The Notes You Don't Hear by DragonLadyK [Reviews - 2]
Chapter or Story - Text Size +
Category: Bitextual
Characters: Radek Zelenka, Samantha Carter
Rating: NC-17
Genres: First Time
Warnings: Adult themes, Non-consensual
Series: None
Word count: 19761; Completed: Yes
Summary: Sam and Radek are trapped in an Ancient device that makes them live the other person's best memory, worst memory, and a daydream. Sam/Radek with a McShep epilogue. One Sam/Jack scene (kinda), one attempted rape scene. The Sam/Jack scene is not the attempted rape scene.
Story Notes:
Season 5 Spoilers through "Identity." This fic (or a part of it) is as a historically accurate portrayal of the Velvet Revolution as Victor Hugo's Les Miserables is a historically accurate portrayal of the Revolution of 1832. Namely: not at all. Thank you to my wonderful Czech beta, Pajus.
"It's the notes you don't hear that matter." – Count Basie
"Is that even possible?" Sam asked. She was standing in a white room: white carpet, white walls, white ceiling, white light, white door on the far left wall. The only thing that wasn't bleached of all color was her sole companion. Radek Zelenka stood before her in his dark gray jacket with the Czech flag adorning his shoulder, light blue shirt beneath it, and dark gray pants. It was the same clothing he'd been wearing when she'd been trapped in the transporter with him last year, not something Carter wanted to be reminded of. Zelenka's eyes were doing a good enough job of that. They made her nervous, even though she knew it was petty to dislike someone for a genetic trait he couldn't help.
Zelenka was odd even without his eyes.
Carter knew McKay didn't like Zelenka – she'd certainly seen McKay heap enough abuse on his subordinate to believe it – and yet Zelenka carried on as if Rodney was his dearest friend. Sam had lost count of how often McKay had started nosing around for someone's food stash in the labs during a briefing only for Zelenka to appear with food and an extra jell-o cup or drink for Carter. Zelenka was the de facto Second-in-Command of Sciences, he did the scheduling and paperwork for the Science department as well as the much-smaller Engineering, but without the official title or the pay and without apparent complaint.
Then there was the odd effect he had on people. With the sole exceptions of McKay and Keller, Carter had never heard a cross word from anyone about him. He was Sheppard's second choice behind McKay, Ronon went camping with him, Teyla had had him cook for her to sate her food cravings during her pregnancy, and Weir had called him her right hand in her logs. Dr. Cole tolerated no bullshit from anyone and yet she'd bought his mysterious "migraines" that miraculously only appeared during lulls when Engineering could have done without him anyway, were too painful for him to perform his normal duties, and yet weren't too photosensitive for him to do paperwork or function in an emergency. Convenient, like the personality changes.
When she's first met Zelenka, he had suited up and joined the mission to rescue the Satedans, Sheppard, Teyla, and McKay. She hadn't thought anything of it, nor had she thought anything of it when he'd disappeared only to reappear with as much of the Wrath data core as his tablet could hold copied onto his hard-drive. Then they'd returned to Atlantis and Zelenka had almost instantly become a helpless civilian, refusing off-world duty whenever possible and acting like he'd never handled a weapon in his life. He'd stayed the plain, simple engineer for two months. Then during the kiersan fever outbreak he'd beaten up Marines, stolen their stuff, completely avoided capture, and set up random people he found in three-man cells with a food stash and some weapons. After he'd regained his memory he'd snapped back into the sweet-tempered civilian like nothing had happened. Worse, everyone else had acted like nothing had happened.
It was creepy. Carter suddenly had a deeper sympathy for Jack's dislike of the Tok'ra. She didn't like Zelenka suddenly not being himself anymore than Jack had liked not being able to hang up with the symbiotes to talk to the hosts.
Zelenka was looking at her. If eyes were windows to the soul, his were boarded shut like Florida preparing for a hurricane. They always were, no matter how warm and kind they appeared. Looking into Zelenka's eyes was like looking into a mirror.
The white room shifted with a sound like the replicators crawling in Thor's ship. Instead of a plain white wall behind Zelenka, columns of locked drawers extended behind him like an enormous old-style card catalog.
"I suppose so," Zelenka commented. Sam suppressed a shiver. She'd rather be stuck in here with McKay. Sexist cracks, looking down her top, ego: she'd dealt with those all her life.
"Look, as far as we've been able to translate, this device was used in ritual only," McKay said, strident and authoritative. They couldn't see him. It was as if everyone in the real world was being pipped in through speakers. "The couple about to be married stood in the circle where you and Zelenka were, well, are, and the officiant activated the panel that Sheppard oh-so-stupidly touched--"
"I had no idea it was going to do that, Rodney. I've touched it eight times already and nothing happened when you and Carter or you and Zelenka were standing there."
