SGA FIC: THE WORLD YOU KNOW 3/10 [PG]

[x_erikah_x]

Title: The World You Know 3/10
Author: x_erikah_x
Word Count: 39,637
Rating: PG
Genre: Gen, Team, Adventure, Crossover
Characters: John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan, Samantha Carter, Cameron Mitchell, Daniel Jackson, Vala Mal Doran, Teal'c and other cameos by SG1 secondary characters
Disclaimer: Stargate and related characters are a property of Metro-Goldwin-Mayer Studios Inc., no infringements of rights intended.
Spoilers: Season 5 of SGA and as far as The Ark of Truth in SG1
Summary: The team finds an Ancient lab and ends up in trouble in some strange place. Or isn't it? Crossover with SG1. Set shortly after season 5 of SGA after they somehow return to Pegasus.

Author Notes: Thanks drewandian for cheerleading and first reading for me, even though I made you wait one year for the finished version. Thanks so much sherry57 for the beta. This fis is SO much better with your help. *hugs* Thanks so much girls!

I’ll post one chapter every couple of days, maybe one a day depending on my availability. The fic is finished, complete and edited already.

Chapter 1



Chapter 3

Rodney was able to find out where the nearest police station was, only to find out it wasn't all that near. He wiped his sweaty forehead as he looked at its entrance then crossed the street and entered it.

The place was busy with activity, its reception filled with police officers and all sorts of people, ranging from crying to staring.

He scowled and walked ahead, circling a bench and stepping back when a person who Rodney wasn't sure was a man or a woman snapped and shouted at him, almost making him trip by extending a foot. The policeman nearby kicked the leg and he put it back under the seat.

Rodney continued ahead, but his head soon span around when a screech reached his ears. He turned around, trying to find out what was making the noise and saw a dirty woman with crazy hair that made Ronon's look fashionable in comparison. Rodney stopped to let the policemen pass, dragging her inside.

He swallowed and proceeded towards the woman behind a desk.

"I, uh, need to know if you arrested someone last night."

He nearly waved a hand in between her face and the computer screen to catch her attention. "Hello-o?"

"We arrested a lot of people last night." She finally looked up. "You'll need to be more specific."

He sighed. "The name is John Sheppard."

"Just a moment." She went back to her screen for a few moments. "Yep, he's here."

Rodney was sure she was supposed to say something else afterwards, but four full seconds passed in which she just stared at him.

He rolled his eyes. "Why?"

She didn't even blink, making Rodney wonder if she was just a robot. But the way her face looked, a zombie would be a more appropriate description.

"Are you a relative?"

He crossed his arms. "No."

She continued to stare, though Rodney doubted she could see anything through the half closed eyes.

"Can I see him?" He spoke slowly to give her brain time to understand.

The woman pushed the glasses up her nose. "You're not a relative."

"So?" He was on the edge of his patience.

"Are you a friend?" she asked in the same monotone voice.

He rolled his eyes. "No, I'm just worried for a stranger's well-being!"

"Your name?"

Finally, some light at the end of the tunnel. "Doctor Rodney McKay."

"Just a moment."

Rodney rolled his eyes and leaned against the wall to wait the woman's brain cells to multiply.

"Excuse me. Doctor?" A young woman with short dark hair appeared at his side and made him snap from his thoughts. "You are Rodney McKay?"

He frowned. "Yes?"

She extended an arm. "I'm Helena Brants, John Sheppard's legal attorney."

Rodney slowly took her hand to shake. She was small, but carried herself in a tall posture that accentuated her slender form.

"What does he need an attorney for?" He pulled back his hand.

She leaned her weight on one leg. "He's been charged with desertion and--"

"What?" Rodney's high pitch almost made the police station go quiet. "That's ridiculous!"

She extended a hand to quiet him. "I'm on his case and he said that you could help." She tilted her head and prompted Rodney to follow her as she started walking. "I've got a strategy, and the more witnesses I can get, the better. Were you with him during the Israel invasion?"

Really, Rodney had no idea what she was talking about. "Uh... why are they charging him in the first place?" He sprinted for a couple steps to fall by her side.

She turned a corner and entered a much emptier corridor. "They went over his records when he was arrested. His file came up with a big deceased label on it." She stopped by a glass window and spoke to the guard inside. "Hi, George, I need to use the room again."

Rodney's eyes widened as things started falling into place. "Crap," he whispered.

"Doctor--"

"I need to speak to him." If what Rodney was thinking had happened, then they were in trouble.

She handed a document to the guard and signed a paper. "That's where I'm taking you." She turned to Rodney and waved ahead the corridor for them to continue walking. "Then we'll need to discuss his defense."

