fic: Hover [Stargate: Atlantis]
Title: Hover
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: John-centric, cameos from SGA cast and s10 SG-1
Summary: The fate of Atlantis is uncertain following the series finale.
John knows the SGC has to insist to get most of the Marines to take their shore leave, and unless they're visiting family they almost always head out in groups of four. Lorne skulks in the hallways quietly letting command forget he's gone to visit his sister exactly three times since they landed, setting up video calls he can take in his quarters instead.
From what Rodney says between harried brush-by conversations in the hallways and the semi-regular check-ins on their headsets which no one on John's team can quite stop doing despite being on Earth (home to half of them, allegedly), it's the same with the science division.
When not demonstrating to the scientists on day visits from Area 51 that he can be just as much as a dictator as Rodney, everyone speculates that he disappears to wherever he'd holed up during the Kirsan Fever amnesia. Chuck and his team man the control room with a ferocity that belies the fact that the gate's incompatible with any of the Milky Way gates besides Earth, and thus effectively out of commission. The botanists have circled around their greenhouses, citing the risks of devastating disruption of Earth's biosphere if they don't.
Rodney delivers this information with the irritation of a supervisor at the end of his patience, but John also knows that Rodney's been over-requisitioning raw materials and stashing them away in some of the labs they'd closed off as 'not harmful but not worth the power drain.'
He'd stumbled upon them while looking for his own lab to stash extra crates of C4 and medical supplies.
They defeated the Superhive and successfully landed a top secret alien city in one of the most crowded bays on the most populated planet in two galaxies. That should have been the hard part, right?
But everyone in the city is acting like their big grand rescue inadvertently landed them in a hostage situation, with Atlantis as the hostage. IOA representatives perform unannounced spot checks and hover over Rodney's repair crews with lips pursed in perpetual disapproval, while military officers with higher rank than John's ever seen, let alone talked to, eye their weapons systems in ways that make John's fists clench possessively.
It's not his people's fault that the tension seeps through them; barring the group of one-and-done expedition members who had gladly disembarked the first week on Earth back to planetside duties, each one of them loves this city. Even Woolsey is affected by it. He and John wind up having informal sit-rep meetings on the balcony outside the control room every Wednesday (God, when was the last time he measured time by days of the work week?), exchanging notes about what noises the military is making versus what the IOA has implied. If someone had told John he would one day end up liking Woolsey in charge of Atlantis he would have said he'd eat his tac vest first.
"They're nervous," Woolsey tells him. "Us being on edge puts them on edge." John has perfected his slouch over years of borderline insubordination; he should be the one handling them and Woolsey the generals, instead John tying his spine up in knots trying to make a good impression. There are qualities that make a good military commander to a civilian-led remote outpost fighting a guerrilla war against aliens that want to eat them, and they're not the same qualities that impress Brass from Washington.
Ronon and Teyla mostly stay out of the way of non-Atlantis personnel, taking Carson with them an unofficial tour guide on pre-approved trips through the United States. John's been with the program long enough to hear the gossip about the O'Neill clone a rogue Asgard made; he appreciates them keeping an eye on their doctor, just in case the SGC decides to make quietly disappearing clones into some dull corner of the Earth their SOP.
Teyla returns with many bags, most filled with items she intends to trade. But she'd scavenged a wardrobe on Atlantis to put all of the gifts she's buying for people back on New Athos, as well as all the things she likes to call "unique pieces of Earth culture" that amuse her. She adapted quickly to mass production and economies run on currency instead of bartering, though it irritates her she cannot negotiate prices with cashiers. But John and Rodney both gave her credit cards attached to their bank accounts, and after four years of hazard pay and no cost of living, it's not something that restricts her.
Ronon uses the credit cards too, whenever something catches his eye, but mostly that means collecting knives in every design and material he can find. The Marines like to help out with that, when they day trip together like some kind of informal honor guard to their Pegasus compatriots. Carson got Ronon a camera and a printer on one of their first excursions, so knives or not Ronon always returns with a picture of where they went. The last time John saw Ronon's room one of the walls was in danger of becoming a collage, pictures of Earth sprinkled among the more numerous ones of places around Atlantis. Rodney bemoaned the expansion of useless scrapbooking arts and crafts to the universe, and hung his head in despair when Ronon asked where you could buy one of these books. John secretly tasked one of the marines for getting the scissors that cut paper in weird patterns, if only for the way Rodney will react when he discovers them.