"Ah," Zelenka said acerbically, "but you were no thinking, 'oh, would not Colonel Carter and Zelenka make a lovely couple, it would annoy Rodney so' when Rodney and I or Colonel Carter and Rodney were standing in the circle. When this is over, I will call in one of my favors with Teyla and ask her to please hit you with sticks many times with great force."
Carter didn't have to see Sheppard's face to know that silence was a guilty one.
"Are you serious?" McKay protested shrilly. "Zelenka's an uglier, shorter, less competent, fouler-tempered version of me! What makes you think she'd settle for that?"
One of the locked drawers behind Zelenka popped open. A small metal arm extended from it and expanded into a flat-panel screen. Rodney appeared on the screen and began to speak.
"Radek?" the on-screen McKay said, looking equal parts sincere and upset, "I think it's safe to say that, uh, I am at times a petty, vindictive, even jealous man. I sublimate my own anxieties or feelings of inadequacy by creating a bubble of hostility around myself. I know that you, probably more than anyone else, have had to bear the brunt of that hostility."
"Rodney, you don't have to," Zelenka's voice came from the screen though Zelenka couldn't be seen on it. It was a memory, then, seen through Zelenka's eyes. The replicator-like sound happened again. Carter looked behind her to find the blank wall replaced with an exceedingly untidy office.
"Actually, I do," the on-screen Rodney said, "Here's the thing: you're a brilliant scientist, and a decent human being, and you should not have had to endure the kind of abuse that you've taken from me in the past few years. I hope you can find a way to forgive me for all the things I've said and done to you. You deserve much better than that... so I wanted you to know that." The screen then folded itself up and retracted into its drawer. The drawer shut and locked itself.
"Let me guess," Daniel said sarcastically on the outside, "he was dying."
"Actually, I was," McKay said uncomfortably. "I was trying to rid myself of shame before ascending. And... that was a private conversation!"
"The purpose of the device, McKay," Carter said. She could hear the irritation coloring her tone. Sam fervently wished she was the one outside with the computers, genius, and something to do instead of stuck inside awaiting rescue. All she'd done was follow orders: she hadn't signed up for this. Not with Zelenka. She heard the sound of the mission briefing that had precipitated her journey to Atlantis playing behind her. Carter turned around to see a piece of paper floating in mid-air, the scene playing out on it like a photograph from a Harry Potter movie.
"Doctor McKay thinks he may have found the part of the city relating to 'infrequent special needs.' If ZPM manufacturing did take place within the city, Doctor McKay believes this is where the facility would have been housed," the on-paper Landry stated. "I don't need to tell you how important ZPM manufacturing would be to Atlantis and the SGC."
"Even without the ZPMs," Daniel said in the paper, and the "camera" panned to look at him, "gaining insight into what the Ancients classed as special needs would be illuminating. All major social functions that make up a society could be classed as special needs."
Carter grabbed the paper and shoved it back into a pile on the mahogany desk.
"McKay?" Carter prompted.
"Prelude. To marriage." Rodney said, oddly strangled. "The device is, uh, designed so that each half of the couple will experience the other half's best memory, worst memory, and 'most shameful day-dream.' Since marriage can't really be escaped once it's happened, there's no way to turn off the device once the ritual has begun. It even has its own power generation unit in case the city suffers a blackout. After the ritual the couple decided whether or not to go through the marriage."
Carter heard paper rustling behind her. She didn't have to look up to know it was a giant banner reading, "OH HELL NO." She was pretty sure "OH HELL NO" was the correct translation of the giant red neon Czech words flashing above the rows of drawers behind Zelenka.
"What if one of us died?" Zelenka asked suddenly. "Would it spit the other one out?"
"I have no idea," McKay said. "But I'm not shooting Sam to get you out of there."
"Not a shot, a heart attack," Carter said, suddenly hopeful. Zelenka fiddled with his fingers and looked down. "A hit with a defibrillator and we should be golden. Ancient technology is full of safeguards to protect the user. A medical emergency should terminate the ritual."
"Um, this isn't TV," Keller said, nasal and hesitant even in insistence. "Any time I stop your hearts I'm running the risk I might not be able to get it started again. In my medical opinion a little embarrassment isn't worth that kind of risk."
Carter drummed her fingers on the desk. Her father didn't raise her to be trashy or a bitch, but there really wasn't a nice way to say this.
"I disagree." She looked sideways at Zelenka. "No offense."
