"Rewind" by lizzypaul
Title: Rewind
Author: lizzypaul
Rating: PG13
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Spoilers: Through "Quarantine"
Word Count: 4800
Summary: Rodney is stuck in an endless Monday.
Rodney goes to bed at 3:30 am, Thursday morning. He sets the alarm for eight, because after saving Atlantis, again, he deserves to sleep in.
The alarm goes off, far too early, startling Rodney awake. He blinks dumbly at the digital display. It’s five in the morning, which is wrong, because he knows that he set the clock for eight. But by the time he gets the buzzing to stop, it’s too late; he’s awake, and there’s no going back to sleep. Rodney rolls out of bed and throws the cheap, piece of shit alarm in the trash can as he stumbles to the bathroom.
He’s feeling better, three cups of coffee later, and figures it might have been a fortuitous error. At least now, he has a few extra hours to go over the replicator code. It’s a side product, downgraded from urgent, a scientific scab, something to pick at when he’s bored, or has a little extra time.
Rodney grabs an MRE on the way to the lab and sequesters himself in his office with a laptop. It’s relaxing work, now that there’s not a threat of imminent destruction hanging over his head, and it’s easy to lose himself in the lines and lines of code scrolling across his screen. He doesn’t realize how much time has passed until Colonel Sheppard calls him over the radio.
“Rodney, where are you?” John sounds annoyed, but normal, and after two days of nothing, it’s a relief.
“In the lab. Working,” he adds, pointedly.
There’s a pause, and then John says, “So...you just decided to skip the staff meeting?”
“Staff meeting?” Rodney’s pretty sure no one said anything about a Thursday meeting, but he’s also had something like seven hours of sleep in the last three days, so it’s possible it just didn’t register. “When did we plan a staff meeting?”
Another, longer pause, and then John says, “It’s Monday?”
And okay, Monday morning staff meeting, which would make sense if it wasn’t Thursday. “Cute, Sheppard,” Rodney says.
“I’m not trying to be cute, Rodney,” John answers, sounding annoyed. “I just want to know how long you’re planning on holding us up, here.”
Whatever John's playing at, it isn't funny. Rodney is tired, and angry, and maybe even a little hurt, and generally, in no mood for more John Sheppard bullshit. “Look, I know you’d be happier if you could just do Monday over again,” he growls, “but contrary to popular belief, the universe does not, in fact, revolve around you. So if you don’t mind--”
“Excuse me?” John’s tone is a mix of belligerence and confusion, and for the first time, Rodney starts to get a little worried. “Are you okay, Rodney?”
“Uh,” Rodney says, and then sees one of the biologists walking by. “Hey, you!” he calls to her. “What day is it?”
She looks surprised, but answers, “It’s Monday, Doctor McKay,” and Rodney suddenly feels sick to his stomach.
“Huh,” Rodney says. “I guess that’s a no, Colonel.”
*~*~*
“There’s no sign of neurological damage,” Keller says. “You are showing signs of stress, but nothing out of the ordinary, for you.”
John is leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. “Not amnesia?”
Rodney rolls his eyes. “Yes, Colonel,” he says, his voice dripping sarcasm, “it’s a very special, Pegasus galaxy amnesia, where instead of forgetting events, you remember them, instead.” He turns to Colonel Carter, who is leaning over Keller’s shoulder, looking at his brain scans. “Obviously, I’ve gotten caught in some sort of ancient time travel experiment.”
John straightens at that. “Cool,” he says.
Sam gives a little half-smile, and asks, “Don’t you think you’re jumping the gun a little here, McKay?”
“No, I do not,” he snaps. “Yesterday, it was Wednesday. Today it’s the previous Monday. Time travel seems to be the only answer, and I suppose that it could be a natural phenomenon, but I find it far more likely that someone touched something they shouldn’t have. We know the ancients mastered time travel, and if they could send someone back 10,000 years, a handful of days is far within the realm of possibility.”
Sam and Dr. Keller look at each other. “Rodney,” Keller says, gently, “you’ve been under a lot of pressure recently. Isn’t it possible that you’re just a little...confused?”
“I’m not crazy!” he protests.
“Well,” John starts, and Rodney holds his hand up to forestall whatever hilarious joke is coming.
He hops off the bed. “Sam. Come on. I’m not having a breakdown. I can prove it to you!”
After so many years with the SGC, Samantha Carter is the epitome of open-minded. And time travel, on the whole, isn’t so unusual. “Okay,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Shoot.”
Rodney nods, quickly. “Okay, okay. Uh...this morning, in the meeting, you were going to tell Colonel Sheppard to keep it in his pants when he goes off world, because the priestess’s daughter on M3F-448 is suing him for breach of contract. Which is terrible, because that’s the planet with the chocolate coffee, and we’re going to have a revolt on our hands if Colonel Carnal gets our trade relations revoked.”
“I didn’t sleep with her!” John explodes, and he turns to Sam. “I didn’t! She’s lying. I talked to her for maybe five minutes, but there were people around, I wasn’t alone with her, I--”
Sam looks torn between laughter and incredulousness, but she looks at John and says, “Relax, John, I believe you,” and then says, to Rodney, “you too.” She shakes her head. “Jesus, McKay.”
*~*~*
It hits Rodney, right in the middle of the debriefing, that he has days, now, instead of hours, to fix the bug in the life-support system that nearly kills them on Wednesday. And he knows how to fix it, too, no guesswork at all, and it’s something like paradise to finish it up and know, with absolute certainty, that nothing bad is going to happen to them until at least Thursday. The weight of mortal peril, which has hung around Rodney’s neck since he stepped through the wormhole into the Pegasus galaxy, seems to lighten.
“You don’t seem worried,” Sam says. She’s standing in the doorway to his lab, a cup of coffee in each hand. A month ago, Rodney would have said she was coming on to him, a week ago, Rodney would have welcomed it.
“I went back in time three days,” Rodney says. “Or, well, my consciousness did, considering there aren’t two of me. That’s what I’m trying to figure out, actually. I thought at first that the time machine might have vaporized the McKay of this timeline and replaced him with me, in order to avoid entropic cascade failure, but that was just too disturbing to contemplate.”
If Sam’s eyebrows were any higher, they’d be off her face. “I agree.”
