Title: The Last Chance
Date: 18th November 2007
Author: Kazavid
Chapter: 1/9
Rating: M
Pairing: John Sheppard / OFC - Alex from (Doppelgänger – Mating Instinct – Didn't think...)
Archiving: None
Warnings: Sexual Content
Spoilers: Anything up to The Seer
Feedback: Yes
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis and its characters do not belong to me.
Summary: Four days, five chances, to stop Atlantis from being destroyed. And he can't tell anyone what he knows, or what he's doing. Is Sheppard up to the task, can he stop the destruction of Atlantis and save everyone he cares about.
The Last Chance
Chapter 1
Present Time
The being, looked across the expanse of water towards Atlantis, the city's lights gleamed and sparkled in the night sky. Nothing looked untoward, or out of place, but he knew all that would change in the blink of an eye.
The erupting sound of the explosion was deafening, he watched as the entire city of Atlantis became a huge fireball, as the explosion tore the city in to a billion pieces. He watched the resulting pieces of the city rain down on to the ocean like dying fireflies. It was a beautiful sight, the multitude of rainbow colours cascading down from the sky, beautiful, but deadly.
This was his one and only time to rectify a mistake that never should have happened. He closed his eyes and thought about what he had to do. His body became a shimmering light that just faded in to the darkness, then he was gone.
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John groaned as the pain ripped through his entire body, he clenched his muscles trying to ride out the pain, but it was too much and he could feel himself sinking in to the dark depths of unconsciousness.
"You can't escape from the reality of what's happened John." the voice told him.
"Go away." John muttered, he didn't want to open his eyes. For some reason that he couldn't understand, he knew that if he opened his eyes, he'd be faced with the reality and horror of what had happened, and he knew he wouldn't be able to handle that.
"This is your chance to stop it."
"Shut up, and leave me alone." he bit out harshly, still keeping his eyes closed.
"The longer you ignore me, the less time you have to change things."
John, opened his eyes a fraction, but there wasn't anything to see, just blackness. He sat up and looked all around, nothing but blackness surrounded him.
"Where am I?" he asked, trying to see who he was speaking to.
"You're nowhere."
"Am I dead?" he asked, if this was supposed to be the end, where was this so called light you were supposed to see. He couldn't see anything but blackness, nothing at all.
"Not yet."
"Not yet, so I'm dying?" he concluded.
"You could be."
"Do you ever answer a question, or do you just keep giving out cryptic remarks?" John snorted with disgust.
"Are you ready to listen to what I have to tell you?"
"Doesn't look like I have much choice does it."
"You do have the choice, you can either choose to do something about stopping it, or you can ignore me, and carry on sinking in to oblivion."
"Okay, tell me how I can stop it?"
"Firstly, do you know what it is you'll be stopping, or has your mind already erased the memory?"
"I'm not quite sure, I know something devastating has happened to Atlantis, but I can't seem to remember what it is."
"Look towards your left, you'll see what it is you will have to stop from happening."
John turned to his left and saw nothing but blackness, then the image of Atlantis appeared. He immediately knew something wasn't right, the image of Atlantis should have changed, he knew the city no longer looked like the image that was before him.
He watched as the image of Atlantis exploded, the memory that his mind had tried to erase, came back with a vengeance. The only problem was, he'd been inside Atlantis when it had exploded, and now, he was feeling the intense pain from his injuries. He curled up in to a ball as his mind and body were swamped with so much pain, physical and emotional, that he wondered how on earth he could have survived. Everything, and everyone, was gone, dead, Atlantis no longer existed.
So where the hell was he, he wondered, moaning as he pulled his arms tighter in to his chest as the pain intensified.
"You can't give in to it, you have to fight." the voice told him.
"How can you fight something that's already happened?" John asked, all he really wanted to do was curl up and die, maybe then he'd find some peace from the pain.
"Do you wish to change the outcome?"
"That's a moot question, and doesn't deserve an answer." John shouted, the pain was worse than anything he'd ever experienced before, and he could feel himself fading.
"John, you have to choose, time is not on your side, and the more you question what is, or what was, only gives you less time to change things."
"What am I choosing?" he asked warily, he wasn't sure he'd still be alive to choose, he could feel the blackness smothering him.
"Whether you want Atlantis to survive or not."
"Of course I want Atlantis to survive." he bit out
"That's all I needed." the voice said.
The pain John had been feeling was suddenly gone, the knowledge that everyone he loved, everyone he cared about, were dead, also felt less painful.
"What did you do?" John asked, moving to sit up, he was still surrounded by blackness.
"I have taken you from your present to your past."
"My past? Really, doesn't look any different to me." John said, looking around at the surrounding blackness.
"You no longer feel pain, do you?"
"Well, no."
"And the knowledge that everyone you loved and cared about are dead, no longer burns in you mind?"
"No, it doesn't." he said, puzzled, how could such a thing not matter to him.
"That is because in this time and place Atlantis hasn't been destroyed yet."
"Where exactly am I?"
"This is four days before Atlantis is destroyed."
"Four days, are you talking time travel here?" John wanted to know.
"Sort of. If I tried to explain to you the concept of where you are, you wouldn't be able to understand it, so accept it as time travel."
"So what happens now?"
"Now, I tell you what you can, and can't, do."
"You mean there's some sort of time travel rule book or something?"
"You could call it that." the being smiled at John's simplistic conclusion as to what was going on.
"The first thing you need to know is that you have four days to stop Atlantis from being destroyed."
