Author Notes: I'm just going to let you know, you can pretty much ignore anything in season 4, and the end of Season 3. I may use late Season 3 elements but there are a couple major plot issues that I ignore to keep this fic going. It's officially AU. Oh, and Ana Sheppard is an original character of mine, not of the show's creation as we don't know anything about John's family except he doesn't send home 'I'm going to die, so here's my goodbye' video messages home.

This chapter is not beta'd. In fact, this whole story must not have been beta'd because as I was doing some fact checking with how much I talked about Nick Spinnet I noticed how many mistakes there were. I'm on the search for a beta for this, but as it is NANO this month, it may be awhile.

Reader's Poll: What names should the babies have?


Chapter 4

Rodney, Radek and Ronon were almost finished gearing up when John arrived back in what was being titled 'The Baby Room' by the general population. How the information about what happened had gotten spread around, there was no concrete answer. However, John had the suspicion that the infirmary news chain had been in full force again.

Radek had brought several hand-held scanner devices that should allow them to survey the hidden lab without touching anything that might cause the room to activate again. He had registered a power surge and recorded the electronic signature so the scanners could see any device that held a similar one.

Personally, John would prefer not to touch anything. The scientists disagreed, believing that any technology they found should be examined for use in some way. He supposed they were right, but he had a bad feeling that anything found in this lab wasn't going to be useful to them. Not unless they wanted to repopulate the city.

Ronan went down the stairs first, followed by Radek and Rodney with John filing in last place. The room was dark, so the first job was to find a way to activate a lighting system. The lights from the P90s John and Rodney carried was not very adequate given the size of the lab. Ronon and Radek went to the left while John and Rodney went to the right to see if they could find the light switch. Or whatever the ancients called it.

"So what's between you and Dora?" Rodney asked as he peered at the wall. "It seems you two are actually getting along for once."

"We called a truce, I guess."

"So you're not going to tell me why the two of you fight in the first place?"

"We used to date, back in high school," John said reluctantly and only half-truthfully. Rodney blinked.

"And she's still angry about that? What the hell did you do?"

"Why do you think I did anything?" Rodney just gave him a pointed stare and he sighed. "Yeah, it was me." He paused when they came across a panel on the wall. Rodney looked over it with the scanner and hit a button. Half the lights in the room turned on.

"Are you going to finish?" Apparently the light hadn't exposed anything that grabbed Rodney's eye and make him forget the conversation.

"I broke things off over a stupid fight about my relationship with my family." He decided that even though Rodney was the closest thing he had to a best friend, he wasn't about to tell him that in reality it was their marriage he had called off. They had been high school sweethearts and had married almost before they graduated. His parents had been mad; her parents had just brushed it off. Granted, her parents weren't that interested in Dora's life. Either way, the marriage had lasted barely a year when his relationship with his parents soured and she tried to get them to talk again. He wasn't quite sure how, but they ended up fighting themselves and then he decided on a whim (that every once and awhile he regretted) to divorce her.

"Wait…is your sister named Ana?"

"Yes. How did you know I had a sister?"

"Remember, I was still talking with Jeanne when she started dorming with Dora. That's how I know her from before the Stargate program. I just remembered there was a third girl in the dorm named Ana and that when we met they were discussing why Ana's brother wasn't helping them because Dora was fighting with him. I guess that's you then."

"Chances are." Dora and Annie had been best friends in high school. That was how he met her. He hadn't talked to her since about the same time he stopped talking to his other family members. She hadn't really forgiven him for what happened with Dora.

Radek found the other light panel and the four men began to search the room for answers.


Once Dora was done organizing Elizabeth's office and finishing off some of the most urgent needs of the expedition on whole, she decided to go spend some time with Elizabeth and Teyla, knowing the girls were probably tired of seeing just the infirmary staff for hours on end not to mention tired of playing card games. She picked up some books from Elizabeth's room and a chessboard from the recreation room and made her way down to the infirmary.

She found them just finishing their dinner, with the nurses on duty removing the dinnerware as she walked into the room. Both smiled at her, clearly still in good spirits despite the situation.

She had managed to have a moment with Jennifer Keller, Carson's second in command about their conditions earlier. Apparently despite the rapid nature of the pregnancy both the mothers and their children were doing quite well.

Elizabeth was very happy to receive the books. She was getting tired of just sitting around and anything would be more pleasant then watching the doctors walk around the infirmary.

Dora set up the Chess game in between the two. Teyla had expressed interest in the game after hearing John talk about it, so Elizabeth and Dora decided to play a game to show her how it was played. As she sat the pieces on the board, she updated the two women on the on goings of the city.

"I talked to the SGC," she mentioned as she put the last piece on the board. "Landry thinks I'm doing alright for now, but should this require more time then another week or so, or if you should choose to take leave He'll be sending someone to run the base on a more…well permanent temporary basis so I can go back to heading my own department."

"Leave?" Teyla asked, not quite understanding the statement in that context.

"Well, they are options once the children are born," Dora answered. "There is the option of putting the child up for adoption with one of the Athosian families or perhaps one back on earth. After all, these children weren't exactly your decision or even the result of a mistake you made. They were forced upon you. However, if you choose to keep your child you'd be given maternal leave, a few months off to adjust to being a new mother, just like any other women in employment by the SGC. The only additive was that both of you would have to have a rotation as far as off-world goes. They don't want to put you or your families in danger if they don't have to, so you'll have to choose someone to go in your place on the off trips."

