Title: Trinity Squared (Trinity²)
Genre: Gen, action/adventure/angst
Rating: PG
Characters: Rodney centric with liberal smatterings of everyone else
Summary: Three years post Doranda and the fates of two worlds hang in the balance. Rodney's past is about to come back to terrify and destroy him in a way he had never anticipated.

Author's Notes - Everyone and their dog have written a post-Trinity fic, so I decided for a different spin by setting it three years later. Set in the last half of Season 5 (after Prodigal) Please forgive the hokey physics and medical stuff. I'm only doing this for fun and it's scifi after all! /lame-excuses

Written for the Little!Bang challenge on LiveJournal's StarGateLand Community for the prompt Rodney/Disaster. I got a little carried away... Watch this space for total word count (estimated 15k in 8 chapters)

Chapter One

Rodney poked the flower with his scanner, then reached out to prod it with his finger, only to have his hand smacked out of the way by Ronon.

"Hey!" Rodney cried.

"Don't touch it!"

Rodney huffed and crouched down so that he could peer intensely at the time defying flower in front of him as it opened and closed, withered, wilted and then regrew in a matter of seconds in a constant cycle. He had no idea what was going on, but his team and the natives were relying on his analysis to solve all their problems. As usual.

He said, "Perhaps if Teyla's friends hadn't told them I knew all the answers we wouldn't be in this situation."

Luckily the lady in question was off with Sheppard investigating some of the other strange happenings on the planet they were visiting. The planet was called Wrydon and was a respected trading partner and ally of the Athosians.

Ronon showed some teeth, the Satedan equivalent of mirth, or perhaps an indication of imminent violence. "But you do have all the solutions."

"Yes, of course I do. But this one makes no sense, I can't explain it. At least not yet." Rodney adjusted the scanner through every iteration he could think of and even scanned for the atmospheric content of cheese particles - useful if he was starving, but now only really one of Zelenka's more unusual and totally useless programming decisions. He huffed in irritation and turned to Ronon, "Try blasting it to see what happens."

Ronon frowned slightly, but did as Rodney asked. The bolt of red energy took the whole hand-sized pink-purple flower off and left behind a stalk with an orange glowing ember at the top.

Rodney hummed at the scanner as it showed the energy dissipating in the air, then building again. "What the…? Get down!"

Ronon didn't need telling twice and both men landed flat on their fronts on the hard packed earth just in time as Ronon's blaster shot reformed and flew back in time to the precise point where he had fired it a moment ago.

Grimacing and coughing and spitting out dirt, Rodney rolled over onto his back while Ronon pushed up into a crouch. The scientist shut his eyes and said, "That was very odd."

"It's not the only thing," Ronon said where he now stood and looked at the place where the flower had been before he had reduced its various components to vapour.

Rodney grabbed the hand proffered by the larger man and allowed himself to be helped upright. He turned and looked down, and to his growing horror, he saw that the flower had reformed and was once more doing its grow-wither-regrow trick.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Just then, the radio chirped and Sheppard's voice said, "Hey, you have to come and check this out! There's something near the village you must see."

"Not the only thing," Rodney mumbled and shook his head at the impossible flower and started to walk back to the village.

xxxxxxxxxx

Rodney stood with his mouth wide and his eyes popping at the spectacle before him. "What? Huh? What the… huh?"

"My thoughts exactly," John said.

Rodney had no explanation for how a waterfall could flow backwards - a water-rise his mind unhelpfully supplied. Localised time dilation and anomalies were unpredictable and inexplicable, even to a genius such as himself. Otherwise they wouldn't be random and he wouldn't be so worried about the people with him and their expectant faces every time they caught his eye.

Teyla was being more composed about the situation and asked the Wrydon village elder and leader, Jugin, "How long has this been occurring?"

"About a week. But it is not just waterfalls and flowers affected. We have become most restless and fearful ever since young master Torpik started his loop."

"Loop?" Ronon asked, but kept his eyes fixed mesmerised on the rising water as the reverse thundering filled the clearing and echoed around the dwellings nearby.

"Yes, it would be better for you to see it with your own eyes than for me to try and explain. Most do not believe it until they have seen."

"Can't imagine why that would be," Rodney muttered.

Jugin led then to the other side of the village. The occasional pair of eyes shone from the darkness of the huts, watching them as they went past, but otherwise the streets were empty and the village silent. Rodney shivered and glanced around nervously. He disliked being paraded through town like he and his team held all the answers and could solve everything. Sure, more often than not, he did know the answer and could save everyone, but he really didn't even know where to start in order to fix this. No doubt the Athosians had already sown seeds into the hearts and minds of the villagers that he was a man who could do anything at the mere snap of his fingers, not once taking into account all the work his brain did to make the solution appear before those fingers snapped.

