SGA Fic: Terraced Dynamics (Sheppard/McKay)
Another installment in pogrebin's procrastination marathon, brought to you courtesy of her current obsession with Stargate: Atlantis and her inability to stop writing fandom cliches. This one represents a moderate improvement on the last SGA fic, but is equally ridiculous.
In which Rodney McKay stuck with music, and never joins the Stargate Program, complete with first meetings with Team Sheppard, only without him. AU, or parallel universe, if you prefer.
terraced dynamics
Expressive style typical of Baroque music in which volume levels shift abruptly from soft to loud and back without gradual crescendos and decrescendos.
0.
The theory holds that the major reason for the emergence of terraced dynamics in the Baroque period was because of the use of the harpsichord, which could not play gradations but rather had to choose, loud or soft, and therefore influenced the music written for it. While there is maybe some truth in that, they’ve got it backwards; the reason the harpsichord was so widely used was because it fulfilled this effect, this all-too-human desire to swing from forte to pianissimo with barely a breath in between like cutting out the sunset and going from light to dark. We swing, and sometimes there’s no gradation, sometimes there’s no warning, and that’s what terraced dynamics really evolved to say, that is the Baroque period’s secret gift-- Stravinsky understood this, and Haydn, and all at once, so does Rodney McKay.
1.
It is six years after the establishment of the wormhole from the Milky Way to the Pegasus Galaxy that the Stargate Program goes public, and in the month after the announcement a series of carefully orchestrated cultural events and press tours take over the normal running of the base. Instead of trained personnel in BDUs clutching P90s the gate spills out crowing reporters, wide-eyed diplomats and the best cultural representatives of the Milky Way that the military could bribe and bully into participating. John Sheppard isn't really a big fan of classical music, so after the welcoming ceremony and the dinner (white tablecloths with little embossed 'stargate' symbols along the borders) he goes to the gym. Almost everybody else is at the concert by now, shuffling into seats, reading the programme and making all those little hushed preparatory remarks that audiences do before the show starts. Preparing to give themselves to the darkness and fake light of the stage for-- an hour, maybe more. It's not an easy thing to ask: interrupt your life and watch, listen, let us do the telling for you, but Rodney McKay has never been afraid of asking a lot. They're going to end up owing him. He's worth it.
The spotlight comes up on him, and the piano, and the rest is darkness. A whispery, fluttering hush falls over the audience. Walking through the wormhole is a miracle, but if you listen to the New York Times, so is hearing Rodney McKay's music. He doesn't perform all that much any more, and no matter what the New York Times thinks, he won't be convinced he's doing anything more than just getting it right enough, and when you read his music you understand why. It hovers just this side of unplayable, constantly foreshadowing and undercutting itself, beginning like a block of marble and shearing away the excess. To play Rodney McKay's music your brain has to be two bars ahead, and your fingers even better.
He looks down at the piano and then up at the audience-- blinking in the light, they are only vague outlines (that's how he likes it)-- before taking from his jacket pocket a My Little Pony with very small ribbons braided into her hair and setting her down on the piano top. He grins toothily at the darkness at the edge of the stage and coughs, “My niece gave me a good luck charm,” he laughs, sharply, talking out of nervousness. “Actually, I think she wanted to be the only little girl at school with an intergalactic pony, but I'm not above bribery.”
The audience exhales and there are a few titters. McKay is in a good mood. Ten minutes into his new piece-- written specially for this occasion, the programme announces proudly-- they can see why.
2.
Rodney McKay plays music that reflects off the walls of the ancient city like it was always there, like all he did was turn the volume up.
On Earth, McKay's music is weird edges and aspiration, every note extended a shade too far for comfort and sudden, lurching, dizzying dynamic shifts, but on Atlantis it molds itself into the corridors and high ceilings. Here the unplayable symphonies sound like laughter.
John's breath catches as the music filters through the sound system: it's almost as if McKay knows what it's like, knows what this is. It's as if some part of him knows the Pegasus Galaxy already, even though he has only been here three hours.
The inside of McKay's brain, whether he knows it or not, looks like an Ancient device.
3.
Sheppard is introduced to him later that evening, over drinks, and fights the urge to repeat all the compliments he's heard various people stutter out because McKay looks so smug that Sheppard could swear he's actually bored out of his skull. McKay is refreshingly unawed by his stripes and dress uniform and the scars (one running from wrist to elbow, only partially visible, one above the eyebrow-- 'how very Harry Potter of you, Colonel Sheppard' and quite a few besides under the uniform) the scars that correspond to all those half-admiring and half-fearful stories people tell about the hero John Sheppard, military commander of the lost city of Atlantis.
