SGA fic: Failsafe (McKay/Sheppard; PG-13)

[ana_grrl]

Title: Failsafe
Characters: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG-13
Words: About 3100
Summary: It starts with a power spike, late at night.
Notes: The idea for this came from a chat with mklutz, who subsequently was awesome and encouraged me to write more. Many, many shiny thanks to lyrstzha for pushing me on the storyline, and for the beta (and the title suggestions)!

Comments

[aurora_84]

Oh wow!

Chilling and heartbreaking and gorgeous. Well done!

[ana_grrl]

Thank you :) I'm thrilled that you enjoyed it!

[ana_grrl]

Thank you! I'm really relieved that the end reveal worked (that it wasn't too clunky working up to it). Thanks for letting me know you enjoyed it!

[bluebrocade]

Excellent story. Sadness! Poor Rodney! Poor John!

[ana_grrl]

Thank you! I really like the idea of Atlantis being slightly creepy and unknown like that - and I'm relieved that the sadness worked!

[shadowserenity]

Oh, wow. This was excellent. I loved the way you kept a balance between surprise and obscure. I found the final scene particularly chilling when McKay fetched a gun and then asked "John" what he is. The mental picture in my mind was *perfect*. And when "John" described the automated system, all I could think was "machine, machine, machine" (btw, when do you think the real John would have perished?). As someone above said, he's is kind of a Cylon now ;).

I really, really enjoyed this story. Thank you for sharing :).

[ana_grrl]

Thank you for your lovely comments! I'm so glad the surprise/obscure balance worked; and that part about Rodney getting the gun was totally lyrstzha's suggestion - I just had him walking to Sheppard's office, but she said, hang on! He'd go armed! And she was right :)

I like the idea of him being Cylon-esque! But with an inevitable tie to the city, which means that he can't ever really leave.

I figure he'd die sometime after the ep with the Genii and the Wraith feeding on him (I can't remember the name of the episode, sadly). Some kind of physical stress from the draining and then the rapid replenishing of his body - maybe it worked for a short time, but in the long run, it was too much for him to handle. So, it would have interesting implications for 'The Return' (assuming Rodney and Elizabeth allowed the program to continue running...)

Thank you again! I'm really glad you enjoyed it!

[panisdead]

Hmm. I generally have a knee-jerk negative response to Somebody Is Not What They Seem stories, but I liked this one. I'm not sure what's different about it, but cool!

[ana_grrl]

Awesome! It's a great compliment that this fic works for you if the genre (I don't think genre is the right word here but I can't think of the right one) doesn't usually grab you! Thank you for letting me know you enjoyed it!