Mirror, Mirror

by Sabine C. Bauer

  "Rodney!" Dr. Weir let go of her hand, scrambled away.

  "The Stargate!" That was Zelenka.

  His outcry provoked a stampede of stumbling feet and then answering calls of "It's holding! The frame is holding"-what- ever that might mean.

  "I don't care!" An unfamiliar voice, a woman's, full of fear and resentment. "Let it go! It's killing us all!"

  `No!" Zelenka again. "You're wrong, Selena! We mustn't lose the gate."

  The air seemed to get thinner by the second, and Teyla was struggling for breath. But more terrifying than that or the quake or the noise and confusion all around her was the unshakable certainty that they were about to run out of time. Charybdis was winning. Chaos and entropy were winning.

  She tried to sit up, found herself pushed back down onto the cot by strong hands. "Stay put," Colonel Sheppard ordered. "It'll be over in a minute. Everything's fine."

  "No, it isn't, Colonel!" Teyla couldn't remember ever shouting at him, but she did so now. "We must leave! We must leave immediately!"

  Radek Zelenka had always been of the opinion that the most serious disease his esteemed colleague, Dr. McKay, suffered from was chronic hypochondria. This time it was different. The reunited members of the Atlantis team had gathered around Rodney's cot to stare down at his haggard face and wait. It reminded Radek of nothing so much as being eight years old again and forced to participate in his grandmother's wake. The lifeless, ancient death mask had scared the living daylights out of him, and he'd had nightmares for weeks. Much as he would now, no doubt.

  His tension was threatening to build into a headache, and it wasn't improved by Selena who hovered in the background, silent now but still disapproving. More disapproving than she'd ever been. He'd had to fight her every step of the way, to expend manpower to salvage the Stargate, to get medical help, to spend precious oxygen on keeping Rodney alive. Determined to protect her own people, she'd drawn the line between them and us, and Radek was them now and it hurt. They'd been together for most of their adult lives, they'd worked together, lived together, loved each other, and all of that had suddenly turned into a thing of the past, didn't count anymore. Selena had made it quite clear that he had only himself to blame. He'd made his choice and, as far as she was concerned, he'd chosen wrong.

  Now she spared him a baleful look and slipped out of the tent. He felt relief when she left, and that hurt, too. Gritting his teeth, he forced his attention back on Rodney.

  All the physicians who'd been rounded up to take care of the new arrivals had returned to their duties with the evacuees. All but one. He sat on a rickety stool, his gaze glued to the bank of small monitors that recorded Rodney's vital signs, such as they were, and he obviously was dismayed by something-or everything-he saw. McKay was hanging on by his fingernails.

  "I've never seen anything like it," the healer mumbled and pointed at the EEC screen. "It's almost as if there's two of him, and whatever the other one is, it's keeping him alive."

  "It's Ikaros," Teyla said softly. "Ikaros is still there."

  "What?" Dr. Weir and Colonel Sheppard snapped in unison, and Ronon launched into a choppy explanation. Evidently Rodney himself had been none too specific about the state of affairs.

  "So the bottom line is that we need him to get us back, but we can't trust him, because the guy who got us into this mess in the first place might be sitting inside his head, running the show?" Sheppard asked. "Great. Just great."

  "We can trust him." Teyla had sat up on her cot next to Rodney's and tilted her face in the direction of Colonel Sheppard as if searching for his gaze.

  "Teyla, you have no way of knowing that," Dr. Weir replied reasonably. "Ikaros lied to us before, and-"

  "Wake him up," Colonel Sheppard snapped at the physician, adding a slightly sheepish, "Please."

  "I can't do that. He's-"

  "Please," echoed Teyla. "We can't wait."

  Her earlier warning seemed to resonate through the tent. We must leave! We must leave immediately! Radek was inclined to agree. The quake that had rocked the hillside half an hour ago had been more vicious than any that had come before, and the air quality had taken another turn for the worse since the activation of the gate.

  The physician was an elderly man, not used to having his authority questioned, let alone overridden. With an indignant grunt he picked up a couple of nerve stimulators and slowly guided them from Rodney's forehead down the entire length of his body. "I will not be held responsible for any consequences," he growled at last, setting the devices aside. "He is waking up now."