He's distracted from McKay when their CSO flops into the chair next to them, and John hands him his plate of sandwiches because he looks like he's about to collapse. “You alright, Zelenka?”
“Fine, Sheppard. I've just been making sure that we do not sink into the ocean while all of you sit around in your best clothes and make the kissy-faces at each other, but--,” the rest of the tirade is delivered in Czech, and Sheppard gives McKay a rueful but not quite apologetic grin.
“Have you met Dr. Rodney McKay?”
Zelenka stuffs a sandwich into his mouth but raises an eyebrow, and if he knows who McKay is he certainly isn't telling.
McKay looks-- for the first time in the evening-- ever so slightly off-balance, as of he hasn't managed to come through a wormhole and still partially upstage the flying city and band of intergalactic heroes that have saved the world. A lot. “We- ah, know each other, actually. We met when I was a graduate student. At MIT.”
“Hm-- I do not think so. I did not take any classes in-,” Zelenka makes a face like he's about to say something rude. “-music.”
“Oh, no, no, no. My doctorate is in Physics,” Rodney says, an amused smile as if it has been a long time since he's had to inform anyone of the basic facts of his biography, and he's really enjoying the opportunity to do so. “Theoretical cosmology, actually.”
Radek's face has just moved through various expressions of surprise, and Sheppard wishes he'd read the fucking programme before all this, but Zelenka saves the day with a considering look and a shrug.
“Well. That's very nice, but it is actually no assurance as to your actual mental capabilities.”
“Oh please,” McKay said, with a grin and a laugh so expansive and intense that Sheppard had to grin back, earning him a very tired, annoyed look from his CSO. “I'm easily the smartest man in this, and several other rooms besides. And yes, Zelenka, I'm including you, I've read your articles on gravitational dynamics and they're amateurish at best--”
Sheppard leans back into his chair and savours Zelenka's squeak of horror and subsequent eloquent tirade about 'dilettantes' and 'prima donnas' and grins, because he thinks Zelenka has just made a friend, and god knows, it's been six years, and they need it.
4.
The next day part of the official tour is the memorial wall; around the newly erected plaques and plinths that are cold and bronze and say only names the Atlantis expedition has pasted photographs and personal memories and bits of cloth and letters that say so much more. Zelenka proudly points out a puzzling photo a disembodied leg to McKay and gestures to his own prosthetic with a grin. “Naquadah generator explosion in year two. I believe Major Lorne thought it deserved a spot.”
They’re all like that. All easy camaraderie and joking about their scars in front of this wall that screams out the pain and loss that the smiles just can’t stretch widely enough across. McKay resists the urge to flinch: there are so goddamn many of them, lost to the Wraith, to explosions, to offworld exploration, taken by science and adventure and bravery. Richard Woolsey stops in front of a photograph here and there and says a few clipped words to the tour group, and Rodney’s eye is drawn to a pretty blonde with a determined expression and blue eyes. “Colonel Carter,” Woolsey provides. “She commanded the expedition before me.” His voice is strained and so McKay looks away, only to meet Sheppard’s carefully blank eyes. He’s standing very erect, at attention, and looking at the ground as if he’s hoping he’ll drop right through it. Zelenka sides up behind him and places a softly deliberate arm on his elbow and Sheppard relaxes. McKay takes a step forward and Sheppard snaps back to attention, shifting his front foot so that he’s between McKay and Zelenka; a protective, automatic stance.
“Oh, sorry.”
Zelenka laughs. “It is fine, Dr. McKay,” he replies, giving Sheppard a push. “Colonel Sheppard is merely accounting for my tendency to get shot in hostile situations.”
“Ye-es. Those reporters certainly had a bloodthirsty gleam in their eyes. And you know how diplomats get when they‘ve had more than one glass of champagne--,” McKay’s about to continue his diatribe but stops when he finally notices the way the senior members of the Atlantis expedition are huddled together, covering each other’s backs and very deliberately not reaching for their weapons every time someone clinks a glass. “Yes, well.”
