The Red Door - Conclusion
The Red Door
(or, a Postmodern Prometheus)
Chapter 16
The Red Door
Previous Chapter
It was entirely obvious to Radek that McKay wasn't paying attention. At least, not any more than the bare minimum necessary to pretend he was present and accounted for, and to ensure that Beckett wouldn't bundle him back off to the infirmary.
He was quite coolly awful to Dr. Heightmeyer, but no worse than that, saying, "We knew the activation of the garden room had a powerful psychological component." He didn't even raise his voice. "But I still chose to believe that breathing from my diaphragm would be sufficient to overcome the trauma of surviving electrocution by a madman."
Heightmeyer only thinned her lips and managed not to say anything.
He was no worse to Radek.
"If Dr. Zelenka had pinpointed the blind spot in the sensor array when we first became aware of it a month ago, no doubt we would be able to find the Colonel now, but I assumed he was continuing to track the problem himself in his capacity as acting head of Sciences, and consumed, I'm sorry to say, by my own health issues I failed to follow up personally."
It wouldn't have fooled John. The little act didn't fool Radek, either, but Dr. Weir, if she noticed, seemed disinclined to call McKay on it.
Radek let it go as well, at least for now. Their working theory was that the garden room was a transportation device, and the Colonel was still alive, just lost somewhere in the city. Rodney had been unconscious for more than twenty minutes afterwards, and was still white-faced and too shaky to complain about the insufficiency of Carson's hovering. Supposing the Colonel to be in the same state, if he had been dropped off far from a standard transporter, he would be looking at a very long walk back.
So if Rodney wasn't paying attention during this meeting to determine the most efficient way to mount a foot search of the entire city for an incommunicado, presumably wounded Colonel Sheppard, then it had to be because he had another idea, too nebulous yet to reduce to words.
That, at least, was Radek's sincere hope. It made no sense that the colonel wasn't showing up on the sensors, and the other possibilities were almost too awful to contemplate. John might be dead, disintegrated by that ominous final energy spike. The same spike that might have so scrambled Rodney's brains he simply couldn't think straight any more.
The meeting was as brief as possible, of course. The dissection of what, precisely, had gone so atrociously wrong would wait until John, God willing, was back safe and sound. Major Lorne was first out the door, his search teams already being assembled. Radek hesitated, wondering -- hoping, in fact -- that Rodney would accompany him back the the lab. Right now he had no new ideas about the failure of the sensors and no immediate plans beyond another (surely fruitless) recalibration exercise. Despite McKay's criticism, Radek had been investigating the sensors' inability to find McKay while he was sleepwalking during his spare and not-so-spare time ever since. He still had nothing of any use.
But Rodney, after standing with barely-concealed impatience to listen to some quiet words from Elizabeth, snapped at her, "Of course I don't blame myself for this! Wallowing in sackcloth and ashes doesn't find the colonel any faster, does it?" and stomped away in the direction of his quarters.
More than eight hours passed before Radek saw McKay again. He showed up in the lab as quiet as a ghost. Radek saw the reflection in his monitor before he turned around and realized he was at his shoulder. "Rodney! How are you feeling?"
"I need an update on your progress."
"They are coordinating the search teams from the Control Room."
"Yes, and that's where I would have gone if I had any interest in the progress of the goon squads flatfooting it around Atlantis. Come with me."
"Rodney, I cannot just walk away from--"
"Oh, so you do have some progress to report? Pray tell me, why isn't Colonel Sheppard showing up on your scans?"
"We are working on several hypotheses now," Radek began, but he stopped himself almost immediately. "The truth is, I still do not know."
"Clearly." Rodney turned and walked out the door, obviously expecting Radek to follow. Stopping only long enough to pick up his computer, he did.
"Where are we going?"
Rodney didn't answer until they reached the transporter. "My quarters."
"Why?"
"I'm going to sleep. You're going to watch me."
"Why on earth -- Rodney." The truth was a hard wrench. "Rodney, you think that you can sleepwalk your way to John's side?" He stopped dead in his tracks. "I am sorry. We do not have time for this."
Rodney whirled around. "Don't you dare --"
"Colonel Sheppard does not have time for this."
"You're fucking right he doesn't! You can send me back to earth afterwards, kick me out of the Stargate program, lock me up in Dr. Jackson's padded room, I don't care, but right now you and I are going to find John if I have to drag you kicking and screaming every step of the way!"
Radek hesitated another moment, but now it was simply to grieve for John and Rodney both.
Then he followed Rodney into his quarters.
Rodney immediately flopped down on his unmade bed. "You'll need to stay close to me when I start moving," he announced. "If I make it to the transporter ahead of you this will all be for nothing. I've never been able to get through the red door by myself. Not that I wouldn't manage it eventually, I'm sure, but now that Sheppard is actually there we don't have time to waste."
"Of course," Radek murmured, taking a seat at Rodney's desk chair.
