Title: The Last Chance
Date: 10th January 2008
Author: Kazavid
Chapter: 9 / 9
Rating: M
Pairing: John Sheppard / OFC - Alex from (Doppelgänger – Mating Instinct – Didn't think...)
Archiving: None
Warnings: Sexual Content
Spoilers: Anything up to The Seer
Feedback: Yes
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis and its characters do not belong to me.
Summary: Four days, five chances, to stop Atlantis from being destroyed. And he can't tell anyone what he knows, or what he's doing. Is Sheppard up to the task, can he stop the destruction of Atlantis and save everyone he cares about.
The Last Chance
Chapter 9
"John, can you hear me?"
"No."
"Open your eyes, John." the voice said.
"No." John said, stubbornly refusing to do as he was asked.
"You can't escape the reality of what's happened." he was told.
"Yes I can, so just leave me alone - I can't do any more." he said, refusing to cooperate.
"You don't have to do any more." he was told.
"I don't?" John asked, startled by the reply.
He opened his eyes and was surprised to see that he wasn't surrounded by blackness. Instead he was lying on a bank of ground. Before him, was a smooth, calm ocean, where he could see Atlantis. Complete. Whole. Intact.
"Am I dead?" he asked, moving to pick himself up off the ground.
"Yes, you are."
John closed his eyes, "Did it work? Did I change it?" he wasn't sure what had happened.
"Yes, you changed it, Atlantis will survive."
"Alex and Ronon, I didn't..." he asked, apprehensively, he couldn't remember if he'd hurt them or not. He remembered holding a knife in his hand and walking towards Alex - pointing a gun at Ronon, and firing. But he wasn't sure if they were real memories, or if they were memories from the nightmares he'd been having.
"No, you didn't, they're fine."
John sighed with relief, at least this way it was only him who died, and not everyone else. "The entity... is it..." he asked, wondering if it was still inside him.
"It's gone."
"So this is it then." John said dejected, he couldn't help but think about what he'd lost, what he'd never get to see, or do.
"I'm afraid so."
Standing on the bank of ground, he just stared at Atlantis. He thought about how everything would carry on without him. How Alex and the others would live their lives, probably on Atlantis. How he'd never get to see Aaron grow up... he really didn't want to think about this right now, it was too painful. He looked away from Atlantis.
"You said that you'd tell me who you are if Atlantis survived - So, who are you?" he could at least know who, or what, he'd been talking to.
"Do you really want to know?" the voice asked.
John gave a snort of disbelief at this question, "Of course I really want to know." he answered bluntly.
"You must have some ideas as to who I am."
"Well, I'm guessing you must be an Ancient."
"True."
"Are you ascended?" John asked.
"No, I'm not ascended."
"So, who are you?" John asked again.
"Turn around and you'll see who I am."
John, hesitated, then slowly twisted around to look, "Oh, that's just great," he snorted in disgust as he looked at the man standing before him, "This just proves that McKay was right all along – I am a crazy son of a bitch."
The man standing before him, smiled, broadly, "Let's just say that the verdict is still out on that one." he told him.
"All this time I've been talking to myself." John said, as he continued to stare, in disbelief, at the man standing before him. He was wearing dark pants and a dark shirt, and his hair, was short and messy. He stared back at John, with a lopsided smile on his face.
"No, you haven't been talking to yourself, you've been talking to me." the man corrected John's assumption.
"You look just like me, so what's the difference - however you put it I've still been talking to myself." John said, it was like looking in to a mirror and seeing your own reflection. The man was his duplicate.
"The difference is, it's not me who looks like you - it's you who looks like me." his duplicate told him.
"Same thing, isn't it?" John frowned.
"No, it's not the same thing." he was told.
The frown lines in John's forehead grew deeper as he tried to figure out what his duplicate was telling him.
"Where do you think that Ancient gene you have in your DNA came from?"
"You!" John's eyes widened as he looked at his duplicate, he couldn't be... could he?
