Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Atlantis was the kind of place that didn’t have a bad side. Any angle you looked at her, the city was gorgeous. The gray spires, interspersed with stained glass, rivaled any cathedral on earth. The light reflected off each delicate feature, highlighting the intricacy that had gone into the architect’s design. Shadows teased the mysteries hiding beneath them, promising to reveal a brand new image of the city every time the sun moved or the weather changed.

Evan Lorne had seen some amazing sights in his life, but none captured him quite the way Atlantis did. While everyone appreciated her beauty, he was obsessed with her, couldn’t stop himself from gazing at her every chance he got.

When he had first been transferred a little over two years ago, he made the mistake of only bringing a few of his art supplies: his sketchbook, his watercolors, a few odds and ends things. After all, it had been years since he really had any time to indulge his hobby. He had been in the city for less than a month before he decided that the next time he went home, he would dedicate his entire allotted luggage on the return trip to as many pencils and paints and brushes and canvases and whatever else he could fit. This city begged to be painted, needed to have her story told, and he would make the time to do it.

He was surprised by how quickly he had picked it back up after years of letting his painting muscles atrophy. The first few tries were a little rough, yes, but soon the strokes became as easy as breathing, like they had been when he was a kid and spent the weekends painting California landscapes with his mom.

He didn’t paint all the time, there was rarely a quiet moment in Atlantis, and being the second-in-command of the military didn’t leave a whole lot of free time. But at least a couple times a month, he trekked out to one of the balconies or found a quiet corner for an afternoon to let the perfect way the city reflected off the sea drown out the stress of the Pegasus Galaxy.

Today, he had chosen a balcony off the jumper bays on the central tower. It was one of the best spots in Atlantis, providing a view of the entire city laid out beneath him. Ever since they had moved to this new planet, he had been working on capturing this new side of her, the subtle differences in colors and shades that this planet created. The ocean was just a little bit darker, more of a cobalt than Lantea’s seas. The light here was different as well, casting deeper shadows, and sometimes when the satellites aligned just right, he swore there was a flash of yellow.

Colonel Sheppard didn’t see it. In fact, Evan didn’t think anyone else really thought of Atlantis in the same way that he did. They thought it was beautiful, sure, but to them it was just a building sitting on the water. He had briefly tried to explain it to Sheppard once, looking out over the clear expanse of azure sky, telling him about how different the city looked now that they had moved. Sheppard just gave him one of those looks that he used on McKay when he was over-explaining something that should have a simple yes or no answer.

“We’re still in the middle of an ocean,” he had said, as if Evan had said the water was red and the sky orange. “Looks the same to me.”

After that, Evan gave up trying to explain his artist’s eye to anyone else. To them, all his paintings were magnificent, but he knew he still hadn’t managed to figure out the perfect combination of colors to do the city justice.

He was in the middle of mixing another iteration of gray, trying to capture the almost muddy-like shadows against the central spire without adding too much blue, when suddenly the light changed. The city below him started to glow like it was luminescent or radioactive or something. He frowned, vaguely wondering if they were under attack.

And then his senses reeled as if he had been hit by something. The world started to spin, and he felt light-headed. It was like he could suddenly hear the city, all the sounds that were usually just background noise filling his mind. He could hear the machinery, the pipes, footsteps of people moving around. He heard every voice all at once. It was deafening.

And then it stopped.

He opened his eyes and found himself lying on his back, wondering what had just happened. For a moment, all of his senses had gone crazy, like his brain had been rewired. Everything had gotten flipped; light was dark, down was up, soft was hard. And he could taste hot dogs. What?

Taking a couple of breaths, he gathered himself and pushed himself up off the floor.

He froze when he saw his canvas.

It was covered in mad swirls of paint, the colors mixed together sloppily, as if a child had slapped it on and smeared it around with their hands. And then he noticed the paint caked on his own hands, and his eyes went wide. “What the...” he murmured, his heart beating faster. Had he painted that?

He stared at it, forcing himself to keep calm and think about what to do. He didn’t really want to go to the infirmary, but he probably should. Two years in the Pegasus Galaxy, plus a few years at the SGC before that, had taught him two things: One, weird shit happened all the time, and two, there was no such thing as using too much caution when it did.

Luckily, he didn’t run into too many people on the way back to his quarters; he didn’t want to explain why he was covered in paint. Once he got his painting supplies organized and put away and cleaned himself up, he almost changed his mind about going to the infirmary. But glancing at the painting again, he sighed and resolved to just go. The worst that could happen would be that there was nothing wrong with him and he would look stupid. Or he could be dying or being controlled by an alien entity. Better to just go.

He hesitated again outside the infirmary door, already feeling like an idiot for worrying over what was probably nothing. He realized he would have had no problem coming down here if Beckett were still around, but he didn’t know Doctor Keller very well. She was just kind of in the background, quiet and nervous. He had interacted with her on a few occasions, never very closely, but she didn’t inspire much confidence.

Taking a deep breath and shaking his head at himself, he walked in the door and found her in her office. “Hey, Doc,” he said. “Got a minute?”

“Sure,” she answered, turning towards him from her computer. “What can I do for you, Major?”

“Uh, well.” He rubbed at the back of his head awkwardly. How to explain this so he didn’t sound like an insane person? “I’ve been feeling kind of... odd.” Eloquent.

She creased her brow. “Odd how?”

He sighed again, already regretting this. “I don’t know,” he said, and it came out with more irritation than he intended. What did he expect, for her to read his mind? “Just...” He waved his hand vaguely, “odd.” He could tell from her look that she needed a bit more to go on. “I felt kind of dizzy earlier and then I fell over.”

