Present Perfect Progressive
Summary: We all know there has to be more people on Atlantis than the fifteen or so they show every episode…
Disclaimer: Not mine, except for the archaeologists. But they pretty much run themselves…I just give them lots of notepads and feed them every so often.
You know, when I was down at Antarctica having a hernia because Dr. Jackson had just figured out the seventh symbol for Atlantis, this was pretty much not what I imagined was going to happen.
Don't get me wrong. I love this. It's phenomenal. Exceptional. Unparalleled. But also…well, frankly, some days it can get kind of boring around here.
Yes, I do know what you're thinking. Boring? In Atlantis? In the Atlantis, boring? But honestly, yeah. Ask anyone. Well, except for Dr. Weir, because the woman really needs a new aide before she collapses—Dr. Warner from Geology had a pool going before Colonel Sheppard stopped it, and whew, was that a sight to see—righteous indignation doesn't do anything bad for his looks, is all I'm saying—and SGA-1. Because those guys are just insane. Honestly, it's like they have a team of script writers assigned to their life, or something. Every other day it's body swapping, or superpowers, or being stuck in a jumper somewhere. And I guess that's all well and good for them, but for the rest of us…yeah. Boring.
Of course, AAL has it the worst. That's us. The Atlantis Archaeology and Linguistics team. Although Jones—head cook (what, did you think the Air Force was going to make the expedition heroes do it?) would beg to differ. There are only so many coffee substitutes one can experiment with, after all. But anyway…it was a blow for all of us when we found out that, hello, everyone here speaks English. Well, not for all of us—Tammy nearly died of excitement, because she's been working on a paper detailing the evolution of the English language for almost five years and the Pegasus galaxy just clinched her theory—but it was still disheartening to find out that we weren't nearly as needed as we thought we were going to be. Hence, the occasional boredom.
Of course, there's still too much to do. And most of the time it is fascinating—there's the burial ceremony of the Athosians and its similarity to certain Earth cultures, and the evolution of Sateda, and the absolutely incredible ruins that SGA-9 found last week that bear an unmistakable architectural similarity to Stonehenge—but I digress. Because for every incredible, life-altering discovery, there are also four-hours shifts of solid database translating, and there are only so many times you can get lucky before, instead of treatises on history and culture and the intricacies of Atlantean relationships, your four hours have to be spent on cloud patterns in the western hemisphere of the planet. Not quite important enough to fob off on Natural Sciences, but it still needs to be done. So we do it.
Sharon—that's Dr. Sharon Blair—thinks we should requisition a bunch of SGC newbies to do the dirty work for us. Which is all very well and good for her, because she wouldn't be the one to explain to Dr. Weir that we would rather concentrate on the links between Ascension and Atlantis' architecture, which is Sharon's special project. Which reminds me—the group of us.
There's Sharon, obviously, and Tammy—short for Tamsin Surrey. And Dr. James Carter, who's been studying the Athosians for the past year or so—he practically has his own jumper, he's down the mainland so often. And Darien, who's the only one of us who doesn't mind translating the database—we have to pull him away, actually. Says it's something about the flow of the language. And Jordan, who works on the socio-political meaning of the stick-fighting style. And Lucy Ames, who was the one responsible for the 'Hottest Man on Atlantis' questionnaire that got sent around all the computers last year. Colonel Sheppard just barely got beat out by those of us who would prefer to be able to trust our man to not go off on suicide missions every so often. He really gave Major Lorne—who won, by the way—hell for it, too. And Lucy would have been in trouble for that, except for Dr. McKay—I think he was flattered that he was in fourth place, right behind Ronon Dex. Honestly, I'm not quite sure why—yes, Dr. McKay has his own special brand of smug attractiveness, but I'd rather go out with someone I wouldn't keep wanting to slap.
There are more of us too, naturally. Like Dr. Allison Davis, who was a middle school teacher in another life. She's certainly the only one who can control the marines when they're fidgety, anyway. See, another thing the Linguistics people do is, a few times a week, we hold classes for the people on Atlantis who don't know Ancient. It's such a necessary skill, here. There are separate classes for the military and scientific folks, too—the first and only time we combined them, there was nearly bloodshed. Honestly. I'm almost positive that was the incident that spawned Dr. Morrison's study of personality regression…anyway, the classes are usually—I'll do with 'not terrible', here, for most of us, but one look over Allison's glasses and they're cowering in their seats. It's beautiful to watch, I can tell you that. Anyway.
But, you know, maybe it's a good thing that we aren't always as perpetually stressed as, say, the Physics department. It's allowed us to have lives, for one. Of course, those lives are squished in between Wraith invasion and Genii invasion and Replicator invasion, not to mention the occasional natural disaster, but none of us came here to be entirely uninterrupted. And we have the best relationship rate in the city—Tammy and Dr. O'Donnell from Biology have been dating for almost a year and half. And we're usually the ones to set up events and things—it's not like Dr. Weir has time. The Great Hockey Tournament, for instance, which was closely followed by the Great Football Game because Colonel Sheppard got jealous, and the massive chess tournament in the mess hall—always going on, there's a sign-up sheet taped to the door if you want to join. The title's held by Dr. Biro right now, actually, but pretty much everyone is maintaining that it's just luck. And Dr. Warner set up the huge relationship pool after his Dr. Weir one was busted—Colonel Sheppard and Teyla Emmagen were leading for a while, but now it's him and Dr. Weir, with Ronon Dex and Teyla instead. Although Dr. McKay and Dr Weir have their own little loyal group. And Dr. McKay and Colonel Sheppard. And—well, pretty much everyone you can think of is represented in there, matched with everyone else. Still, it keeps Dr. Warner busy. And there's the Trekkie club, and the Tolkien club, and the Doctor Who club, because yeah, we're a bunch of nerds. But then, the Marines have a weekly poker night, so to each their own.
So, yes, this isn't what I expected I would find in Atlantis. But it's a life. It's a wonderful life. I wouldn't trade it for anything else, honestly.
And so what if Dr. McKay keeps maintaining that astrophysics is the only real science? He's just jealous that he doesn't get to study the male-female dynamic in Wraith hives.