Poetry in Motion

Pairings: McWeir, implied Sheyla

AN: So I'm on holiday, and toying with the idea of doing a future-fic involving the children of our beloved Atlantis characters. I've done it before, with Andromeda, and it turned epic, so much so that I'm still writing the bloody thing! (And yes, to thos eof you wondering, i am going to finish it, I just have, you know, a life to deal with first). But these characters wont leave me alone, so I've decided to write them. However, learning from experiance, I'm not going to do a future-meats-present fic (that story line has been done to death anyway, particularly in Stargate fiction). Instead, I'm going to do a series of vignettes, set roughly twenty five to thirty years from the present stargate continuity, centering around the lives of the Atlantis personell at that time. These fics will be written as and when I feel like it, and will apear without any real beginning, middle or end, in no particular order. They can be taken seperately or as a series, whichever you feel. This is the first one, and more will probably follow.

Have fun, and leave lots of reviews!

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"How did we spawn a poet?" Rodney demanded, as he sat down on the bed next to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth looked up at her husband over the top her book, "we didn't spawn anything, Rodney. I gave birth. To our son. You were there, remember?"

"You think I'd forget?" Rodney shuddered. The birth of his son had to have been one of the grossest experiences of his life, and one he didn't feel like repeating. Of course, the fact that the experience had transpired in a leaking bunker deep beneath Atlantis city while the outer edges were being bombarded by Wraith flyers, might have contributed to the general unpleasantness of the situation.

Thank God Alison had been delivered through a suzerain section.

Elizabeth was getting way too good at reading what he was thinking, "I wish you didn't associate the walking embodiments of our love for each other with the worst thing you ever had to witness."

"I try not to," he offered, pulling the duvet up over him and looking peevish. "Anyway, the poet thing. Where did that come from? Do you have any poets in the family? There are none on my side, I can tell you."

"None on my side either," Elizabeth turned the page in her book, "Thomas is just… unique."

"I can tell." Rodney scrubbed a hand through what was left of his hair (he blamed his offspring for the loss in that department) and began rearranging his pillows.

Elizabeth observed her husband patiently, then tugged his pillows straight with a deft movement she alone had mastered. He blinked at her. "How do you do that?"

"I'm unique."

"Well, I guess that's something we have going for us," Rodney pressed a kiss to her cheek. Despite appearances, he was a very affectionate man, Elizabeth knew. And, no matter what he said, he loved his children.

"I think it's sweet," Elizabeth commented.

"The poetry?"

"Yes," Elizabeth put her book aside, "he's been writing sonnets."

"He's meant to be a scientist!" Rodney cried, exasperated.

"He is a scientist," Elizabeth reassured him. She knew few people as scientific as Thomas; the boy (why was it that she still called him 'baby' in her head when he was already well past his nineteenth birthday?) was startlingly bright. But he was also creative, something she suspected she had influenced, because Rodney had not an artistic bone in his body. Thomas had an expressive side that had manifested itself in various forms throughout his childhood, from doodling on the walls as a toddler, to water painting as a teenager. Now it seemed to be poetry, and the occasional song.

Of course, the creative bouts were at their strongest when he had someone to express about…

"I blame Sheppard junior number one," Rodney groused, hitting the nail on the head.

"She has a name, dear," Elizabeth reminded him.

Rodney rolled his eyes. He rarely called his own children by name, let alone the children of his colleagues.

Elizabeth shook her head, "well, it's still rather sweet. He's quite smitten, isn't he?"

"He's been smitten since he was two freaking years old!" Rodney was still irritated, "we could not keep him away from that baby, do you remember? Always asking where Matriana was. Where's Matti, daddy? Can I see the baby, daddy? Can I hold the baby, daddy? Anyone with eyes has seen this one coming for a very long time. I just wish they'd get it over with. Romance is extremely over rated."

"Is it?" Elizabeth was vaguely disappointed by her husband. Not that he'd been much of a Casanova in and around their marriage (he was so emotionally inept that she'd had to do most, if not all of the leg work during the early stages of their relationship, though he had had the decency to propose), but she liked to think of his romantic side as suppressed, not dead.

"At least when it's all gooey teenaged stuff," Rodney back tracked. "It's… what does Beckett say? Bloody painful."

Elizabeth smiled. "Oh, let them be."

"Let me guess; you think they're sweet." Rodney dead-panned.