"Looks like the gene wasn't the only thing I passed down. You seem to have gotten my good looks too." he laughed.
"You're telling me that you're an Ancient ancestor of mine?" John asked.
"Yes."
"What's your name?"
"It's Caldeiz."
"Caldeiz. Why are you here... I mean, why did you pick this particular time, or this particular event, to try and stop?"
"Because I'm the one responsible for you being put in this position."
"How are you responsible?"
"A long time ago when we first found the artefact - like you, we attached it to the dialling system. Only that time, the artefact didn't need a key to activate the portal, it activated just by using the Gate address."
"It didn't need a 'key'?" John asked, wondering why it needed a key now.
"No, it didn't need a 'key'. We managed to shut the Stargate down and remove it from the system. That's when we decided that it would be better, and safer, if the artefact was broken up and destroyed. But we found out that we couldn't destroy it. And when we tried to break it up, we could only break it in to four pieces." Caldeiz stopped talking.
"So how come it needs a 'key' to activate the portal now?" John asked.
"When we used the laser to break the artefact up, I entered the laser room to retrieve the pieces. When I touched one of the pieces, it linked itself to me, started to repair itself using my DNA as a catalyst. A short while after that event, I found out that I couldn't touch the artefact without being zapped by it."
"Hurts like hell, doesn't it?" John remarked, remembering how much it had hurt to get zapped by that thing.
"You could say that." Caldeiz laughed at John's use of the word 'hell', a very appropriate word for it.
"How did you find out that it needs a 'key' to activate the portal?"
"Lets just say one of our people wasn't in agreement with us over the dangers of the artefact. He reattached it to the dialling system and dialled the Gate address. The energy in the Stargate began to build up. We tried to disconnect it, but couldn't. Having been zapped by the artefact previously, I steered clear of it. But I couldn't stand back and just watch, so eventually I tried to disconnect it. When I touched it, it didn't zap me, but the build up of energy in the Stargate stopped, and the portal opened."
"So you think by breaking it up, you created the need for a 'key'?" John said.
"Yes, somehow what we did interfered with the artefacts original process. From then on, each time the artefact came together, it resulted in the destruction of the city, or in some cases, the planet, of whoever was unfortunate enough to have attach it to their dialling system."
"Where did it come from?" John asked.
"We never found out, and I still don't know."
"You can't blame yourself for what happened. It just sounds like it was an unfortunate accident to me."
"It looks like taking the blame is another thing we have in common." Caldeiz remarked.
John laughed, yeah he was always taking the blame for whatever happened. But in his case, that was because he usually was the one to blame.
"How can you..." John gestured with his hands, as he talked, "You know... be here... speak to me – aren't you dead?"
"In the way that you perceive death, then, yes, I'm dead. As to how I'm able to be here, I'm not really here, it's just my image that you can see."
John reached his arm out and waved it side to side, and watched as his arm passed right through the image of his ancestor. "If you're dead how did you send me back in time?"
Caldeiz pulled a small device from beneath his shirt, that was attached to a chain around his neck. "This little device is the reason I am able to be here, why you can see me and speak to me."
"What is it?" John asked, looking at the device which was triangle in shape, with coloured crystals inlaid in to it's surface.
"It's a Temporal Flux device, it creates a flux in the time line, which allows me to transport you through time."
"Where did you get it?"
"This was given to me by an ascended Ancient."
"Why did an ascended Ancient give it to you?"
"Ever since we interfered with the artefact, caused it to need a 'key' to open the portal. I couldn't shake off the feelings of guilt. Every time the artefact came together, and a city, or planet was destroyed, my guilt became worse. Finally an ascended Ancient took pity on my intense need to do something. He gave me this Temporal Flux device, but it has limitations. I can only use it if a descendent of mine was directly involved."
"Me."
"Yes, you."
"You don't happen to know if this Ancient has any spare Temporal Flux devices to give away do you?" John asked jokingly.
"Sorry, no spare ones, but this one," he said, holding the device up, "Will be found, and will eventually be given to Aaron."