Rodney huffed. "If only that was our only concern..."

She stopped and turned to him. "Look, there were a lot of cases like his, all right? We can do this."

Rodney rolled his eyes at whatever she was talking about. "Look, I don't really care. All I want is to talk to him. In private. Is there a way you can arrange that?"

She nodded. "Not a problem, this police station's got plenty of private rooms. But I need to be present in all conversations with my client."

Of course she needed to be present. But the way things looked like around these parts, he didn't care all that much. She wouldn't be able to understand half of their conversation anyway.

"Fine. Just don't... get in the way."

She resumed walking and Rodney followed corridor after corridor, then a few sets of stairs down and more corridors. After so many turns Rodney doubted he could find his way back on his own. Finally, she led him to a small metal door with two strong guards by it. They opened it and Rodney followed her in.

The room was minuscule and the light above was barely enough to make people's face recognizable. Sheppard was inside and cuffed to the wall, his face not of a happy camper.

"Wow, that was fast." Sheppard's eyebrow rose.

The lawyer sat in one chair. "Luck. He was just outside looking for you." She looked up at Rodney and seemed amused by the fact Rodney still hadn't sat down.

"What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Sheppard?" Rodney finally sat on the remaining chair.

"You mean, what you have gotten us into?" he shot back.

Rodney fumbled with his hands above the table. "Well... It wasn't really my fault. Like I said it was--"

"Yes, yes, the Ancients left the power feedback in a loop and blah blahblah. Still, you should have listened when I told you--"

"Okay! Maybe I should have..." Rodney scowled. "Been more careful, but, really, it was very stupid of them to--"

"Whatever, Rodney. Just explain what exactly is going on here." Sheppard shooed an invisible fly.

Rodney flinched. "Everything indicates that this isn't exactly--"

"Our world?"

"Yes." Rodney sighed. "I've been thinking. They were experimenting with alternate means of, uh, you know..." Rodney glanced at the lawyer.

Sheppard waved a hand. "Do the ZPM stuff."

Rodney nodded. "Yes. But it wasn't connected to transporting matter as far as I can tell. Maybe they were looking for a way to harvest the... ZPM stuff... from different... places..."

"'Mirror, Mirror' kinds of places."

Rodney half smirked. "Yes, and they wanted to concentrate it in one buffer."

"And it caused us to end up here?"

"Yes! Too much energy plus tear in space equal matter transfer." He snapped his fingers. "Voila!"

"Can it be controlled?"

Rodney sighed. "That thing didn't only transfer matter through space, it was an interdimentional tear."

"Like that bridge thing."

"Yes," Rodney's voice rose. "No wonder it wasn't stable! The stupid Ancients tried to do the same thing I did!"

John leaned closer. "Can you fix it?"

"Now that I know what it does, I could give it a try, but we'll need to get back to M4G-789..."

"We need to use the gate for that," Sheppard looked at the attorney.

"I don't like the code speaking. What the hell are you guys taking about?" She leaned forward.

Rodney waved an annoyed hand. "Whatever. We need to get out of here."

Sheppard slouched back. "I don't think that's going to be so easy." He tried to cross his arms but gave up when the cuff prevented him.

She raised a hand. "I don't want to know what you guys are involved in; I'm here to do my job." She glanced from Sheppard to Rodney. "What can you say to help his defense?" She paused. "Besides the obvious," she added softly.

Rodney really didn't really care about the legal side of things. Instead, his mind drifted to work on the alternate reality problem.

"We'll need help to use the gate. I already tried calling them, but got nothing. They didn't know who I was."

Sheppard nodded. "Great."

"Maybe someone that..." He snapped his fingers and turned to the woman. "We need you to find Samantha Carter. She may be a scientist, or maybe in the military." He went back to John. "If she's as smart here as she is in our reality, we'll be able to explain everything to her."

"If they have a SGC and she's part of it, even better," John completed the thought.

Rodney waved a pointed finger at him. "Exactly."

The lawyer raised her hand and waved it, annoyed. "Is she a key witness?"

John bit his lip before answering. "It's possible...."

"Where does she live?"

"We don't know. We can search her name on scientific articles. If she's there, then she can help us big deal," Rodney answered.

*****

Helena wasn’t really expecting to find the woman they had talked about anywhere except the psychiatric hospital, so when Samantha Carter’s name came up followed by a couple PhDs and dozens of scientific articles, her eyebrow shot up. Of course, that still didn’t rule out the fact that Sheppard and McKay were complete loons, but at least showed that they were loons that researched the subject of their obsession.

She wondered if she should go as far as calling the woman. What good would it make to the case to actually confirm their delusions?

