Per Alicus Oculae
A/N: Apparently this site had a stroke or something because it wouldn't let me post. Sorry all. Here's the last chapter, a bit late. I just saw Cube btw, and David Hewlett was soo good! I hated the end, though (if you've seen it you know what I mean).
The Galaxy Quest reference in the last chapter was in the technobabble bit, about the reconfiguring the solar matrix junk. I command you all to watch that movie now!
Chapter 8: The Last Word
This time the shockwave didn't knock them out, but neither John nor Rodney was thankful for that. They re-entered their reality just where they had left it: in midair from where the initial shockwave had hurled them to. And when a body suddenly rematerializes in midair, gravity has this funny little tendency to take over and pull that body downward at a rate of -9.8m/s/s. But even at a height of four feet above the floor, it was still going to leave two nasty bruises on the backsides of two of Atlantis's personnel.
Which was why Rodney, for the first time in his life, decided he hated physics with a passion for that one very instant.
After hitting the floor with a thud and sliding to the wall - care of inertia - Rodney struggled to get to his feet. There before them on the lab's table was Campbell, just as they had left it the first time, with wires and laptops connected to it. It seemed to be smirking back at Rodney, almost mocking him. Next to it on a nearby machine sat the Coke John had been drinking before, still cold. Apparently, no time had passed in this dimension since they had left.
At least it's good to be back in normal clothes, John thought, whose normal clothes for the past year or so had been BDUs, a thigh holster, and the gray and black military jacket. Sure enough, they were all there, the same uniform he had been in before he left. He noticed Rodney looked extremely relieved to be out of his Athosian attire and back into the comfortable blue and khaki ensemble of the science team.
"You know," began John offhandedly, still on the floor and trying to catch his breath, "you'd think with the Ancients being pretty smart and all, they would have perfected their re-entries and landings."
"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" answered McKay, who used the wall as support while stretching a kink from his back. "If one of my discs is dislocated, I'm suing. You think my health insurance will cover injuries incurred in alternate realities?"
"Stop complaining. I can't feel my ass."
"Well at least you landed on the most padded part of your body. Did you know if you were to get struck by lightning, the safest surface to be hit on is-"
"McKay, I can honestly say that I don't really care. All I care about is whether or not we made it back to our reality."
"What, you don't trust me? After all we've been through?"
John laughed. "Rodney, it's because of all we've been through that I don't trust you." Of course he was only kidding. Partially.
"Very funny. Look, I'm sure we've ended up where we want to be."
"But how do you know that?"
"Um, because I'm a genius?"
"Oh, how could I forget? Maybe this was a bad idea."
"Major, when will you learn that all my ideas are good ones?"
"That's funny, because I thought stealing a ZPM from a bunch of children, sticking a personal shield that you knew nothing about on yourself, oh, and let's not forget failing to copy down Campbell's instructions… were all really bad ideas."
"Well anything sounds bad when you say it with that attitude."
John sighed. "Okay, look. The fact is we still may or may not be in the right dimension, so forgive me if I don't take your word for it, McKay."
"Well, in that case, we'll just have to wait and see-"
At that moment, Kavanagh decided to walk into the lab. He was dressed in the normal attire of Atlantis's civilian scientists and not in the gray and red jacket of the expedition leader, much to Rodney's delight. After throwing a quick glance over his left shoulder into the hallway to make sure he wasn't being followed, the bespectacled man swiftly made his way over to the desk on which Campbell was resting. John and Rodney watched in silence as Kavanagh, apparently not having noticed the two, studied McKay's notes on the device. As he finished flipping through the pages, he moved on to McKay's laptop, where he found a wealth of information about the Ancient machine. Out of his jacket he pulled a floppy disc and inserted it into A: drive, ready to copy the files for his own use and then claim the work as his own.
McKay cocked an eyebrow at Sheppard, as if to say, "Do you really need anymore proof this is the right reality?"