"Given to Aaron! Why?" John was a little alarmed by this revelation.
"Because he has your... or our... DNA. That's what I've been telling you, being the 'key' runs in the family."
John hadn't thought about Aaron in that way, he'd been assuming it was just himself who was the 'key'. He didn't like the thought of Aaron being involved with all this.
"I wouldn't worry about it, it's very unlikely that the artefact would ever come together in his life time."
"How do you know that?"
"It usually takes hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years for the pieces to come together."
"How many times has it come together?"
"I don't remember all of them, but the shortest time it took to come together was two hundred years."
"So it could happen?"
"I'd have say that would be a one in a million chance."
"Yeah, well odds never seem to work in my favour." John told him. "So what happens now?" John was wondering what he was supposed to do, where he was supposed to go.
"Now, it's time for you to go."
"Go! Go where?"
"Close your eyes."
John narrowed his eyes, and looked at Caldeiz, "Why?" he asked suspiciously.
"Why? Because you have a life to live on Atlantis, with your family and friends."
"But you said I was dead." John said, in an accusatory tone, he suddenly felt his heart beat getting stronger.
"And you were dead, but you didn't think your friends would leave you that way, did you?"
"But how..."
"Dr. Keller, it seems, is determined keep you as her patient, and her determination has paid off. Now close your eyes."
"Wait," John shouted, he hadn't finished with the questions yet, he had a lot more he wanted to ask, "So, I can tell them what happened? Tell them why I acted the way I did?"
"Yes, you can tell them everything."
John felt a little relieved at knowing he could tell them what had been going on. But then when he thought about it, he realised that being able to tell them about everything wasn't going to work. They'd never believe him, he closed his eyes, as a feeling of hopelessness descended on him.
"Don't you want to go back?" Caldeiz asked John, because he didn't look like a man who was eager to go back to his life.
"It's not that, I just don't think they'll believe me when I tell them - I did a lot of questionable things..." he said, grimacing as he remembered some of them.
"I can do something about that." Caldeiz told him.
"You can?"
John watched him take something out of his pocket and then he started to write. When he'd finished writing he held his arm out, and showed John what he'd wrote, "See these symbols." he asked John.
"Yes, what about them?"
"I want you to memorize them."
"What for?" John asked.
"It's a password. Input the symbols in to any console on Atlantis, and it will bring up an Ancient data base. It's just like your mission reports, but these ones are mine. I'll leave a detailed report there, your friends can read all about what happened to you, and why you did all the things you did."
After John memorized the symbols Caldeiz looked at him, "Now are you ready to go back?" he asked him.
"Just one more thing?" John asked, lifting his index finger to emphasis the one more thing.
"Yes, what is it?" he wondered what John wanted to ask now.
"What do we do with the artefact?"
He'd almost forgotten about that, "There's a room on Atlantis," Caldeiz went on to explain where the room was, "In the centre of the room, on the floor, is a circle, you must place the artefact on the circle. Then you need to use the observation chamber, from there you will be able to control the laser. I'll leave further instructions in the data base, on how to break the artefact up in to it's four pieces."
"And then what should we do with the pieces?"
"One piece can go back to Earth, and another piece can stay on Atlantis."
"And the others?"
"You should give a piece to SG-1 to dispose of. They will know of someone who can transport the piece to another galaxy."
"And the last piece?"
"The last piece? I was thinking, that maybe, you could take it to the place that I was originally going to leave it."
"And where was that?"
"A friend and I, were headed to a planet that was inhospitable to life. It was a huge mass of boiling, volcanic rivers – still is, if the calculations we took were right. But before we got there, we were captured by the Wraith. That's where the piece of artefact was taken from us." Caldeiz looked at John, with sadness clearly showing on his face.
"Is that where you died?" John asked.
"No I didn't die there, but a very good friend of mine did."
"So you want me to take the last piece to this planet that's practically made of lava?" John asked.
