Speed Dating

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Title: Speed Dating
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan, Ronon Dex
Word Count: 14,692
Categories: gen, team, humor
Spoilers: Set between “Sateda” (3.4) and “The Return”(s) (3.10/11). Vague references to “Sanctuary” (1.12), “Epiphany” (2.12), and “The Tower” (2.15).
Warnings: TW/unspecific references to sexual assault/abuse. While there is no actual assault/abuse in the story, the characters do refer to the possibility of it while checking on each other.
Summary: Sheppard isn’t the only team member to catch an alien woman’s eye. Rodney, Teyla, and Ronon get their turns.



“Why are we coming here again, McKay?”

Sheppard guided the jumper toward the planet beneath them, a small blue, green, and purple marble bright against the black backdrop of space. Based on what the HUD was showing him, there were no signs of life on the planet that the jumper could pick up, and no indication that anyone was currently living or had ever lived down there. He could already tell this mission was going to be a dud. Probably a safe dud, but a dud just the same.

“It was in the database,” McKay mumbled in response, his attention on the HUD readouts.

“So what?” Ronon rumbled from the seat behind him. “We gonna visit every planet in that thing?”

“If we need to, yeah,” Sheppard answered. “But I’m more interested in why we’re at this one specifically.” He waved a hand in front of them, encompassing both the planet and the data—or lack thereof—on the HUD. “There’s nothing here.”

“And there was nothing in the database, either,” McKay admitted. “But it was a suspicious lack.”

“Suspicious in what way?” Teyla asked him.

McKay looked at her over his shoulder. “The entry on this planet was written the way you would talk about something that you wanted to make sound really and truly boring, like you were trying to deflect attention away from it. If there simply wasn’t anything here, the Ancients would have just said that; they did it for other planets in the database. But that isn’t what they did for this one. And that alone is suspicious.”

“So we’re trying to find out what they were hiding?”

Ronon sounded slightly more interested in that possibility than he had been about exploring an empty world. Sheppard sympathized, and shot him an understanding look as they reached the planet’s atmosphere.

“I think anything the Ancients wanted to hide badly enough that they would be coy about it in their own database is worth looking into, don’t you?” McKay replied, his focus once again back on the HUD.

“I agree, Rodney,” Teyla said.

Sheppard nodded his own agreement. “So do I. I just hope it isn’t a secret we’ll regret discovering.”

McKay cut him an annoyed glance. “And you call me negative,” he grumbled.

“Do we need a recap of all the things the Ancients left behind that have blown up in our faces, sometimes quite literally?”

“No, I thin—”

“What’s that?”

Sheppard saw it even as Ronon spoke—a slight shimmer to the air that he passed through before it could even occur to him to stop. In the split second between registering the distortion and moving through it, Sheppard had the thought that it looked vaguely familiar. But before he could get beyond that passing thought, he was distracted by what had suddenly appeared below him. He brought the jumper to a halt, hovering in the sky above the very large town that was now visible on the planet’s surface.

“McKay, what just happened?”

“We passed through a field of some kind.” McKay had his tablet out and was rapidly tapping on the screen, his eyes darting over whatever information was being displayed.

“I kind of figured that one out myself,” Sheppard sarcastically drawled. “Do you happen to know what kind?”

“Not sure yet. None of the data I’m getting makes any sense.”

Sheppard bit back a sigh. “How do you mean?”

“In that I’m not getting any data.” McKay looked up to point at the HUD. “I mean, look for yourself. There’s nothing up here to indicate that that village exists at all, much less that there’s some kind of field around it.”

Sheppard glanced at the display, seeing exactly what McKay meant. The jumper’s systems could usually detect any kind of energy readings, especially ones that would produce a visible field effect like the one they had just flown through. Yet there was nothing on the HUD. And despite the fact that they could clear see signs of active habitation in the town below, the life signs detector remained stubbornly blank.

He was thinking about what kind of field would be able to hide an entire town—a cloak, or an illusion of some kind—when a disturbing thought hit him and he froze.

“McKay, is this a time dilation field?” He managed not to grimace at the hint of fear in his own voice.

McKay’s head snapped up from where he had been scrolling through data on his tablet, and Sheppard saw his gaze scan the HUD again before moving beyond it to do the same to the village below. Sheppard glanced back to see Teyla and Ronon exchange looks of concern.

“No,” McKay finally said. “It can’t be a time dilation field.”

Sheppard really wanted to just believe McKay on principle, but he’d been wrong before. “How can you be sure?”

