Okay, Johnny-boy, Sheppard said to himself, standing in the corridor that was the waystation to the various unwholesome portions of Rodney McKay's mind – will you take what's behind Door 1, Door 2, or go for the mystery prize?
He headed for the nearest door. They all looked the same, door-shaped, painted white, nothing remarkable. No signs on any of them telling Sheppard what he might expect. He had a sudden crazy notion that he might find John Malkovitch in there.
Here we go. Fighting an absurd inclination to knock, Sheppard turned the handle and pushed open Door Number One, expecting…he didn't know what he was expecting. What he saw was a driveway leading to a large white-painted suburban house. Leafy trees lined the drive; a blue summer sky soared above, and somewhere, birds sang. Nice, Sheppard though. He glanced around him, but it was as though he was standing in a picture frame; he saw nothing but a dim shadowy colourlessness behind him and to the left and right beyond the drive. It seemed if he was planning on gatecrashing Rodney's dreams – or memories, or whatever this was – he would have to go where he was sent.
He made his way up the drive, and saw an elderly man tending to a wide expanse of beautifully cut lawn. He lifted a battered cap, and Sheppard nodded in response. He headed over and spoke to the dream-person in a polite, comradely fashion.
"Hi. Could you tell me, is this where Rodney McKay lives?"
"This is the McKay residence, yeah," the old guy spoke with a tinge of a French accent. "Their kid is called Rodney. Poor little devil, eh?"
Sheppard grinned at him.
"Yeah, I guess. They at home?"
The old man waved up to the house. "Dunno, son, why doncha go see for yourself?"
Sheppard nodded, walked on as the old Canuck began to weed a flower bed.
"Mathieu," a voice said, behind him. It was familiar, strident and nasal, but with a curious lack of inflection that Sheppard found vaguely unnerving. He turned, not altogether surprised.
"Hi, Rodney. Coming along for the ride?"
"What, you think I don't exist inside my own brain? How do you think I remember my dreams?"
"I guess that's never occurred to me before. Weird, huh?"
McKay shrugged. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and looked quite relaxed, his hands stuck in his pockets, gazing vaguely into the blue sky.
"So – Mathieu?"
"The gardener. Nice old guy. He used to let me sit in his shed with him, told me a lot of nonsensical fabrications about his days in the army." Rodney smiled rather coldly, an odd expression that made Sheppard feel paranoid. "I got more interest and warmth from him than I ever did from my parents." His voice was completely flat, devoid of feeling, stating a fact.
Sheppard looked at him curiously, wondering if this was the superego creep from earlier, then deciding it wasn't. Though he found it odd that McKay should suddenly become so confiding.
"You're in my head, stupid," the scientist told him, rolling his eyes. "You're going to know all this stuff anyway. And besides, this isn't really me. This is a dream-representation of me, and I think I'm coming somewhat from your head as well as my own, well, not my own of course because technically I'm not me, just a representation of a particular aspect of me, sort of, but…"
"Rodney, stop!" Sheppard rubbed his head. "I have trouble understanding you when you talk physics. You talking metaphysics is just gonna push me over the edge. So save the explanations for the long winter evenings, huh?"
"The long winter evenings when you decide to take a walk in my brain? You planning on making a habit of this, Major?"
A horrible image rose before Sheppard, of himself bound forever to an existence inside McKay's mind. "Jesus, I hope not."
"Hey, son," old Mathieu called from across the drive, "you goin' up t'the house?"
"Uh, yeah, sure." Sheppard went on his way, with Rodney trailing behind.
"You going to follow me everywhere?"
"Sure. Think of me as your personal guide to the intimate moments of Rodney McKay."
"I was hoping the moments wouldn't be all that intimate. All I want to do is implant a subliminal suggestion in your brain that convinces you I'm still alive in non-corporeal form, so you can get to Beckett in time and stop him turning off my body."
McKay raised an eyebrow. "Nice summary there."
"Can I just tell you? Will that work?"
"You just did, I already knew anyway, and I'm not really here, remember? I'm not really Rodney either. So – no, that wouldn't help. When he wakes up this is just going to be another weird dream to him unless you find some way to make an impact. Do something dramatic."
"Like what?"
