4 Ways Chuck Might Have Come To Atlantis (and 1 way he really did)
{ gen }
| podfic available |
*
1 - Disguises
It had been simple, really, to remove the scar. Hermione had learned all sorts of handy spells over the years, which was lucky, because after she wrote ‘The Book’ (as Ron had taken to calling it) they had all been forced to go out in disguises - Hermione as her publishing persona, J. K. Rowling; Ron as his Animagus form, a shaggy Afghan dog; Harry as ‘Chuck’, sans glasses and scar, eyes long ago changed from green to brown.
Chuck was the perfect disguise - unassuming, smart enough to be useful, average enough to be unimportant. Hermione created birth records, schooling history, and a Canadian background for Harry to memorize, for him to inhabit. It had taken months to perfect, but he had done it.
The next step was to make contacts in Atlantis. He ‘bonded’ with McKay over their Canadian ‘heritage’; he brought Dr. Weir coffee in the morning and let her ramble at him about Atlantis Team 1; he played poker with Parrish and Lorne and a handful of others. Harry kept his ear to the ground.
If Harry hadn’t gone to Atlantis, the expedition would have been doomed from the start. In fact, he was becoming concerned with how many times he’d had to magic them out of dire situations - it was getting a little ridiculous how often Colonel Sheppard needs to be saved from insurmountable odds.
But Harry would never leave them here to fight his war - to destroy the Wraith, the twisted clones Voldemort had made in Lucius Malfoy’s image during the last agonizing months of the Great War. They had been stronger than Voldemort, more deadly, and in the end, Harry hadn’t dealt the killing blow. It was them, with their enzyme and their mind control, that finally ended it all.
Then they were free, and Harry’s banishing spell misfired and sent them back in time, instead, to another galaxy, to another timeline.
The first time John Sheppard woke Atlantis, he died there.
The second time, Harry Potter had been with him, and even though the failsafe didn’t work that time either, Harry had raised Atlantis from the ocean, like Fawkes from his ashes.
When the Wraith leave, Harry promises himself that he will return to England. No matter how tempted he might be to stay in this city of curved lines and sparkling glass, he doesn’t belong here, with the Muggles.
When the Wraith leave, Harry doesn’t know who will keep Atlantis alive.
—-
2 - Chain of Command
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“Really really?”
Chuck narrowed his eyes. “I’m not lying.”
“I wasn’t implying that you were,” John said reassuringly. He cocked his head and gave Chuck an assessing glance.
“It’s just so…cliché, don’t you think?”
“Not really,” Chuck countered. “I think your hair is cliché enough around here.”
John frowned and poked Chuck in the shoulder, right on his Canadian flag. “No, but seriously. You’re really a -”
“Yes,” Chuck insisted and glared at John. “And I’m trying to eat, so if you’re done with the twenty questions…”
“It’s just that I thought you were a scientist all this time!” John shook his head. His eyes lit up and he leaned forward. “Hey, does McKay know? Because I’m pretty sure he thinks he gets to boss you around.”
“Technically,” Chuck said around a mouth full of food, “I do have a degree in engineering, so I am a scientist.”
“But,” John prompted.
“Why are you talking about butts?” Rodney demanded as he plopped his tray down on the table. “And why are you doing it in the mess hall? Unless…” Rodney poked his food with his fork, “this is butt?” He made a sour face at his food and checked everyone else’s trays to see what they had conspicuously left uneaten.
“McKay, you’ll never guess what Chuck is,” John baited.
Rodney rolled his eyes at John and ate the possibly-butt-steak anyway. “Canadian? A Backstreet Boy? What?”
John smirked and Chuck looked pained. “No, Rodney. Chuck’s an honest to god, real life…”
Rodney glared at John’s antics and shovelled food into his mouth.
“…Mountie.”
Rodney‘s fork clattered to the table, spewing them all with gravy and Tava root. “Really?”
“That’s what I said!” John crowed, feeling vindicated.
Chuck picked up his tray with a huff. “That’s it - I’m eating in my room.”
