bAny Other World/b

"Colonel Carter, this is it -- another unscheduled off-world activation using Dr. McKay's IDC. It's from the same source."

Sam touched her headset and issued orders to the soldiers guarding the gate. "This is the one we've been expecting. Hold your fire unless fired upon."

John Sheppard and Rodney McKay hastened into the control room, followed by Ronon and Teyla. Sam acknowledged them but kept her eyes focused on the gate. She had expected a near instantaneous emergence from the event horizon, but the seconds ticked slowly by. Three, four, five…

Suddenly a body hurled backwards through the event horizon as though flung through. A scream rang against the walls of the gate room, and Sam flinched. Three other objects flew past the person, landing with a thud on the floor. The guards trained their guns briefly on the packs on the ground and then swung back again.

The gate deactivated and the scream ended abruptly, though the echo remained. Sam's complete focus was on the person who was now crouching. Slowly, the person rose from the floor, hands raised and body shaking, and a a woman's long hair and soft form was revealed. As she turned to face the control room, the swell of her stomach showed that she was heavy with child.

Three guards broke ranks and quickly investigated the packs. One spoke, "All clear, ma'am. Just clothes and that kind of thing– "

"Careful with that one," the woman spoke to the third guard rummaging through two bags, her voice shaking but firm. "Those crystals are delicate and contain my father's research." The woman stepped toward the bags, but stopped when the guns all raised on her simultaneously.

Sam announced from the control room, "This is Colonel Samantha Carter—"

The woman's eyes darted to the window of the control room and her expression tumbled through a series of emotions as her eyes ran over Sam and Teyla, and then lingered longer on Rodney and John. The woman looked away immediately after a quick glance at Ronon.

"Who are you and why are you here?" Sam continued.

She whispered something to herself, something inaudible, and then she spoke up, "My name's Addie, and I mean no harm. I am…seeking shelter." Her voice, constricted with fear, sounded younger than the twenty-some years that she appeared to be. "My world – my reality, has been destroyed." She appeared lost for a moment, but then she continued. "Didn't…I mean, did you get my father's message?" Her eyes darted to Rodney and then away again.

"We got a message, yes, from a Rodney McKay," Sam said.

"Yes. My father. Rodney McKay."

Sam glanced at Rodney whose eyes had grown huge. John's hand clamped on Rodney's shoulder and squeezed. Ronon stepped closer to John, and Teyla murmured, "I did not expect this."

"iYou/i didn't expect it," Rodney choked out. "That's impossible, utterly and completely impossible."

Sam continued to speak to the woman in the gate room. "Please allow the guards to escort you to our medical office for an examination. We will meet with you afterwards for further discussion."

Addie began walking but stopped short at that. "All of you?"

"Yes. Would you prefer it otherwise?"

Addie shook her head and looked completely lost. "I don't know."

Sam cocked her head at this comment, and watched as Addie walked out the door with the armed guards.

::::

John sat next to Ronon in the conference room adjoining the medical facility, watching through the one-way window as the doctor examined Addie. Ronon had his hand on the back of John's chair in a supportive gesture that no one seemed to notice except for John.

Rodney, however, was clearly in need of a shoring up. He alternated between blathering and stunned silence. John cleared his throat and, in a effort to break the eyes, teased, "Congratulations, Rodney. It looks like you're gonna be a grampa."

"iThat/i cannot be my daughter. Not in any reality." Rodney indicated the girl through the window. "For one thing, I'd never name a child Addie. That's a name for dogs or possibly an extraordinarily dog-like cat, but for a child? I think not. Never. Now, a name like Agnes, perhaps, given the illustrious historical and scientific associations of the name, but – - and, and, and – look at her hair! I've never had hair like that, and her eyes. Brown eyes. Do my eyes look brown to you?"

"She's not your clone," Ronon said, gripping John's chair a little tighter.

"Yeah, well, clearly she's much too old to be my kid. I didn't even lose my virginity until my twenty-fourth birthday, not that you needed to know that, and don't laugh, Kirk," he said, pointing at John. "Not all of us can be intergalactic romantic conquerors—"

Sam interrupted, "Rodney, you're forgetting the difference in the timelines. You were the one to notice that anomaly, remember?" She clearly did not care to get any deeper into details of Rodney or John's sex life.

"Right," Rodney agreed, diverted from his former line of thought. "The timeline from which her reality contacted ours was, what? Approximately thirty years in advance of ours?"

"Twenty-eight, I believe." Addie's voice was soft and she stood in the doorway cradling her pregnant stomach, looking at Rodney and no one else. "That's what my father estimates. According him, he's never wrong. According to the rest of us, he's only rarely so."

Rodney lifted his chin in agreement. "Well, there have been a very few occasions—"

"Yeah, like the solar system you destroyed," John muttered.

"You'll never let me live that down. One little mistake—"

"One? Little?"

"I think I can have this fight for you both," Addie said, hollowly, sitting down in the empty chair. "Let's move on. Personally, I don't need to hear it again."

"Your Rodney blew up a solar system, as well?" Teyla asked.

"So I only heard about five million times," Addie said, averting her eyes, a soft smile beginning and ending on her lips. "I suppose it doesn't matter now, though. In the end. It's all gone. It's just me –" She touched her stomach. "Well, us."

"Okay," Sam said, trying to corral the conversation. "About that. Let's begin there. What happened in your reality to send you to us?"

Addie sighed. "This is all unexpected for me. I don't know what to say, or what I should say. You see, other timelines, other realities, they aren't just like this one or the one I came from, if I reveal too much, then perhaps whatever was going to come to pass simply won't. I don't know--"

John leaned forward, and put his hands on the table. "With all due respect, ma'am – " Addie's eyes flashed in amusement for a brief moment but then deaded again as John continued on. "Just by coming here you've changed the future of this timeline. Let's take a leap of faith and assume that by telling us everything you can, in hopes that we can possibly prevent what happened in your timeline from happening here in our future."

Addie remained silent, looking at John with a strange expression.

"Fine, then," John said, "If that doesn't make you want to talk, how about just accepting that there isn't going to be any going back. If you want this baby to have any kind of life outside of a prisoner of this lovely underground facility, you might want to start talking."

Addie pressed her lips together as though she were trying not to cry or smile, possibly both, and then released a shaky sigh. "Can you give me a moment before applying the screws?"

Teyla said, "Addie, at the gate you said that one of the bags that came along with you contained your father's research, you must have both been aware that by bringing that information to this reality, you would permanently change it. Why do you hesitate to speak now?"

Addie's eyes lifted to meet Teyla's, holding her gaze for a moment, she finally looked away, glanced toward Ronon, and then back down at her hands. "I admit that was discussed and it was determined that the value of his research, especially the weapons technologies that were developed in the fight against the Wraith, would be immeasurable, and could rewrite your futures in ways that we can't imagine, but can only hope would be best for all involved. But, you are right, I must speak."