"I don't know, this is your Twilight Zone experience. You come up with something. I'm just here to observe."
"So…what are you, psychologically speaking?"
McKay looked thoughtful. They were almost at the front door of the great white house now. A beautifully polished knocker was set exactly in the middle of it. The curtains were impeccably clean and matched in every room Sheppard could see.
"Clinical," McKay remarked.
"What?"
"The house. Clinical. Depressing. It's even worse inside. Oh, and ego."
"Again, huh?"
"Since you only seem to know Freud – which is interesting given that so many modern psychologists consider his ideas to have been largely discredited – you can consider me McKay's ego, with a little of your own mind mixed in."
"Rodney's ego? I would've expected you to be larger."
"Funny, Major."
"I thought you called me John in your head, Rodney. Can we go back to that, please? It's much more friendly."
McKay shrugged and nodded at the door. "You going in there, or are you just planning on admiring the architecture?"
Sheppard gazed at the door, wondering what he'd find inside. Rodney's parents? A kid version of Rodney himself? The mysterious Jimmy? After a moment's pause, he knocked.
He waited a couple of minutes before footsteps sounded in the hall and the door slowly opened, apparently by itself. After a puzzled moment Sheppard looked down and saw a small boy staring up at him.
"Good morning. Can I help you?"
There really wasn't anyone else it could be; the kid looked about seven and spoke like a well-educated seventeen-year-old. Still, Sheppard looked up at his guide for confirmation. McKay nodded. Sheppard smiled down at the young boy.
"Hello, is your name Rodney?"
"Yes, that's correct," the boy replied, with a touch of suspicion. He was small, pudgy with puppy-fat, pale-faced and tired looking; there were dark rings around his eyes. He scratched continually at his left hand, which was covered with some kind of rash, and he wore an inhaler around his neck on a piece of string. His clothes were impeccable; black trousers, white short-sleeved shirt.
"How can I help you?" the boy asked him, impatiently, after a moment. Sheppard shook himself out of his reverie – he had occasionally wondered what Rodney had looked like as a kid, suspecting he might bear a resemblance to Martin Prince from the Simpsons, and he wasn't far wrong – and knelt so as to be on eye level with the boy, still smiling pleasantly.
"I'm Major John Sheppard," he said, offering his hand. The boy shook it, saying nothing. "Are your folks home, Rodney?" Sheppard added.
"No, Major. Are you always this patronising?"
Sheppard, taken aback and somewhat insulted, got up quickly. He saw older McKay smirking at him.
"I'm sorry," the Major said. "Actually, it's you I want to talk to anyway. Can I come in?"
"No," was the brisk reply. "I'm not allowed to let anyone into the house when my parents are away. But we can talk in the garden if you like."
Sheppard nodded, and stepped aside to allow the boy to move past him and into the garden. Miniature-Rodney led the way to a swing seat and sat down, eyeing Sheppard curiously.
"What did you want to talk to me about, Major?"
"Well…." Sheppard found he didn't know what to say. How could he explain the situation he was in to this kid?
"I was a smart kid," McKay's ego said, sitting on the swing beside his younger counterpart. "You don't have to talk down to him. Just…see if you can convince him of the truth."
"Okay," Sheppard dropped onto the grass, opposite little Rodney, who still gazed at him somewhat balefully.
"My time is limited, even if yours isn't, Major Sheppard," he snapped suddenly. "My parents could be back at any minute. They may not like me talking to you." He was looked at Sheppard with his head cocked to one side, wearing the exact same expression his older self used when addressing those he perceived to be terminally stupid.
"Where are your folks?" Sheppard wondered, not sure why he wanted to know but feeling oddly that it was important. The boy's cold expression wavered somewhat; his mouth trembled a little, and he looked away.
"With Jimmy," he murmured.
"Who's Jimmy?"
"My brother." Rodney met his eyes again. Ego-McKay looked on, interested but impassive, showing no emotion whatsoever. "He's in the hospital," the kid went on. "He's been there for almost two years now. But he'll be home soon," he added confidently. "And then things will be better. But you were going to tell me something."
