I do not own Stargate, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, nor do I own any of its characters. I make no profit off this story excepting in my own personal pleasure of writing it. This is set AU after the end of Season Five of Stargate Atlantis. It completely disregards the Legacy book series, so please no flames that it's ignoring those. Also a few characters may go a bit OOC because I feel like it. If you don't like it, don't read it.
Chapter 22: Winds of Change
John could feel Todd's discomfort even before he fully woke up. As his husband neared his 40th week of pregnancy, just another two days to go, and Keller insisted on having Todd exactly at 40 weeks before delivering their daughter, his stomach and made it increasingly difficult for Todd to sleep well. This meant that, as a result, John got just as little sleep. It was the only real downside that John had found to their bond so far. Well, that and Rodney freaking out when he had seen Hawk breastfeeding his baby, named Yuki.
John didn't mind in the slightest that one of the side effects of the bond meant that he and Todd would both lactate and breastfeed their baby. It made sense in a way, even human males had mammary glands, it was just that they didn't ever get the chemical signals from the brain to trigger lactation, normally at least. The bond meant the John's did and he was actually a bit relieved by this.
One of the biggest fights he had had with Nancy was while Rikki was a baby. Nancy had been constantly exhausted at first because she had been bound and determined to breastfeed Rikki until she was one, convinced it was the healthiest option for her. John had argued to at least allow him to take over some of the nigh feedings so that she could rest more, using formula. The fight had finally been settled when John's father had given them a breast pump a month after Rikki's birth. It meant that John could give their daughter breastmilk, but also that Nancy would get the necessary rest.
The fact that John would be breastfeeding this baby, and the future babies, as well as Todd, meant that the possiblity of the argument had been completely avoided. Of course, that didn't mean that Rodney hadn't completely freaked out over the whole thing, blowing it way out of proportion and driving John bonkers in the process.
When Todd stirred, trying to adjust into a more comfortable position, John allowed his mate to shift his body to better support the bump. His thoughts then drifted over to all the events of the past months. Bitterwind had been better than her word. With the addition of her efforts to influence other hives and the process of the Lanteans destroying any hives that attempted to attack human and Wraithkin occupied worlds, seventeen more hives had submitted to the retrovirus. They had all agreed to it without even attempting to attack other worlds, instead approaching Bitterwind and getting the retrovirus make up and process from her Clevermen.
The population of the Wraithkin Hives, and the ten different worlds they occupied, was now at 37,648. In addition to this success, they had located another four breeding colonies. Three of them were massive just from their scouts' reports. They each had over sixty sires, over three hundred breeding carriers, hundreds of children, and thousands of Worshippers. Of the carriers, seven were in their first pregnancy and much like the youth found on the second breeding colony, responded, if very slowly at first, to Keller's drug treatment. In the end, the Wraithkin hives had moved onto those worlds, took in the children, and made an arrangement of mutual assistance with the worshippers, most of whom had been born into that life. The protection of the Wraithkin and access to better live styles, with medicine and comforts in exchange for food.
On the other hand, the pregnant carriers went to Atlantis, though little could be done for them. Keller's NICU had almost always been filled to brim with preemies for the past four months. The upside was that the population of Lantea, Human, Jaffa, and Nox alike had embraced the infants with open arms. The Jaffa in particular had taken to adopting the babies. The knowledge that they would one day be strong warriors appealed to them. There had been an early shock, just after Bitterwind's alliance had taken the retrovirus, when one of the Jaffa warriors that had joined the SpecOps, a young man by the name of Yu'tra, bonded with the rescued carrier who had been placed under his care when it became clear that the young Wraith had no clue how to care for himself.
Yu'tra was young enough at only 19 that the three-year age difference didn't make it weird and the bonding portion had taken a shorter amount of time, though Keller suggested that might have been because the carrier, who had been given the name Menelaus Goodfortune. It was probably for the best that the age of majority had been lowered to 16 though. Yu'tra was, in John's opinion, a good kid, and the couple was a little adorable, or it would be if John didn't feel a level of concern over Menelaus's behavior indicating that he was terrified of everyone who wasn't Yu'tra, Keller, John, or one of the Nox. Wraith Sires in particular would send him scurrying behind Yu'tra or whichever Nox he was spending time with that day.
Overall, though, the city, and world, were thriving more than John could have anticipated when Earth had been destroyed. The Apollo had made three successful trips to the Milky Way, each time bringing back allies. In addition to this three more of the Lantean ships had been brought into service, manned by the growing mixture of young Lanteans who were inspired to prepare for the fight against the Naari, Wraithkin, Travelers, and Jaffa. The Jaffa had, after a great deal of consideration, just the month before, requested being officially annexed into the official Lantean population, to the Tok'ra's annoyance.
Their alliances thrived too. With the newly established governing council settling more firmly into their roles each day, they formalized informal trade agreements of the past. Dr. Torres had excelled in her job as the representative for Lantea. Nancy had ended up falling in as her second and together they were a force of nature. John knew that at present they were organizing what was being dubbed the Interplanetary Coalition of Pegasus, which was being modeled on the United Nations that had existed on Earth. The first official meeting was anticipated to occur in a month's time.
Each planet would send representatives, be they the planet's leaders or their chosen negotiators. In addition to this, each of the Hives would have their Queens present, though they had, at Bitterwind's suggestion, collectively decided that John would be the official representative of the Wraithkin Hive Alliance, and their human populations of their worlds. John wasn't certain if this was because he was human and they knew that others would respond better to him or because he genuinely held their respect, but he felt a mild level of irritation at them for the decision.
It meant that the time he had hoped to spend enjoying the new baby and Todd time was now going to be filled with meeting with Wraithkin Queens discussing concessions that they would make in 'reparation' to the worlds that had once been fed on. These 'reparations' were similar to the assistance that they had given to the humans that lived on their worlds, i.e. the technology to locate the best locations for crops, the means of easily removing trees and their trunks from desired farm land using the beam from the darts and then being able to easily transport those trees to designated 'wood piles' for chopping, and setting up water systems for both irrigation and plumping, along with teaching the people how to maintain them.
John figured that this was actually a good method of attempting to make amends. There was nothing that could be done to return the lives lost but providing the people they once harmed with assistance going forward and helping up their technology for agricultural purposes would assist in population growth. That growth meant the people could produce more crops, raise larger families, and all around their populations would grow at a better rate. All this without causing them to advance too quickly, which the few surviving Tollan had been vocal against.