Silently, John crept up behind Kavanagh, still bent over the table. Now he was fussing with the device itself. Although he was tempted to let the man tinker with it in the hopes that it would accidentally - but permanently - send him to an alternate dimension, his moral side - and a stern look from McKay - got the better of him. Rodney's right: Elizabeth would have a fit, no doubt. After she had a good chuckle, at any rate. Instead, John stood directly behind him, poked his head innocently over his shoulder, and cleared his throat.
The sound was enough to make Kavanagh jump a good six inches into the air. "M-major," he stammered, his face red with guilt.
"Whatcha up to, Kavanagh?" John asked, feigning ignorance. He curiously poked his finger at the device on the table.
"Nothing. Really. I was just-"
"Nothing, huh? Because you look an awful lot like a kid who's hand has just been caught stealing from the cookie jar."
"No, no." He forced a laugh. "Dr. McKay asked me to come down here and take some readings for him," he lied. Kavanagh had regained his composure by now and the words flowed freely from his mouth. He's a good liar, I'll give him that much, John thought. Must've had a lot of practice.
"He did?" McKay himself answered, stepping out from the corner so he was now visible to Kavanagh. "That's funny, because I certainly don't remember telling you to come anywhere near this device." He looked down patronizingly at the other scientist for an answer, who was now frozen like a deer in headlights. The man just didn't know what to do, and McKay didn't know whether to feel pity him or to inwardly laugh at him. He chose the latter. Ooh, it feels good to be back in charge.
"Oh, my mistake," Kavanagh responded as he slowly made his way to the door. "It must have been Dr. Weir who asked for those readings-"
"Yeah, must've been," John said dryly.
"- so if you'll both excuse me, I'll just tell her you have everything taken care of." Without waiting for a response, he offered a weak smile and escaped out the door.
Taking a deep breath, Rodney watched him go. "Yep. Home sweet home."
The team plus Beckett all sat around the large table in the briefing room waiting for Dr. Weir to arrive before beginning the meeting. Rodney and John had explained to them the Adventures of McKay and Sheppard, and what they didn't hear firsthand had reached their ears by word of mouth. But now was the official debriefing.
"You should have told him it was a bomb and that it only explodes after someone with glasses, greasy hair, and a ponytail touches it. I'd pay to see the look on his face then," Ford remarked with a grin after being told of the Kavanagh incident.
Elizabeth had agreed to not administer any formal punishment, but the next boring assignment - preferably one that was scheduled to last for weeks - on some desolate planet was his.
The joking stopped as Dr. Weir broke off her conversation with two female airmen, whom John thought looked suspiciously like two certain nurses he had come to loathe, and entered the room. The doors closed behind her as she walked around the room to her seat. She sat at the head of the table, looked through some notes, and began the process of tying up any loose ends.
"Can I just say that it's good to be back," John spoke up suddenly before she could get a word in. To Elizabeth, he sounded more relieved than happy.
"Well, I'm glad you both returned in one piece," Dr. Weir answered honestly with a genuine smile. Oh, what I would have paid to see these two driving each other up the wall...
"And that you look a lot better in red," John continued, wincing immediately after the words escaped his mouth. He realized how it must have sounded. Damn my subconscious! All he had meant was she was more suited to the crimson shirt and jacket of her leadership position than the military outfit her alternate self had been wearing. Suddenly it dawned on him how lucky he had it, to have a boss as good as Dr. Weir, and it made him feel guilty for all those occasions he had given her a hard time.
Five pairs of eyes instantly swiveled in his direction, the owners of which not quite sure they had heard him correctly. Carson, Rodney, and Elizabeth's mouths were slightly agape, while Ford tried not to burst out in laughter, and Teyla wore that sage-like smile on her face. Clearly she was amused, but John? Not so much.
"I'm sorry?" Elizabeth broke through the silence.
John coughed. "Okay, that sounded completely different in my head... What I had, uh, meant to say was that you look good in red." No, wait… crap. That's it, John, just keep digging yourself deeper and deeper into that hole. "I, uh-"
Elizabeth held up a hand and decided to spare him the embarrassment. After being trapped for a day with Rodney McKay, she decided to do him a favor and take pity on him. Giving him a 'We'll talk about this later' look, she eagerly moved on with the briefing.
