was a good leader, he was sure of it.
*
They all sat down around the conference table and looked at John. John looked at Lorne and wished very hard he wasn’t the acting commander of Atlantis.
“So, Carson” John said abruptly, “What caused this?”
Carson looked shocked and then flustered and then started sputtering. “I’m a genetic scientist! This is obviously not a medical problem!”
“Actually,” Lorne broke in, “it kind of reminds me off the end of the world.”
No one paid attention for a moment, and then “Could you repeat that?”
“You know,” Lorne said grimacing. “If I didn’t know better I’d think this was the end of the world.”
John stared. “What,” he enunciated, “Are you talking about.”
“Teleology. I remember it from my religious studies class.”
“You took religious studies? What kind of Marine are you?”
“Not all of us are plucked from obscurity, Sheppard. Some of us have appropriate backgrounds, and are prepared for new cultures.” Lorne leaned back and crossed his arms. “Some of us actually had to work to get onto this mission.”
John stared some more. “End of the world. Teleosomething.”
“It’s sort of” Lorne put his hands on the table “it’s sort of the theory that everything in the world is headed towards something, to some perfect moment where everything is as fate intended.”
John remembered the smiles on everyone’s faces last night with a sickening horror in his stomach.
“And then what.” It wasn’t a question.
“Everything stops at that moment, they got where they were supposed too -“
Everyone was looking at Lorne and Miko had put her head in her hands.
Lorne bit his lip and rubbed his jaw. “Look at it this way. It’s like the universe is taking a picture, and it waits for everyone in the picture to finish brushing their hair, and sneezing or making a face. When everything looks just right, it takes the photo; and everything is stuck like that, the perfect moment frozen in time.”
John thought back to the thousands of times his mother had tried to force his hair into submission and begged him to smile for the camera.
But that’s scientifically impossible!” exclaimed Dr. Manwarring. “That just can’t happen!”
“Why not?” John demanded, hopeful that it was not, in fact, the end of the world.
“I… don’t know.” Dr. Manwarring (Talia, John amended. If it was the end of the world, they were all automatically on a first name basis) “I’m a biologist. I can tell you all about plants.”
“But then why are we here,” demanded John; this could not be possible. The end of the world was supposed to be fire and brimstone, explosions and sonic booms. Not this stillness. “Why are we still moving?”
The room went uncomfortably silent. Carson looked down at the tabletop and Miko traced her fingers up and down her arms.
“Lorne.” It still wasn’t a question.
“It was one class! Nine years ago! How much do you remember from college?”
John considered, and secretly agreed. But a leader could never back down - he’d learned that from Elizabeth. “I remember everything.”
Lorne rolled his eyes, which was a movement John had seen many times from him. Maybe he had a facial tick.
Edison slapped the table top. “We have the gene.”
John rolled his eyes. “Lots of people have the gene - a quarter of Atlantis.” Rodney had the gene.
“No, no,” Carson’s accent was thickening, “We all have the natural gene, were born with it. We are the only ones who had it naturally.”
“Accept no substitutions!” Lorne smirked.
Abby looked up. Everyone around the table had been twitching and fidgeting more than usual, but Abby had gone completely still.
“I think,” she said slowly, “that you are completely right.”
Lorne looked uncomfortable. “I’m not you know, I have no problem with the fake gene, some of my best friends have it, I just wouldn’t want -“
Abby stood up abruptly. “I think - I - Come with me.” and she walked out of the room.
John checked his sidearm and with the rest of the group followed her out the door.
*
John hadn’t been in the map room since they had first arrived. But Abby moved with swift certainty to the console and keyed up the hologram.
The same woman started to speak, but this time she was wearing different clothing and was speaking Ancient. Abby’s fingers flew across the console, and the hologram began flicking through different people, wearing different clothing.
She stopped abruptly and told John to shut up before he could even ask his question.
“I have to listen.” The man in the hologram had a pleasant expression on his face, and John thought that Ancient sounded a little bit like French. The man’s face was so benign that this freezing thing had to be some temporary hiccup, John thought idly.
Abby’s face was pale and she was muttering in Ancient alongside the hologram. The hologram finished.
“Put it on again” she ordered roughly.
“What did it say?” Carson touched her shoulder, but she flinched away.
“Just - put it on again.” Her face was set and Edison reached over her to press the start button.
She didn’t look any happier the second time through and John thought that he should make sure the whole team was properly armed.
