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sga_flashficTitle: Residual Heat
Author: Bluenight361
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Wordcount: ~4000
Summary: It would take months to work through what McKay left behind.
Warnings: character death, kind of-- something of a twist at the end.
The moment John tried to force the filing cabinet open, it immediately emitted an alarming and alarmingly varied series of squeals and noises, accompanied by an appropriately obnoxious lights and whistles; John could have sworn for a moment that it actually blew a raspberry at him.
“Huh.” Ronon peered over his shoulder. “Are these things supposed to do that?”
“No,” John said, staring at the filing cabinet balefully before smacking it on the side. “No, filing cabinets are supposed to be obedient, silent office furniture where you chuck stuff you never want to see again, not trying to do cheap imitations of R2 D2.”
“R2D2?”
“I believe it is a cultural reference, I have often heard the scientists refer to it in the context of some sort of Princess—” John ignored Teyla and Ronon; he had meant to do this alone anyways, but after it took three scientists to hack through the door even as it continued to spit sparks and more and more threatening recorded messages at them, Elizabeth had insisted he take Teyla and Ronon in with him.
He was about to whack it on the side one more time when suddenly the filing cabinet coughed.
“What, now you’re sick?”
“All right, all right, so it takes a little time for the tape to start rolling, give it a few moments before you start trying to blast this thing open—” came the familiar irritated voice.
“Rodney?” John said before he could help himself, felt his heart jump into his throat before he could swallow.
“And no, I am not physically or spiritually present, anybody on this expedition ought to be smart enough to understand the concept of a tape recording, unless you’re Kavanagh and in which case I swear I will make your life a living hell for coming into my quarters.” There was a slight pause. “In any case, if this message is playing, it means that somebody’s trying to access my filing cabinet, which probably means—” There was a slight hitch in Rodney’s voice. “means that I’m not there to open it. Which means that I’m probably talking to Elizabeth, Radek, or John.” The voice took on a different tone.
“Well, Elizabeth, Radek, or John, I’m sure that you’ve all underestimated my sheer survival skills in the face of incredible odds, which means that you’ve decided to write me off even considering my courage and resourcefulness—”
“We’ve been searching for you for more than three weeks, Rodney—” John gritted out, his throat unexpectedly closing up.
“So I installed this recording to tell you not to count me out of the picture just quite yet, as the one thing I’ve learned while here is that the Pegasus Galaxy is big on improbable escapes. Now, I’ve rigged this filing cabinet so that if anybody other than me tries to open it, the entire filing cabinet locks down. Three weeks from now, the first drawer will unlock and you may distribute the materials within according to the instructions you will find there. In another three weeks, the second drawer will unlock and so on and so forth. The final drawer contains my last will and testament, and you had better wait for it because—” here the voice took on an unmistakable note of begrudging reluctance. “because it reveals the location of my stash of good coffee. Yes, Zelenka, if you’re there you can tell all the scientists I was holding out on them.”
The recording fell silent for a few moments.
“Well, that’s it, I suppose. Please don’t cannibalize my room until you’ve read my will, there are some very specific instructions on who ought to get what.” Rodney swallowed audibly. “Colonel, if you’re listening to this, don’t—don’t give up on me quite yet, eh? You know, keep poking around, you never know where I might turn up.” John closed his eyes and let his head drop, wondering how much more of this he could listen to.
“Remember, three weeks. McKay out.”
John blew out a deep breath, only to feel a light touch on his shoulder. He looked up to see Teyla looking at him concernedly.
“Are you all right, colonel?” John swallowed, nodded.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He stepped back. “You heard the man. Three weeks.”
Initially, it didn’t seem that the first drawer held much of interest; a stack of scientific journals, a few papers. The only specific instruction Rodney had left concerning those was that the sole issue of Scientific American was to go to Kavanagh. He’d scrawled across the top in bright red marker, Perhaps you’ll be able to understand something more at your level.
John smiled, put the magazine aside. He came to the last file, frowned at the name scribbled across the top; cocked his head to one side, then went to the gym in search of Ronon.
“You know McKay left a file for you?” John yelled at Ronon, who was in the middle of sparring with three of the Marines.
“Yeah? Leave it on the bench.” Ronon said before knocking Darby cold.
John shrugged, put it there, and left.
He didn’t think anything about it for the next few days until one day he went into the mess hall during off hours to hear laughter from the kitchen. He peered in to see Ronon molding what looked like cookie dough. There was one or two botanists and a few Marines doing strange things to various other ingredients, mixing them in large bowls.
“Well, I see you’re enjoying yourself.” John said, walking up to look at the cookies being laid out on the tray. Ronon looked up, grinned. John almost shuddered.
“That file that McKay left me—you know what that was? It was a recipe that he’d worked out for these cookies I told him about on that waterfall planet.” Ronon shook his head. “It was when he ran out of power bars and made me tell him all about Satedan pastries, at the time I thought it was just because he was so hungry, but it turns out he’s actually been trying to develop recipes for them with what we’ve got in the kitchen.”
“He was pushing me to find out if we could develop some sort of jam from those blueberry-apricot fruits we found a month ago,” one of the botanists said. “Of course, if I’d known it was for cookies instead of his normal bitchiness, I would’ve gotten him the results earlier.” She licked her fingers. John looked around; the other botanist had just shoved a cookie into one of the Marine’s mouth and was playfully smearing jam all over his face.
“You know that McKay was probably planning on keeping the recipe to himself, just so he could gorge on those things,” John said. The botanist shrugged philosophically.
