Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: Atlantis or Stargate: SG-1. Too bad.
Author's note: It seems not too many people liked 'Avenues.' Well, at least go and read the epilogue, you'll need it later (if you have any interest in reading the whole series). And give 'Avenues' a chance. I know I'm advertising my own story, but it's not like i have a publisher, after all! :-)
And for those of you who haven't read any of my stories yet, this is 'episode 4' of my 'Season 6' series. It reads as follows: 'I am Atlantis,' 'Spite and Malice,' 'The Last Petal 1&2' and 'Avenues.' There is also a Youtube video of 'I am Atlantis' with the same title.
Chapter 1
Rodney McKay looked at the little brown box in his hands. The ring nestled in there was worth a small fortune. It was big and shiny and pretty.
Sitnalta would hate it. Rodney might not be the world's foremost expert on human behaviour, but he knew his lover and she would hate the big, useless rock.
He sighed and put it in his pocket. He had bought the ring years ago when – for a while there – he had thought of proposing to Katie Brown. It had never come to that, though. Sitnalta had arrived on the scene and somehow Katie had slipped his mind. Maybe he should feel bad about that.
Or maybe not. Katie was happily married to another plants-guy and the two of them, along with that strange plant she had named after Rodney, seemed to be very happy. And of course, Rodney was deliriously happy with Sitnalta. She might be a handful, but he had never been as happy in his life as when he was with her.
He picked up his jacket and headed out of his office. He had an appointment he did not want to miss. Not again, anyway. The lady he had the appointment with had lots of really sharp tools and the way she had looked at him the last time he had been late, was enough to ensure he was aware of the fact that she also knew how to use those tools.
Besides, it was time to get rid of the big ring.
As he left the lab – where he had been hiding the ring – he nearly bumped into John Sheppard. The chief military commander seemed distracted, but even so he greeted Rodney.
"Hey, just the man I was looking for," John perked up. Rodney wondered what was broken and whether Radek Zelenka could fix it instead. Oh, right, Zelenka was off-world.
"What now?" Rodney grumbled.
"I don't know if you've noticed," John continued without taking any notice of Rodney's mood, "but Elizabeth has been acting strange lately. She seems kind of snappy," the pilot – among other things – explained.
Rodney groaned. "Do we have to discuss this? I'm late for a meeting."
For a while the two of them continued in silence. In truth, life on Atlantis has been rather boring these past few months and it seemed as if everyone was edgy because of it. It might become tiring: fighting the Wraith and all, but it was a life all of them had chosen. Those not strong enough to face the Pegasus Galaxy had already been expelled: they were the ones that had stayed behind on earth. But for almost five months now – ever since they've arrived back on Lantea – the most interesting thing that had happened had been Pavlov, Rodney and Sitnalta's overgrown puppy.
It had been John in a manner that had named the dog. Right from the start the dog had proven to be extremely enthusiastic, but also rather untrainable. No matter how much Rodney had tried, the dog only had two tricks. One of them – the one that annoyed Rodney the most – was that the dog had figured out how to work the control crystals that opened the doors. From the moment the dog had been tall enough to reach them, he had been able to open the doors. Rodney was sure the crystals shouldn't be responding to a dog-nose, but it was and since then the dog had been running around all over the city.
Of course – just to add spice to his life – the dog would not come when Rodney called. Well, it didn't have a name then, but Rodney was sure it should be responding to: "Hey, come back here, you mangy mutt!" As it didn't, Rodney ended up chasing it all over the city. It had become a rather familiar scene: the long-legged golden retriever/great dane running with a wide grin on its face and Rodney running behind it; shouting.
It had been during one of these stunts, when the dog had run through the control room, that John had smirked and told Elizabeth: "It's almost pavlovian: the dog runs and Rodney chases him." Elizabeth had raised an eyebrow and said in all seriousness: "If it's pavlovian, that makes the dog Pavlov."
As fate would have it, Sitnalta had just come up the steps at the back and had overheard Elizabeth's comment. After John and Elizabeth had explained its meaning, Sitnalta had smiled serenely. That same day still the rumour had spread and the dog's name had become well established. John thought it was a bit of elegant revenge (Rodney had once said he was pavlovian, that time they had discovered the Aurora), Sitnalta was happy that her dog finally had a name and Rodney was miffed that it was at his expense. All in all, everyone was happy – except Rodney, of course, but only until Sitnalta had been very nice about saying sorry that night.
"How are the Athosians settling in?" Rodney finally asked in an effort to break the silence.
"Oh," John said while raising his eyebrows. "Teyla and Ronon should be back from the mainland by tomorrow," the other man replied. Once more they ran out of things to say.
But the fact was that though life had become familiar, much of that was due to certain decisions that had taken weeks of arguing. The first of these had been the planet they would settle on. For a while they had considered finding a new planet and settling there. That had seemed the simplest. But then Teyla had pointed out that they already had a planet they had comprehensive data on: Lantea, the planet they had found Atlantis on five years ago. After that statement, the arguments had been tossed back and forth for a long while, but it had merely been as an afterthought: everyone had known Teyla had been correct: Atlantis belonged on Lantea. So they had returned there and had activated the cloak. Everyone was happy.