Rodney's head turned on the pillow, and he eyed Radek shrewdly. "Pompsukos thought his Wraith-proofing device would strip electrons from Ancient building materials, which electrons would in turn bond to the subject, making him, for reasons that remained more than a little obscure, safe from Wraith attack."
"Yes, I remember." All too well, in fact. He could still see Rodney wrapped in a white sheet, blood on his face, sparks leaping across the filigreed metal cage around him. "Pompsukos was also insane."
"Granted. But I think he wasn't entirely wrong."
"Mmm-hmm," Radek could not hide his skepticism, even when he was here only because he could not abandon so dear a friend. "So you really are the human cathode?"
Rodney bent his left arm. "Maybe not coated with amazing Wraith-repelling metal -- which is too bad because it would be kind of cool, and I think I deserve to have some good come out of this whole nightmare -- but there's no question my brain was affected, specifically the raphe nuclei. The neurotransmitters produced there travel along the medial forebrain bundle to activate the hypothalamus. Exactly where Carson's MRIs showed the greatest amount of cellular necrosis."
"Sadly, there is no question Pompsukos' device caused brain damage," Radek agreed unhappily.
Rodney snorted in disgust. "The point being, that's not all it did."
"You believe passing an electrical current through Ancient building material close to you somehow changed certain neurotransmitters?"
"Yes, exactly. It's too bad I'm no witchdoctor or I'd have a better explanation for this. Or possibly not. Along with all the damage, mucking with my neurotransmitters also made me sensitive to Ancient structures. It turns out there's a damn good reason the Ancients classed architecture and medicine together. To the Ancients, they were the same thing. Their buildings, their bodies -- there's no meaningful distinction here. And Radek, the Ancients transcended their physical bodies."
Radek rose to his feet, excitement prickling along his scalp like another electrical current. "My God! Atlantis ascended, too!"
"English, Radek, if you don't mind." Having made his point, Rodney rolled onto his back again and laced his fingers together over his stomach. "The healing in the garden room takes place in that ascended, non-corporeal Atlantis. I've seen it in my dreams. It's where John is now. And that's where we're going to go find him."
Radek fell back into his chair. "Rodney, it would explain why you and John disappeared from the sensors. But the whole idea... This is insane."
"Fitting, coming from a brain damaged man, isn't it?" Rodney said bitterly. "If you think you can do more good recalibrating the sensors for the thousandth time, then by all means, go. I'll get Sheppard out by myself."
Radek stood up. Rodney's eyes closed in resignation, only to pop open again when Radek sat down on the end of the bed. "Move over."
"What? Why?"
The man would never change. Radek pushed at his shoulder until Rodney grudgingly scooted over enough for Radek to stretch out beside him. "Because I am going with you."
"You know the worst thing about all this?" Rodney said some time later, clearly on the very cusp of sleep.
"What would that be, Rodney?"
"Thrope and Mowbry were right all along. We have to repair Atlantis. I think the damage to the physical form is causing problems with the ascended manifestation as well. God, linguists make me nuts." With that, he turned his head and kissed Radek's mouth, and promptly fell asleep.
For the first few hours, Radek lay easily awake at McKay's side, torn between wanting to believe every word he said and fighting with an engineer's heart that told him people ascended, not buildings, certainly not entire cities.
Except, aside from the Ancients themselves (and if the rumors were to be believed, the occasional linguist) people didn't actually have ascendant forms either. Not in Radek's personal experience.
The hours passed. Rodney snored. Around 0200 Radek gingerly got back out of bed and checked the status of the ongoing recalibration project. He opened his laptop and picked up his own work again, at least as much as he could accomplish from a remote work station. Which was actually quite a lot. Radek spared a few moments to be ashamed of himself for having wasted hours resting in Rodney's bed when John was still lost. Then he got back to work.
By 0400 Radek was seriously considering going back to the lab to see if tweaking the sensors' search algorithms again would make any difference and hesitating because one, he knew it would not, and two, he had promised Rodney he would wait. Then Rodney rolled over again. That in itself meant nothing. Radek had learned this night that Rodney was a very restless sleeper. But then he sat up straight in bed. His eyes were open, and he was methodically freeing himself from the tangled bedclothes.
"Rodney," Radek called softly. "Are you awake?"
No answer. Radek's heart began thumping in his chest. He thanked his lucky stars that he had not given in to the temptation to kick off his shoes earlier and caught up as Rodney exited his quarters at a fast clip. "I will just take your hand," Radek breathed, and carefully wrapped his fingers around Rodney's right palm. He dreaded awakening him, but the possibility of losing him amongst Atlantis' endless predawn corridors was just as bad.
Apparently he need not have worried. Rodney's much larger hand immediately closed over Radek's. "Hurry," he muttered, tugging.
"Yes, yes, I am right here. Rodney, are you awake?"
"You're not making any sense, Jeannie. We've got to hurry."
OK, not altogether awake, then.
