Prison Break- Part 1 by liketheriver (Criminal Challenge)
Title: Prison Break
Category: Gen/ angst/ h/c
Word Count: ~15,900
Rating: T
Characters: McKay, Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Very teeny tiny ones for late Season 3
A/N: Thanks as always to Koschka for the quick beta.
Summary: When the team becomes trapped in an Ancient prison, it's up to Rodney to bust them out of their individual cells. The problem is, it's all in their minds.
Prison Break
by liketheriver
Ironically, it was Rodney who first realized something wasn’t right. He simply turned to the Russian scientist working on the naquadah generator beside him and said, “I’ll do whatever you want, just, please give them back to me.”
The woman blinked in confusion, started to ask what he was talking about, but McKay cut her off. “They’re real, I know they’re real and I’m not entirely sure, but I think you’re not. So whatever you want from us, I’ll do it. Just give me my team back.”
Every night for the past two weeks, Rodney had dreamed of them- three people, two men and a woman, who felt so familiar that he could feel the ache of them not being there when he woke in the morning. Rodney wasn’t the type to have close friends, not since childhood, and even those friendships had been precarious at best. And moving around like he had for most of his career, didn’t lead to many chances at lasting or even meaningful relationships. Which was why he was so convinced that these people were real… his imagination wasn’t nearly good enough to have dreamed up their names much less his feelings for them, especially considering who they were. An air force pilot and two aliens from fairly primitive societies in another galaxy? Not exactly his type, that was for damn sure. But in his dreams he could recognize them from the pattern of their breathing alone, tell which one was behind him without turning around, and trusted them with his life just as much as they seemed to trust him.
“Dr. McKay, I am part of team,” the woman insisted. “And Yuri and Slava are next door preparing…”
Rodney shook his head in annoyance. “I’m not talking about you. I’m mean Sheppard and Teyla and Ronon. Where are they? I just want to know they’re okay.”
“I am unaware of these people…”
Having had enough of this bullshit, McKay ignored the woman and yelled at the room in general, addressing whatever higher power was controlling this farce. “This isn’t real! However, you’re doing it, it’s not working any more, so just let me go and take me to the others!”
They were good, he’d give them that. The Siberia they’d created was very much like the one he remembered, which had him convinced they had somehow accessed his memories… whoever they were. As much as he tried, he couldn’t remember coming here. Oh sure he remembered the debacle at the SGC that had him assigned here in the first place, but that’s not what he meant. He’d come here with Sheppard and the others, he knew it, felt it in his bones. But how? When? That was the mystery. And if they had him held captive in a dismal fantasy of his own creation, then where were the others trapped? Given the hazy backgrounds for each of them that he could recall, he doubted any of them would be nearly as pleasant as the tiny apartment, poor laboratory facilities, and even worse food he’d been dealing with.
“Hello? Are you listening to me? I said I’m not buying it anymore!”
And that’s when he saw the door at the back of the lab… the one that had never been there before. Striding purposefully toward it, Rodney ignored the woman warning him, “Do not go out there. It is not safe.”
“Maybe, but at least it’ll be real.”
As soon as he touched the doorknob, a computer-simulated voice started speaking. “Warning. Prisoner awareness detected. Warden intervention required. Warning. Prisoner awareness detected. Warden intervention required.”
Prisoner. That didn’t sound good. And warden intervention sounded even worse. But they were out there, his team. They were either looking for him or in the same captive boat he was, and either way that meant he needed to get out. Opening the door, he did just that.
The alarms still sounded, but the lab dissolved into a blurry view of a gray ceiling above him. Blinking to try to clear his vision, Rodney lifted his head slightly, which just made the gray start spinning. Drugged. He was being drugged. Of course, when he stopped to think about it, that shouldn’t surprise him too much. They had to keep him in the hallucinogenic state he’d been in somehow. But thinking in general was taking every ounce of concentration that he had. Trying to lift his head again, he was able to focus on the needle feeding into his arm. He wasn’t sure that was such a good thing because it just made his stomach roll more. He reached out with his other hand, tugging the needle free, then lay there for a moment waiting for the nausea to pass.
Something was tugging at a memory, something important, and he wished to hell that stupid voice would shut the fuck up so he could think. That’s when he realized it was the voice that was causing the worry in the first place. Wardens, it was calling wardens, and that couldn’t be good. Rolling off the narrow table he was laying on, he landed on hands and knees and tried and failed to push to a stand. The room was still spinning violently, the voice still calling the wardens calmly, and Rodney was sure that he’d just escaped from his prison cell only to be forced back in it when the guards showed up. He gave up on trying to focus on the room at large and concentrated on the area immediately in front of him. That’s when he noticed something on the floor in front of him, a black vest, his vest. And if he were right that meant… yes! The life signs detector was in the front pocket, just like it always was.
He’d been right, he’d been right, he’d been right. He was torn between bursting into tears of relief that he hadn’t dreamed up the entire thing and puking on the floor. Managing to delay both, he instead fought to concentrate on the small screen in front of him. Four life signs blinked back at him, all within the room. Four. His team. All four of them were in here, all four of them were alive, and no one else was going to come for them. At least no one alive. That didn’t mean there wasn’t some sort of automated or robotic response on the way. After all, he’d ended up on that table somehow.
Crawling his way to the door, he managed to pull open the control panel beside it. Crystals. Honest to God Ancient technology. He’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life, never mind that they were swimming drunkenly before his eyes. Finding the one he was looking for, Rodney pulled the control crystal, effectively locking the door. Anyone wanting access to the room would have to cut their way in now. That would take a while, hopefully a long while, because he could no longer fight the growing fog in his head. Leaning back against the wall, he closed his eyes, deciding that when he opened them again the spinning would stop and he’d be able to concentrate long enough to find his friends. Friends. God, he’d known they were real. Really real. And with that thought, he drifted into the first dreamless sleep he’d had in weeks.
When he did open his eyes again, Rodney could see the room a little better. Pale lighting illuminated a circular opening with a single control podium in the center. Around the perimeter of the room were a series of small hatches stacked two high and his first thought was that they looked a lot like the chambers the crew of the Aurora had been in when they had found the battleship. It made sense seeing as he was able to exit the virtual reality once he realized that’s what it was, although the addition of a drug was new.
He could remember how he got here now. He remembered the Jumper picking up the strange Ancient satellite as soon as they exited the gate in orbit. They’d scanned it for life signs, found none, although environmental controls were operational, docked, entered, and then… he was in Siberia. Whatever had taken them down had done it as soon as they entered the base. And given the alarms that had started when he woke, McKay assumed this must be some sort of Ancient prison where they held the prisoners in a type of suspended animation during their incarceration. That was one way to keep the convicts from rioting; keep them oblivious to the fact that they’re even imprisoned.
But he’d managed to escape and it was up to him to get the others out now. Taking the detector he still held loosely in his hand, he surveyed the twenty pods around the room. The one where he had been held was still open, and the one above it showed a life sign. He couldn’t tell who it was as the hatch was solid metal and sealed shut, but he could read the vital signs display on the outside. The heart rate was a bit high, but it seemed to be lowering as he watched it, so he figured whoever was in there had been under some sort of physical duress in their VR. He studied the control panel on the unit, looking for some sort of off or open or shut down button. The unit was similar to the ones on the Aurora but different enough that nothing was jumping out at him, so he decided to check the podium in the center of the room instead. The last thing he wanted to do now that he’d found his team again was to accidentally execute them while trying to save them.
It was a good thing that he had decided to read up on the system. From what he could gather, the facility was an Ancient prison. Given that there were no more wardens on the facility since all the Ancients had left Pegasus ten thousand years before, they had fallen prey to the automated system that simply connected the prisoners when they arrived. But not only was it a prison, it was the Ancient equivalent to death row. Not that they would actually kill the person being held, no nothing nearly as inhumane as that. They simply held them in a type of suspended animation until the body aged and died on its own, trapped the entire time in a prison of the convict’s own making. Christ, how screwed up was that? But given those were the parameters of the confinement, there wasn’t any way to release them that he could find. Once you were put in a unit, you were apparently supposed to stay in the unit and no one could bring you out. Occasionally a prisoner did come out of the VR, just as he had, and there was a protocol for returning them- the unit would open and a warden would redrug and reprogram the unit to access another memory. Thank God for that, otherwise he’d still be awake but trapped inside the small chamber. The mere thought had him shuddering in claustrophobic dread.
And the rest of his team was in those tiny holding cells at that very moment and they’d stay there unless they realized they were being held against their will, which meant it was up to Rodney to figure out how to help them come to that realization. And then it came to him. The Aurorasystem had been interlinked so that everyone on the ship experienced the same VR. He and Sheppard had been able to interact when they had both been inside. If he could somehow hack into the individual systems here on the prison and insert himself into the other’s realities, then he could convince them to leave and they’d be able to exit the system just like he had.
With a plan in mind, he set to work, and within less than an hour he had his old prison cell linked to the one above his. Physically removing the needle from the unit just to be on the safe side, Rodney took a deep breath and lay back down on the table. As the unit slid shut once again, he mumbled, “Oh, God, I hope this works.”
When he opened his eyes again, he was surrounded by sand.
* * * *
John knew his time was coming to an end. The Taliban didn’t hold prisoners indefinitely and eventually the videotapes of him reading prepared statements about the evils of the western infidels was going to lose its punch and the only way to truly show they meant business would be to execute him for the camera instead. He figured they would have done it by now if not for Holland. The captain had lasted a whole week before succumbing to his injuries and having one body to parade across the airwaves via video had bought Sheppard a little time. For a people who claimed to hate the excesses of America, they sure knew how to work the system. And as long as they felt John was a media darling for the AP, they’d keep him alive… bruised, bloody, and half-starved, but alive.
