AU, Week 2: Where the White Lilies Grow (4/5)
Title: Where the White Lilies Grow (4/5)
Author: Eildon Rhymer (rhymer23)
Genre: AU
Prompt Clarke's Law (i.e. "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic")
Word Count: 44,400
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: People tell stories about the wonders of the Time Before. They tell stories, too, about magical creatures with long, fair hair, who emerge from the hill and can turn you to dust in an instant. But John Sheppard has never been one to believe in stories...
[ Part One] [ Part Two] [ Part Three] [ Part Four] [ Part Five]
___
Chapter seven
__
John had fallen asleep in the sun again. His limbs were sluggish and his body was wrapped in warmth. The ground was soft, and he could smell flowers and strange, exotic things. Birds were singing nearby... No, not birds. It wasn't a sound at all, but something else. It was sunlight on his face. It was his mother's scent. It was a soft touch on his face. It was memory and hope. It was safety. It was...
He moved his head. Fabric rustled. He felt a dull pain in his arm, but the rest of his body felt as if it had melted away. Something beeped beside him. The light coming through his closed eyelids was not sunlight, but neither was it the flickering light of candles or a fire.
The beeping grew faster. He heard footsteps, and opened his eyes at last to see a stranger looking down at him. "Hush, lad," the stranger said. "You're safe here. You're going to be fine, as right as rain."
John tried to say something, but no sound came out. He dimly recognised that he ought to be more anxious than he was. Safe, whispered the thing that was neither sound nor touch, that wasn't scent or memory or anything that he could see.
"Aye," said the man, wincing in sympathy at John's struggles to speak. "It strikes you hard at first. You've been very sick, but it's nothing that a good old dose of antibiotics can't fix. You'll be back on your feet in no time."
Where am I? John tried to say, but faint memory told him. It was distant as a dream, and he would have dismissed it as such, except that his eyes showed him marvels. He remembered light blazing around him, and McKay shouting at him to touch the gate, that big ring over there, just activate it now, you fool, now. He remembered a gleaming vessel that had responded to him, edging forward into a circle of shining blue when he touched the things McKay told him to touch. 'Thank God!' McKay had gasped when they were through, but John had looked upwards and had known beyond doubt that the sky, too, was within his reach. There was nothing after that, though - nothing until this.
His eyes slid closed. Safe, this world whispered around him.
Home.
******
Woolsey was shuffling papers on his desk. "This is most irregular," he said. "What possessed you to bring back this..." He peered down at the paper. It was quite ridiculously theatrical, Rodney thought; any sensible person used electronic records, and pen and paper were practically medieval. "Sheppard," Woolsey read out. "John Sheppard. A man from an entirely different universe. What possessed you to bring him here?"
"He was sick," Rodney explained for at least the fourth time - why didn't anybody listen? "He needed proper medical attention, and his own world sure as hell wasn't going to provide him with any." Woolsey opened his mouth as if to object. Rodney spoke over him. "Are you saying that I should have left him behind to die?"
He'd said the same to Carson, when Carson had... not questioned his decision, not as such, just asked him his reasons in an idly wondering fashion, as if he had expected Rodney to have done just that.
Woolsey shook his head, but he shuffled his papers again in a way that radiated disapproval.
Rodney shifted in his seat, struggling to find a comfortable way to sit. "I didn't even know we'd get back to the right universe, of course," he said. "It was a leap of faith, really, but anything was better than staying there. All I could do was dial the planet we started on, and hope that whatever had happened in one direction also happened on the way back. And it did. But you know that, of course, because, well, here I am."
"Here you are," Woolsey said dryly. He cleared his throat. "That means, of course, that there was all the more reason not to risk a civilian."
Rodney leant forward, elbows on the table. "I needed him, okay? Valuable gate ship left behind? Sheppard the only one of us who could bring it back?"
Woolsey pursed his lips together, and wrote something on a blank sheet of paper.
"He's got the gene!" Rodney shouted. "We're desperate for people with the gene. We've lost, what, twelve of them since we came here? Thirteen, now that Behr's gone. And unless you've magically found a way back to Earth - the proper Earth - and placed an order for a fresh supply, we're running on half strength, and we didn't have enough in the first place." He realised what he was saying; reined himself in. "Of course, a gene is no substitute for actual brains or scientific training, but... well, gene carriers have their uses, and Sheppard's got to be the strongest we've ever seen. Behr made the facility light up, but nothing like that."
Woolsey wrote another note, carefully replacing the cap of his pen when he had finished. "That is indeed true. Doctor Beckett has confirmed it."
"Then why the interrogation?" Rodney waved an impatient hand. "Why aren't you putting out balloons and holding a parade? I brought you a gene carrier. You need a gene carrier. It's a match made in heaven. End of story."
"You can't just steal people from other universes," Woolsey said stiffly. "Quite apart from the fact that he physically can't exist here for very long--"
"Only if there's another version of him around somewhere," Rodney said, "and there might not be. If we're lucky, this universe's John Sheppard might be dead."
"Lucky?" Woolsey looked at him frostily.
Rodney waved his hand, dismissing the word as a figure of speech. "Or maybe it doesn't happen if your double's a whole galaxy away. That's a possibility that hasn't been studied, and it should be, really - services to scientific knowledge, you know? There's no point anticipating problems until they manifest themselves."
"Quite apart from that," Woolsey said, emphasising each word, "it's unethical. Besides, our work here is classified. We have to be very careful who we allow into the city."
"But--" Rodney protested.
Woolsey cut him off with a final, decisive sorting of his papers. "You've had a stressful ordeal, Doctor McKay. Take a few more days off duty. Rest. Recover." But don't try to interfere with the running of the base, his tone said.
"I've got nothing to recover from," Rodney said, but his wrists were still reddened from the iron bands, his head still throbbed whenever he was tired, and the memories of those last days on the other Earth were more vivid than the memories of the thirty-six hours since he had come back from it.
"People aren't prizes you can win for Atlantis," Woolsey said. "I know you want the credit for finding him, but--"
"It's not like that," Rodney protested, but what was it like?
He did not know.
******
The man taking care of him was called Doctor Beckett, and his face inspired trust. The second time he awoke, John had only the faintest memory of the first time. The third time he awoke, his thoughts were clearer. The fourth time, he asked if he could leave the bed, and Beckett gently refused.
The fifth time he awoke, Beckett told him that he could walk to the balcony and back, "but well wrapped up, mind, and I'll be watching like a hawk in case you fall."
Every step was a wonder. The floor was as smooth as polished marble in the mansions of the Time Before. Light blazed from no apparent source. A voice came from the air, asking to speak to Beckett, and John pressed his hand against his chest, as if that could slow the wild beating of his heart. Magic, thought the part of him that had been reared on stories. No, he thought, not magic, just a world that moved on the way it was supposed to.
The air on the balcony was cool and fresh. The light dazzled him at first, and he screwed his eyes up, shielding his face with one hand.
He lowered it to see a place more beautiful than anything he had ever dreamed of. "Not magic?" he murmured, when he had the power to speak, to move, to breathe again. Not magic, but a world of wonder, even so. He saw shining towers on a silver sea, and the sky so vast above it. Each tower was whole and intact, gleaming with light and life. Nothing was ruined, nothing was decayed, nothing was empty, nothing was dead. It was the world as it should have been, and it reached into him, nestled down, and stayed.
His hand found the railing, and he sagged there, barely able to stand.
"You gonna faint?" a voice said. John tore his eyes away from the view, blinked, and realised that he wasn't alone.
"Don't think so." John shook his head.
The other man was leaning on the far end of the balcony. He didn't look like any of the other inhabitants of this Atlantis that John had seen. His clothes were made of coarse, thick cloth, his hair was long, and wouldn't have looked out of place in John's own world.
The man had already turned away, asking no further questions, but sunlight sparkled on the water, and everything about this place reached out to John and spoke of safety. It was enough to make him open his mouth and speak, when long habit would have urged silence. "It's just... overwhelming, you know? I've never seen anything like this place before."
The other man was slow to answer. "The City of the Ancestors," he said. "Thought it was just stories, but now I'm here." He looked at John, sparing him a brief glance. "You're not from here?"
John shook his head. "This is my first sight of it. They wouldn't let me out of bed before now."
"You, too? They let me when I hit two of them. Gave me my clothes back, too." The man eyes ran up and down John's body, clearly disapproving of the loose white suit he had been dressed in "You should try it."
"I might do that, buddy." John smiled. It was a less cautious smile than it might have been. Light gleamed on the tall, unbroken towers. "Where're you from?" he asked. Then he held out his hand, remembering long-forgotten social niceties. "Sorry. John Sheppard."
The other man was slow to respond. "Ronon Dex," he said eventually. There was another long pause. Someone walked past behind them, talking quietly. "Sateda," the man called Ronon said. "The Wraith made me into a Runner. A few days ago, I bumped into a party from Atlantis. Didn't mean to, but I was sick. Still saved their lives, though. They said they could help me and brought me here. Took out the tracker and healed me up."
John wondered whether to admit that he had no idea what a Runner was, and had never heard of Sateda. "According to McKay, I come from another universe," he told the man. "I got sick, too. I... can't remember much about coming here. I know about the Wraith, though. I killed two of them."
Ronon smiled, showing his teeth. "I killed a hundred and thirty-three on the run. Lost count of the ones I killed before."
"That's, uh, very impressive." John tightened his grip on the railing.
Ronon did the same. "I won't rest until I've killed every Wraith alive. I'll avenge Sateda."
So Ronon's home was gone. John thought of ruins and empty spaces, and had no idea what to say. Then a brief shadow passed in front of the sun, and he looked up to see small, shining vessel heading up into the sky. It gleamed like a star, and he knew that there were people inside it, that people were making it fly.
He had sat in one himself, and been so close to that, so close to the sky.
"Are you going to stay here?" he said, perhaps speaking to Ronon, and perhaps to himself.
"Why should I?" Ronon said. "What's there to stay for?"
******
"You know, a rescue would have been nice," Rodney said, when they had worked for several hours.
"Is as I said." Zelenka raked his hand through his hair. "We didn't know where you had gone. We had to be cautious."
Rodney focused his attention on yet another screen full of tests and readings. "Cautious," he said. He reached blindly for his coffee, his hand closing round the hot sides of the mug.
"Something was weird with that Gate," Zelenka said. "We--"
"Weird." This time Rodney found the mug's handle. "Radek Zelenka, great scientific mind, has spoken. Something was weird. The fact that when you dial Earth you get a wormhole leading to the wrong Earth is the clue there, eh? And you had nearly a week to analyse the readings and the best you can do is 'something was weird'? Where did they hire you from? Kindergarten?"
"We were slow to discover where you'd gone." Zelenka's voice had an edge to it. "You failed to check in before you attempted to reach Earth. The Gate left no trace of last addresses dialled. The readings were... strange. We didn't want to risk dialling until..."
