I apologize for the long delay ... and there may be another one, because things really start happening next chapter and I want to be able to unload the next few chapters onto you guys in rapid succession without so much waiting between them. I figure this one's going to run about 14-16 chapters, all told.

Thank you to Kodiak and Tazmy for beta-ing through several iterations of this chapter! And thank you, also, to everyone who has been reviewing; I owe all of you individual feedback and I'm sorry I suck so badly at giving it. But I have loved reading the reviews and I really appreciate them.

Chapter Nine: Mistake

Walking into the jumper bay with Sheppard and a small detachment of soldiers behind her, Elizabeth stopped short at the sight of Rodney examining one of the jumpers while a Marine stood by. Her first thought was: I just called him and he said he was in the labs; how did he get up here so fast? And then, Oh. Doppelganger.

Sheppard caught on immediately, especially when alt-Rodney jumped guiltily and looked up at them. "What's he doing here?"

The Marine corporal straightened nervously. "I didn't know he shouldn't be here, sir."

Elizabeth tried to think back to the instructions Rodney's guards had been given. She didn't want him in the control room or the labs, but since they'd decided to give him a relative amount of freedom on Atlantis, nowhere else had been specifically declared off-limits. Damn.

"Oh come on, what could I possibly do, Elizabeth?" the doppelganger snapped. "I don't have a working ATA gene in this reality. What am I going to do, push a jumper out into the ocean and row it to shore? I'm just curious about the design of your jumpers and bored out of my skull."

Elizabeth locked her hands behind her back. "We're expecting a guest, Rodney, and no offense to you, but I'd prefer if you'd sit this one out."

"Why?" he demanded. "What guest? Wait -- is it this Larissa person? Is she from offworld? I'd figured she was one of the scientists here. It's not as if I can even remember all their names in my own reality ..."

Elizabeth's eyebrows went up. "How do you know about Larissa?" Rounding on Sheppard, she asked, "How much does he know?"

"I have no idea! I haven't even talked to him since he got here."

"Thankfully," alt-Rodney muttered.

The door swished open as McKay came in at a trot, Zelenka in tow. He skidded to a halt at the sight of his double. "What's he doing here?"

"That's my line," Sheppard said under his breath.

McKay flicked him a glance and then conspicuously ignored him, instead marching up to alt-Rodney, who nervously took a step backwards. "You! I want you out of here."

Alt-Rodney folded his arms and raised his chin. "I don't think so."

McKay wasn't used to being told no to his face. "What?"

"I don't take orders from you, so ha!"

Elizabeth's migraine was back, and she was fairly sure one of her eyes was starting to develop a twitch. "John, could you please have him taken back to the --"

But it was too late; the iris in the floor, leading to the gateroom, began to unspool, just as Chuck's voice announced into her ear over the command channel: "Ma'am, the Dorandans are here."

"Thank you, Chuck." She sighed and faced forward, watching Jumper Three settle into its berth and lower its hatch with an echoing clang. Lorne's team had been dispatched to bring back Larissa -- and, Elizabeth saw, two unfamiliar scientists as well, a man and a woman.

"Dr. Weir." Larissa inclined her head respectfully. "This is Perran and this is Mokarra; both are assistants of mine. I hope this won't be a problem?"

"Of course not." Elizabeth offered a welcoming smile to the two new scientists, both of whom looked nervous and uncomfortable in their unaccustomed surroundings.

McKay abandoned his argument with his double and strode over to them; alt-Rodney followed more slowly. "Thank goodness you're here; now maybe we can get some work done. As you can see --" he held up the tablet PC in his hands "-- I've sorted the data into four sets of -- all right, what? Oh." He'd just noticed that Larissa was looking past him at the other McKay. "Yes, it's him. Me. Whatever. Can we get some work done?"

"You're working on Project Arcturus, right?" alt-Rodney asked, sliding quickly into the conversation when McKay paused to take a breath.

