(laughs) So I was going to try to get a bunch of chapters done at once before I started unloading the action-y type stuff onto you guys, so there wouldn't be such a wait between updates, but since that's not really happening at the moment, I won't keep stringing you along on the next chapter! Hey, at least they're long ones, right?

Chapter Ten: Invasion

Rodney stayed in the infirmary bathroom for a while, sitting against the wall with his arms crossed over his knees. He just wanted to be alone, and right now "alone" was the one thing denied him, with a guard dogging his every step.

He supposed he should be feeling more than he was. He recognized this numbness; it was the same feeling as he'd had after Carson's death -- but he wasn't going there, couldn't go to that mental place right now.

What it all came down to was that he just didn't know how to feel.

About anything.

Emotion was a strange landscape to him, and even if he'd been comfortable with it, situations like being responsible for genocide didn't tend to come up in ordinary, everyday human interaction on Earth.

A whole world gone, a whole race of people dead, because of him. And he didn't know how to respond to that. It was so distant and abstract that he couldn't seem to wrap his mind around it.

"Okay, don't be stupid," he said aloud, talking to the walls. The Atlantis bathrooms were largely soundproof, a nice bonus to hiding out in one. "So they're dead, so -- so no big deal. Dead is dead, and it doesn't really matter now, right? Besides, you're in a different universe and you might never get home -- in fact, never will get home if these unhelpful idiots don't give you a little bit of cooperation, and you don't even know if your universe's Doranda system was inhabited anyway, so does it matter at all?"

He got up, and had to reach out to catch himself on the wall. He felt a little sick, a little shaky, like he was coming down with the flu or something. He splashed some water on his face and stared at himself in the mirror, wondering if his skin could really be that gray, or if it was just the 10,000-year-old lights.

"I'm a genius," he said to his reflection in the mirror. "Still, I can't be expected to think of everything, can I?"

A whole world, dead.

He opened the door and crossed the infirmary, not really sure where he was going except that he didn't want to be here. He paused for a moment to glance at the drawn curtain concealing Sheppard's bed. But the last thing he wanted right now was to deal with Sheppard's horribly awkward and misguided attempts at being a concerned friend. Rodney was well aware that he sucked at friendship, but there were times when Sheppard sucked a whole lot worse.

His first instinct had been to come here -- in those initial moments of shock and horror, this was where he'd run. And he didn't understand why.

He stepped out the door of the infirmary -- and ran into a wall. His first, crazy thought was: Stupid place to put a wall, followed by I see Carson's been redecorating again. Then his brain caught up enough to realize that the wall was wearing leather.

"McKay," Ronon said.

"You're in my way, Alley Oop." He tried to go around. Ronon moved easily to block him. "Okay, what the hell? Are you planning to drag me off to your lair and eat me, or what?"

"Sheppard wanted me to keep an eye on you."

"Your Sheppard," Rodney said, "is an ass." He tried, once again, to dodge around, but even on a good day his reflexes were no match for Ronon's.

"Not my Sheppard; yours."

"Really?" Rodney looked up at him. That just figured; Sheppard had been awake and lucid for how long, and already he was doing his best Blues Brothers impression and putting the team back together. "He's also an ass, and a meddling one too. Move."

"You hungry?"

His stomach flipped over uncomfortably. "No. And just so we're clear, have I suddenly started speaking Alteran or something? Because I distinctly remember telling you to get out of my face."

Ronon's lips quirked. "You're more like chest level, I'd say."

Profanity didn't come naturally to him; he generally considered it the refuge of lesser minds (such as Sheppard's). But from somewhere inside him, a dark tide of emotion tried to force its way to the surface, and emerged as: "Fuck off." He tried to shove his way under Ronon's arm by virtue of sheer force and stubbornness.

Ronon caught and held him effortlessly. "You aren't normally like this."

Rodney snatched his arm back, bristling. "How do you know what I'm like? You've known me all of how many days?"

The Satedan was still watching him a thoughtful expression that Rodney would not usually expect to see on him. "You're acting more like the McKay we have here, the one I know. That's not you."

