Lostcityfoundfic: The Undone Years (Genish, PG-13, SGA/SG-1) Pt 5/7
The Undone Years 5/7
Part 1 for header info
~
The encounter with Zelenka made Sheppard pause and reconsider his plan to track down McKay. At the very least, he should have something prepared to say. Sheppard got a cup of coffee and hid out in the audience of one of the presentation halls for a couple hours. Lam would have made a disapproving face about him having caffeine, but she wasn’t here.
He nursed the coffee for a while, half listening to the presentations occurring on stage and half trying to come up with a way of starting a conversation with McKay that didn't make him look like a lunatic still desperately trying to find a real world connection to his delusions.
The half that was paying attention to the presenters noticed a few things. First, the projects associated with the SGC were totally obvious. Not just because the speakers thanked the Air Force. The second thing was that the projects kind of sucked. Sheppard didn't know if that was because the scientists came to these things to present a half-baked version of whatever alien tech they'd just co-opted, so it looked like there was a process and the ability to build galactic spaceships hadn't just been dropped into their laps by little gray men. He hoped that was why the tech on stage wasn't that impressive.
But it occurred to him that without the Atlantis mission - without a successful Atlantis mission - the SGC was probably missing out on a lot. Sheppard didn't know how much. It wasn't - hadn't been - his job to pay much attention to the scientific advancements. But it seemed to him there should be a lot. How many ZPM's had they gotten from Pegasus, anyway?
This was kind of depressing, even if it wasn't all that tangible. It brought him back to questioning Heightmeyer's stupid diagnosis. Sheppard didn't see how he could have invented so much complex, detailed Ancient technology. Shit, if he’d made it all up there sure as hell would have been a lot more awesome flying machines involved.
Sheppard was thinking this over, sort of engrossed in his own head, when he heard a familiar voice.
It was Carter. She and Dr. Lee were on stage now, giving a presentation on a shiny metal box that looked to Sheppard to be of Goa'uld origin. The snakes sure liked gold.
He didn't pay much attention to Carter's speech or Lee's demonstration. Sheppard remembered Teyla's mission, then. Recovery of a Goa'uld cache. They were much more focused on Goa'uld tech, here. Well duh, he told himself. That was really all they had here. No Atlantis. The only Ancient stuff they'd come across would have been whatever they stumbled over in the Milky Way.
Huh.
Suddenly, Sheppard heard another, more familiar voice.
Rodney McKay.
His voice was coming from somewhere in the front of the auditorium, but Sheppard couldn't see him. On stage, Carter looked supremely irritated, arms crossed under her bust. Lee seemed relieved to not be in front of the microphone.
McKay was picking apart the entire demonstration, of course. He was also loudly and pointedly asking questions about the research process that Sheppard guessed Carter and Lee couldn't answer without mentioning stuff like "other planets" and "snakes that like to live inside people's skull."
Carter pretty much had to answer every question with, "As I said before, due to the military setting of our research, I'm not allowed to be more specific than I already was, Dr. McKay. You know that."
That didn't actually shut him up and Carter looked like she wanted to throw something at him. Sheppard peered around, but he couldn't see McKay.
Finally, Carter's allotted presentation time was up and she and Dr. Lee left the stage. As the next presenter came out, Sheppard climbed out of his seat and crept down the aisle. He looked, but he still didn't see McKay. He must have left the room after Carter departed.
Disappointed, even though he still hadn't come up with anything to say to the man, Sheppard went and found Carter back at her poster station.
Carter was still annoyed. She was muttering accusingly at Lee when Sheppard got there.
"I know," Lee was retorting. "I didn't ask the questions, remember?"
"Hey," Sheppard said.
Carter looked up. "Hey," she said. "Where have you been?" She might have been remembering she was supposed to be keeping him close.
"I just took a walk," Sheppard lied. He waved the empty cup. "Got some coffee. I saw your presentation, though."
Carter scowled. "Did you hear Rodney McKay?"
Sheppard nodded. "Yep."
"The only reason he comes to these things is to try and destroy other scientists," Carter muttered.
"That's why a lot of people come here," Dr. Lee pointed out.
"He doesn't even present," Carter ranted. "I can't give him a taste of his own medicine!"
"Hmm," Sheppard said.
"And he knows what comes out of the SGC," Carter continued, "and how much I'm not allowed to say!"
"Yeah," Sheppard said, "I saw that."
In response, Carter huffed. She took a deep breath.
"Where'd he go?" Sheppard asked, going for casual. "Do you know?"
Carter shrugged. "Probably off with his wife." She gave a self-satisfied grin. "I don't think she likes him hanging around me. Even if it's just so he can lavish abuse."
"Wife?" Sheppard echoed.
"Yeah," Carter said. "What's-her-name?"
"Veronika," Dr. Lee volunteered. "She's quite attractive."
Carter glanced at him in an annoyance. "Dr. Veronika something," she said. "She's Russian."
"Oh."
"It’s a long Russian surname," Carter continued. "I think most people call her Dr. Veronika."
"Most people call her something else," Lee said. Sheppard glanced at him. "It's not really appropriate or professional, though."
"Most physicists are thirteen year old boys at heart," Carter said, derisively. "She's nice-looking. She's also brilliant, which is a little more important."
“She’s Russian,” Lee said. “That’s the most important.”
Sheppard was confused. “Why?”
“Remember when I said there was come controversy about McKay going abroad?” Carter asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well, I meant her.”
Lee snickered and Carter rolled her eyes again. “I didn’t mean it as a pun,” she muttered.
“The SGC wasn’t comfortable with him having a working relationship with the Russians,” Lee said. “And then he married her.”
“We’re friends now,” Sheppard said, even though he knew exactly the kind of Cold War permafrost she was talking about. “And he’s Canadian.”
“Yeah.” Carter shrugged. “The SGC can’t do anything about it. It just makes them mad.”
“He works for the Russians?” Sheppard asked.
Carter pursed her lips, nodded. “Getting his citizenship and everything.” She shrugged, made a dismissive face. When Sheppard didn't say anything, Carter went on. "End of today's sessions. We should pack up our display."
"Coming back tomorrow?" Sheppard asked, since he still hadn't seen McKay.
"No," Carter said. "We're done."
"Okay," Sheppard said. "I'll meet you in the car." And then he took off before she had a chance to ask where he was going or try to stop him.
Sheppard didn't have a plan. He didn't know where McKay was, just that he'd been in the auditorium with a few hundred others just a couple minutes ago. He had no idea where to find the man and he still hadn't come up with anything to say.
Sheppard looked for him anyway. Carter was right about it being the end of the day. The other posters and stations were being packed up and the conference attendees were heading slowly towards the exits. It made for a mass of people and Sheppard had some trouble getting through. And he didn't even know if he was going the right way.
Five minutes later, as he was picking his way through the crowd, Sheppard pretty much literally smacked in Radek Zelenka.
Zelenka looked up, rubbing his head where it'd collided with Sheppard's shoulder. "Ow," he said. Then he realized who'd he banged into. "Oh, hello again," he said awkwardly.
Sheppard took a shot in the dark. "Where's Dr. Veronika?" he asked.
Zelenka blinked at him.
"Dr. Veronika," Sheppard repeated, hopefully. "Or Rod-"
"She's outside Conference Room B," Zelenka said, almost automatically. He looked a bit confused. "I saw her there. How do you -"
"Thanks, Radek." Sheppard took off before the man could even finish.
Conference Room B was back the other way and Sheppard moved as fast as he could. He still wasn't in fabulous shape and running like that winded him. He sagged against the wall when he finally saw the room designation printed on a sign.
The room was emptying out, too, whatever meeting that had occurred ending with the close of the conference. Sheppard peered around. He didn't see Rodney. There was a woman sitting on a bench outside the door, head down and hands occupied with some portable electronic device.
Sheppard walked towards her. "Excuse me," he said.
The woman raised her head. She wasn't quite what Sheppard imagined someone called 'Dr. Veronika' would look like.
She had dyed red hair and it was hard to see the rest of her beneath a long overcoat. Dr. Veronika was pretty, he guessed, although she looked a little tired and bored at the moment. She was close to McKay’s age, which was kind of a surprise.
"Are you Dr.Veronika?" he asked. After he said it, he realized that it sounded kind of insulting.
Immediately, her face tightened with something close to annoyance.
"I am Dr. Veronika Burtseyeva," she corrected. "And you are?" She had quite the accent. Sheppard had never known McKay to go for accents.
"My name is Colonel John Sheppard," he said. She blinked a little at the title. Sheppard wasn't in uniform. Carter had worn hers but it hadn't occurred to him. Carter had assured him it was okay, and then he figured the Air Force didn't want the brain-damaged amnesiac representing them, anyway. "I'm-"
"You are man with delusions about my husband," Veronika interrupted. Her face had sharpened more. Sheppard saw the hard intelligence in her eyes and could suddenly see something that would have attracted McKay. This woman was just as blunt as he was.
Sheppard paused. It wasn't really worth arguing. "How'd you-"
"Moscow has listening apparatus implanted in Cheyenne offices," Veronika stated, flatly. "We hear everything."
He stared at her long enough that she cracked up. She had a big smile and a surprisingly deep laugh.
