"Forgiveness and Absolution" by brindel (Documentation Challenge)
Title: Forgiveness and Absolution
Author: brindel
Pairing: none
Rating: G
Word Count: ~ 2,000
Summary: My take on what *really* happened on Duranda...
Notes: All Thanks to morena_donn for prodding me into finally posting this.
Forgiveness and Absolution
Rodney rubbed a hand down his face and shut the laptop down. He didn't get it. He still didn't see where he'd made a mistake. According to everything they had, in ALL the simulations they'd run, it should have worked. It really should have! What was he missing? Where did he go so utterly wrong?
After he and John...he and the Colonel had gotten back safely, Rodney had apologized to everyone he could think to apologize to, and then he'd gone back and apologized to Radek again, this time about the "professional jealousy" comment. Once that was out of the way, they'd managed to sit down and go over Radek's theory about the "exotic particle production" as the source of the error. But...but while, yes, he did see that the problem existed, the manual adjustments *should* have be able to compensate. After a few hours of yelling and general name-calling, which helped remarkably to clear the air for both of them, he'd even gotten Radek to concede the simulation showed an 85% probability of working with his calculations. Which was a victory of sorts at least, but it didn't change the fact he had failed.
And that still left the problem with the shut-down protocol. Those routines were in a separate program all together! Why hadn't he been able to *at least* shut it off when it was clear it wasn't working?
That...that really worried him, even more than the failure. Failure, while uncommon, was not unknown to Rodney McKay, and he'd meant what he'd told Jo...the Colonel down on the planet. He was *not* in the habit of repeating his mistakes. Whether it was over-confidence, blind ambition, or guilt over Collins' death that had driven him was completely beside the point. A mistake in his *calculations* had been made and by all that was Holy, he was going to know where!
But an error in the shut-down protocol. That was something else. Regardless of what anyone else might think of him, risking someone's life, especially his own, no matter what the stakes, was not something he did lightly. He wouldn't have done that, not with his *and* Colonel Sheppard's lives depending it. As hard as it might be for anyone to believe, especially now, he took the lives of others very seriously. Goddammit! It should have worked!
And even if it hadn't, which he *had* considered, just not where anyone could hear him, even then, the safety protocols had been *re-done* after the first incident.
So...so, what had gone wrong?
***************
"Dr. Weir?" Elizabeth tapped her comm with one hand while continuing to work on report on her laptop with the other.
"Yes, Radek? What can I do for you?"
"I found something in the files we saved from Duranda that I think you need to see. I’m sending it to you now."
Something in the tone of his voice made her stop everything and frown in concern.
"What is it?"
"You will see. Just watch."
Her laptop chimed. "Alright, I just got it. I’m opening the file now."
When the file opened, it was to a dark, grainy image of the inside of the Durandan facility, apparently part of a security feed. Two people were visible only as shapes in the left foreground, but their voices could be heard clearly.
---
"You know what has to be done. There is no other choice."
"I know! I do know. It’s just...hard. Another day or two at the most, and we would have had the answer!"
"It doesn’t matter now. Everyone else is dead, and we are both dying. We can *not* allow a power source of this magnitude to fall into the hands of the Wraith! No planet in the Universe would be safe! Right now, the only thing limiting them to this galaxy is the fact that their hyperdrives are just interstellar, not intergalactic. With this much power, coupled with their ability to hibernate, that would no longer matter! They could simply point a Hive ship at any galaxy, turn on the hyperdrive and then hibernate until the ship arrived. For the sake of the rest of the Universe, we can never allow that to happen."
"You’re right, I know you are right. The only question is how."
"What do you mean?"
"With that last surge from Acturus, all power is completely drained. I can’t restart the system, not until power has built back up, and I...I don’t think we have that long. I have an idea, but it has it’s risks."
"As I said, at this point we have no choice. The Wraith currently in the system may be destroyed, but we must assume more Hive ships are on their way even now."
"My thoughts exactly. So, let them come."
"What?"
"Let them come. While I don’t have enough power to restart the system and trigger an overload, I can still cripple the protocols."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning the next time the machine is powered-up, it will self-destruct."
"Can you guarantee a self-destruct?"
