Trauma's of the Young Athosian Mind
AN: Third part! Yay!
missmcweir: Thanks! I might actually hall Jinto in in later chapters. Certainly, the Athosians are gonna have to get involved. And they ain't gonna be pleased that their leader/stroke ambassodor is now eight years old... ;)
angel: Thanks! I hope you find this chapter as good.
johnliz4ever: Thanks you! Here's another chapter, so enjoy!
Exploded Pen: Hey! (I love your name, by the way :D) Anyway, you're right. Beckett's name is spelt without the 'e'. It was a type-o that my computer didn't pick out, since (shock horror) it isn't programmed with the spellings of Stargate names lol, anyway, I've correct it, so thanks for pointing out the problem. Enjoy!
highonscifi: I'm glad you're enjoying this! Have another chapter...
Zen: Thanks! Your comments were very useful (and encouraging). I'm not good with little niggly spelling things like that, so if you spot any more in this chapter (and they'll be in here, believe me,) feel free to point them out! Also, I'm not very good on speach grammar either, but I think you're right. Anyway, enjoy!
Britt671: Thanks! Enjoy!
fenestrae: I think you may have been missing the point of my 'McKay with the curly-bear' thing, but I'm not sure I made it particularly obviouse, so I'll break it down. When Beckett says 'but that doesn't explain why McKay has shut himself in a cupboard and is refusing to come out until someone brings him curly-bear', he means 'but if it's the gene that's made Sheppard keep the memory, why does McKay still think he's an eight year old, since he has the gene too?' I dunno, maybe I was being too subtle for my own good. Anyway, that basically means that it might not necissarily be the gene that made Sheppard keep his memory. Hope it's clearer now, and enjoy the next chapter!
Bridget N: Thanks! I hope you enjoy this. You can see more of mini-McKay in this chapter, and the chapter after next (yes, folks, I have a plan! Mwahahahaha!) Anyway, read and reveiw!
sgafan33: Hey! Some of your points are vallid, and some I have my own very vallid counter-points for. Let's start from the top:
1.Thank you! I really liked the prologue, which is why I put it up about two minutes after finishing writing it, without any real idea where it was going, which I normally don't do.
2. Yes, I was aware of the spelling error with Beckett's name pretty much as soon as I'd put the second chapter up and re-read it. It was a type-o my spell-checker didn't pick up, and I didn't feel like re-uploading the whole document just to correct a relatively minor mistake. I'll just make sure it doens't happen again by re-programming my spell-checker.
3. I haven't even started writing McKay yet. How do you know how I'm gonna play his character as an eigth year old? I mean, I might see your point if McKay had actually featured at all in this chapter, but he's only mentioned, I think, twice. All that's said is that he's shut himself in a cupboard and is refusing to come out unless someone brings him his teddy-bear. That's not really any grounds to judge how I'm writing the character, that's just how other characters percieve his behaviour, and you said yourself that him shutting himself in a cupboard was a very McKay-ish thing to do, which was my logic behind mentioning this fact. And, no matter how childish the adult is, a scared child is going to act like a scared child. Little Rodney is confused and fearful. No matter how high his IQ, his first instinct will be fear, and that will over-ride any attempts to be more 'mature' about the situation. A high IQ does not instantly mean an adult-child.
Also, please don't tell me who I'm basing my story around. I've barely even started this, and it's meant to be an ensemble fic. That doesn't mean every chapter has to feature every character. Sheppard rememebrs he's an adult because I wanted someone to remain mentally adult, and he, as the leader of SGA:1 seemed like a natural choice. That doesn't mean it's gonna be his story. Please wait until this fic is up and running before you decide who it's centered around.
4. I knew someone would bring this up.... okay, Beckett is only making approximate guesses at the kid's ages. I didn't say McKay was eight years old. Beckett said he was approximately eight years old. And, since the kid's shut himself in a cupboard, that leaves a lot of room for error. Believe it or not, what you're suggesting, with McKay being between Teyla and John in age, is what I was planning to do all along. Also, did you know that Joe Flannigan (Sheppard) is fourty something? Ageing beautifully, huh? My point is, I'm just using my judgement as to how old the characters themsleves (not the actors who protray them) are. And I wanted the characters to be suffeciently young enough for them still to be kids if we knock twenty years off. This is fanfiction, not a show script. I don't have to be completely accurate about how old the characters appear. I'm just out to write something that is primarily for my own pleasure, and hope some other people get a laugh or two out of it as well.
5. Yeah, Ancients probably should have been capitalised.
Right, that's it, on with the next chapter!
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Teyla watched silently as the little boy plunged past her, his eyes wide in an expression of giddy excitement. She felt the air whisper as it swept around him, saw how the lights danced in his eyes, and knew how everything must seem to him; so dizzy, so bright, so perfect and happy and full.
She wanted her father.
Any second now, that little boy would trip and fall right on his face. Little boys were silly like that. They could never seem to see danger as it stared them in the face. Teyla followed him silently, watching his feet as they slapped against the carpet. He'd taken his shoes off, at least. She leaned forward over her knees to inspect her own shoes. The sleeves of the odd shirt she was wearing fell well past her finger tips, and she instinctively attempting to roll them up, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Her boots felt like the time she had stepped into her fathers shoes, and stomped around their tent pretending to be a wraith, with her brothers, before the real wraith had taken them.
Experimentally, she wriggled her toes, then pulled them out of the boots altogether, and placed them carefully aside. She fingered a string bracelet around her ankle she could not remember putting on, and slid it off to get a better look.
The snivelling boy who had hidden himself could be heard whimpering just to her left. Slipping the anklet onto her wrist for later inspection, Teyla twisted round to get a look at the cupboard he had crawled into.
More snivelling, whimpering noises. Like some of the other children she had seen at home after wraith attacks, all curled up in their fear, so they forgot what it was to move.
Cautiously, she slipped her fingers beneath the door of the cabinet, and prized it open a crack, peering curiously into the dim interior.
A little boy drew back, eyes wide. She could make out little of him, apart from a pair of watery, fearful eyes and a running nose that dripped with mucus. His breathing was short and gasping, and his chest creaked oddly as he drew air in and out. Perhaps he had the coughing sickness, for that often caused such wheezing.
At any rate, his breathing was more snuffly and laboured than it should have been. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and continued to stare at her in silent terror, as if she were a little wraithspawn staring at him in his hiding-place, instead of a curious child.
But she had no interest in talking to him, only wishing to assess exactly who it was whimpering in the cabinet behind her, so Teyla carefully closed the cabinet again, and sat with her back to the door, wriggling her toes in silent contemplation.
With a shriek and thud, the little running boy tripped and fell flat.
He promptly began to ball, tears flowing in their easy uncountable numbers from wide, glistening eyes. So easy it was to bring his little world crashing down around him. So very easy. And just as easy to build it up again, block by wooden building block. Just a child… a child… a happy, innocent child.
Teyla thought she remembered a time when she had been like that.
Now her world was made of mud and mortar and stone, and the only person who entered was Father, bringing food and blankets and comfort and memories like nightmares that surfaced in her mind. No wraith would stomp on the smoking ruins of her imaginary empire now.
Though she missed her father.
The boy stopped crying, as the adult soothed and placed him on a table to inspect a none-existent graze on his knee, then patted him on the head, and he subsided, looking pitiful, to begin crawling around the table, playing-pretend that he was some kind of animal that 'woofed' as it explored it's new environment.
She wanted her father.