Wake of Destruction (7/ )
On some days, those unbelievably hard, bloody days, the inhabitants of Atlantis like to say ‘Just another day in Pegasus.’
Just another day of life sucking monsters, bugs and weird fertility rites. And hey, whales that cause you to hallucinate about dead people? Well, this is Pegasus after all.
Half the paper work that gets done is edited and unless you’ve been on an off-world team, whether it be in Pegasus or the Milky Way, you wouldn’t be able to read between the lines. Off-world team members are experts at bullshitting their mission reports but honest to God Sheppard doesn’t know where to start with this one.
They’d all arrived home alive and for that he was grateful but it shows just how bad things went for Ronon to be the one in surgery. Then there was the kid that they brought back with them and McKay… he isn’t sure what he can say to help him.
A lot of weird shit happened on that planet and he barely understands it. Like why Teyla and Lorne suddenly developed a case of pyromania and started burning dead bodies.
The one thing Sheppard does know is that this shit is getting ridiculous and he is never going on a mission with Lorne’s team again.
End of story.
He’s half way through the mission report when his earpiece goes off. He listens for a moment then swears.
The kid was half dead, how could he be missing?
--
He rips out everything and sits up. The room is unfamiliar and the air sterile. The light burns his eyes and everything hurts. He has no recollection of how he got there or why he hurts but he knows he has to leave. A high pitch noise wails loudly, piercing the silence and he instinctually swings his arm towards it. Metal folds under his hand and the noise stops.
He slides carefully off the bed and steps on to the cold floor with his bare feet. He takes slow steps towards the door, trying to keep his balance.
When the door opens and two men turn to face him, it’s pure instinct to lash out. He steps over their unconscious forms and makes his way down the hall.
--
The light patter of feet can be heard through the halls of Atlantis. The sound is barely audible above the rush of the ocean outside. Shadows are cast against the dull walls and the figure moves swiftly through the halls on near silent feet. The air is chilly that night and Connor is tired. His mind whirls and his feet simply move.
The moonlight shines through the window and Connor’s nose can pick up the scent of the ocean. He remembers the ocean…remembers both times he saw it for the first time…
He was four when he first saw the ocean. It was a bright sunny day and his Father had whisked him away to the beach for the weekend. It is one of his happiest memories. Connor now knows that his real first look at the ocean was at night, when there was not even a moon, and his blue eyes had looked into its black depths and it looked…
“Empty,” Connor whispers.
A light shines from the room nearby and Connor slips from the darkened corridor into the brightened area. He recognizes the occupant who resides there. It’s the dreadlocked man from the fight. The man’s dark skin is now paler than it should be and the beep of the machines whirls gently in the room.
Connor’s thin fingers move out to the man’s cheek and gently run down the smooth skin and Connor’s brow furrows in confusion.
“Should be darker,” Connor murmurs and moves towards the door once more, slipping smoothly into the darkness.
"Connor?! Connor, never forget that I'm your father and that I love you.”
Connor whirls around, his blue eyes searching the dark hallway for the owner of the voice.
“Angel?” Connor timidly calls out and after a moment of silence his eyes screw shut and a look of utter sadness crosses his face and he breathes heavily though his nose.
“It’s a lie,” Connor cries softly and the first tear runs down his pale cheek.
A chill runs through his body and with a fluid motion Connor takes off down the hallway, his bare feet barely touching the floor. Stopping at another door Connor presses his ear to the metal and listens in on the voices inside.
“Dr Weir, I don’t know how that boy survived making it through the gate but luckily he did. I’ve done a full analysis of his body for distinctive marks and found many scars,” the voice is male and Connor feels his body tense as he realizes that the man is talking about him.
“He has many scars, some are simple to figure out what they were, a lot of stab wounds, a few which appear to be claw marks, a few which were probably stitched up by the boy himself from what I can tell. He probably patched himself up a lot,” the man’s voice continues.
