Time and Again
Author's Note: Yes the idea from this story came from the Star Trek Voyager episode, but it's not quite the same. And also this is a post Vegas fic. So yes Detective Sheppard lived.
"Um. Your name is what again?" John stared up at the other man bending over him, very confused. Events had happened so fast and now he couldn't remember just what it was that had happened. Closing his eyes he tried again to place himself in the universe.
He was on a planet, not his home, that much he knew. His name: John, he knew that as well but everything else was blank. Except for a woman, dressed in a white flowing dress...
He looked over at the man who watched him.
"I'm Rodney. You don't remember me?" The slightly balding man tapped his chest.
John shook his head. "No, not really, should I?"
"Well, you've known me for a few months now so, yes, you should know me." He threw up his hands and began to pace. "I mean after all the times I've saved our lives and Atlantis I would think you would remember me!"
John could hear the hurt in Rodney's voice but as he pushed himself up on his elbows, but he still couldn't remember him. He thought back over Rodney's words hoping to spark a memory but- "Wait a minute did you say Atlantis, as in the lost city that sank into the ocean?" He had a vision of a city with four piers and a central tower rising up above the water where it rested.
Stopping, Rodney pushed his hand through his hair. "Well that's not quite what happened; it actually left-"
"John, are you all right?" A female voice and face joined Rodney's interrupting his sermon as a woman with long braided hair bent down to study John as well.
Brow creased, John moved his arms and legs. "Yes and no. I can't seem to remember anything at all. I mean, you or Rodney for that matter."
Looking grave the woman turned to a fourth person just out of sight. "Ronon, have you seen anything like what just happened? You are much better traveled than the rest of us."
"Nope, but Sheppard should know better than to touch anything foreign after all this time. I mean he's got that gene thing and that likes Ancienty stuff."
John leaned back, almost falling over as a large man with long dreadlocks entered his field of vision.
Ronon slapped him on the back. "You really flew though. I mean it was pretty impressive. Too bad Rodney left his camera at home, the folks back on Atlantis would have got a kick out of it."
"So we're from Atlantis? Have we always lived there?"
"Nope." This was Ronon again. "You, Rodney, and a bunch of others found it and woke up the Wraith. Talk about kicking over a hornet's nest."
The world around John shimmered and began to change. The destroyed buildings righted themselves and the cracked streets looked new and unbroken.
John got to his feet, shaking his head. What was going on here? Reaching out, he touched a tree growing along the side of the street. He could feel the rough bark beneath his fingers and smell the strange fruit that dangled from the limbs.
Someone touched him on the back, startling him and the sensation was gone. Blinking, John tried to figure out what had happened. His hand rested in thin air, but he could see the place where the tree had once grown in the ground.
It was Rodney's hand on his shoulder. "John, I think we should take you back to Atlantis. Something might be wrong with you. Carson will want to make sure you're all right."
Panic at the thought of leaving crawled up John's throat and he stepped away from Rodney, holding out his hands. "No, I'm not going anywhere. Something is wrong. I mean..." John spun around as a shape entered his line of vision only to vanish again as he moved too quickly. "Who's there?"
He turned his head, hoping to get a better look at her, but there was nothing there.
"Did you guys see that? It was a woman in white, I think."
Everyone shook their heads, but John moved toward the ruins where he'd found the device. He couldn't seem to remember the others but memories he was pretty sure weren't his were coming back to him very quickly. There was a laughing child, a woman in white and then explosions. The memories overwhelmed him as they suddenly tossed him into another world.
John looked around him. He was in the ruins but they were no longer the ruins. He was surrounded by a thriving city. People pushed past him as they went about their day.
Suddenly the woman in white was there beside him. "Maylon, it is good to see you. I have something wonderful to show you."
"It is good to hear that you have accomplished this thing, Jayla. It is sad we will never enjoy the fruits of yours and the other's labor."
Jayla tugged on his arm. "Come let us go to my lab. I must show you and time is running short. They will be here soon..."
John opened his eyes and looked at the others. "What did you guys do? I was in someone's memory - Maylon. There was a woman called Jayla she was going to show me something. I think it was a way to defeat the Wraith!"
Rodney all but stamped his foot. "You remember the Wraith but not us?" Then he stopped. "How was she going to show you?"
John's head was beginning to ache. "I was there, here in this village but it was alive with people. It was before it was destroyed. I have to figure out how to get back. I need to know what Maylon saw." He turned his head as the woman in white appeared to him again. She disappeared around the corner. Getting unsteadily to his feet John chased after her. He had to know what she knew.
He had only taken a few steps before he was back in Maylon's memory. Looking back over his shoulder, he could see the others staring at him, but he knew this was important and so he followed, leaving the others behind.
The woman led him to a small building on the outskirts of town and placed her hand on a pad on the wall next to the door, which opened under her touch and John followed her inside only to come up short against the now-closed door, the contact pulling him from the memory.
Whatever he needed to see was on the other side of the door and he had to figure out how to get inside.
"John, why did you run off like that? If you cannot remember things you should not be alone."
"The woman led me here. It's on the other side of this door, her weapon to kill the Wraith. Rodney, I need you to open this door. I know you can."
Rondey nodded and began to work at the door but fifteen minutes later he threw up his hands in defeat. "I can't get it. I mean, there is some kinda code that I have never seen before."
John slapped his hand on the pad as the feeling of needing to get inside the door increased. "How hard can it be? She just placed her palm on the door and it opened-"
To everyone's surprise that is just what happened.
John stepped inside followed by the others. The room was large and filled with many machines, some looking half-finished, others completed. John wondered just how they would din the one the woman planned to show Maylon.
"It's over here, silly. Come, I will show you." The woman returned and led John across the floorto a computer panel where she called up a set of schematics. Then she looked over at John. "We have wait a long time for you, John Sheppard. Do not let us down."
John stared down at the display and blinked. Everything was back, his memories had returned and Maylon's were gone except for the last few things they needed John to know.
Under his hand the console had come to life and what was shown there amazed even him.
Rodney came up behind him. "So what did you find?" Then a bad word slipped out of his mouth as he stared. "You're kidding me? Five Aurora class ships sit under this place and the material and everything needed to build more. Why didn't they use them?"
"The Ancient gene. They didn't have enough people to access them. They found this place and the technology to build them, but they couldn't use them. Somehow they knew we'd- I'd come and find them. They left them here for me."
Rodney smiled. "Well, let's get them back to Atlantis; it's time we had the upper hand."
John nodded but he wasn't looking at Rodney, but at the ghostly form of Jayla. "Do what we could not. The time is at hand for the Wraith's reign of terror to end. Do not betray our sacrifice. We died that you might free us all," she said.
And then she was gone and John hoped he'd be able to do her proud and finish her work.