“Yeah, but we’re the ones eating them now, aren’t we?” John shifted uneasily.
“Ronon, we’re heading out to MX-3981 tomorrow at eight o’clock. Have your gear ready.” Ronon’s face briefly dropped back to a serious expression.
“Will do.” Then he totally ruined the effect by saying, “You should come back in twenty minutes when the next batch of cookies is done baking,” Ronon said. “They’re not exactly the same as the ones on Sateda, but they’re definitely not bad.” John smiled a trifle queasily.
“Thanks, yeah, I’ll think about it.” John said, and made an abrupt exit. He didn’t come back in twenty minutes.
The next day, they scanned or searched on foot the ground within a twenty-mile radius of the Stargate on MX-3981. They didn’t find anything.
After the next three weeks, the second drawer opened. There were a few administrative files that went directly Zelenka with directions for running the science department, but after all that there was a fairly hefty stack of papers tied together with a string with a label that simply read, For Teyla.
She was over at the mainland, so John took the puddlejumper over. She broke away from a discussion with some of the village elders.
“Is something amiss, Colonel?”
“No, nothing, it’s just that the second filing cabinet drawer opened today, and apparently Rodney left a few—well, more than a few—papers for you.” He said, handing her the stack of papers. Brow furrowed, she broke the string and flipped through a few of the pages; she then broke into a broad smile.
“What is it?”
“The last time Dr. McKay was here, one of the youth—Endron, you may have met him—expressed an interest to him to learn some of your math? Calculus, I believe? Dr. McKay gave him one of the textbooks you use at Earth, but evidently Endron wasn’t able to fully comprehend them because of differences in our mathematical systems. When Dr. McKay realized what the problem was, he promised to write some more lessons that would be more comprehensible for Endron, but I did not realize that he had already progressed so far.”
“Oh,” John said. “Well, that’s great.”
“In fact, it appears that he meant to compile these lessons into a textbook for any of my people who might be interested,” Teyla said, looking intently at some of Rodney’s notes in the margins. She looked up. “He says that in the event of his—his absence, that you ought to perhaps look over some of the lessons to ensure their quality.” She smiled. “He says that if you’re able to understand them, any of my people certainly would be able to as well.” She hesitated.
“He writes in smaller letters that your time is less valuable than Zelenka’s and any of the scientists except Kavanagh, and you are perhaps one of the few military men who is not utterly hopeless at mathematics.” John snorts before he can help himself.
“I believe that Dr. McKay meant it as a compliment,” She offered tentatively.
“Yeah, well the biggest compliment would be if he was around to teach his own damn lessons.” John said bitterly before turning around to head back to the jumper.
Two days later, they went on their fifth search mission to MX-3981. John ran into two bears and later a wolf, came away slightly mauled before Teyla and Ronon riddled the animals with bullets. Ronon found a kind of tangerine-strawberry fruit that he said would be great in one of the recipes McKay left him. John gritted out, “Great, Ronon, great—” before collapsing into the puddlejumper’s driver seat. Still no trace whatsoever.
The third filing cabinet drawer opened with more of a sigh than a bang, and when John peered inside he saw that all of it—every filing folder, every loose sheet of paper—was labeled with one name. These papers to go to Radek Zelenka—ONLY. Rodney had written, underlining the last word three times in that familiar red marker. John sighed, scratched his head, and began gathering up the papers.
He staggered into the lab a few minutes later, only just managing not to spill the entire pile onto the lab bench.
“Colonel, what is this?” Zelenka pushed his glasses up, began examining some of the notes.
“McKay left it for you, seems like he figured you’d know what to do with—” John stopped, cut off by a sharp exclamation in Czech. The rest of the scientists in the lab stopped as well, looking at Zelenka with raised eyebrows.
“What? Get back to work, snap snap chop chop!” Zelenka said, not looking up from the notes. The other scientists slowly moved back to work.
“So, you know what to do with this, right?” John tried again. Zelenka nodded.
“Oh, I know what to do with this all right—” Zelenka flipped another page, began cursing softly.
“Ooookay…” John backed away slowly.
Two weeks later when John went for nightly run, he heard a light, quiet tapping coming from the lab. He slowed, jogged back, and looked in to see Zelenka sitting by himself in the empty labs, surrounded entirely by whiteboards covered in math and diagrams.
“So, what is all this?” John squinted at the whiteboards.
“Relativistic Jet-plasma interactions, femtosecond concentrated positron lasers, submicron gap capacitors, all with some advanced tensor analysis thrown in there.” John could feel his eyes begin to glaze over, which Zelenka must have noticed.
“This work here, it is worth at least one, maybe two Nobel prizes.” Zelenka said quietly. John let out a low whistle. “It is also exactly what I have been working on,” Zelenka said. John turned around quickly.
“What, he stole—” Zelenka was already shaking his head.
“No, no, in the scientific field there is inevitability of, how you say, collision of interests? There are certain protocols here, between scientists, between what is and is not allowed. Difference between stealing and, shall we say, inspiration from fellow colleagues.” Zelenka shrugged. “McKay know how to, to walk very fine line here. He also writes—” Zelenka gestured at the original notes. “that since Nobel committee awards to three people, I would have gotten one anyways for doing prep work for him.” Zelenka hesitated, began tapping his pen rapidly again. “He writes that since now I am only one to receive award, I am morally, spiritually, legally, ecumenically required to dedicate my acceptance speech to him and mention his name at least thirty times during Nobel lecture.”
