Mirror, Mirror

by Sabine C. Bauer

  "Pull the plug, Rodney!"

  McKay executed a classy fish dive toward the generator, but even as he was watching him, John knew it was too late. The ephemeral shape of Ikaros brightened into a whirl of colors, blossoming above the core unit of Charybdis, stretching toward the ceiling, expanding to fill the interior of the dome and suffuse them all. Rodney hung suspended mid-flight, horizontally in the air, fingers splayed and reaching for the naquada generator. Too late, even if he had been moving, way too late.

  "Don't worry!"

  Supremely confident the assurance emanated from the center of the mayhem, Ikaros's voice or his own, John couldn't tell as sounds and shapes spiraled out of cohesion. His awareness screamed at the terror of being ripped apart, and he thought he looked at his hands, watched them multiply into a thousand pairs, some liver-spotted and gnarled, others no larger than a baby's tiny digits, every conceivable stage in between, and then those thousands of hands dissolved into a terrible burst of colors that cancelled each other into white light, searing his eyes and rising toward the dissolving apex of the dome and a dizzy vortex of stars, a massive maelstrom, sucking everything into-

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Charybdis +32

  is breath came short and ragged, and Teyla berated herself .for not severing the link sooner. But he had been necessary for him to see. Absolutely necessary... She reached out again, patted down his arm until she found his hand, squeezed it. "Are you alright, Major Sheppard?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Just dandy." He gave a laugh, utterly devoid of humor. "Relatively speaking, that is. I'm not chopped up into God knows how many bits."

  "None of us were. I think," she said.

  "Oh yeah? Tell that to this... what's his name? Dreadlocks. Rowland?"

  "Ronon. I believe the body we found is an alternate version. The alternates who died were not killed by Charybdis directly but by entropic events that occurred later in their respective timelines."

  "Such as?"

  "I cannot say. But Ikaros was telling the truth up to a point. Charybdis didn't kill us," she asserted again. "We simply became... many."

  "No kidding." Then realization struck him. "You're saying that all the originals are still alive?"

  "Barring unforeseen events, yes"

  "Given the circumstances that's not much of a reassurance." He snorted softly, then whatever amusement he'd momentarily found dissipated. "So why did you show me this?"

  She had expected the question; the only surprise was that he hadn't asked sooner. "Because you might be able to help."

  "Some people might say it's none of my business."

  "You're not some people. You're John Sheppard."

  "Some people might argue with that," he groused, but he didn't sound as though he was seriously putting up a fight. There was a pause, then, "What do you need me to do? I'll help out in any way I can. We should be able to set up the villagers with some of the technology from down here, which should make it easier for them to-"

  "Nothing like that," she cut him off quickly. "I need you to find Colonel Sheppard-the original."

  "Come again?" The question rode on another dry laugh. "How the hell would I do that? It's a big universe out there, Teyla, and it hasn't exactly shrunk since the last time you stepped through the gate."

  "Perhaps I've never stepped through the gate." It could even be the truth. Only the original Teyla Emmagan had ever traveled the stars.

  "Do you have any idea what the odds are? Even if I'm... if he is still alive, and after all I've seen, I'm less sure than you are. It'd make much more sense if-"

  "No! Whatever you could do for us here, it wouldn't matter. Not in the long run. Go!" She made a shooing motion with her hands, much like what she'd do to chase off curious village kids. "Go, find Colonel Sheppard."

  "How?"

  "The same way you found me."

  "Oh? Crashing a jumper and damn near killing myself? There's gotta be an easier way."

  "You know what I mean. You will find him. Because you have to. Because you're meant to" Teyla couldn't say from where she took that certainty, but it had been with her through all the years that she'd been waiting for him. Perhaps it was a nugget of knowledge embedded in her mind at the split-second Charybdis activated, or perhaps it was merely that minute shred of salvation left in Pandora's Box after all the ills and diseases had escaped; hope. Either way, it did not answer the one question she'd been asking herself again and again, namely whether hope was a good-or simply the most insidious evil of all. "You must find him," she said, surprising herself with the sharpness of her tone.

  "You believe he somehow can fix this" A statement, not a question. He thought this was the fancy of an old woman whose brain had become addled by age, regret, solitude. Doubt rang through his voice clear as a bell. "How do you know?"

  "I know how it sounds, and I cannot explain it. I cannot prove it. I just... know. And I hope." There was that word again. "Trust me. It's important that you trust me."

  "I always have."

