Carson Beckett/Paul McGillion Thunk Thread

[JennyJ]

Hey I went to have a small rest before I go to sleep and you wrote another 5 pages.... Oh my god!!
And now you're going to work...

[Haliyah]

I'm back!

*makes overly grand entrance*

Wings are later.

[Haliyah]

While we're on the subject of fanfic...shall I post my WIP? I'll stick it behind Spoiler tags because it's over six thousand words...

There's a little bit of Carson whumping, and some Rodney angst.

I like opinions. *nods*

[doylefan22]

Sounds intriguing ... Where do you post your stories?

And yes he's inspiring in so many different ways.

Easiest place to find them is on my journal. Both parts of this current story (Interlude) are still on the front page.

[KerMcG90]

While we're on the subject of fanfic...shall I post my WIP? I'll stick it behind Spoiler tags because it's over six thousand words...

There's a little bit of Carson whumping, and some Rodney angst.

I like opinions. *nods*

Go for it!

[cshawzye]

Easiest place to find them is on my journal. Both parts of this current story (Interlude) are still on the front page.

Awesome ... Definitely going to have to give them a read!

While we're on the subject of fanfic...shall I post my WIP? I'll stick it behind Spoiler tags because it's over six thousand words...

There's a little bit of Carson whumping, and some Rodney angst.

I like opinions. *nods*

Hmm, little Carson whumping is a definite plus to any fic. Definitely be interested in reading the fic where ever you end up posting it.

[phibi]

ok.. *makes a mental note* never leave this place for more than a half hour... damn... can't, because i have to work *lol*

i spend most of the time today, trying to catch up... you girls are very chatty at the moment *lol* awesome, we will have the 10000 in no time

and again.. time zones suck.. i will be all in bed with my carson clone, when the gutter starts again *lol*

[phibi]

While we're on the subject of fanfic...shall I post my WIP? I'll stick it behind Spoiler tags because it's over six thousand words...

There's a little bit of Carson whumping, and some Rodney angst.

I like opinions. *nods*

yeah come on, throw it at us.. a little whumping is always nice.... yes, I'm weird *lol

[doylefan22]

Awesome ... Definitely going to have to give them a read!

Let me know what you think.

To be honest it's not my favourite thing I've ever written only because I tend to enjoy things that are more plot heavy. I do like exploring the characters a bit more though. It certainly wasn't only Elizabeth who had trouble adjusting to leaving Atlantis.

[Haliyah]

It's in a few parts, because it's loooong...

Spoiler:

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Kaylee leaned on the railing, feeling the Atlantian breeze on her face as she gazed with unfocussed eyes at the sparkling city lights below her. She’d loved nighttime, ever since she was little. It made her feel…electrified. Alive. Powerful.

She closed her blue-grey eyes and let the warm, gentle zephyr ripple soothingly through her red-brown hair.

Rosewood, she corrected. The box had said Rosewood.

She grinned slightly at the fact that her hair colour came in a box. How strange the Athosians and the other peoples they’d come in contact with must think them, these Tau’ri from a galaxy far, far away...

It had been an eventful three months since she’d arrived to this place; the arrival and the events leading up to it being most colourful. She had not known anything about any of this (you know, it being classified and all) before she accidentally overheard a (then unknown) Trust operative in a small truck stop in her home country of Canada. Although she thought his converse odd, she thought nothing of it, and went home to a new episode of Battlestar Galactica, a cup of steaming Jasmine Blossom green tea, and bed.

Until, of course, sometime around two, she was awoken forcefully, dragged from her apartment, and shoved into the back of a van with the man she had overheard. She hadn’t recalled seeing energetic kidnap on the way station’s menu, she’d thought groggily.

She was taken to a (presumably vacant) warehouse identical to hundreds of other (presumably vacant) warehouses in a little town identical to hundreds of other little towns where she was questioned…(…Goa’uld? …The hell…? Is that some kind of cheese…?)…about what she had overheard. Apparantly, she thought, this Trust or whatever guy was quite incompetent, for she came away knowing more than she did going in…(Oh. Evil glowy-eyed alien symbiotes in commandeered human host bodies that pose as historic pagan Gods and take over entire solar systems for their own perverse pleasure. Gotcha.)

…Which didn’t really help her, as she still had no idea what they were talking about.

Fortunately, well, for her, at least, this Trust operative was even more incompetent than she’d realized, and an SG team came in fairly quickly to break up their little party. They found her strapped to what looked like an exam table, bruised and cut from the Trust's "interrogation."

