The Star's Heart, Epilogue!, -the Thrilling Conclusion! (pt 3/3)
Title: "The Mystery of the Star's Heart"
Author: Taylor Dancinghands -taylor@tdancinghands.com
Characters: McKay, Sheppard, Beckett, Zelenka, Weir, Teyla, Ronon, (nun!)Jeannie McKay, Grodin, Lorne, Caldwell, among others.
Pairings: Zelenka/McKay, Sheppard/Lorne past and Sheppard/Lorne/Teyla, Beckett/Weir, Caldwell/Jeannie McKay romance background
Category: slash, pre-slash, Steampunk AU, romance, action/adventure
Spoilers: none
Warnings: m/m relationships
Rating: Teen
Summary:In a bygone future that never was, the US Special Projects Bureau's Airship Daedalus carries an expedition into the Hollow Earth to discover the fabled lost city of Atlantis...
(An index for the whole story to-date can be found here.)
Chapter 12, pt 3/3
**Epilogue**
By the time the Daedalus returned five months later, laden with victuals, metal stock, a crane to lift the fallen portions of the mirror array off the sea floor and lumber to build a platform for it to sit on, along with various other vital supplies, the foundations had been laid for factories in Zlin, Moravia as well as Scranton, Pennsylvania, and newspapers around the world were carrying the first stories about the amazing discoveries of the Atlantis Expedition. The Daedalus brought copies of some of those papers, as well as blueprints for the factories and commendations from the US president. There was also mail.
Dr Weir received a legal notice that she was being sued by Edison for the return of the Star's Heart, but it came as no surprise and less worry. Besides news about the expedition, the papers also carried several stories about Maybourne's trial and his confession that he'd been hired by Edison to steal the Star's Heart from Dr Weir. Given that news, it was clear that the suit had no merit and would eventually be thrown out.
The Czech newspapers that Peter Grodin brought for Dr Zelenka were (after the news of the discovery of Atlantis by their famous local recluse) filled with optimistic enthusiasm over the factories planned for a region of the country which had suffered much economic depredation of late. He read similar sentiments in his letters from Josef, who also communicated his pleasure at being trusted with the task of very quietly acquiring further supplies of moldavite. He'd been told only that it was more important than was generally known, and that this fact was to remain a secret, and was content to know this much and no more.
The Daedalus would remain for a month, and in that time she took part in a more detailed survey of the larger cavern, and helped move Ronon's people -the Sataedans- to a new home within Atlantis, where they would be safest from the wraith, and could easily find facilities to once again take up their traditional craft of knife making. Ronon was more than pleased to see a community of his people thriving after thinking them lost for so long, but in the end elected to stay with the soldiers he had befriended during their escape from the wraith nest, and continued to find satisfaction as a member of Sheppard's exploration team.
All of the teams Sheppard had set up had had great successes in the months that the Daedalus had been gone. Sheppard's own team had helped foster friendly relationships with several of the more remote settlements, and had also discovered a number of labs and work areas in the city. Of course they'd also accidentally released a giant, carnivorous sort of spider like creature, and found a machine that made them all hallucinate everyone turning into talking plants for twenty four hours, but they'd managed to survive these crises and others besides, and so figured that they were doing okay, all things considered.
The day before the Daedalus was to leave again -this time to be gone for six months- Carson Beckett asked Captain Caldwell to perform a wedding for himself and Elizabeth Weir. A going away party had been planned already, and Carson and Elizabeth figured that this would be just one more thing to celebrate. The wedding was performed in the grand foyer at the top of the central tower. Elizabeth wore a beautiful, white, spider silk gown made for her in the traditional Athosian fashion, and Carson wore a traditional kilt, which he'd kept carefully hidden from all his friends until the moment he appeared for the wedding.
The celebration following was their biggest and best yet, and the Daedalus' departure the next day brought tears but also a sense of hope and expectations. 'The world is still a precarious place,' Radek wrote in the journal he now had real reason to hope his nephew would read some day, 'but the work we do here will make it a better place. For the first time in my life I am sure of this.'
