TEAM HOME: Clean slate, "What's Still Unwritten, You Can Erase"
Title: What's Still Unwritten, You Can Erase
Author: syrenslure
Team: Home
Prompt: Clean slate
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers for The Last Man
Summary: John Sheppard's made a lot of wrong decisions that have helped put him on the right path. Now, he has a chance to make the right ones.
Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
**
No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals. - Brian Tracy
He's never been much for sleeping. Downtime spent dreaming was a little more time spent living in his own head than he generally cared for, and a lifetime of going to bed late and getting up early was a habit he developed young to avoid his father, and that was only reinforced by a career in the military.
Still, eight hundred years or so was a lot of time to sleep, and to dream, even if it was spent in stasis. Time didn't actually stop; it just slowed way down. Synapses still fired, chemicals still circulated in the body and brain, just at a much, much slower rate. There was nothing to do in stasis but think and sleep and dream.
Visions of McKay's future - past - rolled over and over in his brain. Everyone he cared about dying, suffering, because he took a wormhole at the worst possible second. It's not his fault, he tells himself; Rodney has told him - this simacrulum of a Rodney he has never known, from a past - future - that he has never known, never been a part of. Yet, he's expected to fix it, to make it right, to go back and make sure that it never happens, never turns out.
This place - time - will not exist like this, will never happen. Yet, in some way it must, if this Rodney never existed, never happened, then how will he be sent back. How will he retain the memories of it to know what must be done, must be changed to set things right? It's almost enough to make his head hurt, if that were possible, wondering what difference he could truly make.
Everything wiped clean, spun away like his footprints in the desert winds outside of this chamber - coffin. Can he do that, leave a piece of himself here in this time that never existed, carry this reality with him to make sure it doesn't happen like this? What else can he change, and will that new future be any more right than this one?
Why does it have to be this moment in time? Does it have to be the reality that Rodney thinks it should be? Can he trust himself to do the right thing, be the person that they need him to be?
Maybe, there are better things he could do to save them. He could change whether or not he ever came to Atlantis, the him that set this in motion by his absence. It wouldn't take much, though he knows that it isn't possible. He can't affect something that didn't even happen in this galaxy, isn't strong enough to give up ever seeing Atlantis.
He knows the moment that made that happen, the moment that he set those events in motion. Even, though he had been pretty sure that "Don't touch anything", included the huge art deco throne on an elevated platform in a strange room at the South Pole. He can't explain why he did it, just that he had been so tired all of a sudden, and the chair seemed to call to him, in a way that would make no sense to anyone sane - just another flash of inspiration, nudging him along. One moment that changed everything he knew.
Heads. Tails. Rock. Paper. Scissors.
Those days, he pretty much just went with the flow. Everything felt the same then, without purpose or focus, just another day on the calendar. He had held onto the idea that at least when it all went to hell, he could shrug a shoulder and claim an indifference that he had wished he could feel. It was just the flip of a coin, a whim of fate pushing him along like the hot winds of Afghanistan had chased him all the way to Antarctica -- all the way to another galaxy.
Antarctica had been a dead end. He had known it before he even got here. Two years to finish out his tour, pass under the zone, unpromotable, and a quiet discharge back to the states. And so he went, and everything changed. He couldn't just slide through the days, anymore, when the very air around him seemed to call to him, convince him of a greater promise, a greater purpose. He couldn't give that up.
Maybe, he could change what came next, his next big mistake. There's the possibility that Sumner would listen to him, though it was unlikely. Maybe he could tell him the truth and hope the man didn't just shoot the both of him on pure principle.
'Keep your head down and your nose clean.' That had been his motto when he stepped through the gate that first time. The Air Force's sentry's first general order is "I will take charge of my post and protect all personnel and property for which I am responsible until properly relieved." He's pretty sure that shooting your commanding officer on your first field exercise was in violation of those orders, and that the numbers of personal and property that you are responsible for gets a whole lot bigger after that. Especially, when you are personally responsible for arousing an entire army of monsters that area threat to those people, it's your responsibility to protect them.
Unless that never happened, and he fixed his mistake.
Maybe, he couldn't change that, but he could go back just far enough to convince Elizabeth that Michael was a bad idea. Really try to convince her this time around, because he knew he could. He had known it was wrong, had spoken out against it, but not hard enough, strong enough, didn't say the right things. Because, he had known, had believed that there was a chance, the possibility that this was a real weapon, a real possibility of undoing his mistake of waking the Wraith, he had let it happen.
