Dream in Dark Corners
by Bil!
T – Angst – John, Elizabeth – Oneshot
Summary: AU Doppelganger. "John Sheppard, meet your greatest fear." A different version of John's nightmare.
Season: 4.
Spoilers: Lifeline, Doppelganger
Disclaimer: Do people get as tired of reading these as I do of writing them? Nicht meine.
A/N: Intended as a John&Elizabeth friendship piece rather than Sparky (despite a part I know looks highly suspicious), but can be construed as such if you're so inclined. How disturbing parts of this story are probably depends on how vivid your imagination is; in my head it is rather gory because I figured that's what John would see.
This story diverges from the episode Doppelganger after Rodney's 'death' at the point John realises he's in a nightmare and attacks the crystal entity that looks like him, throwing them both through the wall.
"I'm not afraid of you!" John shouted defiantly, glaring across the gateroom of his mind at the being that had invaded his dreams.
The entity wearing his face looked unimpressed, light from the active stargate flickering over it to give it a Wraith-like cast of skin. "No?" it sneered. "Well, what about them?" It raised its arms like an orchestra conductor summoning the Valkyries.
John looked up.
Starting on the walkway leading to Elizabeth's—to Carter's office and spreading along into the controlroom, people began to appear, shimmering into existence as if put there by an Asgard transport beam, filling up the upper levels. Not just any people, either, but people he knew.
Dex and Mitch, whose chopper he'd watched explode with futile, helpless horror, leaned on the shoulders of Holland, who John had failed to rescue in Afghanistan, as all three stared down at him, eyes narrowed. Sumner appeared beside them, Wraith-eaten and folding his arms disapprovingly. Several people along he could see Ford, hyped up on the Wraith enzyme and sneering his contempt. Beside Ford, leaning heavily on his arm, stood John's mother, gaunt and prematurely old from the sickness that had taken her life, and beside her was the refugee girl who'd been gutted like a fish in front of John's eyes.
And others, too many others, the people he'd failed, the people he'd sent out to die or couldn't rescue or wasn't fast enough to save. People whose lives had been cut short by his mistakes, lining all the walkways and balconies up above his head and glaring down at him in mute accusation as their numbers grew and grew in a new flash of white light every moment. Military and civilian, Earther and alien, all the people he had failed, right up to Carson, bleeding and battered and blackened where he stood shoulder to shoulder with John's latest failures. With Kate, her hands clenched on the railing in front of her as she scowled down at him, and Rodney, glaring at him. Accusing him.
"You're afraid of them, aren't you, John?" the entity taunted.
"I tried to save them!" John shouted at it. "I did my best!" He stared up at the crowd and balled his hands into fists against the anger in their faces. "I did my best."
The entity circled him, predatory and cruel. "Well, your best wasn't good enough, was it?"
"No," he agreed angrily, glaring at it. "It wasn't. And I've got to live with that for the rest of my life. But I did my damndest and I've come to terms with the fact that it wasn't enough."
The entity raised its eyebrows mockingly. "Oh, really?" it said in blatant disbelief. "You have, have you?" It shrugged, sneering. "Okay, then, we'll play it your way. But maybe you'll admit you're afraid of these?"
Another wave of its hand and the space around them was suddenly full. Teyla, her throat cut open, bleeding to death as she clutched helplessly at Ronan, who was too busy to help her, desperately holding his hands against the hole in his side to stop his guts spilling out over the floor. Keller, aging and screaming silently as if being fed on by an invisible Wraith, on her knees beside Lorne, who sweated and writhed as some unseen force slowly strangled him... The gateroom was full of people dying in all the horrible ways that haunted his dreams. People John knew, worked with, had sworn to protect, dying all around him.
"You know you're going to fail them," the entity said in his ear, suddenly behind him and leaning up close. "You know they're going to die, all of them, because of you. You're going to get them all killed. If it's not me, it'll just be something else. And it'll be all. your. fault."
"No!" He spun, lashing out furiously because anger was easier to manage than fear of a truth he refused to admit, but the entity wasn't there any more and he knocked down Radek, who clutched at the knife in his chest while blood frothed on his lips.
"Naughty, naughty, John," the entity taunted. "You shouldn't go around killing your friends or very soon you won't have any left."
He whirled to see the entity with an arm around Teyla's shoulders, smirking at him. It ran a finger across her dripping throat and peered at the blood on its hand, shaking its head in mock sorrow. "Really, John, you should take better care of them."
It released Teyla with a dramatic flourish and she fell to the floor, too clearly dead.
John clenched his fists and forced himself not to drop onto his knees beside her, forced himself to fight back his roiling fear and panic as his dead and dying colleagues and friends surged around him in a sea of horror. That was what this thing wanted, it wanted him to lose control. "This is just an illusion," he spat at it across the tide of pain and blood. "It isn't real. It's not real!"
