sga_flashfic | The Ghost of You and Me, 1/2, by Audrey Lynne (Supernatural Challenge) (Reply)

Title: The Ghost of You and Me
Author: Audrey Lynne
Rating: R, for frequent and shameless use of the f-word in applicable situations
Pairing: Rodney McKay/Radek Zelenka
Warnings: Deathfic...except not really. You'll see what I mean.
Spoilers: Through "Tao of Rodney," nothing after that
Summary: We all accept loss differently, and Rodney likes to refuse to accept it at all. It's a good thing he started believing in ghosts after coming to Atlantis.
Notes: I apologize for splitting it into two parts, but it wouldn't fit as one and I lack a proper website to post it. This popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone 'til it was written.

The Ghost of You and Me

By Audrey Lynne

So what's it going to take for you to realize

It all could go away in one blink of an eye
It happens all the time....

"If I Were You," Hoobastank

Despite his position as lord and ruler of the science department--okay, so maybe only he called himself that--Rodney McKay did actually care about the people in his ranks. Most of them, anyway. The ones that did show a shred of intelligence from time-to-time, who weren't hung up on themselves with no reputation to back it up, them he cared about. Rodney even liked some of them. The rest, he tolerated, but it wasn't as if he ever wanted anything bad to happen to them. Okay, except Gibson in chemistry, who was bound to blow them all up if left unsupervised--and maybe Eckert, because she was just plain annoying. It wasn't that he wished them ill; he just wouldn't waste too much time feeling bad about it if something did happen, particularly if it was related to the fact that neither of them had two brain cells to rub together. Rodney only hoped they wouldn't take anyone else down with them.

Isaac Abrams, Brendan Gall. Karl Wagner, Anna Johnson, Claire Dumais. Peter Grodin. Mark Collins...all those names would be forever etched into Rodney's memory, along with too many others. Good people, brilliant people, who had died doing something really incredible. Some of them had died more pointlessly than others, but all had given their lives in service of Atlantis, and that wasn't so bad a way to go, all things considered. Given the choice, Rodney would have had them back in a heartbeat--a hero's death meant little when you were dead--but at least the survivors had the comfort of knowing their colleagues had died for a cause.

Many people had rituals they performed for the dead, whether religious, cultural, or purely personal. It was a step in the grieving process, Dr. Heightmeyer said, and it helped those left behind make some sense of the loss. Rodney had his own ritual, one he went through in private every time someone in his department paid the ultimate price in pursuit of knowledge. Sometimes, others outside that special circle earned it--like Captain Griffin. Tom, his name had been Tom, appropriate given his affection for tomatoes. There was a lot more to the man than that, Rodney knew, but he had to work with the information he had available. That was part of the ritual. Rodney wrote their name down on a scrap of paper, a hot commodity in Atlantis but that only made it all the more fit for the occasion. He scribbled down something he knew about them on the back, something other than the blindingly obvious, like what country they were from or what they looked like. Then he put the scrap with the others in a small wooden box he kept carefully hidden in his bottom dresser drawer.

The tradition had begun with Abrams and Gall, but Rodney had gone back and done a few retroactively, scientists they had lost along the way. Rodney's hand had been shaking when he had added Peter's name to the collection, one that had grown at a disturbing rate. He had never added Aiden Ford to the box, because there was still hope Ford was alive out there, somewhere. As long as there was hope, Rodney wouldn't do it.

No one knew about Rodney's box. Not anymore. There had been one person, one person in the entire universe Rodney had trusted enough to reveal that secret to--but now Rodney was staring at a blank scrap of paper before him, willing himself to find the courage to write that name down too.

He never saw it coming. But that was the nature of the beast, wasn't it? Exploration. Fun, thrilling, dangerous as hell when it came right down to it. Rodney had never expected this, never thought Elizabeth would pull him aside moments after he and his team returned from a mission and quietly tell him they needed to talk. She'd done it before, of course, but never in that tone, the one that meant Very Bad Things had happened. Not with that level of sympathy in her eyes...and especially not as she wiped away a tear she probably hoped Rodney hadn't seen.

The Ancients had been pretty fucked up, all in all. It seemed the ascension machine Rodney had run afoul of had only been one in a long line of failed attempts to either hurry along the process or give hand up to the wannabes. While Rodney had been sitting in trade negotiations on yet another BFE planet, assuring everyone and their mother that, yes, antibiotics were a fair trade for grain, even if you couldn't exactly eat them, Radek Zelenka and his engineering team had been investigating the basements of Atlantis. They'd found a device, they'd figured out how to turn it on--it was sort of what they did.

