![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: The Past Always Finds You - Part Eight
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Characters: Team
Rating: PG13
Note: Prologue - the sga_flashfic entry Minor In Action
Spoilers: None.
*Thanks to my beta superfox*
Link to Part One
Summary: "He’ll follow his spidey sense.” When both Teyla and Ronon looked at him blankly, Rodney rolled his eyes. “How do you not know comic references? How many years have you been around me?”
“McKay,” Ronon growled, shorthand for get to the point.
…Then…
“It’s bad.”
Sheppard looked at the woman bending over Lorne. She scrubbed a hand over her brow and left a bloody smudge on the skin. Both he and Lorne had been with a group of about fifty people they had liberated from the Wraith ship and it seemed every day they lost someone.
“How bad?”
The woman, Elsa, canted her head, searching Sheppard’s face. “The infection may have spread too deeply. We have to look at the possibility-“
“I wouldn’t finish that sentence if I were you,” Sheppard said, his voice wooden. He was looking at Lorne now, face down on the small cot that was serving as a sick bed. His back was exposed to the air and the incision at the nape of his neck where the Wraith had shoved something was puckered and red. They had gone to a village healer who had tried to cut the device free and Sheppard had stopped the procedure when Lorne’s shrieks had filtered through the doorway.
“We have to keep moving, and moving might be the thing that kills him,” Elsa said seriously. Sheppard looked at her, reminded again that he couldn’t scare her and she was just telling him the truth. There was something she didn’t seem to quite understand though.
“If we can’t move him, I’m not coming either.”
Elsa sighed in exasperation. “We need you. Without you, everyone will scatter and that will be worse. The only chance we have is to stay together.”
Sheppard looked at her, unnerving the older woman not for the first time because although he looked barely past his twentieth year, his eyes were much older.
“Then we’re all staying together,” he said matter-of-factly, reaching out a hand and laying it on Lorne’s back, just below the inflammation. “He’ll get past this.”
“If we stay longer than another day, we risk them finding us,” Elsa cautioned, wiping her hands on her already dirty pants as she stood.
“He’ll make it,” Sheppard assured.
…The not so distant Now…
Rodney stood watching Teyla and Ronon suit up, a wry grin on his face. “You can’t be serious.”
“Do you have a better idea, Rodney?” Teyla asked, arching an eyebrow. She looked to Ronon who was holstering his Satedan sidearm, carefully checking that it was set to stun beforehand. Teyla herself was armed with a Wraith stunner.
“Yes, as usual, I do,” Rodney sniffed and Ronon and Teyla looked at him.
“You just stood there watching us get all geared up,” Ronon snapped.
“Yes, yes, you’ll still need to be ready for a fight,” Rodney said, waving a dismissive hand. “The thing you don’t need to do is track them. They’ll be in the Jumper bay.”
Teyla opened the top pocket of her jacket and pulled the motion detector free. “How do you-?”
“We’re on a floating city in the middle of the ocean. The stargate is heavily guarded so the only other way off is by Jumper. John will find the Jumpers. He’ll follow his spidey sense.” When both Teyla and Ronon looked at him blankly, Rodney rolled his eyes. “How do you not know comic references? How many years have you been around me?”
“McKay,” Ronon growled, shorthand for get to the point.
“Okay, how do you just know when the cafeteria is serving chocolate mousse?” Rodney asked, looking at Ronon. The tall Satedan shrugged. “You like it and therefore look for signs of its existence. More people heading to the cafeteria than usual, a smell in the air, whatever. I’ll just bet you John has been looking for signs of something to fly ever since he got here.”
“That makes sense,” Teyla said slowly, still not looking completely convinced.
When they reached the Jumper bay, the sounds of other security details in their ears via radio reporting on the progress of their searches, Rodney wasn’t particularly surprised to see both John and Lorne sitting on the lowered tailgate of one of the puddle jumpers, looking resigned.
As he, Teyla and Ronon approached, they both slowly put their hands up. “How the hell do you get these things out of here?” John asked, his tone annoyed.
Rodney smiled, noting that neither Teyla nor Ronon had pulled their weapons. “Just, give us a little time and a little trust and that’s one thing I’ll definitely show you.”
