FIC: Alternities by MrsHamill (R)
Alternities
by MrsHamill (mrshamill@gmail.com)
Archive: My site, Mom's Kitchen and McKay_Sheppard. All others please ask.
Category: Drama, Angst, AU/AR, kitchen sink
Pairing: J/R
Rating: R
Spoilers: A bit for 'Trinity'
Summary: Accidents and consequences.
Disclaimer: Please enter standard useless boilerplate disclaimer of all intent to damage here.
Warning: Never say 'bite me' to a cat.
Series: Nope.
Notes: Thank you, Nansi for the help and Linaerys for the thorough beta. Any bugs left are mine and can be taken out and shot.
* * *
1.
It started in the room they'd come call 'Janus's lab' because it was where they found the 'alternate' Elizabeth Weir. It ended there, too, after a fashion.
* * *
2.
It was late when John walked into Janus's lab, but it was hard to tell because of all the activity going on. Rodney was standing half in and half out of the cubicle they'd been modifying and Zelenka was working at the console. He looked up when John entered.
"John. Take him home with you I hope you will." He rubbed his eyes.
"Yes, I think I'd better," John replied with a grin. "Mr. Perpetual Motion wearing you down?"
"It is late, and he is needing sleep and food. We all are."
Many of the technicians working with Zelenka looked up at his words and John had to choke back a laugh at the pathetic eagerness on their faces. "Let me see what I can do."
Rodney had his tablet in his hands and was checking circuitry. He didn't even notice John's approach. "Dr. McKay," John said, shaking his head. "I've come for you."
"Hmm?" Finally Rodney looked up and frowned. "John? What are you doing here? Did I miss a meeting?"
"No, you missed dinner. And lunch. And I'm about to kidnap you, feed you, take you home--" He lowered his volume a bit out of courtesy to those within earshot-- "then fuck you into insensibility."
With an irritated look, Rodney kept on checking circuits. "As appealing as that sounds, I'm going to have to turn you down. I've still got--"
"Rodney. It's almost midnight."
"No, it's not."
"Yes, it is." John's words were echoed by at least four people in the room.
"It is?" Rodney sighed and rubbed his eyes. Unfortunately, he had a multimeter probe in one hand and nearly put out his eye.
"You need to stop for the night. You know you don't work well when you're exhausted. This can wait until morning."
"Oh, all right." He pulled the other probe from the board he was examining, causing a small popping sound. They froze. "Radek?"
"I do not know," Zelenka said, as technicians scurried about, a new urgency in their movements. "There is no power..."
"This circuit board should be clean, there's nothing going to it..."
"Wait... wait..."
John frowned as he watched them react. "What's going on?"
"I don't know... we shouldn't..." Rodney stepped into the cubicle and started pulling acrylic circuit-cards. "There's no power..."
"It's reacting to something..."
"Dr. Zelenka! There's power..."
"Don't touch that! Look out, Dr. McKay's in the cubby!"
"Rodney! You must..."
John would forever equate Zelenka's scream in Czech and the smell of ozone with the disappearance of the man he loved.
* * *
3.
"Rodney. Please. In normal English." Dr. Weir pinched the bridge of her nose. "Assume we're all idiots. What do you hope to accomplish with this?"
McKay took a deep breath and John was willing to bet he was counting backwards again. "From what we've deciphered from Janus's incredibly cryptic notes, we think it's possible to create a mini-stargate -- one that goes through time instead of space." He frowned down at his laptop. "Theoretically, it would be possible to send anything through it and also theoretically, it should be possible to pinpoint 'when' you want it to arrive, just like you can do with a regular stargate."
"Anything." John was frowning, he had a feeling he knew what Rodney wanted to do.
"Theoretically. The idea is to send a message back in time to Janus, who seemed to be pretty open to the idea of helping his descendants instead of letting them hang in the wind. If we can get him to leave us some information on the ZedPMs, how to create them or even if they're rechargeable, it would be... well, it would be beyond helpful."
"Yes, it would," Weir murmured.
"We've been able to simulate the process quite well," Zelenka said quietly. "There is a seventy-five percent success rate."
"Worst case scenario?" John couldn't keep the harshness from his question, even though he tried.
Rodney glanced at him then looked down, swallowing. "Nothing. The most we'd be out is a small amount of power. We don't think we even need to use the ZedPM, a naquadah generator should be sufficient."
The silence stretched for several long moments. John found himself wondering why Rodney was letting it continue since the guy was always talking. With a start, he realized that wasn't completely true any more. McKay had been very quiet for the last month, ever since Doranda.
"This sounds almost too good to be true," Weir finally said, her voice cautious. They'd all been burned so many times, most recently worst of all. It had become hard to drum up enthusiasm for one more new possibility.
"I realize that." Rodney's voice was flat. "And it's not. It's a long shot. Janus might not understand how ZedPMs work, might not want to share that information, might not believe the message is actually from the future -- which is why we want you to record it, Elizabeth -- a hundred possibilities. A million. But we think it's worth a try. Or two."
"How many could we send?" John asked.
Rodney and Zelenka exchanged glances. "As many as we want, I suppose," Rodney said and Zelenka nodded. "The power needed is almost miniscule compared to the real stargate. Of course, the stargate sends more than inanimate objects." There was no yearning in his voice, though John still suspected Rodney really wanted to send a person -- a specific person -- instead of an object. He wouldn't ask, though, just in case he was right.
"We should be careful in the wording of the message," Zelenka added. "We don't want to give away secrets in case the message does not go where intended."
"You mean, through space instead of time?" Weir asked, her eyes narrowing.
"Yes." Rodney cleared his throat. "There are precautions we can use, of course, so that even if it does fall into the wrong hands, nothing would come of it."
"All right." Weir exchanged a look with John. In her eyes, he saw the same surprise, the same worry over McKay he had. It was not normal behavior they were witnessing. Normally, Rodney would be crowing his accomplishment, telling them what idiots they were for not believing him. "You have a green light, gentlemen. Low priority. We have too many other, more urgent needs that must take precedence. Keep me advised every step of the way, and let's talk about what you want me to say on this message."
Rodney nodded, closed his laptop, stood and left immediately. Zelenka frowned after him, but turned enough to say goodbye before he left. John and Elizabeth said nothing for a long time after the meeting concluded.
* * *
4.
Rodney came back to himself only to realize he was on the floor, retching, dry-heaving. He felt a million times worse than being stunned by a Wraith weapon -- his stomach was heaving, his eyes were about to burst with the pain from his head, he felt moisture coming from his nose, his skin was too tight. There were horribly loud sounds everywhere -- a klaxon going off, yelling, booted feet running -- even the beating of his heart was too loud. He closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears, moaning.
"By the ancients!" He whimpered as the voice grated over too-sensitive nerve endings. "General! You need to get over here now! Med team to Janus' lab, on the double!" Whoever was shouting was trying to drive him insane, he just knew it.
There were other voices, a cacophony. "Who is it?" Where'd he come from?" "Is the General on his way?" "Be careful!"
"I know him, I know who it is," the first voice said. "Sir? Dr. McKay?"
Rodney managed to drag his eyes open to find himself being examined by an unfamiliar young Marine lieutenant. Speech was out of the question; his mouth and throat were on fire.
"Jinto! Be careful!"
"I know him, I tell you," the man repeated, thankfully modulating his voice to a level less ear-splitting. "Dr. McKay? It is you, isn't it?"
Rodney managed to nod, though it set off fresh explosions in his head. He moaned again.
"A med team is on its way, sir, just hold on."
Why did that name sound so familiar? And where was he? What had happened? Rodney tried to call up the last thing he remembered but it was all a jumble. A test. A test of something in Janus' lab, that's what he remembered, but nothing more than that.
Slowly the agony receded to a level that was almost tolerable, but then more people arrived, all of whom felt they had to shout things at each other. He kept his hands pressed to his ears and whimpered again.
"Quiet! Hold it down, something's wrong with his hearing," he heard the young lieutenant -- where had he heard that name? -- say. "Med team, he's over here. Where's the General?"
Oh, good, Rodney was going to be so pathetically grateful to see Carson's face that he'd even welcome one of the doctor's scathing comments. "Carson?" he croaked.
"What did he say?"
"I'm not sure, just hold on, sir, the med team is coming, the General will be here any second..."
With supreme effort, Rodney managed to open his eyes just as a tall, lean man entered the lab at a dead run. He had thick dark hair that was shot through with silver and a lined, tired face. He was wearing a general's bars. "Colonel?" Rodney managed to say before he passed right out.
* * *
5.
"We're sending this message to you in the hope that you'll take pity on your descendants and help us."
Elizabeth had sounded good, John thought, remembering how she recorded the message. That part was finished, that part was easy, and now Rodney and Zelenka were nearly ready for a test. John was in the lab with them, not really sure why, just watching them work and talking idly. Keeping them company. Rodney had been trying to explain to him that what they were doing, what they were trying to do, wasn't exactly time travel.
"What will happen is we will be creating quantum superposition alternatives, or alternate realities--"
"Alternities," Zelenka said, almost gleefully. John wondered why until Rodney responded.
"Alternate realities," he said, slowly and distinctly. "We are not playing an RPG, Radek."
John wanted to laugh at that, but he held it back. Instead, he took a seat at one of the consoles and tried to look serious. Immediately, there was a sudden surge of sound, a high-pitched, almost inaudible whine. With a small 'pop', a card appeared in the stasis chamber, the one they were modifying into what Rodney had started calling a 'timegate.'
All three froze in place. Finally, Rodney gingerly walked over to the cubicle and bent down, examining the thing without touching it.
"What is it?" John demanded, standing and approaching cautiously.
Rodney laughed in delight. It was the first time John had heard Rodney laugh since Doranda and with a jolt, he realized how much he'd missed it. "Never leave home without it! Colonel, I believe this is yours."
John looked down at what Rodney was holding and gaped -- it was his VISA card. Instead of taking the card from Rodney he yanked his wallet out from his back pocket and opened it. Yup, his VISA was right there, safe and secure, looking precisely like the one Rodney had, right down to the small notch in the top edge from where he'd had to use it as an ice scraper, once. "I don't believe it."
"I think we can say it works," Rodney said gleefully. Even Zelenka was beaming. "Trade you."
"Why?" Even as he asked, John traded credit cards with Rodney.
"So we can test it. It didn't come from out of the blue, we used it to test sometime in the future. Will use it. Verbs -- hell, semantics altogether -- are going to be difficult for this." He'd turned to Zelenka. "Now?"
