There Are No Fish in My Pond, by Malograntum Vitiorum (38 Minutes Challenge)

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Title: There Are No Fish in My Pond
Summary: There are no fish in my pond, at all, where I fish.
Notes: Spoilers through "Siege Part 2." Crossover with SG-1's "Moebius," if you squint.


"In an infinite universe, anything can happen. Even survival. Strange but true."
- Ford Prefect, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams


Meeting yourself isn't something that's supposed to happen.

You know that from time to time, people have crossed from one reality to another and met their own doppelgangers, seen other possibilities for their own lives. But when two copies exist in a single universe, the intruder suffers the painful disruption, and eventually destruction, of her own existence unless she returns to her own reality.

That, at least, is how it's always happened before.

But you cheated--cheated death, cheated the laws of the universe. You lived ten thousand years, thirty-eight of them after another of you had been born, and you met yourself and learned from yourself, and then you died and still lived.

It's not supposed to work that way, and the universe knows it.

Your tethers to this particular world, this particular way that things happened, have slackened a little since then. It only comes through at the edges, just before sleep or just waking up, in the blinding pain of injury or the woozy artificial sleep of anaesthetic. You get hints of knowledge that disappear from your conscious mind before you know what to do with them.

You know that when you first looked out the window of this city, you saw a sea of brilliant fish and thick forests of kelp, strange deep-sea sting rays passing by the window showing you their white bellies. You know, too, that when you first looked out that window you saw a vast undersea landscape without a living thing in sight.

In your days, in meetings and negotiations and crises, you still know it, but you don't know that you know it. You stand on the balcony looking over the sea and a thousand of you stand on a thousand balconies on a thousand floating cities, and a thousand more stand at a thousand altars with a thousand Simons.

You greet the reinforcements from Earth and shut down the self-destruct, but you also evacuate and leave the self-destruct to run its course, making another life on another world, never knowing whether SG-1 even heard your message. There, you are dependent on those who know how to till fields and hunt, and the Athosians never forgive you for destroying the city of the Ancestors, and sometimes you survive, struggling for resources and independence, and finally, miraculously, finding a way home, and sometimes you don't.

By the time the Wraith have come and gone, the world has splintered a thousand more times, and a thousand more on each of those. You grieve and celebrate, flee, stay, live, die. Some of you turn the Genii into a powerful ally, and some of you make terrible mistakes that bring down the team you were meant to lead. And in your waking life you feel it each time that one of you is lost, though you don't know the feeling for what it is.

You know which one you are. Never any question about that, even if you do, once in a long while, wake up expecting to hear a baby's cry, or, in the few short half-awake eyeblinks as you come out of a dream, reach over to the other side of the bed and wonder why Teyla isn't there.

Each loss and each victory, every love lost and found, comes to you--all of you--and strengthens you, teaches you, gives you more of yourself. You see abundant life, and you see no fish at all, and you know that you're one of the lucky ones, and you feel a thousand voices telling you to live your life as best you can. Telling you that it's not your life alone to live.

You know which one you are. It just doesn't matter as much as it used to.

-end-

Comments

[davechicken.livejournal.com]

Oh, I really, really liked this. Very... thoughtful.

:) Thank you for sharing.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Thank you, very much.

[tafkarfanfic.livejournal.com]

WOW!

That feeds my love of AUs in a big way.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Glad to oblige. ;)

[malnpudl.livejournal.com]

Very cool.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Thank you kindly.

[tigs.livejournal.com]

That was exceedingly awesome. What a neat idea, and very well done.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much, I'm glad you liked it.

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

this is elegant, and written with a quiet tone that allows the characters to really shine through.

and this: you saw a sea of brilliant fish and thick forests of kelp, strange deep-sea sting rays passing by the window showing you their white bellies." is simply beautiful.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm so glad it worked for you.

(Can you tell I've spent a lot of time in aquariums? ;) )

[jenlev.livejournal.com]

those are lovely places to be. *g*

[kriski.livejournal.com]

this is very haunting in a beautiful and pleasant way. definitely meant for re-reading.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That's very nice to hear.

[neth-dugan.livejournal.com]

I mean..... wow. Can't really say to much else. The idea of Weir being aware, the entire widness of it all and yet it being so focused. All of it.... I'm in awe.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your lovely comments. I'm so glad you liked it.

[deifire]

This is wonderful.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Thank you kindly.

[fenris_wolf0]

Oh very interesting premise. Well-executed, too!

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Glad it worked for you.

[packmentality.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. Wow, wow, wow. Beautiful. And, you know, wow.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

*blushes* Thank you very much.

[doorrepairgirl.livejournal.com]

Mmm. Pretty & thinky. Also: kelp! yay!

Also also: Your tethers to this particular world, this particular way that things happened, have slackened a little since then. It only comes through at the edges, just before sleep or just waking up, in the blinding pain of injury or the woozy artificial sleep of anaesthetic.

I really like this, the bleed-through of other realities; sort of a kinder, gentler entropic cascade failure.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Kelp: It's what's for dinner.

[maraceles.livejournal.com]

Damn. I love this. And I think I love you, too. *g*

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Aw. ;) Thank you. And your icon delights me.

[cofax7]

THAT is wicked cool.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much!

[neonhummingbird.livejournal.com]

Yes, wicked cool is pretty much the only phrase that applies here. Beautiful, poetic, haunting -- wicked. Yeah.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

"Wicked"...I could get used to that. ;) Thank you very much. Also, love the icon.

[elvinborn.livejournal.com]

very cool. very well done. the word that comes to mind is Weird. Which sounds odd, but I mean it in a good way. This is very interesting and fascinating, and fun to read.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much for your comments. I think weird is a lovely compliment in this context.

Y'know, every time Weir identifies herself over the intercom it sounds to me like she's saying "This is weird."

[raucousraven.livejournal.com]

ROCK. IT. That's some lovely 2nd person narration there -- sharp, precise, not a word out of place. And the kelp! The thought of giant mantas sweeping through slow spiralling fronds winding about Atlantean windows is most pleasing.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you very much. I'm glad the narration worked--I was a little nervous about it.

(Mmm, kelp. ;) )

[indybrat.livejournal.com]

Wow. Sad yet beautiful at the same time.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Thank you kindly.

[4ensicbones.livejournal.com]

That was... wow. Tears-in-your-eyes wow. So amazing. And the 2nd person narration? ROCK ON!

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm so glad it worked for you.

[wildmachinery.livejournal.com]

Your tethers to this particular world, this particular way that things happened, have slackened a little since then.

Wow. Just wow.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much.

[astolat]

I really liked this one a lot -- you really capture that feeling of the blurring of the edges of reality, the implications of the infinite multiverses.

[malograntum.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much. I think the sleep deprivation helped with that part. ;)

[neierathima.livejournal.com]

Cool. A very interesting take on the whole confusion that comes with multiple copies of the same person. Or lack thereof in this case. Good perspective and good writing.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

This is seriously amazing. I adore Elizabeth and I think "Before I Sleep" might just be my favorite episode of SGA. I love what you've done here with her character.

[very-improbable.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. I'm so glad you liked it.