SGA: Chronologic, slash fiction
Chronologic
by Purna
NC-17
McKay/Sheppard
~22,000 words, Spoilers through Season 3
Summary: Finding the charged ZPM was just the start.
A/N: Beta thanks to lamardeuse. This story was started before Progeny. It takes into account and contains spoilers for Progeny and The Real World, but is set before McKay and Mrs. Miller.
"The squiggly one next," Sheppard said over Rodney's shoulder. His pointing finger blocked Rodney's field of view, until Rodney batted it away.
"Yes, yes, Colonel, and you're welcome to sit in the next time I have time to waste on Freecell as well," Rodney said absently, as he eyed the carved stone squares that covered the wall in front of him.
"Are you forgetting Dagan, Rodney?" Sheppard said. "Because I seem to remember --"
"Mensa test, yes, how could I forget? But that was a simple mathematical puzzle. How's your Ancient, Colonel?"
"Not bad, actually," Sheppard said with a smirk. "I must be a natural."
Rodney snorted. "You've been studying, you mean. I've seen you reading Dr. Jackson's Ancient for Dummies. It's why I'm letting you gawk over my shoulder here."
Ignoring Sheppard's, "Just trying to help out, Rodney," he turned back to the stone squares. The Ancient words carved on the squares were part of a puzzle...and what was it with ZPMs hidden under puzzles? At least this time they didn't have to solve the thing with Genii guns at their heads.
The puzzle was half Ancient acrostic, half crossword, and Rodney had to admit that his progress on the thing had very little to do with his many years of specialized post-graduate education.
"Thank you, Will Shortz," he muttered and pressed the next stone, which was indeed carved with a squiggly symbol. Only in Pegasus could a crossword addiction save the galaxy, or at least supply Atlantis with a fully charged ZPM. That was what he was hoping anyway, and what the cryptic phrases surrounding the puzzle implied.
Rodney finished off the last three stone squares and waited.
"That's it?" Sheppard asked.
"Should be," Rodney answered, not pulling his eyes from the completed puzzle on the wall in front of them. "C'mon, c'mon," he muttered, only half-aware of Sheppard's eyes on him. Don't let this be another dead end.
A low grinding sound came from the wall, and one of the carved stone squares popped out. When the distinctive, crystalline shape of a ZPM appeared, Rodney let out a sound that was embarrassingly close to a whimper.
"Come to papa, you beautiful thing," Sheppard said as Rodney pulled it from the wall. Even Sheppard's raised eyebrow didn't stop Rodney from cradling it in his arms almost lovingly.
"I find your intense emotional attachment to a power storage vessel mildly disturbing," Teyla said, her tone arch. She and Ronon were keeping watch at the crumbling entrance to the ruins.
"She's doing the joke thing again, isn't she?" Sheppard said to Rodney, staring over at Teyla. "She's kinda scary when she does that."
"Yeah, but it pleases me when she's making fun of you, 'papa,'" Rodney answered.
"I think she's making fun of both of us, Rodney."
"We done here? Then we should leave," Ronon interrupted. He was wearing his stoic warrior face, but Rodney had been in enough sticky situations with the man to hear the tension hidden beneath the surface.
Rodney nodded. He glanced over at Sheppard, and they both sobered.
"Is it charged?" Sheppard asked.
"Just a second." He attached the leads from the detector he and Radek had finally cobbled together and sat back on his heels. The display showed a flickering line that steadied, and a wave of dizziness blurred his vision.
"Breathe, Rodney," he heard Sheppard say as if from a great distance.
"Full charge," he gasped, trying to quash the hysterical laughter that was bubbling up. "It's fully charged."
*
"This feels almost too easy," Sheppard said uneasily as they made their way back to the gate. "No monks, no ritual child suicide, no Genii--"
Rodney's stomach clenched and he made a shushing gesture at Sheppard. "Aren't you military types superstitious about saying stuff like that, Colonel? And don't tarnish the moment. A ZPM. A charged ZPM. This means we can now get Atlantis fully on-line."
"Is the city not functioning correctly now?" asked Teyla. Her eyes continued to scan the edges of the meadow they were walking through.
Rodney gave a paternal pat to the bulge of the ZPM in his shoulder bag. He'd managed to keep his hands from shaking when he carefully tucked it away, but he couldn't quite contain his excitement.
He looked over at Teyla. "Three ZPMs are needed to power the city, and we've been limping along with just the one. And that one's only half-charged. The city's not designed to run that way; it's like a laptop that's been booted up in 'safe mode.' Only the most basic systems are up and running."
"We'll still be down a ZPM, though. Exactly what cool new stuff are we looking at here?" Sheppard asked.
"Defensive shields that'll last a sustained Wraith siege, for one," Rodney said. "City-wide energy fields integrated with a defense system to help us fight them if they ever invade Atlantis proper."
"Can't argue with that," Ronon said. Warmth lightened his tone, which in Rodney's experience was Ronon's version of ecstatic joy.
"No more power rationing," Rodney continued, lost in contemplation. "Oh, god, no more interdepartmental squabbles about which labs should take priority in energy consumption. I may weep for joy."
"If we can hold off another big Wraith attack with that thing, I might join you," Sheppard said and resettled his aviator shades on his nose, a smirk crossing his face.
"Group catharsis, yes, Heightmeyer would surely approve," Rodney said. "But no hugging."
"I'll try to resist the urge," Sheppard said dryly.
They'd reached the edge of the meadow and were about to enter the heavy shade of the trees.
"Colonel." Teyla was frowning, eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth to say more, but Ronon's shout interrupted her.
"Run!"
Rodney stood there gaping for a moment, stunned, until Sheppard's hand in the middle of his back shoved him into motion. It was all confusion after that, Ronon blasting shots into the trees, Teyla shouting something Rodney couldn't make out.
They were running then, and just in time: a primitive feathered dart thudded into a tree nearby, followed immediately by an energy blast that seared past him, close enough that his skin tingled. Rodney let out a startled yelp.
"Okay?" Sheppard shouted.
No, Rodney wanted to shout, because getting shot at was the very opposite of okay, by any reasonable standard. But he didn't have the breath to spare for a truly satisfying rant, and so he just nodded his head. For that matter, Sheppard's version of okay meant a general lack of bleeding orifices, and on that front Rodney was way ahead of the curve so far.
He hugged the ZPM tightly to his chest, kept his head down, and ran. Short bursts of a P90, mixed with the Star Wars sound of the energy blasts and the hiss of the darts, almost masked the sound of his own ragged breathing. Sweat was pouring off him, a combination of exertion and stress, and a huge stitch was cramping his side, but he didn't let himself slow down. Physical fitness for its own sake had never interested him, but self-preservation kept forcing him to test the boundaries of his endurance.
"Are they Wraith?" Rodney said between gasps and darted a glance behind them. Sheppard shot him a look that clearly said How the hell should I know? then flinched as another energy blast nearly parted his hair. The frown he shot behind them looked half pissed-off, half mortally offended.
If not Wraith, Genii, maybe? It was a sad state of affairs that upon being ambushed, they had a list of usual suspects to pick from.
The topography around them was changing, rising beneath their feet. The slope seemed familiar, and Rodney realized they were almost back to the gate. Loose rocks and roots made the footing treacherous.
"Ow," Rodney said. A hard blow had struck his upper arm. It felt like the time he'd been hit by a rock thrown by Celeste Wernicke, who Rodney was sure had gone on to do great things on her prison softball team. He looked down to find one of the darts sticking out from his shoulder, the red and yellow of the fletching obscenely cheery, and his stomach churned.
It churned even more when Sheppard reached over and yanked the dart out.
"Ow, that hurt," Rodney yelled, but the pain of the puncture was fading fast. In fact the whole arm was going kind of...numb. "No, no, no. This is not good," he muttered, or tried to, because his lips felt thick and unwieldy and the words came out of his mouth slurred.
"Rodney?" Sheppard sounded angry, angry and worried.
"Shit." Rodney's sluggish foot had caught on something, a root trapping his foot in place while his body twisted around it. Pain flared white-hot through his knee, and Rodney had to bite back a yell. He went down heavily onto his hands and knees, barely avoiding a face plant onto the rocks.