She sat down on the floor when it was over, knees pressed up to her chest, twisting her hair in her fingers.
“Lorne was right,” she said, and John had to kneel awkwardly down to hear her. “It is the end of the world. The Ancients knew this would happen; they were working toward it.”
“But surely the Ancients wouldn’t want this for themselves.” Carson had slumped down against the wall.
“They didn’t want this for themselves.” Abby pushed her hair back and then combed it forward again, “they were going to have ascended.”
“Then why -“
Carson broke in, answering Edison’s question. “People with the gene were supposed to have ascended. We’re supposed to be on a higher level. This is bad, this is very very bad.”
Lorne straightened his shoulders and looked to John.
“Maybe it’s just Atlantis.”
“It could be just Atlantis.” Miko says suddenly, “someone in the labs could have activated something - Dr. Kavenaugh was working on a thing -.“
“It doesn’t have to be the end of the world.” Chuck was already out the door and moving toward the DHD console, sliding into the chair and touching the DHD lightly. “This could just be some Atlantis thing.” The wormhole burst open and John inadvertently took a step towards the blue shimmer.
“Where” he gestured towards the wormhole “is this?”
“PX2 419.” Chuck said. “Friendly natives, primitive technology, that meat that tasted like bananas.”
“Close it down.” John ordered.
Lorne who had been walking towards the Stargate turned to him. “Sir - “
“We’re going. We just need to get some stuff.”
*
No one had wanted to walk down the almost empty halls alone, so they had gone in pairs to gather their equipment.
It reminded John a little bit of elementary school, girls with girls, boys with boys, walking so close together as to be practically holding hands, heads bent together and skipping rather than walking. It was nice to have a plan.
Pairs peeled off from the pack at regular intervals, off to lab and armaments lockers, Carson muttering something about a portable MRI machine.
John went alone back to his room. He put his hand against the closed door, feeling like he should knock, and leaned his head against the smooth plasticky metal of the door before pushing it open.
Rodney was still there, face smooth and unworried, arm that should have been curled around John curving over the bed. The blanket had been left on the ground and John stepped over it to sit on the corner of the bed.
“Rodney.” He remembered their first kiss, a tipsy Rodney had kissed his way through Atlantis that night, but John had been waiting for that kiss and he’d pulled Rodney into a closet because he had finally gotten the sign he had been waiting for.
“I’m just going for a while.” He touched Rodney’s forehead, traced the line of his back. John picked the blanket up of the floor, fitting it into the grooves of Rodney’s (well loved) body. John fitted his fingers through Rodney’s and leaned down to whisper against his ear “I’m coming back.”
*
PX2-419 was a pretty planet, smooth mountains rising on the horizon, wild flowers brightening the landscape. It was a popular place for a romantic date in Atlantis, more than one scientist had gotten lucky while looking up at the stars.
It was usually a loud planet, bugs and birds and giant purple bison things, but today it was silent.
“Why can we hear each other? Sound requires waves. Waves that move.” John gestured with his P-90 towards Lorne. “Why can we see? The light is still moving.”
Lorne blinked. “I have no idea. I did my final paper on paganism.”
“There’s light in a photograph.” Chuck said. “Or when you pause a movie.”
“I think it’s a special thing.” Abby said.
“Science!” Miko said throwing up her hands , “it used to be useful. I knew I should have listened to my father and become a wife.”
“Let’s just keep going.” John said, and moved Edison to point so he could take six.
*
They passed a river, and John picked up some of the froth. It felt like the plastic grass his mother used to line his Easter baskets with. It didn’t dissolve when he touched it to his tongue, but it crunched under his teeth.
Talia trailed her fingers through a waterfall. “This reminds me off my ugly bead curtain in college.”
“We’re going to have a problem.” Edison said, putting down his P-90 and grabbing fistfuls of water droplets “if we can’t find drinkable water.”
“Let’s not worry about that now and keep moving.” John touched his sidearm, pulling at the straps of his thigh holster. “Maybe there are other people who can tell us what’s going on.”
*
Lorne found the first indication that they were not alone. He’d walked right into an arrow, falling forward onto the arrow head just hard enough to draw blood. “Ow!” he said. “God damn son of a bitch.”
“It really is amazing.” Carson said, leaning forward to examine the arrow protruding from Lorne’s chest. “It’s almost like it’s being suspended by wires.”
John followed the line of the arrow and found them, a group of young men, poised and ready.
“Crap.”
