The Past.
Something wet and cold impacted with Colonel John Sheppard’s neck. The man on the bed rolled around and sat up, his military training helping him to quickly asses the situation. Wet and cold was only preferable when you were hot or feverish. He hadn't been either. John had in fact been blissfully asleep. After a long and tedious diplomatic mission it had been the sleep of the nearly terminally bored and exhausted.
As the military commander of the Ancient City of Atlantis he was used to having his rest disturbed but usually it was by means of his comm-link or someone banging on his door, not by- Sheppard grabbed the offending thing and held it up- wet washcloth. Annoying but harmless as long as it wasn’t dipped in something, well, ancient. If this was McKay’s way of getting back at him for dumping him in that mud pit…. But the snarky scientist wouldn’t throw washcloths, much too plebeian. Sheppard looked around.
He was alone in the room and it looked like it normally did. Except for the door on the far wall which hadn’t been there yesterday. The door that was half open and spilling light out into his room. Not creepy, mysterious light, thankfully, normal daylight, but still. A door where there shouldn’t be one was bad news. Sheppard grabbed the gun he had stored under his bed and reached for his comm-link to call for back-up. Invaders normally tended to throw far more dangerous stuff at him, not washcloths. No, he didn’t smell, he was a very hygiene conscious little soldier boy, thank you very much.
Sheppard’s hand rose to his ear but stopped mid way because the invader chose this moment to stick his …messy dark haired head into the room to glare at him.
“Dad! Are you awake yet? Where's my stuff?”
Sheppard asked the first thing that came to his mind. “Why did you throw a washcloth at me?” he stuttered and his eyes roved over the lanky figure that emerged fully from the room that shouldn’t be there. The boy, and it was a boy, was very thin and on the cusp to teenager-hood, judging by the too long arms and legs and the onset of pimples on the boy’s face. He was naked but for a towel slung around his bony hips. There was something disturbingly familiar about the bright blue eyes and the way he glared at John. And what had the boy called him? He must have misunderstood.
“Why did I-“ The boy rolled his eyes exasperatedly. “And I thought you were trained to wake up ready for action at the drop of a pin. Haha. Honestly, dad. You always tell me to wake you up from a distance without startling you so your oh so deadly and wondrous battle skills won’t hurt me.” The next eye-roll was so overdone that it bordered on comical. “And you wonder why I don’t want to be a fly boy.”
There it was again, the word. Dad. The tingly feeling in the Colonel’s stomach developed into a full blown oh-shit ache. He hesitated to finish his motion for the comm-link. Sheppard didn’t want to frighten the boy, if it was indeed a boy and not, say, a shape-shifting alien entity or a hologram or one of the other thousand and one things that could cause something like this in the Pegasus galaxy. And a horde of Marine’s storming the room would be frightening.
“Dad, you're not old enough to have lost your hearing. Where's my stuff? The room is bare! And where is Pop?” The boy strolled across the room, looking around and a deep furrow developed between his brows. “Everything is…”
Sheppard let his hand sink down again but kept the gun ready but out of sight. “What’s your name?”
The youngster had been studying the objects on top if the dresser and now whirled around to face the man on the bed again. “No pics of- and…” His eyes were round and panic filled. “And… my name. You don’t know-? Dad?”
They stared at each other. The Colonel could see the kid " his kid? - he refused to think about it, getting more distressed every second that went by. Hell if he knew how to react, it was always Teyla who calmed down fugitives and various shocked natives, not him. Then the boy balled his hands to fists and slouched against the dresser.
“Oh shit. You really don’t know me?”
Sheppard shook his head.
The boy swallowed convulsively. “I’m Jack. Well, Joaquin Sheppard. And this is Atlantis.”
Yes, this was Atlantis. The city of the Ancients where wonders (and horrors) were a daily given and the impossible happened at least once a month.
They shared a look.
“Alternative Reality?” Jack offered. “You've had encounters with those, yes? You’ll be able to send me back home?” His blue eyes were pleading and desperate.
John sighed and tried to prepare himself mentally for another crazy day. “Yeah. Alternative Reality is always a good guess.” He activated his comm-link. McKay would love this, no doubt.
.-#-.
