Atlantis Wasn't Built in a Day by eleveninches (Exhaustion Challenge)
Title: Atlantis Wasn't Built in a Day
Author: eleveninches
Length: ~3,600 words/22 kb
ex·haus·tion
1. The inability to respond to stimuli; extreme fatigue.
2. The act or an instance of using up a supply of something.
Summary: "It was just his luck to get stranded in a galaxy where he had to live in a wigwam and eat polar bear." McKay/Sheppard, Alternate Timeline for 1x10 The Storm.
*
It wasn't so much that Rodney blamed himself for not being able to save Atlantis -- okay, that was a lie; he blamed himself, and he blamed Zelenka, and he even blamed Major Sheppard and Elizabeth. Rationally, he knew if he couldn't think of a way to help the city ride out the storm, they sure as hell couldn't either, but rationality didn't take away the despair that had gnawed at him since the day they lost the city.
Most of all, Rodney blamed the Alterans for deciding to populate a planet covered in ninety percent ocean. And for deciding to live in a galaxy comprised of a) worlds populated by people who wanted the Atlantis expedition dead, and b) worlds with uninhabitable environments.
Six months into living on what was formally called P1X-91, and now called New Atlantica (named by Ford, naturally, and this time even Sheppard hadn't been able to keep the name from catching), Rodney realized there was a third category: c) worlds that were probably uninhabited for a good reason.
"So let me get this straight," he said to Sheppard, who was looking at him with puppy dog eyes, and who had the fur of some wildcat sewn into the lining of his grey jacket, "you want me to join your hunting party?"
Sheppard fidgeted. "It's not so much a hunting party as a 'save our asses' party."
"What?" Rodney asked, startled. "I thought we had enough MRE's to last us a while!"
"It has been 'a while,'" Sheppard said patiently. He'd grown a lot more patient since they'd all become hippies. Rodney didn't like it one bit. "We've almost exhausted our food supply. A couple of the guys and me want to head into the forest and see if we can find anything big enough to eat."
"Is there going to be a famine? Jesus Christ, are we going to have to start rationing? Do you have any idea what's in those woods? Do we even have any bullets left?" Rodney asked, waving his arms. He knew he was being a little hysterical, but dammit, someone had to be. They couldn't all be one with nature like Sheppard and his merry band of ex-Marines.
"We have plenty of bullets," Sheppard replied, and Rodney felt some of the tension drain from his body. But then Sheppard ruined it by scratched the back of his neck and adding, "Most of the guys though, they want to use the axes they made out of rocks and sticks."
Rodney stared at Sheppard in horror. Sheppard just smiled back.
"Fuck no, you're not going out there alone, I've seen this episode of Lost," Rodney said. "But if anyone runs into a polar bear, I'm out of there faster than you can say ' JJ Abrams.'"
"I don't know what that means," Sheppard said. But when Rodney stretched out his fingers, Sheppard placed a well-used Beretta into his hand.
*
There were things on New Atlantica no one talked about. Once, Sergeant Bates had asked, "Do you ever wonder what would've happened if the storm had never come?" and he'd been given a collective cold shoulder for a week. It was fine to talk about things they'd had, but no one talked about what might have been. No one talked about getting off New Atlantica. No one mentioned the Athosians, or Teyla, or what might've happened to them. (Rodney thought part of it was fear; everyone wanted to pretend Teyla and her people had survived the storm, but no one actually believed it.)
The first two or three days on the planet, no one, not even Rodney, had spoken a word. Later, Elizabeth had said it was just them adjusting to the change, but it was more than that. They had been silent because they had been in mourning: for the secrets left undiscovered, for the city herself, and for the faintest thread of hope -- now completely extinguished -- they'd ever get back to Earth.
Feeling more helpless than he'd ever felt in his life, Rodney had sat in one the puddlejumpers, silently counting down the minutes until the storm had hit Atlantis. By the time it was all over, Elizabeth had been crying quietly, Ford had gone for a long walk by himself, and Sheppard had been gripping his hand so tightly he'd felt it for days after.
*
The hunting party met up at dawn the next day. Unfortunately, Sheppard was probably still busy fixing his hair with his homemade botanical hair gel, or whatever it was he used to still look ravishingly good despite living like the Amish -- and not those fake Genii gun-totting Amish, either -- so Rodney had arrived alone.
"Dr McKay, you're coming?" Ford asked, sounding surprised.
"Great," Bates said loudly, "now we'll never find anything. McKay'll scare away all the animals before we even get a chance to kill them."
"Yes, I'd forgotten the part where you're all burly mountain men trained in the art of hunting game," Rodney scoffed. "Why do I get the feeling none of you have even been so much as camping."
