Slipstream III: Atlantian Interlude, Part One
cat_latin , ruinsofmysanity and Vega
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Set in late season 2 of SGA
Summary: Marie Susan, grad student and self aware Mary Sue, found herself drawn accidentally into the worlds of fiction. Armed with the powers of a vampire, and the skills of a wizard, Marie must use all her knowledge of pop culture to find her way home again. But what exactly does the trauma of being a Mary Sue do to someone who is real, someone who reacts as a non-fiction being would? The answer is... a lot. And little of it good.
But now that Marie has accepted the fact that she will never be 'normal' again, she is searching for the one person who could possibly understand what it means to be out of time, out of reality, and out of your mind... her son.
Warnings: Discussions of past sexual and emotional abuse; bloodplay, and mild kink.
Previous Parts and essays available on my blog.
"StarGate", "Stargate: SG-1", "StarGate: Atlantis" and all associated characters and concepts are property of MGM Studios. This fiction is for entertainment purposes only. No profit is being derived from this work. "The Little Prince" and all associated characters and concepts are property of Austin Saint-Exupery.
"Slipstream", Marie, and all related concepts are copyright of Vega © 2006
"Come and play with me," the little prince proposed. "I am feeling sad."
"I can't play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."
Doctor Rodney McKay, PhD., PhD settled deeper into the brush he was hidden in, and cursed.
He cursed the Pegasus Galaxy, for being unpredictable and weird.
He cursed all pre-industrial societies, both past and present, including, but not limited to, the Tunarians, who were currently pursuing them across this godforsaken, totally-lacking-in-Ancient-technology landscape, but most of all, he cursed the owner of the dark, spiky hair he could just make out over the top of the neighboring bush.
Lt. Colonel John Sheppard peeked his head around the bush and squinted at the sky. Once again, Sheppard had smiled the wrong way at the chieftain's daughter, and now they were all running for their lives. Rodney wanted to throw something at him.
Only one thing could make this worse, and the universe, as if hearing Rodney's thoughts, supplied him with it.
Rodney heard the whine of Wraith darts approaching.
Rodney tapped his radio, forgetting of course that his radio had been taken away by the Neanderthals chasing them, and so accidentally jammed his finger into his ear. "Ouch," he hissed under his breath. Craning his head in the opposite direction, he adjusted his sweaty grip on his Beretta and whispered across the clearing to another bush: "Do you hear that?"
The bush replied, in Teyla's voice, "Yes, Rodney."
Another bush gave forth Ronon's familiar grunt, and the whir of his blaster powering up to kill.
Rodney cursed one more time for good measure, and hissed, "Sheppard!"
"I'm thinking, I'm thinking!" Sheppard said, but it must have been hard for him, through all that hair gel, and with Wraith Darts starting to speckle the sky overhead like carrion crows on the horizon, and a whole tribe of angry natives rapidly gaining on their six.
That's when the flash of colorless light happened.
Rodney resisted the urge to scrub at his eyes with the heels of his hands, because, hey, filled with gun, and instead blinked a few times. When the blinking was over and the light had faded a little, it was quickly followed by the delayed crack of a tiny sonic boom.
A little one.
Just enough to confuse him for a moment. Long enough to allow the Tunarians to get closer. And the Darts.
Rodney stifled a moan. His other three companions in the brush were, of course, silent.
"Huh," he heard another voice say.
How did a Tunarian get in front of us? Rodney thought, quickly bringing his shaky hand with the gun in it up to aim between her eyes.
Only she didn't look like a native. She wasn't wearing fur. Her hands were in her pockets, and the Tunarians thought pockets were bucket seats for evil spirits, or something. This girl was wearing leather pants and a leather vest. She sported a hip and thigh holster with a rakish sexiness that would have made Sheppard jealous if they weren't hiding for their lives. She wore a knife and a long, slim cylinder of wood in the holster where a gun should be.
She also wore a look of complete and utter confusion.
And then, of course, the blue beam of light from the Dart that he hadn't quite forgotten about scooped her up. It swept to the side. Teyla dove out of the way, Ronan on her heels. Sheppard rolled, scrambled to his feet, and then was gone in another blue beam.
Rodney found he had one more curse left in him.
Then it got him, too.
