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Part 3/24
-Chapter 3-
A Daring Plan
John leaned against the edge of Rodney's lab table and watched the scientist tinkering around with the large, metallic thing taking up the majority of the table's surface. "So, Rodney, is it what we think—hope—it is?"
McKay looked up with a slight glare, his fingers still busily at work deep inside the machine's guts. "I'm not sure yet," he said. "It seems to have a number of functions."
Sheppard didn't let Rodney's somewhat negative attitude dampen his spirits. "So it could be a breadbox, and it could be. . ."
McKay held up one finger abruptly. "Don't say it! We can't let anyone else know what we think this could be, or then we'd never be able to get anything done, let alone execute our plan."
John moved across the lab and perched on a stool, looking around at all the instruments and objects strewn around among coffee cups, MRE wrappers, and energy bar wrappers. He made a face. "Before I say what I came here to say, how can you work like this?"
Rodney looked up with another glare. "What exactly are you suggesting?"
John shrugged. "I don't know. It's just a little. . .cluttered in here is all."
"I know where everything is. Isn't that what matters?" He looked up and poked around what room was left on his table. "Now then, where'd I put that scanner?"
John disguised his snort of amusement behind a cough, earning him a "drop dead" look from Rodney.
McKay found his missing scanner and returned to the Thing's innards. "Now then, what are you here to say?"
Obviously Rodney was in a hurry to get rid of him. "I'm thinking about letting Ronon in on our plan."
"What—ouch!" Rodney yelped and backed away from the machine, clutching his hand and doing a rather interesting little mad dance of pain. "Are you crazy? We don't even know if it's going to work! Not that Ronon can't keep his mouth shut, he hardly talked before. . .well, you know, but he's downright stone-silent now! But that's not the point. We can't just go inviting people along to join our plan, or else we'll never be able to do anything if I do get this thing to work!"
"You are going to get that thing to work, and it is what we're hoping it is. Ronon can keep his mouth shut, and he would be a fantastic asset," John said, ticking off the items on his fingers. "Look, Rodney, you know him. You saw him at Teyla's funeral. You've seen him these past three months. How can we not invite him along?"
McKay mumbled an epithet. "Yes, how could I miss the look? You and he seem to be looking in the same mirror lately."
That caught John's attention. "Excuse me?"
Rodney leaned his hands against the edge of his lab table and looked John dead in the eye. "Don't play dumb, Colonel. If you've been trying to hide the fact that you miss Elizabeth more, and in a different way, than the rest of us, you're doing a poor job of it. I recognize the look on Ronon's face as the same one on yours. You loved Elizabeth, didn't you?"
John ripped his eyes away from Rodney's piercing gaze. "I don't know," he said uncertainly. "I think I might have, but. . ." He growled a curse and ran his hands through his hair. "I don't know, Rodney. I-I kissed her, right before I headed off for the chair room. It was the last time I saw her alive. I don't even know why I did it, but I did." He also had no idea why he'd just told Rodney his biggest, darkest secret, but in a way he did feel better now.
McKay went back to fumbling around with the Thing. "Have you told Doctor Peterson about this?"
"The kiss? Duh, of course not. Why would I?"
Rodney looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "No, not the kiss! Why would you think that? I meant about the Thing." He tapped it with the end of a screwdriver.
"Oh, that. She knows about it, of course, the report passed her desk. But she doesn't know what we think it is, or that you're desperately trying to figure out how to use it, if it is what we think it is." John slid off the stool and headed for the door. "Are we going to tell her? Leave her a note or something, at least?"
Rodney nearly choked on his coffee. "Good grief, you make it sound like we're going to commit suicide or something."
"Of course I didn't mean it that way! All I'm saying is. . .she's trying to be nice, she's having trouble fitting in, and maybe she deserves at least a note. This affects her, too, even if we're trying not to think about it that way."
McKay squinted at him. "You're getting soft in your old age, Sheppard."
"Oh, shut up." John left Rodney's lab and headed to the gym. He had a feeling the person he was looking for would be there.
-Atlantis-
Ronon pummeled the punching bag before him with endless rage, angry at the Wraith, the Ancestors, himself. . .heck, he was mad at the whole galaxy. Might as well go in for the whole boatload while he was at it; after all, what else did he have to lose?
"You going to keep up until the stuffing's beat out of it; or until you run out of energy?"
Ronon didn't look up when Sheppard spoke from the doorway. "Doesn't matter. Whichever one comes first."
"Didn't miss a beat. You are mad." John pushed off the doorjamb where he'd been leaning. He stopped a couple of steps inside the gym, well out of reach of Ronon's fist and the swinging punching bag. "Look, Ronon, when Elizabeth died, I wanted to go out and kill every Wraith out there. That didn't help any, and neither did beating the crap out of a punching bag. I'm not saying I feel much better now, because I don't, but mentally beating yourself up isn't going to make things better. It's going to do nothing but give you a headache and make you feel even worse."
"I should have been there." Wham! "I should have kept her from going." Wham! "I should have known it was going to happen," wham! "it was glaring me right in the face," wham! "and I didn't even see it." Whoosh!
The punching bag exploded into a flurry of stuffing. Ronon deflated as well, his fists falling to his sides and his broad shoulders slumping with them. "I just. . .should have known."
"There's no way you could have known any more than I could have, or anyone else." He took a step closer, grasping what was left of the punching bag and stopping its back-and-forth swinging motion. "But let me ask you a question, Ronon: How far are you willing to go, how many rules are you willing to break, to make it all right again and get her back?"
Ronon looked at John, a cautiously curious expression in his eyes. "What are you saying?"
A small smile curled up the corners of John's lips. "Rodney found what we think might be a device that can transport people back in time. He's not sure if that's what it is yet, and he's still trying to figure out how to work it. But if he figures it out and that's what it is, we're planning on going back in time and stopping this from happening." He locked eyes with Ronon and issued his final challenge. "So, are you with us?"
Ronon only had to think about it for a moment. Then his lips quirked in a smile to match John's, and he nodded. "Yeah. Count me in."
To Be Continued. . .
