Disclaimer: I don't know anything you recognise... Seriously. None of it.

Author's Note: Okaaay, so I know last time I mentioned something about bringing out a Supernatural story next, but this idea has been just bugging and bugging me! Wouldn't go away until I finished it!

This is, as the summary suggests, an AU for The Last Man, cause I can't help myself. It's pretty long, but I'm pretty pleased with it, which is weird for me, cause I'm my own worst critic. So stick around. I believe it will be worth it!

THE LAST STAND


Chapter 1: The Last Man

Daniel Fairfield marched as quickly as he could down the red tinged corridor, shaking his head. He and his team had been in Atlantis for all of two days, and already it seemed as if there were hundreds of things he had just 'had' to see. The problem was, there was only one thing he really wanted to see, and yet it remained elusive. And they were running out of time.

Fairfield turned the corner, hoping that maybe this time it was what they had come to Atlantis to find – a way, any way, to turn back the threat that ravaged their galaxy. Somehow he doubted it, but what harm did wishful thinking do?

He rounded another corner and nearly ran into his chief scientist. His quick reflexes and a strong grip were all that stopped Kate Thomas from falling on her too intelligent butt.

"I was just coming to find you," Kate told him breathlessly, forgetting to thank him in the face of something obviously exciting. Really exciting, judging from the light in her eyes. "I found something you really have to see."

Fairfield rolled his eyes. "Everyone has something I have to see, Kate. Can it wait just a minute?"

But the scientist was shaking her head. "Definitely not," she informed him, grabbing the sleeve of his shirt and pulling him down the corridor she had just come up. "We wouldn't have even found it if you hadn't told us to clear the sand."

"Found what?" he asked, prying her hand from his shirt. But he kept pace. He didn't think he had ever seen Kate this excited, not even when she had been told of this Atlantis expedition.

Excited or not, she was shaking her head. "It's better if you see for yourself," she told him, picking up her pace. She looked back at him, grinning. "But it might be exactly what we came to Atlantis to find. Come on, it's in here."

He followed her into the room, pausing at the door, and frowned as his eyes failed to find whatever weapon she had found. And then Fairfield's eyes fell on…

"Oh wow," he whispered, walking forward to the… it must have been a stasis pod. Well, they hadn't expected this.

This being a man frozen in time.

"Oh… wow," Fairfield repeated, stronger this time. He looked down at Kate where she stood by his shoulder, and she nodded.

"I know. Amazing, huh?"

"Who is he?" Fairfield asked, leaning closer for a better look. The man was in his late thirties – or had been, when he had been put in stasis. Dark hair, stubble just growing, and a soldier, judging by the boots and black uniform.

Kate seemed to be tossing up her answer. "I don't know. At least, not for sure. But I have a theory. Look at the right sleeve."

Frowning at Kate, he nonetheless took a look, noticing the badge quickly. Once again his jaw dropped. "Atlantis," he breathed. "One of the original Atlantis expedition?"

"That's what I originally thought. And still do… but." She shook her head. "I remembered that Atlantis was abandoned almost 50,000 years ago."

Fairfield frowned down at her again. "He doesn't look 50,000 years old, even for stasis," he told her. She rolled his eyes at him.

"That's because he isn't. We checked, and then double checked. He's a lot more recent than that."

Daniel gaped up at the frozen man. "But that's impossible," he argued. "No one has been to this city since it was abandoned."

"Obviously that isn't the case," Kate told him. "Daniel, have you heard the story, 'McKay's Last Theory'?"

"Let's pretend I haven't," he told her. Because he really hadn't. Kate nodded.

"Rodney McKay was the lead scientist in the original Atlantis expedition."

Fairfield rolled his eyes, and cut her off. "I know who McKay was, Kate. Everyone does. Get to the good bit."

She mock-glared at him. "Then you know that he quit the expedition when basically everyone he had known from the original Atlantis team had been killed." Daniel nodded. "What most people don't know, however, was that he returned to Atlantis one last time before he died. To implement one last program that he hoped would change the way everything had gone wrong. He wanted to change the past."

"So how do you know that?" Fairfield asked, hoping she was getting to the point sometime soon.

"It was in General Evan Lorne's unpublished memoirs, but that doesn't matter," she said with a wave of his hand. "What matters, is that this program he put into place was a holographic projection of himself, tied into Atlantis' very mainframe. It was meant to wait here, in Atlantis."

Daniel looked down at her, still frowning. "Wait here for what?"

She shook her head. "Not what. Who. A man who disappeared a few months before the Hybrid War really kicked into action. His hologram was meant to wait here for this man to reappear through the Stargate, and then to send him back in time so he could change everything." She shrugged. "Obviously it didn't work, or hasn't yet. I don't know, the whole time thing is -."

"Oh wow," Fairfield breathed once more as soon as he got it. He looked up at the man frozen in time, eyes wide, heart racing. "You don't seriously think…"

Kate grinned. "I do, Daniel, I really do." She looked up at the man as well, and the grin softened with relief.

"I think we just found John Sheppard."


Within an hour, they were ready to try and bring the man out of stasis. Fairfield kept out of the way, leaving the work to Kate, her team, and the expedition doctor, Reese Webb. The man moved quickly, trying to get everywhere at once, checking vital signs, making sure they weren't about to kill a living, breathing legend.

If the man really was John Sheppard. Kate seemed to be convinced, but Fairfield wanted to be more pragmatic than that. Sheppard really was a legend, and many of Fairfield's people had doubted he had ever actually existed. There were stories, of the man being sent forward in time by a freak solar flare intersecting with the wormhole he was travelling through, but then again, there were stories of him turning into a bug, and others that claimed he had been fed on by a Wraith. Whoever this man was, it was doubtful he had ever been fed on.