"I work with Rodney McKay. Skin of trinnium," Zelenka said. Behind him, something close to a four hundred drawers opened and every insult McKay had ever directed at him played all at once. It was loud, and most of it was the type of thing Sam would have decked him for if he'd ever said it to her. She couldn't imagine tolerating that kind of behavior for five years. If she had, she imagined she would want some of her own back, too.
"Seriously, you remember all of that?!" McKay screeched.
Zelenka's comments about McKay's incompetence in the transporter suddenly made sense. Carter could hear the memory of Zelenka talking about Rodney being off his game to her left. She grabbed the paper and shoved it in a drawer.
"You said that?!" McKay protested. "To Carter? You vile, back-stabbing little troll!"
Behind Zelenka's head, McKay was gloating about Carter telling McKay she didn't like Zelenka on screen. Sam couldn't believe it. Well, she could, it was a wildly McKay thing to do, she just couldn't believe she hadn't seen it coming. She'd thought McKay had changed. He'd been so much nicer to her, he'd made close friends with his team, his department wasn't overrun with transfers, he'd even been managing a long-term relationship. McKay had changed, just not that much, and she should have seen it.
A piece of paper floated up from one of the filing cabinets. Sam dived sideways to slam it down onto the metal, but not before McKay-in-memory could gleefully declare, "it's okay, you can say you don't like him. I don't like him!"
"It wasn't like that," Carter said reflexively. The drawers behind Zelenka all sprouted a second lock.
"Okay," Keller squeaked. "Maybe going through this thing isn't such a good idea." The banner above Sam crumpled and reformed itself. "NO SHIT, SHERLOCK" hung in dark red letters above the messy office. The banner was written in Jack's handwriting. "Indeed, going through with the ritual does appear to be a flawed course of action," appeared in Teal'c's handwriting below Jack's message.
"If the lack of a shut-off switch symbolizes the permanence of marriage," Sam asked, her jaw tight, holding the twitching piece of paper down with her hand like she was keeping her sanity from flying away, "what about this 'white room' and talking to those outside?"
"Well, uh, that's the thing," McKay said. "The anteroom is for the couple to meditate and prepare before actually stepping through the door and beginning the simulation. There isn't supposed to be a functionality allowing communication with the officiant. There are no speakers, no mike, no controls. We can just hear you. Somehow."
"Why?" Carter demanded.
"I have no idea," McKay said. "Gift horse! Mouth!"
"Well the gift horse might know where the barn door is, McKay."
"Colonel Sheppard," Zelenka said softly. Several screens behind Zelenka started showing Sheppard interacting with Ancient technology, whether that was flying a jumper or flying Atlantis. "Ancient technology will often do things for him that are not within normal parameters that no one else can get it to do. If he wanted to communicate with us badly enough, it is possible the city bent to allow this."
"Can you order us out, Colonel?" Carter asked.
"I've been trying," Sheppard said. "The program won't budge. I think the basic feeling is is that if you wanted to call off the wedding you should have done it before the ritual or you'll have to do it after. I have no idea how I turned the sound on. I don't know how to shut it off if you go through with this." Sheppard's face was probably crumpled into a wince more appropriate to a twelve year-old than an Air Force Officer.
"Great," Sam sighed. She and Zelenka stood in uncomfortable silence. The neon sign was doing calculus. Sam had a purple elephant standing on her right side.
The silence wore on. Keller was taking forever, or perhaps time was running slower in here. The human brain processed things much faster than the conscious mind was aware of.
"It really wasn't like that," Sam repeated awkwardly. It was bad enough she'd forgotten for those brief few seconds that McKay had been her subordinate instead of a colleague and all but said that three hours with Zelenka was worse than being trapped in a collapsing mine shaft. It was true, the man gave her all kinds of not-quite-right vibes, but saying so was low-class. Her father hadn't raised her to be white trash. "I made a comment I shouldn't have, McKay wouldn't let it go, and Dr. Keller got dragged along for the ride. I'm sorry."
Zelenka's eyes crinkled at the corners. "If our positions had been reversed, he would have done the same thing."
"I would not!"
"Yes, you would," Colonel Sheppard insisted nasally. "You want to be everyone's favorite."
"Okay, yes, I would," McKay confessed. "You owe me an apology, too, you know."
"For what?" Zelenka asked innocently. "I did not speak badly of the Colonel to you." There was a bright orange piece of yarn dangling on Zelenka's left.
"No, you told her I was in a rut and off my game! To Samantha Carter!" A giant cat pounced on the yarn, only for the yarn to jerk itself just out of reach. Zelenka was McKay-baiting.
"Ah, and so I am to believe that you did not say to the Colonel that I was a good administrator but not much of a scientist, and therefore you did not ask me to briefings and worked with me only when the Wraith was not available?"