He looked right at Bates as he said this, who grimaced and looked away, and Rodney smirked knowingly.
Since their arrival on New Atlantica, both Ford and Bates had let their hair grow into short afros. Ford had lost his black cap chopping down trees to build their houses; Bates, like Sheppard and many others, had sewn fur into the lining of his jacket. Among the rest of the hunting expedition were Stackhouse and Markham, both sporting full-length beards, Zelenka, wearing an outfit made entirely out of the hemp material they traded another planet their pomegranate-like fruit for, and Yamato, who had shaved his head last week and reminded Rodney of a Buddhist priest. A mean, knife-wielding Buddhist priest.
"I see, you get bent of of shape for me being here, but you let Zelenka come?" Rodney demanded. Rodney had a hard time taking Zelenka seriously since he'd dreaded his hair. "He's completely useless!"
"I am much quieter than you," Zelenka said.
"A herd of stampeding buffalo's quieter than you," Yamato added.
"That is entirely untrue," Rodney said angrily. "I came here out of the goodness of my heart to help our people, and--"
"Hey, Rodney!" Sheppard's voice broke in, as Sheppard jogged onto their little meeting ground outside the longhouse. He was wearing his furry jacket again. "I was afraid you weren't going to come."
"The goodness of your heart?" Ford murmured, which made Markham and Zelenka snicker, and Bates look faintly disgusted. God knew what Bates thought was going on between Sheppard and him, but he'd never heard Sheppard correct anyone's assumptions. Besides, Rodney would hope the idiots he'd been stranded with had more important things to do than wonder about his sex life, considering they were abandoned in another galaxy and all.
"What's the plan, Lieutenant?" Sheppard asked, saving Rodney from any further humiliation.
Ford straightened his shoulders. "Sir, our mission is to find a source of food for the settlement. This includes bringing back any large animals we're able to kill. Two teams of four will head into the forest, one bearing north, another south. We should be on the lookout for any unfamiliar creatures, which may be able to harm us, and any unfamiliar plants, which Dr McKay might be allergic to."
"And you think no one likes you," Sheppard said, playfully punching Rodney's shoulder. Rodney scowled and moved away. "Alright, McKay, Ford, and Stackhouse, you're on my team. Bates, you're in charge of Markham, Zelenka, and Yamato. If anyone gets in any kind of trouble, fire your flares, and the other team will be there ASAP. Got it?"
"Sir, yes, sir," the soldiers answered simultaneously.
"Sure," Zelenka said.
"I guess," said Rodney.
"Can we paint our faces, sir?" Ford asked. Everyone looked at him. He shrugged, looking sheepish. "I just thought it'd be cool. You know, like the Indians."
"Knock yourself out," Sheppard drawled. "You can even be Sitting Bull, if you want."
"No way, I'm Black Panther," Ford said.
"You've thought about this before," Rodney said accusingly.
*
About two weeks into their new Swiss Family Robinson lives, they'd stopped living out of the puddlejumpers and started chopping down trees. Rodney had woken one morning to the sounds of saws and hammers. "What the hell's going on?" he'd asked Sheppard, who had then conned Rodney into helping him set up his Native American wigwam. Corrigan and the other anthropologists had, naturally, drafted the designs themselves.
"I wish I'd never come to this galaxy," Rodney had seethed, numb fingers slipping over the five-hundreth pole he'd pounded into the earth.
Sheppard hadn't answered, but Rodney had known he'd felt the same way. Hours later, when the sun had been slipping down behind the mountains, and Rodney had felt like he could sleep for the next two days straight, Sheppard had announced, "I think we're done."
The house had been built out of thick poles, hammered deep into the ground, and bent with perpendicular poles. There had been a hole at the top so a fire could be built inside, and Sheppard had used one of the waterproof tents to cover the skeleton.
It had been tiny and ugly. It had leaned slightly to the left. Both of them had stood staring at it, posed in identical positions, hands on their respective hips.
"I guess it could be worse," Sheppard had said, gazing up at the sloping wigwam with something like pride in his eyes. "Pretty good for our first try though! Tomorrow, we can help Ford with his."
Rodney had said, "Wonderful. Did you know I was voted 'Most Likely to Die in the Wilderness' by my high school class? I wasn't made for working outdoors, Major. How can you expect me to help build a hundred more of these?"
"You don't have to build even one more, if you don't want to," Sheppard said, sounding unexpectedly embarrassed. "You want to room with me?"
That had shut Rodney up. He'd stared at Sheppard, who had been pointedly not looking back, and then at the house he'd built with his own two hands, and he had replied, "Sure. What could possibly go wrong?"