Sheppard's hand was hard on his bicep, hauling him up. Rodney lurched forward, limping drunkenly on his wrenched knee, and Sheppard snaked a supporting arm around Rodney's waist.
Another energy bolt screamed right past Rodney's ear, lighting his nerves up like an electrical shock. Every muscle in his body tried to seize, and he couldn't make himself move a step. His body slipped out of Sheppard's grasp, and he ended up on his knees facing the direction they'd come from.
"What the hell?" he blurted. Movement had caught Rodney's eye, a figure almost hidden in the trees. A short glimpse was all he got, and he wondered if he'd imagined it. He blinked rapidly, and tried to get another look, but saw only trees, their leaves fluttering in the wind.
"Rodney, move!" Sheppard sounded frantic, which was unusual and scary enough to prod Rodney into motion.
Finally, they were at the gate, Ronon moving in to flank their position, sending cover fire back into the trees. "Dial it up," Sheppard yelled, but Teyla was already pressing the crystal keys of the DHD.
The watery blue event horizon formed, and Sheppard was shouting into his radio. "Coming in hot," he said to Atlantis' hail, and then they were hustling Rodney through the gate, half-carrying him. Sheppard's arm was wrapped tightly around his waist, Ronon and Teyla close by on his other side.
Rodney felt like the center of some weird human sandwich when they came through the gate, everyone so close they were almost falling over each other on the other side.
"Raise the shield," Sheppard shouted, his voice tight. "We need a medical team. Now."
Rodney closed his eyes with a sigh. He really, really just wanted to sit down, right there in the gate room, but Sheppard's arm didn't move from around his waist, even when Rodney tried to shift away from his hold. "I want to sit," he said.
His voice sounded almost normal, only a little slurred and higher-pitched than normal, and he felt a flash of absurd pride at the fact. "There," he said, pointing at the steps that led up from the gate room floor. "Let me down."
"No," Sheppard said absently, staring around the gate room like a predator. Teyla and Ronon hadn't relaxed either, stalking the perimeter of the gate room floor. "Where the hell is that medical team?" It wasn't a shout; Sheppard's voice wasn't even raised, but there was a harshness to the tone that made Rodney blink.
Dr. Biro and a gurney finally arrived, and Sheppard eased him down onto it. "Cold," Rodney said around a tongue that felt thick.
His hands were so cold they ached, like when he'd forgotten gloves in the depths of a Siberian winter. A chill shuddered through him, and then his teeth were chattering. Hands were on him, holding him down, tucking a blanket around him. It wasn't the touch he had gotten used to, not the hands of his team, and it made him twitchy. He shoved at an orderly. "No, get off me."
"Be at ease, Rodney. They are trying to help you," Teyla said, a warning in her voice.
"Wait, wait," he managed and fumbled at the shoulder bag. "Radek. Need to give this to Radek."
"Later," Dr. Biro and Sheppard said together, and Sheppard pulled the dart out of a vest pocket and handed it over to Biro. "This was in his left shoulder. Had to be drugged. And he fell on the way to the gate. Did something to his knee."
Dr. Biro's team hustled Rodney's gurney to the transporter. Elizabeth, Sheppard, Teyla, and Ronon followed along in Rodney's wake as he was wheeled to the infirmary.
Carson was in the infirmary when they got there, looking like he'd been called out of bed, rumpled and pillow-creased. Dr. Biro handed off the dart to him and shooed everyone else back beyond the privacy screen.
In the end, it didn't take the two doctors that long, although it seemed longer to Rodney, lying there feeling like he'd been shot up full of lidocaine, wondering what body part would go numb next. After a few whispered consultations and booting up of Ancient medical equipment, and way too much of Rodney's blood getting drawn, and an injection of something--"Has this been tested? Never mind, I don't even want to know"--Carson and Dr. Biro finally relaxed.
"So I'm okay now, right?" Rodney asked anxiously. "I'm not like, paralyzed from the waist down or anything, am I? I feel better. I think I can feel my toes." He could feel his lips again. That had to be a good thing.
"There was a paralytic on the dart," Carson said, rubbing at his eyes. "We were worried that it might interfere with your breathing, but the shot we just gave you should counter the effects."
"If that's it, I need to go then," Rodney said, sitting up, because as much as he liked to micromanage the primitive efforts of the medical establishment in regards to his own irreplaceable skin, hello, ZPM. "Whoa," he said, waiting for the room to stop spinning around him.
"Oh, no, you don't," Biro said, and pushed him back down onto the bed. "I still need to look at that knee." She looked over at Carson. "I've got it now, if you want to get back to bed."
Carson rubbed a hand through his hair, yawning, then reached over to pat Rodney on the shoulder. "You're going to be just fine, Rodney. You're in good hands. Dr. Biro here is our orthopedic expert; she'll be examining your knee. I'll just go and let your team know that you're going to be fine."
Carson wandered out of Rodney's cubicle, pushing aside the privacy screen. Rodney heard muffled questions and the reassuring tone of Carson's answers, and everyone ended up crowding around Rodney's bed.
"You look much better, Rodney," Teyla said. Ronon nodded, silent, his lips curled up in a rare smile.
Flippant words about not knowing anyone cared almost left Rodney's mouth. The tightness of Sheppard's expression made him hold his tongue.
"Yeah, the drooling wasn't a good look for you," Sheppard said. The look on his face was a decent stab at a smirk, but he was gripping Rodney's shoulder just a little too tightly.
"Well, we can't all be the drooling champion of P3X-878," Rodney said.
"I thought we agreed to never mention P3X-878," Sheppard said, the familiar interplay easing the tense lines of his face.
"I remember no such agreement," Rodney said.
Sheppard had let go of Rodney's shoulder finally. "C'mon, let's see it." He made a grabby give it here gesture.
Rodney fumbled at the shoulder bag that was still slung around his neck, and pulled out the ZPM. He smiled down at it, cradling it in his arms.
"It's the ZPM we found," he heard Sheppard say to something Dr. Biro had said.
"I see," she said, sounding impressed.
An explosion of Czech came from the door of the infirmary and the sound of running feet and then Radek was there, hands running nervously through his already-wild hair.
"Charged?" Radek reached out, one hand hesitating just above the ZPM's crystalline surface.
Rodney managed a nod, and the triumphant joy he'd felt back on the planet came flooding back. Radek was thumping him on the back, and laughing, and then crooning in low-voiced Czech to the ZPM.
"That is very good to see," Elizabeth said. She had come over to Rodney's bed to stand beside Sheppard. Teyla and Ronon flanked the two of them like heavily armed bookends.
Elizabeth excitement was not quite contained behind a small smile as she turned to look at each team member in turn. "Congratulations to you all. This is very good news."
Rodney felt weirdly like a mother with her newborn, being hovered over by five ecstatic fathers. He started an argument with Radek over which of the dormant labs they'd bring online first just to combat the strangeness.
Dr. Biro broke up the impromptu ZPM appreciation moment, pushing her way between Radek and Ronon. "I need to examine Dr. McKay's knee."
"Ow, what are you doing, trying to amputate?" he said to Dr. Biro as she palpated the joint. He handed over the ZPM to Radek reluctantly.
"Install that without me, and I'll make you wish you'd never been born," Rodney said.
Radek rolled his eyes at him. "Yes, yes, Rodney. You are a very scary man. We all tremble in your presence."
Teyla stifled a laugh at that, making Radek smile at her shyly. He turned back to Rodney. "I will take it to the lab for a full analysis."
Rodney squirmed around, rooting around in his vest pocket for the detector. "Take this, too," he said to Radek, holding out the device. "You can check our calibrations."
Dr. Biro was glaring at him. "Dr. McKay, allow me to examine you, or I'll have the orderlies clear the room and hold you down."
"Fine, fine," Rodney said irritably, but managed to stay still for the next few minutes.
They ended up having the debriefing right there in the infirmary, and Dr. Biro's own curiosity overcame her annoyance at the invasion. It was a little weird reporting to his boss while he was lying in the Ancient scanner without his pants, but not as weird as it would have been before Pegasus and the nearly incestuous social structure of Atlantis.
