Teyla was still in the training room when Ronon came to find her. "How did your lesson go?" he asked as he started stretching out.

"It was fine. Jadin is a fast learner; I believe he would enjoy practicing with the other boys his age on the mainland once his abilities are a bit more advanced."

"You miss them?" Ronon asked, although it was more of a statement than a question.

"Every day."

They stood on opposite sides of the circle on the floor, preparing themselves to fight. Even among her own people, it was hard for Teyla to find someone whose skill level matched her own, and Ronon head learned several times – the hard way – not to underestimate her. They could continue on for long bouts with neither one of them able to decisively gain the upper hand.

Ronon's slightly cocky smile only added insult to injury as Teyla hit the floor, hard. He started to use his stick to keep her pinned down, but the next thing he knew, he was laying on the ground right beside her. The smile on his face was now replaced with a glare, but Teyla just laughed.

"Who won that round?" she asked as she got up, reaching a hand to help Ronon do the same. He ignored the hand, getting up on his own.

"It was a draw," he told her. "It deserves a rematch." Teyla picked her sticks up again, unable to resist goading him a little bit.

"If it will make you feel better," she agreed with a smile that was a touch too evil to be totally innocent.

That evening, once Elizabeth finally finished debriefing a team that had checked in three hours late – and surprisingly, it was not John's team – she realized that she couldn't find Jadin. He wasn't in his room or hers, Teyla hadn't seen him in a few hours, no one remembered when he'd finished dinner in the mess hall, and he'd forgotten his radio earpiece on the table beside his bed.

"I'm sure he's just hanging out somewhere and lost track of time," John told her as he helped her look through the main tower of the city.

"He knows better than to start wandering around without a radio."

"He's twelve. Honest mistake."

As they passed a set of doors that led to one of the balconies, something made Elizabeth look outside. She noticed a motionless shadow on the ground that wasn't normally there. " John…" He saw, as well, and activated the door. "Jadin?" Elizabeth called. The boy sat up, relieving their panic. "Are you okay? What are you doing out here?" she asked as they hurried over and knelt beside him.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

"Do you know what time it is?"

Jadin looked at his watch. "Sorry. You were busy and…I just wanted to look at the stars."

John looked up at the lights in the sky. "Pretty good night for that," he told the child.

Elizabeth handed him his radio. "You've gotta remember to take this when you go wandering, Jadin."

"Oops."

"Yeah, oops."

"I was wondering why you never called me. I thought you were just still in your meeting. I'll try to remember better."

"Thank you."

The boy looked back up at the sky. "Do you ever watch the stars anymore?" he asked Elizabeth.

"Sometimes…It's not as much fun without you."

Jadin smiled. "We don't know the constellations here, though. It's a completely different galaxy."

"Well, then, we'll just have to make up new ones," John told him. "Like…see those three stars over there? And then the four below and those other ones above? If you count the three on the right as a tail, then that could possibly maybe be a Black Hawk."

Elizabeth laughed. "Good job, John."

"What? He's got a point; we need some constellations around here."

"That looks like the Earth glyph," Jadin pointed out, a finger aimed at the stars above them.

"Yeah, it kinda does," John agreed.

"All right, bedtime," Elizabeth told the boy. "The stars will still be here tomorrow night."

"Goodnight, Colonel Sheppard," Jadin said as he got up.

"G'night kiddo. See you tomorrow."

Besides the designated recreation and training rooms, Atlantis also had several outdoor areas and gardens. By halfway through the following afternoon, one of these gardens had been turned into a miniature football field.

"Good catch," John told Jadin as the boy scooped the ball up. He tried throwing it back, but hadn't quite learned how to put a spin on the ball yet. John went to retrieve it from the 10,000-year-old bushes behind him.

"Where did you go this morning?" Jadin asked him.

"P4G-592."

"Were the people nice?" The boy caught the ball again.

"There were no people," John said. "Not anymore."

"The Wraith?"

"Yeah. Wiped them out centuries ago, probably." Jadin tossed the ball and actually got it somewhat close to John's hands. "Hey, getting better!"

"Do you think the Wraith will ever come back to Atlantis?"

"I'm not sure. I hope that before that happens, we'll find a way to get rid of all of them, but there's no way of knowing what's going to happen in the future."

"I hope we figure out a way to get rid of them soon. I don't want anyone else to die because of them."

John smiled. "You and me both." He tossed the ball again, but to his surprise, Jadin wasn't there. The football fell to the ground just behind where the boy had been standing.

John looked around, trying to figure out what had happened. " Colonel Sheppard?" he heard a voice ask, and turned back to see Jadin walking towards him, holding the ball. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah. I'm fine."

If John had had any idea that other members of the Atlantis expedition had been having similar experiences, he probably would have said something. Since he didn't know, he figured that his eyes had just been playing tricks and forgot the incident in favor of preparing for his team's next mission. After all, how could a person they all knew was real simply vanish?

The next morning, once the team arrived on the planet, they split into two pairs. John went along with Rodney to speak with some of the science minds of the well-developed community, while Teyla and Ronon worried about trading in the marketplace. Atlantis needed some food items, which would ease the load on the Daedalus supply runs, and obtaining some fabrics and animals skins would go a long way in helping Athosians prepare for winter on the mainland.

"Here, try this," Teyla told Ronon as she handed him a small cup of stew that she had just acquired.

"Not bad," he said after tasting it. "I've got something I want to show you." He led her down the aisles of carts that filled the marketplace until they found an open area by a fountain. Sitting down on a bench, he took his purchases out from the bag that had been slung over his shoulder. "What do you think?" he asked Teyla as he handed her the fighting sticks.

"I think they are a bit small for you," she replied with a smile.

"They're not for me. I thought you could give them to the boys on the mainland that are learning to fight; it might be easier for them if they had weapons that were their size instead of borrowing from others."

Teyla nodded. "This is very thoughtful. What did these cost you?"

"Nothing I wasn't willing to part with. The grips still have to be carved, but I thought it would make them more meaningful if you did that yourself…And having to deliver them would give you another excuse to go visit on the mainland, to go be with your people."

She nodded with a smile, slightly overwhelmed by what was perhaps the nicest thing anyone had done for her in a very long time. "It would."

"All right, then," Ronon said as he stood. "We should probably go check on the others."

"Yes. Hopefully they have not managed to get themselves into too much trouble in our absence."

TBC...