Rodney woke when they dumped him on the floor.
Ouch.
Why never a nice divan?
A grunt to his left told him Sheppard had also been similarly dumped. A few screams down the hall told of their former pursuers, the Tunarians, being cocooned after having been just culled. Horrifying. There was no sign of Teyla and Ronon. Rodney could only hope that they escaped the culling beams.
And the strange girl in leather, where was she?
"From which world do you come?" hissed a sibilant, oily, darkly-female voice, and Sheppard was going to be pissed if another Wraith Queen forced him to his knees.
Only this particular Wraith Queen (white hair, this time; good thing, too, it was getting hard to tell them apart,) was not, in fact, speaking to Sheppard. Nor to Rodney, who was trying to eavesdrop as unobtrusively as possible.
The girl from the flash of light was standing completely and eerily still in front of the Queen, her reddish hair darkened to a strange bloody color in the bizarre fluorescents of the Hive Ship. Rodney was just far enough behind the girl – young woman, he amended, looking at the round of her hip in the leather (wow), that the Queen did not see him awaken, nor see him reach slowly for the Beretta in his hip holster...which the Wraith drones had taken away.
Damn.
He could, however, also see a sliver of the young woman's face, the length of her scarred neck. There was a sort of strange, bemused smile where the look of sheer terror ought to be. What, had she never seen a Wraith before?
"Answer me!" the Queen demanded.
The young woman arched an eyebrow and cocked her head ever so slightly to the side.
"Very well!" the Queen hissed, and thrust her palm against the woman's chest.
"No!" Rodney screamed, snapping upright at the waist like a hinge. Beside him, Sheppard echoed his motion.
The young woman watched the hand descend and did not jump back. Instead, she turned her eyes briefly to Rodney – a bright blue that was almost violet, he noted – then down at the hand. The fingers against her chest twitched once. She lifted her head to follow the line of the Queen's arm up to her face.
The Queen made a queer, almost nauseated face, and drew back quickly, clutching her wrist.
The young woman lifted a dainty finger, disgust clear on her face, and pulled away the flap of ripped fabric that had once been her button-down blouse. It gave Rodney a spectacular view of her cleavage and of the gaping, white wound in her chest that was not bleeding.
Well, now. That was new.
The Queen fell back a few steps, spitting and hissing between her shark-like teeth. "What are you?!" she shrieked, and Rodney suddenly liked this Showed-Up-In-A-Flash-Woman very much.
The Flash Woman lowered her eyes and frowned at the wound. And then she smiled.
It was not a pleasant smile.
It was the kind of smile that made goose bumps jump out on flesh. It was the kind of smile that looked like fingernails on a blackboard sounded. It was the kind of smile that made you want to hide under the bed for the next million years or so and pray to whomever would listen that the chainsaw-wielding, multiple murderer would find you first.
It was the kind of smile that the Wraith had.
It was the kind of smile that Rodney was very much glad was not aimed at him.
Beside Rodney, Sheppard said, "Huh."
The next movement was too fast to see, but it ended with the Flash Woman holding her arm straight out, as if she had socked someone, and the Wraith Queen curled up on the far side of the hall, holding a bloodied nose.
Oh, Rodney really liked this girl.
The Wraith Queen screamed in outrage, and the guards ringing the room surged in on the strange woman in leather, who could apparently survive being fed on. For a moment, she was lost under a sea of white hair and blue arms. The guards were still beating on each other when she shot out from between the splayed legs of one.
Sheppard sprang to his feet. "Find us a way off the ship!" he snarled at Rodney. Rodney darted towards a control panel on the wall, while Sheppard waded into the brawl in the center of the room.
Rodney feverishly tore apart and rewired the control panel to give him access to the central computer system. He'd need--
"Heads up!" Sheppard shouted, and the severed hand of a felled Wraith struck the floor wetly at his feet. Rodney swallowed down his nausea and picked it up. After the third time Rodney had gotten his team off a fully-operational Hive ship, the Wraith had gotten smarter, connecting their already organic technology to their own genetics, similar to the Ancients. So for a few of the more delicate adjustments, Rodney needed a hand. Literally. Rodney could both panic and multitask in the midst of battle, so he tried to observe the fight with one eye as he worked.