"That’s the risk. It is possible the Wraith might detect the changes."
"Then it’s too risky. We need to guarantee this facility with be destroyed."
"I can cripple multiple systems; the most critical would be the containment and shut-down protocols." The speaker broke off, bent double with a fit of coughing. When he resumed his voice was noticeably rougher. "We need to hurry. There isn’t much time."
"Do it."
---
Elizabeth slowly shut the laptop and stared with unseeing eyes at the masks on the far wall of her office. My God. It was...hard to accept and yet..., hadn't she been willing, even ready, to do exactly the same thing, and destroy Atlantis right before Colonel Everett had stepped through the wormhole, during the siege?
Rodney. Oh God, Rodney. What was she going to say to him? And after the way she'd torn into him, would he even bother to listen?
***************
Rodney looked up as the door to his lab opened. Eliz...Dr. Weir and Radek? He took in the somber looks on their faces and stood up to face them. "So, am I being asked to step down as Head of the Science Department?"
Dr. Weir seemed taken aback by the question, But honestly, Rodney thought, why else would they both be down here at the same time?
"No. No, Rodney. That’s not why we’re here."
"Alright then." Rodney cocked his head to one side and crossed his arms. "Why are you here, if it’s not regarding my rather spectacular failure?"
"Well,...that is what we wanted to talk to you about. It...it wasn't your fault."
Rodney gave them both a disgusted look. "Wasn't my fault? *Of course* it was my fault! Who else’s would it be?"
"No! We mean you weren't wrong!" Elizabeth insisted. Rodney just shrugged.
"Oh that. I knew that."
"The Ancients, they...what? Wait,...You, you knew?"
"Well, of course I knew! I told you, didn't I? I said, ‘By my calculations, it shouldn't have happened!’"
"No, no, I mean we found proof the Ancients sabotaged the protocols."
"And I said, I know."
"Rodney, I know you think..."
"No, you don't. You really don't. Regardless of how you may think I operate, I am very careful in what I do. I checked all my calculations, not once, not twice, but *THREE* times. Do you understand? Three times."
Rodney started pacing the length of the room. "After the...the first incident, I went back and re-worked everything. I knew what was at stake, and my calculations were *right*. I actually bet my life and the Colonel's on that fact."
He stopped and turned to face the pair. "So, if they were right, then something *on Duranda* had to be wrong. The thing was, we’d given those systems a check as well. Therefore, whatever was wrong, it had to have been hidden. And a ‘deliberately hidden wrong’ equals sabotage to me."
"Then if...if you knew...why did you not say something?" Radek asked, puzzled.
"I had no real proof. Nothing concrete I could show anyone, and without proof...well, it's just my word against ‘The Ancients’," he said with a grimace.
With a deep sigh, he continued, "But none of that changes the fact that what happened on Duranda was still entirely my fault. I let my own pride and ego take over completely. I refused to listen to any of my colleagues, and as a result, I cost us our best chance at learning more about the theories behind so much of the Ancient’s technology. Even if we had never gotten the machine to work, the information alone in a research facility like that, would have been invaluable."
"It was worse than that, Rodney," Elizabeth said softly, "You nearly cost us…you."
Rodney blushed uncomfortably at that and looked away. "Well, thank you both for coming down, but if that was all, I still have work to do."
"Rodney? Don’t you want people to know the truth?" Elizabeth asked.
"It’s up to you, but like I said, I don’t see how it changes anything. It’s gratifying to actually have proof my calculations weren’t at fault, but it was still ultimately my attitude that allowed Duranda to happen. And it’s my attitude that is the real issue." He gave a sad smile.
"How long have both of you known me? I've always been like this. This is who I am. The flaws are there. I know them, you know them, and now all of Atlantis knows them too. The best I can do is be more aware of them so I can try to minimize the damage in the future. But I can't change who I am. I earned people's trust before, by being who I am. And I lost it, by being who I am. The only way I can gain it back again is to be who I am. Having the two of you know you can still trust my calculations, that’s the most important thing. But let’s not kid ourselves. Knowing Atlantean sabotage was the reason for the overload still doesn’t make any of what I did right."
With that, Rodney turned away and started working on his laptop. "Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really need to finish this analysis."