"That's right." Larissa glanced between the two McKays.

Alt-Rodney looked smug, and hopeful. "I happen to be the foremost expert on Project Arcturus in my reality, as it happens."

"I ... should hope so." Larissa looked somewhat helpless, borne along by the tidal wave of not just one, but two, Rodney McKays. Obviously striving to gain control of the situation, she held out a hand in a passable mimicry of the Earth greeting she'd observed. "I am Larissa, foremost expert on --"

"Co-expert," McKay snapped.

"Of course," she agreed. "I am the head scientist among my people. Dr. McKay and I were working together on Project Arcturus, as a joint project between our two peoples, when we inadvertently opened a doorway to your reality."

Alt-Rodney held up a finger. "Yes, yes, very interesting, but about that. It's opening the doorway again that interests me."

McKay glared at him. "Which we can't do without destroying both of our realities, and are you a complete moron?"

"Oh, now you're going to blame me? No one tells me anything!"

"Well, boo hoo and cry me a river! Look, Mr. My Parallel Reality Is Better Than Yours, some of us are trying to get important work done, and if you ever want to get back to your reality, then you'll shut up and let us do it."

Alt-Rodney returned the glare. "Excuse me? Genius here, remember? Perhaps you've mistaken my IQ for your own, but if you want to make this work, then even you have to admit it'd go faster with my help!"

"Two heads are not better than one; it's a common misconception! And what are you implying about my IQ?"

"If they're not better than one, then we don't need yours, right? How about you go stuff it up the nearest --"

"Gentlemen," Elizabeth said loudly, wondering if she could talk Carson into anything stronger than the ordinary painkillers. There were times when she was strangely and selfishly glad that Rodney and John's odd friendship had apparently fallen by the wayside, because it certainly made life easier for her. She'd never expected that she would have to look out for Rodney and Rodney. "Why don't we move this to a conference room?"

As they filed out of the room, Elizabeth noticed to her dismay that alt-Rodney had fallen right in with them. This universe's McKay (and Zelenka) had commandeered Larissa, steering her into a conversation about something something particle waveform something, so alt-Rodney had gravitated to the other female scientist, Mokarra. Like Larissa and the other Dorandan women, she wore her hair in a myriad of tiny braids. In her case, short blond braids. Elizabeth wondered nervously if a fondness for blondes was something that all McKays shared, in any universe.

"So how much do you know about Project Arcturus?" she heard him say as she tried to maneuver herself in that direction without being conspicuous about it.

"Oh, not so much as Larissa," Mokarra replied shyly. "I have been assisting since the beginning, though -- I mean, since your people began showing us how to use the equipment."

"Did we? I mean, we did. Say, how did your people find out about Arcturus, anyway?"

Mokarra looked briefly confused, but then her face cleared. "Oh, your people told us about it, of course. We would have had no idea otherwise. Tell me, do you think it is likely that the project can truly be made to provide power for our world?"

Sheppard slid smoothly into place by Elizabeth's side. "Want me to separate them?" he murmured out of the corner of his mouth.

"Yes, but I don't want you to be too obvious about it. I don't trust him, John -- that universe's McKay, I mean. I think he might be up to something."

"I don't trust any universe's McKay," Sheppard muttered darkly. His eyes went to the real McKay's back, ahead of them, where he was engrossed in conversation with Larissa.

Elizabeth's stomach clenched. "John, have the two of you spoken since the fight in the jumper bay?"

"Why would we? He's made it clear where he stands."

Behind her, alt-Rodney was floundering as he tried to answer Mokarra's questions about the power output of Arcturus. "I am sorry," the Dorandan scientist said. "I forget -- you are not from our universe, correct?"

"You know about that, huh?"

"Of course. That is why the project has been temporarily discontinued. I hope that it will be possible to make it work, because otherwise our world will die. Tell me, in your universe were you able to successfully generate zero-point energy?"

