A/N Welcome to the second part of this increasingly weird fic. Do not adjust your set... Thanks very much for the feedback so far, it's highly appreciated :-) Hope you guys enjoy this next bit. All mistakes are mine...oh, and I don't own SGA, by the way. 'Cos if I did, everyone would walk around in their underwear. It's such a pretty-fest ;-)
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In the infirmary, Carson Beckett stood over Major Sheppard's lifeless form, wondering miserably if there wasn't more he could have done. If he had arrived more quickly, made a decision faster, persevered a little longer – would it have made any difference?
He knew, in his heart, that the answer was no – but that didn't stop him feeling guilty. The Major had been crucial to the running of the city; to put it in more human terms, he had been the life and soul of Atlantis. Beckett wasn't sure how the city would function without him, but he did know that everyone in it had lost an important authority figure and role model; worse, many of those had also lost a dear friend and colleague.
He remembered the stricken faces of Dr. Weir and the Major's offworld team: Weir's carefully hidden shock and despair, Teyla's sorrow, the destruction of Ford's belief in the immortality of those he loved, and Rodney's seeming devastation. He had seen the scientist panic and rant on many occasions before, but when Beckett had explained that there was no choice but to switch off Sheppard's life support, McKay's reaction had been astonishing. For the first time in their friendship, Beckett had actually found Rodney physically intimidating. Not that he wasn't a big man, but his twitchy personality tended to offset any threat he might have otherwise presented due to his bulk. When the man had leaned into his personal space, trembling with fury, Beckett had actually been concerned that Rodney – who was among the least physically aggressive people the doctor had ever met, preferring verbal blows as he did – might be about to strike him.
Carson sighed, shook his head sadly as he gazed down at Sheppard's empty shell.
"It's a bad business, Major," he murmured. "You leaving us like you have. Bad for the city, and for the people in it. And especially for Rodney, I fear."
If Sheppard had heard him, he might have disputed that. Especially for me, he might have argued. But the Major was in McKay's quarters, still trying to break through to him in a desperate struggle to save his own life. He was currently preparing himself to do something he had never expected to contemplate: he was going to enter Rodney. Or at the very least, pass through the scientist's body and attempt to use the 'contact' to establish some sort of telepathic link with him.
"Okay, Rodney," Sheppard took a deep breath – or thought he did; was it even possible to take breaths in a non-corporeal form? Waving the philosophy aside, the Major stood up and leaned over McKay, who had been sitting on the edge of his bed for the last half hour, fingering the turtle brooch and looking miserable. "I don't think this'll hurt, but I can't be sure. It may freak you out considerably though, so, hey, don't say I didn't warn ya." With that, closing his eyes, Sheppard moved forward.
His body passed through McKay's without any sensation of physical presence except a sudden rush of warmth – it was like crouching beneath a hand-dryer in a public bathroom. It was extraordinary; Sheppard was enveloped by McKay, and he gasped as he touched the man's mind again, this time more deeply and fully than before. He saw images, words, flashes of what he assumed were memories. He saw the handsome young boy again – Jimmy – and a tall, husky, livid man, facing off with the kid. He saw a smaller, frightened looking boy staring hopelessly from one to the other – Rodney himself, aged five, Sheppard realised. All this came and went in an instant, but the feelings associated with it were powerful, as were a host of other images. Jimmy lying very still in a white bed. A pretty but cold-faced woman with her hands resting upon a small coffin. A complex rush of horror, terror, guilt, grief, anger, and finally, hatred that burned like ice on fire hidden behind a cold, sneering disdain; each emotion accompanied by a new, racing image; and then Sheppard saw the boy on the bed again, morphing into himself, his own still form lying in the infirmary, and Beckett becoming the tall florid man standing over him, turning angrily to someone out of view and snarling, look at what you did! You stupid cowardly little brat, look at what you did!
And then it all came to an abrupt end. McKay almost leapt to his feet and Sheppard, startled, fell to the floor, lying there stunned. The whole experience had lasted maybe a second. Hell. Did Rodney's mind always move that fast? No wonder he talked like a machine gun spitting bullets.
"Stop it!" the voice made Sheppard jump. He looked up to see McKay standing almost on top of him, pacing back and forth with his jaw set and his eyes wide. "Just stop it," he muttered, apparently talking to himself. "There was nothing you could've done," he added, defiantly. "Nothing." He dropped onto the bed again, his face twisted and his hands clenched.