Through the slats of the small wooden shed where they had him shackled, Sheppard could just make out the shifting sands. Even if he managed to get out of his chains, where the hell would he go? He was twenty miles out when his chopper went down, and at least another five before he found Holland. Once they were captured and he was beaten into unconsciousness, he didn’t have fucking clue where they’d taken them. No water, no food, no way to call for help… he’d be just as dead out there as he was in this shit hole where they were holding him.
“Christ, Sheppard, what the hell have you done to yourself?”
He wasn’t too surprised by the voice, it was one that he’d come to know over the past few weeks, one of three. He hadn’t exactly figured them out yet who they were supposed to be, if they were just figments of him imagination brought out to fight the loneliness or actual parts of his personality that were splitting out as a form of self preservation. Although, seriously, he had no idea his feminine side was so hot if that was the case.
This one he knew better than the others, it tended to come out more. It was his intellect, his ego, and evidently his self-deprecation since it seemed to spend most of it’s time berating his conscious self.
“Well, you know how it is, McKay. It was video day; they tend to get a little testy when I try to send secret messages out.” John turned his attention back from the slivered view of the sands and looked at Rodney, licking at his parched and busted lips. “I don’t suppose you have an ice cold beer on you. Hell, I’d settle for tepid water.”
“Sheppard, this isn’t real,” the imaginary man argued.
“Yeah, I know. But I appreciate the company, regardless.”
“No, I mean this isn’t real.” Rodney waved his hand around the shack. “You can just walk out that door any time you like and leave and go back to reality.”
John blinked at the apparition. “Wow. I had no idea I was so suicidal.”
“Well, yes, you do have that tendency, but usually only when the welfare of others is at stake. But this time staying in here is the suicidal move. You need to get out of here, Colonel, and you need to do it now.”
The snort Sheppard let out had him wincing from his bruised ribs. “Not only am I suicidal, I have delusions of grandeur.”
McKay frowned until he realized what he’d said. “Of course, we’re in Afghanistan; you’re still a major.”
And that observation had John frowning in return. “Still?” Studying the man a little closer, he could see dark shadows under his eyes, a slightly pasty complexion and he asked, “Are you okay, McKay? You look different for some reason.”
“Because it’s me, Sheppard. The real me… or at least a projection of the real me inside your virtual reality.”
“So which is it, Rodney? Are you live or Memorex?”
“Both.” When John simply rolled his eyes and rolled his head along with them to look away from him, McKay continued. “Look, it’s complicated. But we’re being held prisoner, against our will, and as best I can tell it could have been for a couple of weeks.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know, McKay.”
“No, not here, or at least not in your here. On the Ancient prison satellite. Right now you’re laying in a sort of stasis unit being drugged and living out some fear or memory or combination of the two. And the only way you can get out is to leave it yourself.”
“Riiiiight.” Christ, what does it mean when your multiple personalities are going insane?
“Sheppard, I don’t have time for this. I still have to get Teyla and Ronon out and there’s no telling what they’re imagining.”
“Well, then, if you’re busy, don’t let me keep you.”
“All you have to do is walk out that door and you’ll be free from all this.”
“Rodney, if I walk out that door, that is if I could actually get it open seeing as it’s locked, I’d be facing armed guards and miles of open desert in enemy territory. How, exactly, would that improve my situation?”
McKay moved a little closer. “John, in all the years I’ve known you, have I ever intentionally lied to you.” The intense look waffled and he bobbled his head. “At least on anything that was really important.”
“Rodney, I haven’t known you for years.”
“Yes you have. You walked through the stargate with me to Atlantis. You pushed me off a balcony while I was wearing a personal shield. You taught me how to fly a Jumper. We played a game together for nearly three years before we found out it wasn’t a simulation but was an Ancient experiment. We blew up a solar system together.” When John raised eyebrows in disbelief at that one, Rodney backpedaled. “Okay, so maybe you just watched on that one. But if you fight through the drugs you’ll remember. I’m real, Teyla’s real, Ronon’s real. Atlantis is real. And as soon as I get the three of you out of this, we’re going back there. We’re going home. But I have to get you out of here first.”
“There’s no such place as Atlantis,” John insisted, fighting the urge that said yes, there is that came every time he woke from the dreams of cool breezes and warm color streaming through the hallways of a miraculous city. The damp air was replaced by dry winds as soon as he opened his eyes, and he felt the ache of sore muscles and the sting of open cuts, and realized just how desperate he was to believe in such a place, how desperate he was to escape the prison he was in even if he could only do it through a fantasy world. “It’s a figment of my imagination, just like you and the others.”
“Sheppard, I’m not…” But McKay stopped talking when he heard voices outside the shed.
“Time to go, Rodney,” he hissed. “You know you hate to watch this.”
“Sheppard, come with me. You can do this, just open that door and you can go.”
But the door was opened for him instead and two of his captors stood blocking the bright glare of sunlight behind them. Faces obscured with scarves as they always were, they pointed their Soviet PKM machine guns and motioned John to his feet. Struggling up as best he could given the shackles around his wrists and ankles, John leaned against the wall before he was yanked forward by the nearest guard.
“Hey, give him a chance to get his feet under him,” McKay challenged the guard who couldn’t see or hear him. Sheppard felt his lips curl at the anger that was apparent in the voice. Rodney was evidently the personification of his indignation, as well. He was quite the little multi-tasker.
Behind him, McKay was still insisting, “If you want to leave, you can.” His irritation now directed back at Sheppard.
But when he was shoved through the door by the two men, lost his footing and went down, John almost started to laugh. Because obviously McKay was off his rocker seeing as he wasn’t standing in Atlantis or on some space station in another galaxy. No, he was lying in the sand while a boot kicked him in the ribs… again.
And based on past experience, that was just the warm up.
* * * *
Rodney’s unit slid open with a hiss and he lay there for a few seconds trying to even out his breathing.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
It wasn’t real. He knew it wasn’t real, but just like he knew the weeks he’s spent in Russia weren’t real either, it didn’t mean he couldn’t remember every detail as if it had really happened. Which just meant Sheppard could feel every punch and kick and the stomach twisting fear that he was experiencing now. Scrambling up from where he lay, McKay watched the heart rate monitor elevate quickly before finally slowing and the blood pressure drop quickly. They’d beat him into unconsciousness. The sons of bitches had literally beat him until he passed out. And it took Rodney a beat himself to remember that they were all creations in Sheppard’s head… or a memory.
Dear God, had he gone through this before? No. Surely he would have told them. Right? Shaking away the thought, because it really didn’t matter since he was going through it now, Rodney turned his attention back to how to get him out. Because his first attempt had been such a stellar success. Christ. No, there had to be some way to convince him…
Teyla and Ronon.
He might not be able to get Sheppard out by himself, but if the others were with him, then they might stand a chance. That is if he had any better luck and could get them out. Well, no time like the present to find out, he decided. With a quick check of Sheppard’s vitals one last time… alive, he was still alive, and unfortunately that would have to do for now… Rodney found the next of his teammates. Within a few minutes he was back in his own unit and ready to enter the next prison cell.
* * * *
Teyla woke to the sound of Michael entering the lab where he had been holding her for the past two weeks. She sat up on the small cot he had given her to sleep on, wiping quickly at the dampness that was always present when she woke from her dreams. She would not allow him to break her, would not allow him to see the weakness she felt in her heart, the desire to just give in. She would not disgrace their memories by doing such. There was barely any light in the underground facility, but her eyes had eventually adjusted as they had on the night hunts she used to take part in on Athos and she could make out the Wraith as he studied the results of his test that had run overnight. Athos. It was forever lost to her thanks to the Wraith. And now, thanks to this particular one, so were those she had held most dear.
John had been torn apart by Michael’s mutated creations as soon as they had entered the facility, their bullets bouncing harmlessly off the outer shells of the creatures as they overcame him with sheer numbers. An ambush she was sure, although the creatures operated on instinct more than planned attacks. Ronon had drawn his sword and started toward the mass of black bodies but fell to the stunner blast and she and Rodney had barely had time to turn to see where it was coming from before they were hit, as well.
She woke in the cage where she was currently being held to the sound of Rodney screaming. Her vision still blurry from the stunner, she could just make out the scientist being fed upon by their captor. She tried to beg Michael to stop but her lips would not move because of the paralysis, so she could just lay there and watch as Rodney was drained, withered, died. So this was to be her fate, she had thought; to die at the hands of a man she had befriended and a Wraith who held her and all those on Atlantis responsible for his current predicament. There was a part of her that believed it was a just punishment given what they had done to him. But she was not to be so lucky as to find a quick death. Michael had other plans for her and her remaining teammate.
Ronon was the subject of Michael’s latest experiment. He was strapped to a lab table and injected with the various enzymes and genetic material Michael had cultivated; the effects were agonizingly painful and he eventually died seizing on the table on their second day of captivity while Teyla gripped the bars of her cell and pleaded with Michael to spare him. The brown eyes had sought hers, held them as long as he could and then he too was gone and ever since then it had been just Teyla and Michael’s never-ending blood tests.
He had found the notes on the Wraith experimentation that had led to her ancestors having the Wraith gene in the first place, and he was trying to improve upon it. Teyla quickly learned she was to be his personal lab animal for those tests. Over the past weeks he had tried the serums on the Irratus creatures, as well as on humans he brought in from only he knew where. And Teyla had sat and watched the results and subsequent deaths, grotesque and painful, and eventually stopped wasting her breath begging him to stop.
“I take it you slept well,” the Wraith observed over his shoulder, checking the dish where he had been cultivating his next serum.
“Yes, very well.” She could never tell if that upset him or pleased him, but it was the truth. Because when she slept, she dreamed of her team, of the three men who had been so very different and yet so very devoted to one another and to her. And their memories still caused her chest to ache painfully whenever she woke and had to leave them once again.
“Good, we have much to do today.” Lifting the vial, he turned it in the dim light. “I have a new approach to try. If I can mutate the gene slightly within you, then it might be more easily adapted to the test subjects.”