“What, he won’t get anything—”
“Nobel prize is not awarded posthumously.” Zelenka snorted. “McKay writes more than five pages on the injustice of this, says more but I do not wish to read.” Zelenka hesitated. “He left note for you too—says for me to give it to you after I have finished with all his notes.”
John took the note, unfolded it. It read, If Zelenka can manage to work through the few elementary obstacles that are left in completing this work, you may consider him the best of an appallingly bad bunch for my replacement on the team. He’ll have already established his legacy with this stuff, it doesn’t matter if he gets killed after completing it. Especially if he gets killed after it, that way the Nobel Prize committee can screw us both out of our rightful trip to Oslo instead of just me—
John folded the letter up again, took a deep breath.
“Dr. Zelenka, have any of the Marines taught you how to shoot a P-90?”
The third filing cabinet only had a single folder, and when John began flipping through it something that looked like a bracelet fell out. He picked it up gingerly; some sort of crudely cut blue-green gem glittered in the dim light. He looked down at the notes; they were to go to Zelenka and Beckett, the bracelet to Elizabeth.
But when John got down to the lab, Beckett made some indeterminate noise as he read skimmed through the notes.
“Colonel, please—” The doctor snapped on a pair of gloves. “Please give that bracelet to me, and don’t tell Elizabeth anything about this yet. Thank you,” Beckett turned away, already busy with the notes. John shrugged, left.
A few weeks later, John found himself next to the Ancient chair, feeling just as bemused as Elizabeth looked. Zelenka and Beckett were standing, looking as if they were about to jump out of their skins from sheer excitement.
“Dr. Weir, Dr. Weir, please—” Zelenka gestured Elizabeth over in front of the chair.
“Now, Colonel Sheppard, this is very experimental so we’ll need you to be ready to stand by in case Dr. Weir needs any help.”
“Hold on, hold on, what the hell’s going on?” John said. Zelenka held up the bracelet, looking a little different but the same blue-green gem sparkling gently, took Elizabeth’s wrist and deftly slipped the bracelet around it.
“Let’s try it first, you’ll see what it does soon enough. Doctor Weir, please—” He gestured for Elizabeth to sit down. John raised his eyebrows, a glimmer of comprehension. Elizabeth gingerly sat down in the chair, leaned back carefully. For a moment, nothing. Beckett looked down, and Zelenka pushed his glasses up again.
Then the chair lit up in its familiar deep blues and silvers, and eased back with a sigh as soft and easy as an ocean wave.
“Elizabeth,” Radek said, speaking slowly and softly as if to avoid breaking some sort of spell. “Think about where we are in the solar system.” And the stars began to pop up out of nothingness into the space above their heads.
“It was very ingenious, actually, McKay had some ideas to incorporate the ATA gene into the super-conducting crystals that we found in the lower wing, it’s a way to give the ATA gene to people that the gene therapy doesn’t work for—he says he meant it as a way to stop people from bothering him or Colonel Sheppard all the time. We’ll have to see how he made the first crystal, see if it’ll be easy to make duplicates—”
“Aye, of course eventually, but perhaps we first ought to see how—” Beckett cut in. John tuned out the rest of the discussion. He looked at Elizabeth, saw her face shining with a simple, undiluted wonder under the light of simulated stars. Knew it wasn’t really laziness that had motivated McKay in the end.
He went back to McKay’s quarters after Elizabeth had gotten out of the chair, safe and sound and walking on clouds. He’d taken to doing his paperwork in McKay’s quarters—nobody had touched them yet, as per McKay’s instructions, and it was quiet there, peaceful. It had a better view of the ocean, anyways, John told himself. He got back in, looked at the third drawer, open. He squinted, took a step closer; there was a thin black folder lying at the bottom, almost blending in with the metal of the drawer. He fished it out, opened it to see what was inside.
There were pictures of him. Shirtless, water rolling down his back, dogtags dripping water. John took them out, took a closer look; they must have been taken over half a year ago—one of the marines had figured out how to rig a hose to one of the water mains and everybody had gone out in swimming suits to enjoy the weather, even Elizabeth. John had only found out about the so-called beach day had been declared when Lorne’s squadron had ambushed him and dragged him out to the long dock, in the process making him shed his vest and shredding his shirt.
He’d seen McKay skulking around, of course, but he hadn’t realized that he’d had a camera.
John flipped through the rest of the pictures—they were all relatively harmless, nothing showing any skin below the belt, nothing except for the fact that they had been squirreled away in a locked filing cabinet in a dark folder.
A note fluttered out. John picked up the note.
You had to know sooner or later. Sorry if I freaked you out.
John sat down heavily, let his suddenly aching head drop into his hands.
The next day, John’s team went back to MX-3981 and swept more than one hundred square miles. Nothing there.
The last filing cabinet opened without fanfare, right on schedule. This time the file was addressed to him; John opened the file, and the first page was a diagram with a familiar profile.
I know you’ve been worried about the way we go through puddlejumpers the way that you go through half-assed poorly thought tactical plans—although on second thought, those two are probably related—but in any case, I drew up some plans for possibly manufacturing more puddlejumpers using the stuff that we’ve found around Atlantis already and the stuff we’ve brought. There’s a few things that you’re going to have to look for offworld, but some of the stuff that the Drasken had on that other mission have potential. I made a list of things that you ought to keep an eye out for, and I’ve coerced Zelenka into building you one—you have no idea what kind of sacrifice that called for, really, but in any case there ought to be some way to figure this out so we’re not out of puddlejumpers within five years.
The will was the next page; cutting through all the official jargon, there was really only one item of any interest.