"My husband told me," she said. "But you believed that for a second." She laughed. "Is funny."
"Yeah," Sheppard said. Not so much.
Veronika's smile had dipped a little, as if amused as she was, she still read the insinuation that everyone thought she considered McKay a mark.
"May I help you?" she asked, settling back against the bench and slipping the phone or whatever she'd been playing with into the purse in her lap.
"Where's McKay?" Sheppard asked.
Veronika tossed her head towards the conference room door. "Is inside. I want to go back to hotel, but he had one last person to demolish."
Sheppard stared at her.
"The research premise is flawed," she said, dismissively. "Like a four-year-old wrote it. He deserves to be told he is an idiot."
"Oh," Sheppard said. McKay sounded...the same. A lot the same. It felt kind of good to know that. And he could see why he got along with Veronika.
"Why do you want to see him?" Veronika asked. She sounded curious, but not suspicious.
Sheppard glanced down the increasingly empty corridor. Then, he sat on the bench next to McKay's wife. He decided not to dwell on how weird it was it to think of this woman like that
He reached up and took of the skull cap. It had the usual effect. Veronika recoiled and made a face.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Hit my head,” he said.
“I can see that," she replied.
"I don't remember the past five years," Sheppard said. "None of it."
Veronika blinked. "Okay." Now, she looked confused.
"I don't remember being an asshole to McKay." He wasn't sure how much she knew about Atlantis. The Russians had known about the mission, maybe sent a nurse or something through the IOA. He didn't know if they'd been deliberately or voluntarily excluded. And probably McKay, given his general inability to keep his mouth shut, had told this woman everything about the Atlantis mission, anyway. It didn't matter here. It hadn't happened here. "I'm sure I was," Sheppard continued, "but I don't remember."
Veronika looked pensive. "Hmm," she said.
"What I do remember maybe didn't happen," Sheppard said. "Maybe I am the man with delusions about your husband."
That made Veronika stay silent. She waited as if not fully understanding where Sheppard was going with this. Of course, she probably truly didn't.
"I remember stuff that never happened," Sheppard continued. He had no idea why he was saying this. Confessing to a woman the SGC thought was basically a Russian spy poaching their staff was an utterly insane thing to do. "But I remember McKay," he said. "And I want to make sure he's okay."
She blinked. "He is fine," she said, after a moment.
"And you're real?" Sheppard said, bluntly. It made the woman's dark eyebrows - a considerable different color than her red hair - jump. "You're not an elaborate plan to trick the SGC's greatest brain into working for your side?"
"We're on the same side," Veronika retorted, a response that seemed built-in more than an actual reply to his accusation.
Sheppard waited.
"I have never had anyone say it to my face before," she mused. Sheppard was surprised she wasn't upset, pleasantly surprised he wasn't getting slapped. Maybe after seeing the evidence of his head injury she didn't want to hit him. Veronika paused. "Why would I tell you," she asked, "if that was the case?"
Sheppard shrugged. "You shouldn't," he agreed. Feeling a little stupid now, he shoved the hat back on his head and pulled it down. "But, I'm the person you could tell. Everyone on my side thinks I'm totally insane."
"Are you?" Veronika asked.
He shrugged again. "Maybe."
"The Colonel Sheppard that my Rodney has told me about would not care," she observed. "Outside of a constant general xenophobic paranoia all American military have."
Sheppard didn't know if those were her words or Rodney's. They didn't sound like Rodney's. It made him kind of mad, but he chose to ignore it.
"Yeah," he said, "well, I care. Not about that. If you really wanted to, it'd be a hell of a lot easier to capture him and take him to a gulag."
"But then he would not cooperate," Veronika said, so easily it made Sheppard snap straight up.
“Joke,” she said, lightly, and laughed again. “He was right about something, you have no sense of humor.”
Sheppard frowned. He didn’t know what to say. Not that he should have expected this conversation to go any better.
Suddenly, Veronika put her hand lightly on his knee. “I am real,” she said, “as you say.”
Sheppard met her eyes. “Would you tell me if you weren’t?”
She shrugged. “No,” she said. “If even I was evil, I don’t think I’d be stupid.”
Involuntarily, Sheppard actually chuckled. He put his hands on his thighs and stood up, letting her hand fall from his leg. “Thanks,” he said. And he meant it. He was sincerely reassured that this woman - McKay’s wife - wasn’t a villain. He didn’t want to think about it more extensively than that, but it made him feel better. It was good to know.
“Rodney will be out in a second,” Veronika offered. “If you want to see him.”
Sheppard paused. Suddenly, he didn’t want to. It would just be hard. Hard in the same way that being around Teyla could be. And Rodney wouldn’t make it easier the way she did.
“No,” he said. “That’s okay. It’s good this way. I should go. Tell him -”
“What the hell are you doing here?” demanded Rodney.
It was too late. Rodney had come out of the conference room, done with whoever he was harassing. He’d recognized Sheppard instantly.
Sheppard glanced over at him. Rodney looked the same. Maybe a little softer, back to the physique of a scientist who didn’t go on regular off-world missions requiring the ability to suddenly run away. He was wearing a suit, which was little visually dissonant.
“Hey, Rodney,” Sheppard said.
“I said what the hell are you doing here?” Rodney repeated. “Hadn’t threatened to shoot me recently enough?”
Sheppard opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. Rodney was already red-faced, body rigid with anger. It’d been a long time since Sheppard had seen that directed at him with such sincerity.
Abruptly, Veronika rose and placed a restraining hand on Rodney’s arm. “Rodney,” she said. “He is ill.”
“I know,” Rodney retorted. “So?”
Sheppard took a step back. “I just came to say hi to your wife, McKay,” he came up with. There wasn’t anything he could do here.
“What?”
“Congratulations,” Sheppard said, to both of them. He kind of meant it.
With that, he turned around and walked quickly away from the couple. Carter and Dr. Lee were waiting for him at the car, already packed up.
“Where were you?” Carter asked, looking concerned. “I was about to have you paged.”
“I didn’t remember where we parked,” Sheppard lied.
But she believed him, since she thought he didn’t remember much of anything.
~
That night, in his undecorated quarters in Cheyenne, Sheppard came up with a plan. It was half-assed and probably stupid and futile, but he was still going to do it. He had to go through with it while Teyla was away.
His confinement to the SGC was convenient now. It was also convenient that Teyla’s mission was stretching on and on. Sheppard talked to her once a week or so via the MALP left near the Stargate on the planet. Every time she promised to be home soon and every time she mentioned how much more work had to be done there, meaning the end wasn’t even in sight.
Heightmeyer was on maternity leave, now. She’d given birth to a baby daughter. A little earlier than expected. The baby was fine, but Heightmeyer had neglected to assign Sheppard’s counseling to someone else and Sheppard didn’t feel the need to mention it to anyone who might rectify that.
So, he had a lot of free time on his hands now. He tried to be inconspicuous about that. It seemed to be working.
Sheppard hung out a lot near the Gateroom, insinuating himself with the ‘Gate techs who worked the dialing computers. He really wasn’t supposed to be there, but once he started bringing coffee and donuts with him from the cafeteria, no one minded.
Watching reconnaissance teams come and go was kind of tough. Even though the uniforms were different, as were most of the people, it was familiar enough to make the twinge he’d been studiously ignoring start up again. It made him jealous, especially since Landry eventually realized he was there and gave him a friendly but firm lecture about how a certain brain-damaged amnesiac was never, ever going through the ‘Gate again. Sheppard gave him a dumbass grin and pretended like he had no intention of doing that.
It was odd being on the end that watched SG teams leave and return. The departures were less interesting. The arrivals could be a lot more exciting, with arrows and projectiles flying in after the people. It made Sheppard reminiscent, as did the teams coming back coated in various kinds of muck and loudly blaming each other for whatever had gone wrong. It was amusing, even if it made Sheppard feel unexpectedly bitter.
Maybe he wasn’t being as inconspicuous as he thought he was.
He was taking a lunch break - well, in as much as one could take a break from standing around doing nothing - in the cafeteria when someone confronted him.
Vala Mal Doran slid in to the seat next to him, and promptly reached over and swiped the bowl of blue Jell-O off of his tray.
“Hey!” he objected.
Vala stuck the spoon in her mouth and grinned around it. She slurped the Jell-O off, then took the spoon and tapped it against her chin.
“Why are you scoping out the Gateroom?” she asked, whispering. She was squinting at him.
Sheppard pretended he had no idea what she was talking about. “I’m eating lunch,” he pointed out, quietly.
“Uh-huh,” Vala said. “I know what it looks like. I’ve done it.”
“You’re a crazy person.” Sheppard took a bite of his sandwich. “I’m bored,” he told her, which wasn’t untrue. “That’s all. I can’t leave the base, remember?”
“Neither can I,” replied Vala. “When I’m bored, I tend to cause security alerts.” She grinned, tilted her head at him. “What are you planning?”
“To take my Jell-O back and leave,” Sheppard said, causing her to jerk the bowl against her torso, where he couldn’t get it without looking like he was trying to cop a feel.
“I’m bored as well,” Vala said. “Daniel is playing with those useless Goa’uld toys and he won’t let me touch them.”
