Fic: Escape (Gen, PG-13)
Title: Escape
Author: last01standing
Recipient:imwithrebel
Pairing: Gen
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: For fun not profit, I am in no way affiliated with SGA.
Summary: McKay wakes up in a Genii prison cell, alone except for Sheppard’s voice in his head.
-o-
He wakes up in darkness, not knowing his name. And that’s… that’s a problem. He doesn’t like that. The room is small enough to pace it in two strides, deep enough for three. There’s enough room to lie down, but if he points his toes, they brush up against a concrete wall. There are bars at the edge of the cell. He can fit his arm through the gap up to the shoulder but no farther. The lock is… analog, not particularly complicated, but he yearns for something digital. This is crude. Outside an area of expertise he has no way to define.
He sits down gingerly against the cold stone floor and starts cataloging himself for assets and injuries, his hands shaking. No weapons. His left wrist is likely cracked along with at least one of his ribs.
Why does he know what that feels like?
His hands are calloused in ways that shouldn’t be familiar, fingers used to curling around a gun.
[Calm down, buddy]
“Great,” he mumbles. “And the icing on top of this miserable day is I’m hearing voices.”
[You’re not hearing voices, Rodney. Check your radio.]
“Right,” he scrambles his good hand up to the side of his face, but there’s nothing in his ear. “Oh no.”
[McKay!]
He clutches his ears, hoping to shut out the voice, but he already knows he can’t. “Shut up a second. Please. I don’t think I can deal with captivity and voices in my head. Dammit, I was almost positive I wasn’t a crazy person. Is this a mental institution? Oh God, I’m in a mental institution.”
[Okay…] the voice in his head drawls. [I’m going to take a stab at this and say you don’t remember what happened.]
“What part of it gave it away?”
[Your name is Rodney McKay. You’re working with a team out of the Lost City of Atlantis. We were off-world some bastards got the drop on us. Any of this ringing a bell?]
“Lost City of Atlantis? Is that the one with the mermaids? Oh god, it’s true. It has to be true. I’m in a mental institution talking to myself.”
[You’re in Genii prison cell. Which granted isn’t much better, but there’s help coming. Ronon and Teyla should be back through the gate by now so calm down and breathe.]
There’s something loosening in his chest. The threads of panic don’t leave but his heartbeat throttles back and he clenches his good hand. Rodney McKay of Atlantis.
[Dr. Rodney McKay,] the voice adds, almost teasing.
“I don’t suppose you have a name?”
[Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. I’m military head of Atlantis]
“Awfully full of ourselves, aren’t we, voice in my head?”
He gets a very distinct mental picture of a man with messy hair and arms crossed glaring at him. [McKay do me a favor and pinch yourself, okay?]
“The last thing I’m going to do is bow down to demands of the-”
[Save it for Kolya.] Sheppard says. [We’re on the same team.]
“Fine,” McKay snaps and pinches his left bicep.
Sheppard sighs. [Okay, we’re in the same body. We get back to Atlantis and we can fix this. You’ve done body sharing before.]
That’s not comforting. He traces a scar on his arm absently, wincing at the pain etched into flesh.
[What’s the last thing you remember?]
There’s nothing there. Not before waking up in darkness. The panic mounts along with the throbbing in his head. He doesn’t think it’s healthy for a heart to be running this quickly. He gasps into the musty air, fingers clawing at the clay walls. The pain from the broken wrist laces through him, and it’s so blindingly, exquisitely real that he knows this can’t be a dream.
Then all at once it stops. His heart slows, and he settles down to the ground. “We’re not dead,” he says and it’s his voice, but it’s not him. It’s John Sheppard’s presence in his body, manhandling him back into sanity. “We’re going to get out of here, McKay, if I have to drag you out myself. Now say it.”
His fingers curl as Sheppard releases control. His lungs fill and empty, fill again.
[McKay,] the voice chastises.
“We’re going to get out of here,” he says and hearing it out loud, it almost sounds like truth.
[Good,] Sheppard says. [Now believe it or not, the fact that you can’t remember is going to work in our favor. No way for you to give us up.]
“They’re going to torture me, aren’t they?”
[They need you.] Sheppard replies and it’s not an answer.