"And then Rodney solved a puzzle to win the ZPM. It took him longer than I expected, actually," Teyla was saying, and her teasing tone couldn't entirely hide the pride in her voice.
"Hey," Sheppard said, shooting Teyla a wounded look. "I helped, too."
Rodney waved a vague hand at him. "In an annoying back-seat driver sort of way, I suppose," he said to Sheppard, and then looked at Elizabeth. "So we managed to get the ZPM and nobody tried to kill us until just before we made our getaway."
"Not kill," Ronon corrected, lifting the dart carefully from the tray where Carson had placed it. "Stun dart."
Sheppard made a thoughtful noise. "I think the energy bolts were meant to stun, too."
"Were they Wraith weapons?" Elizabeth asked, her lips tightening and her forehead crinkling up.
Ronon grunted in negation. "They didn't move like Wraith. They moved like you or me."
Rodney was about to point out that Ronon's way of moving made most of them look like lumbering oafs, when he froze, mouth hanging open. Ronon's words had triggered something in his memory.
"Oh," he said finally, and then stopped. It had just been a glimpse; he could have been mistaken. The Asurans had made him see and feel all sorts of horrible things. And he'd hallucinated a Samantha Carter on the crashed jumper who had looked and sounded and felt--even tasted, he thought with a flush--real. This time there'd been neither alien influence nor head injury, but his trust in his own perceptions had been a little shaky ever since.
Sheppard was watching him with a curiously intense expression on his face. Rodney shifted under his gaze, ignoring Dr. Biro's admonishing, "You need to be still, Rodney."
"Rodney?" Sheppard managed to sound concerned and mildly threatening at the same time.
Time to come clean. "I thought I saw--this is going to sound crazy."
Sheppard didn't say anything, just raised an eyebrow at him.
"I caught a glimpse of one of them, just before we reached the gate," Rodney said, not meeting Sheppard's eyes. "For a split second. Definitely not Wraith. Human." He stopped then, vaguely hoping that'd be enough.
Sheppard wasn't fooled. "And?"
"Human," Rodney repeated. "And I recognized him." He shook his head and said under his breath, "Or thought I did, because this is just crazy."
Elizabeth looked troubled. "Who was it, Rodney?"
Rodney looked up and met her eyes. "It...it was me."
*
The debriefing got a little complicated after that.
"Perhaps he merely looked like you, Rodney," Teyla said. "You had been drugged, after all."
It was Teyla's most serene tone, but it sounded a little like false comfort. Rodney didn't care, though. He nodded eagerly. "I like that idea," he said.
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. "As attractive as that thought is, we can't discount all the more...unusual explanations." She frowned, steepling her hands thoughtfully. "Could Pegasus have a quantum mirror? I know Dr. Jackson traveled to a parallel universe through such a device, and the Dr. Carter from that universe visited ours. That mirror was destroyed, however."
Maybe he should have anticipated this level of acceptance for crazy-sounding statements. After all the weird shit SGC and the Pegasus galaxy had thrown their way, not much sounded completely outside the realm of possibility.
"Elizabeth, I think--" Sheppard started to say, but Elizabeth's raised hand stopped him.
"We're on the same page, John," she said and spent a few seconds talking into her headset. She looked over at Sheppard after she signed off. "Security teams are on alert, and the gateroom will contact me if your team's IDC is used."
"Good. I don't know if we have a quantum mirror hanging around somewhere, but don't forget that the evil Kirk SG1 team managed to travel into our universe without one," Sheppard said.
"Evil Kirk wasn't a quantum phenomenon," Rodney protested. "That was just a transporter accident, that split Kirk--" He stopped when Elizabeth and Sheppard both gave him the look. "Fine, fine, fine. I won't correct your horribly inaccurate analogy."
"Why, thank you, Rodney," Sheppard said, with a flash of a smirk, quickly suppressed.
"You're welcome."
Sheppard's smile faded. "They wanted to steal our ZPM," he said, and his expression turned grim in a way that suggested it would have been over his own dead body.
"Clones." Dr. Biro had looked up from her monitor, apparently wanting to play in the wild theory sandbox with the rest of them.
"Excuse me?" Rodney said. "Shouldn't you stick with, oh, fixing my knee, maybe?"
She ignored him and started going on about clones in such morbid detail that Rodney wanted to run screaming from the room.
Ronon returned to the comforting realm of Teyla's suggestion. He mentioned the perception-clouding ability of the Wraith, and Rodney wanted to fall on him in relief.
Sheppard spoke up. "Rodney, you had to have figured out all this stuff already, but you haven't done anything but critique my Star Trek analogies. You're usually answer man about this stuff."
Rodney shrugged. "I told Radek to change the codes, just in case. But I think I prefer Teyla's idea. Or Ronon's."
Teyla was quiet, watching Rodney with grave eyes. "You find the idea disturbing, don't you, Rodney?"
He felt himself scowling and tried to smooth out his expression. "Wouldn't you?" he asked. "It was bad enough when I found out I'd drowned in the first timeline. But this is worse. A Rodney McKay who'll attack his own team? I don't know who that man is."
The last sentence had come out sounding a little more vehement than Rodney had intended, almost yelling, and everyone went quiet. Rodney ducked his head down, but he could feel their eyes on him.
Rodney tensed when Elizabeth cleared her throat, but she said only, "So when will our new ZPM be installed, Rodney?"
"Soon as I'm done here," he said, nodding down at his knee. The ZPM waiting for him down in the lab was definitely the bright spot in Rodney's souring mood.
Dr. Biro started shooing them all out of the infirmary.
"A moment," Teyla said to Dr. Biro, moving to Rodney's side. She bent over to touch her forehead to his, her strong, calloused fingers gripping his shoulders for a long moment. "Be well, Rodney," she said, sounding almost solemn. It left Rodney flushing and off balance, his throat tight.
When Rodney finally escaped the infirmary and Dr. Biro's evil clutches, Sheppard was there, waiting in the corridor, slouched artistically against one wall. He smiled as Rodney lurched forward on his crutches, and Rodney found himself smiling back.
"How's the knee?" Sheppard asked, his smile dissolving as he stared down at the ugly black brace strapped around Rodney's knee. There was an odd look on his face that Rodney couldn't decipher, and he hoped Sheppard wasn't hovering out of some misplaced sense of guilt. Sheppard always took it way too personally when someone got hurt on his watch.
"It hurts like hell, what do you think? I think I can use it to my advantage, though. I'll make Radek fetch me coffee," Rodney said. Sheppard waited, one eyebrow raised, and Rodney sighed. "It's sprained. No torn ligaments," he said finally, with a certain sense of relief. Atlantis' medical team had a great width and breadth of experience, but Rodney figured orthopedic surgery would have guaranteed a trip back to Earth.
"That's good," Sheppard said as he steered them towards a transporter, his pace slowed so that Rodney could keep up.
Sheppard directed the transporter to the lab level, and Rodney blinked at him. "Radek and I were just going to install the ZPM. You don't need to be there."
Sheppard shrugged. "I thought it'd be cool." He didn't look over at Rodney, but he was back to smiling.
"Oh. Okay," Rodney said, feeling a little flustered. "Sure."
Radek was ready for them in the lab. "Finally," he said, but he looked ecstatic, not impatient.
"Hey! Injured here," Rodney said and waggled a crutch in Radek's direction.
"Our detector is properly calibrated; the ZPM is indeed fully charged," Radek said as he detached it from the scanner.
"Cool," Sheppard said, rubbing his palms together.
"Very cool," Rodney agreed.
They headed down to the ZPM chamber.
They were almost there when Rodney stopped for a moment to massage the ache in his hands. The crutches were tough on his palms, and even as thickly padded as the top pieces of the crutches were, they were already digging uncomfortably into his armpits.
He finally took a look around at the room they'd stopped in. His fingers stopped kneading the palm of his left hand, and he forgot all about the annoyance of the crutches as he took in his surroundings.
Rodney knew this place, and it was a not a pleasant familiarity. A chill raked across his nerves as recognition washed over him.