*
It was easier to poke and prod at these people. They were awake, for one thing and they looked mean; grimacing and squinting against the sun. And they looked more like wax figures than people.
Carson took their blood pressure, and looked for a heartbeat while John squinted at the horizon looking for any movement.
“Col. Sheppard,” Carson appeared at his elbow, “I want to bring one of these back to Atlantis.”
John looked at Carson, looking for a flower or some odd piece of technology. It took him a moment to realize Carson was talking about the hunters.
“Why, it’s not like we don’t have enough,” John waved his hands towards the hunters, “of these at home.”
“Well,” Carson said, looking down at his hands and then up at John’s left ear “I want to take some internal samples.”
“You can’t draw blood he-“ and then it hit John and he felt sick to his stomach. “You want to autopsy someone.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. I think - I think we could learn a great deal, provide some clues -“
Carson’s hands were tugging at his stethoscope.
John’s voice felt very far away, and the leaden pit in his stomach didn’t go away. “You’re right. It’s what we need to do.”
He and Lorne awkwardly circled the group of men. One of the men was stretched out on the ground, with his head propped up on his hands, looking through a pair of what looked like binoculars.
“This one,” Lorne said, motioning at him, “Easier to carry.”
The man wasn’t that heavy, but John was panting by the time they reached the gate. It had been a quiet trip back. John hadn’t had to tell the expedition what they were bringing the man back to Atlantis for. When Lorne and John had struggled to pick up the man, Miko had pursed her lips and Edison had crossed himself, but no one had asked any questions.
Chuck was walking over to the DHD to dial the gate when he turned and called over his shoulder “Hey, so why are we bringing this guy back to Atlantis anyways?”
John really, really hadn’t wanted to go over this.
Everyone sort of stared at Chuck awkwardly. Chuck stopped walking and fiddled with his cuff, “I mean, shouldn’t we leave him with his friends?”
John wanted to step forward, put his hand of Chuck’s shoulder and say the something with the perfect blend of compassion and strength. Instead he looked at Lorne. “Um.”
“I mean, what are we going to do with him.”
“We’re going to find out what the problem is.” It rang not quite right to even John’s ears.
“But what do you mean - why do we have to bring him back for that?”
Carson stepped forward, and put his hand of Chuck’s shoulder. “Look, son, we’re just going to do a wee operation on laddie here, see if this is a medical -“
Chuck shook the hand off his shoulder, his features twisting. “But that - it’s not right!”
“Dial the gate, Chuck.” John put his hand on his gun, looking for comfort.
Chuck’s eyes went straight to John’s gun and his face went pale. He turned and dialed the dhd and walked straight into the wormhole. John pretended he didn’t see the tears forming behind Chuck’s eyes.
“Come on everybody. Let’s go home.”
*
John watched from the viewing room while they autopsied the hunter.
Carson cut in with no hesitation. “There’s no blood flowing!” John could hear over the intercom. “It’s all there, in the veins - look here you can see …” Chuck, who had insisted on viewing as well, sat stone-faced at Carson’s mounting excitement.
John felt sick to his stomach and really wanted to make sure his sidearm was still attached.
*
They gathered once again in the boardroom.
“It doesn’t appear to be biological, there’s no natural cause for this, I can’t imagine what pathogen could cause this anyways.” Carson was still in his scrubs, which were pristine.
Miko laid her hands on the table. “I think,” she paused, and John missed how Rodney would jump quickly from brilliant thought to useful logic, words fluttering through the air. “I think,” she continued “that we need to consider all the possibilities.”
Lorne thumped his hands on the table. “We don’t need to think about the possibilities, we need to find a solution.”
“We need to go back to earth.” John leaned back in his chair, considering. “We need help, we don’t have - we need to see if it’s just us.”
“Sir,” Lorne said, looking at him like he was a six year old who was begging for a cookie, “we can’t get back to earth. We don’t have a ZPM and there’s no way we can get to the Daedelus.”
“We can find one.”
“Find a ZPM!” Chuck, his face turning red, leaned forward. “I have been looking through the records for weeks, months, looking for a ZPM. You think we can just find one!”
“We know where they are, we just couldn’t get to them.”
Lorne looked up. “The kid planet.”
“And Dagan. The monk planet.”
Miko was scribbling furiously on the tabletop.
“We don’t know if we can find the Dagan’s ZedPM - the kids, well we can’t just take it from them, what if they wake up and the Wraith come.” Chuck’s mouth was set in a thin line.