“So, what have you found out about our visitor.” Woolsey asked his Chief Medical Officer while he nervously looked at the monitor. Sheppard as the Military Commander of the base and McKay as the Head of Science had already reported all they had been able to determine, as little as it had been. The monitor showed a small room and its sole occupant who was sitting on the bed and staring at the door. It had been two days since he appeared: The medical staff as well as the science department had done their best to determine what their visitor was and where he had come from while the military had combed the city for other displaced persons.
Dr. Rodney McKay didn't know why he had been asked to stay to stare at the boy after giving his report. He wasn’t a medical Doctor, nor was he a Psychologist. If Jennifer Keller wanted him to analyze something, sending a flunky with a Petri dish would do nicely. There were more important things for him to research, like checking for an inter-dimensional portal or residues of it and if the appearance of this miniature Sheppard had damaged something in his city. Trust a Sheppard to play havoc with his precious time.
Dr Keller handed over a data-stick. “He reads as human, with a strong expression of the ATA gene. The boy is healthy. And yes, he is John Sheppard’s son genetically.”
“Are we finished here? There are some experiments I have to oversee.” McKay grumbled and inched in direction of the door. “So, another universe's version of our resident Kirk managed to get a girl preggers, no surprise there. They had another time continuum, farther along than us and somehow he's here now. Let’s find a way to send him back. We won't accomplish anything by staring at him. I can't believe that someone allowed a teenager on Atlantis! On any version of Atlantis. My counterpart has to be an idiot.” Rodney didn’t want to think too much about why the living proof of Sheppard’s love life disturbed him.
Sheppard didn’t react to Rodney’s jibes, his eyes never left the monitor. Jen, on the other hand, glared at him.
“Rodney, I wasn’t finished! I said he reads as human but his story isn’t supported by medical facts.” Her fingers tapped the tablet computer she was holding.
Medical facts? As much as he liked the blonde doctor, she was still a practitioner of voodoo. Medicine was not a real science, and Rodney would take anything he himself hadn’t tested with a grain of salt. Not that he would tell that to Jen. He had learned the hard way that his completely valid opinions would get him in the dog house, literally, if he voiced them out loud. Why couldn't his girlfriend be an astrophysicist? Or an engineer. Or mathematician. And why did Jen seem to be avoiding his eyes this meeting?
“So he lied? Should we put him in restraints or the brig?” Woolsey, the always safety conscious administrator, was looking at the boy as if he would sprout poisonous tentacles at any moment.
Jen shook her head. “All I could determine by the readouts of the polygraph is that his brain believes what he tells us. I asked him to tell me obvious lies to get reference material.”
“What kind of discrepancies? That he doesn’t know our command codes? That he's going to sabotage us?” Sheppard finally decided to join in but he still wasn’t turning around and held his position at the monitor.
“No, nothing of sensitive nature. To give you some examples: He told me he caught the measles when he was seven. There are no antibodies in his bloodstream. He told me he broke his arm on the mainland playing with the local children two years ago. His bones show no sign of a break. In fact, his body shows no signs of typical damage or illness any child acquires while growing up. No signs of wear on his teeth either.” Jen was visibly hyped up about this, her eyes were glowing and her hands couldn’t keep still. “And it isn’t like the readings we have of Chaya. The ancient was the perfect image of an ideal human body! Joaquin Sheppard, or whoever he is, has small faults. For example his wrist bones are undersized which would lead to a higher risk of carnal tunnel syndrome.”
Sheppard silently held up his left hand with the ever present wrist band.
“Ah, yes. Exactly.” Keller waved dismissively, that didn’t seem to be important to her. She turned to Woolsey. “Sir, I want to ask for permission to perform more tests. I want to compare data. We can't be sure that whatever he remembers, about his origin or his past, really happened or if it was planted. It seems as if his brain developed independently to what happened to his body while still forming all necessary connections to function. This is an exceptional scientific opportunity.”
Now Sheppard turned around and eyed her with a peculiar expression on his face. “I thought you performed every medical test available to determine what Jack is and his condition?”
Keller’s round little chin came up defiantly. “Yes, I did Colonel. I can only conclude that he himself is no danger to us, but that he isn’t of natural origin and was, for lack of a better word, "programmed" to present a certain image and history. I want to compare the programmed data with real experiences.”
“Real experiences. Like what?” Sheppard inquired.
Woolsey had taken one step back and was keeping himself out of whatever storm brewed here. The little bald man had developed more of a spine in the last years, he had had to, but he also learned when to not butt in. Rodney fiddled with the sleeve of his shirt. Nobody ever accused him of being socially sensitive but even he knew that something was wrong.