He turned toward Sheppard, who was hovering right beside Rodney's elbow. He was in Rodney's space, close, too close for anyone else, but after a few years of saving each other's ass, apparently Rodney's instincts gave Sheppard a pass on the personal space issue.
"When the Wraith were in the city--" Rodney's voice was low, and Sheppard ducked his head down to catch the words. Rodney's mouth snapped shut, and he swallowed hard before he continued. "This is where I lost my clip," he said. He was glad Radek had moved a little ahead of them, beyond whisper range. "And then Teyla had to save me."
She had kept quiet about it, at least, sparing Rodney further embarrassment, but he had never forgotten about that moment. The acuity of his memory was something that Rodney usually prided himself on, but it also meant he could relive in excruciating detail the worst moments in his life, over and over. On one level, he supposed he should be grateful to the memory, since it had goaded him into getting more serious with his weapons practice.
Sheppard looked at Rodney, his expression enigmatic.
Rodney had wondered if his admission would be met with instant mockery, but Sheppard just grunted. "Don't worry about it, Rodney. You survived and you learned."
Rodney laughed, one of those loud laughs that made him sound manic, but he couldn't help it. He felt the tightness in his chest ease. Sheppard's words had lifted the heavy weight that made it hard to breathe.
"Huh," Rodney said, staring at Sheppard's face. Sheppard was watching him closely, his forehead wrinkled up. He's trying to make me feel better, thought Rodney, a little surprised by the fact. It was that and the strange look in Sheppard's eyes that made Rodney stare. There was concern and fondness in that look, but Rodney sensed something else there as well.
Rodney was trying to piece together just what that something else was when everything went to hell.
A muffled grunt came from Radek, and Rodney looked over to see him struggling with someone. Rodney's hand instinctively went to his radio. A strong hand clamped down on his wrist, stopping the movement. At the same time his other arm was grabbed as well.
Apparently all the combat training Teyla and Sheppard and Ronon had inflicted on him hadn't been for nothing, because Rodney managed to break the grip on one of his hands. He swung the crutch like a club, trying to sweep the legs out from under his attacker.
His crutch connected with something, and he heard a pained shout, but he wasn't successful in bringing his opponent down. He found himself in a chokehold, an arm clamped under his chin, lifting him off his feet. He writhed in the grip, stomping with his good leg, trying to find the instep of his attacker.
"McKay, stop struggling." He felt and heard the growl at the same time, and his muscles obeyed the command instinctively.
"Ronon?" he heard himself squeak. "What..."
The muscular arm around his throat tightened, and Rodney froze. Ronon shook him like a huge cat with its prey, and the implicit threat was enough that Rodney clamped his mouth shut.
Feeling stunned and a little sick to his stomach, Rodney held himself very still. Blinking in confusion, he looked over at Sheppard, who had his sidearm out and was aiming at--himself. He was shouting and his 9mm was pointed at his duplicate. The other Sheppard in turn was armed with an unfamiliar bulky weapon, which he had leveled on Rodney's Sheppard. Sheppard's evil twin was ragged and bearded, but surprisingly recognizable. He looked, in fact, a lot like Sheppard had looked after the time dilation entrapment.
Beside him was Teyla, too thin and tense as piano wire, her hair hacked off in ragged layers. She had her 9mm out, also pointed at Rodney's Sheppard.
"Teyla?" Rodney stifled a wince at how he sounded, as lost and disbelieving as a kid who'd lost his mother, but Teyla didn't even glance in his direction. It was like one of his nightmares from when he'd first started going off world with the team, but he wasn't going to wake up this time.
He forced himself to turn his head, looking for Radek. Rodney stifled a wince at Radek's bewildered and distressed expression. Rodney hoped he was imagining the hint of betrayal in Radek's face, although it wasn't entirely unwarranted. Radek was being held at gunpoint by Rodney himself. Not the drugs, then, Rodney thought with a trace of hysteria.
The bag containing the ZPM was now hanging from the shoulder of the man holding Radek hostage. It's me, he thought as he stared. But not me.
It was with a sick sort of fascination that he cataloged all the visible differences between them. His doppelganger was gaunt and restless, little tremors shaking his hands. A scar seamed the jawline on the left side of face. It was thick and ugly, and Rodney got a little queasy when he tried to imagine what had caused it. Whatever it was, it must have laid the skin open to the bone, and then it looked as though the wound had healed imperfectly.
Hooded blue eyes caught his, and the man's lips tightened. He jerked his face to the side as if to hide the scar, and Rodney felt his face flush.
"Does anyone want to tell me what the fuck is going on?" Sheppard's 9mm didn't waver in its aim. His tone was low and dangerous, and it got everyone's attention.
"Lower your sidearm, and we'll tell you."
Rodney almost laughed to hear the other Sheppard use the let's all be reasonable tone that Sheppard pulled when he inevitably pissed off an off world population. It worked no better in this case than it usually did.
"I don't think so," Sheppard drawled. "See, you guys are trying to steal our ZPM. We don't take kindly to that sort of thing around here."
"We are not trying to steal anything," Teyla said. She sounded fierce. "We are attempting to save lives."
She shot Rodney a dark glance, and the simmering anger in her expression shocked him. He'd always thought Teyla's composure was unshakeable.
"Install the ZPM, and Radek dies." The voice made Rodney turn his head so fast the vertebrae in his neck popped. It was Rodney's own voice, shaking and as off-sounding as a recording, but recognizably himself. His words made Radek flinch.
It's not my voice, Rodney thought. It's his. McKay's voice, not mine.
"Everybody dies," McKay said, blinking rapidly. "Except us. Radek, Elizabeth, Carson. All dead. 'Everybody's dead, Dave.'" McKay's voice was a creepy singsong, and he was tracing the scar with the thumb of his left hand, over and over.
"Rodney." The other Sheppard's voice was soft and weirdly tender. It snapped McKay out of it. He went quiet, his hand dropping away from his face.
Something about the exchange had caught Sheppard's attention. His eyes flickered between the other Sheppard and McKay.
"We came from the future," Ronon said. He sounded a little impatient. "To change what happened."
"From the future?" Sheppard said, his tone skeptical. "And wait, isn't there some kind of rule against meeting yourself in the past? You blow up the universe or hurt yourself or something?"
McKay's snort echoed Rodney's own, making Rodney stare at him for a moment. "I'm taking this one," he said to his doppelganger.
To Sheppard, Rodney said, "Yeah, that's the first law of time." He waited a beat, then sneered, "In Doctor Who, not in the real world."
The enormity of the situation was setting in, and Rodney sobered. "Entropic cascade failure might be what you're thinking of, but if they are telling the truth, I don't believe we have to worry about it. Not to impugn SGC's expertise, but I've always hypothesized that it was a delayed side effect of using the quantum mirror specifically, not of any generalized 'phase shifting.'" Rodney gave in to the urge to make finger quotes to punctuate the phrase.
McKay let out a stifled laugh that nearly turned into a coughing fit at that, and Rodney shot him a wary look. He raised an eyebrow at Sheppard--what's up with him?--but Sheppard shrugged.
Rodney could feel Ronon's move behind him. "Whatever. We came from the future in the jumper. Don't know how. Rodney did it."
Straightening as much as Ronon's grip allowed, Rodney stared over at McKay. "In a puddle jumper? You duplicated Janus' time travel work?" he asked. He stared at McKay in fascination, only half aware of the burst of Czech from Radek. There was envy mixed with Rodney's fascination, but he was trying hard to keep it out of his voice.
McKay flinched and had trouble meeting Rodney's eyes. He nodded, with a one-shouldered shrug. "It wasn't right. I had to make it right." The words came out high and fast, and the tone made Rodney shift uneasily in Ronon's hold.
McKay continued. "Something went wrong after we installed the ZPM. Something happened after that, something that made Atlantis turn on us. It killed them. It killed everyone." His mouth pulled down, and then he ducked his head, blinking rapidly.
"Jesus," Rodney blurted out, and then there was a long moment of silence.
Sheppard's eyes were on McKay. His expression was bland, but his eyebrows slanted down in a troubled line. "All right," he said suddenly, lowering his 9mm. "We put away our weapons, you let Rodney and Radek go, and then I'm ready to listen."