Sheppard pulled himself up and moved to crouch at McKay's feet, looking up into his friend's face. It had happened again – the chance for communication had passed him by, with the Major too stunned by the rapid and intense working of Rodney's mind to make contact. He had to try again, but he needed McKay to relax first. What do I do? Sheppard wondered. Try to get a subliminal message through that he really needs to get drunk? He contemplated waiting until Rodney had gone to sleep – if the man did sleep – but the prospect of infiltrating McKay's dreams was simply too alarming. Not that he had no desire to see Sam Carter performing sexual acts in a basque and thong but…oh God, I didn't want to know that. What else had he picked up without realising it in those brief moments inside Rodney's head? He carefully searched his memory but found nothing obvious, despite a persistent sense of fear and hatred of the angry-faced man, and a sense of loss whenever he thought of the mysterious Jimmy. Maybe not so mysterious; the identity of the kid was pretty obvious, but Sheppard had no time to think about that now. If and when he got through this, he'd sit Rodney down and ask him exactly what had happened to his older brother all those years ago, and did he want to talk about it, but none of that would happen if Sheppard didn't find some way to keep himself alive.
He was planning his next attempt when a knock came at Rodney's door. McKay got up slowly, stretching – his spine crackled horribly, making Sheppard wince – and wandered over to it, looking pissed off. But then, when didn't he? He was still holding the personal shield, Sheppard noticed.
Beckett had come to call. The Major scowled at the stocky Scotsman as he came into the room.
"Body killer," Sheppard muttered, but without heat. None of this was Carson's fault. No, it's my own damned fault.
"How're you doing, Rodney?" The doctor asked, in a soothing-bedside-manner voice.
"I'm fine," came the brisk and bouncy response, accompanied by a truly horrible attempt at a cheery grin.
"I see," murmured Beckett. "May I?"
Rodney shrugged and gestured spasmodically at a chair covered with dregs of technology. Beckett moved them carefully to Rodney's desk and sat down.
"I'm very sorry about the Major," the doctor said, turning warm and sympathetic eyes on the now pacing scientist. "I know you'd become close."
"Close? Not really," McKay muttered.
"Charming," Sheppard said to him. "Don't value my friendship, huh? Then why're you carrying that shield about with you like that?"
Beckett seemed to have thought the same thing, because he glanced briefly and sadly at the little green device Rodney was turning over and over in his hands.
"I wondered if you wanted some company," Beckett tried again. He seemed uncomfortable, and Sheppard understood why: things had got to be bad when McKay became monosyllabic.
"Well, that's very kind of you Carson but actually, I was just about to do some work so…"
"It's past midnight, Rodney."
"Really?" McKay was surprised, but Sheppard was astonished. He'd been totally unaware of so much time passing by. Had Rodney really been sitting on his bed fiddling with that brooch for all that time?
"Aye, and I think you should try to get some sleep. You had a bloody awful shock today…"
"Yeah, electricity'll do that," McKay agreed, impatiently.
"I dinnae mean that, and you know it," Beckett seemed to be losing a little patience himself. "Look, lad, we've already lost the Major. To be brutally honest, the last thing this city needs is for another of its most important people to be out of action as well. You need to take care of yourself."
"Nice one, Carson," Sheppard agreed. "Guilt-trip him. It really works. Kamirikov used to do it all the time in Moscow." He blinked. "How did I know that?"
McKay had deflated under Beckett's insistence, gentle as it was. He looked very tried.
"Look, Carson – I appreciate your concern, I really do, but I'm a big boy, okay? And besides," he ran his hand wearily through his short dark hair, "I really don't think I could sleep right now."
"I could give you a sedative," Beckett suggested. McKay started to refuse, but Sheppard saw in the doctor's offer an unexpected windfall of an opportunity. Leaning close to McKay, he hissed in the scientist's ear,
"You really need that sedative, y'know? It'll be good for you. Get nice and stoned and see if it slows that wacky brain of yours down any."
McKay nibbled his lip, hesitating, then shrugged. "Okay, whatever. Nothing heavy."
"Good lad," Beckett told him, and proceeded to pull a small plastic container out of his pocket. "I came prepared," he explained, dropping two small pills into McKay's hand. "Take those with water when you're ready for bed. They work quite fast."
Rodney still looked unhappy about it, but he held on to the little tablets anyway. He stared at them silently as Beckett got up to leave.