"No," alt-Rodney said, "though not for lack of trying. Is that why we're working with you guys on this? Because you need the power?"

The thought occurred to Elizabeth that they hadn't even thought to tap alt-Rodney for information on his universe's zero-point technology, and she really should talk to McKay about it, because pooling the two universes' science just might be able to solve the problem. Meanwhile, Mokarra was saying, "Doranda's sun is dying. It is near the end of its life cycle."

"Oh, really? Didn't know that. Granted," alt-Rodney muttered, "didn't have a whole lot of time to find out, either."

"It is true. Unfortunately we didn't know that when my ancestors gated through, fleeing the Wraith. The sun's fluctuating power output causes very long cold cycles on my world, and that is why we need the power from Arcturus to make it through the cold times."

Looking over her shoulder, wondering at what point she should stop them, Elizabeth saw alt-Rodney hold up a hand. "Wait, wait, wait. I'm sorry, you lost me. I thought we were talking about Doranda's sun."

Mokarra looked equally confused. "Well, yes. Oh, I see what you are asking -- I didn't mean to confuse you. The world where my people relocated is not Doranda itself; it is the next planet out. Is it not the same in your universe?"

Alt-Rodney stopped in his tracks. Mokarra stopped with him. Elizabeth went on a couple of steps before realizing that they were no longer behind her, and then paused as she looked back.

"And when you say relocate --" there was a desperate edge to his voice "-- you mean recently, right? Like within the last few months?"

"Oh, no. My people have lived in the Doranda system for many generations."

All the color drained out of alt-Rodney's face. Elizabeth had never seen someone go white like that. He looked as if he was going to faint; staggering, he caught himself on the wall.

"The other planets," he said in a low, hoarse voice. "Oh, my God. We scanned Doranda, but the other planets ... Oh, God. Planets without a Stargate aren't usually inhabited."

Mokarra caught at his arm, surprised and confused. "Are you ill?"

"I think I might be." He looked up at the Dorandan woman, and Elizabeth caught a glimpse of his eyes: huge, blue, wounded. "I'm sorry. Oh, I'm so sorry." He turned, nearly ran into the wall, and then walked quickly down the hall with his guard in rapid pursuit.

Elizabeth and Sheppard looked at each other. "What was that all about?" Sheppard asked in low tones.

"I have no idea. As soon as I get a chance to excuse myself, I think I'm going to find out."

Sheppard flicked a glance ahead, at McKay with the other two Dorandan scientists. They were almost to the conference room where McKay had set up his simulations and displays. "You trust them enough to leave them alone?"

Elizabeth dropped her voice yet lower. "If you call leaving them with an armed guard 'leaving them alone'." There was a bit of challenge in her tone; Sheppard didn't respond. After a moment she said, "No more than you do. But I don't like the idea that the other McKay might be planning something, either. We still know next to nothing about his universe, but he obviously reacted to what she said. If he's up to something, I'd really like to know what it is before he springs it on us, wouldn't you?"

------

Carson's removal of the more intrusive hardware had improved Sheppard's quality of life quite a lot. He now had a limited ability to move around -- or would have, if he'd been allowed out of bed -- and he was eating again, albeit lightly.

"Are you in pain?" the doctor inquired, checking the PCA's metering system while a nurse helped Sheppard with a bowl of soup.

"Not pushing the button enough for you, Doc?"

"Colonel, only you are the judge of that, but people do tend to heal faster when they don't have untreated pain placing undue stress on the body."

"I'm doing fine." It was hard to explain, even to himself, but he liked being able to feel what was happening to his body, even if a lot of it hurt. The body had its pain sense for a reason, and he'd never forgotten one time when he was a young man: doped up on Percocets for a badly sprained ankle, he'd been invited on a bike ride by cute Suzie next door, and had very nearly blown out his ankle entirely because he couldn't feel what was happening to it.