"Until you'd written a book about it," Rodney said. "Yes, yes, I understand. It's more important to be cautious than to rescue your own people. For all you knew, I was dying over there - too long spent in an alternate universe, and all. But, no, you had to wait. After all, we can't risk losing any more gene carriers in a rescue attempt, can we?"
"Is not fair, McKay." Zelenka took his glasses off and rubbed them with the bottom of his shirt. "We didn't realise it was a different universe at first. We were about to venture through, but we had to be cautious. You yourself--"
"What?" Rodney demanded. He held his coffee in both hands. Thick red bands surrounded his wrists, and sleep was still hard to come by. They would have risked it for anyone else, he thought. Coffee shivered in the mug.
Zelenka looked at him, his eyes like a stranger's without the glasses. "Taught us to be cautious," he said. "When Corporal Jenkins was missing, you were the one who--"
"Stop it." Rodney slammed the mug down, splashing coffee on the table. "Go away."
Zelenka raised one hand, finger upraised. "But, Rodney..."
"Or stay," Rodney said. "Put your pitiful intellect towards solving the problem. Or, better yet, get me some more coffee. This isn't strong enough."
Zelenka put his glasses on. "I don't know why we tried to bring you back," he said, then muttered harsh words in Czech.
Rodney turned his back on him, concentrating on the computer screen. Instead of figures, though, his eyes showed him the bodies of his team, and the darkness of an empty facility, and Sheppard slumped in front of him on the horse.
He didn't notice Zelenka leaving; only noticed a long time later that he had gone.
******
Once, a long time ago, it had been in John's nature to take the lead in talking. For his whole adult life he had been cautious about what he showed of himself, but shallow words, surface words, had come easily to him.
No matter what happened, you never really forgot.
"How's about we make a break for it?" he said, pausing at the entrance to the balcony. "See if we can get down there." He nodded with his chin towards the sea. Go exploring, he thought, remembering long-ago days with his brother.
Ronon didn't turn round. "I was thinking it was time to leave. I'm fixed up now."
"I'm not," John said. Beckett had made himself very clear on that point. "Got a few more days here yet." He managed a shrug, a smile. "We're in the same boat here, both new to the place, and so..." He let it hang there, hoping that Ronon would fill in the blanks without him having to say it.
"They won't let us," Ronon said. "I heard them talking when they thought I was asleep. They don't like strangers discovering their secrets."
John pretended to consider it. "I guess hitting them won't work this time. It doesn't inspire trust, as a rule. So we play good. We let them give us an escort, if that's what they want to do, but we get out of here. I've been in a bed for far too long."
Ronon turned round slowly, one hand still on the railing. He didn't say yes, didn't even smile, but a few minutes later John found himself walking with Ronon out of the infirmary, out into pristine corridors and shining halls. A soldier went ahead of them, his face as blank as a statue's, and Beckett's admonitions were ringing in John's ears.
"Freedom," John said, because he suddenly felt that he had to say something. It was hard not to grin inanely. He felt as if everything that he had ever known about himself was falling away from him, leaving him with something new. He should be scared, traumatised, overwhelmed by what he was seeing, but the only thing it felt was right. He had always known that the world had once been different, and this was the world with that missing piece restored.
Or maybe, John, he thought, it's just that you've fallen in love with those gate ship things, and the rest of it's just your imagination.
The soldier led them to a tiny room and gestured to them curtly to get in. Ronon stopped, folding his arms in a way that clearly meant refusal. John swallowed, and had to admit that he was nervous, after all. Not magic, he reminded himself. Not a happy ever after. You couldn't slot effortlessly into new places; things didn't work like that.
The soldier just looked at them. He sees idiots, John realised, remembering his own thoughts about the superstitious villagers who'd thought that rifles were magic. "Come on, buddy," John said, goaded into making a decision. "These guys wouldn't have fixed us up if they wanted to hurt us. Let's go in."
Ronon followed him slowly, his eyes promising revenge if anything happened to him. Sighing impatiently, the soldier touched something, and light flared brightly. "What have you done to us?" Ronon demanded, but John reached out a hand, not quite touching him, but almost. The light sent echoes through his mind. We moved, he thought, as the door opened on a shining hallway, bright in the evening sunlight.
John was the first to leave. He could already see their destination. A door set with glass panels opened out into a flat expanse of floor, and beyond that was the ocean and the endless sky. "Huh," he said, because his thoughts threatened to become too vast, too overpowering, and he had to rein them in with light words. "I didn't expect it to be that quick. We're down at sea level already."
Magic, his mind said, and this time he didn't bother to dispute it. It didn't really matter, he thought. Magic or not magic, it was all equally lost to them; he had said that once. But now he had found it. Whether it was magic or not magic, it was here.
Outside, the ocean smelled just like any ocean he had known. John walked towards the edge, but it was further than it looked, or else he was less healed than he had thought. His legs grew weaker, his steps slower.
"You gonna faint?" Ronon asked.
John shook his head. Ronon said nothing, but moved closer, as if he was readying to catch John if he fell. John concentrated on walking; reminded himself that fanciful nonsense was all very well, but reality was more important. Things had changed, but he was still the same person. Maybe these really were Others, after all. Maybe this was enchantment. Maybe he had been enthralled and was walking willingly to his doom.
"I guess I need to sit down," he admitted at last.
They sat on the edge, feet overhanging the sea. John tried to focus on the real things. Ronon wasn't part of this. He was like John, exploring this place with a stranger's eyes.
"Why do you want to leave?" John asked. The soldier stood away from them, too far away to hear. The wind whipped around them, and the waves crashed not far below.
"No reason to stay," Ronon said. "Sateda's gone, but there's other places. I've been on the run for eight years, and can do it again, but this time I'll be the one doing the hunting."
"Wraith?" John asked. He wondered what to say, and decided on honesty. "I never heard of a Wraith until last week." He remembered the man who had died on his own threshold, and Sumner ageing and dying before his eyes. "I hate the guys, though."
Ronon said nothing. His fist tightened at his side.
"I'd have thought," John said carefully, "that fighting the Wraith would be easier when there's more than one of you."
Once again, Ronon was slow to answer. "Depends on the people you're with. These ones are soft. I don't trust them, and they don't trust me. They wouldn't let me stay even if I wanted to. I'm not one of them. They think they're better than me."
John turned around slowly; saw the soldier staring impassively straight ahead. The towers behind him were beautiful, but the air was cold.
******
At least Caldwell hid behind a computer screen rather than old-fashioned hand-written papers. "Your report is troubling," he said, "and leaves many questions unanswered."
"Questions which I was working on solving," Rodney pointed out, "until you interrupted my work by calling me here. Not that I see why it's any concern of yours."
Caldwell looked up from the screen, his eyes cold. "Three of my men are dead, Doctor McKay, their bodies not yet recovered: that makes it my concern. You brought this Sheppard to Atlantis, potentially compromising security: that makes it my concern. There are Wraith on Earth: that makes it my concern."
"Not on the real Earth," Rodney pointed out.
"You got there because you dialled the glyphs for Earth." Caldwell closed his laptop with a snap. "How did the Wraith get there? The same way? If so, how did they know the address?"
Rodney shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "It could be many things," he said, "hence the important work. Maybe something about that Earth's Gate takes precedence over other addresses dialled. Maybe they were Wraith from that other universe. That universe probably has its own Wraith. I see no reason why it wouldn't, when it even had its own version of Ford."
"Indeed." Caldwell opened the laptop again. "That part is... interesting. Were you aware...?" He cleared his throat, looking briefly almost uncomfortable. "A Colonel Sumner was considered for the role of military commander of the expedition."
"He almost got your job?" Rodney let out a breath. "I guess we had a lucky escape."
"Indeed." Caldwell's smile held little humour. "I'm flattered you consider me the lesser of two evils. I trust you'll remember this moment the next time you feel inspired to subject me to one of your rants?"
Rodney's mind was already moving on to the next thing, putting connections together, leaving Caldwell and his petty attempt to score a point way behind. "So we had Sumner and Ford and a ship called the Atlantis..." He hadn't recognised any other faces, but he hadn't really looked, had he? And most of them had died in the shipwreck, of course. Did that include people like Bates and Lorne? Had Rodney's double drowned in the wreck? No, of course not, because then Sheppard would have recognised him, but...
"Have you ever come across a John Sheppard?" he asked Caldwell.
"I don't know." Caldwell shook his head. "Contrary to your expectations, I don't know the names of every man in the United States military. But about your John Sheppard... I hear you expected us to welcome him with open arms and let him stay."
Rodney shifted again. "He's not my John Sheppard, but now that you mention it... I mean, he's been here for several days now, and isn't showing any signs of effects of temporal distortion, and..."
"He can't, of course," Caldwell said, his mouse clicking as he opened another file, Rodney's case dismissed. "As soon as you find a reliable way to do so, we're sending him straight back home." He waved his hand, dismissing Rodney not even with words, just a curt gesture.
******
A woman was waiting for them back in the infirmary. John was being supported by Ronon by then, his steps feeling as heavy as if he was dragging weights on each foot, but, "No," he gasped, when Ronon tried to steer him to his bed. He wanted the balcony, for more sunshine and that view. Ronon huffed disapprovingly, but took him there. John slid down, leaning against the back wall, sitting with his legs out in front of him, his face turned up to the sun.
The woman followed them. "I am Teyla Emmagen," she introduced herself. The sun was behind her, and John couldn't see her face clearly. "You must be Ronon Dex, and you are John Sheppard."
"That's me," John said wearily. The woman moved, so he could see her without being dazzled by the light. She was very beautiful. Like Ronon, she was wearing clothes that made her look different from anyone else John had seen in the city.
"I am from Athos," Teyla said. She addressed it to Ronon, as if she knew that John had no idea where such a place was. "My father leads my people."
"I thought Athos was culled," Ronon said.
"It was." Teyla inclined her head. "But a few of us survived, and continue to survive." She smiled. "We always do."
"Yeah." Ronon turned away from them, leaning his arms on the railing. "People always do."
Teyla looked after him for a long moment, then turned back to John. "They asked me here to speak to you both. They call me their 'native liaison.' Her voice changed, becoming harder, "They believe that we have something in common. After all, one 'native' is the same as any other."
John didn't understand it, but her bitterness was unmistakeable. The people of Atlantis, he realised, were grouping the three of them together because they were strangers, who came from places that didn't have such tall and gleaming towers.
"You don't like these guys, then?" he asked.
"They have provided much help to my people." Teyla sounded as if she was choosing her words carefully. "They have undoubtedly saved many lives. But they think they are better than us, because they are capable of doing so many things that we cannot do. Sometimes..." She stopped, as if she was thinking better of saying it, then carried on. "Sometimes, I believe, they forget that there are things that we know, that they do not."
Ronon said nothing. Teyla's hair stirred in the breeze, and she pushed a strand of it behind her ear. John saw muscles in her arm, and the unmistakeable look of someone who knew how to fight. Did the people of Atlantis know about this, he wondered suddenly, or did they just see a beautiful woman whose clothes were made of coarser fabric than their own?
"But they are here in the City of the Ancestors," Teyla said, "and the city has given them its blessing."