Standing, she moved to the bars. “You are going to experiment on me?”
“Yes,” Michael informed her simply. “But I would not worry; the effects should not be fatal.”
“And if it is fatal? What will you do then?”
“There are others such as you out there. Of that I am sure.” Looking up, his eyes met hers for the first time. “But like I said, I would not worry. The chances of you dying are very small.”
Her stomach knotted, and much to her surprise, it was not in worry but in disappointment. He passed a plate of food through the bars… fruit and bread, and Teyla wondering, not for the first time, if he had dined as well when he had gathered her meal.
“Eat. You will need your strength today. And it is doubtful you will want to eat for a while to come.”
The truth was, she had not wanted to eat at all for the past weeks, but she had. She would not lie down and die for him, as much as she wanted to. John, Rodney, Ronon… they had fought until the very end and out of respect and admiration of them, she would do the same. So she took a bite of the bread he had given her and forced herself to chew, even as she watched Michael leave the room.
And she nearly choked on it when Rodney was suddenly standing outside her cell. “God, I thought he was never going to leave.”
“Rodney?” she asked in disbelief at seeing the physicist.
“Yeah, it’s me, in the flesh. Well, technically, not. It’s more of a holographic representation of me being transmitted directly to the awareness centers of your brain, so that you only think I’m here. But really, I am here… sort of.”
Feeling the emotions constricting her throat at seeing him, Teyla shook her head slowly. “But you were dead. I saw it. I watched it happen.”
“Really?” He grimaced at the thought. “Was it pretty horrific?”
“Michael fed on you.”
“Oh, God.” Rodney shuddered before asking, “Did I at least face it bravely?”
“You tried,” she told him dazedly, her mind reeling over the contradiction of still being able to hear his screams and seeing Rodney standing before her.
“Oh… well… I guess that’s something at least.”
Ignoring the slight disillusionment in his voice, she instead concentrated on his hand that was wrapped around the bar before her. Reaching out quickly, as though it might disappear if she did not act immediately, she let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob when she felt warm skin under her palm. Alive, he was alive. Rodney was alive. The relief had her knees giving way beneath her.
“Whoa!” Rodney tried to catch her before she went all the way down, but seeing as he was on the other side of the cage, the best he could do was to grab her arms and sit on the floor opposite her. “Are you okay?”
“I am…” There were no words. She had seen him die, watched it with her own two eyes, and now he was here, really here. Her fingers gripped desperately into his arms. “I do not understand,” she admitted hoarsely.
“You’re not really in Michael’s lab, Teyla. This is all in your mind.” She furrowed her brow in confusion and Rodney continued his explanation. “We’re on a mission and we ended up trapped in an Ancient prison. It’s a virtual reality system, like on the Aurora, and all you have to do is realize it’s all fake and you’ll be able to exit the program.”
“John and Ronon?” she asked hopefully.
“Alive, they’re both alive and both still in their own virtual reality. And I need your help to get Sheppard out.” Rodney looked to her in his own desperation. “I tried, but he won’t believe me. He’s in too deep in the world he’s created and it’s… it’s bad.”
“How? Tell me how to get out.” And with her question the bars vanished.
Rodney just grinned at her wide-eyed expression and helped her to her feet. “Create a door and walk out.”
The room shifted, turned into her quarters on Atlantis and Rodney looked around in a sort of wonder of his own. “Neat trick.”
“This is… amazing,” she observed with a smile, moving quickly to the exit.
“I’ll say. I’ve been meaning to ask you, how, exactly, did you get such a big bed?”
She paused with her hand at the door. “Rodney, are you coming or not?”
“Right.” He joined her then motioned toward the door. “After you.”
The door slid open, but instead of the hallways of Atlantis, she was blinking in the dim light of a strange room. Within a few seconds, Rodney face appeared above her. “Just take it easy, it’s a little disorienting until the drugs have a chance to wear off.”
She felt a sting and looked down at her arm to see the scientist removing a needle, snapping it off, and tossing it aside. “Drugs?” Her stomach rolled and she closed her eyes even as she reached again for Rodney. It was still a little hard to believe that he was alive after believing for so long that he was dead.
He took her hand and squeezed reassuringly before releasing it. “Yeah, evidently to keep you from realizing it was all in your head.” With a pat to her arm he instructed, “Just sleep it off for a while. I’ll work to hook up your unit so we can go in and get Ronon out next.”
“Rodney?”
“What?” His head popped up in concern. “You’re not going to puke are you?”
“They are really alive?”
With a look of relief that she had no intention of throwing up, he pulled out the life sign detector and showed her the dots. “Those are you and me. This one’s Sheppard and that one must be Ronon.”
She smiled at him gratefully. “Thank you.”
“Oh, you’re welcome.” He seemed a little embarrassed and turned quickly to his work.
Teyla took it as an indication that she should rest. And for the first time in weeks she wanted to cry before she fell asleep, only this time if was for tears of joy.
* * * *
Rodney was just completing the connections when Teyla sat up and surveyed the room they were in. “Feeling better?”
“Much, thank you.” She smiled warmly as she stood, testing her legs before joining him at the consol.
“I’m just about ready to link into Ronon’s unit. Once we have him out, we can go get Sheppard.”
“You said you had seen John. Where is he trapped?”
Rodney felt his jaw tighten at the memory of the false world. “Afghanistan.”
“Where he went to rescue Capt. Holland?” Teyla asked in surprise.
“Holland! I couldn’t remember his name.” McKay returned to making the computer links on his electronic pad.
“Was the captain there with John?”
Rodney had gone back in while Teyla slept. He’d gone back in to find Sheppard curled on his side in the dirt, bloody, bruised, and somewhere between sleep and unconsciousness. McKay had just let him rest. There wasn’t anything he could do to treat the new wounds the colonel was sporting since the last time he’d been there, and he knew in the state he was in there was no way to convince him to leave, so he’d just sat on the ground beside Sheppard and did the only thing he could. He rested a hand on what he hoped wasn’t a busted shoulder and waited.
The action had John had waking enough to notice him and lift his head from the ground. “McKay? How long have you been here?”
“Apparently not long enough,” he’d told him.
As if unable to hold his head up any longer, Sheppard lowered it back into the sand. “How long can you stay?”
“Not long enough,” Rodney repeated, squeezing gently on the arm under his hand. “But I’m working on a plan, so just hold on a little while longer. Okay?”
“Sure,” John mumbled, eyes falling closed again. “Glad you stopped by.”
“Go back to sleep, Sheppard. I’ll keep watch for as long as I can.”
Sheppard’s acknowledgement had been little more than a half nod, and he was still out when Rodney had to leave him, feeling like he was abandoning him in that fucking shed.
With a shake of his head, Rodney told Teyla, “No. He was alone… well, aside from the bastards holding him.”
“Then he is a prisoner, too.”
McKay blinked at his teammate’s observation. “My God, you’re right. Just like you were Michael’s prisoner. That’s how the system must work. It accesses some memory, some failure, that we must subconsciously feel was something to be punished over and imprisons us there.”
“Where were you?” she inquired curiously.
“Siberia.” When she raised her eyebrows inquisitively, Rodney continued. “I’d been pretty much banished there by the SGC a few years before we came to Atlantis.”
“To be imprisoned?”
“No.” He felt a little ridiculous now that he thought of how easy he’d had it in his VR compared to what Teyla and Sheppard had experienced in theirs. “I was working on the naquadah generator program with the Russians.”
Teyla seemed a little confused that that would have been were he had confined himself, but then she noted, “You never came to Atlantis then.”
“No, I wasn’t allowed.” And as horrible as that would have been, to have known Atlantis was out there and never been allowed to step foot in the city, remembering back on his time in the VR, that wasn’t the worst part. “And I never met you guys,” he mumbled, pointedly not looking at the Athosian.
Teyla’s shoulders slumped slightly at the news. “It must have been very lonely there.”
With a shrug, Rodney admitted, “My priorities were a little… different back then.”
When he had been in Siberia, really been there, he’d never realized just how lonely he actually had been. He’d also thought it was the most ridiculous punishment that had ever been doled out to him and rather excessive for what he’d done. But when he’d experienced it this time in the VR, the Russian agency was the most desolate place he’d ever known in his life. And looking back on what he’d done to be sent there in the first place, what he’d tried, and, fortunately failed, to do when Teal’c was trapped in the memory buffers of the gate back at the SGC… Well, if the tables were turned now, if it was one of his teammates trapped and Sam Carter was trying to convince him there was no way to save them and he should just walk away and let them die, exile in Siberia would seem like a fucking vacation in comparison to what he’d want to do to her. So maybe the prison his mind had created for him wasn’t as cushy as he’d originally thought it was.
“I think your priorities are well aligned, now,” Teyla assured him.
“Yeah, well, our priority now is to get Ronon and Sheppard out so we can get the hell out of here. Are you ready to try this?”
Teyla nodded before asking, “How will this work? How much control will we have while we are in their realities?”
“We can leave any time but other than that, it seems to depend on how the creator perceives us. Sheppard thought I was a figment of his imagination so only he could see me. You believed I was real, so I have a feeling Michael would have believed I was, too. But it made it a hell of a lot easier to convince you that you could leave. With Ronon, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Then I believe it is time that we do see.”
Once Rodney had Teyla situated in her unit yet again, he entered his own, and then the two of them entered Ronon’s mental prison… which ended up being a hospital.
* * * *
This time, Ronon thought to himself. This time I’ll get it right.
Melena was standing in the hall of the hospital, injured people being wheeled around them on gurneys or helped along by others in better shape than they were. Not that it really mattered. Any second now the wall would be blown out by an explosion and the majority of them would be dead, including the blond woman refusing to leave with him. But this time, this time he’d get it right.
“Melena, let’s go talk about this… in private. Okay? Just come with me and we’ll talk about it somewhere else.”
The hand he held out to her was ignored. “Ronon, there’s nothing left to talk about. I’m needed here. I’m staying.”