Since they had all returned Atlantis to the Pegasus Galaxy, whenever Keller and Sheppard were in the same room sparks would fly. And not the amorous kind of sparks either. He should be happy that Jen wasn’t reacting to Sheppard’s good looks and charm. Instead she got defensive and Sheppard got even more slouchy whenever they met. Not to mention her pointed comments and disaproving looks whenever Rodney wanted to spend some time with his best friend. Whatever it was that riled the two up now, their newly developed animosity towards each other wouldn’t help the matter any.
“Don’t look at me like that, Colonel! I don’t propose to do anything major or irreversible.”
Sheppard’s voice got a growl like quality. No slouch to be seen at the moment. Rodney had seen him like this before. On missions one moment before the shit hit the fan and another superstitious clan with very sharp spears was trying to sacrifice them for some stupid imagined slight against their gods. “Not irreversible, huh. Let me get this straight, do you want to break the boy’s arm for real and then ask him if it feels the same as he remembers?”
Keller’s cheeks turned red. “You call him a boy, but he is in fact a construct. There is no way he, or it, was naturally formed. But I don’t want to torture him, you make it sound like I want to cut him open to see how he ticks. I would never do something like that, never! Just-“
Rodney gaped at her. Keller hadn’t exactly contradicted Sheppard’s assumption and that was… well. The scientist in him could understand her wish to conduct experiments. One of her specialties was neuro-genetic research. How often did it happen that you got someone like that boy to study. Tabula Rasa, a chance to study how the human brain perceived and warps data versus how it dealt with data not rooted in the physical world. Still….
“Dr. Keller. That does not pertain to the current situation and I have to say that I am opposed to experimenting unnecessarily on a human being, be it naturally grown or not. We have gathered to determine if the boy is a threat to Atlantis, where he comes from and if there is a way to send him back.” Woolsey had pushed his shoulders back. “So he isn’t a biological threat. We haven’t found anything that explains how he got here, the extra door in Colonel Sheppard’s room is a typical feature of Atlantis to combine two suites, according to the database, not something sinister at all. Dr. McKay and his team have found no residue of an inter-dimensional portal or anything like it. So what do you propose we should do with him?”
Rodney could have told him that, even if Keller backed down, Sheppard wouldn’t let this go without any retaliation. And he was right, as always. The colonel had a certain steely glint in his normally friendly eyes. “Do with him? How about treating him like every other visitor we had. Remember Rod? Jack will get a guard, of course, and will be heavily monitored, but as far as we know he has done nothing wrong and shouldn’t be treated like a criminal.”
“Agreed. See to it that he is never alone and restrict his access to sensitive areas. He has shown that he knows a lot about the city.” Woolsey kept nodding and switched on his own tablet computer to make notes.
Sheppard was still staring at Keller. “I don’t want to get too attached to Jack, but, like Dr. Keller told you, I am his biological father so I think it is best if I act in loco parentis until we can send him back home.”
That was surprising, Rodney had never seen him take any interest in children, maybe it really was different when it came to your own kids. Sheppard’s request wasn’t unreasonable and from the nods and busy fingers flying over the touch screen Woolsey was agreeing with Sheppard’s proposal.
“Don’t use the addition to your quarters. It wouldn’t be good for him to get confused or attached too much either. But you are right, as long as Joaquin Sheppard stays here and does not show himself as a danger to the expedition, you are the logical guardian for him.”
“Thank you. That means I can make decisions in his name?”
Woolsey looked up. “Of course.”
“I want it noted that Dr. Keller is not to come near him again. I want Dr. Biro as his physician, with all the restrictions Doctor/ Patient confidentiality entails. Biro will not take orders from her concerning my ….son without consulting with you or me first.” Sheppard stated formally. “Come to think of it, I want my physician switched too. I’m no longer comfortable with her, I think you will understand, sir.”
Jen was very red in the face and her hands were trembling. “Of all the unreasonable-! Sheppard, you are known to react too emotionally. This is ridiculous. I didn’t propose to harm him.” She hastily turned on her heel and her pleading eyes latched onto Rodney. “Dr. Mckay can surely see my point and agrees that it would merit further research.”
