The clammy warmth of the sheath enveloped him, the slithery tentacles coiling around his neck and down his back.
He'd lost track of how many times he'd woken to that feeling. There was no sound, no light to focus on. The stasis effect of the cocoon phased in and out with the ship's power cycles, and he phased in and out with it. Being sucked down into unconsciousness would have been a relief, except that that foul embrace was always waiting for him when he resurfaced. As his sole sensory input for however long he'd been in here, it left a lot to be desired. But if he kept moving, even the tiny little bit that the cocoon allowed, he could convince himself he was still alive.
At least he was increasingly clear-headed each time he awoke lately. Or at least, he thought he was. Certainly he could move a fraction more each time; the softening spot against his fingers was proof of that. He'd feared the cocoon would just repair itself while he slept, but recently he seemed to be gaining ground.
It had become so ingrained to work on the same little patch that his fingers started probing before he was even entirely awake. So when his hand broke through, he didn't understand at first why there was no resistance.
He thought he'd long since gone beyond panic, but the sudden reintroduction of hope brought it crashing back full force. He struggled and pushed and pulled; the cocoon squished revoltingly under his hand. He freed an arm, then a shoulder, then his head for his first gasp of the cool, fetid air of the corridor. Thrashing frantically, he wrenched free with a hideous squelch and fell to the floor.
Breath after sobbing breath filled his lungs, and he gagged. Keep going. He'd clung to that thought for longer than he could remember, and it forced him to his feet now when all he wanted to do was lay there. He staggered down the corridor, trying not to touch the oozing walls. The near-subliminal hum of power generation was absent, and he understood why as he came to one of the lower levels and saw the huge rent in the side of the ship, clogged with dirt and debris.
The hive must have crashed, some time while he was in stasis.
He half-fell through the torn flesh of the hull, tumbling down the mangled scree to ground, real ground that didn't pulse or ooze or breathe. He scrambled to his feet again, wanting only to get as far away from here as fast as possible. There might have been a path, or maybe it was just a stripe where the trees thinned out; it didn't matter. He ran.
The gate, when the path led to it after all, was possibly the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He practically fell on the DHD.
And stopped, the first symbol for Atlantis cool and smooth under his fingers.
He had nothing on him but the remains of his uniform. No GDO. No GDO, no IDC. No radio to call and convince them to lower the shield anyway. It wouldn't do him any good to have escaped from the hive only to go splat against the Atlantis gate's force field before he'd even fully rematerialized.
"Come on, come on." He wracked his frustratingly sluggish brain. Where to go instead? The Alpha site? No, they might have moved it after he'd been captured. Wait, what was that planet they'd set up a trade treaty with, a few weeks before the Wraith had -- Polo? Pathos? Whatever, he remembered the address. And they'd left a radio with the locals, to keep in touch for future trade offers. Suppressing a somewhat hysterical giggle, Rodney slapped in the address.
The Palosians were indeed happy to help him, although there seemed to be some confusion back on Atlantis as to what they were trying to explain. Rodney didn't care, as long as they dropped the shield and let him through.
The first inhalation as he stumbled to a halt in the gateroom felt like the first breath of his life, the familiar ocean tang underlying the city's recycled air. It tasted like home, and he had to stop and close his eyes and, for a few seconds, just breathe.
Then his eyes snapped open as his brain caught up with what he'd seen in that first glimpse.
The gateroom itself was the same, but everything else was subtly wrong. There was too much activity up and down the corridors. Unfamiliar equipment sprouted here and there. And the man walking toward him down the steps was no one he had ever seen before.
Rodney took three reflexive steps backward and reached for the sidearm he didn't have. The stranger raised his hands placatingly and began, "Doctor McKay," hesitating slightly over the name.
"Who are you?" Rodney demanded, looking around frantically. There were only two guards, wearing uniforms that were not quite right, and not quite aiming at him with weapons that he didn't recognize at all. "Where's Elizabeth? Or Colonel Sheppard?"
"I'm Kieran Matthews, Governor of Atlantis. Do I understand correctly from our Palosian friends that you're claiming to be Doctor Rodney McKay? Of the original Atlantis expedition?"
"What 'Governor'? What have you done with Doctor Weir?" Before the man could get a word out, "And what do you mean, 'claiming'?"
"Elizabeth Weir retired as Governor in 2037," the man said sternly. "If this is a fabrication, I must say, it's a pretty thin one."
Rodney could feel his mouth moving, but it was a moment before any sound came out. "Who are you people? What the hell's going on?"
"I'll be happy to answer all your questions, assuming a DNA test verifies your identity." The man gestured toward the hallway that led to the infirmary.
"Oh, no." Rodney took another step backward, visions of alien autopsies dancing in his head. "You're not coming anywhere near me until I get some answers."
The unfamiliar weapons were suddenly pointed unmistakably at him. "I'm afraid I must insist."
In the end, he stumbled at gunpoint down to the infirmary, which was wrong, wrong, wrong in every respect except the medical smell. Under threat of being put in restraints, he let a sharp-eyed blonde press an exotic-looking medical device against his skin. "You'll need to access the Archives for the reference pattern," the self-proclaimed Governor told her.
"Actually, no. I pulled it up as soon as I heard about our guest here, but it was still in the active files," she replied. "Rodney McKay was permanently listed as missing, never presumed deceased."
"For over two hundred years?" said Matthews.
The doctor shrugged. "By personal order of General Sheppard. Who was going to argue?" She trotted away with the device.
An icy, sinking suspicion was spreading out from the pit of Rodney's stomach. "Two hundred years?" he demanded, head spinning.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Matthews countered.
"Getting captured by the Wraith, what do you think?" he snapped. "What-- what year is this?"
"Just calm down, now," the man ordered, probably in response to Rodney's fists clenching his shirtfront.
"Don't patronize me, just tell me the damned date!"
The blonde doctor reappeared. "Well, he's a match. Welcome back, Doctor McKay," she added with a razor-fine twist of irony.
"You're sure?"
"Ran it twice."
"I'm sorry, Doctor McKay," the Governor said gently. "The year is 2261."
They'd finally let him have the run of the city, after more medical and psych tests than he could entirely keep track of. They'd even offered to give him back his old quarters -- apparently the technician currently occupying the room was sufficiently awed by the return of the legendary Doctor McKay to consider it an honor -- but he'd declined. The room wasn't what he wanted back.
Instead, he'd started walking. The population of the city had increased tenfold since his day, and explored the whole of Atlantis by now, but they still regularly used only a fraction of the available space. The sub-levels underneath the East pier were still largely empty, the inevitable dank feeling from being beneath the waterline making them unappealing when brighter, more convenient spaces were still available.
It was cold as well as dark and quiet in the small room where he finally stopped, but it felt like home. If he didn't move, not even a tiny little bit, perhaps he could convince himself he was still alive.