stargateficrec | A Matter of Death and Life by Rheanna (G)

Show: SGA
Rec Category: Sheppard/McKay
Characters:: Rodney McKay, John Sheppard
Pairing: Sheppard/McKay
Het/Slash/Gen: Slash
Warnings: None
Author on LJ:

rheanna27
Author's Website:
Link: A Matter of Death and Life

Why This Must Be Read:

John takes on another suicidal task and manages to live...or did he? During increasingly severe seizures, John engages in a series of conversations with 'ghosts' about living and dying and choices. In the meantime, Rodney works frantically to save him. Although I teared up more than once while reading this, I ended up smiling at the end.

Excerpt:

"Sheppard, is that you?"

"Is that me what?"

"I'm trying to locate the shutdown protocol for the ZPM charger, and suddenly Ancient code is lighting up all over the place."

"Hold on a second," John said.

"No, I can't hold on a second," Rodney snapped back, "given that we only have approximately two hundred of them left."

"I've found something," John said. "The shutdown commands, I think."

There was the briefest of pauses, and then Rodney said, "I see it. Okay, I'm on it, Zelenka's on it, we're all on it, we've got three minutes, we can do this—"

The ZPM glowed even more brightly. John closed his eyes against the glare and tried to angle his body away from it. He could feel the back of his neck burning. He frowned, trying to make sense of what he was getting from the interface. "McKay—"

"Be quiet, I'm trying to concentrate, here."

"Rodney," John said, "this whole room's lined with naquadah. So is the door. If I close it, will it contain the blast?"

"No," Rodney said. "I mean—yes, it probably will, theoretically there's no upper limit to the amount of energy naquadah can absorb, but no, you're not doing that. I've still got ninety seconds to stop this."

"Seven million people," John reminded him.

"Well, the odds are that some of them will survive," Rodney said, in a distant tone that John figured meant he wasn't really thinking about what he was saying, devoting only one or two percent of that enormous brain of his to the conversation. The rest of it was working on solving the problem. And normally that would have been enough to reassure John that everything was going to be just fine, but--seven million people. Jesus.

"I'm closing the door," he said.

The squawk of outrage which came over his radio nearly deafened him. "What? No! Sheppard, you can't do that! We're working on the live code. You can't change anything. If you do, we might not be able to initiate the shutdown sequence."

"One life against Atlantis and most of the population of San Francisco seems like a pretty good trade off to me," John said.

"Not when it's your life!" Rodney yelled.

Something tightened in John's chest. He swallowed once and then made himself say in his slowest drawl, "Why, McKay, I didn't know you cared."

"You bastard," Rodney said. There was something in his tone that John had never heard before, a cold fury he hadn't known was in McKay's emotional repertoire. "Listen to me: do not do this."

John opened his eyes, and immediately squeezed them shut again—it was too bright to keep them open for more than a couple of seconds. The air was so hot that every breath scalded his lungs, making it increasingly hard to talk. "Can't take the chance," he said, his voice a dry rasp.

"No," Rodney said over the radio. "Sheppard, no."

"Too late," John whispered.

He found the controls of the door and mentally ordered it to close. It responded sluggishly—the whole damn system wasn't working right, which probably explained how this had happened in the first place—but, after a second, the heavy vault door started to slide shut.

Rodney said, "John--"

"S'okay," John said. It occurred to him that if he had any last words, now would be a good moment to get them out there. There were things he could say to Rodney—things he wanted to say—but the words died in his throat. Instead he croaked, "Hey, McKay. Whaddya think... the next life... is like?"

Rodney didn't answer, and for a moment John wondered if he'd managed to piss him off so much that he was going to spend the last brief seconds of John's life refusing to talk to him. Then Rodney said, "Listen, I've isolated the shutdown commands, Simpson's deploying the patch now, it's going to be okay, you're going to be okay, Jesus, you're not going to die, do you hear me, John, you're not going to—"

Then there was light and heat and noise, and John knew nothing more.

...