A/N: Wow, I think I'll have to work alcohol into all future SGA stories. . . nearly every review mentioned the Scotch scene. So, in sum, I've learned with this story: Alcohol good. Cliffhangers evil. Got it. :-)
Speaking of reviews. . . . my goodness! I can't believe the amazing feedback I've gotten, even on chapters I knew weren't the strongest. Thank you. (And, you know, keep 'em coming.)
Thanks, as always, go to beta Stealth Dragon, who liked this chapter. So it's gotta be good.
"Why didn't you say something?"
McKay looked up from the laptop, confused "Like what?"
"Oh, I don't know," Sheppard said exaggeratedly. "Like 'Eureka!" Or 'Woohoo!' Or 'By Jove, I think I've got it!'"
"Did you seriously just say by Jove?"
Sheppard waited.
McKay rolled his neck, working stiff muscles. "Radek . . . disagrees . . . with my math. We've been fighting about it for the last hour."
Sheppard looked at him as if he'd just announced teatime with the Mad Hatter. "I haven't heard any fighting."
McKay gestured to the laptops. "He highlights one of my equations. I put his in italics. He underlines mine and makes a rude note in Czech. I highlight his in red and comment in all caps that he —"
"Ah, math geek fighting," Sheppard said, grinning with relief and amusement. The grin slowly faded. "Radek thinks you're wrong?"
McKay nodded. "That why he volunteered for the coffee run. Needed time to cool off." He frowned again at the screen, willing the numbers into focus. They stubbornly refused to comply. "I know I'm right."
"Which part does Radek disagree with? That a power overload will get the device to quit shifting us around or that shutting it off will affect the devices in other universes?"
"Both."
The lab doors slid open and Carson and Radek walked in carrying a couple of thermoses each, sparing him from the colonel's response. With a glance to McKay, Sheppard vacated Radek's seat and took one of the coffees from Carson.
McKay didn't look up as Radek set a thermos next to him with a mumbled "Caffeine." He nodded his thanks, knowing that was enough for the moment, and popped open the top. The rich scent sent his heart into happy flutters and he drew a long sip, savoring the warm, bitter liquid as it slid down his throat. He could almost feel the caffeine speeding through his bloodstream —
Headache.
McKay shot forward to disconnect the computers. Stopped. Reached for them again. It felt like the softer version of the shift headache, but no vertigo came with it. Were they shifting or not?
"Guys?" Sheppard asked, frozen mid-step toward his pack and P-90, looking as confused as McKay felt.
Radek hesitantly touched a spot behind his ear. "Maybe the patches are finally working?" he suggested.
As if Radek's words had broken a spell, everyone moved, grabbing packs and vests, snatching up computers. McKay slung his pack over his shoulder and seized his thermos. He was reaching for the tablet PC when everything shimmered and wavered. He blinked and the tablet was gone.
He cursed at himself. Real bright, McKay. Pick up your drink before the computer. Genius move.
The lab was neater than the one they'd left and the device was there on the table, safe in the blue glow of the container's force field. Carson was gone, and McKay's chest automatically squeezed a little at the realization. Then it seized hard and sharp — Carter and Teyla weren't there either. Cold tendrils of panic crept up his spine and he opened his mouth to shout a warning — We didn't shift home! — when he noticed a handwritten note taped to the table in front of the device. Working in my office. Carter.
His chest suddenly unclenched and let his breath out with a soft whoosh.
"Everybody good?" Sheppard asked, holding his P-90 and pack. Everyone nodded except McKay, a detail that did not go unnoticed. "McKay?"
"I didn't get to the tablet in time," he said. From the other side of the table, Radek groaned. McKay bristled. "Well just shoot me why don't you? I grabbed two laptops, my pack, my vest —"
"Rodney," Sheppard started.
"It's not my fault the blasted seasickness patches suddenly started working and we didn't have more warning —"
"Rodney."
"It's not like I meant for —"
"Rodney!" Sheppard shouted.
"What!" McKay shouted back. Oh. He lowered his voice. "What?"
"How long do we have here?"
"Less than three hours. A lot less," he answered without having to think about it, the clock always ticking in the back of his mind. Sheppard raised an eyebrow and McKay suddenly got his point. "Right. No time for that."
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Radek continued to find fault with his math, dogging him with arguments even as he strode down the hallway, as he unlocked a naquadah generator from its perch, as he moved it to the lab.
"This will not work. I'm telling you, you're going to end up. . . ." Radek said out of breath, almost jogging to keep up.