Immediately eight sheets of paper popped out of folders and piles playing memories of McKay saying just that. Sam hastily grabbed at the papers, shoving them back into piles.
"McKay, I could have fired him," Carter snapped angrily. Her first brush with illegal drugs had been her last. Carter had hated the wild images she hadn't been able to stop, had hated her inability to function. She didn't even get drunk. This was worse than the acid.
"Sciences would not have let you," Zelenka preened. "Working directly for McKay? Bah. They do not have the, how you say, balls?"
Kusanagi sporting a pair of testicles appeared to her right. Carter rounded on Zelenka.
"Would you watch what you're saying!"
"I am sorry," Zelenka apologized, instantly repentant. He'd probably stay that repentant for hours even if she pretended she didn't want to strangle him or maybe just pluck out his eyes and, whoa, she needed to calm down. Judging by the shade of pale Zelenka had just become, a piece of paper was spelling out just how much she didn't want him there. "I did not think that would happen," he said meekly.
"What would happen?" McKay demanded.
"Nothing, McKay," Carter snapped. Kusanagi had disappeared even though Carter hadn't ordered her away. "Where is Dr. Keller?"
"I'm here," Keller said. "Just for the record, I still think this is a very bad idea."
"We have had much luck with bad ideas in the past," Zelenka said quietly. "Since this one is mine, I'll go."
"Okay," Keller said. There was a sharp, snapping sound. Zelenka, the neon sign, and the drawers grayed out for a moment and then snapped back into vivid color. The snapping sound happened again, Zelenka grayed out, and then returned. He grayed out and returned a third time.
"It's not working," Keller said. "The device just keeps restarting his heart. I don't think a medical emergency is the way out of this."
"I am not going through with the ritual," Carter stated.
"Ditto," Zelenka said the moment she finished her thought, folding his arms and turning away. Sam leaned against one of the filing cabinets and rested her forehead on her fist.
"I'm sorry," Sam said perfunctorily. "I... I don't like being... like this." She was 'Super Sam,' the Air Force's national treasure, savior of the planet multiple times over, the one who hacked the Stargate in the first place, and Jacob Carter's daughter. She wasn't supposed to be helpless, controlled. It was like being possessed by the Tok'ra symbiote Jolinar again, watching everything happen with no way to stop it.
"Give me a Vicodin so I don't stroke," Dr. Wilson ordered Dr. House on a floating sheet of paper. Sam had no idea what the scene playing out behind Zelenka was, or even if it was a Czech television show or real life. She didn't really care. She just wanted off this ride.
"Look, I know this ritual isn't exactly anyone's idea of a good idea," Daniel said reasonably, "but I've been in this kind of dissociative state before. I was only in it for a few moments – well, it felt like days, but still – You two could go crazy in there waiting for us to figure out how to hack this device into letting you go."
There was a Czech song playing, the sound overlaying her memory of the aftermath of Sha're's death. Daniel was right. After enough time – possibly a frighteningly short time – they might lose the ability to tell where Carter left off and Zelenka began. The distance between the card catalog and the office was getting shorter, pale pink wallpaper creeping along the walls toward the dark ebony wood.
"I nae canna do it, Captain," Scotty demanded on a screen behind Zelenka. Behind Carter the curator was having tantrums about the freed VR inhabitants picking the flowers. Daniel in the insane asylum, possessed by Machello's Goa'uld-killing slugs and doped on anti-psychotics that he hadn't needed, was playing on a piece of parchment. She'd been helpless then, too.
"What happens in the Ancient device," Zelenka said softly as two bright stars hung in the night sky over the roof-tops of Prague behind him, "stays here. It's up to you, Colonel."
Carter looked back at the desk. Purple wombats were doing a Rockette routine across the surface. She was pretty sure they were dancing to the Czech national anthem, or maybe a pop cult hit.
Carter scrubbed her face in her hands. Humiliation or insanity, what a choice, and with the one person who freaked her out despite everything she'd seen and done.
"Cake or death, cake or death, oh, we're having a bit of a run on cake," Eddie Izzard said on a sheet of paper floating in mid-air. They'd only been inside for minutes. Who knew what hours would look like, or what secrets would slip in the meantime. She could end up spilling her best memory, worst memory, her most embarrassing daydream, and everything in between.
"Let's do it." Carter stated. "Everyone who isn't strictly necessary out of the room, this is going to be bad enough without an audience." The drawers sprouted a third lock each, and the papers in the office crumpled themselves into balls. Carter walked over to the door. She rested her hand on the doorknob. Zelenka put his hand on hers. His palm was warm and callused.
She was going to regret this, but at least she'd be doing something. Doing something was always better.
