Team, Week 3: Ashes
Title: Ashes
Author: water_soter
Prompt/Genre: Endings and Beginnings/Team (bonus fic)
Summary: With all the dangers and enemies they faced on a daily basis, it was easy to forget that not perils have a shape or a form.
Main Characters: Rodney, Sheppard, Ronon, Teyla and Keller.
Word Count: 3,209
Series: One-Shot
Author's Notes: This story is written as an entry for the Genficathon. I have another story entered, but this baby just came to me and so, here it is. Don’t generally write team, but hey, there is a first time for everything. Thanks so much to my beta Val who did this on the fly. Huggles! And to Grey Lupous for all her hand holding. Thank you guys! Now that this baby is done, I’m going back to my actual entry. Crazy person walking!
Feedback: Absolutely! I'm new at this, and English is not my native language, so please don't burn me at the stake. Nevertheless I will appreciate any comments, suggestions or constructive criticism you have on this story. And I do mean it. Critic away, you have something to say, I want to hear it *huggles*. I am very hard to offend.
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me; I just live to torture them! Lol It's free so please don't take the shirt of my back.
Rating: P13 for disturbing subject matter and imagery.
"Would you slow down?"
McKay huffed from somewhere behind him, like he'd done for the past hour. And like he had done for the past hour, John Sheppard ignored him.
"Sheppard! Colonel!" McKay hissed sharply, tone low as he tripped over another set of rocks, or tree branches, or any number of things that got in McKay's way, including McKay's two left feet.
John scanned their surroundings. The forest around them was too quiet and still. No moment from anything anywhere. The wildlife seemed spooked enough to stay out of sight. It was just another thing to add to the wrongness of this situation.
P3X-217, or what the inhabitants called Hurin, a small touch of paradise. Perfect weather, sunny 345 or so days a year, temperature in the low seventies. Only a handful of people living in the planet. They had started trading a year ago, getting blue melons that tasted like heaven. Now the melons were gone along with the people.
Sheppard heard McKay hurry after him. The sudden and fast movement sent McKay tumbling, "Oh crap!" McKay yelled as he started sliding down the edge of the incline. Sheppard's quick reflexes the only thing that kept McKay from falling head first down the long drop.
John grabbed at the black jacket. Then pulled McKay up, dropping him unceremoniously on his rear.
There was an "Ow," followed by a "Hey! I bruise easily you know." Which John ignored. He was too busy staring after the trail of dust and rock that McKay had displaced with his scuttle. That had been too close, which only helped to accent the entire fubar situation they were in.
With a sigh, John waited a breath before continuing on. He heard McKay scramble after him and waited. Sure enough, the monologue started off again. Nonsense words that John had learned to tune out from constant exposure. It was especially grating today. He gritted his teeth to keep from saying or doing something they'd both regret.
"So, are we almost there?" McKay threw out tentatively.
McKay must've finally clued in to Sheppard's mood from the cautious, quiet way he spoke. John ignored him, trotting smoothly over boulders and anything that got in his way. The last two days had been hell and John just wanted it to be over with. He was tired, stretched as much as he could go. Carter wanted reports, the IOA wanted answers, and John was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
There was a moment of silence in which John hoped McKay had run out of steam. He really wasn't trying to be an ass. The last two days had taken their toll on all of them. John had kept silent for two very good reasons, and McKay was a hair trigger away from igniting one of the two.
McKay started yapping away again and John sighed in frustration. He had little to patience today and McKay was wearing it thin. Then he really started paying attention to what McKay had been babbling and all hell broke loose. By the time John realized what he was doing, he'd already rounded on McKay and had him backed up against a nearby boulder.
Rodney had gone pale, and the expression on his face was one Sheppard had never wanted to see from friend.
Dammit, he swore silently as he took a deep breath, and ran a heavy hand over his disheveled hair. He backed away from Rodney. The man had practically melding into the boulder.
Rodney waited a moment before slowly moving away from the boulder. His expression as wary and cautious as John had ever seen it.
A hundred different apologies formed on John's lips.
I'm sorry.