Rodney kept a tight grip on Radek's hand as he pulled him into the transporter. Radek watched carefully, but Rodney simply chose a destination near the control room, as if this were an ordinary day, and they were on their way to grab a cup of coffee or two from the mess before going to bedevil Elizabeth about the latest unreasonable security strictures. Or possibly to demand that the next gate team visit a planet with a view of absolutely unique stellar phenomena, instead of the world whose inhabitants were willing to trade for their very nourishing lima beans.
A brief moment of disorientation and when the doors opened they were one corridor over from the mess, a flight up from the medical lab. Radek could hardly contain his disappointment although, honestly, what else could he have expected?
"Rodney. Stop. Wake up." Rodney kept pulling on his hand, but Radek dug in his heels. Finally he turned. Rodney's eyes looked very bright and alert for a somnambulist.
"For chrissakes, don't tell me you're going to get cold feet now."
"You are awake. "
Rodney rolled his eyes. "As awake as you are, which frankly doesn't seem to be saying very much right now."
"Where are you going?"
"We already talked about this. Do you have short term memory issues I should know about?"
Radek squeezed his eyes shut. He needed sleep, and since that wasn't going to happen for a long time, he needed food and coffee, and he also needed the patience of the saints. "I see," he said slowly. Polling himself free of Rodney's grasp, he took off his glasses, cleaned them on the tail of his shirt and looked around himself. "So this is Atlantis Ascendant." He knew he was being an asshole, but Jesus. Even he, Radek Zelenka, finally had his limits.
He braced himself for sarcasm or rage, but Rodney simply looked a little confused. Radek had a moment to wonder if he were truly awake after all before Rodney asked in a very mild voice, "Where do you think you are?"
"We are further away from the mess than needed if you wanted coffee before going to the Control Room, but close enough to Carson's office for a piece of shortbread, assuming, of course, that he has not yet become tired of your shameless mooching. Where do you think we are?"
McKay grabbed the shoulder of Radek's shirt and dragged him down the the hall without another word. Columns of water bubbled against the walls, almost seeming to glow through the murk. The very shadows had a breathless quality of darkness, as if Radek were looking at a painting of shadows instead of moving through them. He felt a cold prickle at the nape of his neck and tried to pull away from Rodney. He was willing to humor him in much, but he was slowly becoming convinced that something was very wrong here. "Rodney--"
McKay yanked him around the next bend in the winding corridor and kept going. He was bigger and stronger than Radek and seemed entirely willing to use those advantages against him. Radek had wrapped both hands in the neck of his own shirt, simply trying at this point to keep McKay from inadvertently choking him. Or perhaps not entirely inadvertently. As Radek's feet skidded on the smooth tile, he had the horrible idea that the brain damage might be more serious than anyone had believed.
"Rodney, please," he gasped. "Where are we going?"
The enclosed corridor suddenly spilled out into a vast, arcaded plaza. Stars sparkled with mad extravagance across the overarching velvet sky. Radek stumbled forward, not realizing at first that Rodney had released him. He felt as astonished and overwhelmed as he had taking his first steps into Atlantis through the Stargate.
Except, this was not Atlantis. He had never seen this place before, and he did not know those stars.
Fifteen or twenty steps before him, a curving balustrade lined the entire plaza. From where Zelenka stood, trembling, he could not see beyond it. He wondered, if he walked forward those few steps, if he would be able to look down upon an ocean as unfamiliar as the stars above.
He could not do it. Not to save his own life. Possibly not even to save Rodney's.
Rodney, who'd had a vision of Atlantis in the nightmare carriage ride back from Silicis. Radek had come back from stretching his aching legs in time to see Rodney writhing in despair on the padded carriage seats, using all the energy he had left to tell them they had gotten Atlantis utterly wrong.
And so they had. They had missed -- almost everything. Maybe they would still have time to make matters right (to make Atlantis right), but first things first.
"Rodney," he said, "We must take John away from this place."
McKay didn't even spare the breath for a told-you-so, ducking under a dark arch. Radek followed, finding himself in the corridor that led to the ground level of the Control Room.
Except the entrance was blocked by a door that would have looked more at home in his Uncle Jiri's Prague apartment than it did here in Atlantis. Cheap brass doorknob and hinges, hollow wood paneling. Someone had done a recent and very sloppy job of painting it. The paint was still tacky to the touch.
"Well, go ahead," Rodney made hurry-up gestures with both hands. "Always before John has been on the other side."
This was Rodney's red door. Radek had been expecting something far more imposing. This barrier looked so quick and inadequate, it made his flesh crawl. As little as he wanted to touch it again, he dropped his hand and tried the knob. It rattled a bit. "Locked," Radek said. "From the other side."
"Oh, god, of course it is." McKay looked like his legs were about to give out and propped himself hard against the wall.
"But all is hardly lost," Radek asserted as stoutly as he could, and retrieved his screwdriver instead of going to Rodney's aid. Right now, he suspected getting through the door would do more for McKay than empty reassurance.
"We've got to hurry." Rodney sounded more than half-frantic. "I've seen John die on the other side of that door.