“Fine, you can come back. But come with me for now, just for a minute. I want… I want to say goodbye and I can’t do it in a hallway.”
“Ronon, this isn’t goodbye. We’ll see each other again. I know it.”
Yeah, they’d see each other again; when the damn time loop he was in reset and he had to try this all over. Unless he could get her to leave and then… then everything would be good. Then he’d get the chance to live their lives the way they should have if the Wraith had never destroyed everything he cared about. But he had to get it right. And this would be the time he did it.
He’d tried so many times before, each a dismal failure. She refused to go, she headed further down the hall away from him instead of toward him, she didn’t move fast enough, she remembered she forgot something and went back before he could stop her. Once he just threw her over his shoulder, her kicking and screaming the entire time, and when he got her outside, when he finally got her where they should be safe, another blast hit them and killed her in the street instead of the hallway.
But this time he’d get it right, he had to.
“I know it, too. But we don’t know how long it’ll be, so come with me, okay? Just for a few minutes, I promise.”
She hesitantly took a step toward him and he fought the urge to yell, come on already we only have a few seconds here. But as soon as her hand was in his, he gripped it tightly and started running, dragging her along.
“Ronon, stop, what are you doing?”
But he didn’t slow. If he could manage to get a little further down the hall, she’d be outside the range of the blast and she’d live, she’d fucking live.
And he was there, he was almost there, when he suddenly ran face first into McKay. The three of them went down in a heap on the floor and Ronon was doing his best to regain his feet when he realized Melena’s hand was no longer in his. Looking up, he saw her backing away with a confused expression on her face.
“No! Melena, not that way!”
But it was too late; the blast came again, the wall of debris engulfing her, wrapping her in a shroud of fiery death. Closing his eyes against the scene he’d watched over and over, he waited for the flames to subside and the scene to start resetting before he fisted into McKay’s shirt and yanked the man up with a growl.
“Why are you here? I had her this time. I had her and you ruined it!”
It wasn’t until her hand landed on his arm that was shaking the Earth scientist that he even realized Teyla was there. “Ronon, stop this! Let him go!”
With a final shake, he pushed the man away before turning his back on them. So close. So damn close. And he knew from past experience that it wouldn’t work again. He kicked at a piece of debris, his eyes darting to the mangled body of Melena before he closed them against the scene that made his chest ache no matter how many times he’d seen it.
Turning back to his teammates, he ordered, “You two need to leave, now, before it starts over again.”
“Starts again?” Rodney asked as he smoothed his shirt. “How many times have you gone through this?”
Sighing, Ronon confessed in frustration, “I don’t know. That was probably number twenty.”
Teyla’s eyes widened in alarm. “You have watched her die twenty times?”
“She wouldn’t have this time,” he defended, “if someone hadn’t been blocking my path.”
“It wouldn’t have worked,” McKay insisted. “For whatever reason, it wouldn’t have worked.”
“You don’t know that,” Ronon ground out, his finger jabbing angrily into Rodney’s chest.
“Yes, I do.” McKay threw his arms wide. “This whole thing is designed to keep you trapped in here, to punish you. It’ll never let you save her.”
“Why would the Ancients create a device that can replay time if it wasn’t supposed to let you fix your mistakes?”
Ronon’s challenge had Teyla stepping forward. “Where did this device come from?”
“We found it on Atlantis,” he told her, as if she should have already known that, because she’d been there when they found it.
“And where are we now?” she asked.
“I brought it to Sateda. I’m kind of surprised it took you guys this long to find me. Sheppard must be slipping.” Looking around, he didn’t see the pilot. “Where is he, anyway?”
“Trapped, like you, in a world that doesn’t really exist.” Rodney waved his hands to encompass the scene before him. “This is all in your head, Ronon. The device you’re talking about doesn’t exist, and we’re not on Sateda, we’re on a prison satellite in orbit around an uninhabited planet.”
Ronon snorted in disbelief. “A prison?”
“Yes, a prison. Teyla and I managed to escape our cells but you and Sheppard are still in yours.”
With a shake of his head, Ronon watched the scene around him morph to their apartment the morning of the attack. It was his first chance to keep her from going to the hospital, his first chance to keep Melena alive. “Good try, McKay. But I’m not leaving the time field.”
This time. This was the time, he knew it.
“Ronon,” Teyla reasoned, “if it is an Ancient device, how are you able to use it? You do not possess the gene.”
“Not all of them need the gene,” he countered.
Rodney threw up his arms in irritation. “Look, I know you’re nowhere near smart enough to be a member of my staff or anything, then again, half of them aren’t either. But I know you’re not an idiot. I bet every time you’ve almost convinced her to leave, something happens to stop it. Something little and insignificant.” When Ronon’s only response was to drop his eyes and study his boots, Rodney pressed on. “It’s because you aren’t meant to succeed. Deep down you know there’s nothing that you could do to save her but you still blame yourself and this is how you’re punishing yourself.”
“The machine you are connected to manipulates your thoughts,” Teyla explained. “It makes you believe things that are not true as a form of retribution you have created. If you truly believe you are responsible for what happened to Melena, it will never let you save her.”
Ronon stood silently for a moment before confessing quietly, “I should have been able to save her that day. I should have been able to keep her safe.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Rodney,” Teyla chastised at the man’s comment but he raised his hand to stop her.
“Just hear me out. Ronon didn’t save Melena, Sheppard didn’t save Holland, you didn’t stop Michael, and I was a major prick and could have easily cost Teal’c his life. But I didn’t trap him in the gate to begin with, Ronon didn’t cause the Wraith to attack Sateda, Sheppard didn’t shoot down Holland’s helicopter, and we’re all responsible for the whole Michael debacle. Bad shit happens, mistakes happen, but as much as we wish we could do things over, we can’t.” He looked pointedly at Ronon. “All right? We can’t. But we can at least try to learn from them and do the right thing now. And Ronon, I’m sorry, but Melena is dead and you can’t bring her back.”
Ronon glared at McKay, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to argue the fact. He’d known this was a long shot from the beginning, somehow he’d known. But that wasn’t enough to keep him from trying, over and over.
Rodney just looked at him with this odd blend of sympathy and impatience. “But if you leave here now, we might still be able to save Sheppard.”
“Sheppard’s in danger?” Ronon stood a little straighter at the news.
“He believes he is a prisoner of war,” Teyla told him. “And Rodney was not able to convince him otherwise.”
“But if the three of us are together, maybe we’ll be able to get him out.”
“How?” Ronon asked the scientist.
“I’ve been thinking about that. As long as he believes he’s a prisoner in Afghanistan, he’ll never believe we’re more than a delusion he’s created. But if he were safe…”
Ronon’s lips curled at the thought. “We bust him out.” After the frustration and heartbreak of the past couple of weeks, he was ready to kick a little ass… a whole lot of ass.
Rodney nodded in agreement. “Then, hopefully, he’ll believe we’re real and finally listen to me when I tell him he can leave on his own.”
“So how do I get out?”
“You just have to want to go,” Rodney told him.
Ronon took one more look around the apartment he was standing in. Any second now, she’d walk in the door. She’d walk in the door and he’d have another chance.
“Ronon?”
He looked over his shoulder and assured Teyla, “Give me a minute. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Very well. Rodney and I will wait for you in the satellite.” And the two of them were gone.
The door to the apartment opened and Melena walked in, stopping in surprise when she saw him home at that time of day. Then she sighed in frustration of the argument she knew was coming. “Ronon, we’ve discussed this enough. I’m not going to evac…”
He cut her off with a kiss, cupping her face tenderly before finally, reluctantly, pulling away. “I’m sorry. I tried but… I’m sorry.”
“Ronon,” her brow crinkled in worry, “are you okay?”
“Not really,” he laughed humorously. “But I’m working on it.” When her confusion just grew he gave her a final, sad, smile. “Goodbye, Melena.”
And then he walked out the front door without looking back.
When his vision finally came back into focus, the first thing he saw was Teyla smiling down on him. “Welcome back.” He started to sit, doing his best to ignore the dizziness and nausea and she placed a hand on his chest. “Lie still, it takes a while for the sickness to pass. Rodney is working to connect your chamber with ours so we can go in and find John. When he is ready, I will wake you.”
When she started to leave, he called to her. “Teyla, thanks… to both of you.”
She smiled again, and for some reason, seemed to be on the verge of tears. “You have no idea how good it is to see you again, Ronon Dex.”
Actually, he was pretty sure he did.
* * * *
“Okay, are we clear on the plan?” Rodney asked yet again.
“How many times do we have to say yes before you believe us and stop asking that damn question, McKay?”
Ronon was evidently feeling better. He still looked like crap, but then again, seeing as Teyla didn’t look much better, Rodney was pretty sure he looked just as bad.
“Until I’m convinced you’re clear on the plan,” McKay grumbled back.
“Rodney, we are well aware of the importance of this mission. And Ronon and I want to get John out as much as you do.”
Scrubbing a hand across his face, Rodney sighed. It had been a long day, and it wasn’t nearly done yet. “I know, I know. It’s just… if this doesn’t work, this is the failure I’m going to be living with for the rest of my life.”
“We’ll get him out, McKay,” Ronon promised confidently.
Nodding succinctly, Rodney reminded, “We can’t let him know it’s us until he’s out, else he’ll just think he’s imagining the whole rescue.” When his other two teammates nodded in understanding he went on. “And that means only U.S. military dress and weapons.”
When Ronon growled impatiently under his breath, Teyla touched the Satedan’s arm. “We will remember, Rodney. We are ready.”
Realizing there was nothing else he could really do, McKay waved his hands. “Okay, go to your units. I’ll link us all in from mine.”
Ronon stretched out on his immediately and Teyla quickly followed suit in her own. When he was satisfied they were properly linked up, Rodney lay down yet again on his. With a frantically mumbled, “Please work,” he activated the connection and once again found himself in Afghanistan.
