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Chapter Seven: Differences

Elizabeth booted up her computer with her jaw set, knowing what she was going to see as soon as she logged onto her email.

And she wasn't disappointed. Along with the usual array of requisition forms, field reports and the odd forwarded joke email, there were -- she counted -- 47 messages from a user calling themselves "RodneyMcKay2".

She had no idea how he was doing this. Supposedly, the alternate McKay was supposed to be confined to quarters and completely locked out of the computer system, and didn't have a functional copy of the ATA gene on top of everything. Yet he kept sending her emails.

Her ever-present migraine began stabbing a fork into her left eye -- it had been months since she'd been headache-free, and she was getting tired of the worried looks Carson gave her when she went to ask for more medication. On top of Doranda and Caldwell and the Wraith and the growing tensions on Atlantis, she didn't need to deal with an alternate Rodney McKay as well as the real one.

She started to trash the whole stack of emails, then, with a train-wreck sort of fascination, clicked on the first one.

Seriously, this is ridiculous. I have one of the highest security clearances known to mankind. Besides, I'm hacking your security even as we speak. Come on, Elizabeth, would a dialogue kill you? I'm going out of my mind here!

Frowning, she clicked on the next one.

FOR GOD'S SAKE AT LEAST TELL ME HOW SHEPPARD'S DOING!

Next:

Not that I care, of course.

Next:

I hate all of you people.

Elizabeth felt an unwelcome and unexpected smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. She couldn't help being reminded of the way that the real Rodney used to bug her via the intranet when he wanted something, back in the early months of the Atlantis expedition. The only emails she'd gotten from him in months had been all business, straightforward and to the point. The smile faded, and she clicked on the next email.

Okay, Elizabeth, I didn't mean it. About the hating. Say, are these going to you at all? Just my luck that in this universe, Heightmeyer's in charge and the Elizabeth Weir I've been emailing, namely you, is a six-foot-tall Marine who's going to head over here and kick my ass. Although at this point, I'd almost welcome the relief from the UTTER MIND-NUMBING BOREDOM. Elizabeth! I can feel my brain cells dying as I type! YOU CAN'T IMAGINE WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE!

I tried to make a ladder to escape from my window by knotting bedsheets, but I only have one bedsheet and I'm twelve stories above the ocean. Also, bedsheets don't knot worth a damn anyway.

Elizabeth, come on, this is childish. I can't believe you people are keeping me locked up. And you're avoiding me. Admit it.

Her brow furrowed, and she tapped a stylus lightly against her teeth. It was true; he'd been here two days, under heavy guard, allowed out of his quarters only to eat meals in the cafeteria. She knew that she needed to interview him, out of curiosity about his reality if nothing else. But somehow she couldn't bring herself to do so. She wasn't sure if she feared what she might find out about his universe ... or about her own.

She opened another of his emails at random.

Sheppard's dead, isn't he? That was an awful lot of blood in the jumper. He couldn't have survived that. He's dead and that's why you people won't let me see him. It's stupid not to tell me, you know. I'm an adult. I think I'd really rather know. The not knowing is the worst part.

Is he dead?

Elizabeth?

Anybody? Hello?

She shivered, trying to imagine herself in his shoes: isolated and unspeakably alone, lost in a universe not her own. She imagined how she might cling to the only other person from her own reality, even if it wasn't someone that she liked all that much.

And here she sat, ignoring her responsibilities because she didn't want to look into the face of someone who reminded her so much of all her failures here.

Elizabeth closed the laptop with a sharp click and rose from her desk. Hands clasped behind her, she left her office behind and walked silently through the gateroom. As usual, everyone was brisk and efficient, and no one smiled, though a few people politely returned her nods of greeting.

She tried to recapture the way she'd felt a year and a half ago, stepping through the gate into a wide-open new galaxy. It had been the most wonderful day of her life. When, she wondered, had the Pegasus Galaxy become a litany of failures ... a list of the names of the people she'd failed?

Not just the dead.

Her hands balled into fists.

She reached the small suite of rooms that was currently housing the alternate McKay, and had to pause for a moment, nerving herself to go in. For an instant, she thought of when she'd gone to see Sheppard while he was being changed by the retrovirus; she'd hovered outside his door for a long time, but in the end, had not gone inside.