"On three," Carter said. "One, two, three–"
They opened the door.
Chapter or Story - Text Size +
Category: Bitextual
Characters: Radek Zelenka, Samantha Carter
Rating: NC-17
Genres: First Time
Warnings: Adult themes, Non-consensual
Series: None
Word count: 19761; Completed: Yes
Summary: Sam and Radek are trapped in an Ancient device that makes them live the other person's best memory, worst memory, and a daydream. Sam/Radek with a McShep epilogue. One Sam/Jack scene (kinda), one attempted rape scene. The Sam/Jack scene is not the attempted rape scene.
Story Notes:
Season 5 Spoilers through "Identity." This fic (or a part of it) is as a historically accurate portrayal of the Velvet Revolution as Victor Hugo's Les Miserables is a historically accurate portrayal of the Revolution of 1832. Namely: not at all. Thank you to my wonderful Czech beta, Pajus.
"It's the notes you don't hear that matter." – Count Basie
"Is that even possible?" Sam asked. She was standing in a white room: white carpet, white walls, white ceiling, white light, white door on the far left wall. The only thing that wasn't bleached of all color was her sole companion. Radek Zelenka stood before her in his dark gray jacket with the Czech flag adorning his shoulder, light blue shirt beneath it, and dark gray pants. It was the same clothing he'd been wearing when she'd been trapped in the transporter with him last year, not something Carter wanted to be reminded of. Zelenka's eyes were doing a good enough job of that. They made her nervous, even though she knew it was petty to dislike someone for a genetic trait he couldn't help.
Zelenka was odd even without his eyes.
Carter knew McKay didn't like Zelenka – she'd certainly seen McKay heap enough abuse on his subordinate to believe it – and yet Zelenka carried on as if Rodney was his dearest friend. Sam had lost count of how often McKay had started nosing around for someone's food stash in the labs during a briefing only for Zelenka to appear with food and an extra jell-o cup or drink for Carter. Zelenka was the de facto Second-in-Command of Sciences, he did the scheduling and paperwork for the Science department as well as the much-smaller Engineering, but without the official title or the pay and without apparent complaint.
Then there was the odd effect he had on people. With the sole exceptions of McKay and Keller, Carter had never heard a cross word from anyone about him. He was Sheppard's second choice behind McKay, Ronon went camping with him, Teyla had had him cook for her to sate her food cravings during her pregnancy, and Weir had called him her right hand in her logs. Dr. Cole tolerated no bullshit from anyone and yet she'd bought his mysterious "migraines" that miraculously only appeared during lulls when Engineering could have done without him anyway, were too painful for him to perform his normal duties, and yet weren't too photosensitive for him to do paperwork or function in an emergency. Convenient, like the personality changes.
When she's first met Zelenka, he had suited up and joined the mission to rescue the Satedans, Sheppard, Teyla, and McKay. She hadn't thought anything of it, nor had she thought anything of it when he'd disappeared only to reappear with as much of the Wrath data core as his tablet could hold copied onto his hard-drive. Then they'd returned to Atlantis and Zelenka had almost instantly become a helpless civilian, refusing off-world duty whenever possible and acting like he'd never handled a weapon in his life. He'd stayed the plain, simple engineer for two months. Then during the kiersan fever outbreak he'd beaten up Marines, stolen their stuff, completely avoided capture, and set up random people he found in three-man cells with a food stash and some weapons. After he'd regained his memory he'd snapped back into the sweet-tempered civilian like nothing had happened. Worse, everyone else had acted like nothing had happened.
It was creepy. Carter suddenly had a deeper sympathy for Jack's dislike of the Tok'ra. She didn't like Zelenka suddenly not being himself anymore than Jack had liked not being able to hang up with the symbiotes to talk to the hosts.
Zelenka was looking at her. If eyes were windows to the soul, his were boarded shut like Florida preparing for a hurricane. They always were, no matter how warm and kind they appeared. Looking into Zelenka's eyes was like looking into a mirror.
The white room shifted with a sound like the replicators crawling in Thor's ship. Instead of a plain white wall behind Zelenka, columns of locked drawers extended behind him like an enormous old-style card catalog.
"I suppose so," Zelenka commented. Sam suppressed a shiver. She'd rather be stuck in here with McKay. Sexist cracks, looking down her top, ego: she'd dealt with those all her life.
"Look, as far as we've been able to translate, this device was used in ritual only," McKay said, strident and authoritative. They couldn't see him. It was as if everyone in the real world was being pipped in through speakers. "The couple about to be married stood in the circle where you and Zelenka were, well, are, and the officiant activated the panel that Sheppard oh-so-stupidly touched--"
"I had no idea it was going to do that, Rodney. I've touched it eight times already and nothing happened when you and Carter or you and Zelenka were standing there."
