Fate's Fickle Humor

Chapter 13: Time Tangles

In his dreams, John Sheppard watched as history unfolded. Not as it was or as it had been, but as it was originally meant to be...

SG-1 walked slowly through the Stargate to a stunned General George Hammond, who had been certain this time they were truly lost, the aftermath of the explosion on the planet not leaving much hope...

Jack O'Neill leaned casually against the door frame to George Hammond's new Pentagon office, waiting to go to the ceremony to accept a promotion he'd never believed he'd be offered, let alone accept. At least not before a young officer called him General O'Neill...

The newly promoted Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter wrote a recommendation that Dr. Rodney McKay be assigned to the Antarctica Expedition, certain that fate wouldn't mind a helping hand...

General O'Neill quietly called in a favor with the commander of McMurdo to ensure that one disgraced major was his pilot to the Ancient Outpost. A young man whose career he'd carefully begun watching over a year earlier...

That same general waved the young officer onto an elevator going deep under the ice, casually assuring him that he now had clearance though it would cause problems with some of the brass, knowing the consequences if he didn't...

General Landry abruptly backed the promotion of John Sheppard and his continued assignment as military commander of Atlantis after a phone call from an old friend and a quiet discussion with Colonel Carter, though much of the explanation left him with a headache...

And everything clicked neatly back into place, fate no longer the plaything of the Ori.

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A slow, steady beeping brought Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard slowly awake to the sunlit interior of an Athosian tent. Carefully, he tried to look around for anyone else, only to find that turning his head felt like forcing a rusty, long unused wheel to turn, muscles screaming in protest. Nope, nobody there, but lots of equipment around. In fact, the area near his bed was set up as a mini-infirmary, complete with a monitoring unit for his vitals, IV, and- oh goody- a catheter bag.

Could it all have been a dream, seeing time fix itself? Had they failed and were truly trapped now in this altered present, refugees with their homes gone, both here and in the Milky Way? His stomach twisted and he grimaced in heartfelt pain. That meant- Eyes burned with tears he refused to let fall as he remembered how watching a good friend and leader crumpled lifelessly to the floor, John just a little too slow to stop her death. Restless, he turned away, lost in the memories of a city he'd probably never see again...

"Colonel?"

The gentle question brought his eyes back open, realizing he must have dozed off for a few minutes. That newly acquired habit had gotten old and more than a bit irritating back when he was still recovering from the retrovirus. John wasn't all that surprised when he finally turned his head toward the voice to find Carson standing by his bed, carefully scanning monitors with a satisfied air.

"Hey, doc. Are we on Athos?"

With an internal cringe, the colonel decided it was better to bite the bullet and ask. Or at least try to. What emerged from his mouth bore no resemblance to a human voice, nor were the words coherent. The doctor, however, didn't appear the least bit surprised at the croak, just bolstered him up into a semi-recline with a few well-placed pillows, then handed John a small cup of water.

"Easy, son, just sip slowly on that for a minute, then we'll get to your questions. Your throat is going to be a wee bit sore for a while, I had to put you on a ventilator." As his patient's expression began to darken with alarm, Carson smiled reassuringly. "Not to worry, you're healin' just fine. I think you might want to duck when we return to Atlantis, though, Elizabeth's mighty upset with you for scarin' her like that again so soon. Said she'd rather you didn't go trying to beat General O'Neill's infirmary record!"

John promptly choked on the water as the full implications of Carson's statements hit home, accidentally inhaling some of the liquid only to spray it back out with several forceful, and painful, coughs. Right into the face of a startled Rodney, who had just bustled into the tent. The genius recoiled hard, almost tripping, then moved back to John's side when the coughing stopped, accepting a towel from a laughing Carson.

"I warned ya not to come in without checking, Rodney!"

McKay rolled his eyes at the Scot, grimacing.

"Yes, very attractive, thank you, colonel. Your voodoo's supposed to be fixing him, Carson, not drowning him!"

The Scot just shook his head in answer, lips still twitching as he tried to suppress more laughter at their annoyed friend. John would have been chuckling, too, if he weren't having to try to catch his breath, which immediately brought the attention of the doctor back to him. Gently, he held a pillow to John's side, helping the colonel support the area where he'd been shot, which didn't hurt nearly as much as it should have for only having been injured a few days ago at most. However, his relief at the doctor's words was all he was focused on at the moment. Elizabeth was alive to be annoyed with him, waiting on Atlantis, and O'Neill was a general. So far, so good. Why, then, was he in a tent?