"But it will be," the entity smiled, and suddenly it was right in John's face, wiping Teyla's blood across his cheek before he could recoil. Then it vanished, only to reappear half way up the stairs. "You know it will be. You're going to get them all killed. It's just a matter of time and you know it."
"It's not real!" John shouted. "It's not real and I'm not afraid!" He advanced on the entity, pushing roughly through the nightmare crowd of dead Atlanteans, pretending he didn't see their familiar faces. "I'm not afraid of them and I'm not afraid of you!"
He reached the stairs and started up them furiously.
"I could almost believe you," the entity sneered, unconcerned. "But I know better. You're so scared of failure you'd rather die than see how badly you've lost."
He reached it and struck out furiously but his blow didn't land because the entity just faded out of existence. Catching himself, he spun wildly, searching for it in the sea of death. "If you mean I'd die for them then you're right!" he shouted. "I'm not afraid to die!"
"I know." He whirled to find the entity standing behind him, up one step and sneering down at him. "I know all about your fears, John. You're not afraid to die, you're afraid to fail." It made a sweeping gesture to indicate those on the walkways. "You're afraid of those you've failed." Another gesture took in those in front of the stargate. "And you're afraid of those you're going to fail."
"I'm. not. afraid," he bit out between gritted teeth.
"No?" It smiled with his face, cruel and mocking. "But you see, I've saved the best for last."
Dex and Holland started clapping and cheering. Then Mitch and Sumner. Someone was coming out of Elizabeth's – Carter's – office, someone whose progress could be marked in the jubilation of those lining the walkways and the controlroom. The defeater of the Wraith could hardly have gotten a warmer welcome than whatever was coming.
Wary, John watched the applause reach those standing at the top of the steps, wondering what new trick the entity was trying on him now. "I'm not afraid of anything you can pull," he said defiantly.
"No?" It smiled in clear disbelief as the crowd parted.
A new person stepped forward. John stumbled back down the steps. "No!"
The entity smirked, appearing behind the newcomer as everyone else disappeared, leaving only the three of them in Atlantis's echoing gateroom. "John Sheppard, meet your greatest fear."
John shook his head in frantic denial, still shakily backing down the stairs, and stumbled as he hit the gateroom floor. The other two followed him, slow but inexorable.
"What's the matter, John?" the entity grinned. "Aren't you pleased to see her again?"
"Yes, John," Elizabeth said, "aren't you pleased to see me?"
She looked exactly how he'd last seen her, dressed in offworld gear and the old uniform. She looked exactly like Elizabeth, and the small part of his brain that was screaming that it wasn't real went unheard in the face of the large portion cringing at the frown of disappointment on her face.
"But then I suppose you wouldn't be," she continued, eyebrows lifting in faint mockery. "After all, you did leave me behind." Her skin crawled, nanites passing over her face in a wave; the nanites he'd failed to stop Rodney reactivating.
"You told me to go!" he protested weakly.
"Of course I did," she sneered. "Isn't that what you're supposed to say? But when did that ever stop you, John?" His feet had stopped moving, frozen in place, but she kept walking until she was right in front of him and leaned forward so that he could see that she was made of nanites. "What happened to 'leave no one behind', John? Why did you leave me behind?"
"I'm going to find you!" he said desperately. "I'm going to find you, Elizabeth; I'm going to get you back!"
"Really?" She walked around him with slow, steady steps. "And how are you going to do that, John? How far along are you with your plans? Are you spending every waking minute trying to figure out how to do it? Or are you just going about your life as if nothing has happened, as if I never really existed?" She stopped in front of him, her hands behind her back, and regarded him steadily, one eyebrow tilted in ironic punctuation. "Tell me, John, which is the truth?"
"I'm trying!" he shouted, desperate for her to understand. "It's not that easy!"
"Do you think it was easy getting you out of that time dilation field? Do you think it was easy rescuing you from Kolya? But I didn't give up, John. I never gave up on you." She narrowed her eyes. "Admit it, you've given up already."
"No!" he said desperately. "I'll never give up. I won't stop until I find you!"
Elizabeth tilted her head, studying him as she had done so many times before, trying to determine his sincerity. She smiled and he started to relax – until she leant forward and said fiercely: "I don't believe you."
She spun on her heel and walked away.
"Elizabeth! Wait!"
The entity appeared in his path, blocking his way. "You heard her, John, she doesn't believe you. Leave her alone."
He tried to force his way past. "Elizabeth! Wait! Elizabeth, listen to me!"
She paused at the foot of the stairs to look back at him and he stopped struggling against the entity to stare at her, trying to force her to believe him through sheer force of will. "No, John," she said gently. "I'm done listening to you."