So the first test worked, they'd sent John's VISA card back in time successfully and John began to catch the enthusiasm the two scientists were feeling. After that, they tried other things, from CDs to large vases and anything else that wasn't nailed down and discovered they could send things through space as well as time. Not far, but the item didn't have to rematerialize in the chamber if they didn't want it to. The biggest thing they were able to send back was a bottle of wine from Carson's private stock (John didn't want to ask too carefully how Carson had smuggled the alcohol in nor how Rodney had managed to wheedle it from the good doctor). Rodney sent it back in time ten years ("Give or take, we're still working on precision") to a room that had been sealed and hadn't flooded. The room had been empty when they first looked. When they went back after the test, there was a very old bottle of Mouton-Cadet 2003 sitting in it.
They celebrated by drinking it and it was damn good wine.
* * *
6.
When Rodney dragged himself back from oblivion again, he almost instantly knew he was in the infirmary. No place like home, he thought. He heard the persistent beep of a heart monitor, smelled the familiar scents of ointment and disinfectant and pain, and registered the murmur of voices speaking just low enough he couldn't discern words. His head still hurt but it didn't feel as though it was going to explode so that was an improvement. There was an itch on his hand which he assumed was an IV line.
His eyelids still weighed several hundred pounds but he managed to finally drag them partially open. The only noise he was able to make was a sorry croak, but that was sufficient.
"He's awake."
"Rodney? Can you hear me?" That was Sheppard's voice -- or rather, it was and it wasn't. It sounded rougher, harsher, for some reason.
"General, let me take a look at his vitals." That was a female voice, one he didn't recognize.
His eyelids refused to cooperate when he told them to open and stay open. Instead, they fluttered, giving him tantalizing glimpses of a red-headed doctor bending over him, placing a cold stethoscope to his chest. "How do you feel?" she asked. Her voice was very nice.
His, however, wasn't. A raw croak was all he managed.
"How about some ice chips?" she asked and he felt pathetically grateful for the spoonful she put on his tongue. It felt like gold melting down his throat. "Nothing more than this for a bit, we need to make sure your stomach is going to tolerate it. Your system has been through quite a shock."
Well, that made sense. With the blessed moisture in his mouth, he was able to speak -- barely. "Carson?" He whispered. Where was that idiot, anyway? Not that the redhead was hard to look at but Carson knew him best, knew what he could tolerate and what he couldn't, knew all his allergies and sensitivities.
She looked surprised and wary at his question. "Dr. Beckett died ten years ago, Dr. McKay. At the end of the war."
War? What war? What had happened to him, anyway? Carefully, Rodney turned his head enough to look at Sheppard and what he saw astonished him. The man was crying, fat tears rolling down his lined face. There was silver at his temples and throughout the rest of his hair and he looked like hell warmed over.
"Thank God you're back," Sheppard murmured. He leaned down and kissed Rodney, right on the lips, before pressing their foreheads together. "I missed you so damn much. So damn much."
Okay, really confused, now, Rodney thought to himself.
* * *
7.
"The difficulty is trying to figure out time distance," Rodney said. They were sitting at the briefing table and were talking about the project that seemed to be going beautifully, if slower than they wanted.
"What do you mean?" Elizabeth asked and John nodded.
"We know that greater distances in time require more power," Zelenka said. "But the scale does not seem to fit any discernable pattern."
"We thought it was logarithmic at first," Rodney said and Zelenka nodded. "But it didn't work."
"Why do you need...?" Elizabeth asked.
"Obviously, we need to know the approximate power level to use to send it back farther. More than that, we want to be as precise as possible. It won't do us any good to send it back after Atlantis is abandoned or long before your -- I mean, the alternate you -- arrival."
"Ten thousand years is a long time," Elizabeth said. Her voice was wry. "How are you testing it now?"
"Well, we know how much power to use for short distances. The credit card was barely a blip." Rodney sighed in frustration. "But the bottle of wine, it took far more power than it should have, which means perhaps there's a different scale for liquids, or for things with an organic component, or who knows. Plus, we still have no way of being precise even to the year. The bottle was dusty, but was it ten years' worth of dust? We don't know." He sighed. "We've begun standardizing what we send, particularly because we know what it will be, exactly. It's harder than I'd hoped it would be."
"Send a clock." Everyone at the table turned to look at John and he raised his eyebrows. "Send a small clock. Zero it out, send it back in time, see how much time has passed. Use good batteries."
Rodney's mouth was hanging open and Zelenka looked absolutely delighted. "That's it!" They all but ran from the briefing room, talking a mile a minute.
Elizabeth grinned at John and he shook his head. "Not being a genius, it kind of tickles me when I can beat a couple of 'em at their own game," he said.
She laughed outright. "I wouldn't call you a non-genius, John. Your insight has saved us on more than one occasion."
He shrugged, offering her his best 'aw shucks' expression, aware that it didn't fool her any longer. "They would have figured it out eventually. And I'll bet they won't even use a clock."
"Probably not." They chuckled and John put his hands on the table to push away, but she spoke again. "I'm worried about Rodney."
Relaxing back but not looking at her, John licked his lips and wished he could avoid that particular conversation. "Well, I am too, I guess."
"He's been on his best behavior for a long time now, and I... well, I miss our hyperactive, insane genius. This quiet one has me a little spooked." She was quiet for a while, before adding, "Do you think he's doing this to make up for Doranda?"
There were a lot of things that John could say and didn't want to. He continued to avoid her gaze as he mentally picked over the lot. The only one he would never say was the one he suspected was the truest -- Rodney was still trying to win back John's trust, John's friendship. If there was one conversation John regretted most in his life, it would have been the one where he'd told Rodney he didn't trust him any longer. Not that it wasn't justified, but he could still wish it hadn't had to happen.
John drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Yeah, I think that's a pretty good guess. I think we just need to give him a bit more time."
"You think he'll finally move past it?"
"I hope so," John replied, and he meant every word.
* * *
8.
Rodney had slept and had woken, a bit less confused and definitely less pain-filled. When he opened his eyes, he found that other John Sheppard, the one with the gray in his hair and the general's insignia on his shoulders sleeping in a chair next to him, slumped over Rodney's bed.
Rodney looked him over. What had happened to the John he remembered? The one with the hair that stuck up all over the place, the one with the crooked grin that always twisted Rodney up inside, the one who looked fresh off the farm, even in dress uniform?
It was no longer a horror to move, so he let his hand drop on John's shoulder. "Hey."
With a start, John jerked his head up and opened bleary eyes. "Hey yourself," he rasped, then coughed.
Rodney decided he really hated the lines on this John Sheppard's face. "There's water over there on the table."
"You want some?"
"Yes, please. You too."
John grinned faintly but did as asked. When they had both cleared their respective throats, John took Rodney's hand. "I never gave up hope," he said thickly.
It took Rodney a few tries before he could formulate a question. "I don't... I'm not sure... time travel? I remember time travel, but I thought it was... back?"
"Time travel, yes. You were working on time travel. We thought at first you had gone back in time, but Radek was fairly certain you hadn't."
"I went forward." Not-John nodded. "How far? How... long?"
John's expression became one that Rodney could have lived his whole life without seeing. "Fifteen years, ten months, a couple of weeks. Not that I've been counting or anything."
There was a gold band on John's left ring finger and Rodney could not bring himself to ask. "I... don't remember much. It's like there are holes in my memory..."
"What do you remember?"
Rodney's stomach was mildly protesting the water he'd sipped but he was fairly certain it was a combination of nerves and hunger. "I remember... a test? We were getting ready for a test, a big one, we were going to send... something..."
"The virus. Yes." John nodded and Rodney closed his mouth. "It was very late and I came to get you, to bring you home. Do you remember what I said?"
Mute, Rodney shook his head.
"I told you I was going to drag you out of there, feed you, then fuck you to sleep. And you told me that, nice as the offer sounded, you still had work to do." John's breath hitched. "I remember it like it was yesterday."
"Oh."
Luckily, the doctor came in at that moment and saved Rodney from having to say anything else. His mind was whirling at about the speed of light, frantically hunting for a point of reference, and he couldn't have managed another word as it was.
The doctor's name was Annette, Annette Welling, and she had taken Carson's place ten years before, after the 'war' had ended. She remembered him pretty well, but he had no clue who she was. She was not married to John Sheppard, he determined that almost immediately. A bit later on, Radek came to see him, and Rodney was surprised to learn that he was in charge of the city. Elizabeth Weir had died eight years before; cancer. Radek didn't look too well either, though Rodney supposed that was due to the weight of command. That, and almost sixteen years passing.
He couldn't shake the feeling of wrongness.
Dr. Welling pronounced him fit and released him, with an injunction to monitor how he was feeling and to eat soft, easily-digestible foods for a while. She was concerned, but not overly so, at his assertion of memory holes, saying the trauma he'd endured was the probable reason. His memory should return within a few days, she thought, but he was to tell her if it didn't. He didn't remember... well, he didn't say so, but he didn't remember much of anything. Nothing seemed right. After his IV was removed, John took his hand. "Where's your ring?" he asked.
Rodney blinked down at his left hand and tried to imagine a ring there. He couldn't. "Ring?"
"Your ring, doofus, the one that matches mine?" John waved his hand in Rodney's face. He wore a huge smile and it made him look younger, but not young enough for Rodney's state of mind.
"I don't know," Rodney said, frowning down at his hand. He wore a ring that matched John's?
Atlantis seemed... bigger. Most of the city was inhabited, now, people wearing all kinds of clothing teeming in the corridors and along the promenades. John let him take his time but steered him in a definite direction.
Most everyone smiled or nodded, greeting John Sheppard as 'General' and that rather freaked Rodney out. General Sheppard? He half expected to see Elizabeth around every corner, waiting to leap out and shout "Surprise!"
They got to a door which led to a suite of rooms, or rather, a small apartment. There were pictures all over the place, many of them were of John and Rodney together. It was furnished with older, comfortable-looking furniture. There was one bedroom and one big bed.
* * *
9.
It was late and John knew Rodney and Zelenka were still working in the lab. He had decided on a peace offering, a way (he hoped) to let Rodney know that his trust was returning -- one extra large, frozen pizza (frozen, yes, but it was DiGiorno, so that made up for a lot). He'd smuggled it aboard the Daedalus when they returned to Atlantis and had kept it hidden, waiting for the right occasion and he thought he had found it now.
It was difficult getting into the area designated as the kitchens with no one seeing him, and it was damn near impossible to get the pizza from the kitchen to the lab. He managed, but it was a close call -- he'd lost Lorne and Cadman by sneaking through an overhead duct passage but Kavanagh and his cronies had been a royal bitch to duck.
Pizza was as good as gold in the Pegasus galaxy. Domino's still hadn't put a franchise out that far.
The look on Rodney's face as he smelled the pizza was just about worth the price of admission right there. "Pizza?"
"Yep, real old fashioned, honest-to-God frozen pizza, straight from Earth. Thought you might be hungry."
"God, yes."
There was a worktable over in the corner, littered with various pieces of computers and acrylic circuit boards. Zelenka cleared a space (with a level of enthusiasm which had John grinning) and John put his pizza box down. "Nearly had to wear a sidearm walking through the city with this," he said. "All yours, gentlemen."
