Disclaimer: If you recognise it, I don't owe it.
AN: Okay, this part changes everything. Sumner never made it past epi 2 in canon, but in my 'verse, he'll be hanging around for a while.
First To Know
The city was safe. John had saved Frank Sumner and Adam was looking after the man in his fully stocked Hospital. No one knew how Adam had found everything he needed for the hospital, but they all figured that as a doctor and a miracle worker, he had to have a sixth sense about what equipment did what.
Inwardly laughing, Adam checked on Frank and then he wasn't laughing anymore. The last time he'd been here in Atlantis, he hadn't had the same amount of control over his Quickening. But now, he knew that he could use his Quickening to de-age Frank. Since that aging was unnatural, putting his Quickening into the man would put his body back to natural order. Which meant that he'd go back to being forty-eight.
But the problem was, how could he do it without raising a slew of questions he didn't want to answer.
"Adam?" John's voice echoed a bit in the empty hospital and Adam turned to look. John was bedraggled.
"John, what's wrong?"
"I," John took a deep breath, "I almost shot him. I almost killed him." Adam shook his head ready to tell John that he wouldn't have done that, but John was already talking again, "I would have killed him, put him out of his misery, but I knew that you could save him, so he's still alive."
"Oh John," Adam wrapped his arms around John and held him tight. It was never a good thing when someone realized that they could kill a man in cold blood, even if it was to save them from torture. "John, I can save him, but I don't know how to without letting people know what I am. How do I explain the Quickening to Weir. Or hell, Rodney?"
"I don't know." John sighed then stood away from Adam, "I wanted to ask about what you laughed at when we arrived."
Just thinking about it, Adam laughed again, "Oh, you know those steps with the patterns on them in the Gate room?"
"It was a pattern?"
"Yah, it's Ancient. The eighth step up says 'Welcome to Atlantis, please wipe your feet.' The one above that says ' Please do not use any mind-altering chemicals before 'Gate use.'." Shaking his head at the humour of the 'Gate Builders, Adam checked once more on Frank, only to find the now ninety year old man awake.
"You... can read... Ancient?" Wheezy and old, Frank stared at his doctor with wide eyes. It took Daniel Jackson months to figure Ancient out, and it didn't take longer because he was trying to keep General O'Neill alive. If it hadn't been pressing, it would have taken up to a year.
"Yes." Adam didn't see a point in lying about it, people were going to find out exactly what he was sooner or later, and it was done better one on one, then having mass hysteria.
"How?" Colonel Frank Sumner wanted to know everything, and Methos was willing to tell him.
To Be Continued