John lifted his eyebrows but he leaned back in his seat, watching as Addie brushed her dark hair out of her eyes and seemed to gather herself. She took a deep swallow of her water, and lowered her eyes to the table, in order not to look at them as she spoke, he supposed. "It started three years ago, as my father said in his message."

"The message didn't make it through intact. It was garbled and confusing at best," Sam said.

"I see." Addie bit her lip. "Well, we aren't sure how it started, though we surmise it began with an experiment conducted by some rogue Wraith hive ships." Here Addie stopped and said, "The Wraith were defeated, you understand, sometime before my fifteenth birthday. Hive ships were not allowed to grow to their former sizes. It was part of the treaty, but there were always a few who pushed the limits, and there were several that had managed to keep their old ways."

"Defeated? How?" John asked, leaning forward again, intent upon Addie's face, noting the freckles on her nose, and the way her lashes lay like soft sweeps of brown against her cheek.

"Well, that information, including how to build the weapon that ultimately destroyed them, is recorded at length in the data my father sent, but, essentially, it destroyed the Wraith's ability to feed on humans."

Sam touched her headset. "Get Radek from Atlantis and have him start work immediately with the other scientists on those crystals." Sam then asked Addie to continue.

"We first discovered it three years ago, and it has been growing more rapidly than we originally imagined. At first, we assumed it would take a generation to reach us, maybe even more, but it has gathered energy and is expanding at a rate beyond our former expectations. My…um, well, our John Sheppard believed that a group of rogue Wraiths had been working on a way to escape their state of starvation by use of time/matter bridges. In fact, my father worked on a similar experiment but had to shelve it. Once it began, though, we had little hope but to reopen his work and Radek and my father were able to find an alternate way that involved gate travel."

"And this 'it' you refer to?" Teyla asked.

"A rift," Rodney interjected. "A rift in their universe, created, I assume, by the Wraith's experiments with bridge technology."

"Yes. We have been working on a way to save ourselves, to exit our time line and reality, but we do not—I mean, did not have the power to sustain contact with a gate in another reality long enough to pass the population of our city through. To send the initial message alone exhausted one of the two ZPMs we had left, and despite their best efforts Radek and my father had not managed to complete the construction of a ZPM before…well, before."

"Fascinating," Rodney murmured. "How close were they, if you don't mind me asking, is that information included in the—"

Addie held up her hand and said, "I'm afraid that for further technological details, you'll have to consult the information in the bags thrown through the gate. There would have been more sent, a lot more, but…I resisted leaving and…some time was wasted."

John glanced around the table, exchanging confused expressions with Sam, and an intense look with Teyla. He rolled his eyes to see that Rodney seemed to still be musing about the possibilities contained in the crystals from the future alternate reality, and Ronon was staring at Addie as though searching for the best place to bury a knife. Addie herself looked pale and lost.

"I didn't want to come, you see," Addie said.

John swallowed hard. "You're here against your will?"

"Yes. They forced me to leave them."

"Why you?" Sam asked. "Why were you sent?"

Addie closed her eyes and brought a trembling hand to touch her eyelids. Teyla said, "I think we should give you a moment."

"I don't," Ronon said. "I want to know why we should believe you."

Addie's lips twisted and tears fell from her eyes. "You don't have to believe me. I can't change the truth, though."

"Ronon—" Sam said in warning.

"Okay, answer this, if this data was so important, why didn't McKay send himself?" Ronon asked.

John waited. It was a reasonable question, though perhaps Ronon could have had more grace in the asking.

Addie lifted gaze to Ronon and her arch reply surprised him. "Surely, you don't think my father would choose his own life over his daughter?" She flushed. "Excuse me, I forget myself. This McKay," and she indicated Rodney, "is not my father, and perhaps ihe/i might deserve that opinion, but when it comes to the McKay who was imy/i father, well, if my husband hadn't thrown me through the gate, I am quite sure that he would have."

"About that," John began.

Rodney interrupted, "I'm sorry, but just who are you? You claim to be a child of some future, alternate Rodney McKay but that is incredibly improbable. I'd give the chances at less than 1 in 100,000,000."

John shot him a disgusted look. "Rodney, please—"

Addie said, "What do you want me to say? It's the truth."

"Sorry, I suppose I need a little more than your word on it," Rodney replied.

Addie closed her eyes again, took another sip of her water, and asked, "How about this? You always planned to name a daughter Agnes for Maria Agnesi. Is that proof enough?"

Rodney's expression was confirmation and astonishment.

Addie continued, "But, you see, my mother refused to saddle a child with that name, and insisted that I be called for her older sister who died as a teenager -- Adelaide. Agnes is my middle name."

Rodney began to cough. John pounded him on the back as Addie continued, "My…well, John always called me Addie. That's the name that stuck."

Rodney's eyes were so wide that John feared he might be having a heart attack. "Jennifer? Your mother is Jennifer Keller?" Rodney asked.

"Well, not iyour/i Jennifer Keller, but my Jennifer Keller." Addie covered her face, and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, but I need a break."

"I think we can arrange that," Sam said.

Addie began to stand up, but then dropped into her seat again. "May I ask one question? I know that you probably want to find out a lot more about me before you start to tell me anything, and that's fine, but…well, what are you doing here?" Addie indicated John, Rodney, Teyla, and Ronon as she spoke. "Why aren't you on Atlantis?"

"We'll answer that question later," Sam responded.

John caught Sam's eye and both nodded simultaneously. Ronon's hand landed on his shoulder as they both followed Sam's lead and stood up. Rodney didn't rise as Addie was escorted from the room.

John sat down again in the empty chair next to Rodney. Ronon stood behind him, and Teyla leaned across the table to take Rodney's hands, saying gently, "Rodney, I know this is unusual, but you must not allow this to affect you so deeply."

"Jennifer and I…but I haven't even asked her to marry me. I don't know if I want her to, of if she iwants/i kids. I mean, I guess she probably does, because most women do, and I owe it to posterity to pass on my genes, but I wasn't even sure if we'd still be together by Valentine's Day. I mean, should I book a hotel and a night at the opera, or just do a fancy dinner—"

"Rodney," John said, putting his arm around him. "Take deep breaths."

"I'm too young to be a father!" Rodney exclaimed.

"Rodney, she's not your daughter. She's not from this reality. Calm down."

"Besides, try grandfather," Ronon said.

Rodney made a sound like a stifled scream, stood up and stalked out of the room, waving his hands in warning that they not follow. Teyla sighed and gave Ronon a look that was meant to scold, but only made Ronon smile.

"Come on, Ronon," John chastised. "Give the guy a break. The hits just keep on coming and it isn't likely to let up any time soon."

"And what about you?" Ronon asked.

John rubbed a hand over his face and said, "Want to spar?"

"That bad, huh?" Ronon said, leading the way out of the room. John followed him without reply, his chest tight and his stomach rolling. Ronon verbalizing any aspect of what they both understood about John's feelings made him as uncomfortable as anything else that had happened during the day.

::::

bTwo Weeks Earlier/b

"Colonel Carter – we have an unscheduled off-world activation."