"That will not happen tonight," Radek snapped, just as he finished unscrewing the door knob. The knob and the plate both hit the floor with a clatter, but when Radek pushed, nothing happened. It must be dead-bolted from the other side.
At that, Rodney's legs really did give out. He slid down the wall to land in a heap. "It's that fucking gene of his," Rodney moaned. "Clever enough to trap him here, too dumb to show him the way out again. "
And we are not doing any better, Radek thought, but he attacked the hinges with energy.
"That's not going to help either," McKay snarled weakly. "It's not actually a goddammed wooden door."
The uppermost hinges fell, leaving ugly holes torn through half-rotten wood. Radek dropped to his knees to remove second set. "Then tell me what it is, Rodney, so that we can figure a way through it, because right now--"
The second set of hinges dropped, Radek jumped to his feet and put his shoulder to the door. He might as well have been trying to push over the Stargate. Nothing. He beat on the door with both hands. "Colonel Sheppard! John!"
"You're wasting your energy!" Rodney screamed, as close to despair as Radek had ever heard him. "You're wasting your breath."
"And what would you have me do?" Radek screamed back at him. "You've been here many more times than I! If you do not know what this door truly is, how do you expect --"
And then Radek had a thought. His legs gave out like Rodney's had, and he slid down until he was sitting, too. "What did you say about this place? That the damage to the physical Atlantis --"
Rodney shook his head. "I think it must be like moral failings in an Ancient. Ascension doesn't make them better. Just transmutes their flaws into a different form. The physical damage to Atlantis shows up here in a different form, too. It's why the garden room didn't work the way it should've, why my visits here have all been nightmares -- oh."
Radek got it at the same moment. He sat up very straight, then pushed himself to his knees to look at the door behind him. "My God. It is all the physical damage we have inflicted upon Atlantis since we arrived."
"How do you expect anyone to understand you if you don't speak English?" Rodney snapped unreasonably. "And how the hell can we fix everything fast enough to get the Colonel out? Hey, do you understand me? We're working on it but it's gonna take a little time! I'm sorry about the flood damage and the wind damage, but you built this city to be so dependant on shield protection it's no wonder we're stretched a little thin these days! And by the way, the Wraith bombardment? Darts crashing into the city? Totally not our fault!"
"Rodney. Rodney." Radek had to resist his first impulse, which was to clamp his hand over Rodney's big mouth, and instead touched his shoulder very gently. The element of surprise worked. Rodney's mouth snapped shut and he turned his head to look at Zelenka in mute astonishment. "Do you remember the first weeks of our arrival, when we all assumed we would come across a ZPM, oh, just any day for sure--"
Rodney stared at him, clearly uncomprehending, but Radek left his hand on his shoulder, and Rodney didn't interrupt. "And we were all too excited to simply go to bed at a reasonable hour so we sat up all night going through the coffee supplies like there was no tomorrow and talked about what we would do when power and basic survival were no longer such pressing concerns and you still hadn't managed to figure out what my name was, you bastard."
"Those observatory satellites we found in storage," Rodney said suddenly. "We never have been able to risk a launch. We'd be able to see to the end of the universe if they were in orbit."
"The substrata of the east pier," Radek said. "So much was lost before the city rose. We still can't explore that region, and I am convinced our understanding of the secondary power systems will remain bitterly incomplete until we can examine them."
"The collapsed tower way the hell over in C-7."
"I do not remember that," Radek said. "Where the computer damage continually frustrates our ability to work around the Ancients' concept of a database?"
"Wrong side of the city. I mean the building with all the manufacturing schematics."
"You think they were schematics," Radek amended sternly, and with his hand on Rodney's shoulder they argued companionably about the priority of repair work as though they could truly give fire to something that had waited alone in the dark for a very, very long time. At length, a dim, reddish sun rose slowly into view through the skylight overhead. Rodney flinched at the color, but didn't stop talking until the red door suddenly swung open half a crooked meter on its non-existent hinges.
"John!" Radek was on his feet at once, Rodney only a moment later, and together they pulled Sheppard through the uneven gap, Radek thinking it was a very good thing John was such a skinny son of a bitch. He folded into a bundle of dark rags at their feet, Rodney at once getting to his knees to support John's head.
"We'll have you in Carson's hands in just a minute here," he assured John, talking without taking a breath, "--and you could certainly do worse, even I have to admit. You're going to be all right. The transporter always worked before. It'll get us back this time, too."
John took a deep breath, as though he'd been waiting to do that for a very long time. Radek thought he was about to say something, but his eyes drifted shut again before he could speak. Rodney bent over deeply to kiss John's pale forehead. When he sat up again, his eyes were swimming with unshed tears and he glared defiantly at Radek, who only shook his head. He put his finger over Rodney's lips and felt the tremor.
"Please, Rodney. If you know the way home, I believe we are ready to go."
The End
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Thank you so much for reading -- I could not have written this without your patience and bravery in taking a chance on a meandering WIP. Thanks, and happy Halloween!