On Atlantis, those words would have been followed by something crazy and strange happening, like an alien tribe demanding a fertility ritual, or an Ancient device turning someone into a zombie. But on New Atlantica, the only thing unusual that happened was that a few days later, the entire expedition -- township, now -- grouped together to build a longhouse. Rodney would never admit it in a million years, but he kind of missed the crazy.
*
An hour into their hunting mission, it began to rain. Of course, Rodney thought, fuming. He hated nature so, so much. It was just his luck to get stranded in a galaxy where he had to live in a wigwam and eat polar bear.
"You know what I miss?" Sheppard asked suddenly.
Shocked, Rodney spun around to gape at Sheppard, who was glaring at something in the distance. Not surprisingly, he was just as hot wet as he was dry. "You-- what do you miss?" Rodney asked tentatively. He didn't know what he'd do if Sheppard said he missed football, or that sweet tea from P4X-778, or Teyla. Sheppard had hardly spoken of Atlantis since they'd set foot on the planet. Of course, Sheppard hadn't spoken much of Earth when they'd been in Atlantis, either. Maybe it was Sheppard's way of coping.
Sheppard's expression darkened. "Umbrellas."
"That's a stupid thing to miss," Rodney said without thinking. Sheppard blinked at him, and it occurred to Rodney that Sheppard was possibly baring his soul, in the only retarded way he knew how. "I, uh, miss jello."
Sheppard smirked. "That's a stupid thing to miss, too."
"Yeah, well," Rodney said, brushing the raindrops out of his eyes. "I'm a simple man. I have simple needs."
Sheppard snorted so loudly Ford turned, putting a finger over his closed lips.
"Sir," Stackhouse hissed, "I think I see something. Five 'o' clock."
Sheppard went still, and he grabbed Rodney's shoulder, too, as if Rodney would make any sudden movements when they had an edible animal in their mist. Rodney didn't believe for a second Sheppard actually knew how to hunt, but Sheppard had always had a habit of doing something perfect on the first try. Normally, that sort of natural skill pissed Rodney off, but in the case of fresh meat, he'd gladly overlook it.
Ford said quietly, "There's two groups of them. One still at five 'o' clock, and the other at three 'o' clock."
"I've got the one at five," Sheppard said, and took off running.
"Goddamn it, Sheppard," Rodney called to his rapidly-disappearing back. "You're going to get maimed! And who will have to clean you up? Me, that's who."
Ford and Stackhouse exchanged glances. "Why don't you go after the major," Ford said. "We'll get the targets bearing north."
"Of course, send the civilian by himself," Rodney said, but he left anyway.
Sheppard was a little dot in the distance, and Rodney went off after him. From behind, he heard Stackhouse say, "That guy's gonna get us killed one of these days."
"Which one?" Ford asked wearily.
*
They had set up their township in the middle of a valley that had a river running through it. When they had first arrived, Rodney's calculations had put this area of the planet in the middle of a hot, sweltering summer, around thirty-five degrees Celsius. Several types of fruits and vegetables grew naturally in the valley, and they strongly resembled vegetation on Earth: olives, pomegranates, pears, eggplants, lettuce, and onions. There were also a scattering of small animals throughout the region, namely the cats Sheppard and everyone else kept killing for their fur. As it was, Rodney had a hard time killing helpless kitties, even if they were the size of dogs and had claws as long as his fingers.
The construction of the wigwams and longhouse seemed to shake most people out of their stupor. Beckett went a little nuts and went off-world for two weeks; when he came back from whatever hippie planet he'd gone to, he had begun using holistic means of healing instead of the typical methods. (Rodney had thought what Beckett had done before was voodoo. Oh no, he had been wrong. He had been so wrong.) Much to Rodney's chagrin, Sheppard had taken three Marines and left Rodney behind while he had gone back to their old trading partners, and he had found some who hadn't minded trading food for small items such as soap, cloth, candles, and wool. Elizabeth and the anthropologists had started to have lots of meetings behind closed doors, the likes of which Rodney hadn't even wanted to know about.
While other people had busied themselves with farming, weaving, and other forms of basic survival, Rodney had mapped out what types of technology he could create from what very little they had.
He had decided to begin with an irrigation system. The farms a few of the soldiers had set up were tiny, barely allowing for more than substanence crops. Rodney had thought he could do better. He had managed to drag Zelenka and Miko out to the river with him so he could take some measurements, but neither of them had been up to par lately.
Kneeling on the ground at the river bank, Rodney had looked over his shoulder. "Zelenka, I need you to--"
"You will refer to me as 'Sunshine,'" Zelenka had said, laying flat on the ground. Miko had giggled. "It is my new Pegasus name."
