A/N: Gets all warm and fuzzy from the love. You guys really know how to make an author feel loved.
Waking up the first thing Troy became aware of was the nasty case of cotton mouth he had going. The next thing was Carson hovering over him fiddling with the IV in the back of his hand. It took a moment for his mind to catch up but soon the previous days events came flooding back.
"You spiked my IV." It was a statement not a question.
"Aye I did. It was the only way to make sure that you actually slept instead of trying to escape."
"Bastard." Troy tried to glare at Carson, but the slight curving of one corner of his mouth took away from the effect."Well since I'm trapped here how about some food?"
"I think I can manage that." Carson smiled as he wandered off to round up some food.
Ten minutes later Troy spotted Rodney entering the infirmary carrying a tray of food. He smiled as he listened to Rodney mutter about a deranged Scotsman trying to poison his patients with the infirmary slop he called food.
"Nice to know some things never change." Troy chuckled as Rodney put the tray down and pulled up a chair.
"Just be glad I was on my way down here to check on you or else you'd be eating that slop Carson calls food." Rodney plopped down in his chair as he swiped a fruit off the tray.
"You mean coming down here to try and pry information out of me about the future."
"I wasn't...I would never..." Rodney sputtered.
"I know you Rodney, that thirst for knowledge it's a part of who you are. Part of what makes you so fun to hang out with." Troy answered as he dug into his food. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the infirmary doors opening and Elizabeth entering, minus John - who had been called to an early meeting with Caldwell before the Daedalus left for Earth.
"Hang out? We hang out together?"
"Yeah, a lot actually, especially after Mom--" He quickly cut himself off before he reviled too much. "Let's just say we get the chance to hang out together a lot. But that was fine with me, you were cool to hang out with."
"You hear that I'm cool in the future." Rodney smiled smugly as Elizabeth stopped next to his chair.
"After Mom what?" Elizabeth questioned ignoring Rodney for the moment. She was curious about what could have happened to her that would mean him and Rodney spending a lot of time together.
"I can't talk about it. It will mess with the future."
"But you can talk about me being cool right?" Rodney was still looking smug.
"Yeah you were the best. Actually made things funner at times." Troy had to chuckle at Rodney again.
"I have to admit that kind of surprises me, cause you know I'm not really known for being all that great with kids."
"You did fine. I can't complain and I know Nate never had any complaints."
"Nate?" Rodney raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Sorry, can't." Troy shook his head turning back to his food. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a decent meal.
The two spent the next hour talking about all kinds of things. Elizabeth had left soon after arriving when it became obvious that Troy still had that hesitant and uncertain air about him around her and that she wasn't going to get more than a one or two word answer from him about anything.
It was another day before Carson finally let Troy out of the infirmary. Walking through the corridors headed for his mom's office Troy was acutely aware of the guard that was following him from a short distance behind. While he understood why a guard had been assigned to him it still hurt slightly that his family didn't trust him - he knew logically that they had no reason to trust him, but it still hurt.
Arriving at her office Troy stood just inside the doorway with his hands stuffed in his pockets. His parents along with Rodney were already there and were talking amongst themselves, but fell silent when he entered.
Having a pretty good idea what this meeting was about and wanting to get it done and over with Troy spoke first. "Ok look here's the deal, I'm from around twenty four years into you future and no I won't tell you anything specific about what is going to happen in those years because I don't want to risk changing the future and possibly making things worse than they already are."
"Fair enough." Elizabeth nodded her understanding.
"Aren't you a little young to be a major already?" John spoke up.
Troy just shrugged, "High demand, short supply when it comes to officers."
"Will you at least tell us how you got here so that we could possibly find away to get you back to your time period?" At the moment Elizabeth didn't care about military logic or anything to do with the military period at that moment. She was more curious about the person behind the rank.
"Ancient technology brought me here. You all know about the Ancient called Janus," The others nodded their heads. "Well as I'm sure you've already guessed he didn't stop his research into or experimenting with time travel. About a month ago - my time - an off world team find a device created by Janus that allowed a person to travel through time with out the aide of a jumper."
"How was this person supposed to get back then?" Rodney questioned interested in hearing about the device.