Her caution was still evident. It made John feel happier, all of a sudden. Both Teyla and Ronon were unimpressed with this place and its people. If the people of Atlantis really were Others with the power to enchant, then surely Ronon and Teyla would be smiling and besotted, wanting nothing else other than to stay here.
"You don't live here?" he asked Teyla, because in none of the stories did the Others let people come and go freely.
"I live on Athos," Teyla said, "although I come here occasionally, when they have a 'native issue' they require a 'native opinion' on." It was clear by her tone of voice that she was quoting them, but then her hard expression dissolved in a smile. "It is indeed beautiful, though, is it not? When I was a girl, I never thought I would be standing in the City of the Ancestors. We have such stories about this place."
And the domain of the Others, John remembered, appears more beautiful than a dream, so mortals will be enticed to enter it and thus be entrapped to their doom.
"My folks do, too," John said. "Here's hoping mine are just that, just stories."
******
end of chapter seven
******
What is the domain of the Others like? It is beautiful, of course, because the Others have great power and magic, and would not choose to live in a fallen world like ours. Is it like our world was in the Time Before? Is it more beautiful than our world ever was?
Or is it just a shadow and a dream? Is all its beauty an illusion, designed to draw mortals to their doom? Strip away the magic, and what would we find? Just cold earth and worms and dank, decaying things?
We do not know. Did John find the truth when he went with the Other into the hill? Did he marvel at the beauty of that fairy world, or did he scream in horror of what lay therein?
We do not know. For once he crossed the threshold into the hill, John was lost to the words and memory, lost to the world.
Lost.
******
Chapter eight
__
Rodney was a frequent visitor to the infirmary. Certain people called him a hypochondriac, but Rodney didn't see what was wrong with trying to take care of your health. You could never be too careful. Take Sheppard, for example. The man had almost died because he'd done that stoical soldier thing of not getting a minor wound checked out. Not that there'd been anyone there to check it out, of course, but that wasn't the point. The point was that Rodney came here often, that he knew it well.
Why, then, did it suddenly seem to strange to him? It's because I've never come here to visit someone else, he realised. He'd never done the bedside vigil thing. Sometimes people he worked with got injured, went away for a while, and then came back, and it had never crossed his mind that he might want to visit them at any point during the process.
And Carson, he remembered, had expected him to leave Sheppard behind in his own universe to die.
Thoughts circled in his mind, and he didn't want to pin them down enough to put them into words. "Where's Sheppard?" he demanded instead, snapping his fingers to attract Carson's attention.
"What is it this time?" Carson asked wearily. "Another splinter?"
"Didn't you hear me?" Rodney demanded. "I'm right here in front of you, speaking words. Where's Sheppard?"
"I let him go," Carson said.
"What?" It struck Rodney hard, and he didn't really know why. "He's gone? But he can't be. I've not finished my work on the Gate. It isn't reliable. Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"Not that sort of gone." Carson glanced over his shoulder at a sudden noise around a distant bed, swore softly under his breath, and started to hurry away. "I think they were planning on going to the mess hall," he said as he went.
"The mess hall." Rodney nodded. "Right."
He made his way there, not really sure why he was trying to find Sheppard. It wasn't as if Sheppard could offer any useful insights into why any attempt to connect a wormhole between those two particular Gates somehow managed to bridge the universes. Watching him for signs of the physical effects of temporal distortion was a useful project, of course, but not the one that Rodney was engaged in. Sheppard wasn't in any way his responsibility. He was an ignorant peasant from a post-apocalyptic universe, and, yes, he just happened to possess the strongest manifestation of the Ancient Descendants' Gene that anyone had ever encountered, but that didn't mean that he had anything to say that could be useful to Rodney and his work.
Sheppard wasn't alone when Rodney reached the mess hall. A large barbarian type was sitting opposite him, and there was also that native woman who visited sometimes to brief Woolsey on native politics and customs. An impassive-faced soldier was standing away to the side, evidently watching them in case they did anything threatening.
As Rodney approached, the woman said something quietly, and Sheppard laughed. Then Sheppard said something back, and the barbarian smiled.
Rodney stopped walking, cleared his throat, and started again. "Sheppard," he said. Sheppard looked up. "There you are. Are you, uh..." He cleared his throat again, suddenly at a loss for what to say. Sheppard was wearing scrubs, with an Atlantis jacket over the top of them. That's because he was sick, Rodney reminded himself. What did people say when they visited sick people? "Are you, uh, well?"
"I'm good," Sheppard said blandly. He looked different from how he had looked back on Earth, or perhaps that was just the different lighting. The soldier continued to watch impassively, but the woman - what was her name? - moved fractionally closer to Sheppard. The barbarian's expression was not friendly.
Rodney pulled out the empty chair and sat on it, forearms resting on the table. He eyed the untouched chocolate cake on Sheppard's plate. "Are you eating that, because... important work, you know? Busy trying to save advance scientific knowledge, no time to stop and eat, etcetera etcetera?"
"Was planning to," Sheppard said. He smiled, but when he turned towards Rodney, his smile faded. "I've never tasted food like this, but none of this is anything special to you, is it? I didn't want to eat it at first. Stupid, huh?"
"Why ever not?" Rodney asked, but the others seemed to understand. Rodney had no idea who the barbarian was - perhaps a friend of the woman's? None of them were part of the Atlantis expedition, that much was plain. In the heart of his own city, Rodney suddenly felt like the one who didn't belong. He remembered the incident in the infirmary when Carson had heard what he had expected to hear, not listening to Rodney's words at all.
"Are you...?" Rodney shifted in his chair, its legs scraping against the floor. He should probably ask Sheppard if he was experiencing any symptoms of temporal distortion. He should ask him how he was feeling. No, no, he'd done that already. God, why was he feeling so awkward? He'd carried Sheppard on horseback for hours; had killed two Wraith with him, for crying out loud. They'd saved each other's lives.
"This is Rodney McKay," Sheppard said, clearly concluding that Rodney wasn't going to finish his question. "He's the one who brought me here."
"Well, technically you're the one who brought us both here, on account of the whole gene thing." Rodney's voice trailed away. He looked at his hands. "Has anyone shown you what you can do?"
Sheppard shook his head. There was a wariness about all three of them, Rodney thought, as if Sheppard had decided to align himself with these two strangers, rather than with Rodney and his people.
"Well, they should," Rodney said, making up his mind suddenly. "Come with me." Sheppard didn't move. Rodney stood up, snapping his fingers. "Come on. I've got something to show you. Your little friends can come too, if they want, and I guess the guard-dog comes as part of the deal." Sheppard still sat there. Rodney sighed, passing his hand across his face, remembering things that Sheppard had told him. "You said you wanted to change the world. This is your chance. Do you want to find out what you're capable of, or do you want to hide from it and spend your whole life in ignorance?"
Sheppard blinked, closing his eyes for a moment, and then stood up. He left the chocolate cake behind. Rodney almost went back for it, but thought it would spoil the moment.
******
John had never believed in magic or fairies. Stories about Others were just stories, made up by people who didn't understand the relics of the Time Before.
But that was before he had come to a place where every tiny thing around him was a marvel. Safe, whispered the city, speaking with a voice that didn't reach him through any of his regular senses. Home. And part of him wanted to listen, but part of him pointed out that the Others could enchant their victims so they went willingly to the deaths, desiring nothing else.
The more beautiful the city seemed, the more he loved it. The more beautiful the city seemed, the more he feared it.
Ronon and Teyla weren't part of it, of course, and that was a comfort. McKay, too... McKay was a difficult one, because he was the one who had brought John here, the one who had reeled him in. But it was hard to imagine anything unearthly about Rodney McKay. For four days, John had listened to the man whining and grumbling and prattling, saying whatever was on his mind. Almost from the start, John had been certain that McKay was entirely human. His flaws and his irritating habits were comforting and reassuring. If McKay had been more perfect, John might have walked away days ago, and wouldn't be here now.
So it was all a cunning trick, he thought, played in the way it needed to be played in order to catch me. But the thought carried little conviction. It didn't feel right, not with McKay.
And so John followed him. Do you want to find out what you're capable of? Of course he did. He couldn't walk away, not from a question like that. And if this was a trap...John stopped. Ronon turned towards him. McKay carried on walking, failing to notice. If this is a trap, John thought, then I'm willingly walking into it. He'd left his home to see what was in the world beyond it. He'd stepped onto a ship because he wanted to know. You could live quietly, scraping a living from the soil, or you could take a chance.
"You coming?" McKay said, noticing at last.
John nodded. Ronon and Teyla flanked him closely as he started to walk again. "It's all right," he told them quietly. "It's just McKay."
Safe, the city told him, but John closed his heart to it. McKay's impatience, his awkward inability to say the right thing, spoke more loudly than any magic.
They carried on, walking through gloomy hallways, squeezing into those tiny rooms that transported them instantly to other places. No-one said anything for a while, but soon John found his steps slowing, his arm beginning to throb. He found Teyla looking at him in concern, and managed a smile for her.
"You need to stop, sir," the soldier said at last. "You can't take non mission personnel in there."
"I can do whatever I like," McKay told him. "You called me 'sir.' That means you admit that I outrank you."
John listened to them arguing, words going to and fro between them. That, too, was strangely comforting - another human thing, with nothing magical about it. He leant against the wall, feeling it cool against his back. It was vibrating slightly, humming with power, or maybe that was just the fluttering of his own heart.
"Come on, then." McKay snapped his fingers in front of John's face, as if he had been trying to communicate with him for some time. He opened the door, and John followed him in. The room held nothing but a large metal chair, decorated with patterns. "Sit on it, then," McKay said impatiently, as if this action was completely obvious, and John had been neglecting his duty by standing there.
"You're going to let him...?" Ronon growled, and John remembered a story he had heard long ago, about a thief who had sat down on an empty throne, only to be pinned there forever by chains and roots that shot out around his arms and legs.
McKay sighed in irritation. "It's quite safe. Look." He sat on it himself, then jumped up again. "It just doesn't work for me, just like the gate ship didn't. It doesn't work for anyone. Carson and the others, they can make it do the lighting up thing, but they can't actually do anything useful with it. You need more than pretty sparkly things to protect a city."
John edged forward. Ronon came with him, and Teyla a few steps behind. Do you want to find out what you're capable of, John? he thought. Life was a string of chances, and he had been dead inside when living from day to day in the months after the shipwreck, only feeling a spark of life when he was riding fast across the hills.
He sat down, and the chair embraced him, welcoming him home.
******
"Good." Rodney brought both hands to his face, exhaling into them. "That's good. Got to test it. What can I can ask you to do now?"
Sheppard was reclining in the chair, his eyes closed, his hands instinctively resting in the right places. The blue light made him look different. More powerful, Rodney thought, but that was a stupid thought; of course it was. Just because Sheppard had that ridiculous magic gene, it didn't mean that he was anything special.
The barbarian was pacing up and down in a primitive fashion. "Does it hurt?" he asked Sheppard.