“Like, passed out?” she pressed.

He shrugged, just wanting to get this over without a lot of fuss. “Can I just get a scan?”

She gave him a hard look, pursing her lips, and he felt even more like an idiot. “Sure,” she responded shortly, and brushed past him out of her office toward the scanner.

He rolled his eyes at himself; this was going great.

Leading him across the infirmary, she patted the bed underneath the scanner. “Hop on up.”

He laid down on the bed and waited as the familiar beams of light washed over him. Even though he had half convinced himself that absolutely nothing was wrong with him, the other half was anxiously awaiting bad news. What if he had been taken over by some kind of alien? Or what if it was something more normal, but just as dangerous, like a brain tumor or something? He was not the kind of person to worry, but whatever had happened on that balcony had freaked him out.

“Well,” Keller said as the scan finished. “Everything looks normal. Except... Huh.”

“What?” he asked, swinging his legs over the bed while he sat up.

“You said you felt dizzy and fell over earlier?”

“Yeah,” he prompted.

She pointed to a colorful patch on the picture of his brain on the screen. “Well there’s some strange readings from your hippocampus.” At his worried expression she explained. “It’s the part of the brain that controls spatial awareness. Could account for a dizzy spell.”

Evan took this in, not sure what to make of it. He was probably fine, right? Keller didn’t seem too concerned, so he supposed he shouldn’t be either.

“I could run some more tests...”

“No, forget it,” he said, standing up to leave. “It’s nothing.” He could tell she was just humoring him. This had been a waste of time, and it hadn’t made him feel any better.

He hurried out of the infirmary as fast as he could, not looking back at Keller’s confused expression. If anything, the visit to the infirmary had made him feel worse, more on edge.

Even though Keller had said nothing was wrong with him, he felt weird. Maybe it was psychosomatic, but he felt like his feet weren’t quite touching the ground as he walked. And his senses still felt too strong, like the lights were too bright, the sound too loud, the smells too... Smelly.

He wasn’t hungry but decided that maybe food would help, or at least wouldn’t hurt, and headed to the mess hall. Today was pasta day and he loved the pasta here. Atlantis actually had a surprisingly good commissary staff, and the Daedalus had been in recently as well, which meant they had a fresh shipment of ingredients from Earth. Which meant the pasta sauce was made with real sun-dried tomatoes, just like his Nan used to make.

He grabbed a cup of juice and some jello (because when in the mess hall, one always gets jello) and sat down at an empty table off to the side. Taking a bite of the pasta, he was dismayed to discover it tasted like hot dogs. He took another bite, hoping it was a fluke, but no. It was like he was at the ball park. The juice and the jello were the same.

He lost any semblance of an appetite. He didn’t even like hot dogs that much, and it was more than a little disturbing to eat hot dog flavored jello. But he felt like everyone in the room was watching him, waiting for him to do something wrong. He could feel his heart pounding, could feel the sweat rolling down his back. He had to act normal, so he forced himself to keep on eating.

Evan jumped when Rodney McKay dropped into the seat across from him. He seemed like he had come out of nowhere, and why had he decided to sit here? Glancing around the room, Evan saw that most of the tables were empty and realized it was kind of an odd hour for a meal. On a normal day, Evan wouldn’t mind sharing a meal with McKay. They weren’t necessarily friends but they got along well enough. But today, he didn’t want company, he just wanted to be left alone.

The good thing about McKay was that he was fairly oblivious to anyone or anything but himself, and he didn’t seem to notice that Evan was radiating nervous energy. He started talking a mile and minute, more at Evan than with him, which was totally fine with the major. He nodded and interjected politely, but he really wasn’t paying any attention to what the scientist was saying.

McKay was talking about his day, something about having a problem solving some technical thing in one of the labs. “...But of course, it wasn’t my fault because there was that power surge and everything went screwy.”

“Power surge?” Evan interrupted, the words catching his attention.

McKay stopped short, floundering at having his train of thought broken. Closing his mouth, he stared at Evan like he had just asked the stupidest question he had ever heard. “Uhh, the one that shut everything down for ten seconds a couple hours ago? What, were you asleep?”

Evan ignored his tone, used to McKay treating him like an idiot child. “What time was that?” He was afraid he already knew the answer.

“11:42,” McKay said flippantly, taking a giant bite of blue jello.

That was the exact time that Evan had passed out or had his seizure or whatever the hell it had been. “So what was it?” he asked, trying to sound casual even though his heart was hammering in his ears. “An attack? A glitch?”

“Hm,” McKay grunted, his mouth still full. “Power loop feedback error. The systems were realigning to the new environment.” He waved a hand. “No big deal, everything’s fine now.”

Evan felt sick to his stomach. What if the power surge and what had happened to him were connected? What if it had been some kind of Wraith weapon, and he had somehow been hijacked and was now a threat to Atlantis? The blood drained from his face as he thought about it, but reason told him it just didn’t make sense. All he had done was make some kind of crazy finger-painting. That was hardly threatening to the safety of the city.

The thought of trying to finish his still mostly uneaten plate of food made him feel even more sick, so he excused himself. He felt awful, his heart still thumping too loudly and his palms so sweaty he could hardly hold the tray to return it. He needed to lie down, sleep this off. He was sure he would feel better in the morning.

He didn’t even bother to fully undress when he got to his quarters, just kicked off his boots and threw his jacket on the chair before he flopped onto the bed. He was asleep within seconds.