Letters Tag - Perspectives in Pegasus
Title: Perspectives in Pegasus
Author: padawan_aneiki
Rating/Pairing: PG/None
Characters: Ford, McKay
Summary: Ford dwells, McKay consoles.
Perspectives in Pegasus
Aiden Ford finished the small amount of editing he needed to do to make the video messages ready for Dr. McKay’s data-burst, and rewound the tape. Popping it out to take to McKay’s lab, Aiden started to get up when it really hit him what he was doing, and his knees abruptly gave way, dumping him back into his chair.
For a long moment, he simply stared at the micro-tape in his palm. Aside from Kavanagh’s ranting, he was essentially holding in his hand the final words of friends…co-workers…fellow explorers, soldiers…family. The young lieutenant swallowed back a sudden lump in his throat, blinking back unexpected tears.
It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. Those people back home…all of them…would grieve for years never knowing, always wondering. Why couldn’t they come home? Where had they gone? What happened to my…? Death at the hands-literally-of the Wraith wasn’t something that could be explained to all the loved ones who would be left behind in the aftermath of the hive ships’ attack.
It wasn’t for his own life that he suddenly found himself crying. It was for Bates’ little brother…Miko’s parents…Rodney’s sister…Carson’s mother. He found himself mourning for the grief they would face, for the vast loss that was about to take place here. Not just Atlantis, not just the city of the Ancients and all its wonders, but also for the amazing minds and hearts of those who had come to call her home. For all his blustering and posturing, Rodney McKay really was a genius. Radek Zelenka’s amazing mind was tempered only by his nearly childlike wonder with each new discovery, each fresh understanding of Ancient technology.
Carson Beckett’s brilliance as a researcher, tempered only by a compassionate heart as big as the city itself, would be lost forever. Teyla and her people…Elizabeth’s ability to hold it all together. Major Sheppard…
Aiden blinked and rubbed his eyes. He knew they would put up a fight, put up the biggest fight they could mount. These were long odds though. Very long odds and he knew he had to make room on the video portion for just one more thing. Juggling a fresh tape into the camera and knowing it would require a second bit of editing, Aiden turned the camera and started recording.
“Grandma, Grandpa…I really need to tell you something else. I’m working with really good people here. Really good people. I want you to remember that, always. My commanding officer here, Major Sheppard…he’s great. I respect him like nobody else I’ve ever worked with, and he would go to the end of the-world-for any of his people. I trust him with my life, and the rest of the crew here are just as good. I just thought you should know that. Don’t worry about me; we’ve all got each other.”
Aiden spent the next several minutes appending his original message, re-editing the final version to give to Rodney; he found the addition actually cut the scientist’s message off, but not the important part. The sister part, so he could live with losing the rest of the rambling.
Getting up, he closed his hand around the precious tape and took it down to the laboratory where Rodney was sitting, staring at a computer screen but not particularly doing anything beyond that at the moment. Quietly Aiden cleared his throat, and the physicist jumped, startled.
“Oh, geez, Ford!” McKay exclaimed, hand over heart. “Are you trying to kill me before the Wraith get a chance, or what?”
“Might be the humane thing to do,” Aiden replied, but there wasn’t enough mirth in his tone to carry it over as he held out the tape. “Here’s the stuff for the data burst. Hope those compression ratios are good.”
“Of course they are…they...” McKay paused in mid-sentence as he took the micro-tape from Ford’s hand. “You okay? You look a little…”
“Depressed? Well, yeah. In a couple weeks we’re gonna be facing three ships full of life-sucking aliens bent on eating us. I guess so,” Aiden shot back, realizing only after the fact that this was a bit of a strange role-reversal. McKay sat back in his chair, drawing in a slow breath and releasing it before motioning for the lieutenant to pull up a chair and sit nearby while he started the data compression. For a few minutes they sat in silence as Aiden watched the physicist work.
“I miss my cat,” Rodney said absently after several minutes. “Black and grey tabby. Sat on my stomach in the mornings when her food dish was empty; better than an alarm clock.” Ford stared at McKay in surprise; prior to watching the recording the cat thing was something he hadn’t known about the physicist, but it wasn’t exactly the sort of topic of conversation he’d expected at the moment. “She’s with my neighbor; nice girl…the neighbor, not the cat well…yeah, she’s nice too but the neighbor is nice…”
“Yeah, Doc, I get it,” Ford interrupted, mildly irritated. McKay, however, was undaunted.
“You know, what we’re doing is supremely important,” Rodney continued, glancing briefly at Aiden before continuing his refinement of the data stream. “For every single one of them, every single person we said goodbye to…for my cat.”’
