How to
turn lights ON
Author: wanderingsmith
Feb 2008
Summary: How to turn lights ON on Atlantis
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I ain't got no money, and nobody'd be daft enough to pay me
for this.
AN: OK, this was one of my little scenelets to add to Hold
on tight, the *last* scenelet I'd been going to make at that!,
which I was not going to work on until I had finished my
~great~ ):| endeavour into smut... but then I read this delightfully
fluffy fic called Blue Dots,
by leave-me-light and got totally in the mood!! argh! distractions,
distractions....(sigh) lol. so this is... lets say a couple-ish
months
after Hold on tight ch2
AN2: this was supposed to be fluffy!! but they insisted in talking
about their feeling }:{, CHARACTERS! (sigh). This has not been
betaed,
blame me for the numerous mistakes. And Carson is mine! (hiding
behind
earthworks from the thrown vegetables).. I'm sorry I mangle him... if
you want to help make him a better Scot, I welcome help... though,
would it help if I said I write him phonetically? I'm not
implying anything about his frankly excellent English vocabulary and
grammar. I'm amazed at how well he said that medical jargon in
Scottish in.. Progeny I think?.
Elizabeth woke slowly, blinking in the darkness. Wondering
groggily when she'd started waking up early without an alarm. She
signed softly, wishing *she* could turn the lights on without having to
get up first.
Even as she shook her head in annoyance at the stubborn finickiness of
the ATA gene and threw back the covers, the lights were suddenly
on. Her head jerked up in surprise, groaning at the thought of
what Rodney was up to now; if it wasn't so painful to listen to,
she'd insist harder that he always tell before doing *anything* to
Atlantis.
"Why are the lights on?" The gravely, grumpy voice besides her
didn't surprise her nearly as much as the suddenly lit room had.
"Actually, I'm just as glad they are, I have to get to work." She
swung her legs over the side of the bed. "I'll turn them off as
soon as I get to the bathroom door. And find out why they got
turned on." She muttered the last with a glare meant for her
erstwhile astrophysicist.
"Why?" John knew he was whining, but sometimes it actually worked
at making her rethink her responsible behaviour; and he did hate it
when she got up early.
This time she just replied indulgently, "Because someone has to run the
city." Nonetheless giving his tousled, sleepy head a tender
smile. And she took her time stretching her shoulders and neck
while sitting in bed; a minute more playing with her lover was nothing
to skip on in this uncertain life.
"Come on, come back to bed." He was lazily patting the mattress
next to him, knowing he was wasting his time but playing their familiar
game anyway. While he was still giving her his first thorough
once-over of the day, his brain, cycling through the usual crooked
thought branches that could drive McKay nuts hit an odd note and he
frowned, eyes raising to meet hers, "Say, you wouldn't have *thought*
about having the lights on... would you?"
Elizabeth raised a brow at him, "Of course I did, I don't happen to
relish banging my toes on your gear." She widened her eyes
deliberately on the 'your', teasing him.
He ignored the most likely true accusation about his effect on her
orderly room, "Umm." John thought the lights off.
"Jooohn!" Elizabeth growled in *mostly* mock annoyance.
She'd been looking forward to having a clear path to start her day.
"Humour me. Think about having the lights on."
"Oh for Pete's sake." Elizabeth shook her head. Done her
stretching, she got up; she really did want to get started on her
reports before everyone woke and started interrupting. And if she
let herself get dragged into whatever John's new game was they'd be
arguing for an hour.
John grabbed one of her hands at the last second, pulling it to his
lips with a deliberately seductive grin he knew she liked, "Humour
me. You love me, right? Come on, just one little
thought..." He kissed her palm softly with each statement.
Ignoring the annoyed glare she was shooting him.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes at his transparent antics; but acceded
anyway. If he was that insistent, she knew from past experience
that a short participation would allow her to get free of the pestering
and back to work the fastest. So she closed her eyes and wished
the bloody lights were so bright his night-adjusted eyes yelled at him
for her.
