"So it turns out that you were... will be... would have been the guy to green-light the whole thing," Sheppard concluded, leaning back in his chair. "Right place at the right time and all that."
"Well, anytime I can sacrifice my promising career to save the galaxy, don't hesitate to ask," Lorne grinned.
"Don't think we won't. Of course, now that we've screwed that particular timeline, you might not get the chance."
"That's okay." He shrugged and reached for his coffee mug again. "I'm kind of getting used to being the unluckiest Lorne in the multiverse. Every time I hear about some alternate universe, the other me always seems to be doing a lot better than I am."
"Quit complaining, major," McKay said absently, still half-distracted by the computer pad cradled in the crook of his arm. "I'm sure there are plenty of other timelines in which you're already dead."
"Thanks, doc. That's really reassuring."
* * * * Evan Lorne had resigned himself years ago to the fact that he was probably going to die on an alien planet so far away from home that you couldn't even see its star from Earth. Oh, he hadn't come to that conclusion the first time he'd talked to the crazy colonel with the deceptively laid-back grin who had asked if he believed in extraterrestrials. Theoretically, sir? Sure, why not? It's a big universe. I figure they probably have better things to do than draw crop circles in Kansas, though. Or during the subsequent three days that he'd spent under the Mountain signing ten-thousand pages of the longest, most complicated non-disclosure agreement known to man. Or even on his first trip through the Stargate on a relatively quiet (and as he'd later learned miraculous and atypical) mission.
But it did occur to him a few weeks later -the first time he found himself staring at the wrong end of zat - that he might have made a terrible mistake in humoring Jack O'Neill. He couldn't pronounce the name of the planet they were on. He sure as hell couldn't remember its P-designation. And he still couldn't spell Goa'uld with any degree of confidence on where the damn apostrophe was supposed to go. Not that it was going to matter. None of it was going to be in the letter they sent to his parents explaining why he wasn't coming home. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Lorne, We regret to inform you that your son went off and got himself zapped by snake-headed aliens on a pretty planet with three moons and weird pink grass. We're sorry for your loss.
He'd managed to survive that encounter though. And the next one. And too many others after that to keep count anymore. Now the thought came to mind every time he got shot/captured/kidnapped/tortured/imprisoned/stranded/trapped. He was probably going to die out here among the stars so very far away from the planet he'd been born on. And if he was very, very lucky there might be a body for them to send back. He'd been to too many closed casket funerals; too many where the coffin was empty. The Stargate program hadn't really been around long enough for many people to retire out of it, but that was never going to be the most common means of leaving the SGC. He had lost more teammates than he wanted to remember. SG-11 had an embarrassingly high rate of attrition, even among the Milky Way's notoriously catastrophe-prone away teams, and the Pegasus galaxy seemed to chew through new recruits -military and civilian alike- at a depressingly rapid pace. It wasn't easy and no one was ever really safe.
Still, he'd seen a few resurrections, too. Some of them literally. A couple of them had even been his own. He'd walked -or at least limped- away from more disasters than he really had any right to expect. So maybe he was one of the luckier Lornes after all. McKay was undoubtedly right about there being plenty of other universes he was already dead in. But he was still alive in this one. And in at least one timeline he would actually survive long enough to be put in charge of the whole Soldier-Geek-Circus.
He had his doubts that he'd ever be that Lorne though. And he didn't think he really wanted to be. That Lorne had earned his place on Earth after being forced out of Atlantis, losing and leaving behind everyone and everything that had become so important to him over the past few years. It was still possible that the expedition would be recalled and their mission abandoned, but he wasn't ready to leave willingly. He still had responsibilities here - ties that were as significant to him personally as they were professionally. Insane soldiers, neurotic scientists, and all-too-human aliens - all of whom he counted as friends- spaceships that he could fly with his mind, and a legendarily impossible city that he'd inexplicably fallen in love with. Turning his back on Atlantis wasn't a price he was willing to pay to advance his career or even to ensure his own survival.
No, he was still pretty sure that sooner or later he was going to die on an alien planet so far away from home that you couldn't even see its star from Earth.
And sometimes, he was almost okay with that.
* * * *
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