“I don’t think there’s much chance of them just spontaneously waking up.”
“And the wraith are frozen too.”
Chuck looked over at Edison accusingly. “How do you know that.”
“We’ve had monitoring camera on their ship for ages. Didn’t you know?”
John looked over at Edison. “I didn’t know and I’m the military commander of Atlantis.”
Lorne raised his eyebrow and smirked “I knew, sir.”
John raised both his brows and decided he better get back to the topic at hand. “But the ZPM on M7G-677 is almost depleted.”
Miko looked up. “It would work.”
She held up her pen and started tracing shapes in the air. “The compression caused by the frozen time will allow extra power to be generated by the ZPM’s. We should get much more capacity.”
“Huh,” said Abby. “I have no idea what you mean. But I guess the sciences aren’t as useless as I thought.”
John could practically hear Rodney’s derision for the social sciences. Before he could open his mouth, Lorne jumped in “So we could make it to earth?”
“And back,” Miko said. “Maybe three trips, if we hurry.”
John remembered other times he had sat around the conference table. He had sat brainstorming around this table countless times, and many of those times had been closing in on a near death experience. He’d been close to dying more times than he could count.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like the people who were sitting around the table discussing the physics of extending wormholes, but he really wished everything was something else.
*
In the end it was easy to get the ZPM’s. They had expected the kid’s planet to be easy, and it had been. John had decided to just bring Lorne and Edison and they had just walked in and taken the ZPM.
Edison hadn’t been able to come in to the village. There had been a girl, about six or seven, eyes open, flower in her hands, lying on the grass and Edison had decided that it was necessary to have someone guard the gate. Lorne told John later that Edison had volunteered to come to Atlantis because his family - wife, and two little girls had been killed in a car accident.
John had brought anyone who would come to Dagan. Chuck had stayed behind, not meeting John’s eyes as he volunteered to monitor the city.
It hadn’t been hard to find the ZPM. The new order of the priesthood had obviously decided that the Potentia was better protected with brute force than with stealth.
They were probably right, as well. Elizabeth had stuck trackers on every single member of the priesthood that had been in the clearing that day.
The Potentia was in a looked room guarded by guards posted in more locations than John bothered to scout.
As he picked up the ZPM and tucked it under his arm, his team wandered around the room.
“Hey,” said Abby, “this room is better guarded than that thing in that Indiana Jones movie. You should be dead by now.”
“Huh.”
“Can I take this?” Lorne held up a wicked looking knife.
“No,” John said walking towards the door, arm steadying the ZPM “we can’t steal from them.”
Lorne rolled his eyes.
“It’s the principle of the thing. Be a marine, Lorne.”
The women laughed and Lorne rolled his eyes. This felt oddly familiar and John felt sick to his stomach. He moved one hand to his sidearm, just in case.
*
“Does anyone want to stay in Atlantis?”
Everyone looked back at him. They hadn’t gone to get any more gear, except for a couple of radios that were already in the control room.
“Lorne, Edison. Go in first. The rest of us wait thirty seconds and then we’ll go. This has to be fast people.”
Lorne and Edison turned and saluted. “See you on the other side.” They went through with a wince. It hurt more the further you went and Earth was a hell of a long way away.
Chuck and Carson went through together, and Talia and Abby after them. John waited a minute and looked around the control room. “Keep the porch light on.”
He didn’t know what he was waiting for, so he turned and closing his eyes, stepped through the iris.
*
The first thing he heard on the other side were footsteps, but they turned out to be Miko’s so he lowered his gun. The second thing he heard was the cock of a gun so he raised it again.
It was Jack O’Neill, and they lowered their guns at the same instant.
Lorne snapped to a salute, and John noted with faint amusement that it was the polar opposite of the lazy smiling salute from the other side.
Miko threw herself onto O’Neil, sobbing “I’m so happy to see somebody.”
O’Neill looked a bit flustered, and awkwardly patting Miko’s hair he asked “What is going on here?”
The question was directed at all of them but everyone looked at John.
“Is - is everyone all right sir?”
“To hell they’re not. I thought it was bad traffic this morning when none of the cars were moving.”
John deflated a little bit. “Atlantis too, sir.”
“What’s going on here. Why are all these people” he gestured at a soldier that John hadn’t even noticed, “stuck.”
John didn’t bother listen to Lorne’s calm description of the situation interspersed with Carson’s chatter. He walked up to the control room and looked at the computer screens. There was nothing out of the ordinary.