"Ah," Zelenka said acerbically, "but you were no thinking, 'oh, would not Colonel Carter and Zelenka make a lovely couple, it would annoy Rodney so' when Rodney and I or Colonel Carter and Rodney were standing in the circle. When this is over, I will call in one of my favors with Teyla and ask her to please hit you with sticks many times with great force."
Carter didn't have to see Sheppard's face to know that silence was a guilty one.
"Are you serious?" McKay protested shrilly. "Zelenka's an uglier, shorter, less competent, fouler-tempered version of me! What makes you think she'd settle for that?"
One of the locked drawers behind Zelenka popped open. A small metal arm extended from it and expanded into a flat-panel screen. Rodney appeared on the screen and began to speak.
"Radek?" the on-screen McKay said, looking equal parts sincere and upset, "I think it's safe to say that, uh, I am at times a petty, vindictive, even jealous man. I sublimate my own anxieties or feelings of inadequacy by creating a bubble of hostility around myself. I know that you, probably more than anyone else, have had to bear the brunt of that hostility."
"Rodney, you don't have to," Zelenka's voice came from the screen though Zelenka couldn't be seen on it. It was a memory, then, seen through Zelenka's eyes. The replicator-like sound happened again. Carter looked behind her to find the blank wall replaced with an exceedingly untidy office.
"Actually, I do," the on-screen Rodney said, "Here's the thing: you're a brilliant scientist, and a decent human being, and you should not have had to endure the kind of abuse that you've taken from me in the past few years. I hope you can find a way to forgive me for all the things I've said and done to you. You deserve much better than that... so I wanted you to know that." The screen then folded itself up and retracted into its drawer. The drawer shut and locked itself.
"Let me guess," Daniel said sarcastically on the outside, "he was dying."
"Actually, I was," McKay said uncomfortably. "I was trying to rid myself of shame before ascending. And... that was a private conversation!"
"The purpose of the device, McKay," Carter said. She could hear the irritation coloring her tone. Sam fervently wished she was the one outside with the computers, genius, and something to do instead of stuck inside awaiting rescue. All she'd done was follow orders: she hadn't signed up for this. Not with Zelenka. She heard the sound of the mission briefing that had precipitated her journey to Atlantis playing behind her. Carter turned around to see a piece of paper floating in mid-air, the scene playing out on it like a photograph from a Harry Potter movie.
"Doctor McKay thinks he may have found the part of the city relating to 'infrequent special needs.' If ZPM manufacturing did take place within the city, Doctor McKay believes this is where the facility would have been housed," the on-paper Landry stated. "I don't need to tell you how important ZPM manufacturing would be to Atlantis and the SGC."
"Even without the ZPMs," Daniel said in the paper, and the "camera" panned to look at him, "gaining insight into what the Ancients classed as special needs would be illuminating. All major social functions that make up a society could be classed as special needs."
Carter grabbed the paper and shoved it back into a pile on the mahogany desk.
"McKay?" Carter prompted.
"Prelude. To marriage." Rodney said, oddly strangled. "The device is, uh, designed so that each half of the couple will experience the other half's best memory, worst memory, and 'most shameful day-dream.' Since marriage can't really be escaped once it's happened, there's no way to turn off the device once the ritual has begun. It even has its own power generation unit in case the city suffers a blackout. After the ritual the couple decided whether or not to go through the marriage."
Carter heard paper rustling behind her. She didn't have to look up to know it was a giant banner reading, "OH HELL NO." She was pretty sure "OH HELL NO" was the correct translation of the giant red neon Czech words flashing above the rows of drawers behind Zelenka.
"What if one of us died?" Zelenka asked suddenly. "Would it spit the other one out?"
"I have no idea," McKay said. "But I'm not shooting Sam to get you out of there."
"Not a shot, a heart attack," Carter said, suddenly hopeful. Zelenka fiddled with his fingers and looked down. "A hit with a defibrillator and we should be golden. Ancient technology is full of safeguards to protect the user. A medical emergency should terminate the ritual."
"Um, this isn't TV," Keller said, nasal and hesitant even in insistence. "Any time I stop your hearts I'm running the risk I might not be able to get it started again. In my medical opinion a little embarrassment isn't worth that kind of risk."
Carter drummed her fingers on the desk. Her father didn't raise her to be trashy or a bitch, but there really wasn't a nice way to say this.
"I disagree." She looked sideways at Zelenka. "No offense."