He hadn’t been happy about her predecessor’s experiments concerning the Wraith. Carson had been his friend, but he had been wrong to attempt it. Not out of ethical reasons in that case, but for the simple fact that fiddling with an already failed experiment - and that was what the Wraith were, no matter what the Ancients said - was risky. Voodoo wasn’t predictable. A human body wasn’t an equation to solve, unfortunately. He hadn’t been fond of children’s books but one phrase out of Alice in Wonderland came to his mind, about all the kings horses and men and the impossibility of completely repairing damages.
The scientist spared another look at the monitor and the morose teenager, still sitting still on his bed, staring at the door. Too young to give consent, too distressed to act completely logical and desperate to go home. People called McKay an unfeeling bastard but- no. Rodney wouldn’t meet Keller’s eyes. “In this case I agree with Colonel Sheppard and Mr. Woolsey.”
That was clearly not the reaction she had hoped for and her posture became even more agitated. She had firmly believed that he would agree with her. And it wasn’t only the lack of support that had to anger her, Keller had to know that even if nothing that had been said in this meeting would become widely known, the little fact that the military commander of the base didn’t want her as his main physician anymore would create waves. “You're siding with Sheppard? Great. Next thing you'll tell me is that you're moving into the spare rooms connected to the Colonel's."
Rodney gave up his position near the door and stomped across the room to her, his hands on his his hips. “Why would I do something like that, I like my rooms.” Oh yes, she knew that he didn’t want to move anywhere. They'd had a fight about it last week.
The irate medical doctor took a deep breath, refused to give an inch and visibly collected herself. Then she continued, before McKay could start a tirade, her focus pointedly on the still fuming Sheppard. “You didn’t let me finish my report before you claimed the boy. As I said, we can't say if anything he tells us is the truth because he himself does not know the difference. Another thing- “ Now she turned to Rodney, “the second half of his genes? Are YOURS.”
.-#-.
Jack jumped up and stood at attention when Sheppard and McKay entered the room. The boy’s eyes grew round and for one moment a happy smile flittered over his face. He had been alone most of the day. It was gone in a second, replaced by resignation and sadness. John could see that Jack was desperately trying to be brave and not show how much this affected him but the last days had to have been horrible. To be thrown into a situation where everything looked familiar but nobody reacted the expected way and nobody knew who you were must be a special kind of hell.
Sheppard would bet that his own posture and the smile on his face weren’t looking any more natural than the calm one on the teenager’s. “Hi Kiddo. We came to spring you. You are staying in a guest room near my quarters until we find a way to send you home.”
“Really? Cool.” Jack’s shoulder’s relaxed a little bit and he tried another smile, directed at the unusually silent McKay. “Uhm. You ok?”
“Ok? No, I am not Ok!” Rodney exploded.
The boy flinched back.
“McKay!” Sheppard chastised. This was one situation of many where he wished that he could put a muzzle down as necessary equipment in his requisition forms. He hadn’t been happy either about finding out about Jack’s parentage but that wasn’t in any way the boy’s fault. Rodney had been shouting for a good ten minutes after Keller let loose her bomb and still wasn’t all right with Jack being half his. Not that John had dealt with it either, but he would stuff his worries deep down and drag them up for inspection when he was alone and had the time. The thought of having a nearly adult son anywhere was scary, having a son with his best male and scarily smart friend upped the ante.
The boy’s head tilted downwards so they couldn’t see his eyes anymore. “It's OK, I don’t mind. I should have known that the Rodney McKay of this reality would have a temper too.” Jack looked up again. “Yours does love to shout and rant, yeah?”
Sheppard hesitated and then ruffled the spiky dark hair. “Got it in one.”
McKay huffed. The color in his cheek betrayed his embarrassment . “I can see how you two are related. Let’s see if the next generation has done something with the infusion of intelligence my genes should have provided. I wanted to ask you some questions.”
“Shoot.”
“I generally leave the shooting to Sheppard, he enjoys it more.” McKay crossed his arms over his chest and began to stride up and down the small side of the room. “Dr. Keller said that it was your Atlantis that created you, grew you in a pod within months until the age of five and then delivered you to the Colonel and me, yes?”
Sheppard snorted and leaned against the wall beside the door. He might be the one who carried heavy weaponry into the field but McKay’s tongue could be as devastating as any bullet.