(or, a Postmodern Prometheus)
Chapter 16
The Red Door
Previous Chapter
It was entirely obvious to Radek that McKay wasn't paying attention. At least, not any more than the bare minimum necessary to pretend he was present and accounted for, and to ensure that Beckett wouldn't bundle him back off to the infirmary.
He was quite coolly awful to Dr. Heightmeyer, but no worse than that, saying, "We knew the activation of the garden room had a powerful psychological component." He didn't even raise his voice. "But I still chose to believe that breathing from my diaphragm would be sufficient to overcome the trauma of surviving electrocution by a madman."
Heightmeyer only thinned her lips and managed not to say anything.
He was no worse to Radek.
"If Dr. Zelenka had pinpointed the blind spot in the sensor array when we first became aware of it a month ago, no doubt we would be able to find the Colonel now, but I assumed he was continuing to track the problem himself in his capacity as acting head of Sciences, and consumed, I'm sorry to say, by my own health issues I failed to follow up personally."
It wouldn't have fooled John. The little act didn't fool Radek, either, but Dr. Weir, if she noticed, seemed disinclined to call McKay on it.
Radek let it go as well, at least for now. Their working theory was that the garden room was a transportation device, and the Colonel was still alive, just lost somewhere in the city. Rodney had been unconscious for more than twenty minutes afterwards, and was still white-faced and too shaky to complain about the insufficiency of Carson's hovering. Supposing the Colonel to be in the same state, if he had been dropped off far from a standard transporter, he would be looking at a very long walk back.
So if Rodney wasn't paying attention during this meeting to determine the most efficient way to mount a foot search of the entire city for an incommunicado, presumably wounded Colonel Sheppard, then it had to be because he had another idea, too nebulous yet to reduce to words.
That, at least, was Radek's sincere hope. It made no sense that the colonel wasn't showing up on the sensors, and the other possibilities were almost too awful to contemplate. John might be dead, disintegrated by that ominous final energy spike. The same spike that might have so scrambled Rodney's brains he simply couldn't think straight any more.
The meeting was as brief as possible, of course. The dissection of what, precisely, had gone so atrociously wrong would wait until John, God willing, was back safe and sound. Major Lorne was first out the door, his search teams already being assembled. Radek hesitated, wondering -- hoping, in fact -- that Rodney would accompany him back the the lab. Right now he had no new ideas about the failure of the sensors and no immediate plans beyond another (surely fruitless) recalibration exercise. Despite McKay's criticism, Radek had been investigating the sensors' inability to find McKay while he was sleepwalking during his spare and not-so-spare time ever since. He still had nothing of any use.
But Rodney, after standing with barely-concealed impatience to listen to some quiet words from Elizabeth, snapped at her, "Of course I don't blame myself for this! Wallowing in sackcloth and ashes doesn't find the colonel any faster, does it?" and stomped away in the direction of his quarters.
More than eight hours passed before Radek saw McKay again. He showed up in the lab as quiet as a ghost. Radek saw the reflection in his monitor before he turned around and realized he was at his shoulder. "Rodney! How are you feeling?"
"I need an update on your progress."
"They are coordinating the search teams from the Control Room."
"Yes, and that's where I would have gone if I had any interest in the progress of the goon squads flatfooting it around Atlantis. Come with me."
"Rodney, I cannot just walk away from--"
"Oh, so you do have some progress to report? Pray tell me, why isn't Colonel Sheppard showing up on your scans?"
"We are working on several hypotheses now," Radek began, but he stopped himself almost immediately. "The truth is, I still do not know."
"Clearly." Rodney turned and walked out the door, obviously expecting Radek to follow. Stopping only long enough to pick up his computer, he did.
"Where are we going?"
Rodney didn't answer until they reached the transporter. "My quarters."
"Why?"
"I'm going to sleep. You're going to watch me."
"Why on earth -- Rodney." The truth was a hard wrench. "Rodney, you think that you can sleepwalk your way to John's side?" He stopped dead in his tracks. "I am sorry. We do not have time for this."
Rodney whirled around. "Don't you dare --"
"Colonel Sheppard does not have time for this."
"You're fucking right he doesn't! You can send me back to earth afterwards, kick me out of the Stargate program, lock me up in Dr. Jackson's padded room, I don't care, but right now you and I are going to find John if I have to drag you kicking and screaming every step of the way!"
Radek hesitated another moment, but now it was simply to grieve for John and Rodney both.
Then he followed Rodney into his quarters.
Rodney immediately flopped down on his unmade bed. "You'll need to stay close to me when I start moving," he announced. "If I make it to the transporter ahead of you this will all be for nothing. I've never been able to get through the red door by myself. Not that I wouldn't manage it eventually, I'm sure, but now that Sheppard is actually there we don't have time to waste."
"Of course," Radek murmured, taking a seat at Rodney's desk chair.
