Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis is not mine, and no profits are made from this story. It is a work of fan fiction and for fan enjoyment only.
6: It Had to be Snakes
The trudge home from school was often the least pleasant part of his day. The neighborhood children, having scented his fear of them years ago, often circled like jackals and tortured him to his front door. Today was no exception. He was nearly two blocks from home when he felt his TI-55 yanked out from under his arm. Holding the expensive (for that day) calculator triumphantly aloft, the bully had his back to Rodney as I he completely disregarded him as a threat.
"Come on, Billy, give it back."
"Why should I?" sneered a familiar voice. McKay's brows knitted as he tried to place it.
"Because it's mine, and I need it for my physics homework." Rodney patiently explained. Not that it would do any good in the end...
"Well then, come and get it," leered the older boy.
Rolling his eyes, he turned and began walking again towards home. Why bother? He knew how this one went. He would lunge for the device, only to have it held out of his reach or tossed 'keep-away' style from one child to the next until someone broke it. After which, his father would spank him for destroying yet another school-required device and send him to his room without supper. Might as well cut to the chase; at least he wouldn't play their game.
So resolved, he continued to walk on ignoring the taunts and catcalls. That is, until someone shoved him from behind into the back of one of the other gang members.
"Hey, you lookin' ta fight?" drawled the dark-haired boy as he turned around.
Rodney gasped in surprise. "Sheppard?"
"Yeah, that's my name. What's it to ya?"
"But...what..." Rodney stammered. "I didn't know you as a child!"
Another voice chimed in. "You were a weak loser then, you're a weak loser now. What's changed?" The dark-skinned boy spat contemptuously.
"Ford?!?" McKay had never heard such derision in the Lieutenant's voice before, and found it difficult to accept.
"Keep away!" called out another voice, female this time. He closed his eyes in despair as he recognized Teyla. The calculator soared over his head from one teammate to the next while he plodded on, discouraged.
McKay moaned in his sleep, restlessly tossing from side to side. Ford looked over from where he was working on the electronics, then shook his head. 'Must be the night for bad dreams. I think I'll just take my whole watch and let him catch up on his sleep.'
The next morning after breakfast, the four team members discussed McKay's spider. "It seemed very, very real. Only problem was that it couldn't be, both logically and physiologically." He turned to the others, "Has anyone else seen anything?"
"You can count me out," chuckled Sheppard with grim humor. "I've had some...disturbing...dreams, though."
McKay looked up sharply from his examination of his own shoelaces. "Dreams?"
Sheppard shrugged. "Nightmares, more like."
"Nothing here, waking or sleeping." Ford reported.
"Nor here." Teyla regarded Rodney with some concern.
"Great. I had a doozy after I 'passed-out' last evening." McKay sprung up and paced as much as the cramped space would allow. "I can't be just losing my mind."
"Perhaps it's the stress of our situation," Teyla volunteered.
"I don't dare try to work on the wiring." He gestured helplessly at the panel. "I could blow us all to kingdom come!"
"I doubt that, McKay." Sheppard had already been eased into the pilot's chair, and had placed his hands on the controls. "From what I can tell, quite a bit of repair work has been accomplished since I conked out last night, and I see no new problems."
Rodney was somewhat mollified. "Well, good. I just don't know how long I was 'seeing things'."
"Was there anything else besides the spider?"
"Besides my worst fear? "
"Worst fear?" Sheppard interrupted. "You know, when I think about it, my dreams were pretty much pegging my worst fear as well. 'My fear of failing, and losing one of my men.'
"Well, maybe that's it. We're in a stressful, fearful situation; this is a reaction." Ford was trying to be rational.
"But I wasn't afraid before the hallucination began," McKay protested. "I was actually rather pleased with the amount of work we had gotten accomplished."
"Perhaps your mind was telling you that you should be afraid." Teyla was ever practical.
"Or maybe it's something environmental, that just affected McKay first." Sheppard suddenly sounded unexpectedly grim.
Ford shot him a look of surprise. "Why do you say that, sir? No one else has seen anything out of the ordinary. I mean, outside their dreams."
In reply, John moved his hand back to the control panel. "I'm thinking about this control board, and visualizing what's wrong with it." The familiar diagram popped up on the viewscreen, only instead of red wires that needed to be reconnected or bypassed, there was a mass of writhing snakes. Sheppard broke into a slight sweat. "To quote Indiana Jones: 'I hate snakes'."
"Oh, that is not good. Not good at all." McKay stated unnecessarily.
It was decided that Ford should assume primary repair duties, assisted by McKay, and Sheppard when possible. It was slow going without reliable schematics, but with the gene therapy and a bit of concentration, McKay could emulate Sheppard's earlier efforts to some degree. No one felt much like eating lunch, and by late afternoon the snakes had essentially gone away, allowing the work to proceed apace. When they finally stopped at Teyla's insistence for dinner, the mood had brightened significantly. Conversation centered on why two team members were seemingly affected, while the other two were not.
"What do the Major and the Doctor have in common, that does not pertain to you and I?" Teyla addressed Ford through a mouthful of MRE she had opened.
"They're both Caucasian men." Ford suggested.
"We both have 'the ATA gene', although mine was artificially introduced." McKay added.
"Until today, the two of us did most of the hands-on touching of the exposed panel wiring." Sheppard threw in.
Teyla's eyes grew wide. "And between the two of you, you have eaten over two dozen of the purple fruit. Dr. McKay has eaten the majority, but Major Sheppard has consumed little else."
Sheppard looked as skeptical as his bandages would allow. "You two have been eating them, too, haven't you?"
"No, I do not care for their taste." Teyla replied.
"And I pretty much got tired of them after the first night." Aiden commented, increasingly excited.
McKay was thoughtful. "I was actually eating one when I thought I saw movement our first night, and had just finished two when the spider showed up last night."
"Two made up my breakfast this morning," added John. "You don't suppose this is what they meant by 'separate you from your deepest fears', do you? Make us hallucinate? Have nightmares about things we fear?"
"'So you can face them'. I don't know sir, but I think we'd better stick to other foods until Dr. Beckett can analyze these things." Ford gathered back the edibles from the two men, went to store them with the rest, and returned with MRE's. "Here you go; at least we know what to expect from these."
McKay returned a dour look. Feeling the cardboard box, Sheppard muttered, "Yeah, indigestion."
TBC...
AN: Just one chapter left to go! For those of you who have pointed out that Stargate wormholes only go one way, I can only say that "I didn't know that!" Admittedly, it sure clears up a lot of questions about the series that I've had over the years. Still, it makes no intuitive sense; radio waves are streams of photons moving at a specific frequency. Microwaves are streams photons with a higher frequency/shorter wavelength, while light is even higher/shorter. Therefore, since the traveler is demolecularized into subatomic particles which are at a similar quantum level as a photon, it never occurred to me that they couldn't go both ways, too. Oh well, live and learn. I'll make sure that future stories take it into account!