"D-doc?" He stuttered a bit, still coughing occasionally, but his voice worked properly this time, even if his throat did burn and throb pretty fiercely. "Sorry about that. But where are we?"

Beckett sobered, patting his arm gently.

"I'm the one who should apologize, colonel, I should have realized what you'd assume waking up here after all you've been through. We're on the Mainland, at the Athosian settlement, because with your injuries, staying on Atlantis would have been fatal." John collapsed back against the pillows, head spinning from both the exertion and the partial explanation, pulling in deep breaths to slow his speeding heart. "That's it, son, everything's fine, just relax. I wasn't bloody well thinkin'."

The colonel nodded in response, not trusting himself to speak more than a few short words at the moment. The last thing he wanted was to trigger the coughing spasms again. Fine, he'd relax, but one of the two with him had better start explaining what the hell had happened in a logical, complete manner, or he was going to find Ronon and have him knock some heads together. Fortunately for his throat, a pointed glare could communicate a lot as the other two began tripping over each other in their attempts to provide answers.

"You passed out on the planet after activating that bloody machine..."

"After you sent SG-1 back and promptly fainted..."

Voices running on top of one another kicked John's throbbing head back to life and he closed his eyes for a long moment before pinning both Carson and Rodney with a glare.

"One at a time!"

It was half command, half plea, combined with a touch of coughing, which had the physician helping him with another cup of water. A soft laugh from the doorway made him peer around Carson to see the rest of his team, plus Cameron and Daniel, the latter two apparently extremely amused.

"I think we'd better answer him before John decides to open another can of whoop-ass on us, don't ya think?"

Cam's cocky, amused question received another glare, not that it would do any good with his old friend. After all, it wasn't like he was even a superior officer! The other colonel did, however, seem to be good judge of when he'd pushed John too far, actually volunteering an explanation.

"SG-1 got home safely and everything is back to normal as far as we can tell. Dr. Weir opened the gate to Earth and we checked in with Landry, but so far we seemed to have pulled off another one. When whatever that machine was stopped its glowing, we found Major Lorne and company looking for us. Good thing, too, since you decided to stop breathing right about then."

Beckett grimaced, but took up the explanation from Cameron with only a mildly reproving look at the SG-1 colonel.

"We couldn't find you, so Elizabeth got worried and sent me along with the major's team. We were actually just about to leave when everyone with the ATA gene was briefly dizzy, then there the lot of you were. Ronon and the major almost shot one another in surprise, by the way. Lads almost gave me a heart attack." A sour look at Ronon, who just shrugged, not looking the least bit repentant. "Apparently, son, that bloody machine gave you the equivalent of a right nasty burn through the neural pathways that control Ancient technology when the power surged the first time you touched it. Its made you sensitive to anything Ancient, so we had Daedalus transport you here to heal. That was a week ago, colonel."

"Which, I might add, is another interesting point." Rodney barely waited for Carson to finish his sentence, muscling the Scot aside both verbally and physically to take center stage in front of John. "We remember the Daedalus as already having left right before we went to the planet, but when we returned, Caldwell was still there. Seems he received special orders from General O'Neill to stick around for about a week after dropping off supplies, probably because he remembered us saying it could kill you. Interesting thing, time. Too bad we never had a chance to ask about some of the other effects of SG-1 being gone. For instance, I'd love to know how they defeated Anubis and found Atlantis, but then, I was around, wasn't I? Undoubtedly, with my superior intellect, I replaced Samantha Carter..."

"Rodney!"

"Not again, McKay!"

"Will you quite your blatherin'?"

"Wait 'til I tell Carter you think you can replace her."

Several people went after the suddenly arrogant scientist, and John settled back against his pillows, content that everything really would work out from this one.

It was almost another week before John was able to return to Atlantis, doing the honors himself with Lorne willingly stepping down to co-pilot for the trip home aboard Jumper 1. By the time they reached the city, the colonel was able to happily reassure Carson that he had just the barest hint of a headache from the Ancient technology, not that it stopped the doctor from immediately ordering his patient to the infirmary for an in-depth scan.