Jack sat down again and pulled his knees up to his chest. “Yes, that’s how I remember it. Your Dr. Keller said there is no evidence that what I …what I remember is true. But… I don’t remember anything before the age of five. I was technically not even a year old, as creepy as that sounds. I had to learn to speak and to walk and everything. It was… not a happy time and you-" His voice trailed off for a moment. “Eh. My dads weren’t happy either but they got used to me. And now they love me, they do. I want to go home. I went running three days ago like every morning and when I stepped out of the shower afterward- you know the rest. Have you found a way to send me home?”
Sheppard shook his head. “No, but we're working on it. My counterpart must be out of his mind with worry. McKay’s too.”
McKay of course opted to ignore the pesky emotional part and concentrated on the technical aspects. “Atlantis made you. How? And why. We all know how ancient technology rolls over and purrs whenever the Colonel is near but I doubt that he wished for a kid with me as the co-parent.”
Jack shrugged his shoulders. “We never found out why I was created. Ancients were really weird.”
“Weird puts it mildly.” Sheppard threw in. That was something he would sign off on any day.
It earned him a weak smile. “The Lanteans avoided anything that would bind them to corporal existence. I don’t know about sex,” The boy blushed violently, “but they found a way around pregnancy. There is a natalum in the south-east main tower. That’s the one the city used for me.”
John sighed. Yeah, that sounded like the twisted ancient bastards all right.
McKay was wrinkling his nose. John had no doubt he would be interested in the machinery but wasn’t too fond of how it was used. Too much connection to sociology. “We haven’t found that laboratory here.”
“Is there something else instead? It might be still hidden or in a slightly different location.” Jack tilted his head and his blue eyes blinked earnestly. “You didn’t tell me much about this version of Atlantis, I understand why, but from what I’ve seen our realities are very similar. There are the same people here and the events match too. Your Lanteans sure sound like the self absorbed bastards I know them to be.”
The thought of a hidden laboratory with pods full of children chilled John to the bone. Even after nearly a decade living on her, Atlantis still had too many surprises for them. “Could you show us where it is in your world?”
Jack nodded. “Now?”
“The sooner, the better.” John said grimly. It wasn’t something he wanted to draw out. He activated his comm-link but stopped when he heard a weak chuckle from the boy.
“You’ll call for some big bad marines to make sure I don’t lead you into a trap. Go on, I understand. It's just… I wouldn’t last a minute. Marine’s are badass mother-fuckers.”
There was an unmistakable undertone of admiration in his voice. “Hey! Air Force guys can be badass too. And should you use such words? I feel like I should be searching for some soap to wash out your mouth.”
“You are both impossible.” Rodney made a face as if he tasted something nearly lemony. “Call your grunts, a doc and Woolsey, let’s take a look at something that is hopefully not there. I don’t want to deal with more of you.”
John was tempted to slug the irascible scientist. Jack just stood up again and averted his face, the only movement was his nervously bobbing Adam’s apple. Being snarky was one of McKay’s main defense reactions whenever he felt cornered, but couldn’t he see what his words did to the boy?
They waited in silence for their escort.
A few minutes later they were on their way to the tower, Dr. Biro and six marines accompanying them. Every one of them was eying the boy with a mixture of awe and distrust. More than one disbelieving stare was sent between Jack, McKay and John. At least he couldn’t detect any animosity towards Jack in Biro. Woolsey met them at the corridor that led into the tower. They took another transporter to the upper part of the tower but Jack wasn’t interested in the doors.
“I wasn’t in this part of the city for a long time but there should be a hidden panel. There.” He went to one section of the wall with a look of concentration on his face.
“We explored this part of the city years ago and found only store rooms and labs with medical equipment. There wasn’t any sign of an energy source to be found.” McKay grumbled and his eyes narrowed. “Most of this part of the city is without power. At least there shouldn’t be anything here that will blow him up. Us either, come to think of it.”
At first the boy ignored McKay and the marines who had come nearer to shadow him, he was too intent on the section of the wall he was staring at. Then he decided to comment. “It is nearly impossible to find if you don’t know what you're looking for. The lab in my Atlantis was shielded to prevent hostiles from finding and hurting the defenseless children and it was powered by a separate independent power source. Ah, found it.”
A rectangular section of the wall folded inwards. One of the marines snatched the boy and dragged him away from the opening, the other marines carefully peered into the room to make sure nothing and no one was in there to jump them.
“Clear.”
