TEAM MCKAY: by the book, "Protector"
Title: Protector
Author: curia_regis
Team: McKay
Prompt: by the book
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: From one war into another, Atlantis watches over her people.
Notes: Thank you so much to my beta!
Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the prompt in the header above.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
Her first people do almost everything by the book, and at first, Atlantis thinks they are right. It makes sense. After all, the rules are there for a reason. Rules are a way to codify behaviour - the correct behaviour, as established through thousands of attempts, thousands of mistakes. Stepping outside of the rules, outside of the boundaries, means uncertainty; it means relying on the individual, not the process. Individuals create errors.
Atlantis knows that there have always been a few who have ignored the rules and operated outside of society. Some of them did it for personal fame and glory. Others because they thought it was the right thing to do. She's seen the consequences of their actions. Her medical units have tended to their misfortunes and her prison cells have held those who would not yield.
Atlantis understands the danger of operating outside of the rules.
But as she watches the evacuation and hears the quick footsteps (almost running, but not quite, because that would be against the rules) down each corridor, converging on the control tower, Atlantis wonders if there's also danger in following the rules.
*
"Power down sequence activated."
A series of buttons later and Atlantis finds her systems switching off one by one. She's already lost access to the drones and in a few minutes, she knows she'll lose access everything else. She races along her circuits, her subroutines, trying to change local variables, but it all seems to be in vain. They're shutting her down and she doesn't know if she can ever put herself back together the same way. Don't they know that?
Except.
There's one section that seems to be untouched by the power down sequence. There's nothing in the rules, nothing in the books says there's anything special in there. It's just an ordinary stasis room with perfectly ordinary stasis chambers.
Ah.
Atlantis would have laughed and shouted if she had lips. She's picked up bad habits from her humans.
*
With a single step over her threshold, Atlantis finds herself waking up from her slumber.
She doesn't know how long it's been, but that doesn't matter. She's alive. Exhilarated, Atlantis stretches herself out throughout the city. It's more broken than she remembers, but it's still hers. There are still the same number of rooms, same colour scheme... the view out of the window's changed, but that's not a problem because she knows she's got enough power to hold back anything.
Oh.
She did have enough power.
Atlantis allows herself one moment of pure panic before searching through her databases for a solution. The search takes microseconds. It's almost as though somebody has set out the parameters already. (Atlantis suspects she knows who it is; he was always her favourite). The parameters are almost ridiculously easy to implement.
The water rushes off her as Atlantis soars.
*
Rodney stares out past the twinkling lights of Atlantis at the vast oceans beyond. It's been several months since Atlantis first rose out of the ocean, since Sheppard took command of the military part of their expedition, since they first set foot in this galaxy, but the sight's still breathtaking.
"Drink?"
Rodney jumps. Turning around he sees Sheppard standing there with two glasses in his hands. Taking a glass, Rodney sniffs at it. "It's water," he says, almost accusingly.
"They didn't have anything else."
Rodney snorts. They've been running out of basic supplies like beer and coffee ever since they got here. He takes a few sips. "Did you know that it'll take us nearly a hundred years - with our current manpower - to explore this city? That's how big it is."
Sheppard is silent.
*
Her new people are odd.
They spend a lot of their time running around, often seemingly without plan or purpose. Some of them also shout and rant a lot - one man in particular. Atlantis can usually feel the vibrations from the words streaming from his lips like the non-stop bubbling of a brook over rocks. She's amused by some of his obvious misconceptions.
From her forays into their computers (if she can even call them computers), Atlantis realises that these people are the descendants of her people, with their own sets of rules to follow. But, as Atlantis slowly realises, these people usually only follow the rules when it suits them, which isn't often.
*
Rodney watches as Kavanagh is wheeled out of the room towards the infirmary. He presses his lips together into a grim line. Kavanagh didn't deserve to go through what he just did. Especially given that he was innocent and that this whole situation had been manipulated by a Goa'uld. Rodney shudders. After all this time in Atlantis, he's almost forgotten how terrifying the Goa'uld are.
"Do you think we should have done something else..." Rodney trails off.
"It was the right thing to do," Sheppard says grimly. "We had no choice."
For once, Rodney can't think of anything else to say. He knows they didn't have a choice, but that doesn't mean that they were right. He looks over at Elizabeth's face and it's like looking into a mirror.
*
Atlantis finds herself watching some of her people more than others. She finds herself especially fond of one dark-haired human who seems to know her systems almost as well as her original programmer. He spends a lot of time with three other humans, but out of those three, the majority of his time is spent with the one who shouts and rants.
Odd.
Atlantis has never really understood human interactions.