Then again, who else would be here?

Word must have spread amongst the expedition, because for the last twenty minutes, Fairfield's radio had been blissfully silent. He had been able to watch Kate and Webb work, and hope. There was nothing wrong with hope, however pragmatic he was.

Finally Kate nodded at him, and Fairfield pushed off the wall, moving closer. "Ready?" he asked, talking to both Kate and Webb.

"We're ready," Kate told him, and the doctor nodded in agreement.

"This isn't going to kill him or anything?" Fairfield just had to make sure.

"No," Webb reassured. "He's perfectly healthy in there. He'll be fine."

Fairfield nodded. "Okay. Wake him up."

Webb turned back to the stasis pod, and ran his fingers over the control pad, tapping a few buttons. Fairfield felt his heart racing again and stepped back once more to watch. He had the feeling this was going to be either spectacularly bad or everything they had ever hoped for.

There was a sound of release, and a blue light shimmered back from the ice-like barrier separating the man from time. And for the first time in a long time, John Sheppard blinked.

Holding his breath, Fairfield could barely stand to watch as Webb stepped up, checking the vital signs again. Sheppard, if it was him, blinked again, and turned his head, shock appearing on his face as he took in all the people surrounding him.

"Hi," Daniel greeted, stepping forward, hands in his pockets. He glanced at Kate, then looked at who they hoped was John Sheppard. "Welcome back."


Coming out of stasis was one of the strangest experiences of Sheppard's life. He knew he had been in a deep sleep, deeper than any sleep he had ever been in. More like a coma than sleep. Yet he felt fine. A little sore, a little rigid, but fine. Well, physically at least. He had had his eyes open for God knew how long, and he hadn't spoken in just as long and yet both his eyes and mouth were working fine.

Well, his mouth would have been if he hadn't been too shocked at seeing a group of people surrounding his stasis pod.

"Hi," one of the men greeted, stepping forward and glancing at the young woman to John's right. "Welcome back."

Welcome back indeed. How long had he been in stasis? Was the solar flare soon? Where the hell was Rodney's hologram?

"Who are you?" he demanded, not used to seeing strangers in his city.

The man who had spoken seemed a bit put off by the abrupt question. He glanced at the woman again, then back to Sheppard.

"Maybe you'd like to come out of there, first," the woman suggested. "You've been in stasis for a long time. You could let Dr Webb check you over, and then we can answer your questions."

Suspicious now – Atlantis was supposed to be deserted, and where the hell was McKay? – John stepped down, though he didn't take his eyes off the men and women around him. Who the hell were they? Watching them intently, he turned and moved away, to the other side of the room.

"No, I think you should answer my questions first," he told them slowly. "Who are you? And what the hell are you doing in Atlantis?"

The man in charge took a step towards him, hands up submissively. "Take it easy," he suggested. "We're not going to hurt you."

John laughed. "Wouldn't be the first time I've heard that," he told them, shifting his stance as if he were getting ready to run. None of them seemed to be armed, but who knew. And he didn't doubt there were others around, who weren't so lax in safety. "Just answer the damn question."

The guy nodded. "Okay, okay. My name's Daniel Fairfield. I'm the leader of an expedition to Atlantis." He gestured at the woman behind him. "This is Kate Thomas, and Reese Webb. We found you in stasis, and decided to bring you out, just in case."

Sheppard frowned. "In case of what, exactly?"

The man grinned. "In case we were right and you really are John Sheppard. Are you him?"

John gaped. "Depends on who's asking," He shrugged, and then looked around. "You wouldn't have happened to meet an annoying hologram in your travels, have you?"

"Um, no," Fairfield said slowly, starting to worry slightly for the man's sanity. But Kate moved forward excitedly.

"So it was true. Dr McKay really did create that program. And you really are John Sheppard."

Sheppard took a step back. "Sure. Why not? So, that hologram?"

The scientist – she had to be – suddenly lost her excitement, biting her lip. "Oh. Um, that system kind of overloaded seven hundred years ago." At Fairfield's curious glance, she shrugged. "I checked to see if there was anything in them we could use. Only they wouldn't -."

"Hang on," Sheppard interrupted. She had to be wrong. No way. McKay was a genius, and his hologram hadn't been far off. He would have taken that into account. But where was he? "Did you just say seven hundred years?"

"Ish," she allowed. "The sun's energy spiked. Atlantis lost a lot of systems which would have been useful…"

But Sheppard wasn't listening anymore. He looked away, trying to find some way to deny the blatantly obvious. Horror dawned inside, and he swallowed, feeling sick, nauseous. This could not be happening.

Fairfield's voice suddenly intruded on his haze. "Are you okay?" the expedition leader asked, and John looked up at him.

"No. No, I'm not okay." This was bad. "How long was I in stasis?"

The two doing all the speaking gave each other a worried glance. "Is that really necessary?" the woman asked. "I mean, we can put you back in and everything, if McKay's Theory was real."

He shook his head, feeling nauseous and dizzy and overwhelmed. "Just tell me. How long was I in stasis?" He paused, waiting, but the two just looked at each other again, as if they couldn't make a decision without consulting each other. His anger flared, fuelled by fear and apprehension. "Tell me!"

The woman jumped, and looked at him, worry in her eyes. But she licked her lips and answered him.

"Ah, about 1500 years."


Okay, just so you know... I wrote this story not having a spectacularly happy ending in mind. I guess you can figure out what that means. If you don't like the idea of it, then stick around anyways, I might be able to change your mind.

And if you really don't like the idea of it, then I won't hold it against you. Up to you if you want to keep reading or not.

But please do...