"You're not going to join us, Colonel?" Zelenka asked. Rodney had just dug right in.
"Well, I might have a piece."
"Is this green pepper? I love green pepper," Rodney said around a mouthful of pizza.
"Yeah? I figured you for an anchovy guy," John said, hiding his grin with a slice of pizza. It was pretty good, considering how far it had come.
"Oh, please."
"Anchovy, the little fish, yes? I love that." Zelenka had wasted no time digging in as well.
"Radek, you're insane. Anchovies are the epitome of nasty."
"I've always been a pineapple man myself," John allowed, leaning his hip against the table. The way Rodney was inhaling his slice made it look as though he hadn't eaten in days.
"That figures," Rodney said with a withering look.
The pizza disappeared in an astonishingly short time. "So, how's the timegate progressing?"
"'Timegate,' that's good, wonder who came up with such an appropriate and lyrical name," Rodney said, wiping his hands on his pants. "Thanks to you, we've got a much better idea of how much power is necessary for what item. It turns out the scale is logarithmic, but it's dependant upon what we're sending back."
"Yes, yes, for some things, it is different scale."
"You mean, for a CD it would be one thing and for my VISA card, another?" John frowned.
"Yes, exactly, which makes sense, but we were looking in the wrong direction. It's not weight or mass of the object -- well, not exactly -- it's the specific type of thing, of object. The wine not only had an organic component to it, it was liquid. The power required to send it as one, cohesive whole, was completely different than something without an organic component, or something solid. It means a carbon molecule, for example, which is a cohesive whole will be far easier to send than something even made of an alloy."
"Okay, so a person would require a much greater amount of energy over a plastic dummy of the same mass."
"Precisely. And a dummy made out of pure silicone would take less power than even that. And it's not like we'd want to send a person, anyway."
"Field far too unstable, too many variables," Zelenka nodded rapidly, agreeing.
"And the clock--"
"Actually, we used a tiny chunk of U-232, sealed into a special, vacuumed, lead container. A cohesive whole, remember? A regular clock is made up of too many different metals and alloys. U-232 decays in an accurate and predictable fashion so we were able to tell exactly how long we had sent it back. It was far more precise."
John had to grin; good ol' fatuous Rodney was back. It was good to see and to hear. "Well, it sounds like you've got it licked, then. When do we send the message?"
"Well, we might be ready by tomorrow. I've still got some calibrations to do."
"And the cubicle, it needs more shielding," Zelenka said.
"Shielding? What type? Can I help with that?" John stood and wandered over to the stasis chamber -- something that still gave him a case of the willies. He couldn't look at it without seeing the ancient, withered version of Elizabeth Weir standing frozen in it.
"Yeah, actually, you might be able to," Rodney said, as if the idea had just occurred to him. "Let me show you, if you could..." He walked over to the cubicle, standing just inside it. "We need a sheet of the same kind of metal used in naquadah power generators to protect..."
John walked over to the cubicle to see where Rodney was indicating. It looked pretty straightforward and he could use--
"Rodney. Rodney!" Zelenka sounded urgent as he looked at the consoles in front of him. There was another surge of non-sound and John winced, looking around, trying to figure out where it came from. "Rodney! There is power--"
"What?" Rodney gaped at Zelenka for a moment before he jumped into the cubicle and pulled the cover off a panel. "There's no... there can't be power coming to this! It's off circuit!"
"Get out of there, Rodney! Massive power surge--"
"McKay! Get out of there!"
John reached to grab Rodney's arm but before he could, Rodney disappeared in a concussion of light and sound. The last thing John saw was Rodney's horrified face, mouth open to speak.
When he could see again, past the dancing lights that clouded his vision, Rodney was gone.
* * *
10.
The problem was that Rodney couldn't remember much. The last memories he had were of time travel and a test of some kind, but John had used the word 'virus' and that didn't sound right. There were a lot of things that didn't sound right, such as him and John. Near as he could figure from carefully worded questions and a look at an online slide show, Rodney had been married to John Sheppard for about three years before he'd disappeared. That made no sense, because, as far as he was aware, neither of them were gay.
Not that he had never been curious (especially where John Sheppard was concerned), but just like everything else of a personal nature, he'd never had time to explore those curiosities. He'd always been too busy learning and building and working for anything else. But by the evidence, he had been married to a man for at least three years, almost sixteen years ago, so something had definitely changed.
He spoke with Dr. Welling about his memory loss, and she reiterated what she'd said earlier. "Your scans are normal, Rodney. You've undergone tremendous stress as evidenced by your extreme reactions on arrival. Give it time." She smiled. "The brain is a resilient thing, yours especially. Stop by tomorrow and we'll double check everything."
The day passed in a whirl of colors and surprises. People he didn't remember well came to see him and hug him, while people he remembered were conspicuously absent. Carson was dead. Teyla had died as well, though Ronon was well, living on another planet with the rest of his people. Most of Rodney's staff were gone, dead or rotated back to Earth. Parrish and Brown were dead. Lorne and Cadman were dead. Dead, dead, dead. So many had died but it had only been fifteen plus years. Why had so many died?
That evening, once the last of the visitors left, John secured the door, returned to the couch where Rodney had been sitting and pulled him upright. Then he'd kissed Rodney, deeper and far more seriously than Rodney ever remembered being kissed. Coming up for air, he tucked Rodney under his chin and held him tightly.
"God, I missed you," he murmured.
Rodney didn't know how to respond. John was obviously deeply in love with him but Rodney didn't feel as though he'd been married (he'd been married? to a man?) for three years. Remaining close felt like lying, so he gently pulled away. "John, I don't..."
"I know. You've got holes in your memory. Remember? I was there." John smiled gently. "I figured that's why you've been so quiet, chatterbox. It's okay. Let me love you tonight and after you rest, we'll see what's going on in that head of yours." His smile turned... well, it turned hot and very sexy and Rodney blinked, surprised at how that smile made him feel. "Maybe I can jog your memory."
So Rodney let John undress him, let John put him on the big bed, let John kiss him and arouse him and give him one of the best blowjobs Rodney had ever had, well, that he remembered. While he was still recovering from that, John stretched out on top of him and kissed him again, deeply. By then, Rodney was finding it hard to remain passive -- he might not have remembered being married to John, but John certainly knew all his buttons and pushed them, one by one.
John knew that Rodney's nipples were an incredible erogenous zone. He knew about the spot under his left ear that was particularly sensitive for some reason, and proceeded to suck and lick at it until Rodney almost came. He even knew about some spots that Rodney didn't know -- when John had licked along the inner crease at the top of Rodney's left thigh, Rodney nearly shook himself to pieces.
By the time John was done, Rodney had come twice and John once, all over Rodney's stomach. He hadn't tried to have anal sex with Rodney -- which was good as the thought still bothered Rodney -- but there wasn't much else they hadn't done. And Rodney enjoyed every moment of it, which surprised him and made him wonder if he had, indeed, been married to John. He wouldn't have enjoyed it so much if he hadn't been gay, right? Somehow, that just sounded... wrong to him.
John cleaned them up, spooned behind Rodney and promptly fell into a deep sleep. Rodney, however, found that even with sexual satiation, his brain was working far too hard to sleep. Memory holes were one thing, but this... this was another.
After about a half hour of trying (and failing) to put his finger on the wrongness, Rodney gently extricated himself from John's arms and pulled on some clothing. In the main room, he'd seen a computer and thought he'd do a little history research, try to figure out why so many had died, how he could have forgotten being married (he was married?) to John Sheppard when other things were clear as day. When the computer booted, he automatically checked to clock, just like he'd always done and that's where he discovered the problem.
* * *
11.
"What the hell happened?!" John yelled, turning back to Zelenka, who was ashen.
"I don't know!" He began dashing from laptop to laptop, muttering under his breath in Czech.
"Sheppard to Weir, we have an emergency in the lab." John did his best not to sound either panicked or furious, though he was both.
"John? What happened?"
"McKay is gone, he just disappeared."
"What?! I'm on my way."
"Bring a science team. Wake them up if you have to." John whipped around to Zelenka. "What happened, dammit?!"
"There was a surge, a power surge," Zelenka said. He looked utterly panicked and it didn't do anything for John's state of mind. "There should not have been. There is no power going to the cubicle, we cut it while we were working on it. But there was a surge, and I don't understand it."
John stayed out of the way of the scientists and technicians who poured into the room, though he wanted to walk to each one, grab them by their arms and shake an answer out of them. Elizabeth pulled him out of the room and talked to him, obviously trying to calm him down but he just couldn't, he was far more upset than he should have been. Rodney McKay was gone, and it was through no fault of his own, and John felt like shit warmed over because he had suspected this would happen, only by design. Now that it had, he had to face facts: Rodney did not intend it to happen. He'd seen the guy's face before he disappeared and he was terrified.
On the verge of pounding his head into the wall until it gave or he passed out, John was saved by Zelenka approaching. "We have a theory, but to test, we need you, Colonel."
"Why?" John forced himself to relax his fists.
Zelenka sighed. "Telling you might invalidate the test. Please. I need you to come in and approach the cubicle in the same way you did earlier, before Rodney disappeared."
John's stomach did not like the direction his thoughts were taking him. He took a big breath, told his nerves to fuck off, and did exactly as Zelenka asked. Once again, there was a soundless concussion and the technicians froze, half staring at him in shock and the other half staring at their laptops in shock. John closed his eyes. "It's me."
"Yes, I'm afraid so."
Elizabeth was right behind. "It's him what? What happened?"
"Rodney was in the cubicle showing Colonel Sheppard where we needed extra shielding. There was no power running to it at all, the generator was off." Zelenka looked like shit, John thought. "Colonel Sheppard's approach to the cubicle caused a surge where there could be none, which I think was caused by Atlantis itself trying to activate the stasis chamber, as the city has been programmed to do. In this case, however, activation did not cause stasis because we have been modifying the chamber for time travel."
"I was in here, sitting at the console, when my VISA card popped in," John said dully. "I did it."
"You had no way of knowing that so this is not your fault." Elizabeth's voice was flat and brooked no contradiction. She turned to Zelenka. "How do we get him back?"
Zelenka swallowed. "We're not sure. We first have to determine when and where he is, and that could take a while. Then... well, it may be a combination of his being in the right place at the right time when Colonel Sheppard triggers the Atlantean response."
"Fine. Top priority. You work--"
"Tomorrow." Both Elizabeth and Zelenka turned to John in surprise. "They need sleep first. Wherever Rodney is, he'll have to cool his heels until they've rested. You don't need to be making mistakes through exhaustion."
John wasn't about to try and decipher Elizabeth's look, so he turned away. "Good point, Colonel. Get some rest, Radek. First thing tomorrow, find me some answers."
* * *
12.