"So we know that this device emits a shockwave of sorts that is capable of sending its user or users to other dimensions or realities; is that correct, Rodney?"
"In a nutshell, yes. But if you want to go into the details, then-"
"We don't," John interrupted with a slick grin before the astrophysicist could go into one of his long-winded speeches.
"How do we know this won't happen again?" Dr. Weir inquired before Rodney could spit out a retort, eager to keep the conversation on track.
"That would be pretty hard to do considering we're shipping the thing back to where we found it," John explained.
"Good. So do we know why this device does what it does?" Elizabeth continued.
"I can only hypothesize that since the Ancients stumbled upon the ability to travel through time, they also mastered - and I use the term loosely considering what Major Sheppard and I were forced to endure - the ability to travel to other realities or dimensions that are derived from every single possible outcome of our decisions," Rodney explained. "And since space, time, and mass are all invariably connected, obviously, it's really not all that implausible if you think about it."
"I prefer not to," muttered Sheppard.
"Yes, of course," retorted Rodney. "Wouldn't want to hurt yourself, now would you?"
"Well if you hadn't-"
"Gentlemen," Elizabeth warned. Immediately the two bickering boys ceased their quarrel and snapped to attention. She smiled at her ability to stop their antics with one word. It always worked yet never failed to amaze her. "But weren't the Ancients strongly opposed to the idea of toying with time travel? Why create a device that would essentially be doing the same thing, only with other dimensions?"
"Perhaps the idea was abandoned or the inventor forced to cease his activities before completion," Teyla hypothesized. "And as a result of using an incomplete device, Major Sheppard and Dr. McKay were trapped in another reality without an easy means of returning."
Rodney looked at Teyla. Although she wasn't wearing the purple glasses and didn't have papers pouring out of folders as in the other reality, she was a lot smarter than he had given her credit for. "Maybe the creator didn't have time to install a straightforward way to move from one reality to another. Hence all the jerry rigging and improvising I was forced to do on the device before leaving the other reality. Which, I might add, was quite ingenious on my part."
"Yeah, and hence the sore butt," Major Sheppard added, remembering the tough landing. He'd seen rookies fresh out of flight school make better landings than that.
"You don't suppose it was Janus, do you?" Beckett asked suddenly. "The Atlantean Council tried to put a stop to his time travel device, according to the other Dr. Weir, but maybe this was his device, too? Maybe he was able to build most of it until the Council found out, at which point he was forced to cease all activities." He shrugged.
"Could be," Elizabeth agreed. "Who knows? Maybe they were just curious what it would be like to experience a day in someone else's shoes." That brought her back to something on her mind she just had to know. "So. Boys." She smiled schemingly and folded her hands in front of her. "What did you learn in this alternate reality of yours?" she asked in a teacher-like tone, playing the voice of reason. She was eager to find out if either one of them had learned to appreciate the difficulties some of the members of the expedition encountered on a daily basis.
All eyes turned to McKay and Sheppard. Rodney sat straight in his chair while the major leaned heavily - and lazily - on his arm, which was currently propped on the table.
Rodney resisted the urge to roll his eyes. No doubt Elizabeth would want an enlightened answer, like he had actually learned some important life lesson about the feelings of others or something. Well if that was what she wanted, that was what she was going to get. He'd give her what she wanted to hear all right. Anything to get him out of this briefing room sooner and back to his lab, where he could tinker with some more of his toys to his heart's content. He cleared his throat. "Well, I, um, suppose that while I may not have given credit where credit was due in the past, I can now certainly identify with some of Atlantis's members. Particularly with your people, Teyla. And I've come to realize that maybe doing one's job here isn't as easy as it looks."
They all waited for more, but Elizabeth knew that was as close to an apology as they were going to get from Rodney McKay for any past callous remarks a certain scientist might have made. And if Teyla accepted it, as she did with a nod, than Elizabeth most certainly did. John just snorted at McKay's supposed revelation, knowing it was total BS.
