Part and parcel of the Geeks and Goons series.

Gen (sorry all you pre-slashers!)

Foul language, as always. And Violence...big-time violence. You're been warned, pups.

Spoilers for Seige I and II and anything that came before (logically enough.) Post Seige I, II, and III.

Dedicated as always to my Rodney and to all those fans who’ve given feedback. Feed that ego-monster, baby…it’s more rapaciously hungry than any Wraith.

This is Part One of Two. I don't WIP, I've never WIPPed...at least I promise to never WIP again (umm...er...never mind), but I'm going away for the weekend. So, it was half now...or the whole in about another four days.

Part One

When I was in college, I had a string of roommates. Peter, Ray, Mikey, Jeff…more than I could really keep track of. Some flunked out, some went to live in frat houses, some just flat out disappeared and damned if anyone knew what happened to them. I think one eventually showed up at the airport shaking a tambourine. Hey, each to their own. Jeff, though…Jeff had been in what he cheerfully imagined to be a punk band. Pudgy, prematurely balding, and with a Hawaiian shirt for every day of the week, poor damn Jeff wouldn’t have known a punk rocker if one had bit him on the plump ass. Not that that had stopped me from catching the show a few times at Jeff’s frat house…I mean, hell, Don Ho singing punk rock? Who didn’t want to see that? Plus, there was free beer. Pass that up? I don’t think so.

I remember they did a cover of some song called ‘All My Friends are Dead.’ I don’t know that I ever knew the name of the original band who’d recorded it. It was typical punk stock though. So and so fell off the roof. So and so was electrocuted. His brother OD’ed on Flintstone vitamins. The beer soaked details escape me. I do remember the refrain. Sung over and over again…all my friends are dead, dead. All my friends are dead, dead. Accompanied by incredibly fast guitars and lots of head banging, it stuck in my mind for some reason. Why? I didn’t know. I don’t believe in psychic shit, even when faced with the Wraith kind full on. I refused to.

Not so long ago, some glowy, floaty aliens…always the worst kind, trust me…had convinced a handful of us that we were back home on Earth. You would’ve thought that the most horrifying part of that would’ve been shopping with Teyla or the track-suit that time forgot, but no. No. That was a treat saved for the last—a party at my place. Or what was supposed to be my home away from home outside Antarctica. Nice place…in a Jeannie whipped up, Major Nelson kind of way. Too bad it had been filled with dead people. All my buddies from the Afghanistan fuck up, Jeff who had died in a car wreck wearing one of his godawful floral shirts, my cousin Danny who’d pulled a Gall with a lot less reason, my second grade teacher, even a ten year old boy named Charlie…they were all there. And when the stereo had played, I’d heard what I would’ve guessed to be long forgotten lyrics.

All my friends are dead…dead.

The aliens said I’d had a special talent for manipulating my fabricated environment. Wasn’t that great? I’d done that shit to myself. It made me wonder what lurked in the swampy muck of my subconscious. Yeah, I wondered, just not too hard. Maybe if I’d wondered a little harder, thought things out one iota…this wouldn’t be so unexpected.

Wouldn’t hurt so fucking bad.

“Doesn’t hurt.” Rodney seemed surprised by that. Lying in a lake of his own blood, his hand accepted mine and squeezed weakly. “It can’t be too bad…right? It doesn’t hurt.”

I used my free hand to pull a lightweight thermal blanket out of my backpack and lay it gently across his middle. Not to keep him warm—when more than half of your blood is gone, keeping warm just isn’t possible. No, I put it there so I didn’t have to see. The round would have to have been explosive to go through Rodney’s flak jacket like butter. What it had done to Rodney was even less pretty. The first aid kit was useless next to this. Even if we could’ve had him in the infirmary within seconds, it wouldn’t have mattered. It just wouldn’t have mattered.

“Your flak jacket stopped it, Rodney. Just knocked the wind out of you.” The smile that curved my lips cut like glass. “Just a typical McKay excuse to slack off in the field while the rest of us work our asses off.”