It's been a hell the last couple of days.
We're all tired.
But nothing made it past his lips. It wasn't fair, John knew. It hadn't been Rodney's fault anymore than it had been Teyla's or Ronon's.
John had seen a lot of things since joining the Airforce, most of them in the Pegasus Galaxy. He could deal with war, with the Wraith, with anyone who wanted to take potshots at them. After all, exploring another galaxy had its own pitfalls, but not this. Not something so goddamn pointless.
Rodney wasn't looking anywhere near John, though he kept throwing surreptitious looks John's way.
It was a nice day, he noticed for the first time. Sunny, but not too hot or too cold, green everywhere he turned atypical for this planet. Such a contrast to what was waiting for them beyond the tree line.
They walked the rest of the way in silence. He kinda missed McKay's constant prattle. It made this business almost bearable. The silence that hung between them was like a damn noose.
*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*
It had been Major Keyes's team that had made first contact with the Hurians. They'd reported a small number of survivors, which was a real miracle considering that they'd nearly been wiped out by the Wraith, and then later on by the Replicators. Sheppard and his team had later been sent to negotiate trade.
The Hurians had little to trade, having moved their settlement from one end of the planet to another. They were barely getting settled, their crops still at the early stages. Huts were being constructed. The Hurians were coming alive again. The one thing they had in abundance was kids.
In the end, tt turned out that the Atlantians left behind far more than they got in return, but it hadn't mattered. The Hurian's hospitality more than made up for it.
*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*
Ronon wiped another drop of sweat off his face. The day wasn't overly warm or the work hard. The fires had long since died down, but their markings were everywhere, leaving spatterings of scorched wood and vegetation in a sea of ashes.
"I hate this kind of work," an airman named Stevenson said under the bandana he wore.
Ronon adjusted his own bandana. The stench in the air had gotten bad. Most of Sheppard's people had thrown up at the first whiff. Now they were taking turns in the valley where the smell was strongest.
Ronon stayed quiet as he finished shoveling another pile of dirt into the holes. He knew without glancing around that Teyla wasn't far off. The only way Sheppard would bring her was that she'd agree to stay close and Keller wanted her to wear a mask. Sheppard or Ronon would have her in sight at all times. With Sheppard away, she was under Ronon's watchful eye.
The swell of her belly had grown in the last few months. They would not reach the harvest season before her child would be born. Among the burnt wreckage around them, she seemed out of place.
He watched her out of the corner of his eye, as she knelt over one of the many mounds they'd dug. The words she spoke with reverence drifted over to him. Athosian prayers that were meant to soothe. A few of the military personal glanced at her, but most didn't. It was a familiar sight.
Ronon ignored all this, letting the wind carry away words that were meant to heal. For Ronon, words didn't mean much. This was just another thing that happened. The Atlantians didn't understand. Ronon kept piling on the dirt.
*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*
Rodney McKay had brought stashes of chocolate, and anything else he could smuggle in with his equipment with each visit. No one ever said anything about it. They all did the same.
The children, in that strange love/hate phenomenon that enveloped McKay, had taking an instant liking to him. They would follow him whenever he went much to his annoyance and the amusement of his team. He would bitch and moan that they were getting in the way of his research. But by the end of their first visit, Rodney had them all working with the efficiency of his scientists.
Ronon had taken to carve little toys out of wood, and carry the children on his back and arms as though they weighed nothing at all. Sheppard chatted up the widowed and single women, occasionally joining in the McKay teasing or the 'lets tumble with Ronon on the ground'. Sometimes Teyla would join Sheppard talking to some of the pregnant women. She would knit and sew, preparing for their coming births and her own. The day would be filled with the sounds children's laughter.
After a while, it became a planet for downtime. For lazy days spent lying around and soaking up the sun.
In the end it was some nameless scientist who discovered the problem.
*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*
Teyla let words that were as familiar as her own hands flow, letting them wash over her as they had far too many times this day. The day was clear. Life pulsated from every green vein in the planet. Except on this pile of land, where seventeen huts had stood, and scorched earth was all that remained. The carnage belied the beauty that surrounded it.