* * * *
Part 2
Category: Gen/ angst/ h/c
Word Count: ~15,900
Rating: T
Characters: McKay, Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Very teeny tiny ones for late Season 3
A/N: Thanks as always to Koschka for the quick beta.
Summary: When the team becomes trapped in an Ancient prison, it's up to Rodney to bust them out of their individual cells. The problem is, it's all in their minds.
Prison Break
by liketheriver
Ironically, it was Rodney who first realized something wasn’t right. He simply turned to the Russian scientist working on the naquadah generator beside him and said, “I’ll do whatever you want, just, please give them back to me.”
The woman blinked in confusion, started to ask what he was talking about, but McKay cut her off. “They’re real, I know they’re real and I’m not entirely sure, but I think you’re not. So whatever you want from us, I’ll do it. Just give me my team back.”
Every night for the past two weeks, Rodney had dreamed of them- three people, two men and a woman, who felt so familiar that he could feel the ache of them not being there when he woke in the morning. Rodney wasn’t the type to have close friends, not since childhood, and even those friendships had been precarious at best. And moving around like he had for most of his career, didn’t lead to many chances at lasting or even meaningful relationships. Which was why he was so convinced that these people were real… his imagination wasn’t nearly good enough to have dreamed up their names much less his feelings for them, especially considering who they were. An air force pilot and two aliens from fairly primitive societies in another galaxy? Not exactly his type, that was for damn sure. But in his dreams he could recognize them from the pattern of their breathing alone, tell which one was behind him without turning around, and trusted them with his life just as much as they seemed to trust him.
“Dr. McKay, I am part of team,” the woman insisted. “And Yuri and Slava are next door preparing…”
Rodney shook his head in annoyance. “I’m not talking about you. I’m mean Sheppard and Teyla and Ronon. Where are they? I just want to know they’re okay.”
“I am unaware of these people…”
Having had enough of this bullshit, McKay ignored the woman and yelled at the room in general, addressing whatever higher power was controlling this farce. “This isn’t real! However, you’re doing it, it’s not working any more, so just let me go and take me to the others!”
They were good, he’d give them that. The Siberia they’d created was very much like the one he remembered, which had him convinced they had somehow accessed his memories… whoever they were. As much as he tried, he couldn’t remember coming here. Oh sure he remembered the debacle at the SGC that had him assigned here in the first place, but that’s not what he meant. He’d come here with Sheppard and the others, he knew it, felt it in his bones. But how? When? That was the mystery. And if they had him held captive in a dismal fantasy of his own creation, then where were the others trapped? Given the hazy backgrounds for each of them that he could recall, he doubted any of them would be nearly as pleasant as the tiny apartment, poor laboratory facilities, and even worse food he’d been dealing with.
“Hello? Are you listening to me? I said I’m not buying it anymore!”
And that’s when he saw the door at the back of the lab… the one that had never been there before. Striding purposefully toward it, Rodney ignored the woman warning him, “Do not go out there. It is not safe.”
“Maybe, but at least it’ll be real.”
As soon as he touched the doorknob, a computer-simulated voice started speaking. “Warning. Prisoner awareness detected. Warden intervention required. Warning. Prisoner awareness detected. Warden intervention required.”
Prisoner. That didn’t sound good. And warden intervention sounded even worse. But they were out there, his team. They were either looking for him or in the same captive boat he was, and either way that meant he needed to get out. Opening the door, he did just that.
The alarms still sounded, but the lab dissolved into a blurry view of a gray ceiling above him. Blinking to try to clear his vision, Rodney lifted his head slightly, which just made the gray start spinning. Drugged. He was being drugged. Of course, when he stopped to think about it, that shouldn’t surprise him too much. They had to keep him in the hallucinogenic state he’d been in somehow. But thinking in general was taking every ounce of concentration that he had. Trying to lift his head again, he was able to focus on the needle feeding into his arm. He wasn’t sure that was such a good thing because it just made his stomach roll more. He reached out with his other hand, tugging the needle free, then lay there for a moment waiting for the nausea to pass.
Something was tugging at a memory, something important, and he wished to hell that stupid voice would shut the fuck up so he could think. That’s when he realized it was the voice that was causing the worry in the first place. Wardens, it was calling wardens, and that couldn’t be good. Rolling off the narrow table he was laying on, he landed on hands and knees and tried and failed to push to a stand. The room was still spinning violently, the voice still calling the wardens calmly, and Rodney was sure that he’d just escaped from his prison cell only to be forced back in it when the guards showed up. He gave up on trying to focus on the room at large and concentrated on the area immediately in front of him. That’s when he noticed something on the floor in front of him, a black vest, his vest. And if he were right that meant… yes! The life signs detector was in the front pocket, just like it always was.
He’d been right, he’d been right, he’d been right. He was torn between bursting into tears of relief that he hadn’t dreamed up the entire thing and puking on the floor. Managing to delay both, he instead fought to concentrate on the small screen in front of him. Four life signs blinked back at him, all within the room. Four. His team. All four of them were in here, all four of them were alive, and no one else was going to come for them. At least no one alive. That didn’t mean there wasn’t some sort of automated or robotic response on the way. After all, he’d ended up on that table somehow.
Crawling his way to the door, he managed to pull open the control panel beside it. Crystals. Honest to God Ancient technology. He’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life, never mind that they were swimming drunkenly before his eyes. Finding the one he was looking for, Rodney pulled the control crystal, effectively locking the door. Anyone wanting access to the room would have to cut their way in now. That would take a while, hopefully a long while, because he could no longer fight the growing fog in his head. Leaning back against the wall, he closed his eyes, deciding that when he opened them again the spinning would stop and he’d be able to concentrate long enough to find his friends. Friends. God, he’d known they were real. Really real. And with that thought, he drifted into the first dreamless sleep he’d had in weeks.
When he did open his eyes again, Rodney could see the room a little better. Pale lighting illuminated a circular opening with a single control podium in the center. Around the perimeter of the room were a series of small hatches stacked two high and his first thought was that they looked a lot like the chambers the crew of the Aurora had been in when they had found the battleship. It made sense seeing as he was able to exit the virtual reality once he realized that’s what it was, although the addition of a drug was new.
He could remember how he got here now. He remembered the Jumper picking up the strange Ancient satellite as soon as they exited the gate in orbit. They’d scanned it for life signs, found none, although environmental controls were operational, docked, entered, and then… he was in Siberia. Whatever had taken them down had done it as soon as they entered the base. And given the alarms that had started when he woke, McKay assumed this must be some sort of Ancient prison where they held the prisoners in a type of suspended animation during their incarceration. That was one way to keep the convicts from rioting; keep them oblivious to the fact that they’re even imprisoned.
But he’d managed to escape and it was up to him to get the others out now. Taking the detector he still held loosely in his hand, he surveyed the twenty pods around the room. The one where he had been held was still open, and the one above it showed a life sign. He couldn’t tell who it was as the hatch was solid metal and sealed shut, but he could read the vital signs display on the outside. The heart rate was a bit high, but it seemed to be lowering as he watched it, so he figured whoever was in there had been under some sort of physical duress in their VR. He studied the control panel on the unit, looking for some sort of off or open or shut down button. The unit was similar to the ones on the Aurora but different enough that nothing was jumping out at him, so he decided to check the podium in the center of the room instead. The last thing he wanted to do now that he’d found his team again was to accidentally execute them while trying to save them.
It was a good thing that he had decided to read up on the system. From what he could gather, the facility was an Ancient prison. Given that there were no more wardens on the facility since all the Ancients had left Pegasus ten thousand years before, they had fallen prey to the automated system that simply connected the prisoners when they arrived. But not only was it a prison, it was the Ancient equivalent to death row. Not that they would actually kill the person being held, no nothing nearly as inhumane as that. They simply held them in a type of suspended animation until the body aged and died on its own, trapped the entire time in a prison of the convict’s own making. Christ, how screwed up was that? But given those were the parameters of the confinement, there wasn’t any way to release them that he could find. Once you were put in a unit, you were apparently supposed to stay in the unit and no one could bring you out. Occasionally a prisoner did come out of the VR, just as he had, and there was a protocol for returning them- the unit would open and a warden would redrug and reprogram the unit to access another memory. Thank God for that, otherwise he’d still be awake but trapped inside the small chamber. The mere thought had him shuddering in claustrophobic dread.
And the rest of his team was in those tiny holding cells at that very moment and they’d stay there unless they realized they were being held against their will, which meant it was up to Rodney to figure out how to help them come to that realization. And then it came to him. The Aurorasystem had been interlinked so that everyone on the ship experienced the same VR. He and Sheppard had been able to interact when they had both been inside. If he could somehow hack into the individual systems here on the prison and insert himself into the other’s realities, then he could convince them to leave and they’d be able to exit the system just like he had.
With a plan in mind, he set to work, and within less than an hour he had his old prison cell linked to the one above his. Physically removing the needle from the unit just to be on the safe side, Rodney took a deep breath and lay back down on the table. As the unit slid shut once again, he mumbled, “Oh, God, I hope this works.”
When he opened his eyes again, he was surrounded by sand.
* * * *
John knew his time was coming to an end. The Taliban didn’t hold prisoners indefinitely and eventually the videotapes of him reading prepared statements about the evils of the western infidels was going to lose its punch and the only way to truly show they meant business would be to execute him for the camera instead. He figured they would have done it by now if not for Holland. The captain had lasted a whole week before succumbing to his injuries and having one body to parade across the airwaves via video had bought Sheppard a little time. For a people who claimed to hate the excesses of America, they sure knew how to work the system. And as long as they felt John was a media darling for the AP, they’d keep him alive… bruised, bloody, and half-starved, but alive.