It dawned on Radek, as he watched the Daedalus make her way up, disappearing into the tunnel to the surface, that his nephew and sister might even be free to acknowledge their own true identities some day, and might even, at some future time, be allowed to visit him, here on Atlantis. Radek was less sure about returning to his own native land, however. The question plagued him until Rodney badgered him into confessing what was troubling him, and then gave him the answer that set his mind, and heart, at ease.
"There's a good chance that I'll actually need to go back up to deal with some SPB business, or other nonsense," he told Radek, "but they won't keep me there. This, here, is the only real home I've ever known, and there's no way I'm leaving it."
At these words Radek felt his own heart contract painfully for a brief moment, at the realization that his beloved Bohemia was no longer his home, but the moment passed, and left in its wake a sense of deepest contentment. "Ano," he said after a moment. "Yes, Atlantis is my home as well, and I think I will have no other."
Rodney looked at him curiously for a moment, from where he stood on their balcony. "You sound like you're sorry about that," he said.
"Ne, ne," Radek said, shaking his head. "Perhaps, for a moment... my homeland... can have a tight hold on a man's heart, but this place... not even Prague, Queen of Europe, can compete with her." He turned to Rodney then, moving to stand close enough to feel the warmth of his body, comforting in the cool, night air.
"And, of course, also you are here," he said, "and most assuredly, wherever you are will always be home to me, for as long as I live."
"There is that," said Rodney with an indulgent smirk, which softened a moment later when he continued. "And... you know... the same, um, goes for me, too."
"Of course I know," Radek said, leaning up for a kiss. "I am a genius, after all."
Rodney's lips were smiling when they met his, and Radek could not help feel as if the city, spread out around them, crystal towers gleaming gleaming over a vast subterranean sea, was not watching their kiss, her own crystal heart basking in the light of true love, just as his did.
~**The END!**~
A/N: And with this, my faithful readers, I will be leaving the world of fanfiction for the foreseeable future. There are many reasons for this, the primary one being that I have original fics to write -lot's of 'em- and I'm not getting any younger. In addition, it cannot have escaped anyone's notice that SGA fandom seems to have dropped to a mere trickle, and Zelenka fandom has all but disappeared. My heart aches; it truly does, but life goes on. I believe I can be proud of my contributions and my work, and if this is the last fanfic I ever write, then it is a worthy magnum opus, I do believe.
-T. Dancinghands
Author: Taylor Dancinghands -taylor@tdancinghands.com
Characters: McKay, Sheppard, Beckett, Zelenka, Weir, Teyla, Ronon, (nun!)Jeannie McKay, Grodin, Lorne, Caldwell, among others.
Pairings: Zelenka/McKay, Sheppard/Lorne past and Sheppard/Lorne/Teyla, Beckett/Weir, Caldwell/Jeannie McKay romance background
Category: slash, pre-slash, Steampunk AU, romance, action/adventure
Spoilers: none
Warnings: m/m relationships
Rating: Teen
Summary:In a bygone future that never was, the US Special Projects Bureau's Airship Daedalus carries an expedition into the Hollow Earth to discover the fabled lost city of Atlantis...
(An index for the whole story to-date can be found here.)
Chapter 12, pt 3/3
**Epilogue**
By the time the Daedalus returned five months later, laden with victuals, metal stock, a crane to lift the fallen portions of the mirror array off the sea floor and lumber to build a platform for it to sit on, along with various other vital supplies, the foundations had been laid for factories in Zlin, Moravia as well as Scranton, Pennsylvania, and newspapers around the world were carrying the first stories about the amazing discoveries of the Atlantis Expedition. The Daedalus brought copies of some of those papers, as well as blueprints for the factories and commendations from the US president. There was also mail.
Dr Weir received a legal notice that she was being sued by Edison for the return of the Star's Heart, but it came as no surprise and less worry. Besides news about the expedition, the papers also carried several stories about Maybourne's trial and his confession that he'd been hired by Edison to steal the Star's Heart from Dr Weir. Given that news, it was clear that the suit had no merit and would eventually be thrown out.
The Czech newspapers that Peter Grodin brought for Dr Zelenka were (after the news of the discovery of Atlantis by their famous local recluse) filled with optimistic enthusiasm over the factories planned for a region of the country which had suffered much economic depredation of late. He read similar sentiments in his letters from Josef, who also communicated his pleasure at being trusted with the task of very quietly acquiring further supplies of moldavite. He'd been told only that it was more important than was generally known, and that this fact was to remain a secret, and was content to know this much and no more.