"I work with Rodney McKay. Skin of trinnium," Zelenka said. Behind him, something close to a four hundred drawers opened and every insult McKay had ever directed at him played all at once. It was loud, and most of it was the type of thing Sam would have decked him for if he'd ever said it to her. She couldn't imagine tolerating that kind of behavior for five years. If she had, she imagined she would want some of her own back, too.
"Seriously, you remember all of that?!" McKay screeched.
Zelenka's comments about McKay's incompetence in the transporter suddenly made sense. Carter could hear the memory of Zelenka talking about Rodney being off his game to her left. She grabbed the paper and shoved it in a drawer.
"You said that?!" McKay protested. "To Carter? You vile, back-stabbing little troll!"
Behind Zelenka's head, McKay was gloating about Carter telling McKay she didn't like Zelenka on screen. Sam couldn't believe it. Well, she could, it was a wildly McKay thing to do, she just couldn't believe she hadn't seen it coming. She'd thought McKay had changed. He'd been so much nicer to her, he'd made close friends with his team, his department wasn't overrun with transfers, he'd even been managing a long-term relationship. McKay had changed, just not that much, and she should have seen it.
A piece of paper floated up from one of the filing cabinets. Sam dived sideways to slam it down onto the metal, but not before McKay-in-memory could gleefully declare, "it's okay, you can say you don't like him. I don't like him!"
"It wasn't like that," Carter said reflexively. The drawers behind Zelenka all sprouted a second lock.
"Okay," Keller squeaked. "Maybe going through this thing isn't such a good idea." The banner above Sam crumpled and reformed itself. "NO SHIT, SHERLOCK" hung in dark red letters above the messy office. The banner was written in Jack's handwriting. "Indeed, going through with the ritual does appear to be a flawed course of action," appeared in Teal'c's handwriting below Jack's message.
"If the lack of a shut-off switch symbolizes the permanence of marriage," Sam asked, her jaw tight, holding the twitching piece of paper down with her hand like she was keeping her sanity from flying away, "what about this 'white room' and talking to those outside?"
"Well, uh, that's the thing," McKay said. "The anteroom is for the couple to meditate and prepare before actually stepping through the door and beginning the simulation. There isn't supposed to be a functionality allowing communication with the officiant. There are no speakers, no mike, no controls. We can just hear you. Somehow."
"Why?" Carter demanded.
"I have no idea," McKay said. "Gift horse! Mouth!"
"Well the gift horse might know where the barn door is, McKay."
"Colonel Sheppard," Zelenka said softly. Several screens behind Zelenka started showing Sheppard interacting with Ancient technology, whether that was flying a jumper or flying Atlantis. "Ancient technology will often do things for him that are not within normal parameters that no one else can get it to do. If he wanted to communicate with us badly enough, it is possible the city bent to allow this."
"Can you order us out, Colonel?" Carter asked.
"I've been trying," Sheppard said. "The program won't budge. I think the basic feeling is is that if you wanted to call off the wedding you should have done it before the ritual or you'll have to do it after. I have no idea how I turned the sound on. I don't know how to shut it off if you go through with this." Sheppard's face was probably crumpled into a wince more appropriate to a twelve year-old than an Air Force Officer.
"Great," Sam sighed. She and Zelenka stood in uncomfortable silence. The neon sign was doing calculus. Sam had a purple elephant standing on her right side.
The silence wore on. Keller was taking forever, or perhaps time was running slower in here. The human brain processed things much faster than the conscious mind was aware of.
"It really wasn't like that," Sam repeated awkwardly. It was bad enough she'd forgotten for those brief few seconds that McKay had been her subordinate instead of a colleague and all but said that three hours with Zelenka was worse than being trapped in a collapsing mine shaft. It was true, the man gave her all kinds of not-quite-right vibes, but saying so was low-class. Her father hadn't raised her to be white trash. "I made a comment I shouldn't have, McKay wouldn't let it go, and Dr. Keller got dragged along for the ride. I'm sorry."
Zelenka's eyes crinkled at the corners. "If our positions had been reversed, he would have done the same thing."
"I would not!"
"Yes, you would," Colonel Sheppard insisted nasally. "You want to be everyone's favorite."
"Okay, yes, I would," McKay confessed. "You owe me an apology, too, you know."
"For what?" Zelenka asked innocently. "I did not speak badly of the Colonel to you." There was a bright orange piece of yarn dangling on Zelenka's left.
"No, you told her I was in a rut and off my game! To Samantha Carter!" A giant cat pounced on the yarn, only for the yarn to jerk itself just out of reach. Zelenka was McKay-baiting.
"Ah, and so I am to believe that you did not say to the Colonel that I was a good administrator but not much of a scientist, and therefore you did not ask me to briefings and worked with me only when the Wraith was not available?"