She's surprised when, one night, she notices them disappearing into the same room together. The discretion parameters in her system should have stopped her from looking further, but before she realises it, Atlantis finds herself tapped into the cameras.
Their bodies seem to almost meld together on the bed.
Of course, she knows what human reproduction is. She's been programmed with those parameters. The sweaty, jiggling and bouncing is essential to the human mating process, but she also knows from reading through their computers that this particular brand of jiggling and bouncing is against their rules.
She feels a ripple of pleasure through her circuits that causes the lights to flicker.
They've learned.
*
Rodney looks up at the flickering lights and frowns. "Zelenka better not be messing around with the system without me there," he mutters. They'd been working on a way to maximise the yield from their ZPM, but all their efforts so far hadn't been particularly effective. Zelenka had wanted to continue working, but Rodney had other plans.
John raises an eyebrow.
"Yes, right," Rodney says hurriedly, feeling his cheeks grow hot. "I shouldn't be talking about Zelenka and the lights, should I?"
John grins as he traces the tip of his index finger across Rodney's thigh. "Nope."
The lights flicker again.
*
Atlantis enjoys watching those two, even if one of them is a bit ranty. In any case, the other one more than makes up for it. Under his hand, her ships glide out of the bay, almost as though she's navigating them herself.
She knows she isn't supposed to be watching specific people. It's clearly written in her programming that her prime directive is to protect herself and her people. Watching these two doesn't meet her prime directive. They're in a war; she should be scanning the skies for enemies. She should be priming up her self-defence subroutines. She should be preparing for the Wraith.
Then again, Atlantis knows that this war has been going on for over a thousand years. A few days more won't make a difference.
*
"D'you ever get the feeling you're being watched?" Rodney asks through a mouthful of food. He chews thoroughly and swallows.
John stares.
"No," he finally answers.
*
There's one subroutine that she can't access (specifically, door five hundred and sixty-three on the west pier). When she examines the lights and doors on that level, she sees significant flood damage, but there's been flood damage through most of her lower levels. At times, she feels a tickle along her wiring that tells her that somebody's walking down that corridor, bumping up against the wall sensors. She can't hear anything down there, but sometimes, she tracks her favourite two people disappearing down that corridor, into that room.
Atlantis wasn't built with curiosity circuits, but as she prods at the subroutine, she realises that she may have developed them all by herself.
*
Behind door five hundred and sixty-three, there's a small round room with a large overstuffed couch in one corner - just the kind that Rodney likes - and a pile of books beside it. In the other corner, there's a small portable TV and DVD player with a pile of old recordings football games next to it.
"It's nice to be off the grid," John says as he tucks his feet under Rodney's ass.
Rodney tries to shoot him a withering look, but he suspects he's missed the mark when John's feet wriggle further underneath. "I told you we should have brought a heater," he complains. "The heating doesn't seem to reach to this level."
John shrugs as he presses the volume button.
Rodney sighs and turns back to his book. The game blares around him, but he ignores it.
*
Her people spend so much time running around that Atlantis doesn't always notice immediately when something is wrong. Her time before feels almost like a dream, an endless stream of days where nothing changed and each generation looked almost the same as the last. But now - changes flutter by every day so quickly that it almost takes up her entire memory to notice everything.
But there are always things that Atlantis focuses on. The war. The Wraith. Earth.
They left her once - left her to her former people and at first, Atlantis was joyous, but as the days trickled by, she kept on feeling the niggling feeling of something missing. Perhaps it was the interface they used. She never did like that particular control panel.
It just wasn't the same without the running around and the excitement.
She can't - she won't - let them leave again.
Atlantis watches as a fuzzy haired human works on her. She feels an odd warmth inside her wiring and is surprised to realise that maybe, just maybe, her people aren't going to leave, aren't going to just pick to pick up one day and power her down like she's just another piece of equipment.
They've going to take her home with them.
*
Rodney leans on the balcony railing and looks out at the Golden Gate Bridge. The bright, almost harsh lights of civilisation almost drown out the lights of Atlantis. Standing here, Rodney can almost imagine he's a part of the city.
"Quite a different view, huh?" John says as he comes up behind Rodney.
"It's a nice view, but on the whole I think I prefer the one we had before," Rodney finds himself admitting. "I had a look at the drives. Zelenka overloaded them on the way here, so it's going to take at least a few days for me to fix them."
"That long?" John teases.
"It would be shorter, if I wasn't so distracted," Rodney says with a grin. "I want to get home as much as you do."
"Home, huh?" John voice is light.
"Home," Rodney says firmly. He rests a hand on John's shoulder.
*
From one war into another, Atlantis watches her people.
Very rarely, she intervenes to protect them, but mostly she just watches to see how they change and how they grow.