"You don't know me."

Ronon just kept watching him. Finally he said in a decisive tone, "Come on," and took off with Rodney in tow. The Marine who was supposed to be guarding him, looking a bit helpless, followed along in their wake.

If Ronon wanted to take you somewhere, there wasn't really a whole lot you could do about it, short of collapsing on the floor and trying to slow him down with drag. Rodney's whole body was vibrating with tension like a plucked violin string. He tried hitting Ronon a few times; this had about as much effect as he'd expected it would.

They didn't go far -- up a few flights of stairs and finally out onto a balcony. The sharp, salt-tinged wind caught Rodney in the face, and despite his agitation, the breathtaking view caught him off guard. Like everyone else in Atlantis, he'd spent quite a bit of time out on its balconies, but very rarely the high ones. The whole city was spread out at his feet.

Ronon let go of him and stepped back to speak quietly to the guard. After a moment, the guard withdrew to just outside the door, and closed it behind him before taking up a parade-rest position.

Rodney took a few steps forward to the railing. It was chest height on him, a heavy slab of the high-tech plastic that composed the fundamental building material of most of the city. Leaning forward, he rested his arms on it, and slowly leaned into it as the wind washed over him.

Ronon settled on the railing next to him. "I come up here when I need to think."

Rodney's head was resting on his folded arm; that was the only way he knew that he smiled, because the edge of his mouth moved just a little against his arm. "You? Think?"

"Once in a while." He could hear a trace of a grin in Ronon's voice, too. A large hand settled on his shoulder -- very tentatively, as if tacitly asking permission, and with more authority when he didn't shrug it off. "You wanna sit?"

"Sure," he mumbled, and with a little bit of a shove from Ronon, slid down to lean his back against the sturdy railing, cutting out most of the wind. The ex-Runner sat down beside him, saying nothing. It shouldn't have been as companionable as it was. He had to remind himself that this wasn't Ronon, but some sort of emo-verse look-alike. Besides, he told himself, he didn't like Ronon. He didn't hang out with Ronon. Ronon was always just ... there.

And as he felt cautiously around that thought, he realized that he missed Ronon and Teyla like a piece of his soul had been torn away.

I don't want to use the term "lonely", but there are certain people who ... I miss.

It was like being back on Earth, that one time, not knowing if he'd ever be able to return to Atlantis. Only this was worse, in a way, because he was surrounded by people who looked like the ones he knew ... but didn't act like them.

At least they didn't know he'd destroyed a solar system.

And committed genocide.

Thank God Sheppard hadn't found out ... yet. If Rodney had his way, no one would ever find out, here or in any other universe. Destroying an uninhabited solar system was a bad mistake, but that's all it was -- just a really big mistake. Killing hundreds or thousands of people -- how could anyone forgive him that? And should they?

Leaning forward against his knees, Rodney closed his eyes.

"You wanna talk about it?" Ronon asked in his low rumble.

"No," Rodney said, without opening his eyes.

Ronon didn't speak again. His breathing was slow and steady. After a few minutes, Rodney realized that he was picking up the slow rhythm of it, calming himself down.

In fact, Ronon was so quiet, his breathing so even ... Rodney opened his eyes and then rolled them in exasperation. Asleep. It just figured. He started to aim a kick at one leather-clad leg before remembering that this was Ronon, and an alternate-universe Ronon at that. Oops, I didn't mean to snap your neck like a dry twig wasn't much consolation if you were the snappee.

His eyes narrowed a little in contemplation, then, because just the fact that Ronon was willing to fall asleep in his presence ... it had more significance than he would have realized, a year or two ago.

"Hmm." He settled back against the railing. The only sound was the moaning of the wind and the distant whisper of surf at the foot of the towers. His guard was still around, but separated from him by a semitransparent glass door. It wasn't privacy, but it was as close as he was likely to get in this city.

He leaned his back against the railing and thought about a solar system dying in a flash of light.

