A/N: Another beast of a post. Chronic migraines and insomnia lead to words that just don't want to come. This post is a bit of a filler I'll admit but honestly, I'm lucky I got anything out this week. And I just finished so I admit that this installment is rough as all get out. But I am going to knock myself out tonight if it is the last thing I do so hopefully I can actually get to the point next week.

In this post, we get to see a bit more of my favorite parts of the city though. So that made me happy. Also, bonus points if you can spot the quote.

See you all next week.

As always, like, follow, favorite, subscribe, and review,

Much Love.

JR

Recap:

After Ronon is accosted by a sick Atlantis Team Member and he is stuck in quarantine. The days are counting down until the formal mating. And the city has been given an ultimatum due to the rising threat of the Lucian Alliance in the Milky way, return to Earth or make a run to Pegasus. They have one opportunity and it is now.

Chapter 13 Quarantine Part 3

Command Center. 1000 AM Relative City Time.

Richard Woolsey was not a man used to decisive action. At least before he had come to Atlantis. Since he had arrived though, he had found that he was rather good at it. Not perfect by any means. But when the occasion called for it, he could handle the split-second decisions with relative… The word was not easy, life and death decisions with hundreds of lives hanging in the balance were never easy, nor were they supposed to be. But at least he could handle it capably.

"City-wide comms please." He asked the technician sitting at the desk who was monitoring all official communication in and out of the city. He was a new transfer, and not having his name memorized yet Woolsey looked down to his name patch. "Moore."

"Of course, sir."

"Where's Chuck?" Woolsey asked as the new communication tech readied the system.

"Quarantine, sir." The new transfer answered, pulling up the city-wide comms. "Apparently a Lieutenant tried to climb him like a pole, and she's in quarantine so Chuck got pulled from the duty roster." Moore nodded as the system pulled up. "Ready for you."

Straightening his uniform jacket out of habit, Richard stood a little taller as he locked eyes on the Stargate. "Attention Atlantis personnel." He began. "I know most of you were looking forward to our landing on the planet below and taking some leave time while repairs to the city continued, but I am afraid there has been a change in plans. It seems enemies in the Milky Way of the forming Federation have found which direction we are heading."

"We are left with two options." He continued, his jaw firming at what he was about to say. "Either we return to Earth. Or we continue on. We make Atlantis and Pegasus not only a second front but a home." A tiny smile quirked the corner of his mouth. There were after all only so many times in a person's life that they could legitimately pull a Kirk moment in their life. And if he couldn't pull it now, when could he? "We have decided to make a run for Pegasus. So if you have a problem with this plan pack your bags. We will let you off with the party returning to Earth before we cross the edge of the galaxy."

Down in medical, his chief city engineer was being approached by the general and called to her post. "We're really running?" She asked, concern filling her eyes. She knew they needed to and had planned for it, but she had to admit, it was daunting."

"Like you're burning the bridge." He told her, nodding once. "Can Atlantis handle a jump?"

Pressing her hand to the glass behind her where her future mate stood, frustrated that he couldn't touch her, she took a breath before answering. "Stardrive is gone until my team and I can rip the thing to shreds and rebuild it. And for that, we need to be landed. But," Sophie swallowed her nerves. "Hyperdrive can be ready within twelve hours at sublight if I have everyone and everything at my disposal. And I do mean everything. And we'd have to empty the piers of everything that needs life support and seal off those sections for the duration of the trip to conserve as many resources as possible."

"Which resources?" Jack demanded.

"We have more than enough power." She smiled a secretive smile, they hadn't told anyone about the ZPM recharging and growth room yet. "But the oxygen scrubbers and water reclamation systems, not to mention food, might be a problem. With the stardrive, we could make the trip in a matter of hours."

"But without it, three weeks is a long time to be in space with this many people, and rationing will be a necessity."

"Belts will be tighter than I would like." She agreed with a nod. "But the space between galaxies is a bit empty of, well everything actually."

Having been trapped between galaxies before more than once, and much more than he personally liked, he couldn't argue that point, he thought."Can you boost the speed?"

For a moment she was silent, but he knew her. She may have trained under people like Sylar and Sam when she was finally brought into the look of the Stargate program, but she had a rhythm all her own when she worked. Think in silence for a moment while her brain kicked into high gear, decide on a course of action, then find a lever big enough to move planets. She probably had an idea of how to do that actually, he would bet. But heaven help you if you tried to jump the gun on her process."If I have absolutely everything at my disposal including Rodney, Radek, and Sam. At least until we need to drop you two off."

Nodding, Jack handed her a file stuffed with paperwork. "Rodney won't like it but they're yours."The file was nearly two inches thick. "And have these filled out."