Teyla laid a gentle hand on the mound's moist earth. Another freshly dug grave. She felt its coolness beneath her fingers and thought with sadness at what lied underneath.
"Miss Emmagan?"
Teyla opened her eyes to find a canteen held at a safe distance from her face. She looked up at the man who held it out to her. Ah yes, Lieutenant Jeffrey, a tall man with bright red hair, a pale complexion and kind grey eyes. She had not had the opportunity to converse with this man prior to this mission.
She took the canteen gratefully. Pulling down the mask she was made to wear by Doctor Keller, and let the cool liquid soothe a sore throat she hadn't realized she had.
Lieutenant Jeffrey had been following her since Teyla's arrival on Hurin. He removed any possible obstacles before they could become a slight difficulty, offering his hand or arm when climbing a particularly difficult boulder.
Teyla had suffered through his what had John called it? gallantry. Apparently it was a tradition of some Earth cultures where women were considered the "weaker sex", as John had explained. The words had brought a small smile to John's face. And it was enough that Teyla chose not to give in to the overwhelming temptation to do something about this misconception. She was pregnant, not some fragile thing that needed catering to.
Finally, she gave the canteen back. Lieutenant Jeffrey took it tentatively, eyeing her as though she might break.
Teyla sighed in her own quiet way. She reminded herself that it would not be considered polite to hit the man who had just offered her a drink.
So many graves, so many dead, it was not new too her. She had survived many deaths, witnessed the end of entire populations. This would not shatter her.
Teyla lifted a proud chin, and walked to the next mound, and repeated the ritual. She wondered who of their friends was buried in this grave. Whose body was it that lied beneath the earth's soil.
Teyla knelt before another mound and once more began reciting the words that were so close to her heart. Words that had been passed along her people for generations and would continue to do so.
The Hurians would end here. Their world, their traditions, all buried in this patch of scorched earth.
*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*
"A minor glitch," McKay had said with charts and schematics spread around the room in a careless manner.
"In the electromagnetic field of the planet?" Carter had asked, her intelligent eyes taking in all the information spread out.
"In the mechanisms surrounding the planet." Rodney clarified, a series of schematics flashing in the large screen. "The Ancients created five massive grounding stations similar to the ones we have here in Atlantis. Much like our own, the stations work to attract and disperse massive amounts of electromagnetic energy harmlessly into the atmosphere."
Another scientist, the one who had discovered the initial problem, came up. He was a nervous little man with a shock of blond hair. "The planet's magnetic field is quite massive, the amount of electromagnetic energy emitted "
"Yes, yes, the point," Rodney stresses, "Is that these stations prevent the planet EM field from becoming unstable."
"Well, perhaps a few anomalies." The twitchy man muttered nervously, earning himself the Rodney McKay glare.
Sheppard looked suspiciously from McKay to the twitchy man, "What kind of anomalies?"
The scientist crushed a stack of paper in his hands. "Small, insignificant, nothing important."
All eyes turned on McKay. The final answer had to come from him. "There shouldn't be any problems." McKay stated, Sheppard shot him a look and he added almost hastily, "We'll place scanners to monitor the problem."
That had been the end of it. Until months later the scanners had gone off like a gunshot.
*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*
Rodney ignored the looks people threw his way, the countless mounds as far as he could see. Rodney kept a careful eye on his scanner and his feet. Most of the work had been finished. Only a few more to go, not even half a day's work and they would be done. It all felt hollow somehow.
Sheppard had mercifully gone off and most importantly, away, after they'd arrived. The new supplies needed organizing, Marines needed to report in. McKay was grateful for the distraction they provided. It would allow him to go off on his own for the first time since this whole mess started.
The stares burned at his back. Rodney resisted the overwhelming urge to go off on Marines and scientists alike. He'd had enough of this to last him a hundred lifetimes. So he wasn't perfect, big whoop. Rodney had single handed saved the Galaxy times over. One mistake didn't automatically erase all the good work he'd done.
Rodney tried not to think about the mass graves dug all over what used to be a village, a large percentage of them reserved for children.
