A DIFFERENT KIND OF HERO
by
...... SICKLE SWORD ......
Spoilers: Before I sleep (minor), Trinity.
Synopsis: Not everyone was born to save the world. Some just have to make sure they won't destroy it. The true story of Trinity. (Rodney- centric)
Pairings: implied McShep and McWeir. All very vague. Blink and you'll miss it.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters and am not making money from using them.
A/N: A different take on trinity. I hope you'll like it. Warning: this fic wasn't Beta-ed. All mistakes are therefore mine.
Sorry.
Now a revised version, hopefully with fewer mistakes.
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.- - James Branch Caball
--o0o--
First meeting: 2008
"You are not going crazy." That's the first thing I tell him, probably because it is the most important one. He has to trust me, trust himself. This is the only way for this to ever work and reality to become different. Better. He has to know, no, scratch that- to believe- in what I am saying. Or else…
"Of course I'm not" he says and it sounds way too defensive for it to be the truth. I don't blame him. He always feared that one day he will cross that final line between being a genius and a madman. He's afraid that it's lurking in his genes, being like his father- seeing things others could not, fighting underwater demons and hearing cries of help from people long gone. No medication has ever helped those symptoms, they came in waves. And one day his father simply took the gun he always had by the bed and shot himself in the head. Twice.
He wrote in his will that the angels told him to do it. He never forgave his father for that. Me neither. I just had more time contemplating things.
"I can prove it" I say and hope that it's the truth. That I have not forgotten, that I will not make a mistake. There's too much on stake. "In about. . . ." I look at the big grey clock in his room, calculating. ". . 2 minutes, Radek will come in and tell you that the equation you gave him before Carson made you to bed should work."
"Of course it will. Is this your way of trying to convince me that you're real?" he asks and I can hear the underlined 'this is so not working' in his voice. But also the confidence, remembering that I have being like that as well. Once.
Looking more closely I can see that his face in less marked with wrinkles and his smile is less bitter. It is strange to see one's self as he once was- and to remember.
"Look, I really don't have much time" I steal a glance to the clock. 1 minute and 30 seconds. It should be enough. Barely. "You need to tell him that you were wrong and to abort everything."
"Are you crazy! It will work and I am going to win my Nobel price"
"This is much bigger than a damn price!" I shout. I know how much recognition means to him, for it used to mean this much to me as well. We are the same person, after all. Seeing everyone gets promoted and having friends, family and good life, always counting on me to be there to fix the pieces when they fall apart.
And they always do.
And after I fix them- it always went unnoticed. It was my job to save everyone. This is what I got paid for. I yearend for that non- existent gratitude. I yearned for appreciation.
I know better now. Sometimes recognition doesn't mean a thing in the end of the day.
"I know this will work. You can't stop me." Oh, but I can. That's the essence of everything, isn't it? And I pity him for what he will do and I know that it will be hard. Maybe even a harder task than anything I have encountered. I was only challenged to fight monsters; he has himself as a foe.
"Listen," I exhale calming breathes. "I know all of this is hard to believe but..."
"Not really" the smug shmuck interrupts. I refuse to believe this was me once. I surely had more common sense. And more tact. Then he continues: "we've met time machine phenomena before"
"Elizabeth" I whisper and he nods. God, it's being ages since I thought about her other self. Or about her, for that matter. Too many waters came between us, and distance, well, it's stronger than friendship.
1 minute and 10 seconds.
I return to my mantra. "So will you do it?"
"No! This could be an important breakthrough! We'll be able to kill the Wraith once and for all!"
"The Wraith won't matter, don't you understand?" Nothing will matter after figuring this up.
"You say it in a good way, right?" he asks but even while his tone is his usual arrogant one I can see his eyes waver. He's a smart man, after all. A genius. He can follow the dots. If it was such a good thing I wouldn't have come to warn him not to do it. Time travel is a tricky thing. A dangerous thing. We always understood that. It takes a one really drastic change for the worse to make me willing to risk that.
So instead of answering his question directly, I say instead "do you remember when Jeanie wanted me… us, to build a lightening system for her dollhouse? We did it and it worked great but after a while it tempered with the electricity and caught fire."
"Mom went ballistic." He grins but I can see that he understands the point.
Good.
30 seconds left.
"It was soo not worth it." Now I smile and remember how I took it so hard back then when she yelled at me, I even cried. I think. I'd give anything to see her being mad at me just one more time.
"So is it, like, a metaphor?" he tried to act innocent. If it was himself he was trying to fool it might have worked, but as it is- I recognize every one of his tricks. Heck, I invented half of them!
"I believe that if it was, it's safe to believe that you'll figure it out."
"Ha ha. Stop picking on my brains."
"Wouldn't dream of it. It's mine, too, remember?" I smile and then steal another glance.
15 seconds.
Shit.