Sam touched her headset and nodded a dismissal to the sergeant she'd been debriefing since his return from M5918, a planet relatively abandoned, and a plentiful source of iron ore. "Copy that, Control Room."

"It's Dr. McKay's IDC, Colonel."

Sam rose quickly from her desk, and started toward the gate. "Dr. McKay?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"But Dr. McKay is on site helping with the Wraith weapons technology, correct?"

"Yes, ma'am. We've confirmed his presence on base."

"I'll be there immediately." Sam picked up the pace as she rushed toward the Control Room and touched her headset again. "Dr. McKay, report to the control room immediately."

Within moments of arrival in the control room the gate deactivated leaving everyone relieved and scrambling for answers. "Has there been a security breach? Is there anyone who would know your IDC, Rodney?"

"Of course not," McKay had answered, affronted at the very suggestion that he'd leaked his own IDC to anyone at all. "Here, let me see," he said, shoving someone forcibly from their seat. "What's the message?"

"It's scrambled. We can't make heads or tails of it."

McKay waved his hand and bent over the keyboard. "What's the source?" He tapped away, and then said, "What? How can this be? Pegasus Galaxy. What…wait…wait…oh, wow, this is…oh, how is this possible?" He tapped on the keyboard more and more quickly, his eyes growing bigger and bigger.

"Spit it out, McKay," Sam commanded.

"That message – it's difficult to explain, and I don't even know how it could--but it's from Atlantis."

"Atlantis is sitting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean at the moment, receiving repairs and awaiting orders, Rodney," Sam said. "Are you saying it is back in Pegasus?"

"No, I'm saying that ithis/i Atlantis is in Pegasus. According to the timestamp on the message, it may have been there for quite some time. As in a very, very, very long time."

Sam took a slow breath, catching on. "Rodney, what you're talking about isn't even possible. Not without risking a rift."

"Well, whether or not it's possible, they've done it. Someone on another Atlantis has done it. This message is not only from another reality but from a future time in that reality. The file is corrupted by the travel through space and time. It's like the fabric of the message has been ripped to shreds."

"Can you repair it?" Sam asked.

"I don't know. It's unlikely. I mean, what we're talking about is incredibly complex, and would probably take several weeks or more with the most highly skilled data -- "

"Move over," Sam said, preparing to sit down and begin working on the message herself.

Rodney blocked the way. "No, no…I can do it. Just give me a little time."

"Two days," Sam said. "You're needed with the Wraith technology."

Rodney only needed fifteen hours. The message's visual component could not be saved, and so they had to be content with a decrepit and static-filled audio only, but the voice was clearly McKay's -- older and heavy with futility, but McKay's all the same.

"…have been working on a way to save ourselves… send this message …exhaust one of the two ZedPMs we have left… only moments to send it through."

"Send what through?" Sam asked under breath, having listened several more times, her eyes distant as she pondered the possibilities. Rodney rambled on about the message, the dates, the probabilities of this future alternate reality contacting theirs, and each comment clicked in her mind as though a list was being checked off.

Sam touched her headset and issued the command to have John Sheppard flown in as soon as possible. She stood with her hands folded in front of her, gazing at the gate as Rodney tapped away on the computer behind her, trying to correct the audio. She'd already made up her mind.

::::

bThe Present/b

Addie had been with them for several days when Teyla ,holding Torin to her chest, approached Addie to talk. The woman sat on a cot in an otherwise rather barren room, a tray of food half-eaten beside her on the floor. Teyla knew that they intended to move her to more upscale quarters as soon as some paperwork had been completed.

"Good evening," Teyla began. "This is my son, Torin."

Addie looked confused for a moment, and then offered, "He's very handsome."

Teyla looked down at her son's chubby, smiling face, and kissed the top of his head. Torin struggled to be put down, so Teyla sat him on the floor. "He was with his father at a nearby hotel, but I summoned him to me because I wished to introduce him to you."

Addie looked at the boy crawling on the floor toward her tray of food and placed a hand on her own stomach. Teyla observed the expression on Addie's face and said, "I believe from the look on your face that there was no Torin in your reality?"

Addie swallowed and looked at Teyla. "No, I'm sorry. There wasn't. I don't recall ever hearing of our Teyla having a child."

"And this frightens you?" Teyla asked, finding that the idea of a reality without Torin rather frightening, too.

Addie relaxed a little on the cot, and indicated the space next to her. "Yes, it does."

Teyla sat down where Addie had offered on the cot and took a long look. Addie was a pretty enough woman, not stunning, and yet not unappealing. Teyla could see the amalgam of her parents – Rodney's nose and Jennifer's heart-shaped face, and there was something odd, something she'd noticed in the debriefing -- Addie's expressions and hand motions tended to be a lot like Rodney's, yes, but also there were fleeting glimpses of something that reminded Teyla of John, as well.

"I'm told that I look like my mother's side of the family," Addie said, responding to Teyla's inspection.

"I could not judge the accuracy of that observation."

Torin crawled over and tugged on Teyla's pants, making a hand signal asking to nurse. "Do you mind? He is hungry," Teyla asked, as she pulled Torin to her chest, opened her shirt and began to feed her son.

Addie shook her head and waved her hand, looking at Torin's small feet kicking about as he nestled against Teyla's breast. Teyla didn't say anything for a few moments, gauging how best to bring the topic up again, when Addie began of her own accord.

"If there was no Torin where I'm from then this truly is a different world, isn't it? It is like a strange mirror, where everyone is younger and somehow iwrong/i."

"I can imagine that you find this confusing."

Addie covered her eyes with one hand and took a deep breath. "It is all that I can do right now to keep breathing, knowing that everyone I love is dead. Poof – as though they never existed. At least I don't think any of them suffered physical pain, but the emotional pain of the final hours had to be unendurable for so many of them."

"Did your people not find some kind of peace in the end?" Teyla asked.

Addie let her hands drop to her stomach but kept her eyes closed. "In some ways, those of us who knew what was coming found ways to express our love and joy to one another. Though, there was always the underlying panic, and the despair – and, of course, my father's frantic work. And then there was my…John, and in some ways it was hardest for him and for the warriors like…like…well, like Ronon."

"Such men find it difficult to sit idle as the world falls apart."

"Yes, exactly," Addie said, her breath catching. "I'm sorry. I'm overwhelmed."

"I know, what you are experiencing must be incredibly difficult to process. As time passes, this will be easier to understand."

"I don't think it will," Addie said, cupping her hands over her stomach. "My child's father will never know him."

"I do understand what you are feeling. There was a time during my term with Torin that we feared his father lost—"

"This is different. I've lost everything – my people, my home, my life."

"I, too, lost everything, in some ways several times over, narrowly escaping a Wraith culling, leaving my world, and eventually claiming Atlantis as my home."

Addie remained silent.

"Another among us that will understand your pain, for he too has lost everything, is Ronon. I know that he presents himself as brusque and hard, but beneath that surface is a great deal of kindness."

