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Note: After struggling through four separate drafts of chapter three, I posted a not-quite-up-to-my-standards working copy of that chapter on the site. Reader response was positive, for which I thank you. However, I have altered the chapter, clearing up muddled language, adding a few character moments, and accounting for one character (Ronon), who, while present at the end of chapter two, mysteriously disappeared from a locked down infirmary before the events of three. (He does little in the revised chapter, but his existence is at least acknowledged.) No plot points have been added to the revised draft; ergo, rereading is not necessary to understand chapter four.
Temporal Reconnaissance
By: koinekid
Time Frame: After Identity (for Rodney and Jennifer); After The Return (for Atlantis)
Major Spoilers: 3x10, 11 The Return, 5x18 Identity
Minor Spoilers: 1x15 Before I Sleep, 3x17 Sunday, 3x20 First Strike, 4x2 Lifeline,
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Chapter Four: History's Gonna Change
October 2006
Six Days After SGA-1 Retook Atlantis
Jennifer glided her fingers over the frosted glass of the tabletop, finding it cooler to the touch than she remembered. Long ago, the city's ruling council sat in judgment behind this table, its leader in the center where Dr. Weir soon would sit, his co-councilors to either side and petitioners at the far ends of the half-octagon. Petitioners like Janus, the ultimate cause of her current...what? Predicament? Opportunity? It was too soon to tell.
Her dad used to say that Kellers don't deal in regrets, only missed opportunities. She'd aped the boast often enough, laughing when the homespun language frustrated her uptight Harvard classmates. Her personal life had been full of regrets: not asking Rodney to her room after their first drink, not telling him of her interest before his illness, then using Ronon's friendship to make him jealous... Professionally, though, her regrets were fewer in number, and she'd dealt with them.
Operating on Dr. Weir had been the right choice. Jennifer did everything she could to save her patient and would again without question. No regrets there. Nor had she thought twice about turning herself in to the wraith who had seized control of the Daedalus. On both occasions, she'd been criticized by more experienced members of the expedition. The first time she accepted the criticism; in neither case did she believe it was warranted. In neither was she sorry.
Would she be sorry after today's history-changing debriefing? Unlikely.
She tried to consider the situation logically because she knew Rodney wouldn't. His childlike joy at finding his best friend still alive suggested that the smartest man in two galaxies would be thinking with his heart not his head. Not that her well reasoned conclusion would differ substantially from his.
Conscience alone would have prevented Jennifer from turning the next two years into carbon copies of the originals. Rodney blamed himself for Carson's death and for Elizabeth's. While Jennifer did not share his guilt, her love for her mentor and her dedication to her patient would not allow her to send them blindly to their deaths. Dr. Weir once said she felt comfortable placing her life in Jennifer's hands. A wise decision, if ever there was one.
Still, their meddling in the timeline must be strategic. She would have dearly loved to talk that strategy over with Rodney, but he'd been sequestered in the infirmary since awakening. Carson had flatly refused to clear him for even limited duty after as severe a seizure as he suffered. Rodney went from embracing his best friend to pouting in the corner in record time. Jennifer wouldn't have cleared him either but had offered sympathy for his plight instead of letting him know that.
Dr. Weir arrived in the gate room, entering—Jennifer noted—from the direction of the infirmary. The expedition leader paused to survey the stargate. The gate was inactive, no unscheduled offworld activations or anything out of the ordinary to draw her attention. But that was the point, wasn't it? The gate itself was out of the ordinary, and the wonder of it all had never been lost on the woman. Jennifer honestly could not say that about Colonel Carter or Mr. Woolsey. For the one, the gate was a tool, a scientific wonder that, once understood, deserved no further consideration. For the other, it was a resource to be managed, a set of numbers to be crunched. Both leaders had been good for the expedition, but neither brought the relentless optimism that had been Elizabeth Weir's hallmark.
The chair Elizabeth took wasn't in the center but on the end next to Jennifer.
"Rodney," Elizabeth said, "insists on speaking with you before he tells us anything."