It took Rodney fifteen minutes to find the lab again, because he wasn't certain where his quarters were located in reference to them. He was unsurprised to find the light on and Radek Zelenka still there.
"Rodney." Radek looked so very tired.
"The dates are wrong." When Zelenka didn't look surprised, Rodney elaborated. "I know I've got holes in my memory, but why the hell wouldn't I remember getting married to John Sheppard? Because I don't. Remember it, that is. And the dates are wrong. I know -- okay, I think I know -- when I left, and it's only been seventeen years. It should be a minimum of twenty."
Radek rubbed his eyes under his glasses. "And your conclusion?"
Rodney frowned. "You're not surprised. What aren't you telling me?"
Radek really looked awful, far worse than time and the burden of leadership should allow. "Sixteen years ago, we were trying to perfect a method of time travel. You -- we -- wanted to send the virus that killed all the Wraith back in time, so we could avoid... avoid a lot of things." Radek sighed and Rodney found a seat on a stool, never taking his eyes off his friend. "We were so very close. We'd done some testing but were still perfecting the process."
"A virus?"
"Yes. The one Kavanagh developed. The one Dr. Weir did not wish to use. The one that completely destroyed every Wraith in the Pegasus galaxy."
After a moment, Rodney realized his mouth was open, so he closed it. Genocide? Yes, they were Wraith and evil and all but... genocide? It was a little hard to take.
"The plan was to send the virus back in time so we could use it sooner. We weren't certain it would actually affect us in this timeline, but we felt it was worth the risk anyway. So much damage had been done by the Wraith's use of the Genii atomics, so many people had died, were sick. When most of your people are dying, you tend to look beyond ethics."
"Atomics?" Rodney repeated faintly. "The Wraith used atomics? Oh my God. Dying. That's why so many have died. Cancer?"
"Yes." Radek smiled grimly. "Including me. But I've got a few good years left, I hope. So, you were doing some last minute adjustments when General Sheppard came to get you. We were all exhausted and when he said he was going to take you home to get some sleep, well, we were all for that. But then the accident. The power that came from nowhere, nothing was hooked up, but there was a massive surge anyway. And you..."
"I disappeared," Rodney said carefully.
"You died."
Rodney swallowed but couldn't find any words.
"You were vaporized, I believe. But General Sheppard never believed that. He saw an accident, knew we were working on time travel, demanded we check to find out when you'd gone to. He would not believe me when I said you were dead."
"And now that I'm here, he thinks..."
"He thinks he's been vindicated, that you were sent forward in time."
"I'm not him, Radek." Rodney spoke with effort, but even then, his voice was soft.
"Many Worlds Interpretation. You must have been doing something similar in your reality."
"Yes, we were trying to find a way to send a message to the past, to Janus, to find out how to recharge or create ZedPMs." Rodney frowned, his brain going on unexpected paths. "Wait wait wait. You said there was no power to the cubby when the accident happened?"
"No, there was none. We have never been able to figure out how it happened, how power went there in the first place."
"There was no power to the cubby for me either. You and I, we'd been working late. Sheppard brought us pizza." Rodney smiled at the memory. It had been a peace offering between them, he was sure of it, and it had gone all wrong. "The generator was off. There was no power from it to any of the circuits in the cubby at all."
Radek was frowning. "Such similarities... coincidence?"
"We don't believe in coincidence, remember?" He frowned in thought. "Was your generator running?"
"Yes, but the power was only directed to the consoles." He could see the old Radek now, see his enthusiasm for solving a puzzle.
"What are the parallels? There has to be something in common between the two occurrences. What is it?"
Radek's face suddenly cleared. "The General."
It was like lightning struck and Rodney's whole body jerked. "The VISA card. The pizza. He'd been standing with me, at the cubby. I was showing him what we needed..."
"He has the gene. Could we have missed a subroutine..."
"That routed power to the stasis chamber because of how Janus programmed--"
"Atlantis would try to get power to it, try to activate it--"
"Continue its purpose, that's got to be it."
"How can we test--"
"Wait." Radek held up his hand, turning to the console nearby. "There it is again."
"What?" Rodney stood and moved to his side. "What am I looking at?"
"Why I'm here. There has been an odd power fluctuation every three hours and forty-seven minutes for the last day. It's like power is suddenly routed here but then dissipates, because it has nowhere to go."
"Why does that time period sound... Oh, my God."
"What?"
"How long does it take a naquadah generator that's been completely depleted to recharge?"
Radek's mouth hung open. "They're trying to get you back."
"They've figured it out, hell, you've probably figured it out. A message?"
"No, I don't believe so. The power must be going in both directions."
Turning to another laptop, Radek started some equations, muttering to himself. Rodney looked over his shoulder for a moment until he perceived where Radek was going with them. "No, no, I get it, look. It needs energy from both sides, coming here I used the echo of the accident sixteen years ago and--"
"But to have that much power, Rodney! You could die, be vaporized as before!"
"Not if we do it in conjunction with their power surges. Look." Rodney lost himself in the math, in the physics, arguing with his friend as if it weren't his own life he was talking about. In the abstract, it was beautiful, a utilization of multiverse theory meshed with a quantum mechanical system. The problem with it, of course, was that it was his life they were discussing, not an abstract experiment. They were also aware that the clock might be ticking -- the waveform was going to collapse, the only questions were when and how.
"Which will it be," Radek said seriously, "discontinuous or deterministic? I do not think you would like being Schrodinger's cat, Rodney."
"Hey, that's my cat's name," Rodney said faintly. "It worked one way, all I can do--"
"You don't have to leave."
Both Rodney and Radek whipped around. In the doorway to the lab stood General Sheppard and Rodney's guilt went up in flames. "How long have you...?"
"Long enough. Can we talk?"
"I'll leave--" Radek looked between them, obviously hurting for them.
"No, I'd rather not come inside the lab." Rodney's heart sank; Sheppard had been listening the whole time, he knew it was, in some way, his fault that his husband had died.
"It's all right, I'll come out." Radek squeezed Rodney's arm as he went past and Rodney gave him a weak smile. He wasn't looking forward to this.
There was a small balcony a few yards down the corridor that led to the lab, John steered them there. It was quiet and peaceful and the city glowed softly, serene in her ocean of stars. They stood in silence for a long time while Rodney tried to find the words to comfort his friend.
"You're so different," he finally murmured, surprising himself. That wasn't what he had intended on saying.
"Different?"
"More open. Talkative. Something." He fell silent for a long time, trying to think of another way to describe the differences he'd noticed. "Something like that. I never knew you liked to surf until I saw pictures of you surfing in your, I mean, our place. I didn't know what books you liked to read or even that you liked Johnny Cash for some weird reason. And the guitar, I never knew you played."
"Did you ever ask?" John's voice was very soft.
Rodney swallowed and hung his head. "No. I never did. I should have." He'd always been too wrapped up in himself, in what he felt and saw that he never even had time for the man he considered to be a good friend. Perhaps his best friend. Peter Grodin's death had taught him to cherish friendship, but he had let the lesson pass with John Sheppard. He shouldn't have.
"Yeah." They were quiet again for a while. "I never had to talk with you around," John said softly. "It was like having my own soundtrack to life. You filled every silence. Then, once you were gone, I either had to start talking more or go insane. I couldn't manage without your voice, you see. I even played some of your voice recordings, over and over again, while I tried to sleep."
God this was hard, Rodney thought, biting his lip. "I'm sorry," he finally said, knowing it wasn't enough.
"It's okay. I think I knew you weren't... well, weren't my Rodney shortly after you woke. But you see, this is good. I never... I never got to say goodbye. And we'd been quarrelling, you'd been spending so much time in the lab, working on your project. At least this way, I get to say goodbye." John turned to him, taking his shoulder. "You don't have to go. I heard all of that, didn't understand it all but heard it. There's a chance you'll die, just like he did. You could stay here if you wanted, and we wouldn't even have to live together."
There were only a few times in his life Rodney felt like crying, and all of them had been since he stepped through that damn wormhole to Atlantis. "I know, it's that... this isn't..."
"It's okay." John pulled him in for a hug and Rodney returned it, finally. "I understand. And it's not like I won't see him soon anyway."
It took a second for that to sink in then Rodney was pushing him away, angry and incredulous words fighting to come out. "What did you say? You had better not--"
John chuckled, a dry, bitter sound. "No, it's not that. Radek and I are the last of us. I think we're just to cussed to die, or maybe I was just stubbornly waiting to see you again."
"Cancer. You too?" Oh, God.
"Yes. Just like Elizabeth and Teyla. It just took me longer."
What the hell could he say to that? This reality had taken it on the chin in a big way. The fact they'd resorted to genocide... well, he found he couldn't condemn them for it, not at all.
"We should get you back. I heard Radek's comment that you might be under a time limit, and to be honest, well, the more I see you, the more I want you to stick around."
Abruptly, Rodney grabbed John's head and pulled it to his, kissing John as hard and hot as he could, trying to convey his respect, his sympathy, even his love for the man who had loved another version of Rodney and loved him well. When he broke the kiss, he whispered fiercely, "You're going to see him again. But you will hang on as long as you can, because you're General by-damn Sheppard, and there is nothing that can take you down." He gave the head he still held a little shake. "Do you understand me?"
The smile that bloomed across John's face was edged in tears, but it was still beautiful. "Yes, sir," he whispered. Then he turned and led them back into the lab.
* * *
Epilogue:
If anything, the return to his own reality was worse than the trip out. He spent two days in the infirmary and was never so glad to give in to every one of Carson's demands. After that, it took him close to a day to write up a report, relating everything he'd seen in that future, hoping to avoid what had happened there in his own timeline.
The only thing he left out was his relationship with General John Sheppard.
The project had been temporarily suspended until they could figure out what damn subroutine they'd missed. Three days after his return, Rodney went to the darkened lab and just stood in the doorway. He was remembering what had happened, remembering what he had felt and done and saw. But mostly, he was remembering General Sheppard, putting on a brave face while watching his husband disappear for the second time.
"Hey."
Rodney didn't have to turn to know who it was -- the same man who dozed in the chair next to him for the first few hours after his return, who had visited him almost every hour after that. "Hey yourself."
"Whatcha doing?"
Rodney shrugged. "Thinking."
"Nothing new there."
"Yeah, alert the media." Rodney turned and saw John leaning up against the wall opposite the door. It was his John Sheppard, thick dark hair sticking up all over the place like a demented hedgehog, dressed in comfortable-looking blue sweats, arms crossed with nonchalance but eyes carrying his worry. Rodney remembered what it was like to kiss that man, to have that man make love to him, hit all his buttons and more. He'd never known love like that and he'd thought he never would. "Can I ask you a question?"
John looked mildly surprised. "Yeah, sure."
"Why do you like Ferris wheels? And do you like to surf?"
A slow, puzzled smile spread across John's face. "Well, there's a story behind both of those, but neither one is short."