The sun was out in all its annoying glory, making him pour on his special SP-100 sunscreen.
He walked near two Marines that had gone silent with his approach. Rodney ignored that, too despite his instinctual 'it's not may fault!' response that lingered on his lips. That hadn't gone down well with Sheppard and he didn't want a repeat.
The words in his defense had felt hollow in sight of the decimated village. The people had built huts for homes. The forest around the valley providing all the building material the Hurians had needed. Their crops were beginning to grow. The Hurians were flourishing.
Something caught his eye in the rubble. He reached down, carefully and cautiously moving some burned wood out of the way. It was small and brown, dark around the edges. He brought it up to his face, his breath catching. The thing was crudely made, the Pegasus equivalent of cotton stuffed inside strips of brown cloth with a smiling face with large eyes drawn on its head.
Rodney remembered the little girl that had owned it. She reminded Rodney so much of his niece, with her long blond curls and her impish smile. She had been the first to approach Rodney. Unafraid in that strange way only children could pull off.
Rodney gently wiped off the dirt and ashes, holding it almost reverently. A small, delicate hand touched his shoulder and Rodney nearly jumped out of his skin. Dark doe eyes filled with something Rodney didn't deserve stared at him.
Keller looked as exhausted as he felt with dark circles under her eyes and her hair as messy as he'd ever seen it. "You okay?" She asked quietly.
The absurdity of that question nearly made him snort. He shrugged her hand off but Jennifer didn't take offense. Like most of the people who have befriended him, she was used to it.
Rodney stared down at the handmade doll and for some reason, he found himself answering honestly, "No."
Keller nodded, more in understanding than in sympathy. He wouldn't had been able to bare the latter. "We're almost done," she stated in a raspy voice.
He didn't respond, holding tightly to the little doll that had belonged to a child who would never grow into anything else. He kept walking, the doll in one hand and the scanner in the other with Keller as a shadow at his side. It felt strangely comforting.
Rodney had been the scientist to catalogue the small clutter of Ancient Technology found by Major Keyes and his team. The large grounding stations had been a bit of a pet project for the engineering department. A mechanical masterpiece, like most of the Ancient technology they had found.
Rodney McKay, the smartest man in two galaxies hadn't foreseen this. A small glitch that had turned into a system failure, which had created a cascade effect that had left the planet at the mercy of its magnetic field.
Rodney had been given wide berth the last two days. Few people daring to approach him. Not that he could blame them. He'd been in an especially nasty mood for the last couple of days.
This whole thing didn't make much sense. Not just scientifically. There was no reason for it to have targeted this particular patch of land. The only habited place on the entire planet. It didn't make sense.
Across the yard, he caught sight of Sheppard, digging another hole that would be a grave. Their eyes met, and John spared him a small smile that was meant to be comforting. Rodney didn't bother to return to gesture. Ronon had just finished another grave and was piling up the dirt. Teyla knelt by another mound.
These people had been their friends. Not just another nameless, imageless people that would disappear and no one would know it. Teyla had said that they were baring witness to an ending. That to honor the dead they had to create new beginnings.
"You'd think," he started, his eyes roaming over the mounds of dirt, the dark patches that marked where lighting had struck, "after surviving the Wraith and the Replicators, they wouldn't had had to worry about anything else," he said quietly, coming to a stop without realizing it in front of a very small grave.
"This shouldn't have happened," he added, staring down at the small mound.
"It wasn't your fault," Keller said softly after a beat, placing her hand on his arm.
This time, Rodney did snort.
"Things like these just happen," Keller said, her grip on his arm tightening. "Some things just don't make any sense."
Rodney kept looking at the small grave, the rag doll weighing heavily in his hand. He turned to the now clear sky. The sun shinning down on them. By all intents and purposes, a perfect spring day. He wondered if this was how that day had started. They had gone out from their homes, preparing for another day. He could almost hear echoes of children's laughter. He could almost see them running up and down the grassy valley.
It so was easy to forget when they had the Wraith, the Replicators, and so many other enemies that Mother Nature could be just as senseless and ruthless as their worst enemies.