*
It’s two days before he sees someone. Or at least he thinks it’s two days. He marks the time by the appearance of moldy bread and a tin of stale water at the mouth of his cell. He drinks it at Sheppard’s urging, but it barely does enough to quell the shaking of his hands.
[There’s help coming, McKay. You seriously do not want to get on Teyla and Ronon’s bad side. Trust me.]
Only after two days of listening to Sheppard talk about Teyla, Ronon and the team, he’s terrified that the reason he hasn’t been saved already is because they don’t know where he is.
“Rodney McKay,” a voice says.
“Shut up, Sheppard. I’m allowed to wallow.”
“I did not believe it,” the voice says. “My guards said the great Rodney McKay had gone mad.”
There is light spilling through the door and it’s so bright that his eyes don’t adjust immediately. He’s left scrambling back to the corner of the cell, and arm thrown up to protect his vision. After a second the face at the bars swims into focus, the uniform something out Nazi Germany, the face, weathered and half-beaten. He feels his mouth curl around the name, his accent subtly different from what it’s supposed to be. “Kolya.”
“So you do remember,” the man says mildly. “I was starting to wonder.”
He feels himself stand, feels the spine straighten with a pop, his broken ribs grinding with the motion. “I’m not going to tell you anything.”
“You are a pale imitation of Colonel Sheppard,” Kolya sneers. “And he died so very easily, just a flip of a switch.”
(The man in front of him falls while he screams a name.)
“You won’t kill me,” Sheppard says, hands balled to a fist at their side.
“Not today,” Kolya says and plunges them back into darkness.
*
“You bastard,” he hisses. “You bastard, you’re dead. Did you not think this was potentially vital information?”
[I don’t think I’m dead. I think I’m in here with you.]
“Scarface is right, I’ve cracked.”
It’s dark again and if he lets himself, he can imagine somewhere different, an alien city lit up in gold, the spires reaching into a sky full of constellations he hasn’t yet memorized. He can almost feel it, the comradery of a friend bumping shoulders with him as he sips on a cold beer.
[If I am dead. I don’t want you focusing on that. We get you out of here. One way or another.]
“What happened to you?”
[You don’t need to hear it.]
“Sheppard!”
[It wasn’t anything. We came through the gate, we did the usual sweep for ancient devices. Something activated. You thought I did it, but it was the Genii waiting for us. Then I woke up with you. ]
His head is throbbing. This can’t be healthy, having two consciousnesses in one brain. If he has to guess, Sheppard’s taking up some of the pathways that are supposed to be used for memories and if they’re keeping him around, it’s for some purpose.
“Do we think I’m for ransom?”
[They’ve been after you for almost a year. I don’t think they bother with ransom. I think they want you for your big brain.]
“My brain that’s currently housing you.”
[Still the smartest person in two galaxies, McKay.]
But he doesn’t have a plan, doesn’t have any weapons or any idea why he’s being held. He doesn’t even know his name, not really. He can’t tell you where he was born or if he has any family. All he’s got is Sheppard
And Sheppard’s the distant echo of a man who may already be dead.
*
He’s not fed the next morning, just give a pint of water that he gulps down greedily, trying to quell the shaking of his hands. [Tactics,] Sheppard observes.
“I can’t see straight,” he spits. “I don’t know how this is helping anyone.”
The guard squares his stance. “Kolya says you are to help us.”
“I can certainly see how this treatment is working,” he huffs back. There is a drip of water crawling down his chin. He darts his tongue out, chasing it. “Look, I can’t work if I’m not thinking clearly.”
And there’s no way in hell that he thinks clearly as long as half his brain is devoted to keeping Sheppard alive.
“If you agree to cooperate. You will be well treated.”
“And if not?”
The guard swings the door open, cracking his knuckle.
“I was wondering when we’d get to the torture,” he moans. “I won’t help you.”
He sees the boot come up and he loses several hours.
When he comes back to his senses, his body aches and he’s alone. “Sheppard?” he says tasting the copper on his teeth.
There’s no reply.
“Come on, Sheppard.”