“I’m alive, the universe is fine, as far as I know, and I’ve locked everyone out of the ancient tech lab until I can figure out what triggered this little jaunt. But, all things considered, this is a remarkably low-key accident.” Rodney smiles. “It’s kind of cool, actually.”
“That’s a remarkably mature attitude, Rodney,” Sam says, and he can’t tell if that was an insult or not. He’s about to ask when she sets the coffee down. “Go to bed sometime tonight. If you’re right about the timeline, you’ve got a couple days to relax. Sleep in tomorrow. Keller’s worried about you.”
“I still don’t think she believes me,” Rodney mutters.
“Well,” Sam shrugs, “she’s young. Give her a couple months, and the time travel thing will be old hat.”
*~*~*
That evening, when Rodney goes to bed, he doesn’t even bother fishing the alarm clock out of the garbage can. Sam’s right; he has a couple days to take it easy, and Rodney really, really needs the time. He’s tired, physically, but he’s also spent the better part of the day batting around the various issues a trip through time brings up.
He stares at the ceiling, conscious of the fact that he’s irrevocably changed his own timeline. The course of this new universe, diverging from his own, is always going to be dramatically different, because of this moment in time. And Rodney can’t decide if it’s for the better or not.
Because last Monday, when he went to bed, John was with him.
*~*~*
The alarm goes off at five.
Rodney shuts off the clock and crawls out of bed, and it isn’t until his second cup of coffee that he realizes how wrong it is.
With shaking hands, he pulls on his radio and calls John.
“Yeah?” John pants into the mic, breathing hard. Running, Rodney thinks, with the part of his brain that isn’t panicking.
“What day is it?” Rodney asks.
“What?”
“Just answer the question,” he snaps.
“It’s Monday,” John answers, confirming it, and Rodney grabs for the chair and sits down, hard. “Hey, you okay, McKay?”
Rodney sighs. “No, I’m really not.”
*~*~*
They insist on giving him another brain scan.
“Well,” Keller says, looking at the results. “There’s no neurological damage. Although--”
Rodney cuts in. “I’m showing signs of stress. Not unusual for me, though.”
Keller’s mouth drops open. “Um. Exactly,” she says. “I...”
“I told you,” Rodney says. “This is my third Monday. This Monday.”
Sam looks uncertain, John looks worried. “We don’t have time for this,” Rodney says. “I’ll prove it, again.” He points at John. “The sexy alien on the mocha planet wants to marry him, god knows why, and unless he agrees, we’ll have to make do with the instant swill the Daedalus brings.” Rodney pauses, then adds, “I think it’s a fair trade, actually.”
“Hey!” John exclaims.
Sam just nods. “So, time travel?”
“That’s what I thought at first,” Rodney says, happy that she’s on track. “But I don’t think it’s that simple. Maybe a recursive time loop?”
“I really think I should get some bloodwork,” Keller says.
Rodney rolls his eyes. “We don’t have any time! At some point, today, Monday is going to start all over again, unless I can figure out how to stop it.”
John has a stupid grin on his face. “What?” Rodney snaps.
He tries to look innocent. “You have to admit, Rodney, it’s kind of cool.”
Rodney sighs. “No. I really, really don’t.”
*~*~*
Sam believes him when he tells her that Atlantis is crisis-free until Thursday, after the life-support systems are fixed, and pulls every scientist with a hope of being able to help onto, what has been dubbed, “The Rodney Project.”
“See, this is why I don’t let you name things,” John says, when he hears the name, and he insists on calling it “The Groundhog Day Thing” or “GDT”, and by the end of the day, that’s the name that sticks.
“So how’s the GDT coming?” Sam asks.
The name makes him sigh, but he doesn’t have time to fight about it. “Terrible,” he tells her. “We haven’t been able to isolate which piece of technology is causing the loop. We haven’t even been able to determine with certainty that it is technology. The good news is that it doesn’t seem to be destabilizing this universe, and I’m perfectly healthy.”
“Well, that’s what’s important,” Sam says, and once again, Rodney can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or not.
“Yes,” Rodney says. “Well.”
“I finished up my work for the day,” she continues, “and I thought I might be able to help down here?”
Rodney’s oddly touched, and it’s nice, how easy it is to have Sam working with him again. She’s right with him, sometimes even a step or two ahead, and it’s calming not to have to explain his train of thought; she boarded that train with him. They work in tandem, lost in equations and theories, until Zelenka calls out, “It’s almost Tuesday.”
Rodney turns to the lab clock, and watches the digital display switch from 11:58 to 11:59.
*~*~*
When the alarm goes off at five, Rodney isn’t the least bit surprised. In fact, he’s a little hopeful; he has a lot more information than he did the Mondays before, including the exact time of the switchover. He grabs a cup of coffee-and that’s one nice thing about the time loop, he’s had dozens of cups of coffee over the last few days, and his stores aren’t running low at all-and pages Colonel Sheppard over the radio.
“Yeah.” Rodney listens to him pant, for a moment. It sends him back to his first Monday, the memory of John over top of him, his arms straining with his weight, sweaty brow, look of concentration, the look of affection, the feeling as he pushed inside for the first time, the way he gasped-
Rodney cut off that train off thought. No use dwelling on something that had, literally now, never happened. “I need you to meet me in the lab. Bring Sam with you, please.”
By the time they arrive, he’s re-written a third of the notes he had the day before, and with the part of his brain not occupied with that, is trying to figure out a way to get his notes to travel with him. He’s thinking a chip, implanted under the skin...
“What’s this about, Rodney?” Sam asks.
“Time loop,” Rodney answers. “Endless Mondays, and it would all be very interesting if I wasn’t losing my mind.”
Sam and John look at each other. “I think you better come down the infirmary, Rodney,” she says.
Rodney’s already closing up his laptop. He sighs. “Of course you do.”
*~*~*
At five, the alarm goes off, and Rodney throws it in the microwave. The sparks are comforting, as is the knowledge that, probably, both the microwave and the alarm clock will be better in the morning. Tomorrow. Today.
Rodney sighs, and feels for the chip they imbedded the night before. He isn’t surprised when it’s not there, but he heads down to sickbay, anyway, in case it came loose or something, and was now floating around his body. And wasn’t that a pleasant thought.
Keller wants to do a brain scan.
“My brain is fine,” he snaps. “I’m fine. I just want you to see if there’s a little computer chip wandering around my bloodstream.”