Sheppard takes a couple of steps forward then, and reaches out to McKay and then past him, to the wall, fingers finding a photograph and tearing it down. It’s one of Sheppard himself, flanked by Zelenka on the right, an impossibly bronzed woman and a towering, dreadlocked man with a funny-shaped gun, all dressed in BDUs and on what might be an alien world. They are all smiling, even Sheppard, and they look very young and small with their backs to the stargate. Zelenka makes a noise in the back of his throat but Sheppard silences him with a look, communicating all sorts of things that McKay is left out of before Zelenka gives McKay a brief smile and walks away while Sheppard hides a flinch, as if it hurts to look at the people he loves.
Maybe it does, because Sheppard crushes the photo into his front pocket and meets McKay’s eyes easily, because he isn’t really a friend. “Let’s go drink beer,” he says, and nods to himself without waiting for a response.
5.
“So, why'd you quit?” Sheppard asks, as they separate themselves from the official visitors tour to sneak off to the East Pier ('the best spot in the whole city, Doctor, trust me on this').
McKay very carefully eases one foot over the edge, and tries very hard not to think about the various gruesome deaths he could experience courtesy of this alien city, sky and ocean, and shrugs. “Physics? I- still love physics. But I just--,” he takes a sip and makes a wounded face at Sheppard, one that clearly says 'you've just made me drink American beer', “Music makes me happy.”
“Hey, it wasn't a complaint. That's why I brought you here, sort of,” Sheppard rubs his neck in a shockingly boyish gesture and grins a bit. “This is what listening to your music made me think of. How Atlantis should be.”
There's a sharp intake of breath, as if McKay is about to ask a question, but then silence as he thinks better of it. His brain is filing away every low, thrumming swish of water against sand and city, the whirr of technology in the background, the light and how it refracts ever so slightly differently in alien air and even the way that Sheppard sits there in the semi-dark surrounded by very deliberate silence which passes for calm but is really vigilance. McKay guesses that very few of the nights on Atlantis have been like this-- he doesn't have to guess, it's all over the news, the papers, even several upcoming books and biographies but here and now, despite the ancient city and the glorious ocean and the fact that Radek Zelenka is probably going to win a fucking Nobel prize Rodney realises with a thunk that he isn't jealous. The newspapers can try but they'll probably never do it justice, but the facts are all over Sheppard. And yeah, all over Radek Zelenka and all the others too.
Rodney's been doing this since he was six years old, he can read silence.
But when it comes down to it, he'd rather write music.
They finish the beers and sit until Sheppard leans over and kisses him, awkwardly and then desperately.
6.
Just before they step into the transporter, Sheppard places his fingers deliberately around McKay's wrist and says, “Hey- could you- not mention this? Like, at all? Ever?”
There's apology written all over Sheppard's face but he can't help but stiffen and go cold and form his lips into a thin line. “You mean you're not taking me to the Prom, Colonel? I'd picked out a dress and everything.”
“It isn't like that, Rodney,” the hand round his wrist tightens. “It's-- just because we're in the Pegasus Galaxy doesn't mean Don't Ask, Don't Tell isn't on the books.”
“Jesus, John. They don't know?”
“There hasn't been a lot for them to know. I couldn't risk it. Not when we were at war.”
There's a bitterness that catches McKay completely off guard there, and he places his fingers on top of Sheppard's. They smile at each other for a moment and Rodney is seized with a deep sadness for this man he barely knows, because nobody-- not the history books or the newspapers or the sycophantic reporters or even Radek Zelenka-- is ever going to realise just how much John Sheppard has sacrificed for this city on the edge of the universe, so beautiful it seems unreal.
7.
McKay looks around the gateroom one last time, eyeing the two marines who are carrying his piano with not nearly enough care, and makes a little harrumphing noise in the back of his throat. “Huh.”
“What?”
“I think I'm going to have to throw away my Pegasus concerto,” he says, sounding remarkably pleased. “I got it all wrong.”
“Are you crazy, Doctor? Didn't sound wrong to me.”
“Yes, well, Colonel, shows how much you know.”
“Hey!”
“I got it wrong, Colonel. I got the Pegasus Galaxy all wrong, but that's okay. I'm a genius, I'll get it right,” the gate flares to life and McKay's grin widens. “Does that ever stop being cool?”
“No.”
McKay gives the Stargate, the gate room, everything, one last ever so slightly wistful look and squares his shoulders. “When I'm done, I'll send it to you, Colonel,” he says, easily. “I'd really like to get this place right.”
And then he's gone, demolecularised and transmitted through subspace and-- hopefully-- remolecularised on the other side.