***
Teyla sat on the infirmary bed opposite Lorne. He looked up at her and offered a worried frown. “So, this place we’re being sent, it’s another city like this?”
“No,” Teyla shook her head. “It’s an emergency base, somewhere we can retreat to if this city were ever compromised.”
“Will it look like this?”
“Not at all. It looks more like…the offworld structures are from the humans’ homeworld and it looks more like their…” Teyla waved a hand, not sure how to explain. “These people are not from this galaxy and they bring supplies from their own. A lot of their ways are… alien.”
“What are you, if you don’t mind me asking?” Lorne looked genuinely curious and so ridiculously young. Teyla had always had a lot of time for the Major, especially when he first came to Atlantis and so easily shouldered some of John’s responsibility, fitting into their world seamlessly. He had accepted both her and Ronon as easily as if they had simply been another arm of the military that he just wasn’t used to dealing with but was ready to learn. She had found out over time that he had served at the Earth SGC base for a long time and had every reason to be suspicious of alien cultures, having dealt with the Goa’uld and lost men and women he’d been serving with. The fact that he didn’t but instead took them on trust, simply soldiers fighting a common enemy, had endeared him further.
She’d missed him.
She'd missed her friend.
“I am Athosian,” she responded, startling when something like recognition flitted across Lorne’s face.
“I’ve met some of your people. It seems there are Athosians everywhere you go these days,” Lorne commented.
“We are traders and friendly with many worlds, and are out of necessity nomadic. We are trying to establish more settlements now since the Wraith have been dormant…” Teyla trailed off when Lorne frowned. “Although I guess we have had a false respite and it is only because they have been harrying the outer-most worlds that we have not seen them in some time.”
Lorne looked at his hands, picking at the nail on his index finger. “It had been so long since they’d been to our world that they were mostly just funny drawings in history books. Sheppard and I were on the front line when the first wave hit. We had a shell over our Ancestral ring but they found a way through.”
“I am sure your people fought bravely and well,” Teyla said, hating how empty the sentiment sounded.
“They would have destroyed it, wouldn’t they? There’ll be nothing left of home.”
Teyla reached out a hand, threading her fingers through Lorne’s and squeezing. “Do not ever give up hope,” she said.
At that moment, John burst through the curtain from where he’d been looked over by Carson. He was rubbing his backside and scowling. “I got a needle in the butt!” he exclaimed, looking appalled.
“Better you than me,” Lorne quipped, sliding from the bed.
“Not so fast, it’s your turn now.”
Lorne rolled his eyes and then the two men grinned at each other, Teyla’s gaze flicking between the two. She knew they had lost so much, but watching the easy affection pass between them; she thought that perhaps they had gained as well.
***
“You’re sure?” Daniel asked, not for the first time. Both Radek and Rodney threw up their hands in exasperation, mirror images of each other.
“You just assumed I was right before. Where’s the trust now?” Rodney griped.
“By that he means to say yes, we are sure. The nanites record but do not transmit. They would only be danger if the Wraith captured them. Considering where we are, we think it prudent not to send them to a less defensible place,” Radek added, ever the diplomat to sooth over Rodney ranting.
“I’d have to agree,” Elizabeth nodded, eyeing the two men that stood before her and Daniel and knowing that when they had put their heads together, she could count the number of times they’d been wrong using only one hand. “We were sending them to Charlie site because it’s the furthest from Atlantis and also the emergency site we could dismantle the easiest. Less troops, less resources to lose. We either keep them here or maybe-“
“No!” Rodney snapped, pre-empting what Elizabeth was going to suggest, but Radek had gotten there in his mind as well and looked at Rodney in annoyance.
“Why not Rodney? At the Fioran base they would be safe and we could study them properly.”
“We’re not studying them like they’re lab rats!” Rodney practically yelled, looking appalled. “They’ll stay here and-“
“Rodney,” Elizabeth interjected gently. “You know we’re right.”
Rodney’s face seemed to collapse and he slumped into the nearest chair, looking defeated. “I know. I don’t have to like it.”
“You were scheduled to go to Fiora anyway. You can go with them for the first couple of weeks. Help get them settled,” Daniel offered.
“They’ve lost their home twice. You want to put them in another galaxy?”