"I got time," Rodney replied, closing the door to the lab behind him.
end
by MrsHamill (mrshamill@gmail.com)
Archive: My site, Mom's Kitchen and McKay_Sheppard. All others please ask.
Category: Drama, Angst, AU/AR, kitchen sink
Pairing: J/R
Rating: R
Spoilers: A bit for 'Trinity'
Summary: Accidents and consequences.
Disclaimer: Please enter standard useless boilerplate disclaimer of all intent to damage here.
Warning: Never say 'bite me' to a cat.
Series: Nope.
Notes: Thank you, Nansi for the help and Linaerys for the thorough beta. Any bugs left are mine and can be taken out and shot.
* * *
1.
It started in the room they'd come call 'Janus's lab' because it was where they found the 'alternate' Elizabeth Weir. It ended there, too, after a fashion.
* * *
2.
It was late when John walked into Janus's lab, but it was hard to tell because of all the activity going on. Rodney was standing half in and half out of the cubicle they'd been modifying and Zelenka was working at the console. He looked up when John entered.
"John. Take him home with you I hope you will." He rubbed his eyes.
"Yes, I think I'd better," John replied with a grin. "Mr. Perpetual Motion wearing you down?"
"It is late, and he is needing sleep and food. We all are."
Many of the technicians working with Zelenka looked up at his words and John had to choke back a laugh at the pathetic eagerness on their faces. "Let me see what I can do."
Rodney had his tablet in his hands and was checking circuitry. He didn't even notice John's approach. "Dr. McKay," John said, shaking his head. "I've come for you."
"Hmm?" Finally Rodney looked up and frowned. "John? What are you doing here? Did I miss a meeting?"
"No, you missed dinner. And lunch. And I'm about to kidnap you, feed you, take you home--" He lowered his volume a bit out of courtesy to those within earshot-- "then fuck you into insensibility."
With an irritated look, Rodney kept on checking circuits. "As appealing as that sounds, I'm going to have to turn you down. I've still got--"
"Rodney. It's almost midnight."
"No, it's not."
"Yes, it is." John's words were echoed by at least four people in the room.
"It is?" Rodney sighed and rubbed his eyes. Unfortunately, he had a multimeter probe in one hand and nearly put out his eye.
"You need to stop for the night. You know you don't work well when you're exhausted. This can wait until morning."
"Oh, all right." He pulled the other probe from the board he was examining, causing a small popping sound. They froze. "Radek?"
"I do not know," Zelenka said, as technicians scurried about, a new urgency in their movements. "There is no power..."
"This circuit board should be clean, there's nothing going to it..."
"Wait... wait..."
John frowned as he watched them react. "What's going on?"
"I don't know... we shouldn't..." Rodney stepped into the cubicle and started pulling acrylic circuit-cards. "There's no power..."
"It's reacting to something..."
"Dr. Zelenka! There's power..."
"Don't touch that! Look out, Dr. McKay's in the cubby!"
"Rodney! You must..."
John would forever equate Zelenka's scream in Czech and the smell of ozone with the disappearance of the man he loved.
* * *
3.
"Rodney. Please. In normal English." Dr. Weir pinched the bridge of her nose. "Assume we're all idiots. What do you hope to accomplish with this?"
McKay took a deep breath and John was willing to bet he was counting backwards again. "From what we've deciphered from Janus's incredibly cryptic notes, we think it's possible to create a mini-stargate -- one that goes through time instead of space." He frowned down at his laptop. "Theoretically, it would be possible to send anything through it and also theoretically, it should be possible to pinpoint 'when' you want it to arrive, just like you can do with a regular stargate."
"Anything." John was frowning, he had a feeling he knew what Rodney wanted to do.
"Theoretically. The idea is to send a message back in time to Janus, who seemed to be pretty open to the idea of helping his descendants instead of letting them hang in the wind. If we can get him to leave us some information on the ZedPMs, how to create them or even if they're rechargeable, it would be... well, it would be beyond helpful."
"Yes, it would," Weir murmured.
"We've been able to simulate the process quite well," Zelenka said quietly. "There is a seventy-five percent success rate."
"Worst case scenario?" John couldn't keep the harshness from his question, even though he tried.
Rodney glanced at him then looked down, swallowing. "Nothing. The most we'd be out is a small amount of power. We don't think we even need to use the ZedPM, a naquadah generator should be sufficient."
The silence stretched for several long moments. John found himself wondering why Rodney was letting it continue since the guy was always talking. With a start, he realized that wasn't completely true any more. McKay had been very quiet for the last month, ever since Doranda.
"This sounds almost too good to be true," Weir finally said, her voice cautious. They'd all been burned so many times, most recently worst of all. It had become hard to drum up enthusiasm for one more new possibility.
"I realize that." Rodney's voice was flat. "And it's not. It's a long shot. Janus might not understand how ZedPMs work, might not want to share that information, might not believe the message is actually from the future -- which is why we want you to record it, Elizabeth -- a hundred possibilities. A million. But we think it's worth a try. Or two."
"How many could we send?" John asked.
Rodney and Zelenka exchanged glances. "As many as we want, I suppose," Rodney said and Zelenka nodded. "The power needed is almost miniscule compared to the real stargate. Of course, the stargate sends more than inanimate objects." There was no yearning in his voice, though John still suspected Rodney really wanted to send a person -- a specific person -- instead of an object. He wouldn't ask, though, just in case he was right.
"We should be careful in the wording of the message," Zelenka added. "We don't want to give away secrets in case the message does not go where intended."
"You mean, through space instead of time?" Weir asked, her eyes narrowing.
"Yes." Rodney cleared his throat. "There are precautions we can use, of course, so that even if it does fall into the wrong hands, nothing would come of it."
"All right." Weir exchanged a look with John. In her eyes, he saw the same surprise, the same worry over McKay he had. It was not normal behavior they were witnessing. Normally, Rodney would be crowing his accomplishment, telling them what idiots they were for not believing him. "You have a green light, gentlemen. Low priority. We have too many other, more urgent needs that must take precedence. Keep me advised every step of the way, and let's talk about what you want me to say on this message."
Rodney nodded, closed his laptop, stood and left immediately. Zelenka frowned after him, but turned enough to say goodbye before he left. John and Elizabeth said nothing for a long time after the meeting concluded.
* * *
4.
Rodney came back to himself only to realize he was on the floor, retching, dry-heaving. He felt a million times worse than being stunned by a Wraith weapon -- his stomach was heaving, his eyes were about to burst with the pain from his head, he felt moisture coming from his nose, his skin was too tight. There were horribly loud sounds everywhere -- a klaxon going off, yelling, booted feet running -- even the beating of his heart was too loud. He closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears, moaning.
"By the ancients!" He whimpered as the voice grated over too-sensitive nerve endings. "General! You need to get over here now! Med team to Janus' lab, on the double!" Whoever was shouting was trying to drive him insane, he just knew it.
There were other voices, a cacophony. "Who is it?" Where'd he come from?" "Is the General on his way?" "Be careful!"
"I know him, I know who it is," the first voice said. "Sir? Dr. McKay?"
Rodney managed to drag his eyes open to find himself being examined by an unfamiliar young Marine lieutenant. Speech was out of the question; his mouth and throat were on fire.
"Jinto! Be careful!"
"I know him, I tell you," the man repeated, thankfully modulating his voice to a level less ear-splitting. "Dr. McKay? It is you, isn't it?"
Rodney managed to nod, though it set off fresh explosions in his head. He moaned again.
"A med team is on its way, sir, just hold on."
Why did that name sound so familiar? And where was he? What had happened? Rodney tried to call up the last thing he remembered but it was all a jumble. A test. A test of something in Janus' lab, that's what he remembered, but nothing more than that.
Slowly the agony receded to a level that was almost tolerable, but then more people arrived, all of whom felt they had to shout things at each other. He kept his hands pressed to his ears and whimpered again.
"Quiet! Hold it down, something's wrong with his hearing," he heard the young lieutenant -- where had he heard that name? -- say. "Med team, he's over here. Where's the General?"
Oh, good, Rodney was going to be so pathetically grateful to see Carson's face that he'd even welcome one of the doctor's scathing comments. "Carson?" he croaked.
"What did he say?"
"I'm not sure, just hold on, sir, the med team is coming, the General will be here any second..."
With supreme effort, Rodney managed to open his eyes just as a tall, lean man entered the lab at a dead run. He had thick dark hair that was shot through with silver and a lined, tired face. He was wearing a general's bars. "Colonel?" Rodney managed to say before he passed right out.
* * *
5.
"We're sending this message to you in the hope that you'll take pity on your descendants and help us."
Elizabeth had sounded good, John thought, remembering how she recorded the message. That part was finished, that part was easy, and now Rodney and Zelenka were nearly ready for a test. John was in the lab with them, not really sure why, just watching them work and talking idly. Keeping them company. Rodney had been trying to explain to him that what they were doing, what they were trying to do, wasn't exactly time travel.
"What will happen is we will be creating quantum superposition alternatives, or alternate realities--"
"Alternities," Zelenka said, almost gleefully. John wondered why until Rodney responded.
"Alternate realities," he said, slowly and distinctly. "We are not playing an RPG, Radek."
John wanted to laugh at that, but he held it back. Instead, he took a seat at one of the consoles and tried to look serious. Immediately, there was a sudden surge of sound, a high-pitched, almost inaudible whine. With a small 'pop', a card appeared in the stasis chamber, the one they were modifying into what Rodney had started calling a 'timegate.'
All three froze in place. Finally, Rodney gingerly walked over to the cubicle and bent down, examining the thing without touching it.
"What is it?" John demanded, standing and approaching cautiously.
Rodney laughed in delight. It was the first time John had heard Rodney laugh since Doranda and with a jolt, he realized how much he'd missed it. "Never leave home without it! Colonel, I believe this is yours."
John looked down at what Rodney was holding and gaped -- it was his VISA card. Instead of taking the card from Rodney he yanked his wallet out from his back pocket and opened it. Yup, his VISA was right there, safe and secure, looking precisely like the one Rodney had, right down to the small notch in the top edge from where he'd had to use it as an ice scraper, once. "I don't believe it."
"I think we can say it works," Rodney said gleefully. Even Zelenka was beaming. "Trade you."
"Why?" Even as he asked, John traded credit cards with Rodney.
"So we can test it. It didn't come from out of the blue, we used it to test sometime in the future. Will use it. Verbs -- hell, semantics altogether -- are going to be difficult for this." He'd turned to Zelenka. "Now?"
So the first test worked, they'd sent John's VISA card back in time successfully and John began to catch the enthusiasm the two scientists were feeling. After that, they tried other things, from CDs to large vases and anything else that wasn't nailed down and discovered they could send things through space as well as time. Not far, but the item didn't have to rematerialize in the chamber if they didn't want it to. The biggest thing they were able to send back was a bottle of wine from Carson's private stock (John didn't want to ask too carefully how Carson had smuggled the alcohol in nor how Rodney had managed to wheedle it from the good doctor). Rodney sent it back in time ten years ("Give or take, we're still working on precision") to a room that had been sealed and hadn't flooded. The room had been empty when they first looked. When they went back after the test, there was a very old bottle of Mouton-Cadet 2003 sitting in it.