McKay concentrated on tuning him out, running through the overload calculations in his head over and over and over until Radek's arguments became little more than persistent, buzzing background noise. And then, as often happened over the past year, the calculations were shunted aside by the memories.
Carson's resigned half-smile and "No, no, I understand," as McKay backed out of their fishing trip.
The charred, smoke-hazed corridor outside of the infirmary, the acrid odor still so thick hours after the explosion that it burned his lungs and forced him to his knees, retching, even as he fought Sheppard's hands on his shoulders and Ronon's grip on his arms because he had to stay, he had to see.
The sleek wood of Carson's coffin, so polished that his own blurry reflection stared back at him as he carried it through the gate.
And the new image: Carson, eyes wide and starkly pale, sitting on a stool in the lab. Stunned. Broken. His mouth open but without sound. . . .
McKay blinked. He was hunched over a worktable in his lab, in the middle of connecting the naquadah generator to the device. As he twisted the first of five wire pairs to jury-rig a connection, he glanced at his watch. Thirty-five minutes gone. At his shoulder, Radek seethed, muttering in both Czech and English.
"It will work," McKay told him, moving on to a second set of wires.
His answer was a string of expletives in Czech.
Two wire pairs down. Three to go. "Where have Sheppard and Ronon run off to now?" McKay asked, hoping he would understand the reply.
"They've gone to check in with Colonial Carter. Rodney, at least wait until they —"
The third set of wires sparked in McKay's fingers, and he jerked his hand back with a hiss.
"See!" Radek said.
"See what?" McKay demanded, sucking on his burned finger.
"You aren't thinking clearly."
"I shock myself all the time." He shook his hand to get rid of the electrical sensation that crawled under his skin and then went back to set three. "Doesn't mean anything."
"You're sleep-deprived," Radek told him.
"I've gone three-and-a-half days without sleep before and still managed to save the city." Set three done.
"You're not far from that now," Radek said. "And I think this thing with Dr. Beckett has —"
McKay stopped in the middle of the fourth pair of wires. "This thing?" He twisted his head so he could glare at Radek over his shoulder. "You mean Beckett's spectacularly stupid death, his reappearance in an alternate dimension, or the fact that his friends — versions of us, I might add — are bouncing around out there somewhere and won't get back without some help?"
"All of that. I think it's made you . . . I think you are reacting. . . ." He trailed off as McKay went back to the fourth set of wires. "Sometimes I am wrong and you are right. Sometimes I am right and you are wrong. Let Colonel Carter review your math. She can be the one to decide."
With an irritated flick of his wrist, McKay finished the fourth set of wires. "We don't need a tiebreaker." He started on the last set. "I'm doing this."
His back twinged from staying hunched for so long, and he leaned his elbows on the table to take off some of the strain. He twisted the wires quickly, then checked to assure himself the other four were done correctly.
When he straightened up, he found Radek was looking at him, weary. McKay sighed.
"Fine. Do you have a better idea?"
"Don't overload it. Pull its power source," Radek said immediately. "Like pulling a battery from a flashlight."
"Been there, thought of that. We can't even find its power source," McKay told him, and started his final check on the generator.
"With more time —"
"We're almost out of time!" McKay couldn't help shouting his exasperation. "Each shift home is shorter. You know that. Pretty soon we'll be down to minutes here. Minutes. If were going to do something with the device, we need to do it now."
He turned away before Radek could answer him. He opened his laptop and cradled it with his left arm while he typed one-handed. The generator was set, the connection made, the power flow —
"Rodney, what are you doing?" Carter asked behind him.
McKay twitched and kept typing. He was getting used to people coming out of nowhere. He turned slowly to face her, not wanting to lose a second at the keyboard. When he looked up, he saw her standing in the doorway, Sheppard and Ronon just behind.
"Working," he said, and turned back to the generator.
"He wants to overload the device," Radek told her, his voice just this side of desperate.
"And you don't think it'll work?" Carter asked.
"His numbers are. . . and he is. . . and the math doesn't. . . ." Radek threw his hands up in frustration. "No."
"Rodney," Carter said, still behind him, "I considered overloading it, too, but I couldn't get simulations to work."
McKay fought the smirk that spread across his lips. "Well, Sam, I guess I beat you and Radek on this one."
There was a long pause. Then: "Do you have something I could look at?"
McKay bobbed his head. "'Course. It's on the tablet. Feel free."
Another long pause. Sheppard this time: "McKay, you left the tablet in the other universe."
Oh yeah.
He moved to the generator. "Doesn't matter anyway," he said, his finger poised above the keyboard. "This'll work."
He hit enter.
His world exploded in white light and pain. Then nothing.