“What…?” Aiden blinked, not getting what a cat had to do with compressing hours’ worth of farewells to people who would never know the real reasons why they had to be sent.
“The Atlantis Gate is the only way the Wraith can find their way to Earth,” Rodney stated the obvious. “We stop them from getting there; that means everyone we talked to on this tape gets to live. Everyone we care about gets another sunrise without a Wraith hive ship entering orbit. Maybe they’ll miss us, maybe they’ll…even cry, I don’t know but…they get to live long enough to do that. There are a lot of people in this galaxy that never got that chance.”
“Yeah,” Aiden swallowed a bit and nodded. “They deserve the chance.”
“So what we’re doing is damn heroic and nothing to be depressed about,” McKay asserted, probably, Aiden realized, to encourage himself as much as anything else. “We’re protecting everything and everybody back on Earth and if that means we get to be Wraith-bait…then so be it.”
Aiden noticed the slight tremor in Rodney’s voice but didn’t remark on it.
“I miss my grandma’s home made peanut butter cookies,” Ford said after another few moments of silence. “She baked up a double batch from scratch every time I came home on leave. They’re the best things in the world.” The lieutenant leaned back, thoughtful. “I bet if we asked her, she’d send the recipe to your sister.”
Rodney glanced up, noted the look in the young lieutenant’s eyes, and offered a faint near-smile.
“Maybe. If we can use this to send more frequent messages back to Earth, then I’m sure we could arrange something.” Unspoken was the “if we make it out of this,” but both of them knew exactly what the score was and what the odds were of that happening.
“Maybe,” Aiden agreed and he stood up, reaching over to nudge McKay’s shoulder lightly. “Nice job, Doc.”
“You…you too,” Rodney glanced up, and there was a brief look of respect in the scientist’s eyes. He knew better than anybody that Sheppard and the rest of the military contingent were going to be on the front lines of this and it wasn’t going to be pretty.
“G’night, Doc.”
“Good night, Ford.”
Aiden jammed his hands in his pockets as he headed off for his quarters, and oddly enough, found himself smiling. Who knew that in the face of imminent doom, that thinking about a cat and a couple dozen peanut butter cookies could have given him the resolve to fight for not just all their lives, but for an entire planet largely ignorant of the fight?
For Grandma and Grandpa.
For little brothers.
For sisters.
For mothers.
For a neighbor taking care of a cat.
Author: padawan_aneiki
Rating/Pairing: PG/None
Characters: Ford, McKay
Summary: Ford dwells, McKay consoles.
Perspectives in Pegasus
Aiden Ford finished the small amount of editing he needed to do to make the video messages ready for Dr. McKay’s data-burst, and rewound the tape. Popping it out to take to McKay’s lab, Aiden started to get up when it really hit him what he was doing, and his knees abruptly gave way, dumping him back into his chair.
For a long moment, he simply stared at the micro-tape in his palm. Aside from Kavanagh’s ranting, he was essentially holding in his hand the final words of friends…co-workers…fellow explorers, soldiers…family. The young lieutenant swallowed back a sudden lump in his throat, blinking back unexpected tears.
It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. Those people back home…all of them…would grieve for years never knowing, always wondering. Why couldn’t they come home? Where had they gone? What happened to my…? Death at the hands-literally-of the Wraith wasn’t something that could be explained to all the loved ones who would be left behind in the aftermath of the hive ships’ attack.
It wasn’t for his own life that he suddenly found himself crying. It was for Bates’ little brother…Miko’s parents…Rodney’s sister…Carson’s mother. He found himself mourning for the grief they would face, for the vast loss that was about to take place here. Not just Atlantis, not just the city of the Ancients and all its wonders, but also for the amazing minds and hearts of those who had come to call her home. For all his blustering and posturing, Rodney McKay really was a genius. Radek Zelenka’s amazing mind was tempered only by his nearly childlike wonder with each new discovery, each fresh understanding of Ancient technology.
Carson Beckett’s brilliance as a researcher, tempered only by a compassionate heart as big as the city itself, would be lost forever. Teyla and her people…Elizabeth’s ability to hold it all together. Major Sheppard…
Aiden blinked and rubbed his eyes. He knew they would put up a fight, put up the biggest fight they could mount. These were long odds though. Very long odds and he knew he had to make room on the video portion for just one more thing. Juggling a fresh tape into the camera and knowing it would require a second bit of editing, Aiden turned the camera and started recording.
“Grandma, Grandpa…I really need to tell you something else. I’m working with really good people here. Really good people. I want you to remember that, always. My commanding officer here, Major Sheppard…he’s great. I respect him like nobody else I’ve ever worked with, and he would go to the end of the-world-for any of his people. I trust him with my life, and the rest of the crew here are just as good. I just thought you should know that. Don’t worry about me; we’ve all got each other.”