"With this," Troy pulled the Ancient remote out of the vest he was still wearing - minus any weapons. "But as you can see the nice little bullet shaped hole through the middle of it makes it useless to me."
"So how are we supposed to get you back to your time, with out that?" John inquired this time.
"Solar flares."
"Solar flares?" John had no idea where he was going with this.
"Yeah, it's happened before with SG-1. They went through a wormhole that passed through a solar flare and ended up in 1969. Got back the same way."
"Slight problem with that plan, we don't have the technology to predict solar flares." Rodney pointed out.
"No, but the Ancients do. Unfortunately the astrology lab is located in a section of the city that was heavily damaged by that super storm you guys had last year and haven't been able to repair yet. Besides it would take months to repair and get the lab running, which is why I..." He pulled some papers from his vest and handed them to Rodney. "Printed these off of my PDA last night. They're plans for a generator that can simulate the effects of a solar flare on the Stargate. The scientists at the SGC worked on it off and on for years. It's not quiet finished but close enough I think that your scientists can finish it hopefully."
Troy had to send a silent thank you up to whoever had thought that it would be a good idea to have all off world soldiers carry PDA's with what was saved from the SGC computer systems before the evacuation of Earth downloaded onto them using, ironically, Rodney's data compression program. In the beginning the higher ups had been afraid of what might happen if a PDA fell into the wrong hands but that had quickly been taken care of; to access the information a finger print and retina identification scan was required along with a number of different passwords and the ultimate failsafe a specially designed virus to wipe the entire hard drive if someone with out authorization attempted to access the PDA.
"This could actually work." Rodney muttered as he studied the plans. "We should be able to use the readings we took when you arrived to make the calculations needed to send you back to your time. We just have to get the generator working, which shouldn't be too hard most of the hard stuffs been done already."
"Get to work on it." Elizabeth barely finished speaking before Rodney was out the door headed for his lab.
"If there's nothing else...?" Troy questioned not really looking at either of his parents.
"No, I guess that's all for now." Nodding his head Troy left the room a small part of him silently thankful to be out of there.
It was strange seeing his parents again. Troy hadn't seen his mom since she'd passed away when he was six and honestly he couldn't really remember all that much about her- mostly just the pain of losing her - she was practically a stranger to him, which made it kind of awkward for him to be around her because he was never quite sure how he was supposed to act.
And his dad...his dad was a stranger to him. If it weren't for the fact that he'd lived with the man for fourteen years and been told repeatedly that yes John was his father, Troy would have sworn the man was just another person living in the city. Ever since his mom had died his dad had pulled away from his son had never allowed him to get close. Growing up Troy had always felt like his dad didn't want to be around him, that his job was more important and always came first. In away Rodney had been more of a father to him than John ever had.
The city was shaking under the relentless bombarded of the Wraith Hive ships in orbit around the planet. The Wraith had arrived in overwhelming force several hours ago and had been continuously attacking Atlantis non-stop. For most of the attack the Wraith had managed to disable the gate preventing Atlantis from dialing out. By the time they were able to by pass the problem and dial out more than half the city was in ruins and hundreds were dead. When it become obvious that they weren't going to win this time the evacuation order had been given.
Running down the corridor towards the gate room as fast as he could Troy made sure he checked every room along the way for stragglers - not that he expected to find any of those - or injured that couldn't make it to the gate on their own. By now most of the survivors had been sent through the gate the only people that remained were mostly soldiers and the last group waiting to go through the gate. Finding a young Athosian girl huddled in a corner holding her ankle Troy quickly scooped her up and continued to the gate room.
"Rodney come on we gotta go!" Troy hollered when he entered the gate room seeing Rodney still in the control room working furiously at one of the consoles. Passing the girl off to one of the scientists going through the gate Troy started up the stairs.
"Troy what are you still doing here?" Rodney demanded as Troy grabbed his arm and started ushering him down the stairs. "You were supposed to have gone through the gate already with the other kids."
"Someone had to make sure you didn't do something stupid like get yourself killed."
The two reached the bottom of the stairs just as a group of Wraith soldiers burst into the room. Immediately Rodney put himself between the Wraith and Troy, pushing the boy back towards the gate. The few soldiers in the room began firing as they backed towards the gate herding the remaining civilians through.