Pleased to be home, everyone in one piece, including an Elizabeth fighting a losing battle to at least look stern and professional, John didn't even complain about it. Which, of course, had Carson shooting him suspicious looks the entire time, but finally conceding that all the tests were showing the colonel almost completely recovered. It did, however, mean that the Atlantis military commander was able to look forward to another blissfully scientist-free week since he wasn't allowed to activate anything.

The part of his return that had all of Atlantis buzzing, however, was what happened after John left the infirmary. He'd been tired, his healing wounds still taking up a lot of the energy he'd just recovered before this whole mess started, so he'd acceded to Carson's orders to go to his room and rest. Only when he'd arrived at the door of the smallish room he'd taken after the returning to Atlantis as the actual assigned military commander, he'd gone in-

To find one of the female marines on the overnight shift just stepping out of her pre-bed shower. Naturally, she also slept in the buff.

Red faced and stuttering, a very embarrassed John had hastily backed out of the room, fleeing down the corridor. He'd hid out on a balcony nearby, trying to decide what the hell was going on and if he had finally gone around the bend. At least until an equally flustered Rodney appeared a few hours later, having gone to bring a meal to his recovering friend only to have the same problem that John did. Together, each reinforcing the fact that the other wasn't seeing things, they sheepishly went to find Carson Beckett, hoping to keep this from going around Atlantis. The doctor, after staring at them for a long moment, conceded that something must have shifted, causing an odd ripple in the time line. With a grin, he led John to what everyone else on Atlantis knew as his current quarters, two corridors over on the east side. Sure enough, there were all his things, including the Johnny Cash poster in its rightful position near the wall, his guitar in the corner with his newly arrived golf clubs, and the skateboard under the bed.

By the next morning, the full account of the incident, including Rodney's little wake-up call of a naked woman, was making the rounds of the city. It was good to be home.

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Gritting his teeth, Dr. Daniel Jackson took one last look around the Control Room of the Lost City he'd gone through so many adventures to find before stepping through the wormhole back to Earth. He and Cam had both known they'd be lucky to get the entire two months they'd been allotted in the Pegasus Galaxy before being recalled, but not quite three weeks sucked. The Ori, however, didn't seem too inclined to wait around before causing more trouble, so back they went. At least they'd been able to stay long enough to see Colonel Sheppard back on his feet. The man really did remind the archaeologist rather strongly of a certain former colonel and SG-1 leader.

What made Daniel truly uneasy about returning home, though, was the possibility of changes in the SGC. Oh, he knew restoring SG-1 had fixed most of the present, but knowledge of the future had caused ripples. It was simply inevitable, no matter how hard Jack and the others must have tried to keep it from happening. He'd seen it in the occasional odd face on Atlantis giving his friends pause, and in the slightly altered configuration of Rodney's lab. Not to mention that whole thing with Sheppard's quarters! If the effects had gone that far out from the four people who would have caused them, what must have happened at the SGC, where they were every day?

The moment Daniel saw the familiar gate room of the SGC, however, he stopped dead in his tracks, Cam almost walking straight into him. Clustered at the bottom of the ramp were four people, faces registering the gamut from irritation to amusement. Teal'c, Sam, and, in one of his rare visits back to Earth, Jonas Quinn, all stood to one side, eyes flickering between Daniel and the fourth greeter.

Major General Jack O'Neill, looking distinctly pissed.

"Uh oh. I'm dead."

Daniel's muttered comment received a snort of amusement from Mitchell.

"Glad I'm not in your shoes, Jackson. Come on, time to face the music."

Planting a firm hand in the middle of the archaeologist's back, Mitchell began pushing the reluctant man down the ramp toward his former team leader.

"Daniel!" O'Neill greeted him loudly in that falsely cheerful tone that had always warned the team that they had done something boneheadedly stupid. "Danny-boy! Space monkey! Just what the hell do you call that whole mess you just made?"

Coming to a halt in front of his friend, Daniel squirmed a bit, casting a hopeful look toward the other three. Who just stared back at him. Nope, no help there.

"Ahh... I don't know, Jack... Fate's fickle humor?"

The end. Thank you so much to all who have read this tale, especially those who also reviewed. I hope you enjoyed!