Requiem by ferret_kitty
Title: Requiem
Author: ferret_kitty
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers for "Last Man Standing," minor character death.
Word Count: 1,300
Disclaimer: Characters property of people not me.
Beta: sardonicsmiley was kind enough to give this a quick once-over even though she's not feeling good. She is completely awesome. ^_^
Author's Note: I asked sardonicsmiley to write h/c fic for the end of "Last Man Standing." Brilliant author that she is, she read between the lines of my request and wrote Dirge instead. It's beautiful and heart-wrenching, and it was the impetus for this. This will probably make sense if you don't read Dirge, but I recommend reading it anyway.
Summary: John keeps telling them that Rodney said saving Teyla and her baby was the key to everything, and they've done that. So far, he reminds them, everything that went wrong the last time is going right.
Requiem: The word requiem comes from the opening words of the Introit: Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. (Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem]
~*~*~
After the disaster of the first attempt, John despairs that they will ever find Teyla in time. Every mistake, every disastrous mission, every moment spent recovering from injury or waiting on intel, grates on his nerves. All he can think is that there is no more time. Keller thinks that Teyla has at least two weeks left, but prenatal science is never exact, especially not for a first born. John grinds his teeth at the news, and Rodney mutters something about "unreliable voodoo" and then they're back through the gate again, checking new information and continuing the search.
They find her, though. They find her with plenty of time, for once, and the extraction mission goes off without a hitch. They even manage to destroy one of Michael's main cloning facilities while they're at it, which is, thankfully, the first of many victories.
It's hard going, but having Teyla (and her son) back with them strengthens everyone's resolve and gives them hope. John keeps telling them that Rodney said saving Teyla and her child was the key to everything, and they've done that. So far, he reminds them, everything that went wrong the last time is going right.
And he's right, mostly.
After many hard months and several hard losses (soldiers: Lorne, Johnson, Klein, Stevens, Hamada; scientists: Kawamura, Bella, Anderson, Swanson) they think there might be a chance to pull this whole thing off, to save the galaxy and defeat Michael.
Despite the change in management, and IOA's reservations, John's experiences in the future persuade them to allow Jennifer to keep up with her research and her humanitarian efforts. She gets more funding and more doctors and a year into the war she finds the vaccine. It's not a cure, but it's enough that it can be administered to those who haven't been affected and they won't succumb to the disease. The vaccine saves countless worlds.
It also means that the Wraith are a threat again, but compared to the hell of Michael's fury and vengeance, the known threat seems to almost pale in comparison.
Finally, almost a year and a half after John's fateful return, Michael's forces have dwindled to almost nothing and they have him on the run. The Lanteans and their allies band together for the final push, and then it's over.
And then it's over. They've done it. Rodney, the sad, lonely Rodney who'd devoted twenty-five years of his life after he'd lost everyone and everything he'd cared about, had done it. He was a hero.
~*~*~
One afternoon, almost a month after they destroyed Michael and the last of his constructs, John walks into Rodney's lab with a proposal.
"You want me to what?" Rodney asks, incredulous.
"I need you to find the universe that was created when I went I didn't come back from the future," John repeats.
Rodney rolls his eyes. "Yes, yes, I actually heard you the first time; I just didn't think you would actually propose something so phenomenally ridiculous." Considering the subject closed, Rodney turns back to the simulation he's running. John doesn't go away, though. Instead, he crosses his arms over his chest and settles in to wait.
"Standing there staring at me is not going to change the fact that it's impossible, Sheppard," Rodney says after a few minutes.
"You say a lot of things are impossible, McKay." John refuses to waiver.
"Yes, well this one actually is!" He spins toward John, fully intending to continue with a rant about the number of impossible things he's asked to do in a single day, but the look on John's face stops him.
"He was so lonely, Rodney." John's expression is far away, his eyes sad. "He had nothing and no one, and only the hope that this crazy scheme of his would succeed some 48,000 years in the future, long after he, and potentially all of human civilization, would be dead. There has to be a way to let him know that it worked." John refocuses on Rodney, meets his gaze. "I know you can do this."
Faced with that, Rodney can only agree. He tries to imagine himself the way John has described him, the bits and pieces that John's been willing to share. He can't imagine how painful it would be, and he doesn't want to. John's right. If there is anyway to let the other him know that it worked, Rodney has to try.
~*~*~
In 2038, the claxons at Cheyenne Mountain go off, announcing an incoming wormhole. There's no IDC, so the gate tech doesn't open the iris, but the only thing that comes through is a burst of data, automatically saved a separate computer and cut off from the rest of the system, just in case. A few seconds later, the gate shuts down again, and the claxons go silent.