"So will you do it?" I ask again, this time a bit desperately. He looks at me, studying my face. A thunder hits the sky and I, who purposely chose to be hidden in the shadows, become visible, the true horror coming to sight. His eyes travel to the scar above my right eye and the big matching gashes on my cheeks. I open my mouth to say comforting words but then see his eyes widening. My broken teeth frightened him. I forgot about them. But that's ok, I always thought better when my own health was on the line.
He should be the same.
"What happened to me?" he asks.
7 seconds.
"I can't answer that. Pray that you will never know."
He is silent for a second, a miracle, and then puts his hands over his face, covering it entirely. Trying to hide. His voice sounds muffled from within his hands, but the words are clear enough. "Why me? Here? Now?" and even while he asks I can tell that he really doesn't want to know.
But I know what this really all about. He really wanted to show them that he was right. That he truly is a genius and that he saved them all. I wanted the same, too. Only now there isn't a day that goes by that I prefer that I hadn't.
5 seconds.
"This is where all began. Earth was destroyed. No, don't ask. I will not tell you how. It doesn't matter. But this - - power source is the cause of everything. You've got to give it up"
3 seconds left. God, let it be enough.
". . .shut it down and burn your notes. Nobody needs to ever know how to fix this thing. Least of all us."
2 seconds ...
"Please. I'm not sure I can give it up"
1...
"You must. There's no other way"
"I CAN'T!"
A loud knock is heard on the door. "Rodney, are you decent?" this is the unmistakable accent of Dr. Zelenka.
He stares at me and I can see that he is torn from the inside, wanting to hear the praise he deserves, to see the eyes of millions adoring him. Magazines and newspapers holding his name. Friends and loved ones cheering for him, telling him that he's great. He's an asset, needed. Liked.
"Why come to me, why not Elizabeth or the Colonel and persuade them?" he's saying in a low voice, defeated.
"Because we both know that you're the only one you'll listen to." I smirk and pat him on the shoulder. This is weird. I never thought I was that pudgy.
"Atlantis?" he whispers and there was so much hope unfolded in that single word.
"I'm sorry." And I am. I will always be.
Sometimes, when I close his eyes I can still see the ocean stretched all around me, and sometimes, when I forget where I am, I can also smell it. I dream of freedom, every once in a while, when I allow myself to sleep. And the dreams are always colorless and vague, as if my subconscious doesn't believe that any of this is real either. As if my whole body and being is rejecting the idea that I'm not there anymore. And that I'm really alone.
"It should have saved it!" he's angry. Not about me or himself, but on the world.
He's right. The vacuum technology should have saved Atlantis. This was why it was operated in the first place. And every dream of greatness either of us has ever dreamed of always consisted a free and safe Atlantis.
"Rodney! Open up!" Zelenka, again. This time he sounds a bit hysteric. Maybe he hears our voices from the other side of the door and thinks that I… Rodney, went crazy. Or maybe he's afraid because Rodney didn't answer for so long. The Atlantian doors should be soundproof to things their habitants don't want others to hear, after all.
I stare at his blue eyes, the same eyes I posses and that could never lie, and I pray that he will listen to me. I can see the images of glory crumbling, turning to ashes as they fly away from him forever, and he averts his eyes away from mine, to the door and then toward me again. Then exhales deeply and shouts with fake- grogginess "In a minute."
I smile sadly and see him returning the same smile. He's a better man than I could ever be, I suddenly realize and though this is weird to think about my younger self like that- I'm proud in him.
I pray that he will never become me.
So I close my eyes and disappear, hoping that at least the gift I left him earlier at the second drawer will comfort him from time to time. It was my Nobel Prize for Physics and I know that even though he will not get it this time around, he probably deserves it more than I ever did. After all, all I did was figuring a mass- murder weapon up. This is because of this, of me, that we have become cocky and over- confident and little by little we came to think of ourselves as the rulers of the universe. Gods. We were indestructible, after all. We destroyed the Wraith. We banished the Genii and imprisoned any who stood in our way. We built new machines and weapons based on that time- space technology, and forced the entire galaxy on their knees. Tor they became dependant on us. And one day, just like that, we ran out of power and the raging slaves massacred us to our death.
I am the only one left. Because I hid and was too weak to fight. I am no hero; while my friend fought for their lives I stayed safe and warm and dry. And alive.
I hid in that place for 2 years; it was only after I didn't hear ay sound anymore for a long time that I felt safe enough to abandon my hideout. But then I found out that I am alone. There was no else left.
From their archives I found out that everyone died by either hands of murderers or because now that we didn't have the energy no one had a clue how to survive.
I searched for survivors for 2 months but soon gave up and when I found the time machine, and I suddenly had a real purpose. In that exact moment, I suddenly knew what I was going to do. I lit it by batteries no one thought of using, they were simply lying scattered on the ground.
In the first time I tried I got electrocuted and all my teeth fell and broke.
The second time was a success. Or so I hope.