“Oh.” He blinked, reassured. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. Lazy bastard.” I pulled the blanket up higher. It almost hid the blood that way. Almost. I was always amazed, time and time again, by how much blood was in the human body—and by how easily it ran out. How everything that made Rodney Rodney was quickly escaping with it.

“You probably tripped me. How can someone so skinny…have such big feet?” A faint scowl swam like a watery film across his utterly white face to be replaced instantly with worry. “Didn’t break it, did I?” His other hand scrambled at his chest as he wheezed slightly. “Radek will be jealous…as hell.” A hint of dark glee sparked in eyes that seemed a paler blue now, as if the color was fleeing along with the blood.

All my friends are dead…dead.

I dipped a hand in his pocket and pulled free the small Ancient doodad he’d been drooling over for the past hour. Carry this for me, Major. Carry that. I’m too busy calculating the blah blah of this amazing device to possibly carry my own equipment. It burned. The very air itself burned as it clawed its way down my throat. Burned. How could that be?

“Here, Rodney. Your doodad…fracture free.” I deposited it with exquisite care into his hand. It was round and flat like a coin and fit snugly in his palm. “You manage to figure out what it does yet, Supergeek?” I goaded with frozen lips. “Or do I need to wait for Dr. Z to do that?”

“Hmmm?” He was breathing harder now, almost panting. Futilely. Without the blood to carry it, oxygen was useless. “It’s a…time shifter.” He smiled…that crooked, sometimes infuriating…always smug smile. Even now…even here. Smug. “A flux capacitor…to you.” The smile faded. “Kind of…hard to breathe.”

Already on my knees, I moved behind him and sat. Carefully banding an arm across his upper chest, I eased him up slightly to recline against me. He wasn’t heavy, not as heavy as he should’ve been. It was as if half of him was already….

I thought of something else instead. Thought about how Rodney had lost a good amount of weight since we’d first come to Pegasus, but what he’d lost had been turned to muscle. For a geek he was pretty buff, at least that’s what that shy Japanese girl with the big glasses in his lab seemed to be thinking from the bright red blushes painted her ivory face. Not that I’d tell him so…his ego was already buff in its own right. It didn’t need more of a work out. It was the Schwarzanegger of egos…able to lift five or six normal sized egos over its head one-handed.

He shifted lightly against me and I asked, “Better?”

It wasn’t, not for the difficulty in breathing, I could tell, but for the warmth and comfort…maybe it helped there. I hoped it did for him; nothing was going to help me. Not a fucking thing. Not ever again. There wasn’t a compartment big enough to hold Rodney and his brash ego, his smugness, his big brain. His nonstop mouth, his bravery if lack-of-grace under fire, his ever-present annoyance with the world, his drunken love of borscht, his one up give and take with Dr. Z, his never-ending feud with Kavanaugh...his against the odds friendship. Fuck. They didn’t make compartments that big, not even in my twisted mind.

“Better?” I repeated with gut churning fear and the sour taste of bile in my mouth when he was slow to answer.

He nodded once with his fingers still curled around his prize, and turned his head to rest cheek against my chest. It was an unconscious gesture, turning me into a pillow. In his right mind…in a right time, he would’ve known I would’ve yanked his chain forever over that. But nothing was right anymore, was it? Nothing. In a faint, cranky tone, he complained, “Tired. Why am I…so tired?”

“It’s been a long day,” I reassured. “A really long sucky day.” I moved my arm that rested across his chest a few inches until I could squeeze his opposite shoulder. “I’m tired too.” And I was. So goddamn tired. I rested my chin on top of his head, his short hair still warm with reflected sun. “Shitty planet, huh?” And it had been. From the first step out of the jumper to the last step of my best friend’s life.

One shitty goddamn planet.

“I’m sorry, sir.” Ford slashed a hand through the air. “That’s the way it has to be. You let Dr. McKay fly again and I’m going to have to go over your head. I’m sure Dr. Weir would be happy to let Bates replace me on missions. She says he looms too much anyway.”

