Wait It Out, by Blue_Underwing [Folklore Challenge]
Title: Wait It Out
Author:
blue_underwing
Rating: PG-13
Category: Gen
Characters: McKay, Weir, Zelenka, Sheppard
Spoilers: None (And still I haven’t seen the new ones)
Word count: ~850
Warnings: Unbetaed, Dyslexics Untie.
Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: Atlantis, dang it
Author’s Note: Looking over my various stories, I can’t help but sense a theme. Ah well.
Summary: Some problems can be solved by the end of a sixty-minute episode. This isn’t one of them.
Wait It Out
T plus 4 years, 3 months, 16 days, 17 hours, 52 minutes, 14 seconds
"It’s been over a month, Elizabeth. It’s not going to happen again."
Dr. Weir just shook her head. "You’ve said that before, Rodney, when it had been two weeks. And then you had three attacks in one day."
"Yes, well, they’re Poisson distributed, so some clumping is expected, but..."
"NO. Until Dr. Zelenka assures me that it will never happen again, I am not clearing you for fieldwork. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I know how much you want to believe this is over. It’s coloring your judgement."
"IT IS NOT! Forty-three days. The longest it’s ever been before was sixteen. How long am I going to have to wait before you concede that Radek’s just being his usual pessimistic self?"
"Rodney!"
"Give me a number, Elizabeth! Ten days? Two weeks? Three months? When can I get my life back? I want..."
He broke off, his eyes going wide. The pain was back, the pressure. The world started to blur and jerk around him, shifting and shifting and shifting again.
"Rodney?" He heard her voice echoing toward him right before he hit the ground.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T plus 42 minutes, 47 seconds
The pain was all.
There had been other things before: the pressure, the pull, the tearing, the world flickering in and out around him, but now he could only feel the pain.
"Rodney! Zelenka, get down here Now! McKay’s..." He thought he heard Sheppard’s voice for a moment, then that was gone too.
The pain was all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T plus 5 months, 21 hours, 8 minutes, 58 seconds
"I’m sorry, Rodney."
"You’re sorry? You’re replacing me and you’re sorry? This is completely ridiculous, Elizabeth. I’m-"
"Yesterday you spent over an hour writhing on the floor in agony, fuzzing in and out of existence, and none of us could even touch you. This has been going on for almost six months. You can’t predict when these attacks are going to happen or how long they will last. There is no way I will clear you for field duty in this condition."
"I-"
"You don’t know how to keep the attacks from happening, or when or even if they will stop coming on their own. Now, Colonel Sheppard is as unhappy about this as you are, but he needs a scientist permanently assigned to his team, not a string of temps. Someone else WILL be assigned to his team permanently. I’d like your recommendation as to who it will be."
"They’re getting shorter."
"Marginally. You think. But that isn’t enough to go on. I can’t let you back out there until this is over and you have no idea when that might be."
"I-"
"I’m sorry, Rodney."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T plus 7 years, 2 months, 5 days, 14 hours, 37 minutes, 19 seconds
"Well?!"
"Just a few minutes, Rodney."
"How long do you need, Radek?! I’ve done the calculations five times. I know I’m right. You know I’m right. Having you check my math is just a stupid formality that-"
"You have been wrong before and I will not give word on this to Dr. Weir until I have gone through every equation myself."
"Fine!" McKay threw himself into a chair, tapping his foot impatiently.
Zelenka rolled his eyes and then looked back to the documentation in front of him. Twenty minutes later, he delivered his verdict. "I have finished. Your calculations are correct."
"I’m right?" Hearing the quite tone, Zelenka looked up at the man across from him. He could think of less than five times that Dr. McKay had sounded this uncertain. Radek didn’t remember ever thinking of Atlantis’ Science Chief as vulnerable before, but that was the only word he could think of to describe the way Rodney looked at the moment.
"Yes Rodney, you are right. The tidal forces pulling you out of this time-space continuum have stabilized. The mean duration of the episodes decreased to nanoseconds months ago and have now stopped completely"
"It’s over?"
"Yes," he said gently. "It is over."
"I knew I was right," McKay told him with a smug grin.
Radek politely ignored the tears that were now running down his friend’s face.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
T minus 5 minutes, 31 seconds
"How much longer is this gonna take, McKay?"
"You can’t rush these things, Colonel."
"It’s been over four hours."
"Well if you don’t want to wait, you can just start the movie without me."
"No way I’m letting you out of this that easy, McKay. You lost, you have to watch Back To the Future with us."
"But-"
"McKay."
"Fine! I’ll be there as soon as I finish testing this last circuit."
"If you’re not here in half an hour, I’m gonna come down there and drag you," Sheppard threatened, and then closed the connection.
McKay sighed noisily and got back to work. He attached the last set of wires to the quantum mirror they’d been studying and switched on the power.
And then the world exploded.
_____________________________________
A/N: Superstition- It’s seven years bad luck to break a (quantum) mirror.