Understudy

Author: Cheryl W.

Author's Notes: Just to clear things up, Ronon and the deceased John are not "our" Ronon and John. But it's kind of tricky because their realities mirror our Atlantis' teams in a lot of ways. And a great big hug to all those who dropped me a review and wanted more of this story!

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Chapter 2: Second Chances

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"Ronon, I…I told him to not engage."

"Is he alive? Is he, McKay?!"

"I don't know. He found the Wraith…we targeted that location."

"The coordinates! Now!"

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Beaming down to the coordinates Rodney had provided, Ronon found himself standing in a desert plateau with the wind blowing around debris from the explosion, flames still consuming the Wraith's hideout and numerous burning patches of earth and a car. Then he saw the body on the ground, not moving.

"No!" he shouted as he ran full out for Sheppard, dropped to his knees beside the man. His heart thudded into a painful rhythm at the sight of the familiar face, the trademark hair, the life in the green eyes that was dimming. And damn it, blood, lots of it. Putting his hand on the bullet wound and pressing, he screamed over his shoulder for the medic team.

When he looked back down at Sheppard, the man's pain dulled eyes seem to focus. "Fight, Sheppard! Fight!" he snarled, before his voice broke. "You're not alone, buddy. You can't go…can't run out on me all over again."

Then the medic team was there, shoving their way past Ronon to their patient. Shifting position but refusing to go far, Ronon knelt down at John's head, put a hand on John's shoulder, needing the contact as much as giving it. And whatever bravado he had that he could look at this John's face and not see the death of his best friend, to not latch onto this stranger and call him brother, to not rage against him being taken from him again, even if it wasn't his John, crumbled. It was still a John Sheppard right there with him and that would always be enough for him.

Cupping John's face gently in his big hands, he peered down into John's eyes. "You don't know me but I know you. I'm not going to let you go so …. …you're going to fight and live and that's an order, Sheppard. That's our deal, you hear me?!" But like his own Sheppard, this one defiantly disobeyed his orders, went and flatlined.

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Piloting the Jumper to the Daedalus, Rodney kept running his last conversation with John Sheppard through his head. "Listen to me, I know what I said but do not engage. Do you hear me?!" What he left unsaid was: 'Don't be a hero,' maybe would have gotten around to that dialogue if the cell reception hadn't cut out.

He wondered if the man would have heeded his order, even if he said those particular words. Kicker was…if Sheppard would have listened, backed down, didn't do whatever he did to delay the Wraith even those few scant minutes from initiating that signal, the signal would have gone through and the Wraith attack on Earth would be imminent. Instead, Earth, well, their Earth, was safe and John Sheppard was rewarded for his bravery with a bullet inches from piercing his heart and now his odds of survival …were not good. Fact was, he died out there in that desert, was only alive now because of Ronon Dex, the Daedalus beaming technology and the voodoo of Ancient, Asgardian and earthly medicine. But the human body could only take so much, least that was Dr. Keller's parting words to him as he ran for the jumper. She really needed to work on her bedside manner.

'Crap, if Sheppard dies, Ronon will take it hard.' Though the Satedan from an alternate universe than their own had never met this version of John Sheppard, Rodney hadn't missed the catch in the usually emotionally stunted man when he had asked, no, more like implored Rodney to make sure nothing happened to this Sheppard, like it had to Ronon's Sheppard. 'And I failed. Worse. I unknowingly set everything into motion.'

Rodney thought now that maybe it was the playback of that conversation, the sound of need in Ronon's voice that had him try and tell Sheppard to stand down, to not go after the Wraith…to not get himself killed. Then again, it could have just been the voice in his own head demanding that he get a chance at the friendship he was so jealous of between his other self and that universe's John Sheppard. A friendship he didn't have any reference to even compare to in his own life.

Actually, it didn't matter his reasoning for wanting to keep John safe. John Sheppard had gone off and done what he expressly didn't want him to: faced off with a well-armed, well feed, fanatically goal oriented Wraith all on his own, in the middle of the desert, miles from help.

Grimly, Rodney wondered if all he was ever going to get were those few scant hours with Sheppard. First insulting the man trying to intimidate him, then playing tour guide for their Area 51 Wraith museum and then there was that ill-advised comparison he made to the other Sheppard. "I don't think there is much different between you and that other John Sheppard. I like to think you have the same strength of character." Rodney would go to his own grave blaming that "pep speech" for John's actions, that it had goaded the man to recklessly track down and confront the Wraith alone.