Keller calls Colonel Carter and Colonel Sheppard, but does a full body scan while they’re waiting. “You’re chip free,” she says, cheerfully. “Well, except for the transponder--”
“Yes, yes,” Rodney says, cutting her off. Sam comes into the room, John on her heels, and Rodney hops of the table, ignoring Keller’s warning squeak.
“Time loop,” Rodney says.
“Good morning to you, too, Rodney,” John says. Rodney ignores him.
“Okay,” says Sam, waiting.
“Uh. This my fifth-fourth?-Monday. We haven’t been able to determine a cause, but we haven’t progressed much beyond basic calculations. I’m not destabilizing the universe and I have a few theories on that, but they’re all very disturbing, so...oh, and we only have until the end of the day to fix this. It doesn’t seem to matter where I am or what I’m doing, at 11:59, I’ll switch back to, well, today. Questions?”
“He won’t let me do a brain scan,” Keller says, softly.
“We don’t have time for that!” Rodney exclaims. “I’m fine! Except for, oh, the little fact that in less than nineteen hours I will be starting this all over again, so we don’t have time to stand around here gossiping!”
He looks at Sam. “Mocha planet. Sheppard is a big slut.”
“Excuse me?” John sputters.
But Sam is nodding. “All right. Let’s get started.”
*~*~*
It’s the first Monday they’ve progressed beyond theory to a practical solution. Not a very good solution, but it’s better than slowly watching the clock tick down, so Rodney doesn’t complain. Much.
“A temporal shield,” he says to Sam. “Really.”
“Do you have a better idea, McKay?” she asks, and he doesn’t.
“It’s so small.”
“Think of wide open fields,” Keller suggests. “Also, I can give you some valium.”
“Yes, please,” Rodney says, and really, she’s not so bad, once you get over the weird obsession with looking at his brain.
John hands him an iPod. “Do you really think this is going to work?” he asks, voice low, because Sam and Zelenka-the masterminds behind this stupidity-are steps away.
“Well, if Sam’s right and I’m trapped in a loop, then it...might. If I’m right, and the universe is trapped in a loop, and, for whatever reason, I’m the only one who realizes it, than this is nothing but a couple hours of useless claustrophobia, and I’ll wake up in my bed this morning.”
John leans down, their foreheads almost touching, and Rodney can feel his breath across his face when John says, “Well, here’s hoping you’re wrong, for once.”
It would be so easy to lean up and kiss him. But they’re surrounded by science and military personal, including John’s CO, and even if they weren’t, the kissing thing hadn’t worked out so well before. Rodney gives John’s shoulder a manly pat instead, and says, “See you tomorrow, Colonel.”
*~*~*
BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ
“Fuck.”
*~*~*
And on the seventh Monday, Rodney rested.
“Uh, Rodney,” John’s voice comes through the radio, “are you going to grace with your presence sometime this morning?”
“No,” Rodney answers.
There’s a pause. “Are you sick?”
“No. I’m just staying in bed today, Colonel. Tell Sam she can dock my pay, if she wants.” Rodney shuts off the radio and flings it across the room, and several hundred dollars worth of American military technology smashes against the door.
It doesn’t matter. In a few hours, it’ll never have happened.
Rodney closes his eyes and tries to go back to sleep.
*~*~*
Monday comes, again, and Rodney shuts off the alarm. He considers spending another day in bed, but the thought of endless coffee is more appealing, and he decides to make it his goal to drink every last bit of his supply before time starts over.
He’s on his fourteenth cup when he strolls into the staff meeting. “Good morning, everyone!”
Sam blinks. “You’re in a good mood, Rodney.”
“Well, why wouldn’t I be?” Rodney asks. “Sure, physics is taking a merry jaunt out an airlock, but really, in the Pegasus Galaxy, that’s par for the course. I’ll admit, I woke up this morning feeling quite discouraged, but then I realized two things. First, and most importantly, endless coffee. Secondly, do you know that in all my Mondays, I’ve never actually gone to a staff meeting? And I thought, maybe that’s what the universe is trying to teach me. It’s a lesson, about appreciating the mundane. I complain about staff meetings, so I’m doomed to repeat them until I can learn to love them. So here I am!” He clasps his hands together, and asks, “Can we start with what a big man whore Colonel Sheppard is?”
“Why don’t we go down to the infirmary,” Sam says.
After the brain scan, Keller shakes her head. “No neurological damage that I can see,” she says.
“But I’m under a lot of stress,” Rodney cuts in. “And really, is anyone surprised, honestly? My blood pressure has been high since grad school, and my advisor might have been a bloodthirsty bastard, but he wasn’t a wraith. Yes, yes, I should probably meditate or, or, yoga, or something equally new-age and touchy-feely, but oh, that’s right, I’ve been spending my time saving the city from imminent destruction, so maybe my pulse running high can be forgiven, hmmm?”
They’re staring at him, and Rodney sighs. “Time loop,” he explains. He hears John take a breath, and turns to him. “It’s not cool,” he says disparagingly.
“Well,” Sam says, after a moment. “Let’s figure out how to fix it.” She pulls the cup of coffee out of Rodney’s hand. “And I’m cutting you off, McKay.”
*~*~*
The evening ends in the conference room, a large, digital clock on the table in front of them, ominously moving closer to 11:59.
Rodney had, at the time, enjoyed shooting down the suggestion of temporal shield, until it became apparent` that it was the last suggestion anyone had. The last of his coffee supply is in Sam’s pot, and he, Sam, and John are drinking it up, while shooting half-hearted suggestions back and forth. Zelenka and Simpson are still down in the lab, frantically trying to produce something, and Rodney appreciates their dedication, really, but he’s resigned himself to starting over again.
“I’m at the point where I want to round up every gene carrier in the city and ask them for a detailed list of what they’ve touched in the last few days,” Rodney says.
Sam lifts her head out of her hands. “Actually, Rodney, that’s not a bad idea.”
“You really think it’s ancient tech?” John asks. “It’s only affecting you, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it have to be something you touched?”
Sam’s shaking her head. “John’s right,” she says, “also, if someone did accidently activate an ancient time travel device, they would have done so in the future. They won’t remember it now.”