"If you say so, Colonel. I'm going off shift soon; I was here all night with Dr. Moreland's electrical burns. The lass is doing much better and I'm going to get some sleep, so if you need something, now is the time to ask."

"I'm fine, Doc, really. Well, except for reaching my chicken soup saturation limit here -- no offense." He smiled at the nurse.

She smiled back and blushed; damn it, no matter what Rodney said, he didn't try to flirt. It just sort of happened. She was very young, and not someone he recognized; maybe in his universe, she'd never come to Atlantis, because he was very familiar with the infirmary staff. "It's not actually chicken, it's --"

"Don't tell me; I think I'm better off not knowing what sort of Pegasus Galaxy creature gave its life for this soup."

The nurse giggled and swung the tray out of his way. "Would you like some jello, or anything else I can get for you?"

"Nope. Just a nap." He was exhausted again; it seemed like he had no energy at all.

Carson and the nurse retreated, leaving him alone. They had taken off most of the monitoring equipment as well, so he drowsed in the near-total silence of the infirmary. The only other patient at the moment was the badly-burned Dr. Moreland, and she was being kept in isolation. He drifted off to the sound of soft, quick nurse footsteps and the hum of Atlantis's ventilation equipment.

He wasn't quite sure what woke him; it wasn't something sudden, but he drifted back to consciousness with a vague awareness that he was not alone. Peeking from under half-closed eyelids, he saw Rodney sitting on a chair tipped against the wall, staring at the floor.

As time drifted past and Rodney continued to gaze into space, Sheppard's Protect the team instincts began pinging. He shoved himself the rest of the way awake, taking an experimental breath to see how his chest and ribs were doing. Not so good. Reluctantly he hit the PCA button. The drug, whatever they were giving him, stung briefly as it entered his veins and then left him with a warm glow.

He pushed himself up on one elbow. "Yo ... McKay?" When Rodney didn't answer, Sheppard waved a slow hand in front of him. "Hey! Atlantis to McKay."

Rodney raised his head, very slowly. He looked dazed.

Sheppard stared at him for a long moment, not liking this at all. "You okay?"

After another moment, Rodney looked up, seemed to think for a while before his eyes clicked over from "not there" to "present and accounted for". Still, there was a palpable cloak of Leave me alone surrounding him. "I'm fine," he said.

He didn't sound fine. Brittle was the first word that Sheppard could come up with to describe the odd quality to Rodney's voice. And -- it took him a minute to figure out the other thing that was bothering him: the quietness. A Rodney who wasn't talking was not a Rodney in a good mental place.

His brain flipped through the various possibilities and kept settling onWhat did these crazy fuckers do to him?

"You sure you're okay?" He wouldn't normally have pushed, but he didn't like the vibe he was getting here. Something had happened, and he was stuck here in this bed, about as useful as a pile of used laundry.

"McKay?"

Outside the drawn privacy curtain, the door of the infirmary clicked shut, and Rodney jerked upright like a wakened sleeper, standing with a quick nervous movement as the chair legs thudded to the floor. Sheppard followed him with his eyes. From somewhere outside the privacy curtain, he heard Elizabeth's brisk tones, and the voices of the Marines currently on guard duty. Someone tapped lightly on the wall.

"Colonel Sheppard?" Elizabeth said. "Are you awake?"

He glanced from the curtain, to Rodney, who was leaning against the wall and staring at nothing again. "Yeah," he said.

The curtain drew back, and Sheppard got his first look at this universe's Elizabeth. Outwardly, she was much the same as the woman he knew and respected in his own Atlantis: composed and trim, her back straight, her face serene. But this Elizabeth was too stiff, too calm. There was something almost robotic about her, as if the diplomat's mask she customarily wore had somehow taken over and displaced the human being within. When she smiled, it was with more weariness than warmth.

"Colonel," she greeted him, and with a nod to Rodney, "Dr. McKay. This is the first time we've had a chance to speak, Colonel, and I wondered if we might --"

Rodney pushed off from the wall suddenly, stepping past her without acknowledging her.

