McKay's Wonderful Life
Sheppard's team sat in stony silence in the jumper. Sheppard dialed the gate back to Atlantis. No one said a word as they left the jumper bay. Sheppard shrugged off Dr. Beckett who was trying to clean a cut on his chin. Maj. Lorne met them in the hallway.
"Adams?" he asked looking for the sandy haired private who'd gone off world with them. Sheppard shook his head.
"Wraith," Ronan muttered. Lorne's face fell and his shoulders slumped. Nobody needed to say anything else. Adams had been fed on by the wraith they'd encountered on the planet while looking for a ZPM. They all wandered off to their own tasks. No doubt Ronan would go to the gym to blow off some steam. Teyla would go meditate and Sheppard would clean his gun.
McKay wandered off into the commissary grabbed a bowl of blue jello and then wandered off to the balcony over looking the city. Adams had been his responsibility. The kid was wet behind the ears and gung-ho about the whole being in Pegasus thing. McKay absent mindedly rubbed his hand along the railing of the balcony. If only he'd told the kid to watch out then he'd still be alive. McKay sighed and slumped against the railing watching as the bowl of jello slipped out of his grasp and fell downwards. Maybe life would be better if he fell just like that Styrofoam bowl and plastic spoon? He put his foot on the railing and quickly pulled it off, that was stupid….. Wasn't it? He thought aloud bitterly.
"Maybe the whole city would be better off if I'd never come here in the first place." He shouted this out loud and pulled himself up on the edge of the wall. He closed his eyes and suddenly felt himself being pulled backward. He landed hard on the pavement. Looking up he saw a girl standing over him.
"Are you stupid?" she asked him, her hands were on her hips and she didn't look happy. McKay looked at her puzzled.
"What?" he asked not sure he heard her right.
"Are you stupid?" she repeated. "Are you so stupid to think that throwing yourself off a balcony is better than what you have here in Atlantis?" McKay shook his head.
"I got that kid killed, if I hadn't been here he wouldn't have died." He said. "Who're you anyway?" she sighed.
"I'm El your guardian angel." McKay gave a small laugh of disbelief.
"Guardian angel? Where are you wings, and halo?" he said. The girl's eyes narrowed.
"Meredith, don't make fun of me." It was his turn to narrow his eyes.
"Then don't call me Meredith," he said. "and yes, like I was saying. Atlantis would be better off if I'd never attached myself to the project. Adams would be alive. Abrams wouldn't have been killed by the wraith either." Clouds started forming in the sky as El narrowed her eyes further. Then as if she were listening to some one talking she cocked her head to the side. She shrugged her shoulders.
"Very well, things are as they would be if you'd never come to Atlantis." McKay looked around.
"You're crazy." he said. He went up to the door and waved his hand over it to go back inside. "See nothing is different." he smirked. El followed him. The halls were completely deserted. "Where is everyone?" McKay mused aloud and then made his way down to the commissary for more food. He got to the door only to find it closed. "That's weird." A science officer came through another door walking past them. "Hey, you." McKay said getting his attention. "Why is the commissary closed?" the science officer gave him a weird look.
"It isn't a meal time. It's always closed now." he said before hurrying off to wherever he was going. McKay gave El a sarcastic look.
"I get it, there's assigned meal times because I'm not here." she didn't say anything and continued to follow him through the halls. Rodney made his way to his lab. He went in to see Zalenka sitting at the table poring over two laptops his hair sticking out all over the place.
"Radek?" McKay said. Zalenka looked up.
"Can I help you?" he asked his face puzzled as he studied McKay. Rodney didn't answer right away. "Look, if this is about the power fluctuations in the main tower tell Woolsey I'll get on it as soon as possible, but it's hard to do anything with out the chair." He typed in a few things on the laptop. "Now what did you need?" Rodney gave Zalenka a weird look.
"Why don't you just reroute the power through the naquada generators?" He pointed to some diagrams on the computer screen. "There and there." Zalenka laughed.
"That would work if we had some naquada generators. The last two we had burnt out last month. Where have you been? You can't have come from earth since then." He shook his head and started walking out the door. "I'll go deal with Mr. Woolsey." Rodney turned around the face El.
"No naquada generators!?!" he basically yelled. "How are they surviving?" He looked at Radek's computers sitting there. "The ZPM levels are dangerously low. The city is only powered by 5%. Well at least they cut off most of the non essential areas." He looked back to El. "Why didn't Zalenka know who I was and why did he say Woolsey?" he said
"Like I said Dr. McKay, life is as it were if you'd never signed onto the Atlantis mission." El replied. Rodney looked up at her.
"This is all because I'm not here? Where am I if I'm not here?"
"The IOA took control a couple of years ago. I'm not ever supposed to be telling you things." Rodney stopped walking. El said looking uneasy "I've already told you a lot more than I should…." She trailed off. Rodney started walking again. He was talking out loud to him self.
"Sheppard, Sheppard will know…." He turned a corner and headed towards the gym. He looked inside to see several marines sparring and working out. "Where's Col. Sheppard?" he asked them. One or two looked up but the others either didn't hear him or didn't want to respond.