I bequeath my entire stash of good coffee hidden in the secret compartment under the third tile from the corner in lab 31 to Radek Zelenka on the condition that he work with Colonel John Sheppard to build as many puddlejumpers as possible. Otherwise, I order that the coffee be burned to ashes so that I may smell the sweet fumes of the roast on whatever plane or dimension I may be in, currently.
The rest of my junk can go to whoever cares enough to pick it up; if any of it’s really junky or self-destructive, I give it to Kavanagh, with compliments.
John shook his head, flipped to the next page.
Colonel—Sheppard—about the pictures, if you’ve found them, anyways. I do truly hope you’re not completely freaked out about the whole thing, it’s just a harmless sort of crush, um, thing. Definitely not an obsession or anything, don’t be so flattered.
Then, in smaller script; If it’s any comfort, I’ve always valued and admired you far more as a person and as a leader than for your physical attributes.
John looked at the words for a long moment, then folded up the letter and placed it in his vest pocket. He went to tell Zelenka where the coffee was, and left the notes and diagrams for the puddlejumpers with him. He then went to Elizabeth, told her she’d been named executor to Rodney’s will but that he’d already taken care of most of it, went down to see Beckett about finally issuing a certificate of death, and then went for a run that circled the city about seven and a half times. Then he collapsed into bed, and didn’t come out until seventy-two hours later.
By the time he went back to Rodney’s room, almost all of it had been cleared out except for the dresser, the filing cabinet, and picture of Rodney holding some sort of diploma hanging on the wall. Zelenka had taped a note to the dresser—Colonel, I gave Kavanagh Rodney’s stinkiest socks. I hope you did not have any special attachment to them. If you wish it—the picture of Rodney that is on the wall is yours. John glanced up, took a closer look at the picture. It wasn’t a good shot of him; he looked flat and bored, even his obnoxiousness not translating well across the lens. Nothing of the animation, the snappiness. John blinked suddenly, swallowed past a tight throat. It was so stupid, just so unbelievably stupid—just a complete and utter waste. He turned around and kicked the filing cabinet, blindly, dumbly.
The kick made a hollow, echoing noise, but then the filing cabinet gave a familiar hiccup, and the tape started rolling again.
“All right, all right, if you’re tearing apart my apartment with such violence then maybe I’d better tell you about—about a certain last resort, just so as you don’t actually take it out on the furniture. There’s—” McKay paused. “I’ve been tinkering with a way to duplicate Atlantis’ internal sensors so that we might be able to take it off world, and also a way to key it into specific life signs. I’ve—I’ve already tuned the prototype to my life sign, you can tell Zelenka that the prototype is in lab 42, but it takes an enormous amount of energy to fuel the prototype, it’ll burn through an entire naquadah generator, possibly. If there really is no chance—at all—that I might have survived, then—” he gulped. “don’t bother, but you ought to be able to adapt it by tak—” John couldn’t listen anymore, but took off at a dead run down the hallways, slapped his radio.
“Radek, Radek! I need you down at lab 42 immediately. Beckett, you might as well come too, hell, Elizabeth get down there before I beat you to it.” He kept running, the doors and hallways of Atlantis smearing into a blue and silver blur past the corners of his eyes.
“Rodney,” he muttered under his breath. “Rodney, I’m coming for you.”
ETA: the sequel, Heat Source
Author: Bluenight361
Pairing: McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Wordcount: ~4000
Summary: It would take months to work through what McKay left behind.
Warnings: character death, kind of-- something of a twist at the end.
The moment John tried to force the filing cabinet open, it immediately emitted an alarming and alarmingly varied series of squeals and noises, accompanied by an appropriately obnoxious lights and whistles; John could have sworn for a moment that it actually blew a raspberry at him.
“Huh.” Ronon peered over his shoulder. “Are these things supposed to do that?”
“No,” John said, staring at the filing cabinet balefully before smacking it on the side. “No, filing cabinets are supposed to be obedient, silent office furniture where you chuck stuff you never want to see again, not trying to do cheap imitations of R2 D2.”
“R2D2?”
“I believe it is a cultural reference, I have often heard the scientists refer to it in the context of some sort of Princess—” John ignored Teyla and Ronon; he had meant to do this alone anyways, but after it took three scientists to hack through the door even as it continued to spit sparks and more and more threatening recorded messages at them, Elizabeth had insisted he take Teyla and Ronon in with him.
He was about to whack it on the side one more time when suddenly the filing cabinet coughed.
“What, now you’re sick?”
“All right, all right, so it takes a little time for the tape to start rolling, give it a few moments before you start trying to blast this thing open—” came the familiar irritated voice.
“Rodney?” John said before he could help himself, felt his heart jump into his throat before he could swallow.
“And no, I am not physically or spiritually present, anybody on this expedition ought to be smart enough to understand the concept of a tape recording, unless you’re Kavanagh and in which case I swear I will make your life a living hell for coming into my quarters.” There was a slight pause. “In any case, if this message is playing, it means that somebody’s trying to access my filing cabinet, which probably means—” There was a slight hitch in Rodney’s voice. “means that I’m not there to open it. Which means that I’m probably talking to Elizabeth, Radek, or John.” The voice took on a different tone.
“Well, Elizabeth, Radek, or John, I’m sure that you’ve all underestimated my sheer survival skills in the face of incredible odds, which means that you’ve decided to write me off even considering my courage and resourcefulness—”
“We’ve been searching for you for more than three weeks, Rodney—” John gritted out, his throat unexpectedly closing up.
