TEAM WORK: close to the mark, "Where You Choose To Be"

Aug 18, 2010 18:56

Title: Where You Choose To Be
Author: propinquitine
Team: Work
Prompt: close to the mark
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: John goes far from home without ever leaving the city.
A/N: Thanks to M. and winkingstar for the cheerleading and beta!

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**

John really should've known better. The cardinal rule of exploring new labs with Rodney had always been "Don't touch that, you moron," and Rodney was usually ready with a sharp reminder if he looked like he was about to forget it. But Rodney had been halfway across the newly unearthed lab ("How great is this?" he'd said, bouncing on his toes, "Seven years in and we've still got who knows how many So-and-So's Secret Labs to find!"), bending over a dusty lab table, and John had been - distracted.

Not by Rodney's ass (though he'd be lying if he pretended that didn't happen a couple dozen times a month), but by the whole scenario: Rodney, vibrating with the need to examine each new bit of information and figure out how it proved he was right, right, right about something; John, keeping an eye out for hidden dangers and the coolest new whatever they were going to find; the both of them, exploring the city like it's their job, because it was, ever since the Wraith were neutralized and the IOA had declared Atlantis an official Research Outpost. John's job title might have changed (to Chief Operations Coordinator, or Chief Coordinating Operator, or something else that made him roll his eyes), but his day-to-day was a pretty familiar mix of organizing the gate teams with Ronon, strategizing about Atlantis's role in Pegasus with Teyla, and protecting the scientists from themselves (and Rodney).

And Rodney, who'd loudly and frequently proclaimed his right to stay on as head of the science department until he'd finally realized that absolutely no one was suggesting otherwise, was right there with him, every bickering step of the way. They spent even more time together these days, if that was possible, shop talk at dinner flowing seamlessly into late-night chess matches and beer-and-movie sessions, until it got to the point that John was spending more nights conked out on Rodney’s couch than he was in his own bed. It all felt a lot like something John could get used to - something he didn't want to think about too hard and couldn't imagine actually talking about - and he'd let himself bask in the idea of it, just for a moment.

So he really hadn't been paying attention when he lifted the shiny green hockey-puck-looking thing off of a low shelf in the lab. It had started to glow almost immediately, and he'd had just enough time to say, "Oh, crap," and catch Rodney's bewildered look when the thing went

zhhhhht

and suddenly he was standing in the dark. "Rodney?" he called, voice echoing around the room. It felt like the same lab, the same amount of space around him, but the air felt heavy in his lungs, like the life support systems hadn't done a great job of oxygenating the place. John backed toward the door and slapped a hand across the light panel. The overheads flickered slowly to life, revealing that yes, it was the same lab, and no, Rodney wasn't there.

"Way to go, John," he muttered to himself. The lab looked just as mothballed as the one he'd just been in, dust covers over every surface and boxes stacked against the walls. The lights were dimmer, though, and he didn't hear anything like the usual background hum of the city.

He tapped his radio. "This is Sheppard, can anyone read me?"

Silence. Not even a crackle of feedback. His earpiece wasn't picking anything up. "Yeah, that would've been too easy."

But maybe he was on the wrong frequency, or something was interfering with radio transmissions. It still might be worth it to check out the gateroom. He took one last look at the empty lab - still frustratingly devoid of either answers or McKay - and headed out into the city.

The layout of the hallways was the same, the new lab still six doors down the third hall from the left of transporter nine, and John figured that meant he was still about twenty floors down from the gateroom level. "To transport or not to transport?" he murmured, frowning at the closed doors in front of him. Getting trapped between endpoints because this version of the city didn't have the power to complete the transport didn't sound too appealing, but he was pretty sure the nearest stairwell was about half a mile in the other direction. John clenched his fingers around the Ancient hockey puck; relying on a backup personal teleport device that might not even work again was just barely preferable to getting lost in the bowels of a strange Atlantis.

But the doors whooshed open and the control panel lit up to display a very familiar map, and in a moment John was standing in the darkened hall leading to the gateroom's main balcony. The lights came up one by one as he walked toward the main room, where sunlight was streaming in through the high windows. The empty gateroom glowed, the consoles gleaming and naked without the usual litter of laptops and coffee mugs strewn about. This wasn't cold and murky light filtered by fathoms of sea water, or the burning red glow of a planet scorched dry: Atlantis was floating on an ocean indistinguishable from the one he'd left her on.