*
Part 2
by Purna
NC-17
McKay/Sheppard
~22,000 words, Spoilers through Season 3
Summary: Finding the charged ZPM was just the start.
A/N: Beta thanks to lamardeuse. This story was started before Progeny. It takes into account and contains spoilers for Progeny and The Real World, but is set before McKay and Mrs. Miller.
"The squiggly one next," Sheppard said over Rodney's shoulder. His pointing finger blocked Rodney's field of view, until Rodney batted it away.
"Yes, yes, Colonel, and you're welcome to sit in the next time I have time to waste on Freecell as well," Rodney said absently, as he eyed the carved stone squares that covered the wall in front of him.
"Are you forgetting Dagan, Rodney?" Sheppard said. "Because I seem to remember --"
"Mensa test, yes, how could I forget? But that was a simple mathematical puzzle. How's your Ancient, Colonel?"
"Not bad, actually," Sheppard said with a smirk. "I must be a natural."
Rodney snorted. "You've been studying, you mean. I've seen you reading Dr. Jackson's Ancient for Dummies. It's why I'm letting you gawk over my shoulder here."
Ignoring Sheppard's, "Just trying to help out, Rodney," he turned back to the stone squares. The Ancient words carved on the squares were part of a puzzle...and what was it with ZPMs hidden under puzzles? At least this time they didn't have to solve the thing with Genii guns at their heads.
The puzzle was half Ancient acrostic, half crossword, and Rodney had to admit that his progress on the thing had very little to do with his many years of specialized post-graduate education.
"Thank you, Will Shortz," he muttered and pressed the next stone, which was indeed carved with a squiggly symbol. Only in Pegasus could a crossword addiction save the galaxy, or at least supply Atlantis with a fully charged ZPM. That was what he was hoping anyway, and what the cryptic phrases surrounding the puzzle implied.
Rodney finished off the last three stone squares and waited.
"That's it?" Sheppard asked.
"Should be," Rodney answered, not pulling his eyes from the completed puzzle on the wall in front of them. "C'mon, c'mon," he muttered, only half-aware of Sheppard's eyes on him. Don't let this be another dead end.
A low grinding sound came from the wall, and one of the carved stone squares popped out. When the distinctive, crystalline shape of a ZPM appeared, Rodney let out a sound that was embarrassingly close to a whimper.
"Come to papa, you beautiful thing," Sheppard said as Rodney pulled it from the wall. Even Sheppard's raised eyebrow didn't stop Rodney from cradling it in his arms almost lovingly.
"I find your intense emotional attachment to a power storage vessel mildly disturbing," Teyla said, her tone arch. She and Ronon were keeping watch at the crumbling entrance to the ruins.
"She's doing the joke thing again, isn't she?" Sheppard said to Rodney, staring over at Teyla. "She's kinda scary when she does that."
"Yeah, but it pleases me when she's making fun of you, 'papa,'" Rodney answered.
"I think she's making fun of both of us, Rodney."
"We done here? Then we should leave," Ronon interrupted. He was wearing his stoic warrior face, but Rodney had been in enough sticky situations with the man to hear the tension hidden beneath the surface.
Rodney nodded. He glanced over at Sheppard, and they both sobered.
"Is it charged?" Sheppard asked.
"Just a second." He attached the leads from the detector he and Radek had finally cobbled together and sat back on his heels. The display showed a flickering line that steadied, and a wave of dizziness blurred his vision.
"Breathe, Rodney," he heard Sheppard say as if from a great distance.
"Full charge," he gasped, trying to quash the hysterical laughter that was bubbling up. "It's fully charged."
*
"This feels almost too easy," Sheppard said uneasily as they made their way back to the gate. "No monks, no ritual child suicide, no Genii--"
Rodney's stomach clenched and he made a shushing gesture at Sheppard. "Aren't you military types superstitious about saying stuff like that, Colonel? And don't tarnish the moment. A ZPM. A charged ZPM. This means we can now get Atlantis fully on-line."
"Is the city not functioning correctly now?" asked Teyla. Her eyes continued to scan the edges of the meadow they were walking through.
Rodney gave a paternal pat to the bulge of the ZPM in his shoulder bag. He'd managed to keep his hands from shaking when he carefully tucked it away, but he couldn't quite contain his excitement.
He looked over at Teyla. "Three ZPMs are needed to power the city, and we've been limping along with just the one. And that one's only half-charged. The city's not designed to run that way; it's like a laptop that's been booted up in 'safe mode.' Only the most basic systems are up and running."
"We'll still be down a ZPM, though. Exactly what cool new stuff are we looking at here?" Sheppard asked.
"Defensive shields that'll last a sustained Wraith siege, for one," Rodney said. "City-wide energy fields integrated with a defense system to help us fight them if they ever invade Atlantis proper."
"Can't argue with that," Ronon said. Warmth lightened his tone, which in Rodney's experience was Ronon's version of ecstatic joy.
"No more power rationing," Rodney continued, lost in contemplation. "Oh, god, no more interdepartmental squabbles about which labs should take priority in energy consumption. I may weep for joy."
"If we can hold off another big Wraith attack with that thing, I might join you," Sheppard said and resettled his aviator shades on his nose, a smirk crossing his face.
"Group catharsis, yes, Heightmeyer would surely approve," Rodney said. "But no hugging."
"I'll try to resist the urge," Sheppard said dryly.
They'd reached the edge of the meadow and were about to enter the heavy shade of the trees.
"Colonel." Teyla was frowning, eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth to say more, but Ronon's shout interrupted her.
"Run!"
Rodney stood there gaping for a moment, stunned, until Sheppard's hand in the middle of his back shoved him into motion. It was all confusion after that, Ronon blasting shots into the trees, Teyla shouting something Rodney couldn't make out.
They were running then, and just in time: a primitive feathered dart thudded into a tree nearby, followed immediately by an energy blast that seared past him, close enough that his skin tingled. Rodney let out a startled yelp.
"Okay?" Sheppard shouted.
No, Rodney wanted to shout, because getting shot at was the very opposite of okay, by any reasonable standard. But he didn't have the breath to spare for a truly satisfying rant, and so he just nodded his head. For that matter, Sheppard's version of okay meant a general lack of bleeding orifices, and on that front Rodney was way ahead of the curve so far.
He hugged the ZPM tightly to his chest, kept his head down, and ran. Short bursts of a P90, mixed with the Star Wars sound of the energy blasts and the hiss of the darts, almost masked the sound of his own ragged breathing. Sweat was pouring off him, a combination of exertion and stress, and a huge stitch was cramping his side, but he didn't let himself slow down. Physical fitness for its own sake had never interested him, but self-preservation kept forcing him to test the boundaries of his endurance.
"Are they Wraith?" Rodney said between gasps and darted a glance behind them. Sheppard shot him a look that clearly said How the hell should I know? then flinched as another energy blast nearly parted his hair. The frown he shot behind them looked half pissed-off, half mortally offended.
If not Wraith, Genii, maybe? It was a sad state of affairs that upon being ambushed, they had a list of usual suspects to pick from.
The topography around them was changing, rising beneath their feet. The slope seemed familiar, and Rodney realized they were almost back to the gate. Loose rocks and roots made the footing treacherous.
"Ow," Rodney said. A hard blow had struck his upper arm. It felt like the time he'd been hit by a rock thrown by Celeste Wernicke, who Rodney was sure had gone on to do great things on her prison softball team. He looked down to find one of the darts sticking out from his shoulder, the red and yellow of the fletching obscenely cheery, and his stomach churned.
It churned even more when Sheppard reached over and yanked the dart out.
"Ow, that hurt," Rodney yelled, but the pain of the puncture was fading fast. In fact the whole arm was going kind of...numb. "No, no, no. This is not good," he muttered, or tried to, because his lips felt thick and unwieldy and the words came out of his mouth slurred.
"Rodney?" Sheppard sounded angry, angry and worried.
"Shit." Rodney's sluggish foot had caught on something, a root trapping his foot in place while his body twisted around it. Pain flared white-hot through his knee, and Rodney had to bite back a yell. He went down heavily onto his hands and knees, barely avoiding a face plant onto the rocks.