“So I installed this recording to tell you not to count me out of the picture just quite yet, as the one thing I’ve learned while here is that the Pegasus Galaxy is big on improbable escapes. Now, I’ve rigged this filing cabinet so that if anybody other than me tries to open it, the entire filing cabinet locks down. Three weeks from now, the first drawer will unlock and you may distribute the materials within according to the instructions you will find there. In another three weeks, the second drawer will unlock and so on and so forth. The final drawer contains my last will and testament, and you had better wait for it because—” here the voice took on an unmistakable note of begrudging reluctance. “because it reveals the location of my stash of good coffee. Yes, Zelenka, if you’re there you can tell all the scientists I was holding out on them.”
The recording fell silent for a few moments.
“Well, that’s it, I suppose. Please don’t cannibalize my room until you’ve read my will, there are some very specific instructions on who ought to get what.” Rodney swallowed audibly. “Colonel, if you’re listening to this, don’t—don’t give up on me quite yet, eh? You know, keep poking around, you never know where I might turn up.” John closed his eyes and let his head drop, wondering how much more of this he could listen to.
“Remember, three weeks. McKay out.”
John blew out a deep breath, only to feel a light touch on his shoulder. He looked up to see Teyla looking at him concernedly.
“Are you all right, colonel?” John swallowed, nodded.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He stepped back. “You heard the man. Three weeks.”
Initially, it didn’t seem that the first drawer held much of interest; a stack of scientific journals, a few papers. The only specific instruction Rodney had left concerning those was that the sole issue of Scientific American was to go to Kavanagh. He’d scrawled across the top in bright red marker, Perhaps you’ll be able to understand something more at your level.
John smiled, put the magazine aside. He came to the last file, frowned at the name scribbled across the top; cocked his head to one side, then went to the gym in search of Ronon.
“You know McKay left a file for you?” John yelled at Ronon, who was in the middle of sparring with three of the Marines.
“Yeah? Leave it on the bench.” Ronon said before knocking Darby cold.
John shrugged, put it there, and left.
He didn’t think anything about it for the next few days until one day he went into the mess hall during off hours to hear laughter from the kitchen. He peered in to see Ronon molding what looked like cookie dough. There was one or two botanists and a few Marines doing strange things to various other ingredients, mixing them in large bowls.
“Well, I see you’re enjoying yourself.” John said, walking up to look at the cookies being laid out on the tray. Ronon looked up, grinned. John almost shuddered.
“That file that McKay left me—you know what that was? It was a recipe that he’d worked out for these cookies I told him about on that waterfall planet.” Ronon shook his head. “It was when he ran out of power bars and made me tell him all about Satedan pastries, at the time I thought it was just because he was so hungry, but it turns out he’s actually been trying to develop recipes for them with what we’ve got in the kitchen.”
“He was pushing me to find out if we could develop some sort of jam from those blueberry-apricot fruits we found a month ago,” one of the botanists said. “Of course, if I’d known it was for cookies instead of his normal bitchiness, I would’ve gotten him the results earlier.” She licked her fingers. John looked around; the other botanist had just shoved a cookie into one of the Marine’s mouth and was playfully smearing jam all over his face.
“You know that McKay was probably planning on keeping the recipe to himself, just so he could gorge on those things,” John said. The botanist shrugged philosophically.
“Yeah, but we’re the ones eating them now, aren’t we?” John shifted uneasily.
“Ronon, we’re heading out to MX-3981 tomorrow at eight o’clock. Have your gear ready.” Ronon’s face briefly dropped back to a serious expression.
“Will do.” Then he totally ruined the effect by saying, “You should come back in twenty minutes when the next batch of cookies is done baking,” Ronon said. “They’re not exactly the same as the ones on Sateda, but they’re definitely not bad.” John smiled a trifle queasily.
“Thanks, yeah, I’ll think about it.” John said, and made an abrupt exit. He didn’t come back in twenty minutes.
The next day, they scanned or searched on foot the ground within a twenty-mile radius of the Stargate on MX-3981. They didn’t find anything.
After the next three weeks, the second drawer opened. There were a few administrative files that went directly Zelenka with directions for running the science department, but after all that there was a fairly hefty stack of papers tied together with a string with a label that simply read, For Teyla.
She was over at the mainland, so John took the puddlejumper over. She broke away from a discussion with some of the village elders.
“Is something amiss, Colonel?”
“No, nothing, it’s just that the second filing cabinet drawer opened today, and apparently Rodney left a few—well, more than a few—papers for you.” He said, handing her the stack of papers. Brow furrowed, she broke the string and flipped through a few of the pages; she then broke into a broad smile.
“What is it?”
“The last time Dr. McKay was here, one of the youth—Endron, you may have met him—expressed an interest to him to learn some of your math? Calculus, I believe? Dr. McKay gave him one of the textbooks you use at Earth, but evidently Endron wasn’t able to fully comprehend them because of differences in our mathematical systems. When Dr. McKay realized what the problem was, he promised to write some more lessons that would be more comprehensible for Endron, but I did not realize that he had already progressed so far.”
“Oh,” John said. “Well, that’s great.”
“In fact, it appears that he meant to compile these lessons into a textbook for any of my people who might be interested,” Teyla said, looking intently at some of Rodney’s notes in the margins. She looked up. “He says that in the event of his—his absence, that you ought to perhaps look over some of the lessons to ensure their quality.” She smiled. “He says that if you’re able to understand them, any of my people certainly would be able to as well.” She hesitated.
