H. s. s. vialacteanus, by Sophonisba
-title- H. s. s. vialacteanus
-author- Sophonisba (saphanibaal)
-warnings- Er... very nearly suitable for general audiences, except for the swearing and the somewhat controversial topics. Quasigenderfsckery. Human reproduction. Scenes that could be taken either as preslash or as really incredibly awkward; you pays your money and you takes your choice. Also, I don't clearly remember the infirmary layout and I don't own a copy of an episode with it in it; sorry about the handwaving.
-disclaimer- Not my people, not my setting, not my world, and the Responsibility was directly inspired by the Responsibility in Diane Duane's Tale of the Five (but the concept makes so much sense applied to Pegasus!)
-spoilers- I don't think there are any that aren't general knowledge. Oh. A reference to "Conversion." Which is probably general knowledge by now, anyway, but... Set in Nebulous Time that may or may not branch off canon somewhere after the middle or so of second season.
-word count- 5077
-summary- "Honestly, sir," Lorne said, "[...] most of us were here when you turned into a bug. This is pretty small potatoes."
H. s. s. vialacteanus
During their first year in Atlantis, John Sheppard had developed the habit of carting a laptop into the labs and doing his paperwork there, since:
- 1 - it made him readily accessible as a universal remote for non-genetically-enhanced scientists such as Zelenka;
- 2 - since anyplace he tried to use as an office proved to be infinitely distracting, he might as well set up in the labs, where at least he had some excuse for being distracted. Besides, the general response of the lab denizens to conversational remarks made out of boredom was some more-or-less-polite version of "I'm busy; go do your homework";
- 3 - it was as good a place as any to park his butt where he could be found if necessary, and saved Atlanteans the bother of remembering extra directions;
- 4 - he had heard somewhere that spending time just being together, defined as "in the same room, conscious of each other's presence, not necessarily interacting" was as essential a part of group bonding as shared activities, and the one place McKay could reliably be found was the labs. He'd tried to get the rest of his team to join him, but Ford seemed to have much more active office hours and had suggested that Marines trooping in and out might disturb the scientists. The scientists had agreed. Teyla had been perfectly willing to do her stretching exercises in a corner of the labs, but everyone but Miko had quickly voted the exercises overly distracting. Given that Teyla could read neither Atlantis-era Ancient nor any Tellurian alphabet and that the Athosians had taken those scrolls they'd managed to salvage to the mainland, and that she had no taste for public meditation, she tended to keep to areas of the city where she would not be bored stiff (although every now and then, Teyla would drag some blankets in and curl up for a nap under one of the lab tables. This apparently passed for normal behavior among the scientists, who easily worked around her except when they felt the need to ask her to move under another table, one they were not about to put volatile chemicals or devices on). Kavanagh had complained that John's slouch was nearly as distracting, but McKay had snorted that Sheppard slouched all the time, it was just as well to get desensitized early, and Sheppard's corner had remained.
Even now that he had Lorne to do the paperwork (except for the few things he really, really couldn't get out of), he still tended to wander into the labs and play puzzle-bubble or Minesweeper while making himself available, especially considering that was mostly what he'd been doing anyway.
On the day it all began, he looked up from a lost game of puzzle-bubble (the game had, irritatingly, randomly, refused to give him the orange bubble he needed until after the other orange was blocked) to find Rodney, Miko, and Simpson pulling things out of a very large packing crate.
"What's that?" John asked, folding his laptop down to save the screen.
"Since for once we actually have a relatively free 'later'," Rodney explained, blithe with the cheer of five cups of blue-rose tea (natural source of caffeine and theobromine and marvel of Ancient genetic engineering), "we're going through the 'not-so-interesting stuff to be gone through later' boxes."
"Many of these are labeled," Miko added, taking out a lumpy oblong thing that looked sort of like a one-handed video game controller.
"What's that one say?" Simpson asked.
"Falling stones," Miko read. Her brow furrowed for a moment. A hologram fizzed into existence a few yards in front of her, although at first it merely seemed to be three lines forming a box, something like a skinnier version of the upper part of a football goalpost. It was accompanied by quiet, New-Age-ish almost-music that sounded a little like ocean waves.
Then something began moving down from the top of the hologram in small increments. John got up and walked over to it in time to see the something revealed as a stack of five ridiculously large gemstones, each one a different shape and color, one on top of the other.
"Columns," Miko breathed. The -- column -- of gemstones inched over to the right border of the hologram and dropped like a stone. Another began to descend; the stones began to shift order in a regular pattern, and then the column suddenly fell over onto its side and took up existence as a row.
Cool.
"Hey, let me," McKay began.
"I've just started!" Miko protested.
Cool as it was, it was starting to remind John of puzzle-bubble, and he wandered over to where Simpson had pulled out an irregular object that fit the graven-image specifications for a cherub.
"What's that?" he asked.
"The label's one of the compound nouns Ancient tends to have," Dr. Simpson explained, peering at the inscription. "Almost as bad as German -- anyway, it says it's a Veryyoungchild-care-helper-maker."
"Mobile?" John suggested.
"Or possibly the Ancient equivalent of Teletubbies," Dr. Simpson said. "Or even that of Sesame Street, although I'd expect that to be a teaching-helper-maker."
John laid a hand on the device and thought On.
Something quietly rushed through his nervous system, and he hastily switched to Off, off, off!
"That... tingled," Simpson said.
"What?" McKay looked up from his version of a Gameboy Possession War. "Turn it off!"
"I did, but it was already off," John said. "It shut down as soon as it pinged our nervous systems. Maybe it's broken."
"Put it in the 'possible danger' box and go get checked up," McKay rolled his eyes. "You know the rules."
So Simpson did, and they did.
Dr. Biro told them "You're in reasonably good health, although with slightly inflated pituitary and adrenal gland activity -- probably because you're worried. You should be fine, but let us know if there are any further symptoms or if you keep feeling stressed."
No other symptoms developed for the rest of that day, and the only stress John experienced was directly attributable to having to reassure everyone he met, from Elizabeth on down, that he was fine, really, it was only a mild electric shock, he'd given himself worse on Earth tinkering with a radio.
Then there was the mission to the moon of cattle herders who were absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to trade for all the naturally iodized salt they wanted; the byproduct of Atlantis's drinking water purification, even in the stackable crystal form Miko had sacrificed some of the output to get, had been really piling up for a while, and John was fairly happy himself to be able to get some off their hands in return for somebody's surplus slightly sweet melleca beans and cheese.