Maybe, it was his fault after all, another bad decision that set them all up for failure, a game that he could never win. A future - past - that existed because of him, another mistake that he could try to erase.
McKay would do it. He would tell him that it couldn't be done, but Rodney would find a way. He always did.
He would give this to John, if he asked. Rodney couldn't - wouldn't - tell him 'No.' He knew what these things cost John, and how much it hurt, and John knew what buttons to push. He knew that this was as much about Rodney's own redemption as his own. He knew the mistakes that haunted Rodney almost as well as him own, just as he knew that Rodney would never do this just to fix his own mistakes, but he would do it for John.
That's why John wouldn't - couldn't - ask.
He couldn't risk all of the things that could go wrong the next time around because he was trying to not take responsibility for his mistakes. "Two wrongs don't make a right." Isn't that the lesson drummed into every school child? Who's to say that he couldn't fuck things up again in an even more spectacular way, even knowing where he went wrong the first time around.
This was his price, his responsibility to set right, for all of the people that he left behind, all of the people that this Rodney had lost. He would make this up to them, try not to make things worse when he got home.
It was his home, his life, his time, his Atlantis… and his Rodney that he couldn't leave behind to become this broken version of himself, with no hope but one - Lt. Colonel John Sheppard. He was going to do his best to live up to that hope, to be the man that Rodney needed him to be.
He needed to be that man, the man that Rodney thought he could be, as much as Rodney himself had needed that hope. That's what he had been looking for his entire life, since before Atlantis, before Afghanistan, before he left home - a place to belong, to be needed, to make a difference. He had thought that the Air Force could do that for him, but they had failed each other. He wouldn't fail now that he had finally found what he had been searching for all of his life - a family, a home, friends… a real friend.
Maybe, there were things that he could set right - things that he hadn't believed were possible - things that hadn't happened yet.
There was a new future that he could be a part of, a future for Teyla and her son, a future for himself - and for Rodney. 800 years in a blink of an eye, gone in a dream. 49,000 years that never happened, in exchange for the chance of a lifetime. This time, he would try harder to get it right. It couldn't be much more wrong than this.
He would start by trusting in Rodney, and maybe, he would learn how to dream.
A new start; especially to make a new start by clearing the record. This phrase comes from the use of chalk and slates in classrooms in the past. By wiping the slate clean, a student could remove any evidence of a mistake. -
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002.
**
Poll Vote for this story
Author: syrenslure
Team: Home
Prompt: Clean slate
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers for The Last Man
Summary: John Sheppard's made a lot of wrong decisions that have helped put him on the right path. Now, he has a chance to make the right ones.
Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
**
No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals. - Brian Tracy
He's never been much for sleeping. Downtime spent dreaming was a little more time spent living in his own head than he generally cared for, and a lifetime of going to bed late and getting up early was a habit he developed young to avoid his father, and that was only reinforced by a career in the military.
Still, eight hundred years or so was a lot of time to sleep, and to dream, even if it was spent in stasis. Time didn't actually stop; it just slowed way down. Synapses still fired, chemicals still circulated in the body and brain, just at a much, much slower rate. There was nothing to do in stasis but think and sleep and dream.
Visions of McKay's future - past - rolled over and over in his brain. Everyone he cared about dying, suffering, because he took a wormhole at the worst possible second. It's not his fault, he tells himself; Rodney has told him - this simacrulum of a Rodney he has never known, from a past - future - that he has never known, never been a part of. Yet, he's expected to fix it, to make it right, to go back and make sure that it never happens, never turns out.
This place - time - will not exist like this, will never happen. Yet, in some way it must, if this Rodney never existed, never happened, then how will he be sent back. How will he retain the memories of it to know what must be done, must be changed to set things right? It's almost enough to make his head hurt, if that were possible, wondering what difference he could truly make.
Everything wiped clean, spun away like his footprints in the desert winds outside of this chamber - coffin. Can he do that, leave a piece of himself here in this time that never existed, carry this reality with him to make sure it doesn't happen like this? What else can he change, and will that new future be any more right than this one?
Why does it have to be this moment in time? Does it have to be the reality that Rodney thinks it should be? Can he trust himself to do the right thing, be the person that they need him to be?
Maybe, there are better things he could do to save them. He could change whether or not he ever came to Atlantis, the him that set this in motion by his absence. It wouldn't take much, though he knows that it isn't possible. He can't affect something that didn't even happen in this galaxy, isn't strong enough to give up ever seeing Atlantis.