“Rodney, they were already in another galaxy,” Radek reminded, touching Rodney on the shoulder. “Carson can come with us and we can maybe find a way to remove the Nanites so they won’t be-“
“You can’t do that,” Rodney said, his voice hollow. “If you do that they’re reduced mentally to the age of five and while yes, they’ll no longer be a security threat, they’ll also, you know, be mentally five!” Rodney had stood again, his fists clenched. “Anyway, we know they’re not transmitting and if the Wraith aren’t already on the way here because of the twenty-five or so Runners we had traipse through the gate, then they probably aren’t coming. In any case, we don’t have to make this decision now. Just give me some time here with them.”
“What’s the difference between here and Fiora?” Radek asked.
“Just, I don’t ask for much okay? Just give me this.”
Daniel blinked. “You don’t ask for much?” he asked incredulously.
Rodney crossed arms over his chest and glared. “I don’t ask for much when it comes to what I could ask for, okay? If you don’t want me to say yes the next time Elizabeth tries to poach me for the defence platform, then you’ll give me this.”
“Alright!” Daniel held up his hands. “Point taken. Just, why is it so important to do this here?”
“We’re not starting from scratch,” Rodney said, looking at Radek who shrugged.
“He has point. Our initial study of what happened is in the Ancient database and we haven’t gone over our old research yet.”
“You expect to find something new?” Elizabeth asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Not new, just maybe something we missed. All of us, including Carson, have a better understanding of what we’re looking at now. When we did scans Atlantis threw a bunch of information at us in addition to what we were concentrating on that we just couldn’t extrapolate. Also, it never hurts to look at something with fresh eyes.”
“I won’t argue with that,” Daniel agreed, remembered how many times a translation had been completely defeating him, only to have it click into place once he’d set it aside for a time and come back to it. “Alright, but if you haven’t made any progress in five days, we’ll revisit this. I know sending them to Fiora is drastic, but we can’t risk them being taken by the Wraith.”
Rodney nodded, looking determined.
Part Nine
Author:
kellifer_ficCharacters: Team
Rating: PG13
Note: Prologue - the sga_flashfic entry Minor In Action
Spoilers: None.
*Thanks to my beta superfox*
Link to Part One
Summary: "He’ll follow his spidey sense.” When both Teyla and Ronon looked at him blankly, Rodney rolled his eyes. “How do you not know comic references? How many years have you been around me?”
“McKay,” Ronon growled, shorthand for get to the point.
“It’s bad.”
Sheppard looked at the woman bending over Lorne. She scrubbed a hand over her brow and left a bloody smudge on the skin. Both he and Lorne had been with a group of about fifty people they had liberated from the Wraith ship and it seemed every day they lost someone.
“How bad?”
The woman, Elsa, canted her head, searching Sheppard’s face. “The infection may have spread too deeply. We have to look at the possibility-“
“I wouldn’t finish that sentence if I were you,” Sheppard said, his voice wooden. He was looking at Lorne now, face down on the small cot that was serving as a sick bed. His back was exposed to the air and the incision at the nape of his neck where the Wraith had shoved something was puckered and red. They had gone to a village healer who had tried to cut the device free and Sheppard had stopped the procedure when Lorne’s shrieks had filtered through the doorway.
“We have to keep moving, and moving might be the thing that kills him,” Elsa said seriously. Sheppard looked at her, reminded again that he couldn’t scare her and she was just telling him the truth. There was something she didn’t seem to quite understand though.
“If we can’t move him, I’m not coming either.”
Elsa sighed in exasperation. “We need you. Without you, everyone will scatter and that will be worse. The only chance we have is to stay together.”
Sheppard looked at her, unnerving the older woman not for the first time because although he looked barely past his twentieth year, his eyes were much older.
“Then we’re all staying together,” he said matter-of-factly, reaching out a hand and laying it on Lorne’s back, just below the inflammation. “He’ll get past this.”
“If we stay longer than another day, we risk them finding us,” Elsa cautioned, wiping her hands on her already dirty pants as she stood.
“He’ll make it,” Sheppard assured.
Rodney stood watching Teyla and Ronon suit up, a wry grin on his face. “You can’t be serious.”