Rodney nods. “Yes, yes. But if someone activated the device in the future, it’s likely they didn’t understand what they were doing, and didn’t set the parameters correctly. After all, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for the ancients to invent a machine that creates a time loop. It’s far more likely that the device takes you back in time to a set date, and then needs to be deactivated. There must be protections on the device to keep the activator’s memories intact-or!” He snaps his fingers. “What if you could use the device to completely erase your past? Your memories included!” He grins. “There should be failsafe on the device, to prevent just this type of scenario, but it might have broken! The activator wouldn’t know what he has!”
Sam leans back in her chair, looking skeptical. “I don’t know, Rodney. That still doesn’t explain why you remember that time is restarting.”
But John is nodding his head, looking a little sick. “This green paperweight thing,” he says. “I found it in my quarters this morning. I’ve never seen it before.”
And, suddenly, it all makes sense.
“You!” Rodney yells, pointing a shaking finger at John. “This is all your fault!”
John holds his hands up. “Hey, now.”
“I should have seen this from the beginning!” he continues. “You can’t deal with emotional situations like an adult, no, that would be too much, it’s far easier for you to reset time than deal with the fact that you like fucking your best friend.”
“McKay,” Sam says, sharply. “This isn’t the--”
But John already has him by the back of his jacket and is hauling him out of the room. He pushes him against the wall, harder than Rodney thinks necessary.
“What the fuck, McKay,” he snarls.
But Rodney isn’t in the mood. “Really, is the thought of sleeping with me so terrifying that this is the best solution?”
“I never slept with you!” he yells. “Oh, and thanks for outing me to my superior! Good job, there.”
Rodney rolls his eyes. “It’s not like she’s going to remember tomorrow. Today. Whatever.”
“That’s not the point,” John says. His eyes narrow, and then drop, and Rodney realizes he’s staring at his mouth. His heart speeds up. “Did we really...”
“Yeah,” Rodney whispers.
“’m sorry,” John says, softly. “About, you know, the time loop thing. If it’s my fault. I, um, don’t remember...”
“Obviously,” Rodney says, and breeches the distance between them.
*~*~*
When Rodney wakes up, he doesn’t even bother hitting the alarm; he just pulls on the pants closest to the bed and runs down the corridors to John’s room.
The doors part for him and he sees John lying curled around his pillow, leg hanging off the bed. It would have been cute, under other circumstances. It just makes him angrier, now, and he shoves John’s shoulder. “Turn it off,” he growls.
John starts awake, and he grabs Rodney’s hand in tight grip. But then he blinks a couple times, registers Rodney, and his face softens. “Huh?” he asks.
“Off off off!” Rodney yells. “Turn it off!”
“I don’t even know what’s on,” John whines, voice scratchy with sleep, and it isn’t adorable at all. Really.
“Just think it off!” And if Rodney sounds a little hysterical, even to his own ears, well, that’s only to be expected. “Tell it to turn off, Colonel!”
John closes his eyes and his face scrunches up, and then every light in the city flickers out, briefly. But the little green paperweight on John’s desk chirps and goes black, as well, and Rodney knows, with deep, unexplainable, ridiculous certainty, that it’s over.
“Thank you, Colonel,” he says, stiffly, and walks out of the room.
*~*~*
Two days later, John corners him on the east pier. Rodney doesn’t even ask how John found him-he’d taken his name off the grid and routed his network connection though enough loops that it would take, well, Rodney to pinpoint his location, but the city is a whore for John-he just stares at his screen and ignores him.
John clears his throat, Rodney doesn’t look up. “You can’t be mad at me forever,” he says.
“Sure I can,” Rodney says.
John slides down the wall until he’s sitting next to him, their hips touching. “I don’t even remember what I did,” he says, frustration leaking into his drawl.
“Trust me,” Rodney says, “you don’t want to know.”
“If I know, I can apologize,” John counters. But then he adds, “Even though it wasn’t really me...”
Rodney snorts. “Trust me, no one else could be that stupid.”
John nudges his shoulder. “Rodney,” he whines, and it’s either the whine or the touching that breaks him, Rodney isn’t sure.
“Fine,” he says. He pushes up and walks to the end of the pier, leans against the railing. “Fine. You want to know what you did?” He still can’t look at John, but he can feel him, hovering behind. “We did something...stupid. Impulsive. But instead of handling it like a grownup, you took off and found some stupid ancient device and erased three days of my life, and then, as if that wasn’t enough, you trapped me in and endless series of Mondays and staff meetings, all because the thought of being with me was so....I don’t know, repulsive, that it was easier for you to mess with the very fabric of space and time than to talk to me!” Rodney takes a deep breath, his chest pounding so hard it hurts, and adds, “And you were an asshole.”
“Oh,” John says.
“Yeah. So forgive me if this is going to take awhile to get over.”
“What did we...” John starts to ask, but cuts himself short when he sees Rodney’s withering glare.
“Even you aren’t that stupid,” Rodney says.
John winces, but nods. “Was it...” his voice trails off.
“Good?” Rodney asks. He looks back at the ocean. “Yeah,” he answers. “It was good. But, you know, you’re in the military. I’m on your team.” Rodney holds up his hand, counting of points on his fingers. “It would mess up our friendship. You’re not good at relationships. I’m not good at relationships. You aren’t even gay, really. You don’t want to get sent back to earth. You don’t want to worry about me. This is just a rebound thing after Katie. Oh, and my bed is uncomfortable.”
“Wow,” John says. “I guess we’ve had this conversation before.”
“A couple times, now,” Rodney affirms.
John leans on the railing next to him, close enough that Rodney can feel the warmth of his body in the chill of the Atlantis morning. “You know, I’ve never had the awkward morning after conversation before the sex.”
“This was the morning after conversation?” Rodney asks. “Huh. I thought it was the break-up conversation.”
“They’re usually the same conversation, for me,” John muses.
Rodney raises an eyebrow. “That explains so much.”
John’s voice drops. “So. You wanna try the sex, now? I still haven’t had any, yet. You remember our first time, and I don’t. I don’t think that’s fair.”
“John,” Rodney says, and turns to him. “Nothing’s changed.”
John reaches out a tentative hand and, after a hesitation, rests it on the curve of Rodney’s neck and shoulder. His thumb rubs Rodney’s pulse point. “You’ve changed,” he says. “Fuck, Rodney, you’re from the future. If anyone can steer us around the pitfalls...”
“This is a really stupid idea,” Rodney says, but he’s already stepping into John’s space, his head tilted up, and John smiles.