"Seems befitting don't you think, sort of brings closure to it."
"Sure, I can do that." it was the least he could do, after everything Caldeiz had done for him and everyone on Atlantis.
"I'll put the coordinates and the Gate address, in the data base - now, are you ready to go?" Caldeiz asked John, again.
"I guess so."
"Close your eyes."
John closed his eyes, then took a peek, "Will I ever see you again?"
Caldeiz smiled, "The amount of trouble you get in to, I'd have to say yes."
John grinned at him, "Okay then... I'm ready." he said.
Caldeiz watched John close his eyes, then he transported him back to his own time.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
"John, can you hear me?" someone was asking him.
"Mm..." he murmured, he slowly opened his eyes and saw Dr. Keller hovering beside him. She was watching him closely, assessing his reactions. He tried to raise himself up, his muscles felt like jelly.
"Please, Colonel, stay where you are, we don't want you falling on the floor and injuring yourself now, do we." she said pushing her hand against his chest until he sank back, against the pillows. "Do you know where you are?" she asked him.
"Infirmary." he answered, he saw Ronon standing a few feet away.
"Do you remember what happened?" she asked.
"Yes, I remember." he said, he felt battered and bruised from head to toe. He turned his head to the side, to look around, and saw Alex, lying on a bed a short distance away. "Alex!" he shouted, trying to pull himself up again.
"She's fine, she has a slight bump on her head, but nothing to worry about. Now lie back." Dr. Keller pushed him back till he was lying down.
"You're sure she's alright?" he asked.
"She's perfectly fine, look." she said, moving to the side so he had a clear view of Alex, who was just beginning to stir.
He settled back against the pillows, and looked at Keller, "Thanks." he told her.
"For what?" she asked, smiling as she continued to check him over.
"For not giving up on me."
"You're my patient, I don't give up on my patients." she told him.
"Yeah, well thanks anyway."
"Colonel Sheppard, nice to have you back with us." Sam came over to stand at the side of his bed.
"It's nice to be back."
"We won't go in to it right now, but when you're feeling up to it, we need to have a nice long chat." Sam told him.
"Of course." he noticed the security guys standing guard, "You really don't need those guys any more." he said, nodding his head towards the two security men.
Sam gave him a doubtful look, "That may be, Colonel, but for now, I think I'll keep them around for a little while longer." she told him.
"Sure," he'd probably do the same thing if he were in her place.
"I'll leave you to get some rest then."
"Thanks." he watched her leave the infirmary.
"Yes, it's er... nice to see that you're still alive..." McKay said, hovering near the foot of John's bed, looking decidedly nervous. He didn't know if he believed that Sheppard was back to his old self, or not.
"Gentlemen, my patient needs his rest, so if you'd like to come back tomorrow and have a chat with him then." Dr. Keller told them.
"Oh, of course, well I'll, er... come back tomorrow then..." McKay said backing up as he spoke, he turned on his heel and fled, thankful to be able to put some distance between himself and Sheppard.
John knew McKay still didn't trust him, and he understood that, he also knew he had some major sucking up to do when he got out of here. He really wasn't looking forward to that. He grimaced, as he looked around the infirmary and realised that everyone who was occupying a bed, was there because of him.
"How do you feel?" Ronon asked, standing beside John's bed.
"Fine, considering everything that's happened." he frowned at Ronon, "How come Keller hasn't chased you out like the rest?" he asked.
Ronon smirked, "She likes me." he said, bragging.
"Since when?"
"So are you back to being yourself?" Ronon asked, ignoring the question.
John let the unanswered question go, he'd get the answer from him another time. "I was always myself." he told him.
"Always?" Ronon said, raising his eyebrows at him. "In McKay's lab when you shot me, and Alex, that was you?"
"Yes, that was me." he admitted, he felt a little uncomfortable when Ronon's look didn't waver.
"And when you shot Lorne's team, was that you?"
"Well, it was me, but I wasn't in control, that thing was."