"Four days, this wouldn't be an arbitrary number by any chance would it?" John wanted to know, because McKay was always telling him he couldn't give him an exact figure, so he just wanted to make sure.
"No, four days is an exact figure."
"So what do I have to do?"
"Within the four days, you will have five chances to change the outcome of things."
"And what are these chances?"
"The first one is the most important one, if you can stop it from happening, then you won't have to do anything else, you will have succeeded, and Atlantis will be safe."
"And what would this first one be?"
"You must stop Ronon from killing a Wraith on Haltia."
"That's it? Stop Ronon from killing a Wraith. You wouldn't, happen to have anything easier for me to do, would you?" he asked hopefully, he knew trying to stop Ronon from killing a Wraith would be almost impossible to do.
"Your one advantage, is that you have already lived through these four days. So you know what is to happen, use this knowledge wisely."
"So your saying it should be a piece of cake then."
"You must understand John, trying to change what has already happened isn't going to be that easy. Once you start interfering in events, it will change how things turn out, people's reactions will be different, events will alter. The knowledge that you posses of the future, will be altered, sometimes to the point where you will no longer be able to predict what is going to happen, or when."
"I don't suppose you happen to have a manual handy that I could look at?"
"Afraid not. Now there is one other thing, and this is something that you must follow. You can't tell anyone what you know, or what you are doing. If you don't follow this carefully, your little 'time travelling rescue' will suddenly cease to be, along with Atlantis, and yourself."
"So no pressure then." he said sarcastically. "What are the other chances?" he wanted to know.
"The second one involves Teyla, you must stop her from meeting up with an old friend."
"And that's it?"
"Yes, sounds simple, but believe me it won't be, things aren't always as simple as they appear."
"Alright, and the third one?"
"The third one, is Alex. You must not let her touch any of the pieces of the artefact."
"Why not?"
"As soon as she touches the artefact, she will recall seeing a similar artefact on Earth, in Area 51. You can't let that happen."
"And the other chances?"
"The fourth one will be Major Lorne, he will activate a console in the unexplored part of the city. It will reveal a hidden recess inside Atlantis, where another piece of the artefact is hidden, if you can, you must destroy the console before he activates it."
"The fifth one, at all costs you must stop McKay from implementing the artefact in to Atlantis' dialling system."
"And that's it, alter one of these and Atlantis won't blow up?"
"In theory, yes."
"What do you mean 'in theory'?" John didn't like the sound of that.
"You are trying to alter the future, each action has a reaction, change anything and it has a knock on effect which changes everything. No one knows for sure how things will change once you start altering time."
"So all this could be for nothing?"
"Yes, but isn't it worth trying?"
John grimaced, he'd try anything if it stopped everyone he cared about from dying. So he supposed he was right, it was worth it.
"You keep mentioning an artefact, and pieces of artefact, what is this artefact?"
"At one time it used to be made of one complete piece of metal, but it was decided that it would be better, and safer, if it was broken up. So it was broken in to four pieces and scattered throughout the universe. But somehow, the pieces of this artefact, always seem to gravitate towards each other, and in time they invariable end up in the same place."
"And that's what's happened now?"
"Yes."
"What does it do?"
"Once the pieces are assembled it will reveal a gate address, and along with the address it provides a formula for integrating the artefact in to your dialling system."
"So what's wrong with that?"
"The problem is the gate address is incomplete."
"How is it incomplete?"
"It needs a key to properly activate it."
"What kind of key?"
"This key, happens to be a man."
"A man, and who is this man?" John asked, he already had the feeling that he knew who the man was.
"It's you."
"Me, I'm the key?" he just knew he was going to say that.
"Yes."
"So where's the problem, I can just activate it, can't I?"
"Yes, but activating it would have disastrous results."
"How so?"
"You would be opening a portal to a dimension that shouldn't exist, but somehow it does."
"That doesn't really tell me much."
"The only way you could understand it, is if I said it was a gate way to hell." the voice told him.
"Hell! You mean...The Devil and Demon's kind of hell, and all that crap?"
"It's the closet description that you would be able to understand."
"Can't we just shut the Stargate down?"
"I'm afraid once you've started dialling the gate address you can't stop it. And if the key isn't used within a certain time frame, the energy from the Stargate builds to explosive proportions."
"Is that how Atlantis blew up?" John asked.
The voice took a long time to answer his question, and John wondered why, "Yes that's how Atlantis blew up." the voice finally told him, but John felt he wasn't being told everything.
"So best not to dial it in the first place then." John concluded.
"My thoughts exactly."
"Why can't I just pick the artefact up and take it away, get rid of it?"
"You're the only one who can't touch it, not until the time is right."
John grimaced, "Yeah, right, that would have been too easy to do, wouldn't it?" he said sarcastically.
"I would have told you to do that in the first place if it had been possible, but it isn't."
"So how do I contact you if I need help?" John asked.
"You can't contact me, and as for help, that is purely down to circumstances."
"What circumstances?"
"It will depend on what you change, and how strong your desire to succeed is."
"Do you ever give a normal answer, or do you like confusing the crap out of me?" John moaned. "Who are you, exactly?"
"If you succeed in saving Atlantis, I will tell you who I am."
"And if I don't succeed?"
"Then it won't matter who I am will it."
"No, I don't suppose it will."
"Close your eyes, John."
John, reluctantly closed his eyes... felt himself slipping further in to oblivion.
TBC...
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