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Entry tags:
SGA - Trade
Title: Trade
Genre: Gen, Team, bit of H/C
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~ 2900
Spoilers: After Tao of Rodney (Esposito’s in it)
Warnings: Mention of attempt of non-con and mild language
Synopsis: Some things are not worth the cost of the trade. Some things are.
Disclaimer: I don’t own them, people with a lot of money do. I’m just borrowing them to play and making no profit from this.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Rodney...” she whimpered, trying to hide behind the man’s bulk, cowering in the shadows.
“Shh, it’s okay,” he consoled awkwardly. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, not surprised when she jumped, but rather shocked when she did not slink further away. “You’re okay, no one’s going to hurt you,” he told her, repeating what had become his internal mantra for the past fifteen minutes.
“But...” she gasped. Her dark eyes were wide with terror, brown curls plastered to sweaty skin.
She shivered again and he moved closer, letting his the heat of his own body warm her, knowing she was most likely in shock at this point. “No one,” he promised, letting her melt into him. He looked over his shoulder to where Sheppard stood, eyes as shadowed as the corner she was hiding in. “No one,” he repeated again, seeing the stilted nod in acknowledgement.
Their eyes locked for a good minute or more, and he knew his team leader was weighing the options, trying to find a way out of this that would not involve his scientist being traumatized any more than she already was. He swore he could see the moment when the curtain slid shut, when Sheppard came to a decision he knew McKay would not accept.
“I want to talk to the king,” Sheppard commanded, the force of all his years of military training behind the words.
The weasel-like advisor smiled, all too many teeth and knowing eyes. “Of course, right this way,” he directed, ushering him down the long hallway. Rodney narrowed his eyes at the way the man dragged his eyes over Esposito, giving her one last lingering look before darting down the corridor.
No one was surprised when a line of guards joined the procession, hands on the hilts of their bladed weapons after neatly stripping him of his own and handing them to his teammates. Right before he disappeared through the heavy wooden doorway though, Sheppard turned and said with a casualness so forced it hurt, “Ronon, make sure no one gets too friendly while I’m gone.”
The Satedan nodded, stepping into place with Teyla at his side. They blocked the way to Rodney, to his team of engineers, and to the frightened woman cowering behind them all.
After a moment, he dared to look around, saw the remainder of his team of supposedly top scientists watching him in ways that made him want to roll his eyes. He could do caring and understanding, he just didn’t do it often. Besides this... this was something he would hope the most inept member of the expedition would understand. It was not complex, it was not elaborate or exotic; it was just plain and simple wrong.
A nod to Simpson had her sliding into place besides Esposito, Williams and Pavil shifting to use their combined weight and size to shield them both. Rodney stood, groaning at the bruising in his knees from the hard stone floor, and fumbled in his pockets for some tissue. He found a peanut butter Power Bar and handed that to her as well, Pavil adding a canteen to the mix.
Trusting them to handle things, because they sure as hell can’t get any more screwed up than they already are, he hobbled over to his teammates with a sigh. “He’s going to do something stupid, isn’t he?” he asked knowingly.
“Probably,” Ronon conceded. Teyla’s silence was telling.
“How long do we give him?” he asked, eying the corridor and the now closed door, not to mention the two burly men in front of it.
“Long as he needs,” Ronon grunted.
Rodney sighed, again, and greeted Teyla’s reassuring pat and smile with a raised eyebrow. She had been the one to rip Esposito away and notify the others; he highly doubted her calm outer demeanor was covering anything other than primal rage.
And he originally had such high hopes for this planet.
The Prasha were warm and welcoming people, more than willing to trade for food and goods for some basic medicines and a little work figuring out how to rig up something to support their holy temple. Said temple, of course, turned out to be of Ancient design and filled with more than a couple little doo-dads and whatnot that glowed and looked pretty, but didn’t do a whole lot else. A few engineers joined the away team and were able to both support the temple and sneak a few readings at the same time. That was supposed to be that.