"And you're sure it's gone – really gone?" Ronon asked.
"Yes, I'm sure it's gone. Don't you believe me?" John asked, he wasn't sure if he'd believe himself under the circumstances.
Ronon looked right at him for a long time before he answered, "I believe you." he told him, truthfully.
"You're probably the only one who does believe me."
"I think Alex and Lorne would believe you. They were there when that thing came out of you." Ronon told him.
"Did you see it?"
"No, I couldn't see it, but Alex and Lorne did."
John looked over at Alex, who was moving about, but still hadn't woken up. He looked back at Ronon, "What happened in the corridor. I remember begging Alex to shoot me, but I can't remember anything else."
"I woke up and saw you walking towards Alex, then I heard you telling her to shoot you. I saw her lowering the stunner, and saw that you were still moving towards her, so I shot you. You dropped to the floor... you were... dead. Alex started doing CPR on you. Then Major Lorne came, he began helping Alex in trying to get you back. That's when that thing came out of you. Alex and Lorne had to leave you, they began firing at the entity, the next thing a shock wave threw us back against the walls, knocking Alex and Lorne unconscious, and dazing me. After that Dr Keller and her team arrived."
"So I wasn't gone that long?"
"Long enough, why?"
"Oh, it's just that it felt like I'd been gone for hours."
"It wasn't hours, more like minutes." Ronon corrected him.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
Alex could hear voices, murmuring quietly in the background, it sounded like John and Ronon.
She opened her eyes and turned her head to the side to see that it was indeed, John and Ronon. She got off the bed and walked over to them, as she got closer she remembered what had happened in the corridor.
"Alex!" John looked worried at the pallor of her skin.
"You were dead" she whispered.
"I was, but I'm okay now, see." he opened his arms as if to show her.
Alex reached her hand out and stroked his cheek, as if checking that he was real. A second later she had her arms wrapped around his neck, as she kissed him. His muscles protested at the pressure she was exerting, but he ignored it, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her on to the edge of the bed to lie beside him.
"I'll leave you guys to it." Ronon said, deciding to get out of there before they got too carried away.
John moved his mouth over her cheek and tasted the salty tears, he pulled back and looked at her. "Hey come on it's alright, everything is fine now."
"I know." she sniffled.
"So why the tears?"
"I'm just happy to have you back."
"Come here." he pulled her in to his arms, where Alex pushed her face against the side of his neck. "I love you." he whispered, pressing his lips to the side of her head.
"Love you, too." she said, tightening her hold on him.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
Four days later.
"So Colonel, would you care to tell us what is, or was, going on?" Sam asked him.
John was sitting in a chair facing her desk, Alex was standing behind him, McKay was sitting in the chair beside him, and Ronon was leaning near the doorway. Where Lorne and another security officer where stationed.
John explained what had happened to him, how he hadn't been able to tell anyone what he was doing or why.
"And you had exactly how long to come up with that story?" McKay quipped, "Let's see it's been over four days now, and that's the best you could come up with."
John had been expecting such a reaction, especially from McKay, so he was well prepared for him.
"I knew you wouldn't believe me."
"Oh, and what made you think that..." McKay asked sarcastically.
"McKay!" Sam warned him to be quiet.
McKay just pursed his lips and folded his arms.
John wrote down the symbols he'd memorised and handed them to Sam.
"What are these?" she asked studying the symbols on the paper.
"What is it?" McKay asked leaning up out of his chair to try and see what was written on the paper.
"Put them in to a console, and you can see for yourself." John told them.
Sam handed the piece of paper to McKay, "And what are we supposed to find when we put these in to a console?" McKay asked John.
"Just put them in and see for yourself." he told him.
McKay shot up out of the chair and ran over to a console. He put the symbols in to the console and stared in amazement as he saw an Ancient data base open up. It was a new data base, one he hadn't seen before. He quickly opened the files and began reading, and reading, and reading.
"McKay?" Sam said, "What is it?" She asked when he didn't relay what he was reading.
