And maybe he was seeing past the ruin too and discerned a glimmer of hope, for at last he spoke. "Where would I start looking for him?"
"Within yourself. You're he, he is you, and you're both part of Ikaros. The one thing I do know is that there must be some residual effect of Charybdis that links the alternate versions to their originals. I can feel Teyla-every single one of her. Sometimes I…" Oh, this was difficult! She was an old woman; she shouldn't have to do this. Nebulous memories of suspicion and fear leaped out at her like gargoyles. But he'd believed her then, believed in her, when everybody else thought she was crazy at best, a traitor at worst. "Sometimes I can feel the others. You. I probably wouldn't be able to if it weren't for the Wraith gene." She shrugged, trying to make light of it. "I'm certain they're still alive."
"I know," he said, surprising her. "Just before I crashed, I felt- There were hundreds of me, thousands maybe. Some of them died. Some were stuck in the same chain of events, but the outcomes always were different. That's what we're looking for, isn't it? A different outcome."
She nodded. "I don't believe Ikaros was deliberately trying to mislead us. He just never expected this outcome. Perhaps it was inevitable all along, but it wasn't supposed to happen. That's why we must change it. Things will not improve if we do nothing. On the contrary."
"Entropy."
"Yes. And I don't think we have much time left. The Stargate will take you where you need to be."
"The gate? I don't suppose you have an address to go with this piece of New Age advice?"
"Any address will do."
"Aw, come on! There's got to- Oh my God," he whispered. "The matrices. Of course… The gate system would try to restore the original matrix. It's probably confused as hell by now, but it would try to take me to him, wouldn't it?"
"That would be my assumption, yes." Teyla suddenly felt exhausted, as if drained by the effort of convincing him, making him understand. And perhaps she was. She'd met more stubborn people than him, but she couldn't quite recall when. "There is no guarantee, Major Sheppard," she added softly, because she had to. Fairness demanded it. "We could both be wrong."
"Or we could both be right. It's a fifty-fifty chance. I'll take it." A smile edged his voice. "Besides, as I remember, there wasn't any guarantee we'd survive the trip to Atlantis either." He hobbled back to her. "I guess a jumper would come in handy. Are there any left?"
"Take your pick. Unless they changed parking positions, Jumper One is in the bay. Try not to crash it again."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence." His laughter broke off abruptly. "What about you? What will you do?"
"I'll wait and see what happens," she replied with a cheerfulness that sounded forced even to her own ears.
"And if we succeed?"
Then you and Pirna and,Tinto and Hailing and the little girl who bears my name, Rex — none of them will have existed. Perhaps not even I.
She didn't say it. She didn't have to. "Go!" she snapped instead. "We're running out of time. So you'd better-"
A loud clatter startled her into speechlessness, and then his arms closed around her and held her tight. "Take care of yourself," he murmured into her hair. "And thanks for everything."
"Go, John," she said again, gently this time. "Good luck."
Without another word he released her, leaving her to feel oddly alone and unprotected. He picked up his crutches, and she listened to him move away, sounds fading, toward the stairs and the jumper bay. She knew he wouldn't look back. It wasn't in his nature.
Teyla Emmagan smiled and carefully groped her way to what had been Dr. Weir's office, to settle in and wait for success and oblivion.
Home?
A life sentence rarely engendered a sense of nostalgia for the cell you were stuck in. Okay, it was more like a planet than a cell, but still… besides, he hadn't been to the mainland for weeks. Elizabeth was terrified that he wouldn't come back. Not without reason.
Funny how being held prisoner could change your feelings about a place.
John upped his pace, pounding up the catwalk as if that could pound the thoughts from his mind. Not thinking seemed to be one of the precious few options he had for staying sane. Though sanity might be overrated, especially when you were buried alive. Above reared one of the transparent domes of Atlantis and above that a couple of gazillions of tons of water. Oh yeah, by the way, Atlantis was still submerged, which only added to his claustrophobia. It had also been a clue the size of a billboard.
Elizabeth was vague about the exact date-then again, she was vague about pretty much everything, except her determination not to let him leave-but to the best of his knowledge `Now' was a point in time several thousand years before the expedition would arrive. If it arrived at all. That piece of information alone should have been enough to squeeze the life out of him.
Weird thing was, he still was trying to fight it. Weird, because he'd learned early on that accepting the inevitable made it just a little more bearable. After all, he was the guy who'd persuaded himself to like a punitive posting to McMurdo. So, what he should be doing was accept the situation for what it was-inevitable, inescapable-crawl into the coziest corner he could find, eat, drink, and… okay, the being merry part might pose a problem, but he still could make up his own ending for War and Peace, a total rewrite of the thousand-odd pages he'd never found the time to read, which should keep him busy for the next couple of decades. Instead…
No, John. We're not going to think about what you're doing instead. `Cos, let's face it, what you're doing makes you every bit as bug-crap crazy as Elizabeth.
Hope?
You haven't got a hope in hell.
You'll die here.
The thought-the one he'd been trying to outrun all along-burst from cover, butt-ugly as any Wraith, reached deep, twisting his gut and taking his breath away.
"No!"
His shout caromed through the immense room, ricocheting from the inside of the dome, until its echoes were whittled away to mere whimpers of defiance. He was on his hands and knees, pole-axed by desolation, staring through the metal grid beneath him at the shadowy floor fifty feet below.
Yes, there always was that, wasn't there?
Something warm and wet struck the back of his hand. Sweat. Had to be.
The floor below beckoned.
Except, if he jumped, he'd take Elizabeth with him, kill her again.
So let's just pretend we skipped that lesson in pilot school and have no idea of the therapeutic properties of gravity, mass, velocity, andimpact. - —- — - - —
Breathing hard, willing his hands not to shake, he reached for the railing and pulled himself back to his feet. Slowly, stubbornly, he started running again, picking up speed as he went. He'd just run another round and another one after that, until his body hurt badly enough to make him quit thinking.
A little over half an hour later he was close, his mind blank enough to let a memory drift in: Ronon and he, barreling up the catwalk as though their lives depend on it, and just for once he manages to leave the Satedan standing. Which in and of itself is sweet, but the pissed look on Ronon's face is-
Gasping for air, his heart thudding madly, John skidded to a halt, and no amount of willpower could keep him from shaking now. Fine hairs on his arms and neck stood on end, as if brushed by silky strands of time that unraveled, fluttered apart, and released him back into the present nightmare.
It hadn't been a memory. It couldn't be, because it never happened. Sure, he'd fantasized about beating Ronon, but Ronon, who'd had at least six inches on John-all of them in the legs, it seemed-had won every single race.