Sheppard steps forward and turns, looking at all the places McKay just looked and trying to see them with new eyes, but he's so very tired. “Yeah,” he says, to himself, to no one in particular. “I'd like to do that too.”
-
Feedback.
In which Rodney McKay stuck with music, and never joins the Stargate Program, complete with first meetings with Team Sheppard, only without him. AU, or parallel universe, if you prefer.
terraced dynamics
Expressive style typical of Baroque music in which volume levels shift abruptly from soft to loud and back without gradual crescendos and decrescendos.
0.
The theory holds that the major reason for the emergence of terraced dynamics in the Baroque period was because of the use of the harpsichord, which could not play gradations but rather had to choose, loud or soft, and therefore influenced the music written for it. While there is maybe some truth in that, they’ve got it backwards; the reason the harpsichord was so widely used was because it fulfilled this effect, this all-too-human desire to swing from forte to pianissimo with barely a breath in between like cutting out the sunset and going from light to dark. We swing, and sometimes there’s no gradation, sometimes there’s no warning, and that’s what terraced dynamics really evolved to say, that is the Baroque period’s secret gift-- Stravinsky understood this, and Haydn, and all at once, so does Rodney McKay.
1.
It is six years after the establishment of the wormhole from the Milky Way to the Pegasus Galaxy that the Stargate Program goes public, and in the month after the announcement a series of carefully orchestrated cultural events and press tours take over the normal running of the base. Instead of trained personnel in BDUs clutching P90s the gate spills out crowing reporters, wide-eyed diplomats and the best cultural representatives of the Milky Way that the military could bribe and bully into participating. John Sheppard isn't really a big fan of classical music, so after the welcoming ceremony and the dinner (white tablecloths with little embossed 'stargate' symbols along the borders) he goes to the gym. Almost everybody else is at the concert by now, shuffling into seats, reading the programme and making all those little hushed preparatory remarks that audiences do before the show starts. Preparing to give themselves to the darkness and fake light of the stage for-- an hour, maybe more. It's not an easy thing to ask: interrupt your life and watch, listen, let us do the telling for you, but Rodney McKay has never been afraid of asking a lot. They're going to end up owing him. He's worth it.
The spotlight comes up on him, and the piano, and the rest is darkness. A whispery, fluttering hush falls over the audience. Walking through the wormhole is a miracle, but if you listen to the New York Times, so is hearing Rodney McKay's music. He doesn't perform all that much any more, and no matter what the New York Times thinks, he won't be convinced he's doing anything more than just getting it right enough, and when you read his music you understand why. It hovers just this side of unplayable, constantly foreshadowing and undercutting itself, beginning like a block of marble and shearing away the excess. To play Rodney McKay's music your brain has to be two bars ahead, and your fingers even better.
He looks down at the piano and then up at the audience-- blinking in the light, they are only vague outlines (that's how he likes it)-- before taking from his jacket pocket a My Little Pony with very small ribbons braided into her hair and setting her down on the piano top. He grins toothily at the darkness at the edge of the stage and coughs, “My niece gave me a good luck charm,” he laughs, sharply, talking out of nervousness. “Actually, I think she wanted to be the only little girl at school with an intergalactic pony, but I'm not above bribery.”
The audience exhales and there are a few titters. McKay is in a good mood. Ten minutes into his new piece-- written specially for this occasion, the programme announces proudly-- they can see why.
2.
Rodney McKay plays music that reflects off the walls of the ancient city like it was always there, like all he did was turn the volume up.
On Earth, McKay's music is weird edges and aspiration, every note extended a shade too far for comfort and sudden, lurching, dizzying dynamic shifts, but on Atlantis it molds itself into the corridors and high ceilings. Here the unplayable symphonies sound like laughter.
John's breath catches as the music filters through the sound system: it's almost as if McKay knows what it's like, knows what this is. It's as if some part of him knows the Pegasus Galaxy already, even though he has only been here three hours.
The inside of McKay's brain, whether he knows it or not, looks like an Ancient device.
3.
Sheppard is introduced to him later that evening, over drinks, and fights the urge to repeat all the compliments he's heard various people stutter out because McKay looks so smug that Sheppard could swear he's actually bored out of his skull. McKay is refreshingly unawed by his stripes and dress uniform and the scars (one running from wrist to elbow, only partially visible, one above the eyebrow-- 'how very Harry Potter of you, Colonel Sheppard' and quite a few besides under the uniform) the scars that correspond to all those half-admiring and half-fearful stories people tell about the hero John Sheppard, military commander of the lost city of Atlantis.