"So not the future, then," John said, scratching at the back of his head. "Or, not the one I've been to. Where -" he started, and the device lit up with a

zhhhhht

"The hell am I?" he finished, then shut up as he realized that wherever he had been, it wasn't where he was any more. The gateroom was suddenly full of people, most of whom were looking up at the balcony at him, staring.

There was the audible click of a pistol being cocked right behind his ear. "If you're asking 'who the hell are you?', you're stealing my line," said a weirdly familiar voice at his shoulder.

John froze. "Hey now," he said, trying to think of what he would want to hear if he were on the other side of the gun. "I can explain." Yeah, that wasn't it.

The gun prodded him in the back. "I'm sure you can. Question is, do I want to listen? Turn around. Slowly."

He did, keeping his hands visible and his features impassive, which was no mean feat when he was staring down the barrel of a gun and into his own face.

"Look, there's actually a simple explanation for this," John started.

He was interrupted by another familiar voice calling out. "John!" The crowd around him shifted, opening up a space. "What is going on here?"

And up walked Elizabeth Weir, looking healthy and determined and so goddamned fucking alive that John felt it like a punch to the gut.

"He just showed up out of no where," the other John answered. "Teleport from an Asuran ship, maybe. Nobody touch him."

John shook his head. "No, really, I'm not a Replicator. I'm not a Sekkari mind game, either, and I'm not one of those crystal energy beings. Pretty sure you're all awake right now."

"All right," Elizabeth said, "That's who you aren't. But who are you?"

"John Sheppard. Not him," he said, gesturing at his double, who was still pointing his gun at him, though maybe with slightly less murderous intent. "A different John Sheppard, from a parallel universe, I guess." John raised his hand to show them the Ancient device. "If you ever find something that looks like this, don't touch it."

The other him snorted. "Could've told you that. McKay," he said, tapping his radio. "Get to the gateroom. We've got a Rod situation."

By the time McKay arrived, the other John had holstered his gun and Elizabeth had dispersed the crowd. They were conferring just out of earshot, and John couldn't stop watching Elizabeth. She looked older, not by a lot, but older than she'd ever get in his universe. It suited her; he'd forgotten just how regal she could look when she was taking command of a situation.

"And what exactly is a 'rod' situation, Sheppard?" McKay asked as he strode into the gateroom. "There are the cooling rods down in level 13, but those wouldn't - oh." McKay stopped when he noticed the two Sheppards. "Oh, I see." He looked from John, standing by himself on the balcony, to John, standing by Elizabeth. "Well, this is new."

"Not really," the two Johns said in unison. The other Sheppard frowned at him.

"I just want to figure out how to get out of your hair," John said. "This thing keeps moving me, I don't think I'm doing anything to set it off, and I can't seem to control where it takes me." He looked himself in the eye. "All I want to do is get back to my own universe."

The other John nodded. "Rodney, help the man out."

"Based on what, exactly? I don't even know what this 'thing' is!" McKay moved closer and John flinched, tightening his grip on the hockey puck. "Of course I'm not going to touch it," McKay said scathingly, "I just want to get a look at it. Hold still. So you say it just moves you, hmm? Probably on some sort of timer. How long has he been here?"

"Nineteen minutes," the other John said.

"It starts glowing a second or two before the shift, and then there's this noise and I'm somewhere else."

"Does it hurt, when it happens?" McKay asked.

"No, it doesn't really feel like anything." McKay raised an eyebrow at him. "Seriously. I might not even realize something had happened if it weren't for the noise and everything being different all of a sudden. I'm not being stoic."

McKay snorted. "Right. Well," he said to the other John, "at least this version of you knows you have a martyr complex."

"Rodney," Elizabeth cut in, "John, did you say the device glows before you shift?"