"Take care," he told Rodney, who didn't look at him, his gaze still fixed on the drugs. As Beckett left, however, he called after the doctor.
"Carson? Thanks for stopping by and y'know – being my counsellor and – and drug dealer and all."
Beckett smiled warmly. "I was hoping just to be your friend."
"You're always that," McKay told him, with a genuine answering smile, then shook his head as though annoyed with himself for being so soppy. Beckett smiled again and shut the door behind him.
"That was very cute," Sheppard said. "A heartwarming moment. Now take the damn pills."
"Oh, shut up," McKay growled, but there was an undercurrent of affection to it. Sheppard jumped.
"You heard me!" he moved excitedly to stand at Rodney's side. "You actually heard me! Have you been hearing me all the time and just…"
"You're still looking after me," Rodney was murmuring. He opened a door, revealing a sink with a mirror over it. He splashed some water on his face then stood gazing at his reflection.
"Oh great. So you weren't talking to me at all. You've just gone crazy."
McKay ignored him, unsurprisingly.
"So who's looking after you, Rodney?" Sheppard asked, conversationally. "The little voices have a vested interest in your welfare, huh?" he glanced at Rodney's face in the mirror, saw his own face reflected next to it, the grim mocking smile on it fading as he took in McKay's sad and helpless expression. He looked like a small, lost child.
"Hey, come on, you think you've got it bad, what about me? I'm the one who's getting switched off in the morning."
"I'm sorry," Rodney said. And this time, Sheppard was sure the scientist was responding to him, though he didn't look in Sheppard's direction and spoke so softly he appeared to be addressing the remarks to himself.
He thinks he is, it slowly dawned on Sheppard. He's just thinking aloud, answering his own thoughts coming out of his subconscious – but I'm making those thoughts, I'm putting them in there. But he doesn't know that. He thinks he's talking to – who? God? The Major dismissed that one quickly, but the true answer would have come to him had Rodney not provided it himself in the next instant. Wearily, he repeated,
"I'm sorry, Jimmy."
"Jimmy!" Sheppard exclaimed. "You think I'm Jimmy, you think the voice you're hearing is his because you hear it in your head all the time. What, he's the voice of your conscience, or something? And you're mixing him up with me…well, that's flattering."
It was also the reason Sheppard's communication was unsuccessful. He was getting through now and then, but McKay was simply attributing the things Sheppard said to the part of his own mind that spoke with the voice of his dead brother.
"I'm not Jimmy," Sheppard told McKay, as the scientist began to strip off his uniform. The Major frowned. "You really have to do that now? I guess you do. Okay. Your quarters after all." He paused, watching McKay undress since there wasn't really anything else to look at. He stripped to his boxers. Sheppard noticed that he'd lost a little weight and that the muscles of his upper body and legs were firmer and more defined. Offworld missions seemed to be doing the scientist good. But he had more important things to do than stare at Rodney's improved muscle tone.
He followed McKay as Rodney climbed into bed and pulled the topsheet loosely over himself. He'd collected a glass of water and was holding the little pills in his hand.
"We may not need those now," Sheppard told him. "All you need to do is notice how I'm not your brother. I'm what, twenty-five years older than he was to start with? And look nothing like him. And I'm not Canadian. Is this doing anything at all? What do I have to do to get through to you – say something emotive? Will that work? Okay, let's try it. I need to stop getting inside your head, and fast – I'm starting to talk like you. Emotive, emotive…" he thought for a moment. "Canada sucks." A pause, in which McKay hesitated over the sleeping pills and finally laid them on the bedside table, got up, grabbed his laptop and settled back into bed with it resting on his stomach.
"Sam Carter sucks," Sheppard tried. "Oh, God, I really shouldn't've phrased it like that."
Still no response. The Major was getting exasperated, and underneath that, a powerful current of fear was beginning to cramp his gut. They were running out of time…
"Okay, how about this? You're my snugly-bugly-woobikins and I love you."
McKay looked directly at Sheppard, an expression of unmitigated disgust on his face, and said,
"What?"
"I can't believe that worked," Sheppard told him. McKay stared through him, rubbing his head in bewilderment.
"I'm going crazy," he announced.
"You're not crazy. It's me!"
"I'm not crazy," Rodney said obediently, then blinked. "I'm just tired…" he closed the laptop, made a move towards the pills again.
"No, Rodney! Bad! We're just getting somewhere, don't do that."
McKay withdrew his hand, tapped his fingers nervously on the laptop case.