This time, she refused to be a coward. She also deliberately ignored the slight hesitation before the young soldier guarding the room opened the door for her -- the pause before his "ma'am" that was not quite insolent.

If they didn't do something, it wouldn't be long before the military side of Atlantis refused to take orders from her at all. But the one person who could pull them back into line was Sheppard, and she had no idea if he even realized that there was a problem ... or if, perhaps, he was actually contributing to it. It had been a long time since she could speak freely with him. Elizabeth couldn't help thinking that they were already over the peak of the hill and picking up speed going down the other side.

The door closed behind her, and she looked around the dim room. The lights were off, but the window was open, its curtains fluttering in the breeze.

"Dr. McKay? Rod?"

There was a thump and a startled "Ow!" from the bathroom. After a moment, the door whisked open and alt-Rodney -- Rod, she reminded herself -- stood framed by the light, shoulders stiff and hands clasped behind his back. He was clearly trying to look defiant, but it was almost pathetic, a thin veneer over hope and fear and vulnerability.

She'd almost forgotten that Rodney had it in him to look like that. At some point, the facade that he presented to the world had become reality. Her heart ached.

Rod cleared his throat. "Elizabeth," he said. "Finally, um, deigned to stroll down and see the prisoner, hmm?"

With effort, she did not flinch. "I've been busy. I did, however, get your emails." She smiled faintly. "Rodney -- our Rodney, I mean -- would really like to know how you got into the computer system."

Rod snorted. "He should know; he's me, isn't he?"

"After a fashion," she agreed cautiously. "Would you like to sit down?"

"Excuse me? I've been sitting for days! And I'm no closer to getting myself out of this reality. I don't suppose your Rodney has come up with a solution to that, has he? He's a gigantic asshole, of course, but I presume that he's nearly as intelligent as I am."

Only Rodney could manage to be that competitive with himself. "He's working on the problem."

"Fantastic. Sheppard and I should be out of here in about five years, then." He stepped forward; now that he was no longer backlit by the bathroom lights, she could see that a lost look had crept onto his face. "Sheppard, uh -- he's -- Is he --"

"In stable condition, the last I heard." She saw his shoulders slump just a little in relief before the mask was slapped back into place. Suddenly, intensely curious, she asked, "In your reality, is he your friend?"

"Well, I wouldn't go that far." The answer was quick and glib. It sounded rehearsed. "More of an annoying pain in the butt, really. I'm sure that our Elizabeth would pitch a fit if I didn't drag his skinny, spiky-haired carcass home in one piece, though. Er ... can I see him?"

"I might be able to arrange that." She watched the quick play of relief and worry on his face. "But I want something in return."

"Of course you do." His shoulders went back; his chin rose, defiant. "And what might that be?"

"I want to know more about your reality."

Rod cocked his head to the side. "Planning to invade us ... Elizabeth?"

She couldn't help laughing. "No, of course not. I just want to know --"

I want to know how it's possible that you're climbing the walls with worry for Sheppard, when in this reality, you can't even be in the same room with him. I want to know if your Atlantis escaped the fate that I'm afraid ours is heading towards.

"You want to know what?"

"Curiosity," she said. "That's all. Just simple curiosity."

------

Hell. Rodney was in hell.

At least he hadn't dropped into the actual, Mensa-Sheppard-Rod's reality. The idea of being surrounded by smarmy, impossibly competent versions of the people he knew -- particularly himself -- made him want to curl up into a ball and whimper.

But this wasn't really any better. His worry over Sheppard certainly contributed to his misery; not only was he terrified that Sheppard would die and leave him alone here, but he didn't have anyone to commiserate with.

"These people suck," he complained. Sheppard, of course, remained obstinately unconscious, probably in a deliberate attempt to annoy him.

At least they'd finally let him see Sheppard, although he had a Marine shadowing him everywhere, and as if that wasn't bad enough, he was still being stalked by the creepy alternate Elizabeth. Like hell he was telling her anything about Atlantis. He'd dropped random tidbits to keep her off his back, the same obfuscation technique that he used on other planets when the natives got too nosy and there was some stupid diplomatic reason why he couldn't just tell them to go to hell. Elizabeth, unfortunately, seemed to be aware of this technique, but so far she hadn't pressed him too hard. However, she also hadn't granted him access to the computer system or the labs.