Addie gasped a little and tears began to fall.

"Perhaps you will take some time to talk with him?"

Addie shook her head. "I don't think I can."

Teyla didn't answer, instead shifting Torin to her other breast, cradling his warm body to her skin.

"I do understand," Teyla said after the silence seemed interminable.

Addie broke into hard tears. "No, no you can't understand. There's so much—I don't know where to start. In some ways I feel like I could walk out of here and begin my old life, but I can't do that, can I?"

"No, you cannot. I can only imagine your grief."

Addie was silent for some time before asking, "I take it that here, in this timeline, Jennifer Keller is still alive?"

Teyla nodded.

"Do you know that I've never known my mother? She died in a Wraith attack when I was only a few months old."

"I am sorry for your loss."

Addie waved off her condolences. "And now, there's a woman here whom I could meet, but it wouldn't be her. It wouldn't be the woman that my father loved and married, it would be this other person, whom I'm quite sure doesn't want ithis/i in her life." She indicated herself and her pregnant stomach. "And the crazy thing is, given everything that I've lost, and how backwards everything seems to me here, I'm still scared that I can't handle that rejection, even though it isn't her. It isn't my mom."

"Jennifer is a very good woman. She would want to ease any pain that she could."

Addie shook her head, waving her hands. "Please, don't say that. I can't hear that right now."

Teyla watched as Addie tried to hold back tears but eventually lost the ability. "I told him, Teyla. I told him that I didn't want to be the one. I said that I wanted to stay with him, but he wouldn't-- And now, they're—" The sobs became too intense for Addie to speak.

"They are gone and you need to grieve," Teyla murmured, pulling Addie to her shoulder with her free arm, holding the woman as she cried, Torin's body and Addie's unborn child felt ungainly between them, but holding her as tightly as she could anyway.

::::

John stood behind the one way mirror, watching Teyla comfort the woman. He turned to Sam and said, "Just what the hell are we going to do about this?"

Sam shook her head. "What can we do? There's no 'back' to which to send her. She doesn't appear to be a security risk, beyond a risk to herself, of course. We can't release her to the public at this time, she wouldn't be able to cope, and the emotional trauma she's undergone is severe, beyond the scope of what most human beings will want to endure. She'd be institutionalized if she was lucky and homeless if she wasn't. I don't even want to imagine what it would be like for her to lose this child, too, after all that she's already lost."

"When will the shrinks get a crack at her?"

"Tomorrow afternoon, once we've had an opportunity to debrief her a bit more, confirm again that she isn't a security risk. Then we set about trying to access the crystals she brought with her, and doing whatever is necessary to acclimate her to this reality, so that we can have her functioning on her own as quickly as possible."

John nodded; most of his suspicions had dissolved in the course of the last few days, and had completely vanished in watching Addie interact with Teyla. The level of fear in the woman was difficult to fake, and the numbness she displayed amongst bouts of tears and weeping seemed appropriate and genuine. He felt for her.

John wrapped one arm around his torso, and scratched his chin with his other hand, observing through the glass as Teyla and Addie began to talk again, and even to laugh a little at some of Torin's antics. Addie's smile was fragile, but sweet. John could see a little of Rodney in her face, but she looked more like Jennifer to him.

John had never wanted to be in love with Rodney McKay. In fact, he fought it harder than he'd fought the Wraith, but Rodney and his damn mouth wouldn't go away. His mouth that never shut up unless there was food in it, and yet everything he said got under John's skin in one way or another, and every time Rodney stepped up and grew stronger as a team member, John wanted to reward him in ways utterly unfit for a commanding officer.

Rodney had never outright asked him, but John knew that he'd wondered why John was willing to sign up for whatever suicide mission came his way, and John would have liked to say that he was just that damn brave and heroic, but there was also the underlying truth that when you'd fallen in disgustingly hopeless love with a straight, oblivious asshole, who happened to also be an important member of your team, sometimes being brave and heroic enough to get your ass killed seemed like a relief from the endless torture.

Though, when it came to emotional angst there were few things that lent perspective like the Pegasus Galaxy. When families were ripped apart daily by Wraith culling, and his life or someone else's life was on the edge of expiration every second of every day, well, his personal heartache over the one he could never have seemed pretty inconsequential. Until it hit him all over again.

When it came down to it, though, John wanted for Rodney what he'd never have for himself. Sex, love, family – passing on the McKay genetics—the whole enchilada and then some, which was another thing that sucked about being in love, because whenever he saw Rodney faltering on the road to achieving any of these very personal and yet important ends, his love for the man reared up, and he found himself in the position of nudging Rodney back onto the path, teasing or cajoling or encouraging, and trying to ignore how much it hurt.

There had been times, though – a few times, when John had dared to think that maybe Rodney felt something for him, too. Rodney's irrational jealousy over Chaya, the endless accusations of womanizing when John hadn't been with a woman in years, they way Rodney sometimes looked at him when he thought John wasn't looking, or when he just couldn't seem to control his face.

And yet, nothing had happened. How could it? John was the military commander of Atlantis, and Rodney was the chief scientist, and iit could never happen/i. It would never happen. And as far as John was concerned, he'd prefer that no one ever know, but that wasn't the case.

John remembered the night he stood on the Atlantis far pier, staring out at the line of the horizon. He'd heard the distinct thud of Ronon's steps running up behind him. John knew there was no emergency, and he wasn't surprised, either, when Ronon cut his run short to stand beside John and watch the stars come out.

John hadn't even been shocked when Ronon asked him, "Does he know you're in love with him?"

John had shrugged. Did Rodney know? John doubted it. John hoped not. John thought that deep down Rodney did. John knew that Rodney would never be the one to bring it up, that he'd probably rather die, because despite Rodney being an asshole, he'd never want to hurt John…not on purpose.

Ronon never mentioned it again, either. He just stood by, with his strong, almost aggressive empathy. John found he appreciated it more than he would have imagined. Ronon's steady hand on the back of his chair had helped him to weather more than one moment of personal angst. But in the scheme of life, his personal angst was meaningless. It had to be.

"John?"

John startled out of his reverie, and found himself still standing in front of the one way mirror, one hand on his mouth, the other clamped firmly around his torso, staring intently at a now empty room.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked.

"Oh, yeah, sure. I just…you know." John nodded at the glass, indicating the woman who was no longer in the room. "There's a lot to consider."

"Right. Okay, well, why don't you get back to your apartment and get some rest. The psychologists should be in tonight and we'll go from there."

John followed her out of the room, trying to leave behind the sense that this woman, this Addie, somehow proved any remaining ounce of hope he'd ever had false. Yes, it was hard to ignore the cavernous hole that the truth opened up--big enough for an entire reality to collapse into.