“Something tells me this isn’t your concern,” another voice, a female voice pitches in.
“No, some of the scars are very old. He would have had some of them from the age of 5. Most of his scars I can’t even tell what would have made it. I understand that life is different here in Pegasus but I find it odd that he would have such old wounds. It makes me wonder what kind of world he’s from,” the man’s voice was concerned and soft with a tremor in it.
“We have encountered many civilizations that train their entire lives to battle the Wraith. Even Earth’s history contains many war-like civilizations that trained their children from the moment they took their first step,” the woman’s voice is calm and reassuring.
“I would think we would have heard of a race of people capable of what I’m told the boy is,” the man replies.
“And that’s the question, isn’t it? Feel up to solving a mystery?”
Connor leans back from the door and his fingers brush the bruising he can feel on his face. Even under his fingertips he can feel the past marks…never clean…
Connor gasps and moves forward, the sound rushes through his ears and padding his way down the metals steps he gives a small cry which echoes around him. Connor wraps his arms around his thin body as it shakes.
“You let him take me. You let him get me. You let him get me.”
He starts to run until he can hear nothing but the sound of the ocean. He squeezes his way through a partially open door and looks around.
The room is a mess. Broken machinery, glass and water lay all over the floor and one of the walls is just a giant hole. Ignoring the glass as it cuts into his feet, he walks towards it and looks down. He’s in a huge tower; high enough that he’s not sure he would survive a fall. He can see the ocean and thousands of lights and he can honestly say that he’s never seen anything like it.
He sits down, legs dangling outside, and the noise in his head become background static. He already knows what he’ll see when he turns to his right.
She’s sitting next to him in a white dress, watching the ocean as the wind blows her hair around violently.
He knows her. Sometimes, she would come to him and smile. Other times, she would tell him how to kill something.
Most of the time she was sad though.
He knows her from a time when she tried to stop him from doing something bad.
Mostly, he knows her from stories. From a camp fire under a blood soaked sky. She is a monster who destroys families. She is a-
“Whore,” they stare blankly at each other for a moment before she gives him an offended look.
“I wasn’t just a whore. I was the best,” she shakes her head and gives him a rueful smile. Reaching out to touch his cheek she says, “Though, I think I prefer Mom.”
He leans into the touch and wonders if he’s imagining the warmth. He doesn’t mind her presence so much. As long as she’s there, the voices weren’t so loud and the pain so bad.
Time passes as they sit there; the cold, biting wind hitting them and the scent of the ocean in the air. He shivers but doesn’t move because this is the first time in so long that he’s been able to the sit and not think about who he’s going to kill.
Or who’s going to kill him.
“They’re coming,” she tells him, so he isn’t surprised when the door opens a few minutes later and six men enter the room, all of them armed.
He turns away from them and stares back at the ocean. It’s nice here and it’s possible that he’s a bit frozen but he doesn’t want to fight.
“Hey, kiddo,” one of the men drawls, “What are you doing out here?”
He presses himself closer into his… mom and squeezes his eyes shut. The man’s voice brings back memories of a forest and a lake and the pain in his chest that he’s been ignoring comes roaring back.
He ignores them as they start to spread out and the man approaches him carefully.
“It’s cold out here. Don’t you want to come back in?”
He turns and glances at him.
“Connor,” she whispers in his ear and he stills, staring up at the man.
“Connor,” he repeats slowly and her laughter tickles his ear.
The man looks puzzled so he elaborates, “My name is Connor.”
---
Darla reaches out to the medical computers and starts to manipulate the data. It doesn’t take long for the computer to start spitting out the results she wants and she takes a moment to be suitably smug. She ignores the irritation and anger she feels from the ascended beings that once inhabited this city. She’s seen a lot scarier things than them and she would just love for them to come down and tell her what she can and can’t do.
---
Doctor Beckett runs the test three times. When the results stay the same, he runs it a fourth.
“You’re just full of surprises,” he mutters and leans back in his chair.