**END**
Author: lizzypaul
Rating: PG13
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Spoilers: Through "Quarantine"
Word Count: 4800
Summary: Rodney is stuck in an endless Monday.
Rodney goes to bed at 3:30 am, Thursday morning. He sets the alarm for eight, because after saving Atlantis, again, he deserves to sleep in.
The alarm goes off, far too early, startling Rodney awake. He blinks dumbly at the digital display. It’s five in the morning, which is wrong, because he knows that he set the clock for eight. But by the time he gets the buzzing to stop, it’s too late; he’s awake, and there’s no going back to sleep. Rodney rolls out of bed and throws the cheap, piece of shit alarm in the trash can as he stumbles to the bathroom.
He’s feeling better, three cups of coffee later, and figures it might have been a fortuitous error. At least now, he has a few extra hours to go over the replicator code. It’s a side product, downgraded from urgent, a scientific scab, something to pick at when he’s bored, or has a little extra time.
Rodney grabs an MRE on the way to the lab and sequesters himself in his office with a laptop. It’s relaxing work, now that there’s not a threat of imminent destruction hanging over his head, and it’s easy to lose himself in the lines and lines of code scrolling across his screen. He doesn’t realize how much time has passed until Colonel Sheppard calls him over the radio.
“Rodney, where are you?” John sounds annoyed, but normal, and after two days of nothing, it’s a relief.
“In the lab. Working,” he adds, pointedly.
There’s a pause, and then John says, “So...you just decided to skip the staff meeting?”
“Staff meeting?” Rodney’s pretty sure no one said anything about a Thursday meeting, but he’s also had something like seven hours of sleep in the last three days, so it’s possible it just didn’t register. “When did we plan a staff meeting?”
Another, longer pause, and then John says, “It’s Monday?”
And okay, Monday morning staff meeting, which would make sense if it wasn’t Thursday. “Cute, Sheppard,” Rodney says.
“I’m not trying to be cute, Rodney,” John answers, sounding annoyed. “I just want to know how long you’re planning on holding us up, here.”
Whatever John's playing at, it isn't funny. Rodney is tired, and angry, and maybe even a little hurt, and generally, in no mood for more John Sheppard bullshit. “Look, I know you’d be happier if you could just do Monday over again,” he growls, “but contrary to popular belief, the universe does not, in fact, revolve around you. So if you don’t mind--”
“Excuse me?” John’s tone is a mix of belligerence and confusion, and for the first time, Rodney starts to get a little worried. “Are you okay, Rodney?”
“Uh,” Rodney says, and then sees one of the biologists walking by. “Hey, you!” he calls to her. “What day is it?”
She looks surprised, but answers, “It’s Monday, Doctor McKay,” and Rodney suddenly feels sick to his stomach.
“Huh,” Rodney says. “I guess that’s a no, Colonel.”
*~*~*
“There’s no sign of neurological damage,” Keller says. “You are showing signs of stress, but nothing out of the ordinary, for you.”
John is leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. “Not amnesia?”
Rodney rolls his eyes. “Yes, Colonel,” he says, his voice dripping sarcasm, “it’s a very special, Pegasus galaxy amnesia, where instead of forgetting events, you remember them, instead.” He turns to Colonel Carter, who is leaning over Keller’s shoulder, looking at his brain scans. “Obviously, I’ve gotten caught in some sort of ancient time travel experiment.”
John straightens at that. “Cool,” he says.
Sam gives a little half-smile, and asks, “Don’t you think you’re jumping the gun a little here, McKay?”
“No, I do not,” he snaps. “Yesterday, it was Wednesday. Today it’s the previous Monday. Time travel seems to be the only answer, and I suppose that it could be a natural phenomenon, but I find it far more likely that someone touched something they shouldn’t have. We know the ancients mastered time travel, and if they could send someone back 10,000 years, a handful of days is far within the realm of possibility.”
Sam and Dr. Keller look at each other. “Rodney,” Keller says, gently, “you’ve been under a lot of pressure recently. Isn’t it possible that you’re just a little...confused?”
“I’m not crazy!” he protests.
“Well,” John starts, and Rodney holds his hand up to forestall whatever hilarious joke is coming.
He hops off the bed. “Sam. Come on. I’m not having a breakdown. I can prove it to you!”
After so many years with the SGC, Samantha Carter is the epitome of open-minded. And time travel, on the whole, isn’t so unusual. “Okay,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Shoot.”
Rodney nods, quickly. “Okay, okay. Uh...this morning, in the meeting, you were going to tell Colonel Sheppard to keep it in his pants when he goes off world, because the priestess’s daughter on M3F-448 is suing him for breach of contract. Which is terrible, because that’s the planet with the chocolate coffee, and we’re going to have a revolt on our hands if Colonel Carnal gets our trade relations revoked.”
“I didn’t sleep with her!” John explodes, and he turns to Sam. “I didn’t! She’s lying. I talked to her for maybe five minutes, but there were people around, I wasn’t alone with her, I--”
Sam looks torn between laughter and incredulousness, but she looks at John and says, “Relax, John, I believe you,” and then says, to Rodney, “you too.” She shakes her head. “Jesus, McKay.”
*~*~*
It hits Rodney, right in the middle of the debriefing, that he has days, now, instead of hours, to fix the bug in the life-support system that nearly kills them on Wednesday. And he knows how to fix it, too, no guesswork at all, and it’s something like paradise to finish it up and know, with absolute certainty, that nothing bad is going to happen to them until at least Thursday. The weight of mortal peril, which has hung around Rodney’s neck since he stepped through the wormhole into the Pegasus galaxy, seems to lighten.
“You don’t seem worried,” Sam says. She’s standing in the doorway to his lab, a cup of coffee in each hand. A month ago, Rodney would have said she was coming on to him, a week ago, Rodney would have welcomed it.
“I went back in time three days,” Rodney says. “Or, well, my consciousness did, considering there aren’t two of me. That’s what I’m trying to figure out, actually. I thought at first that the time machine might have vaporized the McKay of this timeline and replaced him with me, in order to avoid entropic cascade failure, but that was just too disturbing to contemplate.”
If Sam’s eyebrows were any higher, they’d be off her face. “I agree.”