Author: water_soter
Prompt/Genre: Endings and Beginnings/Team (bonus fic)
Summary: With all the dangers and enemies they faced on a daily basis, it was easy to forget that not perils have a shape or a form.
Main Characters: Rodney, Sheppard, Ronon, Teyla and Keller.
Word Count: 3,209
Series: One-Shot
Author's Notes: This story is written as an entry for the Genficathon. I have another story entered, but this baby just came to me and so, here it is. Don’t generally write team, but hey, there is a first time for everything. Thanks so much to my beta Val who did this on the fly. Huggles! And to Grey Lupous for all her hand holding. Thank you guys! Now that this baby is done, I’m going back to my actual entry. Crazy person walking!
Feedback: Absolutely! I'm new at this, and English is not my native language, so please don't burn me at the stake. Nevertheless I will appreciate any comments, suggestions or constructive criticism you have on this story. And I do mean it. Critic away, you have something to say, I want to hear it *huggles*. I am very hard to offend.
Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me; I just live to torture them! Lol It's free so please don't take the shirt of my back.
Rating: P13 for disturbing subject matter and imagery.
"Would you slow down?"
McKay huffed from somewhere behind him, like he'd done for the past hour. And like he had done for the past hour, John Sheppard ignored him.
"Sheppard! Colonel!" McKay hissed sharply, tone low as he tripped over another set of rocks, or tree branches, or any number of things that got in McKay's way, including McKay's two left feet.
John scanned their surroundings. The forest around them was too quiet and still. No moment from anything anywhere. The wildlife seemed spooked enough to stay out of sight. It was just another thing to add to the wrongness of this situation.
P3X-217, or what the inhabitants called Hurin, a small touch of paradise. Perfect weather, sunny 345 or so days a year, temperature in the low seventies. Only a handful of people living in the planet. They had started trading a year ago, getting blue melons that tasted like heaven. Now the melons were gone along with the people.
Sheppard heard McKay hurry after him. The sudden and fast movement sent McKay tumbling, "Oh crap!" McKay yelled as he started sliding down the edge of the incline. Sheppard's quick reflexes the only thing that kept McKay from falling head first down the long drop.
John grabbed at the black jacket. Then pulled McKay up, dropping him unceremoniously on his rear.
There was an "Ow," followed by a "Hey! I bruise easily you know." Which John ignored. He was too busy staring after the trail of dust and rock that McKay had displaced with his scuttle. That had been too close, which only helped to accent the entire fubar situation they were in.
With a sigh, John waited a breath before continuing on. He heard McKay scramble after him and waited. Sure enough, the monologue started off again. Nonsense words that John had learned to tune out from constant exposure. It was especially grating today. He gritted his teeth to keep from saying or doing something they'd both regret.
"So, are we almost there?" McKay threw out tentatively.
McKay must've finally clued in to Sheppard's mood from the cautious, quiet way he spoke. John ignored him, trotting smoothly over boulders and anything that got in his way. The last two days had been hell and John just wanted it to be over with. He was tired, stretched as much as he could go. Carter wanted reports, the IOA wanted answers, and John was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
There was a moment of silence in which John hoped McKay had run out of steam. He really wasn't trying to be an ass. The last two days had taken their toll on all of them. John had kept silent for two very good reasons, and McKay was a hair trigger away from igniting one of the two.
McKay started yapping away again and John sighed in frustration. He had little to patience today and McKay was wearing it thin. Then he really started paying attention to what McKay had been babbling and all hell broke loose. By the time John realized what he was doing, he'd already rounded on McKay and had him backed up against a nearby boulder.
Rodney had gone pale, and the expression on his face was one Sheppard had never wanted to see from friend.
Dammit, he swore silently as he took a deep breath, and ran a heavy hand over his disheveled hair. He backed away from Rodney. The man had practically melding into the boulder.
Rodney waited a moment before slowly moving away from the boulder. His expression as wary and cautious as John had ever seen it.
A hundred different apologies formed on John's lips.
I'm sorry.
It's been a hell the last couple of days.
We're all tired.