"McKay! Hey!" Sheppard shoved himself hastily into a sitting position; various things in his body twinged and creaked, and a head rush made him reel. He gripped at the edge of the bed; Elizabeth made a brief, abortive move as if to catch him, then caught herself. Rodney, however, stopped and looked back, emotions flickering on his face.

Sheppard panted through the world's attempt to spin away from him. "Where you goin'?" he asked, aiming for casual though he could barely manage to keep his voice steady against the vertigo.

"Bathroom," Rodney said after a moment. He took his eyes away from Sheppard with a sleepwalker's dazed slowness. "Just need to use the bathroom." He stepped around the curtain and vanished.

"McKay, damn it --" Sheppard leaned forward urgently, holding onto the side of the bed. Rodney's sudden exit freaked him out, especially after the uncharacteristic silence. What the hell was going on? "What happened?" he demanded of Elizabeth. "What did you people do?"

She looked after Rodney, then back at him, apparently in honest bafflement. "What?" she asked.

Sheppard let out his breath in a long, frustrated sigh that hurt his ribs, and let himself slump back down onto his pillows, which hurt quite a lot worse. He closed his eyes. The room was still spinning. Jesus, he hated this feeling -- hated it beyond anything else: the helplessness of having events moving around him without being able to influence them. McKay ... Rodney ... he didn't have any intelligence to work from here, but he trusted this situation not at all. And he couldn't do a thing, could barely freakin' move and didn't have a radio, didn't have any allies, couldn't even send Ronon or Teyla after him. For all he knew, Ronon and Teyla were the cause of whatever had happened while he was sleeping.

Assuming anything had...

"Colonel, could we talk for a minute?" Elizabeth's voice had a note of forced cheerfulness.

Ronon. He opened his eyes. Rodney had said Ronon had been coming around the infirmary during Sheppard's convalescence. It was kind of a long shot, and kind of weird, but from the sound of things, this universe's Ronon was basically the only other person that Rodney had some kind of rapport with. He decided to go off instinct -- that, and the protective way that "his" Ronon acted towards Rodney back in their own universe. No Ronon in any universe would hurt Rodney; he was as sure of that as he was of anything. Giving Elizabeth a smile as false as the one she was giving him, he said, "Sure, Liz." He noticed her involuntarily flinch, and his smile widened just a bit. In his own universe, the Elizabeth he knew had once mentioned how much she loathed the nickname. "Let's talk. But first you do me a favor."

Elizabeth gave a short laugh and shook her head. "Making demands already. What is it that you want?"

"Call Ronon. Ask him to keep an eye on McKay."

Elizabeth leaned forward and rested her elbows on her thighs, clasping her hands between her knees. "Why do you think Rodney needs to be watched, Colonel?"

She sounded like friggin' Kate Heightmeyer. This universe was so messed up. Sheppard could see why Rodney talked about these people the way that he did; he could also see why Rodney hadn't given them a bit of information about the "real" Atlantis, and could feel his own classic Sheppard stubbornness kicking in. He didn't have the slightest desire to throw them a single crumb he didn't have to. "Because he does, okay? Look, just give Ronon a call and ask him."

A trace of genuine emotion appeared in her voice: confusion. "Why would Ronon listen to me?"

This brought him up short. Why wouldn't Ronon listen to her? Even back in the really early days, when Ronon was still feeling his way around Atlantis, he'd deferred to Elizabeth -- a bit grudgingly at times, but he'd never pushed her. Oh, wait. Duh. Different Atlantis. "Let me talk to him."

"Somehow I doubt if he'll be interested in anything you have to say, Colonel."

"Just call him and let me say something." He lifted a shoulder in what was supposed to be a friendly little "so sue me" shrug to go with his innocent little grin. It was spoiled in the middle by a wince. Okay, major OW. "Look, what have you got to lose? What am I going to do -- try to subvert him?"