“I’m alive, the universe is fine, as far as I know, and I’ve locked everyone out of the ancient tech lab until I can figure out what triggered this little jaunt. But, all things considered, this is a remarkably low-key accident.” Rodney smiles. “It’s kind of cool, actually.”
“That’s a remarkably mature attitude, Rodney,” Sam says, and he can’t tell if that was an insult or not. He’s about to ask when she sets the coffee down. “Go to bed sometime tonight. If you’re right about the timeline, you’ve got a couple days to relax. Sleep in tomorrow. Keller’s worried about you.”
“I still don’t think she believes me,” Rodney mutters.
“Well,” Sam shrugs, “she’s young. Give her a couple months, and the time travel thing will be old hat.”
*~*~*
That evening, when Rodney goes to bed, he doesn’t even bother fishing the alarm clock out of the garbage can. Sam’s right; he has a couple days to take it easy, and Rodney really, really needs the time. He’s tired, physically, but he’s also spent the better part of the day batting around the various issues a trip through time brings up.
He stares at the ceiling, conscious of the fact that he’s irrevocably changed his own timeline. The course of this new universe, diverging from his own, is always going to be dramatically different, because of this moment in time. And Rodney can’t decide if it’s for the better or not.
Because last Monday, when he went to bed, John was with him.
*~*~*
The alarm goes off at five.
Rodney shuts off the clock and crawls out of bed, and it isn’t until his second cup of coffee that he realizes how wrong it is.
With shaking hands, he pulls on his radio and calls John.
“Yeah?” John pants into the mic, breathing hard. Running, Rodney thinks, with the part of his brain that isn’t panicking.
“What day is it?” Rodney asks.
“What?”
“Just answer the question,” he snaps.
“It’s Monday,” John answers, confirming it, and Rodney grabs for the chair and sits down, hard. “Hey, you okay, McKay?”
Rodney sighs. “No, I’m really not.”
*~*~*
They insist on giving him another brain scan.
“Well,” Keller says, looking at the results. “There’s no neurological damage. Although--”
Rodney cuts in. “I’m showing signs of stress. Not unusual for me, though.”
Keller’s mouth drops open. “Um. Exactly,” she says. “I...”
“I told you,” Rodney says. “This is my third Monday. This Monday.”
Sam looks uncertain, John looks worried. “We don’t have time for this,” Rodney says. “I’ll prove it, again.” He points at John. “The sexy alien on the mocha planet wants to marry him, god knows why, and unless he agrees, we’ll have to make do with the instant swill the Daedalus brings.” Rodney pauses, then adds, “I think it’s a fair trade, actually.”
“Hey!” John exclaims.
Sam just nods. “So, time travel?”
“That’s what I thought at first,” Rodney says, happy that she’s on track. “But I don’t think it’s that simple. Maybe a recursive time loop?”
“I really think I should get some bloodwork,” Keller says.
Rodney rolls his eyes. “We don’t have any time! At some point, today, Monday is going to start all over again, unless I can figure out how to stop it.”
John has a stupid grin on his face. “What?” Rodney snaps.
He tries to look innocent. “You have to admit, Rodney, it’s kind of cool.”
Rodney sighs. “No. I really, really don’t.”
*~*~*
Sam believes him when he tells her that Atlantis is crisis-free until Thursday, after the life-support systems are fixed, and pulls every scientist with a hope of being able to help onto, what has been dubbed, “The Rodney Project.”
“See, this is why I don’t let you name things,” John says, when he hears the name, and he insists on calling it “The Groundhog Day Thing” or “GDT”, and by the end of the day, that’s the name that sticks.
“So how’s the GDT coming?” Sam asks.
The name makes him sigh, but he doesn’t have time to fight about it. “Terrible,” he tells her. “We haven’t been able to isolate which piece of technology is causing the loop. We haven’t even been able to determine with certainty that it is technology. The good news is that it doesn’t seem to be destabilizing this universe, and I’m perfectly healthy.”
“Well, that’s what’s important,” Sam says, and once again, Rodney can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or not.
“Yes,” Rodney says. “Well.”
“I finished up my work for the day,” she continues, “and I thought I might be able to help down here?”
Rodney’s oddly touched, and it’s nice, how easy it is to have Sam working with him again. She’s right with him, sometimes even a step or two ahead, and it’s calming not to have to explain his train of thought; she boarded that train with him. They work in tandem, lost in equations and theories, until Zelenka calls out, “It’s almost Tuesday.”
Rodney turns to the lab clock, and watches the digital display switch from 11:58 to 11:59.
*~*~*
When the alarm goes off at five, Rodney isn’t the least bit surprised. In fact, he’s a little hopeful; he has a lot more information than he did the Mondays before, including the exact time of the switchover. He grabs a cup of coffee-and that’s one nice thing about the time loop, he’s had dozens of cups of coffee over the last few days, and his stores aren’t running low at all-and pages Colonel Sheppard over the radio.
“Yeah.” Rodney listens to him pant, for a moment. It sends him back to his first Monday, the memory of John over top of him, his arms straining with his weight, sweaty brow, look of concentration, the look of affection, the feeling as he pushed inside for the first time, the way he gasped-
Rodney cut off that train off thought. No use dwelling on something that had, literally now, never happened. “I need you to meet me in the lab. Bring Sam with you, please.”
By the time they arrive, he’s re-written a third of the notes he had the day before, and with the part of his brain not occupied with that, is trying to figure out a way to get his notes to travel with him. He’s thinking a chip, implanted under the skin...
“What’s this about, Rodney?” Sam asks.
“Time loop,” Rodney answers. “Endless Mondays, and it would all be very interesting if I wasn’t losing my mind.”
Sam and John look at each other. “I think you better come down the infirmary, Rodney,” she says.
Rodney’s already closing up his laptop. He sighs. “Of course you do.”
*~*~*
At five, the alarm goes off, and Rodney throws it in the microwave. The sparks are comforting, as is the knowledge that, probably, both the microwave and the alarm clock will be better in the morning. Tomorrow. Today.
Rodney sighs, and feels for the chip they imbedded the night before. He isn’t surprised when it’s not there, but he heads down to sickbay, anyway, in case it came loose or something, and was now floating around his body. And wasn’t that a pleasant thought.
Keller wants to do a brain scan.
“My brain is fine,” he snaps. “I’m fine. I just want you to see if there’s a little computer chip wandering around my bloodstream.”