“He writes in smaller letters that your time is less valuable than Zelenka’s and any of the scientists except Kavanagh, and you are perhaps one of the few military men who is not utterly hopeless at mathematics.” John snorts before he can help himself.
“I believe that Dr. McKay meant it as a compliment,” She offered tentatively.
“Yeah, well the biggest compliment would be if he was around to teach his own damn lessons.” John said bitterly before turning around to head back to the jumper.
Two days later, they went on their fifth search mission to MX-3981. John ran into two bears and later a wolf, came away slightly mauled before Teyla and Ronon riddled the animals with bullets. Ronon found a kind of tangerine-strawberry fruit that he said would be great in one of the recipes McKay left him. John gritted out, “Great, Ronon, great—” before collapsing into the puddlejumper’s driver seat. Still no trace whatsoever.
The third filing cabinet drawer opened with more of a sigh than a bang, and when John peered inside he saw that all of it—every filing folder, every loose sheet of paper—was labeled with one name. These papers to go to Radek Zelenka—ONLY. Rodney had written, underlining the last word three times in that familiar red marker. John sighed, scratched his head, and began gathering up the papers.
He staggered into the lab a few minutes later, only just managing not to spill the entire pile onto the lab bench.
“Colonel, what is this?” Zelenka pushed his glasses up, began examining some of the notes.
“McKay left it for you, seems like he figured you’d know what to do with—” John stopped, cut off by a sharp exclamation in Czech. The rest of the scientists in the lab stopped as well, looking at Zelenka with raised eyebrows.
“What? Get back to work, snap snap chop chop!” Zelenka said, not looking up from the notes. The other scientists slowly moved back to work.
“So, you know what to do with this, right?” John tried again. Zelenka nodded.
“Oh, I know what to do with this all right—” Zelenka flipped another page, began cursing softly.
“Ooookay…” John backed away slowly.
Two weeks later when John went for nightly run, he heard a light, quiet tapping coming from the lab. He slowed, jogged back, and looked in to see Zelenka sitting by himself in the empty labs, surrounded entirely by whiteboards covered in math and diagrams.
“So, what is all this?” John squinted at the whiteboards.
“Relativistic Jet-plasma interactions, femtosecond concentrated positron lasers, submicron gap capacitors, all with some advanced tensor analysis thrown in there.” John could feel his eyes begin to glaze over, which Zelenka must have noticed.
“This work here, it is worth at least one, maybe two Nobel prizes.” Zelenka said quietly. John let out a low whistle. “It is also exactly what I have been working on,” Zelenka said. John turned around quickly.
“What, he stole—” Zelenka was already shaking his head.
“No, no, in the scientific field there is inevitability of, how you say, collision of interests? There are certain protocols here, between scientists, between what is and is not allowed. Difference between stealing and, shall we say, inspiration from fellow colleagues.” Zelenka shrugged. “McKay know how to, to walk very fine line here. He also writes—” Zelenka gestured at the original notes. “that since Nobel committee awards to three people, I would have gotten one anyways for doing prep work for him.” Zelenka hesitated, began tapping his pen rapidly again. “He writes that since now I am only one to receive award, I am morally, spiritually, legally, ecumenically required to dedicate my acceptance speech to him and mention his name at least thirty times during Nobel lecture.”
“What, he won’t get anything—”
“Nobel prize is not awarded posthumously.” Zelenka snorted. “McKay writes more than five pages on the injustice of this, says more but I do not wish to read.” Zelenka hesitated. “He left note for you too—says for me to give it to you after I have finished with all his notes.”
John took the note, unfolded it. It read, If Zelenka can manage to work through the few elementary obstacles that are left in completing this work, you may consider him the best of an appallingly bad bunch for my replacement on the team. He’ll have already established his legacy with this stuff, it doesn’t matter if he gets killed after completing it. Especially if he gets killed after it, that way the Nobel Prize committee can screw us both out of our rightful trip to Oslo instead of just me—
John folded the letter up again, took a deep breath.
“Dr. Zelenka, have any of the Marines taught you how to shoot a P-90?”
The third filing cabinet only had a single folder, and when John began flipping through it something that looked like a bracelet fell out. He picked it up gingerly; some sort of crudely cut blue-green gem glittered in the dim light. He looked down at the notes; they were to go to Zelenka and Beckett, the bracelet to Elizabeth.
But when John got down to the lab, Beckett made some indeterminate noise as he read skimmed through the notes.
“Colonel, please—” The doctor snapped on a pair of gloves. “Please give that bracelet to me, and don’t tell Elizabeth anything about this yet. Thank you,” Beckett turned away, already busy with the notes. John shrugged, left.
A few weeks later, John found himself next to the Ancient chair, feeling just as bemused as Elizabeth looked. Zelenka and Beckett were standing, looking as if they were about to jump out of their skins from sheer excitement.
“Dr. Weir, Dr. Weir, please—” Zelenka gestured Elizabeth over in front of the chair.
“Now, Colonel Sheppard, this is very experimental so we’ll need you to be ready to stand by in case Dr. Weir needs any help.”
“Hold on, hold on, what the hell’s going on?” John said. Zelenka held up the bracelet, looking a little different but the same blue-green gem sparkling gently, took Elizabeth’s wrist and deftly slipped the bracelet around it.
“Let’s try it first, you’ll see what it does soon enough. Doctor Weir, please—” He gestured for Elizabeth to sit down. John raised his eyebrows, a glimmer of comprehension. Elizabeth gingerly sat down in the chair, leaned back carefully. For a moment, nothing. Beckett looked down, and Zelenka pushed his glasses up again.