"Well, that's something we'd have to consider," Elizabeth said softly. "I hadn't even thought about what happens after the baby is born, at least not in depth. It's kinda been that distant thought. I should have thought about it more."

"Well, considering your both in the middle of this whole adventure, I think you'd be able to get away with a few moments of living in the now," Dora said with a smile. "Are you two feeling ok, by the way?"

"Yes, for the most part," Teyla commented. " Carson believes that due to the quick nature of the gestation period, what would normally go away after a small portion of the pregnancy will be for the duration. Like being sick all the time."

"Ah, morning sickness. I had it all day too. I always found that chamomile tea and gingersnap cookies always helped me." Dora offered.

"I'll take that into account. I'm sure that the Athosians have a similar tea that may work. I shall ask Halling when he visits tomorrow."

Elizabeth was watching Dora silently as she and Teyla talked. The women rarely talked about her marriage to Nicholas Spinnet. Only that the divorce had helped in the decision on whether or not to accept the job at Atlantis. She had only met the man once but he had been totally opposite in personality as Dora, and not in a good way. He had also worked as a linguist for the SGC, in fact from what Elizabeth could find out about it from Teal'c and Daniel that was where the two met. Dora was the type to fall easily apparently, and they were married within months of meeting. However while Dora was sweet natured, usually even-tempered (except when John was involved) and got along with most everyone she worked with, or at least attempted to, Nick was a stereotypical snob. Daniel, who ran the department, had almost decided to send him to Atlantis just to get rid of him, but thought better of it. He hadn't wanted the expedition to suffer both him and Kavanagh. So in the end Dora was asked to accept the position as the head of the Linguistics department. At first she declined, and as such didn't make it on the first year. However Nick's jealousy of the fact that she was more adapt at what she did (at least according to Daniel) and the clashing of their personalities had finally torn the two apart and a mere four years after they got married they were divorced and she was on her way to Atlantis.

She was quite surprised to hear Dora speak of morning sickness as if she had been pregnant once. She knew that Dora had no children; it had been one of the things they had insisted on with the Atlantis mission. No one wanted people to leave families and children behind on earth when they might never come back. She wondered what had happened.

"You were pregnant?" she asked. Dora turned to her, looking surprised. Perhaps she hadn't thought about how that statement would reveal that fact.

"Yes, a long time ago, back in college. I miscarried at five months." Elizabeth was surprised at how matter-of-factly she had said that. But then she saw that look in Dora's eyes and knew it was not because she was used to telling people, in fact the opposite. But she trusted Elizabeth and Teyla with this information about her. That and she needed to let it out. Obviously seeing her and Teyla pregnant had brought back the memories. Dora paused for a second before saying something else. "You know, I had just found out the gender of the baby a few days before I miscarried. I was barely far enough along to tell, and they told me that it could be wrong, but it was a little boy. I remember thinking hoping he'd look just like his dad." She smiled at the end, her eyes a little teary at the memories. It had been one of the most joyful and hardest months of her life.

"I'm sorry," Teyla said softly, squeezing Dora's hand. She wondered what she would do, if she lost the twins inside her. She already felt a connection with them. Tomorrow Carson would do an ultrasound and she'd get her first look at her children. She already knew she'd keep them. She couldn't imagine loosing them now.


Never, ever push a button if you don't know what it was meant to do. Rodney fully believed this should be the science departments motto after this. In fact, he'd bring it up with Elizabeth whenever they got out of the mess they were in if he could add 'Do you have a tendency to push buttons without a full investigation first?' to the applications for positions in his department.

Things had been going so well till Ronan of all people had chosen to put pressure on a button that caused it to go inward, putting them in their current conditions.

The button had opened the floor onto a slant and they had fallen through and slid down. They had to be at least three or four floors from where they started in the underground laboratory. If they fell anymore they'd be in the ocean.

Ronon was the only one without a serious injury. He was bleeding quite profusely, but he had assured the others that it looked worse then it was since it was a head wound. He seemed to be current when after a few minutes it stopped though Ronon for the first time ever seemed light headed.

Radek had noticeably broken his arm. Ronon was able to fix it so the bone was no longer sticking at such an angle that everyone could see it protruding form his arm. It would need medical attention, but he did the best he could with the first aid kit Carson had insisted they bring down.

Rodney himself figured he had at least something broken, several cuts that were bleeding much more then he cared to see (granted, that was any bleeding at all, and he wouldn't be so concerned if he hadn't had the time to dwell on them).

The worse injured appeared to be John. When they had finally finished falling, he had been the one on the bottom, so he had received a blow to the head that had made him unconscious. Ronan and Rodney had both fallen on him and Radek a few feet beyond, but at a better angle so only his arm was broken.

Rodney wasn't sure what scared him most at the moment. The fact that John hadn't woken up in the ten minutes it had taken them to set up lights and tend to the wounds they had as much as they good with the tiny kit, or what Elizabeth and Dora were going to do with them when they found out that they had left their radios up in the entrance to the lab.

And thinking about how those two women would be looking at them, when they were all back in the infirmary with proper medical attention kept him occupied enough to make him not dwell on his own injuries.


Next chapter: Nighttime on Atlantis brings Dora a nightmare, Lorne lots of worries, and John consciousness.