“Because if it were a time dilation field, and that was the reason we didn’t see the village before—because in our time, it hadn’t been built yet— we would have literally been ripped apart by the temporal forces when we crossed the plane of the field.”

The silence following that proclamation was stunned to stay the least, each of them picturing that grim possibility. Then Teyla spoke up.

“Could it not be a time dilation field coupled with a cloak of some kind?” she suggested. “The cloak would hide the village on its own, so the time dilation itself might not be so great.”

It didn’t help Sheppard’s anxiety to see worry drift into McKay’s expression as he contemplated the idea, but after a second he just shook his head.

“I didn’t feel anything when we went through the field, did you?” He looked around to the others, Sheppard shaking his head in the negative along with Teyla and Ronon. “If it were a time dilation, no matter what the duration, we definitely would have felt something.”

The memory of searing pain briefly passed through Sheppard’s mind as he recalled his only other previous experience with a time dilation field. Somewhat gratefully, he realized he hadn’t felt even the slightest quiver when they’d passed through whatever field this one was. He took a breath and purposefully made himself relax. “Okay, so, what then? Cloak?”

“Probably,” McKay agreed, “but the fact that it isn’t registering at all on any of our instruments is surprising. I mean, maybe while we were still outside, but now that we’re in it? We should pick up something. Same with life signs. A cloak shouldn’t still be able to do cloaking things once you’re inside it.”

“What if there’s a good reason why it does?”

Everyone turned to look at Ronon, who raised his eyebrows and lifted his chin to gesture at McKay.

“You said yourself that the Ancients were hiding this place,” Ronon reminded him. “What if they did it for a good reason?”

Sheppard turned to McKay, who shrugged.

“Well, if there was a reason, they didn’t put in the database and we’re already here, so—only one way to find out?”

With a resigned sigh, Sheppard got them moving again, looking for a good place to land. “Okay, but—let’s do it cautiously this time, okay?”

“Don’t we always?”

“Do not jinx us, McKay.”


-000000-


The people of the realm of Faloram were very kind and gracious, despite their obvious shock at Sheppard and his team’s appearance on the planet. After an initial meet-and-greet with a few of the locals, one of them—a man named Markus—had led the team on a whistle stop tour of the town, which encircled a castle, the home of the Faloran queen. The whole place had a very medieval-village feel, not unlike other worlds they’d visited in Pegasus, and Sheppard began to relax. Whatever oddness there might be around the field the team had encountered, the people hidden within it seemed okay to him. At least so far.

By early afternoon they’d hit all the town highlights, and found themselves back in the square at the foot of the castle, which they’d passed through a couple times already during their tour. A crowd was beginning to gather in the area, and there was a sense of anticipation building in the air. Markus had informed the team at the start of their tour that they would be returning to the square at some point to see the queen, and Sheppard wondered whether he’d planned it so they would finish their walkabout at just the right time.

A large balcony on one of the castle’s lower levels overlooked the square, and Markus brought them to stand in its shadow.

“You are blessed to have arrived in time for Queen Penembry’s weekly address,” he told them. “Aside from high feasts and festivals, it is the only time we get to see her.”

Sheppard nodded in response, but took the moment to study the faces of the gathering masses. Everyone looked excited, but there were none of the rapturous or glazed expressions he would have expected to see if the general populace was comprised of either obsessed lackeys or those under the influence of something. Given that Faloram had been a closed-off society for who knew how long—nobody they talked to seemed to have any idea of a world beyond their own borders—he’d half expected the isolation to have created a cult-like situation. Especially with the built-in factor of having the centralized figurehead of a queen as the focus of power and adoration.

That didn’t appear to be the case, though. The Falorans were open and friendly, with no indications of secretive or suspicious behavior. And while everyone they had talked with had expressed love and admiration for their queen, none of them had done so to any level beyond that which Sheppard might expect between close family members. Hell, he’d seen people behave more extremely over celebrities they’d never even met.

“We’d really like to meet Queen Penembry,” he informed Markus. “Talk to her about an alliance between your people and ours.”

And see if they could wheedle the details of Faloram’s protective field out of her. Or, if she was in the same position as all the rest of her people and didn’t know anything about it, they could at least get access to the castle to try to find it themselves. The castle was the only part of the town they hadn’t been able to see yet, and McKay was convinced it housed whatever was generating the field.

Markus shook his head. “Oh, no one goes to the queen,” he advised, before adding a bit sheepishly, “but she might call for you.” He waved a hand around them. “That is why I led you so close to the balcony. If she sees you, she will recognize that you are not Faloran and she might send for you.”