::::

Rodney stood by the empty pool at the apartment the military kept for him near Cheyenne Mountain. He ignored the ringing of his phone. It was Jennifer. He knew this because she'd added Queen's "Somebody to Love" as the ring tone for her number on their fifteenth date. iCan anybody find meeeeee…Somebody toooooooooooooooo…loooooooove!/i

He wasn't sure what to say to her. Sam had given him permission to discuss the situation with anyone on the Atlantis team with whom he felt it was appropriate, and that definitely included Jennifer. But he didn't know how to begin. "Hey, it turns out that in another reality, you and I get married and have a kid. A girl. You name her Adelaide and I name her Agnes and we all lived happily ever after or some such thing until the universe imploded due to a time-space rift. Still up for dinner when I get back from this little trip to Cheyenne Mountain?"

It was so unfair. Things were finally, ifinally/i happening with a woman – a beautiful, smart, brave, funny woman who, most importantly, iliked Rodney back/i. It was, of course, too good to be true, which is why this was happening to him now. Rodney had little doubt that this woman, Addie, was going to screw up everything.

God, why? Seriously, why couldn't the other McKay have just sent along information? Was the girl really necessary? And, worse, this was probably going to be just like the situation with Rod. (And just ihow/i did he manage to get people to call him that?) Everyone liked him better than Rodney – even his sister. Oh, God – his sister. What was he going to tell her? She'd probably want to take Addie home and have her for Christmas and make her part of the family. Okay, he wasn't going to tell Jeannie anything at all. She didn't need to know.

It was a disaster. The only saving grace was the information the other McKay had sent. Rodney wanted nothing more than to get back to Atlantis and start work immediately on trying to find and implement the Wraith-weapon that Addie had mentioned. Every moment away from his lab hindered his work in that regard, and it was probably going to be the only good thing to come out of it all.

"Hey."

Rodney nearly jumped out of his skin. Ronon was standing less than two feet behind him, and Rodney felt the heat of Ronon's breath on his ear as he spoke his single word of greeting.

"Holy crap, what are you part leopard? How did you ido/i that, and more importantly iwhy/i did you do that? I nearly had a heart attack, and right when all kinds of future, incredibly important scientific data had fallen into my hands. What a waste that would have been. And what would you have told my sister? 'I just had to sneak up on him while he was staring into a swimming pool contemplating his screwed up life, and, oops, I accidentally made him stroke out'!?!"

Ronon shrugged. "Yeah, something like that."

Rodney threw his hands up. "Well, fine, what do you want? Did you not insult me enough today in front of that woman?"

"Yeah, about that. I want to apologize."

"Really?" Rodney looked around, to see if this was some kind of joke on him.

"I'm sorry. You wouldn't choose yourself over your kid. If she even iis/i your kid."

"Yes, exactly. Thank you." Rodney said. "And, no, she's not my kid. She's a woman from some alternate reality. I don't have any responsibility for her. None at all. And I can say that with a clear conscience." Rodney smoothed his hands through the air, wiping it all away.

Ronon grunted.

"Say whatever you want, but I'm washing my hands of her. Done. I'm idone/i. Except for the science part. And the interrogation, or debriefing, or whatever, but anything personal is done. I'm done with that. That pregnant woman? Not my problem. " Rodney laughed. "Ah, that felt good. See? I'm not freaking out anymore."

Rodney's cell phone began to ring again. iCan anybody find meeeeee…/i Rodney grabbed the phone from his pocket and threw it into the pool.

"Not freaking out." Ronon said.

"Oh, shut up."

::::

Addie wondered if they knew that she had no illusions that she was alone. There were hidden cameras in the room, and behind the mirror that took up most of one wall was a one-way watching room, she knew. She didn't blame them for their suspicions and realized that had the same thing taken place in her universe, the same precautions would have been taken.

She had refused the drugs that the doctor had prescribed to help her sleep. They wouldn't be good for the baby, and she didn't want to sleep, anyway, because she was afraid she'd dream of them, and then she'd wake up to discover them dead all over again.

Before the rift opened up, she'd always known her husband would die before her. He was much older, but she'd tried to ignore the truth for years. She had only just begun to face it when the rift had made it unnecessary.

Until the moment he'd grabbed her from their bed, carried her down the Atlantis hallways and pulled her into her father's lab -- where her dad had been working on making contact with a Stargate in another reality -- she'd thought of the rift as a terrible equalizer, removing the necessity of having to deal with her husband's death. In a way, it was a blessing she was grateful for; instead having to deal with the grief of losing everyone, even her unborn child before she even got to meet him, she'd be gone, too. That made it easier to accept.

During that time, she had cherished the way her child had rolled in her stomach all the more, knowing that it was the closest she'd ever be to motherhood, the closest she'd ever be to him both figuratively and literally. And then that blessed equalizer had been taken away from her. Ripped from her. By the man she trusted most.

She couldn't stop thinking about how he carried her through the crowded hallways, as mothers clutched their children, and tears of hopeless grief streaming down their faces. She saw fathers hugging sons to their chests, sobs wracking both bodies, and the empty, hollow, terrified eyes of the people who didn't have anyone to cling to at all. She'd wanted to reach out and comfort them, but there was no time, no pausing, or stopping, just the fast pace to the lab, and no words from her husband either, not after the initial, "Come on. It's time."

There had been some debate about whether or not to let the masses know what was coming, or if it would be more humane to just let them perish with no warning, their cells torn apart as the rift ate them alive. Eventually, John had overruled Rodney's version of mercy, and it was agreed that everyone should have at least a few hours notice; time enough to say goodbye and to express their love to the people who needed to hear it. That alone was a gift that most people never receive.

Addie had known about the rift long before many others. She was "just" a marine biologist according to her disappointed dad, but he'd never given up the hope that she'd abandon the soft sciences for something real. She enjoyed listening to his theories, learning at his elbow from childhood, so she'd been one of the people he'd talked with as the rift grew larger and at a faster rate than they'd hoped or imagined. It was a heavy burden to bear, but she'd been able to talk to her husband about it, and that had eased the pain and fear. Laying her head on his strong chest, listening to his heart beat, with the swell of her belly between them – it sometimes seemed right that it would all end just like this, because how could anything ever be better? It was too perfect to last.

She hadn't realized what they were planning to do until her husband took her into her father's lab. "No, I'm not the one" she'd said, clutching her stomach. "You can't do this. I won't go. I'm staying here with you. This is my life, and my choice. I won't go."

Her father had looked at her husband and they'd nodded. Addie knew that she'd been overruled. "But why?" she'd asked, she'd even begged. "Why me? Please. iPlease./i I don't want to be the one. I want to stay with you. Send someone else. I want to end here with you."

"Addie, stop being ridiculous. This is it. This is all the time we've got," her father said from behind the computer that controlled the second gate they'd requisitioned from the gate bridge.

That's when she'd tried to run, and her husband had caught her, and carried her like a child. She clung to his neck, hanging on as tightly as she could. Shaking her head and struggling against him as he'd said, "I love you. Make sure that our baby knows who he is."

He was so strong. He broke her arms free of his neck and threw her into the event horizon.

Now, they were gone, and she was in another world. Addie rolled over in the bed clutching her stomach and began to cry, as the loss overwhelmed her again.