Sheppard opened his eyes with evident difficulty. "I... No. No. Doesn't hurt. Feels good. Scary. Good."
To hell with it, Rodney thought. He'd go straight for the big one. "As far as we can tell," he said, "the chair's linked in to the city's defence systems. There's a bay full of drones that we've never been able to use. I want you to fire one."
A small furrow appeared between Sheppard's eyes. "Drones?" His voice cracked, as if speaking was an effort.
Rodney scraped his hand across his face. What to say? What to say? "Yes! I've got it. Pretend we're being attacked. There's a ship full of Wraith in the sky to the south. They're going to kill everyone here unless you do something. Can you imagine them? Can you see them? Take them out. Go on, Sheppard, we're depending on you."
Sheppard let out a soft breath. His eyes slid shut again.
Rodney frowned. "Did it work? A little feedback would be nice. Sheppard, what happened?"
His radio crackled into life. "Doctor McKay?" Caldwell spoke in his ear. "Sergeant Collins tells me that you've taken our visitors to the Chair Room."
"Yes, yes, so sue me." Rodney looked at Sheppard again, his eyes closed on the chair. "And?" he prompted.
"And a drone has just been fired, as well you know," Caldwell said stiffly, sounding as if he hated having to say the words.
"Yes!" Rodney punched the air with his fist. He removed the ear piece, barely hearing Caldwell's tinny voice berating him. "You hear that, Sheppard? You did it. No-one else alive can do that. No-one else alive and here, anyway. But that doesn't matter. The point is, I was right. I knew you'd be useful to us."
Sheppard gave no answer. The barbarian touched his throat, feeling his pulse. "Think he's asleep," he said.
"Doctor Beckett said he was to be careful not to over-exert himself," the woman said. Her glance in Rodney's direction was sharp.
Rodney swallowed. The blue light no longer made Sheppard look powerful, but sick. It drained him of colour, and showed just how still he really was. So apparently Carson as well as Caldwell would be baying for Rodney's blood. Not that it mattered, of course. The important thing was that he had proved his point. The important thing was that he was right.
But he decided to stick around while Sheppard slept, waiting with the others until Carson and Caldwell came to take Sheppard away.
******
John woke in the evening to find himself in the infirmary again. He sat up, pushing himself up against the pillows, and remembered the feeling of power flowing through his entire body. The magic of the chair had consumed him... no, it hadn't consumed him, because he'd been in control. It had drained his strength, but only because he had let it. It would have released him at any point.
He heard the sound of footsteps, and turned his head to see Ronon approaching the bed. "I thought you might have gone by now," he found himself saying.
Ronon stood behind an empty chair, gripping its back with both hands. Why was it there, John wondered. Had someone sat beside him while he slept? "Thought I'd stay for a bit longer," Ronon said.
"Ah." John nodded. "That's, uh... good, buddy. It's good to have someone else around who's in the same boat."
Ronon looked away, then back again. "Thought I'd go when you go, and you're not ready yet. And the food's good. You don't always get much food on the run. Only a fool turns down good shelter when it's offered."
They will tempt you with sweet music and sweet food, John remembered, but if you take a bite of their food, then you are lost forever. Too late for that, of course. Beckett said they'd fed him through tubes when he was going through the worst of it, and when John had first woken up, he'd been too starving and too feverish to say no.
"Yeah," John said, leaning into the soft pillows. "Only a fool."
Ronon pulled the chair out, twisted it round, and sat on it backwards, his legs striding the seat. "They say you fired some sort of explosive into the sea." He gave a quick, fierce smile. "That'll take out the Wraith."
John nodded. It would take out more than the Wraith. He had released the weapon and aimed it at an imaginary Wraith target, but in that moment, he had known that he could direct it on the city itself, if he wanted to. It wasn't protected; that much he knew beyond doubt.
"That Caldwell guy..." Ronon said. "He doesn't like that you did it. So hurry up and get well." He clapped John on the shoulder. "This place isn't for the likes of us."
And what's the likes of us? John thought, and suddenly realised that he had no idea at all. He'd thought that he didn't understand this marvellous city; maybe, though, he just didn't understand himself.
******
It was over twenty-four hours since the incident with the chair, so it was high time that Caldwell and Woolsey got over their petty little grudge.
"It's stupid that you won't even consider it," Rodney said, pacing up and down in the conference room. "Atlantis is meant to be defended by that chair, and Sheppard's the only person we've got who can use it." He rounded on Caldwell. "Protecting the city's supposed to be your job. You're supposed to be protecting us civilians, but you want to send Sheppard away and leave us unprotected?"
"He is from another universe." Caldwell spat out each word like stones, each one clear and distinct.
Rodney flapped his hand dismissively. "So you keep on saying. But he's been here, what, five days now, with no ill-effects. Either the John Sheppard from our universe is dead, or he's too far away for it to matter."
Woolsey leant forward, his elbows on the table. "You seem to be taking this quite personally, Doctor McKay. Why do you want him to stay?"
Rodney frowned, shaking his head. "Oh, I don't know, could it be because he might be able to save all our lives one day? Listen..." His hands were clenched at his side. "We might find a ZPM one day, and we might find a way back to Earth, but it's not happening right now. We've been two years without it happening. And people keep on dying. How long can we carry on losing people without replenishing them? And we can't replenish from Earth, from our Earth, and so--"
"The Atlantis expedition," Woolsey said, "is an Earth expedition, with every participant properly vetted and selected through appropriate channels."
"Then there isn't going to be an Atlantis expedition in five years," Rodney shouted. "I can't believe how stupid you all are."
"McKay!" Caldwell was on his feet, chair slamming back against the wall. "If you carry on like this, I will have to assume that you were compromised during your time away."
"Compromised?" Rodney echoed. "Compromised? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Can't you military types--"
"Doctor McKay," Woolsey said firmly. "Your opinion is noted. Now I suggest that you turn your attention to the job you are currently supposed to be working on, and leave the security of Atlantis to those whose job it is to consider such things."
"The job of sending Sheppard home, you mean?" Rodney snapped.
"Of sending Sheppard home." Woolsey's voice was quiet. "You said it yourself, Doctor McKay. His home."
"But that doesn't mean anything." Rodney shook his head. "We all call Earth 'home,' but that doesn't mean that we don't..." He stopped, pressing his lips together; left the room, wishing that the doors were the type you could slam.
******
Night fell on a perfect field of stars. It was the first time John had seen them, and he didn't recognise a single one.
He took in a breath, and held it there for a long time, before slowly letting it out again.
"We aren't on Earth, are we?" he said.
Beneath those alien stars, Teyla shook her head. "The Atlantis expedition, as they call themselves, are from a place called Earth." She was silent for a while, looking at him. "Where do you come from, John?"
"From Earth," John said, remembering how McKay had asked what planet they were on - a nonsensical question, or so he had thought. "A different Earth from the one these guys come from. According to McKay..." He clenched his fist at his side, and carried on. "According to McKay, this is a different universe. Things went wrong on my Earth. Most people died. We're scraping a living, struggling to survive. We don't have anything like this."
Teyla nodded slowly. "I have heard of other existences beyond the veil. The Ancestors knew how to cross over, but for us it is just a story."
John managed a smile. "It seems like the time for living in stories."
He wondered whether to ask the rest of it. He had gone through a door in a hill, and from there he had gone through another door. He deliberately hadn't thought about it too much, but perhaps he had told himself that he was on the far side of the world, in a place where the years of darkness hadn't happened.
Teyla answered him, though, before he had found the courage to ask the question. "I once asked Doctor Zelenka where Earth is." She raised her hand, pointing up at the sky. "Do you see that row of stars just there? There is a blurry smear of light to the right of them, that you can only see on the darkest of nights. They call that the Milky Way. Your sun is one of its millions of stars."
So far away, he thought. So impossibly far away. Beings who travelled through the stars. Creatures who were made of starlight.
"And Athos?" he asked, his voice hoarse.
"We orbit that star there," Teyla said, with a smile in her voice, but John couldn't see which one she was indicating.
"What's it like?" he asked, because it was easier than thinking about the vastness of the sky.
"Beautiful," she said, "but broken, broken by the Wraith. I would like to help my people more than I do. My father does what he can, but..." She turned towards John, and sat down, sitting beside him on the balcony. "I offered my services to the Atlantis expedition because I felt that they had the potential to do much good, but the potential to do much evil, too, if they interfered in things they did not understand. I want to help them understand, but Mister Woolsey and Colonel Caldwell..." She sighed, shaking her head. "They think they know best. They listen to the facts I give them, but not to my judgements. I fear that one day they are going to make a terrible mistake."
John nodded, but there was nothing he could say. The smear of light drew his eyes. Another universe, he thought, and far across the stars. Even if the people who lived here were ordinary humans, prone to making mistakes, there was magic in the very fact of their existence.
"They are not like us," Teyla said. "They were brought up in a world without the Wraith, and their technology is far greater than ours. It makes them arrogant." She let out a breath, looking up at the stars. "But I apologise, John. I should not talk about such things."
John said nothing, unable to muster words.
Teyla touched his arm. "When are you going home, John?"
******
Woolsey and Caldwell were waiting for them when they returned through the Gate.
"It still needs weeks, if not months, of study," Rodney said as he came through, pre-empting the questions. "We're no closer to understanding why it works. Yes," he said sharply, sensing that Zelenka was about to interrupt, "we know how it works, but not why. When you dial Atlantis from the planet, it works normally, presumably because the Atlantis Gate is a strong one and takes precedence..."
"Which is unexpected," Zelenka volunteered, raising his hand. "We had not known that some Gates were stronger than others."
"Yes, yes." Rodney flapped at him, dismissing him. "As I was saying before I was interrupted, dial Atlantis, and it works normally. Dial anywhere else, and the wormhole reconnects and takes you to the other version of Earth."
"Is enormous expenditure of power," Zelenka said. "Is a device we have never encountered before, housed in with the dialling mechanism, and smaller devices in the Gate itself. Is not possible to bring it here."
Rodney stepped in front of him. "Like I said, months of work required."
"But is it stable?" Caldwell asked. His arms were folded, and he was standing on the bottom step as if he owned the place. "Doctor Zelenka?"
Zelenka pushed his glasses up his nose, and nodded. "It is stable," he said. "We have dialled a dozen times, and each time we get through to that other Earth. We have sent remote recording devices through to test it."
"Good." Caldwell nodded, as if Zelenka had given the decisive answer that finally put paid to a difficult debate.
And he had, of course. Now that Zelenka had spoken, they would send Sheppard home.
******
end of chapter eight
******
The Others are creatures of fickle fancy. They entice mortals to their domain, but they soon lose their desire to hold onto them. Then the mortal is returned to the land beneath the sun, alive but cursed. Time flows differently in that fairy land below the ground, and when the returning mortal stands once again upon the ground of his home, he crumbles to dust before he can enjoy the most fleeting touch of the sun.
Did it happen to John?
Of course it did, little one. From the moment John first looked the Other in the eye, this fate was preordained for him.