Granted, the Denna were happy enough to then invite AR-1 to come cattle raiding through the Stargate with them, and John had to find some way to politely decline without suggesting that sneaking onto another planet in the dead of its night, collecting the (very, very large) cows or possibly bulls from a shed that would presumably be as near to their owners' house as their hosts' cowsheds, and then somehow or another persuading the lifted stock to step through a Stargate-sized wormhole, WASN'T the most fun you could have with your clothes on. With only Teyla's surreptitious radio comments to help, as she and McKay had gone to tour a dairy and taste cheeses and something called "chill butter."
Then Rodney began moaning over the radio, and there was a moment of frantic excitement wherein John frantically rifled his vest for a spare epinephrine pen, Ronon bolted for the dairy hogan with a small sharp knife in his hand, and Teyla appeared to be too busy having a seizure to reassure anybody, before matters calmed down and it turned out that "chillbutter flavored with melleca beans" was the local jargon for "melleca-flavored ice cream." Fortunately, the Athapaskan Gauls, as John thought of them, were more amused than not -- it helped that none of them had interpreted McKay's moans as anything but orgasmic -- and were even happier to trade the Atlanteans their chillbutter (also in spicy bark and sweet fruit flavors) for a little more salt in their winters and a ready supply of ice the rest of the time.
After that, Atlantis was called on to help mediate the ransom of some of the cattle-raiding Denna from what turned out to be Bullfight Planet, and AR-1 found themselves escorting a delegation of diplomats and linguists.
The Atlanteans arrived in time for the annual running of the (possibly non-bison buffalo) bulls. Isabel la Española and Isabel a Portuguesa got into one of their rare catfights over the exact nuances of the publicly-posted festival bill, the proper conduct of tauromachy, and whether the landscape around the Stargate more closely resembled Andalusia or the Algarve (actually, it looked a lot like Griffith Park). Teyla volunteered as a last-minute substitute for a member of a bull-dancing troupe and nearly gave everyone a heart attack; the Isabels, who had made up by that point, suggested that "aurochs-dancing" would be a more accurate term. Ronon had an extremely ill-timed intrigue with a snake-dancer that John dutifully chewed him out for, feeling more and more hypocritical with each word; he then redeemed the party's reputation by leaping onto an escaped bull and cutting its throat: this apparently sufficiently matched the traditional final event of the bullfights, where the locals sent a matador in alone with a cape and a dagger, that the Toreans awarded him an embroidered rabbit-wool cape, a cast-iron dagger, and free drinks in every public house in town. This rekindled the tauromachy argument, and the remainder of the linguists kicked Ronon out of his bedroom and took it over. The town astrologer, declaring himself mortally insulted, challenged Rodney to a duel; the challenged party chose Athosian fighting sticks as their weapon and his master in the art as his second, and Teyla only had to bestir herself in order to take down the most belligerent of the disgruntled loser's supporters in about five seconds flat.
Elizabeth successfully completed the ransom negotiations, with honor and satisfaction all round, and then had to politely decline an invitation from the grateful Toreans to go cattle-raiding with them. She set up a trading agreement of Atlantean salt for Torean meat and leather instead.
Everyone stayed for the big final day of the celebrations, reeled back home feeling more or less unwell, and were promptly hustled to the infirmary, where it transpired that everyone under thirty except Ronon had come down with a case of cowpox. John was explaining the theory of vaccinations to a snappish, rather febrile, and feeling-unjustly-put-upon Teyla (and, okay, being sort of an ass about it, but not really -- it was Teyla and she was sick) -- when Ronon added, possibly having understood more of the explanation than his feverish teammate, that if he shaved his beard they'd be able to see the two pits from his case of inoculation-mild little pocks.
The medical staff collectively put that together with his current immunity, went dead white, and dragged Ronon off to start working up a vaccine fast.
At least it was an uncustomary advance notice for the Pegasus Galaxy.
And then, while the infirmary was full of genuinely sick people and Ronon was trotting in and out of it giving blood and telling Sustaning Tales, such as might relieve a teammate in Advanced Boredom (John had tried, but he sucked at telling stories in a coherent manner while making sure everyone understood all the cultural references), and Lorne was out and about with his team after having to mind the store for the past week and a half, John found himself dealing with the fallout from the Great Falling Stones Playtime Rota Silent War Of Aggression, in which Rodney McKay was not a minor player.
Miko, on the other hand, stayed out of it and played variations of Columns on the Saturn emulator on her laptop.
So it wasn't until that was mostly settled and the cowpox patients were finishing their recovery in their own rooms, that John actually paid attention to the fact that his chest was itching and aching a little, and had been for a while.
Since, while he was fairly sure he must have been vaccinated for smallpox sometime, he couldn't actually remember getting the shot, he sighed and trudged back to the infirmary (which route he could probably take in his sleep. Sometimes he wondered if he ought to feel depressed by that), sitting on an unused table in time to see Simpson waltz in waving a small straight object and announce "Well, I'm not pregnant."
"I didn't think I'd have missed that," Dr. Biro said, shooting a triumphant glance at Beckett, and escorted Simpson into another corner.
Beckett sighed.
"I'd think you'd be glad," John commented. "Don't you get enough maternity work consulting with the Athosians?"
"Yes, but -- well, I suppose you caught enough of that that it won't be giving away anything to say that some things have one simple answer and several more complicated ones. And that's all I'll be saying about that. What can I do for you?"
John explained.
Beckett made several gaining-time noises in his throat, palpated (which hurt), drew blood, and disappeared into the back room, looking more and more distressed.
A few moments later, one of the nurses came out; Something Gubina, John remembered after a few moments. "Have you and Doctor Simpson done anything together recently?"
"Well, we were both peripherally involved with the mess over the Ancient video game, but so was everyone working with at least one of the people doing the arguing, and I was offworld before that."
The murmur of voices from the other corner of the room suggested that Simpson was being asked the same question, as did Biro's call of "Gubina, pull their medical files, wouldn't you?"
This sparked another consultation in the back room, which halted when Biro stuck her head out the door and announced "You two came to see me for a post-device-interaction checkup, right around the time the labs found that video game thing."
Yeah, now that she mentioned it, John kind of remembered that.
"It gave us an electric shock and switched itself off," Simpson said.
He remembered that, too. "We kind of thought it might be another hologram thing."
"What was it?" Biro asked.