"I have no idea," she said with a sigh. "All right ... he doesn't have a radio, of course, but I can see if Teyla knows where he is."

Doesn't have a radio? Sheppard tried to remember how long it had taken them to give Ronon his own radio. It sure as hell hadn't taken until after the Aurora. How paranoid were these people, sending someone out in the field without a radio? He listened through a brief, one-sided conversation, and then she handed the radio to him and nodded.

"Hey, big guy."

"Sheppard." The voice was cautious and wary, and definitely Ronon.

"Elizabeth told you I'm not the Sheppard you know, right?"

A soft chuckle. "Sure, but I gotta call you something."

The reassuring Ronon-ness of that made him grin. Everyone else might be different here, but Ronon was always Ronon. "Listen, I got a favor to ask you. I know, I know, you don't know me from a sack of hammers and for all I know, based on what I've heard, you might not like this universe's Sheppard much, but --"

"Who told you that?" Ronon sounded positively bristling.

Woops. "Okay, it's really just an educated guess, based on the fact that from all accounts the Sheppard you know, as well as the McKay you know, are both complete assholes." He remembered too late that Elizabeth was still listening; she'd cocked up an eyebrow curiously, and looked faintly amused. "Be that as it may," he said, defensively, "I was wondering if you could keep an eye on my universe's McKay for a little while."

Ronon still didn't sound too happy, but then, it was basically his default state. "He in some kind of trouble?"

He wished he knew. "I just thought he could use a friend, that's all." Okay, that sounded completely dopey, and there was a total silence from the other end of the line. "Er, what I mean is --"

"No problem," Ronon said. "Where is he?"

And that was much too easy. Sheppard seriously hoped that he hadn't just made Rodney's life worse. It's Ronon. You trust Ronon. "Infirmary."

"Okay," Ronon said, and the link terminated. Sheppard handed the radio back to Elizabeth, whose raised eyebrow appeared to have permanently affixed itself to her hairdo.

"Okay, about the asshole thing. You know, I don't think you --"

"Sheppard," Elizabeth said in a tone that was tired yet amused, "shut up."

Startled, he did. After a moment, she said, "I'd be angry except that you're so absolutely right. What did Ronon say?"

Sheppard hesitated, finally said, "He's coming up to keep an eye on Rodney."

"You're worried about him. Rod, I mean. Rodney."

Again, he hesitated, but it wasn't as if there was any purpose in lying to her. "Yeah."

Elizabeth cocked her head on the side, her eyes cool and assessing. "Do you really think we'd hurt him?"

He thought about it a moment, and damn it, deep down, he really didn't. Even though he knew he shouldn't be willing to extend them a level of trust they haven't earned. And obviously something had rattled Rodney badly. "Well, you're not Wraith, at least," he said finally.

"I should certainly hope we haven't fallen that far." The wry amusement in her voice was underlain by something a little darker and more cynically self-aware. "If it's not us you're worried about, that doesn't leave very many options, though, does it?"

Sheppard just met her eyes casually. "I dunno. Is there something I should know about?"

Elizabeth let out a long sigh and laced her fingers between her knees. "Colonel, I am genuinely trying to help you both, do you understand that? I haven't thrown either one of you in the brig as a safety risk, and I could easily have done that. I also haven't sent a mission report back to Earth on you two. You do realize that when I do, the SGC is going to want you brought back to Earth to be examined and detained? It might be years before you get a chance to step out of Cheyenne Mountain. I'm really trying to avoid that, but you aren't helping."

Something cold lodged in his throat. "We're not staying here. We're going back to our own universe."

Again the cool, assessing look. "Do you have reason to believe you might be able to do that?"