The gate tech checks the data burst and upon viewing its contents, contacts Colonel Samuels and General Lorne, who come into the observation deck at a run.
~*~*~
Later that evening, Doctor Meredith Rodney McKay, age 68, opens his inbox to see an urgent message from General Evan Lorne of the SGC.
Rodney,
You were right.
Evan
And attached to the message is a video.
Curious, Rodney hits play.
Static clears and John Sheppard, almost as Rodney remembers him, although there's a touch of grey at his temples, smiles at him from the screen.
"Rodney, you did it," John says, his smile widening to a grin. Gesturing off camera, he pulls a beaming and beautiful Teyla on screen. She's holding a four-year old boy, who smiles and waves slightly off to the left (probably at whoever's behind the camera). "You got me back, and we saved them. You did it," John says again. "Now, just sit right there, we've got something for you."
The screen fades to black, and then there's Teyla again, this time without her son. "Thank you, Rodney," she says, her voice serene and calming, and he can't help but smile.
Again the screen fades and Ronon's grinning out at him, unfamiliar glossy curls in the place of familiar dreads and a new scar down the right side of his face, giving him an even more rakish look than before. And then there's Jennifer, every bit as beautiful as he remembers, smiling out at him and telling him about the vaccine and her continued work. And Sam, back on earth, happy and semi-retired and working with the SGC. Every one of them thanking him for his hard work and his sacrifice.
Tears slip silently down his cheeks, even as he smiles at the images that play on the screen in front of him. Even as his friends smile at him from another universe, his mind flashes on empty caskets, and funeral pyres, and ash blown and twisting through the air. As the video ends, his eyes go to the folded flag in the case on his shelf, next to small, green device that will never glow again, a wickedly sharp knife and a pair of carved wooden sticks, worn to a shine at one end.
He might not have been able to save them from the fates they suffered in his timeline, but John had made it back, and the people he cared about had been saved. His work had paid off. He did it, as John said.
Wiping the moisture from his eyes, Rodney quickly creates a hard copy of the video, placing it reverently on the same shelf as the flag and shuffles off to bed. As he goes into his bedroom, he spares a last look at the shelf in his study. Smiling again, he can feel an almost physical weight lift from his shoulders, and for the first time in thirty years, no equations chase through his mind as he settles down to sleep, merely the smiles and laughter of dear friends long gone.
Fin
Author: ferret_kitty
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers for "Last Man Standing," minor character death.
Word Count: 1,300
Disclaimer: Characters property of people not me.
Beta: sardonicsmiley was kind enough to give this a quick once-over even though she's not feeling good. She is completely awesome. ^_^
Author's Note: I asked sardonicsmiley to write h/c fic for the end of "Last Man Standing." Brilliant author that she is, she read between the lines of my request and wrote Dirge instead. It's beautiful and heart-wrenching, and it was the impetus for this. This will probably make sense if you don't read Dirge, but I recommend reading it anyway.
Summary: John keeps telling them that Rodney said saving Teyla and her baby was the key to everything, and they've done that. So far, he reminds them, everything that went wrong the last time is going right.
Requiem: The word requiem comes from the opening words of the Introit: Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. (Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem]
~*~*~
After the disaster of the first attempt, John despairs that they will ever find Teyla in time. Every mistake, every disastrous mission, every moment spent recovering from injury or waiting on intel, grates on his nerves. All he can think is that there is no more time. Keller thinks that Teyla has at least two weeks left, but prenatal science is never exact, especially not for a first born. John grinds his teeth at the news, and Rodney mutters something about "unreliable voodoo" and then they're back through the gate again, checking new information and continuing the search.
They find her, though. They find her with plenty of time, for once, and the extraction mission goes off without a hitch. They even manage to destroy one of Michael's main cloning facilities while they're at it, which is, thankfully, the first of many victories.
It's hard going, but having Teyla (and her son) back with them strengthens everyone's resolve and gives them hope. John keeps telling them that Rodney said saving Teyla and her child was the key to everything, and they've done that. So far, he reminds them, everything that went wrong the last time is going right.
And he's right, mostly.
After many hard months and several hard losses (soldiers: Lorne, Johnson, Klein, Stevens, Hamada; scientists: Kawamura, Bella, Anderson, Swanson) they think there might be a chance to pull this whole thing off, to save the galaxy and defeat Michael.
Despite the change in management, and IOA's reservations, John's experiences in the future persuade them to allow Jennifer to keep up with her research and her humanitarian efforts. She gets more funding and more doctors and a year into the war she finds the vaccine. It's not a cure, but it's enough that it can be administered to those who haven't been affected and they won't succumb to the disease. The vaccine saves countless worlds.