He should hurt more than he does. He can’t bend his fingers, but it’s a distant sort of ache, secondary to the fact that he voice in his head has quieted. He doesn’t think he’s incapacitated. He can still breathe. For all that his muscles are stiff, the wrist is the only thing that feels broken and that was already a problem when this started. The gap in his memory between the cell swinging open and waking back up is not a stretch of time he particularly wants to remember.
He wonders if Sheppard realized that too.
“John this isn’t funny.”
“John Sheppard is dead,” a voice says from the front of his cell and when his eyes adjust to the brightness, he’s already picked out Kolya’s voice. “And you are going to help us.”
“Fine,” he snarls. “Show me what you need.”
Kolya smiles cruelly at his injury. “See Dr. McKay, I knew you would come around.”
*
The device is…
It’s…
It’s nothing he’s seen before. The array is crystals where he’d expected wires and the colors are something that resound in the depths of what used to be his memory. His entire body hums with purpose as Kolya throws him onto his knees. He doesn’t know what this contraption is, but he knows he was born to work on this kind of technology. Knows it’s fundamental to his very self even though he has no idea who that is.
Why is this familiar?
(A blue light, a name on his lips and then there is Sheppard falling like he’s had his strings cut)
“What do you expect me to do with this?”
“Oh, Dr. McKay. Surely you can help a poor people with gain some sort of advantage against an enemy such at the wraith.”
“The what?”
Kolya ignores his question. “After all, it is the fault of Atlantis that we are suffering such a fate as we suffer now, you of course have a distinct advantage that you refuse to share with the rest of this galaxy as we are slaughtered.”
“I don’t know who you think I am but-”
Kolya chortles. “You are Doctor Rodney McKay. Fixing this ancient device should require little of your reportedly prodigious skill. And you will know that you have done my people a proud service. You will have bought the gifts of the ancestors to an otherwise defenseless people.”
“You sure as hell don’t seem defenseless.”
He can taste blood in his mouth and he’s well aware that he should be hurting more. Maybe Sheppard’s taking up more space than he expected. Maybe he’s sitting on pain receptors and not just memories. He’s panicking because he doesn’t feel like shit. He doesn’t have a long time for comparison, but this feels like a new low.
If only Sheppard would talk to him.
“Dr. McKay, you understand that I only want the best for my people. And the best involves manipulation of ancient tech which you could have provided easily. But you refused, so we moved on to pursue other options.”
The coarse red scar on his forearm stands out against pale skin. He can’t pinpoint the lie but he can feel it. Come on, Sheppard, I could use some help here. But there’s no one answering, just Kolya who smiles without showing teeth.
This can’t go on forever. And Sheppard’s plan to hold out for rescue seems likely to get him killed. “What do you want me to do?”
*
They leave him to his work. The machine is largely (Broken? Unhappy?) non-functional but his hands know what he can do. There are broken crystals, almost invisible hairline fractures and the blank space in his mind buzzes: a tingling sensation back, a feedback loop.
His hands know what to do even if he can’t remember.
Kolya leaves a pair of guards with him. They’re both huge and well-armed. He thinks that maybe with the element of surprise he could take out one of them, but his ribs ache every time he breathes and he has no idea where to go.
“What’s in this for you two anyway?” he says to the guards, turning one of the crystals over in his hand. “I mean I doubt the evil overlord is going to let you do anything.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” the taller of the guards says. “I have been promised the first chance.”
“Then you’re going to be a test subject,” he observes. “That’s exactly the role I would want with unknown alien technology. Sure seems to have agreed with Sheppard.”
The other guard flinches and then the last piece of the puzzle clicks together. There’s no way to activate alien technology if you’re missing a biomarker and the biomarker is exceedingly rare. Sheppard touched something and then he collapsed. “You’ve kept his corpse?” he says, voice going shrill. “You’re going to put someone into Sheppard’s corpse so that you can work alien technology. I think I’m going to be sick.”
He coughs, but there’s nothing but water in his stomach. His hands are trembling and there’s a fine mist red on the floor. Sheppard’s not here.
Because the Genii have Sheppard’s body’s in stasis. Probably in this very room.
He has a very bad idea.
Force a mind to vacate a body with an active gene and it makes a beeline for the next ATA active body (and his body is ATA active, he can feel that with the crystal’s faint blue glow beneath his fingers.) He has no idea how Kolya managed to make the device malfunction, but this kind of technology would have failsafes. It should require intent and that means that if Sheppard really is in his head, he should be able to fix this.