Rodney had pinched the bridge of his nose. "I told them we didn't need to take the fucking biologists along, smoking their weed and listening to their 'Freebird,'" he had said to himself. "This will set me behind for at least a few hours."
Needless to say, it had taken Rodney a few weeks longer than usual to get the irrigation pumps working. By that time, Miko and Zelenka had been detoxing hard, violently cursing the biologists. Rodney had asked Elizabeth to outlaw recreational drug use, but she'd said, "Rodney, I can't tell people what they can and cannot do with their own bodies." Rodney had figured the biologists had gotten to her, too.
*
John followed the deer -- they weren't really deer; they were red instead of brown, and they had tusks instead of antlers, but his mind couldn't help but supply 'deer' when he looked at them -- deeper into the woods. From their calm, graceful gallop, he didn't think they'd seen him.
When the animals reached a small clearing, they stopped, and a younger, smaller one joined them. John ducked behind a tree, relaxing letting his P-90 hang against his chest in its sling.
As he watched as the two adults -- Ricky and Lucy, he decided, and the baby was Little Ricky -- nuzzled each other, he felt a strange sense of tranquility. They were strong, beautiful creatures, and if they could survive on this world, in the middle of a deadly galaxy, his people could too. Maybe it was time to let go of Atlantis, and of Earth, and to embrace whatever life came for them on this planet. Life could be good here. He felt his heart swell as--
A series of shots were fired, and all three deer fell over dead.
John gaped, and continued gaping as Rodney came out of the bush. "Ha!" he said. "And they thought I'd be useless on this mission. In your face, Bates."
"You killed the deer," John said, taken aback.
Rodney beamed. "I sure did."
"But I named them," John said sadly, staring into Little Ricky's cold, dead eyes.
Rodney lifted Lucy over his shoulders. "Sheppard, stop being such a homo and pick up Bambi before his blood soaks into the moss."
*
Rodney and Sheppard weren't the only ones to bring back deer for dinner; Ford and Stackhouse brought two more, and Bates, Yamato, and Markham brought one each. Zelenka didn't get any himself, but he didn't seem too upset over it.
"I shot three," Rodney told him smugly, watching proudly as Stackhouse and Bates spited one and the biologists ran around trying to salt the rest for later. It was nice knowing he'd done something for the community that didn't involve using his incredibly impressive brain.
"Good for you," Zelenka said. "You are a master at shooting defenseless woodland creatures."
Rodney scowled. "Don't make light of my manliness. You're impressed by my manly hunting skills, aren't you, Major?" Rodney asked.
"I'd be more impressed if they hadn't been standing around waiting to get shot," Sheppard said.
"Your lips says 'no,' but your eyes say 'yes,'" Rodney said, smirking.
"I have asked you not to talk about your sex life in front of me, please. It is uncomfortable for us all," Zelenka said, leaving them and ambling over to where Miko and Simpson were passing out the beer they'd made using their own home-grown barley.
"Sex life?" Sheppard repeated.
"For a hippie, he's unusually uptight," Rodney said, frowning.
Rodney lost Sheppard to the crowd as Elizabeth dragged Sheppard away, and Rodney was grabbed by several of the scientists, who demanded to know just how he'd killed three deer. He relished the dismayed look on Gall's and Kavanagh's faces as they realized he had, indeed, accomplished it on his own. Somewhere along the way, Simpson handed him a large glass of beer, Stackhouse gave him a hefty plate of deer meat, and by the time people started dancing and singing around the fire, he'd found Sheppard again, sitting by himself against a log.
Rodney collapsed beside him. He liked the way the fire softened Sheppard's features, even if Sheppard was too good-looking for his own good. "This is the perfect evening," he said. He drowned the rest of his beer.
"Almost perfect," Sheppard said, bumping Rodney's knee with his.
"Almost perfect," Rodney agreed, thinking of Atlantis, and Teyla, and everything they'd left behind.
But Sheppard surprised him: "Yeah. You could get laid."
Rodney gestured to the rest of their people. "Right. And with whom, Major?"
Sheppard's eyes narrowed, and it took nearly five solid minutes for what Sheppard said to hit him. His heart fluttered in his chest, and his throat was suddenly very dry. "Yeah?" he asked a little squeakily.
Sheppard smirked. "Well, I was thinking. You did do some manly killing today. And Elizabeth told me just now that maybe it's time we stopped following Earth's rules and made our own. My bed's made of straw and yak skin, but it's big enough for two."
Rodney put his hand over Sheppard's. "You had me at 'yak,'" he said.