It also means that the Wraith are a threat again, but compared to the hell of Michael's fury and vengeance, the known threat seems to almost pale in comparison.
Finally, almost a year and a half after John's fateful return, Michael's forces have dwindled to almost nothing and they have him on the run. The Lanteans and their allies band together for the final push, and then it's over.
And then it's over. They've done it. Rodney, the sad, lonely Rodney who'd devoted twenty-five years of his life after he'd lost everyone and everything he'd cared about, had done it. He was a hero.
~*~*~
One afternoon, almost a month after they destroyed Michael and the last of his constructs, John walks into Rodney's lab with a proposal.
"You want me to what?" Rodney asks, incredulous.
"I need you to find the universe that was created when I went I didn't come back from the future," John repeats.
Rodney rolls his eyes. "Yes, yes, I actually heard you the first time; I just didn't think you would actually propose something so phenomenally ridiculous." Considering the subject closed, Rodney turns back to the simulation he's running. John doesn't go away, though. Instead, he crosses his arms over his chest and settles in to wait.
"Standing there staring at me is not going to change the fact that it's impossible, Sheppard," Rodney says after a few minutes.
"You say a lot of things are impossible, McKay." John refuses to waiver.
"Yes, well this one actually is!" He spins toward John, fully intending to continue with a rant about the number of impossible things he's asked to do in a single day, but the look on John's face stops him.
"He was so lonely, Rodney." John's expression is far away, his eyes sad. "He had nothing and no one, and only the hope that this crazy scheme of his would succeed some 48,000 years in the future, long after he, and potentially all of human civilization, would be dead. There has to be a way to let him know that it worked." John refocuses on Rodney, meets his gaze. "I know you can do this."
Faced with that, Rodney can only agree. He tries to imagine himself the way John has described him, the bits and pieces that John's been willing to share. He can't imagine how painful it would be, and he doesn't want to. John's right. If there is anyway to let the other him know that it worked, Rodney has to try.
~*~*~
In 2038, the claxons at Cheyenne Mountain go off, announcing an incoming wormhole. There's no IDC, so the gate tech doesn't open the iris, but the only thing that comes through is a burst of data, automatically saved a separate computer and cut off from the rest of the system, just in case. A few seconds later, the gate shuts down again, and the claxons go silent.
The gate tech checks the data burst and upon viewing its contents, contacts Colonel Samuels and General Lorne, who come into the observation deck at a run.
~*~*~
Later that evening, Doctor Meredith Rodney McKay, age 68, opens his inbox to see an urgent message from General Evan Lorne of the SGC.
Rodney,
You were right.
Evan
And attached to the message is a video.
Curious, Rodney hits play.
Static clears and John Sheppard, almost as Rodney remembers him, although there's a touch of grey at his temples, smiles at him from the screen.
"Rodney, you did it," John says, his smile widening to a grin. Gesturing off camera, he pulls a beaming and beautiful Teyla on screen. She's holding a four-year old boy, who smiles and waves slightly off to the left (probably at whoever's behind the camera). "You got me back, and we saved them. You did it," John says again. "Now, just sit right there, we've got something for you."
The screen fades to black, and then there's Teyla again, this time without her son. "Thank you, Rodney," she says, her voice serene and calming, and he can't help but smile.
Again the screen fades and Ronon's grinning out at him, unfamiliar glossy curls in the place of familiar dreads and a new scar down the right side of his face, giving him an even more rakish look than before. And then there's Jennifer, every bit as beautiful as he remembers, smiling out at him and telling him about the vaccine and her continued work. And Sam, back on earth, happy and semi-retired and working with the SGC. Every one of them thanking him for his hard work and his sacrifice.
Tears slip silently down his cheeks, even as he smiles at the images that play on the screen in front of him. Even as his friends smile at him from another universe, his mind flashes on empty caskets, and funeral pyres, and ash blown and twisting through the air. As the video ends, his eyes go to the folded flag in the case on his shelf, next to small, green device that will never glow again, a wickedly sharp knife and a pair of carved wooden sticks, worn to a shine at one end.
He might not have been able to save them from the fates they suffered in his timeline, but John had made it back, and the people he cared about had been saved. His work had paid off. He did it, as John said.
Wiping the moisture from his eyes, Rodney quickly creates a hard copy of the video, placing it reverently on the same shelf as the flag and shuffles off to bed. As he goes into his bedroom, he spares a last look at the shelf in his study. Smiling again, he can feel an almost physical weight lift from his shoulders, and for the first time in thirty years, no equations chase through his mind as he settles down to sleep, merely the smiles and laughter of dear friends long gone.
Fin