Radek and Elizabeth both stared at Rodney's unmoving back, then exchanged a look, and quietly left the lab.
Once outside in the hallway, Elizabeth turned to Radek. "I’m not sure what I expected, but that definitely wasn’t it."
"Nor I. I don’t think I quite realized just how deeply to heart he has taken all of this. I had hoped knowing he wasn’t entirely at fault would...cheer him up, I suppose? He has been far too quiet lately."
Radek ran a hand through his hair. "I had assumed his, let us just say, ‘reclusive’ attitude lately was due to the fact his calculations had been wrong, and showing him they might not have been would snap him out of it."
He looked intently at Elizabeth. "You must understand, as Astrophysicists, math is a *basic* tool for what we do. Our logic may be flawed, our implementation may be wrong, but our math? Dr. Weir, It would be as if you couldn’t speak English anymore. To have his calculations appear to be so completely wrong, Rodney has to have been questioning his value to the expedition."
Elizabeth thought about that for a moment, she hadn’t really considered it like that before. "But surely Rodney knows we value him, for himself, not just for his contributions."
"Does he?" Radek stopped walking for a moment to take off glasses and rub his nose. "There was a time I would have agreed, but now? After losing so many, Lieutenant Ford, Peter, Dumais, Gaul, and all the others, and gaining so many new faces, it's different. There was a feeling of shared purpose, of camraderie here, that's just missing now."
Elizabeth gave him a long, searching look. "You know, I think you’re right, And it's time we changed that."
***************
Rodney sat back up as soon as the door to his lab closed and turned to stare at the space where Elizabeth and Radek had stood. It seemed almost too much to have hoped for, after his blatant display of...of unbridled arrogance.
He’d resigned himself to the fact he’d destroyed whatever trust he had developed here in Atlantis, and to be honest, he’d lost far more, over much less in the past. But, somehow, he’d apparently regained Elizabeth's trust, and it had been made clear when he’d tried to apologize that he had never really lost Radek's. Now all that was left was the Colonel...John. With a new sense of hope, Rodney actually believed, for the first time since that moment at the transporter, he might actually be able to regain all the trust he had lost.
Author: brindel
Pairing: none
Rating: G
Word Count: ~ 2,000
Summary: My take on what *really* happened on Duranda...
Notes: All Thanks to morena_donn for prodding me into finally posting this.
Forgiveness and Absolution
Rodney rubbed a hand down his face and shut the laptop down. He didn't get it. He still didn't see where he'd made a mistake. According to everything they had, in ALL the simulations they'd run, it should have worked. It really should have! What was he missing? Where did he go so utterly wrong?
After he and John...he and the Colonel had gotten back safely, Rodney had apologized to everyone he could think to apologize to, and then he'd gone back and apologized to Radek again, this time about the "professional jealousy" comment. Once that was out of the way, they'd managed to sit down and go over Radek's theory about the "exotic particle production" as the source of the error. But...but while, yes, he did see that the problem existed, the manual adjustments *should* have be able to compensate. After a few hours of yelling and general name-calling, which helped remarkably to clear the air for both of them, he'd even gotten Radek to concede the simulation showed an 85% probability of working with his calculations. Which was a victory of sorts at least, but it didn't change the fact he had failed.
And that still left the problem with the shut-down protocol. Those routines were in a separate program all together! Why hadn't he been able to *at least* shut it off when it was clear it wasn't working?
That...that really worried him, even more than the failure. Failure, while uncommon, was not unknown to Rodney McKay, and he'd meant what he'd told Jo...the Colonel down on the planet. He was *not* in the habit of repeating his mistakes. Whether it was over-confidence, blind ambition, or guilt over Collins' death that had driven him was completely beside the point. A mistake in his *calculations* had been made and by all that was Holy, he was going to know where!
But an error in the shut-down protocol. That was something else. Regardless of what anyone else might think of him, risking someone's life, especially his own, no matter what the stakes, was not something he did lightly. He wouldn't have done that, not with his *and* Colonel Sheppard's lives depending it. As hard as it might be for anyone to believe, especially now, he took the lives of others very seriously. Goddammit! It should have worked!