That took a little bit of explaining. Explaining that occurred after a long helicopter flight to Cheyenne Mountain, in the little known complex under NORAD.

She hadn’t known that there was an “under NORAD.” But, then again, she supposed that that was the point of a top-secret, über-classified American military facility.

So she was given clothes in the form of dark blue BDUs (she was still in her pyjamas), questioned, yet again (although somewhat less roughly this time), and prodded with every medical instrument that she knew to exist, and some that she didn’t. When pronounced “fit” (whatever that meant) by the rather pretty dark-haired doctor, she was sent off to see a General Landry. And some other people, who were apparantly more knowledgeable than either she or he.

What were they to do with her, they wondered? Another Trust operative answered it for them. What was it with these Trust people, anyway…?

She was kidnapped (yet again…yay), stunned with a Zat (which hurt like hell, by the way), given an injection of some kind, and loaded onto the Trust-hijacked Daedalus. The only problem was…no one from the SGC or the rightful crew knew that. And, due to random residual Trust-caused sensor malfunctions while en-route, she wasn't found until they dropped their precious cargo of much-needed supplies off at Atlantis.

What a shock it must have been for the poor scientists when Rodney and Radek opened up that case. They’d been expecting more hard drives. They got a young woman in a drug-induced coma, instead. They’d wondered why it was so heavy…

Carson was, of course, radioed immediately, once Rodney regained use of his vocal chords (she would find the fact that she rendered him speechless rather amusing once she got to know him). She was taken to the Infirmary, where she was once again prodded with every manner of medical device known to man, and left to regain consciousness once whatever was in the injection was countered. Once she awoke (to her credit, it was only a few hours before that happened. And without any brain damage. W00t.), she tentatively called out for someone (Uh…hello…?), and was very pleasantly surprised to find, that, not only was that person human, he was a very attractive one with an absolutely endearing Scottish brogue. She decided instantly that if her doctor were like him, she’d actually go for regular checkups. She also decided instantly that she liked him very much, indeed. He was kind, gentle, polite, used normal human speech when addressing his patients, and treated her like she actually had a brain.

…Which she most definitely did.

The next person she had the…pleasure (?) of meeting was the man that had…erm, unpacked her. Rodney McKay was oddly concerned about her welfare since coming out of the foam-lined polyurethane case. She discovered that she liked him almost instantly, as well. They were freakishly alike (though she actually possessed people skills, patience, the remarkable ability to be pleasant, and a certain amount of tact) in personality; she was witty and sarcastic, and, he refused to admit it, but she ruffled his feathers a bit. And…bizarrely, he found that he kind of liked it. It gave him a challenge after a fashion that he wasn’t entirely used to. Which he, of course, also refused to admit. Not to mention that she had somehow stolen the last bite of his carefully hoarded Oh Henry bar unnoticed. After being in a glorified plastic suitcase for almost three weeks (and in a glorified prison for three days before that), she was rather hungry, and, as vitamin and nutrient rich her IV drip was, it simply didn’t cut it.

Carson came back bearing a chart and shooed Rodney away; asking her a few final questions could do no harm by his books. Rodney left a little reluctantly, and went off towards the mess to see if he couldn’t wrangle himself a few more Power Bars; he couldn’t seem to find the remnants of his coveted Oh Henry in any of his pockets.

She chuckled.

Carson wheeled a chair to the edge of her bed - which was really quite comfortable, she noted - and sat down. He smiled and pulled out a pen and a clipboard with her chart on it.

Her left hand fiddled with a thread on her blanket.

“Not to be rude, but…why am I still alive…? I was in a box for more than three weeks without food, water, air, or a bathroom. How is it even biologically possible?”

He gestured at her with his pen.

“Ah, now that’s the interesting part, lass. You were injected with a neural inhibitor that put you into a coma, which isn’t really that difficult to believe, considering that neural inhibitors block signals to the brain. However, I’m more concerned with what they added to the concoction to keep your cells in their stasis-like state. He took a breath and continued. “They added Wraith enzyme, presumably stolen from the samples we sent back to the SGC. Now, that probably means very little to you…”

“No, I know what it is.”

Carson raised an eyebrow.

“The Trust threatened to make me dependent on it if I refused to tell them what they thought I knew. Just wean me off gently, please…withdrawal’s reputed to suck.”

Carson smiled gently. He was starting to like this girl.

“The amount they injected you with thankfully wasn’t enough to cause you any permanent damage, but I promise that I’ll make it as gentle as possible, lass.”

He handed her the clipboard and pen he was holding.