At first it seemed as if the woman was going to get creamed, but every time a Wraith tried to feed on her, she either broke its hand, shoved it away, or it ran off screaming. Sheppard picked up a discarded stunner and started blasting from the sidelines.
The Flash Woman barely spared him a grateful glance as the Wraith fell around her. She had no time. One was coming up just on the outside of her peripheral, and Sheppard aimed, but the creature was fast and just as he fired the Wraith swiped its claws down her side.
She screamed, a high, hissing snarl of a wounded veloceraptor, and swatted him away. The Wraith went flying, and Sheppard side-stepped it neatly. The tell-tale crunch when it landed informed him that the Wraith wouldn't be getting back up any time soon. Or, you know, ever.
Now the woman fought. The knife in her holster was too far away to do her any good, as the Wraith drones were keeping her hands too busy. With a gesture Rodney wasn't sure he entirely caught, she pressed her palm to her seeping wounds and suddenly had a handful of bloody red, brightly glittering dagger darts.
Rodney closed the control panel, and came up cautiously beside Sheppard. "Who's winning?"
"Not sure. Aren't you supposed to be getting us off?"
"I set the ship on a collision course with an uninhabited continent of the island. Then set the self destruct. We just have to grab a Dart and get out of here."
"And grab her," John said. "And the Tunarians."
"Yes, yes, yes," Rodney said, "Use the culling beam, let's go."
Rodney was about to say more, but suddenly one of the Flash Woman's bright red darts was sticking out of his arm.
Guess it was hard to have perfect aim in the midst of a pack of muscle-bound smurfs.
"Oh, oh, ow," he said. The ship shuddered and both men stumbled to the side, thrown off balance as the inertial dampeners started to fail.
"Don't move," Sheppard hissed, and wrapped his hand around the sharp dart. The moment he did, it dissolved, dripping through his fingers and staining his hand.
"What did you do?" Rodney asked.
"Nothing, it just melted." He lifted his hand to his nose and sniffed once. "It's blood."
Both men turned to look at the Flash Woman.
She was locked, hand-to-hand, with the Wraith Queen.
"We have to--" Rodney began, but the ship shivered again, dangerously, pitching them into a wall.
"She's fine!" John said, heading now for the door. "We need to get a Dart, first. We'll come back for her."
Another high pitched hissing roar rent the air, and Rodney whirled around in time to see the Wraith Queen pulling her arm back through the bloody hole torn in the Flash Woman's stomach.
"No!" Rodney yelled. But it was too late.
Another useful ally, gone just like that. He would have at least liked to know why the Wraith couldn't drain her life.
Goddamned Wraith.
The Queen grinned in triumph, gloating over her fallen prey.
The last thing Rodney saw as Sheppard dragged him out of the hall, was the Flash Woman' eyes burn a hot, bestial golden as she fell, her last gaze imploring him to run.
Back in the 'Gate room, surrounded by Ronon and Teyla (thank god) and the now grateful Tunarians, and catching his breath, Ronon pointed at something on John's back and asked, "What's that?"
The guns of every military in the room were suddenly aimed at Sheppard. Sheppard stood stock still and put his hands out slightly.
"What's what?" He asked slowly.
Poor guy, Rodney thought. He knew Sheppard well, and could tell the man was praying very very hard that it wasn't an Iratus bug trying to burrow into the side of his neck. Rodney should reassure him it wasn't, but he was still pissed over the Tunarian incident.
"It... it looks like a bat, sir," one of the marines offered. "Hanging on your vest."
Now Sheppard twitched. He shuddered all over and got the vest off his shoulders as fast as possible. He dropped it to the floor and jumped away in a single, fluid motion, with a tiny yelp worthy of a ten year old girl.
"For god's sake, Colonel, it's just a tiny wee bat!" Carson said from somewhere near the staircase, and pushed his way through the marines and their guns to kneel beside John's discarded vest. He opened the garment carefully, revealing a small, black, snub-nosed rodent. Its body was expanding and shrinking rapidly, heart pattering in fright. "A vampire bat, looks like," Carson added.
Sheppard clamped his hands over his neck, checking for bloody patches. Rodney stifled a snicker. Oh, this was too good.
"It wouldn't have bit you," Rodney scoffed, folding his arms imperiously.