Because even though I have once won a prestigious prize, all I really did was to end the world. I can only hope that the me who didn't won the Noble Prize- will save it.
The second meeting: 2004
I thought it would be harder to blend in but I was probably right when I assumed that most of the time people ignored me. For if they hadn't, they would have surely sensed the difference, they'd see the years.
I guess that for the first time I have to bless the fact that I am just one face in the crowd.
"Hi!" John is sitting on the balcony, his face to the ocean. "What's on your mind?"
"I need you to not let anyone return to Doranda."
I must have shocked him in those words because he almost falls down. I don't blame him for reacting like that. I remember how I used to be excited about it. As if it was a good thing. As if it could end all of our suffering.
What did I really know?
The colonel turns around and I can see his eyes becoming only little slits, like when he's suspicious about something but can't put a finger about what it really is, or wondering about the best way to hull me to Carson to check that I didn't get hit in the head or something.
He comes closer, a bit aggressively, but then halts. "What happened to your face?"
Oh. I forgot about that for a minute. I touch my crooked nose self- consciously, trying to avoid giving the same treatment to the numerous wrinkles that lately appeared around my eyes.
"I. .. ." I stutter, not really sure how to explain everything, forgetting entirely the speech I made earlier especially for this case. It's just . . . it's too much. To see him alive. I didn't expect it to be that hard. I look at him, and my fear is growing. He must believe me. He has to stop all of that. He's the only one who can. The only one I ever trusted. The only one I trust now. ". . . I need you to not let anyone return to Doranda."
"You said that already. I just still don't understand who you are." He says forcefully and I can't help but to smile when his hand is searching behind his boot for the concealed weapon only to remember that he took it out earlier. He is defenseless now, at my merci.
"I'm. . . Rodney. In a sense. I came from 2020."
"I guess it's not a good year" he tried to keep his tone neutral. I almost adore him. He almost succeeds.
"No. But it can be changed. That's why I need your help."
"Ok. . ." he's still guarded but he's listening. It's a beginning. He starts to pace really slowly, though. Probably nerves. "What you want me to do?"
"I already told you that!"
"Hey, no need to panic. It's ok" he tried to be reassuring but really sucks at this. It's usually Telya's job, and from a good reason. I am about to tell him that when I realize that he's not pacing. He's going to the security alarm.
I must not be detected.
"Stop where you are!" I order and hear my heart beats wildly as I see him startled and frown. He thought he could fool me. Me, who knows him better than anyone else in the world; both the living and the dead. But he must trust me, he must understand. I didn't come all this way just to fail now.
"Look... we can talk about it." He tried reasoning and his voice takes that annoying composed and calm tone. This is when I realize why.
"Are you afraid of me?" I taunt and step forward, trying not to burst a rib from all that pent up laughter. He's afraid of me. ME. I am only trying o save him.
"Yes." At least he's honest. I don't think I can handle more lies.
"Good. That means you understand this is important."
"I still didn't say I believe you"
"Come on, John!" I growl in frustration and then realize it was the wrong thing to say. I haven't called him John yet; this level of trust is yet to be earned. Yet I ask it from him nevertheless. He's the only one I can ask it from. "You have to trust me."
"Please forgive me if I have some trusting issues right now."
"I don't have time for your issues, alright?" I cry out, this time desperation seeps to my voice. I have to convince him to stop it. I simply have to. And I will.
The alternative is unthinkable.
Deciding to throw all caution out of the window, this is my time to sound soothing. "Listen, in the first time I'll try to power the ancient weapon, a man will lose his life. Collins. We won't be able to contaminate the energy. It doesn't have to happen. You can save this man's life. Please." I touch his hand carefully, searching for the warmth his touch always offered.
He flinches. "Something is telling me this is not because of Collins' life that you took this journey in time. Don't lie to me... McKay."
He hesitates if to call me with the name he gave his friend and in the end he does. I decide that this means I must have won a battle I didn't even know I was fighting.
He asks me not to lie to him. Funny, that's what my John always asked. And I could never lie to him. I could never live the disappointment I'd see in his eyes if I lied, so I chose not to.
I owe him the truth. "You're right. It's not. It's not even about saving me, who would have believed? Please, do it. If you ever wanted to be the hero, to save the world - save it!" because the world will be soon coming to its end. Again.
The other me's face came to haunt me long after he was gone. His toothless smile and the doom in his eyes. I wondered what must have happened to make me someone who would fight to give a chance to the world. A hero of a sort. As I was never a hero, my entire life.
I didn't know back then that I was about to find out.
"What happened?" he asks in a soft voice and I remember that HE never told me what happened in his world, and the speculations, the fear and the growing paranoia almost destroyed me brick by living brick. I couldn't survive seeing it doing he same to him. Not to him. But I also couldn't tell him no to his face.
He shouldn't want to know.