Then the chair lit up in its familiar deep blues and silvers, and eased back with a sigh as soft and easy as an ocean wave.
“Elizabeth,” Radek said, speaking slowly and softly as if to avoid breaking some sort of spell. “Think about where we are in the solar system.” And the stars began to pop up out of nothingness into the space above their heads.
“It was very ingenious, actually, McKay had some ideas to incorporate the ATA gene into the super-conducting crystals that we found in the lower wing, it’s a way to give the ATA gene to people that the gene therapy doesn’t work for—he says he meant it as a way to stop people from bothering him or Colonel Sheppard all the time. We’ll have to see how he made the first crystal, see if it’ll be easy to make duplicates—”
“Aye, of course eventually, but perhaps we first ought to see how—” Beckett cut in. John tuned out the rest of the discussion. He looked at Elizabeth, saw her face shining with a simple, undiluted wonder under the light of simulated stars. Knew it wasn’t really laziness that had motivated McKay in the end.
He went back to McKay’s quarters after Elizabeth had gotten out of the chair, safe and sound and walking on clouds. He’d taken to doing his paperwork in McKay’s quarters—nobody had touched them yet, as per McKay’s instructions, and it was quiet there, peaceful. It had a better view of the ocean, anyways, John told himself. He got back in, looked at the third drawer, open. He squinted, took a step closer; there was a thin black folder lying at the bottom, almost blending in with the metal of the drawer. He fished it out, opened it to see what was inside.
There were pictures of him. Shirtless, water rolling down his back, dogtags dripping water. John took them out, took a closer look; they must have been taken over half a year ago—one of the marines had figured out how to rig a hose to one of the water mains and everybody had gone out in swimming suits to enjoy the weather, even Elizabeth. John had only found out about the so-called beach day had been declared when Lorne’s squadron had ambushed him and dragged him out to the long dock, in the process making him shed his vest and shredding his shirt.
He’d seen McKay skulking around, of course, but he hadn’t realized that he’d had a camera.
John flipped through the rest of the pictures—they were all relatively harmless, nothing showing any skin below the belt, nothing except for the fact that they had been squirreled away in a locked filing cabinet in a dark folder.
A note fluttered out. John picked up the note.
You had to know sooner or later. Sorry if I freaked you out.
John sat down heavily, let his suddenly aching head drop into his hands.
The next day, John’s team went back to MX-3981 and swept more than one hundred square miles. Nothing there.
The last filing cabinet opened without fanfare, right on schedule. This time the file was addressed to him; John opened the file, and the first page was a diagram with a familiar profile.
I know you’ve been worried about the way we go through puddlejumpers the way that you go through half-assed poorly thought tactical plans—although on second thought, those two are probably related—but in any case, I drew up some plans for possibly manufacturing more puddlejumpers using the stuff that we’ve found around Atlantis already and the stuff we’ve brought. There’s a few things that you’re going to have to look for offworld, but some of the stuff that the Drasken had on that other mission have potential. I made a list of things that you ought to keep an eye out for, and I’ve coerced Zelenka into building you one—you have no idea what kind of sacrifice that called for, really, but in any case there ought to be some way to figure this out so we’re not out of puddlejumpers within five years.
The will was the next page; cutting through all the official jargon, there was really only one item of any interest.
I bequeath my entire stash of good coffee hidden in the secret compartment under the third tile from the corner in lab 31 to Radek Zelenka on the condition that he work with Colonel John Sheppard to build as many puddlejumpers as possible. Otherwise, I order that the coffee be burned to ashes so that I may smell the sweet fumes of the roast on whatever plane or dimension I may be in, currently.
The rest of my junk can go to whoever cares enough to pick it up; if any of it’s really junky or self-destructive, I give it to Kavanagh, with compliments.
John shook his head, flipped to the next page.
Colonel—Sheppard—about the pictures, if you’ve found them, anyways. I do truly hope you’re not completely freaked out about the whole thing, it’s just a harmless sort of crush, um, thing. Definitely not an obsession or anything, don’t be so flattered.
Then, in smaller script; If it’s any comfort, I’ve always valued and admired you far more as a person and as a leader than for your physical attributes.
John looked at the words for a long moment, then folded up the letter and placed it in his vest pocket. He went to tell Zelenka where the coffee was, and left the notes and diagrams for the puddlejumpers with him. He then went to Elizabeth, told her she’d been named executor to Rodney’s will but that he’d already taken care of most of it, went down to see Beckett about finally issuing a certificate of death, and then went for a run that circled the city about seven and a half times. Then he collapsed into bed, and didn’t come out until seventy-two hours later.
By the time he went back to Rodney’s room, almost all of it had been cleared out except for the dresser, the filing cabinet, and picture of Rodney holding some sort of diploma hanging on the wall. Zelenka had taped a note to the dresser—Colonel, I gave Kavanagh Rodney’s stinkiest socks. I hope you did not have any special attachment to them. If you wish it—the picture of Rodney that is on the wall is yours. John glanced up, took a closer look at the picture. It wasn’t a good shot of him; he looked flat and bored, even his obnoxiousness not translating well across the lens. Nothing of the animation, the snappiness. John blinked suddenly, swallowed past a tight throat. It was so stupid, just so unbelievably stupid—just a complete and utter waste. He turned around and kicked the filing cabinet, blindly, dumbly.
The kick made a hollow, echoing noise, but then the filing cabinet gave a familiar hiccup, and the tape started rolling again.