Through the slats of the small wooden shed where they had him shackled, Sheppard could just make out the shifting sands. Even if he managed to get out of his chains, where the hell would he go? He was twenty miles out when his chopper went down, and at least another five before he found Holland. Once they were captured and he was beaten into unconsciousness, he didn’t have fucking clue where they’d taken them. No water, no food, no way to call for help… he’d be just as dead out there as he was in this shit hole where they were holding him.
“Christ, Sheppard, what the hell have you done to yourself?”
He wasn’t too surprised by the voice, it was one that he’d come to know over the past few weeks, one of three. He hadn’t exactly figured them out yet who they were supposed to be, if they were just figments of him imagination brought out to fight the loneliness or actual parts of his personality that were splitting out as a form of self preservation. Although, seriously, he had no idea his feminine side was so hot if that was the case.
This one he knew better than the others, it tended to come out more. It was his intellect, his ego, and evidently his self-deprecation since it seemed to spend most of it’s time berating his conscious self.
“Well, you know how it is, McKay. It was video day; they tend to get a little testy when I try to send secret messages out.” John turned his attention back from the slivered view of the sands and looked at Rodney, licking at his parched and busted lips. “I don’t suppose you have an ice cold beer on you. Hell, I’d settle for tepid water.”
“Sheppard, this isn’t real,” the imaginary man argued.
“Yeah, I know. But I appreciate the company, regardless.”
“No, I mean this isn’t real.” Rodney waved his hand around the shack. “You can just walk out that door any time you like and leave and go back to reality.”
John blinked at the apparition. “Wow. I had no idea I was so suicidal.”
“Well, yes, you do have that tendency, but usually only when the welfare of others is at stake. But this time staying in here is the suicidal move. You need to get out of here, Colonel, and you need to do it now.”
The snort Sheppard let out had him wincing from his bruised ribs. “Not only am I suicidal, I have delusions of grandeur.”
McKay frowned until he realized what he’d said. “Of course, we’re in Afghanistan; you’re still a major.”
And that observation had John frowning in return. “Still?” Studying the man a little closer, he could see dark shadows under his eyes, a slightly pasty complexion and he asked, “Are you okay, McKay? You look different for some reason.”
“Because it’s me, Sheppard. The real me… or at least a projection of the real me inside your virtual reality.”
“So which is it, Rodney? Are you live or Memorex?”
“Both.” When John simply rolled his eyes and rolled his head along with them to look away from him, McKay continued. “Look, it’s complicated. But we’re being held prisoner, against our will, and as best I can tell it could have been for a couple of weeks.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know, McKay.”
“No, not here, or at least not in your here. On the Ancient prison satellite. Right now you’re laying in a sort of stasis unit being drugged and living out some fear or memory or combination of the two. And the only way you can get out is to leave it yourself.”
“Riiiiight.” Christ, what does it mean when your multiple personalities are going insane?
“Sheppard, I don’t have time for this. I still have to get Teyla and Ronon out and there’s no telling what they’re imagining.”
“Well, then, if you’re busy, don’t let me keep you.”
“All you have to do is walk out that door and you’ll be free from all this.”
“Rodney, if I walk out that door, that is if I could actually get it open seeing as it’s locked, I’d be facing armed guards and miles of open desert in enemy territory. How, exactly, would that improve my situation?”
McKay moved a little closer. “John, in all the years I’ve known you, have I ever intentionally lied to you.” The intense look waffled and he bobbled his head. “At least on anything that was really important.”
“Rodney, I haven’t known you for years.”
“Yes you have. You walked through the stargate with me to Atlantis. You pushed me off a balcony while I was wearing a personal shield. You taught me how to fly a Jumper. We played a game together for nearly three years before we found out it wasn’t a simulation but was an Ancient experiment. We blew up a solar system together.” When John raised eyebrows in disbelief at that one, Rodney backpedaled. “Okay, so maybe you just watched on that one. But if you fight through the drugs you’ll remember. I’m real, Teyla’s real, Ronon’s real. Atlantis is real. And as soon as I get the three of you out of this, we’re going back there. We’re going home. But I have to get you out of here first.”
“There’s no such place as Atlantis,” John insisted, fighting the urge that said yes, there is that came every time he woke from the dreams of cool breezes and warm color streaming through the hallways of a miraculous city. The damp air was replaced by dry winds as soon as he opened his eyes, and he felt the ache of sore muscles and the sting of open cuts, and realized just how desperate he was to believe in such a place, how desperate he was to escape the prison he was in even if he could only do it through a fantasy world. “It’s a figment of my imagination, just like you and the others.”
“Sheppard, I’m not…” But McKay stopped talking when he heard voices outside the shed.
“Time to go, Rodney,” he hissed. “You know you hate to watch this.”
“Sheppard, come with me. You can do this, just open that door and you can go.”
But the door was opened for him instead and two of his captors stood blocking the bright glare of sunlight behind them. Faces obscured with scarves as they always were, they pointed their Soviet PKM machine guns and motioned John to his feet. Struggling up as best he could given the shackles around his wrists and ankles, John leaned against the wall before he was yanked forward by the nearest guard.
“Hey, give him a chance to get his feet under him,” McKay challenged the guard who couldn’t see or hear him. Sheppard felt his lips curl at the anger that was apparent in the voice. Rodney was evidently the personification of his indignation, as well. He was quite the little multi-tasker.
Behind him, McKay was still insisting, “If you want to leave, you can.” His irritation now directed back at Sheppard.
But when he was shoved through the door by the two men, lost his footing and went down, John almost started to laugh. Because obviously McKay was off his rocker seeing as he wasn’t standing in Atlantis or on some space station in another galaxy. No, he was lying in the sand while a boot kicked him in the ribs… again.
And based on past experience, that was just the warm up.
* * * *
Rodney’s unit slid open with a hiss and he lay there for a few seconds trying to even out his breathing.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
It wasn’t real. He knew it wasn’t real, but just like he knew the weeks he’s spent in Russia weren’t real either, it didn’t mean he couldn’t remember every detail as if it had really happened. Which just meant Sheppard could feel every punch and kick and the stomach twisting fear that he was experiencing now. Scrambling up from where he lay, McKay watched the heart rate monitor elevate quickly before finally slowing and the blood pressure drop quickly. They’d beat him into unconsciousness. The sons of bitches had literally beat him until he passed out. And it took Rodney a beat himself to remember that they were all creations in Sheppard’s head… or a memory.
Dear God, had he gone through this before? No. Surely he would have told them. Right? Shaking away the thought, because it really didn’t matter since he was going through it now, Rodney turned his attention back to how to get him out. Because his first attempt had been such a stellar success. Christ. No, there had to be some way to convince him…
Teyla and Ronon.
He might not be able to get Sheppard out by himself, but if the others were with him, then they might stand a chance. That is if he had any better luck and could get them out. Well, no time like the present to find out, he decided. With a quick check of Sheppard’s vitals one last time… alive, he was still alive, and unfortunately that would have to do for now… Rodney found the next of his teammates. Within a few minutes he was back in his own unit and ready to enter the next prison cell.
* * * *
Teyla woke to the sound of Michael entering the lab where he had been holding her for the past two weeks. She sat up on the small cot he had given her to sleep on, wiping quickly at the dampness that was always present when she woke from her dreams. She would not allow him to break her, would not allow him to see the weakness she felt in her heart, the desire to just give in. She would not disgrace their memories by doing such. There was barely any light in the underground facility, but her eyes had eventually adjusted as they had on the night hunts she used to take part in on Athos and she could make out the Wraith as he studied the results of his test that had run overnight. Athos. It was forever lost to her thanks to the Wraith. And now, thanks to this particular one, so were those she had held most dear.
John had been torn apart by Michael’s mutated creations as soon as they had entered the facility, their bullets bouncing harmlessly off the outer shells of the creatures as they overcame him with sheer numbers. An ambush she was sure, although the creatures operated on instinct more than planned attacks. Ronon had drawn his sword and started toward the mass of black bodies but fell to the stunner blast and she and Rodney had barely had time to turn to see where it was coming from before they were hit, as well.
She woke in the cage where she was currently being held to the sound of Rodney screaming. Her vision still blurry from the stunner, she could just make out the scientist being fed upon by their captor. She tried to beg Michael to stop but her lips would not move because of the paralysis, so she could just lay there and watch as Rodney was drained, withered, died. So this was to be her fate, she had thought; to die at the hands of a man she had befriended and a Wraith who held her and all those on Atlantis responsible for his current predicament. There was a part of her that believed it was a just punishment given what they had done to him. But she was not to be so lucky as to find a quick death. Michael had other plans for her and her remaining teammate.
Ronon was the subject of Michael’s latest experiment. He was strapped to a lab table and injected with the various enzymes and genetic material Michael had cultivated; the effects were agonizingly painful and he eventually died seizing on the table on their second day of captivity while Teyla gripped the bars of her cell and pleaded with Michael to spare him. The brown eyes had sought hers, held them as long as he could and then he too was gone and ever since then it had been just Teyla and Michael’s never-ending blood tests.
He had found the notes on the Wraith experimentation that had led to her ancestors having the Wraith gene in the first place, and he was trying to improve upon it. Teyla quickly learned she was to be his personal lab animal for those tests. Over the past weeks he had tried the serums on the Irratus creatures, as well as on humans he brought in from only he knew where. And Teyla had sat and watched the results and subsequent deaths, grotesque and painful, and eventually stopped wasting her breath begging him to stop.
“I take it you slept well,” the Wraith observed over his shoulder, checking the dish where he had been cultivating his next serum.
“Yes, very well.” She could never tell if that upset him or pleased him, but it was the truth. Because when she slept, she dreamed of her team, of the three men who had been so very different and yet so very devoted to one another and to her. And their memories still caused her chest to ache painfully whenever she woke and had to leave them once again.
“Good, we have much to do today.” Lifting the vial, he turned it in the dim light. “I have a new approach to try. If I can mutate the gene slightly within you, then it might be more easily adapted to the test subjects.”
Standing, she moved to the bars. “You are going to experiment on me?”
