Waste Not, Want Not by cat_77 [Skeevy Ancients Challenge]
Title: Waste Not, Want Not
Author: cat_77
Genre: Mostly Gen, tiny bit of McShep if you squint the way I do.
Length: ~ 2150 words
Rating: PG-13 for language
Synopsis: The Ancients had contingency plans for this. [Skeevy Ancients Challenge]
Warnings: Possibility of crack, language, discussions of masturbation.
Author's Notes: Er, sorry? Also, takes place in Season 1.
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.
Edit: To correct something...
~~~~~~~~~~
It wasn’t something they thought about, really. You jack off, grab some tissues, clean it up, and toss them in the little garbage chute. Sometimes the jacking was singular, other times, not-so-much, but that got into an entirely different debate that was carefully being avoided throughout the entire discussion.
“But how is that even possible?” McKay was screaming, face turning interesting shade of red. “I’ve thrown dental floss down that thing, are you saying it grabbed that too?”
Sheppard knew for a fact that more than dental floss was disposed of in that manner in that room, but, again, decided silence was the better part of valor at this point.
“Anything with any viable genetic material was apparently selected, sorted, and saved,” Carson repeated for the fourth time.
“So you’re saying there’s a whole bunch of dirty tissues somewhere down there?” Ford asked with raised eyebrows. With a cutting look over to McKay, he added, “Along with dental floss, of course.”
Carson smirked, but quickly schooled his face into the appearance of the serious physician once more when it looked like Rodney was going to pop the vein in his forehead. “No, lad, the material was extracted and the tissues and, er, floss, was discarded.”
“And this occurred for every sample?” Weir asked. John had to give her credit, she was handling this with the grace of a diplomat. His first response had been, “Holy shit!” because, really, given the size of the expedition, plus the fact that so few had paired up yet, plus the percentage of Marines - that was a hell of a lot of tissues.
“Why don’t we just change to rags? It’s more environmentally sound anyway,” Aiden suggested.
“You want to issue an edict that the entire population is hereto forth use cum rags?” Rodney asked, disbelievingly. He shook his head violently, but that might have been to get the mental image out of his head considering John knew Elizabeth would require the announcement to be made by each department head, which meant poor McKay would have to explain it to a bunch of eggheads, which might actually lead to a discussion on just what sex was for some of them.
He, on the other hand, would only have to tell the Marines, which would take it as a free pass to go screw anything they could instead of jacking off, for the safety of the mission of course. He absently wondered how many condoms Carson packed.
“I’m not certain that would be a solution either,” Beckett admitted. “The systems we’ve been using to wash our wears with drain out via the same central area. It’s possible it’s extracting samples from there as well.”
Elizabeth finally broke a bit of her façade, sighing heavily and rubbing a hand over her face. “Just what is this device doing with the information at this time, and why?” she asked warily.
“It appears it was designed to insure there was enough viable genetic material to preserve the population in the event of a crisis. It was just storing the information, cataloging everything,” Carson told her. John watched her visibly relax until the doctor added, “At least until the second stage was initiated.”
“Second stage?” she asked with a wince.
“It appears the device was solely in a sort of gathering mode until fully initialized by the exploring team,” he explained.
“That would be us,” John helpfully provided, speaking for the first time since the announcement was made. She did not appear amused.
“We were only trying to figure out what systems were unnecessarily draining power and which ones could be cut,” Rodney quickly defended them.
“Yes, well, the presence of the gene was apparently enough to kick it into its fully operational mode,” Carson continued. “Interestingly enough, it seems to separate out those with the ATA gene, those with the artificial gene, and the rest of the population.”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, interesting, now what is it doing?” he demanded.
Beckett cleared his throat, which was never a good sign as far as John was concerned. “Well, apparently it deems only those with the ATA gene, real or therapy, as part of the true population of the city. Given the small number to actually possess the gene, even given the therapy, it has calculated that our population meets the risk criteria and needs to be augmented.”
“Augmented?” Elizabeth asked, paling as realization set in.
“It processed several of the samples, creating viable...” he started.
“How many?” Sheppard demanded.
“Just three,” Carson assured him. “It’s remarkable really, given the lack of an actual egg...”
Three. That “oh shit” feeling was back. “Which three?” he asked, even though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.