------

Elizabeth's arrival in the conference room where the scientists were holding court went unnoticed by anyone except her universe's Sheppard, who raised an eyebrow. She gave her head a quick shake, by which she meant both I didn't find out anything and Not now. She hadn't seen the alternate McKay on her walk to the conference room, and didn't want to be too obvious about looking for him considering the delicacy of the present situation. In the unlikely, but possible, event that the doppelgangers were planning something with the Dorandans, she'd probably done more than enough to tip them off in the conversation with Sheppard already. Mentally kicking herself for an incautious fool, she joined the scientists at the far end of the room.

For a brief and very nerve-wracking moment, she thought that open warfare had broken out among the scientists, but it was only the usual controlled chaos that inevitably erupted in McKay's vicinity. "No, no, no, no!" McKay was yelling at the top of his lungs at a very startled-looking Mokarra, while Larissa and Zelenka -- both much more accustomed to working with him -- were trying to make themselves loud enough to be heard over McKay's tirade.

Elizabeth finally resorted to waving her arms in the air to get McKay's attention. "Does this mean things are going well, or not?" she asked when it quieted down enough that she could get a word in edgewise.

"Oh, we're making progress." McKay's eyes were bright, his whole body practically quivering with energy. He looked manically happy, obviously riding the edge of some kind of intellectual-achievement high. Elizabeth had to struggle to keep from grinning. There was a delightful normalcy to all of this.

"Carry on, then." She retreated to Sheppard's side of the room.

"So?" he asked, low.

"John, not only do I have no idea what, if anything, is going on, but I think I'm more confused than I was before." As she gave the honest answer, her words startled her. It had been a long time since she'd been that open with him. Talking to the other Sheppard must have rattled her more than she'd thought.

Sheppard jerked his head towards the Dorandans. "How about them?"

"I don't know. They seem to be working well with our scientists. Maybe we were mistaken."

"Maybe." There was a note of slight condescension in his voice -- not something she'd ever expected to hear from John, once upon a time.

"Well, I'm going back up to my office; I have a couple of meetings I really can't put off, even for this. Oh ... and you should know that the other you has put Ronon on guard duty for his universe's McKay."

Sheppard's head snapped around. "He's giving orders to my team now? What the hell? And Ronon took it? He doesn't trust anyone here."

"I don't know, but once you're satisfied that they can be left alone for a while, you might want to see about straightening out your chain of command."

She'd meant it to come out as friendly advice, not as a condemnation of his team-handling abilities, but she saw his eyes darken. "Advice taken, ma'am," he said stiffly, clasping his hands behind his back in a slightly exaggerated duty pose.

"John..." She drew a breath, nodded, and offered him the warmest smile she could, hoping to thaw some of the chill in his eyes. "We'll talk later, all right?"

He just nodded, and Elizabeth turned and left the room, her emotional shields wearing dangerously thin.

It seemed that every conversation lately had been a series of missteps, each one putting a further crack in the camaraderie that had grown between Atlantis's command staff during their first difficult year. And for the first time, Elizabeth confronted the growing dissolution of her city not with weary resignation, but with a flare of anger that surprised her. It will not end this way. She wasn't sure if she could trust what she'd seen in the other Sheppard, but somewhere deep within, she felt the strong resonance of instinct telling her that she was right. The other universe had managed to dodge this rift that was tearing them apart. Fierce determination buoyed her up. We haven't survived Wraith and Genii and nanobots and natural disasters just to go down under the weight of our own egos.

I will not let it happen.

Lost in her thoughts, she was startled by a hail over her radio. It was a simple signal that she and the rest of the command staff had worked out a while back; the only information it conveyed was that she should switch to a private channel known only to herself and a handful of others in the city -- Sheppard, McKay, Beckett.

Cautiously she switched. "Weir."

"Elizabeth." It was Sheppard, and he sounded genuinely rattled. "Did something happen just now?"

She stopped walking and looked around. The city appeared normal; a pair of geologists passed her, bent on unknown business. "Not as far as I know. What sort of something?"

There was a pause, then he said, "Nothing. Never mind."

"John, is there something I should --"

"No. No. Look, Elizabeth, do you know where the other McKay is at the moment?"