Also, he kept walking into doors. Stupid incompatible ATA gene.

He didn't think he'd ever wanted to go home so badly in his life.

This place ... this wasn't home. It looked like it ... in the way a corpse might appear to be alive, until you realized that it didn't move, didn't breathe, that there was no light behind its eyes.

The fact that the difference was so subtle made it all the worse. He kept telling himself that he was imagining things, that he was looking back on his own Atlantis through highly irrational rose-colored glasses, remembering the good and forgetting the bad. But then he'd slip -- he'd accidentally sit on the military side of the cafeteria, or he'd try to make a joke to this universe's hard-assed version of Sheppard, who had shown up in the infirmary a couple of times and asked him far more pointed questions than Weir's -- all of which he refused to answer. This Sheppard appeared to have had his sense of humor amputated. Every so often, Rodney would see flashes in the alternate Sheppard of the man that Rodney knew him to be. But most of the time, alternate Sheppard just made him think of Caldwell.

No one would tell him anything. No one would let him near a computer terminal or a lab. He'd managed to send the emails to Elizabeth from his quarters by prying off a supposedly sealed access panel and tapping directly into the Atlantean equivalent of fiber-optic cables, but while he could send messages that way using his pocket PDA, he couldn't access the database itself. He was afraid to try too hard for fear that the system or the alternate McKay would detect his tampering and he'd lose the one little backdoor into the computers that he'd managed to acquire. He had also tried all of his own passwords, but apparently this McKay used different ones.

He had never thought that social isolation would bother him, but it was really starting to get to him that no one in this Atlantis would do more than stare or, at most, interrogate him, like pseudo-Sheppard and pseudo-Weir had been doing. The one person who seemed willing to make friendly overtures was Carson -- the person Rodney had been trying to avoid at all costs. He couldn't even stand to look at him; it made something deep and painful and unscientific knot up into a tight lump in his stomach.

He would have avoided the infirmary in order to avoid not-Carson, but Sheppard was there: Sheppard, the one familiar thing in a world gone mad.

Sheppard, who was all white: white face and white arms and white sheets, his hair a single splash of darkness on his white forehead -- well, on half his forehead, anyway. To Rodney's secret glee, the hair on one side of his head had been shaved off in order to treat his head injury. Unfortunately, what it had been replaced with was worse: a thick swath of bandages and a tube that looked like it went straight into his brain.

There were more tubes coming out of Sheppard than Rodney really wanted to think about, with the one going down his throat being especially hard to look at. His lips, parted around it, were cracked and dry, and without really thinking about it, Rodney reached for the little tub of Vaseline on the bedside table. Sheppard was really going to owe him for this, he thought, dabbing a little bit onto the dry lips with the tip of his finger.

The silence was far too silent, with only the beeping of monitoring equipment and the hiss of the ventilator. "Your hair looks stupid," Rodney told him, capping the Vaseline. "You need to wake up now, so I can mock you properly. I'll tell you one thing -- you're not going to score any sexy nurses this time around. They'll be too busy laughing at your half-head of hair."

He pulled up one leg onto the seat of the chair and draped his arm over it; his back was getting stiff, sitting here so much. "Anyway, where was I? Oh, right, I was telling you how much everyone here sucks. Don't get me started on me. I can't stand me. Wait, that came out wrong. I mean, the me here. He's a complete ass. I still can't really figure out where this whole universe went wrong, although I'm starting to think it was a lot farther back than Doranda. It might actually go back a really long ways -- maybe you squished the wrong bug in childhood, or something. It's the little differences that keep tripping me up here, Sheppard. Like, for example, Han Solo? Is played by Chevy Chase! I'm not joking! When I say 'Harrison Ford', everyone says, who? He's probably a shoe salesman or something in this universe." Rodney snorted, steepling his fingers on top of his knee. "Hey, maybe that's the root cause of it all. Growing up with Chevy Chase as Han Solo has driven everyone in this universe insane. Understandable enough, I'd say. Oh, hey ..." Perking up, he grabbed a notepad off the bedside table and scribbled a few equations on it to join the sea of equations and incomprehensible notes already covering most of the pages. Not being allowed near computer equipment was putting a severe damper on his ability to figure out what had happened to him and how to undo it, but that didn't stop him from working on it the old-fashioned way.