"Yeah," John said, looking down at his hand, "Wh-"

zhhhhht

Water, everywhere, instantly soaking through his clothes and rushing into his open mouth. John snapped his jaw shut, expelling water through clenched teeth and holding in the little breath he had left. He was still in the gateroom, still on the balcony, but floating up and away from it now because this Atlantis was flooded. John squinted against the sting of salt water, his heartbeat thudding dully in his ears, as he swam upwards, past the struts and brackets and stained glass windows to the very top of the gateroom's vaulted ceiling. His lungs started to burn and he clawed at the uppermost skylight with one hand. But it was no use; he could see, just barely, through the window and knew he was looking at thousands of feet of water above his head. The city had flooded while submerged, shields failed and the ocean taken over, and there was no way he could hold his breath long enough to reach the surface, let alone last the eighteen more minutes he had until the timer ran down again. Damn it, he thought, grabbing at the nearest ceiling beam and squeezing the hockey puck tightly, stupid piece of crap, why can't you just let me shift

zhhhhht

when I need - "Fuck!" he yelped as gravity muscled buoyancy out of the way and almost dragged him thirty feet down to the gateroom floor. He clung to the ceiling beam and heaved a few much-needed breaths. He really should try to avoid dying while saving his own ass.

John slipped the device into his shirt pocket and managed to clamber down the interior wall of the gateroom without too much difficulty - not like it was the first time he'd done it. He'd gotten to within ten feet of the landing before anyone noticed him.

"Sir? May I ask what you're doing?"

Ah, hell. "Hey there, Grodin," he called. "Just checking the light bulbs. Thought I saw one blow out." He found a solid handhold and let himself hang for a minute, then dropped the last six feet to the floor.

"Right, sir." Grodin was looking at him strangely. "But I thought you and Major Ford still had your teams at the Alpha site for the next ten days."

"Yeah, that's probably true," John agreed. "Tell you what," he said, plucking the device out of his pocket. "How 'bout you just forget you saw me? And tell Major Ford I said 'congrats' on the promotion."

"Why can't you tell him yours-"

zhhhhht

The smell in the next gateroom was so intense he almost vomited on the spot. The sickly sweet scent of decay was overpowering, rising up from the bodies that lay crumpled and twisted on the floor below him. John pulled out a handkerchief and held it to his nose. It didn't do much against the stench.

He walked slowly down the stairs, trying to figure out what had happened here. None of the bodies were wounded - that he could see - and the faces that were still shaped like faces all looked peaceful, maybe a little surprised.

There was a cluster of bodies just outside of the gate's splash zone. They were heavily decayed, but John could see the sunlight glinting off the frame of Woolsey's glasses, recognized a bracelet Torren had made around Teyla's wrist, saw the skull bead Ronon had started wearing on a leather band around his neck after he cut his dreads. A person dressed in white had fallen with his - her? - back to the gate. John didn't recognize the clothing style and crept closer to the group. As he approached, he saw a flash of red - a maple leaf - in an otherwise indistinguishable mass of putrefying flesh. He swallowed, hard, and looked away.

There was an intricately carved box tipped open on its side next to the group, a few inches from the white figure's outstretched hand. John studied it, filing away a mental image in his "Things To Never Touch, and Maybe To Shoot On Sight" folder. He was still hoping that this was a different universe, that even though everything seemed to match up with the city and the people he'd left, this hadn't happened while he'd been gone, that a threat he hadn't been there to catch hadn't just walked into the gateroom and destroyed everything.

It was a relief to discover his own corpse. A pair of unlaced boots stuck out awkwardly from the pile, and John could recognize his own hair, not yet decomposing, once he knew where to look for it. His body was under the others, which meant he'd fallen first, but it also meant he'd put himself between the box and his people, so John couldn't fault himself too much.

He turned away. "This shit is getting kinda old," he said to himself. "There's got to be a better way to do this."

And there was, or at least, there was a faster way. He could cycle through universes quickly, only staying as long as it took him to determine they weren't his own. That was pretty easy to do when

zhhhhht

The first thing he noticed was the scaffolding stretching all the way up to the ceiling, where Ronon was putting the finishing touches on some kind of gigantic mural thing -

zhhhhht

Or when the landing at the top of the stairs had been transformed into an ornate dais for what appeared to be Sam Carter's throne -

zhhhhht

Or when he landed in the middle of a firefight, the gateroom under siege by what looked like Genii 2.0 troops. He stayed just long enough to draw his weapon and put two in the back of the sniper that had obviously drawn a bead on Teyla, who was providing Rodney with cover fire while he typed furiously at the console next to the DHD -

zhhhht

Or when he noticed a pair of centipedes the size of dachshunds crawling up the wall -

zhhhhht

Or when he almost got clocked in the face by one of McKay's flailing hands.