They shrugged.
"You pulled it out of a box right after Miko turned the Falling Stones on," John remembered.
"It had an inscription," Simpson added. "Everything in that box had inscriptions."
"Do you remember what it said?" Carson asked, coming out of the back and looking from one to another of them worriedly.
"Nah," said John.
"No," said Simpson, "but I logged our experience with it into the database when we got back. If you search the lab artifact database by date and modifying ID, anyone in the lab can pull up the artifact record and point it out to you."
"Thank you, I'll just be doing that," Carson said, and trotted out of the infirmary. Biro blinked at the closing door and went over to talk to Simpson.
Gubina wandered out of the back room, plumping a pillow which she set behind John's back.
"So," he asked, "is it cowpox?"
"Nn? No, no. Is not far enough from Earth variety that immunities do not work. This is... " Gubina searched for a moment... "hormones."
"Hormones," John muttered gloomily. That would mean... either something simple or very complicated indeed, from what he knew of medicine. Great.
Gubina leaned over for a moment, lowering her voice. "You are having problems with... attaining erect? Holding erect?"
"What?! No."
The nurse's eyebrows raised and she muttered something that, John was willing to bet from the tone, translated to something like "Fascinating."
Presently Carson trotted back into the infirmary, looking more worried than ever, trailed by a very confused-looking aircraftsman who attempted to salute John while still cradling Simpson's whatchamacallit.
"At ease," John said firmly. Honestly, he was surprised the Indian Air Force had let the boy on the Daedalus without a keeper.
Carson directed the whatchamacallit into the back room, the medical staff followed it in, and the aircraftsman emerged shortly thereafter, looking more confused than ever. When no one appeared ready to enlighten him, he marched back out, not forgetting the proper salutes on entering and exiting the room.
"I thought I'd seen it in the medical database the other day," Dr. Beckett announced as he finally emerged, his "This will sting a wee bit" face on. "It's really quite fascinating; somehow, the Ancients were able to induce the condition without otherwise interfering with the reproductive system's workings -- "
"Well, not quite," Biro contradicted, and stalked over to Simpson.
"Not with yours, Colonel, at least," Beckett corrected himself, a desperately cheerful smile on his face. "The instructions say that the, er, condition will return to status quo ante after a year unless in, ah, heavy use, which is promising -- "
"A year?" John said. "If my tac vest starts chafing, this'll get real old real fast."
"I survived," Gubina offered. "Every time, though not both at once. Support will help. We can borrow." She shot a disapproving glance at his black T-shirt. "But rib cage that large -- Yi Lin will not do, not without sewing project. Mm. Makeda went up one cup size recently, perhaps she has not got rid of her old ones yet -- "
Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard stared at the motherly nurse, one thought echoing louder and louder in his brain:
Oh, HELL no.
But life, as it does, showed an irritating habit of going on, and the medical staff strongly suggested against trying to tamper with what appeared from the records to be a pretty foolproof process -- "yes, we could counter the current amounts of prolactin with dopamine, but that would affect the entire body; we don't know why the prolactin isn't affecting areas that prolactin usually would, but whatever we do to change matters is likely either to change that first off or to have unexpected side effects -- " and so cryptic notations were made in the reports to the SGC and additions made to the Daedalus cargo requisitions.
"Honestly, sir," Lorne said as the two of them headed for the jumper bay (in response to AR-3's returning message that "there's no immediate emergency, but they've given us a, um, present, or a reward, I suppose, and we can't just park and walk off!"), "half of us have served under Col. Carter, and most of us were here when you turned into a bug. This is pretty small potatoes."
"Right," John said, wincing at the term, "but it's the particular kind of topological rearrangement that certain people will object to... "
"Anyone who would have objected to that kind of thing went back on the Daedalus already. Your people weed them out fast."
"I knew people who weren't adapting to Atlantis were encouraged to request transfers, but I didn't know it extended to... "
"I figure part of it's the multiculture-based tolerance around here, part of it's the cult of extreme personal loyalty that's grown up around you -- "
"My what?"
"Oh, you've definitely got one, sir. The sort of one that gives the Joint Chiefs collective nightmares and the sociologists collective orgasms. It may have a few disadvantages, but it definitely cuts both ways out here. And the third part's the sure and certain knowledge that if the military don't keep themselves regularly weeded, the geeks can and will drop the heavy end of the hammer on them; and the geeks make their hammer with a thorough understanding of the concepts of efficiency and elegance, a minimal idea of their application to the gentle art of soldierly rhetoric, and an absolute horror of false negatives, to quote Dr. Jackson."
John was spared the necessity of coming up with an answer to this by the descending puddlejumper. The two Marines in the front compartment had their faces set in the sharp attention that was their version of his Slouch Number Three, a fact quickly explained by the trumpeting sound that was audible as soon as they turned the PA on.
"Did they give you a baby white elephant?" Lorne demanded.
"A black mastodon, sir," Sergeant Alvarez answered. "Her name's Natassia."
"And every now and then I'll look up and someone's staring at my chest," John complained to Carson.
Biro turned from her cell cultures, held her thumb and forefinger together, and drew them back and forth frequently at about an inch of amplitude parallel to her cheek.
"What's that supposed to mean?" John demanded.
"The smallest violin in the world playing 'My Heart Bleeds For You.'"
"But it is a great gift," Teyla said, not for the first time. "My people would rejoice to have such a way available to help care for suckling babes. Take Nirra; we are sure now that she is bearing twins, and twins are both a great gift to a family and a great burden, especially when both of them must be with a certain one of the family thrice and four times a day. Or Nomar and Cylin and Buan; their daughter Lumy has chosen to fulfill her Responsibility early, and if they could take over the care of the child she bears as soon as possible, it would be easier for all four of them. Could you not use the device on one of them, at least? Nomar has said that he would be willing to take his turn."
"We still don't know why the device targeted Simpson and Sheppard," Rodney vetoed, "and even if Sheppard was the one to turn it on again, we don't know whether it would do something more to him."
"What, it'd make me grow another pair?" John demanded.
McKay's face slid into the dazed, glazed look it had last worn when contemplating the feasibility of persuading the kitchen staff or the Denna to make blue-rose ice cream. John tried not to take it personally.
"Nirra's due soon now, right?" Simpson said. "I'd be willing to help her out if I don't dry up before then. We can keep whatever I produce before then in stasis for when it's needed, and I suppose I could take the kids for half a day or so if she ever really needs a vacation."