Of course, it was not.
Turns out the Prasha revere the increasingly dwindling number of people able to make their “holy” objects glow. Not too much of a big deal as that was becoming Pegasus Standard by now. McKay was not at all ashamed to admit it had worked in their favor when it came to negotiating treaties more times than a few, though Sheppard’s conscience occasionally reared its head and he would insist on only what they needed and none of the freebies that were still snuck in from time to time.
Rodney had lost count of how many ceremonies he had attended, babies he had kissed, and bottles of Purell he had gone through in an attempt to wash the grubby hands off him after he obligingly played light switch and got an up close and personal look at the detritus the Ancients had left around the galaxy.
He had offers of wives, and husbands, on at least seven separate planets and while that was nowhere near Sheppard’s dozen or so, it was nothing to scoff at. Usually they politely declined and, when that didn’t work, they showed the ignorant people that the “Children of the Ancients” could more than take care of themselves and had they met these fine men called “Marines” with nifty things called “automatic weapons” or, better yet, his teammate Ronon and his merry band of knives?
Well, this time the Prasha did not understand polite and the automatic weapons didn’t work because hey, the engineering team accidentally got the protective shield at the heart of the temple working again and guess what it did? That left Ronon as the Marines were on the other side of the gate on the other side of the king’s guards and like hell was he going to leave Esposito here in his greasy hands for even a minute, let alone the hour to the gate and back and why, oh why, did he have to have an extra scientist with the gene along on this mission? And a rather decent looking one at that. Damn.
Needless to say, the king’s priests saw the pretty little scientist and the pretty little way she lit up some pretty little device. The priests went all aflutter and rushed to the king who promptly declared that he wanted her for his wife. Even though he already had one. Who had already birthed him five sons and a daughter.
Esposito was not impressed, and neither was Ronon who kind of still had a crush on her from the time he found out she had a crush on him from the time Rodney was all partially ascended with awesome mental powers and accidentally on purpose read her mind. He rather wished he still had those powers because then he would have been able to figure out the king’s distraction, trapping Ronon off to the side while he made a grab at his hither-to wife-to be.
The scientist had insisted she could not be his wife, but he would have nothing of it. She even tried asking if there wasn’t a ceremony they had to go through first and maybe she should go back through the gate to prepare. His response was that the only ceremony needed was him to “gift” her with the “royal seed” and for her to then “gift” him with a child and that said “gifting” was going to happen here and now and that his guards would help to ensure her cooperation. Her response to that, of course, was to scream at the top of her lungs.
Soon after, there were guards, there was Teyla, there were possible broken bones, and there was the entire Atlantis contingent gathered around one terrified member of their team. The king had been hustled away after having the balls to ask if Teyla was also “blessed by the Ancestors” and whether or not she was interested in “gifting” as well. And now... Well, now was now with one of his actually non-incompetent engineers reduced to hiccupping sobs and his best friend striding off to be the hero.
Never one for staying quiet for too long, Rodney asked, “What do you think he will do?”
An unreadable look passed between his two remaining teammates, with Teyla narrowing her eyes at Ronon before replying, “He will do what needs to be done,” just a little too lightly.
McKay frowned. He never was one for obtuse answers and he knew when he was being played to. “Are we talking ‘kill the king’ need to be done or ‘secure our escape’ need to be done? Or, there’s the ever popular, ‘self-sacrificing, do something stupid and hope for the best’ need to be done – can you narrow it down so I can plan on when I’ll need to run?”
“Third one,” Ronon grunted, lips curving into a smirk.
“Well, it is always the most popular,” Rodney muttered.
Anything else he was going to say was cut off by the opening of the heavy doors leading to the king’s hall. Sheppard took a couple steps forward, nodded in their direction, and turned down another hallway, flanked on all sides by a contingent of guards. The advisor slimed his way down towards them, self-satisfied smile still in place.