He felt like a rat in a maze. This was the first time he'd ever been on this end of the Elizabeth Weir "speak softly and carry a big stick" school of diplomacy, and he didn't like it. He was too damned tired and doped-up to navigate through a verbal minefield. "I'm still kinda worn out," he said, and closed his eyes. "Think I'd like to get some rest."

"I'm not your enemy, John."

Oh, first names now. But he was freakin' tired, and his chest hurt, and he was just goddamn through with having to question the motives of strangers who wore all-too-familiar faces. "In case I didn't make it clear, go away."

He heard soft rustles as she got up. "I'll come back later."

Oh joy. He kept his eyes shut and pretended to have fallen asleep. After he heard the curtain whisk shut behind her, Sheppard opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. Shouldn't have given her back the damned radio. He wanted to know where Rodney was. He wanted like hell to know what was going on out there.

I'll lay here for a few more minutes, he thought, and then I'll get up and take a little walk around. Carson's not here. I won't get caught. The walk will be good for me.

Instead, caught off guard by the exhaustion of his healing body, he fell asleep.

------

Elizabeth let the curtain fall behind her and nodded to Sheppard's guard.

She hadn't expected anything other than a runaround; she knew John well enough to expect that. But what had really floored her was how much she wanted to trust him.

He reminded her, with a sharp and bitter sting, of the John she'd known in the first year of the Atlantis expedition. The John of infectious, childlike enthusiasm, the John who loved to fly and never hesitated to throw himself into danger for a friend's sake. Even though he was sick and exhausted and hurting, even through the layers of suspicion and the smart-ass responses, she could still see a light in this John's eyes that she had thought she'd never see again.

After the Wraith siege. After Ford.

Oh, God, Ford. She hated coming down to the infirmary; she had ever since the day Ford had died. Sometimes she could still hear the sharp bark of John's gun, smell the reek of gunpowder and feel the pain as Ford's hard fingers around her throat relaxed slowly, as his body melted towards the floor. His face had been so close to hers that she'd had no choice but to look in his eyes, even as her vision faded in a whirl of black sparks; she'd seen the light in his eyes -- one human, one black to the edges -- fade away into the vacant sheen of death.

She'd watched his eyes go flat, and then, as he and she collapsed towards the floor, her dimming vision had gone past him to John, to John lowering the gun that had killed Ford and saved her life -- and she'd seen the light die in John's eyes, too.

Elizabeth brought her hand up to her throat, feeling the bruises that had long since vanished. Sometimes she felt as if they'd left scars, invisible ones. Scars that went to the bone. She woke at night, gasping and cold, still feeling Ford's hands on her neck.

Rodney had lain still at her feet where Ford's single blow had dropped him. Ford would have killed her, and perhaps Rodney too. John had only done what he'd had to do. Maybe if he'd had a chance to get a stunner, things would have gone differently -- but the weapon at hand was his 9-mil, and with it he'd saved her life and Rodney's and perhaps that of the infirmary staff.

And though there had been a lot of little things that had pushed them to the place they were now, a lot of wrong choices and small hurts and mistakes, she thought that day might be where it had all gone wrong. In her late, sleepless nights, she sometimes thought that day might be the last time John Sheppard had really, truly allowed himself to care about anyone.

In her universe.

But this John ... this John was different. Somehow he'd weathered Ford's death, or maybe the course of events in his universe had been more different than she imagined; whatever the cause, he'd been able to retain whatever it was that she'd seen in him the first day she'd met him. He was stronger and harder and sharper in certain ways, just like the John she knew, but under it all, she could tell, there was still the same eager kid who wanted to fly, the same grown man who didn't hesitate to let his heart bleed for other people. He'd been scared for Rodney. She had seen it. And she didn't know why, but she couldn't doubt the strength of his emotion.

And, as she strode out into the hall, she wondered if the things she could see in the John of this other universe could still be present in her own Atlantis's John Sheppard, buried under so many layers of emotional armor that maybe even he couldn't see them anymore.

----

Well, now you know just where exactly their universe really started to diverge...