They stepped into the lab and looked around. No one would touch anything, they had learned the hard way that doing so could have negative consequences. It wasn’t a very big room. To their right there was a work station with monitors. John was devastated to see that some of them were active, that was never a good sign, but what really drew his attention was the wall across from the door. There were four pods, three of them filled with liquid and lighted from within. The covers were milky blue in color and only allowed them to see shadows behind. Moving shadows.
“Oh shit.” Was all John could come up with as a comment.
The fourth pod was open.
It wasn’t hard to guess what had happened here.
A muffled, tortured sound attracted John’s attention. Jack was staring at the empty pod and the puddle of dried goo in front of it. “There is no home I can return to. There’s nothing. No one.” he choked out as he turned around, ready to flee. The boy barreled into John on his way out. The man did his best to restrain the boy without hurting him. A sharp elbow caught John in his ribs and he nearly let go of the wriggling figure. Dr. Biro stepped closer and emptied a hypo needle into Jack’s neck. Whatever she used was fast acting and the boy slumped into the colonel’s arms, unconscious.
“Oh shit.” McKay echoed his earlier statement.
.-#-.
Atlantis was content. The oldest of her heirs had been delivered to his parents. This one was her favorite. Her, for she was female in the tradition of all ships that stemmed from before even the Lanteans existed, sensors followed the little group on their way to the city’s infirmary. She watched as the adults stood around the bed they had put the adolescent in, as they argued and worried. Heard how they agreed to share responsibility for the youth.
All three of them were special. The one who was nearest to the people who had built her and could nearly hear her when she spoke to him, the one who took so good care of her and the one who would make her a home again and would make sure that she would never be lonely again.
It pained her that all three were upset. Atlantis had expected them to be happier about her gift of life and had underestimated their emotional fragility. Lanteans hadn't cared as much about shared memories. She reached out to the rooms where her favorite ones slept and activated the machine necessary to rectify the conflict. Tonight they would dream of their son and know his childhood too. They were hers and they would prevail. With a little help.
The Present
General John Sheppard slowly pushed down the button to disconnect the phone-call and stared through the window that opened into the gate room. Moments passed as he continued to stare, but he wasn't really seeing the hustle and bustle of the people going about their daily activities below. Even the date, Christmas Eve, hadn’t slowed down the activities, it had instead given people a little extra swing in their steps and smiles on their lips but their military commander wasn’t joining them in their holiday feelings. His thoughts were too occupied with the happenings back on earth.
Getting into a fight with other students over the honor of a fair maiden, at least it had sounded that way on the phone, wasn’t something he had expected of his only son. Sure, Jack wouldn’t stand back and let someone get hurt when he could prevent it, but spending the holidays at the damsel’s home with her parents sounded ominous.
John’s teeth gnashed in anger at the getting arrested on Christmas part of the story. At least it sounded like it had been sorted out.
A small noise made him snap out of his contemplations and turn to other occupant of the room. Rodney McKay was sitting bent over his favourite laptop and was typing up a storm, grumbling all the while under his breath. Nearly two decades hadn’t lessened John’s astonishment about how delicate and fast the fairly big and strong fingers could handle buttons and other complicated equipment. Rodney McKay had hands one would expect to see on a carpenter: broad and strong but they were adept at handling miniature screwdrivers like a surgeon would handle his scalpel and they made ancient machinery purr. Well, and they were also very clever when it came to driving his partner insane.
Rodney’s com-unit lay discarded beside his elbow. The irascible scientist had listened to the conversation and John would take bets that he was now researching not only the smallest detail on the incident but everyone who had been involved, especially the girl Jack had rescued. John could make out one of the interfaces for communication with Earth on his partner’s screen.
His husband had, to the surprise of no one on Atlantis, figured out years ago a way to implement a steady four hour connection back to StarGate Command, despite the contemptuous assurances from the scientists on earth that such a feat was impossible to achieve. It wasn’t a real wormhole but a partial folding of subspace (John had tuned out after this part of the explanation) that allowed steady communication but no travel and cost them nearly no energy. The warning about Jack’s name appearing in an earth-side database had come at the beginning of their daily quota of connection time back to Cheyenne Mountain and there was enough time left for a lot of research instead of waiting for tomorrow.
Come to think of it, the seal on the screen looked awfully familiar indeed.
“Rodney? I hope you're not hacking the Pentagon.”
