Transposed Part 6
Atlantis Infirmary:
And then there were three. In theory, McKay really should have learned the first time because allowing one friend to fall victim to the device was dumb, but twice was just stupidity on his part. One second Jenifer was perfectly normal, the next she looked like a sweater that had been washed on hot, instead of normal sized, it had shrunk to where it would fit a hand puppet. Keller was now the size of a five year old, although her uniform had magically shrunk to fit her as well. Although, Jenifer's hair was a good deal blonder and Rodney wondered if it just naturally darkened as she aged or what. Dismissing those thoughts he returned to more practical matters at hand.
Presently, Rodney was sitting next to the still form of Jenifer Keller trying to come up with a reasonable explanation because in all actuality, Sheppard was going to kill him.
"MCKAY!" Rodney cringed as his earpiece practically exploded. No, the Colonel was far from "not happy" because he was down-right livid sounding. Knowing how dangerous an angry Sheppard could be, brought all of the man's capabilities into sharp relieve.
Still, stubborn to his last breath, McKay replied dismissively, "Yes. What now?"
"Where are you?" Sheppard seethed over the com unit, "Because you are not in your lab. Funny I got a call from Dr. Biro staying something happened to Dr. Keller. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that would you?"
"Me," Rodney faltered a bit, "What accident? How is it my fault if someone can't stay the proper distance away from certain troublesome ancient objects."
"YOU LET HER GET CLOSE ENOUGH TO TOUCH IT?" There was little holding back the angry tirade coming McKay way, and people said HE had anger issues.
"Well, not on purpose," replied Rodney weakly as he visibly squirmed in his chair. Staring down at the still form of a five year old version of the Child Medical Officer did nothing to assuage his guilt.
"Rodney," by now John seemed to have composed himself somewhat, but that did not diminish the deathly cold undercurrent of anger, "So there are three of them now?"
McKay tried the noncommittal and drawn out, "Maybe."
However that was only greeted by silence on the other end; cold, deadly silence, "Okay fine. I screwed up okay? Yes there are three of them now!"
"Do you see why I'm upset by this?" Sheppard queried in feigned patience, "Look FIX it before anyone else falls victim, and SOON."
Rodney looked back down at Jenifer, tiny and helpless looking. Coming to a decision, he left the infirmary determined not to let anything come in the way of putting the three women back to rights as soon as possible.
Atlantis Infirmary:
Marie was not head of any particular department, nor did she strive to be, but in her own right she was a darn good physician. In her eyes, she was completely content to play the role of second banana, a "go to" girl to Dr. Keller. She had all of the experience and strove to do her job with a dedication permitting her a well deserved spot on the expedition. Her natural cool head was well recognized and appreciated in the department, as hardly anything phased her too much; a good characteristic for a medical doctor stationed in another galaxy full of nasty buggers.
Usually nothing fazed her, but today was an exception. Seeing her boss reverted to a small child, completely unnerved her. The blood she could handle, because she knew given time and proper treatment, the patient would recover. This, this change in complete body structure puzzled her, because no amount of care on her part would set the Doctor to rights. Marie was completely helpless to save her.
Not that Marie would consider herself a friend of Dr. Keller. Actually, Jenifer strove to make all her staff feel welcome and at home, Marie had perfected the art of professional distance long ago, and was still adapting to Keller's leadership style. Even though Dr. Keller was far younger than Marie, she recognized the potential and intelligence the CMO possessed, making her a natural for the position.
Still, Marie found herself inexplicable drawn to the quiet young girl, watching over the child protectively, her thoughts centering on a memory from earlier,
--
Dr. McKay rushed into the infirmary, carrying a small body, unlike the two leaders from earlier. Marie, having helped earlier, immediately ushered the frazzled astrophysicist to an enclosed area to receive his 'package.' In a matter of moments the man babbled out the entire incident.
"It was an accident!" McKay explained frantically as he paced back and forth beside the bed, "I wasn't my fault, she just got too close! Sheppard's going to kill me!"