Opening the cream-colored folder, she blanched before her head jerked back up, blond waves bouncing around her shoulders. "You've gotta be kidding me. All of these?" Sophie gasped.

Jack shrugged, a sadistic little twist of a smile curling the edges of his mouth and a shimmer of glee. "You're the one getting married." The smile grew.

Gritting her teeth until she felt her jaw crack under the pressure, she bit out, "there are times I really want to smack the smile off your face."

"I imagine you aren't the only one." Jack chuckled, turning to the door. "Sam would probably be first in line."

As the general exited the room, Sophie sagged against the glass, sliding down a few inches before her locked knees stopped her slow descent.

Behind the glass wall, Ronon stilled his nervous pacing. Unsure why he was pacing, to begin with, he had been watching the exchange. He could almost taste the nerves coming off his chosen mate like waves of syrup, thick and sour. She didn't show it in any other way than her hand reaching back for him and the tension of her shoulders and straightened back, but he knew the signs now and would remember when he could actually do something about it.

After all, what else was a mate supposed to do but protect their mate? Help them when they needed it? Comfort them when they were distressed?

But the bubbling need in his veins to rip the General limb from limb was a little alarming. Even to him. After all, he knew Jack. He had been in some tight spots with him, retaking the city came to mind. Jack was good people. Trustworthy even, in comparison to the Satedan general he had the pleasure of executing for his cowardice. O'Neill wouldn't ask something that wasn't necessary, and if he could no it himself it would have.

Hearing a slow, heavy breath coming from his little blond, he turned back to the glass and moved as close as he could, bracing his hands on the glass at the height of her shoulders as she turned to half face him with her shoulder on the glass. "You okay?"

"I'm tired." She admitted, resting her shining head on the glass. "We've been going almost non-stop since we got to this city. One emergency to another." Seeing her eyes close in fatigue, he almost ached to wrap his arms around her. "I never expected easy, but this? I need actual rest, Ronon. I've been sleeping all of three hours a night, maybe, since we got here two months ago now? Unless I'm unconscious or in bed with you. Nearly died a few times. Been jolted out of a heat cycle by an adrenaline surge, and that crap hurt. Been attacked. Lost a friend, due to my own inattention. Raising a son who is, honestly, scarily intelligent. Finding a man who wants to take us both on, and willingly put up with my crazy family." She chuckled, fatigue making her shoulders sag. "But now he's in quarantine because of a jealous woman and a spore that the doctors don't know how to fight. Now this? I'm more than a little tired. And tired people make mistakes."

Her eyes blinked open and their dark stormy grey told him exactly how deeply the fatigue went. "I'm tired and I'm worried." She repeated. "And I hate paperwork, but Jack is right. All this," she waved the file once and dropped it to one of the rolling tables that waited outside his "cell", for wheeling things like meals and bedding into his room, with a sigh, "needs to be filled out on our end before it goes in for approval. He can get us past the IOA but not all of the paper."

Oh, how he wished the glass wasn't between them. "Well, I plan on keeping you in bed for a while after I get out of here." He teased gently, getting a small weary smile in return. "So leave the paperwork with me and go get us out of the Milky Way and on our way home."

"Will it really be home?" She whispered, straightening and taking a deep breath.

"It will."

Letting her head fall to the glass with a thud right at a level that it would have hit his chest if the transparent glass wasn't in the way, she nodded, accepting his words. "I really don't think you want to be alone with this paperwork though. For one thing, you won't know over half of the answers." She flipped to a random page and pulled the sheet so she could read the first line. "Names of female's cousins. At least Jack got the right gender forms." Pulling the next sheet closer, she sighed. "Oh here's a good one. Any identifying marks on second cousin's clavicle. Then there are the adoption forms that his handy little summary said were included."

"What's a clavicle?" When she tapped the bones at the base of her neck, he groaned. "Send your grandmother if you don't need her."

This time her smile was a little brighter. "I'll send both mothers and Luka."

Bowels Of The City Near The Hyperdrive Engines In The Central Tower. Sometime Later.

"I swear Rodgers if you get that hydraulic fluid all over my floor, I will have your balls!" Sophie yelled across the open expanse between the catwalks that comprised a section of the city that no one ever really saw unless you were an engineer, while she ran from group to group to check their progress.

The scientists that weren't normally under her command were working with Rodney and Radek to check and recheck every necessary circuit and filter and crystal. If one checked, they would find even scientists who normally had nothing to do with the mechanics of the city crawling through ducts and passages to find any strain and damage to the city, armed with no more than a diagnostic tablet at times. But the work was getting done at an unprecedented pace. Everyone wanted to get home as quickly and safely as possible and were doing all they could to ensure that would happen. Even if it meant taking snacks to the work crew who were working non-stop.

