SPOILERS: The episode "Earthshock", from Doctor Who…I couldn't say before now or there wouldn't have been the suspense…hope no one is offended.

SUMMARY: SGA crossover with Doctor Who (both old and new series)

DISCLAIMER: The following story is a work of fanfiction, and as such is for fan enjoyment only. All recognizable characters/settings are the property of their respective owners. No copyright infringement is intended, and no profit is made.

Time Passages

By kerravon

3. The Choice

"I see you've worked it out."

The two men whirled at the new voice, to see Sheppard leaning languidly against the doorframe. He had ditched the bloody jacket altogether and had acquired a short, black leather one to replace it.

McKay gaped. "How did you find your way back here through that maze?" he demanded. "You weren't even conscious the first trip!"

John shot him a crooked grin, then ambled over to the pair. "You forget, Rodney, I used to live here." He stared around the control room appreciatively. "Although I see you've done some redecorating since I left."

"How could I forget something I never knew in the first place?" McKay sputtered. "And why didn't you ever tell me about…", he gestured around the room, unable to adequately express his indignation, "THIS?"

Sheppard tilted his head. "Oh, come on, what did you want me to say? 'Oh, traveling to the Pegasus Galaxy is nothing much; I was born in a different universe.'? They would have locked me up and thrown away the key," he snorted derisively.

"You could have at least told your friends! Especially ME!" the scientist spat.

Meanwhile the Doctor stared at Sheppard with the same trepidation that one might watch a poisonous viper. Finally finding his voice, the previously self-assured man stammered, "But…the ship…the Cybermen…there was nothing I could do!" The last was blurted in an anguished cry. "Adric, I watched you die and there wasn't a thing I could do about it!"

Sheppard narrowed his eyes angrily while McKay observed the exchange in open-mouthed silence. Stalking up to the suddenly-small Doctor, he pulled his wallet from his back pocket while accusing, "But you did rescue me; before the ship crashed you knocked me out from behind, then dropped me off at a hospital in Iowa in 1983! I woke up on an alien planet as 'John Doe', with only this to comfort me!" He whipped out a well-worn and multiply-folded piece of notepaper and thrust it at their host. "Do you deny that it's your writing?"

The Doctor carefully unfolded the paper until he could read the message on the inside. "Live well," was all it said. He flipped it over; nothing else. Looking again at the words, he slowly shook his head.

"Yes, that is my handwriting, but I didn't save you.I couldn't save you Tegan cried for days!" The Doctor exclaimed, absolutely stricken.

"All I know is that when I woke up, that was at my bedside. You abandoned me, and I assumed it was because of our argument. No birth certificate, so I was 'John Doe'. I was only fourteen, so I ended up in an orphanage. Fortunately, an older couple named 'Sheppard' adopted me, so I went from 'John Doe' to 'John Sheppard'. I hid my talents as best I could, then worked at getting my hands on anything that flew."

McKay could restrain himself no longer; his entire world had just come apart at the seams, and he was trying to make sense of the shambles. "But why hide your math ability? What harm could there be in excelling in the field?"

Sheppard shook his head as he patiently explained. "Rodney, I was born on Terradon, in E-space. Trust me, I am not quite…human. I was afraid that if I called attention to myself, the US government would make me 'disappear' to some lab somewhere, and that would be that. So I laid low, copied what the other kids did, and discovered I liked having friends. I learned to 'cool it', even the many times when I was right and the teachers were wrong." He snorted in self-deprecation. "You may find this hard to believe, but when I was a young teen my ego could've given yours a run for its money."

The Doctor interrupted from where he had been examining the paper, "This is definitely mine. Besides it being undeniably my handwriting, it's written on psychic paper. No one on Earth would have access to such a thing."

Sheppard grinned. "Yeah, I know. It got me out of quite a few scrapes growing up. Whenever I got caught playing 'hooky', it was suddenly an excuse note to be wherever I was. Same thing later in the military, when I started checking out classified files and labs, looking for any trace of your whereabouts."

"Sooo….when you found out about Atlantis…" McKay began.

"I was not entirely surprised, no. What did startle me was having that gene; my guess is that the spacecraft that crashed on my planet actually carried Ancients, who set about blithely manipulating the genetics of the indigenous species just like they did here in Pegasus." He shrugged self-consciously. "That makes me a little closer in spirit to the Wraith than I like to think about, honestly."

"But…you don't…" at an unexpected loss for words, Rodney held up his open hand, palm-forward, and made a sucking sound.

Sheppard narrowed his eyes and shook his head vehemently. "In spirit, Rodney. I don't drain the life out of people with my hand, or any other part for that matter."