“Chuck,” John leaned past Walter’s body to use the microphone. “No one’s on the other side to close the iris.”
Chuck jerked his head towards the Stargate and then stared at his hands.
“Huh. I guess there’s not.”
“So, Chuck, what’s going to happen.”
“Well” he said, still staring at his hands, “it’ll shut down in about 35 minutes.”
Miko disentangled from Gen. O’Neill. “It’s all right,” she called up. “It just means we can only make one more trip instead of two.”
The rest of the group (John couldn’t use the word team, it just didn’t fit) didn’t look too worried. None of them looked like they were feeling the same panic John was. He stared at the wormhole, and had to consciously tell his feet not to run toward it.
“But why waste all that power on making another gate trip?” Carson asked.
”Surely we could find a better use for it.”
“No”
John jerked his head toward Lorne, surprised to hear him speak.
“We should be able to go back to Atlantis if we need too.” Lorne’s face was grim and John felt a tug of relief that Lorne had said it, and not him.
O’Neill’s eyes darted towards John.
“I’m going back.” John’s voice was strangled, but he knew what he wanted to do. “I don’t know what’s happening -“
“We do know what’s happening.” Lorne said with frustration. “The world has ended and we’re the only survivors.”
Lorne smiled suddenly and smiled at the women, who were clustered together around a computer. “Time to repopulate the earth.”
“I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were the last man on earth!”
Lorne leered at Miko and cocked his brow.
“Chuck! He’s a man!” Miko blushed furiously and looked at Chuck, who had raised his eyebrows and was slowly backing away.
O’Neill looked at John. “The end of the world? No one ever tells me about these things.”
“I never see it coming.” John turned to the rest of the group. “I’m going back to Atlantis. Maybe it is the end of the world, and maybe that’s it. But I’m pretty sure we’re more likely to find an answer on Atlantis.”
Abby looked up. “Actually, that’s not necessarily true -“
“And if we can’t find the answer,” John raised his voice “I’d rather be in Atlantis.”
Everyone was silent. “You’re right,” Chuck said. “Our best chance is in Atlantis.”
“I don’t want to go back.” Edison said. He hadn’t spoken since they had stepped through the gate. “If this is going to be the end - I want to be here.”
“Well I’m staying too.” O’Neill said. “I’ve never been to Atlantis and I’ve never wanted too. I’ll see if I can go through Daniel’s records.”
“We can check in.” Chuck said “If you find anything, the radios are working.”
John could feel the tension rolling off of Carson. “I’m staying here. Me mum, I don’t want to…”
John hadn’t expected Carson to ever want to leave Atlantis. He’d never thought anyone would want to leave. John tried to speak, but when he opened his mouth nothing came out. He closed his mouth and felt roughness in the back of his throat.
“I’ll take you.” Edison said. “I’ll take you to your mom. I mean, if I can get something to work.”
John was pretty sure Edison would be going to find his family too, even if it was to only sit at their graves.
“Can you take me too?” Edison nodded at Talia, and John remembered that she’d only been in Atlantis for less than a month.
“We need a plan.” Lorne said. “We can’t just keep running back and forth like this, we need to do something.”
And then it clicked.
“I know what we need to do.” John said, and he knew with every fiber of his being. “We need to make everything a little less picture perfect.”
Chuck looked at John’s hand, which was touching his gun, warily. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” John said slowly “the universe made everything perfect and then it stopped.”
“Yes, but we knew that.”
“So we have to make everything a little less perfect.”
John had been expecting silence but everyone had started speaking, shouting over one another.
Lorne spoke the loudest. “You want to change the plan of the universe? You want to change the meaning of life itself? Should we do that?” Lorne’s face was drawn and he was staring at John intently.
John thought of Rodney’s quick hands and brilliant flashes of smile. He looked Lorne straight in the eye. “Yes.”
*
They went back to Atlantis and John had closed his eyes as he stepped through the Stargate, hoping that when he opened them again, everything would go back to normal.
It wasn’t back to normal, but at least he was back home in Atlantis. He turned to the much diminished group.
“So. We’re going to make things a little less picture perfect.”
The metal of his sidearm was cool under John’s fingers. “If this is the plan of the universe, we need to screw it up a little, see if we can’t knock everyone back to life.”
Chuck walked over to a computer and threw in onto the floor. John looked toward the frozen soldiers and tensed. Nothing happened.
“Something bigger, something that changes everything, that’s what we need.” John looked at Lorne. “What’ve we got?”