Well, it would prove that they were obsessed and that, along with the psychiatric evaluation, would clear Sheppard of any responsibility over anything that happened. It would even clear him of the murder charge, no matter how many prints and DNA matches they came up with. Of course, he would need to spend most of his life locked up in a mental hospital, but that was probably for the better.

The web page had a link with Carter’s e-mail, so Helena decided to contact her. She would have preferred a phone call to be more personal, but it would probably take days to reach her inside the government.

She stared at the blank page for a few minutes, deciding on what to write. She started by introducing herself then went on to talk about the case. She stayed out of the specifics and briefly mentioned what she could remember of Sheppard’s strange conversation with McKay. She bit her lips trying to remember the weird acronym they had repeated several times. Zee something...

She snapped up. ZPM.

She finalized by asking for any input to help her with defending Sheppard of the accusations that were clearly unfounded due to her client’s mental status.

She re-read the e-mail, made some minor corrections and hit send. Hopefully, Carter wouldn’t delete it at first sight.

*****

Rodney knocked on the door three times and was almost afraid it would fall off from the conditions this place had. He carefully opened it and coughed from the dust that entered his nostrils when he stepped inside the room where Teyla and Ronon were.

"What the hell are you guys trying to do?" He coughed again.

Rodney looked through the thin layer of dust that filled the air and saw that Ronon and Teyla had cleared most of the stuff that had been spread around the place.

"Sorry, Rodney. Ronon and I were trying to make this... place a little more comfortable while we waited for you." She dusted her hands. "Did you find him?" she asked expectantly.

Rodney waved his hands in front of his face to clear the air. "Yes." He controlled his breath no avoid inhaling more of that stuff. "And it's not good." He coughed. "Really not good." He sat on the edge of something that had once been a nice comfortable arm chair. "He's been arrested and charged with deserting the Air Force."

Ronon and Teyla shared looks.

"I do not understand."

Rodney decided to elaborate. "He's been charged with leaving the military because his records say that he's dead." He recognized something that one could interpret as condescending in his own voice. "And he's dead because this is not our Earth." He waved his index finger around. "We are in an alternate reality. One that is incredibly similar to ours, but different enough to be a lot of trouble. Legal trouble for one, then there is the problem of having to go back to our own universe and not being arrested in the meantime."

Teyla stepped forward. "Will we be able to get back?"

Rodney waved a hand. "I don't know yet. But I really hope so, because otherwise Sheppard would be in trouble. He's going to be handed to the military in a few days and they're also charging him with killing the old man from the store. They've got his prints and everything. Luckily, they didn't catch me in the system. I mean, I understand they wouldn't have your prints, but--"

"Rodney." Teyla lifted a hand. "Slow down. You said John is under arrest." She paused. "If we are to get back, then we will need him to be set free."

Rodney had spent his whole way back thinking of that. They couldn't simply break him out of jail because it would be too risky with only the three of them not to mention that would undermine any help from the government itself, so their best hope was finding someone that would believe and understand their situation to be able help. Someone inside, preferably with enough power to pull some strings. And, if they are lucky, let them use the top secret American government controlled alien device to travel to another galaxy. If they even had one.

Piece of cake.

"We're so screwed. What if we can't get back? What if we end up stranded here? Sheppard will be taken to jail or mental house, I apparently don't exist, you will be considered illegal immigrants without a home country and I'll spend the rest of my life thinking I screwed up majorly when I turned that stupid thing on!"

Teyla approached him. "Rodney, it is not your fault," she said softly. "Like you said, the device was left in bad conditions and--"

"Who am I trying to fool here?" Rodney raised his voice. "It's not the first time I turned something on and caused catastrophe because of it!" His ears burned. "That was so stupid!"

"Hey." Ronon stepped forward. "Don't beat yourself up about it."

Rodney huffed.

"Freaking out is not going to help, McKay. It happened. Get over it." Ronon smiled. "Besides, it's not like we're going to let it come to that. We'll fight. Break him out if we have to."

"If it comes to that," Teyla added. "Until then," she said as she turned to Rodney. "We need to concentrate on the problem itself, and not on the cause."

Rodney breathed in. "Okay. Concentrate on the problem." He pointed a finger up. "Uh, problem one, I'm starving."

"That can be easily fixed," Teyla said as she reached inside one of the vests on the floor.

Rodney grabbed the package in her hand and unwrapped it, his hands almost shaking with hunger.

