"Do I Dare Disturb the Universe" by vaguely_concerned (explicit)

[patk.livejournal.com]

Show: SGA
Rec Category: AU
Characters: John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, OC Faith Lumsbred, Queen Harmony, various OCs
Pairings: McKay/Sheppard
Categories: slash
Warnings: temporary character death
Author on LJ: [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]
Author's Website: none
Link: "Do I Dare Disturb the Universe" by vaguely_concerned

Summary by the author:
When Faith Lumsbred disobeys the decree of Queen Harmony and goes into the forbidden part of the woods, she expects to discover something cool, or at least something suitably unsettling. Finding instead an ageing astrophysicist and his cat she decides to get to the bottom of the things. How did McKay end up here? Why has the queen gone to such lengths to keep him hidden? And what exactly has he been doing out here all by himself?

Why This Must Be Read:
Because, dear reader, you know something terrible must have happened to get Rodney stranded on Harmony's planet for decades and you want the answers to all those questions the author brought up. *g*

Excellent storytelling, largely seen from Faith Lumbsbred's POV (the granddaughter of canon-character Nolan Lumsbred from the episode "Harmony"). She's a well developed character, a girl at the beginning of adolescence, who apparently takes after her grandfather and we discover Rodney's secrets followin in her tracks. We also see what happened int the past in retrospective through Rodney's eyes.

I love pretty much everything about this story. The way Faith gets to know Rodney, her fascination with Rodney's drawings, the scene in which she finds John's old leather jacket - which means nothing to her but with the background the reader has from a few scenes earlier it's heartbreakting to see it there.

The grown up Queen Harmony who is surprising likable. Rodney's desperate search for a solution to the catastrophe, that he will go to any lengths to change the outcome, the innovative and surprising way he finds to reach his goal and then, what he actually *does* to change the situation. wow! Destroying this uninhabited solar system has nothing on what he does here.

There's a gut-wrenching scene in which he watches the downfall of Atlantis and after that, I was totally with him on what he decided to do.

I especially love the final part of the story - it's cleverly written and it isn't immediatly noticeable what has changed, or if anything has changed at all but then, when the scenes continue and you realize step by step what has changed you'll feel your heart go lighter. Since the last part is told from Faith's POV at age 13 we only get to see the result of Rodney's efforts at this moment - not the whole process of change - but that's perfectly well done. Reading the final part I *felt* the changes and it made me very much happy to imagine what must have happened in the last 25 years to lead to this.

Read it, it's worth every minute of your time and despite the bleak situation at the beginning, it is a happy story.

And I have just discovered that there's a small companion story to it:

"That Time Harmony Should Probably Just Have Listened To Nolar (but it wouldn't have been as much fun)" http://archiveofourown.org/works/7469478

( snippet of fic )

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