"Is anyone…here?" he asked eventually, sounding as though he felt very stupid for saying it. "No, of course there isn't," he answered his own question acerbically. "You've had a shock, that's all…trauma…horrible day. You're imagining things, go to sleep."
"You're not imagining things. Don't go to sleep. And this isn't Jimmy," Sheppard added for good measure. "Rodney, for a smart guy, you're being really stupid."
A faint, surprised, almost nostalgic smile appeared on McKay's lips.
"Yeah," he said softly.
"…and you make a habit of talking to dead people, which is weird, I know, but I'm not actually dead yet." Sheppard paused, looked closely at Rodney. "You were actually talking to me then, weren't you? You're hearing my voice in your head now. It's not a memory, or your subconscious, or whatever the hell you think it is, Rodney. It's me, I'm here, and unless you help me, I really will be dead very soon. So pull out all the stops, okay? Make a big effort. I need you."
McKay said nothing more. His smile faded. He switched off the light, lay down, and close his eyes.
"…and your response to this is to go to sleep." Sheppard sighed. "Great. Let's go for plan B, then – you can take the pills now if you like." Nothing happened; McKay became inert, his breathing evening out. Sheppard leaned over him in the gloom.
"You know what they say about 'nothing ventured…' so here goes nothing." The Major reached out and 'touched' McKay's face with his hands. "Vulcan mind-meld," he muttered. He leaned closer, close enough that he should have felt Rodney's breath on his face. Closed his eyes. Concentrated. Slipped forward.
Rodney wasn't dreaming yet, which was probably a mercy. That prospect hadn't actually occurred to Sheppard, and it cheered him up no end – he had expected fast-paced Technicolor dreams, erotica, nightmares, who knew what horrors lurked in McKay's weird mind? At first Sheppard wandered alone through a maze of corridors, trying not to give in to the temptation of opening any doors. He walked until he reached one that was already open, and peered through.
It was a small, white room, illuminated by a single bare bulb. A single white chair was in the middle of it, and sitting on the chair was Rodney McKay, looking uncharacteristically relaxed.
Sheppard pushed the door fully open and stepped through. "Hi, Rodney."
"Hey John."
"Weird place, your brain."
"Yeah, I know. Go figure."
"So…I'm still alive in non-corporeal form."
McKay simply smiled at him. "Ever heard the song, 'A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes?'" he asked.
"Um…no. Listen to me. When that Ancient device electrocuted us it stopped my heart, and I got…kinda…separated from my physical body. I've been wandering around like a ghost, trying to communicate with people."
"That's nice."
"No, it isn't nice!" Sheppard snapped in frustration. "What's wrong with you? Aren't you listening to me?"
"John, this is a dream."
"No, it isn't. I'm here, inside your mind. Whatever the device did to me it gave me that capacity – I don't think it'll work for anyone else, though."
Rodney smiled peacefully. "I guess we must be on the same wavelength."
"I guess," Sheppard answered, dryly. "But the big deal is – and you have to remember this when you wake up, Rodney – you can't let Beckett turn off that machine. He has to keep it alive until you and I find a way to put me back in my body."
McKay was still smiling at him. It was getting disconcerting. "I'm touched at the faith you have in me," he said, with apparent sincerity.
"Dream-you is really weird, you know that, right?"
"That's because this is just me. No hang-ups, no problems, no emotional baggage. No real life intruding. This is the person I am inside the most distant reaches of my mind."
"You're sickening."
"Yeah," McKay shrugged, appeared unoffended. "Sorry about that. But you were saying…?"
"I'm trying to get across to you just how…" Sheppard broke off. A sharp sound echoed through the small room, and the corridors outside. "What was that?"
Dream-McKay tensed, looked something other than beatific for the first time. "They're here. It's started."
"What? Who?"
"The doors are opening. We have to get out of here. Leave now, if you value your life!"
"Your dreams can't hurt either of us, Rodney…Rodney!" Dream-McKay had disappeared, locked himself away somewhere where the nightmares couldn't get to him. That was what it meant, the doors opening…
Sheppard considered waiting it out in the little room, or leaving as Dream-McKay had suggested, then decided he couldn't trust that sap to have any part at all in Rodney's conscious mind. Probably some cloying expression of a superego McKay had few dealings with. He had to find some part of Rodney more reliable, closer to the surface, to carry his message.
He was going to have to brave the doors.
A/N What will he find behind the doors? Tune in next time to find out :-)