"No, you idiot, of course that won't work!" McKay said. He was talking - well, shouting - at several members of the science team. "The power requirements for a shield of that size are quite literally astronomical. Unless you've got a portable fusion center the size of a small star handy, we're going to have to think of something else."

By this point, most of the people in the gateroom were staring at John. "What? What are you all gawping at?" McKay turned, his eyes going big and round. "John?"

For a split second, John thought he might've made it back to the right universe. But then he noticed the ring on McKay's left hand, just before McKay pulled him into a tight, desperate hug.

"Oh god, you're back, you're really back, I can't believe it. I mean, I always wondered, when we couldn't find a body, I thought maybe there was a slim chance you'd ascended, but I couldn't let myself think about it, never thought you'd come back this fast - aren't you supposed to be naked, when you descend? Not that I want everyone else to see you naked, but I thought that was how - gah, who cares, the only thing that matters is that it's you, it's really you," McKay finished, burying his face in John's shoulder.

John froze. Oh, hell, this was not fair. He brought his hands up to McKay's shoulders, pushing gently but firmly until McKay loosened his grip and looked up. His eyes were wet, and John cursed inwardly. "I'm not him, buddy. I'm sorry."

For a moment, McKay's face collapsed, raw grief etching deep lines around his mouth, between his eyes. Then he disengaged completely, stepping back a few paces and clearing his throat, staring at the floor for a few seconds as he regained his composure. "Of course." He coughed into his fist. "Of course not. That's, that would - my mistake."

"I'm from a parallel universe," John offered. He held up the hockey puck. "This thing, it's a personal transporter, or something. No idea how it works, but . . . ." He trailed off, not sure what else to say.

"Right," McKay said, still staring at the floor. "Yes, that makes more sense." He nodded absently a few times, then looked John square in the eye. "Right," he said, clapping his hands together. "Let's see what we can find about that thing in the database."

"I've only got about fifteen minutes before it shunts me somewhere else," John said.

"All right," McKay answered, raising his voice. "Correction: let's see what we can find about that thing in the database in fifteen minutes." McKay paused. "Why don't I hear moving, people?"

The science team tableau finally broke from their freeze at that, and the room burst into activity, everyone turning to a laptop or a console or datapad that could tap into the city's central servers. Conversations started up, and a few times John overheard someone ask, "Wait, what are we looking for?" but most of them seemed content to devise search queries based on the unique characteristics of "can transport you between parallel realities" and "fits in the palm of your hand".

McKay was still looking toward John, but not really focusing on him. John stood still, wanting to do the right thing so badly and having no idea what that was. McKay started fiddling with his ring, twisting it back and forth around his finger, and John couldn't stop himself from starting to ask, "So, you and, uh . . . ."

McKay blinked and looked at him, like he'd almost forgotten John was actually standing there. "Yes, we, um," he nodded and glanced at John's hand. "But you're not . . . ?"

He didn't sound angry, or pitying, or judgmental, or like anything at all, really, but somehow the question still made John feel like the biggest piece of shit ever. "No, we're - not," he said, feeling wholly inadequate. "I mean, I haven't, I never . . . tried. I'm sorry," he added, not really sure who he was saying it to.

McKay nodded. "You should. Try, I mean." When John raised an eyebrow at him, McKay chuckled dryly. "Well, you can't expect him to do it. He's . . ." McKay sighed. "He's probably got no idea, but once you clue him in, he'll catch on pretty quickly."

"Wait, I'm supposed to be the emotionally mature one in this?" John asked.

"Yeah," McKay snorted, "You're kind of doomed." He took a sharp breath and looked across the gateroom for a moment. "Okay," he said, pulling a laptop from the hands of the nearest minion. "Let's see what we've got."

What they got, in the next ten minutes, was not much. Yes, there was a lab in this version of Atlantis, same as in John's own, and no, they hadn't explored it yet. ("Really, you just picked something up?" Rodney had asked, when the full story came out. "Without getting someone else to check it out first? Have I taught you nothing over there?") There were a couple of entries about massively scaling down energy production methods, but nothing directly on point.

As his time dwindled away, John turned to McKay and thanked him. "This couldn't have been easy for you. I appreciate the help."

"You know, if you destroy it," McKay said, dropping his voice so only John could hear, "the reality-shifting should stop."

John held his eye for a long moment, acknowledging the unasked question with an apologetic nod. "I'll keep that in mind for when I get home," he said softly.