“Yes,” Michael informed her simply. “But I would not worry; the effects should not be fatal.”
“And if it is fatal? What will you do then?”
“There are others such as you out there. Of that I am sure.” Looking up, his eyes met hers for the first time. “But like I said, I would not worry. The chances of you dying are very small.”
Her stomach knotted, and much to her surprise, it was not in worry but in disappointment. He passed a plate of food through the bars… fruit and bread, and Teyla wondering, not for the first time, if he had dined as well when he had gathered her meal.
“Eat. You will need your strength today. And it is doubtful you will want to eat for a while to come.”
The truth was, she had not wanted to eat at all for the past weeks, but she had. She would not lie down and die for him, as much as she wanted to. John, Rodney, Ronon… they had fought until the very end and out of respect and admiration of them, she would do the same. So she took a bite of the bread he had given her and forced herself to chew, even as she watched Michael leave the room.
And she nearly choked on it when Rodney was suddenly standing outside her cell. “God, I thought he was never going to leave.”
“Rodney?” she asked in disbelief at seeing the physicist.
“Yeah, it’s me, in the flesh. Well, technically, not. It’s more of a holographic representation of me being transmitted directly to the awareness centers of your brain, so that you only think I’m here. But really, I am here… sort of.”
Feeling the emotions constricting her throat at seeing him, Teyla shook her head slowly. “But you were dead. I saw it. I watched it happen.”
“Really?” He grimaced at the thought. “Was it pretty horrific?”
“Michael fed on you.”
“Oh, God.” Rodney shuddered before asking, “Did I at least face it bravely?”
“You tried,” she told him dazedly, her mind reeling over the contradiction of still being able to hear his screams and seeing Rodney standing before her.
“Oh… well… I guess that’s something at least.”
Ignoring the slight disillusionment in his voice, she instead concentrated on his hand that was wrapped around the bar before her. Reaching out quickly, as though it might disappear if she did not act immediately, she let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob when she felt warm skin under her palm. Alive, he was alive. Rodney was alive. The relief had her knees giving way beneath her.
“Whoa!” Rodney tried to catch her before she went all the way down, but seeing as he was on the other side of the cage, the best he could do was to grab her arms and sit on the floor opposite her. “Are you okay?”
“I am…” There were no words. She had seen him die, watched it with her own two eyes, and now he was here, really here. Her fingers gripped desperately into his arms. “I do not understand,” she admitted hoarsely.
“You’re not really in Michael’s lab, Teyla. This is all in your mind.” She furrowed her brow in confusion and Rodney continued his explanation. “We’re on a mission and we ended up trapped in an Ancient prison. It’s a virtual reality system, like on the Aurora, and all you have to do is realize it’s all fake and you’ll be able to exit the program.”
“John and Ronon?” she asked hopefully.
“Alive, they’re both alive and both still in their own virtual reality. And I need your help to get Sheppard out.” Rodney looked to her in his own desperation. “I tried, but he won’t believe me. He’s in too deep in the world he’s created and it’s… it’s bad.”
“How? Tell me how to get out.” And with her question the bars vanished.
Rodney just grinned at her wide-eyed expression and helped her to her feet. “Create a door and walk out.”
The room shifted, turned into her quarters on Atlantis and Rodney looked around in a sort of wonder of his own. “Neat trick.”
“This is… amazing,” she observed with a smile, moving quickly to the exit.
“I’ll say. I’ve been meaning to ask you, how, exactly, did you get such a big bed?”
She paused with her hand at the door. “Rodney, are you coming or not?”
“Right.” He joined her then motioned toward the door. “After you.”
The door slid open, but instead of the hallways of Atlantis, she was blinking in the dim light of a strange room. Within a few seconds, Rodney face appeared above her. “Just take it easy, it’s a little disorienting until the drugs have a chance to wear off.”
She felt a sting and looked down at her arm to see the scientist removing a needle, snapping it off, and tossing it aside. “Drugs?” Her stomach rolled and she closed her eyes even as she reached again for Rodney. It was still a little hard to believe that he was alive after believing for so long that he was dead.
He took her hand and squeezed reassuringly before releasing it. “Yeah, evidently to keep you from realizing it was all in your head.” With a pat to her arm he instructed, “Just sleep it off for a while. I’ll work to hook up your unit so we can go in and get Ronon out next.”
“Rodney?”
“What?” His head popped up in concern. “You’re not going to puke are you?”
“They are really alive?”
With a look of relief that she had no intention of throwing up, he pulled out the life sign detector and showed her the dots. “Those are you and me. This one’s Sheppard and that one must be Ronon.”
She smiled at him gratefully. “Thank you.”
“Oh, you’re welcome.” He seemed a little embarrassed and turned quickly to his work.
Teyla took it as an indication that she should rest. And for the first time in weeks she wanted to cry before she fell asleep, only this time if was for tears of joy.
* * * *
Rodney was just completing the connections when Teyla sat up and surveyed the room they were in. “Feeling better?”
“Much, thank you.” She smiled warmly as she stood, testing her legs before joining him at the consol.
“I’m just about ready to link into Ronon’s unit. Once we have him out, we can go get Sheppard.”
“You said you had seen John. Where is he trapped?”
Rodney felt his jaw tighten at the memory of the false world. “Afghanistan.”
“Where he went to rescue Capt. Holland?” Teyla asked in surprise.
“Holland! I couldn’t remember his name.” McKay returned to making the computer links on his electronic pad.
“Was the captain there with John?”
Rodney had gone back in while Teyla slept. He’d gone back in to find Sheppard curled on his side in the dirt, bloody, bruised, and somewhere between sleep and unconsciousness. McKay had just let him rest. There wasn’t anything he could do to treat the new wounds the colonel was sporting since the last time he’d been there, and he knew in the state he was in there was no way to convince him to leave, so he’d just sat on the ground beside Sheppard and did the only thing he could. He rested a hand on what he hoped wasn’t a busted shoulder and waited.
The action had John had waking enough to notice him and lift his head from the ground. “McKay? How long have you been here?”
“Apparently not long enough,” he’d told him.
As if unable to hold his head up any longer, Sheppard lowered it back into the sand. “How long can you stay?”
“Not long enough,” Rodney repeated, squeezing gently on the arm under his hand. “But I’m working on a plan, so just hold on a little while longer. Okay?”
“Sure,” John mumbled, eyes falling closed again. “Glad you stopped by.”
“Go back to sleep, Sheppard. I’ll keep watch for as long as I can.”
Sheppard’s acknowledgement had been little more than a half nod, and he was still out when Rodney had to leave him, feeling like he was abandoning him in that fucking shed.
With a shake of his head, Rodney told Teyla, “No. He was alone… well, aside from the bastards holding him.”
“Then he is a prisoner, too.”
McKay blinked at his teammate’s observation. “My God, you’re right. Just like you were Michael’s prisoner. That’s how the system must work. It accesses some memory, some failure, that we must subconsciously feel was something to be punished over and imprisons us there.”
“Where were you?” she inquired curiously.
“Siberia.” When she raised her eyebrows inquisitively, Rodney continued. “I’d been pretty much banished there by the SGC a few years before we came to Atlantis.”
“To be imprisoned?”
“No.” He felt a little ridiculous now that he thought of how easy he’d had it in his VR compared to what Teyla and Sheppard had experienced in theirs. “I was working on the naquadah generator program with the Russians.”
Teyla seemed a little confused that that would have been were he had confined himself, but then she noted, “You never came to Atlantis then.”
“No, I wasn’t allowed.” And as horrible as that would have been, to have known Atlantis was out there and never been allowed to step foot in the city, remembering back on his time in the VR, that wasn’t the worst part. “And I never met you guys,” he mumbled, pointedly not looking at the Athosian.
Teyla’s shoulders slumped slightly at the news. “It must have been very lonely there.”
With a shrug, Rodney admitted, “My priorities were a little… different back then.”
When he had been in Siberia, really been there, he’d never realized just how lonely he actually had been. He’d also thought it was the most ridiculous punishment that had ever been doled out to him and rather excessive for what he’d done. But when he’d experienced it this time in the VR, the Russian agency was the most desolate place he’d ever known in his life. And looking back on what he’d done to be sent there in the first place, what he’d tried, and, fortunately failed, to do when Teal’c was trapped in the memory buffers of the gate back at the SGC… Well, if the tables were turned now, if it was one of his teammates trapped and Sam Carter was trying to convince him there was no way to save them and he should just walk away and let them die, exile in Siberia would seem like a fucking vacation in comparison to what he’d want to do to her. So maybe the prison his mind had created for him wasn’t as cushy as he’d originally thought it was.
“I think your priorities are well aligned, now,” Teyla assured him.
“Yeah, well, our priority now is to get Ronon and Sheppard out so we can get the hell out of here. Are you ready to try this?”
Teyla nodded before asking, “How will this work? How much control will we have while we are in their realities?”
“We can leave any time but other than that, it seems to depend on how the creator perceives us. Sheppard thought I was a figment of his imagination so only he could see me. You believed I was real, so I have a feeling Michael would have believed I was, too. But it made it a hell of a lot easier to convince you that you could leave. With Ronon, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Then I believe it is time that we do see.”
Once Rodney had Teyla situated in her unit yet again, he entered his own, and then the two of them entered Ronon’s mental prison… which ended up being a hospital.
* * * *
This time, Ronon thought to himself. This time I’ll get it right.
Melena was standing in the hall of the hospital, injured people being wheeled around them on gurneys or helped along by others in better shape than they were. Not that it really mattered. Any second now the wall would be blown out by an explosion and the majority of them would be dead, including the blond woman refusing to leave with him. But this time, this time he’d get it right.
“Melena, let’s go talk about this… in private. Okay? Just come with me and we’ll talk about it somewhere else.”
The hand he held out to her was ignored. “Ronon, there’s nothing left to talk about. I’m needed here. I’m staying.”