Crap, but Radek was right, he did talk too much.

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It was undignified, but Rodney ran to the Daedalus infirmary, came up short inside the doors at Ronon's defeated head in his hands posture in the chair designated as a waiting area. "No, no, no," and he latched onto the male nurse walking by, "Sheppard…the civilian beamed aboard he's…he's gone?!"

"We lost him in transit yes, but Dr. Carson revived him. He's in surgery now," the nurse supplied.

"Yes, yes, already knew that! What's the prognosis, his chances?" McKay demanded wanted more details, some sliver of hope.

"Dr. McKay, I am not his physician…"

McKay snorted, had played this game before. "Meaning you don't get paid enough to break bad news to family members." The nurse opened his mouth to say more but Rodney waved him off. He didn't need some guy in a spiffy scrub outfit to sugar coat things. Surgery was an iffy prospect in his opinion, medicine a voodoo menagerie of chicken legs, potions and rituals he didn't put a lot of stock in. With the nurse's departure, McKay was left alone with Ronon and it took courage for him to advantage toward the man, to croak out his apology, "Ronon, I'm…I'm sorry."

That got Ronon's head snapping up, his eyes blazing into McKay's. "He's not dead," a savagery to his denial, like they both knew the word "yet" was hanging unsaid between them.

"Right, didn't mean….that…" clamping his mouth shut, Rodney claimed the chair beside Ronon. And he forced himself to be quiet, which lasted three maybe even four minutes. "I…I almost didn't see it."

"See what?!" Ronon challenged, as if he objected to whatever McKay might say next.

"What you saw in him, the other him. What my other self saw in his Sheppard."

Ronon snorted, uncoiled his tall frame from its tense pose and leaned back in the chair, offered McKay a bittersweet smile as memories resurfaced, good ones. "He doesn't want you to see that. When we met," but his voice faltered and he looked away, gathered himself before continuing, "he didn't seem like a very disciplined soldier. Didn't strategically approach things…reacted…emotionally. Heck, I put a gun to his head, threatened to kill him when we first met and he basically said, your enemies are my enemies so let's be friends, and took me to his secret city of Atlantis. It wasn't logical…but it was all Sheppard."

McKay hadn't heard that story from Ronon before, his first encounter with his Sheppard. "Sounds a lot like this Sheppard, going back for the medic in Afghanistan…going up against a member of an alien race all by himself."

Ronon nodded in agreement, had already made the comparisons. After Rodney had admitted that John Sheppard was interrogated in Area 51, Ronon had read Sheppard's file now on the Stargate Command database. He found this Sheppard's backstory so close to his own John's but yet so tragically different.

At Ronon's silence McKay got up, began to pace the infirmary's small waiting area. "I should have never gotten him involved, read him in on…all this crap. I guess I just…..you liked your Sheppard and I liked the Sheppard I met with my other self and I just ….." Rodney fisted his hand at his side in anger at himself, his need for a John Sheppard in his own life that had lead him to drag this Sheppard into their world, further into their world. "When he called saying he found the Wraith's hiding place…I …I was trying to tell him to not be like the other Sheppard I compared him to. Told him to not engage the Wraith." Needed Ronon to know he had tried to head this off, to not let it end this way, with Sheppard….hurt….maybe….dying. "I was going to tell him he didn't have to be a hero."

There was almost forgiveness in Ronon's quiet tone as his eyes held his team leader's. "McKay, my Sheppard never listened to that advice, doubt this one would have either."

But Rodney still couldn't imagine what that other McKay, that other Teyla and Ronon would think of him, of what he had done, had let happen to John Sheppard. A man they loved like a brother. Yes, not this John but …there was still his essence of honor in him, of genius and fearlessness and courage. The stupid idiot.

With a tinge of awe, he acknowledged, "He saved us. Our world. Same as your John and that other McKay's John."

"Yeah, he did," and there was pride and sorrow in Ronon's declaration.

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'He's not my John Sheppard, I know that.' But Ronon's head might know that but his heart…looking at the man lying so very still in the bed, it felt the same as when his best friend ended up hurt, worse, fighting for his life. Looked fragile, like John Sheppard so very rarely ever did.