“Go cause a security alert,” Sheppard suggested, shoving his tray back as if to leave.
“If you don’t tell me,” Vala sing-songed. “I’ll tell Mitchell.”
Sheppard had begun to rise. Now he halted and lowered himself back down. “Tell Mitchell what?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
Vala shrugged. She tinked the spoon against the side of his bowl. “I don’t know. That you’re planning on escaping through the ‘Gate to go somewhere and do something that has meaning according to the delusions your messed up brain has invented?”
Sheppard said nothing. He held very still. Vala grinned wider, unfortunately taking his total lack of reaction as confirmation. “I knew it,” she said, gleefully. “Where are you going? Why? Can I come?”
“Shhh!”
Her voice had risen dangerously high. Sheppard glared at her.
And then he told her the truth, because even though she was a lunatic, Sheppard was sure she was also vindictive enough to do exactly what she’d threatened. And Mitchell could read him well enough to decide it was true, and then he might actually get put in the brig.
“I just want to check it out,” he said, speaking so low she had to lean into hear him. “I just want to see what’s there.”
Vala pulled back. “In Pegasus?” She looked disappointed. “How do you propose to get there?”
Sheppard paused. He could let her think that he was crazy enough to be plotting a ridiculous escape to another galaxy. Except she would still probably tell Mitchell. And that would be even worse.
“No,” he snapped. “P3X-463.”
Vala blinked at him.
“The planet where I was injured,” Sheppard said. “Here.”
“Oh.” She still looked disappointed. “Why?”
Sheppard shrugged, shook his head. “I just want to see what’s there,” he repeated. He had no idea what he wanted to find. An Ascended being to finally take credit for this whole mess. A wormhole to Pegasus. Anything.
Vala tilted her head to the other side. “Like…treasure?” she suggested. He could see in her face that she didn’t actually believe that. She just meant she was going to come with him.
“No,” he said, fiercely.
But Vala was grinning at him, blackmailing him without saying a word. Angrily, Sheppard reached out and snatched his Jell-O back.
~
Vala turned out to be a decent partner in crime. Sheppard wasn’t entirely sure he could have pulled it off without her help. He’d thought he was going to have knock out the ‘Gate computer technicians, which didn’t thrill him. But Vala provided an excellent distraction that got them to evacuate and then Sheppard locked the doors. He wondered if she came up with that plan so he wouldn’t have access to a zat gun, since he was pissed off enough to shoot her in the embarkation room and leave without her.
Sheppard considered trying to knock her out, but he couldn’t think of a way that didn’t involve starting a fist fight he might not win on the ‘Gate ramp.
In the end, they went through the ‘Gate together. They came out on an empty planet with a rocky surface. Sheppard had never seen this place before.
Vala had stolen Sheppard boots from some supply closet so he could manage the terrain. He laced them up quickly, then stood.
“Let’s go,” he said. The dialing system at the SGC should stay down long enough for them to get a head start, but he knew he wasn’t smarter than Carter at that sort of thing.
The journey to the spot the mission reports recorded as where Sheppard had tripped and fallen took about an hour. Even with the boots, it was tough. Vala asked him several times if he wanted to rest, which meant he must have looked like shit. It was hard to keep the pace up and Sheppard kept glancing over his shoulder, expecting to see a pissed off SG team on their heels.
Finally, they reached it.
The only reason Sheppard knew it was the right place was the photos and maps in Lorne's mission report. He had no memory of being here. He’d admit that it sure looked like a great spot to trip, fall, and smash his head open. The whole distance they'd walked from the 'Gate had been rocky and uneven, but here the ground stretched out into smoother, sediment covered rock. Sheppard almost walked over an edge without seeing it and Vala grabbed him and pulled him back.
"Watch it!" she said, sharply. "If you get killed, I will be in so much trouble."
It was then that Sheppard realized they weren't standing on the surface of the planet, but on some kind of mountain. Except it wasn't exactly intact and the loose sediment covered enormous, cavernous holes in the rock.
"So," said Vala, cheerily. "We're here."
Sheppard said nothing. He stepped back from the edge he'd nearly stepped off, found a roundish rock butting out from the ground to sit on.
Vala stuck close to him. Maybe she thought he’d been deliberately trying to jump off of the cliff.
"Where did you fall?" Vala asked, because he wasn't moving or speaking.
Sheppard glared at her. "I have no idea."
Vala regarded him. "Do you want to look around," she asked, "or sit there until an SG team shows up?"
Sheppard again wished he was alone. He had no idea what to do. It wasn't that he'd expected to find an answer, find a big shining beacon marking the spot, but he’d wanted more than a big stupid mountain full of holes.
"Fine." Vala took a step back. "I'm going to look around. This looks like a great place to hide things of value. You stay right there and don’t get injured again. And when the SG team finds you, make sure you tell them how you took me hostage and forced me to come."
She took another small step away from him. "I'm serious," she warned.
Sheppard waited until Vala had walked just out of view. She was moving very, very slowly, like she really didn't want to leave him alone.
As soon as he couldn't see her, Sheppard rose off of his rock and peered down the nearest cavern. It was dim and he couldn't see a safe foothold. Getting inside the cave system wasn't going to be easy.
He walked around a little, looking for a better access point.
Almost immediately, he came across Vala. She hadn’t gone far at all, crouching behind another large rock.
“Ahem,” she said when she saw him. “I think I found it.”
“What?”
Vala pointed to an area just behind her boulder: a pile of fragmented rock sitting between a small crevice and a larger hole that look recently and violently created.
“I think,” she said, “You fell in the little one and they got you out through the big one.”
Sheppard followed her finger with his gaze. Again, he recognized nothing. And he didn’t see anything worth noting, at least not on the surface.
“I’m gonna go down there,” he said, even though he wasn’t sure how.
Vala squinted at him, got to her feet. She walked closer to the holes in the rock and peered down and raised her eyebrows at the distance.
“I think that’s what got you into this mess in the first place,” she pointed out.
“Maybe it’ll get me out,” he retorted.
He walked towards her, peering down as well. It really was a drop into darkness.
Sheppard sat down, dropping his legs through the larger hole. He couldn’t see the bottom all that well, but he figured if he’d been rescued through this one, the team would have cleared it of debris.
“Wait,” Vala said, sharply. She dropped to her knees next to him, producing a flashlight from somewhere in her clothes. “I’ll go first.”
“Why?” Sheppard asked.
“Watch me,” Vala said. “I’ll show you how to not land on your head. Move!”
He pulled his legs out of her way. Vala shone the flashlight down into the darkness, made an unhappy face. “Oh, well,” she said. Vala shoved her legs down, balanced on the rim with her hands for a second, then dropped.
Sheppard heard her feet hit the bottom with a thud. It didn’t sound too far away.
“Out of the way,” he said. “I’m coming down.”
“Remember,” Vala called up. “Feet first!”
Sheppard was putting his feet back down the side when he heard footsteps scuffing nearby.
“Sheppard!” Yelled Cameron Mitchell’s voice. “Vala!”
In the next second, Mitchell, Teal’c, Carter, and Jackson came into Sheppard’s view. He almost could have slid forward and dropped through the hole, but it was too late. Mitchell and Carter both had zat guns in hand and they were instantly leveled at him.
Slowly, Sheppard raised his hands in surrender.
“Shoot him,” he heard Jackson mutter. “He’s already on the ground, he can’t hit his head too hard from there.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Mitchell replied, loud enough for Sheppard to hear. “I don’t want to do it when you’re standing.” It was sort of joking, but he was looking at Sheppard with warning in his eyes and he hadn’t lowered the zat.
Sheppard shook his head. “You don’t have to,” he said, since he wasn’t going to do anything. He was totally outnumbered and unarmed, and he didn’t want to fight SG-1 anyway.
“Okay,” Mitchell said, even though the zat stayed up. “Move away from the bunny hole, please.”
Obediently, Sheppard put his hands flat on the ground and scooted backwards ‘til his legs were back on the surface and his back hit another standing rock.
Carter, at least, had put her zat away. She looked relieved to have found him. “You scared the hell out of us, John,” she said, approaching. “Teyla’s on her way back.”
Sheppard winced. He’d deliberately done this when Teyla wasn’t around for a reason. The rest of SG-1 crowded around Sheppard. He stayed on the ground and didn’t try to stand, even though he didn’t like the power differential with the four of them looming above him like that. At least Mitchell had holstered the zat.
“What were you looking for?” Jackson asked, peering down at him.
Sheppard shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, honestly. “Something.”
“You could have just asked,” Mitchell chided him. “You didn’t have to set a fire and hijack the ‘Gate.”
Sheppard blinked up at him. “A fire?” he echoed. Then, he remembered Vala’s distraction to evacuate the Gateroom. “That was Vala.”
“Where is Vala Mal Doran?” Inquired Teal’c, looking around.
“Down there,” Sheppard said, gesturing with both thumbs.
Teal’c moved away from him and peered down into the darkness.
“Landry would never have let me go,” Sheppard said to Mitchell. “You know that.”
“That doesn’t make this an acceptable alternative,” Carter snapped.