If he’s wrong…
Well if he’s wrong, he’s probably good as dead already.
He looks at the jumble of crystals, slots them carefully into place and then closes his eye.
If Sheppard won’t talk to him, well, then he’s going to kick Sheppard out of his head.
*
Things happen very quickly after that. The bigger guard raises the weapon demanding, “What did you do?”
The smaller shouts, “We can’t kill him. Kolya has plans.”
One of the panels in the wall slides open to reveal a man hooked into a huge amount of tubing. His stomach twists, because he knows that man.
“You know,” says a familiar, nasally voice. “I’ve had kind of a rough couple days.”
John Sheppard.
That lanky asshole who is his team leader. Who is his best friend. Who has saved his life. Who will likely save it again.
Sheppard loops one of the tubes around the guard’s neck.
Rodney McKay. The name is almost secondary, a perfect colliery to Sheppard’s presence. His name is Rodney McKay.
Before the other guard can react, McKay stumbles forward to wrench the gun from his hands. (Ronon taught him that move, the way to react when he sees a window. And then they drilled it until it was automatic, until he almost did it to Carson the first time he saw his friend with a gun.)
He squeezes the trigger and the guard collapses, clutching fistfuls of red in his hands. Sheppard’s guard goes limp, and only then does Sheppard starts to pull the tubing out of place. McKay watches him, eyes blurring. “You all right?”
“I’m not dead,” Sheppard says, hoisting the fallen guard’s gun. “Let’s go get Kolya.”
He takes a step and his knees give way. McKay catches him before he hits the ground and the sharp burst of pain reminds him that neither of them are going to be much use in a fight. “Or maybe we could go home?” He offers. “You know, for the painkillers.”
“You might be right,” Sheppard huffs into his shoulder. “You remember the gate sequence?”
“Yeah,” McKay says. “Funny how everything got clearer after I evicted you. You’re a detriment to my health, Sheppard.”
John wheezes out a laugh and hoists the spare gun up to his shoulder.
Holding each other up for support, they both go home.
Author: last01standing
Recipient:imwithrebel
Pairing: Gen
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: For fun not profit, I am in no way affiliated with SGA.
Summary: McKay wakes up in a Genii prison cell, alone except for Sheppard’s voice in his head.
-o-
He wakes up in darkness, not knowing his name. And that’s… that’s a problem. He doesn’t like that. The room is small enough to pace it in two strides, deep enough for three. There’s enough room to lie down, but if he points his toes, they brush up against a concrete wall. There are bars at the edge of the cell. He can fit his arm through the gap up to the shoulder but no farther. The lock is… analog, not particularly complicated, but he yearns for something digital. This is crude. Outside an area of expertise he has no way to define.
He sits down gingerly against the cold stone floor and starts cataloging himself for assets and injuries, his hands shaking. No weapons. His left wrist is likely cracked along with at least one of his ribs.
Why does he know what that feels like?
His hands are calloused in ways that shouldn’t be familiar, fingers used to curling around a gun.
[Calm down, buddy]
“Great,” he mumbles. “And the icing on top of this miserable day is I’m hearing voices.”
[You’re not hearing voices, Rodney. Check your radio.]
“Right,” he scrambles his good hand up to the side of his face, but there’s nothing in his ear. “Oh no.”
[McKay!]
He clutches his ears, hoping to shut out the voice, but he already knows he can’t. “Shut up a second. Please. I don’t think I can deal with captivity and voices in my head. Dammit, I was almost positive I wasn’t a crazy person. Is this a mental institution? Oh God, I’m in a mental institution.”
[Okay…] the voice in his head drawls. [I’m going to take a stab at this and say you don’t remember what happened.]
“What part of it gave it away?”
[Your name is Rodney McKay. You’re working with a team out of the Lost City of Atlantis. We were off-world some bastards got the drop on us. Any of this ringing a bell?]
“Lost City of Atlantis? Is that the one with the mermaids? Oh god, it’s true. It has to be true. I’m in a mental institution talking to myself.”
[You’re in Genii prison cell. Which granted isn’t much better, but there’s help coming. Ronon and Teyla should be back through the gate by now so calm down and breathe.]