Her own eyes popped open when the lights not only did come on, but at a
noticeably higher brightness.
Suddenly wide awake and deadly serious, John grabbed his earpiece off
the bedside table, swinging over to her side of the bed to keep his
hold on her hand while getting up. Pulling her behind him as he
reached for their clothes and tapped the comm link, "Carson!"
"John, you're overreacting!" Elizabeth's voice warbled as he
jostled her about while she tried to tug her hand out of his in
frustration.
"No, I'm not." John knew deep down that he was, just a little;
there was nothing really wrong. So why *was* he feeling so
panicky all of a sudden? Maybe because this was the Pegasus
galaxy and spontaneously appearing good things always meant rapidly
approaching bad things. And they'd been riding on a wave of
'good' lately, which must have been slowly cranking up his subconscious
'bad thing' senses to hair-trigger sensitivity. Either way, he
knew he wouldn't be calming down until he knew Elizabeth was OK.
The doctor's groggy voice eventually replied, "Aye lad?"
John popped his head out of his T-shirt, helping Elizabeth with her
vest, "Elizabeth just turned on the lights."
Carson leaned up on his elbow in his bed, sleepily humouring the
early-morning madman, "Well yes, colonel, so can I..."
"YES Carson! *You* can. And *I* can, but ELIZABETH should
not!" John knew he needed to get the panic, or at least himself,
under some control. There was no excuse for shouting at the
doctor; and yet... He took a deep breath as Elizabeth frowned at
him and briefly cupped his cheek.
Carson took a few moments to make the connections, then got up, rolling
his eyes in annoyance at the yelling, "Some of us just woke up
colonel. Even Rodney's less than a genius when he wakes up.
A'll meet ye in the infirmary."
"Already on our way." Carson could hear Elizabeth muttering in
the background and shook his head, at least getting some romantic
enjoyment out of the situation. It was good to have people acting
like normal human beings every now and then, instead of the
always-tense, always-working inhabitants of a floating city in another
galaxy. Especially nice to see the two people with the most
responsibility having that little bit of emotional ease.
------------------------------------------------
Elizabeth sat in a chair in the infirmary with a tablet she'd borrowed
from Carson so she could work while he ran his tests. Doing her
best to ignore John pacing next to her and pestering the doctor with
questions every minute or so.
When one of the computers finally beeped, Carson walked over, feeling
Colonel Sheppard dog his steps. As he interpreted the results he
started smiling widely.
"Something wrong?" Sheppard asked as Carson walked quickly to a
different terminal, colonel at his heels.
"Doc?" John could hear his own voice rising; it didn't matter
that the man was smiling, all this hurrying was making his nerves tight
and shivery with the latent fear they all lived with.
"Yes?" The doctor's tone was distracted.
"Well? What's wrong?" By now Elizabeth had gotten up and
put a hand on John's shoulder, trying to calm him so they could hear
what the doctor had.
"Oh, nothing, nothing at all." Carson was hunting for a rarely
used file, muttering to himself, too distracted to remember his
patients couldn't read his mind.
"Then what!!" Elizabeth shook her head with exasperated
affection, moving herself in front of John and wrapping his arms around
her waist. Ready to elbow him if he said another temperamental
word; it was blatantly obvious to her from Carson's cheerful
demeanour that whatever was up, it wasn't bad.
She reminded herself that John's self-control was not at its coolest
when it came to her safety. She spared a moment to admit the
advantage of their relationship being public among the expedition;
people would feel justified to step in
and snap some sense into him if anything happened to her, without
having to couch their actions under some other excuse. One
less worry for her.
She got back to the present as Carson spoke. "Well, it appears
it's Lieutenant Havesham that will be several hundred dollars richer at
some point in the near future."
"What?" Confused
herself, she managed to beat John to the question.
Carson finally looked up at his two curious friends with a grin, "Yer 3
weeks pregnant."