*
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis does not belong to me. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Thanks to onthecontrary for the quick read-through.
Author: eleveninches
Length: ~3,600 words/22 kb
ex·haus·tion
1. The inability to respond to stimuli; extreme fatigue.
2. The act or an instance of using up a supply of something.
Summary: "It was just his luck to get stranded in a galaxy where he had to live in a wigwam and eat polar bear." McKay/Sheppard, Alternate Timeline for 1x10 The Storm.
*
It wasn't so much that Rodney blamed himself for not being able to save Atlantis -- okay, that was a lie; he blamed himself, and he blamed Zelenka, and he even blamed Major Sheppard and Elizabeth. Rationally, he knew if he couldn't think of a way to help the city ride out the storm, they sure as hell couldn't either, but rationality didn't take away the despair that had gnawed at him since the day they lost the city.
Most of all, Rodney blamed the Alterans for deciding to populate a planet covered in ninety percent ocean. And for deciding to live in a galaxy comprised of a) worlds populated by people who wanted the Atlantis expedition dead, and b) worlds with uninhabitable environments.
Six months into living on what was formally called P1X-91, and now called New Atlantica (named by Ford, naturally, and this time even Sheppard hadn't been able to keep the name from catching), Rodney realized there was a third category: c) worlds that were probably uninhabited for a good reason.
"So let me get this straight," he said to Sheppard, who was looking at him with puppy dog eyes, and who had the fur of some wildcat sewn into the lining of his grey jacket, "you want me to join your hunting party?"
Sheppard fidgeted. "It's not so much a hunting party as a 'save our asses' party."
"What?" Rodney asked, startled. "I thought we had enough MRE's to last us a while!"
"It has been 'a while,'" Sheppard said patiently. He'd grown a lot more patient since they'd all become hippies. Rodney didn't like it one bit. "We've almost exhausted our food supply. A couple of the guys and me want to head into the forest and see if we can find anything big enough to eat."
"Is there going to be a famine? Jesus Christ, are we going to have to start rationing? Do you have any idea what's in those woods? Do we even have any bullets left?" Rodney asked, waving his arms. He knew he was being a little hysterical, but dammit, someone had to be. They couldn't all be one with nature like Sheppard and his merry band of ex-Marines.
"We have plenty of bullets," Sheppard replied, and Rodney felt some of the tension drain from his body. But then Sheppard ruined it by scratched the back of his neck and adding, "Most of the guys though, they want to use the axes they made out of rocks and sticks."
Rodney stared at Sheppard in horror. Sheppard just smiled back.
"Fuck no, you're not going out there alone, I've seen this episode of Lost," Rodney said. "But if anyone runs into a polar bear, I'm out of there faster than you can say ' JJ Abrams.'"
"I don't know what that means," Sheppard said. But when Rodney stretched out his fingers, Sheppard placed a well-used Beretta into his hand.
*
There were things on New Atlantica no one talked about. Once, Sergeant Bates had asked, "Do you ever wonder what would've happened if the storm had never come?" and he'd been given a collective cold shoulder for a week. It was fine to talk about things they'd had, but no one talked about what might have been. No one talked about getting off New Atlantica. No one mentioned the Athosians, or Teyla, or what might've happened to them. (Rodney thought part of it was fear; everyone wanted to pretend Teyla and her people had survived the storm, but no one actually believed it.)
The first two or three days on the planet, no one, not even Rodney, had spoken a word. Later, Elizabeth had said it was just them adjusting to the change, but it was more than that. They had been silent because they had been in mourning: for the secrets left undiscovered, for the city herself, and for the faintest thread of hope -- now completely extinguished -- they'd ever get back to Earth.
Feeling more helpless than he'd ever felt in his life, Rodney had sat in one the puddlejumpers, silently counting down the minutes until the storm had hit Atlantis. By the time it was all over, Elizabeth had been crying quietly, Ford had gone for a long walk by himself, and Sheppard had been gripping his hand so tightly he'd felt it for days after.
*
The hunting party met up at dawn the next day. Unfortunately, Sheppard was probably still busy fixing his hair with his homemade botanical hair gel, or whatever it was he used to still look ravishingly good despite living like the Amish -- and not those fake Genii gun-totting Amish, either -- so Rodney had arrived alone.
"Dr McKay, you're coming?" Ford asked, sounding surprised.
"Great," Bates said loudly, "now we'll never find anything. McKay'll scare away all the animals before we even get a chance to kill them."
"Yes, I'd forgotten the part where you're all burly mountain men trained in the art of hunting game," Rodney scoffed. "Why do I get the feeling none of you have even been so much as camping."