"Not in the labs you're not," McKay said, snapping back from wherever he'd been before John could steal his cheeseburger.
Teyla glared at him.
"The labs are where we deal with all sorts of potentially dangerous substances," McKay said slowly. "There will be no baring of skin below the neckline in the labs unless immediately necessary in order to treat or prevent chemical burns or similar injuries. I shouldn't have to make that an order."
"No, you shouldn't," Simpson agreed. "I wasn't planning to take a baby into the lab anyway; I can always take a page from the Colonel's book and work in Elizabeth's office or something."
"Weir might object," Ronon rumbled.
Simpson jumped; possibly she'd forgotten he was there.
About a week after that, Halling used the Athosians' radio to roust Sheppard and Beckett out of bed for what turned out to be airlifting a terrified fourteen-year-old to the infirmary for an oh-dark-hundred premature C-section, and John told the universe that he really, really hadn't needed a butterfly on his nose.
The universe didn't bother to answer.
When his impromptu run finished back at the infirmary, a haggard-eyed Simpson was cradling her arms under a paper gown tied round her neck.
"We seem to be in the middle of a statistical clump of good timing," she observed. "I don't suppose you have such a thing as a powerbar on you?"
"Better than poetic timing, I suppose," John said, fishing one out of the tac vest he'd left crumpled in a chair.
"We could make up T-shirts," she said, adjusting one arm and carefully extruding the other one. "Pegasus Galaxy: At Least It's Not Raining."
John opened the bar and folded the wrapper down. "I could get you some coffee?"
"I'm on limited caffeine intake as of now," she sighed. "And probably for the next few months -- they're pretty sure Lumy's going to make it now, but they don't know when she's going to be out of bed, or how long she's going to be on strong medication."
"I'd help, but I'm not there yet."
"You're growing a lot more tissue than I did. Give it time." Her first bite took about half the bar, and she barely chewed it before swallowing. "I wouldn't go in and see her yet; Carson's been stalking around inventing death threats during the stable periods, and I rather think I agree with him. What were her parents thinking?"
"She is of age by Athosian reckoning," John pointed out, "and probably that they'd like another kid."
"That they'd like another kid?"
"Didn't you get the memo on Athosian reproductive mores? Maybe it only goes out to military.all..."
Simpson shook her head.
"We got blindsided the first year, but -- basically, they think everyone has an obligation to pass on their genes, but that children should be raised by those who are willing to put in the work, not necessarily those who produced the kid. Teyla had her kid when she was about Lumy's age, picked an older man who was ready to settle down and be a father, and apparently had no side-effects other than milk. Since I only heard Lumy's family brought up in discussions, very likely there's some teener on the mainland scared that his attempt to get his responsibilities out of the way early might have killed her."
"Every time I think I have a handle on the idea it's a whole new world out here, I'm reminded I really don't."
"I think this particular one's just a whole new country -- speaking of which, I think Americans are the only ones paranoid about feeding in public, and I don't mind, so if the hospital gown's uncomfortable..."
"Premature," Simpson reminded him. "I'm supposed to keep him warm."
"Want to borrow my vest?"
"Sure."
He carefully draped it over her chest and tucked it around what seemed to be a much smaller baby than he'd been picturing.
"You know," she told John's breastbone, "this is actually kind of soothing."
It actually kind of was, John agreed a month and a half later. Nirra had turned out to have not twins but triplets, which had delivered themselves with disgusting ease and which were apparently rare enough in Pegasus that every Athosian on an offworld team was managing to fit a variation of "A woman of our people has borne three twins at one birth, and all four are healthy and hale!" somewhere in their greeting spiel. The anthropologists were evenly split between being delighted or appalled that Nirra's family had adopted Lorne's suggested names of Kyllan, Kemoc, and Kaththea.
And so it seemed natural enough that he was sitting under a tree on the mainland with his shirt rucked up and one cup pulled down, supporting Kemoc's head with one hand and playing Falling Stones with the other. He wasn't quite sure what sinister machinations might have gone on to have caused Heightmeyer to present him with the game before anyone posted on the rota, but he was sure that he didn't really want to know.
Besides, Kemoc liked the music.
"Colonel, where have you -- hrgleblk." Rodney stopped dead on the corner of the path.
"When Kemoc has finished," Teyla announced, gracefully weaving around the obstruction of scientist, "Halling would like you to bring him back to the village, that we may make a picture of the three to put onto papers and bring to show our trading partners."
"I -- excuseme," McKay hastily announced to the top of the game, turned, and bolted.
John completely missed an opportunity to put the gamma-shape into the hole he'd left for it and get three threes in a horizontal line.
"What's his problem?" Ronon asked, evidently having nearly been run over (or, more likely, bounced off of.)
"Hell if I know." Even if he suspected. John managed to blow away most of the height on the right side with the help of a clockwise-comma made of five blues.
"That appears most relaxing," Teyla commented.
"Miko's got a few games like it you can play." The baby chose that moment to unlatch, and John paused the game, stuffed the console in his back pocket, and handed Kemoc to Ronon, who promptly seemed to grow about five extra elbows.
Rodney had been staring fervently at the wall of the back compartment of the jumper for about half the ride back when John finally said, "Seriously, McKay. What the hell?"
"I'm sorry! I just -- see -- er -- bulletproof kink!"
The puddlejumper, bemused, asked whether use of the rear left ejection seat was really intended. John hastily overrode the command.
"What, breastfeeding?" Ronon demanded, at least as flabbergasted.
"My mother always thought anyone who chose to when bottles were available was hopelessly low-class," Rodney told his feet. "I must have been twelve before I even saw anyone... "
"The world," Teyla remarked, "is not only stranger than we imagine, it is strange beyond imagining."
"Hardly an original sentiment," Rodney muttered, sounding somewhat more like himself.
"But particularly applicable here," John said. "The weird shit always seems to happen to us."
"We weren't the ones who played bait for a Wraith-minded man and received a platterfoot in recompense," Ronon pointed out.
"How big is Natassia these days?" John asked.
"When they finished her new house, she had grown too large for the doorway," Teyla said. "Halling says it will find use as a gathering place in the rain."
"Jinto certainly seems to be enjoying his new career as a mahout, though," Rodney said. "We should make someone translate 'Toomai of the Elephants' for him."
"Do you think Doctor Beckett's newer therapy would work upon me?" Teyla suddenly asked, peering forward. "I think I would like to learn to fly the puddlejumper."