Keller calls Colonel Carter and Colonel Sheppard, but does a full body scan while they’re waiting. “You’re chip free,” she says, cheerfully. “Well, except for the transponder--”
“Yes, yes,” Rodney says, cutting her off. Sam comes into the room, John on her heels, and Rodney hops of the table, ignoring Keller’s warning squeak.
“Time loop,” Rodney says.
“Good morning to you, too, Rodney,” John says. Rodney ignores him.
“Okay,” says Sam, waiting.
“Uh. This my fifth-fourth?-Monday. We haven’t been able to determine a cause, but we haven’t progressed much beyond basic calculations. I’m not destabilizing the universe and I have a few theories on that, but they’re all very disturbing, so...oh, and we only have until the end of the day to fix this. It doesn’t seem to matter where I am or what I’m doing, at 11:59, I’ll switch back to, well, today. Questions?”
“He won’t let me do a brain scan,” Keller says, softly.
“We don’t have time for that!” Rodney exclaims. “I’m fine! Except for, oh, the little fact that in less than nineteen hours I will be starting this all over again, so we don’t have time to stand around here gossiping!”
He looks at Sam. “Mocha planet. Sheppard is a big slut.”
“Excuse me?” John sputters.
But Sam is nodding. “All right. Let’s get started.”
*~*~*
It’s the first Monday they’ve progressed beyond theory to a practical solution. Not a very good solution, but it’s better than slowly watching the clock tick down, so Rodney doesn’t complain. Much.
“A temporal shield,” he says to Sam. “Really.”
“Do you have a better idea, McKay?” she asks, and he doesn’t.
“It’s so small.”
“Think of wide open fields,” Keller suggests. “Also, I can give you some valium.”
“Yes, please,” Rodney says, and really, she’s not so bad, once you get over the weird obsession with looking at his brain.
John hands him an iPod. “Do you really think this is going to work?” he asks, voice low, because Sam and Zelenka-the masterminds behind this stupidity-are steps away.
“Well, if Sam’s right and I’m trapped in a loop, then it...might. If I’m right, and the universe is trapped in a loop, and, for whatever reason, I’m the only one who realizes it, than this is nothing but a couple hours of useless claustrophobia, and I’ll wake up in my bed this morning.”
John leans down, their foreheads almost touching, and Rodney can feel his breath across his face when John says, “Well, here’s hoping you’re wrong, for once.”
It would be so easy to lean up and kiss him. But they’re surrounded by science and military personal, including John’s CO, and even if they weren’t, the kissing thing hadn’t worked out so well before. Rodney gives John’s shoulder a manly pat instead, and says, “See you tomorrow, Colonel.”
*~*~*
BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ
“Fuck.”
*~*~*
And on the seventh Monday, Rodney rested.
“Uh, Rodney,” John’s voice comes through the radio, “are you going to grace with your presence sometime this morning?”
“No,” Rodney answers.
There’s a pause. “Are you sick?”
“No. I’m just staying in bed today, Colonel. Tell Sam she can dock my pay, if she wants.” Rodney shuts off the radio and flings it across the room, and several hundred dollars worth of American military technology smashes against the door.
It doesn’t matter. In a few hours, it’ll never have happened.
Rodney closes his eyes and tries to go back to sleep.
*~*~*
Monday comes, again, and Rodney shuts off the alarm. He considers spending another day in bed, but the thought of endless coffee is more appealing, and he decides to make it his goal to drink every last bit of his supply before time starts over.
He’s on his fourteenth cup when he strolls into the staff meeting. “Good morning, everyone!”
Sam blinks. “You’re in a good mood, Rodney.”
“Well, why wouldn’t I be?” Rodney asks. “Sure, physics is taking a merry jaunt out an airlock, but really, in the Pegasus Galaxy, that’s par for the course. I’ll admit, I woke up this morning feeling quite discouraged, but then I realized two things. First, and most importantly, endless coffee. Secondly, do you know that in all my Mondays, I’ve never actually gone to a staff meeting? And I thought, maybe that’s what the universe is trying to teach me. It’s a lesson, about appreciating the mundane. I complain about staff meetings, so I’m doomed to repeat them until I can learn to love them. So here I am!” He clasps his hands together, and asks, “Can we start with what a big man whore Colonel Sheppard is?”
“Why don’t we go down to the infirmary,” Sam says.
After the brain scan, Keller shakes her head. “No neurological damage that I can see,” she says.
“But I’m under a lot of stress,” Rodney cuts in. “And really, is anyone surprised, honestly? My blood pressure has been high since grad school, and my advisor might have been a bloodthirsty bastard, but he wasn’t a wraith. Yes, yes, I should probably meditate or, or, yoga, or something equally new-age and touchy-feely, but oh, that’s right, I’ve been spending my time saving the city from imminent destruction, so maybe my pulse running high can be forgiven, hmmm?”
They’re staring at him, and Rodney sighs. “Time loop,” he explains. He hears John take a breath, and turns to him. “It’s not cool,” he says disparagingly.
“Well,” Sam says, after a moment. “Let’s figure out how to fix it.” She pulls the cup of coffee out of Rodney’s hand. “And I’m cutting you off, McKay.”
*~*~*
The evening ends in the conference room, a large, digital clock on the table in front of them, ominously moving closer to 11:59.
Rodney had, at the time, enjoyed shooting down the suggestion of temporal shield, until it became apparent` that it was the last suggestion anyone had. The last of his coffee supply is in Sam’s pot, and he, Sam, and John are drinking it up, while shooting half-hearted suggestions back and forth. Zelenka and Simpson are still down in the lab, frantically trying to produce something, and Rodney appreciates their dedication, really, but he’s resigned himself to starting over again.
“I’m at the point where I want to round up every gene carrier in the city and ask them for a detailed list of what they’ve touched in the last few days,” Rodney says.
Sam lifts her head out of her hands. “Actually, Rodney, that’s not a bad idea.”
“You really think it’s ancient tech?” John asks. “It’s only affecting you, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it have to be something you touched?”
Sam’s shaking her head. “John’s right,” she says, “also, if someone did accidently activate an ancient time travel device, they would have done so in the future. They won’t remember it now.”