In the chaos Troy briefly lost sight of Rodney. When he finally spotted him again Troy was horrified to see that one of the Wraiths had a hold of him. He tried to get to Rodney and help but one of the soldiers grabbed him and started trying to force him through the gate. Troy put up one hell of a fight but in the end it wasn't enough. The last thing he saw before being pushed through the gate was the Wraith beginning to feed on Rodney...
Jolted into wakefulness, Troy sat up in bed as the images from his nightmare flooded his mind. It had been a long time since he'd last had that dream, but he still remembered it like it was yesterday. They'd lost of lot of good people that day his father and Rodney among them. The only thing he'd been even close to thankful for that day was that Kate and Nathan had been among one of the first groups evacuated so they didn't have to see Rodney die - Troy only wished he'd been so lucky. As for his dad Troy wasn't sure what had happened to him exactly the last he'd seen of him the man was rushing off down a corridor with a group of soldiers headed for a group of Wraith that had gotten into the city.
Knowing that he wasn't going to get any more sleep Troy slid out of bed noticing that it was early morning and that the sun was only just starting to raise. Pulling on some clothes he made his way down to the gym. He wasn't surprised to find the place empty at that time of morning - even Ronon wouldn't be there for at least another hour.
Slipping off his shirt and shoes Troy grabbed one of the wooden staffs. He had always found that he preferred the longer staffs to the shorter Athosian fighting sticks. Taking a ready stance he closed his eyes and breathed deeply to slow his heart. Finding his center Troy began to move, he twirled the staff using fingers and arms, around his shoulders and in sweeps. Blows and blocks, offense and defense flowed into continuous motion. The staff became an extension of his own body.
The staff wove complex patterns through the air as his tension drained away. Second after second he continued to move gracefully the patterns becoming more and more complex. The movement ended abruptly with Troy bring the staff to rest against Ronon's throat. The runner had entered the room soundlessly moving to watch the younger man's movements. He hadn't even been aware that Troy knew he was there until the staff came to rest against his throat.
"Not bad." Ronon grunted his approval.
"I had good teachers." Troy put the staff away grabbing his shirt and shoes. "Hungry." It was a statement not a question. Ronon just gave a soft snort, the beginnings of a smirk on his face as he followed Troy out of the room to the mess hall. The kid had only been in the city for little over a week and Ronon hadn't had the chance to be around him very much, but found that he liked the younger man anyway and that maybe they had a lot more in common than one might think.
Sitting in the mess hall Elizabeth was eating breakfast with Carson, since John was making the weekly supply run to the Mainland that morning. She watched as Troy and Ronon entered the mess hall and began getting their breakfast. Looking up Troy briefly caught Elizabeth's eye before diverting his gaze elsewhere as he led Ronon to an empty table.
"He hates me doesn't he?" Elizabeth sighed as she poked at her breakfast.
Glancing up Carson caught sight of Troy sitting at another table with Ronon. "What makes you think that?" He was pretty sure he knew the answer to that already, but asked anyway.
"He's been trying avoid me since he got here. He barely looks at me or speaks to me. What could I've done in the future that was so bad that my own son treats me like a stranger?"
"I'm sure it's nothing you did. Maybe John should try talking to him."
Elizabeth gave a soft huff, "Yeah that would go over real well. Troy is even worse when it comes to John. He actively goes out of his way to avoid John, won't talk to him unless absolutely necessary, hell he can barley stand to be in the same room as John."
"Aye," Carson agreed, he'd known as soon as he'd made the suggestion it was probably a bad idea. "Maybe you should have Kate speak with him, see if she can find out what's going on with the lad."
"Maybe..." She trailed off as an idea hit here. "Or better yet I'll sic Rodney on him. Troy seems to like Rodney and gets along with him. And you know how Rodney can be when he sets his mind to something." Her mind made up Elizabeth got up to go find Rodney.
Carson had to smile softly at that, Rodney wasn't exactly known for his people skills among other things. But Troy did seem to have an ease around Rodney that he didn't quiet have with anyone else in the city, maybe it wasn't such a crazy idea to have him talk with the man.