Title: The Quietest Hour Of The Night
Author: Illman
Category: gen
Warnings: none
Spoilers: tiny ones for Hide and Seek
Rating: G / FRC
Disclaimer: It's not my universe.
Author's Notes: Written for azarsuerte . Beta by imskysmom and Zoie.
Challenge: An insomniac Elizabeth spends a little solo time getting to know Atlantis
There is a difference between being adventurous and being curious. I have never been the adventurous type, but I have always been curious. Even as a kid, I preferred to read books over climbing trees. In the science classes in high school, the lab experiments were my least favourite part; I preferred the theory. Not to anyone's surprise, I ended up working up to my elbows in paperwork, helping opposing parties figure out the intricacies of treaties, right down to the exact wording.
I have never looked the enemy in the eye, like Major Sheppard has. I haven't killed anyone with my own hands, like he undoubtedly has. Still, standing on the sidelines doesn't protect from the consequences. I'm in charge of the expedition. I have to make the decisions and my decisions can kill people.
I couldn't go back to sleep. It was three in the morning, the quietest hour of the night in cities, or so I had read, and I was wide awake. I didn't know what had woken me, but suddenly I had jerked from sleep, panting as if I had just woken from a nightmare, but I couldn't recall any dreams. In the pale moonlight falling in through the window, I had glanced at my watch and had decided to go back to sleep, but my brain had different plans.
I'm used to it. Ever since my days in college, my brain has kept its own hours, regardless of my body. Declaring sleep a fruitless endeavour, I climbed out of bed and slipped into my clothes. I stood in the middle of my room, unsure what to do. Reading was tempting and I ran my finger over the spines of the three books that I had brought, somewhat pointless, since we had an enormous library stored on the main server. But nothing could replace the feel of a real book, read in bed with a cup of tea, so I didn't regret my choice of personal item. Although I had read all of my books before, I wanted to savour reading them again for a more special occasion; after all, it might be a long time before I got the opportunity to get a new book.
I felt more like taking a walk. The City was bound to be deserted at this hour. Aside from the Gateroom and the Infirmary which were manned around the clock, nobody was going to be around. During the day, it was never quiet and the corridors were bustling with life. It was all a little crammed at the time. We were only living in a very small part of the City, together with the Athosians; the rest of the City was still waiting to be explored. There was a lot to do in the first two weeks in Atlantis; we hardly knew where to start. Clearing living space fell into Major Sheppard's department, but he too had a lot on his plate with organizing the military force and working with Dr. Grodin and me to select suitable planets for our first off-world missions. Our food reserves were limited, finding resources was our first priority.
I softly closed the door to my quarters behind me and stepped out into the corridor. The lighting was dimmed and I headed north, in the opposite direction of the control room. I had no desire to check up on my people. They were managing just fine without me.
It had taken us a good three days to figure out how to make the lights work for people without the ATA gene. When we first came here, the lights went on as soon as someone with the ATA gene stepped into room or corridor. Major Sheppard discovered that people with the gene could turn the lights off and on at will, just with a thought. At least he could. Carson tried it and was less successful. Rodney managed to rig the lights in the control room and the sectors that we were using to stay on at all times, instead of shutting off once Atlantis no longer sensed the presence of the gene. He said he was working on something for the lights in the personal quarters. That's just one of the little things that I would never have thought of. But it could have been so much worse. All in all, we are amazingly lucky that Atlantis has been so accommodating.
I passed by the labs and wasn't too surprised to see a sliver of light beneath one of the doors. I wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep. On another night I would have knocked, but I wasn't in the mood for company.
Past the labs, I was heading for uncharted territory. I hadn't planned it; I had just sort of drifted there. One quick thought and I turned a corner and opened the door to the nearest supply closet. The metal shelves for fully stacked with boxes holding everything from laundry detergent to spare batteries. Eventually we would run out of all those things. What would we do then? The chemists could make soap at the lab, even I knew that this was not a difficult feat, we could wash our clothes with that, provided we had the raw materials. We hadn't figured out how the Ancients had done their laundry, if they had had a need for such a mundane thing. I shook my head. I would deal with this, when we came to it. No use worrying about it now. Searching the shelves, I found what I was looking for. I grabbed a flashlight, checking its functionality and headed back out into the nightly corridor.
The unexplored section was calling to me. Normally a full exploration team, equipped with a life sign detector and an armed guard went to explore new territory on Atlantis. I wasn't afraid as I walked down the dark corridor, the light of my flashlight dancing on the floor as I went on. I had been more afraid in parking garages in D.C. than in this alien city. With good reason probably.
For a 10,000 year old City, the absence of dust was remarkable. The floor was pristine like it had been cleaned yesterday; solely the desiccated plants let the visitor know that the owners had been gone for a while. I could never grasp the real age of Atlantis. On earth, the pyramids are old. There is some dispute as to how old they are, especially if you have met Dr. Daniel Jackson. The pyramids have aged; the elements have not spared them. But Atlantis has survived ten millennia and still looks like it was built yesterday.
The corridor branched off to my right. A quick check with the flashlight revealed no obstacles, so I took the turn. It wasn't far before the corridor ended and I stepped out into a hall vaguely reminiscent of the Gateroom.
I was standing on a rounded platform. Down a few steps was a a rounded hall with a ceiling high above me. A collection of computer panels was clustered on the left side of the room, the light glinting off a clear green crystal. On the far end of the room, murky in the pale light of the flashlight is what astounded me the most. It looked like a bad copy of the Stargate. Oval instead of round, coppery instead of grey. I stepped closer to get a better look. Like the Stargate, it was covered in symbols, but they weren't the chevrons I knew. The symbols were complex curved shapes standing out in blood red against the copper surface of the oval ring. I felt a familiar surge of happiness mixed with a strange feeling of elation. I had missed this.
I'm not a scientist, but I have never stopped being curious. I used to think that I was afraid of being out there, but I'm not. That's why I'm here.