Lorne raised his brow and said carefully “Nothing huge, we could maybe cause a rockslide?”
“No, we need something bigger than that.” Miko tapped her finger against her arm. “To change the fundamentals.”
John closed his eyes. “We have a nuke.”
“Blowing out a planet? That’s pretty extreme.” Chuck said nervously, “Do we really want to do that?”
“We have to do this. It’s the only thing.” Rodney was so still, it was the most unnatural thing of all, bigger than any nuclear explosion. “It has to be big and it has to be done.”
John started walking towards the armaments room. “Lorne, come with me, Miko, go hook up some sort of remote control.” John looked at Chuck, who was twisting his hands. “Chuck, check for life signs and then get ready to dial the gate.”
*
John thought it would take longer to get everything together, but it felt like barely any time had passed before everyone was assembled in front of the gate.
Chuck was sitting at the console staring hard at the nuke. Miko was gingerly checking the wiring, attaching the remote control.
“Dial M7G-677.”
Chuck looked up sharply. “But that’s the planet with all the children!”
John swallowed. “I know. Dial the gate.”
“But -“
“Dial it now, Chuck.” It came out as a snarl and Miko put her hand over her mouth as Lorne studied his feet.
The gate burst open and John picked up one side of the platform the bomb was sitting on. Lorne picked up the other side silently and they walked through the gate, Miko and Chuck following behind.
*
“We can’t do this.”
Lorne and John had walked all the way to the middle of the village. A tiny pixie of a five year old girl was mid twirl in front of them and all around was tiny children in the middle of all sorts of games. John put down the platform.
“We need too.”
“We - look at them!” Chuck looked around despairingly, “There has to be another way.”
“Will the remote work as far as the Stargate?”
Miko’s face was drawn and her lips were a pale line across her face. She kept her gaze on the bomb. “Yes, but not through the Stargate, I can’t be sure -“
“Fine. Let’s go.” With one last look around the village, John turned and began the short walk back to the Stargate.
“Why this planet? Why not an uninhabited one? Why -“
John turned around. “We need to screw up the plan, we need to do something -“
He was interrupted by Chuck. “We’ll be killing a lot of people, we’ll be killing all of them!”
“They’re already dead Chuck.” John’s voice sounded tinny in his ears and there was lead in his stomach. “They’re just statues, they’re not people or alive.”
Chuck looked at John and lowered his eyes and followed as John began walking back to the Stargate.
They reached the Stargate and Miko handed John the remote control.
“We can’t do this.”
John sighed, “Chuck.”
Chuck walked up to John. “This isn’t right, we are not murderers.”
John opened his mouth but Chuck grabbed the remote. “We can’t do this, this is not who we are.”
John put his hand on his sidearm, and this time he didn’t know if it was only for comfort.
Chuck looked down at John’s gun and then back up at his face. “We can’t do this, I won’t let you.”
And then he froze.
John didn’t realize it for a moment, but then he tried to grab the remote out of Chuck’s hands. John pulled back like he’d been burnt.
“He’s frozen.”
Lorne walked up to Chuck and prodded him. “He’s gone.” He looked sideways at John. “Should we go home?”
“We need to finish what we came for.”
Miko was crying. “We can’t just leave him here!”
“He’ll be killed.” With that, Lorne picked up Chuck and straining, carried him toward the gate. Miko dialed and ran through the Stargate without looking back.
John walked towards the gate. He thought of Rodney and pressed the trigger. John could hear the sound of thunder and a flash of heat as he stepped through the gate. It was over.
*
John looked at Lorne and Miko, with their tense drawn faces and said “Lorne, you’re in charge.”
“When you will be back?”
“No.” John straightened. “You’re in charge for good, no matter what.” He saluted Lorne and held it until Lorne saluted back.
“Where are you going?”
John turned and walked towards his room. He could hear Lorne and Miko speaking and he could hear when Lorne cut off in the middle of a word and when Miko started yelling his name over and over again. He heard, but he kept walking.
He put his head against the door when he reached his room. He waited in the space of a drawn breath, listening for something, anything.
He opened the door and Rodney was still in bed, face still slack with sleep, arm still curved over the bed.
John didn’t speak as he pulled off his clothes and crawled into bed, inching his way under Rodney’s arm. He stared at Rodney’s face, serene and quiet. The long lashes, the faint pink of his cheek, the bow of his lips.
“I love you.” John whispered. “I love you.” And the world ended.