Radek, being fairly intelligent, had decided to leave the damned thing well enough alone once the linguist they brought along had translated enough to realize the device was another attempt to rush the ascension process. Ancient devices being what they were, though, it apparently took Radek's "Let's go" and the fact that he still had one hand on the panel to be an instruction to activate. Dammit, why did the thing understand English? Why couldn't Radek have been muttering to himself in Czech? He did it often enough...or he had. The machine had flared to life and witnesses had claimed it looked as if Radek had been frozen in place, either hypnotized by the designs that flashed across the screen or held in place by its energy. It lasted all of fifteen seconds, but that was enough. Radek had collapsed as soon as the glow faded, not breathing, no pulse. Carson had tried to revive him, and if it had been anyone else, Rodney would never have bought that tired, "We did everything possible." For Radek, there had to be something more. But this was Carson. Reports from the infirmary claimed that Dr. Biro had gently stepped in after twenty minutes of fruitless CPR, several rounds of drugs, and no shockable rhythm, telling Carson, "Let him go; he's gone."

Yes, Radek was gone, and that was the problem, wasn't it? Another brilliant mind taken from them just because the Ancients had been too fucking full of themselves to get rid of the junk that didn't work. Even if there were parts worth salvaging, couldn't they have at least put up a warning sign?

It had been three days since Radek's death, two since Elizabeth had broken the news to Rodney in her office, and it had taken that long for Rodney to bring himself to pull his box out again. It had been some trinket some princess somewhere had given him in appreciation of his help, whatever he'd done for them. Rodney didn't remember anymore, though he doubted she would've expected her gift would be used for this purpose. But, then, many Pegasus cultures had elaborate traditions to honor their dead and missing, so Rodney didn't think the princess would mind if she ever happened to find out. He swallowed hard--he was going to have to do this now, or he would chicken out for another few days and manage to convince himself it had never really happened. That maybe if he went to sleep, he'd wake up and find a pair of pale blue eyes watching him in the morning.

Rodney finally picked up the pen, avoiding looking directly in the box, not wanting to have to deal with the too-many scraps of paper already there. He wrote the name, trying to distance himself, but there was no distancing this one. A lone tear fell despite Rodney's best efforts, mixing with the still-wet ink and smearing it a bit, but Rodney pressed forward. He flipped the paper over, pausing again. How could he sum Radek up in just a few words? A life like that, a relationship like theirs.... Finally, it came to him, as much as it hurt. Two of the few Czech words Rodney actually recognized, apart from the curses. He was probably spelling it wrong, leaving out some weird accent mark, but it was the thought that counted, right? He hoped Radek would appreciate, if he knew, wherever he was--and maybe forgive Rodney for never having the courage to say those words back, in English. Miluji te...I love you.

-----------------

It was a combination of exhaustion and depression that finally lulled Rodney to sleep. He supposed he should have taken Carson's offer of a sleep aid, something that would knock him out so he wouldn't dream, but a part of Rodney wanted to dream. Well, not the nightmares, obviously, but if a dream would let him see Radek again, alive and whole, Rodney was willing to take that chance.

The nightmares came, of course. Rodney often dealt with them at the best of times; he'd never claimed to be the most stable of individuals. Rodney found himself bound and helpless, unable to move as Wraith sucked the life out of him, out of Radek, casting their bodies aside together in a forgotten pile. It was weird enough to watch this happening to himself, to know he was dead but still be observing, but things got seriously bizarre when the Wraith formed a chorus line and started singing "Be Our Guest."

Rodney awoke after the nightmare, reaching instinctively for the comfort of a body that wasn't there, and buried his face in his pillow until the dream-haze passed. "You are one seriously fucked up individual," he muttered to himself, rolling over and staring at the clock, willing it to jump forward a few hours so he'd have an excuse to just get up and start the day.

When the next twenty minutes seemed to take an hour to pass, Rodney hauled himself out of bed and headed down to the labs. It was a few hours earlier than even he tended to arrive, which usually beat everyone else by another hour or two still. Radek was the only one who showed up with any regularity in those early morning hours, often because he too had been awakened by a great idea that simply could not be ignored. The freedom to work without interruption was worth the lost hours of sleep, especially since most of the normal workday interruptions involved baby scientists asking stupid questions. Rodney and Radek had spent many hours working in companionable silence together, consulting each other on their various theories, snarking, and on one particularly memorable occasion, making out in these labs. It was probably the worst possible place for Rodney to go when part of the problem was his missing Radek so desperately, but no one had ever accused Rodney of applying the scientific method to his personal decisions.