"Really?"
"That surprises you?"
"Rodney not charging blindly ahead?" Jennifer snorted. "That would surprise anyone who knows him."
Weir smiled. "Yes, it would."
Jennifer narrowed her eyes. "Was that a test?"
"Would it offend you if it were?"
Slowly, Jennifer shook her head. "You don't know me yet. Carson speaks well of me, I assume. I know Rodney does. But you need to get a read on me yourself. So, ask away."
The expedition leader's questions focused not on the future but on Jennifer. Her family, her schooling, even her relationship were topics for a discussion that more closely resembled an interview for a magazine article than an interrogation. Jennifer denied her few answers, recoiling only when asked about her mother's death. Either Elizabeth was trying to make her comfortable, or she was getting more from her answers than Jennifer intended to give.
"Well, then," Elizabeth said at last, "shall we call the others in?"
* * *
Rodney seated himself next to Jennifer. Before, he might have demurred to placate their straight-laced boss with the illusion that he and Jennifer were only colleagues. Without Woolsey to bother with, Rodney no longer cared. Still, he stopped short of actually touching her while powering up a tablet and setting it on the table in front of her. "What's your pleasure?"
"Pardon?"
He nudged the tablet closer. "It's a list of everything I remember, arranged chronologically with special emphasis given to the next few months. Your thoughts?"
They conferred in hushed tones while Elizabeth, Sheppard, and Teyla politely pretended not to listen. Unabashed, Ronon stared at the couple. Jennifer made a few suggestions, gesturing in silence when possible and matching Rodney's use of non-specific pronouns and innocuous terms when not. Brief arguments erupted as each remained obstinate that his or her view of history was the correct one. A half smile or loving look broke the tension more than once, and Rodney heard Sheppard remark that he'd never seen two people have so much fun arguing.
When they had a list both were happy with, Rodney closed the file, and the macro he'd programmed triple-encoded it. Jennifer raised a brow.
"A precaution," he said, "until we decide how to proceed."
He brought up the Tablet Input Panel and scrawled: Tell everything at once or a little at a time?
"It will be a lot to take in." She took the stylus from him and wrote: Let's be candid.
He nodded and said something that in retrospect even he recognized as incredibly stupid. "Elizabeth, if we don't do something soon, you and Carson are going to die."
Jennifer dropped her head into her hands. "A little blunt, don't you think?"
Rodney shrugged. "But candid."
* * *
"Why do you get to name it?"
Sheppard's self-satisfied grin spoke volumes, but Rodney fell for the bait, asserting his right of first discovery and vowing not to allow another "puddle jumper fiasco" after Sheppard offered up a few names. Jennifer hoped he was joking after he suggested "temporal reconnaissance thingy."
"It doesn't reconnoiter anything," Rodney insisted. "It transmits data through time. It's a temporal memory transmitter. That's what we're calling it."
Jennifer recognized what Sheppard was doing, had been doing the same thing herself in fact though teasing Rodney was not a method she'd have freely chosen. Elizabeth had blanched at the cavalier mention of her own death. Rodney meant well, but he could do with some lessons in tact. So, she and Sheppard had steered the conversation to safer topics while Elizabeth processed the unsettling revelation. Jennifer was glad Carson had not attended the briefing. She would sit him down later to discuss what they would have to do to preserve his life. Dealing with the overly emotional Scot was not something she could handle right now.
"Isn't 'temporal reconnaissance' your term, Rodney?" Sheppard said.
"For the process, not the device. Look, is this really important right now?"
"It's vital...for the reports." Sheppard turned to Jennifer. "So, Doc, what do you think we should name it?"
"Me? Oh, no." Jennifer shook her head. This had gone on long enough.
"You and Rodney discovered it together, so it's your call as much as his."
"I'd known about the device for weeks before it zapped us." Rodney looked at her almost pleading.
In another situation, Jennifer would have found the look endearing. "'Temporal memory transmitter' makes a lot of sense."