-author- Sophonisba (saphanibaal)
-warnings- Er... very nearly suitable for general audiences, except for the swearing and the somewhat controversial topics. Quasigenderfsckery. Human reproduction. Scenes that could be taken either as preslash or as really incredibly awkward; you pays your money and you takes your choice. Also, I don't clearly remember the infirmary layout and I don't own a copy of an episode with it in it; sorry about the handwaving.
-disclaimer- Not my people, not my setting, not my world, and the Responsibility was directly inspired by the Responsibility in Diane Duane's Tale of the Five (but the concept makes so much sense applied to Pegasus!)
-spoilers- I don't think there are any that aren't general knowledge. Oh. A reference to "Conversion." Which is probably general knowledge by now, anyway, but... Set in Nebulous Time that may or may not branch off canon somewhere after the middle or so of second season.
-word count- 5077
-summary- "Honestly, sir," Lorne said, "[...] most of us were here when you turned into a bug. This is pretty small potatoes."
H. s. s. vialacteanus
During their first year in Atlantis, John Sheppard had developed the habit of carting a laptop into the labs and doing his paperwork there, since:
- 1 - it made him readily accessible as a universal remote for non-genetically-enhanced scientists such as Zelenka;
- 2 - since anyplace he tried to use as an office proved to be infinitely distracting, he might as well set up in the labs, where at least he had some excuse for being distracted. Besides, the general response of the lab denizens to conversational remarks made out of boredom was some more-or-less-polite version of "I'm busy; go do your homework";
- 3 - it was as good a place as any to park his butt where he could be found if necessary, and saved Atlanteans the bother of remembering extra directions;
- 4 - he had heard somewhere that spending time just being together, defined as "in the same room, conscious of each other's presence, not necessarily interacting" was as essential a part of group bonding as shared activities, and the one place McKay could reliably be found was the labs. He'd tried to get the rest of his team to join him, but Ford seemed to have much more active office hours and had suggested that Marines trooping in and out might disturb the scientists. The scientists had agreed. Teyla had been perfectly willing to do her stretching exercises in a corner of the labs, but everyone but Miko had quickly voted the exercises overly distracting. Given that Teyla could read neither Atlantis-era Ancient nor any Tellurian alphabet and that the Athosians had taken those scrolls they'd managed to salvage to the mainland, and that she had no taste for public meditation, she tended to keep to areas of the city where she would not be bored stiff (although every now and then, Teyla would drag some blankets in and curl up for a nap under one of the lab tables. This apparently passed for normal behavior among the scientists, who easily worked around her except when they felt the need to ask her to move under another table, one they were not about to put volatile chemicals or devices on). Kavanagh had complained that John's slouch was nearly as distracting, but McKay had snorted that Sheppard slouched all the time, it was just as well to get desensitized early, and Sheppard's corner had remained.
Even now that he had Lorne to do the paperwork (except for the few things he really, really couldn't get out of), he still tended to wander into the labs and play puzzle-bubble or Minesweeper while making himself available, especially considering that was mostly what he'd been doing anyway.
On the day it all began, he looked up from a lost game of puzzle-bubble (the game had, irritatingly, randomly, refused to give him the orange bubble he needed until after the other orange was blocked) to find Rodney, Miko, and Simpson pulling things out of a very large packing crate.
"What's that?" John asked, folding his laptop down to save the screen.
"Since for once we actually have a relatively free 'later'," Rodney explained, blithe with the cheer of five cups of blue-rose tea (natural source of caffeine and theobromine and marvel of Ancient genetic engineering), "we're going through the 'not-so-interesting stuff to be gone through later' boxes."
"Many of these are labeled," Miko added, taking out a lumpy oblong thing that looked sort of like a one-handed video game controller.
"What's that one say?" Simpson asked.
"Falling stones," Miko read. Her brow furrowed for a moment. A hologram fizzed into existence a few yards in front of her, although at first it merely seemed to be three lines forming a box, something like a skinnier version of the upper part of a football goalpost. It was accompanied by quiet, New-Age-ish almost-music that sounded a little like ocean waves.
Then something began moving down from the top of the hologram in small increments. John got up and walked over to it in time to see the something revealed as a stack of five ridiculously large gemstones, each one a different shape and color, one on top of the other.
"Columns," Miko breathed. The -- column -- of gemstones inched over to the right border of the hologram and dropped like a stone. Another began to descend; the stones began to shift order in a regular pattern, and then the column suddenly fell over onto its side and took up existence as a row.
Cool.
"Hey, let me," McKay began.
"I've just started!" Miko protested.
Cool as it was, it was starting to remind John of puzzle-bubble, and he wandered over to where Simpson had pulled out an irregular object that fit the graven-image specifications for a cherub.
"What's that?" he asked.
"The label's one of the compound nouns Ancient tends to have," Dr. Simpson explained, peering at the inscription. "Almost as bad as German -- anyway, it says it's a Veryyoungchild-care-helper-maker."
"Mobile?" John suggested.
"Or possibly the Ancient equivalent of Teletubbies," Dr. Simpson said. "Or even that of Sesame Street, although I'd expect that to be a teaching-helper-maker."
John laid a hand on the device and thought On.
Something quietly rushed through his nervous system, and he hastily switched to Off, off, off!
"That... tingled," Simpson said.
"What?" McKay looked up from his version of a Gameboy Possession War. "Turn it off!"
"I did, but it was already off," John said. "It shut down as soon as it pinged our nervous systems. Maybe it's broken."
"Put it in the 'possible danger' box and go get checked up," McKay rolled his eyes. "You know the rules."
So Simpson did, and they did.
Dr. Biro told them "You're in reasonably good health, although with slightly inflated pituitary and adrenal gland activity -- probably because you're worried. You should be fine, but let us know if there are any further symptoms or if you keep feeling stressed."
No other symptoms developed for the rest of that day, and the only stress John experienced was directly attributable to having to reassure everyone he met, from Elizabeth on down, that he was fine, really, it was only a mild electric shock, he'd given himself worse on Earth tinkering with a radio.
Then there was the mission to the moon of cattle herders who were absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to trade for all the naturally iodized salt they wanted; the byproduct of Atlantis's drinking water purification, even in the stackable crystal form Miko had sacrificed some of the output to get, had been really piling up for a while, and John was fairly happy himself to be able to get some off their hands in return for somebody's surplus slightly sweet melleca beans and cheese.