Sheppard's hand was hard on his bicep, hauling him up. Rodney lurched forward, limping drunkenly on his wrenched knee, and Sheppard snaked a supporting arm around Rodney's waist.
Another energy bolt screamed right past Rodney's ear, lighting his nerves up like an electrical shock. Every muscle in his body tried to seize, and he couldn't make himself move a step. His body slipped out of Sheppard's grasp, and he ended up on his knees facing the direction they'd come from.
"What the hell?" he blurted. Movement had caught Rodney's eye, a figure almost hidden in the trees. A short glimpse was all he got, and he wondered if he'd imagined it. He blinked rapidly, and tried to get another look, but saw only trees, their leaves fluttering in the wind.
"Rodney, move!" Sheppard sounded frantic, which was unusual and scary enough to prod Rodney into motion.
Finally, they were at the gate, Ronon moving in to flank their position, sending cover fire back into the trees. "Dial it up," Sheppard yelled, but Teyla was already pressing the crystal keys of the DHD.
The watery blue event horizon formed, and Sheppard was shouting into his radio. "Coming in hot," he said to Atlantis' hail, and then they were hustling Rodney through the gate, half-carrying him. Sheppard's arm was wrapped tightly around his waist, Ronon and Teyla close by on his other side.
Rodney felt like the center of some weird human sandwich when they came through the gate, everyone so close they were almost falling over each other on the other side.
"Raise the shield," Sheppard shouted, his voice tight. "We need a medical team. Now."
Rodney closed his eyes with a sigh. He really, really just wanted to sit down, right there in the gate room, but Sheppard's arm didn't move from around his waist, even when Rodney tried to shift away from his hold. "I want to sit," he said.
His voice sounded almost normal, only a little slurred and higher-pitched than normal, and he felt a flash of absurd pride at the fact. "There," he said, pointing at the steps that led up from the gate room floor. "Let me down."
"No," Sheppard said absently, staring around the gate room like a predator. Teyla and Ronon hadn't relaxed either, stalking the perimeter of the gate room floor. "Where the hell is that medical team?" It wasn't a shout; Sheppard's voice wasn't even raised, but there was a harshness to the tone that made Rodney blink.
Dr. Biro and a gurney finally arrived, and Sheppard eased him down onto it. "Cold," Rodney said around a tongue that felt thick.
His hands were so cold they ached, like when he'd forgotten gloves in the depths of a Siberian winter. A chill shuddered through him, and then his teeth were chattering. Hands were on him, holding him down, tucking a blanket around him. It wasn't the touch he had gotten used to, not the hands of his team, and it made him twitchy. He shoved at an orderly. "No, get off me."
"Be at ease, Rodney. They are trying to help you," Teyla said, a warning in her voice.
"Wait, wait," he managed and fumbled at the shoulder bag. "Radek. Need to give this to Radek."
"Later," Dr. Biro and Sheppard said together, and Sheppard pulled the dart out of a vest pocket and handed it over to Biro. "This was in his left shoulder. Had to be drugged. And he fell on the way to the gate. Did something to his knee."
Dr. Biro's team hustled Rodney's gurney to the transporter. Elizabeth, Sheppard, Teyla, and Ronon followed along in Rodney's wake as he was wheeled to the infirmary.
Carson was in the infirmary when they got there, looking like he'd been called out of bed, rumpled and pillow-creased. Dr. Biro handed off the dart to him and shooed everyone else back beyond the privacy screen.
In the end, it didn't take the two doctors that long, although it seemed longer to Rodney, lying there feeling like he'd been shot up full of lidocaine, wondering what body part would go numb next. After a few whispered consultations and booting up of Ancient medical equipment, and way too much of Rodney's blood getting drawn, and an injection of something--"Has this been tested? Never mind, I don't even want to know"--Carson and Dr. Biro finally relaxed.
"So I'm okay now, right?" Rodney asked anxiously. "I'm not like, paralyzed from the waist down or anything, am I? I feel better. I think I can feel my toes." He could feel his lips again. That had to be a good thing.
"There was a paralytic on the dart," Carson said, rubbing at his eyes. "We were worried that it might interfere with your breathing, but the shot we just gave you should counter the effects."
"If that's it, I need to go then," Rodney said, sitting up, because as much as he liked to micromanage the primitive efforts of the medical establishment in regards to his own irreplaceable skin, hello, ZPM. "Whoa," he said, waiting for the room to stop spinning around him.
"Oh, no, you don't," Biro said, and pushed him back down onto the bed. "I still need to look at that knee." She looked over at Carson. "I've got it now, if you want to get back to bed."
Carson rubbed a hand through his hair, yawning, then reached over to pat Rodney on the shoulder. "You're going to be just fine, Rodney. You're in good hands. Dr. Biro here is our orthopedic expert; she'll be examining your knee. I'll just go and let your team know that you're going to be fine."
Carson wandered out of Rodney's cubicle, pushing aside the privacy screen. Rodney heard muffled questions and the reassuring tone of Carson's answers, and everyone ended up crowding around Rodney's bed.
"You look much better, Rodney," Teyla said. Ronon nodded, silent, his lips curled up in a rare smile.
Flippant words about not knowing anyone cared almost left Rodney's mouth. The tightness of Sheppard's expression made him hold his tongue.
"Yeah, the drooling wasn't a good look for you," Sheppard said. The look on his face was a decent stab at a smirk, but he was gripping Rodney's shoulder just a little too tightly.
"Well, we can't all be the drooling champion of P3X-878," Rodney said.
"I thought we agreed to never mention P3X-878," Sheppard said, the familiar interplay easing the tense lines of his face.
"I remember no such agreement," Rodney said.
Sheppard had let go of Rodney's shoulder finally. "C'mon, let's see it." He made a grabby give it here gesture.
Rodney fumbled at the shoulder bag that was still slung around his neck, and pulled out the ZPM. He smiled down at it, cradling it in his arms.
"It's the ZPM we found," he heard Sheppard say to something Dr. Biro had said.
"I see," she said, sounding impressed.
An explosion of Czech came from the door of the infirmary and the sound of running feet and then Radek was there, hands running nervously through his already-wild hair.
"Charged?" Radek reached out, one hand hesitating just above the ZPM's crystalline surface.
Rodney managed a nod, and the triumphant joy he'd felt back on the planet came flooding back. Radek was thumping him on the back, and laughing, and then crooning in low-voiced Czech to the ZPM.
"That is very good to see," Elizabeth said. She had come over to Rodney's bed to stand beside Sheppard. Teyla and Ronon flanked the two of them like heavily armed bookends.
Elizabeth excitement was not quite contained behind a small smile as she turned to look at each team member in turn. "Congratulations to you all. This is very good news."
Rodney felt weirdly like a mother with her newborn, being hovered over by five ecstatic fathers. He started an argument with Radek over which of the dormant labs they'd bring online first just to combat the strangeness.
Dr. Biro broke up the impromptu ZPM appreciation moment, pushing her way between Radek and Ronon. "I need to examine Dr. McKay's knee."
"Ow, what are you doing, trying to amputate?" he said to Dr. Biro as she palpated the joint. He handed over the ZPM to Radek reluctantly.
"Install that without me, and I'll make you wish you'd never been born," Rodney said.
Radek rolled his eyes at him. "Yes, yes, Rodney. You are a very scary man. We all tremble in your presence."
Teyla stifled a laugh at that, making Radek smile at her shyly. He turned back to Rodney. "I will take it to the lab for a full analysis."
Rodney squirmed around, rooting around in his vest pocket for the detector. "Take this, too," he said to Radek, holding out the device. "You can check our calibrations."
Dr. Biro was glaring at him. "Dr. McKay, allow me to examine you, or I'll have the orderlies clear the room and hold you down."
"Fine, fine," Rodney said irritably, but managed to stay still for the next few minutes.
They ended up having the debriefing right there in the infirmary, and Dr. Biro's own curiosity overcame her annoyance at the invasion. It was a little weird reporting to his boss while he was lying in the Ancient scanner without his pants, but not as weird as it would have been before Pegasus and the nearly incestuous social structure of Atlantis.
