Part 3
"Rodney?" Sheppard froze in the act of reaching for the final magazine, the gentle pressure of a hand on his arm sending a chill through his body. He frowned, confused, at the familiar figure standing before him. A figure that could not possibly be there. Not daring to break eye contact, he slowly placed the empty P-90 on the low table and reached out his hand towards McKay.
"Sir, who are you...?" Sheppard's eyes flicked across at the Sergeant, silencing him with a glare, before returning to the empty space where McKay had been.
"Rodney!" Sheppard's sense of loss was a physical pain, overwhelming the anger and sorrow that had consumed him only moments before. His eyes darted frantically around the room, desperately searching, before settling back on the startled Range Officer. "Did you see him?" The Major demanded.
A look of alarm flashed across the Sergeant's face as he scanned the room for a possible intruder.
As Sheppard's racing heartbeat slowed, doubt began to seize him. "Did you just see Dr McKay, standing here?" He asked, more calmly. The Sergeant shook his head uneasily in reply.
Was it possible that he had just imagined the vision of McKay? For that one brief moment, it had seemed so real. Rodney had been as solid as the Sergeant, but now, only seconds later, Sheppard was not sure that it had been anything more than a trick of his distraught mind. An hallucination brought on by stress or delayed shock. Or guilt.
He had let a man die. Not just a man, but a friend who had trusted him. No matter that there really had been nothing he could have done; Beckett was right on that point, but that didn't mean that he could deny the responsibility. Each time he led his team through the gate, he accepted their protection as his duty. A duty in which he had failed.
Sheppard's hand fell unbidden to rest on his arm, his thumb absently stroking the sleeve where McKay's hand had laid. His mind in turmoil, he walked from the room.
Xx oOo xX
Rodney McKay opened dust filled eyes as a wordless scream ripped from his throat. The searing agony in his legs tore through his body and made all thought impossible. Gasping for breath through the pain, his eyes darted around the room where he lay. He was back in the cave; a misty light filtering in through the rubble filled doorway. Peering down the length of his body he could see the massive shape of the metal beam that pinned him securely to the ground. Already drenched in sweat, he allowed his head to drop back to the floor and gazed upward, his eyes wide with panic. Two feet above him, a metal sphere sparked and flashed as a slow, steady trickle of water dripped from it onto the ground beside his head.
And then he was standing upright, the pain gone as abruptly as it had arrived. He looked down on his own body, lying on the stone floor. Sweat had left zigzagged tracks through the grey dust that masked his face and plastered his hair to his head in a skull cap. He knelt and searched for signs of life. Nothing. Not a hint of a breath or even the throb of a pulse disturbed the fine dust that covered him like a shroud.
McKay tore his eyes away from his corpse and looked around the room. The scene was one of near total devastation, torn and twisted wreckage filled the cave, but, miraculously, this one small area had survived the roof-fall virtually unscathed. Aside from the girder across his legs, his body was almost untouched by the falling debris. As he rose to his feet a flashing light caught his eye and he turned to consider the metal sphere, still intact and still attached to the raised platform in the centre of the room. He reached out cautiously to touch its smooth surface, but pulled back as his hand passed through the outer shell with an unpleasant tingle. Intrigued, he studied the device more thoroughly. Of the five small lights arranged in a pentagon on its upper half, four were now lit; the fifth flashing steadily on and off. As he leaned forward for a closer look, a bright spark discharged from the metal surface.
And again he was back in his body. This time the pain lasted only an instant. Just long enough to open his mouth to cry out when it ended. Then once more he stood, confused, beside the platform.
What was he doing back here on M3X-925? The last thing he remembered was standing in front of Sheppard in the firing range on Atlantis, looking into Sheppard's eyes and seeing recognition there. The Major had been aware of him, McKay was sure of that, but at the moment of contact he had been pulled away, back to his own dead body.
That couldn't be right. The pain alone was more than enough to convince him that when he woke, his body had not been dead. McKay knelt again; a thin thread of fresh blood had trickled from a small cut high on his cheek, bright red in the hazy light but already starting to congeal. So when he had woken up, his body had somehow been revived, albeit briefly.
A myriad of possibilities flashed through his racing mind, before his eyes settled again on the sphere. The sphere, which, according to Beckett, had emitted the beam that killed him. The smooth metal casing gave no clue to its function and McKay cast his eyes around the room until he spotted a second device, the outer shell broken, exposing an intricate mechanism inside.