'Until he died in my arms. Until there was something stronger than his stubborn human will …like a sword through his chest'

Ronon closed his eyes against the memories, the pain, though it didn't help. But opening his eyes, seeing him, it did. Restored a portion of what he'd lost, even if it was a "knock off" as McKay called the clones and their alternate universe's selves. 'Course he called me that too, a year ago when I got dropped into their universe, left my own behind willingly to save it. Though it was too late to save my friend I did it in his stead, what he would have done had he survived that long.' And this universe's McKay, Teyla, they weren't his but they were close enough that he could find that threat of connection, but it was a thin link, somehow missing the strength it should…if this universe had a John Sheppard to bind them together.

Teyla had remembered it correctly, he had wanted to seek out Sheppard in this world but McKay forbad it, Woosley and the whole IOA forbad it, threatened to have him tossed in a prison instead of allowed on McKay's team if he sought out Sheppard's counter here. So he didn't but he had hoped…hoped one day this world's John Sheppard would find his way to him, to them, to the fight. And he had.

Looking at this John Sheppard, on the edge of dying, had been without life when we beamed him aboard the Daedalus, was only hanging onto life with the barest strand…Ronon cursed the wish he had made, understood how selfish it was.

And he wasn't the only one shouldering blame for wanting this John Sheppard in their lives. McKay had actually ran into the medical wing, demanded to know Sheppard's status, had apologized to him for Sheppard's injuries as if Sheppard's injuries were his fault. Then, as they waited for an update on Sheppard from Dr. Beckett, McKay had paced, seemed so unlike the calm put together man he was since Ronon had met him, was more like Ronon's own McKay in that moment that Ronon wanted to reach out and hug him for the sweet memory. But this McKay was not in a hugging mood, was agitated, not with the Wraith, but himself, for maybe goading Sheppard to go all reckless hero in some attempt to live up to other Sheppards McKay had bragged about.

Ronon almost smirked. So much for this Sheppard not being a lot like his own. Fatalistically heroic, doing the impossible, risking his own life carelessly for the fate of the world. It must be imprinted on every Sheppard that came down the factory line. And it just made Ronon want this Sheppard to live even more. Because it might not be his Sheppard but it might be close enough to fill that terrible void in his soul. The place that the other John still haunted, would always haunt.

That's what people you loved and lost always did.

So he reached out, slid his hand in John's and gave the limp hand a squeeze and leaned closer to the unconscious man. "You might not know it, but you're a fighter, Sheppard. It runs in your blood. You don't give up when others would, instead you fight harder. And that's what I expect out of you now. For you to fight. Like I said before, you don't know me but …I really want to get to know you." Suddenly that was true. He didn't want to dread finding out how this John differed from his own and he didn't want to feel renewed grief every time this John did something his John would have. No, he needed there to be differences, didn't want to simply replace his best friend for a spare. Yes, he wanted a chance to know that brotherly bond again but he also wanted to honor his friend's memory at the same time. Wished his Teyla was there to talk to, the one who had lost John too, would know the pain and pleasure at this second chance he'd been given. But hadn't she already given her advice right before he stepped into the portal, left their world for this one?

"Ronon, we do not know what that other world holds for you but…I wish you happiness there, healing." And she had put her hand on his heart. "John would be proud of you, we all are. And if there's a John where you go…" her voice had caught on their leader's name, "…teach him to keep his left hand up when training with the bantos sticks."

"I will," Ronon had vowed, his own voice choked at even the idea of seeing another version of John Sheppard again.

Teyla had nodded, then bowed her head to his. "Now go before I do something unwarrior like and cry."

And her words had stayed with him as he gave up his world to save it, came to this world…only to find no John Sheppard waiting for him. Only then had he realized how deeply he had clung to the notion his friend, in some connotation, would be here, that he could get back what he had lost. A foolish dream bore out of his grief and guilt.

But now that dream…was before him. And he could not, would not lose it, lose him. Giving the limp hand in his another squeeze he candidly confessed, "Strange as it sounds, I need you…and it seems like you just might need me. So how about you stick around? You do that and I might even let you get me on a Ferris Wheel. What do you say, Sheppard, we have a deal?" At Sheppard's unresponsiveness, Ronon simply answered for him: "Right. Deal's set."

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TBC

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Thanks for reading my little AU story!

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.