The Doctor interrupted the conversation. "I didn't rescue you…yet. That means that I will in the future." He handed the paper back to Sheppard, who folded it and placed it reverently back in its compartment in his wallet.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Sheppard grinned, "Well, I guess I forgive you, then, since you haven't done it yet. I thought you were mad at me, or didn't like me anymore. Silly, huh?" Pulling up a stool of his own, he added conversationally, "So, how many times have you regenerated since then?"

The Doctor stared into space and started counting on his fingers, grateful for the distraction. "Let's see…after the blonde you knew, I turned into a curly-haired arrogant fop. After that, I was a much shorter, somewhat comical individual with a straw hat and a question-mark umbrella. Next, I was a tall, sensitive Edwardian gentleman, until push came to shove with the Daleks, and I became this." He gestured to indicate his present body. "So, to answer your question, four."

Sheppard whistled. "Four, eh? Can't seem to stay out of trouble? What do the Timelords think of all your 'interference'?"

A shroud passed in front of the Doctor's face. "Not much, I'm afraid. They're all dead."

"All of them? What about Romana?"

The Doctor's eyes widened. "I don't know. I suppose she might be safe, seeing how she stayed behind when we reentered this universe. All else, gone." He forcibly brightened, "So, Adric, where do you want to go? Or do you prefer 'John' now?"

This was the moment Sheppard had been dreading since he set eyes on the Tardis in that dusty bunkroom. Everything he'd done since first finding himself alone on planet Earth had been geared toward eventually locating the Doctor and possibly returning to his home planet. He'd even intentionally become more likeable, in case that was why he'd been abandoned. Just for this moment, and this question. But now that it had been asked, he found that there was only one real answer in his heart, so he swallowed hard and admitted aloud, "Atlantis".

The Doctor jumped up and waved his arms around to indicate the whole universe and everything beyond, "But you have all this! I've just found you again; to me, you've miraculously risen from the dead! And you want to go back to your job?"

Sheppard gave him a melancholy smile. "No, Doctor. Just like our last argument, I want to go home. But now, 'home' is with a bunch of people in a floating city on a backwoods planet in the Pegasus Galaxy. 'Home' is my friends and yes, 'home' is my responsibilities. Because they are depending on me, Doctor. They need me to be there, to make a difference."

The Doctor locked eyes with the Colonel, and for a moment nothing moved. Then, with a quirk of the lip and a small nod, the Doctor softly replied, "Atlantis it is, then." He busied himself at the controls, readjusting the coordinates and avoiding Sheppard's gaze as he continued, "You know what, John?"

"What, Doctor?"

At that, the Doctor looked up. "You've grown up."

Sheppard dropped his head to hide the smirk, but the Doctor heard the little snort of amusement that came from that direction. He let it go, hand wavering over the last control. "All right, when do you want to arrive?"

Sheppard was at his side in a flash, peering over his shoulder at the console. "You mean I actually have a choice? We aren't just going to land whenever the Tardis feels like putting us down?"

The Doctor had the grace to look offended. "I'll have you know I fixed the navigational circuits ages ago!"

"All right then; drop us off in Atlantis five minutes after you picked us up on Dryldaala."

McKay finally decided to rejoin the conversation; he'd been silent for so long his jaw was beginning to seize up. "Now wait just a second. If this is truly a time machine, couldn't we go back and save Peter? Or warn ourselves of the 'Superwraith' before anybody gets killed? Or heck, why not avoid waking the Wraith up altogether?"

Sheppard shook his head. "It doesn't work like that, Rodney. If we save people who are supposed to die, we set up a time loop that we could be trapped in forever."

"Then how can a future Doctor go back in time and rescue you from the crashing spaceship?" McKay argued.

Sheppard's eyebrows rose. "That's a good one. Doctor, you want to field this?"

The Doctor smiled and glanced over from where he stood at the control panel. "Glad to." He ticked the points off on his fingers, "One: you're here, now, right?"

"Yes…" replied Sheppard.

"Two: you didn't die in the crashing spaceship, right?"

"Right…" Rodney chorused along with Sheppard this time.

"Three: You were clearly rescued by me, given the prima facie evidence."

"Yes…"

"Four: I haven't rescued you yet, or I would remember it."

Sheppard tilted his head consideringly. "I don't know, Doctor. You got pretty wonky with the one regeneration I witnessed, and you've had four since then. You might have done it and forgotten."

The Doctor's eyes became haunted once more, and he paused for a few moments before responding. "It's true, sometimes I forget things when I renew, but the important stuff always eventually comes back." He looked down at his controls, unable to face Sheppard. "When the blonde 'me' lay dying, my last word before I regenerated was 'Adric'." He looked up again with resolve. "Trust me. I would remember saving you if I had done it already."