And even if it hadn't, which he *had* considered, just not where anyone could hear him, even then, the safety protocols had been *re-done* after the first incident.
So...so, what had gone wrong?
***************
"Dr. Weir?" Elizabeth tapped her comm with one hand while continuing to work on report on her laptop with the other.
"Yes, Radek? What can I do for you?"
"I found something in the files we saved from Duranda that I think you need to see. I’m sending it to you now."
Something in the tone of his voice made her stop everything and frown in concern.
"What is it?"
"You will see. Just watch."
Her laptop chimed. "Alright, I just got it. I’m opening the file now."
When the file opened, it was to a dark, grainy image of the inside of the Durandan facility, apparently part of a security feed. Two people were visible only as shapes in the left foreground, but their voices could be heard clearly.
---
"You know what has to be done. There is no other choice."
"I know! I do know. It’s just...hard. Another day or two at the most, and we would have had the answer!"
"It doesn’t matter now. Everyone else is dead, and we are both dying. We can *not* allow a power source of this magnitude to fall into the hands of the Wraith! No planet in the Universe would be safe! Right now, the only thing limiting them to this galaxy is the fact that their hyperdrives are just interstellar, not intergalactic. With this much power, coupled with their ability to hibernate, that would no longer matter! They could simply point a Hive ship at any galaxy, turn on the hyperdrive and then hibernate until the ship arrived. For the sake of the rest of the Universe, we can never allow that to happen."
"You’re right, I know you are right. The only question is how."
"What do you mean?"
"With that last surge from Acturus, all power is completely drained. I can’t restart the system, not until power has built back up, and I...I don’t think we have that long. I have an idea, but it has it’s risks."
"As I said, at this point we have no choice. The Wraith currently in the system may be destroyed, but we must assume more Hive ships are on their way even now."
"My thoughts exactly. So, let them come."
"What?"
"Let them come. While I don’t have enough power to restart the system and trigger an overload, I can still cripple the protocols."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning the next time the machine is powered-up, it will self-destruct."
"Can you guarantee a self-destruct?"
"That’s the risk. It is possible the Wraith might detect the changes."
"Then it’s too risky. We need to guarantee this facility with be destroyed."
"I can cripple multiple systems; the most critical would be the containment and shut-down protocols." The speaker broke off, bent double with a fit of coughing. When he resumed his voice was noticeably rougher. "We need to hurry. There isn’t much time."
"Do it."
---
Elizabeth slowly shut the laptop and stared with unseeing eyes at the masks on the far wall of her office. My God. It was...hard to accept and yet..., hadn't she been willing, even ready, to do exactly the same thing, and destroy Atlantis right before Colonel Everett had stepped through the wormhole, during the siege?
Rodney. Oh God, Rodney. What was she going to say to him? And after the way she'd torn into him, would he even bother to listen?
***************
Rodney looked up as the door to his lab opened. Eliz...Dr. Weir and Radek? He took in the somber looks on their faces and stood up to face them. "So, am I being asked to step down as Head of the Science Department?"
Dr. Weir seemed taken aback by the question, But honestly, Rodney thought, why else would they both be down here at the same time?
"No. No, Rodney. That’s not why we’re here."
"Alright then." Rodney cocked his head to one side and crossed his arms. "Why are you here, if it’s not regarding my rather spectacular failure?"
"Well,...that is what we wanted to talk to you about. It...it wasn't your fault."
Rodney gave them both a disgusted look. "Wasn't my fault? *Of course* it was my fault! Who else’s would it be?"
"No! We mean you weren't wrong!" Elizabeth insisted. Rodney just shrugged.
"Oh that. I knew that."
"The Ancients, they...what? Wait,...You, you knew?"
"Well, of course I knew! I told you, didn't I? I said, ‘By my calculations, it shouldn't have happened!’"
"No, no, I mean we found proof the Ancients sabotaged the protocols."
"And I said, I know."
"Rodney, I know you think..."
"No, you don't. You really don't. Regardless of how you may think I operate, I am very careful in what I do. I checked all my calculations, not once, not twice, but *THREE* times. Do you understand? Three times."
Rodney started pacing the length of the room. "After the...the first incident, I went back and re-worked everything. I knew what was at stake, and my calculations were *right*. I actually bet my life and the Colonel's on that fact."