Aiden spent the next several minutes appending his original message, re-editing the final version to give to Rodney; he found the addition actually cut the scientist’s message off, but not the important part. The sister part, so he could live with losing the rest of the rambling.
Getting up, he closed his hand around the precious tape and took it down to the laboratory where Rodney was sitting, staring at a computer screen but not particularly doing anything beyond that at the moment. Quietly Aiden cleared his throat, and the physicist jumped, startled.
“Oh, geez, Ford!” McKay exclaimed, hand over heart. “Are you trying to kill me before the Wraith get a chance, or what?”
“Might be the humane thing to do,” Aiden replied, but there wasn’t enough mirth in his tone to carry it over as he held out the tape. “Here’s the stuff for the data burst. Hope those compression ratios are good.”
“Of course they are…they...” McKay paused in mid-sentence as he took the micro-tape from Ford’s hand. “You okay? You look a little…”
“Depressed? Well, yeah. In a couple weeks we’re gonna be facing three ships full of life-sucking aliens bent on eating us. I guess so,” Aiden shot back, realizing only after the fact that this was a bit of a strange role-reversal. McKay sat back in his chair, drawing in a slow breath and releasing it before motioning for the lieutenant to pull up a chair and sit nearby while he started the data compression. For a few minutes they sat in silence as Aiden watched the physicist work.
“I miss my cat,” Rodney said absently after several minutes. “Black and grey tabby. Sat on my stomach in the mornings when her food dish was empty; better than an alarm clock.” Ford stared at McKay in surprise; prior to watching the recording the cat thing was something he hadn’t known about the physicist, but it wasn’t exactly the sort of topic of conversation he’d expected at the moment. “She’s with my neighbor; nice girl…the neighbor, not the cat well…yeah, she’s nice too but the neighbor is nice…”
“Yeah, Doc, I get it,” Ford interrupted, mildly irritated. McKay, however, was undaunted.
“You know, what we’re doing is supremely important,” Rodney continued, glancing briefly at Aiden before continuing his refinement of the data stream. “For every single one of them, every single person we said goodbye to…for my cat.”’
“What…?” Aiden blinked, not getting what a cat had to do with compressing hours’ worth of farewells to people who would never know the real reasons why they had to be sent.
“The Atlantis Gate is the only way the Wraith can find their way to Earth,” Rodney stated the obvious. “We stop them from getting there; that means everyone we talked to on this tape gets to live. Everyone we care about gets another sunrise without a Wraith hive ship entering orbit. Maybe they’ll miss us, maybe they’ll…even cry, I don’t know but…they get to live long enough to do that. There are a lot of people in this galaxy that never got that chance.”
“Yeah,” Aiden swallowed a bit and nodded. “They deserve the chance.”
“So what we’re doing is damn heroic and nothing to be depressed about,” McKay asserted, probably, Aiden realized, to encourage himself as much as anything else. “We’re protecting everything and everybody back on Earth and if that means we get to be Wraith-bait…then so be it.”
Aiden noticed the slight tremor in Rodney’s voice but didn’t remark on it.
“I miss my grandma’s home made peanut butter cookies,” Ford said after another few moments of silence. “She baked up a double batch from scratch every time I came home on leave. They’re the best things in the world.” The lieutenant leaned back, thoughtful. “I bet if we asked her, she’d send the recipe to your sister.”
Rodney glanced up, noted the look in the young lieutenant’s eyes, and offered a faint near-smile.
“Maybe. If we can use this to send more frequent messages back to Earth, then I’m sure we could arrange something.” Unspoken was the “if we make it out of this,” but both of them knew exactly what the score was and what the odds were of that happening.
“Maybe,” Aiden agreed and he stood up, reaching over to nudge McKay’s shoulder lightly. “Nice job, Doc.”
“You…you too,” Rodney glanced up, and there was a brief look of respect in the scientist’s eyes. He knew better than anybody that Sheppard and the rest of the military contingent were going to be on the front lines of this and it wasn’t going to be pretty.
“G’night, Doc.”
“Good night, Ford.”
Aiden jammed his hands in his pockets as he headed off for his quarters, and oddly enough, found himself smiling. Who knew that in the face of imminent doom, that thinking about a cat and a couple dozen peanut butter cookies could have given him the resolve to fight for not just all their lives, but for an entire planet largely ignorant of the fight?
For Grandma and Grandpa.
For little brothers.
For sisters.
For mothers.
For a neighbor taking care of a cat.