He knows the moment that made that happen, the moment that he set those events in motion. Even, though he had been pretty sure that "Don't touch anything", included the huge art deco throne on an elevated platform in a strange room at the South Pole. He can't explain why he did it, just that he had been so tired all of a sudden, and the chair seemed to call to him, in a way that would make no sense to anyone sane - just another flash of inspiration, nudging him along. One moment that changed everything he knew.
Heads. Tails. Rock. Paper. Scissors.
Those days, he pretty much just went with the flow. Everything felt the same then, without purpose or focus, just another day on the calendar. He had held onto the idea that at least when it all went to hell, he could shrug a shoulder and claim an indifference that he had wished he could feel. It was just the flip of a coin, a whim of fate pushing him along like the hot winds of Afghanistan had chased him all the way to Antarctica -- all the way to another galaxy.
Antarctica had been a dead end. He had known it before he even got here. Two years to finish out his tour, pass under the zone, unpromotable, and a quiet discharge back to the states. And so he went, and everything changed. He couldn't just slide through the days, anymore, when the very air around him seemed to call to him, convince him of a greater promise, a greater purpose. He couldn't give that up.
Maybe, he could change what came next, his next big mistake. There's the possibility that Sumner would listen to him, though it was unlikely. Maybe he could tell him the truth and hope the man didn't just shoot the both of him on pure principle.
'Keep your head down and your nose clean.' That had been his motto when he stepped through the gate that first time. The Air Force's sentry's first general order is "I will take charge of my post and protect all personnel and property for which I am responsible until properly relieved." He's pretty sure that shooting your commanding officer on your first field exercise was in violation of those orders, and that the numbers of personal and property that you are responsible for gets a whole lot bigger after that. Especially, when you are personally responsible for arousing an entire army of monsters that area threat to those people, it's your responsibility to protect them.
Unless that never happened, and he fixed his mistake.
Maybe, he couldn't change that, but he could go back just far enough to convince Elizabeth that Michael was a bad idea. Really try to convince her this time around, because he knew he could. He had known it was wrong, had spoken out against it, but not hard enough, strong enough, didn't say the right things. Because, he had known, had believed that there was a chance, the possibility that this was a real weapon, a real possibility of undoing his mistake of waking the Wraith, he had let it happen.
Maybe, it was his fault after all, another bad decision that set them all up for failure, a game that he could never win. A future - past - that existed because of him, another mistake that he could try to erase.
McKay would do it. He would tell him that it couldn't be done, but Rodney would find a way. He always did.
He would give this to John, if he asked. Rodney couldn't - wouldn't - tell him 'No.' He knew what these things cost John, and how much it hurt, and John knew what buttons to push. He knew that this was as much about Rodney's own redemption as his own. He knew the mistakes that haunted Rodney almost as well as him own, just as he knew that Rodney would never do this just to fix his own mistakes, but he would do it for John.
That's why John wouldn't - couldn't - ask.
He couldn't risk all of the things that could go wrong the next time around because he was trying to not take responsibility for his mistakes. "Two wrongs don't make a right." Isn't that the lesson drummed into every school child? Who's to say that he couldn't fuck things up again in an even more spectacular way, even knowing where he went wrong the first time around.
This was his price, his responsibility to set right, for all of the people that he left behind, all of the people that this Rodney had lost. He would make this up to them, try not to make things worse when he got home.
It was his home, his life, his time, his Atlantis… and his Rodney that he couldn't leave behind to become this broken version of himself, with no hope but one - Lt. Colonel John Sheppard. He was going to do his best to live up to that hope, to be the man that Rodney needed him to be.
He needed to be that man, the man that Rodney thought he could be, as much as Rodney himself had needed that hope. That's what he had been looking for his entire life, since before Atlantis, before Afghanistan, before he left home - a place to belong, to be needed, to make a difference. He had thought that the Air Force could do that for him, but they had failed each other. He wouldn't fail now that he had finally found what he had been searching for all of his life - a family, a home, friends… a real friend.
Maybe, there were things that he could set right - things that he hadn't believed were possible - things that hadn't happened yet.
There was a new future that he could be a part of, a future for Teyla and her son, a future for himself - and for Rodney. 800 years in a blink of an eye, gone in a dream. 49,000 years that never happened, in exchange for the chance of a lifetime. This time, he would try harder to get it right. It couldn't be much more wrong than this.
He would start by trusting in Rodney, and maybe, he would learn how to dream.
A new start; especially to make a new start by clearing the record. This phrase comes from the use of chalk and slates in classrooms in the past. By wiping the slate clean, a student could remove any evidence of a mistake. -
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002.
**
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