He's distracted from McKay when their CSO flops into the chair next to them, and John hands him his plate of sandwiches because he looks like he's about to collapse. “You alright, Zelenka?”
“Fine, Sheppard. I've just been making sure that we do not sink into the ocean while all of you sit around in your best clothes and make the kissy-faces at each other, but--,” the rest of the tirade is delivered in Czech, and Sheppard gives McKay a rueful but not quite apologetic grin.
“Have you met Dr. Rodney McKay?”
Zelenka stuffs a sandwich into his mouth but raises an eyebrow, and if he knows who McKay is he certainly isn't telling.
McKay looks-- for the first time in the evening-- ever so slightly off-balance, as of he hasn't managed to come through a wormhole and still partially upstage the flying city and band of intergalactic heroes that have saved the world. A lot. “We- ah, know each other, actually. We met when I was a graduate student. At MIT.”
“Hm-- I do not think so. I did not take any classes in-,” Zelenka makes a face like he's about to say something rude. “-music.”
“Oh, no, no, no. My doctorate is in Physics,” Rodney says, an amused smile as if it has been a long time since he's had to inform anyone of the basic facts of his biography, and he's really enjoying the opportunity to do so. “Theoretical cosmology, actually.”
Radek's face has just moved through various expressions of surprise, and Sheppard wishes he'd read the fucking programme before all this, but Zelenka saves the day with a considering look and a shrug.
“Well. That's very nice, but it is actually no assurance as to your actual mental capabilities.”
“Oh please,” McKay said, with a grin and a laugh so expansive and intense that Sheppard had to grin back, earning him a very tired, annoyed look from his CSO. “I'm easily the smartest man in this, and several other rooms besides. And yes, Zelenka, I'm including you, I've read your articles on gravitational dynamics and they're amateurish at best--”
Sheppard leans back into his chair and savours Zelenka's squeak of horror and subsequent eloquent tirade about 'dilettantes' and 'prima donnas' and grins, because he thinks Zelenka has just made a friend, and god knows, it's been six years, and they need it.
4.
The next day part of the official tour is the memorial wall; around the newly erected plaques and plinths that are cold and bronze and say only names the Atlantis expedition has pasted photographs and personal memories and bits of cloth and letters that say so much more. Zelenka proudly points out a puzzling photo a disembodied leg to McKay and gestures to his own prosthetic with a grin. “Naquadah generator explosion in year two. I believe Major Lorne thought it deserved a spot.”
They’re all like that. All easy camaraderie and joking about their scars in front of this wall that screams out the pain and loss that the smiles just can’t stretch widely enough across. McKay resists the urge to flinch: there are so goddamn many of them, lost to the Wraith, to explosions, to offworld exploration, taken by science and adventure and bravery. Richard Woolsey stops in front of a photograph here and there and says a few clipped words to the tour group, and Rodney’s eye is drawn to a pretty blonde with a determined expression and blue eyes. “Colonel Carter,” Woolsey provides. “She commanded the expedition before me.” His voice is strained and so McKay looks away, only to meet Sheppard’s carefully blank eyes. He’s standing very erect, at attention, and looking at the ground as if he’s hoping he’ll drop right through it. Zelenka sides up behind him and places a softly deliberate arm on his elbow and Sheppard relaxes. McKay takes a step forward and Sheppard snaps back to attention, shifting his front foot so that he’s between McKay and Zelenka; a protective, automatic stance.
“Oh, sorry.”
Zelenka laughs. “It is fine, Dr. McKay,” he replies, giving Sheppard a push. “Colonel Sheppard is merely accounting for my tendency to get shot in hostile situations.”
“Ye-es. Those reporters certainly had a bloodthirsty gleam in their eyes. And you know how diplomats get when they‘ve had more than one glass of champagne--,” McKay’s about to continue his diatribe but stops when he finally notices the way the senior members of the Atlantis expedition are huddled together, covering each other’s backs and very deliberately not reaching for their weapons every time someone clinks a glass. “Yes, well.”
Sheppard takes a couple of steps forward then, and reaches out to McKay and then past him, to the wall, fingers finding a photograph and tearing it down. It’s one of Sheppard himself, flanked by Zelenka on the right, an impossibly bronzed woman and a towering, dreadlocked man with a funny-shaped gun, all dressed in BDUs and on what might be an alien world. They are all smiling, even Sheppard, and they look very young and small with their backs to the stargate. Zelenka makes a noise in the back of his throat but Sheppard silences him with a look, communicating all sorts of things that McKay is left out of before Zelenka gives McKay a brief smile and walks away while Sheppard hides a flinch, as if it hurts to look at the people he loves.