I had to give it to Weir, my man Bates did have the looming thing down pat. Forget the ATA gene…when the Ancient Shark race showed up, Bates would join his true people. He might be missing a dorsal fin, but he was definitely a fast swimming predator all the way. “You hear that, McKay?” I drawled. “Ford here takes issue with your flying.”

McKay was frantically ducking his head beneath the attack of what had to be the Pegasus galaxy’s smallest insect, a pink gnat the size of a pinhead. “Yes, well, when he’s old enough to actually have a license then I’ll be more inclined to listen to his backseat driving. Until then he should sit in his car-seat and eat his Cheerios like a good little boy.”

Ford scowled and pulled his hat further down on his head, the brim shadowing that baby face. “It wasn’t so much the flying as the landing. If you can call falling out of the sky landing.”

“Gravity,” Rodney waved a lofty hand and hefted his backpack up a few inches, “schmavity. It’s all relative.”

“I thought that was time, Einstein,” I said with a grin. “Not schmavity.”

“I’m not wasting my time educating the flora and fauna.” He checked the energy scanner in his hand and started walking. “This way.”

I rolled my eyes and grinned at Ford. “That must make me fauna, Junior, because I’m sure as hell not going to be flora.” I followed behind McKay and ignored Ford’s outraged yelp. It wasn’t that long of a walk, about a half-hour. Green sky, warm sun…just a guy’s day out. Teyla was laid up in the infirmary with some version of the Athosian flu…accompanied by sneezing and purple spots. Rodney had avoided that section of the city entirely and when he absolutely couldn’t, he dashed down the hall at full speed with the collar of his lab coat tugged up over the lower half of his face. That had worked out great for him until two days ago when I blocked him. He hissed, cursed, kicked and fled the way he’d come leaving his labcoat hanging from my hands. The next day I’d walked around for an hour wearing an ‘I’m With Genius’ T-shirt under the ‘00Geek’ embroidered labcoat. It had taken McKay, Zelenka, Beckett, Pyongg, and Kavanaugh to take me down and strip me of them. Yeah, Kavanaugh might hate Rodney and Dr. Z, especially Dr. Z after the sewage incident, but he didn’t spare any love for me either. We were all the enemy, but I was also a non-geek enemy. He had even less use for us goons, believe it or not.

It reminded me. “I want my T-shirt back,” I said, walking shoulder to shoulder with McKay while keeping an eye on the tree-line in the distance. We hadn’t detected any major life-forms on our entry, so we were home-free, right? Yeah, let me count the ways that had so not worked out for us before.

“What T-shirt?” Rodney asked with a hint of annoyance, fiddling with the scanner.

“You know damn well what T-shirt, McKay.” I swatted the back of his head and ignored the resultant growl. “The one you said I could keep. Said it was contaminated with Goonus Americanus germs. It’s mine, fair and square.”

“I repeat,” he said blandly, “what T-shirt?”

“Oh, that’s how it’s going to be.” I folded my arms and grinned. “Fine. War it is. I’m good at war, Supergeek. Got a gold star in it.”

“Not the last time,” he said absently, actually smacking the scanner with the heel of his hand. “None of us did.”

The slice was so quick and deep, it barely stung...at first. My lips tightened as I unconsciously slowed letting him precede me by a step. A step was all it took. “Oh Christ, I’m so stupid. Stupid.” He turned, noticed I was gone, and kept swiveling until he brought me in sight. He took hold of my upper arm and squeezed hard. “You’d be amazed I have any shoes left as many times as I shove my foot in my mouth. I didn’t mean it, not like that. I just meant none of us came away untouched…ah, hell. I didn’t mean that either. Great, I suck at apologizing.” His snarky mouth turned down at the edges. “Who would’ve thought?”

“Everyone you know?” Ford murmured under his breath several feet off to the side.