Instead of an answer all he got was a dismissive grunt. John smiled and tried again. “Rodney-"
“Oh, I don’t believe those backward apes!” His husband shoved back his chair and whirled around to face John. Rodney was gesturing wildly. “The idiot who got Jack arrested, Islington junior, is trying to get Jack thrown out of the University, can you believe it? First he gets him arrested because Jack disturbed him raping some chick -and doesn’t that sound like something we heard before, Colonel?- and now his dad sent a smarmy email to the Dean!”
“What?” Being called Colonel was a good indicator that Rodney was fast approaching nuclear meltdown. They had left the "Colonel and his alien-girl-on-every-planet jibes" jibes behind them years ago.
One accusing forefinger stabbed in direction of the offending copy of the e-mail on screen. “Not so subtly threatening to cut the financial help Daddy Islington donates to the University if the Dean doesn't get rid of certain violent, no good "less wealthy, pha!- students. Of all the ridiculously stereotypical rich crazy person clichés! Just wait till I can get face to face with them!”
“And going to earth has nothing to do with checking out the Peltier girl personally?”
Rodney sniffed and shrugged his broad shoulders dismissively. “Of course I want to check her out personally, don’t tell me you don’t.”
That wasn’t even worth answering. Of course John wanted to. He had no illusions about the virginal state of his son or lack thereof. Jack wasn’t a leper, nor was he shy. But he had never before shown any interest in anyone beyond a roll in the hay, so to speak. Staying with a girl and her family for Christmas raised all kinds of alarm flags.
John smiled at Rodney who was busy slicing and dicing through multiple database firewalls simultaneously. Wasn’t it illegal to hack into e-mail servers? Yep, flags raised, security off and full tank mode operational. “You know, you're kinda hot in Mama bear mode. All prepared to take on devouring female monsters and evil overlords to defend your one cub.”
“Hot? Mama bear?” Rodney blinked, for a moment distracted from his quest. “Yeah and who would have thought that I'd even have such a mode.”
John came near and pressed a kiss to his partner’s cheek. “People who know the big heart you hide under all that bluster always suspected.”
Rodney glared at him and ignored the comment about his chewy center. “What are you still doing here? Contact O’Neill."
“He won’t let us use the Gate for travel just because one Marine on educational leave managed to piss off some muckity-muck. Even if it concerns our super secret fully grown son.” John cautioned. It wasn’t that he didn’t agree with Rodney. Despite said son being an adult and a Marine fully capable of defending himself, every instinct he had called for him to intervene and make sure that his boy was all right. But he had to play devil’s advocate and reign in his high strung spouse before he worked himself up in to a tizzy and began World War III by pissing off every politician he could get his hands on within an hour. And despite his continued, and often lamented, lack of a Nobel Prize, Dr. Rodney Meredith McKay could get his hands on a LOT of politicians within an hour.
“Oh, he won’t protest too much and not because of his godson, that will be secondary. Just tell him that we're bringing the prototype for the new generator with us. The one they were salivating about.” One corner of Rodney’s mouth was turned up smugly. “Tell him I, ah, just finished with it this morning ahead of schedule.
John couldn’t help himself, his mirth at his devious partner developed into a braying full belly laugh. The indignant stare he earned for it didn’t help matters any and it took a good minute before he could speak again. “Gods, Rodney, you never planned for us to spend Christmas apart from our son, did you?”
Rodney’s chin rose defiantly and he crossed his arms defensively over his chest. “Hmpf. 'Planned' is too definite a word for it. It should have taken even a genius of my calibre longer to figure out the circuit problem and how to blend the ancient-tech we found at PX-285.N… eeh…“
A heated kiss stopped the rant in its infancy and minutes went by with the two of them lip-locked. Finally John drew back. They would have time for more of this later. “Don't care how you managed it, I'm not complaining."
“Contact your superiors, I'm going to pack our stuff. And the prototype. I can finish this search later. We’ll be ready to depart within the hour. It should take me about two weeks to explain the details and intricacies to the minions on earth so they don’t blow up our mother-planet with it.” Rodney smirked. “After the holidays, of course.”
John readied his com-unit. “I think I'll be able to find enough mission reports to discuss with O’Neill while you torture the scientists.”
“That’s what you call it these days? Honestly, you and Jack jabber like old-“ Rodney didn’t even turn around and John had to concentrate to make out his retort before the door slid shut and cut him off completely.
“Chuck? Please connect me with StarGate Command, I have some news for them.” He doubted that General O’Neill would be too surprised to hear from them. He was most likely anticipating a call.