Poll
Author: curia_regis
Team: McKay
Prompt: by the book
Pairing(s): McKay/Sheppard
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: From one war into another, Atlantis watches over her people.
Notes: Thank you so much to my beta!
Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the prompt in the header above.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
Her first people do almost everything by the book, and at first, Atlantis thinks they are right. It makes sense. After all, the rules are there for a reason. Rules are a way to codify behaviour - the correct behaviour, as established through thousands of attempts, thousands of mistakes. Stepping outside of the rules, outside of the boundaries, means uncertainty; it means relying on the individual, not the process. Individuals create errors.
Atlantis knows that there have always been a few who have ignored the rules and operated outside of society. Some of them did it for personal fame and glory. Others because they thought it was the right thing to do. She's seen the consequences of their actions. Her medical units have tended to their misfortunes and her prison cells have held those who would not yield.
Atlantis understands the danger of operating outside of the rules.
But as she watches the evacuation and hears the quick footsteps (almost running, but not quite, because that would be against the rules) down each corridor, converging on the control tower, Atlantis wonders if there's also danger in following the rules.
*
"Power down sequence activated."
A series of buttons later and Atlantis finds her systems switching off one by one. She's already lost access to the drones and in a few minutes, she knows she'll lose access everything else. She races along her circuits, her subroutines, trying to change local variables, but it all seems to be in vain. They're shutting her down and she doesn't know if she can ever put herself back together the same way. Don't they know that?
Except.
There's one section that seems to be untouched by the power down sequence. There's nothing in the rules, nothing in the books says there's anything special in there. It's just an ordinary stasis room with perfectly ordinary stasis chambers.
Ah.
Atlantis would have laughed and shouted if she had lips. She's picked up bad habits from her humans.
*
With a single step over her threshold, Atlantis finds herself waking up from her slumber.
She doesn't know how long it's been, but that doesn't matter. She's alive. Exhilarated, Atlantis stretches herself out throughout the city. It's more broken than she remembers, but it's still hers. There are still the same number of rooms, same colour scheme... the view out of the window's changed, but that's not a problem because she knows she's got enough power to hold back anything.
Oh.
She did have enough power.
Atlantis allows herself one moment of pure panic before searching through her databases for a solution. The search takes microseconds. It's almost as though somebody has set out the parameters already. (Atlantis suspects she knows who it is; he was always her favourite). The parameters are almost ridiculously easy to implement.
The water rushes off her as Atlantis soars.
*
Rodney stares out past the twinkling lights of Atlantis at the vast oceans beyond. It's been several months since Atlantis first rose out of the ocean, since Sheppard took command of the military part of their expedition, since they first set foot in this galaxy, but the sight's still breathtaking.
"Drink?"
Rodney jumps. Turning around he sees Sheppard standing there with two glasses in his hands. Taking a glass, Rodney sniffs at it. "It's water," he says, almost accusingly.
"They didn't have anything else."
Rodney snorts. They've been running out of basic supplies like beer and coffee ever since they got here. He takes a few sips. "Did you know that it'll take us nearly a hundred years - with our current manpower - to explore this city? That's how big it is."
Sheppard is silent.
*
Her new people are odd.
They spend a lot of their time running around, often seemingly without plan or purpose. Some of them also shout and rant a lot - one man in particular. Atlantis can usually feel the vibrations from the words streaming from his lips like the non-stop bubbling of a brook over rocks. She's amused by some of his obvious misconceptions.
From her forays into their computers (if she can even call them computers), Atlantis realises that these people are the descendants of her people, with their own sets of rules to follow. But, as Atlantis slowly realises, these people usually only follow the rules when it suits them, which isn't often.
*
Rodney watches as Kavanagh is wheeled out of the room towards the infirmary. He presses his lips together into a grim line. Kavanagh didn't deserve to go through what he just did. Especially given that he was innocent and that this whole situation had been manipulated by a Goa'uld. Rodney shudders. After all this time in Atlantis, he's almost forgotten how terrifying the Goa'uld are.
"Do you think we should have done something else..." Rodney trails off.
"It was the right thing to do," Sheppard says grimly. "We had no choice."
For once, Rodney can't think of anything else to say. He knows they didn't have a choice, but that doesn't mean that they were right. He looks over at Elizabeth's face and it's like looking into a mirror.
*
Atlantis finds herself watching some of her people more than others. She finds herself especially fond of one dark-haired human who seems to know her systems almost as well as her original programmer. He spends a lot of time with three other humans, but out of those three, the majority of his time is spent with the one who shouts and rants.
Odd.
Atlantis has never really understood human interactions.