Rodney's head turned on the pillow, and he eyed Radek shrewdly. "Pompsukos thought his Wraith-proofing device would strip electrons from Ancient building materials, which electrons would in turn bond to the subject, making him, for reasons that remained more than a little obscure, safe from Wraith attack."
"Yes, I remember." All too well, in fact. He could still see Rodney wrapped in a white sheet, blood on his face, sparks leaping across the filigreed metal cage around him. "Pompsukos was also insane."
"Granted. But I think he wasn't entirely wrong."
"Mmm-hmm," Radek could not hide his skepticism, even when he was here only because he could not abandon so dear a friend. "So you really are the human cathode?"
Rodney bent his left arm. "Maybe not coated with amazing Wraith-repelling metal -- which is too bad because it would be kind of cool, and I think I deserve to have some good come out of this whole nightmare -- but there's no question my brain was affected, specifically the raphe nuclei. The neurotransmitters produced there travel along the medial forebrain bundle to activate the hypothalamus. Exactly where Carson's MRIs showed the greatest amount of cellular necrosis."
"Sadly, there is no question Pompsukos' device caused brain damage," Radek agreed unhappily.
Rodney snorted in disgust. "The point being, that's not all it did."
"You believe passing an electrical current through Ancient building material close to you somehow changed certain neurotransmitters?"
"Yes, exactly. It's too bad I'm no witchdoctor or I'd have a better explanation for this. Or possibly not. Along with all the damage, mucking with my neurotransmitters also made me sensitive to Ancient structures. It turns out there's a damn good reason the Ancients classed architecture and medicine together. To the Ancients, they were the same thing. Their buildings, their bodies -- there's no meaningful distinction here. And Radek, the Ancients transcended their physical bodies."
Radek rose to his feet, excitement prickling along his scalp like another electrical current. "My God! Atlantis ascended, too!"
"English, Radek, if you don't mind." Having made his point, Rodney rolled onto his back again and laced his fingers together over his stomach. "The healing in the garden room takes place in that ascended, non-corporeal Atlantis. I've seen it in my dreams. It's where John is now. And that's where we're going to go find him."
Radek fell back into his chair. "Rodney, it would explain why you and John disappeared from the sensors. But the whole idea... This is insane."
"Fitting, coming from a brain damaged man, isn't it?" Rodney said bitterly. "If you think you can do more good recalibrating the sensors for the thousandth time, then by all means, go. I'll get Sheppard out by myself."
Radek stood up. Rodney's eyes closed in resignation, only to pop open again when Radek sat down on the end of the bed. "Move over."
"What? Why?"
The man would never change. Radek pushed at his shoulder until Rodney grudgingly scooted over enough for Radek to stretch out beside him. "Because I am going with you."
"You know the worst thing about all this?" Rodney said some time later, clearly on the very cusp of sleep.
"What would that be, Rodney?"
"Thrope and Mowbry were right all along. We have to repair Atlantis. I think the damage to the physical form is causing problems with the ascended manifestation as well. God, linguists make me nuts." With that, he turned his head and kissed Radek's mouth, and promptly fell asleep.
For the first few hours, Radek lay easily awake at McKay's side, torn between wanting to believe every word he said and fighting with an engineer's heart that told him people ascended, not buildings, certainly not entire cities.
Except, aside from the Ancients themselves (and if the rumors were to be believed, the occasional linguist) people didn't actually have ascendant forms either. Not in Radek's personal experience.
The hours passed. Rodney snored. Around 0200 Radek gingerly got back out of bed and checked the status of the ongoing recalibration project. He opened his laptop and picked up his own work again, at least as much as he could accomplish from a remote work station. Which was actually quite a lot. Radek spared a few moments to be ashamed of himself for having wasted hours resting in Rodney's bed when John was still lost. Then he got back to work.
By 0400 Radek was seriously considering going back to the lab to see if tweaking the sensors' search algorithms again would make any difference and hesitating because one, he knew it would not, and two, he had promised Rodney he would wait. Then Rodney rolled over again. That in itself meant nothing. Radek had learned this night that Rodney was a very restless sleeper. But then he sat up straight in bed. His eyes were open, and he was methodically freeing himself from the tangled bedclothes.
"Rodney," Radek called softly. "Are you awake?"
No answer. Radek's heart began thumping in his chest. He thanked his lucky stars that he had not given in to the temptation to kick off his shoes earlier and caught up as Rodney exited his quarters at a fast clip. "I will just take your hand," Radek breathed, and carefully wrapped his fingers around Rodney's right palm. He dreaded awakening him, but the possibility of losing him amongst Atlantis' endless predawn corridors was just as bad.
Apparently he need not have worried. Rodney's much larger hand immediately closed over Radek's. "Hurry," he muttered, tugging.
"Yes, yes, I am right here. Rodney, are you awake?"
"You're not making any sense, Jeannie. We've got to hurry."
OK, not altogether awake, then.