At the edge of the village, Jugin stopped at the side of the dirt track that led to the stargate two miles away.

Rodney clutched his scanner tightly. It was now plugged into his computer tucked under his arm so he could record everything for analysis back in the safety of Atlantis, and his heart thudded in his chest in anticipation. He had always prided himself in being able to explain everything, but this was an unknown entity, and what he couldn't explain, rationalise or solve, not only made him nervous, but it scared him. If he was the most intelligent man in two galaxies and he didn't know what was going on, who did? His heart reinforced his fear as it tried its best to break free from his chest. He gulped and waited with the others for the next creepy event to become apparent.

He didn't have to wait for long before Jugin said, "Behold Master Torpik in his endless wandering."

A boy, aged about ten, shimmered into existence on the path. He walked a few paces, stopped and glanced around, looking right through everyone.

"Does he not see us?" Teyla asked.

Rodney shuddered again.

Torpik continued walking, Rodney held up his scanner and recording everything, even though he did not yet understand the readings. He made to follow the boy, but just as he stepped onto the path, Torpik vanished.

"Where'd he go?" John asked.

Just as he'd spoken, Torpik reappeared down the path where he had started and walked, stopped and glanced around just as before.

"Looks like there's a glitch in the Matrix," John said.

Rodney scowled and deadpanned, "Well that won't help us solve it, unless you have any ideas, Neo."

Ronon growled and ran over to Torpik and tried to touch him.

"Ronon, no!" Teyla cried.

But it did not matter, because Ronon's strength was no match for the marching of the boy. Torpik continued on his timeless path, unaware of those around him or that he was trapped in an unending loop. Ronon said, "I can't move him," as Torpik walked right into him, but could not be stopped by any of Ronon's attempts.

"It is the same everyday at the same time," Jugin said sadly. "His mother is in despair and everyone else is too afraid to leave their homes. You are our only hope. You have to help us. Please."

Just as Rodney had feared, the others all turned to him and John asked the dreaded question, "So, what's going on then?"

"What are you all looking at me for? How am I supposed to know?" He turned to Jugin. "You don't have any Indian burial grounds, lay lines or chanting witches in the woods around here do you?"

"McKay!" John warned.

"Just asking."

Jugin looked confused as he said, "No."

Ronon turned to Rodney and said, "You don't know? I thought you knew everything?"

Rodney felt like he'd been slapped, but he still managed to lift his chin defiantly. "I know more than everyone else, but I won't pretend for a minute that I know everything."

John raised his eyebrows, "You told us differently a few years ago."

"I know, but that was before… and I was wrong."

xxxxxxxxxx

The Puddle Jumper lazily turned over in space where it sped away from the planet it had just left. Inside the tiny craft, there were two occupants, one flying, one staring at a computer.

"The readings both on the planet and in space are very strange," Rodney said.

"Strange? Is that a technical term?"

"Yes, yes it is. Like when I tell you to dodge the bad guys. I'm sure there's some fancy piloting lingo for whatever the Jumper does at that juncture, but dodging bad guys is perfectly acceptable."

"But you usually just say: 'Ahhhh, we're all going to die!'"

Rodney rolled his eyes, "Same principle." He stared at his laptop screen. "Anyway, they are strange." His eyebrows rose. "And not constant either. They seem to be coming in waves."

John peered out of the window into space, thinking he should be seeing rippling blue water, perhaps white surf as the waves crested each planet in the system. But the floating orbs looked normal and space was just as it had been before.

Rodney's frown deepened as he scrolled through more data. "There's an infinitesimal curvature to the waves that are moving through the system. If I can gather enough data, I should be able to use a larger computer than this glorified toaster to analyse and extrapolate the point of origin once we're back on Atlantis. I might even need to hook them all up for the calculations required"

"Go there, find out what this is and shut it off."

Rodney scowled and glanced up briefly before he said patronisingly, "Yes yes. Would you like a gold star for that wonderful plan you just came up with all on your own?"

John smiled, "Oh please! But only if you have a wall chart too."

xxxxxxxxxx

A while later, back on Atlantis in the labs, things were not going so well.

Zelenka threw up his hands and said, "It's impossible. Totally impossible!"

"What is?" John asked.

"These waves or energy currents or whatever they are, they should not have reached the planet yet if our hypothesis is correct."

John raised an eyebrow, "You know what this is?"

Rodney gave Radek a warning look which subdued him for long enough so that Rodney could say the single word that had not been uttered for three long years. The only taboo on Atlantis that they had all sworn never to mention again for fear of the memories it brought back.

"Doranda."

TBC