Granted, the Denna were happy enough to then invite AR-1 to come cattle raiding through the Stargate with them, and John had to find some way to politely decline without suggesting that sneaking onto another planet in the dead of its night, collecting the (very, very large) cows or possibly bulls from a shed that would presumably be as near to their owners' house as their hosts' cowsheds, and then somehow or another persuading the lifted stock to step through a Stargate-sized wormhole, WASN'T the most fun you could have with your clothes on. With only Teyla's surreptitious radio comments to help, as she and McKay had gone to tour a dairy and taste cheeses and something called "chill butter."
Then Rodney began moaning over the radio, and there was a moment of frantic excitement wherein John frantically rifled his vest for a spare epinephrine pen, Ronon bolted for the dairy hogan with a small sharp knife in his hand, and Teyla appeared to be too busy having a seizure to reassure anybody, before matters calmed down and it turned out that "chillbutter flavored with melleca beans" was the local jargon for "melleca-flavored ice cream." Fortunately, the Athapaskan Gauls, as John thought of them, were more amused than not -- it helped that none of them had interpreted McKay's moans as anything but orgasmic -- and were even happier to trade the Atlanteans their chillbutter (also in spicy bark and sweet fruit flavors) for a little more salt in their winters and a ready supply of ice the rest of the time.
After that, Atlantis was called on to help mediate the ransom of some of the cattle-raiding Denna from what turned out to be Bullfight Planet, and AR-1 found themselves escorting a delegation of diplomats and linguists.
The Atlanteans arrived in time for the annual running of the (possibly non-bison buffalo) bulls. Isabel la Española and Isabel a Portuguesa got into one of their rare catfights over the exact nuances of the publicly-posted festival bill, the proper conduct of tauromachy, and whether the landscape around the Stargate more closely resembled Andalusia or the Algarve (actually, it looked a lot like Griffith Park). Teyla volunteered as a last-minute substitute for a member of a bull-dancing troupe and nearly gave everyone a heart attack; the Isabels, who had made up by that point, suggested that "aurochs-dancing" would be a more accurate term. Ronon had an extremely ill-timed intrigue with a snake-dancer that John dutifully chewed him out for, feeling more and more hypocritical with each word; he then redeemed the party's reputation by leaping onto an escaped bull and cutting its throat: this apparently sufficiently matched the traditional final event of the bullfights, where the locals sent a matador in alone with a cape and a dagger, that the Toreans awarded him an embroidered rabbit-wool cape, a cast-iron dagger, and free drinks in every public house in town. This rekindled the tauromachy argument, and the remainder of the linguists kicked Ronon out of his bedroom and took it over. The town astrologer, declaring himself mortally insulted, challenged Rodney to a duel; the challenged party chose Athosian fighting sticks as their weapon and his master in the art as his second, and Teyla only had to bestir herself in order to take down the most belligerent of the disgruntled loser's supporters in about five seconds flat.
Elizabeth successfully completed the ransom negotiations, with honor and satisfaction all round, and then had to politely decline an invitation from the grateful Toreans to go cattle-raiding with them. She set up a trading agreement of Atlantean salt for Torean meat and leather instead.
Everyone stayed for the big final day of the celebrations, reeled back home feeling more or less unwell, and were promptly hustled to the infirmary, where it transpired that everyone under thirty except Ronon had come down with a case of cowpox. John was explaining the theory of vaccinations to a snappish, rather febrile, and feeling-unjustly-put-upon Teyla (and, okay, being sort of an ass about it, but not really -- it was Teyla and she was sick) -- when Ronon added, possibly having understood more of the explanation than his feverish teammate, that if he shaved his beard they'd be able to see the two pits from his case of inoculation-mild little pocks.
The medical staff collectively put that together with his current immunity, went dead white, and dragged Ronon off to start working up a vaccine fast.
At least it was an uncustomary advance notice for the Pegasus Galaxy.
And then, while the infirmary was full of genuinely sick people and Ronon was trotting in and out of it giving blood and telling Sustaning Tales, such as might relieve a teammate in Advanced Boredom (John had tried, but he sucked at telling stories in a coherent manner while making sure everyone understood all the cultural references), and Lorne was out and about with his team after having to mind the store for the past week and a half, John found himself dealing with the fallout from the Great Falling Stones Playtime Rota Silent War Of Aggression, in which Rodney McKay was not a minor player.
Miko, on the other hand, stayed out of it and played variations of Columns on the Saturn emulator on her laptop.
So it wasn't until that was mostly settled and the cowpox patients were finishing their recovery in their own rooms, that John actually paid attention to the fact that his chest was itching and aching a little, and had been for a while.
Since, while he was fairly sure he must have been vaccinated for smallpox sometime, he couldn't actually remember getting the shot, he sighed and trudged back to the infirmary (which route he could probably take in his sleep. Sometimes he wondered if he ought to feel depressed by that), sitting on an unused table in time to see Simpson waltz in waving a small straight object and announce "Well, I'm not pregnant."
"I didn't think I'd have missed that," Dr. Biro said, shooting a triumphant glance at Beckett, and escorted Simpson into another corner.
Beckett sighed.
"I'd think you'd be glad," John commented. "Don't you get enough maternity work consulting with the Athosians?"
"Yes, but -- well, I suppose you caught enough of that that it won't be giving away anything to say that some things have one simple answer and several more complicated ones. And that's all I'll be saying about that. What can I do for you?"
John explained.
Beckett made several gaining-time noises in his throat, palpated (which hurt), drew blood, and disappeared into the back room, looking more and more distressed.
A few moments later, one of the nurses came out; Something Gubina, John remembered after a few moments. "Have you and Doctor Simpson done anything together recently?"
"Well, we were both peripherally involved with the mess over the Ancient video game, but so was everyone working with at least one of the people doing the arguing, and I was offworld before that."
The murmur of voices from the other corner of the room suggested that Simpson was being asked the same question, as did Biro's call of "Gubina, pull their medical files, wouldn't you?"
This sparked another consultation in the back room, which halted when Biro stuck her head out the door and announced "You two came to see me for a post-device-interaction checkup, right around the time the labs found that video game thing."
Yeah, now that she mentioned it, John kind of remembered that.
"It gave us an electric shock and switched itself off," Simpson said.
He remembered that, too. "We kind of thought it might be another hologram thing."
"What was it?" Biro asked.
They shrugged.