“Now, if you would be so kind as to fill this out for me…”

She took the clipboard and pen and started filling out the forms. She paused to watch him as he walked away, his lab coat billowing slightly with the stride of a busy man.

She finished filling out the forms, enlightening the Infirmary staff with her personal information, before promptly falling asleep. Her…“adventure” had taken far more out of her than she’d realized.



x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x



She woke up the next night to a dark, stone-silent Infirmary. She stretched luxuriously, feeling her spine crack in several places before carefully rolling onto her side, avoiding yanking the IV painfully from her arm. She attempted to go back to sleep, but without luck. She had far too much energy, she was surprised to find. Most of the time she could fall asleep anytime, anywhere.

Must be a side effect of the enzyme, she thought. About half an hour passed before she found herself to be suicide-inducingly bored. She sat up and looked around; seeing nobody, she called out tentatively into the darkness.

“…Dr. Beckett?”

Nothing.

“Dr. Beckett? Are you there?”

Still nothing.

She swung her legs down over the side of the bed, her bare toes brushing the chilly floor. She took hold of the IV stand and stood up. Okay…no dizziness, nausea, etc. So far, so good. She sorted out the red scrubs that had become tangled around her while she was sleeping, brushed a hand through her hair (the medical staff had washed it, she was surprised and pleased to find), and walked slowly around the curtain separating her from the rest of the world. She smiled upon seeing a sleeping Carson; back rising and falling rhythmically as he lay slumped over his keyboard in his office.

Poor guy…he works far too hard…

She looked for a couple more seconds before grabbing a blanket from one of the adjacent beds and carefully wrapping it around his shoulders, taking the time to save the work he’d been doing prior to falling asleep. She left a sticky note on his monitor, telling him that she’d gone for a walk and would be back shortly. She couldn’t for the life of her figure how to turn out the single light in his office that was on, so she just left it as it was, and exited the office, wheeling her IV drip carefully along next to her. And then she came to the door.

[Haliyah]

Next bit...

Spoiler:

Her immediate thought was that it was like something out of Star Trek; only it didn’t open automatically with a shocked hiss when you approached it. She saw the panel off to the side, and reached out to it. Her hand had barely come within two feet of the thing when it responded, and the door slid open smoothly to reveal a darkened hallway with a few bubble-column-y-things dotting it here and there. They were rather pretty, she decided, and on a gut feeling, decided to go left. She walked unhurriedly through the corridor, now and again passing doors and other hallways leading off to places unknown. She was approaching another wide hallway, and on another impulse, decided to take it.

As she walked, she could now make out a few muffled sounds, indistinguishable by distance. She was led towards them by curiosity and the bizarre need for human contact. She followed the sounds, which she had now defined as two men arguing with each other, one’s voice heavily accented. He sounded something close to Russian, she noted absently. She peeked around the open door, and was met with the sight of Rodney, the adorably snarky Canadian, and the other man, who was small, and who she’d decided was Czech, not Russian. She came quietly into the room, and leaned casually against the wall; patiently waiting for them to notice her or to stop arguing, whichever came first. She occupied herself by staring at what they were working on. It was an ornate chair on a raised platform with an aesthetically pleasing geometric pattern on it. They had some sort of strange machine hooked up to it; it looked like three silver soccer balls attached to one another by a thick bumpy column running through them. It looks like a sideways TNG-era warp core, she thought. There was some sort of mechanical device attached to the middle one. Neither piece of technology was doing anything, and she wondered if that was what they were arguing about.

She waited for what felt like about ten minutes before the Czech began cursing in his native language, and gestured violently in her general direction. Rodney looked her way and squeaked with shock. Seeing Rodney silent, the Czech turned to look. He didn’t squeak, but looked just as surprised to see her standing there. She raised her eyebrows and smiled.

“Hey. How’s it going? You seem to be having a bit of trouble with that chair-thing.”

Rodney looked at her for a couple of seconds before crossing his arms, looking down his nose haughtily, and replying indignantly.

“We aren’t having trouble, he is. Radek is having difficulty interfacing our naquadah generator with the Chair, a task that he’s done multiple times in the past with little trouble…”

“With little trouble? You call a rough patch job during a Wraith attack to be little trouble? What is wrong with you? Maybe if you had not tried to make the Chair accept it, it would not be so broken, and we could both go to sleep!”

Rodney huffed.