Remembering one of the cardinal rules of patient care, Marie attempted to calm the scientist down, "Dr. McKay calm down. Please. Now, are you saying that this is Dr. Keller?"
"Are you blind?" Rodney questioned in disbelief as he rambled on, "Of course this is Dr. Keller. She interrupted my work and got too close. It's all her fault really, she wasn't paying attention."
"Of course Dr. McKay," Marie soothed as she hooked up the tiny version of her boss, in preparation to run some tests.
"But she'll be okay, right? Just like the others," choked out McKay, his voice raising an octave or two.
Recognizing that it was time to get the anxious man out from underfoot, Marie replied placating the man, "Look Dr. McKay, I need to run some tests, but I am pretty confident that if the same machine did this to Dr. Keller then she will be just as healthy as the others. Now, why don't you go wait out in the main area for a bit? I'll come get you when I'm done."
Thankfully, the scientist accepted her plan, and positioned himself just around the corner from Jenifer's bed, for the time being.
--
Thinking back, Marie chuckled at the fact McKay stayed at Jenifer's bedside as long as he did. It was only some disciplinary action from Colonel Sheppard that Dr. McKay released he need to focus his attentions elsewhere.
Still, Marie could not help but fuss over her boss, well the little child that was her boss, the girl lying on the bed that she found herself inexplicably drawn to help. Reaching in to check the child's temperature Marie mused thoughtfully, thinking back to how confused Jenifer was when she first came to.
--
Removing the sensors from the girl's temples, Marie had just finished monitoring her brain activity, resulted in Jenifer finally waking up.
Confused eyes took a moment to focus before settling on Marie. Tilting her head to one side in confusion Jenifer asked groggily, "Where am I? What happened?"
Wanting to see exactly what her tiny patient remembered, Marie replied kindly, "What do you remember?"
"Not much. I remember my dad. Is he here? Where is here? Who are you?" The questions came rapid fire from the young female, who by now, sat up straight and tall as she anxiously awaited answers.
"Well," began Marie, wracking her brains for a good cover story, "Your dad needed to go on a business trip and you are visiting your, um, Uncle John and Ronon, Aunt Teyla, and Uncle Rodney. But, you had an accident and hit your head."
"Oh," the little girl replied thoughtfully, "Do I have amnesia?"
Laughing at the astute question, Marie thought about the brilliant doctor lurking somewhere in that little body, and replied, "Yes, something like that. But don't worry, you'll remember more and you are with friends."
This seemed to placate the girl and Jenifer yawned, saying, "Friends."
Minutes later the girl was asleep, still tied from the change that she did not know had taken place.
--
Soon Marie found her thoughts interrupted by the timely arrival of Teyla, who had called earlier expressing her intent to watch over the girl. "Is Jenifer ready, Doctor?"
Composing herself quickly Marie replied, "Yes her scans came back completely clean like the others. She is well enough to roam around the city, and now she is awake."
"Wonderful," Teyla responded with a knowing smile as she walked over to the girl sitting on one of the infirmary beds, "Jenifer, would you like to go meet some friends?"
Jenifer cocked her head to one side, as if in contemplation, and asked quietly, "Are they nice?"
Frowning, Teyla wondered at the cause of Jen's hesitant behavior, but rationale that she just must have been more reserved as a child. True the adult Jenifer was quiet at times, slightly unsure of her abilities; she was still very strong in her interactions with others when needed. Yes, Jenifer still needed to find herself still. Intending to reassure the child, Teyla promised, "They are perfectly nice, and I promise you will have a great deal of fun."
Slowly nodding, Jenifer showed her agreement and hopped off the bed to grab Teyla's hand as the older woman led her out of the infirmary.
Atlantis Gym:
Funny how a bunch of military men and woman, marines and air force, civilian scientist and civilian medical personnel could come together for a friendly game of dodge ball. Sure the biggest and fastest marines were fought over because of size, and sure the scientist squabbled over tactics, but in the end two teams emerged ready and willing to relieve some stress through a friendly game.