There’s something loosening in his chest. The threads of panic don’t leave but his heartbeat throttles back and he clenches his good hand. Rodney McKay of Atlantis.
[Dr. Rodney McKay,] the voice adds, almost teasing.
“I don’t suppose you have a name?”
[Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. I’m military head of Atlantis]
“Awfully full of ourselves, aren’t we, voice in my head?”
He gets a very distinct mental picture of a man with messy hair and arms crossed glaring at him. [McKay do me a favor and pinch yourself, okay?]
“The last thing I’m going to do is bow down to demands of the-”
[Save it for Kolya.] Sheppard says. [We’re on the same team.]
“Fine,” McKay snaps and pinches his left bicep.
Sheppard sighs. [Okay, we’re in the same body. We get back to Atlantis and we can fix this. You’ve done body sharing before.]
That’s not comforting. He traces a scar on his arm absently, wincing at the pain etched into flesh.
[What’s the last thing you remember?]
There’s nothing there. Not before waking up in darkness. The panic mounts along with the throbbing in his head. He doesn’t think it’s healthy for a heart to be running this quickly. He gasps into the musty air, fingers clawing at the clay walls. The pain from the broken wrist laces through him, and it’s so blindingly, exquisitely real that he knows this can’t be a dream.
Then all at once it stops. His heart slows, and he settles down to the ground. “We’re not dead,” he says and it’s his voice, but it’s not him. It’s John Sheppard’s presence in his body, manhandling him back into sanity. “We’re going to get out of here, McKay, if I have to drag you out myself. Now say it.”
His fingers curl as Sheppard releases control. His lungs fill and empty, fill again.
[McKay,] the voice chastises.
“We’re going to get out of here,” he says and hearing it out loud, it almost sounds like truth.
[Good,] Sheppard says. [Now believe it or not, the fact that you can’t remember is going to work in our favor. No way for you to give us up.]
“They’re going to torture me, aren’t they?”
[They need you.] Sheppard replies and it’s not an answer.
*
It’s two days before he sees someone. Or at least he thinks it’s two days. He marks the time by the appearance of moldy bread and a tin of stale water at the mouth of his cell. He drinks it at Sheppard’s urging, but it barely does enough to quell the shaking of his hands.
[There’s help coming, McKay. You seriously do not want to get on Teyla and Ronon’s bad side. Trust me.]
Only after two days of listening to Sheppard talk about Teyla, Ronon and the team, he’s terrified that the reason he hasn’t been saved already is because they don’t know where he is.
“Rodney McKay,” a voice says.
“Shut up, Sheppard. I’m allowed to wallow.”
“I did not believe it,” the voice says. “My guards said the great Rodney McKay had gone mad.”
There is light spilling through the door and it’s so bright that his eyes don’t adjust immediately. He’s left scrambling back to the corner of the cell, and arm thrown up to protect his vision. After a second the face at the bars swims into focus, the uniform something out Nazi Germany, the face, weathered and half-beaten. He feels his mouth curl around the name, his accent subtly different from what it’s supposed to be. “Kolya.”
“So you do remember,” the man says mildly. “I was starting to wonder.”
He feels himself stand, feels the spine straighten with a pop, his broken ribs grinding with the motion. “I’m not going to tell you anything.”
“You are a pale imitation of Colonel Sheppard,” Kolya sneers. “And he died so very easily, just a flip of a switch.”
(The man in front of him falls while he screams a name.)
“You won’t kill me,” Sheppard says, hands balled to a fist at their side.
“Not today,” Kolya says and plunges them back into darkness.
*
“You bastard,” he hisses. “You bastard, you’re dead. Did you not think this was potentially vital information?”
[I don’t think I’m dead. I think I’m in here with you.]
“Scarface is right, I’ve cracked.”
It’s dark again and if he lets himself, he can imagine somewhere different, an alien city lit up in gold, the spires reaching into a sky full of constellations he hasn’t yet memorized. He can almost feel it, the comradery of a friend bumping shoulders with him as he sips on a cold beer.
[If I am dead. I don’t want you focusing on that. We get you out of here. One way or another.]
“What happened to you?”