Rodney opened his mouth to demand to know what was going on, but Teyla gave him a look and stepped forward, conferring with the robed and bejeweled man instead. It was obvious from her body posture that she did not like what was decided, but she parted with a forced smile and returned to the others to convey the news, such as it was.
“Colonel Sheppard will be required to take part in a blessing ceremony at the holy temple,” she explained, choosing her words carefully enough that it had Rodney’s hackles up. “None of our grouping are required to attend and he has requested that we escort Doctor Esposito to more... comfortable surroundings. I would suggest the gardens near the front gate,” she added pointedly.
Rodney got the message. The gardens were far enough away from the king’s residence to give them a bit of space, not to mention air that didn’t reek of whatever oil they were burning in the hallway sconces, and had a clear view of the gate and their escape route back to the safety of home. He motioned to the others, who helped the still shaken woman to her feet.
The advisor approached, causing her to reel back against Williams’ side. “The king offers his condolences on your loss,” he seethed, offering a bow before crawling back to whatever hole he had climbed out of.
“What the hell was that about?” Rodney demanded in a stage whisper, looking to Teyla for answers.
She motioned for them to begin walking, and spared a final glance towards the king’s chambers before joining them. “The man speaks in riddles to hid the truth, but from what I was able to ascertain, Colonel Sheppard either convinced the king that Doctor Esposito is observing her culture’s mandatory grieving period for the loss of a loved one, or that she is unable to bear children due to an unfortunate laboratory accident.”
Rodney was unable to hold back a snort at that, wondering if the apology the advisor offered actually had anything to do with that, or was simply due to losing a brood hen for his master. He absently noticed the rest of their contingent pause at her revelation.
“And he fell for that?” Simpson asked, aghast.
“The Colonel can be quite convincing when he must,” she smiled. Turning to Esposito, who looked torn between breaking into hysterical giggles or throwing up, she added, “I would like to suggest you do not make any return appearances to the Prasha should you ever become with child.”
“I would like to suggest that you never be forced to deal with these ass-backward morons ever again,” Rodney threw in. “Consider yourself off the roster for anything remotely dealing with them at any time in the future.”
“You going to suggest we lock this one out?” Ronon asked, motioning to a bench near a fountain where they could sit.
“Hell yes,” Rodney replied.
Teyla held up a hand to stop him from continuing further. “It is my understanding that the trade negotiations are still to be held as valid. Not only that, but they have offered any science team we may send full access to the temple machinery to examine the shielding device.”
Rodney shook his head, torn between learning more about such technology, and knowing what it almost cost one of his team. “A) Why would we agree to this? and B) How the hell did he talk them into this?”
“Sheppard can be quite convincing when he must,” Ronon replied, repeating Teyla’s earlier words.
They waited for nearly an hour, long enough for Esposito to start talking in full sentences again and long enough for Williams and Pavil to speculate on the configuring running the fountain, before Sheppard appeared. He smelled of the Prasha soaps and incense, and wore shadowed eyes and a face of stone as he ordered, “Let’s go.”
They gathered their gear and began the trek back to the gate. Once they were safely outside the city walls, he asked, “They didn’t try anything else, did they?”
“Not a thing,” Teyla assured him.
“Good,” he nodded.
He continued to walk right up until Rodney pulled him by the sleeve off to the side. Something was off, and he wanted to know what, and he needed to know now, but Sheppard got a chance to close it in completely. “What did you do?” he demanded.
“Relax, they’re all alive,” came the blithe reply.
“That’s not what I asked,” McKay pointed out. Slowly, stressing each word like he would to a child, or a grad student, he repeated, “What did you do?”
Finally, Sheppard turned and met his gaze, revealing just a hint of the emotions soaring behind it before hiding it once more. “A blessing,” he insisted. “Any more details are going to involve your stash of whiskey and a room overlooking the South pier.”
