Disclaimer: see chapter one

The carpet, (or at least what passed for carpet in here, was his first thought as his step became bouncy), was emerald green. His second was that everything was dusty. His third, as his internal sirens began flashing, was that there appeared to be a hell of a lot more people in here than he'd originally thought had come through the Stargate.

"Exactly how many people do you have here, now?" He asked Jet, as they walked quietly to the kitchen area, bypassing the dust sheet covered computer access terminals and the couches where the youngest lay sleeping.

Jet closed his eyes briefly, and received the answer from Deuce, who had been the one to do a head count. "One hundred and twenty six, including myself, aged between four and twenty five." It should have been one hundred and twenty eight, dammit.

Jason's eyes grew wider slightly with amazement. Christ, that was nearly the same number that the expedition totalled. "How the hell do you have enough provisions?" he nearly yelled. A few of the children on the closer couches stirred, and Bates froze. The children fell back to sleep, and he moved again.

"We just came out of a siege, Jason," Jet explained. "We had to have had enough food to get us through, at least for a while. Granted, we may only have enough food for a few more weeks, but all that means is that we'll have to start our trade network again."

Okay, now this was interesting; Jason pondered as he followed behind Jet as he walked up some stairs to a service hatch, and grabbed a plate of, oh my God, bacon and eggs. They smelled absolutely divine.He followed him as he grabbed some cutlery, and watched as Jet squeezed some ketchup on his bacon. Jason didn't bother, he only liked brown sauce.

They walked down the stairs on the other side of the platform and went towards an elongated table where a freshly showered Shadow was sitting. They sat down, and Jet began to eat his food.

Jason eat some of his eggs, watched as Jet eat about twice as much as he did in the same time, thinking that perhaps Jet had grown up eating dinner with Dr. McKay, and asked, in an overly casual tone, "Trade network?"

Shadow frowned. Jet had already mentioned that? He wasn't going to…He wouldn't…Would he?

Jason spotted Shadow's frown. Perhaps that was too casual?

"That's our little secret," was all he said, as he waved his fork around in a circle, motioning to everyone who was currently eating.

Jason looked around the area. There were several long tables that looked to seat about twenty people each, but only two were being used, the table he, Jet and Shadow were using, and another that looked almost filled.

Movement from the left caught his eye. A woman with long brunette hair was walking towards the table, carrying her own plate of bacon and eggs. He noticed, when she put it down, that it had brown sauce on it. That wasn't fair! Where the hell did she get it?

The woman noticed his glance towards the brown sauce, and reached into a pocket. A brief look of indecision crossed her face before, from her pocket, she pulled out a couple of sachets of brown sauce and handed them to him.

Jason grabbed the offering, and immediately opened the two packets, squirting the sauce all over the food. He snatched up a piece of the sauce-covered bacon and ate it, not bothering with his fork, his eyes closing, a look of bliss emerging upon his face. He swallowed the bacon and opened his eyes.

He blushed briefly as he saw their stares, but soon indulgent looks rose across their faces.

"We ran out of brown sauce weeks ago," Jason explained.

"We know," came the mystery woman's reply. "It's just, we haven't seen you do that in nearly fifteen years."

"Oh," was all he could say. He died? Okay, it wasn't that much of a shock, he knew that coming to Atlantis was basically a one-way thing and that he could have died within ten minutes of getting here, but they knew when he was going to die? When he had died?

Jet's plate was nearly empty, as was Shadow's and the other woman's. He ate everything on his plate quickly, silently savouring all of it; after all, he never knew when he'd get the chance to eat fresh bacon and eggs ever again. Hell, he'd gotten fresh food before Jet's own father would have. Bonus!

"I'm Z," she spoke, just as he put a forkful of eggs in his mouth.

Sweet Jesus, this was McKay's eldest daughter? He choked, and Z frowned slightly. Someone from the other table walked over and placed a glass of juice in front of him. He grabbed it, and gulped it down, silently expressing his surprise, by the rising of his eyebrows, at how good it tasted. Sort of an extremely sweet strawberry with, he sniffed it, was that...vanilla?

"You okay?" Jet asked. He didn't want the man to choke himself to death whilst with him. The others would probably come after him and lynch him. He'd be hung, drawn, quartered, eighthed, sixteenthed….

"Fine," Jason said, as he waved a hand slightly, "Just fine." He coughed slightly. "Just...wasn't expecting to see a child of McKay's right now."

A small frown covered Z's face as an equally small snort came from Shadow's direction.

"I have to say, I wasn't expecting to see you either, Bates," she retorted. "I would have thought Jet would have brought someone else with him, someone less…. suspicious."

"Hey!" came the loud input from Jet. "I brought who I wanted to bring, no more, no less. That's final."

A shrug of the shoulders from Z soon followed, which made the strangely colored and bejeweled double bars on her jacket catch his eye. "You're a Captain?" he yelped, shock filling his voice.

"Yeah, so what?" she replied, anger starting to appear in her speech, as she stood up, pushing her chair back.

"Sorry," he immediately said. "I mean it's one thing to hear that a progeny of McKay's joined the military, but it's another thing to see it!"

She sat back down, and picked up her fork, eating the rest of her eggs.

"Then I guess you'll be even more shocked when I say that I'm a medical doctor."

Holy crap! "The daughter of the man who says medicine is about as much of a science as voodoo is a doctor?" Double holy crap!

She just smirked the McKay smirk.

"A lot of us are doctors at something or another," Shadow stated, "But Z and Daemon are our only medical doctors."

"You're a doctor as well?" Jason asked. Christ, this was really getting to be too much.

"Doctor of engineering, specifically aquatic and sub aquatic vehicles." Shadow informed him.

"What about you, then Jet?" Jason asked, turning towards him. Please, please, please, please, please don't be a doctor!

"Professor of engineering, specifically aviation, Doctor of physics, specifically mechanics."

Okay, I really should not have bothered asking. Jason had a relatively high IQ of 120, which compared to quite a few of the other grunts was really high, and he didn't want anyone to know about, but he thought that it dropped a few points in light of what he learned about the others. Putting it in simpler terms, he felt stupid.

Okay, I hope the Professor/Doctor talk wasn't too O.T.T. It wasn't, was it? I mean, they grew up in a city basically full of genius's. Or is it genii? Geniuses? I never can tell.

I am hoping that some of the items mentioned will make you start pondering some things, like, how did they get those doctorates? Frankly, I'm pondering it also.