A/N: jnp asked when the EFC characters were going to show up. They will. Some of you probably already have an idea about how that's going to happen.
'Are we there yet?' John was just waiting for McKay to ask. They had taken off in the early morning. They rain hadn't stopped yet, but had calmed down to a steady drizzle. Rodney had gone over everything once more at John's insistence and had declared the Jumper fit for the return trip. John had shot a last glance at the dents in the hull, but as far as he could tell the Jumper was running smoothly under his mental commands. The cracked control panel was slightly disturbing, especially since it had blown up at him in the crash, but the Jumper was obviously sturdier than it looked. Flying with just one arm took up enough of his concentration, at least for the first hour of their trip. Rodney was chatting idly along, not minding that no one was answering or listening for that matter. Teyla was trying to sleep on the back bench of the Jumper and Ronon--he was just being Ronon, looking ahead into space looking grumpy.
Rodney had handed the life signs detector back to him before they had boarded the Jumper. There is nothing wrong with it, maybe you were imagining things. It wasn't like Rodney to brush him off like this. Sheppard was sure there was something wrong. Rodney was being odder than usual and he was starting to be sure there was more to it than the rift between them after the Doranda fiasco. He had considered talking to Rodney about it, but at the best of times, winnowing information out of the scientist was difficult. In their current phase of their relationship, Rodney would clam up immediately. John didn't pursue the topic of the life signs detector and simply asked Rodney whether the Jumper was ready, switching the topic to something more innocuous.
oOo
"Can't you put just a little more speed in it, Colonel?" Rodney asked from the back of the Jumper. He sounded like he was speaking and eating at the same time.
"You should know it, McKay. I'm flying as fast as it goes. You'll be home in the lab with your reactor in nine hours and fifty-six minutes. No actually, it will be a bit longer. I'm not sure this thing puts in the delay for dialing the gate."
"Well, thanks for nothing." Rodney sounded, genuinely pissed, but maybe it was just that they had been away from privacy, a good night's sleep and real food for a bit too long.
"I thought you with your super genes could maybe get some extra speed out of the Jumper. I mean, the Ancient technology almost begs you to use it when you just think at it," Rodney accused, still munching on something.
John turned around. The Jumper was pretty much flying itself. Rodney sat on one of the benches in the back, a laptop standing on the floor next to him; he was holding what looked like a PowerBar.
Teyla was lying on the opposite bench, arm thrown over her head. She'd decided to try to get some sleep a few hours ago. John couldn't imagine anyone getting some sleep with Rodney never shutting up for more than ten minutes, but if anyone could do it, Teyla could.
"Believe me; I want to get back to Atlantis. Elizabeth will have us both for being two days late. But at least I can finally have a shower," John said. He could feel every one of the last five days.
"I'm going to put the Jumper on autopilot for a while. I could use some rest." John set the controls for the autopilot and headed for the benches in the back of the Jumper. He wasn't so much tired as he was under strain from the pain of his injury. The OTC painkiller wasn't adept at managing the pain from broken bones but he needed all the concentration he could muster to pilot the Jumper. Fortunately the Ancients had created a very efficient autopilot, capable of safely getting them back to Atlantis.
oOo
"What's going on?" Rodney yelled.
Teyla sat up and looked around blearily and Ronon sat up straighter in his seat. Ignoring his injury, John hurried to the front of the Jumper. In his mind, he was already running through the ship's systems, searching for the cause of the alarm. He cursed himself for his lack of familiarity with the Ancient craft as he sat in front of the console.
"There is a Wraith ship; it's dead ahead from us. I have no idea why the alarm didn't go off earlier." A blast shook the ship the moment John finished his sentence.
"They are firing on us!" Rodney screamed. "Do something. Like returning fire."
"What do you think I'm doing?" John ordered the ship to return fire on the enemy vessel, but before he hit the target, another volley hit them, rocking the Jumper hard.
"Doesn't feel very effective from where I'm sitting."
"We should try to escape. We might be able to outrun them," Teyla suggested, trying to be helpful.
John wished they'd all be silent. He was seeing the battle take place three-dimensions inside his head, and it took all the concentration he could muster to try to outmaneuver the Wraith ship.
Suddenly, the lights inside the Jumper flickered, and then they were cloaked in darkness.
"What the hell!"
"I think this constitutes a problem."
"Did we lose all the power?"
John stared at the lifeless panel. In a moment, everything had gone dark. The Wraith had to have noticed. John couldn't reach out to the ship anyone. There was nothing he could feel. It was exactly that same thing that had happened during the horrible storm.
"We are going to die." It had to be Rodney to spell out what they were all thinking.
It was a matter of waiting for the Wraith ship to fire at the Jumper and shatter them into a million pieces of space junk. John had been there before, when the Wraith had besieged the City. He had been ready to take the step and fly a Jumper carrying a nuclear warhead into a Wraith cruiser. No doubts. No regrets.
How would the end be? Would it hurt? Or would the explosion consume him before any sensation could reach his brain? It was over before John could finish his thought. There was a blinding white light filling the Jumper and then the world ended.
oOo
Awakening was painful. John's ears were ringing, like he had been to the firing range without earplugs or had been too close to something exploding. He hoped for the former. Explosions were a bitch. Especially the nuclear kind.
Sheppard opened his eyes and the ceiling of the Jumper swam into view. It hadn't been a dream. He remembered clearly. They had been engaged by the Wraith and they had been losing. After their power had failed, they had been sitting ducks, waiting for the Wraith to blow them to pieces. Something must have stopped the Wraith and it hadn't been good old-fashioned mercy. John had seen how the Wraith extracted information from their prisoners. He would be better off dead.