Rodney nodded, understanding the unspoken message. There was a place where the team gathered after the missions that totally and completely sucked, where they could let their guard down for just a bit, just with each other, and get everything out of their systems. The fact they usually got shitfaced doing it was just a bonus. “Deal,” he said, knowing Ronon and Teyla would agree if asked, and show up even if no invitation was sent.
He released the deathhold he still had on Sheppard’s sleeve and they quickened their step to rejoin the others.
“Thank you,” Esposito said, sincerity in her voice as she initiated a conversation for the first time since this whole thing began. “I... Thank you.”
“You’re safe,” John told her, forcing the barest quirk of a grin. “And we’re going home.”
~~~~~
Epilogue:
Rodney was part of the congregation that returned to celebrate the one-year anniversary of their treaty with the Prasha. The shielding technology had successfully been integrated with their own, at least on a small scale, and relations, though a bit stilted, remained friendly enough to continue trade. No woman with the ATA gene was ever assigned to any of the research or operation groups and, if Rodney had his way, none would ever step foot on the planet again.
He had, of course, eventually gotten the full story out of Sheppard. It was somewhere deep into the second bottle of Windsor and long after Teyla had already made arrangements for them to have the next several days off. He was pissed, he was outraged, and he may have possibly even landed a punch if John’s black eye and his bruised knuckles were anything to go by in the morning.
When he had demanded to know why and how he had come up with such a stupid solution, the only thing John offered was a simple, “It’s my job.” Rodney was pretty sure that was when Ronon had slapped Sheppard upside the head hard enough for him to lose part of his precious whiskey.
Miraculously, Sheppard had come down with food poisoning the day before the big Prashan feast, leaving Rodney to listen to boring speeches and boisterous promises. He bit into food that might have tasted like ash for all he cared as he pointedly ignored the buxom blonde queen and the tiny little innocent she held in her arms, all dark hair and blue-green eyes as he played with a little pendant that glowed green in his hands.
End.
~~~~~~~~~~
Feedback is always welcomed.
Genre: Gen, Team, bit of H/C
Rating: PG-13
Words: ~ 2900
Spoilers: After Tao of Rodney (Esposito’s in it)
Warnings: Mention of attempt of non-con and mild language
Synopsis: Some things are not worth the cost of the trade. Some things are.
Disclaimer: I don’t own them, people with a lot of money do. I’m just borrowing them to play and making no profit from this.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Rodney...” she whimpered, trying to hide behind the man’s bulk, cowering in the shadows.
“Shh, it’s okay,” he consoled awkwardly. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, not surprised when she jumped, but rather shocked when she did not slink further away. “You’re okay, no one’s going to hurt you,” he told her, repeating what had become his internal mantra for the past fifteen minutes.
“But...” she gasped. Her dark eyes were wide with terror, brown curls plastered to sweaty skin.
She shivered again and he moved closer, letting his the heat of his own body warm her, knowing she was most likely in shock at this point. “No one,” he promised, letting her melt into him. He looked over his shoulder to where Sheppard stood, eyes as shadowed as the corner she was hiding in. “No one,” he repeated again, seeing the stilted nod in acknowledgement.
Their eyes locked for a good minute or more, and he knew his team leader was weighing the options, trying to find a way out of this that would not involve his scientist being traumatized any more than she already was. He swore he could see the moment when the curtain slid shut, when Sheppard came to a decision he knew McKay would not accept.
“I want to talk to the king,” Sheppard commanded, the force of all his years of military training behind the words.
The weasel-like advisor smiled, all too many teeth and knowing eyes. “Of course, right this way,” he directed, ushering him down the long hallway. Rodney narrowed his eyes at the way the man dragged his eyes over Esposito, giving her one last lingering look before darting down the corridor.
No one was surprised when a line of guards joined the procession, hands on the hilts of their bladed weapons after neatly stripping him of his own and handing them to his teammates. Right before he disappeared through the heavy wooden doorway though, Sheppard turned and said with a casualness so forced it hurt, “Ronon, make sure no one gets too friendly while I’m gone.”