Wait a second. Rodney's giant brain sorted the events of the last hour into a neat list.
Flash of light. Sonic boom. Strangely attractive, mysterious red haired woman. Impervious to Wraith attack. Flashing eyes. Vampire bat. Blood.
He shouted, "Be right back!" and took off up the stairs and out of the 'Gate room, pelting in the direction of his office.
Data in hand, Rodney went and found Carson and Sheppard in the infirmary.
He resisted the urge to burst in and immediately bellow out his findings, choosing instead to take in the scene in the exam room. Sheppard's fear and revulsion of a tiny, furry, winged rodent was equal parts amusing and fascinating.
And it was only going to get more amusing.
Sheppard was sitting on a nearby bed getting his post-mission exam from Dr. Biro as Carson tended to the bat.
"Aw, Carson, no, don't touch it!"
But Carson wasn't listening. He was cuddling the creature in his palm and crooning softly to it. "Don't be afraid, love," he told it. "The Colonel's just a 'fraidy cat."
"Am not," John muttered darkly.
The marine standing by was trying hard not to smile.
The tiny vampire bat was sitting on Carson's hand, lapping blood out of a dish balanced on the Scot's fingers. Sheppard looked away and shuddered.
"It's tamed, I think," Carson said. He reached up and stroked the bat's fuzzy head, right between its ears. It made a sort of crooning sound. "May have been some lad's pet, got scooped up with the cull."
"Er, yeah," Sheppard said, without much feeling. "Poor thing."
"Don't like bats?" Carson asked.
"Don't like vampires," Sheppard corrected. "Too much like Wraith."
"Aye, there's a point," Carson admitted. "But this wee thing could never take enough blood to hurt you."
"Still," Sheppard said, "fangs."
"Aye," Carson said again, and set aside the dish. The bat followed it with longing eyes, and cut a calculated glance at Sheppard that was far too intelligent to be merely animal. Rodney smirked, because, as usual, he knew everything.
"There's something weird about that thing," Sheppard said. "Something not right."
Carson laughed. "I didn't think you'd be the sort to get the jeebies from a small critter."
"It's the beady eyes," Sheppard said, shooting a challenging glare at the animal. Which, to Rodney's delight, it shot right back. "I don't like hamsters or rats, either," Sheppard mumbled.
The bat shot out of Carson's hand before the doctor was able to close his fingers around it. It swooped once at Sheppard's face, a wide, leisurely arc that clearly broadcasted the fact that did the bat wish to scratch his eyes out, it could have. Oh, yes, Rodney just might be in love.
Sheppard ducked, covered his hair, and peered between his elbows. The bat flew up to the top shelf of the nearest supply cabinet, and hung itself upside down.
"Now, that," Sheppard said, pointing an accusing finger, "That is damned unnatural."
Rodney couldn't wait any longer. He stood a little straighter in the doorway and put on his best look of smug triumph. "Actually," he said, "she claims it's very relaxing."
Sheppard straightened, and he and Carson turned to look at Rodney.
"She?" John asked.
"It's female," Rodney clarified.
Sheppard rolled his eyes.
Carson gave Rodney a fish eyed glance that clearly said, 'Did you get yourself concussed and forgot to come in and tell me?' "You do realize, Rodney, that it is a bat, and therefore couldna say anything of the sort?
"Were it a real bat," Rodney said, shutting the curtains around the exam area, and setting down his data pad, "I would say that you were right." Carson and Sheppard exchanged a glance. Rodney stopped right under the bat and said directly to it, "But you're not a real bat, are you, Ms. Marie Susan Brooke?"
The bat made a sort of squeaking sound, ruffled its wings once, and fell. Rodney made no move to catch it. Carson started to dive, but abruptly stopped.
Where the bat once was, stood the Flash Woman, a rueful grin on her face and a hand on her hip. Her clothes were torn and blemished, a wide circle ringed with the rusty stain of dried blood revealing a tantalizing glimpse of her belly button, but she was clearly not dead.
"Busted," she said.
Beside Sheppard, who had grabbed and aimed his gun at her as soon as humanly possible, Carson was sputtering.
"But... how... who... how?!"
The Flash Woman, Marie, raised an eyebrow at Rodney. "That's what I'd like to know. How did you know it was me?"