Atlantis never "spoke" to Rodney as strongly as John and Carson claimed to hear the city's murmurings. They never got words, just feelings, but even so, Rodney had never gotten so strong a reading from the city's systems. To him, it was more like the background noises of computers, always functioning, sometimes more fervently than others, faster processing when there was a lot going on and sometimes just a dull humming noise when there wasn't. Whether that was due to the fact that his ATA gene was artificial or more related to the technical angle he approached things from, Rodney could never be sure, but he supposed it didn't really matter. Late, some nights, he tried to explain how it felt to Radek, wishing desperately there were a way his lover could experience Ancient technology in all the ways he did. And while Radek had long ago accepted that the gene simply didn't want to take for him, the scientist in him begged for every last detail.

Atlantis was quiet tonight, humming softly in the background as Rodney booted up a laptop and called up the schematics of his latest project. His project now, anyway. It had been Radek's, but Rodney was determined to finish the work Radek began, especially since he'd been onto something. It had been one of those eureka moments; one second, Radek had been lazily draped across Rodney's bed, his head on Rodney's chest, Rodney's fingers in his hair. Then, as if a lightning bolt had struck from the blue, Radek had jerked away and flown across the room, commandeering Rodney's laptop. It happened that way for them sometimes, often enough that Rodney had stopped bothering to count. In quiet, tender moments, their brains could finally relax and arrive at the answers that previously proved so elusive. And because they understood each other so well, there was usually more excitement at the discovery than irritation at the interruption.

Thunk tap tap

Rodney glanced up, swearing he'd heard something, but it had been very quiet. Nothing was out of place, so he returned to his work, looking over the equations that brought him this far in the project. If Radek's hunch was right, they might be able to extend the life of their ZPM by several more years, safely. It wasn't the Holy Grail--finding a way to recharge the damned things--but it was as good as they were going to get for the moment.

Tap thunk

Thunk tap tap tap

"Okay, that was definitely something," Rodney said aloud, though he really had no idea who he was talking to. The ghosts of Atlantis, perhaps? Rodney had never believed in ghosts before he came to Atlantis. Of course, he also hadn't believed in life-sucking space vampires, either. Life in Atlantis altered one's perceptions of many things.

Tap tap thunk tap

Was that coincidence or was whoever responsible for the noises answering him? If it was some kind of practical joke, get McKay, the prankster was going to sorely regret it as soon as Rodney caught them. It sounded almost like a gentle rapping on the walls, except the occasional, slightly more pronounced thunks.

Thunk thunk tap

Rodney frowned. Suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. The poem jumped into his mind unbidden and Rodney rolled his eyes. He'd never been a big fan of Poe.

Thunk tap tap

Wait, hadn't that been the first pattern? Rodney's memory for such things was usually better, but he hadn't been paying a great deal of attention the first time around. Was it the same? And if it was, did that mean anything or was it simply coincidence?

Thunk thunk tap

Now that one was definitely a repeat, and Rodney was beginning to suspect there was a pattern. At first, he attributed the sounds to the city settling, but this seemed deliberate.

Tap thunk

After a pause, in which Rodney had almost been able to convince himself his overstressed brain had read too much into the entire thing, it started again.

Thunk tap tap

Rodney pulled up a new screen on the laptop and began to transcribe the patterns as he heard them, using the Morse Code system of a dash for the more pronounced thunks and a dot for the taps purely for his own convenience. Who cared if anyone else came along and failed to comprehend his shorthand? It wasn't meant for them anyway. It repeated twice more, the same definite pattern, before stopping. When it didn't resume, Rodney looked over his work.

- . . / . - / - . . . / . . - . / - - . / - . . / -- . / . -

It did look like Morse Code. On a lark, Rodney went ahead and translated it, hoping somehow the "message" would make more sense. The translation was easy enough, but understanding it...was not.

DABFGDGA

"Dab" was the only thing Rodney could possibly hope to decipher out of any of that. It didn't even look like a word in a foreign language, even those that were a bit light on the vowels. They always seemed to substitute odd letters like j's and z's instead. Or maybe that was just Czech. DABFGDGA. It made no sense, and Rodney was reluctantly forced to admit he'd either been had by someone who had gotten up way too early in the morning to screw with him or he had been making something out of nothing. Rodney idly wondered if he could get away with slipping it to the linguists and seeing what they made of it, but that would probably be taking things a step too far.

There was still time left in the night to get some sleep, and if Rodney ended up being a little late in the morning, he'd been through enough in the past week to let him get away with it. His relationship with Radek was a poorly kept secret among the scientists and Rodney had been surprised by the number of people who were going out of their way to be nice to him these past couple days. Of course, Radek had been well-liked and many people were still reeling from his unexpected death, so the entire division had been off-kilter. If Rodney came in late, it wouldn't be taken as a sign of the apocalypse, and as far as he was concerned, that was good enough.

-----------------

When Rodney got back to his quarters, Radek was waiting for him.

Rodney stopped in the doorway, staring, unsure whether the proper response was to laugh, cry, or somewhere in between. God, he was losing it, wasn't he?