But he once told me I'd always want to know the truth, Rod. No matter how hard it can be. We can win it together if you'd only tell me. You know you can't carry all that burden alone, even in that universe- size brain of yours.
So I told him. Everything that happened. At first he didn't believe me but after I showed him the Nobel Prize that the other me left in the drawer, he looked at me square in the eye and said: I'm sorry. I should have believed you.
And he did. From that day on, he believed to me and in me in ways I'm not even sure I would have done. He was always there. Because you saved the world, he once told me. You deserve a consolation prize.
He considered himself the award that the world refused to give me.
I told him everything and in turn, he told me everything about himself as well. The skeletons, the fears, the lies. He let me in and wasn't afraid from anything that I told him, even in the end when I killed him, he understood.
Yes. I owe him the truth.
"In about 4 years we'll come close to finding a way to make the weapon work. We were one equation short of figuring it out. But we never could. Then the government went public and ordered all efforts to be concentrated on the weapon. Health, welfare and food issues were thrown aside, just until we will figure it out. Or so we were told. We believed that and couldn't see that there was something wrong.
We abandoned everything else and it destroyed us, John. When the Wraith came we couldn't defend ourselves. We fled from the site back to Earth.
In about 2018 the Wraith invaded Earth, in their hands the now fixed weapon. We never destroyed it when we left. We couldn't. We worshipped it like… a god. You must never let anyone go back there and power it up."
He stays quiet for a moment. Thinking. It always looked like a mini miracle when he thought; you could always see the wheels turning in his brain. Then he looked as if he came into a decision. "And you're sure that the Wraith will leave it alone if we will?"
"I don't know." I confess. In my time, it was us who alerted the Wraith to the weapon's existence but who can tell if they wouldn't have reached there in time anyway? "But they did leave it for 10,000 years until we powered it up"
"They were also asleep." he made a good point. I don't know what to tell him.
"Everything has to be better than the alternative. Just make sure to destroy that weapon. But never power it up. It attracts the Wraith."
He looks at me and I can see that he finally understands the gravity of the situation.
I silently thank him, without a voice, through my gaze. Hoping he'd understand. I would never want another me to go through all of that again. But just in case, I give him the Nobel Prize certificate the other- me gave me. On the back there are instructions of how to reach the time machine in case everything went wrong again.
But I don't think it will this time. They will destroy the weapon and live happily ever after without it. The life I should have lived if it wasn't of that thing. And most importantly- I didn't make the mistake the other me has made. I wasn't strong enough to know how to make the weapon work and not to tell anyone. I told John in the end, just in case I one day forget, and I deluded myself that then I could breathe more freely.
It was the wrong thing to do.
John couldn't stand aside and watch as our world fell apart just for the sake of one equation, one that he knew and that he wanted to give them. He even said that I could tell it so I could be the hero of the story, even though it was me who threw them off the right way every time they came close. I told him he mustn't do it. That it will destroy the world.
He just laughed and said that the world is in ruins already. And that I have to trust him that he knows what he's doing.
I couldn't. I was too afraid from what might happen. From what I already envisioned happened in my future self's face, and in haunted me.
I killed him.
For many years I was put in prison, where I belonged, far away from human civilization and there, slowly, I died from within. But the irony about it was that this was why I survived when all else are now long gone.
So now that I know where it all became wrong I also know how to fix this. Because if I was told to quit before I've found the solution- I would have listened. Probably. And to him, I would have listened for sure. I needed his trust more than anything else, and I wouldn't have risked that. Not for anything. I needed the recognition the mob could give me, but more than that- I needed his recognition.
More than I wanted to save the world, sometimes. In the end, it wasn't enough.
So if I wouldn't have come back to the ancient's device, I wouldn't have being so intrigued to find out how to make it work. It wouldn't have killed me to know it and to always fear to let it slip, I wouldn't have isolated myself, even from John, when he was still alive. So when the Wraith came, I couldn't concentrate on saving Atlantis as I should have. I was too afraid to say something. To open my mouth. Then I would have detected that the new signal that suddenly came to life that day were the fighting ships that till there slept in the belly of the city. I wouldn't have thought it was device- related.
Things would have being different then, if I wouldn't have deleted it, trying to save the world even as I could see it dying. I wouldn't have killed John later on, because he was braver than me.
None of this would have happened. I would have lived with a clearer consciousness if I hadn't gone back, if I'd never set foot on that cursed place and there's no way it is not cursed for this is essentially what destroyed my life. I am not the kind of person who blames others for his own misfortunes and mistakes. Fine, I am, but normally I know the fine line between my own responsibility and other's screw ups. Yet this is the device I blame for everything that happens. The facts speak for themselves.
If only I wouldn't have come to that place, the world would have being alive today.
"Please," I beg. "Trust me."