Sheppard shrugged again. “Sorry,” he said, aware it didn’t sound remotely sincere. “And, um, I took Vala hostage.” That probably didn’t sound sincere, either.
Jackson snorted. “Uh-huh.”
Mitchell knelt down next to Sheppard. “Do you know how insane it is when the crazy one is chaperoning anyone?”
“Chaperoning?”
“We figured you’d do something stupid eventually,” Carter volunteered. “And that you’d tell one of us.”
“Didn’t expect it to be Vala.” Mitchell sounded kind of betrayed.
“I didn’t tell,” Sheppard began.
“Also figured that one of us would stop you,” Jackson mused, “not help.”
“Didn’t expect it to be Vala,” Mitchell repeated.
Sheppard looked at the ground. He could hear Teal’c calling Vala’s name into the caverns below. As Sheppard was raising his eyes, he caught Mitchell fidgeting with a pair of plastic field restraints attached to his belt. Sheppard tensed.
“You don’t need the cuffs,” he promised, meeting Mitchell’s eyes. “There’s nothing here. Nowhere else to go.”
Carter put her hand on his shoulder. “We’ll take you home.”
Mitchell dropped his hand from the restraints without comment.
“Yo,” he yelled towards Teal’c. “Pull the princess up and let’s get out of here.”
“She says she is coming,” replied Teal’c, turning his head towards them.
“How come my team didn’t come?” Sheppard asked. He’d kind of expected Ford and Lorne to be sent after him.
“Landry thought you might be able to talk them into helping you,” Jackson said.
Sheppard shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He was pretty sure both of them would have shot him before even giving him the chance to persuade them to disobey orders.
SG-1 didn’t question that assessment. Jackson turned towards Teal’c.
“What’s taking so long?” he asked.
“I do not know,” Teal’c said. “I cannot see Vala Mal Doran.”
“Oh, crap,” Mitchell said. He was beginning to look worried. He glanced down at Sheppard. “She didn’t land on her head, did she?”
Sheppard shook his head.
“She’s probably looking for treasure,” muttered Jackson. He walked over next to Teal’c and leaned down. “Vala, get your ass up here!”
A few seconds later, Sheppard saw Teal’c and Jackson reaching down into the hole. Vala popped up between them, clinging shakily to their hands until her feet were finally settled on the surface.
“You look like a hamster,” Mitchell yelled at her, still standing over Sheppard.
Vala was filthy. Grime covered her face and it looked like she’d been digging up to her elbows in mud. She was also grinning madly, teeth bright white against her dirt smeared face.
“Hey,” she said, excitedly. “I thought this was a pointless exercise to resolve Sheppard’s obvious mental problems, but there’s actually something down here!”
“What?” Mitchell asked.
“What is it?” demanded Sheppard. He tried to scramble up, but Mitchell immediately shoved him back down to the ground.
“Uh-uh,” Mitchell said to him.
“What is it?” repeated Carter.
“I don’t know,” Vala said. “But it’s shiny!”
~
SG-1 forced Sheppard to go back to the SGC.
"No," Sheppard tried to argue. "I was right! There's something down there!"
"Do the words 'unauthorized 'gate use' mean anything to you?" Mitchell asked. "Landry's already mad. You're going back."
"Vala's not exactly an expert," Carter said, more gently. "Look, we'll check it out. If it's anything..." She paused, uncertain how to express how unlikely she thought that was. "It probably isn't."
"Accompany me, Colonel Sheppard," Teal'c said, politely but firmly enough to mean it wasn't a request. Sheppard glared at him, anyway, and then he glared at Mitchell. Mitchell totally ignored him.
Sheppard could only watch as Vala vanished back into the cavern from which she'd emerged. Jackson, having the nerve to look excited, jumped down after her. Sandwiched between Mitchell and Teal'c, Sheppard might as well have been tied up. He looked over his shoulder for as long as he could, until Carter too crouched down and slipped into the hole.
"It's probably nothing," Mitchell said, as they hiked back to the 'Gate.
Sheppard didn't answer. He had no reason to move fast, now, and was using his genuine exhaustion to keep their pace slow.
"What did you expect to find?" Mitchell asked again, a few minutes later.
"I don't know," Sheppard. "Something's there."
"Probably nothing," Mitchell repeated. "Vala could have found a really shiny rock for all you know."
"Vala Mal Doran is fairly astute at judging things of value," Teal'c pointed out.
Across Sheppard, Mitchell glared at Teal'c. "Not helping, T," he muttered.
They reached the 'Gate and Teal'c dialed the SGC.
"How much trouble do you think I'm in?" Sheppard asked Mitchell quietly as they walked towards the horizon.
"Oh, a lot," was Mitchell's immediate, annoyed replied. Then, he paused. "But you can blame most of it on your head injury. Would you mind taking credit for the fire thing? Because Vala can get away with a lot, but probably not arson."
~
There wasn't a lot of yelling when Sheppard, Mitchell, and Teal'c got back to the SGC. Sheppard didn't get thrown in the brig, which was nice. But the way Landry looked at him, like he thought Sheppard was mentally ill and thus not really responsible for his actions wasn't much better.
"Thank you for bringing him home," Landry directed at Mitchell and Teal'c while Sheppard stood between them and wondered if the Airmen were going handcuff him or something. "But where's the rest of SG-1? Don't tell me they ran off, too?”
“They found something,” Sheppard asserted, loudly.
Landry blinked at him. “What?”
“We don’t know,” Mitchell replied. He looked a little uncomfortable.
Landry was still looking at Sheppard. “What were you looking for, son?”
And Sheppard still couldn’t answer that question, so he just met Landry’s eyes and shrugged.
Instead of the brig, Landry had Sheppard confined to his quarters. It wasn’t all that different than the past few months, except now there were Airmen standing outside the door.
No one told Sheppard what was happening back on P3X-463. Not that they would necessarily even recognize whatever was there. These people had only ever seen random pieces of Ancient technology, they didn’t have the Atlantis database at their disposal.
Sheppard paced the lengths of his quarters, worrying that they had no idea what they were dealing with.
He was so focused on that, so intent on imagining what could possibly have been buried under all that rock and dirt, that he almost forgot that he was in trouble for running off in the first place. He also forgot that they had called Teyla back.
Teyla showed about three hours later.
The door opened and she rushed inside, looking around for Sheppard. He was standing right near the entrance, so she took three steps and grabbed hold of him. She'd forgotten he didn't like to be hugged or maybe she didn't care, because that's what she did. When she let go of him, Sheppard could see the worry on her face. It was beginning to transition into anger.
"You frightened me," Teyla said, not loudly but speaking hotly. "I was afraid..." she trailed off, unsure.
"I'm sorry, Teyla," Sheppard said, because he genuinely was. She was never supposed to find out about this.
Teyla released him completely and took a small step back, the anger fading from her face. It was replaced by what looked a lot like disappointment.
"What were you looking for?" Teyla asked.
Helpless, Sheppard could only shrug.
"I don't know," he said, even though he knew it would hurt her. "Look, Teyla, you know something's wrong. I didn't just hit my head."
Teyla crossed her arms. "I do not know that," she said, flatly.
"You never told me about Runners, Teyla," he said. "But I know about them. I could tell you a hell of a lot more about Pegasus than I should be able to."
"We speak of it often," Teyla said, stubbornly.
"It's not about you," Sheppard tried to reassure her. "I think this place is...I think a lot of people here are happier and healthier and better off here than where I've been."
"You have been here," Teyla insisted. "You have been nowhere else."
"I was looking for a way back," Sheppard said, the answer coming to him. "I belong there."
Teyla looked like she was going to cry.
"You belong with me," she said.
"Your husband belongs with you. If I'm right," Sheppard continued, "there's another version of me that is just beating the crap out of an innocent guy named Kanaan right about now."
"Kanaan?" Teyla said, blinking at him. "How do you-" And then she froze and closed her mouth.
"He's the father of your son," Sheppard said. "You never told me about him, did you?"
Teyla raised one hand to her face, folded it over her lips.
"They found something," Sheppard told her. "In the hole where I fell."
For a second, Teyla just stared at him. Her eyes were still wet. Slowly, she dropped her hand from her face.
“A way back?” she asked, hesitantly.
Sheppard had gotten ahead of himself. He didn’t know that, yet. He didn’t know anything, yet.
~
It was something.
It was Ancient in origin.
It was big.
That was all Sheppard knew. Vala came and told him that evening. A couple more SG teams and archaeologists had been sent out to help excavate it.
"What is it?" he asked.
Vala tilted her head. "We have no idea," she said sincerely. "Sam and Daniel are looking at it. They said I was unhelpful and kicked me out. Ungrateful wretches."
"Okay," Sheppard said. He found himself feeling disappointed, expecting something more solid now.
Vala nodded and pursed her lips. "Yep."
There was awkward silence for a few seconds. Teyla, sitting on the couch, sighed heavily.
"Thank you for accompanying John," she said, after a moment. "I am glad that you were watching him."
Sheppard took that in. He’d thought Vala had been operating on her own interests. It hadn’t occurred to him that she’d been acting on behalf of Teyla. She really had been his goddamn chaperone.
"Not a problem," Vala said, cheerily. "I didn't actually expect him to lead me to treasure."