"Hello, Rodney." Radek smiled.

"You're not really here," Rodney accused, stepping inside so the door could slide closed behind him.

"I beg to differ." Radek gave him that look, the one that meant he felt Rodney was being particularly dense. "I am quite real--as real as I can be in this form, though I might not have long."

That decided Rodney's reaction. He grabbed a nearby picture in its frame, the one of the brown tabby cat he'd left back home. Bruce had been such a good cat. However, he also made a perfectly good missile at the moment, as Rodney flung the frame at Radek with a fair amount of force. "You bastard!"

Radek recoiled, obviously startled by the incoming object, and jumped aside. The frame hit him, going right through his arm as if he weren't there. "I assure you, Rodney, my parents were married at the time of my birth."

"Bastard," Rodney repeated, not willing to let go of the grief-fueled anger just yet. He wished he knew--or, rather, remembered--how to say it in Czech, just to make sure he got his point across. "I swear to God, if you say one thing about any of that non-interference crap, I will find a way to bring you back here so I can kill you myself." How the hell could Radek do this to him, just ascend like it was nothing and skip about on his merry way? Did he think it would be fun to drop in on Rodney like this, say hi and flit away?

Radek stared back at him for a moment, as if genuinely not understanding, then he got it. "Yes, well, that might be a fine threat, except I want you to bring me back. The killing, we can discuss later."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Do it yourself. You're the all-knowing one now."

"But I'm not!" Radek insisted. "The Ancients were no closer to ascension with that stupid zatracený machine than they were with the accelerator you found."

"Then how are you here?" Rodney asked him.

"The Ancients didn't erase all of their records this time. It's one of the hidden files we found in the system," Radek insisted, his words coming more frantic and closer together, as if he were afraid of being cut off. "I don't know which one, but you know how to find it. I don't know that I can stay much longer; this is quite draining."

Draining? They could get to that later. Right now, Rodney had to wrap his mind around the concept that Radek was not ascended, apparently not dead, and needed his help to get back. Either that, or Rodney really was losing touch with his sanity. It seemed almost as valid an option. "You gave me what?"

"The code, that's what I was trying to do before. I can't appear to you and affect anything at the same time; it's too difficult." Radek looked at him, his eyes wide and pleading. "I have to go now. Please--I don't know how much longer I can maintain this. It becomes harder each day. You need to find the files you passworded with P--" And just like that, he disappeared in mid-sentence, as though blinking out of existence entirely. It was always before they got to the good part, wasn't it? Rodney was left to stare at the empty wall behind where Radek had stood, the shattered frame on the floor, and wonder what the hell had just happened--and, more importantly, what he was supposed to do next.

-----------------

A hot shower did nothing to ease Rodney's mind like he'd hoped. In fact, it had quite the opposite effect. His brain kept jumping back to Radek's words. Radek claimed he'd given Rodney the code--what code? All of a sudden, it clicked.

"The code!" Morse Code. It had to be. He had no idea how Radek had done it, but that could be explained later. Rodney practically jumped out of the shower, toweling off and getting into his uniform as quickly as possible. He decided to forego the jacket, as that would have required him to find it, and dashed out down the hall, in search of the one woman he could think of who might have the answer he needed.

It was still early, albeit not obscenely so, so Rodney shouldn't have been surprised when Emilia Petrovna answered the door in her nightgown, blinking sleepily, blonde hair a-tangle. "Dr. McKay?" she asked, frowning, her Slovak accent thick--though Rodney couldn't have said what the audible difference was between hers and Radek's. "Can I help you?" She didn't jump down his throat quite the way she could have, but she had been keeping a not-so-subtle eye on him since Radek died. Emilia had been Radek's assistant at the university, before they came to Pegasus, and the two had been close.

"You speak Czech," Rodney said, not bothering to provide a preamble for why he was there. It would only be a waste of time--and, furthermore, Rodney doubted anyone would believe him. He didn't entirely believe it.

"Ano," she countered, a bit sarcastically, but Rodney could grant her that. It was early. "What can I do for you?"

"What's d-a-b-f-g-d-g-a mean?" Rodney asked. He didn't dare try to pronounce it.

Emilia stared at him. "That...it is not even a word. It's nonsense--perhaps not in any language, but at least in Czech. And Slovak, too."

"Right, then." Well, there went any hope it would have been that easy. "Sorry to bother you." He figured he might as well attempt to be polite, considering the situation.

"Are you feeling all right, Dr. McKay?" Emilia asked, cocking her head and looking at him with some concern.

"Just peachy," Rodney muttered, shaking his head as he walked away. There had to be an easier way to figure this out.

-----------------

TBC in Part 2

The Ghost of You and Me, 1/2, by Audrey Lynne (Supernatural Challenge)

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