She's surprised when, one night, she notices them disappearing into the same room together. The discretion parameters in her system should have stopped her from looking further, but before she realises it, Atlantis finds herself tapped into the cameras.
Their bodies seem to almost meld together on the bed.
Of course, she knows what human reproduction is. She's been programmed with those parameters. The sweaty, jiggling and bouncing is essential to the human mating process, but she also knows from reading through their computers that this particular brand of jiggling and bouncing is against their rules.
She feels a ripple of pleasure through her circuits that causes the lights to flicker.
They've learned.
*
Rodney looks up at the flickering lights and frowns. "Zelenka better not be messing around with the system without me there," he mutters. They'd been working on a way to maximise the yield from their ZPM, but all their efforts so far hadn't been particularly effective. Zelenka had wanted to continue working, but Rodney had other plans.
John raises an eyebrow.
"Yes, right," Rodney says hurriedly, feeling his cheeks grow hot. "I shouldn't be talking about Zelenka and the lights, should I?"
John grins as he traces the tip of his index finger across Rodney's thigh. "Nope."
The lights flicker again.
*
Atlantis enjoys watching those two, even if one of them is a bit ranty. In any case, the other one more than makes up for it. Under his hand, her ships glide out of the bay, almost as though she's navigating them herself.
She knows she isn't supposed to be watching specific people. It's clearly written in her programming that her prime directive is to protect herself and her people. Watching these two doesn't meet her prime directive. They're in a war; she should be scanning the skies for enemies. She should be priming up her self-defence subroutines. She should be preparing for the Wraith.
Then again, Atlantis knows that this war has been going on for over a thousand years. A few days more won't make a difference.
*
"D'you ever get the feeling you're being watched?" Rodney asks through a mouthful of food. He chews thoroughly and swallows.
John stares.
"No," he finally answers.
*
There's one subroutine that she can't access (specifically, door five hundred and sixty-three on the west pier). When she examines the lights and doors on that level, she sees significant flood damage, but there's been flood damage through most of her lower levels. At times, she feels a tickle along her wiring that tells her that somebody's walking down that corridor, bumping up against the wall sensors. She can't hear anything down there, but sometimes, she tracks her favourite two people disappearing down that corridor, into that room.
Atlantis wasn't built with curiosity circuits, but as she prods at the subroutine, she realises that she may have developed them all by herself.
*
Behind door five hundred and sixty-three, there's a small round room with a large overstuffed couch in one corner - just the kind that Rodney likes - and a pile of books beside it. In the other corner, there's a small portable TV and DVD player with a pile of old recordings football games next to it.
"It's nice to be off the grid," John says as he tucks his feet under Rodney's ass.
Rodney tries to shoot him a withering look, but he suspects he's missed the mark when John's feet wriggle further underneath. "I told you we should have brought a heater," he complains. "The heating doesn't seem to reach to this level."
John shrugs as he presses the volume button.
Rodney sighs and turns back to his book. The game blares around him, but he ignores it.
*
Her people spend so much time running around that Atlantis doesn't always notice immediately when something is wrong. Her time before feels almost like a dream, an endless stream of days where nothing changed and each generation looked almost the same as the last. But now - changes flutter by every day so quickly that it almost takes up her entire memory to notice everything.
But there are always things that Atlantis focuses on. The war. The Wraith. Earth.
They left her once - left her to her former people and at first, Atlantis was joyous, but as the days trickled by, she kept on feeling the niggling feeling of something missing. Perhaps it was the interface they used. She never did like that particular control panel.
It just wasn't the same without the running around and the excitement.
She can't - she won't - let them leave again.
Atlantis watches as a fuzzy haired human works on her. She feels an odd warmth inside her wiring and is surprised to realise that maybe, just maybe, her people aren't going to leave, aren't going to just pick to pick up one day and power her down like she's just another piece of equipment.
They've going to take her home with them.
*
Rodney leans on the balcony railing and looks out at the Golden Gate Bridge. The bright, almost harsh lights of civilisation almost drown out the lights of Atlantis. Standing here, Rodney can almost imagine he's a part of the city.
"Quite a different view, huh?" John says as he comes up behind Rodney.
"It's a nice view, but on the whole I think I prefer the one we had before," Rodney finds himself admitting. "I had a look at the drives. Zelenka overloaded them on the way here, so it's going to take at least a few days for me to fix them."
"That long?" John teases.
"It would be shorter, if I wasn't so distracted," Rodney says with a grin. "I want to get home as much as you do."
"Home, huh?" John voice is light.
"Home," Rodney says firmly. He rests a hand on John's shoulder.
*
From one war into another, Atlantis watches her people.
Very rarely, she intervenes to protect them, but mostly she just watches to see how they change and how they grow.
Poll