“The three ATA users who entered the chamber and initialized the sequence,” Carson hedged.
Sheppard was glad he was sitting down, this was a bit much to take in. “So you’re saying...” he verified.
Ford beat Beckett to the punch. “Atlantis is having McKay and Sheppard’s love child!” he announced proudly, not even trying to hide his glee. At the look he received, he added a belated, “Sir.”
“Laugh it up, asshole, he said three,” McKay pointed out. “Just who do you think the third ATA user on our team is, Teyla?”
“I do not have the gene of the Ancients,” she reminded them. “Nor do I believe I have ‘jacked off’ as you call it and used the prescribed receptacle later.”
John was so not the one to explain this to her. He looked to Elizabeth pleadingly, who reluctantly nodded. He then turned to glare at Ford, to find the young man shaking with disbelief as things finally hit home for him. He would have said something more, but figured the realization he was having a child with his Commanding Officer and the head of the Science department was enough.
Turning to Carson, he asked, “Are we talking three samples used for one end product, or three separate, er, results?”
“They’re called babies, Colonel,” Beckett chided. “And there are three of them - each one is a combination of two genetic profiles. Technically they are just embryos right now, but they are growing fast.”
“Well, make them stop!” Rodney declared. He stood up and started pacing, hands waving wildly. “I do not have the time to be a father, not to mention the thought of my superior genetic material watered down by a Fly Boy and a Jar Head! What about the drain on the systems? We need every drop of power we can squeeze out of the ZedPM, and can’t afford to waste it on something as frivolous as this!”
“We can’t stop it,” Carson said, aghast. “That’s life in there! Not to mention the readings we are getting could revolutionize the field of obstetrics and genetics. To learn a fraction of how they did this...”
“Elizabeth, please! I’m not going to become a broodmare because the Ancients forgot to turn something off!” Rodney tried.
Carson cut her off before she could speak with, “No one’s becoming a broodmare; there are individual artificial wombs for each wee one. I’ve also had Radek review the power distributions and it appears only the sampling portion relied on the central power server, each womb has its own internal power source to ensure they are not affected by any power surges or fluctuations.”
“But we don’t have the resources to take care of children! We’re a scientific and military expedition facing life-threatening situations on a daily basis!” Rodney objected, clearly grasping at straws at this point.
Teyla placed a placating hand on his arm. “Children are precious to all here in the Pegasus galaxy, my people included. I am certain we would be more than happy to assist you with the birth and raising of your children, if not adopt them outright should you feel they are too much of a burden.”
John noticed the way her tone darkened at the idea of abandoning the little science experiments, and his suspicions were confirmed when McKay yelped, “You’re hurting me!”
Teyla slowly released her grip, little white fingerprints left against Rodney’s reddening skin, the picture of serenity as she demurred, “My apologies, that was not my intent.” The pointed glare she gave both Ford and himself keyed John into the fact that you did not mention tossing out a child in her presence.
“Athosians, eh?” he asked with a forced smile.
The one he received in return was genuine. “We would welcome any child, especially one born under such extraordinary circumstances,” she confirmed. “A child born of the Ancient city itself, with ties to the descendants of the Ancestors, is truly a remarkable occurrence and one that would be celebrated,” she assured him with an almost anticipatory look.
So, no having to play dad and he got the chance to up Teyla’s street cred - he could live with that. A thought hit him though, and he felt the need to ask about it, despite his better judgment. “We could, like, still be uncles or something, right?”
“Of course,” she told him. “Any role you wished to play would be welcome.”
There was no way they could conceivably do this without the help of her people - you couldn’t just have the top two military heads and the science head take time off to play house, even if they wanted to - so she had to know she had it in the bag at this point. “Good,” was all he said, with only a bit of forced cheer this time.
“You can’t...” Rodney started.
“Works for me,” Ford shrugged. “I’ve always wanted kids, but don’t think this is the safest place for them.”
“Me too,” John chimed in, mainly to see if the little vein on McKay’s head started throbbing again. He’d pay for it later, but it was worth it now.
Carson raised a hand to draw attention back to himself. “That’s if this whole process can even be completed. We’re talking about technology that’s thousands of years old doing something we’re not even sure it’s one hundred percent capable of doing,” he reminded them.