He looked right at Bates as he said this, who grimaced and looked away, and Rodney smirked knowingly.
Since their arrival on New Atlantica, both Ford and Bates had let their hair grow into short afros. Ford had lost his black cap chopping down trees to build their houses; Bates, like Sheppard and many others, had sewn fur into the lining of his jacket. Among the rest of the hunting expedition were Stackhouse and Markham, both sporting full-length beards, Zelenka, wearing an outfit made entirely out of the hemp material they traded another planet their pomegranate-like fruit for, and Yamato, who had shaved his head last week and reminded Rodney of a Buddhist priest. A mean, knife-wielding Buddhist priest.
"I see, you get bent of of shape for me being here, but you let Zelenka come?" Rodney demanded. Rodney had a hard time taking Zelenka seriously since he'd dreaded his hair. "He's completely useless!"
"I am much quieter than you," Zelenka said.
"A herd of stampeding buffalo's quieter than you," Yamato added.
"That is entirely untrue," Rodney said angrily. "I came here out of the goodness of my heart to help our people, and--"
"Hey, Rodney!" Sheppard's voice broke in, as Sheppard jogged onto their little meeting ground outside the longhouse. He was wearing his furry jacket again. "I was afraid you weren't going to come."
"The goodness of your heart?" Ford murmured, which made Markham and Zelenka snicker, and Bates look faintly disgusted. God knew what Bates thought was going on between Sheppard and him, but he'd never heard Sheppard correct anyone's assumptions. Besides, Rodney would hope the idiots he'd been stranded with had more important things to do than wonder about his sex life, considering they were abandoned in another galaxy and all.
"What's the plan, Lieutenant?" Sheppard asked, saving Rodney from any further humiliation.
Ford straightened his shoulders. "Sir, our mission is to find a source of food for the settlement. This includes bringing back any large animals we're able to kill. Two teams of four will head into the forest, one bearing north, another south. We should be on the lookout for any unfamiliar creatures, which may be able to harm us, and any unfamiliar plants, which Dr McKay might be allergic to."
"And you think no one likes you," Sheppard said, playfully punching Rodney's shoulder. Rodney scowled and moved away. "Alright, McKay, Ford, and Stackhouse, you're on my team. Bates, you're in charge of Markham, Zelenka, and Yamato. If anyone gets in any kind of trouble, fire your flares, and the other team will be there ASAP. Got it?"
"Sir, yes, sir," the soldiers answered simultaneously.
"Sure," Zelenka said.
"I guess," said Rodney.
"Can we paint our faces, sir?" Ford asked. Everyone looked at him. He shrugged, looking sheepish. "I just thought it'd be cool. You know, like the Indians."
"Knock yourself out," Sheppard drawled. "You can even be Sitting Bull, if you want."
"No way, I'm Black Panther," Ford said.
"You've thought about this before," Rodney said accusingly.
*
About two weeks into their new Swiss Family Robinson lives, they'd stopped living out of the puddlejumpers and started chopping down trees. Rodney had woken one morning to the sounds of saws and hammers. "What the hell's going on?" he'd asked Sheppard, who had then conned Rodney into helping him set up his Native American wigwam. Corrigan and the other anthropologists had, naturally, drafted the designs themselves.
"I wish I'd never come to this galaxy," Rodney had seethed, numb fingers slipping over the five-hundreth pole he'd pounded into the earth.
Sheppard hadn't answered, but Rodney had known he'd felt the same way. Hours later, when the sun had been slipping down behind the mountains, and Rodney had felt like he could sleep for the next two days straight, Sheppard had announced, "I think we're done."
The house had been built out of thick poles, hammered deep into the ground, and bent with perpendicular poles. There had been a hole at the top so a fire could be built inside, and Sheppard had used one of the waterproof tents to cover the skeleton.
It had been tiny and ugly. It had leaned slightly to the left. Both of them had stood staring at it, posed in identical positions, hands on their respective hips.
"I guess it could be worse," Sheppard had said, gazing up at the sloping wigwam with something like pride in his eyes. "Pretty good for our first try though! Tomorrow, we can help Ford with his."
Rodney had said, "Wonderful. Did you know I was voted 'Most Likely to Die in the Wilderness' by my high school class? I wasn't made for working outdoors, Major. How can you expect me to help build a hundred more of these?"
"You don't have to build even one more, if you don't want to," Sheppard said, sounding unexpectedly embarrassed. "You want to room with me?"
That had shut Rodney up. He'd stared at Sheppard, who had been pointedly not looking back, and then at the house he'd built with his own two hands, and he had replied, "Sure. What could possibly go wrong?"
