If I Die

Chapter Twenty One - Jumping the Shark

Thunderstorms. He'd always hated them.

She'd given him an ultimatum. One final shot at redemption. Give it up, she'd said, pleaded with him to take some time off, to join real life a couple of times a week.

She'd tried to convince him that academic success wasn't everything, but he couldn't. He'd lost himself in an experiment and only looked up when the janitors switched the lights off.

He'd never run so far and so hard. Not until Atlantis, and desperate chases across alien planets. And back then his youth had been betrayed by too many Cheetos and nights in the lab, and the bus he'd just missed and the taxis that ignored him.

And the rain and the thunder, and the lightening. The water dripping down his back and soaking his socks and plastering the hair to his head.

He'd arrived at the restaurant to see through a sheet of glass the party in full swing, and her, smiling, and happy, for the first time in months. Without him.

The limp bouquet was thrust into a trash can. He'd walked home, wet through and sneezing.

And in his head, he'd posted a letter under her door brimming with apologies, and he'd won her over, and she'd come back to him.

And in his head, he'd left a message on her answer-phone, and said with dignity that she was right, and that she deserved better, and he was happy for her.

And in the lab, he'd resumed his experiment and drove everything down without a word. She'd left him, and he'd watched her go, unwilling to change, selfish to the last.

He'd asked Sheppard to leave him.

The man was insane, he decided. He was accustomed to being left, he expected it. Hell, he knew that for the most part, he deserved it. But for whatever reason, Sheppard had said no, and he was still here, as was Teyla and Ford.

Still here, stuck with him till the last moment. Till there was nothing left to lose, to spill across the floor.

Hallucinating ex-girlfriends and reliving bitter memories. Less of a flash before his eyes, and more of a film reel, slow and increasingly addled, like those all night reruns of the X-Files. The later seasons.

Thunderstorms and water down the back of his neck. Running down the sidewalk, drenched by passing cars, Kolya's voice in his ear, screaming. Lightening across an ocean and the flicker of streetlight reflected in puddles.

And the whisper of a voice in his head, and his own words.

If I die before I wake…

He was dying, and it wasn't peaceful and quick, but slow, and painful, and still here was his team. He could hear Sheppard and Ford, and feel Teyla's warmth, though he hadn't the strength to open his eyes.

Gaul said he'd changed. He couldn't bring himself to believe it.