Originally Posted: Jun. 25th, 2007
Length/Rating: 169 words, PG, Gen
Pairing/Warnings: none
Summary: He only has to fail once. (AU: Where the Ocean Meets the Sky)

“STARGATE ATLANTIS”, “STARGATE SG-1” and other related entities are owned, (TM) and © by MGM TELEVISION and DOUBLE SECRET PRODUCTION in association with GEKKO FILMS and THE SCIFI CHANNEL. All rights reserved. No copyright infringement is intended nor implied.

When Atlantis talks, time stops. From one breath to the next Rodney watches the world freeze as she floods down the neural net and overclocks his brain. Sight, sound, movement, all pushed aside in that blast of raw information.

The first few times were terrifying. Just the idea that he could be thinking, processing, so quickly that time mired itself gave him nightmares. Because as fast as he was, Atlantis was faster.

But it was when he stopped being terrified that it really scared him. The day he felt the first wisps of want, stuck in the midst of an engineering problem, bickering with Radek over power regulation, and feeling frustrated– feeling… slow.

She knew what it did to him, those sudden flashes of something he couldn’t be. She knew, and he knew she knew, and she used it ruthlessly. Because there was always another crisis around the corner, another race against impossible odds, and he could never say no.

Not when they all depended on him.

Not yet.