But nothing made it past his lips. It wasn't fair, John knew. It hadn't been Rodney's fault anymore than it had been Teyla's or Ronon's.
John had seen a lot of things since joining the Airforce, most of them in the Pegasus Galaxy. He could deal with war, with the Wraith, with anyone who wanted to take potshots at them. After all, exploring another galaxy had its own pitfalls, but not this. Not something so goddamn pointless.
Rodney wasn't looking anywhere near John, though he kept throwing surreptitious looks John's way.
It was a nice day, he noticed for the first time. Sunny, but not too hot or too cold, green everywhere he turned atypical for this planet. Such a contrast to what was waiting for them beyond the tree line.
They walked the rest of the way in silence. He kinda missed McKay's constant prattle. It made this business almost bearable. The silence that hung between them was like a damn noose.
*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*
It had been Major Keyes's team that had made first contact with the Hurians. They'd reported a small number of survivors, which was a real miracle considering that they'd nearly been wiped out by the Wraith, and then later on by the Replicators. Sheppard and his team had later been sent to negotiate trade.
The Hurians had little to trade, having moved their settlement from one end of the planet to another. They were barely getting settled, their crops still at the early stages. Huts were being constructed. The Hurians were coming alive again. The one thing they had in abundance was kids.
In the end, tt turned out that the Atlantians left behind far more than they got in return, but it hadn't mattered. The Hurian's hospitality more than made up for it.
*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*
Ronon wiped another drop of sweat off his face. The day wasn't overly warm or the work hard. The fires had long since died down, but their markings were everywhere, leaving spatterings of scorched wood and vegetation in a sea of ashes.
"I hate this kind of work," an airman named Stevenson said under the bandana he wore.
Ronon adjusted his own bandana. The stench in the air had gotten bad. Most of Sheppard's people had thrown up at the first whiff. Now they were taking turns in the valley where the smell was strongest.
Ronon stayed quiet as he finished shoveling another pile of dirt into the holes. He knew without glancing around that Teyla wasn't far off. The only way Sheppard would bring her was that she'd agree to stay close and Keller wanted her to wear a mask. Sheppard or Ronon would have her in sight at all times. With Sheppard away, she was under Ronon's watchful eye.
The swell of her belly had grown in the last few months. They would not reach the harvest season before her child would be born. Among the burnt wreckage around them, she seemed out of place.
He watched her out of the corner of his eye, as she knelt over one of the many mounds they'd dug. The words she spoke with reverence drifted over to him. Athosian prayers that were meant to soothe. A few of the military personal glanced at her, but most didn't. It was a familiar sight.
Ronon ignored all this, letting the wind carry away words that were meant to heal. For Ronon, words didn't mean much. This was just another thing that happened. The Atlantians didn't understand. Ronon kept piling on the dirt.
*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*
Rodney McKay had brought stashes of chocolate, and anything else he could smuggle in with his equipment with each visit. No one ever said anything about it. They all did the same.
The children, in that strange love/hate phenomenon that enveloped McKay, had taking an instant liking to him. They would follow him whenever he went much to his annoyance and the amusement of his team. He would bitch and moan that they were getting in the way of his research. But by the end of their first visit, Rodney had them all working with the efficiency of his scientists.
Ronon had taken to carve little toys out of wood, and carry the children on his back and arms as though they weighed nothing at all. Sheppard chatted up the widowed and single women, occasionally joining in the McKay teasing or the 'lets tumble with Ronon on the ground'. Sometimes Teyla would join Sheppard talking to some of the pregnant women. She would knit and sew, preparing for their coming births and her own. The day would be filled with the sounds children's laughter.
After a while, it became a planet for downtime. For lazy days spent lying around and soaking up the sun.
In the end it was some nameless scientist who discovered the problem.
*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*
Teyla let words that were as familiar as her own hands flow, letting them wash over her as they had far too many times this day. The day was clear. Life pulsated from every green vein in the planet. Except on this pile of land, where seventeen huts had stood, and scorched earth was all that remained. The carnage belied the beauty that surrounded it.