“Sleep is overrated. Besides, I do my best work when under pain of death or on the verge of collapse…”

Intensely frustrated, the Czech named Radek turned away and began muttering in his native language again, grabbing what looked like a tablet PC off the floor and went into the corner with it, presumably to take readings or something. Amused, Kaylee turned back to Rodney, who was also poking away at a tablet PC.

“Is there anything I could possibly do to help?”

He looked up at her, letting out a hiss of air, annoyed that she was bothering him again.

“Unless you have several degrees in astrophysics or electrical-mechanical engineering, that’s extremely unlikely. Do you even have the gene?”

She looked at him blankly.

“Gene…?”

“You know, the Ancient gene that you need to make just about…oh, everything work?”

“…I honestly have no idea. How does one find out?”

He rolled his eyes. He hated explaining basic things.

“You get Dr. Beckett to test you, or you activate something. There. Happy?” His brow furrowed in thought for a second. “Speaking of Dr. Beckett…are…are you supposed to be here? How did you get him to let you out?”

Kaylee shifted uncomfortably.

“Ah…well, I didn’t, really…note the IV drip.” She gestured to her side. “He was asleep at his desk, and I needed to move. I needed to get out of there. I guess it’s a side effect of the Wraith enzyme in my system, but I have so much energy right now…you have no idea how much self-control it took to stand still and wait for you to notice me.”

He grinned a little.

“Yes, well, we do tend to get a little absorbed in our…work.” He went back to working on his tablet. “Nice to see you up and around, by the way…”

“You call what we were doing work? You are a sad, irritating, egotistical little man…”

Radek glared across the room at Rodney. Rodney turned and glared across the room at Radek.

“Oh, and I suppose you have a better idea about how to make it work?”

Kaylee rolled her eyes. There they go again…

Radek put down his tablet and stood up.

“Simply forcing the energy through the crystals will not work! They were not meant to handle that kind of power! They will melt from all the energy being redirected through them, not to mention that naquadah generator will most likely overload, causing singularly catastrophic explosion that would only be amplified by the ZPM’s vacuum energy being routed through the Chair!”

“Well, what do you suggest then, Frankenstein? Butcher the biometrics sensor for spare parts?” He flailed with frustration. “We have been trying to fix this for thirteen hours. Thirteen hours! Everyone that we could’ve plunked in the Chair with any effect whatsoever is off world or busy, and the naquadah generator is not coupling properly with the relay conduits inside the Chair, and I haven’t eaten or drank, or eaten anything since breakfast, and I’m tired, and my back is sore, and I miss my cat, and I’m sick of standing here arguing with you!”

By this time they were both breathing a little heavily, and Radek’s eyes smouldered with anger, frustration, and annoyance. He took a deep breath, took a step towards Rodney, and spoke quite calmly.

“I’m tired. I’m going to bed. We will fix this in the morning. You can keep working on it if you want, but you will be getting no more help from me this night. Goodnight, Rodney.”

And with that, leaving no time for protestations, he’d gathered up his tablet PC and his jacket, and was on his way.

Kaylee looked at Rodney. He looked thoughtful. He looked at Kaylee, and then at the Chair. A slow smile spread across his face.

“So, you wanted to find out if you have the gene…?”



x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x




Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard was about ready for some breakfast, a bath, and his bed. He and his team had spent the night fighting off some strange creature that looked like something out of a B-horror-flick. They’d been stuck with Kavanaugh for the day (John suspected it was private revenge from a certain antagonized scientist who he’d refused to let go to a certain planet), and John was truly beginning to wonder why no one’d shot him yet. The man was an imbecile, and an arrogant jackass, to boot. He might know the technology, but he had no common sense to speak of. For the love of God…you don’t just walk into some strange abandoned alien base and start messing with the systems!

Whatever he’d done had released the creature from stasis, and thrown a force shield up around the Stargate. He’d been the first to be knocked out by the creature, of course, which meant that they couldn’t work at getting off the planet until he came to. The creature was incredibly hard to kill, of course, which meant that they’d had to hole up in the structure after luring it outside. After Kavanaugh came to and finished complaining more than Rodney ever would, he (of course) discovered that the circuits in the panel he was working on had been crossed, and, thus, fried, and would subsequently take a few hours to repair, no thanks to them. John wondered briefly how this had suddenly become their fault, but set his annoyance at the unjustifiably self-important cretin aside in favour of exploring the complex a little more with Ronon and Teyla. They found some pretty cool stuff: some discarded energy weapons, what appeared to be some sort of generator, some spiffy lightweight body armour, and…what was it, anyway? It was this…thing.