"Col. Sheppard?" one said "Maj. Sheppard is probably in his quarters." he said giving McKay a strange look and went back to his weight lifting. McKay practically ran to where John's quarters were. He buzzed the door and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet waiting. The door opened and Sheppard was there. At least he looked like Sheppard, but McKay had never seen Sheppard sitting in a wheel chair. His hair was messier than usual and he looked tired.
"What?" he said his voice full of contempt the likes of which McKay usually saved for Kavanaugh.
"John, what happened?" McKay said taking a step back. Sheppard gave a small hallow laugh.
"What happened? Where the Hell have you been for the past two years. This is thanks to Kolya." He gave McKay a quizzical look. "How could you not know that though? We haven't had any gate travel from earth since we got here and the Deadalous only came by to drop off Woolsey."
"John, I'm – " McKay started to say before Sheppard interrupted him.
"and that's another thing. How come you keep calling me John? Nobody out here calls me John except Teyla." He wheeled himself towards McKay. Rodney started to back up into the hall. He bumped into Teyla.
"Is everything alright John?" she asked looking at him with concern. "I heard yelling from down the hall." John pointed at Rodney.
"It's just him, he creeps me out." Rodney looked at Teyla. She was just a pretty as his Teyla but her hair was tinged with grey and she looked older and more tired.
"Where's Ronan?" Rodney asked desperate to find some one he knew and would be more like the world he knew.
"Ronan has not lived on Atlantis for more than a year." Teyla said. She started to reach for her radio. "Now I think you should talk with Mr. Woolsey." Rodney turned and started running. They would put him in the brig he knew that much.
"He's getting away! Get Lorne on the radio." he heard Sheppard shout as he tried to find a place to hide. Rodney kept running until he was out of breath. El came up beside him.
"Where have you been?" he almost shouted. She shrugged.
"I had something to do." She replied sounding apologetic. Rodney was doubled over trying to catch his breath. His mind was racing. Was he really such an important part of the Atlantis mission?
"El, please tell me where I am if I'm not here." El shifted nervously from one foot to another. "Please," he begged her. She sighed and brushed her hair away from her face.
"You're doing research in Russia with your sister. She never got married you practically forced her to work with you." Rodney's face fell.
"Jeannie doesn't have Madison or…" he trailed off "Caleb, yes that's his name." El nodded.
"Things are a lot different since you aren't here and you're somewhere else." Rodney's eyes lit up. One last person he could go find to sort him out.
"Carson," He said pushing past El on the way out the door. He started running to the infirmary with El following him all the way. He burst in the room.
"Carson!?!" he called heading for the back room. There was no one in the infirmary "Where's Dr. Beckett? Where's Carson?" he asked trying to look for the Scotsman.
"Rodney, Carson's dead." El said
"What do you mean Carson's dead?" he looked at El.
"Dr. Beckett was killed by the Wraith during the first year the Atlantis mission was here. You weren't here to save him. You weren't here to save John from Kolya either. You weren't here to stop Ronan from leaving. People love you Rodney. They love you and they need you. Yes Adams got fed on by the wraith, but he knew that risk coming out here." El was almost shouting at this point. Rodney saw Woolsey coming down the hall followed by Teyla and Zalenka and Lorne.
"El what do I do?" Rodney said his voice full of panic. "I just want to go home." He turned and started running again. He heard footsteps behind him as no doubt they sped up to follow him. He turned down a hallway and opened a supply closet to hide in. All this running was making him very sick. He slumped against the wall and sat down. He was close to hysterics at this point and hadn't eaten anything in several hours. The closet door opened and Lorne was standing there.
"I found him." Rodney stood up ready to punch Lorne in the face rather than be carried off to the brig, but stopped when Ronan and Sheppard came up behind him. Lorne pulled him out into the hallway and Rodney saw what seemed like half the city standing in the hall.
"Where have you been McKay?" Sheppard said clapping him on the back. "We've been trying to get a hold of you for almost 6 hours now." Rodney smiled.
"John! You can walk!" he shouted and then turned to Ronan "and Ronan you're still here." He went through the small group of people clustered around him. "You guys are all here and you know me"
"Of course we know ye Rodney" Carson's voice said as he waded through the crowd.
"Carson!" Rodney exclaimed. "Thank you for not being dead!" He threw his arms around the doctor. Carson gave him a funny look but hugged Rodney back.
"I haven't the faintest of what yer talkin' about Rodney, but don't do this again. Chuck found that bowl of jello splatted on the window and we thought…." Carson trailed off.
"Thanks for not being splatted on the window McKay." Ronan said gruffly hitting him in the shoulder. Rodney winced and then looked around again.
"Where's El?" he asked looking for the girl.
"Who's El?" Sheppard said just as Rodney spotted her. She was standing against the wall far away from everyone else. She winked and then vanished. "There's No El stationed on Atlantis McKay." Rodney smiled and nodded.
"I know." He said and then turned back to the group. He was home. A home where his life was in danger everyday, but a home none the less, with people who cared about him and whether he was splatted on a window.