Teyla laid a gentle hand on the mound's moist earth. Another freshly dug grave. She felt its coolness beneath her fingers and thought with sadness at what lied underneath.
"Miss Emmagan?"
Teyla opened her eyes to find a canteen held at a safe distance from her face. She looked up at the man who held it out to her. Ah yes, Lieutenant Jeffrey, a tall man with bright red hair, a pale complexion and kind grey eyes. She had not had the opportunity to converse with this man prior to this mission.
She took the canteen gratefully. Pulling down the mask she was made to wear by Doctor Keller, and let the cool liquid soothe a sore throat she hadn't realized she had.
Lieutenant Jeffrey had been following her since Teyla's arrival on Hurin. He removed any possible obstacles before they could become a slight difficulty, offering his hand or arm when climbing a particularly difficult boulder.
Teyla had suffered through his what had John called it? gallantry. Apparently it was a tradition of some Earth cultures where women were considered the "weaker sex", as John had explained. The words had brought a small smile to John's face. And it was enough that Teyla chose not to give in to the overwhelming temptation to do something about this misconception. She was pregnant, not some fragile thing that needed catering to.
Finally, she gave the canteen back. Lieutenant Jeffrey took it tentatively, eyeing her as though she might break.
Teyla sighed in her own quiet way. She reminded herself that it would not be considered polite to hit the man who had just offered her a drink.
So many graves, so many dead, it was not new too her. She had survived many deaths, witnessed the end of entire populations. This would not shatter her.
Teyla lifted a proud chin, and walked to the next mound, and repeated the ritual. She wondered who of their friends was buried in this grave. Whose body was it that lied beneath the earth's soil.
Teyla knelt before another mound and once more began reciting the words that were so close to her heart. Words that had been passed along her people for generations and would continue to do so.
The Hurians would end here. Their world, their traditions, all buried in this patch of scorched earth.
*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*
"A minor glitch," McKay had said with charts and schematics spread around the room in a careless manner.
"In the electromagnetic field of the planet?" Carter had asked, her intelligent eyes taking in all the information spread out.
"In the mechanisms surrounding the planet." Rodney clarified, a series of schematics flashing in the large screen. "The Ancients created five massive grounding stations similar to the ones we have here in Atlantis. Much like our own, the stations work to attract and disperse massive amounts of electromagnetic energy harmlessly into the atmosphere."
Another scientist, the one who had discovered the initial problem, came up. He was a nervous little man with a shock of blond hair. "The planet's magnetic field is quite massive, the amount of electromagnetic energy emitted "
"Yes, yes, the point," Rodney stresses, "Is that these stations prevent the planet EM field from becoming unstable."
"Well, perhaps a few anomalies." The twitchy man muttered nervously, earning himself the Rodney McKay glare.
Sheppard looked suspiciously from McKay to the twitchy man, "What kind of anomalies?"
The scientist crushed a stack of paper in his hands. "Small, insignificant, nothing important."
All eyes turned on McKay. The final answer had to come from him. "There shouldn't be any problems." McKay stated, Sheppard shot him a look and he added almost hastily, "We'll place scanners to monitor the problem."
That had been the end of it. Until months later the scanners had gone off like a gunshot.
*O*O*O*O*O*O*O*
Rodney ignored the looks people threw his way, the countless mounds as far as he could see. Rodney kept a careful eye on his scanner and his feet. Most of the work had been finished. Only a few more to go, not even half a day's work and they would be done. It all felt hollow somehow.
Sheppard had mercifully gone off and most importantly, away, after they'd arrived. The new supplies needed organizing, Marines needed to report in. McKay was grateful for the distraction they provided. It would allow him to go off on his own for the first time since this whole mess started.
The stares burned at his back. Rodney resisted the overwhelming urge to go off on Marines and scientists alike. He'd had enough of this to last him a hundred lifetimes. So he wasn't perfect, big whoop. Rodney had single handed saved the Galaxy times over. One mistake didn't automatically erase all the good work he'd done.
Rodney tried not to think about the mass graves dug all over what used to be a village, a large percentage of them reserved for children.