"Excellent name, Doc." Sheppard nodded resolutely. "See, Rodney, that's what a good name sounds like."
Weir rapped on the table. "This device—whatever you choose to name it—do we know if the alterations are permanent? Might your new memories fade with time?"
"All memories fade. It's just a matter of how quickly." Jennifer punched up Rodney's latest MRI. Just to check. She remembered how upset he'd gotten the last time she discussed his medical records without consulting him. Bringing up her scan instead, she slid the tablet over. "Notice the bright green portion?"
Weir nodded.
"That's the part of the brain associated with long term memory. The glowing indicates heightened activity. These memories may have been grafted in artificially, but our brains are treating them as natural. In my expert opinion, they're here to stay. For all intents and purposes, Rodney and I blacked out in 2008 and woke up in 2006."
"In my expert opinion," Rodney added, "that's what Janus designed the TMT for. What better way to gather reliable intelligence than to live through the battle...or whatever...and send those memories back to when they would've been useful?"
"Which begs one very important tactical question." Sheppard sat up straight, tension evident in his rigid frame, a pose Jennifer thought signaled military alertness. "Why didn't Janus use it?"
"Maybe he did."
All eyes shifted to Ronon, and the Satedan looked uncomfortable. Finally, "Maybe the memories didn't help."
"Right." Sheppard snapped his fingers. "Like the Wraith were too strong or the Ancients in charge of the city were too pigheaded to listen."
Ronon shrugged. "Our commanders sometimes knew where the Wraith were going to be. Doesn't mean we won those battles."
Jennifer locked eyes with Rodney. The implication was clear: simply knowing the future isn't enough to change it.
"We will," he mouthed.
Beneath the table, she clutched his hand, propriety be damned.
"Before we take further action, we should examine the device," Weir said, "assuming that doing so won't Inadvertently activate it."
Rodney was shaking his head before she finished. "We can't open that lab. Not yet" Succinctly, he described the events surrounding the lab's original opening: his and Daniel's abduction by the Pegasus Asgard, his activating and subsequently deactivating the device, and his supposition that the unbroken seal was the only thing keeping the Asgard from detecting the Attero control module. He painted quite the heroic picture of himself as he described rescuing Daniel. Jennifer thought he was probably exaggerating a few of the particulars, but she didn't challenge him as she hadn't been there. Besides, he exaggerated too his culpability in the deaths resulting from the incident. She did challenge him on that.
At length, Elizabeth said, "A way to prevent the Wraith from utilizing hyperspace deserves looking into."
"Not if it costs thousands of lives," he insisted.
"Could you modify it?"
"So that it doesn't turn stargates into thermonuclear bombs?" Rodney shrugged. "Possibly, but the planet where the device is located is crawling with Asgard. Battle-suit-wearing, evil Asgard who don't care a whit about human life."
"I'm sure our Asgard allies will be willing to offer assistance," Sheppard said.
"That's right, they're still around, aren't they? Well then, I suppose you're right. It is worth considering."
"Good," Elizabeth said. "I've contacted Stargate Command, and General Landry would like to debrief the two of you in person as soon as Carson clears you to travel."
Rodney reached for the tablet and unencrypted the file. "Just in case," he said.
What he meant by that, Jennifer hadn't a clue.
TBC
Thanks for reading. Reviews are appreciated.
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Review Responses
BetherdyBabe – I'm glad I confused you for only a single chapter. Short of an author's note saying "Hey everybody, this is time travel!" which I was loathe to include, there really wasn't much else I could do.
Cute, eh? I'll have to do something extra manly today like chopping wood or lifting weights to make up for that. Eh, who am I kidding?
DaniWilder – Outstanding work? Not sure if I'd go that far, but thanks for the compliment. The "right mind" line seemed very Sheppardesque when it occurred to me.
ElisaD263 – I'm sure Rodney will be suitably embarrassed about hugging Carson later. Sheppard will make sure of it. The time travel angle is easy to make clichéd. I hope to make this story original enough to justify the cliché.