Third meeting: 2003
I wait for her in her room. It's an elegant room. Like her. On the walls her diplomas are hanged in great visual order and at the corner there are framed pictures of her and Simon, next to mine, Sheppard's, Teyla's and Ford's. Carson's here, too, I notice after a moment. She put her friends on her walls, she once told me, so she'd remember when things are becoming too hard for her what she's fighting for.
She has always being an awfully sentimental person. She always said the same applied on me.
The door is opened and she is standing near the doorframe. She doesn't see me yet because the light is closed but before reality will have to be revealed I can drink in her image just for a little while. She looks younger, as I expected her to be, but not as carefree as I remembered. Maybe she always had that guarded look in her eyes, like she's carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.
When I asked her about that... then, she smiled and said that she was like that even as a child. While normal parents tell their children to be more responsible, hers urged her to have some fun. I laughed, then, and said that my mom was similar.
She told me of her childhood and I told her of my youth dreams. About father, who lived in the lost kingdom of the ice while mom was the princess of the golden gardens. This is what I told everyone till my 11th birthday. I didn't care that people laughed at me that I, the rational boy, believed in those follies. They've never liked me. I never liked them, anyway.
When I told Elizabeth about that, she came closer to me and said that it was the past, people really like me now. And I felt the warmth spreading.
On my 11th birthday grandma joined mom and dad and became to be the bridge that untied the both kingdoms so that when I would come to the afterlife, I would be able to visit both. She told me right before she took the bridge's form that if I told anyone about her, the fairies would not let her fulfill her destiny.
So I stayed quiet and for a long time never told anyone about what grandma became after the ambulance took her. On my 12th birthday I stopped telling that to also to myself.
Elizabeth was the only person I ever told about this. She was also the first person I ever told about my father.
"Hey" I whisper, not wishing to scare her. It doesn't work. Her hand shoots to the lighting switch and she turns around in almost a combat mode.
"Rodney!" she exclaims and hurries to see if I'm alright. I must turn back from her touch, it's nor fair to her, I will be taking advantage. But I cannot force my body to comply.
"I'm fine" I whisper and lean further into her touch. To her doubtful, slightly ironic look, I only shrug. It doesn't really matter how I am. Not anymore. And to her- probably not yet.
"Who did this to you?" she asks but I can hear the other, realer question in her eyes 'or have you somehow done this to yourself?'
"It's nothing." I push her hand from my face and forcefully tear my body from hers. It's the only way I will ever be able to concentrate. And my mind has to be clear, for there are big issues afoot.
"come on, I can help" she says in that tone that asks me to trust her, and asking herself whether it's best to first handle it herself, or call Carson.
"Yeah, you can help. But not to me." God, I didn't mean this to sound so cryptic and desperate but I guess I simply am that desperate. She's my only chance.
"Ok, tell me what to do." She's humoring me. I know her body language better than she does. She wants to calm me down, to find out what happened, and then to fix me like she always does. She doesn't know that I am beyond fixing. But that's ok. That's all I need from her for now.
"I'm going to ask you to do something and I need you to do it without asking a thing, ok?"
"Rodney…"
"Ok?"
"Yeah." she looks genuine enough but I know her too well.
"I need you to promise me you'd do that."
"Come on. That's not fair. You can't expect me to promise doing something when I don't even know that I'm promising." She's furious. And scared.
But that's alright. I am frightened to death, too.
"You can. Trust me. This is all I'm asking." you ask and smile. Not because it's funny but this is what Sheppard told me the other me told him, and that made him do what he asked. Not because he trusted the older me, but because he trusted the me he knew. And gaining trust and asking for it, well, for me it's big.
I've never knew why John told me about my older self. Maybe he sensed that in time I would need to know that in order to change things again. I wanted to believe this is because he believed in me, and that's why he gave me the Nobel Prize. Telling me he knows I can figure the vacuum energy out but trusting me to hold myself from doing it. Trust is a delicate thing, once it's shattered it is hard to fix. And I've never wanted to destroy his trust in me. And anyway, he told me that many years after I could have done something to make a difference. The technology was out of my hands by then.
"I trust you. I promise." She looks at me and I want to hold her, to thank her in my whole body. I know she has questions but out of respect for me, and herself, she won't ask them. Elizabeth never broke a promise in her life.
"I'm going to give you a gate address. It's a place you must never visit."
She looks at my note and there's new understanding in her eyes. Suddenly all the missing dots are connecting and she remembers the SGC's experience. The General, a Colonel back then, gave them a note that asked that they would not to open the Stargate to a specific address, and here they were, alive, because the General's future self told them that. At least, until another place that must not be visited came to be and changed the course of history. The Arcturus project.
"I promise." she says again and I can finally breathe freely. Because I know that as long as she lives she will honor her promise.
A future when Earth is safe.
She looks at me and her gaze is as intense as ever, and oh- so familiar. Then she asks in voice that tries to be detached, tries to be calming but that beneath all the lies shivers; "can you at least tell me what happened?"
And you answer "No. You promised." and feel like that I can't look at her in the eyes anymore.
