Summary: "You have to remember!"/"What if I don't want to?" Rodney McKay is invulnerable once again

Rating – PG

Disclaimer – I don't own them

Invulnerable

"You have to remember."

"What if I don't want to?"

What if he didn't like who he was?

What if he couldn't deal with the memories?

The pain he knew that must be there.

He had impressions of those around him clear enough to know that through their smiles they remembered…

They remembered pain.

They remembered grieving.

They remembered losing and gaining and starting all over again only to lose another time.

As long as he didn't remember they couldn't hurt him.

Right?

People were always telling him he seemed happier now, that he shouted less, that he smiled more.

They'd seemed pleased, he'd grinned back but had secretly wondered what kind of a person he'd been before to have some people so scared of him.

And he'd wondered why he hadn't smiled before

What was in his mind that would drive him to forget, forget his life, forget his friends, his family?

They'd told him he had a sister and two nephews and there had been a brief discussion about sending him back to Earth to stay with her.

They'd shown him her picture with hopeful looks on their faces and he'd felt… nothing. Unable even to remember her name.

He'd felt bad as their faces had fallen and they'd quickly decided that sending him back to Earth would cause too many questions.

It probably hadn't hurt though that while they were discussing what to do with him he was fixing the Iris on the Stargate with a man called Zelenka.

He wondered why the man had looked so surprised when he'd gotten his name right.

But he didn't have time to work it out. He was still trying to figure out why being in another galaxy, surrounded by technology that was alien but achingly familiar at the same time, where the doors opened for him and the lights came on when he walked into the room seemed more natural than anything with citrus being able to kill him.

There was something strange though.

He didn't know what it was about those who had introduced themselves as those closest to him. And if they did then they weren't saying.

But he knew there must be something.

Something to do with the way they never told him anything significant.

He knew he was a scientist in another galaxy but that didn't explain why he could go to the armoury and fire a, seemingly endless, barrage of perfect shots into the innocent white target.

It didn't explain why his body was polka dotted with scars, from bullets, knives and some things he didn't even want to think about.

It didn't explain why Elizabeth had burst into tears when he'd made a joke about the memory being the first thing to go.

It didn't explain why he looked so much older than the thirty-eight years his file recorded him as being.

It didn't explain the perfect, handprint-shaped burn on his chest.

He didn't want to know.

Ever.

But even with the memory loss he knew enough to know that life didn't work that way.

Invulnerable.

He shivered.

For now anyway.