Decisions

by Setcheti

Disclaimer: Don’t own them, not actually trying to either.

Author’s Note: This story follows CD #12 – part of the Carson Diaries AU, but not episode related. Or in other words, we are now committed to our pursuit of the elusive Scottish jackalope, who will lead us farther and farther from the world of canon. And no, I still haven’t watched the season finale yet.

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Rodney McKay finished the notes he was making and saved them, then sent them to three different people: Zelenka, Kavenaugh, and Carson Beckett. Carson wouldn’t understand them, he knew, but the doctor would keep the information safe if something happened to the other two. And considering what had been going on around the city lately, something happening to just about anyone was all too likely. Especially since Rodney himself wouldn’t be there to run interference any more.

He sort of regretted that…but not for long. He was protecting them in a different way now.

Closing down the laptop, taking a last look around to make sure everything had been packed up and labeled, the astrophysicist couldn’t help but feel a pang at the thought of never seeing it again – this lab, the city, all of it. He’d liked it here, more than he’d liked just about any other place he’d ever been, and at least until recently he’d felt like he belonged here. Rodney shrugged. In a weird way, considering that, it was sort of fitting that he was going to die here, with the city. And a small, arrogant part of him thought that having the entire lost city of Atlantis as a tomb just for him was fitting as well.

He decided to hang on to that thought for a while; arrogance and ego, he knew from experience, could get you through tough situations when real courage was nowhere to be found. It made you look bad afterwards, but it worked and that was what mattered, right? And Rodney was all about results, especially right now.

He tore himself out of the lab and started carefully sneaking down to the lower level where his destination – and eventual demise – was located. It had only been a week ago that he’d taken Zelenka and Kavenaugh to Weir’s office and presented his report on the new find and its implications to her, and wonder of wonders she’d accepted it. She’d even congratulated them, although she hadn’t been too happy when Zelekna had sort of gotten up her nose about he and Kavenaugh having only gone over the report to check it, pointing out that it was Rodney who’d done all the work. And then Kavenaugh had chimed in with a pithy little comment about guessing that Rodney really did have something to show for not sleeping, and that had really shocked her; she apparently hadn’t realized just how badly she’d pissed the rest of the science staff off by getting nasty with him during that last briefing.

Not that they hadn’t been kind of pissed off already, of course. Carson had seen to that.

In the darkness of an empty corridor, Rodney smiled to himself, just a little sadly. Carson had been coming to his rescue ever since that…incident in Antarctica, and the Scottish doctor was going to be furious when he got Rodney’s message and found out what he was doing. It would be too late to stop him by that time, of course, but that couldn’t be helped; given half a chance, Carson would stop him. And Rodney couldn’t let that happen, because Carson had the ATA gene and he was scared to death of the damned control chairs…and Rodney knew that it would give Weir and possibly even Sheppard a real kick to force the doctor into one of them.

Especially this particular one. Rodney didn’t think it had ever occurred to Carson that he was infinitely more dispensable than the mission’s chief scientist; there were, after all, several other doctors on Atlantis, and everyone who could be given the artificial ATA gene had already gotten it. He’d reminded Carson of that in the message he’d left him, the one the doctor would be finding about ten minutes from now when the city’s alarms woke him up.

He’d told Carson a lot of things, actually. Not everything, but a lot of things. Like how much he’d hated forcing the doctor into that weapons control chair, and why he’d had to do it – he’d needed to be sure he’d reconnected everything properly, because that was how he’d reconnected the other chair, the one he was headed for now. The one Sheppard had put himself in a week ago, raising the shield and submerging the city, supposedly to save everyone from the arriving Wraith.

Rodney had known better. He’d known that it wasn’t about the city or the people in it or the damned Wraith, it had been about Chaya and her influence. He suspected that the last time Sheppard had snuck back to visit his ‘girlfriend’, as Ford called her, she’d probably done something to him so that once the chair killed him he would Ascend and then she could have him forever.

But Rodney had decided he couldn’t let that happen. It was…obscene, that’s what it was, obscene. He knew that Carson could cure the major again, he had once before, and he knew that once everyone was at the new beta site Bates had found Sheppard would stay cured because there’d be no way he’d be able to get away to Proculus again. In spite of everything Sheppard had done lately, how much of an asshole he’d proved he could be, the man still didn’t deserve to be shackled to that evil bitch Chaya for all eternity just because she was lonely and thought he was cute.