Sheppard nodded, not knowing what to say. This poor kid's big brother was never coming home. Things weren't going to be okay. Ego-McKay glanced at him expectantly, reacting not at all to the quiver in his younger self's voice. The ego. The balancing scales. Rational, objective, unaffected by raw unbridled feelings; no passions, no fears, no desires to be fulfilled. Sheppard disliked this version even more than he did the cloying superego.
"Rodney, what I'm going to say will sound really weird, but I need you to stay with me, okay? Use your imagination."
"Father says I don't have any."
"Um – okay, well, just don't dismiss what I say out of hand, all right?"
"We'll see," micro-Rodney replied, evenly. He looked interested, however.
"Okay," Sheppard took a deep breath and launched into it. It shouldn't be so hard. Kids were more flexible than adults, and tended to believe whatever adults told them.
"You see, I'm a colleague of yours from the future. When you're a grown up. Er…we live in this city together called Atlantis, in another galaxy. I had an accident with a piece of technology which separated my – mind, or something – from my body. I've entered your older self's dreams while he sleeps to convince him that I'm still alive and need his help. And you need to remember to tell Beckett not to switch off the machine, okay?"
Young Rodney stared at him for a moment, his expression unchanged. Then he said calmly,
"My mother goes to a very good psychiatrist. Would you like his number?"
"You're not…wait a minute, just listen to me! This is the truth."
"You're my colleague from the future."
"Not just a colleague, more a friend. My best Goddamn friend if you get me out of this mess."
"Please don't use impolite language in front of me. I'm a kid."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Sheppard grinned in spite of his frustration. "Look, Rodney, I know how absurd this sounds, but you have to believe me. You're my only hope."
"I see. I really should go now. I have to take medication. And probably so should you. Good day, Major."
"Wait!" Sheppard grabbed at him, trying to stop the kid from leaving. Rodney turned, startled, and then his face changed, an expression of horribly intense misery transfiguring it. Sheppard held him by the shoulders.
"What's wrong, Rodney? What's…" he looked up. They were no longer in the garden, but a hospital waiting room.
"They're switching him off today," the boy whispered, his eyes filling with tears. "I told them they couldn't. I yelled and yelled and I kicked Mother and I broke the engine on Daddy's car to stop them from going to the hospital. But they came anyway, and they're going to kill him. They're going to kill Jimmy. They won't even let me see him." Distraught, the boy pulled away from Sheppard and paced up and down the small white room, empty except for them and McKay's ego, who stood in a corner, watching expressionlessly.
"He promised me he'd never leave, and I believed him," Rodney was saying, tears wetting his cheeks now. He was shaking with grief and rage. "I thought he'd come back. Why didn't they tell me? They lied to me!"
"I…I'm sorry," Sheppard told him, not knowing what else to say. The boy came back to him, grabbed his hand.
"You'll help me, won't you? You won't let them switch off Jimmy's machine. If they just leave him alone he'll get better. You'll help me stop them from killing Jimmy, won't you, John?"
Sheppard looked down into the pale, earnest, pleading face.
"Yeah," he said softly, wonderingly. "I'll help you, Rodney. Take me to Jimmy."
The boy led him out of the white room and into a whiter corridor. They walked along it, seeing no one, no doctors or nurses, just a series of white doors. Rodney opened the first one and pointed inside, where a boy lay motionless on a high bed, rigged up to horribly familiar machinery. His head was heavily bandaged, but Sheppard recognised him as Jimmy anyway. The livid-faced man and pretty woman he recalled from his earlier foray into Rodney's memories were standing over the boy. A frightened-looking younger child cowered in a corner.
"That's when Jimmy first came here," Sheppard's young companion whispered. Ego-McKay was no longer in evidence; the boy seemed to have taken over his role as guide. In the hospital room, the boy in the corner turned a tear-streaked face towards his father and whispered,
"Will Jimmy be okay, Daddy? What's wrong with him? Why won't he wake up?"
"Shut up," the man snarled. "This is your fault. If you hadn't run into the road…Jimmy sacrificed himself for you. Remember that. Always remember it. If he dies, it'll be because of your stupidity." The boy whimpered, turned to his mother. She simply looked at him briefly, coldly, then placed a gentle hand on the forehead of the boy on the bed.
"Mommy…" five-year-old Rodney whispered.
In a terrible voice husky with tears that sounded more angry than upset, the woman replied,
"It should have been you."