John sat up and had a look around. His teammates were still lying in various spots around the Jumper. John got up, walked over to Rodney, who lie slumped on the bench in the back. Reaching to feel for a pulse, Rodney started to stir and opened his eyes.
"Major, how...?"
"Don't ask me how. I don't know why we're still here." John shrugged.
"Colonel Sheppard. Are you all right?" Teyla had recovered on the other bench.
"As far as I can tell we are okay." John answered.
"Great to hear that you know that," Rodney shot back, but he smiled. Rodney slid away from Sheppard and headed to the front.
"The lights are back on," Teyla stated the obvious.
"I hadn't noticed myself, but now that you say it, so are the rest of our systems. Everything is back on-line, even the weapons," Rodney diagnosed, leaning over the console in the front of the Jumper.
"We should fire on the Wraith while they don't expect it," Ronon suggested.
John walked up to join him. "On the subject, where are the Wraith? They should have blown us to bits while we were down. It's not like them to do anything half way."
"I can't detect them anywhere out there. They are gone."
"Gone? Could they have cloaked? They popped out of nowhere. They might have disappeared into hyperspace, or cloaked."
"No, they are gone...gone."
"Gone gone?'" John repeated.
"They were never here. The Jumper hasn't been damaged at all. Apart from the damage we suffered in the crash, the Jumper is fine. I can't..."
John stopped Rodney's rant before it had started. "So you are saying the attack didn't happen. Is it possible it was some sort of illusion? During the storm on the planet, something strange happened to me. I though I saw something, but then it was gone. I'm wondering if this is connected." John hadn't wanted to bring up his experience from the planet, mainly because he wasn't sure what to believe himself, but he couldn't help wondering whether they weren't all suffering from some sort of sensory delusion.
"The Wraith can create illusions, but only when they are present, and I have never heard of them creating anything as elaborate as this," Teyla said.
"What purpose would this ploy serve, assuming the Wraith are responsible?" Ronon was thinking strategically.
"Gathering information about Atlantis maybe. But if this is a ruse, it's not very smart. Didn't they think we'd notice?" Rodney said smugly.
"That's not the point right now. I'm more concerned with finding out is what this is and, more importantly, figuring out what to do now. If the Wraith are involved, I'm sure they are going to show up again." John sat down, again. The know-back from the impact, or whatever it was that had happened had jarred his broken arm. The thought of leaning against a solid surface sounded like a good idea, but their current predicament didn't allow respite for the team leader.
Teyla immediately noticed his discomfort and quietly went over to get the Tylenol from the first aid kit. She offered him a canteen and the tablets.
John checked his watch and satisfied that enough time had elapsed since his last dose, he accepted. He also longed for some coffee or a few hours of sleep, but that would have to wait until they returned to Atlantis.
While John had been medicating himself, Rodney had been working the controls feverishly.
"I think you should see this." Rodney looked back over to John. "I have run pretty much every test the Jumper lets me with my oh-so limited genetic prowess and there is nothing, no sign of the Wraith. I'm not sure, but at least the Jumper's cloaking system is a variation of the shield technology; you can't use both at the same time. Are you still following?"
"Yes, Rodney. I'm following you!" Rodney was damn irritating lately. The entire yelling made John's head hurt.
"The Wraith had their shield activated when they were firing on us. Makes sense; they wouldn't want us to hit them. But normally, when you switch from shield to cloak or the other way around, there is brief energy surge. I went through the sensor log and I can't find it. Now, it's possible, the Wraith cloaked after our sensors went dark, but if they did before, which makes much more sense, then they didn't and the Wraith are not responsible, which leaves only one other alternative. I hate to consider this one since, well physics is a bit divided on the issue of time travel, but there the rumors that Colonel Carter once did it and the Ancients most probably did several times."
"Did what? John didn't want to know what Rodney had been doing with Colonel Carter.
"They have gone back in time. SG-1 found an Ancient Puddle Jumper on..."
John interrupted Rodney, frowning. "I read that report". Maybe he should have paid more attention, because he was sketchy on the details of that particular mission.
"Time travel? Never heard of it." Ronon joined the conversation. Teyla gave a slightly baffled look, suggesting serious confusion on her part. Both Pegasus Galaxy natives had been around space travel longer than McKay had worked for the Stargate program and they had well-founded doubts, but the scientist wasn't so easily dissuaded.
"Look at it. It makes sense." Rodney stressed each word.
"You have said that before about the Wraith thing, if I remember right." John was starting to wonder if maybe he had hit his head after all.
"Let me finish a sentence, will you? If we jumped back in time, it would explain why the Wraith have suddenly disappeared and why there is no damage to the Jumper anymore."
"One question McKay. How?" Ronon asked.
"I'm not so sure about that one. It could be the blast the Wraith fired at us, it could be a spatial anomaly the Jumper didn't pick up or it could be the popular suspicious alien device we picked up. God knows we have had our share of bad luck with those." Rodney cast a long look back to the small silver box in the back of the Jumper.
"The description didn't mention traveling through time," Teyla remarked. "But we did find a symbol meaning 'time' when Colonel Sheppard touched the device and there was a warning for danger. Maybe we had turned it on accidentally when the Wraith attacked us."
"I have been thinking along the same lines."
"Can't you just check the clock on the Jumper's system? That will tell us whether we have gone back in time or not." John was as puzzled by the events as the others, but the explanation Rodney proposed was a too out-there for him to accept at the moment. John had to admit that stranger things had happened to them in the Pegasus Galaxy.
"I already did, but it won't do any good anyways. If what I think happened, then we inside the Jumper remained in a protected environment, like in a bubble. We went back in time, but we are aware of going back in time. We are the observers."
TBC