What's the point?
I can tell her about the world that exploded and the dust that even a decade later didn't disappear but stayed like a thick cloud, for aliens to remember and weep. Or of how the earth shook when the Wraith invaded, or how the Colonel struggled with the government to leave the vacuum- energy source alone. He begged for them to blow it up, and they wouldn't listen. I didn't listen. I didn't understand. And after he told me, I fought him because I thought he lost his mind. I put him in a mental hospital, for his own good. And when I found the truth, he was too far into the world of illusions to forgive me.
I can tell her of the guilt, how it cuts like a knife, or how a cut of a knife really feels like. How I helped the Colonel escape, built him a mighty bomb and sent him to his death in a suicidal mission to blow that thing up. He was discovered before it could work and was shot as a traitor without even a fair trial, and when my part became known I was sent to Siberia, again, and there I lived in a confined jail. Elizabeth came with me even though she could get away. I respected her for that. But what does respect matter?
"I can take it, Rodney. I need to know." But she didn't need to. It won't help her. I know.
For how can I tell her of a horror story and expect her to stay the same? And to ruin her, I can not.
"No. you don't. This is better that way." And it is. I close my eyes in fatigue, and inhale the fresh air. It's being long since it's being so fresh.
She put her hands on my shoulders, trying to consol, and there's curiosity burning beneath the surface. But I can't tell her the truth of what happened. How can I tell her that I saw the Wraith coming and suck the life out of everyone that I loved or was even remotely close of, or didn't know at all? What will it do to her to learn that she died as well and out of sheer luck, if such a thing can be called as luck, I was the last one the Wraith encountered and they wouldn't even let me die and join her? Wouldn't she hate me for that?
I tried to hold his tongue in the beginning. I really did. The old scars in my arms hurt so much but I didn't want to give in. I remembered that it hurt more later, when I realized I surrendered and gave up hope. I promised myself then that I will never lose hope ever again. And I repeated those words in my mind over and over again, trying to convince myself. And even when it was obvious that I wasn't buying it, at least it made everything else look far away from me. As if it was happening to someone else. On the television, maybe. After all, these kinds of things usually didn't happen to me. They happen to Sheppard or Ford or people that can handle these sorts of bullshit. I wasn't made to deal with deprive of sleep, food, water, or with pain.
They told me lies. There were so many of them. There were so many lies. All of which I didn't want to hear. They told me that Atlantis was no more.
They laughed at me, at first. That I still had hope. Then they started to get angry when I questioned everything. When I questioned why I was still alive.
They just looked at me and said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world: "you are the last human alive. And we didn't want to stay hungry."
I didn't know back then what they meant.
I would.
I want to tell her of the long, pointless days that I've lived, together with another female who was not her, in order to give the Wraith babies to feed upon. To let go of the images of the desperation, the infinite days and the longing to her. The wizening bodies and souls, seeing my own flesh and blood being eaten alive.
They called it Genesis. The real beginning of mankind.
"It's ok" she whispers and I know she can felt the pain inside me and probably wonders, justly, how is it that I survived a calamity of that scale. But how can I tell her that I was doomed to survive every time the world comes to its end?
I've never believed in god, it was hard to do it while the world turned to smoldering embers, but I've come to believe in fate. Because what else would have the sick sense of humor of allowing me to outlive everyone I knew, in every world? What else would think of such a way to end the world?
"Soon it will be" I whisper back and her eyes widen. She probably caught my meaning for she stand up startled and hurries to the infirmary alarm.
"I'm calling Carson" she says in her no- bullshit tone.
"I won't be here when he arrives."
"But there are so many things you need to tell me. Dammit, you can't do it if you're dead!"
"I didn't know you care" I tease a bit. But I know that she cares. That's why I have to get away.
"Wait--"
"You promised, no questions."
"Just one!"
Something must have passed on my face that hinted her that I will never reject her pleas. Attentively, she put her hand in mine and asked: "are you from the same future that I came back from?"
"No. I wish I was."
"Was it that bad?"
I don't even answer.
"Was it all bad?" she sounds desperate and I know she's the kind of person that is secretly optimistic. She needs to believe that the future is worth living for, even the worst future. She needs to believe in that in order to be able to live with her own future. And anyway, I can't lie.
"No. there were good parts, too" and I think of how happy we've being for a while, how I, the colonel and Telya played baseball one day in a hidden room of Atlantis.
Not all was hopeless.
One day I escaped from the Wraith's prison and found the time machine and the notebook the Colonel kept with what the other me told him, and with a fallen pen that was nearby I added my fate to the other one's.
"Were we happy? Just for a little while?" she asks and I don't know if she asks about us, the two of us, or Atlantis in whole.
"Yes. Very." For both.
She nods her head with acceptance and I hope that we won't ever have to meet again. I want to tell her to take care of herself, now the fate of the world is in her hands, be strong. I want to tell her that I love her. In the end all that I can do is mouth the words "goodbye" and hope she'd understand the rest.