“It’s okay, Rodney. I know what you meant.” And I did, and he was right. None of us had come away untouched. Soldiers were just better at compartmentalizing things…something Heightmayer would heartily disapprove of. The Wraith attack had happened, people had died…good people, people I had liked, people I had even taught to play surf golf. Peter Grodin and I had had a standing appointment. Once a month we’d hit balls into the ocean and watch them bounce off the waves. Occasionally we’d watch a squark leap from the waves and swallow one whole. I’d gone last week alone to hit a few balls for Peter. I’d ended up tossing my club into the water instead. I didn’t plan on going back. Some stupid memorial wasn’t going to bring Grodin back, and it wasn’t going to make me feel better. The squark could have the waves all to themselves from now on. Peter went into his own nicely furnished compartment and I put the lid on it. Tight. And just like that he was gone. It wasn’t magic…it wasn’t as if I could be in the control room and not once think of him. But he was faded, like an old photograph. I had stacks and stacks of those old photographs. Shuffle through them…see the smiling faces, but then put them in that album and keep it shut. Shut, bound, and locked. That’s what it was for.

McKay’s fingers dug into my biceps, bringing me back to the present. “I said, it’s not okay. Okay? Not okay. I’m sorry. I was distracted and I wasn’t thinking.” The self-deprecation was unexpected and harsh. “As usual.”

I shook my head. “Seriously, McKay. It’s all right. You weren’t thinking, I wasn’t thinking. Let it go. It’s okay.” God knows I wasn’t the only one with a need for boxes within boxes. I was just the only one any good at it apparently. Rodney had watched Peter die. Had seen the station blown to bits by the Wraith. Had done an enormous amount of second guessing himself regarding that over Zelenka-stoli and late night games of Hiveship. Actually it was Zelenka-stoli over the excuse of Hiveship. We didn’t much play that in the past few weeks. It had lost its cachet. We just drank and let our subconscious spit things out. At least Rodney did…he had good reason. There had been Peter…and then he’d thought, for a good long while, that I’d gone out in a blaze of glory. His glory…riding the nuclear warheads he had built all the way down the Wraith’s throats. When I’d shown up alive and in one piece, it was a toss up whether he was going to hug me in a shocking lack of McKay prickle space or punch me in the nose.

At least he didn’t break it. Didn’t do it much good, mind you, but he didn’t break it.

“It’s okay,” I repeated. “Honestly.” I tried a grin on for size. “Give me the T-shirt and we’ll call it even.”

He wasn’t letting it go. “No, it’s not. You think you’re the end all be all of keeping us alive. Shepherd to some totally clueless flock. Well, you’re great and all, Major, but we’re not talking biblical proportions, okay? We’re in this together. We fight together. We share equal responsibility. You can’t get it through your thick skull, but you should.” He glared and gave a final promise. “You will.” Throwing his pack on the ground, he stripped off his jacket and vest, skimmed off his blue science shirt and then the Genius T-shirt underneath. Tossing it at my head, he then redressed. “There. Happy? I grant you absolution. Peace. Do yourself the same, would you, and join the human race.” He refastened his vest. “I mean it’s not the place for omnipotent Gods like me or anything, but I think you’d do well there.”

I looked down at the shirt balled in my hand as McKay stomped off. “I do believe I’ve been…what were the kids saying before we left? Served. Yeah, that’s it. I’ve been geek-served.”

“Yeah, Major? Not what the kids were saying. Ever.” Ford cupped a hand over his mouth, shoulders twitching minutely, and moved past me. I narrowed my eyes. It wasn’t quite the respect one looks for in his subordinates.

“You sure?” I said dubiously as I followed. “I think I’d know. After all, I’m cool, right?” There was no answer. “Right?”

We found the source of the energy readings that had McKay going on point from orbit. It was temple in the grand Indiana Jones tradition. Stone courtyards, dizzingly tall columns, a repeating wave motif with carved leaping fish and what looked like merpeople. Someone had worshipped the Ancients all right. I traced a finger over flowing hair, scaled tail, and copped a feel off a stone boob. Come on. Who was looking? “Hey look. Sea-people. I had some of those when I was seven. Ordered them out of the back of a comic book.”

“And how long did it take your underformed brain to figure out they were brine shrimp, not an actual race of water loving people?” McKay asked snidely as he wiped a hand over a dirt-encrusted surface to peer at the line of Ancient writing beneath.