“Do you have a better idea, Rodney?” Teyla asked, arching an eyebrow. She looked to Ronon who was holstering his Satedan sidearm, carefully checking that it was set to stun beforehand. Teyla herself was armed with a Wraith stunner.
“Yes, as usual, I do,” Rodney sniffed and Ronon and Teyla looked at him.
“You just stood there watching us get all geared up,” Ronon snapped.
“Yes, yes, you’ll still need to be ready for a fight,” Rodney said, waving a dismissive hand. “The thing you don’t need to do is track them. They’ll be in the Jumper bay.”
Teyla opened the top pocket of her jacket and pulled the motion detector free. “How do you-?”
“We’re on a floating city in the middle of the ocean. The stargate is heavily guarded so the only other way off is by Jumper. John will find the Jumpers. He’ll follow his spidey sense.” When both Teyla and Ronon looked at him blankly, Rodney rolled his eyes. “How do you not know comic references? How many years have you been around me?”
“McKay,” Ronon growled, shorthand for get to the point.
“Okay, how do you just know when the cafeteria is serving chocolate mousse?” Rodney asked, looking at Ronon. The tall Satedan shrugged. “You like it and therefore look for signs of its existence. More people heading to the cafeteria than usual, a smell in the air, whatever. I’ll just bet you John has been looking for signs of something to fly ever since he got here.”
“That makes sense,” Teyla said slowly, still not looking completely convinced.
When they reached the Jumper bay, the sounds of other security details in their ears via radio reporting on the progress of their searches, Rodney wasn’t particularly surprised to see both John and Lorne sitting on the lowered tailgate of one of the puddle jumpers, looking resigned.
As he, Teyla and Ronon approached, they both slowly put their hands up. “How the hell do you get these things out of here?” John asked, his tone annoyed.
Rodney smiled, noting that neither Teyla nor Ronon had pulled their weapons. “Just, give us a little time and a little trust and that’s one thing I’ll definitely show you.”
Teyla sat on the infirmary bed opposite Lorne. He looked up at her and offered a worried frown. “So, this place we’re being sent, it’s another city like this?”
“No,” Teyla shook her head. “It’s an emergency base, somewhere we can retreat to if this city were ever compromised.”
“Will it look like this?”
“Not at all. It looks more like…the offworld structures are from the humans’ homeworld and it looks more like their…” Teyla waved a hand, not sure how to explain. “These people are not from this galaxy and they bring supplies from their own. A lot of their ways are… alien.”
“What are you, if you don’t mind me asking?” Lorne looked genuinely curious and so ridiculously young. Teyla had always had a lot of time for the Major, especially when he first came to Atlantis and so easily shouldered some of John’s responsibility, fitting into their world seamlessly. He had accepted both her and Ronon as easily as if they had simply been another arm of the military that he just wasn’t used to dealing with but was ready to learn. She had found out over time that he had served at the Earth SGC base for a long time and had every reason to be suspicious of alien cultures, having dealt with the Goa’uld and lost men and women he’d been serving with. The fact that he didn’t but instead took them on trust, simply soldiers fighting a common enemy, had endeared him further.
She’d missed him.
She'd missed her friend.
“I am Athosian,” she responded, startling when something like recognition flitted across Lorne’s face.
“I’ve met some of your people. It seems there are Athosians everywhere you go these days,” Lorne commented.
“We are traders and friendly with many worlds, and are out of necessity nomadic. We are trying to establish more settlements now since the Wraith have been dormant…” Teyla trailed off when Lorne frowned. “Although I guess we have had a false respite and it is only because they have been harrying the outer-most worlds that we have not seen them in some time.”
Lorne looked at his hands, picking at the nail on his index finger. “It had been so long since they’d been to our world that they were mostly just funny drawings in history books. Sheppard and I were on the front line when the first wave hit. We had a shell over our Ancestral ring but they found a way through.”
“I am sure your people fought bravely and well,” Teyla said, hating how empty the sentiment sounded.
“They would have destroyed it, wouldn’t they? There’ll be nothing left of home.”
Teyla reached out a hand, threading her fingers through Lorne’s and squeezing. “Do not ever give up hope,” she said.