Elizabeth folded her arms, "as a matter of fact, I do. They ought to have children. Then we'll be grandparents."

Rodney looked positively panic stricken, "oh, God! What if Matti ends up pregnant? John'll kill me!"

"John wont kill you," Elizabeth waved him off. "He'll kill Thomas. Then Teyla will come after you."

If anything, Rodney looked even more terrified. John he could outsmart. Teyla was intelligent and lethal.

Elizabeth laughed, "Oh, Rodney, it wouldn't happen like that. Thomas is smart. So is Matti. They're sensible enough to make sure. Besides, it might be a few years. Thomas is still on the chase. By all accounts, Matti is playing hard to get. Why do you think he's writing so much poetry?"

"Next you're going to tell me that you and Teyla are planning to lock them in a broom cupboard for the night," Rodney said, only half joking.

Elizabeth eyed her husband innocently, "what would make you think that?"

"I know what you two are like," Rodney replied, grimly.

"Oh, honestly, Rodney," Elizabeth looked away, "we'd think of something more original than a broom closet…"

Rodney felt a sudden surge of overwhelming pity for his son, and sank down in the covers. He had to admit sharing a certain comradery with Thomas. The boy (why did he still call him 'baby' in his head when Thomas was nearly twenty?) was as clueless about the women in their family as he was. Hair loss aside, he was, in many ways, glad he wasn't young anymore. At least he'd gotten married. And passed on his genes, even if the carriers of those genes were rather less than ideal. Thomas still faced a life time of humiliating encounters, before someone like Elizabeth took pity on him and had the decency to fall in love.

Or maybe he would end up with Matriana after all. There were worse women in the world than the offspring of John Sheppard and Teyla Emmagan. Or, he was assuming there were…

"Where did he get that guitar from, anyway?" Rodney asked, frowning as a distant chord came to his ears from the neighbouring room.

Elizabeth shrugged, "I think he bought it off one of the other kids when they brought it back from Earth. He's teaching himself to play. You ought to be pleased; musical skill is often linked to mathematical ability."

"I'd be more pleased if he could put that mathematical ability to something that wasn't making so much noise at this time of night," Rodney sighed, knocking a fist to the wall behind his head.

"It's hardly any noise," Elizabeth pointed out, giving him a kiss to show she wasn't going to be put off by his grumpiness.

"I love you, Elizabeth," Rodney sighed, resigned.

They were not a family that did nicknames. It was strange, now he thought about it. Elizabeth was Elizabeth. She was never Lizzie, or Liz, or even Beth. Just Elizabeth. It was the same with Thomas. Even in the earliest days of childhood, he had never answered to Tom, or Tommy. Elizabeth had always used his full name, and now he hated having it shortened. Even Alison refused nicknames. She winced when people called her Ally. She said it sounded too cute. In fact, he was the only person who ever got away with it, because he'd called her Ally-pally when she was a toddler.

Yet in the Sheppard-Emmagan household they were nothing but nicknames. Matti hated her full name. She'd been Matti since she had been old enough to vocalise her distaste for Matriana. And Rista, too, was rarely, is ever, called Ristrabell. Even John could be heard calling Teyla 'Tay' when the mood took him, though usually this was only when he was talking to her. And John was probably short for Jonathon anyway.

Two rather dysfunctional families, and two completely different ways of managing the name problem. Perhaps they were both a little off. Or perhaps it was just too dangerous to guess at the inner workings of that particular family group. They were a strange and mysterious bunch. Great people, but weird.

"Good night, Rodney," Elizabeth, interrupting his musings, reached across him (she smelled like soap and fabric softener, the same sent he had grown so accustomed to smelling every night for nearly twenty five years now,) and switched off the bedside light.

"Good night, Elizabeth," he answered, reaching for the familiar feel of her cotton pyjamas, as she settled into his arms.

Thomas was too young to write poetry, anyway. You couldn't write when you were only nineteen; not about anything meaningful. You didn't know enough, hadn't been through enough. Give Thomas another thirty years of Wraith attacks and heart breaks and love affairs and children and friends and a family seemingly springing out of nowhere. Then he'd have something to write poetry about.

Here, he told his son, mentally, here's your poetry. When she's safe in your arms, and your children are strong and growing; when all you want or need in life is the sound of her breathing in the dark, when you've lived through moments when you thought she'd never breathe again; that's poetry in life. That's poetry in motion.

Rodney was still listening to Elizabeth breathing when he fell asleep.