[You don’t need to hear it.]
“Sheppard!”
[It wasn’t anything. We came through the gate, we did the usual sweep for ancient devices. Something activated. You thought I did it, but it was the Genii waiting for us. Then I woke up with you. ]
His head is throbbing. This can’t be healthy, having two consciousnesses in one brain. If he has to guess, Sheppard’s taking up some of the pathways that are supposed to be used for memories and if they’re keeping him around, it’s for some purpose.
“Do we think I’m for ransom?”
[They’ve been after you for almost a year. I don’t think they bother with ransom. I think they want you for your big brain.]
“My brain that’s currently housing you.”
[Still the smartest person in two galaxies, McKay.]
But he doesn’t have a plan, doesn’t have any weapons or any idea why he’s being held. He doesn’t even know his name, not really. He can’t tell you where he was born or if he has any family. All he’s got is Sheppard
And Sheppard’s the distant echo of a man who may already be dead.
*
He’s not fed the next morning, just give a pint of water that he gulps down greedily, trying to quell the shaking of his hands. [Tactics,] Sheppard observes.
“I can’t see straight,” he spits. “I don’t know how this is helping anyone.”
The guard squares his stance. “Kolya says you are to help us.”
“I can certainly see how this treatment is working,” he huffs back. There is a drip of water crawling down his chin. He darts his tongue out, chasing it. “Look, I can’t work if I’m not thinking clearly.”
And there’s no way in hell that he thinks clearly as long as half his brain is devoted to keeping Sheppard alive.
“If you agree to cooperate. You will be well treated.”
“And if not?”
The guard swings the door open, cracking his knuckle.
“I was wondering when we’d get to the torture,” he moans. “I won’t help you.”
He sees the boot come up and he loses several hours.
When he comes back to his senses, his body aches and he’s alone. “Sheppard?” he says tasting the copper on his teeth.
There’s no reply.
“Come on, Sheppard.”
He should hurt more than he does. He can’t bend his fingers, but it’s a distant sort of ache, secondary to the fact that he voice in his head has quieted. He doesn’t think he’s incapacitated. He can still breathe. For all that his muscles are stiff, the wrist is the only thing that feels broken and that was already a problem when this started. The gap in his memory between the cell swinging open and waking back up is not a stretch of time he particularly wants to remember.
He wonders if Sheppard realized that too.
“John this isn’t funny.”
“John Sheppard is dead,” a voice says from the front of his cell and when his eyes adjust to the brightness, he’s already picked out Kolya’s voice. “And you are going to help us.”
“Fine,” he snarls. “Show me what you need.”
Kolya smiles cruelly at his injury. “See Dr. McKay, I knew you would come around.”
*
The device is…
It’s…
It’s nothing he’s seen before. The array is crystals where he’d expected wires and the colors are something that resound in the depths of what used to be his memory. His entire body hums with purpose as Kolya throws him onto his knees. He doesn’t know what this contraption is, but he knows he was born to work on this kind of technology. Knows it’s fundamental to his very self even though he has no idea who that is.
Why is this familiar?
(A blue light, a name on his lips and then there is Sheppard falling like he’s had his strings cut)
“What do you expect me to do with this?”
“Oh, Dr. McKay. Surely you can help a poor people with gain some sort of advantage against an enemy such at the wraith.”
“The what?”
Kolya ignores his question. “After all, it is the fault of Atlantis that we are suffering such a fate as we suffer now, you of course have a distinct advantage that you refuse to share with the rest of this galaxy as we are slaughtered.”
“I don’t know who you think I am but-”
Kolya chortles. “You are Doctor Rodney McKay. Fixing this ancient device should require little of your reportedly prodigious skill. And you will know that you have done my people a proud service. You will have bought the gifts of the ancestors to an otherwise defenseless people.”
“You sure as hell don’t seem defenseless.”
He can taste blood in his mouth and he’s well aware that he should be hurting more. Maybe Sheppard’s taking up more space than he expected. Maybe he’s sitting on pain receptors and not just memories. He’s panicking because he doesn’t feel like shit. He doesn’t have a long time for comparison, but this feels like a new low.
If only Sheppard would talk to him.