Currently a third of the city's population, who were off-duty, gathered together in the gym's largest room to wait for a little dodge ball. These games were legendary themselves. Who could forget the time Zelenka had magically caught the ball to get Major Lorne's team out when he had been out numbered seven to one?
Or the time when Dr. Weir had been roped into playing and ended up giving Colonel Sheppard a black eye? Nobody had been expecting that? (Nobody let him live it down for a week afterwards either).
Today, everyone gathered for a little friendly dodge ball, not only because they wanted to play, but because of several little guests. Initially the situation had been hushed up, but the Atlantis Grapevine squashed that attempt fairly quickly, and now everyone was in the loop regarding the situation of Colonel Carter, Dr. Keller, and the Traveler leader Larrin.
This did not diminish their expectations of a good game whatsoever. Today's teams were lead by the two captains: Ronon and Major Lorne. Lately Ronon's team had dominated the intramural competition, and Lorne hoped to halt that winning streak.
Staring each other down, on one side Ronon had amassed a team based on skill and speed, many from his advanced training classes. There were a few who begged to be part of the Runner's team, but out of the ten total teammates eight had been hand-picked.
The intramural league started up after a Saturday night showing of "Dodgeball", with the rules taken from the National Amateur Dodgeball Association website.
Lorne, on the other hand, seemed to favor size as well, for many of his team consisted of large and muscular marines.
Today, however, the rules were bent slightly to allow the trio to play. Actually, Jenifer did not wish to play, so she chose to follow John around as he took a turn playing the role of official. Thus Jenifer began a Mini-official.
Ronon claimed Sam to his team, and Evan adopted Larrin for the game.
Blowing a whistle, John signaled for either team to line up on their respective sides of the "court."
Jenifer ran back to his side after adjusting the final balls and mock saluted him, "All set Uncle John!"
"Remember no head shots, and be careful where you are throwing those balls, we don't want to hurt anyone," cautioned John in a drawling voice, "And, just have some fun. It's a game people."
With two toots on the whistle the game was on!
Balls flew everywhere, some high, some low, and some painfully fast. Soon even some of the best guys were out, but the small size of both Larrin and Sam allowed them to remain active. They also picked similar strategies of throwing at the feet, catching some of the taller guys off guard as they stooped in an attempt to catch the ball.
Finally, Larrin was hit in the melee and taken out. She cheered her team on from the side lines until there were only three: Ronon and Sam versus Lorne.
Recognizing that it was only a matter of time before Ronon nailed him, Evan took a more chivalrous way and accidentally on purpose took one of Sam's throws right in the stomach.
Cheers erupted from both sides, for who could resist the charm of such young players?
Atlantis Halls to Rodney's Lab:
"Trust me girls," John called cheerily as he led them through the halls of Atlantis later that day, "You're going to love this game."
Practically bouncing next to him, Sam asked energetically, "What kind of game?"
"Yeah," squealed Jen, "You always have the best games Uncle John."
"We," emphasized John smugly, "Are going to pay old Uncle Meredith a visit and I'm going to introduce you to some Pod-racer."
Devious as John was, he had only started to plan his revenge on McKay for his latest mishap, i.e. Jenifer's accident. So now he planned on sharing Rodney's real name, after all kids can be quite cruel once they latch onto a name one doesn't wish to be called. Operation Meredith was only the tip of the iceberg.
Not missing a beat, Larrin asked, "What's Pod-racer?"
"Remember those video games I showed you girls on the laptop?" John asked patiently, ushering them into a transporter before pressing their destination, allowing the transporter to whisk them off to another part of the city.
"Yeah," they replied in unison, staring up at him expectantly.
"Well, in Uncle Meredith's Lab, he has a giant screen where we can play a much better game," John explained, "You get to race difference space craft around."
"Cool," was the collective response.
"Who's Uncle Meredith? Have we met him? Is he nice? Or is he kind of mean, like Uncle Rodney? But Meredith is a girls name!" Came a litany of questions from the three after they remembered where they were headed; it was exciting for them to go meet a "new" playmate.