—-
3 - Hinge
Elizabeth thought there should be some sort of manual. Some checklist to consult. She sighed and pushed the manila folders across the table.
Really, how did they expect her to pick a Gate Operator out of over one hundred candidates?
Having a sudden craving for Ben & Jerry’s, Elizabeth grabbed her purse and headed for the elevator. She tucked her room key into her pocket and glared at the shiny glass floors of the hotel the SGC had graciously put her up in until she found her own place.
The doorman nodded to her, greeted her with a “Ma’am”, and she made her way down the front steps, all the while thinking to herself that it shouldn’t possibly be this difficult to find someone who simply had to open and close a wormhole.
At the store, she stared through the freezer’s frosted glass door, contemplating between Chunky Monkey and Half-Baked. She opened the door, reached in, pulled her hand back, and closed it. Opened, reached, closed. Open, close. Open…
Elizabeth watched her slim fingers on the handle, watched the hinges work, and completely forgot about wanting ice cream.
She walked back to the hotel and climbed the steps. The doorman, a young man with short brown hair, a little curly in the front, and an easy smile, waited there.
“Ma’am,” he greeted again, and pulled open the door. Elizabeth watched him with a critical eye.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
The doorman blinked. “Ma’am?”
“Are you a student?” Elizabeth pressed. “Do you know anything about science?”
“My name’s Chuck,” the doorman replied, “and I’m getting an engineering degree from Colorado State.” Chuck raised his eyebrows. “I usually just open doors - I’ve never actually had a conversation with a patron before. This is kind of strange.”
Elizabeth grinned at him and shook his unoccupied hand. “Congratulations, Chuck. You’ve just been hired.”
—-
4 - 30
“This is - this is really bizarre.”
John and Rodney exchanged glances. The marines didn’t blink.
Elizabeth rushed down the stairs, taking them two at a time. “Who are you?” she demanded.
The young man scratched the back of his neck in a familiar gesture. “You probably won’t believe me.”
“Try us,” John suggested, his finger wrapped carefully around the trigger of his P-90.
“Look,” the man pleaded, palms outstretched, “I know this is going to sound totally impossible, but I swear I’m telling you the truth.” He took a deep breath. “My name is Chuck, and I’m from the future.”
Rodney scoffed and flailed and gestured angrily, but no one could make out his high-pitched squawking.
“Okay,” John admitted, “you got the unbelievable and impossible parts right. Now try again.”
Chuck pointed a finger at Rodney. “If you check the log, you’ll see that this wormhole originated from Atlantis.”
“That’s impossible,” Rodney argued, spittle flying from his mouth.
John radioed Grodin, though, who ran some tests and confirmed what the man was saying. Rodney blubbered some more, turning red in the face.
“I was sent back to fix something we screwed up thirty years ago,” Chuck explained.
“Thirty years,” Elizabeth gasped. “We must colonize, then.”
Chuck grinned. “You do. You settle down and start families.” He glanced at John and Rodney. “You have kids.”
“Are you trying to tell us that you’re somebody’s kid from the future? That something we do now screws something else up so badly that we have to implement time travel to save ourselves?”
Chuck nodded solemnly. “Yes.”
“Carson!” Rodney bellowed. “Carson, there’s a crazy person in the gate room! I need you to check him for voodoo!”
Chuck started yelling at Rodney and Rodney yelled back, and they gestured violently at each other, hands stabbing and waving, and John figured it out first.
“You’re Rodney’s kid!” he exclaimed. Rodney paused in mid-diatribe and stared at the guilty look on Chuck’s face.
“You weren’t supposed to figure that out,” Chuck muttered.
Then Rodney started yelling again. “I would never send my kid to sacrifice himself like this!” he retorted. “That’s the military’s job - that’s why they’re here.”
“Well, none of the marines are geniuses, and you couldn’t exactly come yourself!” Chuck argued. “And I know how to get back - I’m the one that figured out the time travel in the first place.”
Rodney scoffed again, but John lowered his weapon. “How much power does one of those wormholes use,” John asked. “Because we don’t have a lot of ZPM to go around, right now.”