“All right, all right, if you’re tearing apart my apartment with such violence then maybe I’d better tell you about—about a certain last resort, just so as you don’t actually take it out on the furniture. There’s—” McKay paused. “I’ve been tinkering with a way to duplicate Atlantis’ internal sensors so that we might be able to take it off world, and also a way to key it into specific life signs. I’ve—I’ve already tuned the prototype to my life sign, you can tell Zelenka that the prototype is in lab 42, but it takes an enormous amount of energy to fuel the prototype, it’ll burn through an entire naquadah generator, possibly. If there really is no chance—at all—that I might have survived, then—” he gulped. “don’t bother, but you ought to be able to adapt it by tak—” John couldn’t listen anymore, but took off at a dead run down the hallways, slapped his radio.
“Radek, Radek! I need you down at lab 42 immediately. Beckett, you might as well come too, hell, Elizabeth get down there before I beat you to it.” He kept running, the doors and hallways of Atlantis smearing into a blue and silver blur past the corners of his eyes.
“Rodney,” he muttered under his breath. “Rodney, I’m coming for you.”
ETA: the sequel, Heat Source
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-26 09:44 pm (UTC)I love the way Rodney thought about them all in his will and the way all his actions had excuses so it didn't look like he was actually being *shudder* kind. That's very, very Rodney :)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-26 10:09 pm (UTC)Am going to have to re-read this again before I can form any sensible thoughts... but I totally love this.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 01:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-26 10:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 01:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-26 10:23 pm (UTC)I like the way Rodney thought about each of his team and his friends, and that John never gave up. You really should write the reunion, you know.
This was awesome.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 01:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-26 10:29 pm (UTC):)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-26 11:20 pm (UTC)Heh heh heh...
residual heat
Date: 2006-03-27 05:23 am (UTC)Thought the story was great fun, though. Actually, ended up reading the sequel first, but I quickly realized I'd missed something. A lot. *g* Oh well, then I just had to read it all again in the correct order.
Re: residual heat
Date: 2006-03-28 01:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-26 10:54 pm (UTC)I loved this....bless.....poor John!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-26 11:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 01:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-26 11:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-26 11:46 pm (UTC)::COUGH:: Sorry...
I loved this - this is exactly the kind of thing Rodney would do and it was as lovely and complex as he is.
BUT WHERE IT ENDED...oh god...I so want to know what happened next.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 01:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-27 12:31 am (UTC)I really like the ending as well actually. It felt resolved to me. *even as I clench my poor bleeding heart*
I'm confused about the number of drawers as well...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 01:19 am (UTC)Anyways, thanks again for reading and commenting!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-27 12:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-27 12:54 am (UTC)And the story was a great read but now i want to see what happens next *pout*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-27 02:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 01:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 01:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-27 02:15 am (UTC)Sweet! Very sweet!
But...but...but...sequel!? Please?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 01:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-27 02:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 01:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 01:15 am (UTC)feedback
Date: 2006-03-27 02:25 am (UTC)Re: feedback
Date: 2006-03-28 01:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-27 02:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 01:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-27 12:57 pm (UTC)The confusion over the filing cabinet drawers is Zelenka got everything in there, but there was suddenly a third drawer with the folder with Elizabeth's bracelet.
These inconsistencies are minor quibbles, though, the story is great! I love John's growing frustration, the fact that he hung out in McKay's room, and his dead run when the last tape tells him how to find Rodney.
I'm betting Rodney's getting his karmic fate, because he's stuck in a buffer in an Ancient transporter...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 01:10 am (UTC)Anyways, thanks for pointing out the inconsistencies, I'll try to take care of them when I get my next block of spare time... so, say, 2018? :D And yes, I think that canon McKay prob. would put the sensor stuff in the first drawer (or better yet-- have it somehow pop up on Zelenka's laptop the moment Rodney went missing!_ if he really already did have a working prototype, but I can also see a slightly woobified McKay maybe putting it further away if he'd been working on it as a side project that didn't have a great chance at working, or if it really would eat up a lot of resources to even use it, or something. Um, yeah, that rambled, but anyways if writers couldn't contrive devices to make characters miserable, then where would we be, honestly? *blinks innocently*
In any case, thank you so much for reading and commenting, and I'm glad you enjoyed!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-28 01:45 am (UTC)Indeed, where would we be?
I also meant to tell you the explanation of Rodney's working on Zelenka's problems was rather nifty!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-24 03:41 am (UTC)Wonderfully done.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-10 02:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-16 04:29 pm (UTC)I've read this story many times, and loved it each time.
Date: 2006-11-25 06:24 pm (UTC)Oh, and may I point out that, unless he's getting the Nobel Peace Prize, Zelenka would be going to Stockholm to get his Nobel Prize in Physics? Only the former is handed out by the Norwegians in Oslo, while the rest of them, in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Literature (the Economic one was established not by Alfred Nobel, but in memory of him by the Swedish National Bank) are awarded in the capital of Sweden. This is because Norway and Sweden were in a union at the time Alfred Nobel died.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-07-14 05:44 am (UTC)Rodney is love. (g) Even from beyond "the grave".
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-02 02:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-31 04:44 am (UTC)*Smwomp* I love this work of genius from start to finish and I thank you for sharing it with all of us.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-04-30 05:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-30 08:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-26 06:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-29 02:33 am (UTC)Ohh, this is so very Rodney! I love that he leaves knowledge and inventions behind as his legacy. And the filing cabinet! :) He so would!
*Skips off to read the sequel!*
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-08 05:08 pm (UTC)