Just dust on the wind. Just dust.
******
Concluded in Part Five
Author: Eildon Rhymer (rhymer23)
Genre: AU
Prompt Clarke's Law (i.e. "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic")
Word Count: 44,400
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: People tell stories about the wonders of the Time Before. They tell stories, too, about magical creatures with long, fair hair, who emerge from the hill and can turn you to dust in an instant. But John Sheppard has never been one to believe in stories...
[ Part One] [ Part Two] [ Part Three] [ Part Four] [ Part Five]
___
Chapter seven
__
John had fallen asleep in the sun again. His limbs were sluggish and his body was wrapped in warmth. The ground was soft, and he could smell flowers and strange, exotic things. Birds were singing nearby... No, not birds. It wasn't a sound at all, but something else. It was sunlight on his face. It was his mother's scent. It was a soft touch on his face. It was memory and hope. It was safety. It was...
He moved his head. Fabric rustled. He felt a dull pain in his arm, but the rest of his body felt as if it had melted away. Something beeped beside him. The light coming through his closed eyelids was not sunlight, but neither was it the flickering light of candles or a fire.
The beeping grew faster. He heard footsteps, and opened his eyes at last to see a stranger looking down at him. "Hush, lad," the stranger said. "You're safe here. You're going to be fine, as right as rain."
John tried to say something, but no sound came out. He dimly recognised that he ought to be more anxious than he was. Safe, whispered the thing that was neither sound nor touch, that wasn't scent or memory or anything that he could see.
"Aye," said the man, wincing in sympathy at John's struggles to speak. "It strikes you hard at first. You've been very sick, but it's nothing that a good old dose of antibiotics can't fix. You'll be back on your feet in no time."
Where am I? John tried to say, but faint memory told him. It was distant as a dream, and he would have dismissed it as such, except that his eyes showed him marvels. He remembered light blazing around him, and McKay shouting at him to touch the gate, that big ring over there, just activate it now, you fool, now. He remembered a gleaming vessel that had responded to him, edging forward into a circle of shining blue when he touched the things McKay told him to touch. 'Thank God!' McKay had gasped when they were through, but John had looked upwards and had known beyond doubt that the sky, too, was within his reach. There was nothing after that, though - nothing until this.
His eyes slid closed. Safe, this world whispered around him.
Home.
******
Woolsey was shuffling papers on his desk. "This is most irregular," he said. "What possessed you to bring back this..." He peered down at the paper. It was quite ridiculously theatrical, Rodney thought; any sensible person used electronic records, and pen and paper were practically medieval. "Sheppard," Woolsey read out. "John Sheppard. A man from an entirely different universe. What possessed you to bring him here?"
"He was sick," Rodney explained for at least the fourth time - why didn't anybody listen? "He needed proper medical attention, and his own world sure as hell wasn't going to provide him with any." Woolsey opened his mouth as if to object. Rodney spoke over him. "Are you saying that I should have left him behind to die?"
He'd said the same to Carson, when Carson had... not questioned his decision, not as such, just asked him his reasons in an idly wondering fashion, as if he had expected Rodney to have done just that.
Woolsey shook his head, but he shuffled his papers again in a way that radiated disapproval.
Rodney shifted in his seat, struggling to find a comfortable way to sit. "I didn't even know we'd get back to the right universe, of course," he said. "It was a leap of faith, really, but anything was better than staying there. All I could do was dial the planet we started on, and hope that whatever had happened in one direction also happened on the way back. And it did. But you know that, of course, because, well, here I am."
"Here you are," Woolsey said dryly. He cleared his throat. "That means, of course, that there was all the more reason not to risk a civilian."
Rodney leant forward, elbows on the table. "I needed him, okay? Valuable gate ship left behind? Sheppard the only one of us who could bring it back?"
Woolsey pursed his lips together, and wrote something on a blank sheet of paper.
"He's got the gene!" Rodney shouted. "We're desperate for people with the gene. We've lost, what, twelve of them since we came here? Thirteen, now that Behr's gone. And unless you've magically found a way back to Earth - the proper Earth - and placed an order for a fresh supply, we're running on half strength, and we didn't have enough in the first place." He realised what he was saying; reined himself in. "Of course, a gene is no substitute for actual brains or scientific training, but... well, gene carriers have their uses, and Sheppard's got to be the strongest we've ever seen. Behr made the facility light up, but nothing like that."
Woolsey wrote another note, carefully replacing the cap of his pen when he had finished. "That is indeed true. Doctor Beckett has confirmed it."
"Then why the interrogation?" Rodney waved an impatient hand. "Why aren't you putting out balloons and holding a parade? I brought you a gene carrier. You need a gene carrier. It's a match made in heaven. End of story."
"You can't just steal people from other universes," Woolsey said stiffly. "Quite apart from the fact that he physically can't exist here for very long--"
"Only if there's another version of him around somewhere," Rodney said, "and there might not be. If we're lucky, this universe's John Sheppard might be dead."
"Lucky?" Woolsey looked at him frostily.
Rodney waved his hand, dismissing the word as a figure of speech. "Or maybe it doesn't happen if your double's a whole galaxy away. That's a possibility that hasn't been studied, and it should be, really - services to scientific knowledge, you know? There's no point anticipating problems until they manifest themselves."
"Quite apart from that," Woolsey said, emphasising each word, "it's unethical. Besides, our work here is classified. We have to be very careful who we allow into the city."
"But--" Rodney protested.
Woolsey cut him off with a final, decisive sorting of his papers. "You've had a stressful ordeal, Doctor McKay. Take a few more days off duty. Rest. Recover." But don't try to interfere with the running of the base, his tone said.
"I've got nothing to recover from," Rodney said, but his wrists were still reddened from the iron bands, his head still throbbed whenever he was tired, and the memories of those last days on the other Earth were more vivid than the memories of the thirty-six hours since he had come back from it.
"People aren't prizes you can win for Atlantis," Woolsey said. "I know you want the credit for finding him, but--"
"It's not like that," Rodney protested, but what was it like?
He did not know.
******
The man taking care of him was called Doctor Beckett, and his face inspired trust. The second time he awoke, John had only the faintest memory of the first time. The third time he awoke, his thoughts were clearer. The fourth time, he asked if he could leave the bed, and Beckett gently refused.
The fifth time he awoke, Beckett told him that he could walk to the balcony and back, "but well wrapped up, mind, and I'll be watching like a hawk in case you fall."
Every step was a wonder. The floor was as smooth as polished marble in the mansions of the Time Before. Light blazed from no apparent source. A voice came from the air, asking to speak to Beckett, and John pressed his hand against his chest, as if that could slow the wild beating of his heart. Magic, thought the part of him that had been reared on stories. No, he thought, not magic, just a world that moved on the way it was supposed to.
The air on the balcony was cool and fresh. The light dazzled him at first, and he screwed his eyes up, shielding his face with one hand.
He lowered it to see a place more beautiful than anything he had ever dreamed of. "Not magic?" he murmured, when he had the power to speak, to move, to breathe again. Not magic, but a world of wonder, even so. He saw shining towers on a silver sea, and the sky so vast above it. Each tower was whole and intact, gleaming with light and life. Nothing was ruined, nothing was decayed, nothing was empty, nothing was dead. It was the world as it should have been, and it reached into him, nestled down, and stayed.
His hand found the railing, and he sagged there, barely able to stand.
"You gonna faint?" a voice said. John tore his eyes away from the view, blinked, and realised that he wasn't alone.
"Don't think so." John shook his head.
The other man was leaning on the far end of the balcony. He didn't look like any of the other inhabitants of this Atlantis that John had seen. His clothes were made of coarse, thick cloth, his hair was long, and wouldn't have looked out of place in John's own world.
The man had already turned away, asking no further questions, but sunlight sparkled on the water, and everything about this place reached out to John and spoke of safety. It was enough to make him open his mouth and speak, when long habit would have urged silence. "It's just... overwhelming, you know? I've never seen anything like this place before."
The other man was slow to answer. "The City of the Ancestors," he said. "Thought it was just stories, but now I'm here." He looked at John, sparing him a brief glance. "You're not from here?"
John shook his head. "This is my first sight of it. They wouldn't let me out of bed before now."
"You, too? They let me when I hit two of them. Gave me my clothes back, too." The man eyes ran up and down John's body, clearly disapproving of the loose white suit he had been dressed in "You should try it."
"I might do that, buddy." John smiled. It was a less cautious smile than it might have been. Light gleamed on the tall, unbroken towers. "Where're you from?" he asked. Then he held out his hand, remembering long-forgotten social niceties. "Sorry. John Sheppard."
The other man was slow to respond. "Ronon Dex," he said eventually. There was another long pause. Someone walked past behind them, talking quietly. "Sateda," the man called Ronon said. "The Wraith made me into a Runner. A few days ago, I bumped into a party from Atlantis. Didn't mean to, but I was sick. Still saved their lives, though. They said they could help me and brought me here. Took out the tracker and healed me up."
John wondered whether to admit that he had no idea what a Runner was, and had never heard of Sateda. "According to McKay, I come from another universe," he told the man. "I got sick, too. I... can't remember much about coming here. I know about the Wraith, though. I killed two of them."
Ronon smiled, showing his teeth. "I killed a hundred and thirty-three on the run. Lost count of the ones I killed before."
"That's, uh, very impressive." John tightened his grip on the railing.
Ronon did the same. "I won't rest until I've killed every Wraith alive. I'll avenge Sateda."
So Ronon's home was gone. John thought of ruins and empty spaces, and had no idea what to say. Then a brief shadow passed in front of the sun, and he looked up to see small, shining vessel heading up into the sky. It gleamed like a star, and he knew that there were people inside it, that people were making it fly.
He had sat in one himself, and been so close to that, so close to the sky.
"Are you going to stay here?" he said, perhaps speaking to Ronon, and perhaps to himself.
"Why should I?" Ronon said. "What's there to stay for?"
******
"You know, a rescue would have been nice," Rodney said, when they had worked for several hours.
"Is as I said." Zelenka raked his hand through his hair. "We didn't know where you had gone. We had to be cautious."
Rodney focused his attention on yet another screen full of tests and readings. "Cautious," he said. He reached blindly for his coffee, his hand closing round the hot sides of the mug.
"Something was weird with that Gate," Zelenka said. "We--"
"Weird." This time Rodney found the mug's handle. "Radek Zelenka, great scientific mind, has spoken. Something was weird. The fact that when you dial Earth you get a wormhole leading to the wrong Earth is the clue there, eh? And you had nearly a week to analyse the readings and the best you can do is 'something was weird'? Where did they hire you from? Kindergarten?"
"We were slow to discover where you'd gone." Zelenka's voice had an edge to it. "You failed to check in before you attempted to reach Earth. The Gate left no trace of last addresses dialled. The readings were... strange. We didn't want to risk dialling until..."
"Until you'd written a book about it," Rodney said. "Yes, yes, I understand. It's more important to be cautious than to rescue your own people. For all you knew, I was dying over there - too long spent in an alternate universe, and all. But, no, you had to wait. After all, we can't risk losing any more gene carriers in a rescue attempt, can we?"