I put in her hands the notebook and the Nobel Prize, asking her without words, only with my eyes and body and soul, that if the world come to an end again, that she'd find the machine and do what she'll think as right.
And I know she will. She is strong like that. Even like a child, she told me, she always did what needed to be done. That's why I came to her and not to either the Colonel or the president or even myself. She's the only one I truly trust not to screw up and if there's such a thing as faith in the world, I pray that I was right.
Forth meeting: 2004
"I came to you as a last resort. You know I hate asking for favors." I tell him with a grin when he comes to his room and sits on the bed.
"What…? Who….?" He stutters and I feel sorry for him for a second. He doesn't know yet that there are greater trials ahead. Bigger than him believing that in some point he will grow old and return in time to warn his younger self.
"Don't recognize yourself?" I tease him a bit. Boy, he really does need to learn to lighten things up. Was I ever like that?
Hm . . . considering the fact that he is me… probably.
He still looks a bit green around the edges and I know for fact that he fears he's going mental or something. Probably wants to run to Dr. Beckett and do a nice series of MRI's. It will probably comfort him but unfortunately it will also take too long and I don't know how long the power supply will sustain. And I cannot afford to disappear before all that needs to be said is passed.
"Look," I cut to the chase. "I know you're confused and fear that you're going psycho so let me assure you that you're fine so we can get to the more important things."
"This is exactly what any self- respecting illusion will say." The genius jumps to defend his lost honor. It would have being cute but I just don't have time for this!
"So for the sake of the argument let's just assume that I am illusion, ok? I don't care! I know you are about to come back to that vacuumed thingy."
"Vacuum thingy? ... Ohh, you mean the ancient vacuum device? The one at Doranda?" he asks neutrally but I can see him paling under all that façade. He's me, after all. I can read him like, well, myself. He hurts for Collins' death, needs to prove that he didn't' die for nothing, and he senses that I am about to tell him something that will change it. But Collins' death was unavoidable. I've read the previous accounts of what happened to the world because of that damned weapon and I've lived a series of less- than- terrific events myself. The world has to know the weapon's destructive power, how fast it can kill. This is the only way they will ever be ready to destroy it. And the weapon must be destroyed. And if it wipes 5/6 of the solar system in the way- who am I to stop that?
"Yep. That's the one. "
"Ok, what about it?"
"Destroy it."
"Wha. . . are you out of you mind? No, let me take it, I am probably out of my mind because there's no way you... I . . .am standing right here and telling myself that!" He babbles. Even he can tell that.
"See- - that means I'm not a figment of your imagination. You would never tell yourself to do it, wouldn't you?" I sound tired, I know. But I simply don't have time and power to listen to his raving about mental breakdowns and self- centered lies.
As predicted, he goes on. "I'm seeing things, that's the only solution. Lack of sleep, something in the water?. . ."
"You are fine. . . Rodney. You are healthy and have at least 20 years before you will entirely lose it"
"I . . .what!"
"Oops?"
"I will… go mad?" He squeaks in a small, frightened voice.
"In a way."
"But..."
"Look, we can change it, ok? But you need to listen to what I have to say and stop talking!" I lost the count of all the times Sheppard told me how annoying my ravings could be but this is the first time I actually agree with him. Well, live and learn they say...
"Fine, not talking" he mumbles and I shoot him a very dirty glare. I don't count on it to last more than 4 seconds.
"Good. Now, you have to convince everyone to power the weapon up…"
"You're kidding, right? Right? There's no way in hell we can stabilize this thing! The quarantine layer just won't contain it, no matter what we'll do."
"I know. That's why it needs to happen. You need to destroy the weapon, and self destruction is the only way." I can still remember how I used to believe there was another way, how I built one bomb after the other, trying to sneak in and destroy the whole thing. Nothing I could ever engineer worked, and more good man were sent to their death for nothing.
No, it has to end here.
"No way. No one will believe me if I say that a future- me came and told me that I need to wipe half a solar system completely."
"This ismore like 5/6 but hey, it's for the greater good!" I try to cheer him up but he isn't in the mood, apparently.
"We'll see that greater good when I'm in a loony bin." He, who lived good life so far dares to complain. After all, it was me who had to live through the invasion of the Okolies, not him. This is I who envisioned the enslavement of the Wraith. Talk about irony. I am the one who felt sorry for the little buggers simply because you couldn't be a human being and not to.
Obviously, though, I felt sorry about me more.
"So don't mention me." Ever. I can still remember how Elizabeth was viewed when she told people about that, the pain as she became less of herself every passing day, and there wasn't a single thing I could do about it. Even before she died, I knew she was lost to us. All because of me, all because she wouldn't keep her mouth shut about the future me as it was logical.
Please, god, wherever you are up there, don't let it happen to me.