John got what he was saying. None of them were “true” Ancients, just genetic offshoots that happened to still have a couple of similarities, not to mention the fact that they were all men. The thing might not even work. He just had to question now why he kind of wanted it to. That, of course, would be done far away from here, and possibly with a bottle of the Athosian homebrew he was certain he could talk Halling into sharing with him.
“Well then, it looks like it’s settled,” Elizabeth announced, still looking a bit shell-shocked. He made a mental note to find a bottle for her as well.
“It is not!” Rodney protested.
“There’s no drain on our internal power systems, and we have contingent plans should the children be born, what other arguments do you have against seeing this current experiment through?” she asked. Her eyebrow was giving a message all of its own, letting him know he better have a damn good reason and that yes, it would be him doing the explaining to Teyla and her people.
“Experiment?” Rodney sputtered. “Kids and me and Nobel and aliens and inferior genetics and...”
John was really getting tired of the inferior references. “We see it through, for now,” he agreed. “Our more pressing issue is getting the collection system turned off so there’s no more little bast-, er, embryos formed.”
“I can do that,” McKay promised, snapping back to the present and out of whatever fugue he had fallen into.
“Then get to it,” Elizabeth directed. “Though I am requiring that no one with the ATA gene enter the facility without my express approval,” she amended.
McKay made a face. “You want to trust this to Zelenka?”
“You want another kid?” Sheppard countered, which seemed to get him to back down.
“You may direct as you see fit, but until you are certain you will not be turning this expedition into a day care, there will be no hands-on manipulation by anyone with the gene,” she replied. Turning to Teyla, she offered, “We thank you for your generosity, but hope you understand our need to limit this before it gets out of hand.”
“Of course,” the Athosian assured her. “But please know our offer still stands should there be any other... unfortunate occurrences.”
“You have my word.” Elizabeth pushed herself up from the conference room table, looking like she was getting ready to bolt. It was a sentiment John shared with her. “Rodney, Carson, please keep me updated. John, please make sure any security detail is ATA-free.”
“Will do,” he nodded.
He stood and headed towards the door, nearly to freedom when her voice caught up to him. “And gentlemen? For the sake of all of our sanity, please do not name your children Jack.”
End.
~~~~~~~~~~
Feedback is always welcomed.
Author: cat_77
Genre: Mostly Gen, tiny bit of McShep if you squint the way I do.
Length: ~ 2150 words
Rating: PG-13 for language
Synopsis: The Ancients had contingency plans for this. [Skeevy Ancients Challenge]
Warnings: Possibility of crack, language, discussions of masturbation.
Author's Notes: Er, sorry? Also, takes place in Season 1.
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.
Edit: To correct something...
~~~~~~~~~~
It wasn’t something they thought about, really. You jack off, grab some tissues, clean it up, and toss them in the little garbage chute. Sometimes the jacking was singular, other times, not-so-much, but that got into an entirely different debate that was carefully being avoided throughout the entire discussion.
“But how is that even possible?” McKay was screaming, face turning interesting shade of red. “I’ve thrown dental floss down that thing, are you saying it grabbed that too?”
Sheppard knew for a fact that more than dental floss was disposed of in that manner in that room, but, again, decided silence was the better part of valor at this point.
“Anything with any viable genetic material was apparently selected, sorted, and saved,” Carson repeated for the fourth time.
“So you’re saying there’s a whole bunch of dirty tissues somewhere down there?” Ford asked with raised eyebrows. With a cutting look over to McKay, he added, “Along with dental floss, of course.”
Carson smirked, but quickly schooled his face into the appearance of the serious physician once more when it looked like Rodney was going to pop the vein in his forehead. “No, lad, the material was extracted and the tissues and, er, floss, was discarded.”
“And this occurred for every sample?” Weir asked. John had to give her credit, she was handling this with the grace of a diplomat. His first response had been, “Holy shit!” because, really, given the size of the expedition, plus the fact that so few had paired up yet, plus the percentage of Marines - that was a hell of a lot of tissues.
“Why don’t we just change to rags? It’s more environmentally sound anyway,” Aiden suggested.
“You want to issue an edict that the entire population is hereto forth use cum rags?” Rodney asked, disbelievingly. He shook his head violently, but that might have been to get the mental image out of his head considering John knew Elizabeth would require the announcement to be made by each department head, which meant poor McKay would have to explain it to a bunch of eggheads, which might actually lead to a discussion on just what sex was for some of them.