~
~please feed the author~
part 6
Part 1 for header info
~
The encounter with Zelenka made Sheppard pause and reconsider his plan to track down McKay. At the very least, he should have something prepared to say. Sheppard got a cup of coffee and hid out in the audience of one of the presentation halls for a couple hours. Lam would have made a disapproving face about him having caffeine, but she wasn’t here.
He nursed the coffee for a while, half listening to the presentations occurring on stage and half trying to come up with a way of starting a conversation with McKay that didn't make him look like a lunatic still desperately trying to find a real world connection to his delusions.
The half that was paying attention to the presenters noticed a few things. First, the projects associated with the SGC were totally obvious. Not just because the speakers thanked the Air Force. The second thing was that the projects kind of sucked. Sheppard didn't know if that was because the scientists came to these things to present a half-baked version of whatever alien tech they'd just co-opted, so it looked like there was a process and the ability to build galactic spaceships hadn't just been dropped into their laps by little gray men. He hoped that was why the tech on stage wasn't that impressive.
But it occurred to him that without the Atlantis mission - without a successful Atlantis mission - the SGC was probably missing out on a lot. Sheppard didn't know how much. It wasn't - hadn't been - his job to pay much attention to the scientific advancements. But it seemed to him there should be a lot. How many ZPM's had they gotten from Pegasus, anyway?
This was kind of depressing, even if it wasn't all that tangible. It brought him back to questioning Heightmeyer's stupid diagnosis. Sheppard didn't see how he could have invented so much complex, detailed Ancient technology. Shit, if he’d made it all up there sure as hell would have been a lot more awesome flying machines involved.
Sheppard was thinking this over, sort of engrossed in his own head, when he heard a familiar voice.
It was Carter. She and Dr. Lee were on stage now, giving a presentation on a shiny metal box that looked to Sheppard to be of Goa'uld origin. The snakes sure liked gold.
He didn't pay much attention to Carter's speech or Lee's demonstration. Sheppard remembered Teyla's mission, then. Recovery of a Goa'uld cache. They were much more focused on Goa'uld tech, here. Well duh, he told himself. That was really all they had here. No Atlantis. The only Ancient stuff they'd come across would have been whatever they stumbled over in the Milky Way.
Huh.
Suddenly, Sheppard heard another, more familiar voice.
Rodney McKay.
His voice was coming from somewhere in the front of the auditorium, but Sheppard couldn't see him. On stage, Carter looked supremely irritated, arms crossed under her bust. Lee seemed relieved to not be in front of the microphone.
McKay was picking apart the entire demonstration, of course. He was also loudly and pointedly asking questions about the research process that Sheppard guessed Carter and Lee couldn't answer without mentioning stuff like "other planets" and "snakes that like to live inside people's skull."
Carter pretty much had to answer every question with, "As I said before, due to the military setting of our research, I'm not allowed to be more specific than I already was, Dr. McKay. You know that."
That didn't actually shut him up and Carter looked like she wanted to throw something at him. Sheppard peered around, but he couldn't see McKay.
Finally, Carter's allotted presentation time was up and she and Dr. Lee left the stage. As the next presenter came out, Sheppard climbed out of his seat and crept down the aisle. He looked, but he still didn't see McKay. He must have left the room after Carter departed.
Disappointed, even though he still hadn't come up with anything to say to the man, Sheppard went and found Carter back at her poster station.
Carter was still annoyed. She was muttering accusingly at Lee when Sheppard got there.
"I know," Lee was retorting. "I didn't ask the questions, remember?"
"Hey," Sheppard said.
Carter looked up. "Hey," she said. "Where have you been?" She might have been remembering she was supposed to be keeping him close.
"I just took a walk," Sheppard lied. He waved the empty cup. "Got some coffee. I saw your presentation, though."
Carter scowled. "Did you hear Rodney McKay?"
Sheppard nodded. "Yep."
"The only reason he comes to these things is to try and destroy other scientists," Carter muttered.
"That's why a lot of people come here," Dr. Lee pointed out.
"He doesn't even present," Carter ranted. "I can't give him a taste of his own medicine!"
"Hmm," Sheppard said.
"And he knows what comes out of the SGC," Carter continued, "and how much I'm not allowed to say!"
"Yeah," Sheppard said, "I saw that."
In response, Carter huffed. She took a deep breath.
"Where'd he go?" Sheppard asked, going for casual. "Do you know?"
Carter shrugged. "Probably off with his wife." She gave a self-satisfied grin. "I don't think she likes him hanging around me. Even if it's just so he can lavish abuse."
"Wife?" Sheppard echoed.
"Yeah," Carter said. "What's-her-name?"
"Veronika," Dr. Lee volunteered. "She's quite attractive."
Carter glanced at him in an annoyance. "Dr. Veronika something," she said. "She's Russian."
"Oh."
"It’s a long Russian surname," Carter continued. "I think most people call her Dr. Veronika."
"Most people call her something else," Lee said. Sheppard glanced at him. "It's not really appropriate or professional, though."
"Most physicists are thirteen year old boys at heart," Carter said, derisively. "She's nice-looking. She's also brilliant, which is a little more important."
“She’s Russian,” Lee said. “That’s the most important.”
Sheppard was confused. “Why?”
“Remember when I said there was come controversy about McKay going abroad?” Carter asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well, I meant her.”
Lee snickered and Carter rolled her eyes again. “I didn’t mean it as a pun,” she muttered.
“The SGC wasn’t comfortable with him having a working relationship with the Russians,” Lee said. “And then he married her.”
“We’re friends now,” Sheppard said, even though he knew exactly the kind of Cold War permafrost she was talking about. “And he’s Canadian.”
“Yeah.” Carter shrugged. “The SGC can’t do anything about it. It just makes them mad.”
“He works for the Russians?” Sheppard asked.
Carter pursed her lips, nodded. “Getting his citizenship and everything.” She shrugged, made a dismissive face. When Sheppard didn't say anything, Carter went on. "End of today's sessions. We should pack up our display."
"Coming back tomorrow?" Sheppard asked, since he still hadn't seen McKay.
"No," Carter said. "We're done."
"Okay," Sheppard said. "I'll meet you in the car." And then he took off before she had a chance to ask where he was going or try to stop him.
Sheppard didn't have a plan. He didn't know where McKay was, just that he'd been in the auditorium with a few hundred others just a couple minutes ago. He had no idea where to find the man and he still hadn't come up with anything to say.
Sheppard looked for him anyway. Carter was right about it being the end of the day. The other posters and stations were being packed up and the conference attendees were heading slowly towards the exits. It made for a mass of people and Sheppard had some trouble getting through. And he didn't even know if he was going the right way.
Five minutes later, as he was picking his way through the crowd, Sheppard pretty much literally smacked in Radek Zelenka.
Zelenka looked up, rubbing his head where it'd collided with Sheppard's shoulder. "Ow," he said. Then he realized who'd he banged into. "Oh, hello again," he said awkwardly.
Sheppard took a shot in the dark. "Where's Dr. Veronika?" he asked.
Zelenka blinked at him.
"Dr. Veronika," Sheppard repeated, hopefully. "Or Rod-"
"She's outside Conference Room B," Zelenka said, almost automatically. He looked a bit confused. "I saw her there. How do you -"
"Thanks, Radek." Sheppard took off before the man could even finish.
Conference Room B was back the other way and Sheppard moved as fast as he could. He still wasn't in fabulous shape and running like that winded him. He sagged against the wall when he finally saw the room designation printed on a sign.
The room was emptying out, too, whatever meeting that had occurred ending with the close of the conference. Sheppard peered around. He didn't see Rodney. There was a woman sitting on a bench outside the door, head down and hands occupied with some portable electronic device.
Sheppard walked towards her. "Excuse me," he said.
The woman raised her head. She wasn't quite what Sheppard imagined someone called 'Dr. Veronika' would look like.
She had dyed red hair and it was hard to see the rest of her beneath a long overcoat. Dr. Veronika was pretty, he guessed, although she looked a little tired and bored at the moment. She was close to McKay’s age, which was kind of a surprise.
"Are you Dr.Veronika?" he asked. After he said it, he realized that it sounded kind of insulting.
Immediately, her face tightened with something close to annoyance.
"I am Dr. Veronika Burtseyeva," she corrected. "And you are?" She had quite the accent. Sheppard had never known McKay to go for accents.
"My name is Colonel John Sheppard," he said. She blinked a little at the title. Sheppard wasn't in uniform. Carter had worn hers but it hadn't occurred to him. Carter had assured him it was okay, and then he figured the Air Force didn't want the brain-damaged amnesiac representing them, anyway. "I'm-"
"You are man with delusions about my husband," Veronika interrupted. Her face had sharpened more. Sheppard saw the hard intelligence in her eyes and could suddenly see something that would have attracted McKay. This woman was just as blunt as he was.
Sheppard paused. It wasn't really worth arguing. "How'd you-"
"Moscow has listening apparatus implanted in Cheyenne offices," Veronika stated, flatly. "We hear everything."
He stared at her long enough that she cracked up. She had a big smile and a surprisingly deep laugh.