It was small, about the size and shape of a Fruitopia cap, only thicker. It was metallic, and was covered with the most fascinating striations and swirls. There seemed to be some buttons along the side. It could be an alien MP3 player for all he knew, but unlike Kavanaugh, John knew better than to poke at it. He took a small plastic case out of his pocket, placed the…thing inside, and stuck it back in his tac vest.

By then, Kavanaugh had fixed most of the panel circuitry, and was trying to shut down the offending piece of technology that was cutting them off from home. It wasn’t going very smoothly, so it was a relief when Atlantis dialled in to check on them, and an even greater relief to find that they could still send radio through the shield. Once apprised of their situation, Atlantis told them to be careful, and left them to solve the problem.

Fat lot of help that was, thought John irritably.

By the time Kavanaugh-the-Great finally got the shield down, it was morning on M6J-477, and the creature outside was getting hungry. They basically had to make a mad dash to the Gate before it caught their scents and discovered that they weren’t inaccessible anymore. So imagine John’s intense frustration when he came out of the event horizon and discovered that all hell had broken loose in the control room. He looked around for someone, and, spotting Elizabeth, made a beeline for her office.

“What the hell’s going on?”



x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

[Haliyah]

Aaaand the next bit...

Spoiler:

The instant Kaylee’s skin had come in contact with the Chair’s gel pads, she had felt a surge of power and was swept into a sitting position as it reclined.

Eyes wide, she said, “I’ll just assume that that’s supposed to happen…”

Rodney looked up, vaguely surprised.

“Huh. I guess that’s a ‘yes’ for the gene, then.”

“So…what do I do with it?”

Rodney, who’d gone back to his readings, sighed with minor frustration.

“What? Oh. Hmmm…let’s do something basic. Picture where we are in the solar system.”

“…I have no idea what this solar system looks like.”

“Oh…right.”

Rodney thought for a moment.

“Alright. Let’s try something more internal, then. See if you can bring up a diagnostics program for the chair, or a circuitry layout of some kind.”

Kaylee looked slightly perplexed.

“…How exactly am I supposed to do that?”

He sighed and raised his eyes to the heavens. For the love of God…

“You think it.”

“…I…think it?”

“Isn’t that what I just said? Now do it, and stop wasting my precious time.”

“Fine then.” She said brusquely, waving her hand absently. “Shut up, Rodney, I’m thinking…”

Kaylee shut her eyes and concentrated, failing to see the mildly stunned look on McKay’s face.

She shut out the outside world; the sounds of Rodney tapping away on his tablet, the beeping of said equipment, and the muffled, otherworldly city sounds. She instead focussed inward, on her measured, methodical breathing, her own muffled heartbeat pounding in her ears; feeling every part of her that was in contact with the piece of Ancient technology. She allowed herself to somehow reach out with her mind and drift into the fuzzy, tingly, floaty state that always accompanied such mental focus. She held her breath, waiting, and then suddenly it was there, so alien and foreign, and yet as familiar as her most favourite shirt; she gasped sharply as she felt it enter her mind, eyes that suddenly snapped open wide but glassy and unseeing, unknowingly arching in the Chair, mouthing wordlessly, tugging against restraints that had mysteriously appeared at her wrists as Rodney, totally unknown to her, jumped up with expressions of abject terror and confusion and a myriad of other brief indistinguishable emotions etched on his features and screamed something frantically into his earpiece.



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John didn’t like having to repeat himself, especially when his question was so vital. The Control Room staff all looked a little shell-shocked, a lot perplexed; the Canadian technician was doing a good job of masking his incredulity with competence, but he could see it there just under the surface. Radek, who had taken a short detour to the Control Room before bed, was practically unreadable, though John knew he was just as confused as everyone else. Why had the Control Room suddlenly locked itself down? Only his frenzied typing and furrowed brow indicated that anything was truly very wrong. Elizabeth still hadn’t told John what was going on, and he was getting rather impatient when Radek stood up stock straight in front of his console, muttered something vehemently in Czech, let himself out of the locked-down Control Room manually, and ran down the adjoining hall as fast as his short legs would go.

John looked at Elizabeth, who got up and ran with him after Radek.

They could hear Rodney and Carson going at it all the way down the hall. Their shouts echoed off the bulkheads, and rattled through their brains.

“…And what, exactly, am I supposed to do about it, Rodney? I don’t even know what it’s done!” Carson spluttered. “You don’t even know what it’s done!”

“That’s not the point! She needs something!”

“She wouldn’t if you’d have bothered to act responsibly!”