He, on the other hand, would only have to tell the Marines, which would take it as a free pass to go screw anything they could instead of jacking off, for the safety of the mission of course. He absently wondered how many condoms Carson packed.
“I’m not certain that would be a solution either,” Beckett admitted. “The systems we’ve been using to wash our wears with drain out via the same central area. It’s possible it’s extracting samples from there as well.”
Elizabeth finally broke a bit of her façade, sighing heavily and rubbing a hand over her face. “Just what is this device doing with the information at this time, and why?” she asked warily.
“It appears it was designed to insure there was enough viable genetic material to preserve the population in the event of a crisis. It was just storing the information, cataloging everything,” Carson told her. John watched her visibly relax until the doctor added, “At least until the second stage was initiated.”
“Second stage?” she asked with a wince.
“It appears the device was solely in a sort of gathering mode until fully initialized by the exploring team,” he explained.
“That would be us,” John helpfully provided, speaking for the first time since the announcement was made. She did not appear amused.
“We were only trying to figure out what systems were unnecessarily draining power and which ones could be cut,” Rodney quickly defended them.
“Yes, well, the presence of the gene was apparently enough to kick it into its fully operational mode,” Carson continued. “Interestingly enough, it seems to separate out those with the ATA gene, those with the artificial gene, and the rest of the population.”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, interesting, now what is it doing?” he demanded.
Beckett cleared his throat, which was never a good sign as far as John was concerned. “Well, apparently it deems only those with the ATA gene, real or therapy, as part of the true population of the city. Given the small number to actually possess the gene, even given the therapy, it has calculated that our population meets the risk criteria and needs to be augmented.”
“Augmented?” Elizabeth asked, paling as realization set in.
“It processed several of the samples, creating viable...” he started.
“How many?” Sheppard demanded.
“Just three,” Carson assured him. “It’s remarkable really, given the lack of an actual egg...”
Three. That “oh shit” feeling was back. “Which three?” he asked, even though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.
“The three ATA users who entered the chamber and initialized the sequence,” Carson hedged.
Sheppard was glad he was sitting down, this was a bit much to take in. “So you’re saying...” he verified.
Ford beat Beckett to the punch. “Atlantis is having McKay and Sheppard’s love child!” he announced proudly, not even trying to hide his glee. At the look he received, he added a belated, “Sir.”
“Laugh it up, asshole, he said three,” McKay pointed out. “Just who do you think the third ATA user on our team is, Teyla?”
“I do not have the gene of the Ancients,” she reminded them. “Nor do I believe I have ‘jacked off’ as you call it and used the prescribed receptacle later.”
John was so not the one to explain this to her. He looked to Elizabeth pleadingly, who reluctantly nodded. He then turned to glare at Ford, to find the young man shaking with disbelief as things finally hit home for him. He would have said something more, but figured the realization he was having a child with his Commanding Officer and the head of the Science department was enough.
Turning to Carson, he asked, “Are we talking three samples used for one end product, or three separate, er, results?”
“They’re called babies, Colonel,” Beckett chided. “And there are three of them - each one is a combination of two genetic profiles. Technically they are just embryos right now, but they are growing fast.”
“Well, make them stop!” Rodney declared. He stood up and started pacing, hands waving wildly. “I do not have the time to be a father, not to mention the thought of my superior genetic material watered down by a Fly Boy and a Jar Head! What about the drain on the systems? We need every drop of power we can squeeze out of the ZedPM, and can’t afford to waste it on something as frivolous as this!”
“We can’t stop it,” Carson said, aghast. “That’s life in there! Not to mention the readings we are getting could revolutionize the field of obstetrics and genetics. To learn a fraction of how they did this...”
“Elizabeth, please! I’m not going to become a broodmare because the Ancients forgot to turn something off!” Rodney tried.
Carson cut her off before she could speak with, “No one’s becoming a broodmare; there are individual artificial wombs for each wee one. I’ve also had Radek review the power distributions and it appears only the sampling portion relied on the central power server, each womb has its own internal power source to ensure they are not affected by any power surges or fluctuations.”
“But we don’t have the resources to take care of children! We’re a scientific and military expedition facing life-threatening situations on a daily basis!” Rodney objected, clearly grasping at straws at this point.