"Not for certain. You could try asking Ronon. John, if there's something I need to know about --"

"No. It might be my imagination. Stay sharp, though. Colonel Sheppard out."

And with that, he signed off. "Damn it, John," Elizabeth said aloud. As if she'd be able to concentrate on her meetings now. On the other hand, he hadn't even given her enough information to know exactly what she ought to be paranoid about. For a moment she thought about going back to the conference room and asking him. But he was probably already off, pursuing whatever he thought the problem was.

He's my military commander. I should trust him.

If only she actually did.

------

After Elizabeth left, the scientific contingent -- McKay, Zelenka and the three Dorandans -- settled back into a friendly kind of bickering, tossing ideas back and forth about how to resolve the issues with the Arcturus Project.

The Dorandans had all three been very reserved at first, even Larissa, but McKay was pleased to note that they were finally contributing at a halfway decent level, even if their thought processes lagged several revolutions behind his own.

They were still being guarded by two Marines and Sheppard, which was annoying, but McKay found that he could shut them out if he concentrated. Besides, there was more than enough to focus on -- they were making actual progress for the first time since the aborted test. At this rate he might have an actual report to send back to the SGC when he couldn't put them off any longer.

It was also the first time McKay and Zelenka had worked closely together since the Doranda test; they had hardly even spoken. And McKay was surprised at how quickly they were able to fall back into their old give-and-take, batting ideas back and forth like a series of lightspeed ping-pong balls. There was still an underlying tension; the resentment was still there. But they seemed to be easing back into something like what they'd had before.

At times like this, he really loved his job.

Zelenka and Larissa's two assistants were bent over laptops as they input data for a new simulation that might have a prayer of actually starting to crack the problem. Still a ways to go, but he thought they might be getting there, so he tuned briefly into something Larissa was blathering about, her current half-baked theory on distributing the random particles between an infinite number of universes rather than channeling them into just one. "And according to my calculations, the energy could be --"

She didn't stop speaking, but for a split second, for no apparent reason, he suddenly couldn't hear her. It was like the whole world blinked, and for an instant he couldn't breathe; his chest hurt with a deep and stabbing pain, and for the briefest moment he had a crazy conviction that he'd just been shot. Sucking in a sharp breath, he heard Larissa continuing: "-- long as we keep switching universes fast enough, the particles wouldn't have a chance to begin tunneling and create a permanent link -- Dr. McKay, are you listening to me?"

One of her hands was jammed deep in the pocket of her jacket; seeing his confusion, she took it out and touched his arm lightly. "I'm sorry; did I miss a point? Please correct me -- I can tell from the look on your face that you're skeptical."

Confused and worried would be more like it; the weird feeling had already gone as if it had never been, along with the conviction that someone had shot him, and a strange and frantic worry about Sheppard. He tried to remember the exact symptoms of heart attacks and strokes. Could he be developing epilepsy? Maybe it was just stress. He'd definitely have to stop by the infirmary after this was all over and have Carson give him a thorough physical. Distress made him snappish. "Yes, yes, by all means continue explaining your idiotic theory."

Larissa, who was used to his moods by now, just sighed. She looked oddly strained, and for a moment, McKay thought of asking her if she'd noticed anything strange just now. But it was very clearly something that had happened to him, and him alone; Zelenka and the other two Dorandans hadn't even flinched. And he felt perfectly normal now.

His eyes flicked over to Sheppard; he still had a weird, lingering sense of fear, as if something bad had happened to Sheppard, which was incredibly stupid because Sheppard was standing right there, talking into his radio. Still, his posture was tense, and McKay wondered briefly if there could be some crazy psychic thing going on. Maybe because of their doppelgangers?

Sheppard glanced over in their direction, and McKay hastily hauled his eyes away, not wanting Sheppard to know he'd been watching him. When he looked up again, the Colonel had vanished out the door.

Huh. Weird.