Rodney kept a tight grip on Radek's hand as he pulled him into the transporter. Radek watched carefully, but Rodney simply chose a destination near the control room, as if this were an ordinary day, and they were on their way to grab a cup of coffee or two from the mess before going to bedevil Elizabeth about the latest unreasonable security strictures. Or possibly to demand that the next gate team visit a planet with a view of absolutely unique stellar phenomena, instead of the world whose inhabitants were willing to trade for their very nourishing lima beans.
A brief moment of disorientation and when the doors opened they were one corridor over from the mess, a flight up from the medical lab. Radek could hardly contain his disappointment although, honestly, what else could he have expected?
"Rodney. Stop. Wake up." Rodney kept pulling on his hand, but Radek dug in his heels. Finally he turned. Rodney's eyes looked very bright and alert for a somnambulist.
"For chrissakes, don't tell me you're going to get cold feet now."
"You are awake. "
Rodney rolled his eyes. "As awake as you are, which frankly doesn't seem to be saying very much right now."
"Where are you going?"
"We already talked about this. Do you have short term memory issues I should know about?"
Radek squeezed his eyes shut. He needed sleep, and since that wasn't going to happen for a long time, he needed food and coffee, and he also needed the patience of the saints. "I see," he said slowly. Polling himself free of Rodney's grasp, he took off his glasses, cleaned them on the tail of his shirt and looked around himself. "So this is Atlantis Ascendant." He knew he was being an asshole, but Jesus. Even he, Radek Zelenka, finally had his limits.
He braced himself for sarcasm or rage, but Rodney simply looked a little confused. Radek had a moment to wonder if he were truly awake after all before Rodney asked in a very mild voice, "Where do you think you are?"
"We are further away from the mess than needed if you wanted coffee before going to the Control Room, but close enough to Carson's office for a piece of shortbread, assuming, of course, that he has not yet become tired of your shameless mooching. Where do you think we are?"
McKay grabbed the shoulder of Radek's shirt and dragged him down the the hall without another word. Columns of water bubbled against the walls, almost seeming to glow through the murk. The very shadows had a breathless quality of darkness, as if Radek were looking at a painting of shadows instead of moving through them. He felt a cold prickle at the nape of his neck and tried to pull away from Rodney. He was willing to humor him in much, but he was slowly becoming convinced that something was very wrong here. "Rodney--"
McKay yanked him around the next bend in the winding corridor and kept going. He was bigger and stronger than Radek and seemed entirely willing to use those advantages against him. Radek had wrapped both hands in the neck of his own shirt, simply trying at this point to keep McKay from inadvertently choking him. Or perhaps not entirely inadvertently. As Radek's feet skidded on the smooth tile, he had the horrible idea that the brain damage might be more serious than anyone had believed.
"Rodney, please," he gasped. "Where are we going?"
The enclosed corridor suddenly spilled out into a vast, arcaded plaza. Stars sparkled with mad extravagance across the overarching velvet sky. Radek stumbled forward, not realizing at first that Rodney had released him. He felt as astonished and overwhelmed as he had taking his first steps into Atlantis through the Stargate.
Except, this was not Atlantis. He had never seen this place before, and he did not know those stars.
Fifteen or twenty steps before him, a curving balustrade lined the entire plaza. From where Zelenka stood, trembling, he could not see beyond it. He wondered, if he walked forward those few steps, if he would be able to look down upon an ocean as unfamiliar as the stars above.
He could not do it. Not to save his own life. Possibly not even to save Rodney's.
Rodney, who'd had a vision of Atlantis in the nightmare carriage ride back from Silicis. Radek had come back from stretching his aching legs in time to see Rodney writhing in despair on the padded carriage seats, using all the energy he had left to tell them they had gotten Atlantis utterly wrong.
And so they had. They had missed -- almost everything. Maybe they would still have time to make matters right (to make Atlantis right), but first things first.
"Rodney," he said, "We must take John away from this place."
McKay didn't even spare the breath for a told-you-so, ducking under a dark arch. Radek followed, finding himself in the corridor that led to the ground level of the Control Room.
Except the entrance was blocked by a door that would have looked more at home in his Uncle Jiri's Prague apartment than it did here in Atlantis. Cheap brass doorknob and hinges, hollow wood paneling. Someone had done a recent and very sloppy job of painting it. The paint was still tacky to the touch.
"Well, go ahead," Rodney made hurry-up gestures with both hands. "Always before John has been on the other side."
This was Rodney's red door. Radek had been expecting something far more imposing. This barrier looked so quick and inadequate, it made his flesh crawl. As little as he wanted to touch it again, he dropped his hand and tried the knob. It rattled a bit. "Locked," Radek said. "From the other side."
"Oh, god, of course it is." McKay looked like his legs were about to give out and propped himself hard against the wall.
"But all is hardly lost," Radek asserted as stoutly as he could, and retrieved his screwdriver instead of going to Rodney's aid. Right now, he suspected getting through the door would do more for McKay than empty reassurance.
"We've got to hurry." Rodney sounded more than half-frantic. "I've seen John die on the other side of that door.