"She doesn't trust you any more," the entity crooned as Elizabeth began to walk up the stairs. "She doesn't believe in you any more, John."
"No, she has to! Elizabeth!" But she ignored him.
The entity vanished, making John stumble, and reappeared at the top of the steps. It held out a hand to Elizabeth with an exaggerated flourish and she let the thing gallantly hand her up to the floor beside it. They stood there, hand in hand, looking down at him with twin looks of disdain, and John just stared up at them, defeated.
"You know," the entity said with a dark smile, "she really is very attractive. I can see why you want her back so badly." It tugged her to it and kissed her.
"You get away from her!" he shouted, but Elizabeth didn't push the hateful thing away, she kissed it back, wrapping her arms around it as it dipped her.
"Your worst nightmare is kissing Elizabeth?" Rodney's incredulous voice broke across the moment and shattered the spell.
The entity faltered and all three of them turned to the newcomer standing at the foot of the stairs.
"Rodney?" John demanded, equally incredulous.
Rodney spun, gaping at him. "But aren't you up—Oh."
"You're dead!" the entity snarled.
"No, no, I'm quite alive, actually..." Rodney's voice trailed off as he looked between John and the entity. "Oh no, two of you again? Which one's you? You you, I mean."
"I am," John said impatiently. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"You tried to rescue me from my nightmare so I thought I'd, uh, do the same." He paused, frowning. "What's Elizabeth doing here?"
"I thought you were dead!" John said, relief rising up in him because this couldn't be some trick; the entity was too startled by Rodney's appearance for it to be a trick.
"I was. Until they revived me." Rodney eyed the thing wearing John's face warily. "Now, uh, we have to, uh, fight your nightmare until help arrives. So don't die on me, okay, because—"
"Help?" the entity sneered, starting down the steps towards them. "There's no help for either of you. It doesn't matter that you're alive, I'll just get to kill you all over again."
"Actually," Rodney said brightly, "I think you'll find there—"
Energy filled the gateroom, making the hairs on John's arms stand on end but not touching him because all that power was focussed on the entity, making it writhe in agony.
"Ah, there we go," Rodney said with smug satisfaction. "I think you'll find there is help. Electricity. You can't stand it, can you?"
There was another jolt, twisting the entity out of shape and flickering around it like lightning. It fought but failed, falling down the stairs and sprawling on the gateroom floor. John darted forward with glad anger and hauled it up. It had killed Kate, tried to kill Rodney, hurt his friends. "This is for the pain you caused us," he growled and punched it in the face. This time it couldn't get away. Then he dragged it bodily over to the still active stargate and hurled it through.
Silence. The gate shut down. More silence, stretching out as they waited to know if everything was over, twanging on John's overwrought nerves until Rodney's voice made him jump and brought him back to normal.
"Did, uh, did that...?" Rodney trailed off, his eyes flicking between John and the stargate.
"I think so. I hope so."
"And you're really... you know."
"It's me, Rodney." John turned around. Since she was really his creation rather than the entity's, Elizabeth still stood at the top of the stairs. Or rather, the thing that looked like Elizabeth did.
He charged up the stairs and took the phantom by the shoulders, his fingers biting into its skin. "Elizabeth would never give up on me," he told it fiercely. "Elizabeth would never doubt me, Elizabeth would believe me. Elizabeth would believe in me. I won't walk away from her and she knows that. That means you're not Elizabeth." He shook it fiercely as it stared at him, Elizabeth's eyes but not Elizabeth. "I'm not afraid of you."
It vanished and John turned to face Rodney as he came uncertainly up the stairs. "Okay, so what was that about?"
John shrugged. "It doesn't matter."
"Oh. Okay." He looked around. "Why does the inside of your head look like Atlantis anyway?"
"Rodney..."
"What?"
"Never mind. Let's get out of here. We can get out of here, right?"
"Yes, yes, of course we can," Rodney said dismissively before moving on to a more important subject: "And where are all the hot girls?"
"McKay!"
"What? I'm in your head, I'd just've thought—"
"It was a nightmare, Rodney."
"Right. Still... It's your head. I mean, I should get something for risking my life to come after you—"
"Rodney!"
"I'm just saying—"
"Can it, McKay!" Rodney subsided with rolled eyes and John relented. "But about that whole risking your life thing... Thanks."
"Hey, no problem. Well, actually, big problem – and I don't know what Atlantis would have done if it actually had cost me my life – but, you know."
It was John's turn to roll his eyes. "Yeah, Rodney, I know." He glanced around the empty gateroom. It really was over. Good. Now just he had a city to run and Elizabeth to find. And he would find her, no matter what his nightmares might try to make him believe. He turned back to Rodney. "Can I please wake up now?"
Fin
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