“This shouldn’t be happening, Carson!” Carson paused for a moment, and Rodney took the opportunity to continue. “It’s not just me having a momentary lapse of judgement; I’ve never seen any kind of interface like this before! You’ve never felt it; Colonel Sheppard’s never felt it! It’s never, ever, shown up on any scans or upon examination of the Chair! It just doesn’t make sense! If…if I had even thought it could do this…”

Rodney deflated a little as he looked over to where Kaylee lay tensely prostrate in the Chair, now silent, pale, and deathly still except for her eyes under lids that Rodney had gently closed. They were moving back and forth furiously, like some kind of spastic REM. He glanced upward to where the Chair had impaled her temples and neck with some sort of thin mechanical tubules, and at the slow trickles of blood that they’d created. Seeing his stress, Carson softened a little.

“I’m sure you did everything you could’ve, Rodney.”

“I could’ve kept her out of the Chair, Carson. I never should’ve let her try it.”

Rodney sat down hard and buried his face in his hands.

Carson moved over to Kaylee. He took her pulse, which was a little quick…he noticed that more tubules had buried themselves in the back of her hands, two each, right in the soft parts between the two outer knuckles. He shook his head, and scanned her. Her body was flooded with adrenaline, and her brainwaves were highly abnormal. The tubules were buried deeply, and he was afraid that anything he tried to do would give her brain damage or worse. He was completely at a loss, and he hated it. His hand clenched around the scanner in frustration.

There was nothing he could do.

Carson sat down next to Rodney, scrunched his eyes shut, and pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to ward off the impending headache he could feel just behind his eyes.

“Now what?”

Rodney appeared to be as good as deaf to Carson’s comment. He was tapping away at his tablet again with incredible, impenetrable focus. Suddenly, with that “fantastic idea look” on his face, he jumped up and practically ran out of the room.

Carson blinked.

“Rodney…? What’re you…”

“No time. Power room. ZedPM. Tell Radek.” Rodney shouted from down the hall.

Still supremely confused, Carson radioed Radek anyway.

Radek, who was still walking as fast as he could (he discovered that he lacked the necessary stamina to run all the way from the Control Room), heard Carson’s radio call, and, as realization dawned on him and his eyes went wide, he turned on his heel and sprinted back down the hall to head Rodney off. He wasn’t fast enough.

As he was running past another locked transport station, gasping for breath, the lights went out with a protesting brraaat. Even the bubble columns were dark, and, more eerily, silent. His brow scrunched with worry, he quickly woke up his tablet, used the light from the screen as a makeshift flashlight, and made for the power room as quickly as the dim glow would allow. He tapped his headset. He found the radio dead as well.

My God…what has he done?

He looked at his tablet’s screen, and noticed that the W-LAN was no longer available either.

He even cut power to the basic systems…dear Lord…

Radek moved a little faster.


x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

[Haliyah]

And the bit after that...

Spoiler:

Carson, still wondering what was going on, got up and scanned Kaylee again. Thankfully, nothing had changed. At least she was stable. God knew what the Chair was doing to her…or what Rodney was doing to the City. As he busied himself by worrying about this, the lights went out, and the lighted Chair went from cyan to an angry acid green, producing an ominous bass humming. Carson backed away from it quickly, unsure of what was happening. The naquadah generator next to it blazed to life, and he could see the energy running along, around, through the Chair. He jumped back with fright, and panicked helplessly when Kaylee began to buck and strain against the Chair’s restraints as the generator’s raw energy ran up the conductive tubules and into her body.


x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x


As he neared the power room, the whole city seemed to lurch, and the lights blapped back on. Radek poked his head into the room to find Rodney hovered over the now-reinserted ZPM like some depraved wizard, tapping at his tablet while jabbing his headset and asking Carson if there had been any change. His eyes opened wide as he heard dangerous zapping sounds behind Carson’s frantic shouting.

“Carson? What’s going…?”

Rodney heard a particularly loud zap, a panicked scream, and then dead static.

“Carson!”

No answer. He began to hyperventilate.

“Oh no. Ohnonononono. No.”