  "But you don't now." She heard a soft intake of breath in preparation for his answer. Wishing she could see his eyes to tell if his doubts were as deep as she suspected or if she was beginning to convince him, she raised a hand. "No! Listen to me! Searching for the original will make the difference between giving this galaxy a chance-however remote-to heal and sitting back to watch it self-destruct. And perhaps the damage Charybdis caused was not confined to the Pegasus Galaxy. Perhaps-"

  "-it affects the entire universe, including Earth." Major Sheppard finished for her. "Yes, that had occurred to me." There was a pause, then the rattle of crutches told her that he was shuffling away from her. "It's changed," he murmured and quickly added, "I don't mean the dead bodies. The city's changed. It feels different, smells different. Tired. More jaded. We didn't mean to wreck it all when we came here, you know? I didn't mean to wake the Wraith. Rodney didn't mean to blow up a solar system. And we sure as hell didn't mean to-"

  -save the Athosians and give them a new home? Or care about everyone you ever encountered?" she shot back. "Children who find a new toy they don't quite understand may well end up accidentally breaking it. Regrettable as this may be, it's also the single most effective method of learning I've ever encountered. And don't forget, I was one of the children, too. Your people are not the only ones at fault."

  It was impossible to say if he had listened. He remained quiet for a long time, and she imagined him taking in the sights around him. She'd wondered, often, what this subterranean version of Atlantis might look like, but eventually she'd begun to see it in her mind's eye as it had been-lofty and shining, jewel-like and without death littering every room and hallway. His words just now proved her right, no matter how cowardly such denial might seem. Retaining a clear memory of the beauty of Atlantis was important somehow, as if the very ideal of the city were a far-off beacon that would guide them all home to safety.

  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.

  Charybdis -4441

  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.

  It never happened.

  Yet.

  "But it's going to," he whispered, unable to say how or where he derived this certainty. "It's going to."

  Part of him grasped that he was repeating that same little sentence over and over, hanging on to it as if to a lifeline. It was a lifeline. It meant he had a future. It meant that things could be changed, had to be changed, because to the best-or worst-of John's knowledge, Ronon Dex, like everyone else, had been killed by Charybdis. Or it meant that Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard had finally gone and done it and snapped.

  Bug-crap crazy.

  If this was crazy, it beat the hell out of sane.

  There was only one problem with it.. .

  Yeah, well, he'd have to solve it, wouldn't he?

  Still wheezing a little, he eased himself back into a gentle jog and headed for his quarters. In the shower he bashed the problem around some more and finally arrived at the conclusion that there would be no easy or kind way of telling her. Meaning that he'd better get it over with right now.

  Ten minutes later he'd pulled on clean clothes, crudely woven from plant fiber and the next best thing to wearing a loofah, and set off in search of Elizabeth. Usually she was easy to find, either hovering near to wherever he was, to make sure he didn't hatch any escape plans, or sometimes, when he managed to elude or plain bore her, in one of a handful of rooms.

  This time it was t
he mess hall-she'd taken to calling it `the banquet room'-and she'd sure been busy. He stopped in the door for a moment to watch her, trying to keep the familiar tug of guilt and regret at bay. There was little left of the woman he'd known, of his friend, and he'd made her this way. Ultimately, the malfunction of the stasis chamber must have been caused by Charybdis-at the very least, Charybdis had produced the timeline where Elizabeth was condemned to this.

  Every so often, without warning or apparent cause, there'd be flashes of who she'd been, of the real Elizabeth. He'd learned to dread those, because the contrast between who she'd been and what she'd become was unbearable, and after five minutes or an hour or however long it lasted, he'd lose her all over again. Lately these small windows of sanity had occurred few and far between. John tried very hard not to be grateful for it.

  In fact, if anything, he'd need her to be lucid now, but it didn't look likely. Apparently they were going to celebrate Christmas, for the fifth time in the last little while. She'd dragged out that old dress again, the one he'd first found her in, and was busy garnishing a table with flowers she'd gathered the last time they'd been to the mainland. Though you'd be hard pushed to identify them as flowers now. The shriveled gray corpses were strewn among the crockery, glitter effect provided by what looked like small chunks of broken glass. Very-

  "Oh no!" He let go of the doorframe, let that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach propel him to the table. "Where did you get them, Elizabeth?" he asked, picking up a control crystal and struggling to keep his voice even. Yelling at her wouldn't help.

  Head bent, she peered up through her lashes, like a child caught and put on the spot. "I found them," she mumbled, her fingers picking at a desiccated flower.

  "Where?"

  "On the little ships."

  "Are you completely-" God, yes, of course she was out of her mind! And he should have known better than leaving her unsupervised. He'd never thought... Not that it mattered a blind damn just what he'd thought.

  "There's lots and lots of them," she said brightly. "We won't miss these few."