Every time they come back Ronon, always the blunt one, asks, "Are we going back yet?"
"Not yet, buddy," John tells him. It's always not yet, never no. John doesn't like to think he's superstitious -- but he likes to stay positive. While the IOA and the SGC hold closed-room meetings within the closed-room meetings he and all of Atlantis' command structure are exhaustively recalled to, he tells himself it's the only possible outcome that works. Atlantis can't stay on Earth forever unless they declassify the program, and although declassification is a word always bandied he thinks everyone but the most rabid IOA idealists have come to the unspoken agreement that it will be a total shit-fest when it happens, and really something that can wait a few more years (and a few more and a few more).
Discovery is even more imminent when they're parked out of such a busy transportation hub. It's not something John's sorry about doing, but apparently he feels the pressure more acutely than his superiors. Their decision will not be rushed, and all John can do is sit tight and wish he were better at talking.
SG-1 visits at various points. It helps, a little, reminds John that it's not just the people in the city on his side. Vala is a demonstration of the SGC's long history of accepting the oddities of the universe; Mitchell is a reassurance that someone can be crazy but still have common sense. Teal'c and Ronon have some kind of macho alien camaraderie, and his grave statements about his recent visits to Chulak and Free Jaffa strongholds help despite their transparency.
"Did you know they once succeeded in shutting down the Stargate Program?" Dr. Jackson asks him, watching John with far too sharp an expression for an academic. "That's how Dr. Weir came into the program. She was in charge of the decision of reopening it." John hadn't known that about Elizabeth, and it's bittersweet to learn even years after her death. But it helps, too.
John's sure they wouldn't be there if it weren't for Colonel Carter, though. SG-1 is busy enough being the figurehead of the Tau'ri in the Milky Way that it takes real effort to sneak Atlantis into their schedules.
(Except for Dr. Jackson, because it would be more accurate to say that most of SG-1 visits but Dr. Jackson tries to burrow in to the Ancient database like a tick. He's sure it was Sam, though, that prodded him to surface from his work and study John with that too-perceptive gaze. John also suspects someone must be running herd on him because he hasn't hidden himself away yet when it's time for SG-1 to depart. John and Woolsey have talked about inviting Dr. Jackson to join the expedition, on the condition that they return to Pegasus. But while that may convince Dr. Jackson to bring all of his influence to bear, O'Neill would then hang them out to dry while he corralled Dr. Jackson back to his post.)
Sam knows better than anyone about the way Atlantis fits in Pegasus like it doesn't on Earth, and every time he sees her he's reminded that she's throwing her full weight (and therefore, implicitly, O'Neill's as long as they don't bait Dr. Jackson) behind their return. She still has a strong enough rapport with the expedition that her presence can calm frayed nerves, making them seem less like neurotic refugees suffering from Stockholm Syndrome to an Ancient city and more like competent professionals who are eager to get back to completing their life's work, and she's begun trying to coordinate her visits with the official IOA ones.
John knows he's not the only one fighting for Atlantis to return -- home, yes, that's the right word though he can never tip his hand to anyone on Earth. But the thought of never returning burrows in him like a sickness, keeps him patrolling the halls at night. He believes they will - he does, he's a long way away from the man that defied orders on a doomed rescue mission because he didn't trust his command structure would do it themselves. But he doesn't think that he's so changed that he wouldn't sit in the chair and fly the city out himself if they threatened to ground her permanently.
John would rather fly rogue than not fly at all. From the way that the others stash supplies and keep their personal effects in their city quarters, John doesn't think he's the only one. Rodney's explained in detail the systems one man would have to initialize to fly the city back to Pegasus (two, he does say with a Rodney-esque level of subtlety, could do it much easier). But he trusts his people so he sits, and he waits, and he hopes. They all do, poised for action, waiting to know how to jump.