Elizabeth froze, dropping her grip on John, slowly turning to share a
look with him, seeing him standing with his mouth agape, arms at his
side; shaken but eyes already starting to shine with happiness.
She still couldn't get past shock.
"That's impossible." Her voice was barely above a whisper, hand
automatically covering her belly.
John tilted his head in question; he'd been sure she wasn't
against having his baby... was she? It was his turn to put his
hands on her shoulders in reassurance. The joy bubbling through
him ached to be shared with her, but their relationship
was strong enough these days, he was strong enough, that his only
concern was for whatever was
scaring her. He was confident they'd celebrate later.
Carson just humoured her, enjoying giving good news instead of the
usual bad, "And why is that Elizabeth?"
"You know as well as I do that I ..." Shaking herself mentally
out of the stupor, she rolled her eyes at the two men who knew her most
intimately, one way or another, "That I haven't had a period since
before I came here! I thought you told me yourself I was well
into menopause... you even blamed its early onset on stress and
my not sleeping enough!"
"Umm, true." Carson frowned in concentration, checking his
readings again while he thought. "Well, ye're definitely
pregnant. A wonder if..." His voice trailed off as he
reached for another sampling needle.
John swallowed, reminded of his thoughts about the rapidly approaching
bad things. He dredged up a shadow of a grin for Elizabeth when
she looked at him with half-concealed worry of her own. He put an
arm around her waist, hugging her briefly to his side. Letting
her go with a kiss on the top of her head and a silent prayer, he
lifted her onto the table Carson indicated. This time having no
intention of pestering the doctor; Elizabeth needed him, and that was
always a damned good way to freeze his panic or get any other
troublesome emotions put aside.
------------------------------------------------
It took a couple hours for Carson to come up with the
explanation. Elizabeth for once didn't need to be convinced to
take some time off. She and John spent the time holding on to
each other in a curtained off corner of the infirmary, with Carson
running interference so the rest of Atlantis left them alone.
Elizabeth sat on the edge of an examination table, John standing in
front of her, their arms around each other; sometimes hugging as
tight as they could, sometimes just staring at each other. It was
probably one of the most silent periods they'd spent together;
both preoccupied with mentally adjusting to a baby, consciously setting
aside the
rest of the concerns they had until they knew something. Just
locking eyes every few minutes to share the awe, sometimes
delight, sometimes terror of two people who had until very recently
given up on the idea of a family.
Had only recently accepted that they could even have the love of one
person. There just didn't seem to be words for what they
felt. The feelings were of touch, of expression, of shared
intimacy. Reading each other's minds would have been superfluous.
When the doctor finally walked into their quiet corner and cleared his
throat, they were calm, Elizabeth getting up so they could stand
together, ready to face anything.
"Nanites."
Except that. With her back leaning on John's chest, Elizabeth
felt exactly how he tensed at the word. Felt herself freeze in
fear, both for herself and for the new life she carried. Trying
to keep from being thrown back to the terror of her
imprisonment, gripping John's forearms hard enough to draw blood.
Unconsciously trying to burrow back into him while his arms tightened
to steel around her. Terribly glad they'd had the time to
reinforce the bond between them before facing this.
Carson tried to be reassuring for the two people who couldn't even come
up with one response between them, "Back when those nanites in yee were
active; aside
from trying to take over yer body, they also automatically fixed it."
"Fixed?" Elizabeth found her voice, trying to let herself be
somewhat reassured that there was no *new* threat.
Somewhat. Trying.
Carson shrugged, "Hormones in the state of flux that menopause can
induce... I can imagine little wee machines decidin' that a 'fix'
was needed. An' then goin' an' makin' changes. A'm still
na' sure why ye dinna get a period though..." He frowned in
annoyance at not having all the answers, "But yer ovaries are still
producin' eggs, and a can see the linin' o' the uterus is at the right
stage fer 3 weeks o' pregnancy. I'll be taking a great deal more
tests a'm afraid, to be sure everything is absolutely well. Fer
now, a can tell ye that if this was Earth and ye came to me pregnant,
I'd say everything was perfectly well and right on time. The babe
should be just fine."
