New Home (Stargate Atlantis fanfiction)

Back home

They all stood on the balcony outside the main tower and looked amazed at the Golden Gate bridge before them. They were back on Earth finally, all alive and well. Ok, mostly well, but no permanent injuries, no, just some minor ones. All happy that it happened like that. They were all on the balcony – John, Rodney with Jennifer, Teyla, Carson, Ronon, Amelia. Even Woolsey.

"He is different from the guy who came to command a year ago... "whispered Sheppard after Woolsey had been recalled to the control room.

"Mr. Woolsey?" asked Teyla.

"Aye," said Carson. "I can see it too. He's more like..." he stopped in the middle.

"More like Weir?" finished Ronon. "Ya. He's ok."

"Too much time with you, Kirk," interrupted Rodney "and everyone starts acting strangely. Thank God I'm too intelligent to be like others."

Everyone smiled at that comment. Just like Rodney. Jennifer hugged him closer without a word. This was McKay and basicaly they came to like him being just like that.

"What?" asked Rodney reaching to his earpiece. "I'm sure you can take care of it without me... No? Why?" Then his expression changed. Back to curious but annoyed one. "WHAT?"

He left the balcony in haste, so typical for him.

Few moments later John tapped his own earpiece to answer "Yes, I'll be there in a minute." He looked at them all with strange face. "What's with this city, that nothing works...?" When he saw surprised looks from them, he explained. "There are some problems with basic systems, they can't make some of them respond." His earpiece stirred again. "Yeah, Rodney, on my way to the gateroom."

When Jennifer and Carson headed to infirmary, Amelia stepped closer to Ronon. "How do you like Earth so far?" She asked. "I know you've lost your home... thanks for coming here with us to save this one. Hope you'll feel good here."

"It's nice." Eloquent as always. He smiled. "And I've got new home... Atlantis. And new family."

"You sound so not like Ronon. Are you sure nobody switched you?"

Ronon smiled wider. Sunrise on Earth was nothing compared to Lantea, but nevertheless it was quite impressive. "I've been there before," he said "with Sheppard. And it could be worse."

In the meantime, atmosphere in the Gateroom was anything but calm. Technicians were moved by Rodney from place to place, more than usual. Woolsey looked helpless, as scientist tried to get some of the systems online.

"What's happening" he asked at last, really worrying.

"I can't connect to the ancient mainframe as I would like to. Or as we used to, I should say."

"What do you mean by that?"

"That I have no way to bring on most of the systems, like our sensors. Only things really working are cloak and Zed-P-M power output monitoring."

"I'm in the chair, McKay."

"Ok, try bringing internal sensors online."

"What? McKay, you can do this manually from control room!"

"The problem is, I can't."

Sheppard was pissed. Woolsey could hear him cursing after colonel didn't turn off his earpiece. He was visibly distracted and unusually annoyed since back on Earth. Suddenly there was only silence. Rodney and Woolsey looked at each other. Then to Chuck, who shook his head – there was nothing more that slight power surge in the chair. "Rodney! I'm being blocked somehow!" Sheppard's voice was unsure. "I can feel the power, but I can't do anything but manipulate the cloak..."

"Crap" muttered Rodney to himself. "No use in tryin' Sheppard. Just try anything else you can think of. If nothing works come back here."

"OK."

"Ah, here you are!" Exclaimed Zelenka rushing into control room with his tablet in hand. "I need you to see that immediately."

"What now?!"

"I managed to calculate some ZPM power stats. There is something strange..."

"STOP!" shouted Rodney. "Go with it to someone else, we've got more pressing issues than drained ZPM."

"It's not drained." Told them Sheppard coming in. "According to Atlantis system it's nearly fully charged."

They looked at him shocked. "What?"

"Full power. I just can't access any function. It's blockin' my commands."

"Chuck, can you check blockades?" Asked Woolsey. "Maybe we did it by mistake."

When technician was going through all logs, Zelenka finally managed to get McKays attention.

"Rodney..."

"What?"

"I went through some power requirements. We shouldn't have made it."

"Made what?"

"Entering our atmosphere at that specific angle and at the velocity we did should've taken more power than we had." Commented Radek. "Not mentioning that we should have used it in space, even before the entry."

"You must have made a mistake, Radek" smirked Rodney.

"Dr McKay," said Chuck "there is one barrier that requires senior staff code. "It is the only one I can see, and it seals off part of the city. Part, that was most likely flooded during landing and was never even explored."

Rodney tried his code, but it didn't work. Sheppard and Woolsey tried as well, but they were as hopeless as scientist.

"Let me try again..." said Sheppard with unreadable expression. "I think it won't work, but it doesn't hurt to try to enter... Crap!"

Suddenly the city unsealed itself. Everyone looked at John. "What code did you enter?" asked Rodney unlocking immediately some other systems, using the time code was still active in the system.

"Elizabeth's" said Sheppard. "The one she had just before..."

"But we disabled it even before reactivating her nanites. It was deleted from the system when we came back without her!"

"I know, McKay!" snapped John. "Told you I thought it impossible. But it somehow worked. Do what you need and leave it. You must have made a mistake deleting it from computers and now with those glitches it came back somehow."

"Anyway, how is it you know what her code was?!" Rodney's question wasn't heard by John, who went to his quarters silently.