The Satedan nodded, stepping into place with Teyla at his side. They blocked the way to Rodney, to his team of engineers, and to the frightened woman cowering behind them all.
After a moment, he dared to look around, saw the remainder of his team of supposedly top scientists watching him in ways that made him want to roll his eyes. He could do caring and understanding, he just didn’t do it often. Besides this... this was something he would hope the most inept member of the expedition would understand. It was not complex, it was not elaborate or exotic; it was just plain and simple wrong.
A nod to Simpson had her sliding into place besides Esposito, Williams and Pavil shifting to use their combined weight and size to shield them both. Rodney stood, groaning at the bruising in his knees from the hard stone floor, and fumbled in his pockets for some tissue. He found a peanut butter Power Bar and handed that to her as well, Pavil adding a canteen to the mix.
Trusting them to handle things, because they sure as hell can’t get any more screwed up than they already are, he hobbled over to his teammates with a sigh. “He’s going to do something stupid, isn’t he?” he asked knowingly.
“Probably,” Ronon conceded. Teyla’s silence was telling.
“How long do we give him?” he asked, eying the corridor and the now closed door, not to mention the two burly men in front of it.
“Long as he needs,” Ronon grunted.
Rodney sighed, again, and greeted Teyla’s reassuring pat and smile with a raised eyebrow. She had been the one to rip Esposito away and notify the others; he highly doubted her calm outer demeanor was covering anything other than primal rage.
And he originally had such high hopes for this planet.
The Prasha were warm and welcoming people, more than willing to trade for food and goods for some basic medicines and a little work figuring out how to rig up something to support their holy temple. Said temple, of course, turned out to be of Ancient design and filled with more than a couple little doo-dads and whatnot that glowed and looked pretty, but didn’t do a whole lot else. A few engineers joined the away team and were able to both support the temple and sneak a few readings at the same time. That was supposed to be that.
Of course, it was not.
Turns out the Prasha revere the increasingly dwindling number of people able to make their “holy” objects glow. Not too much of a big deal as that was becoming Pegasus Standard by now. McKay was not at all ashamed to admit it had worked in their favor when it came to negotiating treaties more times than a few, though Sheppard’s conscience occasionally reared its head and he would insist on only what they needed and none of the freebies that were still snuck in from time to time.
Rodney had lost count of how many ceremonies he had attended, babies he had kissed, and bottles of Purell he had gone through in an attempt to wash the grubby hands off him after he obligingly played light switch and got an up close and personal look at the detritus the Ancients had left around the galaxy.
He had offers of wives, and husbands, on at least seven separate planets and while that was nowhere near Sheppard’s dozen or so, it was nothing to scoff at. Usually they politely declined and, when that didn’t work, they showed the ignorant people that the “Children of the Ancients” could more than take care of themselves and had they met these fine men called “Marines” with nifty things called “automatic weapons” or, better yet, his teammate Ronon and his merry band of knives?
Well, this time the Prasha did not understand polite and the automatic weapons didn’t work because hey, the engineering team accidentally got the protective shield at the heart of the temple working again and guess what it did? That left Ronon as the Marines were on the other side of the gate on the other side of the king’s guards and like hell was he going to leave Esposito here in his greasy hands for even a minute, let alone the hour to the gate and back and why, oh why, did he have to have an extra scientist with the gene along on this mission? And a rather decent looking one at that. Damn.
Needless to say, the king’s priests saw the pretty little scientist and the pretty little way she lit up some pretty little device. The priests went all aflutter and rushed to the king who promptly declared that he wanted her for his wife. Even though he already had one. Who had already birthed him five sons and a daughter.