They celebrated by drinking it and it was damn good wine.
* * *
6.
When Rodney dragged himself back from oblivion again, he almost instantly knew he was in the infirmary. No place like home, he thought. He heard the persistent beep of a heart monitor, smelled the familiar scents of ointment and disinfectant and pain, and registered the murmur of voices speaking just low enough he couldn't discern words. His head still hurt but it didn't feel as though it was going to explode so that was an improvement. There was an itch on his hand which he assumed was an IV line.
His eyelids still weighed several hundred pounds but he managed to finally drag them partially open. The only noise he was able to make was a sorry croak, but that was sufficient.
"He's awake."
"Rodney? Can you hear me?" That was Sheppard's voice -- or rather, it was and it wasn't. It sounded rougher, harsher, for some reason.
"General, let me take a look at his vitals." That was a female voice, one he didn't recognize.
His eyelids refused to cooperate when he told them to open and stay open. Instead, they fluttered, giving him tantalizing glimpses of a red-headed doctor bending over him, placing a cold stethoscope to his chest. "How do you feel?" she asked. Her voice was very nice.
His, however, wasn't. A raw croak was all he managed.
"How about some ice chips?" she asked and he felt pathetically grateful for the spoonful she put on his tongue. It felt like gold melting down his throat. "Nothing more than this for a bit, we need to make sure your stomach is going to tolerate it. Your system has been through quite a shock."
Well, that made sense. With the blessed moisture in his mouth, he was able to speak -- barely. "Carson?" He whispered. Where was that idiot, anyway? Not that the redhead was hard to look at but Carson knew him best, knew what he could tolerate and what he couldn't, knew all his allergies and sensitivities.
She looked surprised and wary at his question. "Dr. Beckett died ten years ago, Dr. McKay. At the end of the war."
War? What war? What had happened to him, anyway? Carefully, Rodney turned his head enough to look at Sheppard and what he saw astonished him. The man was crying, fat tears rolling down his lined face. There was silver at his temples and throughout the rest of his hair and he looked like hell warmed over.
"Thank God you're back," Sheppard murmured. He leaned down and kissed Rodney, right on the lips, before pressing their foreheads together. "I missed you so damn much. So damn much."
Okay, really confused, now, Rodney thought to himself.
* * *
7.
"The difficulty is trying to figure out time distance," Rodney said. They were sitting at the briefing table and were talking about the project that seemed to be going beautifully, if slower than they wanted.
"What do you mean?" Elizabeth asked and John nodded.
"We know that greater distances in time require more power," Zelenka said. "But the scale does not seem to fit any discernable pattern."
"We thought it was logarithmic at first," Rodney said and Zelenka nodded. "But it didn't work."
"Why do you need...?" Elizabeth asked.
"Obviously, we need to know the approximate power level to use to send it back farther. More than that, we want to be as precise as possible. It won't do us any good to send it back after Atlantis is abandoned or long before your -- I mean, the alternate you -- arrival."
"Ten thousand years is a long time," Elizabeth said. Her voice was wry. "How are you testing it now?"
"Well, we know how much power to use for short distances. The credit card was barely a blip." Rodney sighed in frustration. "But the bottle of wine, it took far more power than it should have, which means perhaps there's a different scale for liquids, or for things with an organic component, or who knows. Plus, we still have no way of being precise even to the year. The bottle was dusty, but was it ten years' worth of dust? We don't know." He sighed. "We've begun standardizing what we send, particularly because we know what it will be, exactly. It's harder than I'd hoped it would be."
"Send a clock." Everyone at the table turned to look at John and he raised his eyebrows. "Send a small clock. Zero it out, send it back in time, see how much time has passed. Use good batteries."
Rodney's mouth was hanging open and Zelenka looked absolutely delighted. "That's it!" They all but ran from the briefing room, talking a mile a minute.
Elizabeth grinned at John and he shook his head. "Not being a genius, it kind of tickles me when I can beat a couple of 'em at their own game," he said.
She laughed outright. "I wouldn't call you a non-genius, John. Your insight has saved us on more than one occasion."
He shrugged, offering her his best 'aw shucks' expression, aware that it didn't fool her any longer. "They would have figured it out eventually. And I'll bet they won't even use a clock."
"Probably not." They chuckled and John put his hands on the table to push away, but she spoke again. "I'm worried about Rodney."
Relaxing back but not looking at her, John licked his lips and wished he could avoid that particular conversation. "Well, I am too, I guess."
"He's been on his best behavior for a long time now, and I... well, I miss our hyperactive, insane genius. This quiet one has me a little spooked." She was quiet for a while, before adding, "Do you think he's doing this to make up for Doranda?"
There were a lot of things that John could say and didn't want to. He continued to avoid her gaze as he mentally picked over the lot. The only one he would never say was the one he suspected was the truest -- Rodney was still trying to win back John's trust, John's friendship. If there was one conversation John regretted most in his life, it would have been the one where he'd told Rodney he didn't trust him any longer. Not that it wasn't justified, but he could still wish it hadn't had to happen.
John drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Yeah, I think that's a pretty good guess. I think we just need to give him a bit more time."
"You think he'll finally move past it?"
"I hope so," John replied, and he meant every word.
* * *
8.
Rodney had slept and had woken, a bit less confused and definitely less pain-filled. When he opened his eyes, he found that other John Sheppard, the one with the gray in his hair and the general's insignia on his shoulders sleeping in a chair next to him, slumped over Rodney's bed.
Rodney looked him over. What had happened to the John he remembered? The one with the hair that stuck up all over the place, the one with the crooked grin that always twisted Rodney up inside, the one who looked fresh off the farm, even in dress uniform?
It was no longer a horror to move, so he let his hand drop on John's shoulder. "Hey."
With a start, John jerked his head up and opened bleary eyes. "Hey yourself," he rasped, then coughed.
Rodney decided he really hated the lines on this John Sheppard's face. "There's water over there on the table."
"You want some?"
"Yes, please. You too."
John grinned faintly but did as asked. When they had both cleared their respective throats, John took Rodney's hand. "I never gave up hope," he said thickly.
It took Rodney a few tries before he could formulate a question. "I don't... I'm not sure... time travel? I remember time travel, but I thought it was... back?"
"Time travel, yes. You were working on time travel. We thought at first you had gone back in time, but Radek was fairly certain you hadn't."
"I went forward." Not-John nodded. "How far? How... long?"
John's expression became one that Rodney could have lived his whole life without seeing. "Fifteen years, ten months, a couple of weeks. Not that I've been counting or anything."
There was a gold band on John's left ring finger and Rodney could not bring himself to ask. "I... don't remember much. It's like there are holes in my memory..."
"What do you remember?"
Rodney's stomach was mildly protesting the water he'd sipped but he was fairly certain it was a combination of nerves and hunger. "I remember... a test? We were getting ready for a test, a big one, we were going to send... something..."
"The virus. Yes." John nodded and Rodney closed his mouth. "It was very late and I came to get you, to bring you home. Do you remember what I said?"
Mute, Rodney shook his head.
"I told you I was going to drag you out of there, feed you, then fuck you to sleep. And you told me that, nice as the offer sounded, you still had work to do." John's breath hitched. "I remember it like it was yesterday."
"Oh."
Luckily, the doctor came in at that moment and saved Rodney from having to say anything else. His mind was whirling at about the speed of light, frantically hunting for a point of reference, and he couldn't have managed another word as it was.
The doctor's name was Annette, Annette Welling, and she had taken Carson's place ten years before, after the 'war' had ended. She remembered him pretty well, but he had no clue who she was. She was not married to John Sheppard, he determined that almost immediately. A bit later on, Radek came to see him, and Rodney was surprised to learn that he was in charge of the city. Elizabeth Weir had died eight years before; cancer. Radek didn't look too well either, though Rodney supposed that was due to the weight of command. That, and almost sixteen years passing.
He couldn't shake the feeling of wrongness.
Dr. Welling pronounced him fit and released him, with an injunction to monitor how he was feeling and to eat soft, easily-digestible foods for a while. She was concerned, but not overly so, at his assertion of memory holes, saying the trauma he'd endured was the probable reason. His memory should return within a few days, she thought, but he was to tell her if it didn't. He didn't remember... well, he didn't say so, but he didn't remember much of anything. Nothing seemed right. After his IV was removed, John took his hand. "Where's your ring?" he asked.
Rodney blinked down at his left hand and tried to imagine a ring there. He couldn't. "Ring?"
"Your ring, doofus, the one that matches mine?" John waved his hand in Rodney's face. He wore a huge smile and it made him look younger, but not young enough for Rodney's state of mind.
"I don't know," Rodney said, frowning down at his hand. He wore a ring that matched John's?
Atlantis seemed... bigger. Most of the city was inhabited, now, people wearing all kinds of clothing teeming in the corridors and along the promenades. John let him take his time but steered him in a definite direction.
Most everyone smiled or nodded, greeting John Sheppard as 'General' and that rather freaked Rodney out. General Sheppard? He half expected to see Elizabeth around every corner, waiting to leap out and shout "Surprise!"
They got to a door which led to a suite of rooms, or rather, a small apartment. There were pictures all over the place, many of them were of John and Rodney together. It was furnished with older, comfortable-looking furniture. There was one bedroom and one big bed.
* * *
9.
It was late and John knew Rodney and Zelenka were still working in the lab. He had decided on a peace offering, a way (he hoped) to let Rodney know that his trust was returning -- one extra large, frozen pizza (frozen, yes, but it was DiGiorno, so that made up for a lot). He'd smuggled it aboard the Daedalus when they returned to Atlantis and had kept it hidden, waiting for the right occasion and he thought he had found it now.
It was difficult getting into the area designated as the kitchens with no one seeing him, and it was damn near impossible to get the pizza from the kitchen to the lab. He managed, but it was a close call -- he'd lost Lorne and Cadman by sneaking through an overhead duct passage but Kavanagh and his cronies had been a royal bitch to duck.
Pizza was as good as gold in the Pegasus galaxy. Domino's still hadn't put a franchise out that far.
The look on Rodney's face as he smelled the pizza was just about worth the price of admission right there. "Pizza?"
"Yep, real old fashioned, honest-to-God frozen pizza, straight from Earth. Thought you might be hungry."
"God, yes."
There was a worktable over in the corner, littered with various pieces of computers and acrylic circuit boards. Zelenka cleared a space (with a level of enthusiasm which had John grinning) and John put his pizza box down. "Nearly had to wear a sidearm walking through the city with this," he said. "All yours, gentlemen."