"Is not fair, McKay." Zelenka took his glasses off and rubbed them with the bottom of his shirt. "We didn't realise it was a different universe at first. We were about to venture through, but we had to be cautious. You yourself--"
"What?" Rodney demanded. He held his coffee in both hands. Thick red bands surrounded his wrists, and sleep was still hard to come by. They would have risked it for anyone else, he thought. Coffee shivered in the mug.
Zelenka looked at him, his eyes like a stranger's without the glasses. "Taught us to be cautious," he said. "When Corporal Jenkins was missing, you were the one who--"
"Stop it." Rodney slammed the mug down, splashing coffee on the table. "Go away."
Zelenka raised one hand, finger upraised. "But, Rodney..."
"Or stay," Rodney said. "Put your pitiful intellect towards solving the problem. Or, better yet, get me some more coffee. This isn't strong enough."
Zelenka put his glasses on. "I don't know why we tried to bring you back," he said, then muttered harsh words in Czech.
Rodney turned his back on him, concentrating on the computer screen. Instead of figures, though, his eyes showed him the bodies of his team, and the darkness of an empty facility, and Sheppard slumped in front of him on the horse.
He didn't notice Zelenka leaving; only noticed a long time later that he had gone.
******
Once, a long time ago, it had been in John's nature to take the lead in talking. For his whole adult life he had been cautious about what he showed of himself, but shallow words, surface words, had come easily to him.
No matter what happened, you never really forgot.
"How's about we make a break for it?" he said, pausing at the entrance to the balcony. "See if we can get down there." He nodded with his chin towards the sea. Go exploring, he thought, remembering long-ago days with his brother.
Ronon didn't turn round. "I was thinking it was time to leave. I'm fixed up now."
"I'm not," John said. Beckett had made himself very clear on that point. "Got a few more days here yet." He managed a shrug, a smile. "We're in the same boat here, both new to the place, and so..." He let it hang there, hoping that Ronon would fill in the blanks without him having to say it.
"They won't let us," Ronon said. "I heard them talking when they thought I was asleep. They don't like strangers discovering their secrets."
John pretended to consider it. "I guess hitting them won't work this time. It doesn't inspire trust, as a rule. So we play good. We let them give us an escort, if that's what they want to do, but we get out of here. I've been in a bed for far too long."
Ronon turned round slowly, one hand still on the railing. He didn't say yes, didn't even smile, but a few minutes later John found himself walking with Ronon out of the infirmary, out into pristine corridors and shining halls. A soldier went ahead of them, his face as blank as a statue's, and Beckett's admonitions were ringing in John's ears.
"Freedom," John said, because he suddenly felt that he had to say something. It was hard not to grin inanely. He felt as if everything that he had ever known about himself was falling away from him, leaving him with something new. He should be scared, traumatised, overwhelmed by what he was seeing, but the only thing it felt was right. He had always known that the world had once been different, and this was the world with that missing piece restored.
Or maybe, John, he thought, it's just that you've fallen in love with those gate ship things, and the rest of it's just your imagination.
The soldier led them to a tiny room and gestured to them curtly to get in. Ronon stopped, folding his arms in a way that clearly meant refusal. John swallowed, and had to admit that he was nervous, after all. Not magic, he reminded himself. Not a happy ever after. You couldn't slot effortlessly into new places; things didn't work like that.
The soldier just looked at them. He sees idiots, John realised, remembering his own thoughts about the superstitious villagers who'd thought that rifles were magic. "Come on, buddy," John said, goaded into making a decision. "These guys wouldn't have fixed us up if they wanted to hurt us. Let's go in."
Ronon followed him slowly, his eyes promising revenge if anything happened to him. Sighing impatiently, the soldier touched something, and light flared brightly. "What have you done to us?" Ronon demanded, but John reached out a hand, not quite touching him, but almost. The light sent echoes through his mind. We moved, he thought, as the door opened on a shining hallway, bright in the evening sunlight.
John was the first to leave. He could already see their destination. A door set with glass panels opened out into a flat expanse of floor, and beyond that was the ocean and the endless sky. "Huh," he said, because his thoughts threatened to become too vast, too overpowering, and he had to rein them in with light words. "I didn't expect it to be that quick. We're down at sea level already."
Magic, his mind said, and this time he didn't bother to dispute it. It didn't really matter, he thought. Magic or not magic, it was all equally lost to them; he had said that once. But now he had found it. Whether it was magic or not magic, it was here.
Outside, the ocean smelled just like any ocean he had known. John walked towards the edge, but it was further than it looked, or else he was less healed than he had thought. His legs grew weaker, his steps slower.
"You gonna faint?" Ronon asked.
John shook his head. Ronon said nothing, but moved closer, as if he was readying to catch John if he fell. John concentrated on walking; reminded himself that fanciful nonsense was all very well, but reality was more important. Things had changed, but he was still the same person. Maybe these really were Others, after all. Maybe this was enchantment. Maybe he had been enthralled and was walking willingly to his doom.
"I guess I need to sit down," he admitted at last.
They sat on the edge, feet overhanging the sea. John tried to focus on the real things. Ronon wasn't part of this. He was like John, exploring this place with a stranger's eyes.
"Why do you want to leave?" John asked. The soldier stood away from them, too far away to hear. The wind whipped around them, and the waves crashed not far below.
"No reason to stay," Ronon said. "Sateda's gone, but there's other places. I've been on the run for eight years, and can do it again, but this time I'll be the one doing the hunting."
"Wraith?" John asked. He wondered what to say, and decided on honesty. "I never heard of a Wraith until last week." He remembered the man who had died on his own threshold, and Sumner ageing and dying before his eyes. "I hate the guys, though."
Ronon said nothing. His fist tightened at his side.
"I'd have thought," John said carefully, "that fighting the Wraith would be easier when there's more than one of you."
Once again, Ronon was slow to answer. "Depends on the people you're with. These ones are soft. I don't trust them, and they don't trust me. They wouldn't let me stay even if I wanted to. I'm not one of them. They think they're better than me."
John turned around slowly; saw the soldier staring impassively straight ahead. The towers behind him were beautiful, but the air was cold.
******
At least Caldwell hid behind a computer screen rather than old-fashioned hand-written papers. "Your report is troubling," he said, "and leaves many questions unanswered."
"Questions which I was working on solving," Rodney pointed out, "until you interrupted my work by calling me here. Not that I see why it's any concern of yours."
Caldwell looked up from the screen, his eyes cold. "Three of my men are dead, Doctor McKay, their bodies not yet recovered: that makes it my concern. You brought this Sheppard to Atlantis, potentially compromising security: that makes it my concern. There are Wraith on Earth: that makes it my concern."
"Not on the real Earth," Rodney pointed out.
"You got there because you dialled the glyphs for Earth." Caldwell closed his laptop with a snap. "How did the Wraith get there? The same way? If so, how did they know the address?"
Rodney shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "It could be many things," he said, "hence the important work. Maybe something about that Earth's Gate takes precedence over other addresses dialled. Maybe they were Wraith from that other universe. That universe probably has its own Wraith. I see no reason why it wouldn't, when it even had its own version of Ford."
"Indeed." Caldwell opened the laptop again. "That part is... interesting. Were you aware...?" He cleared his throat, looking briefly almost uncomfortable. "A Colonel Sumner was considered for the role of military commander of the expedition."
"He almost got your job?" Rodney let out a breath. "I guess we had a lucky escape."
"Indeed." Caldwell's smile held little humour. "I'm flattered you consider me the lesser of two evils. I trust you'll remember this moment the next time you feel inspired to subject me to one of your rants?"
Rodney's mind was already moving on to the next thing, putting connections together, leaving Caldwell and his petty attempt to score a point way behind. "So we had Sumner and Ford and a ship called the Atlantis..." He hadn't recognised any other faces, but he hadn't really looked, had he? And most of them had died in the shipwreck, of course. Did that include people like Bates and Lorne? Had Rodney's double drowned in the wreck? No, of course not, because then Sheppard would have recognised him, but...
"Have you ever come across a John Sheppard?" he asked Caldwell.
"I don't know." Caldwell shook his head. "Contrary to your expectations, I don't know the names of every man in the United States military. But about your John Sheppard... I hear you expected us to welcome him with open arms and let him stay."
Rodney shifted again. "He's not my John Sheppard, but now that you mention it... I mean, he's been here for several days now, and isn't showing any signs of effects of temporal distortion, and..."
"He can't, of course," Caldwell said, his mouse clicking as he opened another file, Rodney's case dismissed. "As soon as you find a reliable way to do so, we're sending him straight back home." He waved his hand, dismissing Rodney not even with words, just a curt gesture.
******
A woman was waiting for them back in the infirmary. John was being supported by Ronon by then, his steps feeling as heavy as if he was dragging weights on each foot, but, "No," he gasped, when Ronon tried to steer him to his bed. He wanted the balcony, for more sunshine and that view. Ronon huffed disapprovingly, but took him there. John slid down, leaning against the back wall, sitting with his legs out in front of him, his face turned up to the sun.
The woman followed them. "I am Teyla Emmagen," she introduced herself. The sun was behind her, and John couldn't see her face clearly. "You must be Ronon Dex, and you are John Sheppard."
"That's me," John said wearily. The woman moved, so he could see her without being dazzled by the light. She was very beautiful. Like Ronon, she was wearing clothes that made her look different from anyone else John had seen in the city.
"I am from Athos," Teyla said. She addressed it to Ronon, as if she knew that John had no idea where such a place was. "My father leads my people."
"I thought Athos was culled," Ronon said.
"It was." Teyla inclined her head. "But a few of us survived, and continue to survive." She smiled. "We always do."
"Yeah." Ronon turned away from them, leaning his arms on the railing. "People always do."
Teyla looked after him for a long moment, then turned back to John. "They asked me here to speak to you both. They call me their 'native liaison.' Her voice changed, becoming harder, "They believe that we have something in common. After all, one 'native' is the same as any other."
John didn't understand it, but her bitterness was unmistakeable. The people of Atlantis, he realised, were grouping the three of them together because they were strangers, who came from places that didn't have such tall and gleaming towers.
"You don't like these guys, then?" he asked.
"They have provided much help to my people." Teyla sounded as if she was choosing her words carefully. "They have undoubtedly saved many lives. But they think they are better than us, because they are capable of doing so many things that we cannot do. Sometimes..." She stopped, as if she was thinking better of saying it, then carried on. "Sometimes, I believe, they forget that there are things that we know, that they do not."
Ronon said nothing. Teyla's hair stirred in the breeze, and she pushed a strand of it behind her ear. John saw muscles in her arm, and the unmistakeable look of someone who knew how to fight. Did the people of Atlantis know about this, he wondered suddenly, or did they just see a beautiful woman whose clothes were made of coarser fabric than their own?
"But they are here in the City of the Ancestors," Teyla said, "and the city has given them its blessing."