Rodney gestured in the vague vicinity of her eyes. "When they flashed. Back on the ship."
"Ah," Marie said softly.
Rodney moved his hand to flap in near his own head, now. "Something twigged. I just needed a second to parse it out, without something trying to kill me. I went back over SG-1's mission reports. Sam kept very detailed notes. So did the guys in the Trust."
Marie's other eyebrow rose to join the first. "You got your hands on the Trust's paperwork on me? I'm impressed."
Rodney preened. "Nobody's database is as secure as they think it is. So, can I see it?"
"Rodney!" Sheppard hissed, because although he had not followed the last three minutes worth of conversation, he had caught what he thought was bad pick-up line.
Rodney glared at Sheppard over his shoulder. "Whaaaat?"
Sheppard made a cutting motion near his neck. "I don't think that's entirely appropriate."
Marie laughed, a high, silvery sound that wasn't at all human and made Rodney's short hairs jump to attention. From her hip holster she withdrew a long, tapered cylinder of cherry wood. It gleamed black in the overhead lights.
"I assume he meant this," she said. "I figured your eyes would go straight for my wand."
"Like, as in a magic wand?" Carson asked, mouth finally having caught up with his brain.
"Yup," she said.
"Relax, Kirk," Rodney muttered. "As if I would come onto Ms. Brooke in front of you." Sheppard rolled his eyes.
"You can call me Marie. And I don't think Rodney's my type."
Now it was Rodney who was insulted. "Why not?" he demanded.
Marie grinned, that same Wraith grin again, but lower this time in voltage. "I bite."
Rodney felt the blood leave his face. "Ah, that, yes. No, well, I don't think…"
"You... bite..." Carson echoed, clearly confused as to why this fact was at all worth a grin.
Rodney was clearly surrounded by idiots. "What, you haven't put two and seven together yet? Marie is a vampire."
Rodney noted that Sheppard was sitting as far away from Marie as he possibly could while still being close enough to hear what was going on. Honestly, the list of the man's phobias was growing exponentially.
"...but I don't understand," Carson was saying, standing at the desk and doing a little shuffling foot dance of impatience. He was peering through a magnifier at a Petri dish of the tiniest drops of Marie's blood at the same time, which sort of gave him the appearance of needing the potty. "That doesn't explain how she could crystallize the blood into a dart, as you say."
Rodney fussed over his laptop made indistinct sounds. This was genetics, meaning it was voodoo and not real science. He wanted to take apart that wand, and was sure he'd be told no.
Marie, sitting on the desk beside Carson, turned in his direction, and with a subtle head twitch and a narrowing of her unnaturally bright eyes, did... something.
Something that made Carson yelp and take ten giant steps backwards. "Holy Mary Mother of Christ!" Carson shouted. He seemed to stop just short of crossing himself.
Sheppard had his gun out of his thigh holster and pressing against Marie's temple before Rodney could even take in the breath to say, "What?"
"Whatever you're doing, stop," John hissed, finger squeezing gently on the trigger.
Marie stopped. The tension fell out of her posture and her eyes widened. She turned her head slowly, until the mouth of the gun bumped her nose. She grinned innocently.
Carson took those ten steps back towards the desk rather more shakily than he had taken them away, and peered back into the eyepiece.
"The cells aren't spiky anymore," he whispered.
Now that was interesting. "Oooo. Do it again!" Rodney crooned and shoved Carson out of the way to get a look at the blood sample.
"Do what?" a new voice asked from the door of Carson's office, and three sets of eyes turned to take in Dr. Weir, hands crossed over her chest in a clear 'not happy' stance. Rodney spared her a quick glance and waved half-heartedly in what might have been a greeting or might have been an order to shut up. His eyes were glued to the Petri dish.
The sudden chill at his back was most likely Weir's look becoming 'not-happier.' He looked up.
"Who is this?" Weir asked slowly, as her eyes roamed over Marie, sitting on the edge of the desk, "Why is she in your office, Carson, and why does Colonel Sheppard have his gun aimed at her head?"
Carson smiled nervously and rubbed the palms of his hands on his lab coat. "Hello, Elizabeth. It's a... it's a long story."
On the desk, Marie just snorted.