"You're not going to join us, Colonel?" Zelenka asked. Rodney had just dug right in.
"Well, I might have a piece."
"Is this green pepper? I love green pepper," Rodney said around a mouthful of pizza.
"Yeah? I figured you for an anchovy guy," John said, hiding his grin with a slice of pizza. It was pretty good, considering how far it had come.
"Oh, please."
"Anchovy, the little fish, yes? I love that." Zelenka had wasted no time digging in as well.
"Radek, you're insane. Anchovies are the epitome of nasty."
"I've always been a pineapple man myself," John allowed, leaning his hip against the table. The way Rodney was inhaling his slice made it look as though he hadn't eaten in days.
"That figures," Rodney said with a withering look.
The pizza disappeared in an astonishingly short time. "So, how's the timegate progressing?"
"'Timegate,' that's good, wonder who came up with such an appropriate and lyrical name," Rodney said, wiping his hands on his pants. "Thanks to you, we've got a much better idea of how much power is necessary for what item. It turns out the scale is logarithmic, but it's dependant upon what we're sending back."
"Yes, yes, for some things, it is different scale."
"You mean, for a CD it would be one thing and for my VISA card, another?" John frowned.
"Yes, exactly, which makes sense, but we were looking in the wrong direction. It's not weight or mass of the object -- well, not exactly -- it's the specific type of thing, of object. The wine not only had an organic component to it, it was liquid. The power required to send it as one, cohesive whole, was completely different than something without an organic component, or something solid. It means a carbon molecule, for example, which is a cohesive whole will be far easier to send than something even made of an alloy."
"Okay, so a person would require a much greater amount of energy over a plastic dummy of the same mass."
"Precisely. And a dummy made out of pure silicone would take less power than even that. And it's not like we'd want to send a person, anyway."
"Field far too unstable, too many variables," Zelenka nodded rapidly, agreeing.
"And the clock--"
"Actually, we used a tiny chunk of U-232, sealed into a special, vacuumed, lead container. A cohesive whole, remember? A regular clock is made up of too many different metals and alloys. U-232 decays in an accurate and predictable fashion so we were able to tell exactly how long we had sent it back. It was far more precise."
John had to grin; good ol' fatuous Rodney was back. It was good to see and to hear. "Well, it sounds like you've got it licked, then. When do we send the message?"
"Well, we might be ready by tomorrow. I've still got some calibrations to do."
"And the cubicle, it needs more shielding," Zelenka said.
"Shielding? What type? Can I help with that?" John stood and wandered over to the stasis chamber -- something that still gave him a case of the willies. He couldn't look at it without seeing the ancient, withered version of Elizabeth Weir standing frozen in it.
"Yeah, actually, you might be able to," Rodney said, as if the idea had just occurred to him. "Let me show you, if you could..." He walked over to the cubicle, standing just inside it. "We need a sheet of the same kind of metal used in naquadah power generators to protect..."
John walked over to the cubicle to see where Rodney was indicating. It looked pretty straightforward and he could use--
"Rodney. Rodney!" Zelenka sounded urgent as he looked at the consoles in front of him. There was another surge of non-sound and John winced, looking around, trying to figure out where it came from. "Rodney! There is power--"
"What?" Rodney gaped at Zelenka for a moment before he jumped into the cubicle and pulled the cover off a panel. "There's no... there can't be power coming to this! It's off circuit!"
"Get out of there, Rodney! Massive power surge--"
"McKay! Get out of there!"
John reached to grab Rodney's arm but before he could, Rodney disappeared in a concussion of light and sound. The last thing John saw was Rodney's horrified face, mouth open to speak.
When he could see again, past the dancing lights that clouded his vision, Rodney was gone.
* * *
10.
The problem was that Rodney couldn't remember much. The last memories he had were of time travel and a test of some kind, but John had used the word 'virus' and that didn't sound right. There were a lot of things that didn't sound right, such as him and John. Near as he could figure from carefully worded questions and a look at an online slide show, Rodney had been married to John Sheppard for about three years before he'd disappeared. That made no sense, because, as far as he was aware, neither of them were gay.
Not that he had never been curious (especially where John Sheppard was concerned), but just like everything else of a personal nature, he'd never had time to explore those curiosities. He'd always been too busy learning and building and working for anything else. But by the evidence, he had been married to a man for at least three years, almost sixteen years ago, so something had definitely changed.
He spoke with Dr. Welling about his memory loss, and she reiterated what she'd said earlier. "Your scans are normal, Rodney. You've undergone tremendous stress as evidenced by your extreme reactions on arrival. Give it time." She smiled. "The brain is a resilient thing, yours especially. Stop by tomorrow and we'll double check everything."
The day passed in a whirl of colors and surprises. People he didn't remember well came to see him and hug him, while people he remembered were conspicuously absent. Carson was dead. Teyla had died as well, though Ronon was well, living on another planet with the rest of his people. Most of Rodney's staff were gone, dead or rotated back to Earth. Parrish and Brown were dead. Lorne and Cadman were dead. Dead, dead, dead. So many had died but it had only been fifteen plus years. Why had so many died?
That evening, once the last of the visitors left, John secured the door, returned to the couch where Rodney had been sitting and pulled him upright. Then he'd kissed Rodney, deeper and far more seriously than Rodney ever remembered being kissed. Coming up for air, he tucked Rodney under his chin and held him tightly.
"God, I missed you," he murmured.
Rodney didn't know how to respond. John was obviously deeply in love with him but Rodney didn't feel as though he'd been married (he'd been married? to a man?) for three years. Remaining close felt like lying, so he gently pulled away. "John, I don't..."
"I know. You've got holes in your memory. Remember? I was there." John smiled gently. "I figured that's why you've been so quiet, chatterbox. It's okay. Let me love you tonight and after you rest, we'll see what's going on in that head of yours." His smile turned... well, it turned hot and very sexy and Rodney blinked, surprised at how that smile made him feel. "Maybe I can jog your memory."
So Rodney let John undress him, let John put him on the big bed, let John kiss him and arouse him and give him one of the best blowjobs Rodney had ever had, well, that he remembered. While he was still recovering from that, John stretched out on top of him and kissed him again, deeply. By then, Rodney was finding it hard to remain passive -- he might not have remembered being married to John, but John certainly knew all his buttons and pushed them, one by one.
John knew that Rodney's nipples were an incredible erogenous zone. He knew about the spot under his left ear that was particularly sensitive for some reason, and proceeded to suck and lick at it until Rodney almost came. He even knew about some spots that Rodney didn't know -- when John had licked along the inner crease at the top of Rodney's left thigh, Rodney nearly shook himself to pieces.
By the time John was done, Rodney had come twice and John once, all over Rodney's stomach. He hadn't tried to have anal sex with Rodney -- which was good as the thought still bothered Rodney -- but there wasn't much else they hadn't done. And Rodney enjoyed every moment of it, which surprised him and made him wonder if he had, indeed, been married to John. He wouldn't have enjoyed it so much if he hadn't been gay, right? Somehow, that just sounded... wrong to him.
John cleaned them up, spooned behind Rodney and promptly fell into a deep sleep. Rodney, however, found that even with sexual satiation, his brain was working far too hard to sleep. Memory holes were one thing, but this... this was another.
After about a half hour of trying (and failing) to put his finger on the wrongness, Rodney gently extricated himself from John's arms and pulled on some clothing. In the main room, he'd seen a computer and thought he'd do a little history research, try to figure out why so many had died, how he could have forgotten being married (he was married?) to John Sheppard when other things were clear as day. When the computer booted, he automatically checked to clock, just like he'd always done and that's where he discovered the problem.
* * *
11.
"What the hell happened?!" John yelled, turning back to Zelenka, who was ashen.
"I don't know!" He began dashing from laptop to laptop, muttering under his breath in Czech.
"Sheppard to Weir, we have an emergency in the lab." John did his best not to sound either panicked or furious, though he was both.
"John? What happened?"
"McKay is gone, he just disappeared."
"What?! I'm on my way."
"Bring a science team. Wake them up if you have to." John whipped around to Zelenka. "What happened, dammit?!"
"There was a surge, a power surge," Zelenka said. He looked utterly panicked and it didn't do anything for John's state of mind. "There should not have been. There is no power going to the cubicle, we cut it while we were working on it. But there was a surge, and I don't understand it."
John stayed out of the way of the scientists and technicians who poured into the room, though he wanted to walk to each one, grab them by their arms and shake an answer out of them. Elizabeth pulled him out of the room and talked to him, obviously trying to calm him down but he just couldn't, he was far more upset than he should have been. Rodney McKay was gone, and it was through no fault of his own, and John felt like shit warmed over because he had suspected this would happen, only by design. Now that it had, he had to face facts: Rodney did not intend it to happen. He'd seen the guy's face before he disappeared and he was terrified.
On the verge of pounding his head into the wall until it gave or he passed out, John was saved by Zelenka approaching. "We have a theory, but to test, we need you, Colonel."
"Why?" John forced himself to relax his fists.
Zelenka sighed. "Telling you might invalidate the test. Please. I need you to come in and approach the cubicle in the same way you did earlier, before Rodney disappeared."
John's stomach did not like the direction his thoughts were taking him. He took a big breath, told his nerves to fuck off, and did exactly as Zelenka asked. Once again, there was a soundless concussion and the technicians froze, half staring at him in shock and the other half staring at their laptops in shock. John closed his eyes. "It's me."
"Yes, I'm afraid so."
Elizabeth was right behind. "It's him what? What happened?"
"Rodney was in the cubicle showing Colonel Sheppard where we needed extra shielding. There was no power running to it at all, the generator was off." Zelenka looked like shit, John thought. "Colonel Sheppard's approach to the cubicle caused a surge where there could be none, which I think was caused by Atlantis itself trying to activate the stasis chamber, as the city has been programmed to do. In this case, however, activation did not cause stasis because we have been modifying the chamber for time travel."
"I was in here, sitting at the console, when my VISA card popped in," John said dully. "I did it."
"You had no way of knowing that so this is not your fault." Elizabeth's voice was flat and brooked no contradiction. She turned to Zelenka. "How do we get him back?"
Zelenka swallowed. "We're not sure. We first have to determine when and where he is, and that could take a while. Then... well, it may be a combination of his being in the right place at the right time when Colonel Sheppard triggers the Atlantean response."
"Fine. Top priority. You work--"
"Tomorrow." Both Elizabeth and Zelenka turned to John in surprise. "They need sleep first. Wherever Rodney is, he'll have to cool his heels until they've rested. You don't need to be making mistakes through exhaustion."
John wasn't about to try and decipher Elizabeth's look, so he turned away. "Good point, Colonel. Get some rest, Radek. First thing tomorrow, find me some answers."
* * *
12.
It took Rodney fifteen minutes to find the lab again, because he wasn't certain where his quarters were located in reference to them. He was unsurprised to find the light on and Radek Zelenka still there.