  "Nobody will hold you responsible," Dr. Weir said gently. "If we had a choice, we wouldn't have asked you to do this. Thank you."

  The reply was another grunt.

  Radek supposed he should have anticipated it, because he'd witnessed the effects of the stimulator before. It still was startling. A shudder that set the cot to rattle racked Rodney's body, then his eyes snapped open and he dumbly blinked at the canvas ceiling above.

  "Hng," he said. Which could have meant anything, but knowing McKay it probably translated as a none too polite request for coffee and carbohydrates.

  "Who are you?" asked John Sheppard.

  With something of an effort, Rodney focused on him. "Huh?"

  "Who are you?"

  "My God, it actually worked," said McKay, and that grimace might have been a smile. "Nice to see you, Colonel. Is my acne that bad?"

  It clearly was the last reply Colonel Sheppard had expected. "Come again? Your what?"

  Ronon grinned. "Don't worry, McKay. You look your age again. No boils "

  "Zits!"

  "Do I want to know?" Sheppard asked darkly.

  "No," said Rodney and Ronon, at the same moment, offered, "He was sixteen in his timeline."

  "Like Ikaros," Dr. Weir whispered, frowning.

  "Which brings me back to the original question," said the Colonel, who must have been thinking along the same lines. "Who are you?"

  "Dr. Rodney McKay of Earth and various other benighted places." With a pained sigh, Rodney settled back into the pillow. "I love it when people are being willfully obtuse..." He opened one eye and peered at Sheppard. "Who in God's name did you think I was? Your teenage look-alike? Admittedly he's making a nuisance of himself, but he generally asks my permission before taking over."

  "Generally." While he sounded less than convinced, Sheppard seemed willing to accept Rodney's assertion, at least for the time being. "Look, we're a bit pressed for time here. We need to get back before Charybdis slams the door on us for good. Any suggestions?"

  "Don't bother," came a voice from the entrance. "You're not leaving."

  Radek spun around, found himself face to face with Selena. Behind her he could see at least twelve more people, including the technicians, grim determination showing in their eyes.

  "We have discussed it, and we will not allow you to activate the Stargate again," she said.

  Oh, wonderful. You'd think he might have earned himself a timeline not populated by Luddite zealots, but obviously that was too much to ask for... The issue was academic, of course, because he was fresh out of suggestions to offer to John Sheppard or anyone else. Unless they brought him at least one new double or the double's remains, Rodney had no idea of how to persuade the Stargate to work. And, going by that less than joyous last trip, he wasn't even sure he wanted to try.

  "We cannot." The woman looked as obdurate as flint. "As a matter of fact, we've decided to destroy it."

  Ha! What did he say`? Luddite zealots!

  "Selena." Zelenka risked a step forward. "Selena, there is no other way. You must-"

  "You've made your feelings quite clear, Radek. And you've made your choice. Let's spare us all the repetition."

  Zelenka seemed to crumple and that scarily old face of his crinkled into a stricken expression, beyond hopelessness or hurt. Dear God, the woman was... what? His lover? Ew... a little mature for that.

  Who's the zealot now? She's his wife. What did you
expect him to do? Live like a monkfor thirty years just because he was dumped here?

  "Who asked you?" Rodney inquired under his breath.

  "Please, Selena?" Elizabeth's features were set in that conciliatory diplomatic mode Rodney hardly ever saw directed at himself. "Please, you have to believe that we never meant to-"

  The old woman cut her off mercilessly. "We know you didn't mean us any harm. Not at first. But now you do. You"-she stabbed a finger at Weir-"you seek to protect your people. You consider it your duty. Well, it's my duty too. I will protect my people by any means necessary. If that entails sacrificing five... six"-a glare at Zelenka-"in order to save the population of an entire planet, so be it."

  You couldn't dispute the math. So much for diplomacy...

  " Zatraceny!" Radek seemed to have arrived at the same conclusion. When he lapsed into his mother tongue he usually was impatient or pissed or both. "The planet is dying, Selena! You're sacrificing a galaxy, possibly a universe, to save a corpse!"

  "That's your theory! A theory!"