::::

Sam wasn't surprised to see Dr. Aaron Rivers in her office several afternoons later with a stack of files labeled iAdelaide McKay/i.

The psychologist began, "We don't see any reason to suspect her story. There's no indication of deceit in her body language, facial expressions, nor in the various tests administered. All in all, she seems like a perfectly normal, though traumatized, twenty-four year old woman.

"Her concern for the well-being of her child is a good sign. It indicates that she is not inclined toward self-harm, and does point to a well-adjusted attitude toward the human race. It also gives her a purpose. At the same time, it'll be important that she not come to see the child as the entire embodiment of everything and everyone that she has lost. This is for her sake as well as the child's."

Sam said, "Dr. Rivers, I don't think I need of a complete analysis of Addie. We'd just like some input as to how best to handle her at this time. Clearly, we can't release her to the public. She is completely incapable of caring for herself right now, not to mention the security risk."

"Exactly, she knows far too much to be allowed introduction to the general population until we have determined that she has successfully dealt with the trauma, and she has been allowed to co-create a new persona and history for herself, so that she can become a contributing member of society."

"So, how do you propose we do that?" Sam prompted again.

"Well, yes," Dr. Rivers said, clearing his throat. "Our team of psychologists have debated this extensively, some feeling that it would be preferable for her to be given military housing somewhere nearby, forcing her to accept the reality of her loss in its full scope and weight, but most of us, including myself, concurred that minimizing the stress on her at this time will be most conducive to her mental health in the long run, allowing her to accept a little at a time the extent of her loss."

"And?"

"There's a bit of luck to this poor woman's situation in that Atlantis is, for the time being, still on Earth, until the NID authorizes its return to the Pegasus Galaxy."

Sam leaned back in her seat, watching the psychologist flip through his files. He continued, "We believe that allowing Adelaide McKay's transfer to Atlantis would be the most beneficial thing for her. She would then be in a familiar environment and would be allowed to come to terms with her new situation in a more gentle way."

Sam asked, "And what is the general consensus of the emotional anxiety and trauma that will come to the poor girl by being constantly exposed to people and places that she is, indeed, familiar with, and yet are entirely different from her reality. That seems more like torture than kindness, Dr. Rivers."

"I understand your hesitation, and believe me we fleshed this out entirely. Several of our team had their reservations, but it is still preferable, we believe, for her to come to terms with her loss in a place where she feels more at home."

"And what does Addie say about this?" Sam asked.

"She seemed eager to be transferred as soon as possible. We believe this will be an ideal middle ground for her. Needless to say, Dr. Franklin will keep her under close surveillance and supervision, and a member from our team, Dr. Mark Lowell, will join the Atlantis crew a few days after Ms. McKay's arrival, to give Dr. Franklin additional assistance."

When Sam approached John with the information, he balked at the news. "And just what do these psychologists plan to do about the emotional repercussions for ieveryone else/i in that damn city? Especially, oh, I don't know, iRodney/i and iJennifer Keller/i?"

"I understand your concern John, and I addressed this issue with Dr. Rivers. He let me know that Dr. Franklin and Dr. Lowell would be requiring regular appointments with them Dr. Keller and Rodney to discuss the impact of this situation and to help them come to terms with any difficult emotions this may bring up."

John was incredulous.

Sam continued, "It is a little too late now, don't you agree, John, to prevent the initial fall-out of Addie's arrival in our lives. Perhaps, in a small way, having Addie around and getting to know her a little, will actually lessen the emotional discomfort for both Rodney and Dr. Keller."

In the end, as Sam knew, John was under orders and there was very little his indignation could accomplish. Addie would be going to Atlantis to recuperate, heal, and probably birth her child. Sam patted John on the shoulder as he headed out of the room. She felt for him, even though she was glad to have Addie out of her hair, and the problem shifted over to John and Mr. Woolsey.

::::

Addie couldn't wait to get home. She clenched her fists and bit her cheek. She had to stop calling it that. It wasn't home. It was…this Atlantis. It was a facsimile, a simulacrum.

She had been boarded onto the private jet several hours earlier. The plane traveled six, plus the pilot, and there were five seats with water bottles and a boxed lunch sitting on them. Addie was the first to board, so she chose the seat next to the window and opposite the door. After she settled herself and her meager belongings, she rested with her hand on her stomach and studied the line of the mountains against the sky. She longed for the moment when she'd be surrounded by ocean.

John was the next to board the plane, and he sat down across from her, taking his boxed lunch and shoving it under his seat. He smiled a charming smile, and slouched a little, a conscious attempt to look comfortable that she knew well. He indicated her stomach and asked too easily, "How's it kicking?"

Despite herself, Addie felt a smile forming on her lips. John could always surprise her, and it seemed maybe he wasn't all that different in this timeline. "He's kicking fine, thanks."

John's charming smile transformed into a genuine one, the edges of his eyes crinkling and the edge of insincerity disappearing. "A boy, huh?"

"Yeah," Addie looked back out the window remembering too well the moment when they'd discovered it was a boy. The expression of jubilation on her husband's face. Addie, herself, had been vaguely disappointed, but the idea of providing her husband with the son he desired soon buoyed her spirits. That was before they'd realized the inevitable: there was no escaping the rift.

She smoothed a hand over her stomach and bit her lip, thinking of her husband and his smiling eyes, his strong hands. She wondered, not for the first time if being swallowed in the rift had been agony or ecstasy for him. She imagined that coming apart, cell by cell, could be deliriously orgasmic, or, of course, it could be unadulterated torture. There was no way to know. She thought, though, at any rate, neither the ecstasy or pain would have been prolonged.

"Look," John began. "I'm not going to pretend this isn't awkward, and I'm not asking you to pretend that it's not either, but I want you to know that I'll protect you and your child, and I'll help to make this transition as smooth as possible for everyone."

Addie nodded, not looking at his face, because his hands were much safer, though they were just like her John's hands – scarred and well-formed, with dark hair along the back of his hands and fingers.

"I'd like to ask you to do the same," John said, seriously.

Addie swallowed and looked into his eyes then. "What do you mean by that?"

"I just mean…I know you've been through a lot and I think that asking much more of you than not falling apart is over the top, but at the same time, if you could consider the impact this might be having on other—"

Rodney boarded the plane then, and John stopped short. Addie caught her breath, there was never any preparation for seeing the man, but it was always intensely painful. Rodney was so very like her own father from what she'd seen so far, that there were times she felt she could finish his sentences. He'd ignored her as much as possible since the first day, asking her questions about the crystals on which her father's data was stored only as required, but when he looked at her she felt his resentment and fear.

Rodney sat down on the opposite side of the aisle, muttering, "Oh, thank God, they provided food. I'm starving. That hotel they put Ronon up in should be prosecuted for fraud, dangling the promise of an English Breakfast in front of our noses, only to provide the same old stale bagels and donuts as any other place, and not even any fresh cream cheese, only that horrid strawberry flavored stuff, and miles and miles of orange juice on every table, just waiting to kill me."