"I don't have any," Rodgers snapped back to her racing boss while she strained against a corroded bolt where they had found a tiny leak in the coolant pumps. "But you're welcome to try boss!" She almost screamed as the bolt finally came loose.

Working at a break-neck speed, her crew and the replicators that they had brought out in force were doing things that would take a repair yard months of work in the hours that she had promised. It was only a matter of time, Sophie knew before someone got hurt at this pace which was why she was racing around the section of the main drives that lay beneath the main tower around the jumper bay tunnels.

"Michaels!" She barked. "Help Rodgers hold that pump steady!"

The man in question nodded and ran across the catwalk, dodging a burst of superheated steam that decided to spray through a weak wall in one of the pipes like a knife ready to boil the skin of anyone who got caught by it. "Got it, boss!" He yelled, letting her know he was fine.

"I've got the steam pipe!" One of the new transfers from New Zealand yelled over the clanging of metal and the hiss of the spraying fluid. He smacked his partner's arm and they both took off to the panel that controlled it.

Most of her team were old hands around machinery. They knew each crack and creak of metal and crystal. They knew how the city would groan under strain and could tell simply by the sound and ring of a sheet of metal if it was sound. "Suenos!" She yelled, leaping over the catwalk handrail to the one that crossed below when she heard a conduit snap in a way that it shouldn't. "Hit the deck!"

Looking up, newcomer Mateo Suenos' dark eyes grew wide as the conduit ten feet above him broke in half with the force of a bullet shot from a gun. He raised his arms to block his face. And then he felt himself falling through the air and slamming into metal grating a moment later. His arm snapped on impact as it hit the deck first beneath him.

"Markus and Titan!" He heard a voice yell and a weight lift off him. "Get Suenos to the Medics and get those burns checked out! Don't think I don't see you working!" The deck vibrated under him as the owner of the voice moved away at a run.

Mateo groaned. His boss was never going to forget his inattention. As two other engineers pulled him to his feet, he looked up at the conduit that nearly killed him, as it rocked back and forth on the catwalk, and shuddered. At least he was still alive.

Medical Quarantine.

"Mother's name?" Rota asked, rubbing her eyes tiredly. They had only been at the paperwork for two hours now. What was a few more? "I'm so happy that the actual ceremony will take all of five minutes." She sighed, looking up at the pacing Ronon from where she slouched in her chair, propping her feet up on the glass wall. "You okay over there?"

Ronon grunted, turning to walk back across the room, reminding her of a caged lion. "Her name was Neera."

"Maiden name?" Confusion swept across his face so she explained. "Unmated family name."

Nodding, he kicked the wall lightly as he reached it and turned once again. "Larren of the Shinar Plains."

"Any siblings?"

"Four sisters."

Blinking, in shock, Rota straightened. It was unusual for a high content Furling to have multiple female relatives. Furling families tended to have high male birth counts. Females were much rarer. They were fortunate with Sophie's birth. Families with higher female birth rates tended to have much lower Furling genetic content. The fact that he had a high number of female siblings, at his genetic level? Was not just rare but potentially significant.

"Was that normal on Sateda? High amounts of females in a family?"

Stilling for a moment, Ronon stared off into long distant memories. A minute later he shook his head. "Not as far as I knew. But I'm no healer or priest."

More study required, she decided and made a note to tell Kara. "What were their names?"

Ronon's shoulders sagged.

Engineering Bay.

Those still in the Engineering Bay were running back and forth from the hub of the command center that had been set up there at what approached human light speed. Sigrun and Erik had been tasked with running it, as they could actually read blueprints and Sophie's shorthand notes.

"What can I do?" Vala asked, bouncing at Sigrun's elbow. She was bored. Daniel was busy putting the translation lab in order, he had been for a week, but there was a rule against Daniel ever picking up a tool let alone the diagnostic tablets, so he wasn't allowed in the engineering spaces to help unless under supervision. And since both Kara and Rota were busy, she was looking for an occupation.

Looking over her slowly from booted feet to curly twin ponytails, Sigrun's jaw worked. "I need a part runner." He finally growled out, turning his attention back to the tablet that had messages and repair notes from the various teams pouring in like a torrent. "You fast?"

"Your granddaughter put me through my paces." She replied, remembering Sophies's advice. Direct and to the point. Don't waste time.

"You know the city?" He asked, moving to the locker that held spare diagnostic tablets.

"Learning it."

Pulling one from the shelf, he waved her over to a bin that had neatly stacked spare crystals in it and handed her the tablet. "Pull up a city map and do something else with your hair." He ordered, reaching into the bin and pulling out several before he moved back to the table. "If you get it caught in machinery and killed because of it, I will not be held responsible. This isn't a fashion show, and you aren't on a runway."

Vala grinned, pulling her hair into a tight braid as quickly as her fingers could move. She had always liked Sophie's family.