  "It's not a theory. It's a fact."

  Rodney heard his own voice say it, felt his mouth form the words, and thoroughly resented the sensation. If he'd been able to, he'd have screamed. Son of a bitch!

  I'm sorry, Ikaros offered, feeling at least somewhat guilty. I believe you have a saying: desperate times call for desperate measures.

  "How would you know?" snapped Selena. "You've spent even less time here than the rest of them!"

  "I know because I'm the one responsible. I caused this. I caused you to exist."

  "Ikaros!" John Sheppard looked furious, as well he might. "Rodney said-"

  "Yes. I heard him, and I apologize for this. But you have to trust me."

  "I'd rather trust Rodney around the latest untried Ancient super-gun," hissed Sheppard.

  A little uncalled-for, if you asked Rodney, but nobody did and even if they had he couldn't have answered.

  "Bring him back, Ikaros!"

  "In a moment. I promise, I-"

  "Who are you, Ikaros or Rodney or whatever your name is? And what gives you the right to take our lives?" Selena moved another step forward, and the mob she'd roused was thronging in behind her, smelling of murder. Some of them were armed, all of them were outraged. If the tension rose another notch you could forget about cutting it with a knife. It would shred the canvas walls and roof of the tent.

  "She's right!" one of the men behind Selena shouted. "He's already admitted to causing this, so I say we punish him accordingly."

  Yep, here we go. Rodney had a nasty sense of deja vu all over again and began to wonder where they'd stashed their cage. Why couldn't the kid just keep his big mouth shut?

  As I said, I'll oblige you in a minute. If you want to get back, you have to let me do this. Now stop distracting me! Ikaros snapped.

  Aloud he said, "You can punish me. You can kill me. But in doing so, you'll merely harm an innocent man. What's more, you'll rob yourselves of any chance to set this right. And if you don't set it right, you will indeed destroy an entire galaxy."

  The response consisted of grumbles, low and menacing and disbelieving, and they closed in another foot or so.

  Ikaros tried a new tack. Intrepid little twerp... "I'm of your blood, from the same roots as you, we're of the same people"-that raised a few eyebrows-"and I did what I did out of the same desire that drives you now; I wanted to save my people. I also wanted revenge. So much so that I failed to look beyond the obvious."

  His audience was listening now. So was the Atlantis team. So was Rodney, when it came to that.

  "For as long as we could remember, my people-your people-had a powerful enemy," Ikaros continued. "The Wraith. Beings no longer human that stole men and women and children and fed on their life force. One day they stole my family, and that day I promised myself that, as soon as I was able to, I would destroy them. So I studied and learned, as fast and as much as I could, and I built a device capable of altering history itself, of eradicating the Wraith and every trace of their existence throughout the millennia, because, in the version of history I created, the Wraith never had evolved.

  "I thought it was a safe plan, you see? How couldn't it be? All I'd done was take the Wraith out of the equation. I didn't think it would affect the rest of history. But of course it did. Because the Wraith were part of our history, yours and mine. The Wraith were the whetstone that honed our instinct to survive, our thirst for learning, our skill at defending ourselves and, ultimately, our determination to be better than they.

  "My friends here"-one by one Ikaros indicated Weir, Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon, and Zelenka-"and I each have experienced versions of time where that whetstone never existed. Where our people slipped from memory without a trace. Or turned into a scourge worse than the Wraith, because there was no force to impede them. Or drugged themselves into inanity. Or became so terrified of knowledge that they would destroy anyone who desired to learn. Is that what you wish for our people?" He looked straight at Selena.

  Fists clenched, chin raised, she returned his stare. "Even if what you're saying is true, we did not become any of those. Have you seen us mistreat or harm people? Or shun learning? You would be dead right now if we didn't honor science!"

  "But you have not developed either! You are frozen the way you were hundreds of years ago. When did you last discover anything new-other than what he showed you?" Ikaros nodded at Radek. "Well?"

  Selena sucked in a sharp breath, fished for words. Eventually she retorted, "We were content. We had what we needed and left well enough alone."