"And then Rodney solved a puzzle to win the ZPM. It took him longer than I expected, actually," Teyla was saying, and her teasing tone couldn't entirely hide the pride in her voice.
"Hey," Sheppard said, shooting Teyla a wounded look. "I helped, too."
Rodney waved a vague hand at him. "In an annoying back-seat driver sort of way, I suppose," he said to Sheppard, and then looked at Elizabeth. "So we managed to get the ZPM and nobody tried to kill us until just before we made our getaway."
"Not kill," Ronon corrected, lifting the dart carefully from the tray where Carson had placed it. "Stun dart."
Sheppard made a thoughtful noise. "I think the energy bolts were meant to stun, too."
"Were they Wraith weapons?" Elizabeth asked, her lips tightening and her forehead crinkling up.
Ronon grunted in negation. "They didn't move like Wraith. They moved like you or me."
Rodney was about to point out that Ronon's way of moving made most of them look like lumbering oafs, when he froze, mouth hanging open. Ronon's words had triggered something in his memory.
"Oh," he said finally, and then stopped. It had just been a glimpse; he could have been mistaken. The Asurans had made him see and feel all sorts of horrible things. And he'd hallucinated a Samantha Carter on the crashed jumper who had looked and sounded and felt--even tasted, he thought with a flush--real. This time there'd been neither alien influence nor head injury, but his trust in his own perceptions had been a little shaky ever since.
Sheppard was watching him with a curiously intense expression on his face. Rodney shifted under his gaze, ignoring Dr. Biro's admonishing, "You need to be still, Rodney."
"Rodney?" Sheppard managed to sound concerned and mildly threatening at the same time.
Time to come clean. "I thought I saw--this is going to sound crazy."
Sheppard didn't say anything, just raised an eyebrow at him.
"I caught a glimpse of one of them, just before we reached the gate," Rodney said, not meeting Sheppard's eyes. "For a split second. Definitely not Wraith. Human." He stopped then, vaguely hoping that'd be enough.
Sheppard wasn't fooled. "And?"
"Human," Rodney repeated. "And I recognized him." He shook his head and said under his breath, "Or thought I did, because this is just crazy."
Elizabeth looked troubled. "Who was it, Rodney?"
Rodney looked up and met her eyes. "It...it was me."
*
The debriefing got a little complicated after that.
"Perhaps he merely looked like you, Rodney," Teyla said. "You had been drugged, after all."
It was Teyla's most serene tone, but it sounded a little like false comfort. Rodney didn't care, though. He nodded eagerly. "I like that idea," he said.
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. "As attractive as that thought is, we can't discount all the more...unusual explanations." She frowned, steepling her hands thoughtfully. "Could Pegasus have a quantum mirror? I know Dr. Jackson traveled to a parallel universe through such a device, and the Dr. Carter from that universe visited ours. That mirror was destroyed, however."
Maybe he should have anticipated this level of acceptance for crazy-sounding statements. After all the weird shit SGC and the Pegasus galaxy had thrown their way, not much sounded completely outside the realm of possibility.
"Elizabeth, I think--" Sheppard started to say, but Elizabeth's raised hand stopped him.
"We're on the same page, John," she said and spent a few seconds talking into her headset. She looked over at Sheppard after she signed off. "Security teams are on alert, and the gateroom will contact me if your team's IDC is used."
"Good. I don't know if we have a quantum mirror hanging around somewhere, but don't forget that the evil Kirk SG1 team managed to travel into our universe without one," Sheppard said.
"Evil Kirk wasn't a quantum phenomenon," Rodney protested. "That was just a transporter accident, that split Kirk--" He stopped when Elizabeth and Sheppard both gave him the look. "Fine, fine, fine. I won't correct your horribly inaccurate analogy."
"Why, thank you, Rodney," Sheppard said, with a flash of a smirk, quickly suppressed.
"You're welcome."
Sheppard's smile faded. "They wanted to steal our ZPM," he said, and his expression turned grim in a way that suggested it would have been over his own dead body.
"Clones." Dr. Biro had looked up from her monitor, apparently wanting to play in the wild theory sandbox with the rest of them.
"Excuse me?" Rodney said. "Shouldn't you stick with, oh, fixing my knee, maybe?"
She ignored him and started going on about clones in such morbid detail that Rodney wanted to run screaming from the room.
Ronon returned to the comforting realm of Teyla's suggestion. He mentioned the perception-clouding ability of the Wraith, and Rodney wanted to fall on him in relief.
Sheppard spoke up. "Rodney, you had to have figured out all this stuff already, but you haven't done anything but critique my Star Trek analogies. You're usually answer man about this stuff."
Rodney shrugged. "I told Radek to change the codes, just in case. But I think I prefer Teyla's idea. Or Ronon's."
Teyla was quiet, watching Rodney with grave eyes. "You find the idea disturbing, don't you, Rodney?"
He felt himself scowling and tried to smooth out his expression. "Wouldn't you?" he asked. "It was bad enough when I found out I'd drowned in the first timeline. But this is worse. A Rodney McKay who'll attack his own team? I don't know who that man is."
The last sentence had come out sounding a little more vehement than Rodney had intended, almost yelling, and everyone went quiet. Rodney ducked his head down, but he could feel their eyes on him.
Rodney tensed when Elizabeth cleared her throat, but she said only, "So when will our new ZPM be installed, Rodney?"
"Soon as I'm done here," he said, nodding down at his knee. The ZPM waiting for him down in the lab was definitely the bright spot in Rodney's souring mood.
Dr. Biro started shooing them all out of the infirmary.
"A moment," Teyla said to Dr. Biro, moving to Rodney's side. She bent over to touch her forehead to his, her strong, calloused fingers gripping his shoulders for a long moment. "Be well, Rodney," she said, sounding almost solemn. It left Rodney flushing and off balance, his throat tight.
When Rodney finally escaped the infirmary and Dr. Biro's evil clutches, Sheppard was there, waiting in the corridor, slouched artistically against one wall. He smiled as Rodney lurched forward on his crutches, and Rodney found himself smiling back.
"How's the knee?" Sheppard asked, his smile dissolving as he stared down at the ugly black brace strapped around Rodney's knee. There was an odd look on his face that Rodney couldn't decipher, and he hoped Sheppard wasn't hovering out of some misplaced sense of guilt. Sheppard always took it way too personally when someone got hurt on his watch.
"It hurts like hell, what do you think? I think I can use it to my advantage, though. I'll make Radek fetch me coffee," Rodney said. Sheppard waited, one eyebrow raised, and Rodney sighed. "It's sprained. No torn ligaments," he said finally, with a certain sense of relief. Atlantis' medical team had a great width and breadth of experience, but Rodney figured orthopedic surgery would have guaranteed a trip back to Earth.
"That's good," Sheppard said as he steered them towards a transporter, his pace slowed so that Rodney could keep up.
Sheppard directed the transporter to the lab level, and Rodney blinked at him. "Radek and I were just going to install the ZPM. You don't need to be there."
Sheppard shrugged. "I thought it'd be cool." He didn't look over at Rodney, but he was back to smiling.
"Oh. Okay," Rodney said, feeling a little flustered. "Sure."
Radek was ready for them in the lab. "Finally," he said, but he looked ecstatic, not impatient.
"Hey! Injured here," Rodney said and waggled a crutch in Radek's direction.
"Our detector is properly calibrated; the ZPM is indeed fully charged," Radek said as he detached it from the scanner.
"Cool," Sheppard said, rubbing his palms together.
"Very cool," Rodney agreed.
They headed down to the ZPM chamber.
They were almost there when Rodney stopped for a moment to massage the ache in his hands. The crutches were tough on his palms, and even as thickly padded as the top pieces of the crutches were, they were already digging uncomfortably into his armpits.
He finally took a look around at the room they'd stopped in. His fingers stopped kneading the palm of his left hand, and he forgot all about the annoyance of the crutches as he took in his surroundings.
Rodney knew this place, and it was a not a pleasant familiarity. A chill raked across his nerves as recognition washed over him.
