Dear Readers,
Thanks to those of you that reviewed (I wish there were more...). Here's the second chap, FINALLY. I'm sorry for the long wait! Hope you enjoy...hopefully I'll get the next chap up sooner. The plot may seem to go a bit slow at first, but trust me, it's going to pick up within the next few chaps. So read and review!
Best Regards from A Bookworm,
Miss Pookamonga ;-P (and her muses)
PS: This contains some references to SG-1's "48 Hours" and spoilers for "Enemy at the Gate".
I.
Drowning In The Rapids
"We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses." —Carl Jung
Rodney McKay hated lemons.
As far as he was concerned, lemons were the spawn of Satan, too dangerous to even be merely glanced at, let alone touched.
So naturally, he was pondering over just why he was holding one of the said "death fruits" in his hand without feeling the slightest bit of unease. Okay, maybe he was feeling a bit nervous. But usually he avoided even looking at pictures of lemons, and here he was balancing one in his palm.
Then he remembered what had compelled him to pick up the lemon in the first place, and he chuckled as the small memory replayed itself in his mind's eye.
"God, you're a jerk!" she spat furiously, quickly pushing herself up from the table.
He merely smirked. "I wish I didn't find you so attractive."
She spun around and shot him an incredulous, deathly glare.
"I've always had a real weakness for…dumb blondes."
Her lips tightened and her nostrils flared, the raging storm of anger and insult obviously rising up to its near breaking point. For a brief millisecond, her eyes flickered to the side, and then she opened her mouth again to unleash the only retort she could possibly think of.
"Go suck a lemon," she muttered vehemently. And with that, she stormed off.
Rodney shook his head as he placed the lemon back in the fruit basket and walked towards an empty table with his breakfast tray. He didn't know why that particular memory had suddenly popped up in his head, but hell, he had been a jerk. He'd deserved that comeback—and his subsequent assignment to Russia. Lucky for him, he was less of a jerk now and could look back on that moment from time to time and just laugh at how foolish he had been. Only a total moron would've called Sam Carter a "dumb blonde", and she had gotten him good for it.
He sighed as he voraciously chewed on a piece of his waffle. It was hard to believe that it had been nearly seven years since that day, and he felt a part of him aching at the all-too familiar realization that time passed much too quickly. Sometimes he felt like thrusting himself into the invisible space of time and somehow blocking its continuously flowing cycle, like storm-wearied tree collapsing across a river. But despite the fact that he had toyed with time and space too many times to count, he knew for sure that time couldn't be stopped, and that, if anything, the river tumbled along even more rapidly when a person tried to force it to follow his personal path. Rodney just wished it wasn't so easy to get swept away in the rapids, to be plunged beneath the icy cold rush of moments that slipped from his grasp as soon as they came.
Little did he know that it was even easier to drown in the river than he knew was possible.
Richard Woolsey sighed heavily and leaned his forehead on his hand, his fingers pressing hard against his furrowed brow. If there was one thing Woolsey hated, it was receiving bad news, but claiming the responsibility of informing others of such news was even worse. Granted, this was nothing compared to a wraith culling, but its nature was almost as devastating, and he knew, with that horrible sinking feeling in his chest, that this was not going to go over well with the expedition members.
He groaned and forced himself to look up at the familiar figures cheerfully striding towards the office. His eyes caught the giddy smile of the one figure playfully teasing Dr. Keller, and he groaned yet again. That particular one was most definitely not going to take this well.
Oh, how he loathed being the one to wipe short-lived happiness off people's faces.
A solemn silence suddenly settled upon the group as they filed into Woolsey's office, forming a flank in front of his desk. It was as if they had somehow sensed the somber mood within creeping past the threshold of the office doorway and had instinctively known to cease their merry conversation upon entering the room. The abrupt change of atmosphere created yet another thread of thick tension, and the sinking feeling in Woolsey's chest plunged into his stomach. If they could already tell now just how bad it was…oh, god, he had better get this over with.
"Good morning," he managed to force out of his mouth, although he noted the slight waver in his voice.
He was greeted with the usual out-of-synch chorus of "good mornings" from the team members, and along with that, a variety of curious stares. Well, he obviously didn't seem like himself, then. Which was exactly the case.