Larissa was talking about particles again. He dragged his attention back to her. Whatever had happened, he felt perfectly normal now. If the Dorandans weren't here, he'd be in the infirmary so fast he wouldn't even leave tracks, but it wasn't as if he could just drop everything and go sprinting off in the event of a possibly serious medical emergency. He'd just have to hope that he didn't keel over between now and the time the Dorandans left.

"Dr. McKay? I asked if you think that additional particles could possibly be generated by the process of switching --"

"Yes, yes, I heard you," he snapped.

------

Sheppard strode down the hallway, hoping that his face gave nothing away.

What the hell had happened back there? He was caught between blaming the Dorandans, and blaming the doppelgangers; he figured it was about equal odds either way, leaning slightly towards the doppelgangers, based upon the meager evidence at hand.

As usual when in guard mode, he'd kept his eyes roving around the room, and at the precise moment that whatever-it-was occurred, he'd been looking at Zelenka and the two Dorandan scientists. Then -- something happened. Between one instant and the next, the room seemed to flicker, and sharp pain blossomed under his ribs and in one of his legs, and a rapid-fire sequence of images burned itself into the back of his retinas in a flash like the snap of a camera: Rodney, his back arched in agony, and then (flash!) going suddenly limp in the stillness of death.

And then everything was normal again. Neither Zelenka nor the Dorandans so much as twitched a muscle. His eyes went quickly to McKay, to see the scientist staring around wildly as Larissa took a step towards him in concern. Whatever it was, Rodney had felt it. Sheppard cast a glance at the two Marines flanking him: Chen and Raines. They both looked attentive but faintly bored.

Just himself and McKay, then. He tapped his radio and shortly had confirmed that Elizabeth hadn't noticed anything, either. He was no scientist, but if he were to venture a guess, the whole thing sure as hell felt like some weird echo effect involving himself, McKay and the doppelgangers.

The scientists had reassured him that, due to the precise mechanism of the alt-Sheppard and McKay's entrance into this universe and the continuing minor bleed-off of entropy into other universes, they didn't have to worry about entropic cascade failure -- all of which meant absolutely zilch to him, but since they talked about this cascade whatever like it was a major bad thing, he wondered if this might be what it felt like when it began. Which would, he assumed, be bad.

Either that, or the doppelgangers were up to something. Or the Dorandans were ... but he could see all three of them right here, and none of them seemed to be doing anything but engaging in scientific debate with the Atlanteans.

"Hey, Sergeant." Sheppard jerked his head at the scientists. "Keep a close eye on them, all right? Don't let anybody enter or leave this room. Call me if someone tries."

"Yes, sir." Chen looked confused. Sheppard couldn't blame him, but he could hardly explain to someone else when he couldn't even explain to himself.

Now here he was, out in the corridor. And Ronon, damn it all, didn't have a radio of his own yet, since Weir still didn't fully trust him. Instead, he called Klieg, the young corporal who was guarding McKay. "Where are you guys, anyway?"

"Top of the main tower, near as I can tell, sir. Dex is along. He's with Dr. McKay right now; I'm standing guard."

One of the side effects of having Ronon in the city was that most of the Marines, especially the younger ones, had a huge amount of respect for him, bordering on hero worship. Particularly since Ronon was on Sheppard's team, they treated him as having an honorary rank second only to Sheppard and Lorne. Sheppard had yet to figure out if this was good or bad; it meant that he didn't have to worry about Ronon being treated like an outsider -- by the military, anyway -- but it also meant that they took orders from Ronon as if he was actually in their command structure, which he wasn't.

Luckily, Ronon didn't abuse this privilege, or at least he hadn't so far.

"What are they doing, Corporal?"

"Just talking, sir. There's a door between us, so I can't hear what they're saying, but they're sitting out on the balcony."

Which meant McKay wasn't up to anything at the moment -- at least not without having subverted Ronon, which was about the most unlikely thing Sheppard could imagine. Could his alternate self in the infirmary be doing something, then? It seemed unlikely.

"Orders, sir?" the Marine asked.

"Keep on as you are, Corporal."

He stood in the hallway, undecided where the greater threat might lie -- or, indeed, if something even stranger might be going on. He was still trying to decide what to do when the lights went out.