"You pulled it out of a box right after Miko turned the Falling Stones on," John remembered.
"It had an inscription," Simpson added. "Everything in that box had inscriptions."
"Do you remember what it said?" Carson asked, coming out of the back and looking from one to another of them worriedly.
"Nah," said John.
"No," said Simpson, "but I logged our experience with it into the database when we got back. If you search the lab artifact database by date and modifying ID, anyone in the lab can pull up the artifact record and point it out to you."
"Thank you, I'll just be doing that," Carson said, and trotted out of the infirmary. Biro blinked at the closing door and went over to talk to Simpson.
Gubina wandered out of the back room, plumping a pillow which she set behind John's back.
"So," he asked, "is it cowpox?"
"Nn? No, no. Is not far enough from Earth variety that immunities do not work. This is... " Gubina searched for a moment... "hormones."
"Hormones," John muttered gloomily. That would mean... either something simple or very complicated indeed, from what he knew of medicine. Great.
Gubina leaned over for a moment, lowering her voice. "You are having problems with... attaining erect? Holding erect?"
"What?! No."
The nurse's eyebrows raised and she muttered something that, John was willing to bet from the tone, translated to something like "Fascinating."
Presently Carson trotted back into the infirmary, looking more worried than ever, trailed by a very confused-looking aircraftsman who attempted to salute John while still cradling Simpson's whatchamacallit.
"At ease," John said firmly. Honestly, he was surprised the Indian Air Force had let the boy on the Daedalus without a keeper.
Carson directed the whatchamacallit into the back room, the medical staff followed it in, and the aircraftsman emerged shortly thereafter, looking more confused than ever. When no one appeared ready to enlighten him, he marched back out, not forgetting the proper salutes on entering and exiting the room.
"I thought I'd seen it in the medical database the other day," Dr. Beckett announced as he finally emerged, his "This will sting a wee bit" face on. "It's really quite fascinating; somehow, the Ancients were able to induce the condition without otherwise interfering with the reproductive system's workings -- "
"Well, not quite," Biro contradicted, and stalked over to Simpson.
"Not with yours, Colonel, at least," Beckett corrected himself, a desperately cheerful smile on his face. "The instructions say that the, er, condition will return to status quo ante after a year unless in, ah, heavy use, which is promising -- "
"A year?" John said. "If my tac vest starts chafing, this'll get real old real fast."
"I survived," Gubina offered. "Every time, though not both at once. Support will help. We can borrow." She shot a disapproving glance at his black T-shirt. "But rib cage that large -- Yi Lin will not do, not without sewing project. Mm. Makeda went up one cup size recently, perhaps she has not got rid of her old ones yet -- "
Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard stared at the motherly nurse, one thought echoing louder and louder in his brain:
Oh, HELL no.
But life, as it does, showed an irritating habit of going on, and the medical staff strongly suggested against trying to tamper with what appeared from the records to be a pretty foolproof process -- "yes, we could counter the current amounts of prolactin with dopamine, but that would affect the entire body; we don't know why the prolactin isn't affecting areas that prolactin usually would, but whatever we do to change matters is likely either to change that first off or to have unexpected side effects -- " and so cryptic notations were made in the reports to the SGC and additions made to the Daedalus cargo requisitions.
"Honestly, sir," Lorne said as the two of them headed for the jumper bay (in response to AR-3's returning message that "there's no immediate emergency, but they've given us a, um, present, or a reward, I suppose, and we can't just park and walk off!"), "half of us have served under Col. Carter, and most of us were here when you turned into a bug. This is pretty small potatoes."
"Right," John said, wincing at the term, "but it's the particular kind of topological rearrangement that certain people will object to... "
"Anyone who would have objected to that kind of thing went back on the Daedalus already. Your people weed them out fast."
"I knew people who weren't adapting to Atlantis were encouraged to request transfers, but I didn't know it extended to... "
"I figure part of it's the multiculture-based tolerance around here, part of it's the cult of extreme personal loyalty that's grown up around you -- "
"My what?"
"Oh, you've definitely got one, sir. The sort of one that gives the Joint Chiefs collective nightmares and the sociologists collective orgasms. It may have a few disadvantages, but it definitely cuts both ways out here. And the third part's the sure and certain knowledge that if the military don't keep themselves regularly weeded, the geeks can and will drop the heavy end of the hammer on them; and the geeks make their hammer with a thorough understanding of the concepts of efficiency and elegance, a minimal idea of their application to the gentle art of soldierly rhetoric, and an absolute horror of false negatives, to quote Dr. Jackson."
John was spared the necessity of coming up with an answer to this by the descending puddlejumper. The two Marines in the front compartment had their faces set in the sharp attention that was their version of his Slouch Number Three, a fact quickly explained by the trumpeting sound that was audible as soon as they turned the PA on.
"Did they give you a baby white elephant?" Lorne demanded.
"A black mastodon, sir," Sergeant Alvarez answered. "Her name's Natassia."
"And every now and then I'll look up and someone's staring at my chest," John complained to Carson.
Biro turned from her cell cultures, held her thumb and forefinger together, and drew them back and forth frequently at about an inch of amplitude parallel to her cheek.
"What's that supposed to mean?" John demanded.
"The smallest violin in the world playing 'My Heart Bleeds For You.'"
"But it is a great gift," Teyla said, not for the first time. "My people would rejoice to have such a way available to help care for suckling babes. Take Nirra; we are sure now that she is bearing twins, and twins are both a great gift to a family and a great burden, especially when both of them must be with a certain one of the family thrice and four times a day. Or Nomar and Cylin and Buan; their daughter Lumy has chosen to fulfill her Responsibility early, and if they could take over the care of the child she bears as soon as possible, it would be easier for all four of them. Could you not use the device on one of them, at least? Nomar has said that he would be willing to take his turn."
"We still don't know why the device targeted Simpson and Sheppard," Rodney vetoed, "and even if Sheppard was the one to turn it on again, we don't know whether it would do something more to him."
"What, it'd make me grow another pair?" John demanded.
McKay's face slid into the dazed, glazed look it had last worn when contemplating the feasibility of persuading the kitchen staff or the Denna to make blue-rose ice cream. John tried not to take it personally.
"Nirra's due soon now, right?" Simpson said. "I'd be willing to help her out if I don't dry up before then. We can keep whatever I produce before then in stasis for when it's needed, and I suppose I could take the kids for half a day or so if she ever really needs a vacation."