"My husband told me," she said. "But you believed that for a second." She laughed. "Is funny."
"Yeah," Sheppard said. Not so much.
Veronika's smile had dipped a little, as if amused as she was, she still read the insinuation that everyone thought she considered McKay a mark.
"May I help you?" she asked, settling back against the bench and slipping the phone or whatever she'd been playing with into the purse in her lap.
"Where's McKay?" Sheppard asked.
Veronika tossed her head towards the conference room door. "Is inside. I want to go back to hotel, but he had one last person to demolish."
Sheppard stared at her.
"The research premise is flawed," she said, dismissively. "Like a four-year-old wrote it. He deserves to be told he is an idiot."
"Oh," Sheppard said. McKay sounded...the same. A lot the same. It felt kind of good to know that. And he could see why he got along with Veronika.
"Why do you want to see him?" Veronika asked. She sounded curious, but not suspicious.
Sheppard glanced down the increasingly empty corridor. Then, he sat on the bench next to McKay's wife. He decided not to dwell on how weird it was it to think of this woman like that
He reached up and took of the skull cap. It had the usual effect. Veronika recoiled and made a face.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Hit my head,” he said.
“I can see that," she replied.
"I don't remember the past five years," Sheppard said. "None of it."
Veronika blinked. "Okay." Now, she looked confused.
"I don't remember being an asshole to McKay." He wasn't sure how much she knew about Atlantis. The Russians had known about the mission, maybe sent a nurse or something through the IOA. He didn't know if they'd been deliberately or voluntarily excluded. And probably McKay, given his general inability to keep his mouth shut, had told this woman everything about the Atlantis mission, anyway. It didn't matter here. It hadn't happened here. "I'm sure I was," Sheppard continued, "but I don't remember."
Veronika looked pensive. "Hmm," she said.
"What I do remember maybe didn't happen," Sheppard said. "Maybe I am the man with delusions about your husband."
That made Veronika stay silent. She waited as if not fully understanding where Sheppard was going with this. Of course, she probably truly didn't.
"I remember stuff that never happened," Sheppard continued. He had no idea why he was saying this. Confessing to a woman the SGC thought was basically a Russian spy poaching their staff was an utterly insane thing to do. "But I remember McKay," he said. "And I want to make sure he's okay."
She blinked. "He is fine," she said, after a moment.
"And you're real?" Sheppard said, bluntly. It made the woman's dark eyebrows - a considerable different color than her red hair - jump. "You're not an elaborate plan to trick the SGC's greatest brain into working for your side?"
"We're on the same side," Veronika retorted, a response that seemed built-in more than an actual reply to his accusation.
Sheppard waited.
"I have never had anyone say it to my face before," she mused. Sheppard was surprised she wasn't upset, pleasantly surprised he wasn't getting slapped. Maybe after seeing the evidence of his head injury she didn't want to hit him. Veronika paused. "Why would I tell you," she asked, "if that was the case?"
Sheppard shrugged. "You shouldn't," he agreed. Feeling a little stupid now, he shoved the hat back on his head and pulled it down. "But, I'm the person you could tell. Everyone on my side thinks I'm totally insane."
"Are you?" Veronika asked.
He shrugged again. "Maybe."
"The Colonel Sheppard that my Rodney has told me about would not care," she observed. "Outside of a constant general xenophobic paranoia all American military have."
Sheppard didn't know if those were her words or Rodney's. They didn't sound like Rodney's. It made him kind of mad, but he chose to ignore it.
"Yeah," he said, "well, I care. Not about that. If you really wanted to, it'd be a hell of a lot easier to capture him and take him to a gulag."
"But then he would not cooperate," Veronika said, so easily it made Sheppard snap straight up.
“Joke,” she said, lightly, and laughed again. “He was right about something, you have no sense of humor.”
Sheppard frowned. He didn’t know what to say. Not that he should have expected this conversation to go any better.
Suddenly, Veronika put her hand lightly on his knee. “I am real,” she said, “as you say.”
Sheppard met her eyes. “Would you tell me if you weren’t?”
She shrugged. “No,” she said. “If even I was evil, I don’t think I’d be stupid.”
Involuntarily, Sheppard actually chuckled. He put his hands on his thighs and stood up, letting her hand fall from his leg. “Thanks,” he said. And he meant it. He was sincerely reassured that this woman - McKay’s wife - wasn’t a villain. He didn’t want to think about it more extensively than that, but it made him feel better. It was good to know.
“Rodney will be out in a second,” Veronika offered. “If you want to see him.”
Sheppard paused. Suddenly, he didn’t want to. It would just be hard. Hard in the same way that being around Teyla could be. And Rodney wouldn’t make it easier the way she did.
“No,” he said. “That’s okay. It’s good this way. I should go. Tell him -”
“What the hell are you doing here?” demanded Rodney.
It was too late. Rodney had come out of the conference room, done with whoever he was harassing. He’d recognized Sheppard instantly.
Sheppard glanced over at him. Rodney looked the same. Maybe a little softer, back to the physique of a scientist who didn’t go on regular off-world missions requiring the ability to suddenly run away. He was wearing a suit, which was little visually dissonant.
“Hey, Rodney,” Sheppard said.
“I said what the hell are you doing here?” Rodney repeated. “Hadn’t threatened to shoot me recently enough?”
Sheppard opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. Rodney was already red-faced, body rigid with anger. It’d been a long time since Sheppard had seen that directed at him with such sincerity.
Abruptly, Veronika rose and placed a restraining hand on Rodney’s arm. “Rodney,” she said. “He is ill.”
“I know,” Rodney retorted. “So?”
Sheppard took a step back. “I just came to say hi to your wife, McKay,” he came up with. There wasn’t anything he could do here.
“What?”
“Congratulations,” Sheppard said, to both of them. He kind of meant it.
With that, he turned around and walked quickly away from the couple. Carter and Dr. Lee were waiting for him at the car, already packed up.
“Where were you?” Carter asked, looking concerned. “I was about to have you paged.”
“I didn’t remember where we parked,” Sheppard lied.
But she believed him, since she thought he didn’t remember much of anything.
~
That night, in his undecorated quarters in Cheyenne, Sheppard came up with a plan. It was half-assed and probably stupid and futile, but he was still going to do it. He had to go through with it while Teyla was away.
His confinement to the SGC was convenient now. It was also convenient that Teyla’s mission was stretching on and on. Sheppard talked to her once a week or so via the MALP left near the Stargate on the planet. Every time she promised to be home soon and every time she mentioned how much more work had to be done there, meaning the end wasn’t even in sight.
Heightmeyer was on maternity leave, now. She’d given birth to a baby daughter. A little earlier than expected. The baby was fine, but Heightmeyer had neglected to assign Sheppard’s counseling to someone else and Sheppard didn’t feel the need to mention it to anyone who might rectify that.
So, he had a lot of free time on his hands now. He tried to be inconspicuous about that. It seemed to be working.
Sheppard hung out a lot near the Gateroom, insinuating himself with the ‘Gate techs who worked the dialing computers. He really wasn’t supposed to be there, but once he started bringing coffee and donuts with him from the cafeteria, no one minded.
Watching reconnaissance teams come and go was kind of tough. Even though the uniforms were different, as were most of the people, it was familiar enough to make the twinge he’d been studiously ignoring start up again. It made him jealous, especially since Landry eventually realized he was there and gave him a friendly but firm lecture about how a certain brain-damaged amnesiac was never, ever going through the ‘Gate again. Sheppard gave him a dumbass grin and pretended like he had no intention of doing that.
It was odd being on the end that watched SG teams leave and return. The departures were less interesting. The arrivals could be a lot more exciting, with arrows and projectiles flying in after the people. It made Sheppard reminiscent, as did the teams coming back coated in various kinds of muck and loudly blaming each other for whatever had gone wrong. It was amusing, even if it made Sheppard feel unexpectedly bitter.
Maybe he wasn’t being as inconspicuous as he thought he was.
He was taking a lunch break - well, in as much as one could take a break from standing around doing nothing - in the cafeteria when someone confronted him.
Vala Mal Doran slid in to the seat next to him, and promptly reached over and swiped the bowl of blue Jell-O off of his tray.
“Hey!” he objected.
Vala stuck the spoon in her mouth and grinned around it. She slurped the Jell-O off, then took the spoon and tapped it against her chin.
“Why are you scoping out the Gateroom?” she asked, whispering. She was squinting at him.
Sheppard pretended he had no idea what she was talking about. “I’m eating lunch,” he pointed out, quietly.
“Uh-huh,” Vala said. “I know what it looks like. I’ve done it.”
“You’re a crazy person.” Sheppard took a bite of his sandwich. “I’m bored,” he told her, which wasn’t untrue. “That’s all. I can’t leave the base, remember?”
“Neither can I,” replied Vala. “When I’m bored, I tend to cause security alerts.” She grinned, tilted her head at him. “What are you planning?”
“To take my Jell-O back and leave,” Sheppard said, causing her to jerk the bowl against her torso, where he couldn’t get it without looking like he was trying to cop a feel.
“I’m bored as well,” Vala said. “Daniel is playing with those useless Goa’uld toys and he won’t let me touch them.”
