"Water" by K.M. Anderson
Summary: The blue water extinguishes the red fire, but it evaporates.
Rating: T/Angry Yellow Wombat
Spoilers: The Defiant One/Siege II
Disclaimer: The boys are still not mine, so I am just borrowing them for some angsty slashiness.
A/N: I wrote this one in less than an hour – it kinda jumped me out of nowhere. It can be considered to be in the same universe as my two previous SGA fics, "The Prodigal Son" and "In The Midst of Such Great Peril". Not for the sensitive folks.
The blue dot flashes and grows bigger and bigger, and envelops the red dots around it as if it is water extinguishing a fire. But water evaporates from the heat of the flames, something says in Rodney's mind, and it is no more. The fire diminishes, but it still burns, destroying Atlantis more and more with every minute. And Rodney suddenly knows that he is also water and he will do his job and extinguish the flames, because water is also ice and his heart is now frozen and only an encounter with the fire will make the ice melt again. Elizabeth doesn't see him leave the control room, strangely enough, and he half-walks, half-runs through the deserted corridors to the Jumper Room.
"Elizabeth wants to talk to you," he says to Radek, and tries to appear calm and collected. The Czech frowns but runs off to the control room, and the moment he's out of sight, Rodney is at the controls, remembering Sheppard's instructions, the eye-rolls and the little smiles, and the sure way the Major always operated the Puddle Jumper - like he was playing an instrument, like he was born to do it. Rodney will never be as good, not even as good as some of the inoculated pilots – but he believes that Sheppard has given him some of that ability through the flying lessons that were the first move towards, a tentative start of something that now will never come to be.
He automatically prepares the jumper, and before anyone has time to stop him - if there is still anyone left to stop him, his mind corrects - he is off, the "baby" moving a bit unsteadily but mostly in a straight line towards the diminished spot of red. He shuts off the communications with Atlantis, and goes into stealth mode, and he imagines Sheppard sitting next to him at the controls, and commenting on his shoddy piloting skills, hiding bits and pieces of useful advice between the barbs. And soon, he is almost there, at the source of the flame, and he laughs at the thought that the fate of a whole universe depends on a geek. He slows the jumper down, and wonders if Jeannie will ever find out what happened to him, and how does it feel to die in a nuclear explosion, and all those questions that one never thinks about until death is seconds away. And the Major - no, John - smiles in his imagination, and Rodney thinks that in a perverse way, they will be together forever in the dark vacuum above Atlantis.
"So long, Major," he says, and in his mind, he leans over and kisses John on the lips as his hand finds the detonator and the red drowns in the blue on the monitor, and his last thought is that the monitor looks as if an American flag has melted on it, and that snow and smoke are both white.