Chuckling to himself at the brilliance of it all, John replied smugly, "Yep, you've met Uncle Meredith. See Uncle Rodney hates his first name, which is Meredith."
It took a minute for the trio to understand what he meant before they erupted excitedly, "Oh so we get to annoy him about it? Uncle Rodney's real name is Meredith? But it's such a girly name? Why didn't he tell us before?"
And so on and so on, they only stopped when they reached the entrance to McKay's lab. John led them in silently, when as silent as they were ever going to be; they snickered all the while.
"What are YOU doing here?" McKay asked in frustration, obviously displeased at the sight of the intruders. He, after all, was absorbed with trying to fix this mess, even if they didn't know it.
"Hi Uncle Meredith," the girls chorused enthusiastically.
Paling visibly, McKay asked angrily of John, "What did you tell them?"
"Oh nothing," John replied coolly, voice dripping in sarcasm, "Just the truth of course. Come on, leave Uncle Meredith be. We're just going over here to use the big monitor for some games."
Narrowing his eyes and glaring at Sheppard, Rodney replied caustically, "Sure, just barge into my lab, interrupt my work, and presume you can just use my gaming system."
"Exactly……Meredith," John taunted before ushering the girls around the corner into the "office" area of McKay's lab where he kept all of his goodies.
After explaining the basics of the game, and playing a few rounds, John left the girls and wandered back over to where McKay was. He was right in thinking that some harmless video games would keep the trio occupied for a while, after all it worked so well back home at keeping kids entertained for hours.
"How's it coming McKay?" John asked in all seriousness, leaning casually up against a lab table, now that they could talk.
However, the scientist blatantly ignored the question, "Is that the wind I hear?"
"Oh come on Rodney," drawled John, "You had that one coming to you after that last 'accident'."
"It wasn't entirely my fault that Keller got too close!" McKay defended passionately.
"Right," John replied smugly, "So what have you figured out? Can you reverse them yet?"
"You, Colonel have been hanging around obnoxious little girls too long and are picking up their annoying habits!" Rodney stated forcefully.
"Well," Sheppard said pinching the bridge of his nose, "You know how much I like being in charge. The soon Sam is back to normal the better. We all know she's the best one to command."
"You sell yourself short," admitted Rodney in a rare sign of open friendliness before qualifying it, "But don't let that go to your head. Besides I'm almost there. I know how to recalibrate the device to turn them back into adults, I just need to fix some power problems and run some simulations."
"Then we can have our normal Sam, Jenifer, and Larrin back."
Unknowingly to the two guys, three heads poked around the corner in wonderment at the last statement. Questions spun around like wildfire in their brains; what happened to them and what was "normal"?
--
Quickly sitting back down in front of the game system, although the game was temporarily forgotten, the trio of girls looked to one another in awe as what they overheard washed over them.
"Normal?" Jenifer squeaked in confusion, eyes wide with apprehension as she looked at her companions.
Meanwhile, Larrin shook her head smugly as she stated, "I knew something was wrong. Even with Uncle Cauls, and then being dropped off here."
"Yeah," agreed Sam, "Everything feels so weird and different."
Jenifer, ever the realist amongst them, queried thoughtfully, "But what happened to us? Are we in danger?"
Something clicked in Sam's brain though, "Uncle John said he wished we were adults again. Did we shrink or something?"
"I guess some device did this, after all have you SEEN the cool and dangerous stuff in this city?" Larrin asked her companions, pointing out a valid argument; she after all noticed how different and advanced the city was in comparison to the ship Uncle Cauls ran.
"Question," Sam began hesitantly, unsure of voicing her thoughts, "Do you guys ever feel like sometimes you don't always know what's going on? Like there is a gap or something in your memory?"
Larrin nodded in agreement, relieved someone else shared that feeling too, "Yeah, I feel like sometimes I remember what's going on, and then sometimes I can't remember what I did for a while."
"Yeah, I haven't really felt like that, but the whole thing is weird," Jenifer agreed falling silent. Actually the trio all sat in quiet contemplation at what they overheard, trying to wrap their minds around the new information.