Maybe it does, because Sheppard crushes the photo into his front pocket and meets McKay’s eyes easily, because he isn’t really a friend. “Let’s go drink beer,” he says, and nods to himself without waiting for a response.
5.
“So, why'd you quit?” Sheppard asks, as they separate themselves from the official visitors tour to sneak off to the East Pier ('the best spot in the whole city, Doctor, trust me on this').
McKay very carefully eases one foot over the edge, and tries very hard not to think about the various gruesome deaths he could experience courtesy of this alien city, sky and ocean, and shrugs. “Physics? I- still love physics. But I just--,” he takes a sip and makes a wounded face at Sheppard, one that clearly says 'you've just made me drink American beer', “Music makes me happy.”
“Hey, it wasn't a complaint. That's why I brought you here, sort of,” Sheppard rubs his neck in a shockingly boyish gesture and grins a bit. “This is what listening to your music made me think of. How Atlantis should be.”
There's a sharp intake of breath, as if McKay is about to ask a question, but then silence as he thinks better of it. His brain is filing away every low, thrumming swish of water against sand and city, the whirr of technology in the background, the light and how it refracts ever so slightly differently in alien air and even the way that Sheppard sits there in the semi-dark surrounded by very deliberate silence which passes for calm but is really vigilance. McKay guesses that very few of the nights on Atlantis have been like this-- he doesn't have to guess, it's all over the news, the papers, even several upcoming books and biographies but here and now, despite the ancient city and the glorious ocean and the fact that Radek Zelenka is probably going to win a fucking Nobel prize Rodney realises with a thunk that he isn't jealous. The newspapers can try but they'll probably never do it justice, but the facts are all over Sheppard. And yeah, all over Radek Zelenka and all the others too.
Rodney's been doing this since he was six years old, he can read silence.
But when it comes down to it, he'd rather write music.
They finish the beers and sit until Sheppard leans over and kisses him, awkwardly and then desperately.
6.
Just before they step into the transporter, Sheppard places his fingers deliberately around McKay's wrist and says, “Hey- could you- not mention this? Like, at all? Ever?”
There's apology written all over Sheppard's face but he can't help but stiffen and go cold and form his lips into a thin line. “You mean you're not taking me to the Prom, Colonel? I'd picked out a dress and everything.”
“It isn't like that, Rodney,” the hand round his wrist tightens. “It's-- just because we're in the Pegasus Galaxy doesn't mean Don't Ask, Don't Tell isn't on the books.”
“Jesus, John. They don't know?”
“There hasn't been a lot for them to know. I couldn't risk it. Not when we were at war.”
There's a bitterness that catches McKay completely off guard there, and he places his fingers on top of Sheppard's. They smile at each other for a moment and Rodney is seized with a deep sadness for this man he barely knows, because nobody-- not the history books or the newspapers or the sycophantic reporters or even Radek Zelenka-- is ever going to realise just how much John Sheppard has sacrificed for this city on the edge of the universe, so beautiful it seems unreal.
7.
McKay looks around the gateroom one last time, eyeing the two marines who are carrying his piano with not nearly enough care, and makes a little harrumphing noise in the back of his throat. “Huh.”
“What?”
“I think I'm going to have to throw away my Pegasus concerto,” he says, sounding remarkably pleased. “I got it all wrong.”
“Are you crazy, Doctor? Didn't sound wrong to me.”
“Yes, well, Colonel, shows how much you know.”
“Hey!”
“I got it wrong, Colonel. I got the Pegasus Galaxy all wrong, but that's okay. I'm a genius, I'll get it right,” the gate flares to life and McKay's grin widens. “Does that ever stop being cool?”
“No.”
McKay gives the Stargate, the gate room, everything, one last ever so slightly wistful look and squares his shoulders. “When I'm done, I'll send it to you, Colonel,” he says, easily. “I'd really like to get this place right.”
And then he's gone, demolecularised and transmitted through subspace and-- hopefully-- remolecularised on the other side.
Sheppard steps forward and turns, looking at all the places McKay just looked and trying to see them with new eyes, but he's so very tired. “Yeah,” he says, to himself, to no one in particular. “I'd like to do that too.”
-
Feedback.