.-#-.
“You could have us transported directly in front of the house. Instead I’ll catch a cold just because your government is too cheap to invest in bigger cars with better heating.” Rodney McKay huddled deeper into his coat and pulled the scarf more firmly over his chin. All three of them were in civilian clothes since they were on, technically, a civilian errand. It was a minor miracle that John and Rodney still possessed civilian outdoorsy winter clothes, they hadn’t needed them for years. Another scorching glare was directed at their driver.
Jack O’Neill had insisted on playing chauffeur and the crooked grin on the General’s face whenever he talked about their current dilemma indicated that there was more to his presence than wanting to wish his godson a Merry Christmas.
“Would you stop complaining already? McKay, you are a Canadian, like you always tell us. Shouldn’t you be used to the cold?” O’Neill navigated around another corner and consulted his GPS system. Afterward he met Rodney’s glare in the rear window with another one of his infuriating smirks. “We don’t want to draw too much attention and this is a very nice car, I’ll have you know.”
“Attention?!? We are followed by not one, but two cars full of Marines! How is that low profile?”
“Discreetly followed, McKay, discreetly. And the Apollo is in orbit keeping an eye on us too.” Jack’s grin intensified and he took one of his hands off the wheel. “Count: One two star, one three star general, one super snarky genius. All of them working on a super secret project. If it wasn’t for some stupid meeting with the President we would have added a hyper space-monkey to the collection.”
The car traversed an icy patch on the road and swerved a little bit.
“Eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel, Jack!” Rodney squawked.
John, the traitor, was sprawled over his side of the backseat and made no attempt to interfere in the ongoing battle about how much heat (or security) was needed. He had muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Are we there yet?" three streets ago but kept silent otherwise.
“Why are you here anyways, don’t you have other things to do?” Rodney groused ill-temperedly and intensified his glare at O’Neill's profile.
“I’ll just deliver you safely, take a look at the evil temptress that lured our boy into her cave, make sure that my godson isn’t in mortal peril and then leave you to your mission. Don’t worry, they won’t get a full load of the in-laws yet.”
Evil temptress? In-laws?!? Did O’Neill have to made it sound so serious, not to mention sordid? They were just using the windfall of the generator delivery to make sure Joaquin was ok after his little adventure and to spend Christmas with their son. On paper this… Sempera sounded harmless. Who was stupid enough to saddle the poor girl with such a name?!? Adequate IQ, semi-scientific choice of major, government parents in a committed long term relationship, secure finances, healthy and deaf. Adoption papers. No parking tickets, no black marks, not involved in anything suspicious. Some stuff involving a kidnapping when she was a kid but nothing else. And now she could be in trouble because someone didn’t know when to quit. “They helped get Jack out of trouble. The least thing we can do is warn them about Islington’s idiocy.”
The car came to a stop in front of a nice townhouse. It was paid for in full and didn't look too ostentatious even if its occupants' financial resources could have afforded them something bigger. Someone had decorated the front tastefully with blinking lights and there was a tasteful wreath on the door. No silly over-large glowing plastic Rudolphs. There was light shining through one downstairs window so someone should be awake still, even if it was after midnight.
“Casa Gibbs.” Jack commented.
Now it was John’s turn to stare at the older General distrustfully. “What aren’t you telling us? You know these folks?”
O’Neill got rid of his safety belt and opened the door, letting in the cold. “Nah. Never met them. Just heard some stories.”
John got out of the car as well and looked around. “Stories you should have shared with us?”
“Didn’t want to influence you.”
Neither Rodney, nor John swallowed that particular pile of BS. Knowing Jack, it wouldn’t do any good to pry, not that there was any time for it. No matter what the two Generals thought, Rodney didn’t want to turn into an ice-cube. He strode up to the door and pushed the doorbell.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Atlantis has her own way of solving problems. She doesn’t need to often, she has McKay, but there are some things he would never do without a little prompting. And sometimes he does not need any prompting at all.
Chapter End Notes:
This is my Easter present for my faithful beta Riazendira. I still think it is hinky that she wants to beta read her presents, but I would never say no. (Beta's note: Well how would having someone else beta read it allow me to comment on all the good bits before it's published? Or get it beta read so quickly? Beta's don't grow on trees you know. :-D)
More SGA than NCIS in this part.
More SGA than NCIS in this part.