“I know,” Chuck acknowledged. “It’ll be a couple more years before I can get back home, but it’s the only way. You have to believe that.”
//
“He’s right - this really is bizarre.”
John chuckled and wriggled in the hard infirmary seat. “You’re telling me. That scene in the gate room? Totally freaky. You looked so much alike.” He waved his arms in a poor intimation and Rodney rolled his eyes.
“I want to know who his mother is,” Rodney said. “Obviously it’s someone brilliant - I would never settle for less.”
“Aw, come on, Rodney,” John admonished.
“I bet it’s Sam Carter,” Rodney continued. “She thinks I’m sexy - did I ever tell you that?”
John glowered at him and crossed his arms. “Yes. But she also threatens you with lemon every chance she gets.”
“It’s a sign of her affection,” Rodney insisted.
John huffed. “I think it’s a sign of her loathing, actually, but I can see how you could mistake one for the other.”
“You’re just jealous.”
John froze. “What?”
“That I marry a hot, beautiful woman and we have genius babies together.”
Rodney turned his attention to Chuck’s thorough medical exam and watched as Chuck ducked his head bashfully, flirted with the nurse, and laughed at something she said. Laughed in a very, very familiar and very, very disturbing way.
“You know,” John said as he stood, “I think I’m gonna go for a run.”
Chuck slouched back on the infirmary bed and drawled something at Carson, who smiled and shook his head.
Dear lord, Rodney thought, this isn’t possible.
Beside him, John cocked his head. In front of him, Chuck did the same.
“Are you okay?” John asked.
Rodney promptly passed out.
—-
1 - Tomorrow
Chuck was the first engineer Peter Grodin had picked to go to Atlantis. He was always the first one Peter picked for special assignments, the first one he showed new systems to.
So, when Atlantis returned to normal operations after the Wraith invasion and Peter’s death, Chuck was his obvious replacement.
His first day with Peter’s job, Chuck was nervous. It wasn’t the responsibility - no, that came easily; Chuck had always wanted underlings. It was more that Sheppard’s team was out in the field and bad things always happened when they gated in.
Puddlejumpers got wedged in orbital gates. Wraith blasts followed them through and scarred up the embarkment area. People got kidnapped and ransoms were demanded.
Dr. Weir always hovered in the control room on these days, constantly requesting updates and watching the clock until the next scheduled check-in.
On Chuck’s first day with Peter’s job, everything went surprisingly well.
Sheppard hit every check-in fifteen minutes early, they gated in right on time, and when they materialized in Atlantis, they weren’t dirty and sweaty and running for their lives. Weir looked exceptionally pleased, McKay looked bored, and Chuck was completely confused.
“I was sure today would be more interesting,” he confessed to Katie Brown over dinner. “I mean, it was Sheppard’s team. They always get into trouble!”
“You wanted them to be in danger?” Katie asked, confused.
“Of course not, it’s just…” Chuck shrugged. “It was kind of anti-climactic, I guess.”
Sheppard wandered into the mess hall, McKay on his heels, and when he spotted Chuck across the room he steered the doctor towards the food line and made his way to Chuck’s table.
“So,” he said by way of greeting, “how was your first day, Chuck?”
Chuck shrugged. “Great, I guess.”
“Good!” Sheppard said. “That’s what I was hoping to hear. Your first day should always be great.”
Chuck cast Sheppard a suspicious glance. “Sir?”
“Well, you don’t want anything tragic happening on your first day! Wraith invasions, system problems, McKay yelling at you - that should be saved for your second day.” Sheppard gave him a pleased look. “Lorne’s team is gathering some intel on the Genii, tomorrow. It should be interesting.”
He clapped Chuck on the back and met McKay at the head of the line, taking the tray that was shoved at him.
“So,” Katie said, “I guess you’re looking forward to tomorrow, huh?”
“Most definitely,” Chuck agreed with a grin.
Katie rolled her eyes, muttered something about ‘immature men’ and ‘hero complexes’, and left Chuck to wonder about tomorrow.