Yeah," McKay nodded. "Yeah, you do that."

The puck started to glow and everyone backed away from John. "Hey, Sheppard," McKay called to him, and John looked up. "Don't fuck it up."

zhhhhht

"Who or what are you?" asked a familiar voice, and maybe it was something about the thick glasses this version of him was wearing, but it sounded extra nasal-y.

"You from another universe," John answered, "Brought here by this thing," he waved the hockey puck, "not sure how it works, found it in a secret lab, it keeps shifting me from one parallel reality to another. Can I check out your database? I might have an idea of where to start looking up stuff on how this works."

"Or we could try looking in the lab where you found it," the other John said witheringly. "The local system may have a cache of files that were accessed there frequently."

"Huh, yeah, that makes sense," John said, but the other him was already walking away.

"Well?" he called back to John, "Are you coming or not?"

"You don't even know where the lab is," John grumbled under his breath. The other man was already clomping noisily down the hallway. It made John wince. He wouldn't exactly call himself graceful, but he could move pretty smoothly when the situation called for it; he had a hard time picturing this version of him sneaking behind enemy lines, or even tiptoeing to the fridge late at night for a snack. "So, you're a civilian?" he asked.

The other John shot him a dismissive look. "Judging by your clothes, so are you."

"I just converted to contractor status, yeah, but you've never served, have you?"

"And endanger this magnificent brain?" he scoffed, sounding so much like John's father that John felt his hand close into a fist involuntarily. They got into a transporter and John punched in the location of the lab instead. "So we should start with a general read of the local database structure, get a sense of what's there, and then delve into the most promising categories, recognizing, of course, that the system of organization is likely to be idiosyncratic to this particular set of researchers."

They stepped out of the transporter and started down the hall. "That sounds great and all, but did I mention I've only got twenty minutes until this thing spits me out somewhere else? Well," he added, because he could just tell it would tweak the other him, "now it's more like sixteen."

"You're just thinking to mention this now? Your brain really has atrophied, I always thought it might," he said and took off at an incredibly ungainly run.

"You're going the wrong way!" John shouted as he followed, hoping fiercely that he didn't look like that much of a dork when he ran.

Inside the lab, the other John wouldn't stop peppering him with questions. How many universes had he been to, how much power did each shift take, how long did the shifting take him, personally, and how much time did it take relative to a steady timeline?

"I. Don't. Know," John answered. "I haven't exactly been at liberty to 'study the phenomenon', here. There's only so much you can do in twenty minutes."

The other John huffed in annoyance. "If I don't have this information, I can't solve the problem," he bit out.

"It's a lot for one person!" John said, feeling defensive. "Why don't you call McKay down here, or something? Get a couple extra brains on it. You do have a McKay here, right?" He kind of wanted to see this - the two of them probably got along like oil and water. Or maybe oil and a grease fire.

But the other John just stared at him with a closed expression on his face. "No."

"No, what? No, he's not here right now? No, you've never heard of Rodney McKay? Might go by Meredith?"

"We had one. Now we don't." John opened his mouth to push for more, but his counterpart cut him off. "He's dead, all right? We'd been here about a year, and Sumner said the science team had to start pulling its weight on off-world missions. Like he hadn't forbidden us from going in the first place. Rodney went out with a team a couple of times, and one time he didn't come back." The other John pushed his glasses up his nose. "I should've been the one to go. I thought it would be too much of a distraction from my work, but Rodney's work was almost as important and . . . it should've been me," he finished quietly.

Yes, John wanted to scream, yes, of course it should have been you, it's always supposed to be you, that's your fucking job, I don't care what you think you're doing, you protect - "You couldn't have known," he said. If the other man really was John Sheppard, he didn't need to hear all that from someone else.

The other John squinted at him. "People die on missions all the time. This galaxy is infested with life force-sucking bugs, among one of many horrors. Of course I should have known." The you moron was heavily implied.

"You can't -" John started, but the other John cut him off.

"Believe me, I know I'm not the kind of person who should be giving pep talks. So, stop." He drummed his fingers on the lab table. "We're wasting time. Okay, tell me again how you're instructing the device."

"I just, you know, think at it and it responds," John said. "The first time I tried it, I was about to drown, and thinking shift real hard seemed to work. So that's what I do."

The other John rolled his eyes. "You just think shift. No destination, no picturing where you want to end up, where you want to be? You're giving absolutely the bare minimum effort?"