Esposito was not impressed, and neither was Ronon who kind of still had a crush on her from the time he found out she had a crush on him from the time Rodney was all partially ascended with awesome mental powers and accidentally on purpose read her mind. He rather wished he still had those powers because then he would have been able to figure out the king’s distraction, trapping Ronon off to the side while he made a grab at his hither-to wife-to be.
The scientist had insisted she could not be his wife, but he would have nothing of it. She even tried asking if there wasn’t a ceremony they had to go through first and maybe she should go back through the gate to prepare. His response was that the only ceremony needed was him to “gift” her with the “royal seed” and for her to then “gift” him with a child and that said “gifting” was going to happen here and now and that his guards would help to ensure her cooperation. Her response to that, of course, was to scream at the top of her lungs.
Soon after, there were guards, there was Teyla, there were possible broken bones, and there was the entire Atlantis contingent gathered around one terrified member of their team. The king had been hustled away after having the balls to ask if Teyla was also “blessed by the Ancestors” and whether or not she was interested in “gifting” as well. And now... Well, now was now with one of his actually non-incompetent engineers reduced to hiccupping sobs and his best friend striding off to be the hero.
Never one for staying quiet for too long, Rodney asked, “What do you think he will do?”
An unreadable look passed between his two remaining teammates, with Teyla narrowing her eyes at Ronon before replying, “He will do what needs to be done,” just a little too lightly.
McKay frowned. He never was one for obtuse answers and he knew when he was being played to. “Are we talking ‘kill the king’ need to be done or ‘secure our escape’ need to be done? Or, there’s the ever popular, ‘self-sacrificing, do something stupid and hope for the best’ need to be done – can you narrow it down so I can plan on when I’ll need to run?”
“Third one,” Ronon grunted, lips curving into a smirk.
“Well, it is always the most popular,” Rodney muttered.
Anything else he was going to say was cut off by the opening of the heavy doors leading to the king’s hall. Sheppard took a couple steps forward, nodded in their direction, and turned down another hallway, flanked on all sides by a contingent of guards. The advisor slimed his way down towards them, self-satisfied smile still in place.
Rodney opened his mouth to demand to know what was going on, but Teyla gave him a look and stepped forward, conferring with the robed and bejeweled man instead. It was obvious from her body posture that she did not like what was decided, but she parted with a forced smile and returned to the others to convey the news, such as it was.
“Colonel Sheppard will be required to take part in a blessing ceremony at the holy temple,” she explained, choosing her words carefully enough that it had Rodney’s hackles up. “None of our grouping are required to attend and he has requested that we escort Doctor Esposito to more... comfortable surroundings. I would suggest the gardens near the front gate,” she added pointedly.
Rodney got the message. The gardens were far enough away from the king’s residence to give them a bit of space, not to mention air that didn’t reek of whatever oil they were burning in the hallway sconces, and had a clear view of the gate and their escape route back to the safety of home. He motioned to the others, who helped the still shaken woman to her feet.
The advisor approached, causing her to reel back against Williams’ side. “The king offers his condolences on your loss,” he seethed, offering a bow before crawling back to whatever hole he had climbed out of.
“What the hell was that about?” Rodney demanded in a stage whisper, looking to Teyla for answers.
She motioned for them to begin walking, and spared a final glance towards the king’s chambers before joining them. “The man speaks in riddles to hid the truth, but from what I was able to ascertain, Colonel Sheppard either convinced the king that Doctor Esposito is observing her culture’s mandatory grieving period for the loss of a loved one, or that she is unable to bear children due to an unfortunate laboratory accident.”
Rodney was unable to hold back a snort at that, wondering if the apology the advisor offered actually had anything to do with that, or was simply due to losing a brood hen for his master. He absently noticed the rest of their contingent pause at her revelation.
“And he fell for that?” Simpson asked, aghast.
“The Colonel can be quite convincing when he must,” she smiled. Turning to Esposito, who looked torn between breaking into hysterical giggles or throwing up, she added, “I would like to suggest you do not make any return appearances to the Prasha should you ever become with child.”
