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One moment, Ronon is stepping through the gate with his team like he's done a hundred times before. The next, there's a tremendous pop and he's staggering back into Atlantis's gate room, alone.
Except now Atlantis looks different. The walls are a soft blue with copper highlights instead of the sea green and gunmetal he's used to. There are expedition staff scuttling around the gate as usual but he only recognizes a handful of them. No one pays him any heed.
Something very strange is going on.
McKay, he decides. McKay will know what to do.
Ronon finds him in his lab, as per usual. But as he walks through the door to see McKay bent over a computer, he stops in his tracks.
There’s something wrong about McKay. He’s got the same squat build and scruffy hair as ever, and he’s wearing a leather jacket which is unusual but not unprecedented. But there’s something about the way he’s sitting that’s different, something jarring about it -
“Ronon!” McKay waves at him. “How’s it going, buddy?”
There’s definitely something wrong. Ronon peers closer, squints his eyes. Then he sees it.
“Rod?”
Rod grins and gives him finger guns. “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
Ahh, fuck. This is not his McKay. This is the other McKay, from that alternate dimension a while back.
And that means this is not his universe.
Rod says he'll run some tests. Great.
Teyla stands in the doorway, regarding him coolly.
"So… I think I need to get back to my own universe," he finishes explaining.
She crosses her arms and lets a long silence stretch. Eventually she says, "Yes?"
It catches him off guard. Teyla is usually so intuitive, so willing to help. "So do you know what I should do?"
Another long silence. Her brow furrows. Eventually she says, "No."
He waits to see if she will offer any suggestions or advice.
She doesn't.
"Ronon." Sheppard peers at him suspiciously. "What are you doing here? I'm in the middle of running some very complex models on the effects of Lantea's magnetic field fluctuations on the local space radiation environment."
He's wearing thick bottle-bottom glasses and a lab coat with 'Dr. Sheppard' embroidered on it.
It's pretty odd.
“Hard at it, huh?" Ronon tries for their usual banter and claps him on the back.
“Hey! Ow!” Sheppard winces and gives him a filthy look. “Easy, Chewie. No need for violence.”
This doesn’t sound like the fond teasing of his Sheppard. It sounds stroppy .
“Oh.” He tucks his hands into his belt. He hates feeling like a bully. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be rough.”
Sheppard pushes his glasses up his nose and the corners of his mouth turn down into a scowl. “What did you want?” His voice is clipped and impatient.
“Just wondering if you wanted to take a run? Do a bit of sparring, maybe?”
Sheppard looks like he just offered to throw him out of a jumper. “ God no. Some of us have more important things to be doing than getting all," He pulls a face, "sweaty.”
He turns back to his whiteboard and focuses on frantically scribbling equations. It leaves Ronon feeling unmoored, like the ground has shifted beneath his feet.
“Anything I can help with?” Maybe something heavy needs to be carried so he could at least feel useful.
“Not unless you’ve become an expert in solar dynamics overnight, no," Sheppard sniffs. "And I don't recall you joining the mensa society recently."
Elizabeth is surrounded by stacks of books and papers covered in Ancient writing, piled up chaotically all around her office. She's slumped in her chair and her fingers are ink-stained.
"Dr Wier." Ronon shifts and she blinks owlishly at him. "I need your help."
He explains the situation to her. She barely looks up from her books. "What do you want me to do about it?"
"I don't know. Thought you might want to tell someone. Maybe someone in sciences."
She gives a lazy shrug. "Honestly, Ronon, this sounds like a you problem."
She reaches under her desk and produces a decorative gourd which seems to have been fashioned into a bong.
"Now if you don't mind, I have some important research to do."
"How does anyone survive in this place?" Ronon has given up on getting help from his team. These people are not his team. He's turned to a different source for information.
Chuck leans forward conspiratorially. "Elizabeth and McKay are theoretically in charge, but if you're looking to actually get things done, you gotta see Zelenka. He and Lorne basically run the city."
Ahh. That makes sense. He's about to ask Chuck for more information, but they're interrupted by a new arrival to the control room.
"What's up, best gate techs in the galaxy?" Kavanagh strolls in, grinning at everyone. Inexplicably, he has a goatee.
The gate techs fall over themselves to each give him a first bump.