“Go cause a security alert,” Sheppard suggested, shoving his tray back as if to leave.
“If you don’t tell me,” Vala sing-songed. “I’ll tell Mitchell.”
Sheppard had begun to rise. Now he halted and lowered himself back down. “Tell Mitchell what?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
Vala shrugged. She tinked the spoon against the side of his bowl. “I don’t know. That you’re planning on escaping through the ‘Gate to go somewhere and do something that has meaning according to the delusions your messed up brain has invented?”
Sheppard said nothing. He held very still. Vala grinned wider, unfortunately taking his total lack of reaction as confirmation. “I knew it,” she said, gleefully. “Where are you going? Why? Can I come?”
“Shhh!”
Her voice had risen dangerously high. Sheppard glared at her.
And then he told her the truth, because even though she was a lunatic, Sheppard was sure she was also vindictive enough to do exactly what she’d threatened. And Mitchell could read him well enough to decide it was true, and then he might actually get put in the brig.
“I just want to check it out,” he said, speaking so low she had to lean into hear him. “I just want to see what’s there.”
Vala pulled back. “In Pegasus?” She looked disappointed. “How do you propose to get there?”
Sheppard paused. He could let her think that he was crazy enough to be plotting a ridiculous escape to another galaxy. Except she would still probably tell Mitchell. And that would be even worse.
“No,” he snapped. “P3X-463.”
Vala blinked at him.
“The planet where I was injured,” Sheppard said. “Here.”
“Oh.” She still looked disappointed. “Why?”
Sheppard shrugged, shook his head. “I just want to see what’s there,” he repeated. He had no idea what he wanted to find. An Ascended being to finally take credit for this whole mess. A wormhole to Pegasus. Anything.
Vala tilted her head to the other side. “Like…treasure?” she suggested. He could see in her face that she didn’t actually believe that. She just meant she was going to come with him.
“No,” he said, fiercely.
But Vala was grinning at him, blackmailing him without saying a word. Angrily, Sheppard reached out and snatched his Jell-O back.
~
Vala turned out to be a decent partner in crime. Sheppard wasn’t entirely sure he could have pulled it off without her help. He’d thought he was going to have knock out the ‘Gate computer technicians, which didn’t thrill him. But Vala provided an excellent distraction that got them to evacuate and then Sheppard locked the doors. He wondered if she came up with that plan so he wouldn’t have access to a zat gun, since he was pissed off enough to shoot her in the embarkation room and leave without her.
Sheppard considered trying to knock her out, but he couldn’t think of a way that didn’t involve starting a fist fight he might not win on the ‘Gate ramp.
In the end, they went through the ‘Gate together. They came out on an empty planet with a rocky surface. Sheppard had never seen this place before.
Vala had stolen Sheppard boots from some supply closet so he could manage the terrain. He laced them up quickly, then stood.
“Let’s go,” he said. The dialing system at the SGC should stay down long enough for them to get a head start, but he knew he wasn’t smarter than Carter at that sort of thing.
The journey to the spot the mission reports recorded as where Sheppard had tripped and fallen took about an hour. Even with the boots, it was tough. Vala asked him several times if he wanted to rest, which meant he must have looked like shit. It was hard to keep the pace up and Sheppard kept glancing over his shoulder, expecting to see a pissed off SG team on their heels.
Finally, they reached it.
The only reason Sheppard knew it was the right place was the photos and maps in Lorne's mission report. He had no memory of being here. He’d admit that it sure looked like a great spot to trip, fall, and smash his head open. The whole distance they'd walked from the 'Gate had been rocky and uneven, but here the ground stretched out into smoother, sediment covered rock. Sheppard almost walked over an edge without seeing it and Vala grabbed him and pulled him back.
"Watch it!" she said, sharply. "If you get killed, I will be in so much trouble."
It was then that Sheppard realized they weren't standing on the surface of the planet, but on some kind of mountain. Except it wasn't exactly intact and the loose sediment covered enormous, cavernous holes in the rock.
"So," said Vala, cheerily. "We're here."
Sheppard said nothing. He stepped back from the edge he'd nearly stepped off, found a roundish rock butting out from the ground to sit on.
Vala stuck close to him. Maybe she thought he’d been deliberately trying to jump off of the cliff.
"Where did you fall?" Vala asked, because he wasn't moving or speaking.
Sheppard glared at her. "I have no idea."
Vala regarded him. "Do you want to look around," she asked, "or sit there until an SG team shows up?"
Sheppard again wished he was alone. He had no idea what to do. It wasn't that he'd expected to find an answer, find a big shining beacon marking the spot, but he’d wanted more than a big stupid mountain full of holes.
"Fine." Vala took a step back. "I'm going to look around. This looks like a great place to hide things of value. You stay right there and don’t get injured again. And when the SG team finds you, make sure you tell them how you took me hostage and forced me to come."
She took another small step away from him. "I'm serious," she warned.
Sheppard waited until Vala had walked just out of view. She was moving very, very slowly, like she really didn't want to leave him alone.
As soon as he couldn't see her, Sheppard rose off of his rock and peered down the nearest cavern. It was dim and he couldn't see a safe foothold. Getting inside the cave system wasn't going to be easy.
He walked around a little, looking for a better access point.
Almost immediately, he came across Vala. She hadn’t gone far at all, crouching behind another large rock.
“Ahem,” she said when she saw him. “I think I found it.”
“What?”
Vala pointed to an area just behind her boulder: a pile of fragmented rock sitting between a small crevice and a larger hole that look recently and violently created.
“I think,” she said, “You fell in the little one and they got you out through the big one.”
Sheppard followed her finger with his gaze. Again, he recognized nothing. And he didn’t see anything worth noting, at least not on the surface.
“I’m gonna go down there,” he said, even though he wasn’t sure how.
Vala squinted at him, got to her feet. She walked closer to the holes in the rock and peered down and raised her eyebrows at the distance.
“I think that’s what got you into this mess in the first place,” she pointed out.
“Maybe it’ll get me out,” he retorted.
He walked towards her, peering down as well. It really was a drop into darkness.
Sheppard sat down, dropping his legs through the larger hole. He couldn’t see the bottom all that well, but he figured if he’d been rescued through this one, the team would have cleared it of debris.
“Wait,” Vala said, sharply. She dropped to her knees next to him, producing a flashlight from somewhere in her clothes. “I’ll go first.”
“Why?” Sheppard asked.
“Watch me,” Vala said. “I’ll show you how to not land on your head. Move!”
He pulled his legs out of her way. Vala shone the flashlight down into the darkness, made an unhappy face. “Oh, well,” she said. Vala shoved her legs down, balanced on the rim with her hands for a second, then dropped.
Sheppard heard her feet hit the bottom with a thud. It didn’t sound too far away.
“Out of the way,” he said. “I’m coming down.”
“Remember,” Vala called up. “Feet first!”
Sheppard was putting his feet back down the side when he heard footsteps scuffing nearby.
“Sheppard!” Yelled Cameron Mitchell’s voice. “Vala!”
In the next second, Mitchell, Teal’c, Carter, and Jackson came into Sheppard’s view. He almost could have slid forward and dropped through the hole, but it was too late. Mitchell and Carter both had zat guns in hand and they were instantly leveled at him.
Slowly, Sheppard raised his hands in surrender.
“Shoot him,” he heard Jackson mutter. “He’s already on the ground, he can’t hit his head too hard from there.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Mitchell replied, loud enough for Sheppard to hear. “I don’t want to do it when you’re standing.” It was sort of joking, but he was looking at Sheppard with warning in his eyes and he hadn’t lowered the zat.
Sheppard shook his head. “You don’t have to,” he said, since he wasn’t going to do anything. He was totally outnumbered and unarmed, and he didn’t want to fight SG-1 anyway.
“Okay,” Mitchell said, even though the zat stayed up. “Move away from the bunny hole, please.”
Obediently, Sheppard put his hands flat on the ground and scooted backwards ‘til his legs were back on the surface and his back hit another standing rock.
Carter, at least, had put her zat away. She looked relieved to have found him. “You scared the hell out of us, John,” she said, approaching. “Teyla’s on her way back.”
Sheppard winced. He’d deliberately done this when Teyla wasn’t around for a reason. The rest of SG-1 crowded around Sheppard. He stayed on the ground and didn’t try to stand, even though he didn’t like the power differential with the four of them looming above him like that. At least Mitchell had holstered the zat.
“What were you looking for?” Jackson asked, peering down at him.
Sheppard shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, honestly. “Something.”
“You could have just asked,” Mitchell chided him. “You didn’t have to set a fire and hijack the ‘Gate.”
Sheppard blinked up at him. “A fire?” he echoed. Then, he remembered Vala’s distraction to evacuate the Gateroom. “That was Vala.”
“Where is Vala Mal Doran?” Inquired Teal’c, looking around.
“Down there,” Sheppard said, gesturing with both thumbs.
Teal’c moved away from him and peered down into the darkness.
“Landry would never have let me go,” Sheppard said to Mitchell. “You know that.”
“That doesn’t make this an acceptable alternative,” Carter snapped.
Sheppard shrugged again. “Sorry,” he said, aware it didn’t sound remotely sincere. “And, um, I took Vala hostage.” That probably didn’t sound sincere, either.
