Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me – just borrowing!
Chapter 1 – Racing
Atlantis at night; a sparkling diamond in the velvet black of the ocean. Serene; peaceful in its Ancient dignity.
Then a slowly-building whining sound and the silence shattered by a yell.
"Sheppard! You cut me up again!"
"All part of racing, McKay, you know what they say: 'If you can't stand the heat...'"
The whining crescendoed as two remote-controlled cars, a blue Maserati and a red Lamborghini, sped along the corridor. A sharp left, the blue spun around, cannoning into the red and both careened across the smooth floor and impacted hard on a door.
The was silence. And then a piercing, wailing shriek. The door slid open and out came Teyla, dishevelled, carrying a wailing Torren in her arms, red-faced and drooling, chewing on his fists in an attempt to relieve the pain in his gums. Teyla put one of her fingers in his mouth and he latched onto it, chewing hard.
Teyla's eyes fell on the cars and their two shame-faced drivers. She had looked less frightening as a Wraith queen.
"Three minutes!" she spat. "Three! Minutes! That is how long he has been asleep! All night!"
The two men shifted uneasily. "Sorry, Teyla," they muttered.
"It is very late!" Teyla said, sternly. "You should both be in bed!"
"Well, we were working on some Ancient artefacts," said Rodney.
"Yeah, some really cool ones!" enthused John.
"And we had some coffee," added Rodney.
"A lot of coffee!" said John.
"Waaay too much coffee," giggled Rodney, then immediately tried to stifle his glee and look contrite.
"And then we had some power bars," continued John.
"A lot of power bars!" said Rodney, unable to contain his enthusiasm.
"Waaay too many power bars!" John grinned.
"And now we're hyped!" Rodney bounced slightly on his toes.
Teyla looked at them stonily. She took her finger out of Torren's mouth. It looked very red and chewed. He immediately began to whimper so she inserted a different finger. Torren gratefully grabbed her hand in both of his tiny chubby fists and resumed his chomping and slurping.
"You know," said John tentatively, "you might want to try one of your bantos rods instead of one of your fingers."
"I have tried that - they are too big!" she said with the wild-eyed look of a woman who has tried everything and found no solutions.
"Oh, well, erm, is there anything we can do?" mumbled John.
"Yes!" Teyla said firmly. "You can find somewhere else to play noisy games!" She turned abruptly and carried her miserable, teething baby back into her room. The door slid shut with a dismissive snap.
Sheppard and McKay picked up the errant vehicles and as quietly as they could in their booted feet, tiptoed away down the corridor.
"Maybe we should call it a night," suggested John.
"No!" Rodney was determined. "I want my revenge! And I'm not going to be able to sleep til I've got it!"
"OK, well, where can we go where nobody'll hear us?" wondered Sheppard. "Hey, how about that place Major Teldy and her team found?"
"What place?"
"A theatre! A bit like a Roman amphitheatre, you know, with tiered seats and a big round space in the middle."
"They found an Ancient theatre?" exclaimed Rodney, his eyes glittering with caffeine and sugar. He struck an extravagant pose, took a deep breath and began to declaim: "Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them!" He paused. "Julius Caesar, Shakespeare."
John struck an even more extravagant pose, the back of one hand to his forehead, other hand flung out dramatically. "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"
"You do realise that wherefore means why, not where?" Rodney went into lecturing mode, hands waving expressively. "Everyone thinks Juliet's wondering where he's got to, whereas really she's saying 'Why did I have to fall in love with a Montague?'"
"Oh," said John, blankly. "Anyway, I was thinking it would make a great racetrack."
"Is it far?"
John shrugged. "We can get a transporter, then maybe ten, fifteen minutes' walk?"
"Let's go!" bounced Rodney.
John wondered briefly if he should pump Rodney full of coffee and power bars before all their missions; he was never this enthusiastic about walking off-world.
They reached their destination and as they entered the huge circular room oval lights in wall sconces flickered on, illuminating the scene before them. The walls were of dark red with subtle gold ornamentation and tiered seating with the appearance of white marble descended in concentric rows to a large space in the centre.
The two men clattered down the rows of seats and set the cars down on the ground. There was some lively discussion about who would take the outside track, until it was agreed there was plenty of room for a figure eight course and the gold inlaid pattern in the floor would help guide their route.
Then there was a hitch. Rodney's car seemed to have come off worst in the collision with Teyla's door. The steering was off and, grumbling, he sat down on the lowest row of seats, pulled out a tiny toolkit from his jacket pocket and began tinkering.
John decided to look around. He strolled around the arena, idly hopping up and down the rows of seats, his dark hair flopping as he moved. He had seldom felt to carefree. Even the ever-present threat of the Wraith couldn't dampen his spirits.
It had been doubtful, at first, whether Atlantis would return to the Pegasus Galaxy, but eventually it was decided that Atlantis and her personnel were best deployed strengthening ties with their Pegasus allies and searching for more Ancient technology with which to defend themselves. The SGC would perform the same role from earth, led by the recently promoted General Carter and both Atlantis and the SGC would be searching for parts to repair the earth weapons chair.
So, once repairs to Atlantis had been carried out, the city had returned across the vastness of inter-glactic space. And there was one mother and one baby very glad to be reunited
John felt that it was a fresh start. Mistakes of the past would never be forgotten, but he felt it was time to move on and face the future undaunted. He was glad to be back doing the job he felt he was born for. Hence the high spirits, not only down to an overdose of caffeine and sugar.
John was on the top tier of seats when he something different about one area; a control console, facing down towards the arena.
"Hey, McKay, come and look at this!"
Rodney looked up from his car, set it down and bounded up the steps to join Sheppard.
"Hmm... Lighting? Sound? Try it!"
John put his hands on the console and it lit up. There were various buttons and sliders. He pressed a button; a spotlight appeared in the centre of the arena and all the other lights went dark.
"Leave it like that!" said Rodney and bounced back down the steps to stand in the spotlight. He drew himself up and arranged his face into a stern expression. "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears..." he declaimed, "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him!"
John fiddled with another key and Rodney was bathed in a soft, pink glow.
"Hey, you're spoiling the mood," he complained. "I'm not Juliet! We should stage some Shakespeare! I could play Macbeth! Or Hamlet! Or Romeo! Women would be swooning in the aisles!"
John smirked, his crooked smile climbing the side of his face. "Keller might," he muttered. He carried on twiddling the controls, making Rodney's voice alternately boom and fade, creating a cascading effect of tiny white lights and then a strobing effect which had Rodney strongly protesting and resuming his tinkering with his Maserati.
John returned the lighting to normal and Rodney set the Maserati down for a test drive.
"This is fine now! Ready to beat you in, let's say ten laps!" called Rodney, manoeuvring the car in a series of tight turns and reversals.
"OK!" John said, without looking up. "I'll just try one last effect," he said to himself pressing a key.
Nothing happened.
"Huh!" he exclaimed, disappointed and turned back to the console to power it down.
He heard Rodney say, "What? Where did...?" in confusion. He heard Rodney's boots clopping forward against the marble-like floor. But by the time he looked up, Rodney was nowhere to be seen.