On Atlantis, those words would have been followed by something crazy and strange happening, like an alien tribe demanding a fertility ritual, or an Ancient device turning someone into a zombie. But on New Atlantica, the only thing unusual that happened was that a few days later, the entire expedition -- township, now -- grouped together to build a longhouse. Rodney would never admit it in a million years, but he kind of missed the crazy.
*
An hour into their hunting mission, it began to rain. Of course, Rodney thought, fuming. He hated nature so, so much. It was just his luck to get stranded in a galaxy where he had to live in a wigwam and eat polar bear.
"You know what I miss?" Sheppard asked suddenly.
Shocked, Rodney spun around to gape at Sheppard, who was glaring at something in the distance. Not surprisingly, he was just as hot wet as he was dry. "You-- what do you miss?" Rodney asked tentatively. He didn't know what he'd do if Sheppard said he missed football, or that sweet tea from P4X-778, or Teyla. Sheppard had hardly spoken of Atlantis since they'd set foot on the planet. Of course, Sheppard hadn't spoken much of Earth when they'd been in Atlantis, either. Maybe it was Sheppard's way of coping.
Sheppard's expression darkened. "Umbrellas."
"That's a stupid thing to miss," Rodney said without thinking. Sheppard blinked at him, and it occurred to Rodney that Sheppard was possibly baring his soul, in the only retarded way he knew how. "I, uh, miss jello."
Sheppard smirked. "That's a stupid thing to miss, too."
"Yeah, well," Rodney said, brushing the raindrops out of his eyes. "I'm a simple man. I have simple needs."
Sheppard snorted so loudly Ford turned, putting a finger over his closed lips.
"Sir," Stackhouse hissed, "I think I see something. Five 'o' clock."
Sheppard went still, and he grabbed Rodney's shoulder, too, as if Rodney would make any sudden movements when they had an edible animal in their mist. Rodney didn't believe for a second Sheppard actually knew how to hunt, but Sheppard had always had a habit of doing something perfect on the first try. Normally, that sort of natural skill pissed Rodney off, but in the case of fresh meat, he'd gladly overlook it.
Ford said quietly, "There's two groups of them. One still at five 'o' clock, and the other at three 'o' clock."
"I've got the one at five," Sheppard said, and took off running.
"Goddamn it, Sheppard," Rodney called to his rapidly-disappearing back. "You're going to get maimed! And who will have to clean you up? Me, that's who."
Ford and Stackhouse exchanged glances. "Why don't you go after the major," Ford said. "We'll get the targets bearing north."
"Of course, send the civilian by himself," Rodney said, but he left anyway.
Sheppard was a little dot in the distance, and Rodney went off after him. From behind, he heard Stackhouse say, "That guy's gonna get us killed one of these days."
"Which one?" Ford asked wearily.
*
They had set up their township in the middle of a valley that had a river running through it. When they had first arrived, Rodney's calculations had put this area of the planet in the middle of a hot, sweltering summer, around thirty-five degrees Celsius. Several types of fruits and vegetables grew naturally in the valley, and they strongly resembled vegetation on Earth: olives, pomegranates, pears, eggplants, lettuce, and onions. There were also a scattering of small animals throughout the region, namely the cats Sheppard and everyone else kept killing for their fur. As it was, Rodney had a hard time killing helpless kitties, even if they were the size of dogs and had claws as long as his fingers.
The construction of the wigwams and longhouse seemed to shake most people out of their stupor. Beckett went a little nuts and went off-world for two weeks; when he came back from whatever hippie planet he'd gone to, he had begun using holistic means of healing instead of the typical methods. (Rodney had thought what Beckett had done before was voodoo. Oh no, he had been wrong. He had been so wrong.) Much to Rodney's chagrin, Sheppard had taken three Marines and left Rodney behind while he had gone back to their old trading partners, and he had found some who hadn't minded trading food for small items such as soap, cloth, candles, and wool. Elizabeth and the anthropologists had started to have lots of meetings behind closed doors, the likes of which Rodney hadn't even wanted to know about.
While other people had busied themselves with farming, weaving, and other forms of basic survival, Rodney had mapped out what types of technology he could create from what very little they had.
He had decided to begin with an irrigation system. The farms a few of the soldiers had set up were tiny, barely allowing for more than substanence crops. Rodney had thought he could do better. He had managed to drag Zelenka and Miko out to the river with him so he could take some measurements, but neither of them had been up to par lately.
Kneeling on the ground at the river bank, Rodney had looked over his shoulder. "Zelenka, I need you to--"
"You will refer to me as 'Sunshine,'" Zelenka had said, laying flat on the ground. Miko had giggled. "It is my new Pegasus name."