"Aaah, Carson?" John's voice was quiet, arms tight around
Elizabeth. And their baby. Panic just barely under
control. As long as she was under his touch.
"Aye lad?"
"How are the inactive replicator things in Elizabeth going to affect
the
baby? And why is Elizabeth able to turn the lights on exactly?"
"As to the lights, I'd say yer wee one obviously has the same strong
Ancient gene ye do colonel. And a suppose having it in the babe
is close enough to Elizabeth's own body for the technology to accept
her; the gene might even have spread back to her bloodstream from tha
wee one. The nanites..."
Carson tilted his head, not wanting to encourage them to worry about
what he was confident what a situation under control, but not ready to
dismiss the possible danger either, not that they'd believe it.
"They are still inactive, there's na change there. But since they
are in yer body... it's quite possible some will end up in the
babe, if they can travel through skin..." He tightened his lips,
understanding and agreeing with the
anger in the new parents' eyes at the thought of an innocent child
being pulled into such damned trouble. "That does na mean the wee
one
will come to harm fer it. They'll be just as inactive in
him." He grinned encouragingly, trying to lighten the air, "Or
her."
As the two stood there, faces pale and arms tight around each other,
Carson nodded apologetically for the news he'd had to impart and
slipped back out.
John's eyes closed, head bent to rest on Elizabeth's, making himself
take deep calming breath. Replaying the doctor's words to get
every nuance out of them. Unconsciously rocking Elizabeth.
He finally managed to convince himself that nothing Carson had said was
a death sentence. It was scary, but no worse than yesterday had
been. No more, no less terrifying. But they had dealt with
yesterday, and they would deal with today. And tomorrow.
He lifted his head, firmly set upon safeguarding his family.
Starting with finding a way to make Elizabeth feel better.
"Well." John turned Elizabeth in his arms so he could grin at
her, one hand cupping her cheek, wishing he could take the worry and
fear in her eyes into himself and leave her at peace. "Born with
keys to both Ancients and Replicators. That's not a bad start for
an Air Force brat." He pecked her on the nose, glad she was
allowing him to distract her at least a little, her tension very slowly
decreasing. He widened his grin, "Add a dash of Wraith and he'd
be a real Pegasus baby."
"John!" She objected with a sob buried in her voice.
"Joking!" He pulled her closer, "You know I'm joking."
Kissed her forehead, "'Laughter kills fear'." He hoped they could
continue to be alone long enough to get themselves back to looking like
business as usual; the last thing they needed right now was to
have to deal with everyone's well-wishing and going-on when they were
still trying to assimilate their own feelings.
Elizabeth rested her head on his chest,
reminding herself that together they could beat anything.
Anything at all. "Who said that?" She didn't really care,
but she knew he'd feel better if she played along with his teasing.
"Sean Connery, part of a longer quote, but that bit fit here." He
rubbed his cheek on the side of her head, holding her close.
Knowing with a sinking heart that they were both going to be having
nightmares about her time dealing with replicators in one form or
another for the foreseeable
future.
A stray thought caught Elizabeth and gave her the strength, or at least
the distraction, to pull herself a little further out of the
fear. Pull them both a little out of the fear. "You'd
better not think you can get away with becoming as protective as Ronon,
Sheppard."
Without meaning to he snorted laughter, arms tightening around her for
an instant before lifting his head, catching her eyes as she did the
same. They were grinning at each other, albeit shaky grins, each
trying hard to make the other feel better. Elizabeth knew it was
a waste of time to try to tell him not to be protective and John knew
she knew. But they would both enjoy the flirting, teasing and
growling they could get up to with such a great excuse. And that
would keep the fears away for the days, until they could hold each
other through the nights.
AN3: I am not a doctor, and I am being lazy by not doing research.
any doctor in the house is welcome to correct me. ditto for SGA experts
- my thanks to Vicky for grammar and the Anon person for the nanites
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