Immediately eight sheets of paper popped out of folders and piles playing memories of McKay saying just that. Sam hastily grabbed at the papers, shoving them back into piles.
"McKay, I could have fired him," Carter snapped angrily. Her first brush with illegal drugs had been her last. Carter had hated the wild images she hadn't been able to stop, had hated her inability to function. She didn't even get drunk. This was worse than the acid.
"Sciences would not have let you," Zelenka preened. "Working directly for McKay? Bah. They do not have the, how you say, balls?"
Kusanagi sporting a pair of testicles appeared to her right. Carter rounded on Zelenka.
"Would you watch what you're saying!"
"I am sorry," Zelenka apologized, instantly repentant. He'd probably stay that repentant for hours even if she pretended she didn't want to strangle him or maybe just pluck out his eyes and, whoa, she needed to calm down. Judging by the shade of pale Zelenka had just become, a piece of paper was spelling out just how much she didn't want him there. "I did not think that would happen," he said meekly.
"What would happen?" McKay demanded.
"Nothing, McKay," Carter snapped. Kusanagi had disappeared even though Carter hadn't ordered her away. "Where is Dr. Keller?"
"I'm here," Keller said. "Just for the record, I still think this is a very bad idea."
"We have had much luck with bad ideas in the past," Zelenka said quietly. "Since this one is mine, I'll go."
"Okay," Keller said. There was a sharp, snapping sound. Zelenka, the neon sign, and the drawers grayed out for a moment and then snapped back into vivid color. The snapping sound happened again, Zelenka grayed out, and then returned. He grayed out and returned a third time.
"It's not working," Keller said. "The device just keeps restarting his heart. I don't think a medical emergency is the way out of this."
"I am not going through with the ritual," Carter stated.
"Ditto," Zelenka said the moment she finished her thought, folding his arms and turning away. Sam leaned against one of the filing cabinets and rested her forehead on her fist.
"I'm sorry," Sam said perfunctorily. "I... I don't like being... like this." She was 'Super Sam,' the Air Force's national treasure, savior of the planet multiple times over, the one who hacked the Stargate in the first place, and Jacob Carter's daughter. She wasn't supposed to be helpless, controlled. It was like being possessed by the Tok'ra symbiote Jolinar again, watching everything happen with no way to stop it.
"Give me a Vicodin so I don't stroke," Dr. Wilson ordered Dr. House on a floating sheet of paper. Sam had no idea what the scene playing out behind Zelenka was, or even if it was a Czech television show or real life. She didn't really care. She just wanted off this ride.
"Look, I know this ritual isn't exactly anyone's idea of a good idea," Daniel said reasonably, "but I've been in this kind of dissociative state before. I was only in it for a few moments – well, it felt like days, but still – You two could go crazy in there waiting for us to figure out how to hack this device into letting you go."
There was a Czech song playing, the sound overlaying her memory of the aftermath of Sha're's death. Daniel was right. After enough time – possibly a frighteningly short time – they might lose the ability to tell where Carter left off and Zelenka began. The distance between the card catalog and the office was getting shorter, pale pink wallpaper creeping along the walls toward the dark ebony wood.
"I nae canna do it, Captain," Scotty demanded on a screen behind Zelenka. Behind Carter the curator was having tantrums about the freed VR inhabitants picking the flowers. Daniel in the insane asylum, possessed by Machello's Goa'uld-killing slugs and doped on anti-psychotics that he hadn't needed, was playing on a piece of parchment. She'd been helpless then, too.
"What happens in the Ancient device," Zelenka said softly as two bright stars hung in the night sky over the roof-tops of Prague behind him, "stays here. It's up to you, Colonel."
Carter looked back at the desk. Purple wombats were doing a Rockette routine across the surface. She was pretty sure they were dancing to the Czech national anthem, or maybe a pop cult hit.
Carter scrubbed her face in her hands. Humiliation or insanity, what a choice, and with the one person who freaked her out despite everything she'd seen and done.
"Cake or death, cake or death, oh, we're having a bit of a run on cake," Eddie Izzard said on a sheet of paper floating in mid-air. They'd only been inside for minutes. Who knew what hours would look like, or what secrets would slip in the meantime. She could end up spilling her best memory, worst memory, her most embarrassing daydream, and everything in between.
"Let's do it." Carter stated. "Everyone who isn't strictly necessary out of the room, this is going to be bad enough without an audience." The drawers sprouted a third lock each, and the papers in the office crumpled themselves into balls. Carter walked over to the door. She rested her hand on the doorknob. Zelenka put his hand on hers. His palm was warm and callused.
She was going to regret this, but at least she'd be doing something. Doing something was always better.
"On three," Carter said. "One, two, three–"
They opened the door.