"I ate it," Ronon said, boarding the plane. Addie kept her eyes on his boots as he walked up the aisle.

"You would," Rodney answered, voice laden with disgust.

"You stayed with Ronon?" John asked, his voice higher. "Don't you have your own apartment?"

"Pipes burst in the apartment above me. It's been a stellar couple of days, let me tell you," Rodney said.

Ronon dropped down beside John with little grace, bumping John hard with his elbow.

"Ow, dang it, Chewy. Sure sit down. Seat's not taken," John griped.

"Thanks," Ronon answered, and when Addie dared a glance, she found his glare focused on her. She met his eyes for only a few seconds, and then looked out the window.

Teyla sank into the seat next to her, though Addie hadn't heard her board. Teyla had told her over breakfast earlier that her son, Torin, and her husband would both join them on Atlantis the next day. Addie didn't take her eyes off of the view out the window, even when Teyla asked her gently how she was faring. She merely murmured, "I fare, thank you."

Addie tried to tune out the conversation between her four fellow passengers to Atlantis, but it seeped into her mind like chatter that was just a step outside of what she would have heard any other day of her life. Whenever she dared to look at any of them, she'd find Ronon staring at her, his expression suspicious and openly hostile. She immediately turned back to the comfort of the window, which caused her no pain to ponder, one of the only things in this world that didn't.

The prior few nights, Addie had consented to some herbal sleep aids, for the baby's health, not her own. Sleeping was as terrible as she knew it would be. She either dreamed of those final moments over and over in an endless loop, or she dreamed a strange mishmash of moments both real and unreal, but all set in her former life. Waking from those dreams made her feel frenzied with grief, but the one that nearly broke her down was the dream she'd had just before waking that morning.

She'd been in this timeline, asleep in her quarters at Cheyenne Mountain. There had been a knock at the door and she'd struggled awake just as the door opened and her husband entered. His face was reassurance and joy, and she'd run to him. He said in her ear, his voice rough with emotion, "Rodney did it. He found a way for us to all make it out of there alive."

And then she woke up.

She had been so hysterical that she couldn't breathe from crying, choking on her snot and tears. The pain seemed to engulf her leaving her floating in it, drowning in it, and she didn't know how long it took for them to come into the room and give her a sedative via injection. She vaguely remembered hearing the voice of the one called Dr. Lowell. He said something like, "We've been expecting this. I'm glad it happened now, and not later today on the plane."

Addie was so lost in the memory of the morning's horror, knowing that she was only keeping it together even now because of the remaining sedatives in her system, that she belatedly realized that she'd missed take-off entirely. Instead, she'd been staring blindly out the window, seeing only the dream and feeling the pain sitting about half a foot away from her body, waiting for a way back in.

She closed her eyes and felt the drag of sleep pulling at her. She was exhausted, but she fought it, knowing that she couldn't risk losing it here with these four particular people.

Addie had her eyes closed for nearly fifteen minutes, dozing but not sleeping, when Rodney's shriek woke her with a start. He spit the food out of his mouth, a bit of chicken-salad sandwich, and he started to gargle and gasp. Addie instinctively reached for the bag in which she always kept an epipen for her father when they traveled to Earth, but then she remembered that all she had was the small backpack of personal items that her husband had packed for her. "He's allergic to citrus!" she said, even knowing that they already knew.

John was already out of his seat and had grabbed Rodney's bag, found the epipen in the front pocket easily, and held it at the ready. "Come on, Rodney, don't make me do this crap. I hate this kind of thing."

Rodney tried to grab the epipen from John's hands and Addie nearly leapt out of her seat to get it herself, until she noticed Rodney garbling, "No, no, no! I'm okay. I'm okay! Do you hear me talking? That means I'm breathing, you idiots!"

As Rodney babbled about his numb tongue, and wondered aloud how much citrus had actually made it into his system, John capped the needle again, and put the epipen back in Rodney's bag. Addie watched, though, and as soon as he was done with that, his hands were back on Rodney, monitoring his pulse and eyeing him for any sign of swelling. Rodney batted at him until John backed away. "I swear to God, someone's out to kill me! There's citrus everywhere on this planet. It's a death camp for me, the entire damn world, and I want off of it. iNow./i"

"Take it to the NID, Rodney," John muttered, his eyes still on Rodney's face, and his body tense.

Addie's heart was pounding and she felt the baby kicking staccato rhythms, energized by her rush of adrenaline. She leaned back in her seat, pressed her fingers to her eyes, and took deep breaths. When she had gathered herself, she opened her eyes to find Ronon staring at her, his gaze less hard, and marginally less suspicious. She attempted a smile and his eyes narrowed.

Addie excused herself to use the bathroom and stayed in the tiny room as long as she could.

::::

Rodney watched Addie return from the bathroom, after having spent, in his opinion, an incredible amount of time in there; though he supposed that maneuvering her stomach in that tiny room might have made urination or defecation quite difficult, which was something he never wanted to think about again. He pressed the bridge of his nose in hopes of erasing the thought from his mind.

At the last second, before she could go back to her other seat, Rodney gathered his courage, stopped her, and said, "Could we…would you mind? Could we talk?"

She nodded and sat down across from him, buckling her seat belt beneath her belly.

Rodney leaned forward, checking to see if Teyla or Ronon were listening. John had his iPod headphones on and seemed to have fallen asleep, or was faking it.

Rodney cleared his throat. "Listen, as it turns out, I'm not so good at relationships, you know? Jennifer and I…we've been dating a very short time, and things are great, and maybe one day she'd like to marry me, but I don't know if I'm ready to ask her yet, and so—you know, if you could perhaps keep a low profile when it comes to--"

"You want me to stay quiet about who I am?"

"Yes, no…I mean, yes. I mean, really? You could do that? Because that would be ideal, if she never had to know--"

"I don't think that will be possible. Key people on Atlantis, including Dr. Keller, have already received briefings about me. I would have thought Dr. Keller would have mentioned this to you."

Rodney thought she probably would have had he not thrown his phone into the pool, or if he had called her at times when he wasn't absolutely sure to get her voicemail. Besides, he should have known that would be the case. It would be impossible for a new individual to arrive at Atlantis without being screened by the medical center, and even if Jennifer was not the doctor to do the screening, no doubt in a case like Addie's there would have to be ongoing medical evaluations, if not for Addie's mental and physical health, but for the unborn child.

"Of course," Rodney said. "I knew that. I just…" Rodney cleared his throat again and reached for his briefcase. "Now, if you don't mind, I have work to do."

Addie nodded and said nothing, turning to the window, and Rodney pretended to look over the paperwork he'd put off for months and would probably put off for a few months more, before turning his attention Addie's profile. She did look like Jennifer in some ways, but Rodney could also see a strange resemblance to his own mother, something about the set of her chin. He saw Ronon watching him.

"What?" he asked.