At that moment, John burst through the curtain from where he’d been looked over by Carson. He was rubbing his backside and scowling. “I got a needle in the butt!” he exclaimed, looking appalled.
“Better you than me,” Lorne quipped, sliding from the bed.
“Not so fast, it’s your turn now.”
Lorne rolled his eyes and then the two men grinned at each other, Teyla’s gaze flicking between the two. She knew they had lost so much, but watching the easy affection pass between them; she thought that perhaps they had gained as well.
“You’re sure?” Daniel asked, not for the first time. Both Radek and Rodney threw up their hands in exasperation, mirror images of each other.
“You just assumed I was right before. Where’s the trust now?” Rodney griped.
“By that he means to say yes, we are sure. The nanites record but do not transmit. They would only be danger if the Wraith captured them. Considering where we are, we think it prudent not to send them to a less defensible place,” Radek added, ever the diplomat to sooth over Rodney ranting.
“I’d have to agree,” Elizabeth nodded, eyeing the two men that stood before her and Daniel and knowing that when they had put their heads together, she could count the number of times they’d been wrong using only one hand. “We were sending them to Charlie site because it’s the furthest from Atlantis and also the emergency site we could dismantle the easiest. Less troops, less resources to lose. We either keep them here or maybe-“
“No!” Rodney snapped, pre-empting what Elizabeth was going to suggest, but Radek had gotten there in his mind as well and looked at Rodney in annoyance.
“Why not Rodney? At the Fioran base they would be safe and we could study them properly.”
“We’re not studying them like they’re lab rats!” Rodney practically yelled, looking appalled. “They’ll stay here and-“
“Rodney,” Elizabeth interjected gently. “You know we’re right.”
Rodney’s face seemed to collapse and he slumped into the nearest chair, looking defeated. “I know. I don’t have to like it.”
“You were scheduled to go to Fiora anyway. You can go with them for the first couple of weeks. Help get them settled,” Daniel offered.
“They’ve lost their home twice. You want to put them in another galaxy?”
“Rodney, they were already in another galaxy,” Radek reminded, touching Rodney on the shoulder. “Carson can come with us and we can maybe find a way to remove the Nanites so they won’t be-“
“You can’t do that,” Rodney said, his voice hollow. “If you do that they’re reduced mentally to the age of five and while yes, they’ll no longer be a security threat, they’ll also, you know, be mentally five!” Rodney had stood again, his fists clenched. “Anyway, we know they’re not transmitting and if the Wraith aren’t already on the way here because of the twenty-five or so Runners we had traipse through the gate, then they probably aren’t coming. In any case, we don’t have to make this decision now. Just give me some time here with them.”
“What’s the difference between here and Fiora?” Radek asked.
“Just, I don’t ask for much okay? Just give me this.”
Daniel blinked. “You don’t ask for much?” he asked incredulously.
Rodney crossed arms over his chest and glared. “I don’t ask for much when it comes to what I could ask for, okay? If you don’t want me to say yes the next time Elizabeth tries to poach me for the defence platform, then you’ll give me this.”
“Alright!” Daniel held up his hands. “Point taken. Just, why is it so important to do this here?”
“We’re not starting from scratch,” Rodney said, looking at Radek who shrugged.
“He has point. Our initial study of what happened is in the Ancient database and we haven’t gone over our old research yet.”
“You expect to find something new?” Elizabeth asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Not new, just maybe something we missed. All of us, including Carson, have a better understanding of what we’re looking at now. When we did scans Atlantis threw a bunch of information at us in addition to what we were concentrating on that we just couldn’t extrapolate. Also, it never hurts to look at something with fresh eyes.”
“I won’t argue with that,” Daniel agreed, remembered how many times a translation had been completely defeating him, only to have it click into place once he’d set it aside for a time and come back to it. “Alright, but if you haven’t made any progress in five days, we’ll revisit this. I know sending them to Fiora is drastic, but we can’t risk them being taken by the Wraith.”
Rodney nodded, looking determined.
Part Nine
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
I knew that Carson (and Zelenka) and the Fiora outpost had been mentioned together. I was just... a little hazy on the details. *g*
I only asked, because Rodney seems to really hate the place and I wondered if I should know, or if that was still to come, or if he hated simply for being not-Atlantis.