Rodney nods. “Yes, yes. But if someone activated the device in the future, it’s likely they didn’t understand what they were doing, and didn’t set the parameters correctly. After all, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for the ancients to invent a machine that creates a time loop. It’s far more likely that the device takes you back in time to a set date, and then needs to be deactivated. There must be protections on the device to keep the activator’s memories intact-or!” He snaps his fingers. “What if you could use the device to completely erase your past? Your memories included!” He grins. “There should be failsafe on the device, to prevent just this type of scenario, but it might have broken! The activator wouldn’t know what he has!”
Sam leans back in her chair, looking skeptical. “I don’t know, Rodney. That still doesn’t explain why you remember that time is restarting.”
But John is nodding his head, looking a little sick. “This green paperweight thing,” he says. “I found it in my quarters this morning. I’ve never seen it before.”
And, suddenly, it all makes sense.
“You!” Rodney yells, pointing a shaking finger at John. “This is all your fault!”
John holds his hands up. “Hey, now.”
“I should have seen this from the beginning!” he continues. “You can’t deal with emotional situations like an adult, no, that would be too much, it’s far easier for you to reset time than deal with the fact that you like fucking your best friend.”
“McKay,” Sam says, sharply. “This isn’t the--”
But John already has him by the back of his jacket and is hauling him out of the room. He pushes him against the wall, harder than Rodney thinks necessary.
“What the fuck, McKay,” he snarls.
But Rodney isn’t in the mood. “Really, is the thought of sleeping with me so terrifying that this is the best solution?”
“I never slept with you!” he yells. “Oh, and thanks for outing me to my superior! Good job, there.”
Rodney rolls his eyes. “It’s not like she’s going to remember tomorrow. Today. Whatever.”
“That’s not the point,” John says. His eyes narrow, and then drop, and Rodney realizes he’s staring at his mouth. His heart speeds up. “Did we really...”
“Yeah,” Rodney whispers.
“’m sorry,” John says, softly. “About, you know, the time loop thing. If it’s my fault. I, um, don’t remember...”
“Obviously,” Rodney says, and breeches the distance between them.
*~*~*
When Rodney wakes up, he doesn’t even bother hitting the alarm; he just pulls on the pants closest to the bed and runs down the corridors to John’s room.
The doors part for him and he sees John lying curled around his pillow, leg hanging off the bed. It would have been cute, under other circumstances. It just makes him angrier, now, and he shoves John’s shoulder. “Turn it off,” he growls.
John starts awake, and he grabs Rodney’s hand in tight grip. But then he blinks a couple times, registers Rodney, and his face softens. “Huh?” he asks.
“Off off off!” Rodney yells. “Turn it off!”
“I don’t even know what’s on,” John whines, voice scratchy with sleep, and it isn’t adorable at all. Really.
“Just think it off!” And if Rodney sounds a little hysterical, even to his own ears, well, that’s only to be expected. “Tell it to turn off, Colonel!”
John closes his eyes and his face scrunches up, and then every light in the city flickers out, briefly. But the little green paperweight on John’s desk chirps and goes black, as well, and Rodney knows, with deep, unexplainable, ridiculous certainty, that it’s over.
“Thank you, Colonel,” he says, stiffly, and walks out of the room.
*~*~*
Two days later, John corners him on the east pier. Rodney doesn’t even ask how John found him-he’d taken his name off the grid and routed his network connection though enough loops that it would take, well, Rodney to pinpoint his location, but the city is a whore for John-he just stares at his screen and ignores him.
John clears his throat, Rodney doesn’t look up. “You can’t be mad at me forever,” he says.
“Sure I can,” Rodney says.
John slides down the wall until he’s sitting next to him, their hips touching. “I don’t even remember what I did,” he says, frustration leaking into his drawl.
“Trust me,” Rodney says, “you don’t want to know.”
“If I know, I can apologize,” John counters. But then he adds, “Even though it wasn’t really me...”
Rodney snorts. “Trust me, no one else could be that stupid.”
John nudges his shoulder. “Rodney,” he whines, and it’s either the whine or the touching that breaks him, Rodney isn’t sure.
“Fine,” he says. He pushes up and walks to the end of the pier, leans against the railing. “Fine. You want to know what you did?” He still can’t look at John, but he can feel him, hovering behind. “We did something...stupid. Impulsive. But instead of handling it like a grownup, you took off and found some stupid ancient device and erased three days of my life, and then, as if that wasn’t enough, you trapped me in and endless series of Mondays and staff meetings, all because the thought of being with me was so....I don’t know, repulsive, that it was easier for you to mess with the very fabric of space and time than to talk to me!” Rodney takes a deep breath, his chest pounding so hard it hurts, and adds, “And you were an asshole.”
“Oh,” John says.
“Yeah. So forgive me if this is going to take awhile to get over.”
“What did we...” John starts to ask, but cuts himself short when he sees Rodney’s withering glare.
“Even you aren’t that stupid,” Rodney says.
John winces, but nods. “Was it...” his voice trails off.
“Good?” Rodney asks. He looks back at the ocean. “Yeah,” he answers. “It was good. But, you know, you’re in the military. I’m on your team.” Rodney holds up his hand, counting of points on his fingers. “It would mess up our friendship. You’re not good at relationships. I’m not good at relationships. You aren’t even gay, really. You don’t want to get sent back to earth. You don’t want to worry about me. This is just a rebound thing after Katie. Oh, and my bed is uncomfortable.”
“Wow,” John says. “I guess we’ve had this conversation before.”
“A couple times, now,” Rodney affirms.
John leans on the railing next to him, close enough that Rodney can feel the warmth of his body in the chill of the Atlantis morning. “You know, I’ve never had the awkward morning after conversation before the sex.”
“This was the morning after conversation?” Rodney asks. “Huh. I thought it was the break-up conversation.”
“They’re usually the same conversation, for me,” John muses.
Rodney raises an eyebrow. “That explains so much.”
John’s voice drops. “So. You wanna try the sex, now? I still haven’t had any, yet. You remember our first time, and I don’t. I don’t think that’s fair.”
“John,” Rodney says, and turns to him. “Nothing’s changed.”
John reaches out a tentative hand and, after a hesitation, rests it on the curve of Rodney’s neck and shoulder. His thumb rubs Rodney’s pulse point. “You’ve changed,” he says. “Fuck, Rodney, you’re from the future. If anyone can steer us around the pitfalls...”
“This is a really stupid idea,” Rodney says, but he’s already stepping into John’s space, his head tilted up, and John smiles.
**END**