Now, his difficulty lay in reaching the second sphere. There was just no way he could squirm through the wreckage; the rubble and metal completely blocked his path. He looked around for another route, then, grimacing at his own stupidity, he gritted his teeth against the pins and needles, and stepped gingerly through the debris.
The second sphere lay close to the doorway, and the light that filtered through shone onto the twisted metal components within. This was much more than a mere weapon, that was obvious, and whatever it had done to him appeared to be reversible. He had woken, in agony and trapped under maybe a ton of girder, but alive. Despite the seriousness of his situation, McKay grinned broadly. He wasn't dead, he wasn't a ghost, and, if this was purely a mechanical problem, he could solve it. Settling down in front of the device, McKay began his careful examination.
Xx oOo xX
"Among my people, it is not uncommon for a friend to be taken from us and their body never to be recovered. Sometimes it is difficult to accept that they are truly gone."
"Among my people too, Teyla."
John Sheppard sat at the end of Teyla's bed and gazed into the flickering light of a candle flame, the only illumination in the Athosian's darkened room.
"But this is different," he continued quietly. "I saw McKay's body; there's no doubt in my mind that he was dead even before the cave-in. And I know that no one could have survived in that cave when the ceiling collapsed. If there was any hope that he was still alive, I would be there now, trying to get him out."
"And yet you say that you now feel he is not dead? That you have seen him here, in Atlantis?"
Sheppard closed his eyes and watched the image of the candle flame still burning brightly in his mind.
"Yes...No. I..." He couldn't describe what had happened at the firing range; not even to himself. McKay had been standing before him, just for an instant, with a look of infinite sadness and pity in his eyes. And then he had... not gone, but never been there.
The image of the flame faded to blackness and Sheppard opened his eyes.
"I don't know what I saw, Teyla." Sheppard admitted quietly. He had hoped that talking about his experience would somehow ease the feeling of loss, but it still burned within him, leaving him sure of only one thing. "I'm going back to the planet. I need to see it again for myself."
Decision made, he stood and walked to the door. Teyla's gentle hand touched his arm and he turned his head.
"And I am coming with you, John."
Xx oOo xX
Elizabeth Weir sat in the goldfish bowl that was her office and stared into infinity. Finally dragging red-rimmed eyes back to the topmost paper in the pile that covered her desk, she tried to read the first line but her eyes refused to focus.
Focus. How often had she ordered him to do that when his mind or his mouth had sprinted off in an inappropriate direction? And how often had that mind been the only thing between the people of Atlantis and disaster? Life was going to be a lot harder now. Hardest of all for those who had known him best.
Her eyes drifted away from the unread papers.
"Elizabeth?"
She realised that someone was speaking her name. Bringing her gaze back from infinity, she looked up at Sheppard, standing in her doorway.
"Elizabeth, I want to go back to M3X-925."
No longer the distant stranger that had returned from the planet, Sheppard's face now showed the emotions that she knew were reflected on her own. She studied him as he stood at the door, still in the field gear that he had been wearing when he came back through the gate. He hadn't even run a comb through his hair and the grey of the dust added twenty years to his age.
"Elizabeth?"
"I'm sorry, John." She blinked rapidly to clear her eyes. "I thought you said that there was no point in going back. That Rodney's...", her voice caught in her throat, "That Rodney was unreachable."
"I know what I said, Elizabeth," Sheppard's voice was now thick with the emotions that he had denied before. "And I was wrong. I want to go back and see the place again. I know we're missing something."
Elizabeth felt that she understood his need to return. She wanted to go with him. See the place for herself, but she wasn't sure if it would do more harm than good. Going there wouldn't change what had happened and she didn't want a desolate planet to be her last memory of Rodney.
"Elizabeth?" Now there was concern in his voice; concern for her, and that was not something she wanted.
"Of course, John. Go." Her voice sounded distant, even to herself, and by the time that Sheppard had turned and walked from the doorway, her eyes had already returned to staring at infinity.