“Dr. McKay, you understand that I only want the best for my people. And the best involves manipulation of ancient tech which you could have provided easily. But you refused, so we moved on to pursue other options.”
The coarse red scar on his forearm stands out against pale skin. He can’t pinpoint the lie but he can feel it. Come on, Sheppard, I could use some help here. But there’s no one answering, just Kolya who smiles without showing teeth.
This can’t go on forever. And Sheppard’s plan to hold out for rescue seems likely to get him killed. “What do you want me to do?”
*
They leave him to his work. The machine is largely (Broken? Unhappy?) non-functional but his hands know what he can do. There are broken crystals, almost invisible hairline fractures and the blank space in his mind buzzes: a tingling sensation back, a feedback loop.
His hands know what to do even if he can’t remember.
Kolya leaves a pair of guards with him. They’re both huge and well-armed. He thinks that maybe with the element of surprise he could take out one of them, but his ribs ache every time he breathes and he has no idea where to go.
“What’s in this for you two anyway?” he says to the guards, turning one of the crystals over in his hand. “I mean I doubt the evil overlord is going to let you do anything.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” the taller of the guards says. “I have been promised the first chance.”
“Then you’re going to be a test subject,” he observes. “That’s exactly the role I would want with unknown alien technology. Sure seems to have agreed with Sheppard.”
The other guard flinches and then the last piece of the puzzle clicks together. There’s no way to activate alien technology if you’re missing a biomarker and the biomarker is exceedingly rare. Sheppard touched something and then he collapsed. “You’ve kept his corpse?” he says, voice going shrill. “You’re going to put someone into Sheppard’s corpse so that you can work alien technology. I think I’m going to be sick.”
He coughs, but there’s nothing but water in his stomach. His hands are trembling and there’s a fine mist red on the floor. Sheppard’s not here.
Because the Genii have Sheppard’s body’s in stasis. Probably in this very room.
He has a very bad idea.
Force a mind to vacate a body with an active gene and it makes a beeline for the next ATA active body (and his body is ATA active, he can feel that with the crystal’s faint blue glow beneath his fingers.) He has no idea how Kolya managed to make the device malfunction, but this kind of technology would have failsafes. It should require intent and that means that if Sheppard really is in his head, he should be able to fix this.
If he’s wrong…
Well if he’s wrong, he’s probably good as dead already.
He looks at the jumble of crystals, slots them carefully into place and then closes his eye.
If Sheppard won’t talk to him, well, then he’s going to kick Sheppard out of his head.
*
Things happen very quickly after that. The bigger guard raises the weapon demanding, “What did you do?”
The smaller shouts, “We can’t kill him. Kolya has plans.”
One of the panels in the wall slides open to reveal a man hooked into a huge amount of tubing. His stomach twists, because he knows that man.
“You know,” says a familiar, nasally voice. “I’ve had kind of a rough couple days.”
John Sheppard.
That lanky asshole who is his team leader. Who is his best friend. Who has saved his life. Who will likely save it again.
Sheppard loops one of the tubes around the guard’s neck.
Rodney McKay. The name is almost secondary, a perfect colliery to Sheppard’s presence. His name is Rodney McKay.
Before the other guard can react, McKay stumbles forward to wrench the gun from his hands. (Ronon taught him that move, the way to react when he sees a window. And then they drilled it until it was automatic, until he almost did it to Carson the first time he saw his friend with a gun.)
He squeezes the trigger and the guard collapses, clutching fistfuls of red in his hands. Sheppard’s guard goes limp, and only then does Sheppard starts to pull the tubing out of place. McKay watches him, eyes blurring. “You all right?”
“I’m not dead,” Sheppard says, hoisting the fallen guard’s gun. “Let’s go get Kolya.”
He takes a step and his knees give way. McKay catches him before he hits the ground and the sharp burst of pain reminds him that neither of them are going to be much use in a fight. “Or maybe we could go home?” He offers. “You know, for the painkillers.”
“You might be right,” Sheppard huffs into his shoulder. “You remember the gate sequence?”
“Yeah,” McKay says. “Funny how everything got clearer after I evicted you. You’re a detriment to my health, Sheppard.”
John wheezes out a laugh and hoists the spare gun up to his shoulder.
Holding each other up for support, they both go home.