“They weren’t people? You’re kidding, right? I had a funeral for every one of those damn things when they died. Hundreds and hundreds of them.”

Rodney stared in disbelief at me over his shoulder then rolled his eyes at my grin. “Asshole,” he muttered and went back to the runes.

It looked as if we were going to be there a while and I sent Ford to scout the perimeter while I checked out the ruins. There was nothing suspicious outside the temple and I moved back to Rodney who was still peering and muttering. Leaning over his shoulder, I yawned loudly. “Maybe if we’d brought someone who’s better at translating Ancient. You know…I’m just saying.”

“No one is better than me, Major,” he shot back frostily, “at anything.”

“Uh huh,” I snorted as he continued to squint. “Okay then. How about someone whose field involves the reading of actual dead languages as opposed to, let’s see, skimming the warning label on a pound of C4 maybe? Just for kicks.”

“Between my completely justified ego, your hair, and Ford’s car-seat, there wasn’t room for anyone else in the Jumper,” he said impatiently. “And I haven’t touched any high powered explosives in almost a week. Now shut up, all right? Just for a second, please, if you could possibly exercise that much will power. I almost have this.” He pulled out a notebook from his pocket and checked it furtively when he thought I wasn’t looking. The Ancient to English Dictionary no doubt…available at your local Barnes and Noble.

I gave him the whole requested second then leaned harder. “So? What’s it say? Here lies the secrets of the universe? Abandon hope all ye who enter? Eat at Atlantis Joes? What?”

He slithered out from under me so quickly I had to windmill my arms to keep from falling. It would’ve worked too…if the bastard hadn’t hooked a foot behind my ankle. He leaned down as I was nursing a sore ass on the stone floor. “It says pride goeth before a fall, idiot Earthling. Amazing, isn’t it? Staggering. How ever did they know?”

Grinning, I accepted his hand and was pulled to my feet. I always enjoyed watching my geeks excel in the physical arts. “Teyla teach you that?”

“No. Repeated run-ins with a high school bully did.” He brushed the dirt from his hands onto his pants. “And when that didn’t faze him, I blew up his car.” A lopsided reminiscent smile quirked his lips. “Ah, the salad days. Of course, juvenile delinquency laws are much more lenient in Canada than the US, I believe.” Wrestling off his pack, he fished a flashlight out of a side pocket. “Now. There should be some artifact of the Ancients that these people worshipped in the temple proper, located on some sort of altar.” Tilting his head, he waved a hand. “You first of course, Major. I wouldn’t want to deprive you of the thrill of discovery.”

Yeah, you’re a real sweetheart that way,” I grumbled. I tapped my earpiece and filled Ford in our plans. He didn’t seem overly upset about being left out of rooting in the dirt. Cheerio eating bastard.

It wasn’t as bad as I expected. After some superficial rubble around the doorway, it cleared out considerably the further in we went. The ceiling looked a little less stable than I would’ve liked, but I simply gritted my teeth, slapped a hand over McKay’s mouth, and we eventually made it to the altar. It was huge. The size of four refrigerators easily. It made what nestled in the center seem that much smaller. Round and flat like a coin, it perched serenely upright in small metal stand. It was crystalline with the suggestion of gold wire glittering within. It was cute, I guess…in a Christmas ornament kind of way…but not exactly impressive.

“This is it?” I grunted. “I’ve gotten better prizes out of a box of Cracker Jacks.”

“Yes, where you do all your gift shopping, I’m sure.” Rodney kept his voice as low as mine in deference to the looming ceiling, but that didn’t mute the acid tang of it any. Carefully, he scanned the device from all sides, frowned, then scanned it again and finally a third time.

“Well, Indy,” I prodded impatiently. “Is it booby-trapped or not? We don’t have all day here.”

“Actually,” he pointed out absently, “we do have all day. We’re not due back until eight PM.”

“Twenty hundred,” I corrected automatically. “And it’s just an expression, all right?”

“Obviously not a very accurate one. And you have your nerve questioning my Ancient. You can’t even handle English.” He shoved the scanner in his pocket then began to boost himself up onto the altar. The doodad that lit that avaricious gleam in his eye was well out of reach from a standing position.

