cookiemom6067

Title: Erratic Impulses
Author: cookiemom6067
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Episode: 5.05 Ghost in the Machine
Rating: PG
Genre: Gen, Vignette
Word Count: 918
Author's Notes: Elizabeth, disembodied in subspace

Being disembodied energy in subspace felt strange. Elizabeth (was she still Elizabeth?) felt both more limited and more liberated than she had in her previous body. Impulses expressed themselves as colors and sounds, though they weren’t colors or sounds. Elizabeth’s body surfed the waves caused by ships in hyperspace, or black holes, or solar winds. She tasted the essence of passing comets and listened rapturously to the songs of the nebulae.

She felt her new friends around her. They were each individuals, and though she remembered their faces, what remained felt like a particular resonance on what she perceived as her skin. Aliki was a soft brush on her upper arm. Jadon was a tickle behind her right ear. Sonmu was like a sharp electrical current applied to the soles of her feet. Koracen was the insistent touch of a lover, caressing her breast.

All of them were frightened of their new existence, even Elizabeth.

She had imagined ascension to be much as this was. She was pure energy. She neither ate nor slept nor had to attend to the mundane details of physical existence. But she had not imagined the overwhelming terror. She felt every minute that she was on the verge of losing her individuality and fading into subspace, as a drop of food coloring disburses in water.

It was a relief to find the Traveler’s ship.

Koracen called their attention to it – the sensation of his discovery almost took her breath. Soon, they were all joined together, like a chain of old-fashioned paper dolls, as Koracen led the way. When they reached the ship itself, they each attached themselves to a different system. Elizabeth hunkered down in the internal sensors and looked around.

The ship was ancient – identical to the Orion before its destruction during their short-lived and ill-advised alliance with the Wraith. Happily, it was in somewhat better condition than the Orion had been. Elizabeth watched the crew, and its captain, a woman with a leather uniform and a mane of wild hair, work on the systems day and night. There was much that was not working, and it was clear that none of these people had the gene. Elizabeth wondered what Rodney could have done with a ship such as this.

Ultimately, their existence inside the ancient warship was pointless. Where were they going to go?

When they popped back into subspace, Elizabeth realized that the terror had returned tenfold. What’s more, the noises and sensations of their existence in subspace had intensified unpleasantly. Before long, they collectively insinuated themselves into more technology – an outpost of a previously unknown advanced civilization. She spread out into more systems, this time. It was interesting to have a body that was so diverse and large.

Tirianan, Traveler, Amanathong, Wraith. Each foray into advanced technology paled after a time, as the cause of Ascension was not advanced and boredom set in. The exception was the wraith technology, which was unpleasant in its own right, leaving her with an unclean, slimy feeling even after she had disentangled herself. Each release into subspace again was more painful and disconcerting than the last, until it was as maddening as the worst migraine imaginable, loud and clamorous and painful.

In the insanity of subspace, Elizabeth often thought about home, about Atlantis. She knew that she could not bear to continue as she had been. She had to return to physical existence. Incorporated into subspace, she could not die. She faced an eternity of torment. She had sought the Heaven of Ascension, but found herself in Hell. Koracen’s idea had failed.

She knew there was only one place where the technology to build a replicator body still existed. She had to go home.

Of course, she could hide nothing from her cohorts. They pressed in on her, an orgy of sensation and sound and madness intensifying the horror and pain she already felt. They knew the best odds lay with Elizabeth convincing her old friends to help them. Koracen was the most skeptical, not wanting to ask, but to take. Had Koracen not been the source of their current torment, the others might have shared his suspicion that Elizabeth wanted to abandon them, but they preferred to listen to her. She knew she would have limited time before Koracen would, in her absence, convince the others to pursue her, even if they ultimately agreed with her.

She cautiously spread herself out in subspace, listening for the harmony of Atlantis in the riot of color, sound and sensation that tortured her. Near a planet with no technology other than an orbiting Stargate, she heard the clear tone of home, and felt the warmth of friends long left behind, but never forgotten.

She reached for the puddlejumper, forcing herself inside as though cramming herself into a too-small box. She reached out for the technology and felt its answering impulses. The chaos of her mind was playing havoc with the little ship, and she tried not to get distracted by the voices (so close!) of John, Rodney, Teyla and Ronon. She had to calm herself when she wanted to weep with relief and happiness. The systems were restored as Elizabeth calmed herself into a meditative state. The jumper immerged from the gate and docked in the jumper bay.

She felt the city – HER city! – murmuring to the little ship and followed the voice of Atlantis, caressing each conduit, crystal, pylon, and pier as she passed.

She was home.

It was time to begin her work.