"Not in the labs you're not," McKay said, snapping back from wherever he'd been before John could steal his cheeseburger.
Teyla glared at him.
"The labs are where we deal with all sorts of potentially dangerous substances," McKay said slowly. "There will be no baring of skin below the neckline in the labs unless immediately necessary in order to treat or prevent chemical burns or similar injuries. I shouldn't have to make that an order."
"No, you shouldn't," Simpson agreed. "I wasn't planning to take a baby into the lab anyway; I can always take a page from the Colonel's book and work in Elizabeth's office or something."
"Weir might object," Ronon rumbled.
Simpson jumped; possibly she'd forgotten he was there.
About a week after that, Halling used the Athosians' radio to roust Sheppard and Beckett out of bed for what turned out to be airlifting a terrified fourteen-year-old to the infirmary for an oh-dark-hundred premature C-section, and John told the universe that he really, really hadn't needed a butterfly on his nose.
The universe didn't bother to answer.
When his impromptu run finished back at the infirmary, a haggard-eyed Simpson was cradling her arms under a paper gown tied round her neck.
"We seem to be in the middle of a statistical clump of good timing," she observed. "I don't suppose you have such a thing as a powerbar on you?"
"Better than poetic timing, I suppose," John said, fishing one out of the tac vest he'd left crumpled in a chair.
"We could make up T-shirts," she said, adjusting one arm and carefully extruding the other one. "Pegasus Galaxy: At Least It's Not Raining."
John opened the bar and folded the wrapper down. "I could get you some coffee?"
"I'm on limited caffeine intake as of now," she sighed. "And probably for the next few months -- they're pretty sure Lumy's going to make it now, but they don't know when she's going to be out of bed, or how long she's going to be on strong medication."
"I'd help, but I'm not there yet."
"You're growing a lot more tissue than I did. Give it time." Her first bite took about half the bar, and she barely chewed it before swallowing. "I wouldn't go in and see her yet; Carson's been stalking around inventing death threats during the stable periods, and I rather think I agree with him. What were her parents thinking?"
"She is of age by Athosian reckoning," John pointed out, "and probably that they'd like another kid."
"That they'd like another kid?"
"Didn't you get the memo on Athosian reproductive mores? Maybe it only goes out to military.all..."
Simpson shook her head.
"We got blindsided the first year, but -- basically, they think everyone has an obligation to pass on their genes, but that children should be raised by those who are willing to put in the work, not necessarily those who produced the kid. Teyla had her kid when she was about Lumy's age, picked an older man who was ready to settle down and be a father, and apparently had no side-effects other than milk. Since I only heard Lumy's family brought up in discussions, very likely there's some teener on the mainland scared that his attempt to get his responsibilities out of the way early might have killed her."
"Every time I think I have a handle on the idea it's a whole new world out here, I'm reminded I really don't."
"I think this particular one's just a whole new country -- speaking of which, I think Americans are the only ones paranoid about feeding in public, and I don't mind, so if the hospital gown's uncomfortable..."
"Premature," Simpson reminded him. "I'm supposed to keep him warm."
"Want to borrow my vest?"
"Sure."
He carefully draped it over her chest and tucked it around what seemed to be a much smaller baby than he'd been picturing.
"You know," she told John's breastbone, "this is actually kind of soothing."
It actually kind of was, John agreed a month and a half later. Nirra had turned out to have not twins but triplets, which had delivered themselves with disgusting ease and which were apparently rare enough in Pegasus that every Athosian on an offworld team was managing to fit a variation of "A woman of our people has borne three twins at one birth, and all four are healthy and hale!" somewhere in their greeting spiel. The anthropologists were evenly split between being delighted or appalled that Nirra's family had adopted Lorne's suggested names of Kyllan, Kemoc, and Kaththea.
And so it seemed natural enough that he was sitting under a tree on the mainland with his shirt rucked up and one cup pulled down, supporting Kemoc's head with one hand and playing Falling Stones with the other. He wasn't quite sure what sinister machinations might have gone on to have caused Heightmeyer to present him with the game before anyone posted on the rota, but he was sure that he didn't really want to know.
Besides, Kemoc liked the music.
"Colonel, where have you -- hrgleblk." Rodney stopped dead on the corner of the path.
"When Kemoc has finished," Teyla announced, gracefully weaving around the obstruction of scientist, "Halling would like you to bring him back to the village, that we may make a picture of the three to put onto papers and bring to show our trading partners."
"I -- excuseme," McKay hastily announced to the top of the game, turned, and bolted.
John completely missed an opportunity to put the gamma-shape into the hole he'd left for it and get three threes in a horizontal line.
"What's his problem?" Ronon asked, evidently having nearly been run over (or, more likely, bounced off of.)
"Hell if I know." Even if he suspected. John managed to blow away most of the height on the right side with the help of a clockwise-comma made of five blues.
"That appears most relaxing," Teyla commented.
"Miko's got a few games like it you can play." The baby chose that moment to unlatch, and John paused the game, stuffed the console in his back pocket, and handed Kemoc to Ronon, who promptly seemed to grow about five extra elbows.
Rodney had been staring fervently at the wall of the back compartment of the jumper for about half the ride back when John finally said, "Seriously, McKay. What the hell?"
"I'm sorry! I just -- see -- er -- bulletproof kink!"
The puddlejumper, bemused, asked whether use of the rear left ejection seat was really intended. John hastily overrode the command.
"What, breastfeeding?" Ronon demanded, at least as flabbergasted.
"My mother always thought anyone who chose to when bottles were available was hopelessly low-class," Rodney told his feet. "I must have been twelve before I even saw anyone... "
"The world," Teyla remarked, "is not only stranger than we imagine, it is strange beyond imagining."
"Hardly an original sentiment," Rodney muttered, sounding somewhat more like himself.
"But particularly applicable here," John said. "The weird shit always seems to happen to us."
"We weren't the ones who played bait for a Wraith-minded man and received a platterfoot in recompense," Ronon pointed out.
"How big is Natassia these days?" John asked.
"When they finished her new house, she had grown too large for the doorway," Teyla said. "Halling says it will find use as a gathering place in the rain."
"Jinto certainly seems to be enjoying his new career as a mahout, though," Rodney said. "We should make someone translate 'Toomai of the Elephants' for him."
"Do you think Doctor Beckett's newer therapy would work upon me?" Teyla suddenly asked, peering forward. "I think I would like to learn to fly the puddlejumper."