“Whoa. Hey. Hold onto your bullwhip there, Jones.” I grabbed a handful of his jacket. “You’re sure it’s safe? No spikes from the walls? No thousands of poisonous spiders falling from the sky?”

“Honestly, Major,” he offered with exaggerated patience. “Do you think I’d be flopping around up here like the world’s most intelligent fish if it weren’t safe?”

He had me there. McKay had nothing to his name if not a healthy respect for his own self-survival. I released him and watched as he wriggled across the stone and snatched up the device. It was slightly smaller than the palm of his broad hand and he gripped it with care. Once back on his feet, he tossed his backpack to me and set off for the door, gloating over his new toy and muttering under his breath. “Could it…? No…certainly not…then again. And the runes did say….”

I looked at his backpack at my feet, then at his rapidly receding back and gave strong consideration to kicking the ass of one and executing an act of nature on the other. I just wasn’t sure what the exact match up of that was going to turn out to be. By the time we hit sunlight, I’d pretty much made up my mind and was glugging down half my canteen to that effect. Not that it mattered. The best laid plans of mice and men…nothing will send them quite astray like watching intestines spill out under a peculiar orange sun.

It was an antelope or a deer. Some sort of alien hooved creature with wide, soft eyes, fawn fur and delicate long legs. It spotted us as we exited the temple, froze for a moment in the stone courtyard, then leaped into fluid motion. It almost flew. Really. Like a bird, it soared as high as our heads…as beautiful as anything I’d ever seen. Two seconds later it was nothing more than meat. In mid air it’s hindquarters exploded in a billow of smoke and a wide spray of blood. It fell, a tangle of limbs and silk and snuffed out wildness…Bambi’s mom goes down. And stays down.

Blackened bone, steaming intestines flowing from a torn abdomen, it was everything that twisted bastard Disney had implied but not shown. I wanted to gag. Rodney did. “What…what?” he stuttered. “What the hell just happened?”

“Good question,” I muttered, my ‘P-90’ already in hand as I scanned the area quick and dirty. “A better one would be how soon can we get away from what just happened?” I put a spare hand on McKay’s shoulder and rapped, “Ford, we’re under attack. You close?”

“Half a klick out,” came the immediate response. “North by northeast.”

That was in line towards the jumper. “All right. Head back and hopefully we’ll pick you up en route.” McKay had out his energy scanner and was staring at it intently. “You have anything, Rodney?”

“There’s no one out here,” he said grimly. “It’s an automated defense system. It must have been shielded until I activated it at the altar. Great. They put it right there, didn’t they? Bright and shiny. Look at me. Come pick me up. Is it my fault I fall for good advertising? Do I have to die because of ingrained rampant consumerism?” He scowled and looked back and forth at the seemingly innocent courtyard. “The Great Rodney McKay. Know-it-all and killer of cute, fluffy deer. At least the NRA will welcome me with open arms.”

“Forget about the deer.” I glanced uneasily at our feet. “So if we don’t move, we’re okay?” The deer had been moving when it had bit the big one.

His jaw tightened. “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. The energy readings I’m picking up now are complex…moreso than what a simply reactive system would put out. I think….”

I didn’t get to hear what he thought. Which was a shame, really. I liked hearing the things churned out by the McKay mind. They were, without fail, interesting. Yeah, often enough I’d pretend to be bored, but you had to pull those little pretenses to keep the Ego That Wouldn’t Die in check.

Funny…the Ego That Wouldn’t Die. It did die. Just like that. As fast as that Rodney fingers-spasm that doubled as his snap-snap. He was standing there, mouth moving, eyebrows in a V of frantic concern, his brown hair almost reddish under the orange sun, and then….

Then he was the deer.

Inches from him, I felt the heat of the round, felt the warm spray of liquid on my face. I reached for him automatically, but he was gone. Several feet away he was resting on his back, blinking in confusion at the green sky.