Another matter in the lives of the Atlanteans had been the matter of food: for years now they had become dependent on the provisions brought by the Daedalus. And though they had brought numerous seeds and livestock (yes, that had been extremely difficult in bringing to the city when they had been raiding earth), they stil needed somewhere to grow this – as well as people to grow it. It seemed that among the entire group from earth, there were only three with farming experience in the mix. They were going to need farmers: no-one liked the idea of living on those tava-beans Teyla had introduced them to.
Again Teyla had been the one to come up with the good idea: why not ask the Athosians to come back? They were great farmers and after the Atlanteans had saved them from Michael, they might just be willing to return to Lantea and live on the mainland again.
It turned out Teyla was right: most of the Athosians were willing to come back to Lantea. Only Halling, his family and another family decided to stay behind on the planet they were on. This broke Teyla's heart and for a while Elizabeth had tried talking to the man. She had even suggested the Athosians stay on the planet they were on. But it had seemed that most of the Athosians had felt lost without Teyla and really wanted to return to Lantea where she could be near them. And Halling had been adamant. So Teyla's people had split. Yet that had happened months ago already, and everyone was finding a new balance again. The Athosians were busy with the planting of crops and Ronon had taken Teyla's well-being on him. All in all, everything was going great. Teyla even got to spend a number of weekends with her people now.
"When's Zelenka coming back?" John asked this time.
Rodney only turned his head slightly to his friend. "We received word that the villages were nearly packed. And the shield should be ready for transport as soon as the villages are ready."
"Ah," John replied, the conversation grinding to a halt once more.
One of the first planets they had visited in their first year on Atlantis, had been M7G-677. It was the planet with all the kids: kids that were growing fast. Caris – the leader – had turned thirty-one only a few weeks after Atlantis had returned to Lantea. Some of the Atlanteans had gone to celebrate the day with him. That was when Rodney had discovered that due to a solar shift, the geo-electrical field of their planet had changed. The device that had caused the shut-down of technology needed that geo-electrical field to operate. But now, because of the change in that field, the device no longer functioned. The kids were vulnerable to the Wraith once more.
So Atlantis had offered sanctuary. Well, the deal had been that Atlantis got the device and would fiddle with it; hoping to make it work on Lantea. Meanwhile the kids could join the Athosians on the mainland if they wanted. Because Atlantis has advanced warning systems in place, the kids could be offered shelter in the city whenever the Wraith was near.
This had been decided a month ago. Zelenka had been the unfortunate scientist that had to lead the team removing the device, but now he was due back any day – device and kids in tow.
Finally the two friends turned a corner. Next to one of the doors a neat little sign read: Sophia's. This was where Rodney was headed. Sophia was the sister of one of the marines that had joined the expedition. And though Rodney had always thought people that fiddled with stones and metal and then called themselves jewellers were strange, the image had never included Sophia's sarcastic look or the short-cropped red hair she sported.
She scared Rodney slightly. But she was good – and the only one of her trade on Atlantis. She also thought it was awesome that precious metals were considered worthless on Atlantis – Atlanteans held much stock by naqwada and any metal used to operate the city, but had little time for gold (except as a super-conductor, but then again, who needed super-conductors when they had crystal-technology?). Therefore any metals found were simply given to her. Never before had any jeweller had the freedom of unlimited resources without having to pay for it.
Rodney waved his hand over the control crystals and the door slid open. They stepped in. Behind the counter Sophia smiled, but she did so while glaring at them over the top of her glasses. It was this look that gave Rodney chills.
"You've come to collect your ring?" she asked. Rodney nodded: that had not been a question, he was sure.
She reached down behind the counter. When she straightened, she was holding a small engraved wooden box. She flipped it open to reveal the ring nestled inside. When Rodney had come to order the ring almost three weeks ago, he had asked her to make him something that was Atlantis. And now he had to admit the woman had done exactly that.
He picked up the ring and turned it around in his hands. From the side it looked like a small stargate. But running around the edge were the seven symbols that dialled Atlantis. No: he was wrong. It only had six of the seven home-address symbols engraved on it. Where the seventh should be, a single blue sapphire was nestled in the metal.
"I hope that diamond you promised is big enough for two other rings," Sophia piped up. "It's not that I mind working with new metals, but that naqwada alloy you brought me was a bitch to work with," she grumbled.
Rodney reached into his pocket. "Oh, yeah," he said as he did so. He removed the diamond ring and handed it to the jeweller. She opened the box and smiled. Well, she had better: that was a two-carat diamond she was holding!
"This will do," she told him. Then she smiled at him. "Let me know what Sitnalta think of it," she said before dismissing them.
Within seconds Rodney and John found themselves back in the hallway.
"Wow, it's like talking to a Wraith queen!" John exclaimed.
"Tell me about it," Rodney muttered. "She had all these ideas about the ring and all I could do was nod."
"So," John drawled as they finally se off, back the way they had come. "When is the big day?"