"That will not happen tonight," Radek snapped, just as he finished unscrewing the door knob. The knob and the plate both hit the floor with a clatter, but when Radek pushed, nothing happened. It must be dead-bolted from the other side.
At that, Rodney's legs really did give out. He slid down the wall to land in a heap. "It's that fucking gene of his," Rodney moaned. "Clever enough to trap him here, too dumb to show him the way out again. "
And we are not doing any better, Radek thought, but he attacked the hinges with energy.
"That's not going to help either," McKay snarled weakly. "It's not actually a goddammed wooden door."
The uppermost hinges fell, leaving ugly holes torn through half-rotten wood. Radek dropped to his knees to remove second set. "Then tell me what it is, Rodney, so that we can figure a way through it, because right now--"
The second set of hinges dropped, Radek jumped to his feet and put his shoulder to the door. He might as well have been trying to push over the Stargate. Nothing. He beat on the door with both hands. "Colonel Sheppard! John!"
"You're wasting your energy!" Rodney screamed, as close to despair as Radek had ever heard him. "You're wasting your breath."
"And what would you have me do?" Radek screamed back at him. "You've been here many more times than I! If you do not know what this door truly is, how do you expect --"
And then Radek had a thought. His legs gave out like Rodney's had, and he slid down until he was sitting, too. "What did you say about this place? That the damage to the physical Atlantis --"
Rodney shook his head. "I think it must be like moral failings in an Ancient. Ascension doesn't make them better. Just transmutes their flaws into a different form. The physical damage to Atlantis shows up here in a different form, too. It's why the garden room didn't work the way it should've, why my visits here have all been nightmares -- oh."
Radek got it at the same moment. He sat up very straight, then pushed himself to his knees to look at the door behind him. "My God. It is all the physical damage we have inflicted upon Atlantis since we arrived."
"How do you expect anyone to understand you if you don't speak English?" Rodney snapped unreasonably. "And how the hell can we fix everything fast enough to get the Colonel out? Hey, do you understand me? We're working on it but it's gonna take a little time! I'm sorry about the flood damage and the wind damage, but you built this city to be so dependant on shield protection it's no wonder we're stretched a little thin these days! And by the way, the Wraith bombardment? Darts crashing into the city? Totally not our fault!"
"Rodney. Rodney." Radek had to resist his first impulse, which was to clamp his hand over Rodney's big mouth, and instead touched his shoulder very gently. The element of surprise worked. Rodney's mouth snapped shut and he turned his head to look at Zelenka in mute astonishment. "Do you remember the first weeks of our arrival, when we all assumed we would come across a ZPM, oh, just any day for sure--"
Rodney stared at him, clearly uncomprehending, but Radek left his hand on his shoulder, and Rodney didn't interrupt. "And we were all too excited to simply go to bed at a reasonable hour so we sat up all night going through the coffee supplies like there was no tomorrow and talked about what we would do when power and basic survival were no longer such pressing concerns and you still hadn't managed to figure out what my name was, you bastard."
"Those observatory satellites we found in storage," Rodney said suddenly. "We never have been able to risk a launch. We'd be able to see to the end of the universe if they were in orbit."
"The substrata of the east pier," Radek said. "So much was lost before the city rose. We still can't explore that region, and I am convinced our understanding of the secondary power systems will remain bitterly incomplete until we can examine them."
"The collapsed tower way the hell over in C-7."
"I do not remember that," Radek said. "Where the computer damage continually frustrates our ability to work around the Ancients' concept of a database?"
"Wrong side of the city. I mean the building with all the manufacturing schematics."
"You think they were schematics," Radek amended sternly, and with his hand on Rodney's shoulder they argued companionably about the priority of repair work as though they could truly give fire to something that had waited alone in the dark for a very, very long time. At length, a dim, reddish sun rose slowly into view through the skylight overhead. Rodney flinched at the color, but didn't stop talking until the red door suddenly swung open half a crooked meter on its non-existent hinges.
"John!" Radek was on his feet at once, Rodney only a moment later, and together they pulled Sheppard through the uneven gap, Radek thinking it was a very good thing John was such a skinny son of a bitch. He folded into a bundle of dark rags at their feet, Rodney at once getting to his knees to support John's head.
"We'll have you in Carson's hands in just a minute here," he assured John, talking without taking a breath, "--and you could certainly do worse, even I have to admit. You're going to be all right. The transporter always worked before. It'll get us back this time, too."
John took a deep breath, as though he'd been waiting to do that for a very long time. Radek thought he was about to say something, but his eyes drifted shut again before he could speak. Rodney bent over deeply to kiss John's pale forehead. When he sat up again, his eyes were swimming with unshed tears and he glared defiantly at Radek, who only shook his head. He put his finger over Rodney's lips and felt the tremor.
"Please, Rodney. If you know the way home, I believe we are ready to go."
The End
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Thank you so much for reading -- I could not have written this without your patience and bravery in taking a chance on a meandering WIP. Thanks, and happy Halloween!