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: John-centric, cameos from SGA cast and s10 SG-1
Summary: The fate of Atlantis is uncertain following the series finale.
John knows the SGC has to insist to get most of the Marines to take their shore leave, and unless they're visiting family they almost always head out in groups of four. Lorne skulks in the hallways quietly letting command forget he's gone to visit his sister exactly three times since they landed, setting up video calls he can take in his quarters instead.
From what Rodney says between harried brush-by conversations in the hallways and the semi-regular check-ins on their headsets which no one on John's team can quite stop doing despite being on Earth (home to half of them, allegedly), it's the same with the science division.
When not demonstrating to the scientists on day visits from Area 51 that he can be just as much as a dictator as Rodney, everyone speculates that he disappears to wherever he'd holed up during the Kirsan Fever amnesia. Chuck and his team man the control room with a ferocity that belies the fact that the gate's incompatible with any of the Milky Way gates besides Earth, and thus effectively out of commission. The botanists have circled around their greenhouses, citing the risks of devastating disruption of Earth's biosphere if they don't.
Rodney delivers this information with the irritation of a supervisor at the end of his patience, but John also knows that Rodney's been over-requisitioning raw materials and stashing them away in some of the labs they'd closed off as 'not harmful but not worth the power drain.'
He'd stumbled upon them while looking for his own lab to stash extra crates of C4 and medical supplies.
They defeated the Superhive and successfully landed a top secret alien city in one of the most crowded bays on the most populated planet in two galaxies. That should have been the hard part, right?
But everyone in the city is acting like their big grand rescue inadvertently landed them in a hostage situation, with Atlantis as the hostage. IOA representatives perform unannounced spot checks and hover over Rodney's repair crews with lips pursed in perpetual disapproval, while military officers with higher rank than John's ever seen, let alone talked to, eye their weapons systems in ways that make John's fists clench possessively.
It's not his people's fault that the tension seeps through them; barring the group of one-and-done expedition members who had gladly disembarked the first week on Earth back to planetside duties, each one of them loves this city. Even Woolsey is affected by it. He and John wind up having informal sit-rep meetings on the balcony outside the control room every Wednesday (God, when was the last time he measured time by days of the work week?), exchanging notes about what noises the military is making versus what the IOA has implied. If someone had told John he would one day end up liking Woolsey in charge of Atlantis he would have said he'd eat his tac vest first.
"They're nervous," Woolsey tells him. "Us being on edge puts them on edge." John has perfected his slouch over years of borderline insubordination; he should be the one handling them and Woolsey the generals, instead John tying his spine up in knots trying to make a good impression. There are qualities that make a good military commander to a civilian-led remote outpost fighting a guerrilla war against aliens that want to eat them, and they're not the same qualities that impress Brass from Washington.
Ronon and Teyla mostly stay out of the way of non-Atlantis personnel, taking Carson with them an unofficial tour guide on pre-approved trips through the United States. John's been with the program long enough to hear the gossip about the O'Neill clone a rogue Asgard made; he appreciates them keeping an eye on their doctor, just in case the SGC decides to make quietly disappearing clones into some dull corner of the Earth their SOP.
Teyla returns with many bags, most filled with items she intends to trade. But she'd scavenged a wardrobe on Atlantis to put all of the gifts she's buying for people back on New Athos, as well as all the things she likes to call "unique pieces of Earth culture" that amuse her. She adapted quickly to mass production and economies run on currency instead of bartering, though it irritates her she cannot negotiate prices with cashiers. But John and Rodney both gave her credit cards attached to their bank accounts, and after four years of hazard pay and no cost of living, it's not something that restricts her.
Ronon uses the credit cards too, whenever something catches his eye, but mostly that means collecting knives in every design and material he can find. The Marines like to help out with that, when they day trip together like some kind of informal honor guard to their Pegasus compatriots. Carson got Ronon a camera and a printer on one of their first excursions, so knives or not Ronon always returns with a picture of where they went. The last time John saw Ronon's room one of the walls was in danger of becoming a collage, pictures of Earth sprinkled among the more numerous ones of places around Atlantis. Rodney bemoaned the expansion of useless scrapbooking arts and crafts to the universe, and hung his head in despair when Ronon asked where you could buy one of these books. John secretly tasked one of the marines for getting the scissors that cut paper in weird patterns, if only for the way Rodney will react when he discovers them.