Her caution was still evident. It made John feel happier, all of a sudden. Both Teyla and Ronon were unimpressed with this place and its people. If the people of Atlantis really were Others with the power to enchant, then surely Ronon and Teyla would be smiling and besotted, wanting nothing else other than to stay here.
"You don't live here?" he asked Teyla, because in none of the stories did the Others let people come and go freely.
"I live on Athos," Teyla said, "although I come here occasionally, when they have a 'native issue' they require a 'native opinion' on." It was clear by her tone of voice that she was quoting them, but then her hard expression dissolved in a smile. "It is indeed beautiful, though, is it not? When I was a girl, I never thought I would be standing in the City of the Ancestors. We have such stories about this place."
And the domain of the Others, John remembered, appears more beautiful than a dream, so mortals will be enticed to enter it and thus be entrapped to their doom.
"My folks do, too," John said. "Here's hoping mine are just that, just stories."
******
end of chapter seven
******
What is the domain of the Others like? It is beautiful, of course, because the Others have great power and magic, and would not choose to live in a fallen world like ours. Is it like our world was in the Time Before? Is it more beautiful than our world ever was?
Or is it just a shadow and a dream? Is all its beauty an illusion, designed to draw mortals to their doom? Strip away the magic, and what would we find? Just cold earth and worms and dank, decaying things?
We do not know. Did John find the truth when he went with the Other into the hill? Did he marvel at the beauty of that fairy world, or did he scream in horror of what lay therein?
We do not know. For once he crossed the threshold into the hill, John was lost to the words and memory, lost to the world.
Lost.
******
Chapter eight
__
Rodney was a frequent visitor to the infirmary. Certain people called him a hypochondriac, but Rodney didn't see what was wrong with trying to take care of your health. You could never be too careful. Take Sheppard, for example. The man had almost died because he'd done that stoical soldier thing of not getting a minor wound checked out. Not that there'd been anyone there to check it out, of course, but that wasn't the point. The point was that Rodney came here often, that he knew it well.
Why, then, did it suddenly seem to strange to him? It's because I've never come here to visit someone else, he realised. He'd never done the bedside vigil thing. Sometimes people he worked with got injured, went away for a while, and then came back, and it had never crossed his mind that he might want to visit them at any point during the process.
And Carson, he remembered, had expected him to leave Sheppard behind in his own universe to die.
Thoughts circled in his mind, and he didn't want to pin them down enough to put them into words. "Where's Sheppard?" he demanded instead, snapping his fingers to attract Carson's attention.
"What is it this time?" Carson asked wearily. "Another splinter?"
"Didn't you hear me?" Rodney demanded. "I'm right here in front of you, speaking words. Where's Sheppard?"
"I let him go," Carson said.
"What?" It struck Rodney hard, and he didn't really know why. "He's gone? But he can't be. I've not finished my work on the Gate. It isn't reliable. Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"Not that sort of gone." Carson glanced over his shoulder at a sudden noise around a distant bed, swore softly under his breath, and started to hurry away. "I think they were planning on going to the mess hall," he said as he went.
"The mess hall." Rodney nodded. "Right."
He made his way there, not really sure why he was trying to find Sheppard. It wasn't as if Sheppard could offer any useful insights into why any attempt to connect a wormhole between those two particular Gates somehow managed to bridge the universes. Watching him for signs of the physical effects of temporal distortion was a useful project, of course, but not the one that Rodney was engaged in. Sheppard wasn't in any way his responsibility. He was an ignorant peasant from a post-apocalyptic universe, and, yes, he just happened to possess the strongest manifestation of the Ancient Descendants' Gene that anyone had ever encountered, but that didn't mean that he had anything to say that could be useful to Rodney and his work.
Sheppard wasn't alone when Rodney reached the mess hall. A large barbarian type was sitting opposite him, and there was also that native woman who visited sometimes to brief Woolsey on native politics and customs. An impassive-faced soldier was standing away to the side, evidently watching them in case they did anything threatening.
As Rodney approached, the woman said something quietly, and Sheppard laughed. Then Sheppard said something back, and the barbarian smiled.
Rodney stopped walking, cleared his throat, and started again. "Sheppard," he said. Sheppard looked up. "There you are. Are you, uh..." He cleared his throat again, suddenly at a loss for what to say. Sheppard was wearing scrubs, with an Atlantis jacket over the top of them. That's because he was sick, Rodney reminded himself. What did people say when they visited sick people? "Are you, uh, well?"
"I'm good," Sheppard said blandly. He looked different from how he had looked back on Earth, or perhaps that was just the different lighting. The soldier continued to watch impassively, but the woman - what was her name? - moved fractionally closer to Sheppard. The barbarian's expression was not friendly.
Rodney pulled out the empty chair and sat on it, forearms resting on the table. He eyed the untouched chocolate cake on Sheppard's plate. "Are you eating that, because... important work, you know? Busy trying to save advance scientific knowledge, no time to stop and eat, etcetera etcetera?"
"Was planning to," Sheppard said. He smiled, but when he turned towards Rodney, his smile faded. "I've never tasted food like this, but none of this is anything special to you, is it? I didn't want to eat it at first. Stupid, huh?"
"Why ever not?" Rodney asked, but the others seemed to understand. Rodney had no idea who the barbarian was - perhaps a friend of the woman's? None of them were part of the Atlantis expedition, that much was plain. In the heart of his own city, Rodney suddenly felt like the one who didn't belong. He remembered the incident in the infirmary when Carson had heard what he had expected to hear, not listening to Rodney's words at all.
"Are you...?" Rodney shifted in his chair, its legs scraping against the floor. He should probably ask Sheppard if he was experiencing any symptoms of temporal distortion. He should ask him how he was feeling. No, no, he'd done that already. God, why was he feeling so awkward? He'd carried Sheppard on horseback for hours; had killed two Wraith with him, for crying out loud. They'd saved each other's lives.
"This is Rodney McKay," Sheppard said, clearly concluding that Rodney wasn't going to finish his question. "He's the one who brought me here."
"Well, technically you're the one who brought us both here, on account of the whole gene thing." Rodney's voice trailed away. He looked at his hands. "Has anyone shown you what you can do?"
Sheppard shook his head. There was a wariness about all three of them, Rodney thought, as if Sheppard had decided to align himself with these two strangers, rather than with Rodney and his people.
"Well, they should," Rodney said, making up his mind suddenly. "Come with me." Sheppard didn't move. Rodney stood up, snapping his fingers. "Come on. I've got something to show you. Your little friends can come too, if they want, and I guess the guard-dog comes as part of the deal." Sheppard still sat there. Rodney sighed, passing his hand across his face, remembering things that Sheppard had told him. "You said you wanted to change the world. This is your chance. Do you want to find out what you're capable of, or do you want to hide from it and spend your whole life in ignorance?"
Sheppard blinked, closing his eyes for a moment, and then stood up. He left the chocolate cake behind. Rodney almost went back for it, but thought it would spoil the moment.
******
John had never believed in magic or fairies. Stories about Others were just stories, made up by people who didn't understand the relics of the Time Before.
But that was before he had come to a place where every tiny thing around him was a marvel. Safe, whispered the city, speaking with a voice that didn't reach him through any of his regular senses. Home. And part of him wanted to listen, but part of him pointed out that the Others could enchant their victims so they went willingly to the deaths, desiring nothing else.
The more beautiful the city seemed, the more he loved it. The more beautiful the city seemed, the more he feared it.
Ronon and Teyla weren't part of it, of course, and that was a comfort. McKay, too... McKay was a difficult one, because he was the one who had brought John here, the one who had reeled him in. But it was hard to imagine anything unearthly about Rodney McKay. For four days, John had listened to the man whining and grumbling and prattling, saying whatever was on his mind. Almost from the start, John had been certain that McKay was entirely human. His flaws and his irritating habits were comforting and reassuring. If McKay had been more perfect, John might have walked away days ago, and wouldn't be here now.
So it was all a cunning trick, he thought, played in the way it needed to be played in order to catch me. But the thought carried little conviction. It didn't feel right, not with McKay.
And so John followed him. Do you want to find out what you're capable of? Of course he did. He couldn't walk away, not from a question like that. And if this was a trap...John stopped. Ronon turned towards him. McKay carried on walking, failing to notice. If this is a trap, John thought, then I'm willingly walking into it. He'd left his home to see what was in the world beyond it. He'd stepped onto a ship because he wanted to know. You could live quietly, scraping a living from the soil, or you could take a chance.
"You coming?" McKay said, noticing at last.
John nodded. Ronon and Teyla flanked him closely as he started to walk again. "It's all right," he told them quietly. "It's just McKay."
Safe, the city told him, but John closed his heart to it. McKay's impatience, his awkward inability to say the right thing, spoke more loudly than any magic.
They carried on, walking through gloomy hallways, squeezing into those tiny rooms that transported them instantly to other places. No-one said anything for a while, but soon John found his steps slowing, his arm beginning to throb. He found Teyla looking at him in concern, and managed a smile for her.
"You need to stop, sir," the soldier said at last. "You can't take non mission personnel in there."
"I can do whatever I like," McKay told him. "You called me 'sir.' That means you admit that I outrank you."
John listened to them arguing, words going to and fro between them. That, too, was strangely comforting - another human thing, with nothing magical about it. He leant against the wall, feeling it cool against his back. It was vibrating slightly, humming with power, or maybe that was just the fluttering of his own heart.
"Come on, then." McKay snapped his fingers in front of John's face, as if he had been trying to communicate with him for some time. He opened the door, and John followed him in. The room held nothing but a large metal chair, decorated with patterns. "Sit on it, then," McKay said impatiently, as if this action was completely obvious, and John had been neglecting his duty by standing there.
"You're going to let him...?" Ronon growled, and John remembered a story he had heard long ago, about a thief who had sat down on an empty throne, only to be pinned there forever by chains and roots that shot out around his arms and legs.
McKay sighed in irritation. "It's quite safe. Look." He sat on it himself, then jumped up again. "It just doesn't work for me, just like the gate ship didn't. It doesn't work for anyone. Carson and the others, they can make it do the lighting up thing, but they can't actually do anything useful with it. You need more than pretty sparkly things to protect a city."
John edged forward. Ronon came with him, and Teyla a few steps behind. Do you want to find out what you're capable of, John? he thought. Life was a string of chances, and he had been dead inside when living from day to day in the months after the shipwreck, only feeling a spark of life when he was riding fast across the hills.
He sat down, and the chair embraced him, welcoming him home.
******
"Good." Rodney brought both hands to his face, exhaling into them. "That's good. Got to test it. What can I can ask you to do now?"
Sheppard was reclining in the chair, his eyes closed, his hands instinctively resting in the right places. The blue light made him look different. More powerful, Rodney thought, but that was a stupid thought; of course it was. Just because Sheppard had that ridiculous magic gene, it didn't mean that he was anything special.
The barbarian was pacing up and down in a primitive fashion. "Does it hurt?" he asked Sheppard.
Sheppard opened his eyes with evident difficulty. "I... No. No. Doesn't hurt. Feels good. Scary. Good."