"Rodney." Radek looked so very tired.
"The dates are wrong." When Zelenka didn't look surprised, Rodney elaborated. "I know I've got holes in my memory, but why the hell wouldn't I remember getting married to John Sheppard? Because I don't. Remember it, that is. And the dates are wrong. I know -- okay, I think I know -- when I left, and it's only been seventeen years. It should be a minimum of twenty."
Radek rubbed his eyes under his glasses. "And your conclusion?"
Rodney frowned. "You're not surprised. What aren't you telling me?"
Radek really looked awful, far worse than time and the burden of leadership should allow. "Sixteen years ago, we were trying to perfect a method of time travel. You -- we -- wanted to send the virus that killed all the Wraith back in time, so we could avoid... avoid a lot of things." Radek sighed and Rodney found a seat on a stool, never taking his eyes off his friend. "We were so very close. We'd done some testing but were still perfecting the process."
"A virus?"
"Yes. The one Kavanagh developed. The one Dr. Weir did not wish to use. The one that completely destroyed every Wraith in the Pegasus galaxy."
After a moment, Rodney realized his mouth was open, so he closed it. Genocide? Yes, they were Wraith and evil and all but... genocide? It was a little hard to take.
"The plan was to send the virus back in time so we could use it sooner. We weren't certain it would actually affect us in this timeline, but we felt it was worth the risk anyway. So much damage had been done by the Wraith's use of the Genii atomics, so many people had died, were sick. When most of your people are dying, you tend to look beyond ethics."
"Atomics?" Rodney repeated faintly. "The Wraith used atomics? Oh my God. Dying. That's why so many have died. Cancer?"
"Yes." Radek smiled grimly. "Including me. But I've got a few good years left, I hope. So, you were doing some last minute adjustments when General Sheppard came to get you. We were all exhausted and when he said he was going to take you home to get some sleep, well, we were all for that. But then the accident. The power that came from nowhere, nothing was hooked up, but there was a massive surge anyway. And you..."
"I disappeared," Rodney said carefully.
"You died."
Rodney swallowed but couldn't find any words.
"You were vaporized, I believe. But General Sheppard never believed that. He saw an accident, knew we were working on time travel, demanded we check to find out when you'd gone to. He would not believe me when I said you were dead."
"And now that I'm here, he thinks..."
"He thinks he's been vindicated, that you were sent forward in time."
"I'm not him, Radek." Rodney spoke with effort, but even then, his voice was soft.
"Many Worlds Interpretation. You must have been doing something similar in your reality."
"Yes, we were trying to find a way to send a message to the past, to Janus, to find out how to recharge or create ZedPMs." Rodney frowned, his brain going on unexpected paths. "Wait wait wait. You said there was no power to the cubby when the accident happened?"
"No, there was none. We have never been able to figure out how it happened, how power went there in the first place."
"There was no power to the cubby for me either. You and I, we'd been working late. Sheppard brought us pizza." Rodney smiled at the memory. It had been a peace offering between them, he was sure of it, and it had gone all wrong. "The generator was off. There was no power from it to any of the circuits in the cubby at all."
Radek was frowning. "Such similarities... coincidence?"
"We don't believe in coincidence, remember?" He frowned in thought. "Was your generator running?"
"Yes, but the power was only directed to the consoles." He could see the old Radek now, see his enthusiasm for solving a puzzle.
"What are the parallels? There has to be something in common between the two occurrences. What is it?"
Radek's face suddenly cleared. "The General."
It was like lightning struck and Rodney's whole body jerked. "The VISA card. The pizza. He'd been standing with me, at the cubby. I was showing him what we needed..."
"He has the gene. Could we have missed a subroutine..."
"That routed power to the stasis chamber because of how Janus programmed--"
"Atlantis would try to get power to it, try to activate it--"
"Continue its purpose, that's got to be it."
"How can we test--"
"Wait." Radek held up his hand, turning to the console nearby. "There it is again."
"What?" Rodney stood and moved to his side. "What am I looking at?"
"Why I'm here. There has been an odd power fluctuation every three hours and forty-seven minutes for the last day. It's like power is suddenly routed here but then dissipates, because it has nowhere to go."
"Why does that time period sound... Oh, my God."
"What?"
"How long does it take a naquadah generator that's been completely depleted to recharge?"
Radek's mouth hung open. "They're trying to get you back."
"They've figured it out, hell, you've probably figured it out. A message?"
"No, I don't believe so. The power must be going in both directions."
Turning to another laptop, Radek started some equations, muttering to himself. Rodney looked over his shoulder for a moment until he perceived where Radek was going with them. "No, no, I get it, look. It needs energy from both sides, coming here I used the echo of the accident sixteen years ago and--"
"But to have that much power, Rodney! You could die, be vaporized as before!"
"Not if we do it in conjunction with their power surges. Look." Rodney lost himself in the math, in the physics, arguing with his friend as if it weren't his own life he was talking about. In the abstract, it was beautiful, a utilization of multiverse theory meshed with a quantum mechanical system. The problem with it, of course, was that it was his life they were discussing, not an abstract experiment. They were also aware that the clock might be ticking -- the waveform was going to collapse, the only questions were when and how.
"Which will it be," Radek said seriously, "discontinuous or deterministic? I do not think you would like being Schrodinger's cat, Rodney."
"Hey, that's my cat's name," Rodney said faintly. "It worked one way, all I can do--"
"You don't have to leave."
Both Rodney and Radek whipped around. In the doorway to the lab stood General Sheppard and Rodney's guilt went up in flames. "How long have you...?"
"Long enough. Can we talk?"
"I'll leave--" Radek looked between them, obviously hurting for them.
"No, I'd rather not come inside the lab." Rodney's heart sank; Sheppard had been listening the whole time, he knew it was, in some way, his fault that his husband had died.
"It's all right, I'll come out." Radek squeezed Rodney's arm as he went past and Rodney gave him a weak smile. He wasn't looking forward to this.
There was a small balcony a few yards down the corridor that led to the lab, John steered them there. It was quiet and peaceful and the city glowed softly, serene in her ocean of stars. They stood in silence for a long time while Rodney tried to find the words to comfort his friend.
"You're so different," he finally murmured, surprising himself. That wasn't what he had intended on saying.
"Different?"
"More open. Talkative. Something." He fell silent for a long time, trying to think of another way to describe the differences he'd noticed. "Something like that. I never knew you liked to surf until I saw pictures of you surfing in your, I mean, our place. I didn't know what books you liked to read or even that you liked Johnny Cash for some weird reason. And the guitar, I never knew you played."
"Did you ever ask?" John's voice was very soft.
Rodney swallowed and hung his head. "No. I never did. I should have." He'd always been too wrapped up in himself, in what he felt and saw that he never even had time for the man he considered to be a good friend. Perhaps his best friend. Peter Grodin's death had taught him to cherish friendship, but he had let the lesson pass with John Sheppard. He shouldn't have.
"Yeah." They were quiet again for a while. "I never had to talk with you around," John said softly. "It was like having my own soundtrack to life. You filled every silence. Then, once you were gone, I either had to start talking more or go insane. I couldn't manage without your voice, you see. I even played some of your voice recordings, over and over again, while I tried to sleep."
God this was hard, Rodney thought, biting his lip. "I'm sorry," he finally said, knowing it wasn't enough.
"It's okay. I think I knew you weren't... well, weren't my Rodney shortly after you woke. But you see, this is good. I never... I never got to say goodbye. And we'd been quarrelling, you'd been spending so much time in the lab, working on your project. At least this way, I get to say goodbye." John turned to him, taking his shoulder. "You don't have to go. I heard all of that, didn't understand it all but heard it. There's a chance you'll die, just like he did. You could stay here if you wanted, and we wouldn't even have to live together."
There were only a few times in his life Rodney felt like crying, and all of them had been since he stepped through that damn wormhole to Atlantis. "I know, it's that... this isn't..."
"It's okay." John pulled him in for a hug and Rodney returned it, finally. "I understand. And it's not like I won't see him soon anyway."
It took a second for that to sink in then Rodney was pushing him away, angry and incredulous words fighting to come out. "What did you say? You had better not--"
John chuckled, a dry, bitter sound. "No, it's not that. Radek and I are the last of us. I think we're just to cussed to die, or maybe I was just stubbornly waiting to see you again."
"Cancer. You too?" Oh, God.
"Yes. Just like Elizabeth and Teyla. It just took me longer."
What the hell could he say to that? This reality had taken it on the chin in a big way. The fact they'd resorted to genocide... well, he found he couldn't condemn them for it, not at all.
"We should get you back. I heard Radek's comment that you might be under a time limit, and to be honest, well, the more I see you, the more I want you to stick around."
Abruptly, Rodney grabbed John's head and pulled it to his, kissing John as hard and hot as he could, trying to convey his respect, his sympathy, even his love for the man who had loved another version of Rodney and loved him well. When he broke the kiss, he whispered fiercely, "You're going to see him again. But you will hang on as long as you can, because you're General by-damn Sheppard, and there is nothing that can take you down." He gave the head he still held a little shake. "Do you understand me?"
The smile that bloomed across John's face was edged in tears, but it was still beautiful. "Yes, sir," he whispered. Then he turned and led them back into the lab.
* * *
Epilogue:
If anything, the return to his own reality was worse than the trip out. He spent two days in the infirmary and was never so glad to give in to every one of Carson's demands. After that, it took him close to a day to write up a report, relating everything he'd seen in that future, hoping to avoid what had happened there in his own timeline.
The only thing he left out was his relationship with General John Sheppard.
The project had been temporarily suspended until they could figure out what damn subroutine they'd missed. Three days after his return, Rodney went to the darkened lab and just stood in the doorway. He was remembering what had happened, remembering what he had felt and done and saw. But mostly, he was remembering General Sheppard, putting on a brave face while watching his husband disappear for the second time.
"Hey."
Rodney didn't have to turn to know who it was -- the same man who dozed in the chair next to him for the first few hours after his return, who had visited him almost every hour after that. "Hey yourself."
"Whatcha doing?"
Rodney shrugged. "Thinking."
"Nothing new there."
"Yeah, alert the media." Rodney turned and saw John leaning up against the wall opposite the door. It was his John Sheppard, thick dark hair sticking up all over the place like a demented hedgehog, dressed in comfortable-looking blue sweats, arms crossed with nonchalance but eyes carrying his worry. Rodney remembered what it was like to kiss that man, to have that man make love to him, hit all his buttons and more. He'd never known love like that and he'd thought he never would. "Can I ask you a question?"
John looked mildly surprised. "Yeah, sure."
"Why do you like Ferris wheels? And do you like to surf?"
A slow, puzzled smile spread across John's face. "Well, there's a story behind both of those, but neither one is short."
"I got time," Rodney replied, closing the door to the lab behind him.
end