He stopped and turned to face the pair. "So, if they were right, then something *on Duranda* had to be wrong. The thing was, we’d given those systems a check as well. Therefore, whatever was wrong, it had to have been hidden. And a ‘deliberately hidden wrong’ equals sabotage to me."
"Then if...if you knew...why did you not say something?" Radek asked, puzzled.
"I had no real proof. Nothing concrete I could show anyone, and without proof...well, it's just my word against ‘The Ancients’," he said with a grimace.
With a deep sigh, he continued, "But none of that changes the fact that what happened on Duranda was still entirely my fault. I let my own pride and ego take over completely. I refused to listen to any of my colleagues, and as a result, I cost us our best chance at learning more about the theories behind so much of the Ancient’s technology. Even if we had never gotten the machine to work, the information alone in a research facility like that, would have been invaluable."
"It was worse than that, Rodney," Elizabeth said softly, "You nearly cost us…you."
Rodney blushed uncomfortably at that and looked away. "Well, thank you both for coming down, but if that was all, I still have work to do."
"Rodney? Don’t you want people to know the truth?" Elizabeth asked.
"It’s up to you, but like I said, I don’t see how it changes anything. It’s gratifying to actually have proof my calculations weren’t at fault, but it was still ultimately my attitude that allowed Duranda to happen. And it’s my attitude that is the real issue." He gave a sad smile.
"How long have both of you known me? I've always been like this. This is who I am. The flaws are there. I know them, you know them, and now all of Atlantis knows them too. The best I can do is be more aware of them so I can try to minimize the damage in the future. But I can't change who I am. I earned people's trust before, by being who I am. And I lost it, by being who I am. The only way I can gain it back again is to be who I am. Having the two of you know you can still trust my calculations, that’s the most important thing. But let’s not kid ourselves. Knowing Atlantean sabotage was the reason for the overload still doesn’t make any of what I did right."
With that, Rodney turned away and started working on his laptop. "Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really need to finish this analysis."
Radek and Elizabeth both stared at Rodney's unmoving back, then exchanged a look, and quietly left the lab.
Once outside in the hallway, Elizabeth turned to Radek. "I’m not sure what I expected, but that definitely wasn’t it."
"Nor I. I don’t think I quite realized just how deeply to heart he has taken all of this. I had hoped knowing he wasn’t entirely at fault would...cheer him up, I suppose? He has been far too quiet lately."
Radek ran a hand through his hair. "I had assumed his, let us just say, ‘reclusive’ attitude lately was due to the fact his calculations had been wrong, and showing him they might not have been would snap him out of it."
He looked intently at Elizabeth. "You must understand, as Astrophysicists, math is a *basic* tool for what we do. Our logic may be flawed, our implementation may be wrong, but our math? Dr. Weir, It would be as if you couldn’t speak English anymore. To have his calculations appear to be so completely wrong, Rodney has to have been questioning his value to the expedition."
Elizabeth thought about that for a moment, she hadn’t really considered it like that before. "But surely Rodney knows we value him, for himself, not just for his contributions."
"Does he?" Radek stopped walking for a moment to take off glasses and rub his nose. "There was a time I would have agreed, but now? After losing so many, Lieutenant Ford, Peter, Dumais, Gaul, and all the others, and gaining so many new faces, it's different. There was a feeling of shared purpose, of camraderie here, that's just missing now."
Elizabeth gave him a long, searching look. "You know, I think you’re right, And it's time we changed that."
***************
Rodney sat back up as soon as the door to his lab closed and turned to stare at the space where Elizabeth and Radek had stood. It seemed almost too much to have hoped for, after his blatant display of...of unbridled arrogance.
He’d resigned himself to the fact he’d destroyed whatever trust he had developed here in Atlantis, and to be honest, he’d lost far more, over much less in the past. But, somehow, he’d apparently regained Elizabeth's trust, and it had been made clear when he’d tried to apologize that he had never really lost Radek's. Now all that was left was the Colonel...John. With a new sense of hope, Rodney actually believed, for the first time since that moment at the transporter, he might actually be able to regain all the trust he had lost.