The sun was out in all its annoying glory, making him pour on his special SP-100 sunscreen.
He walked near two Marines that had gone silent with his approach. Rodney ignored that, too despite his instinctual 'it's not may fault!' response that lingered on his lips. That hadn't gone down well with Sheppard and he didn't want a repeat.
The words in his defense had felt hollow in sight of the decimated village. The people had built huts for homes. The forest around the valley providing all the building material the Hurians had needed. Their crops were beginning to grow. The Hurians were flourishing.
Something caught his eye in the rubble. He reached down, carefully and cautiously moving some burned wood out of the way. It was small and brown, dark around the edges. He brought it up to his face, his breath catching. The thing was crudely made, the Pegasus equivalent of cotton stuffed inside strips of brown cloth with a smiling face with large eyes drawn on its head.
Rodney remembered the little girl that had owned it. She reminded Rodney so much of his niece, with her long blond curls and her impish smile. She had been the first to approach Rodney. Unafraid in that strange way only children could pull off.
Rodney gently wiped off the dirt and ashes, holding it almost reverently. A small, delicate hand touched his shoulder and Rodney nearly jumped out of his skin. Dark doe eyes filled with something Rodney didn't deserve stared at him.
Keller looked as exhausted as he felt with dark circles under her eyes and her hair as messy as he'd ever seen it. "You okay?" She asked quietly.
The absurdity of that question nearly made him snort. He shrugged her hand off but Jennifer didn't take offense. Like most of the people who have befriended him, she was used to it.
Rodney stared down at the handmade doll and for some reason, he found himself answering honestly, "No."
Keller nodded, more in understanding than in sympathy. He wouldn't had been able to bare the latter. "We're almost done," she stated in a raspy voice.
He didn't respond, holding tightly to the little doll that had belonged to a child who would never grow into anything else. He kept walking, the doll in one hand and the scanner in the other with Keller as a shadow at his side. It felt strangely comforting.
Rodney had been the scientist to catalogue the small clutter of Ancient Technology found by Major Keyes and his team. The large grounding stations had been a bit of a pet project for the engineering department. A mechanical masterpiece, like most of the Ancient technology they had found.
Rodney McKay, the smartest man in two galaxies hadn't foreseen this. A small glitch that had turned into a system failure, which had created a cascade effect that had left the planet at the mercy of its magnetic field.
Rodney had been given wide berth the last two days. Few people daring to approach him. Not that he could blame them. He'd been in an especially nasty mood for the last couple of days.
This whole thing didn't make much sense. Not just scientifically. There was no reason for it to have targeted this particular patch of land. The only habited place on the entire planet. It didn't make sense.
Across the yard, he caught sight of Sheppard, digging another hole that would be a grave. Their eyes met, and John spared him a small smile that was meant to be comforting. Rodney didn't bother to return to gesture. Ronon had just finished another grave and was piling up the dirt. Teyla knelt by another mound.
These people had been their friends. Not just another nameless, imageless people that would disappear and no one would know it. Teyla had said that they were baring witness to an ending. That to honor the dead they had to create new beginnings.
"You'd think," he started, his eyes roaming over the mounds of dirt, the dark patches that marked where lighting had struck, "after surviving the Wraith and the Replicators, they wouldn't had had to worry about anything else," he said quietly, coming to a stop without realizing it in front of a very small grave.
"This shouldn't have happened," he added, staring down at the small mound.
"It wasn't your fault," Keller said softly after a beat, placing her hand on his arm.
This time, Rodney did snort.
"Things like these just happen," Keller said, her grip on his arm tightening. "Some things just don't make any sense."
Rodney kept looking at the small grave, the rag doll weighing heavily in his hand. He turned to the now clear sky. The sun shinning down on them. By all intents and purposes, a perfect spring day. He wondered if this was how that day had started. They had gone out from their homes, preparing for another day. He could almost hear echoes of children's laughter. He could almost see them running up and down the grassy valley.
It so was easy to forget when they had the Wraith, the Replicators, and so many other enemies that Mother Nature could be just as senseless and ruthless as their worst enemies.