John was touched by the intensity of the Doctor's speech. With a slight upturn of his lip, he replied, "Fair enough. You haven't rescued me…yet. But you will."

"That was point five," the Doctor pouted.

"Granted. Nicely reasoned."

McKay wasn't buying it. "You mean to say…that it's OK to go rescue Sheppard because the evidence exists now that you already did sometime in the future?"

Both Sheppard and the Doctor grinned. "Exactly!" they chortled in unison.

Rodney sank back into his seat, holding his head in his hands.

The Doctor nodded approvingly. "He's pretty smart for a monkey."

John, shoving his hands in his pockets, rocked back and forth on his heels delightedly. "Yeah, he is, isn't he?"

The slowing of the central column interrupted their conversation. Checking his monitors, the Doctor announced, "We're here. Anyplace in particular you want to set down?"

"Just somewhere away from people; we'll have enough to explain as it is."

The column ground to a shuddering halt and the Doctor threw a lever, causing the outer door to swing open. Gesturing to the two men, he said, "After you."

The three found themselves in a deserted part of Atlantis, near the North Pier. "Wow, Doctor, I'm impressed. You really have worked on the navigational circuitry, haven't you?"

"I told you so, didn't I?" The Timelord pretended to take umbrage.

"Just one more thing to check out." Sheppard keyed his mike and spoke on the secure channel. "Doctor Weir, this is Sheppard. Do you read?"

"John?" came the astonished response. "Where are you? Is McKay with you? Teyla and Ronon just got back twenty minutes ago; we were organizing a rescue party!'

The Doctor blew on his fingernails and buffed them on his shirt as Sheppard nodded his silent congratulations. Aloud he replied, "We caught a lift…from an old friend. Rodney's with me and we're both safe and sound."

McKay keyed his own mike, breaking in. "Yes, I'm fine. But don't let him fool you, Elizabeth, he's been shot."

"Shot? Colonel Sheppard, is that true?"

"It's more like a scratch; it's nothing."

"Ronon's injury was laced with some sort of drug; you are to report to the infirmary immediately. I'll meet you there."

The line clicked off definitively as Sheppard rolled his eyes. "Yes, mother," he muttered.

"Well, I must be going," announced the Gallifreyan, heading back to his 'Police Call Box'.

"Wait a minute; so soon?" McKay surprised himself by complaining before Sheppard did.

"Yeah, there's more than enough trouble around here to keep you busy," the pilot drawled.

The Doctor smiled whole-heartedly. "It's nice to know I'm welcome; don't worry, I'll be back. I just have a few errands to take care of right now."

"Oh? Like what?" John was truly curious.

"Well, first off, I appear to have an appointment…sixty-five million years ago."

John grinned. "Yes, I guess you do."

"I'll see you soon…John." With that the man disappeared into the blue box and closed the door. The light on top began to flash and a whirring, grinding noise filled the room. McKay clapped his hands to his ears to drown out the tachyon shriek, while John just stood and waved goodbye as the Tardis slowly faded from view.

"When do you think he'll come back?" asked McKay, breaking the ensuing silence. "I have GOT to get a better look at that Tardis of his!"

"In time, Rodney," replied Sheppard with a grin. "In time."

Finis

AN: Congratulations to everyone who figured it out. Unfortunately, to really 'get' this story you have to be familiar with the Peter Davidson 'Doctor Who', and have seen the episode "Earthshock". For those that have, you can see why this bunny was gnawing my leg off once it occurred to me. Adric was one of my favorite Companions, and I still cry when they roll the silent credits for that episode over the broken gold star on the Tardis floor.

"Wikipedia" has a great description of the character, listed under 'Adric'. It's a full page long, but this excerpt is perfect: "With a brilliant mathematical mind and sporting a gold badge for mathematical excellence, Adric was also very well aware of his own intelligence. That, coupled with his relative immaturity, led to a personality that was abrasive and crossed over into arrogance. As a result, Adric is one of the least popular companions among fans of the programme. However, it was obvious that Adric also desperately sought validation from the Doctor as well as those around him, and was often hurt and resentful if he felt he was being sidelined or unable to contribute."

Basically, take Rodney McKay's personality and put it in a fourteen-year-old-boy who is a genius at math, and knows it.

The hair's the same, the math's the same, the bravery's the same, the tendency towards heroics…but I had to explain the radical personality change to make it convincing. Hopefully I pulled it off; you tell me...

For those of you who only know "Doctor Who" through Eccleston and Tennent, I recommend "Wikipedia" as a reference to prior Doctors. It has entries for the Doctors as a whole, each individual Doctor, Companion, and even episodes. Lots simpler than watching 25 years worth of episodes…

Of course, they're worth watching!