"I know you're all wondering why I brought you in here at this time of the morning, and I apologize for that," he continued, feigning composure as best as he could and drawing a sharp intake of breath. "But I've just received some urgent news from the SGC, and…" He paused and scanned the now confused faces staring intently back at him. "Some of you are going to want to sit down." His eyes inadvertently flickered to that certain team member and then flitted away again.
Luckily for Woolsey, said team member, now sporting an anxious frown on his features, was the first to sit down, followed by Teyla, who shot him a glance from across the room. The other four remained standing, although Dr. Keller leaned a bit against one of the armchairs.
"What happened?" asked Colonel Sheppard in a dark voice edged with the slightest bit of danger.
Woolsey sighed and paced toward his desk. He paused for a moment and stared blankly at his chair, wondering if it would be appropriate to sit down at a time like this. After a few seconds, he decided it wasn't and turned back around to face the team. He opened his mouth to relay the speech he had mentally rehearsed countless times that morning, but the minute he did so, his mind failed him and he was left with nothing to draw upon except his own emotions and the raw words of General Landry's original message.
Damn it, he had known this was going to happen.
Woolsey sighed once more and walked over to the far wall, creating a safe distance between him and the others. Mustering up whatever emotional strength he had left in him, he decided to say whatever came to mind and hope that it would emerge from his mouth sounding somewhat decent.
"It's more of a…personal…matter than a galactic threat," he uttered lamely, forcing himself to meet his comrades' gaze. "However, it does pertain to you all as well as to myself, and I felt it important to tell you."
Dead silence.
They waited.
Woolsey took another deep breath and dove off the cliff prepared for him.
"Two days ago, the SGC received word from Colonel Mitchell that there had been an accident…" he stopped momentarily to survey the frightened looks that crossed the team's faces, "a car accident. And…that…Colonel Carter…had been involved."
For a moment, everything went numb, as if Woolsey hadn't spoken at all.
Then the words hit the heavy air like deadweight.
No one said anything. Woolsey felt the expressions on their faces immediately shift, and he sensed an even greater wave of anxiety issuing forth from the corner of the room where he happened to be sitting. Woolsey figured he'd better finish speaking as quickly as possible so none of them would have to remain trapped in the suffocating cage his office had now become. He took yet another deep breath and continued.
"Colonel Mitchell said that the doctors at the local hospital claimed that eyewitnesses had seen a large SUV run into her as she was crossing the street," he said quietly, avoiding their eyes. "According to them, it was a hit-and-run—the SUV sped away from the scene immediately after the collision."
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Colonel Sheppard's jaw tighten and Ronon's entire body grow rigid.
"Right now, she's in very critical condition. She's been in a coma since she arrived at the hospital, and due to the force of impact of the vehicle, they believe that although they can fix the external damage, the internal damage done to her body may be irreparable at this point. They won't be sure until they run some more tests to know the full extent of what happened."
There was another choking silence.
"How…how long does she have?" A soft, cracked voice suddenly cut through the tension, nearly startling everyone in the room.
Woolsey turned his head to meet the one face he didn't want to have to look at. The minute his eyes met the other pair, he knew his worst fears had been confirmed. Dear god, he hated this.
"They don't know," he almost whispered, compelling himself to look the other man in the eye. "Right now it doesn't look so good."
Dr. Keller's fingers tightened their grip on the back of the chair.
Woolsey laid his chin on his fist and absent-mindedly paced back towards his desk. "I'm authorizing an unrestricted temporary leave for anyone who wishes to go visit her," he finally heaved out, a large sigh following. "Until we receive word that she is…well…anyone may go and return as they please provided that they inform me first." He looked up and reluctantly met their deadened faces, laced with pain and yet numbed from shock.
"Thank you," Teyla suddenly said very softly as she slowly stood up from her chair. She nodded to him compassionately, and Woolsey silently thanked God yet again for giving him at least one person who could keep him sane.
"Well, since she was in charge of you for a year, and since you all obviously know her personally, I felt that it was my duty to let you have the chance to—"
His eyes suddenly locked with the terrified gaze of that team member, and his breath caught in his throat. To say goodbye. That was what he'd almost let slip out of his mouth.
And judging by the agonized look on Rodney McKay's face, Woolsey knew that the scientist had caught the grave implication.
Fortunately, the expedition leader was rescued from having to endure yet another heartbreaking silence by Teyla once again, who stepped forward to speak the second she sensed the anxiety increase within the room. "We are very grateful for your consideration, Mr. Woolsey," she said warmly.