“Fine, you can come back. But come with me for now, just for a minute. I want… I want to say goodbye and I can’t do it in a hallway.”
“Ronon, this isn’t goodbye. We’ll see each other again. I know it.”
Yeah, they’d see each other again; when the damn time loop he was in reset and he had to try this all over. Unless he could get her to leave and then… then everything would be good. Then he’d get the chance to live their lives the way they should have if the Wraith had never destroyed everything he cared about. But he had to get it right. And this would be the time he did it.
He’d tried so many times before, each a dismal failure. She refused to go, she headed further down the hall away from him instead of toward him, she didn’t move fast enough, she remembered she forgot something and went back before he could stop her. Once he just threw her over his shoulder, her kicking and screaming the entire time, and when he got her outside, when he finally got her where they should be safe, another blast hit them and killed her in the street instead of the hallway.
But this time he’d get it right, he had to.
“I know it, too. But we don’t know how long it’ll be, so come with me, okay? Just for a few minutes, I promise.”
She hesitantly took a step toward him and he fought the urge to yell, come on already we only have a few seconds here. But as soon as her hand was in his, he gripped it tightly and started running, dragging her along.
“Ronon, stop, what are you doing?”
But he didn’t slow. If he could manage to get a little further down the hall, she’d be outside the range of the blast and she’d live, she’d fucking live.
And he was there, he was almost there, when he suddenly ran face first into McKay. The three of them went down in a heap on the floor and Ronon was doing his best to regain his feet when he realized Melena’s hand was no longer in his. Looking up, he saw her backing away with a confused expression on her face.
“No! Melena, not that way!”
But it was too late; the blast came again, the wall of debris engulfing her, wrapping her in a shroud of fiery death. Closing his eyes against the scene he’d watched over and over, he waited for the flames to subside and the scene to start resetting before he fisted into McKay’s shirt and yanked the man up with a growl.
“Why are you here? I had her this time. I had her and you ruined it!”
It wasn’t until her hand landed on his arm that was shaking the Earth scientist that he even realized Teyla was there. “Ronon, stop this! Let him go!”
With a final shake, he pushed the man away before turning his back on them. So close. So damn close. And he knew from past experience that it wouldn’t work again. He kicked at a piece of debris, his eyes darting to the mangled body of Melena before he closed them against the scene that made his chest ache no matter how many times he’d seen it.
Turning back to his teammates, he ordered, “You two need to leave, now, before it starts over again.”
“Starts again?” Rodney asked as he smoothed his shirt. “How many times have you gone through this?”
Sighing, Ronon confessed in frustration, “I don’t know. That was probably number twenty.”
Teyla’s eyes widened in alarm. “You have watched her die twenty times?”
“She wouldn’t have this time,” he defended, “if someone hadn’t been blocking my path.”
“It wouldn’t have worked,” McKay insisted. “For whatever reason, it wouldn’t have worked.”
“You don’t know that,” Ronon ground out, his finger jabbing angrily into Rodney’s chest.
“Yes, I do.” McKay threw his arms wide. “This whole thing is designed to keep you trapped in here, to punish you. It’ll never let you save her.”
“Why would the Ancients create a device that can replay time if it wasn’t supposed to let you fix your mistakes?”
Ronon’s challenge had Teyla stepping forward. “Where did this device come from?”
“We found it on Atlantis,” he told her, as if she should have already known that, because she’d been there when they found it.
“And where are we now?” she asked.
“I brought it to Sateda. I’m kind of surprised it took you guys this long to find me. Sheppard must be slipping.” Looking around, he didn’t see the pilot. “Where is he, anyway?”
“Trapped, like you, in a world that doesn’t really exist.” Rodney waved his hands to encompass the scene before him. “This is all in your head, Ronon. The device you’re talking about doesn’t exist, and we’re not on Sateda, we’re on a prison satellite in orbit around an uninhabited planet.”
Ronon snorted in disbelief. “A prison?”
“Yes, a prison. Teyla and I managed to escape our cells but you and Sheppard are still in yours.”
With a shake of his head, Ronon watched the scene around him morph to their apartment the morning of the attack. It was his first chance to keep her from going to the hospital, his first chance to keep Melena alive. “Good try, McKay. But I’m not leaving the time field.”
This time. This was the time, he knew it.
“Ronon,” Teyla reasoned, “if it is an Ancient device, how are you able to use it? You do not possess the gene.”
“Not all of them need the gene,” he countered.
Rodney threw up his arms in irritation. “Look, I know you’re nowhere near smart enough to be a member of my staff or anything, then again, half of them aren’t either. But I know you’re not an idiot. I bet every time you’ve almost convinced her to leave, something happens to stop it. Something little and insignificant.” When Ronon’s only response was to drop his eyes and study his boots, Rodney pressed on. “It’s because you aren’t meant to succeed. Deep down you know there’s nothing that you could do to save her but you still blame yourself and this is how you’re punishing yourself.”
“The machine you are connected to manipulates your thoughts,” Teyla explained. “It makes you believe things that are not true as a form of retribution you have created. If you truly believe you are responsible for what happened to Melena, it will never let you save her.”
Ronon stood silently for a moment before confessing quietly, “I should have been able to save her that day. I should have been able to keep her safe.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Rodney,” Teyla chastised at the man’s comment but he raised his hand to stop her.
“Just hear me out. Ronon didn’t save Melena, Sheppard didn’t save Holland, you didn’t stop Michael, and I was a major prick and could have easily cost Teal’c his life. But I didn’t trap him in the gate to begin with, Ronon didn’t cause the Wraith to attack Sateda, Sheppard didn’t shoot down Holland’s helicopter, and we’re all responsible for the whole Michael debacle. Bad shit happens, mistakes happen, but as much as we wish we could do things over, we can’t.” He looked pointedly at Ronon. “All right? We can’t. But we can at least try to learn from them and do the right thing now. And Ronon, I’m sorry, but Melena is dead and you can’t bring her back.”
Ronon glared at McKay, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to argue the fact. He’d known this was a long shot from the beginning, somehow he’d known. But that wasn’t enough to keep him from trying, over and over.
Rodney just looked at him with this odd blend of sympathy and impatience. “But if you leave here now, we might still be able to save Sheppard.”
“Sheppard’s in danger?” Ronon stood a little straighter at the news.
“He believes he is a prisoner of war,” Teyla told him. “And Rodney was not able to convince him otherwise.”
“But if the three of us are together, maybe we’ll be able to get him out.”
“How?” Ronon asked the scientist.
“I’ve been thinking about that. As long as he believes he’s a prisoner in Afghanistan, he’ll never believe we’re more than a delusion he’s created. But if he were safe…”
Ronon’s lips curled at the thought. “We bust him out.” After the frustration and heartbreak of the past couple of weeks, he was ready to kick a little ass… a whole lot of ass.
Rodney nodded in agreement. “Then, hopefully, he’ll believe we’re real and finally listen to me when I tell him he can leave on his own.”
“So how do I get out?”
“You just have to want to go,” Rodney told him.
Ronon took one more look around the apartment he was standing in. Any second now, she’d walk in the door. She’d walk in the door and he’d have another chance.
“Ronon?”
He looked over his shoulder and assured Teyla, “Give me a minute. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Very well. Rodney and I will wait for you in the satellite.” And the two of them were gone.
The door to the apartment opened and Melena walked in, stopping in surprise when she saw him home at that time of day. Then she sighed in frustration of the argument she knew was coming. “Ronon, we’ve discussed this enough. I’m not going to evac…”
He cut her off with a kiss, cupping her face tenderly before finally, reluctantly, pulling away. “I’m sorry. I tried but… I’m sorry.”
“Ronon,” her brow crinkled in worry, “are you okay?”
“Not really,” he laughed humorously. “But I’m working on it.” When her confusion just grew he gave her a final, sad, smile. “Goodbye, Melena.”
And then he walked out the front door without looking back.
When his vision finally came back into focus, the first thing he saw was Teyla smiling down on him. “Welcome back.” He started to sit, doing his best to ignore the dizziness and nausea and she placed a hand on his chest. “Lie still, it takes a while for the sickness to pass. Rodney is working to connect your chamber with ours so we can go in and find John. When he is ready, I will wake you.”
When she started to leave, he called to her. “Teyla, thanks… to both of you.”
She smiled again, and for some reason, seemed to be on the verge of tears. “You have no idea how good it is to see you again, Ronon Dex.”
Actually, he was pretty sure he did.
* * * *
“Okay, are we clear on the plan?” Rodney asked yet again.
“How many times do we have to say yes before you believe us and stop asking that damn question, McKay?”
Ronon was evidently feeling better. He still looked like crap, but then again, seeing as Teyla didn’t look much better, Rodney was pretty sure he looked just as bad.
“Until I’m convinced you’re clear on the plan,” McKay grumbled back.
“Rodney, we are well aware of the importance of this mission. And Ronon and I want to get John out as much as you do.”
Scrubbing a hand across his face, Rodney sighed. It had been a long day, and it wasn’t nearly done yet. “I know, I know. It’s just… if this doesn’t work, this is the failure I’m going to be living with for the rest of my life.”
“We’ll get him out, McKay,” Ronon promised confidently.
Nodding succinctly, Rodney reminded, “We can’t let him know it’s us until he’s out, else he’ll just think he’s imagining the whole rescue.” When his other two teammates nodded in understanding he went on. “And that means only U.S. military dress and weapons.”
When Ronon growled impatiently under his breath, Teyla touched the Satedan’s arm. “We will remember, Rodney. We are ready.”
Realizing there was nothing else he could really do, McKay waved his hands. “Okay, go to your units. I’ll link us all in from mine.”
Ronon stretched out on his immediately and Teyla quickly followed suit in her own. When he was satisfied they were properly linked up, Rodney lay down yet again on his. With a frantically mumbled, “Please work,” he activated the connection and once again found himself in Afghanistan.
* * * *
Part 2