For good measure, he scribbled, "Chevy Chase?" in one corner of the paper and added a few question marks around it. Hey, you never knew.

Even though no one would tell him anything, he was starting to put together a few of the pieces. He and Sheppard had basically been the victims of something similar to what he and Jeannie had inadvertently done to Rod's reality. This universe's McKay was running some kind of experiment messing with the nature of space-time -- and, knowing himself as he did, he'd bet that it was involved with extracting zero-point energy. Considering the different timelines, this was interesting, because it meant that these people were a lot farther along than they ought to be, compared to his own universe. They'd obviously had some sort of breakthrough. He kept his eyes open, but had yet to figure out what. There was something naggingly familiar about the room that he'd seen all too briefly before fai--passing out; all he knew was that it had been offworld somewhere, since he'd woken up in the jumper heading back to Atlantis. He felt as if he should know that place, but couldn't figure out why. No one would tell him what was happening, but from snatches of overheard conversation, he'd at least gotten the idea that whatever their experiment was, they'd shut it down until they figured out what had gone wrong. This was a huge relief -- at least he knew they wouldn't inadvertently destroy his own universe while he was spinning his wheels here. If he could figure out how to go home, he'd have a home to go back to.

And the fact that he and Sheppard had come through the rift between universes in one piece was nothing short of miraculous. The quantum forces that had to have aligned --! According to all the theorizing he'd been doing in the intervening days, it must have had something to do with this universe being offset in both space and time from his own. Without having to deal with the resonances between quantum pairs in too-close universes, this one and his own had been able to swing into perfect alignment for just that brief period.

This could make getting home even harder, though.

Also, he was pretty sure that he'd figured out why he and Sheppard had gotten separated. Sheppard had been interfacing with the puddejumper while he flew it, so he and the jumper had been taken as a single unit -- and that gave him a really horrible mental image of Sheppard being reconstituted as some kind of man-jumper hybrid. That would have been difficult to explain to Elizabeth. As it was, the two of them had come out on this side with more spatial separation between them than had existed on the other side -- probably due to the fact that this universe was offset spatially from their own...

For the time being, he managed to lose himself in his calculations, while the soft beeping of the monitors kept him company.

------

Another man might have been intimidated when he found himself living in the legendary City of the Ancestors, but Ronon Dex was not that man. Seven years on the run had pretty much beaten all the reverence out of him ... for anything. On other worlds, he'd slept in taboo holy places and eaten the sacred offerings of grain when he woke up. No gods ever struck him down.

So here he was in the holy city, and all it really meant to him was a bed to sleep in, square meals when he needed them, and people who didn't want him dead. He still hadn't figured out what he was doing long-term. Strange to think in terms of What do I want to do with my life? Well, kill Wraith, obviously; he did know that much, and at this point, he stuck with the Atlanteans because they seemed like the best chance to do that. So far, though, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of Wraith-killing going on. Instead there was lots of sitting around and watching other people do sciencey stuff that didn't make much sense to him. The Atlanteans were a lot of talk, but not so much action, as far as he could see.

He'd thought about leaving Atlantis after killing Kell and realizing just how deep the gulf between himself and these people really ran. And he thought about it now, wandering the darkened city. He passed the occasional soldier on guard duty; they nodded to him; he nodded back.

Ronon didn't put much stock in trying to fit in; as many places as he'd lived, as many things as he'd done to survive, little stuff like what sort of tools you eat with were less than nothing. But he did have a survivor's skill for reading the currents around him. He'd picked up pretty quickly on the civilian/military divide on Atlantis. There had been similar tensions on Sateda, but not as severe, since the active state of war and the supreme status of the military had kept the civilian population from overstepping their bounds. Here, the city was actually run by someone who had not served in combat, something he really couldn't get his mind around. He could see that the soldiers didn't want to take orders from her, and he wasn't surprised; the only surprising thing was that the coalition had held together this long. Atlantis was a house divided, and Ronon thought that its fall was probably imminent.