Rodney had pinched the bridge of his nose. "I told them we didn't need to take the fucking biologists along, smoking their weed and listening to their 'Freebird,'" he had said to himself. "This will set me behind for at least a few hours."
Needless to say, it had taken Rodney a few weeks longer than usual to get the irrigation pumps working. By that time, Miko and Zelenka had been detoxing hard, violently cursing the biologists. Rodney had asked Elizabeth to outlaw recreational drug use, but she'd said, "Rodney, I can't tell people what they can and cannot do with their own bodies." Rodney had figured the biologists had gotten to her, too.
*
John followed the deer -- they weren't really deer; they were red instead of brown, and they had tusks instead of antlers, but his mind couldn't help but supply 'deer' when he looked at them -- deeper into the woods. From their calm, graceful gallop, he didn't think they'd seen him.
When the animals reached a small clearing, they stopped, and a younger, smaller one joined them. John ducked behind a tree, relaxing letting his P-90 hang against his chest in its sling.
As he watched as the two adults -- Ricky and Lucy, he decided, and the baby was Little Ricky -- nuzzled each other, he felt a strange sense of tranquility. They were strong, beautiful creatures, and if they could survive on this world, in the middle of a deadly galaxy, his people could too. Maybe it was time to let go of Atlantis, and of Earth, and to embrace whatever life came for them on this planet. Life could be good here. He felt his heart swell as--
A series of shots were fired, and all three deer fell over dead.
John gaped, and continued gaping as Rodney came out of the bush. "Ha!" he said. "And they thought I'd be useless on this mission. In your face, Bates."
"You killed the deer," John said, taken aback.
Rodney beamed. "I sure did."
"But I named them," John said sadly, staring into Little Ricky's cold, dead eyes.
Rodney lifted Lucy over his shoulders. "Sheppard, stop being such a homo and pick up Bambi before his blood soaks into the moss."
*
Rodney and Sheppard weren't the only ones to bring back deer for dinner; Ford and Stackhouse brought two more, and Bates, Yamato, and Markham brought one each. Zelenka didn't get any himself, but he didn't seem too upset over it.
"I shot three," Rodney told him smugly, watching proudly as Stackhouse and Bates spited one and the biologists ran around trying to salt the rest for later. It was nice knowing he'd done something for the community that didn't involve using his incredibly impressive brain.
"Good for you," Zelenka said. "You are a master at shooting defenseless woodland creatures."
Rodney scowled. "Don't make light of my manliness. You're impressed by my manly hunting skills, aren't you, Major?" Rodney asked.
"I'd be more impressed if they hadn't been standing around waiting to get shot," Sheppard said.
"Your lips says 'no,' but your eyes say 'yes,'" Rodney said, smirking.
"I have asked you not to talk about your sex life in front of me, please. It is uncomfortable for us all," Zelenka said, leaving them and ambling over to where Miko and Simpson were passing out the beer they'd made using their own home-grown barley.
"Sex life?" Sheppard repeated.
"For a hippie, he's unusually uptight," Rodney said, frowning.
Rodney lost Sheppard to the crowd as Elizabeth dragged Sheppard away, and Rodney was grabbed by several of the scientists, who demanded to know just how he'd killed three deer. He relished the dismayed look on Gall's and Kavanagh's faces as they realized he had, indeed, accomplished it on his own. Somewhere along the way, Simpson handed him a large glass of beer, Stackhouse gave him a hefty plate of deer meat, and by the time people started dancing and singing around the fire, he'd found Sheppard again, sitting by himself against a log.
Rodney collapsed beside him. He liked the way the fire softened Sheppard's features, even if Sheppard was too good-looking for his own good. "This is the perfect evening," he said. He drowned the rest of his beer.
"Almost perfect," Sheppard said, bumping Rodney's knee with his.
"Almost perfect," Rodney agreed, thinking of Atlantis, and Teyla, and everything they'd left behind.
But Sheppard surprised him: "Yeah. You could get laid."
Rodney gestured to the rest of their people. "Right. And with whom, Major?"
Sheppard's eyes narrowed, and it took nearly five solid minutes for what Sheppard said to hit him. His heart fluttered in his chest, and his throat was suddenly very dry. "Yeah?" he asked a little squeakily.
Sheppard smirked. "Well, I was thinking. You did do some manly killing today. And Elizabeth told me just now that maybe it's time we stopped following Earth's rules and made our own. My bed's made of straw and yak skin, but it's big enough for two."
Rodney put his hand over Sheppard's. "You had me at 'yak,'" he said.
*
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis does not belong to me. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Thanks to onthecontrary for the quick read-through.