The Daedalus would remain for a month, and in that time she took part in a more detailed survey of the larger cavern, and helped move Ronon's people -the Sataedans- to a new home within Atlantis, where they would be safest from the wraith, and could easily find facilities to once again take up their traditional craft of knife making. Ronon was more than pleased to see a community of his people thriving after thinking them lost for so long, but in the end elected to stay with the soldiers he had befriended during their escape from the wraith nest, and continued to find satisfaction as a member of Sheppard's exploration team.
All of the teams Sheppard had set up had had great successes in the months that the Daedalus had been gone. Sheppard's own team had helped foster friendly relationships with several of the more remote settlements, and had also discovered a number of labs and work areas in the city. Of course they'd also accidentally released a giant, carnivorous sort of spider like creature, and found a machine that made them all hallucinate everyone turning into talking plants for twenty four hours, but they'd managed to survive these crises and others besides, and so figured that they were doing okay, all things considered.
The day before the Daedalus was to leave again -this time to be gone for six months- Carson Beckett asked Captain Caldwell to perform a wedding for himself and Elizabeth Weir. A going away party had been planned already, and Carson and Elizabeth figured that this would be just one more thing to celebrate. The wedding was performed in the grand foyer at the top of the central tower. Elizabeth wore a beautiful, white, spider silk gown made for her in the traditional Athosian fashion, and Carson wore a traditional kilt, which he'd kept carefully hidden from all his friends until the moment he appeared for the wedding.
The celebration following was their biggest and best yet, and the Daedalus' departure the next day brought tears but also a sense of hope and expectations. 'The world is still a precarious place,' Radek wrote in the journal he now had real reason to hope his nephew would read some day, 'but the work we do here will make it a better place. For the first time in my life I am sure of this.'
It dawned on Radek, as he watched the Daedalus make her way up, disappearing into the tunnel to the surface, that his nephew and sister might even be free to acknowledge their own true identities some day, and might even, at some future time, be allowed to visit him, here on Atlantis. Radek was less sure about returning to his own native land, however. The question plagued him until Rodney badgered him into confessing what was troubling him, and then gave him the answer that set his mind, and heart, at ease.
"There's a good chance that I'll actually need to go back up to deal with some SPB business, or other nonsense," he told Radek, "but they won't keep me there. This, here, is the only real home I've ever known, and there's no way I'm leaving it."
At these words Radek felt his own heart contract painfully for a brief moment, at the realization that his beloved Bohemia was no longer his home, but the moment passed, and left in its wake a sense of deepest contentment. "Ano," he said after a moment. "Yes, Atlantis is my home as well, and I think I will have no other."
Rodney looked at him curiously for a moment, from where he stood on their balcony. "You sound like you're sorry about that," he said.
"Ne, ne," Radek said, shaking his head. "Perhaps, for a moment... my homeland... can have a tight hold on a man's heart, but this place... not even Prague, Queen of Europe, can compete with her." He turned to Rodney then, moving to stand close enough to feel the warmth of his body, comforting in the cool, night air.
"And, of course, also you are here," he said, "and most assuredly, wherever you are will always be home to me, for as long as I live."
"There is that," said Rodney with an indulgent smirk, which softened a moment later when he continued. "And... you know... the same, um, goes for me, too."
"Of course I know," Radek said, leaning up for a kiss. "I am a genius, after all."
Rodney's lips were smiling when they met his, and Radek could not help feel as if the city, spread out around them, crystal towers gleaming gleaming over a vast subterranean sea, was not watching their kiss, her own crystal heart basking in the light of true love, just as his did.
~**The END!**~
A/N: And with this, my faithful readers, I will be leaving the world of fanfiction for the foreseeable future. There are many reasons for this, the primary one being that I have original fics to write -lot's of 'em- and I'm not getting any younger. In addition, it cannot have escaped anyone's notice that SGA fandom seems to have dropped to a mere trickle, and Zelenka fandom has all but disappeared. My heart aches; it truly does, but life goes on. I believe I can be proud of my contributions and my work, and if this is the last fanfic I ever write, then it is a worthy magnum opus, I do believe.
-T. Dancinghands