And what of him, then? He liked Sheppard and had come to respect him, recognizing a lot of himself in the way that the Colonel held everyone at arm's length, including the members of his team. Teyla ... he'd expected to find little in her to respect, since he'd heard of the Athosians and knew that they were a peaceful farming people, i.e. cowards. But she'd surprised him with her warrior's spirit, and as a resident of this galaxy, she understood things in a way that the soft Atlanteans could not. He regretted the rift that had developed between them after he'd killed Kell. Since Sheppard's team spent little time together off-duty, there hadn't been much opportunity for healing the divide. He and Teyla had a polite working relationship now, and though he didn't ever see them becoming friends, they could work together smoothly; it was more than he'd had before.

Zelenka -- was better than McKay, at least. Ronon couldn't stand McKay; the head scientist had made it clear from the beginning that he didn't like Ronon and didn't want to be on the team with him, and Ronon, for his part, couldn't figure out why Sheppard put up with McKay's constant insubordination. Nothing like that would have been allowed to continue on Sateda. When McKay left the team, it had been a relief. Zelenka was, Ronon felt, a liability; he was too cautious, too timid, and they had to spend most of their time offworld protecting him. On a personal level, Ronon liked him, but he didn't understand Sheppard's insistence on having a scientist along on their missions. In fact, he didn't understand the point of a lot of their missions. Kill Wraith! How hard was that to understand?

Now the entire city was buzzing about this alternate-universe thing. Once again, Ronon didn't really understand most of the theory, but he did understand that there were duplicates of Sheppard and McKay in the city, which most people had heard about but few had actually seen. He had to admit he was curious. He'd never seen someone from another universe, and he wondered if they were identifiable in some way; it could be useful to be able to recognize an alternate-universe person if he saw one.

So Ronon would occasionally wander down to the infirmary and look in on the other Sheppard. The medical staff claimed that he was getting better, but he didn't look any better to Ronon. He looked mostly dead. He also didn't look particularly different from the Sheppard that Ronon knew, aside from being mostly dead. The real Sheppard, Ronon noticed, took pains to avoid the infirmary -- even more so than usual. In fact, he seemed to be avoiding Atlantis in general. Ever since the clones showed up and Sheppard had had a fight with McKay in the jumper bay -- Ronon hadn't seen it, but the whole city had heard about it -- the team had been on a series of nonstop offworld missions. It was very routine stuff, busywork mostly: checking on trade agreements, exploring not-so-interesting worlds. Basically just staying away from Atlantis. Ronon figured that if even he realized what Sheppard was up to, then it had to be as transparent as glass to everyone else, but Sheppard didn't seem to be aware of this.

The nighttime infirmary was dimly lit and nearly deserted. A computer screen glowed blue across the room; the duty nurse looked up from her files. "Visiting hours are over."

Ronon had quickly learned that visiting hours was code for We don't want you in here, regardless of the actual time. He'd also learned that most people didn't want him gone enough to actually go to the considerable trouble of removing him from a place he wanted to be. "Just lookin' in on the other Colonel."

"Well," said the nurse, proving his point, "be quick about it."

They had the comatose Colonel in a private curtained-off area, with two Marines guarding it. Ronon was on generally good terms with the military in the city; they just nodded to him and stepped back to let him inside.

The last person he expected to see was McKay, who jumped and looked up, then flashed him a quick, slightly nervous grin and said, "Oh, hi there. Wondered when you'd show up."

It was that, more than anything, that clued him into this being the other McKay, the alternate universe one. The real McKay didn't like him, was nothing but hostile when he was around. This one, though, just moved over to make room for him at Sheppard's bedside, and that was very wrong. Ronon hadn't planned to stay; he just wanted to take a peek, and he wasn't even sure why, except that the other guy looked so much like Sheppard and he didn't have anyone to watch out for him here.

Except ... that was obviously wrong. He did have one person. Ronon had just assumed that the other universe's Sheppard and McKay were like the ones here: former friends, now shading more towards enemies.

But the other McKay had obviously been making himself at home here; there was a sea of crumpled candy wrappers on the bedside table and a cup half-filled with cooling coffee. Sheppard looked a little better than the last time Ronon had stopped by. They'd gotten rid of the tube down his throat, and without that, he looked more like he was sleeping than like a corpse animated by machinery. He was still awfully pale, though.