"Hey now," John said. This was getting entirely too personal. The other him had turned out to be kind of a dick; he'd always thought he might. "This has been a bit stressful, but why don't I give it a try right now."

"Oh, great, run off half-cocked without any real plan in place, that's a brilliant idea," John heard himself say, but he'd already closed his eyes and started focusing on the puck. I wish I had never picked this thing up. Shift.

zhhhhht

"Here, hold this, would you?" McKay asked him, passing him a datapad. "Wait, how'd you get over here?" He looked across the lab to where another John stood. "Shit, is one of these a cloning device?"

"No," John said. He pointed to the duplicate hockey puck, still undisturbed on the shelf by the door. "But that one's an inter-dimensional personal transport." He looked at the other him. "I'd recommend not picking it up."

"See?" McKay cried, gesturing between the other device and the other John. "I told you you'd have to be abysmally stupid to just wander in here and start touching things!" McKay looked back at John. "Uh, sorry."

"Oh, no, I agree," John said. "Anyway, just passing through, trying to get back to my own reality." He looked around the lab. All the dust covers had been removed and about half of the artifacts had been divvied up into the now-standard "Broken" "Useful" and "I Have a Bad Feeling About This" boxes. "Man, you guys have gotten a lot done in a couple of hours."

"Hours?" the other him said. "We've been clearing this lab for almost a week."

Well, shit. "Okay then, pro tip about that green device right there: it apparently doesn't keep pace with the local timeline."

"What else can you tell us about it?" McKay asked.

"It's got a timer and moves you automatically, but if you tell it to shift, you can try aiming toward the universe you want to end up in. That's how I got here."

The other John crossed the room and stood next to McKay, folding his arms across his chest and frowning at John. McKay turned to him. "What's wrong with you?"

John held up his hands. "I know, I know, this isn't my universe, I should be moseying along."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea."

"What?" McKay asked. "Is this town not big enough for the both of you? This is absurd."

"Rodney," the other him drawled, "When have doubles or duplicates ever been good news for us?"

"Well, our Replicator selves weren't all that bad," McKay tried, but the other John just raised an eyebrow at him. "No, I suppose you're right." He turned to John. "Okay, yes, you should go, try again, you must be pretty close, right? Anything else you can tell us before you leave?"

"Yeah, you might try looking at the file cache on the local system here, see what stuff they accessed most frequently."

The other John snorted. "I could've told you that."

John sighed and closed his eyes. I really just want to go home.

zhhhhht

"John!"

"Yeah, that's me," he said wearily. Now that he knew he'd been popping in and out of existences for several days, he was really starting to feel exhausted. He opened his eyes to see Rodney rushing across the lab toward him, leaving Zelenka and a few of the other science team members blinking in his wake. "Hey, I might not be the Sheppard you know, but -"

Rodney grabbed the front of his shirt and used his momentum to push John back a few steps to the doorframe. "John," he said fervently, and then Rodney kissed him.

It was a hell of a kiss, John thought distantly, Rodney pressing up against him, solid and strong, mouth hot on his, warm and slick and so, so good - "Damn it," John muttered, pulling his head back. "I really thought this was the right one." He let his head drop back against the doorframe with a thunk. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zelenka hurriedly shooing the science team into the adjoining lab.

"What?" Rodney asked, tightening his grip on John's shirt. "The right one, what? What are you talking about?"

John held up the device. "This thing, it's making me skip through realities. I'm trying to go back to mine. To get home."

"Yes, hello, this is your home!" Rodney gestured around the room. "You've been gone for a week, I've had everyone scouring the database for anything about the device you were screwing around with when you disappeared into thin air and all I could give them to go on was the shape of the footprint it left in the dust on the shelf! I've been going out of my mind with it, honestly, but now you're back and I -" Rodney leaned in again.

John put out a hand, grasping Rodney's shoulder and stopping him from coming as close as he clearly wanted to. "Yeah, that's the thing. In my universe, you don't . . . we're not . . . " John trailed off, hoping Rodney would put things together on his own, but he just frowned at John. "First off, Rodney, you're not into men. Where I'm from," he added.

"That you're aware of," Rodney sniffed. "I'm willing to bet my past is filled with lurid details in every universe. I was pretty much a slut in grad school, it was great. Nothing like blowing off some steam by blowing your lab partner."

