Authors Note: This hasn't been beta-read so I apologize if it has grammar/spelling errors in or if the characters sound a bit off. Please let me know what you think of this, complaints, suggestions; any feedback would be helpful as long as it is constructive.

Spoilers: For Season One "Before I Sleep". This is a tag for the episode – the final in quad of them. What can I say but that this is my favourite episode and tags for this accumulate (had five or six bunnies for it!) and it's not everyday you can get in 4 different PoV's for 2 characters. Anyway this one is from AT Rodney's perspective.

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Stargate in any incarnations of course and I'm not making any money, this is just some harmless fanfic fun.

Just Another Feeling

The doors are locked
The waters rising

I'm standing here, overlooking the gate room. The water rushing in makes it a bit like a balcony.
I struggle with my datapad, desperately trying every combination that might make sense.
Trouble is I don't know whats what and so it's pretty much pure luck. I wish I could do better, the people in the ships deserve better. Everyone here deserved better, even me.

I think of what I should have done, passing thoughts between what I'm meant to be doing.

They're like idle thoughts, on a Sunday. But I'm dying here, going to, whatever. I concentrate on the schematics. There has to be one here, the Ancients had to have a way out. It's probably so amazingly obvious. If I had time I'm sure I could work it out but we have a deadline, don't we?

There's no way out
The waters rising

The lights go out, plunging us into darkness. The water laps at my feet and I can hear the scream coming from rooms nearby, hands banging on the bulkheads desperate for survival. I swallow anxiously, realising that's going to be me soon.

And I crawl up high as I can get because no one just gives in to death like that.
I know I'm doomed but I can't stand there while the water creep around me.
I wanted to live, wanted to explore the city.
I wanted to save myself and to give them a chance.
I wanted everyone to be fine, to make it better.

So I wonder who else made it to the ship bay, concentrating on the positive, on who else might survive if their luck holds.

Elizabeth's there. It doesn't make me feel much happier really but there's some justice that she's alright. I'd laugh if I could, she actually cared, demanded I got up to the bay.
We both knew I probably wouldn't get there and it's better this way. I have more important things to do than that.

She practically ordered me to find a way there even after the city shut us in. I'm not sure why she ever bothered with me but I like her, she had zest under all her well meaning diplomacy.Liked her I correct myself. She's just one of those people who makes an effort despite anything you do, who defies you to prove her right and thinks the best of everyone. She probably would have been good as a leader.
But now we'll never know, or at least I won't.

Maybe she'll survive.
And Sheppard, if he can fly as well as he says he can. Hope to God that cocky grin has the talent to go with it.
They're with the Czech too -Zelemka, Salenka? But then it's not like names matter right now. All I know is he's good, almost as good as me. They're lucky to have him.
Maybe they'll be ok.
Maybe.

The rooms three quarters flooded, it's up to console I'm standing on, some of the equipment floating round it. Not much longer left at this rate. A few minutes maybe before I'm dead. Peter's treading water already, he refused to get up here. Maybe his way would be better. There's no changing what's happening. We are going to die I remind myself.

It's hard to believe though, surreal, almost as if at any moment salvation will come. How could the Ancients let this be? Let Atlantis succumb to the ocean as surely as we all are right now. There should have been something to stop this. Should have been, too many of those along with the what ifs and maybes. I'm not making sense anymore. If I was talking I'd be rambling I'm sure.

I want to say something, one last thing to them. I can't retract the bay door but surely the ships would have a way to? This can't be the end, not for them.
I want to say something, just not goodbye. Only what else can I say?

What do I want to say?
All that's left now is that they might live, however many are in there, because something needs to come out of this.
The city's gone and it's our fault. Most of the of the good people gone too. And what for?

Again I'm envious of them all - sitting tight in their ships. Wishing I had the gene, that I was the one of them up there. Maybe if I'd gone into military, maybe if I was a pilot...
But then maybe this would never be and would that be such a bad thing?
Only I can't shake the feeling that it would be, that we were meant to come here, had to come here.
Just that this isn't how it was meant to be.

I'm sinking suddenly, as the the waters surround me rapidly. It's so cold and I'm lost. Slipped off the console, hitting the water with a splash but the water filling in the difference so quickly.

I don't want to open my eyes.
I don't want to see what's happening anymore. Feeling it is bad enough.
I can't die.
I don't want to die.
Why is this happening?
I know why, the power depleted, the shield failed but I never dreamed we'd find Atlantis and then this...

Now I'm holding my breath. Brain starved of oxygen. Five minutes, isn't it, before your brain cells start to die?
I want it to be over and at the same time I don't. There' still hope where there should be none.
It's not even like I'm a terribly hopeful person by any means. It doesn't make sense but it's probably just the beginnings of the hypoxia, that and the fact I don't want this to be the end.
But who does?
After all nothing saved the others. I can stil hear muffled noises through the water but they sound more like they're coming from above now.

There's no getting out of this one

What did I expect?
Travel to another galaxy, mission of a lifetime - the tag line practically reads mission of your lifetime, as in end of.
We're screwed beyond comprehension, and why did I think this could work?
Oh yeah, that instinct that said this was worthwhile, this what you've been waiting for whether you know it or not.
This isn't what I signed up for, this isn't how it was supposed to go.

The waters rising...

There's no air. I know there's no air but I'm trying anyway to reach a surface that doesn't exist. A last ditch attempt even though it's futile and I'm too weak to do anything.

Finally I give in - wishing that my mouth could breath glorious air. Instead I choke on water. Salty and cold, chilling me to the bone. My lungs spasm, rejecting it; but there's no where for it to go.

I wonder where I will go.
Is God really all that forgiving as some people say he is?
Not that God's a he or an it or...
But will he? Would he?
Or is it just emptiness, with nothing else.
The last feeling of bliss my dying body's strangled cry at it's demise.

I wonder why they say drowning elicits euphoria?
I wonder how they know?
And then I wonder no more.