"That's a very nice thing of you to say, Rodney," Elizabeth commended, feeling like she was praising a dog. After all, if these two weren't going to grow up, someone had to play adult. Rodney just smiled smugly to himself.
"So, John," Elizabeth continued, turning toward the major. "What was it that you learned on this fantastic voyage of yours?" It seemed Rodney had come around; now if only Major Sheppard would, maybe things would be a little more peaceful - and mature - around the base.
He frowned in thought. "I learned," John began, sitting up like what he was about to say was so important it demanded a few extra inches of height out of him. "I learned... that McKay can be equally annoying in that other dimension as he be can in this one."
The scientist just narrowed his eyes at the major, but before he could respond, Dr. Weir held up a hand once more.
Elizabeth frowned. I should have known. "That's not what I meant-"
"And I also learned that Ford, it you ever go nearsighted, for the love of God please get contacts, not glasses. Elizabeth, don't quit your day job. Teyla, in case you should ever develop allergies and start sneezing all over the place, there's a little miracle in the form of a pill called Benadryl. And teach Rodney how to spar while you're at it; he's pathetic. Carson, all those times I gave you a hard time when I was in the infirmary? I'm sorry. Well, except for that one time you stuck me in the-" cough "-with a needle."
Silence settled in over the people seated around the table as they each took in what John had to say. But before the room interrupted in cacophony of questions, protests, and complaints, Rodney leaned forward and spoke, looking directly at John as he did so.
"Well, since we're still on the subject of learning - something I didn't know you were capable of, Major, quite frankly - I learned that our dear Major Sheppard is quite possibly the worst doctor on the face of the planet."
"I learned that McKay here looks absolutely ridiculous in Athosian clothes. He said they smelled bad, but I think he was just trying to cover up the fact that he hasn't showered in two days," John came back, an evil grin on his face.
"That's simply not true. Sheppard doesn't even know what a stethoscope is."
"I forgot what it was called, all right? McKay fainted when he saw he was about to get his ass handed to him by Elizabeth."
"Strategy, Major, strategy. You know, I don't remember you thanking me for getting us both out of this whole mess."
"Well I don't remember you apologizing for getting us into it!"
Dr. Weir just rolled her eyes. What was next? The two calling each other 'poo-poo heads' and 'butt faces?' She mouthed 'I think we're done here' to the rest of the team, and stood to leave. The rest followed suit, walking behind her out the door.
McKay and Sheppard took no notice, now standing at opposite ends of the table.
"Major Sheppard thinks Tylenol is the answer to everything! Need a leg amputated? No problem! Whip out that Tylenol, Sheppard! And the cure for cancer? Why, the major here just discovered it! It's none other than our good over-the-counter friend Tylenol! Well done, Sheppard, well done!"
"At least I know to copy down the goddamn text on the walls behind Ancient devices!"
"Oh, that was uncalled for, Major. We've been over this before! There was no way I could have possibly known-"
"Yeah, yeah, save it for someone who wasn't stuck in an alternate dimension with the universe's most difficult astrophysicist."
"And it was a real pleasure being trapped there with you, too, Major!" Rodney shouted sarcastically after him as the pilot walked out the door.
As he rounded the corner, John smiled to himself. He had just definitely won that round. Soon, he was going to pick a spot in the city that McKay wasn't at, grab his book, a turkey sandwich, and enjoy some long overdue R&R. But before that, there was that 'you look better in red' issue he had to discuss with Elizabeth...
Rodney grinned to himself, victorious, as the major left. Yep, got the last word in. I so won that one. He headed for his lab where he could work in peace, without Sheppard asking him stupid questions. Maybe he'd grab some cafeteria food on the way. They were servingspam today...
Yes, things were back to normal indeed.
Fin
Tah dah! I hope you liked the story. Remeber to review; and tell me if I can do humor or if I should just stick to the angst, lol.
See? The boys learned something. Sort of.