Rodney munched on his power bar and waved it around as he spoke. "If we find Sam, and if she can help us in some way or another, then we won't need to worry too much. In the best case scenario she's just like our Sam and is part of the Stargate Program. They could get Sheppard free and us to Pegasus, drop us on M4G-789 and it is just like the one in our universe. In that case, it also needs to be connected to our universe in some way, so we can go back to our reality. It needs to be in good working condition and it can't overload like it did the last time. So, all in all, not very good odds of all that happening." Rodney took another bite. "The worst case scenario is that the program doesn't exist and that there is no gate on Earth. Then, we are in trouble. I can't send us back in any other way."

"Okay," Teyla nodded. "So, working on the assumption that there is a gate on Earth, we would need to try to contact people that could be involved in it."

"Yes," Rodney raised a pointed finger. "The attorney is working to find Sam and that's a start, but we need to broaden our search in case she can't be found. But for that, I'd need a computer."

"Do you know where to find one?" Ronon asked.

"A cyber cafe is our best bet. But, for that, we need money..."

"Which we don't have," Teyla finished.

"Is there an easy way your people use to get money?"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "It's not like in are in Pegasus and a simple fix to the village water pump will get us points with the natives."

"There must be something we can trade," Teyla said.

Rodney puffed. "Do you happen to have any gold necklaces? What about some diamond rings, huh?" Rodney snapped his fingers several times when an idea cropped to mind. "We need some cups and sticks."

"Why?" Ronon asked.

Rodney smirked. "A trick. I'm gonna make a bet. A bar trick, you know."

Teyla and Ronon exchanged glances. They both shook their heads together.

"Jennifer taught me when we got stuck at the Genii mine. We need four objects of about the same weight and height, and three flat sticks."

Teyla looked back to Rodney with one eyebrow raised.

*****

"C'mon, how hard can this be?" Rodney tiptoed around the dumpster Ronon had gone in.

Ronon's head popped out, grease staining one cheek. "If it's so easy, then why don't you come here then?"

Rodney grinned and pointed a finger up. "Well, because I'm the one who'll have to go back to the police station to keep tabs on Sheppard's case and we don't have any spare clothes."

The alley was faintly illuminated by the late afternoon sun, surrounded by tall abandoned buildings. A lot of garbage and trash cans were all over the place, dirt staining the corners and graffiti on the brick walls.

"Where's Teyla gone?"

"She was going to ask around for supplies," Ronon said as he jumped out. Rodney didn't think he had stayed in the dumpster for longer than one minute.

"She what?"

Ronon didn't look at Rodney and continued to peek inside different cans. "She said it would be our best bet."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "You don't know the people from Earth."

"It's better than stealing." Ronon turned and glared, arms wide.

"We're not stealing!"

"Trash, McKay? Fooling boys with a stupid trick?" He all but growled.

Rodney waved a finger. "That's an honest money earning trick."

"Yeah, right."

"I have it!"

Rodney turned and saw Teyla with a grin on her face and money clutched in her hand.

"How did you do that?" Rodney asked.

Teyla turned her head slightly and smirked. "I told our story to an old woman she took pity."

"She believed you?"

"No. She eyed me with suspicion, but when I pointed to you two in this alley, she decided to help."

"How much have you got?" Rodney extended his hand and Teyla gave him the money. "Five dollars? Is that it?"

"That's what she gave me."

"Miserable old woman," Rodney mumbled.

"Is it enough?"

Rodney nodded. "Let's hope so."

*****

Rodney handed in the money and waited for the change. Instead, the boy didn't even raise his head from the magazine and groaned something that could have been the number of the computer Rodney was supposed to use.

"Excuse me?"

A hand rose and pointed. "Five is over there." A shock of green hair moved behind the counter, but Rodney still couldn't see any face.

Rodney groaned and walked to the direction indicated, Teyla and Ronon following. The cafe had only few rows of computers and had only a couple of people using them. A few people more were farther away, using laptops connected to the wifi. He sat down at the far desk on the row next to the wall and started the browser.

"I can't believe I'm reduced to using Windows."

The silence that followed clearly indicated the punch line was missed by his companions. Rodney shook his head and when Google showed up, he started typing a search for scientific articles. He paused, a smile growing in his lips. He looked over his shoulder to check on Ronon and Teyla. Their position was relatively hidden and both would be able to keep Rodney's activity from any curious eyes.

"Keep an eye out, I don't want people seeing what I'm doing," he whispered.

The first thing Rodney did was access the terminal's directory to hack his way into the program that controlled the timer. Rodney's smirk grew as he tapped the keyboard to add a few extra hours.

"You know the best way to find out if the program exists here, my friends?" he asked in a low voice. "I just have to access NORAD's secret server."

"Can you do that?" Teyla leaned closer.

"Who are you talking to?" He cracked his knuckles.

*****

Chapter 4