"He's telling the truth." McKay said flabbergasted by what he was reading. Everything Sheppard had told them was true. "But how did he send you back in time? And why couldn't you tell us what was going on? Why..." the questions came thick and fast.
John raised his hand up to halt McKay's questions, "Alright, McKay, enough with the questions. I don't know exactly how he did what he did. He had a device he called a Temporal Flux, plus he also had help from an ascended Ancient..."
"Where is this Temporal Flux?" McKay jumped at the opportunity to ask the question.
John was just about to tell him that it would be found and given to Aaron, but he stopped himself. If he told McKay that, he'd never hear the last of it.
"I don't know where it is." John replied, which was the truth, he didn't know where it was. He might know where it was going to be, in the future. But that was another matter.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
They found the laser room and broke the artefact up in to it's four pieces. They put one piece back in the secret cache where Lorne and Zelenka had first found it. Then they sent two pieces back to Earth, one to be returned to Area 51, the other piece was given to Cameron and Daniel to hand over to one of their allies to be disposed of.
The last piece was left for John to get rid of.
"McKay, you ready?" John asked.
"Yes, ready." McKay carried the case in to the Puddle Jumper and placed it next to him as he sat down. In the case was the last piece of the artefact.
"Right, time to finish this." John said, then drove the Jumper in to the active wormhole.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
"So, McKay, you want to do the honours?" John said as he brought the Jumper as close to the planets surface as he could get.
Even with the shield in place, the heat, emanating from the rivers of lava that covered most of the surface of the planet, was intense.
"Oh, yes... you still can't touch it?" McKay asked unnecessarily.
"Still can't touch it." John told him.
McKay got in to position and waited for John to open the back of the Jumper up. When the Jumper door was open enough, he threw the piece of artefact out. As it hit the lava below a huge spurt of fire shot up in to the air.
"It's done." McKay told him.
John closed the back of the Jumper. "Let's go home."
"Fine by me."
Ten minutes in to the journey John glanced at McKay who'd been concentrating on his laptop, ever since they'd left the planet.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Mm, what?" McKay asked lifting his head up to look at him.
"You've had your head stuck in that thing since we left the planet, what's so interesting?"
"Oh, I downloaded some reports from the new data base."
"What kind of reports?"
"Most of them are about your ancestor."
John was intrigued, "Anything interesting?" he asked, looking at McKay expectantly.
"Actually quite a bit."
John waited to for McKay to tell him what it was, but McKay just lowered his head down and carried on reading.
"McKay!" John shouted.
"What?" McKay asked startled, lifting his head back up, "Oh, you want me to tell you."
John just looked at him.
"Well for one thing he was offered the command of his own, Orion class ship, but he turned it down."
"Turned it down! Why?"
"Apparently he preferred the work that he was already doing."
"And what kind of work was that?"
"He did Special Ops missions - you know something similar to the SAS, or Delta Force. There are a number of reports about some of the missions he and his friends carried out."
The more John heard about his ancestor, the more he liked him. Shame he was dead, they could sure use a guy like that.
"So what else have you got there?" he asked, leaning over to peek at McKay's laptop.
For the rest of the journey McKay read out all the reports and missions that he'd downloaded.
>>>>>ooooo>>>>>
Caldeiz stood on a bank of ground, and watched from a distance as the Puddle Jumper returned from it's mission, watched it hover down in to the docking tube. Atlantis was safe, for now. He stayed around for a while longer, admiring the beautiful view of Atlantis as it's lights twinkled and gleamed across the ocean.
He felt a tug on the bottom of his shirt and turned to look at the dark haired child standing beside him.
"What?" he asked her.
"When do I get to be born?" she asked, looking up at him with curiosity etched in her green eyes.
"Not for a while yet." he told her, stroking his hand over her head. He smiled when she pouted with disappointment.
He picked her up in his arms where she rested her head on his shoulder and fell asleep.
He closed is eyes as they both became shimmering lights that just faded away to nothing.
The End...