  "Meaning you were regressing. Because that is what happens when you're standing still while time moves on around you. Your complacency made you obsolete." The words hung there for all concerned to get riled, then Ikaros carried on, now without the sting in his tone. "Your people, our people, were meant to develop, Selena. Beyond anything you can possibly imagine. Wiser, more powerful, without fear of death. But it will never happen, will never have happened, unless we're allowed to go back and set things right."

  "Develop in what way?" She was trying to scoff, but there was a groundswell of doubt and curiosity in her voice that hadn't been there before.

  "I could tell you and you wouldn't comprehend it, so I'll show you."

  Show her?

  Oh no, wait a min-

  Rodney felt an odd tug inside of him, something separating, gradually and carefully, a loosening of his being. With it, pain came flooding back like a torrent, and he realized for the first time the full extent to which Ikaros had sustained him. The radiance began above his chest, slowly stretching into bands of brightness. A long time ago he'd seen the security footage from the infirmary back at the SGC. The same type of lightshow had accompanied Dr. Jackson's ascension, and it was worth noting that there hadn't even been left a body behind. Granted, he'd somehow recovered his mortal coil a year or so later, but the man's powers of resurrection would put a cat to shame, and Rodney McKay was confident that his own skills on that score weren't even remotely in the same league.

  Hey! What about me? he screamed somewhere in his mind.

  Don't worry. Ikaros's answer felt faraway and growing fainter by the second. You won't die. Much...

  What that supposed to

  And then there was black.

  Mingled in with the first shock there were two things that vied for John's attention; that tentacled glory of light rising from Rodney's still body, so similar to the luminescence that had heralded Charybdis's activation, and the frenetic wails and chimes of the life support monitors.

  "My God," whispered Elizabeth. "He's ascending!"

  "No!" Teyla sat bolt upright on her cot. "It's Ikaros. Whatever is happening, it's Ikaros."

  "I can tell you what's happening! The son of a bitch is leaving McKay behind!" If there had been a time in his life when John had felt more helplessly angry, he couldn't recall it. How did you beat common decency into a life form that looked like a Day-Glo squid? "He's leaving Rodney
to die..."

  "No, he isn't," she countered. "He couldn't. Everything he said was true. And I can still feel Rodney. Rodney isn't dead."

  As if to confirm her words, the monitor alarms subsided. A leaden silence dropped over the jumble of upturned or ruined equipment the quake had left in the tent. It was broken only by hushed breathing. Nobody seemed able or willing to speak as that sinuous glow abandoned its hover above Rodney's chest and smoothly, almost nonchalantly, approached Selena. Her eyes went wide and she instinctively backed up a step or two, into the chest of the technician behind her. It galvanized the man into action. Pure terror etched into his face he attempted to shoo off the... thing as you would a fly.

  Don't be afraid. I won't harm her or anybody else.

  John heard the words in his mind as clearly as if they'd been spoken, and he obviously wasn't the only one. Selena's knight in shining armor dropped his arms and reverted to open-mouthed stupor. Selena herself braced her shoulders, took a deep breath and walked straight into... whatever it was.

  This time he heard laughter.

  It's still me, Colonel Sheppard. I'm still Ikaros. And no offense, but I find thing just a little insulting.

  The golden luminescence wrapped itself around Selena, sheathing her in light. Radek let out a stifled shout, but someone -Ronon? -stopped him in his tracks. A heartbeat later it became apparent that there was no need to protect Selena. She stood motionless, on her face a look of rapt wonder that rightfully belonged to a child who'd just encountered Santa Claus and all his reindeer in the flesh.

  He had no concept of how long it lasted, but eventually the glow released Selena, swam free and began to elongate as if reaching for the ground. It grew denser, more substantial, assumed appendages that looked conspicuously like arms and legs, dimming at the same time. Then, in the blink of an eye, it winked out and in its place stood Ikaros, still in the BDU he'd worn when John had last seen him, a lifetime ago. The kid possessed the audacity to wink at him.

  As if waking from a trance, Selena took a deep breath, cheeks flushed, eyes shining. "He was right," she whispered. "I couldn't possibly have imagined it..." She must have intended to say something else, but was brought up short by Ikaros in his more human manifestation. Her gaze wandered from him to John and back, and at last she gasped, "He is your... son?"