009. Months; The Subtle Differences
Title: The Subtle Differences
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Amelia Banks, Alicia Vega
Prompt: 009 Months
Word Count: 613
Rating: G
Summary: What is a month in Atlantis time?
Notes: Small spoilers for Season 4 Midway. Implied pairing. LDT
*
“So, how’s your first month in Atlantis been, Amy?”
“It’s Amelia.”
“Whatever.”
Vega handed her a beer and she gratefully accepted it. They smiled at each other at their little ongoing joke. Ever since the first time they had met they had gone through this ritual of greeting. It felt oddly comforting, something normal on this alien planet.
“So how’s the month been?”
“You know, I don’t know if I would call it a month.”
“What is it then?” Vega, ever the soldier, asked of her. Of course she wouldn’t notice how the moon, or rather the three moons that currently orbited the planet, weren’t on the same timing as the earth’s moon. But Banks did.
“An earth month, I guess.”
“Oh, my god! You’ve been possessed by aliens!” Vega mocked her. Banks just gave her a playful glare.
“No, seriously,” Banks continued, ignoring Vega for the moment. She took a swig of her drink. “We have three moons and none orbit at the same speed, none are the same as the moon back home. So what exactly is a month here?”
The scientific nature of the question seemed to baffle Vega because she took a rather long drink. Banks waited for the answer but it never came. She laughed instead.
They were silent for a little while and Amelia, looking for something to do tipped a little bit of her beer over the edge of the pier and watched as it fell a few hundred feet into the water below.
“Hey, don’t waste that. I paid good money for it.” Amelia looked back over her shoulder at Vega. “Okay, fine. I won it in a bet. So really, I still paid for it in a sense.”
“What was the bet?”
“The fight today.”
“But I thought there wasn’t a winner.”
“Yeah, only because Carter broke it up. But I was smart and bet on both anyway. Chuck was reluctant to let me collect but I explained that technically I picked right.”
“You mean that you threatened him.” Vega’s answering smile was all the confirmation Banks needed.
“To victory, then,” Banks offered. Vega chinked her bottle against the one offered and they both drank.
They were silent again, sporadically drinking.
“So you masterfully avoided my question,” Vega said suddenly. Banks almost jumped from the sudden interruption.
“I told you, your question doesn’t technically make sense.” Vega aimed a glare in her direction but her attention was diverted out to the wide, open ocean. One of the moons in question hung low on the horizon, almost painfully bright in the dying light.
“Alright, so, going by that moon right there, how long is a month?” Vega asked her, hoping to stump the technician and get back to normal conversation. But Banks wasn’t so easily stumped, apparently.
“Approximately two and a half earth weeks.” She supplied, smirking though Vega couldn’t see it.
“okay...” Vega pondered her next move over another swig of her drink. “What about that small moon that you can only see when the sun comes up?”
“That one is one day,” Amelia said. “You can only see it when the sun comes up because it rotates with the sun.”
Vega furrowed her brow. “And the third moon?”
“That one is one Earth month and a day.” Banks finally turned to Vega and grinned. This earned her a quick slap across the shoulder closest to Vega. They both laughed then both took drinks.
“So, Amelia,” Vega aimed at her companion. Amelia smiled at the use of her name. “How was your first month?”
Banks threw her empty bottle as far as she could into the ocean. “It was fine. Thanks for asking.”
*