We, the Sparky Army, decree 2008 to be the Year of the Spark. We pledge to post a new sparky story or chapter of a sparky story every day from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008. Though the Powers that Be have removed Elizabeth Weir from the regular cast of Stargate Atlantis, we feel that she remains an integral part of the show, and that the relationship between her and John Sheppard is too obvious to be ignored. We hope that you, and anyone might happen to read these works, agree.

And if that isn't official enough for you, we don't know what is. Seriously, guys, we're just trying to have some fun--and show TPTB that Sparky is the way to go. So sit back and enjoy the 366 stories coming your way!

Loop in Time

By Hannah554

Chapter 2

Rodney had determined that they were stuck in a time loop pretty quickly, it helped that four hours later John was once again waking up in his bed an hour before his alarm went off. After six loops Rodney was still no closer to figuring out how to get him and John the hell out of this. John was actually starting to get a little irritated by the repetitiveness, wake up one hour before the alarm goes off, go convince Elizabeth he was trapped in a time loop with Rodney and neither of them had gone insane...yet, then spend the following three hours helping Rodney in whatever miniscule way he could. After those three hours was over he started back at square one again only he was slightly more frustrated than the last time.

Now he was sitting in Rodney's lab watching the scientist tinker with the device that had caused all of this. John swore if he ever got out of this he'd never touch another piece of ancient technology unless he knew what it was, what it did and how to control it. His gene was a pain in the ass at times and he wasn't going to risk anything even remotely similar happening again.

To make matters worse he had, of course, been trapped in the time loop with Rodney. The scientist could be crabby enough on a good day and he knew that this hadn't been a good one the first time round. . Therefore the scientist was stuck relieving the same crap day and John was the unfortunate soul trapped along with him on the receiving end of the man's increasing annoyance.

"How's it going?" Elizabeth questioned as she entered the lab.

"The same as it was when you asked me in the last loop," Rodney replied bitterly.

"Well since I don't have the benefit of remembering," Elizabeth began unaffected by Rodney's attitude; it was something you got used to after a while. "Why don't you remind me?"

"We don't even know why the Ancients made this thing," Rodney told her, more disgust in the word 'thing' than John had ever heard the scientist use when referring to advanced alien technology. "We don't know how it was activated and we don't know how to deactivate it. Now if everyone could with the interruptions I might be able to figure those things out."

"He's a little crabby today," John told Elizabeth with a shrug.

"I am not crabby, I'm just... annoyed," Rodney responded earning himself two raised eyebrows. The scientist refocused his attention back onto the device muttering to himself as he worked.

"It's a little frustrating," John defended his team mate. He felt like snapping at a few people himself but unlike Rodney had a little more restraint in that department.

"I'm sure it is," Elizabeth replied in her diplomatic, understanding tone of voice. "But I'm also sure we'll figure out how to stop it."

John held her gaze a moment longer than was really necessary, he probably did that a little too often. As often as she broke it though she left the task up to him.

"Geez will you two stop making googly eyes at each other everyday and just make out already, preferable somewhere I can't see you," Rodney interrupted breaking the moment for them.

"Rodney," John exclaimed, resisting the urge to hit him while trying to keep the blush from creeping any further up his neck, were they really that obvious?

"Oh come on," Rodney replied with an eye roll. "It's not like she'll remember it."

"That's not really the point," John told him as Elizabeth clasped her hands together in front of her.

"Just keep me up to date," she said as she left.

Eleven loops, they had been doing this for eleven loops and it was now way beyond annoying. At least they'd made some progress; Rodney had managed to access some data that was stored in the device during the last loop. John didn't actually know what it was, the loop had started again just as Rodney had been about to explain it. They were sitting in the briefing room with Elizabeth and the rest of his team as Rodney explained what he'd found out though he'd warned John that it wasn't much and it didn't really help them.

"The data contained information on why the Ancients built this device; well actually it was just one Ancient and she kept a log stored within the device. A close friend of hers died, he was killed in the war with the Wraith and she was forever haunted by it, by what she could have done to save him. She started building a device that would allow her to go back in time and fix the event that had killed him but he still died. She wanted to try again but the other Ancients discovered what she was doing and took the device and all her research away from her," Rodney explained, everyone was listening intently, especially Elizabeth on the end, if it was about the Ancients she was usually enthralled.

"She left Atlantis and started all over again but instead of just building a time machine she wanted to build a device that would loop time, allowing her to relive a specific period of time over and over until she deactivated it. It would give her the time she needed to do everything she could, try every possible scenario to save her friend. It worked, she was able to go back to the point in time where he had died and keep reliving those few hours until it drove her crazy, no matter what she did he still died."

"So she did not save him in the end?" Teyla questioned and Rodney shrugged.

"I don't know, the log entries ended shortly after she started going mad but the end note said that the device wouldn't stop. She couldn't get it to deactivate, not until she found her resolution," he told them.

"And that means what?" John questioned.

"I have no idea but if we figure out what it means then we might be able to shut the device off," Rodney replied. "I think SG1 had it easy."

John remembered reading a report on that, General O'Neill and Teal'c had been caught in a time loop. They'd relived the same day over and over again for months, John wasn't sure his mental stability could last that long. "How did they cope with this?" he questioned rubbing at his eyes.

"They didn't say it in the report but I have it on good authority that they found ways of entertaining themselves," Rodney told him and John looked at him expectantly waiting for him to expand on his answer. "They could do whatever they wanted without have to face consequences, in the end the loop repeated and the only ones who remembered it were them."

"Really," John replied a million thoughts and ideas coming to him all at once and from the look on Rodney's face he was coming to the same conclusion.

"Oh no," Elizabeth said, knowing straight away what he was thinking. John and Rodney both stood up and left the room.

TBC