January 17, 2008
Atlantis, The City of the Ancients
Mess Hall
"Can I sit here?"
I looked up from and the table and see that yes, ladies and gentlemen, it appears that at three in the morning I am the only one in the mess hall. Which means there are 399 empty seats. I'm touched, if more than slightly annoyed- not an unusual combination where John is concerned.
"Sure go ahead." I answered vaguely, returning to the power usage computations I'm supposed to be working on. The ZedPM on the Daedalus was half-drained when it had arrived here, and the constant use of the shields and monthly wormholes to Earth were only depleting it further. At this rate, we'd be out of power within five years, unless we resurfaced the city when we weren't under attack by the Wraith, we might be able to stretch it to seven, but that would leave us completely vulnerable to any sort of attack. What if the Wraith developed cloaks or something? Or if they learned to fool our sensors or sabotaged them or...oh, what did it matter anyway?
"Okay McKay, I give up. What's bothering you?"
Huh? How'd he know? "Since when am I bothered by anything?" I asked.
John stared at me in disbelief. "Rodney, it seems like everything bothers you. And I do mean everything." he shook his head silently. "So...what's up?"
"Last time I checked, there was a roof on the mess hall." I reminded him. John made an exasperated growling noise at the back of his throat. It's his own fault.
"McKay, what is you're thinking about that has let you get your coffee get cold." he demanded.
"My coffee's not cold." I pointed out, taking a sip to prove my point- then spitting it back out again, as it was cold, and apparently, I had taken the Asthosian goat milk instead of the half and half from Earth. Alien goat milk and Starbucks do not mix.
"Okay, so it's cold and tastes like crap. Since when is that a crime?" I retorted, placing the offending cup an arms length away.
"Since it's your coffee. You love coffee. You live for coffee. You have long since ceased to get your fluids from anywhere else. I highly doubt that there's any blood left in your caffeine stream."
All of that was technically true. Not that I could tell him that. "Was there a point in there?"
"Yes, and here it is- your coffee is never cold. In fact, it's hardly ever in your cup long enough for us sane people to drink it with burning our tongues off. Hence forth, you were think about something so important that it put coffee on the back burner. And I want to know what it is."
"Good for you. It's nice to have goals." I replied, trying to focus on the predictions in front of me, which suddenly made absolutely no sense.
"You know Rodney, we could do this the hard way, namely I follow you around for the next six weeks an annoy the shit out of you, which will doubtlessly attract the attention of several people, such as our team, your team, Elizabeth, Bates' team, and pretty much everyone else on the city. Or you could just tell me now and unless it's something incredibly dangerous or embarrassing I'll never mention it again." he smirked slightly. "Probably."
And the Sorting Hat says...Slytherin! Sadly, as evil and insincere as he sounds, I know he is telling the truth; he won't tell anyone unless it's valuable blackmailing material or a security risk, and if I were a Muggle I would tell him everything right now. But I'm not a Muggle, and if I let anything slip...let's just say I've screwed up enough people's lives without having The Big Secret (note capital letters) come out on my account.
"Does it have something to do with your family?"
The fact that he's eerily good at guessing really doesn't help me either. Plus, he was telling the truth about annoying me; last time he had kept at it for six months until Elizabeth snapped and ordered us to tell her what was going on. She had nearly broken down into hysterical laughter when she found out that we had been screaming every four-letter word in three languages because I wouldn't tell him what my parents were like.
"Yeah." I sighed deeply, trying to give myself time to figure out what I could tell him. "You see, well, ten years ago tomorrow, there was an accident, and that private school I went to...blew up. And that's when , well, my family died."
"Oh...that sucks." No, really? And I though I was sitting here miserable because it didn't suck. But I didn't say that, mostly because I happened to be paged by Miko before I could.
"Dr. McKay? Dr. Zelenka and Dr. Kavanagh are getting...um...very loud. I believe it would a good idea for you to...um...be getting down here? Soon?"
"Alright. Be there in a minute." I turned to John. "Well, it's been fun, but..."
"There's something you're not telling me." he stated.
"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about." I lied cheerfully. "Good night, Colonel."
I could fell his disbelieving glare all the way out of the mess hall.
GENERAL AUTHOR'S NOTES, RESPONSES AND RAMBLINGS
PurpleYin-Yes, short chapters are evil, but this one is slightly longer, and if I went with my original plan of long chapters none of this would be up yet.
PentagonMerlin-Weird-yes. These are two of my favorite things too.
missmcweir-Actually, I was toying with the idea of Rodney being Snape, but I threw that away
Belisse-Your wish is my command.
Any guesses-and feel free to review, as always!