The great thing, the really fun thing about having watched men die before, over and over, is it comes as no real surprise. You don’t get that nice fuzzy shock most people get to indulge in. No, you get sharp edges, copper smells, the unmistakable sensation of blood on your hands…all in exquisitely bright detail. You see it all…you feel it all. And later on, to keep yourself sane, you shove it all in a nice mental box and never take it out again.

I already knew Rodney wasn’t going to let me shove him in any box to be forgotten. I should’ve wondered how that might affect the whole functioning sanely in society issue, but I didn’t. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything but what lay before me.

Blood. A slowing heart. Failing lungs. A personality so big, so there and a mind so fucking amazing and brilliant…you couldn’t imagine them fading, but fade they did.

“Yeah, one shitty planet,” I whispered as he lay against me. The breath exhaled raggedly against my chest, hitched once then twice.

“John?” It was less than my whisper, but I heard it. And then I heard nothing. Felt nothing. The chest under my arm rose, fell…and didn’t rise again. I didn’t look down. I didn’t want to see. It’s not like on TV, you know? The eyes don’t shut. It doesn’t look like they’re sleeping. Sometimes they’re a white the color of fresh bone. Sometimes they’re the mottled gray-blue of a storm sky. What they don’t look like is the person you knew. Your comrade in arms, your family…your friend. The only thing left is an empty mockery of that person and I didn’t want to see that.

Instead I looked at something else. Something crystal and gold and very, very dangerous. Rodney didn’t have to tell me that; I knew it. I could close my eyes and see the flash and color of it behind my lids. An Ancient warning built into its very molecules. Use at your own risk. Use at the universe’s risk.

The weight against my chest was loose and still warm. It wouldn’t look like sleep, but it felt that way. That wasn’t so bad, right? To think just for a few minutes that it was just sleep. Not so bad. I shifted him minutely…let him sleep, right? Just a few minutes more…and reached down. Gently, I lifted the round device from his lax hand. It was bright and free of even a drop of blood. I sat in the middle of so much of it…everywhere…but this bit of Ancient technology was clean. Clear, clean, and spitting out mental warnings right and left.

It wasn’t the smart thing to do. It wasn’t the prudent thing to do.

It was the only thing to do.

I woke up in a tangle of blankets, sheets, and sweat. My room. My room at Atlantis. The lights flickered crazily, unable to latch onto my disorganized mental command. Struggling, I fell off the bed and hit the floor hard. Desperately, I reached for my watch on the bedside table, knocking everything else to the floor. Atlantean time wasn’t Earth time, but it was close and my watch and I adapted. Enough so that when I read the date, I knew. I knew.

The post midnight halls were empty as I ran. I took a few steps towards his room, stupidly, then turned and ran towards the lab. It wasn’t far, but I was winded when I staggered up to the door and plunged through…just as Rodney was walking out. I knocked him flat. Wheezing, he pushed desperately at my shoulders. “What…” Wheeze. “What…the…hell?

I sat up and yanked his blue shirt up. There was nothing underneath but smooth, unmarked skin. “Jesus.” I didn’t recognize it was my voice, thick and choked, but it was. I fell backward off him to land on my ass. With knees up, I dropped my head into my hands and repeated, “Jesus.”

“John?”

“Don’t say that,” I said sharply, raising my head slightly. “God, don’t say that.” The room was spinning. Damn, was it, and I let my head fall back to my knees.

I heard the slide of clothes against the floor as he sat up. “All right then,” he said cautiously. “No John. John is bad. Never liked the name anyway. Too heroic. John Wayne. John Glenn. John Jacob ’s just too much, you know? How about Major? Is that okay?”

He was there. He was really there. I should’ve felt…what? Relief didn’t cover it. Hell, there wasn’t a word big enough for what I should’ve felt. It would’ve been a good word though. Exultant. Bright. Hopeful. I didn’t feel any of those things. I felt suspicious and cold all the way to my bones and sick. You fall off a cliff and by miraculous good fortune land on an abandoned mattress. You should feel good about that, right? Right?