Xx oOo xX
McKay stood in front of the Stargate and raged at the universe. Twice more he had woken, crying out in agony, wondering if this time he would be trapped forever beneath the beam, but both times he had found himself standing beside the platform moments later. He knew that he could figure out what had happened to him if he could only study the spheres' contents in detail, but to do that he needed to disassemble one systematically and that was something he couldn't do in his present form. His frustration had finally led him back to the gate, but,
again, nothing he could think of would allow him to activate the DHD. Each time he tried to press a glyph, his hand passed through with the same weird tingle.
Suddenly, the Stargate before him sprang into life. In alarm, he ducked behind the DHD, fearing a Wraith dart, before realising that, if nothing else, he was safe from that particular danger.
A huge grin split his face as the first figure emerged through the gate.
"Major Sheppard! Am I glad to see you! I thought I'd be stuck here forever." His grin evaporated as he realised that 'forever' might mean just that, or at least until whatever powered his sphere ran out of energy.
Close behind Sheppard, Teyla stepped away from the gate and stood aside as a third uniformed figure appeared through the event horizon. McKay's broad smile returned and relief flooded through him as he recognised the man as a Lieutenant of the Royal Engineers. Sheppard had returned to plan a rescue.
McKay walked excitedly alongside Sheppard as they made their way to the cliff face, enthusiastically keeping up a one sided conversation.
"Major?" McKay looked in vain for a reaction, a flicker of recognition in Sheppard's face. "Look at me, Sheppard; I know you saw me before." He grabbed at Sheppard's arm, but his hand passed through without the least resistance. "C'mon, Major, you're just not trying." Despite his delight at their return, it was maddening to be so close to his team-mates and not to be able to communicate with them.
As they neared the cave Sheppard slowed his pace. From his pocket he took a hand-held lifesigns-detector and pointed it towards the doorway. Looking over his shoulder McKay willed the ancient device to distinguish between death and stasis; to display the tiny point of light that would alert Sheppard that he was indeed still alive. But his heart sank as only three little dots blinked back at him from the screen.
Sheppard turned to the Engineer and asked simply. "Is it possible?"
The British Officer gave the cave an evaluating look and shook his head dubiously. "It's possible, Sir." He looked up and scanned the cliff face appraisingly. "It would take a lot of equipment and a lot of men, but it's…" He hesitated, plainly searching for the right word, before settling on... "…possible."
Sheppard followed his gaze as a minor tremor shook the ground. From high above, a small section of the cliff broke away and the Engineer stepped smartly back to avoid a shower of rubble. When Sheppard spoke, his voice was soft. "But is it advisable?" The question was rhetorical, but the Engineer replied frankly.
"That's your decision, Sir."
Sheppard turned to look at Teyla, who answered his unspoken question. "The lifesigns-detector tells you that he is gone. What does your heart tell you, John?"
"This is no time to go all rational on me, Major." Powerless to influence the Major, McKay knew that his chance of rescue now lay in the balance.
As McKay watched, Sheppard's head dropped and he gave a heavy sigh.
"It tells me the same, Teyla; that there's nothing here. Let's go home." Sheppard took a last look through the doorway. "Goodbye, Rodney."
McKay followed them back towards the Stargate in silence, and in silence Sheppard began to dial home.
McKay woke in the cave. This time he let his scream of agony have full rein. "Major! Teyla!" How far was it to the Stargate? One hundred, one hundred and fifty yards? Surely they must have heard him. "Major!" He stopped and strained against the silence for the sound of their return. Nothing. By now, Sheppard would have finished dialling and once they were gone they would never come back.
His radio. Even if they had already passed through the gate, they might still hear his radio. Lifting his hand to activate his headset, he almost sobbed to find it gone; dislodged when he fell to the ground. There wasn't time to regret the loss, there had to be another way to signal to his team-mates.
His hand scrabbled for his 9mm. If he could fire off a shot... His sudden movement sent fresh waves of pain through his legs and his vision began to dim. He couldn't afford to pass out now. As slowly as he dared, he reached over to his holster and drew the hand gun. The shot might bring the rest of the ceiling down, but it was a risk he was prepared to take. Pulling the weapon clear he chambered a round and aimed it away from his body.
He was standing next to the sphere. "No! No no no!" It was as if the device was playing with him. He aimed a savage kick at the sphere, which passed harmlessly through it, and then ran for the doorway and towards the Stargate, heedless of everything in his way, praying that he could still get there before the gate shut down.
Xx oOo xX
TBC