Every time they come back Ronon, always the blunt one, asks, "Are we going back yet?"
"Not yet, buddy," John tells him. It's always not yet, never no. John doesn't like to think he's superstitious -- but he likes to stay positive. While the IOA and the SGC hold closed-room meetings within the closed-room meetings he and all of Atlantis' command structure are exhaustively recalled to, he tells himself it's the only possible outcome that works. Atlantis can't stay on Earth forever unless they declassify the program, and although declassification is a word always bandied he thinks everyone but the most rabid IOA idealists have come to the unspoken agreement that it will be a total shit-fest when it happens, and really something that can wait a few more years (and a few more and a few more).
Discovery is even more imminent when they're parked out of such a busy transportation hub. It's not something John's sorry about doing, but apparently he feels the pressure more acutely than his superiors. Their decision will not be rushed, and all John can do is sit tight and wish he were better at talking.
SG-1 visits at various points. It helps, a little, reminds John that it's not just the people in the city on his side. Vala is a demonstration of the SGC's long history of accepting the oddities of the universe; Mitchell is a reassurance that someone can be crazy but still have common sense. Teal'c and Ronon have some kind of macho alien camaraderie, and his grave statements about his recent visits to Chulak and Free Jaffa strongholds help despite their transparency.
"Did you know they once succeeded in shutting down the Stargate Program?" Dr. Jackson asks him, watching John with far too sharp an expression for an academic. "That's how Dr. Weir came into the program. She was in charge of the decision of reopening it." John hadn't known that about Elizabeth, and it's bittersweet to learn even years after her death. But it helps, too.
John's sure they wouldn't be there if it weren't for Colonel Carter, though. SG-1 is busy enough being the figurehead of the Tau'ri in the Milky Way that it takes real effort to sneak Atlantis into their schedules.
(Except for Dr. Jackson, because it would be more accurate to say that most of SG-1 visits but Dr. Jackson tries to burrow in to the Ancient database like a tick. He's sure it was Sam, though, that prodded him to surface from his work and study John with that too-perceptive gaze. John also suspects someone must be running herd on him because he hasn't hidden himself away yet when it's time for SG-1 to depart. John and Woolsey have talked about inviting Dr. Jackson to join the expedition, on the condition that they return to Pegasus. But while that may convince Dr. Jackson to bring all of his influence to bear, O'Neill would then hang them out to dry while he corralled Dr. Jackson back to his post.)
Sam knows better than anyone about the way Atlantis fits in Pegasus like it doesn't on Earth, and every time he sees her he's reminded that she's throwing her full weight (and therefore, implicitly, O'Neill's as long as they don't bait Dr. Jackson) behind their return. She still has a strong enough rapport with the expedition that her presence can calm frayed nerves, making them seem less like neurotic refugees suffering from Stockholm Syndrome to an Ancient city and more like competent professionals who are eager to get back to completing their life's work, and she's begun trying to coordinate her visits with the official IOA ones.
John knows he's not the only one fighting for Atlantis to return -- home, yes, that's the right word though he can never tip his hand to anyone on Earth. But the thought of never returning burrows in him like a sickness, keeps him patrolling the halls at night. He believes they will - he does, he's a long way away from the man that defied orders on a doomed rescue mission because he didn't trust his command structure would do it themselves. But he doesn't think that he's so changed that he wouldn't sit in the chair and fly the city out himself if they threatened to ground her permanently.
John would rather fly rogue than not fly at all. From the way that the others stash supplies and keep their personal effects in their city quarters, John doesn't think he's the only one. Rodney's explained in detail the systems one man would have to initialize to fly the city back to Pegasus (two, he does say with a Rodney-esque level of subtlety, could do it much easier). But he trusts his people so he sits, and he waits, and he hopes. They all do, poised for action, waiting to know how to jump.