To hell with it, Rodney thought. He'd go straight for the big one. "As far as we can tell," he said, "the chair's linked in to the city's defence systems. There's a bay full of drones that we've never been able to use. I want you to fire one."
A small furrow appeared between Sheppard's eyes. "Drones?" His voice cracked, as if speaking was an effort.
Rodney scraped his hand across his face. What to say? What to say? "Yes! I've got it. Pretend we're being attacked. There's a ship full of Wraith in the sky to the south. They're going to kill everyone here unless you do something. Can you imagine them? Can you see them? Take them out. Go on, Sheppard, we're depending on you."
Sheppard let out a soft breath. His eyes slid shut again.
Rodney frowned. "Did it work? A little feedback would be nice. Sheppard, what happened?"
His radio crackled into life. "Doctor McKay?" Caldwell spoke in his ear. "Sergeant Collins tells me that you've taken our visitors to the Chair Room."
"Yes, yes, so sue me." Rodney looked at Sheppard again, his eyes closed on the chair. "And?" he prompted.
"And a drone has just been fired, as well you know," Caldwell said stiffly, sounding as if he hated having to say the words.
"Yes!" Rodney punched the air with his fist. He removed the ear piece, barely hearing Caldwell's tinny voice berating him. "You hear that, Sheppard? You did it. No-one else alive can do that. No-one else alive and here, anyway. But that doesn't matter. The point is, I was right. I knew you'd be useful to us."
Sheppard gave no answer. The barbarian touched his throat, feeling his pulse. "Think he's asleep," he said.
"Doctor Beckett said he was to be careful not to over-exert himself," the woman said. Her glance in Rodney's direction was sharp.
Rodney swallowed. The blue light no longer made Sheppard look powerful, but sick. It drained him of colour, and showed just how still he really was. So apparently Carson as well as Caldwell would be baying for Rodney's blood. Not that it mattered, of course. The important thing was that he had proved his point. The important thing was that he was right.
But he decided to stick around while Sheppard slept, waiting with the others until Carson and Caldwell came to take Sheppard away.
******
John woke in the evening to find himself in the infirmary again. He sat up, pushing himself up against the pillows, and remembered the feeling of power flowing through his entire body. The magic of the chair had consumed him... no, it hadn't consumed him, because he'd been in control. It had drained his strength, but only because he had let it. It would have released him at any point.
He heard the sound of footsteps, and turned his head to see Ronon approaching the bed. "I thought you might have gone by now," he found himself saying.
Ronon stood behind an empty chair, gripping its back with both hands. Why was it there, John wondered. Had someone sat beside him while he slept? "Thought I'd stay for a bit longer," Ronon said.
"Ah." John nodded. "That's, uh... good, buddy. It's good to have someone else around who's in the same boat."
Ronon looked away, then back again. "Thought I'd go when you go, and you're not ready yet. And the food's good. You don't always get much food on the run. Only a fool turns down good shelter when it's offered."
They will tempt you with sweet music and sweet food, John remembered, but if you take a bite of their food, then you are lost forever. Too late for that, of course. Beckett said they'd fed him through tubes when he was going through the worst of it, and when John had first woken up, he'd been too starving and too feverish to say no.
"Yeah," John said, leaning into the soft pillows. "Only a fool."
Ronon pulled the chair out, twisted it round, and sat on it backwards, his legs striding the seat. "They say you fired some sort of explosive into the sea." He gave a quick, fierce smile. "That'll take out the Wraith."
John nodded. It would take out more than the Wraith. He had released the weapon and aimed it at an imaginary Wraith target, but in that moment, he had known that he could direct it on the city itself, if he wanted to. It wasn't protected; that much he knew beyond doubt.
"That Caldwell guy..." Ronon said. "He doesn't like that you did it. So hurry up and get well." He clapped John on the shoulder. "This place isn't for the likes of us."
And what's the likes of us? John thought, and suddenly realised that he had no idea at all. He'd thought that he didn't understand this marvellous city; maybe, though, he just didn't understand himself.
******
It was over twenty-four hours since the incident with the chair, so it was high time that Caldwell and Woolsey got over their petty little grudge.
"It's stupid that you won't even consider it," Rodney said, pacing up and down in the conference room. "Atlantis is meant to be defended by that chair, and Sheppard's the only person we've got who can use it." He rounded on Caldwell. "Protecting the city's supposed to be your job. You're supposed to be protecting us civilians, but you want to send Sheppard away and leave us unprotected?"
"He is from another universe." Caldwell spat out each word like stones, each one clear and distinct.
Rodney flapped his hand dismissively. "So you keep on saying. But he's been here, what, five days now, with no ill-effects. Either the John Sheppard from our universe is dead, or he's too far away for it to matter."
Woolsey leant forward, his elbows on the table. "You seem to be taking this quite personally, Doctor McKay. Why do you want him to stay?"
Rodney frowned, shaking his head. "Oh, I don't know, could it be because he might be able to save all our lives one day? Listen..." His hands were clenched at his side. "We might find a ZPM one day, and we might find a way back to Earth, but it's not happening right now. We've been two years without it happening. And people keep on dying. How long can we carry on losing people without replenishing them? And we can't replenish from Earth, from our Earth, and so--"
"The Atlantis expedition," Woolsey said, "is an Earth expedition, with every participant properly vetted and selected through appropriate channels."
"Then there isn't going to be an Atlantis expedition in five years," Rodney shouted. "I can't believe how stupid you all are."
"McKay!" Caldwell was on his feet, chair slamming back against the wall. "If you carry on like this, I will have to assume that you were compromised during your time away."
"Compromised?" Rodney echoed. "Compromised? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Can't you military types--"
"Doctor McKay," Woolsey said firmly. "Your opinion is noted. Now I suggest that you turn your attention to the job you are currently supposed to be working on, and leave the security of Atlantis to those whose job it is to consider such things."
"The job of sending Sheppard home, you mean?" Rodney snapped.
"Of sending Sheppard home." Woolsey's voice was quiet. "You said it yourself, Doctor McKay. His home."
"But that doesn't mean anything." Rodney shook his head. "We all call Earth 'home,' but that doesn't mean that we don't..." He stopped, pressing his lips together; left the room, wishing that the doors were the type you could slam.
******
Night fell on a perfect field of stars. It was the first time John had seen them, and he didn't recognise a single one.
He took in a breath, and held it there for a long time, before slowly letting it out again.
"We aren't on Earth, are we?" he said.
Beneath those alien stars, Teyla shook her head. "The Atlantis expedition, as they call themselves, are from a place called Earth." She was silent for a while, looking at him. "Where do you come from, John?"
"From Earth," John said, remembering how McKay had asked what planet they were on - a nonsensical question, or so he had thought. "A different Earth from the one these guys come from. According to McKay..." He clenched his fist at his side, and carried on. "According to McKay, this is a different universe. Things went wrong on my Earth. Most people died. We're scraping a living, struggling to survive. We don't have anything like this."
Teyla nodded slowly. "I have heard of other existences beyond the veil. The Ancestors knew how to cross over, but for us it is just a story."
John managed a smile. "It seems like the time for living in stories."
He wondered whether to ask the rest of it. He had gone through a door in a hill, and from there he had gone through another door. He deliberately hadn't thought about it too much, but perhaps he had told himself that he was on the far side of the world, in a place where the years of darkness hadn't happened.
Teyla answered him, though, before he had found the courage to ask the question. "I once asked Doctor Zelenka where Earth is." She raised her hand, pointing up at the sky. "Do you see that row of stars just there? There is a blurry smear of light to the right of them, that you can only see on the darkest of nights. They call that the Milky Way. Your sun is one of its millions of stars."
So far away, he thought. So impossibly far away. Beings who travelled through the stars. Creatures who were made of starlight.
"And Athos?" he asked, his voice hoarse.
"We orbit that star there," Teyla said, with a smile in her voice, but John couldn't see which one she was indicating.
"What's it like?" he asked, because it was easier than thinking about the vastness of the sky.
"Beautiful," she said, "but broken, broken by the Wraith. I would like to help my people more than I do. My father does what he can, but..." She turned towards John, and sat down, sitting beside him on the balcony. "I offered my services to the Atlantis expedition because I felt that they had the potential to do much good, but the potential to do much evil, too, if they interfered in things they did not understand. I want to help them understand, but Mister Woolsey and Colonel Caldwell..." She sighed, shaking her head. "They think they know best. They listen to the facts I give them, but not to my judgements. I fear that one day they are going to make a terrible mistake."
John nodded, but there was nothing he could say. The smear of light drew his eyes. Another universe, he thought, and far across the stars. Even if the people who lived here were ordinary humans, prone to making mistakes, there was magic in the very fact of their existence.
"They are not like us," Teyla said. "They were brought up in a world without the Wraith, and their technology is far greater than ours. It makes them arrogant." She let out a breath, looking up at the stars. "But I apologise, John. I should not talk about such things."
John said nothing, unable to muster words.
Teyla touched his arm. "When are you going home, John?"
******
Woolsey and Caldwell were waiting for them when they returned through the Gate.
"It still needs weeks, if not months, of study," Rodney said as he came through, pre-empting the questions. "We're no closer to understanding why it works. Yes," he said sharply, sensing that Zelenka was about to interrupt, "we know how it works, but not why. When you dial Atlantis from the planet, it works normally, presumably because the Atlantis Gate is a strong one and takes precedence..."
"Which is unexpected," Zelenka volunteered, raising his hand. "We had not known that some Gates were stronger than others."
"Yes, yes." Rodney flapped at him, dismissing him. "As I was saying before I was interrupted, dial Atlantis, and it works normally. Dial anywhere else, and the wormhole reconnects and takes you to the other version of Earth."
"Is enormous expenditure of power," Zelenka said. "Is a device we have never encountered before, housed in with the dialling mechanism, and smaller devices in the Gate itself. Is not possible to bring it here."
Rodney stepped in front of him. "Like I said, months of work required."
"But is it stable?" Caldwell asked. His arms were folded, and he was standing on the bottom step as if he owned the place. "Doctor Zelenka?"
Zelenka pushed his glasses up his nose, and nodded. "It is stable," he said. "We have dialled a dozen times, and each time we get through to that other Earth. We have sent remote recording devices through to test it."
"Good." Caldwell nodded, as if Zelenka had given the decisive answer that finally put paid to a difficult debate.
And he had, of course. Now that Zelenka had spoken, they would send Sheppard home.
******
end of chapter eight
******
The Others are creatures of fickle fancy. They entice mortals to their domain, but they soon lose their desire to hold onto them. Then the mortal is returned to the land beneath the sun, alive but cursed. Time flows differently in that fairy land below the ground, and when the returning mortal stands once again upon the ground of his home, he crumbles to dust before he can enjoy the most fleeting touch of the sun.
Did it happen to John?
Of course it did, little one. From the moment John first looked the Other in the eye, this fate was preordained for him.
Just dust on the wind. Just dust.
******
Concluded in Part Five