He ran out past Radek, this time dropping his tablet in distress. Radek, unaware of what was now happening and tired of running everywhere, sighed despairingly and radioed John and Elizabeth to stay away from the Chair.



x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x



Rodney arrived back to the Chair to find a prostrate Carson, a very disturbingly still Kaylee, an unlit chair, and a shorted-out naquadah generator. He grimaced and shut his eyes. He’d forgotten to disconnect the damn generator in his haste. Slowly, he checked Carson’s vitals. He found them reasonably strong, and felt his throat close up when he saw the energy burns that now marked his right side. He swallowed, stood up, and checked Kaylee. Surprisingly, she was only a little pink, as if from a mild sunburn. Her vitals were strong, very strong, and the tubules were limp in the Chair’s stood-down status. He removed them carefully, and then disconnected the dark generator. He then sat down on the floor, and called for medical assistance.


x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x


Sitting at the oddly shaped table, Rodney rubbed his sleepless, red-rimmed eyes as he listened to Radek give his report. He’d screwed up again. Royally. In fact, he hadn’t done something this irresponsible since blowing up five sixths of a solar system. At least no one had died as a result of his insufferable ego this time, he thought sadly. Well, actually, that was still to be determined. His good friend Carson was in the Infirmary, along with Kaylee, who also promised to be a good friend. Both were in comas, the former medically induced. He massaged his temples. He didn’t know how people put up with him, and briefly considered relieving them of that burden. He sighed. It was his turn to regale them with his version of the events. He sat up in his seat, cleared his throat, and began.

“Radek and I were in the Chair room, attempting to repair it for the thirteenth hour. We were getting nowhere, and arguing about it loudly. I suppose Kaylee heard us from down the hall, and came to see what we were doing. Radek finally got fed up enough to leave, and I put Kaylee in the Chair. She was wondering if she had the ATA gene, and I needed to get the Chair fixed, which is very difficult to do on your own, and I didn’t think it would be dangerous…there aren’t any drones left, the Chair was isolated from all other systems except for power, and if she didn’t have the gene, nothing would happen, but if she did, it would simply activate…normally.”

“…Which it didn’t.” Elizabeth supplied.

“No…it didn’t. I have no idea what happened. I have never seen anything like that happen before. Nothing in any diagnostic anyone has ever run has shown anything like those tubules before. Nothing Carson or Colonel Sheppard has done has shown anything either…it’s like they didn’t exist until Kaylee activated the Chair…”

He paused and rubbed his eyes again. He could feel a large lump forming in his throat, and the top half of his head growing hot. No. He had not cried since seventh grade; he would not cry now, especially in front of his peers. He collected himself, but was unable to keep the slight quaver from his voice as he continued.

“I had no idea what to do, and neither did Carson. I decided that shutting everything down and starting it up again might have caused the Chair to reset its systems. A kind of hard reboot, like what we did on the Daedalus. However, instead of the Chair shutting down, it began drawing power from the nearest available source: the generator. I had completely forgotten about it. The Chair’s systems did what Radek had advised me not to. It forced power through its crystal circuitry, completely overwhelming itself, and discharging the excess wherever it could. In this case, it was into Carson.”

Rodney felt the inner corners of his eyes prickle.

No.

Rodney dropped his eyes to the table, blinking, and clenched his hands together in his lap.

John, who was sitting across the table from him, felt concern change his features. It evolved to worry when Rodney’s hunched shoulders began to tremble under his blue shirt. He leaned forward slightly.

“Rodney…it wasn’t your fault.”

Rodney shifted in his seat, suddenly looking up at the ceiling, the wall, anywhere but another face, as his reddened eyes threatened to fill with fluid despite his best efforts to prevent it. Rodney felt his throat close up entirely and the rest of his face grow puffy and warm. NO, he thought angrily.

“Yes, Colonel, it was. I should’ve been more careful, I never should have let her anywhere near the Chair…I should’ve kept Carson out of the room until I was absolutely certain that it was safe, I should’ve…I should’ve done a lot of things...”

His breath caught in his throat, and his voice wavered uncontrollably.

“I never should have told Collins to go into that maintenance tube with the power levels fluctuating like that.”

He felt hot tears gathering on his lower lids. He blinked faster.

“I should have made sure that…that…Peter had a definite way to get out of the LaGrandia satellite.”

He felt something warm and tight and altogether unpleasant form in his chest. He crossed his arms, hugging himself, and continued.

“I should never have left Gaul and Abrams alone in that ship.”

He whimpered and screwed his eyes shut. John got up and went around the table to him, mentally locking the doors as he went. Rodney tried to speak again, but all that came out was one horribly painful, wracking sob. He put his left had up to cover his face, and wept. John put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and then knelt down and hugged him instead, feeling all the years of grief, guilt, and incredible sadness that the man harboured beneath his coarse façade. Radek and Elizabeth quickly followed suit, stunned at seeing someone who was always so proud and strong so small and vulnerable. He cried all of his bottled-up emotions out within a protective bubble of humanity, and clung to John as a lifeline to reality, as assurance people actually did care about him, and were truly willing to forgive the colossal mistakes that he made. That he really wasn’t alone.