"No need," replied Woolsey wearily, waving his hand. "As I said, it was my duty to tell you. Again, I apologize for having to give you this news so early on in the day, but I thought it would be better for you all to know sooner than later."
A chorus of nods succeeded his comment, and with that, he finally sunk down into his chair, silently releasing them from the meeting.
He watched them as they all filed out quietly, the quiet of grief just beginning to settle over them as they took special care not to look Dr. McKay in the eye. His head was bowed lower than the rest of theirs, his eyes burning holes in the floor with their intense stare.
It was only after a few seconds that Dr. Keller risked reaching up to touch his shoulder. But surprisingly, he flinched and shrunk away, causing the doctor to withdraw her hand as her face fell in sorrow.
Woolsey sighed for what seemed the millionth time that day.
He'd gotten it over with, finally.
But the true ordeal had just begun.
He lay down on the bed, motionless, letting the deluge surge over him and numb his sanity.
He was drowning, drowning in the rapids. Spiraling into the darkness of the river's depths, being tossed to and fro like a pebble in a wave, and there wasn't anything he could do about it.
He closed his eyes, the prison of shadows trapping him in its grasp. He floated there in nothingness, feeling nothing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. He himself was nothing. Just there, surrounded by empty space.
As frightening as that was, being nothing was more comforting than being Rodney McKay the astrophysicist. Because Rodney McKay the astrophysicist felt pain. Rodney McKay the astrophysicist felt loss, he felt terror and fear, he felt the sharp pang of shock, he felt overwhelming guilt. Rodney McKay the astrophysicist was losing someone he loved, and the agony and confusion of it all had become too intense for him to endure.
So he chose to become nothing.
It was too easy to forget, to allow himself to grow numb to his surroundings. Too easy to bury the pain and pretend that it didn't exist, had never existed. Too easy to deny things that were right in front of his face, screaming at him to acknowledge them.
And yet, ironically, the damned river kept on flowing.
It was the paradox of life. One could detach oneself from the world and live in delusion, but ultimately one could never escape the incessant pull of the current of time.
It was something he'd struggled with his entire life. Acceptance.
But he couldn't accept this. No, not this. Ford's disappearance, Carson's death, and Elizabeth's abduction had all been unbearable enough, but to have…her ripped away from him so abruptly, so unfairly? No, he could not and would never be able to accept that.
He couldn't because he hadn't been there. Hadn't been there to see her one last time.
The last time he'd seen her had been a month before, when Atlantis had made its daring cross-galactic flight to Earth. She had flown out to visit the city while it had still been situated in the San Francisco Bay, and everyone had shared a rather joyous reunion, laughing and joking with each other about pointless things, chatting about what was going on in their personal lives and so forth. But the visit, like all friendly visits, had been far too brief for everyone's liking. And now a considerable amount of time had passed—enough time that Rodney feared that the image he had in his head of her wasn't even accurate anymore.
With the others, he had seen them right before they had been taken away.
With Sam, he hadn't.
And he felt insufferably guilty for it.
It wasn't his fault, he knew. How could he have been there, when he lived in a galaxy light years away from her own, when he couldn't have possibly known that an SUV was going to show up out of nowhere one day and senselessly ram into her? Yet a part of him desperately ached to turn back time, to throw himself at her and push her out of the way before her life was stolen from her. To save her. To at least have the chance to apologize for everything he had said that he shouldn't have, and to say what he should have a long time ago.
But again, he was reminded that time didn't work like that.
So he tried once again to slip back into nothingness, to let the river wash over him and carry him away in its current. But this time he couldn't. He screwed up his face so hard that his head throbbed, that all he saw was a wall of darkness, but in the back of his mind one scene kept replaying in his head over and over and over. One memory, slipping in and out of his fingers like the cold cascade of running water.
"I've always had a real weakness for…dumb blondes."
Her lips tightened and her nostrils flared, the raging storm of anger and insult obviously rising up to its near breaking point. For a brief millisecond, her eyes flickered to the side, and then she opened her mouth again to unleash the only retort she could possibly think of.
"Go suck a lemon," she muttered vehemently. And with that, she stormed off.
He didn't sleep that night.
He merely drowned, choking on time that couldn't be brought back.
Drowned in the rapids, being carried farther and farther away from a memory that refused to leave him.