Thanks for the reviews I've gotten so far. I know it's not very shippy yet...I'm working on that. It won't be a straight shipper fic, but there will definitely be something, lol.
Everyone was living on pins and needles, not knowing what was going on in Atlantis. By dinnertime, they'd lost nearly twenty team members. Most people stayed in public areas, like the mess hall, so that everyone could keep track of everyone else. People who had to travel between locations went in groups, had to always let someone know where they were going, and then radio in with notification of their successful arrival.
"I feel like we're back in kindergarten," John said as he, Teyla, and Ronon joined Elizabeth, Rodney, and Beckett in the conference room. Teyla and Ronon shared a look; neither of them had any idea what he was talking about, but decided to let it go.
"We've lost a tenth of our team," Elizabeth told the group. "We have focused sensor data for half of the disappearances and eyewitness reports for almost all of them, so someone please tell me that we're close to finding some answers?"
"There is no logical explanation," Rodney told her. "They simply are spontaneously ceasing to exist."
"What was found in the science labs on the south pier?"
"A few new devices we haven't seen before. I've got people running tests now; I'll let you know what we find once they're done."
"Does anyone have any ideas for a method of protecting ourselves in the meantime?" It was noticeably quiet in the conference room. Everyone looked up as one of the crewmen came running over from the control room.
"There were just some disappearances in the main mess hall," he told Elizabeth. "People...they're getting pretty freaked down down there."
"I'll go check it out," John volunteered. Teyla and Ronon stood as well.
"I want to have another meting in two hours," Elizabeth told them. Everyone nodded before leaving.
Everybody was edgy as Teyla, Ronon, and John made their way through the city to the mess hall. "Our only option may be leaving the city," Ronon pointed out.
"We've already tried leaving Atlantis once - things didn't turn out so well," John told him.
"You'd prefer to sit here and wait for the end?"
"I didn't say that," he replied defensively. "It's just that leaving Atlantis may not be as simple of a solution as we'd like to think. And safe worlds may not be as easy to find as you might think."
Ronon shot him a Look. "I know how hard it is." John held the runner's gaze for a moment before nodding.
"You have an opinion, Teyla?" John asked her, turning around. He was surprised to see that she wasn't behind them. "Teyla?" Both men quickly started back down the corridor, but there was no sign of her anywhere. "Sheppard to Weir; Teyla just disappeared."
Elizabeth had been in her office with Beckett and sighed when she heard her 2IC's report. "Understood," she replied. "Continue on to your destination. Let me know when you get there."
"Yes, ma'am."
Over the next couple of days, their numbers continued to diminish, and no one was any closer to figuring out why. When Elizabeth called a meeting with her senior staff on day four of the crisis, only John, Ronon, and Rodney were still there to attend. And John was finally willing to actually bring up Ronon's suggestion.
"Leave the city?" Elizabeth asked.
"If something in the city is what's causing us to disappear, then leaving it should stop that," he explained.
"We'd also leave Atlantis unprotected," Elizabeth reminded him, "And that's one experience that I'm not anxious to repeat."
"You'd rather vanish?" Ronon solemnly asked. Elizabeth held his look for a moment.
"That's our last resort," she finally agreed. "Leaving won't solve the problem of what's happened to everyone who has already disappeared. For all we know, they could still be in the city somewhere, and hidden from our sensors."
"Why would the city do that?" John asked.
Elizabeth shrugged, looking to Rodney. The scientist was busily reading over a report and didn't even look up until the city's leader cleared her throat. "Have you found anything new?" she asked him.
"I'm not sure…The last reported disappearance was last night around 7PM," he said, turning around his tablet PC so that everyone could see. "Before that, the longest break was only three hours."
"It's stopped?" John inquired.
"I don't know, but we're now down to about ten percent of the city's original population."
"Let's check in again this afternoon," Elizabeth decided. "Rodney, see what else you can find out, and then we can make a decision as to what to do next."
Ronon didn't really have a lot of assigned jobs to do in the city; most of his time was spent with whatever John's team was working on, and since SA-1 was most definitely grounded at the moment, he had some free time on his hands.
He wound up wandering down through the city to the area where the recreational and training rooms were. On most afternoons, if the team wasn't going off-world and there weren't any meetings, he could find Teyla in one of the rooms, having individual or group lessons with her students. Today, however, the training rooms were eerily quiet. Stepping into one of them, Ronon noticed that Teyla had left her gear behind after her last session; he picked up one of her sticks, and started practicing with it. In his mind, he could see the small smile that she'd worn the last time she'd defeated him. They could always go after each other one hundred percent when they trained, putting their almost perfectly-matched skill levels to the test. She'd won their last round, but he would be ready for her next time.
The stick fell from his hand as he realized there might not be a next time. She was gone, and they didn't know…Ronon picked it up again and returned it to it's former location with Teyla's other gear, then turned and left the room without looking back.
By the time the afternoon meeting was held, there still hadn't been another disappearance since the previous evening. No one knew any better why the vanishings had stopped than they knew why they'd started in the first place. The city was beyond having a skeleton crew; instead of pulling in what was left of her senior staff, Elizabeth got everyone left from the expedition to come to the conference room. There were only nineteen of them.
"We should start trying to investigate what happened on the south pier again," Rodney argued.
"And what if people start disappearing again?" one of the security personnel inquired.
McKay rolled his eyes. "I don't find the alternative of sitting on our hands and doing nothing to be all that appealing either," he shot back. "This city can't function for any length of time with this few people. There are too many systems, too many things that need monitoring."
"I agree," Elizabeth said. "Organize a team; you can start the search tomorrow. In the meantime – "
A very loud alarm started blaring from the control room, and everyone got to their feet. "What is that?" John asked.
Rodney's eyes were like saucers. "I think it's the self destruct sequence."
TBC...
(see the blue button down there? Feedback makes a great holiday gift item!)