Instead, I shook. Why was it so damn cold? I raised my head enough to look down at my self. T-shirt, sweatpants, one sock. That must’ve been a picture as I ran like a bat out of hell down the corridor. I wanted to laugh, should’ve, but I just shook some more. A warm hand…a living hand…landed firmly on my twitching shoulder, but before McKay could say anything there was the swish of the lab door opening.

“Get out,” Rodney snapped immediately. There was an awkward shuffling of feet and he repeated, “Are you merely stupid or did you leave your hearing aid on your lunch tray? I said, get out. Now!” Running feet and a closing door gave me a quick mental picture. Another lab tech scarred for life, and for some reason that I could laugh at. When I did, I tasted salt and copper. “Okay, Sheppard, you’re freaking me out here. What’s going on? Don’t tell me it’s Chaya again. Seriously, I can’t take it. If she wants you back that badly, we’ll dress up Kavanaugh in your uniform and shoot him towards Proculus. She’ll never know the difference, I swear. Bad hair is bad hair.”

“Hey.” It was feeble and frigging amazing I could even manage that. I raised my head and swiped at the sweat on my face. Except it wasn’t sweat. The back of my hand came away dark red and dripping.

“Oh Christ,” he breathed before lurching to his feet and running to the wall. Hitting the comm, he shouted, “We have a medical emergency in Lab 10! Hurry!” I got to my knees and started to stagger up. “No. No,” he ordered desperately, rushing back to grab my arm. “You have to lie down, John. Now, okay?”

“What happened to Major?” I tried for a smile, but from his expression it must not have been too pretty. “Sick, McKay. Need to….” I put a hand over my mouth and concentrated on not becoming a biohazard all over his pristine lab floor.

“Fine. Throw up. Do what you have to do. While you’re lying down.” He was white. Not as colorless as he’d been before on the planet when…no. No. But he was pale as hell.

A concerned McKay and an invitation to hurl on his sanctified floor. Wow. I must’ve looked bad indeed, but damn if I was going to puke on the floor if I could avoid it. I headed for the lab bathroom and he reluctantly allowed himself to be towed behind. It was the mirror on the wall there that showed me he might be right to be a little worried. I was bleeding. From everywhere. Nose. Ears. The whites of my eyes were crimson. My face and upper shirt were covered in blood. I looked like the slowest runner in a teen slasher movie. My stomach lurched and tore my attention from the mirror. Atlantean toilets…the less said about them the better. They were efficient though. This one whisked away every drop of the blood I vomited.

“Oh, shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.” The second I was finished, Rodney dragged me down to the floor of the bathroom. “What…shit. Elevate the feet. Right, right. Elevate the feet.” The ceiling spun lazily as he stripped off his lab coat, rolled it up and shoved it under my feet. “I didn’t know. You knocked me down and I couldn’t breathe for a second. Then you were all hunched over and I didn’t see. Well, I could see you only had one sock, but I couldn’t see anything else. I couldn’t see you were bleeding like a stuck…damn it, where is Carson?”

“Probably in bed.” And suddenly I felt better. It really was Rodney. I couldn’t babble that convincingly in a dream or a hallucination. It had worked. It had really worked. That little damn Cracker Jack prize had actually done it. I lifted my hand, but it was gone. I must’ve dropped it in my room. It had left something behind however.

“What’s that?” Rodney’s hand rested under mine supporting it as he leaned in for a closer look. He frowned at what was etched on my palm. “You’re burned. John, what the hell happened? What is this?”

The burn was red, heavily blistered and perfectly round. “A flux capacitor.” I gave him a slow smile. Not my usual breezy grin…just a smile, simple and relieved as hell. “I’m glad to see you, McKay.” Spinning, spinning. The world was spinning…so fast. “Really, really glad.”

His look of worry intensified starkly. “Well…good. Uh…I’m glad to see you too. It’s been two whole hours after all.” His head jerked up as the distant lab door hissed. “We’re in here! Hurry the hell up!”

“Rodney?”

He looked back down at me, his brows furrowing in the precise way they had right before he’d died. God, he’d died. “Yes, John?”

My smile faded. “I don’t think I want to be your friend anymore.”

And then I spun away with the rest of the world. Fast, dark, and gone.

End of Part One