[Haliyah]

And the last bit! For now, anyway...

Spoiler:

John stood up, assisted by Radek and Elizabeth, taking an unusually complicit Rodney with him, and handed him a somewhat rumpled Kleenex out of his jacket pocket. Rodney took a few deep breaths while wiping the hot tears off his flushed, tear-stained cheeks, and allowed himself to be slowly led to his quarters, his wobbly legs supported by two good friends and the third trailing closely behind.

They sat him down on his bed, taking off everything except for his boxers and t-shirt, gave him some Advil for the cry-headache, laid him down under the covers, tucked him in gently, and let him be. John thought off the light on the way out, and Elizabeth ordered that he not be disturbed by anyone. She also gave Radek the rest of the day off.

And Rodney slept.


x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x


Kaylee also slept.

Admittedly, it was a very strange sleep; it was like she was awake and aware, but at the same time in a coma. It was like being Jess Mastriani, though she doubted severely that anyone she saw was in immediate danger. She could hear, see, and feel flashes of things that she was quite sure no one else in her position normally could, and yet, there they were. She could see Radek lying on the floor next to the Control Chair, replacing the melted crystals (mild disapproval – he should be off-duty, she knew somehow). She could see Dr. Weir in her office, pacing and chewing on her thumb-knuckle, looking worried (concern). She could see two people, presumably Col. Sheppard and Teyla, sparring the hell out of each other in the gym (amusement). She could see Rodney in his bed, thrashing in the fitful throes of what was, she assumed, some doozy of a nightmare (compassion).

She felt the ocean waves slosh against the city’s piers, as if they were her own. She felt every system that had been activated, humming away pleasantly in her veins. Curious, she wondered if she could see herself…and there she was, lying unconscious in the Infirmary, with Carson, badly burned, lying in the next bed (shock). She wondered how she was able to see them from above…actually, she wondered how any of it was possible to begin with, but for some reason, she didn’t care. She decided it was high time that she opened her eyes.


x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x


Dr. Biro had just finished adjusting Dr. Beckett’s nasal cannula when she heard the girl stirring in the next bed. Her eyes opened wide with shock; there was no way she should be awake! The amount of sedative they’d given her was enough to knock out a small horse! She grumbled to herself; this is why she much preferred the dead to the living. Nothing unpredictable, she thought irritably.

Kaylee opened her eyes and looked around. The lights in the ceiling were aggravatingly bright; she squinted and went to shield her eyes, only to find that she’d been restrained. What the Hell…?

“Hello? Anybody home?”

She almost chuckled when she realized how alike it was to her previous awakening in the Infirmary. Dr. Biro popped around the thin curtain separating Kaylee and Dr. Beckett, and looked at her, almost annoyed with her consciousness.

“How are you feeling, Ms. Harlan?”

“Fine, thanks…I think. How’s Dr. Beckett? What happened to him?”

Dr. Biro made a sour face. “It was that damn Chair. He hates that thing, because he’s afraid of launching something deadly by accident…”

“…You mean a Drone?” Kaylee interjected.

Now how had she known that?

“Yes, yes, one of those things…he’s so afraid of it, and that arrogant son-of-a-***** McKay always sticks him in it for his stupid experiments…” She looked over at the powerless Carson and frowned angrily. “This time, that ******* went too far…I swear, I’ll have him written up…”

She wasn’t entirely sure why, but Kaylee was rather offended by what the woman was saying about Rodney. She scowled.

“It wasn’t Rodney’s fault.”

Dr. Biro looked at her sharply.

“In what way was it not his fault?”

“I was in the Chair.”

Dr. Biro looked quite surprised.

“…You…were in the Chair?”

Kaylee glared at the woman.

"Did I not just say that? Yes, and I went quite, quite willingly. I was the one who offered to help him; I was in no way 'voluntold' for anything. Whatever happened to the Chair while I was in it, he had absolutely no control over. So if you want to play your ridiculous God-forsaken blame-game, leave him out of it, and blame me instead."

Kaylee narrowed her eyes dangerously at the woman, and Dr. Biro looked rather taken aback by this rather vehement defence of Dr. McKay's honour; she made a note to herself to avoid annoying Ms. Harlan.

[M2W]

Oh ladies... I had so much catching up to do just now! PAGES of craziness! You guys are insane... in SUCH a good way! Haha! You had me rollin'! I love it!