------

McKay was bending over his laptop, trying to figure out why the code for their latest simulation kept choking and dying right in the middle of the Arcturus weapon's firing sequence, when he heard an odd, electrical-sounding zap and fizzle, followed immediately by a thud.

His head snapped up just in time to see the second of the two Marines dropping to follow the first. Larissa and both of her scientists had drawn those little zat-like stunner weapons that their people used. Perran was holding his on Zelenka, who had raised both hands with an astounded expression.

Larissa herself pointed her gun at McKay, who froze in the act of reaching for his radio.

"I wouldn't do that. Remember the way our guns work: the first shot incapacitates, the second kills. No one needs to die. Now take off your radio and throw it on the floor. You too, Dr. Zelenka."

Silent, furious, McKay obeyed. Zelenka's radio clattered to the floor beside his own. Meanwhile, the third Dorandan scientist, Mokarra, had sprung into action, binding the two convulsing Marines hand and foot.

"What the hell is this?" McKay demanded, finding his voice.

"Against the wall," Larissa ordered. He and Zelenka ended up standing side by side with their palms flat on the wall; they shared a glance of confusion and mutual disgust with themselves.

"But we were actually making progress!" McKay protested, watching out of the corner of his eye as the Dorandan scientist stared at one of the Atlantis terminals for a moment, then used her ATA gene to activate it.

"I know." She sounded regretful. "And I hope that we will be able to make much more progress, soon."

The doors of the room slammed shut, and the main lighting died, only to have the emergency lights kick on a minute later.

"You'll never get away with this," McKay said darkly, ignoring Radek rolling his eyes.

Larissa ignored him. She continued typing. Then she paused at a sharp crackle of static, and reached for the Dorandan-style radio in her pocket. "Excellent timing, Captain," she said into it.

McKay couldn't hear what was said on the other end, but Larissa's brow creased in a dark frown. Her voice remained calm, however. "No, we've just managed to secure things here. We're running late. If you'd come through just a bit earlier, you'd have run smack into their shield; the timing was very close. I have Dr. McKay here, but Colonel Sheppard is still at large."

The radio crackled again. "I tried," she snapped. "His reflexes are insanely fast. Don't underestimate him. Now, so far my scientists and I have been handling the entire situation; is it too much to ask for a little backup here?" She jammed the radio angrily back into her pocket.

McKay and Zelenka shared another look, this one frightened. Zelenka mouthed, "Genii."

Great. Just great. Like one group of technology-hungry megalomaniacs in the galaxy wasn't enough.

-------

Just as Elizabeth reached her office, the lights went out and the emergency power kicked on. She froze in her tracks and spun around to call to the control room staff, "What just happened?"

Chuck shook his head, sliding over from one dead console to another. "I don't know, ma'am. It just --"

A chevron clicked alight on the gate.

Elizabeth whirled around and trotted down the stairs. "Do we have the shield?"

"No, ma'am!" Chuck's voice was on the edge of panic as his fingers ran across the boards, trying fruitlessly to restore power.

Elizabeth tapped her radio. "Dr. McKay! Rodney! What's going on?"

There was no answer. After a moment Sheppard said, "Elizabeth, what the hell?"

"I wish I knew!" The gate ka-whooshed to life, and she pointed at it. "I need security on that! Now!"

But something was breaking through the event horizon. Something big. It cruised into the space between the gate and the control booth above the stairs, nearly filling the room as its tailfins emerged from the event horizon: a ship considerably larger than the puddlejumpers, of a design she'd never seen before. As she stared, the doors to the jumper bay irised smoothly open as the docking protocols took over, and the ship rose only to be replaced by another, and a third, and finally one with rows of unfamiliar glyphs down both sides of it, presumably indicating some kind of special status.

And then a voice filled the air -- speaking, Elizabeth assumed, through some sort of loudspeaker on the ship. Frozen, all she could do was stand on the stairs and listen.

"This is Captain Seng of the Dorandan people. You are trespassers in the City of the Ancestors, profaning Her with your presence. Surrender immediately, or you will be killed."

----

TBC