"Ah, jeez," John said. "That's - really distracting, but not the point." Rodney just looked at him, his face still so close that John was going a little cross-eyed. "The point is that you don't kiss me! You haven't, ever. And I haven't either. This can't be the right universe."

"Oh," Rodney said, backing away. "Oh, you don't want . . . oh. I guess I didn't really think of, well," he dropped his gaze, "of anything but getting you back, really. You disappeared, John, for a while I thought I'd lost you in the city somehow, even though I was watching when it happened. It was completely disorienting, and you just kept on being gone. And now you reappear in exactly the same spot, which is highly improbable but also the best thing, and I just want -" Rodney looked up. "You. I want you, in my life, I want you to be here, to keep being here and not be gone. Ever."

"My Rod- the Rodney in my universe doesn't think like that."

"Well, that's just incorrect," Rodney said. "No, I mean it: If the universe you think is yours is at all similar to this one - and I'd argue it is exactly the same - the Rodney of your universe definitely feels like I do. He has to. After everything you've gone through together - you're pretty much the most important person in his life. And he's me, remember, so . . . ." Rodney trailed off unhappily. "So it's going to be awkward for you no matter where you go, because I'll be, I'll be pining for you, and it's going to suck."

"Rodney, it's not - you wouldn't be pining," John said, as close to an admission as he could get, right then. "It just can't be that easy."

"Easy? John, I just lived through you apparently winking out of existence for at least the third time! And it's definitely not getting easier." Rodney stepped closer. "It's been seven years since I first saw you and thought 'Who's the hot Air Force asshole, and what is he doing in my chair?'"

"But this isn't real!" John shouted. It had been gnawing at him, the creeping sense of dread as he realized what had happened here. "I created this, or did something close enough to it. I thought about what I wanted and the damned device took me here. This isn't really a reality, and it's not fair to you. It's, it's a construct, where everything happens the way I want it to."

Rodney sighed. "That's really not how you should think of it. For one, it's not true. This universe has existed just as long as any other one out there. Events happen in it all the goddamned time that have nothing to do with you. It existed before you were born, it kept existing while you were gone, and it'll keep on existing after you die. Unless you die in some sort of universe-ending cataclysm, but that's not really relevant."

"Rodney -"

"No. Look, here's the thing: It's fine for you if you go off and find some universe where you can be sad and alone while surrounded by people who care about you. If that's what you want, you can get that, and you can keep trying until you find another universe that's like this one except the me there is too stupid or chickenshit to do anything until you decide it's time. But I don't get another shot. Okay? Do you get that?" Rodney grabbed his shoulder. "This is it for me. I may not be the Rodney you think you're looking for, but you're the only John I have. No one else is going to come skipping into this universe."

John opened his mouth to respond, but Rodney just barreled right on. "And if someone does? If another you shows up? We tell him to move along, tell him to keep looking for his own place, because you've got yours." Rodney stopped, shoulders slumping. "If you want it. But - John, it's your choice. You've got to make it."

John thought about it. For several minutes, he let everything that had happened in the past few hours, weeks, years roll around in his head, trying to make sense of it all. He nodded once, to himself, and then unholstered his weapon.

"Whoa, whoa, what do you think you're doing?" Rodney said, eyes widening in alarm.

"Not fucking it up, I hope," he answered. John put the hockey puck on the table and lifted his gun in the air, holding it by the barrel. He swung it down with as much force as he could and started hammering away at the device with the butt of his gun. Several noisy moments later, the thing lay in a dozen pieces scattered across the table. "There," he said, breathing heavily.

Rodney stared at him. "You couldn't just think 'off' at it?"

"Wanted to be sure," John shrugged. "What time is it?"

"What? Um, a quarter to seven? 18:45? Why?"

"How long have I been here? No," John shook his head, "how long have I been back?"

"About twenty minutes, give or take," Rodney said, frowning. "What does it matter?"

John tossed his gun on the table, next to the inert remains of the Ancient hockey puck. Twenty-one minutes meant the thing had turned itself off once he got back to his own universe. Nineteen minutes meant he'd just destroyed his one shot at returning to the reality he'd had before. He looked at Rodney, hovering nearby with a concerned, slightly hopeful look on his face. "Nah," John shook his head. "It's not important. C'mere," he said, reaching out to Rodney, "We should talk."

**

Poll

team work

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