Teyla placed a placating hand on his arm. “Children are precious to all here in the Pegasus galaxy, my people included. I am certain we would be more than happy to assist you with the birth and raising of your children, if not adopt them outright should you feel they are too much of a burden.”
John noticed the way her tone darkened at the idea of abandoning the little science experiments, and his suspicions were confirmed when McKay yelped, “You’re hurting me!”
Teyla slowly released her grip, little white fingerprints left against Rodney’s reddening skin, the picture of serenity as she demurred, “My apologies, that was not my intent.” The pointed glare she gave both Ford and himself keyed John into the fact that you did not mention tossing out a child in her presence.
“Athosians, eh?” he asked with a forced smile.
The one he received in return was genuine. “We would welcome any child, especially one born under such extraordinary circumstances,” she confirmed. “A child born of the Ancient city itself, with ties to the descendants of the Ancestors, is truly a remarkable occurrence and one that would be celebrated,” she assured him with an almost anticipatory look.
So, no having to play dad and he got the chance to up Teyla’s street cred - he could live with that. A thought hit him though, and he felt the need to ask about it, despite his better judgment. “We could, like, still be uncles or something, right?”
“Of course,” she told him. “Any role you wished to play would be welcome.”
There was no way they could conceivably do this without the help of her people - you couldn’t just have the top two military heads and the science head take time off to play house, even if they wanted to - so she had to know she had it in the bag at this point. “Good,” was all he said, with only a bit of forced cheer this time.
“You can’t...” Rodney started.
“Works for me,” Ford shrugged. “I’ve always wanted kids, but don’t think this is the safest place for them.”
“Me too,” John chimed in, mainly to see if the little vein on McKay’s head started throbbing again. He’d pay for it later, but it was worth it now.
Carson raised a hand to draw attention back to himself. “That’s if this whole process can even be completed. We’re talking about technology that’s thousands of years old doing something we’re not even sure it’s one hundred percent capable of doing,” he reminded them.
John got what he was saying. None of them were “true” Ancients, just genetic offshoots that happened to still have a couple of similarities, not to mention the fact that they were all men. The thing might not even work. He just had to question now why he kind of wanted it to. That, of course, would be done far away from here, and possibly with a bottle of the Athosian homebrew he was certain he could talk Halling into sharing with him.
“Well then, it looks like it’s settled,” Elizabeth announced, still looking a bit shell-shocked. He made a mental note to find a bottle for her as well.
“It is not!” Rodney protested.
“There’s no drain on our internal power systems, and we have contingent plans should the children be born, what other arguments do you have against seeing this current experiment through?” she asked. Her eyebrow was giving a message all of its own, letting him know he better have a damn good reason and that yes, it would be him doing the explaining to Teyla and her people.
“Experiment?” Rodney sputtered. “Kids and me and Nobel and aliens and inferior genetics and...”
John was really getting tired of the inferior references. “We see it through, for now,” he agreed. “Our more pressing issue is getting the collection system turned off so there’s no more little bast-, er, embryos formed.”
“I can do that,” McKay promised, snapping back to the present and out of whatever fugue he had fallen into.
“Then get to it,” Elizabeth directed. “Though I am requiring that no one with the ATA gene enter the facility without my express approval,” she amended.
McKay made a face. “You want to trust this to Zelenka?”
“You want another kid?” Sheppard countered, which seemed to get him to back down.
“You may direct as you see fit, but until you are certain you will not be turning this expedition into a day care, there will be no hands-on manipulation by anyone with the gene,” she replied. Turning to Teyla, she offered, “We thank you for your generosity, but hope you understand our need to limit this before it gets out of hand.”
“Of course,” the Athosian assured her. “But please know our offer still stands should there be any other... unfortunate occurrences.”
“You have my word.” Elizabeth pushed herself up from the conference room table, looking like she was getting ready to bolt. It was a sentiment John shared with her. “Rodney, Carson, please keep me updated. John, please make sure any security detail is ATA-free.”
“Will do,” he nodded.
He stood and headed towards the door, nearly to freedom when her voice caught up to him. “And gentlemen? For the sake of all of our sanity, please do not name your children Jack.”
End.
~~~~~~~~~~
Feedback is always welcomed.