He turned toward Sheppard, who was hovering right beside Rodney's elbow. He was in Rodney's space, close, too close for anyone else, but after a few years of saving each other's ass, apparently Rodney's instincts gave Sheppard a pass on the personal space issue.
"When the Wraith were in the city--" Rodney's voice was low, and Sheppard ducked his head down to catch the words. Rodney's mouth snapped shut, and he swallowed hard before he continued. "This is where I lost my clip," he said. He was glad Radek had moved a little ahead of them, beyond whisper range. "And then Teyla had to save me."
She had kept quiet about it, at least, sparing Rodney further embarrassment, but he had never forgotten about that moment. The acuity of his memory was something that Rodney usually prided himself on, but it also meant he could relive in excruciating detail the worst moments in his life, over and over. On one level, he supposed he should be grateful to the memory, since it had goaded him into getting more serious with his weapons practice.
Sheppard looked at Rodney, his expression enigmatic.
Rodney had wondered if his admission would be met with instant mockery, but Sheppard just grunted. "Don't worry about it, Rodney. You survived and you learned."
Rodney laughed, one of those loud laughs that made him sound manic, but he couldn't help it. He felt the tightness in his chest ease. Sheppard's words had lifted the heavy weight that made it hard to breathe.
"Huh," Rodney said, staring at Sheppard's face. Sheppard was watching him closely, his forehead wrinkled up. He's trying to make me feel better, thought Rodney, a little surprised by the fact. It was that and the strange look in Sheppard's eyes that made Rodney stare. There was concern and fondness in that look, but Rodney sensed something else there as well.
Rodney was trying to piece together just what that something else was when everything went to hell.
A muffled grunt came from Radek, and Rodney looked over to see him struggling with someone. Rodney's hand instinctively went to his radio. A strong hand clamped down on his wrist, stopping the movement. At the same time his other arm was grabbed as well.
Apparently all the combat training Teyla and Sheppard and Ronon had inflicted on him hadn't been for nothing, because Rodney managed to break the grip on one of his hands. He swung the crutch like a club, trying to sweep the legs out from under his attacker.
His crutch connected with something, and he heard a pained shout, but he wasn't successful in bringing his opponent down. He found himself in a chokehold, an arm clamped under his chin, lifting him off his feet. He writhed in the grip, stomping with his good leg, trying to find the instep of his attacker.
"McKay, stop struggling." He felt and heard the growl at the same time, and his muscles obeyed the command instinctively.
"Ronon?" he heard himself squeak. "What..."
The muscular arm around his throat tightened, and Rodney froze. Ronon shook him like a huge cat with its prey, and the implicit threat was enough that Rodney clamped his mouth shut.
Feeling stunned and a little sick to his stomach, Rodney held himself very still. Blinking in confusion, he looked over at Sheppard, who had his sidearm out and was aiming at--himself. He was shouting and his 9mm was pointed at his duplicate. The other Sheppard in turn was armed with an unfamiliar bulky weapon, which he had leveled on Rodney's Sheppard. Sheppard's evil twin was ragged and bearded, but surprisingly recognizable. He looked, in fact, a lot like Sheppard had looked after the time dilation entrapment.
Beside him was Teyla, too thin and tense as piano wire, her hair hacked off in ragged layers. She had her 9mm out, also pointed at Rodney's Sheppard.
"Teyla?" Rodney stifled a wince at how he sounded, as lost and disbelieving as a kid who'd lost his mother, but Teyla didn't even glance in his direction. It was like one of his nightmares from when he'd first started going off world with the team, but he wasn't going to wake up this time.
He forced himself to turn his head, looking for Radek. Rodney stifled a wince at Radek's bewildered and distressed expression. Rodney hoped he was imagining the hint of betrayal in Radek's face, although it wasn't entirely unwarranted. Radek was being held at gunpoint by Rodney himself. Not the drugs, then, Rodney thought with a trace of hysteria.
The bag containing the ZPM was now hanging from the shoulder of the man holding Radek hostage. It's me, he thought as he stared. But not me.
It was with a sick sort of fascination that he cataloged all the visible differences between them. His doppelganger was gaunt and restless, little tremors shaking his hands. A scar seamed the jawline on the left side of face. It was thick and ugly, and Rodney got a little queasy when he tried to imagine what had caused it. Whatever it was, it must have laid the skin open to the bone, and then it looked as though the wound had healed imperfectly.
Hooded blue eyes caught his, and the man's lips tightened. He jerked his face to the side as if to hide the scar, and Rodney felt his face flush.
"Does anyone want to tell me what the fuck is going on?" Sheppard's 9mm didn't waver in its aim. His tone was low and dangerous, and it got everyone's attention.
"Lower your sidearm, and we'll tell you."
Rodney almost laughed to hear the other Sheppard use the let's all be reasonable tone that Sheppard pulled when he inevitably pissed off an off world population. It worked no better in this case than it usually did.
"I don't think so," Sheppard drawled. "See, you guys are trying to steal our ZPM. We don't take kindly to that sort of thing around here."
"We are not trying to steal anything," Teyla said. She sounded fierce. "We are attempting to save lives."
She shot Rodney a dark glance, and the simmering anger in her expression shocked him. He'd always thought Teyla's composure was unshakeable.
"Install the ZPM, and Radek dies." The voice made Rodney turn his head so fast the vertebrae in his neck popped. It was Rodney's own voice, shaking and as off-sounding as a recording, but recognizably himself. His words made Radek flinch.
It's not my voice, Rodney thought. It's his. McKay's voice, not mine.
"Everybody dies," McKay said, blinking rapidly. "Except us. Radek, Elizabeth, Carson. All dead. 'Everybody's dead, Dave.'" McKay's voice was a creepy singsong, and he was tracing the scar with the thumb of his left hand, over and over.
"Rodney." The other Sheppard's voice was soft and weirdly tender. It snapped McKay out of it. He went quiet, his hand dropping away from his face.
Something about the exchange had caught Sheppard's attention. His eyes flickered between the other Sheppard and McKay.
"We came from the future," Ronon said. He sounded a little impatient. "To change what happened."
"From the future?" Sheppard said, his tone skeptical. "And wait, isn't there some kind of rule against meeting yourself in the past? You blow up the universe or hurt yourself or something?"
McKay's snort echoed Rodney's own, making Rodney stare at him for a moment. "I'm taking this one," he said to his doppelganger.
To Sheppard, Rodney said, "Yeah, that's the first law of time." He waited a beat, then sneered, "In Doctor Who, not in the real world."
The enormity of the situation was setting in, and Rodney sobered. "Entropic cascade failure might be what you're thinking of, but if they are telling the truth, I don't believe we have to worry about it. Not to impugn SGC's expertise, but I've always hypothesized that it was a delayed side effect of using the quantum mirror specifically, not of any generalized 'phase shifting.'" Rodney gave in to the urge to make finger quotes to punctuate the phrase.
McKay let out a stifled laugh that nearly turned into a coughing fit at that, and Rodney shot him a wary look. He raised an eyebrow at Sheppard--what's up with him?--but Sheppard shrugged.
Rodney could feel Ronon's move behind him. "Whatever. We came from the future in the jumper. Don't know how. Rodney did it."
Straightening as much as Ronon's grip allowed, Rodney stared over at McKay. "In a puddle jumper? You duplicated Janus' time travel work?" he asked. He stared at McKay in fascination, only half aware of the burst of Czech from Radek. There was envy mixed with Rodney's fascination, but he was trying hard to keep it out of his voice.
McKay flinched and had trouble meeting Rodney's eyes. He nodded, with a one-shouldered shrug. "It wasn't right. I had to make it right." The words came out high and fast, and the tone made Rodney shift uneasily in Ronon's hold.
McKay continued. "Something went wrong after we installed the ZPM. Something happened after that, something that made Atlantis turn on us. It killed them. It killed everyone." His mouth pulled down, and then he ducked his head, blinking rapidly.
"Jesus," Rodney blurted out, and then there was a long moment of silence.
Sheppard's eyes were on McKay. His expression was bland, but his eyebrows slanted down in a troubled line. "All right," he said suddenly, lowering his 9mm. "We put away our weapons, you let Rodney and Radek go, and then I'm ready to listen."
*
Part 2