Jackson snorted. “Uh-huh.”
Mitchell knelt down next to Sheppard. “Do you know how insane it is when the crazy one is chaperoning anyone?”
“Chaperoning?”
“We figured you’d do something stupid eventually,” Carter volunteered. “And that you’d tell one of us.”
“Didn’t expect it to be Vala.” Mitchell sounded kind of betrayed.
“I didn’t tell,” Sheppard began.
“Also figured that one of us would stop you,” Jackson mused, “not help.”
“Didn’t expect it to be Vala,” Mitchell repeated.
Sheppard looked at the ground. He could hear Teal’c calling Vala’s name into the caverns below. As Sheppard was raising his eyes, he caught Mitchell fidgeting with a pair of plastic field restraints attached to his belt. Sheppard tensed.
“You don’t need the cuffs,” he promised, meeting Mitchell’s eyes. “There’s nothing here. Nowhere else to go.”
Carter put her hand on his shoulder. “We’ll take you home.”
Mitchell dropped his hand from the restraints without comment.
“Yo,” he yelled towards Teal’c. “Pull the princess up and let’s get out of here.”
“She says she is coming,” replied Teal’c, turning his head towards them.
“How come my team didn’t come?” Sheppard asked. He’d kind of expected Ford and Lorne to be sent after him.
“Landry thought you might be able to talk them into helping you,” Jackson said.
Sheppard shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He was pretty sure both of them would have shot him before even giving him the chance to persuade them to disobey orders.
SG-1 didn’t question that assessment. Jackson turned towards Teal’c.
“What’s taking so long?” he asked.
“I do not know,” Teal’c said. “I cannot see Vala Mal Doran.”
“Oh, crap,” Mitchell said. He was beginning to look worried. He glanced down at Sheppard. “She didn’t land on her head, did she?”
Sheppard shook his head.
“She’s probably looking for treasure,” muttered Jackson. He walked over next to Teal’c and leaned down. “Vala, get your ass up here!”
A few seconds later, Sheppard saw Teal’c and Jackson reaching down into the hole. Vala popped up between them, clinging shakily to their hands until her feet were finally settled on the surface.
“You look like a hamster,” Mitchell yelled at her, still standing over Sheppard.
Vala was filthy. Grime covered her face and it looked like she’d been digging up to her elbows in mud. She was also grinning madly, teeth bright white against her dirt smeared face.
“Hey,” she said, excitedly. “I thought this was a pointless exercise to resolve Sheppard’s obvious mental problems, but there’s actually something down here!”
“What?” Mitchell asked.
“What is it?” demanded Sheppard. He tried to scramble up, but Mitchell immediately shoved him back down to the ground.
“Uh-uh,” Mitchell said to him.
“What is it?” repeated Carter.
“I don’t know,” Vala said. “But it’s shiny!”
~
SG-1 forced Sheppard to go back to the SGC.
"No," Sheppard tried to argue. "I was right! There's something down there!"
"Do the words 'unauthorized 'gate use' mean anything to you?" Mitchell asked. "Landry's already mad. You're going back."
"Vala's not exactly an expert," Carter said, more gently. "Look, we'll check it out. If it's anything..." She paused, uncertain how to express how unlikely she thought that was. "It probably isn't."
"Accompany me, Colonel Sheppard," Teal'c said, politely but firmly enough to mean it wasn't a request. Sheppard glared at him, anyway, and then he glared at Mitchell. Mitchell totally ignored him.
Sheppard could only watch as Vala vanished back into the cavern from which she'd emerged. Jackson, having the nerve to look excited, jumped down after her. Sandwiched between Mitchell and Teal'c, Sheppard might as well have been tied up. He looked over his shoulder for as long as he could, until Carter too crouched down and slipped into the hole.
"It's probably nothing," Mitchell said, as they hiked back to the 'Gate.
Sheppard didn't answer. He had no reason to move fast, now, and was using his genuine exhaustion to keep their pace slow.
"What did you expect to find?" Mitchell asked again, a few minutes later.
"I don't know," Sheppard. "Something's there."
"Probably nothing," Mitchell repeated. "Vala could have found a really shiny rock for all you know."
"Vala Mal Doran is fairly astute at judging things of value," Teal'c pointed out.
Across Sheppard, Mitchell glared at Teal'c. "Not helping, T," he muttered.
They reached the 'Gate and Teal'c dialed the SGC.
"How much trouble do you think I'm in?" Sheppard asked Mitchell quietly as they walked towards the horizon.
"Oh, a lot," was Mitchell's immediate, annoyed replied. Then, he paused. "But you can blame most of it on your head injury. Would you mind taking credit for the fire thing? Because Vala can get away with a lot, but probably not arson."
~
There wasn't a lot of yelling when Sheppard, Mitchell, and Teal'c got back to the SGC. Sheppard didn't get thrown in the brig, which was nice. But the way Landry looked at him, like he thought Sheppard was mentally ill and thus not really responsible for his actions wasn't much better.
"Thank you for bringing him home," Landry directed at Mitchell and Teal'c while Sheppard stood between them and wondered if the Airmen were going handcuff him or something. "But where's the rest of SG-1? Don't tell me they ran off, too?”
“They found something,” Sheppard asserted, loudly.
Landry blinked at him. “What?”
“We don’t know,” Mitchell replied. He looked a little uncomfortable.
Landry was still looking at Sheppard. “What were you looking for, son?”
And Sheppard still couldn’t answer that question, so he just met Landry’s eyes and shrugged.
Instead of the brig, Landry had Sheppard confined to his quarters. It wasn’t all that different than the past few months, except now there were Airmen standing outside the door.
No one told Sheppard what was happening back on P3X-463. Not that they would necessarily even recognize whatever was there. These people had only ever seen random pieces of Ancient technology, they didn’t have the Atlantis database at their disposal.
Sheppard paced the lengths of his quarters, worrying that they had no idea what they were dealing with.
He was so focused on that, so intent on imagining what could possibly have been buried under all that rock and dirt, that he almost forgot that he was in trouble for running off in the first place. He also forgot that they had called Teyla back.
Teyla showed about three hours later.
The door opened and she rushed inside, looking around for Sheppard. He was standing right near the entrance, so she took three steps and grabbed hold of him. She'd forgotten he didn't like to be hugged or maybe she didn't care, because that's what she did. When she let go of him, Sheppard could see the worry on her face. It was beginning to transition into anger.
"You frightened me," Teyla said, not loudly but speaking hotly. "I was afraid..." she trailed off, unsure.
"I'm sorry, Teyla," Sheppard said, because he genuinely was. She was never supposed to find out about this.
Teyla released him completely and took a small step back, the anger fading from her face. It was replaced by what looked a lot like disappointment.
"What were you looking for?" Teyla asked.
Helpless, Sheppard could only shrug.
"I don't know," he said, even though he knew it would hurt her. "Look, Teyla, you know something's wrong. I didn't just hit my head."
Teyla crossed her arms. "I do not know that," she said, flatly.
"You never told me about Runners, Teyla," he said. "But I know about them. I could tell you a hell of a lot more about Pegasus than I should be able to."
"We speak of it often," Teyla said, stubbornly.
"It's not about you," Sheppard tried to reassure her. "I think this place is...I think a lot of people here are happier and healthier and better off here than where I've been."
"You have been here," Teyla insisted. "You have been nowhere else."
"I was looking for a way back," Sheppard said, the answer coming to him. "I belong there."
Teyla looked like she was going to cry.
"You belong with me," she said.
"Your husband belongs with you. If I'm right," Sheppard continued, "there's another version of me that is just beating the crap out of an innocent guy named Kanaan right about now."
"Kanaan?" Teyla said, blinking at him. "How do you-" And then she froze and closed her mouth.
"He's the father of your son," Sheppard said. "You never told me about him, did you?"
Teyla raised one hand to her face, folded it over her lips.
"They found something," Sheppard told her. "In the hole where I fell."
For a second, Teyla just stared at him. Her eyes were still wet. Slowly, she dropped her hand from her face.
“A way back?” she asked, hesitantly.
Sheppard had gotten ahead of himself. He didn’t know that, yet. He didn’t know anything, yet.
~
It was something.
It was Ancient in origin.
It was big.
That was all Sheppard knew. Vala came and told him that evening. A couple more SG teams and archaeologists had been sent out to help excavate it.
"What is it?" he asked.
Vala tilted her head. "We have no idea," she said sincerely. "Sam and Daniel are looking at it. They said I was unhelpful and kicked me out. Ungrateful wretches."
"Okay," Sheppard said. He found himself feeling disappointed, expecting something more solid now.
Vala nodded and pursed her lips. "Yep."
There was awkward silence for a few seconds. Teyla, sitting on the couch, sighed heavily.
"Thank you for accompanying John," she said, after a moment. "I am glad that you were watching him."
Sheppard took that in. He’d thought Vala had been operating on her own interests. It hadn’t occurred to him that she’d been acting on behalf of Teyla. She really had been his goddamn chaperone.
"Not a problem," Vala said, cheerily. "I didn't actually expect him to lead me to treasure."
~
~please feed the author~
part 6