“I would like to suggest that you never be forced to deal with these ass-backward morons ever again,” Rodney threw in. “Consider yourself off the roster for anything remotely dealing with them at any time in the future.”
“You going to suggest we lock this one out?” Ronon asked, motioning to a bench near a fountain where they could sit.
“Hell yes,” Rodney replied.
Teyla held up a hand to stop him from continuing further. “It is my understanding that the trade negotiations are still to be held as valid. Not only that, but they have offered any science team we may send full access to the temple machinery to examine the shielding device.”
Rodney shook his head, torn between learning more about such technology, and knowing what it almost cost one of his team. “A) Why would we agree to this? and B) How the hell did he talk them into this?”
“Sheppard can be quite convincing when he must,” Ronon replied, repeating Teyla’s earlier words.
They waited for nearly an hour, long enough for Esposito to start talking in full sentences again and long enough for Williams and Pavil to speculate on the configuring running the fountain, before Sheppard appeared. He smelled of the Prasha soaps and incense, and wore shadowed eyes and a face of stone as he ordered, “Let’s go.”
They gathered their gear and began the trek back to the gate. Once they were safely outside the city walls, he asked, “They didn’t try anything else, did they?”
“Not a thing,” Teyla assured him.
“Good,” he nodded.
He continued to walk right up until Rodney pulled him by the sleeve off to the side. Something was off, and he wanted to know what, and he needed to know now, but Sheppard got a chance to close it in completely. “What did you do?” he demanded.
“Relax, they’re all alive,” came the blithe reply.
“That’s not what I asked,” McKay pointed out. Slowly, stressing each word like he would to a child, or a grad student, he repeated, “What did you do?”
Finally, Sheppard turned and met his gaze, revealing just a hint of the emotions soaring behind it before hiding it once more. “A blessing,” he insisted. “Any more details are going to involve your stash of whiskey and a room overlooking the South pier.”
Rodney nodded, understanding the unspoken message. There was a place where the team gathered after the missions that totally and completely sucked, where they could let their guard down for just a bit, just with each other, and get everything out of their systems. The fact they usually got shitfaced doing it was just a bonus. “Deal,” he said, knowing Ronon and Teyla would agree if asked, and show up even if no invitation was sent.
He released the deathhold he still had on Sheppard’s sleeve and they quickened their step to rejoin the others.
“Thank you,” Esposito said, sincerity in her voice as she initiated a conversation for the first time since this whole thing began. “I... Thank you.”
“You’re safe,” John told her, forcing the barest quirk of a grin. “And we’re going home.”
~~~~~
Epilogue:
Rodney was part of the congregation that returned to celebrate the one-year anniversary of their treaty with the Prasha. The shielding technology had successfully been integrated with their own, at least on a small scale, and relations, though a bit stilted, remained friendly enough to continue trade. No woman with the ATA gene was ever assigned to any of the research or operation groups and, if Rodney had his way, none would ever step foot on the planet again.
He had, of course, eventually gotten the full story out of Sheppard. It was somewhere deep into the second bottle of Windsor and long after Teyla had already made arrangements for them to have the next several days off. He was pissed, he was outraged, and he may have possibly even landed a punch if John’s black eye and his bruised knuckles were anything to go by in the morning.
When he had demanded to know why and how he had come up with such a stupid solution, the only thing John offered was a simple, “It’s my job.” Rodney was pretty sure that was when Ronon had slapped Sheppard upside the head hard enough for him to lose part of his precious whiskey.
Miraculously, Sheppard had come down with food poisoning the day before the big Prashan feast, leaving Rodney to listen to boring speeches and boisterous promises. He bit into food that might have tasted like ash for all he cared as he pointedly ignored the buxom blonde queen and the tiny little innocent she held in her arms, all dark hair and blue-green eyes as he played with a little pendant that glowed green in his hands.
End.
~~~~~~~~~~
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