He’d told Carson that in his message too. The doctor was really pissed off at Sheppard and had said he wouldn’t try to cure the major again…but Rodney knew that since he’d asked him to, Carson would. Carson was going to be pissed at Rodney too, but after he’d read the message through Rodney hoped his friend would understand why he’d had to do what he was about to do, and why he hadn’t been able to tell anyone.

Because he knew Carson Beckett…and he knew that the thing that would piss the Scott off most was that Rodney had been alone at the end. Carson knew how Rodney felt about being alone. Sheppard being there didn’t count. Sheppard being in the room might not even have counted if the man had actually been conscious, which he wasn’t.

And Rodney knew this because he was right this minute standing in the doorway looking at him, having just slipped inside the little silver box of a room that housed the chair and all its machinery. No one else was there, thank god; it was late, and pretty much everyone who wasn’t asleep was packing things up, getting ready to evacuate the city. They weren’t in too much of a hurry just yet, because according to the readouts the shield was going to be up for a month or two at least, but Weir in an uncharacteristic burst of good sense had insisted that they not wait until the last minute to get things ready for getting out, just in case.

‘Just in case’ was about to become a much more immediate reality. Rodney hoped Weir would appreciate how good he was about to make her look in the eyes of all the pissed-off people in the city…but he was pretty sure she wouldn’t. The same way he’d been pretty sure that she’d have happily sacrificed everyone in the city but him to the chair; in spite of what Carson thought, Rodney knew that he was the only one in the city with the ATA gene who wasn’t really expendable. They had other engineers, other soldiers…

Other doctors. But Rodney was going to make sure that wouldn’t be a consideration. He’d left his notes on the chair, yes, including the calculations that could be used to figure out how long someone could occupy the chair before you lost the option of removing them alive…but those notes didn’t describe what he was about to do. Once he finished rearranging the connections and took Sheppard’s place, the chair would never again accept another user; Rodney would be the last sacrifice made on the dark altar of Atlantis, he’d made sure of it. He wouldn’t have to die worrying that someday Weir would stand in this room’s doorway gloating while soldiers forced a frightened Carson into the chair to buy them another month of shield time.

Rodney knew that he himself would be lucky to give them two weeks, but that didn’t matter. It would be long enough for everyone to get out of the city, not long enough for anyone to figure out what he’d done and undo it…and it wouldn’t mean anything to him personally at all, since he’d most likely be unaware of the passage of time anyway.

He finished the reconnections, made a few adjustments, and now he was standing over the chair looking down at John Sheppard’s still, expressionless face, remembering. He remembered waking up in the infirmary to find Sheppard standing there beside his bed, remembered the day Sheppard had showed up at the grounding station to talk him through what had happened with Commander Kolya, remembered sitting in Sheppard’s quarters on different occasions drinking the product of their clandestine still…remembered going to Proculus, where Sheppard had met Chaya.

Rodney didn’t have any good memories involving Sheppard past that. They’d been friends, which was more than he’d ever expected, and due to his past experiences Rodney had never really thought that would last anyway. He just hadn’t expected it to be snatched away from him quite so abruptly.

He sighed, taking hold of the other man’s arm to pull him out of the chair…and then he hesitated. He didn’t think Sheppard was aware of anything, didn’t think Sheppard could hear him, but just in case… “John,” he said quietly. “Have a nice life – a nice life as a human, if you would please, not as some disembodied sex toy for a deranged Ancient. If you’re that lonely you can sleep with Weir instead, okay? You’ve pretty much screwed everything and everyone else all to hell lately, but right now everyone hates Weir too so you two have something in common. Tell her you passed the Mensa test but refused to join, that should impress her. I know it made…an impression on me; at least now I know why you had so much contempt for me.” He cleared his throat, swallowed. “I wish things could have been different…but I guess I shouldn’t have expected them to be, I shouldn’t have expected it all to last. And I hope you don’t screw up again, because I won’t be there to save your ass the next time. Find your way back to being Captain Kirk, okay? You might have taken it a little too far…but you were good at it.”

Time was up; if he didn’t do it now, it couldn’t be done at all. Rodney pulled Sheppard out of the chair, dumping him carefully but unceremoniously onto the metal floor, and then quickly slid into chair himself as the alarms started to sound, closed his eyes and thought of his ATA gene as hard as he could. Lights flashed, the city shivered, and then the chair started to hum. The hum was irregular at first, almost as though the device was confused by the change of occupant, but then it smoothed out and built into a constant, steady vibration that felt like it was permeating every individual cell in his body. Rodney’s last conscious thought, directly related to the horrified realization that Chaya must have altered Sheppard more than they’d thought she had, was…

Oh God…it hurts…