Ronon's look was challenging, but Rodney wasn't in the mood to try to figure out what the hell Ronon was thinking. Addie didn't seem to notice the exchange at all. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was in a tight line, set in a very McKay expression of determination. He'd seen it in the mirror and he'd seen it on his sister's face. It freaked him out, and so he shoved the paperwork back into the files, brought out his computer, and started banging away.

There had to be something on there in the information he'd gotten from the other McKay's crystals that would occupy his mind and stop him thinking about all of this…this…mess. Though, really, he supposed he ought to come up with something to say in explanation to Jennifer about why he'd been avoiding her. He paused in his typing and considered, but then went directly back to work. He had a few hours. Surely something good would come to him by then, it always did.

"This didn't happen in my timeline," Addie murmured.

Rodney looked up and she was staring directly at him. "Well, of course it didn't, or there would have been two of you, and that would have—"

"No, I mean, Atlantis never landed on earth in my timeline. This never happened."

Rodney swallowed hard; Addie's voice crawled under his skin and could feel her panic and fear. Part of him wanted to reach out to her, to put his hand on her arm, but the idea of touching her and finding that she was actual flesh and blood unnerved him even more. He opened his mouth, closed it again. Flesh and blood. Not actually flesh and blood. He said, "I'm sorry," and then, before she could reply, turned back to his computer screen. He could still feel her looking at him.

::::

John wasn't asleep. He was listening to the recordings of Addie's interviews since her arrival through the Stargate. As the military commander of Atlantis he had a vested interest in knowing everything he could about anyone admitted to his city, and so he had loaded them onto his iPod several days ago, beginning with the first interview conducted the moment she came through the Stargate, and continued on through the additional military, scientific, and psychological debriefings.

As far as John could determine, Addie had done her best to be honest, while remaining circumspect about a few admittedly personal issues.

iDr. Lowell:/i You said before that you didn't consent to being the one put through the Stargate. All indications from witnesses indicate that it appeared you'd been thrown through the gate and you were yelling what sounded like, "No."

iAddie:/i That's correct. Yes.

iDr. Lowell:/i You've explained in detail the events leading up to that day, and you admit that you were aware that the plan was to send isomeone/i along with a vast array of scientific data, including a large computer database that your father had planned to wheel through, is that correct?

iAddie:/i Yes, I knew that they were going to send someone through the gate. I had assumed it would be one of the senior scientists, though not my father because he didn't want to live without…he didn't to live without me, or his life that he'd come to love. I guess that's the best way to put that. Yes.

iDr. Lowell:/i So, there was no indication beforehand that you would be the one sent.

iAddie:/i None. Although, in retrospect there was something that my husband did the night before that now seems very obvious to me.

iDr. Lowell:/i And what was that?

iAddie:/i I'm sorry, but that's incredibly personal. It was something between a man and his wife.

iDr. Lowell:/i We'll leave that for now. In earlier statements you indicate that you believe that this decision was not cleared by the military and civilian officials of your Atlantis.

iAddie:/i I believe that my father, my husband, and…and a few other people who knew the situation was at an end, made this choice on their own.

iDr. Lowell:/i Can you explain again why you believe this to be the case. Your original description of the day itself had very little discussion between you and your husband, or you and your father. Have you left something out to clarify your conjecture?

iAddie:/i Only that it would have made more sense to send any number of people other than me.

iDr. Lowell:/i Was it because you are pregnant perhaps?

iAddie:/i There were other pregnant women on Atlantis. I was sent solely because the people who loved me and my unborn child had the ability to do whatever they liked in those final minutes, with or without authority.

iDr. Lowell:/i So, Addie – why did they love you so much?

iAddie:/i I don't know. I know that for my husband it wasn't just about me, and probably not for my dad, too. It is no secret to those who know him that Rodney McKay has always been determined to pass on his genes, and my husband had a lot to hope for, too, I guess.

iDr. Lowell:/i You seem more than a little ambivalent about your own survival.

iAddie:/I I am. I'm not sure it was the right thing to do. It seems selfish what they did. It feels selfish to be alive. I don't know that I wanted to live, though I suppose that's selfish, too.

iDr. Lowell:/i This is going to be a long and difficult process for you, Addie. I assure you that these mixed feelings are normal.

iAddie:/i There's nothing normal about this, Dr. Lowell.

::::

After the near crash landing of Atlantis in the Pacific Ocean close to San Francisco, the city had been dead in the water for awhile, causing all kinds of uproar and conspiracy theories, some more accurate than others, about why the military had cordoned off a section of prime shipping lanes near one of the busiest ports in the country.

Ronon had gone into the city several times with John before another ZPM was found and Atlantis was ultimately moved to a closely guarded location in the Pacific Ocean within an hour's flight from the islands of Hawaii.

San Francisco had not been much to Ronon's liking. It was far too pleasant, and almost teasing in its joy for life, but, as was often the case with him, it iwas/i the kind of city that he wished Melena had been able to see at least once in her life. She would have smiled more in only a few days in San Francisco than she had in her entire life on Sateda.

He mourned Melena less and less, though he never forgot her. He no longer felt guilty about that. Sometimes he even thought that had she lived, his life would have been more ordinary and less dramatic, definitely less painful, but somehow he didn't believe that he'd have become the man he was meant to be under those conditions. Ronon believed that he'd lost everything in order to gain himself, and in gaining himself he was granted a life that he held sacred.

Ronon stretched his long legs into the aisle of the plane, keeping his eyes on the woman calling herself Addie McKay. Ronon didn't disbelieve her story, but he didn't believe it either. There was something missing, a lot missing, actually, from all the reports he'd read and the interviews he'd watched or attended. The woman was holding something back.

John had suggested that Ronon let up and "let her breath a little", but Ronon wasn't ready to do that yet, and since John hadn't made it an order, Ronon felt himself at liberty to ignore the suggestion if he wanted.

In addition, the woman's arrival had McKay freaking out all over the place, and that alone made Ronon defensive on his behalf. Rodney pissed him off a lot, but he was his team mate, and a good friend. Besides, there was John to consider, and whenever Rodney was out of sorts, John seemed to suffer all the more.

The night that Rodney had thrown his cell phone in the pool, Ronon had shared drinks with him in the hotel bar, and when he asked Rodney what the big deal was, Rodney had looked at him with half-drunken, glittering eyes and said something that hit Ronon like a hammer, "Yeah, well, what if she was yours?"

Ronon knew that alternate realities existed, but he'd never wondered too much about those realities, and imagining himself in Rodney's position raised his hackles. If a child from the life he would have had with Melena showed up in this reality, he thought it might be met with a quick death. It seemed an abomination. A grotesque mockery. Like the the clones of the team that the Replicators had built, the ones who thought they were as real as Ronon, Teyla, John, Rodney, and Elizabeth. His lip curled up just thinking of it and his hands clenched into fists.

Looking across the aisle at Addie, he found her eyes on him, and seeing her pupils constrict in fear at his expression, satisfaction settled over him. McKay was right to be freaked out. The woman was what many of his people might have deemed a devil, a torment, and he did not believe them to be completely wrong.