"Chuck! My man! Still on for our Halo tournament tonight? You have to show me more of those skills!" Kavanagh mimes playing with a games controller.
"Wouldn't miss it!" Chuck gives him a high five as he passes through on his way to the stairwell.
He sighs after him. "He is such a great guy. Everyone here loves him."
Ronon feels like his mind is unwinding.
He does manage to track down Zelenka, who is running five separate diagnostics while trying simultaneously to adjust the power system and arrange distribution of a shipment of food and equipment which just arrived.
His hair is even wilder than Ronon is used to and he keeps having to scuttle off to deal with emergencies, muttering to himself in Czech. The poor man looks like he hasn't slept in days.
He suggests Ronon joins Rod's team on a mission through the gate. They are missing their Ronon, he explains, and maybe they can find out if anyone on other worlds has had similar problems with being shunted through alternate dimensions.
What the hell, Ronon thinks. It's not like he has anything better to be doing.
"Great, the team's all here." Rod beams around the gate room and claps Ronon on the back. Sheppard is hunched over, not making eye contact. Teyla scowls.
"Elizabeth!" Rod calls up to her office. "We're heading out to P3X-585 to do recon."
"Sure," she calls back, waving one hand distractedly. "Whatever."
"Okay. Here's the plan." Rod slides into command mode, and it's strange to see McKay standing straight upright and giving orders. "We've recently made some modifications to the gate, but we're not fully sure what the effects on travelers will be. So I'll go in first. I'll scout around, make sure the area is secure. If it's safe, I'll radio back and you can join me."
"The hell you will!" Sheppard explodes. "I'm not letting you go in alone. You can't…" His eyes dart around, searching for an excuse, "I'm not letting you take all the credit. It's my research we're using to test the new configuration of the gate." He raises his chin. "If anyone should go in first, it's me."
Ronon expects Rod to argue back -- bickering over credit is, after all, one of McKay's favorite pastimes. But that's not what happens here.
"Hey, come here." Rod takes Sheppard's sleeve and leads him away from the gate and into a corridor out of view of the gate staff.
From where he stands Ronon can't hear them, but he can see Rod explaining something earnestly, hands making soothing motions. Sheppard looks first at his feet, then stares at the wall behind Rod. Eventually Rod puts a hand on his shoulder and Sheppard gives a wobbly nod.
Then Rod is gently caressing his cheek, and Sheppard leans into the touch and relaxes, the tense set of his posture unwinding. Rod leans in closer, pressing a soft kiss to his lips.
Huh.
"They are not like this where you are from?" Teyla asks, catching him watching them.
Ronon considers. "Not exactly," he says in the end.
Rod comes striding back in, giving final orders to the marines. Sheppard stares after him with a look of hopeless, smitten adoration on his face.
Now Ronon thinks about it, he's seen that look on his Sheppard's face as well. It's usually when Rodney is doing something particularly ingenious and/or ridiculous.
He steps through the gate on one end, and then there's a whirring, and a whooshing, and then he's stepping out of the gate back into Atlantis.
It only takes a glance to know he's home.
There's his Sheppard, lounging against a pillar in military fatigues and smirking, his Teyla, smiling widely and welcoming him back, and his McKay, fidgety and erratic.
"Ronon? Is that you? Are you alright?" The team rush over to fuss around him, checking he's ok, asking a million questions all at once, and he has to laugh.
"It's me. I guess I have you all to thank for bringing me back."
"McKay figured it out," Sheppard says, looking over at him with that look of smitten adoration Ronon remembers.
Rodney waves a hand. "It was a stroke of brilliance on my part, realizing we could track the exotic particles created by the dimensional rift and use the gate to create a subspace bubble around them to pull you back out." He smiles, not at all modestly. "Maybe they'll name a new particle after me. What do we think about McKayons? Rodninos?"
Ronon grins. This is all delightfully familiar. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Well. Anyway. It was all very impressive, and it worked, and here you are. Lucky for us, because it wasn't the same without you." Rodney punches him in the shoulder, very awkwardly. "So… team dinner? I heard the mess is serving Salisbury steak."
"Sounds perfect." Ronon throws one arm around Rodney's shoulders and another around Teyla, and Sheppard leads the way.
Teyla squeezes his hand where it is draped over her. "It is good to have you back, Ronon."
"It's good to be back." He gives a little shudder. "That place was weird."