"But what did Uncle John mean by that?" Sam asked in frustration breaking the quiet spell. There were still so many questions they craved answers to, but the problem was addressing the subject that they knew the 'grown-ups' wanted to keep secret from them.
"What did I mean by what?" John asked cheerfully rounding the corner to where the trio was seated, causing them to jump as his entrance.
Quickly covering the awkward moment, Larrin gestured to the game, "We didn't know how you did that one power up thingy."
"Here," John answered cheerfully, dropping his innocent question to the relief of the three girls, "I'll show you and we can go to dinner after that."
Little did John realize that the trio knew more than they let on, choosing to hide their new insight for the time being, contemplating just what it might mean.
Atlantis Balcony:
In the evening John decided that the trio needed to see the stars, and he took them to his favorite balcony. It was apart from the main living area of the city, and he doubted very much that many others had found the place.
Sitting together, feet dangling over the edge of the railing, Sam mulled over what she'd overheard earlier and decided to bring it up, "Uncle John?"
"Yes."
"What was I like as an adult?" she asked hesitantly looking in his direction.
John turned his head sharply in her direction, but after a moment of indecision asked, "What do you mean?"
Sam swallowed and said nervously, "Well, when you took us to play in Uncle Meredith's lab, we might have overheard you talking."
John chuckled at the 'Meredith' because it had been his idea to get the girls to call Rodney that. McKay was probably still fuming from earlier, but frowning again he asked seriously, "You were eavesdropping on us?"
Three guilty pairs of eyes immediately found locations other than him as they averted their eyes in shame.
Looking down at the trio, he saw the trust and confusion on their face, with a little fear and replied, "Yes, you three are usually as big as Uncle Rodney and me."
"But not Uncle Ronon," added Larrin giggling. "He's bigger than everyone!"
"True," said John smiling, "But yes, I can tell you what you are like I suppose."
"Oooo, me first! Me first!" cried Larrin anxiously.
"But I asked first," whined Sam.
Jenifer added excitedly, "Don't forget me!"
"Okay, okay," said John trying to calm them down, "Sam did ask first, Larrin so be patient, and I won't forget you either Jenifer."
He scooted backwards in order to lean up against the wall, and the three shifted towards him as well, staring up at him intently.
"Well," began John thoughtfully, "Sam, you are one of the smartest people I know, wise, and thoughtful. But you do know how to have fun when it's time. You don't let anyone get the better of you, and can hold your own in a fight."
"Ooooo, cool!" squeed Sam soaking in all of the information, eyes shining.
Looking at Larrin John continued, "Larrin you are a very strong woman. Sneaky at times, but always with your goal at heart because you are not afraid to do what it takes to get what you want. However, what you want is usually something that will benefit many, so it's a good thing."
"And last but certainly not least, Jen is incredibly smart, witty, and hardworking. You are completely dedicated to helping others, and even though you were hesitant at first, you are one tough cookie," John concluded.
The girls silently contemplated the information for a few glorious and silent minutes before ending the quiet.
"But what are our jobs? Like you and Uncle Ronon are soldiers, and Uncle Meredith is a scientist?" queried Jenifer practically.
"Leaders, you are both leaders. Sam leads the city as Expedition Leader, and Larrin commands a large ship full of her people. But Jenifer is our Chief Medical Officer," replied John.
"Oooh," cooed Jenifer excitedly, "I have a cool title."
"Oh, the ship I was on before Uncle Artur brought me here?" asked Larrin trying to understand.
"Yes," John answered.
Satisfied for the time being, they scooted over even more, and leaned up against John to look up at the stars—his original intention for bringing them out here.
But before the peace and calm could really settle, Larrin asked, "Were we pretty?"
John just groaned, wondering if this would ever end!
--tbc--
Author's Note: There really IS a National Amateur Dodgeball Association website, in the US at least. I was looking to see how many players there should be, just to be slightly accurate in my game description, and help make it clearer. I thought it was kind of funny though that they have their own website!
