"Death and Destiny"

A/N: Sorry for the long delay! Hope this chapter makes up for it!! )

gabumon: thanks for reviewing! And yes, you get your cookie!

Lala: Hope the next chapter is worth the wait!

Llanea: I just sent you the links I found with the rumors. Sorry it's been a whole lot longer that 2 weeks! Lol

Chapter 4:

"To Live Without"

Without (with·out) preposition- Lacking a feeling for. The accused engaged in physical abuse without remorse or intent to change.

"I'm back! Did you miss me? Please, of course you did. Let me ask you this, Rodney's a pretty descent guy, right? I mean if over look the fact the he's arrogant and condescending to everyone whom he sees as mentally inferior or idiotic. Which is basically just about everyone. It's sorta like if you like to hate him then you'll learn to love him, you know? Can't live with him, impossible to live with out him. But you know this already, don't you? You also know that Rodney has a cat named "Mars Bar" (You know after the candy?), or "Mars" for short. Rodney found her on his first trip to Area 51. What you don't know is when Rodney was 17 he was in a car accident. His mother and father were with him. Some guy ran a red light. That guys name was William Sheppard. Will was late for a debriefing at the J.E Winchester Air Force base. Rodney and his parents were coming home from his Collage graduation. It was May 20 1985. Today is that William Sheppard and both of Rodney's parents, Joes-Ann and Richard McKay died. Because Rodney was driving, everyone blamed him. His life went down hill from there….

The last thing you don't know is that Rodney never told John. Never told him who was at fault for the accident. He never told him nor did he ever plan to. Until now…."

2 Hours and 30 minutes later

Z.P.M Room

I turn to Radek. "Are you ready?"

He looks up and nods. "Yes. It is done."

"Great. I'll tell Sheppard to us in the control room. You go on ahead, I'll meet you there. I'm just gonna to make sure I didn't forget anything."

"Alright, I will see you then." And with that he walks out.

I sigh and I reach for my Com Link to call for Sheppard. "Sheppard, this is McKay."

It took me a few moments to answer. "Yeah, go head."

"We're ready. I already sent Radek to the Control Room."

"What about you?" He responds.

"I'll be there in a few. Just making sure everything's in order."

I hear him snort. "Hey, what's the worst that could…."

I cut him off before he could finish his sentence. "Don't even think about completing that statement!"

"Well aren't you 'Mr. Superstitious'."

"No. It's called caution and respect for the Powers-That-Be. You should try it sometime."

"Yeah, whatever you say Rodney. I'll be in the Control Room in 5."

"Ok. See you there, McKay out." I get ready to leave and take one last look at the room. "It's show time." I say out loud to myself and turn to meet up with the others.

"It's Show time alright. Except it's me that will be the star of the show. After all, why else would I be telling you this story? Anyways, I'm sure you're just dying to find out what happens poor, poor Rodney. Rodney's legend ends in Z.P.M, and mine begins in the Infirmary…"

Showtime

Control Room

I walk in to find Sheppard and Zelenka already there. "You ready?" I ask.

"I should be asking YOU that, Rodney." John answers.

"Sure." I say to Sheppard. Then I turn to Radek. "How much power are we working with here?"

He looks up from his computer. "Just closing in on about 15 minutes to 'The Point of No Return'."

Sheppard looks at me.

"What? It was his idea! I just happened to agree…. It seemed right for the occasion."

Sheppard just shakes his head and mutters something about Scientists and O.C.D. "Whatever, just start it up."

Radek nods and starts the initialization process. "Everything is going good so far…"

12 minutes later

Control Room

12 minutes later and no problems yet. "So far, so good." Of course I had to open my big mouth.

"BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!!"

Radek start typing furiously at the laptop keyboard.

I turn to him. "Radek progress report, what the hell's going on?!"

"Power overload," he replies. "One of the conduits must have short-circuited!"

I nod. "I'm gonna go down there and check it out. Radek, you stay here and keep me updated."

Sheppard looks at me. "Rodney…"

"I'll be all right. I'll be back in no time with a 'McKay saves the day again!' story."

Both Sheppard and Radek smile.

"Maybe I won't be edited out this time." Sheppard says.

"Good luck." Radek responds.

"Yeah." And rush to the Zed.P.M room.

Once I get there I immediately take a look at the controls. Radek then talks though the Com link. "What is the damage?"

"Well, you were right. The Crystals are shot, definitely fried." I take a closer look at them. "More like burnt to a crisp actually…"

Then I hear Sheppard's voice. "Rodney, focus."

The Zelenka's again. "Rodney, what are to do? There is not enough time to fix even one of the now multiple problems that are coming up. I don't care how good you say you are."

Then I have an idea. "Yeah, about that…"

There is silence for a moment as Radek is trying to figure out what I am thinking. Then the light bulb clicks on. "Oh no, Rodney, don't even THINK about doing what I think you're about to do!"

"Too, late." I say

"It'll kill you." He says.

I think for a moment and respond. "I know…" I run to the computer and lock doing the level I am on. If I know Sheppard, (Which I do. Well, most of the time.) he'll be coming soon. I walk up to the Zed.P.M and get ready to make the final connection, when Sheppard comes on the radio. If he didn't know the level was look down before, he certainly knows it now…

"Rodney, you don't have to do this!"

"Yeah, actually I do."

I take one last look at the door and say, "Remember that bad feeling I had? I guess I was right. Of course that shouldn't come as any big surprise."

"Rodney…"

"So long John."

"Rodney! Don't…" That's when I reach up and switch the com link off.

I sigh. "Here goes nothing." And I connect the two crystals in to the control panel and that was it. That's all I remember. The next time I wake up I have this really strong urge to kill everyone…. Or just hurt the REALLY badly. I guess I should explain how I get brought back to life, minus one soul. It all started about one month ago. Radek and I were exploring an Ancient lab on M196-25. Sheppard was outside watching our 6. We found this device. It could bring things back from the dead. At first we thought we read it wrong, so we brought it back to Atlantis with whatever instructions the Ancients had been kind enough to leaf behind.

Elizabeth, along with a few other scientists confirmed what we suspected. A few days after that, it was put into storage because of the… unfortunate events of Sunday. And well, you can pretty much guess the rest from there. Raked tells Sheppard, Sheppard tells the Chief M.D, She runs the tests, and then tests it on me. And that's how I came to live without, to live without my soul. Because the day I died was the day I started to live. This is my story, the story of my death, my life, my destiny.

T.B.C……..