"Looks like crap, doesn't he?" McKay said, echoing his thoughts. "Not going to be winning any nurses' hearts looking like that, which is probably why he's staying unconscious. Too embarrassed to wake up." The scientist tore open a candy bar wrapper with his teeth. There was a jitteriness to him: too much caffeine, too little sleep. He settled back in his chair with a pad of paper in his lap, incomprehensible symbols scribbled all over it. Glancing up at Ronon, seeing that he was being watched, he groaned and rolled his eyes. "You're worse than my great-aunt's Schnauzers, you know that? Here --" He tossed another candy bar in Ronon's direction; the Satedan, startled, caught it automatically. "Take that, and quit the begging. And for God's sake sit down; you're making me nervous with the looming and all. Or leave. You could also leave."

Ronon sat down in the unoccupied chair by Sheppard's bedside, operating mostly on autopilot at this point. McKay ... giving him food? He turned the candy bar over in his hands, wondering if there was some ulterior motive. When he looked back up, the scientist was buried in his equations again, scribbling on the paper and flipping over another sheet to scribble some more.

So, here he was; now what? Ronon hadn't planned on having a conversation. He couldn't even talk to this universe's McKay, let alone an entirely different one. Instead, he studied the scientist while taking a large bite out of the candy bar. McKay's exhaustion was evident in his slumped shoulders, the way he paused occasionally to rub his eyes and take another swig from the cup of coffee.

"You look like you could use some sleep," Ronon said suddenly, even surprising himself.

McKay raised bloodshot eyes, and snorted. "Oh, thank you, Doctor Dex. What school is your medical degree from, again?"

Ronon could feel his hackles raising; McKay just had that effect on him. But there wasn't any particular venom behind the words. When "their" McKay said something like that to Ronon, he meant it. But here, the runner sensed no malice.

Just then, Sheppard stirred and made a soft sound, cutting short Ronon's train of thought.

And McKay moved with unexpected speed, the notepad falling, forgotten, to the floor. He leaned over the bed. Ronon moved too, unconsciously leaning closer.

Sheppard's eyelashes fluttered, a fringe of darkness against the blue shadows under his eyes.

"Sheppard! Hey, about time you decided to quit lazing around." The words were typical McKay, brusque and impatient -- but his voice cracked in the middle, and this drew Ronon's eyes up to McKay's face. What he saw astonished him: the facade of indifference broken, shattered, revealing relief and worry and hope. McKay's blue eyes were wide and fixed on Sheppard's face as if drawing him back to consciousness through willpower alone.

It wasn't a side of McKay that Ronon had even known existed. Not the McKay here, he amended, reminding himself that they were two separate people. The other Sheppard might be different, too.

Still, he couldn't stop watching, as McKay leaned forward and laid one hand tentatively on Sheppard's arm, giving it a little nudge. "So, are you waking up or still dreaming? Hello in there? Anybody home?"

Sheppard swallowed convulsively, turning his head to the side on the pillow. He blinked and Ronon could see him going through a slow orientation, figuring out where he was. His eyes fixed on McKay. And it was like a whole conversation took place between them, almost instantaneously. Ronon knew that silent language, in some of its dialects -- the rapport of comrades under fire; the unspoken communication of family. The way he himself had been with his war-brothers on Sateda, and with Melena, and with his parents; the thing he'd never found on Atlantis, that could have kept him here rather than continually wondering when the time would be right to leave.

Sheppard's cracked lips curved in a faint smile, and his eyes fluttered wearily closed. McKay's grip on his arm tightened. "Hey, you want me to get a nurse?"

The lips moved; the whispered voice was the familiar lazy drawl, but with a note in it that Ronon hadn't heard before. It was relaxed, in a way the real Sheppard's voice never was. Warm. "Sure, Rodney, knock yourself out."

"I'll do it," Ronon said.

McKay jumped. Obviously, he'd completely forgotten that Ronon was there, all other concerns dropping to the side at Sheppard's return to consciousness. "Yeah, you, uh, do that, then?"

Ronon ducked out of the curtain, and behind him he heard McKay's voice, low, making some kind of joke. He missed most of the words, but he heard Sheppard's soft, wheezing laugh, breaking off in a cough and then a pain-filled murmur of "Dammit, Rodney ..." quickly overridden by McKay's hasty, babbling apologies.

And Ronon realized something that surprised the hell out of him.

He liked this McKay.

----

TBC