"So what will I tell them? That it came to me in a dream?" Was I always that annoying?
"Come on, I know you'd think of something creative. Tell them... I don't know. You had an epiphany. Fish told you to do it. The ancients were wrong. I don't know. You're a smart man, you'll figure something up."
He squeezes his mouth to the left side, like he always does when in distress. "Do you have any idea how Sheppard-like you sounded just now?"
I grin. "Yes I do. I spent way too much time with him." Trying to save the world. The galaxy, even. But we could never succeed.
He looks at me critically and frowns. But I can see that the scowl isn't real. He's afraid. Heck, I'd be afraid if I was in his shoes. He's going to ruin every shred of trust he has ever earned for saving a world that won't really appreciate him from now on. It's tough. I get it. After all, I got to meet the other- me while trying in the space of 5 seconds we had before Elizabeth came to her room to abandon his plan because it sucked. I lived to see it. There were many who didn't.
I saw in the other him the same fear this me has because unlike me, they both had the misfortune of trying to fix that thing. I didn't touch it like they did and didn't try to make it glow for me and didn't dream of glory because of it as I closed my eyes. This is why it has to be me who tell him to destroy this weapon and it has to be him who will do it. Otherwise, I know myself; I'd find a way to make it work. And all this headache and heartache were for nothing.
Please, don't let it be the case. I'm not a religious man but I just don't think I can live with another version of the world going to hell.
"I don't think I can do it. All those people who will die. . . " he whispers and looks so miserable that for a moment I want to forget everything and to say that it's ok, we'll find another way. Something that will not cost him so dearly. A compromise we both can live with.
But I've already seen how all other scenarios end in the same way.
Bah bye, not happily ever after. Game over.
"You don't have a choice." I harden my heart. 'It's for your own good, too. It's for the sake of the whole galaxy.' I whisper to him without words and hope that one day he will forgive me, and himself.
Don't let it destroy him, I pray to whatever god that will listen. He deserves at least that.
"There has to be another way!" He fights me but there's no real passion in his voice. He knows himself. And if he says that it's necessary, then it is. We're not goddamn heroes. We won't sacrifice ourselves for nothing.
"I'm sorry. There isn't. I wish there was."
I hand him the notebook and spend a few from my last precious minutes looking at him reading the stories of lives he has not lived yet, of other destinies.
When he reaches mine he abandons the notebook for a minute and stares at me. A tactless twit. There are tears in his eyes, and I turn my own eyes from his pity. After a while I can sense his gaze leaving mine and returning to read, and I can continue studying his face while he reads the story of horror that is also called my life.
I can see the pain when he reads about the Oklies who came and took over Atlantis. The curiosity when we found out that they held the weapon, and Elizabeth's cry when she found out that the weapon was found in the address I told her to never visit. She killed herself later, and I can see him paling.
They took over everything so fast, there wasn't a damn thing we could do. Doesn't mean we didn't try, we even forged a temporary alliance with the Wraith in order to try and defeat them. But we never stood a chance.
They came like a flood- took who they wanted, killed any who stood in their way, and left- leaving death and destruction in their wake.
Then we tried the virus. It was Sheppard who was the one to unleash it upon them, and the first to find out that it didn't kill them- it killed us. It took him 3 painful hours to die, and I watched it from afar through a monitor, helpless to offer comfort.
The virus spread faster than we could ever anticipate. In the time it took me to raise the alarm and run to grab a mask to defend myself, half of the living beings in the world were already infected. It didn't take long for the other half to find his death, too. And once again I was left alone.
He reads that story, and weeps. And when he finishes he looks at me with a dead- serious gleam in his eyes, a strange and powerful fire, and says: "I promise I won't have to write in the notebook."
He'll do it.
He's not a hero, neither was I. We are not made from the same materials as they do; we are weak and care for ourselves. But maybe it's just that we are a different kind of heroes. We don't give up.
For the first time when I look at him I don't see the lonely man who wishes to sacrifice everything just to be known, but also the one who died within me long ago, when I abandoned the fight. And I am proud of him in a way I was never proud in myself.
When I close my eyes I can see him telling Elizabeth that he found the solution, that he can make the weapon work. He even used my idiotic excuse about the short sightness of the Ancients, and he asked them to trust him.
They did.
He screamed and fought but in the end he pushed the button and I saw the power getting out of control and him begging for a second more to stabilize the core, when I know that what he really wanted was to make sure it does not shut down. Then there was fire and day came into night, many stars and planets were demolished, among them the homeworld of the Okolies. And the fire raged for many light years but when it began to collapse, shut down into itself, I knew that I did it. He did it. We both did.
My history was erased from my memory and none else came instead.
A new Genesis, I call it. A new hope for mankind. But what we will do with that fresh beginning- only time will tell. And as the stars are ceasing to fire one by one, chaos and order are being made.
Far away from them, a new hero was born.
THE END
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