“Good thinking.”

Sheppard gave him a friendly clap on the shoulder, and Markus grinned. Just then, there was a trill of some kind of instrument—Sheppard couldn’t see where it was coming from, but it sounded flute-like to his ears—and the crowd fell silent. There were a few moments of rustling up above them, then a woman appeared at the end of the balcony.

From where they stood, she was only about twenty feet away, and the balcony was about that same height above them. As such, the team had a clear view, and Sheppard was surprised to discover that Queen Penembry was younger than he’d expected. In fact, she was probably only in her late twenties or early thirties; from the way the Falorans had talked about her, he’d pictured a woman in her fifties, at least. It occurred to him that “Queen Penembry” might actually be the full title that was passed down from queen to queen, and not this specific one’s name—hence the confusion—but he was distracted by more pressing matters.

“She’s hot.”

The comment was tossed off casually, though Ronon did at least have the presence of mind to keep quiet enough so that only the team would be able to hear him. But Sheppard still caught Teyla sending him a look of warning. Ronon just shrugged.

“What? She is.”

He wasn’t wrong: the queen was beautiful. With her dark eyes, glowing skin, and regal bearing, she made quite the picture standing on the balcony, her benevolent gaze slowly sweeping the crowd. He saw more than one person blush faintly as her eyes passed over them.

“She’s stunning.” McKay sounded faintly annoyed by the fact, almost as if he believed they’d been lied to. “I thought the queen would be an old woman; she is definitely not old.”

“Way to state the obvious there, McKay,” Sheppard muttered.

“Oh, like you weren’t thinking the same thing,” he hissed back.

Sheppard might have been, but he wasn’t going to give McKay the satisfaction of admitting that. “Just behave.”

“As if I’m the one who’ll need to,” McKay scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest and shooting Sheppard a disgruntled glare. “You’re the one alien women throw themselves at.”

Sheppard managed not to cringe at the comment, or at the unpleasant memories it dredged up—recall made all the easier by their current surroundings—but it was a close thing. He was frowning at McKay, thinking up a retort, when Teyla’s quiet voice drew his attention.

“We are being noticed.”

Sheppard looked up to see that the queen had finally caught sight of the newcomers to her kingdom. She was studying him and the team with a curious and guarded gaze, and he wondered what she was thinking. Did she feel concerned? Angry? Threatened? He was just beginning to mentally construct escape plans when she smiled warmly at them and her gaze moved on.

So, no negative reaction, then. At least, not one she was willing to display in public. In his mind, that was a mark in the “Pro” column. Most megalomaniacal leaders enjoyed pitching a fit in front of their followers, so if Queen Penembry could adjust to the surprise of visitors with nothing more than a smile, that was a mark in her favor.

The fact that she spent the next fifteen minutes or so picking out specific individuals or groups in the crowd, addressing issues that had been brought to her or highlighting causes for celebration, also raised her in his esteem. While her kingdom wasn’t huge by any means, there was still well over a three hundred people in and around the square. And the fact that the queen could not only recognize individuals in that crowd by sight, but that she also took the time to congratulate them on new babies or tell them that their broken plow would be replaced by the crown told him that she actually cared. No one who didn’t would bother with a charade that required them to actually know people’s faces.

So by the time that the queen retreated back into her castle about twenty minutes after she had first appeared, Sheppard had a pretty good feeling about things.

“She seemed very attuned to the state of her kingdom,” Teyla mused. “And aware of the lives of its citizens.”

“Maybe we can use that to get access to whatever’s making the field,” McKay said.

Teyla quirked an eyebrow at him. “How so?”

“If she truly cares about her people, she’ll want to make their lives better, and we can do that. Improved farming techniques? Actual medicine? Trade with other worlds without actually having to do the trade part? Pick one.”

“Yeah, but first we have to somehow get an audience with her,” Sheppard reminded him, “and it sounds like it’s invitation only.”

“I think we’re getting one.”

Sheppard turned to Ronon, only to find him staring off to their left, where a gated road led up to the castle. He gestured that way with his chin, his eyes flicking to Sheppard’s for a moment, and Sheppard turned in that direction. The gates at the bottom of the road had been open when the team had first entered the square; in fact, Sheppard got the impression that they were never closed. Now three men in the colors of the court—green and purple—were striding through them and toward the team. It was clear from their bearing that they were guards, though they didn’t carry any weapons. Since he hadn’t seen weapons on anyone else in the town, Sheppard wasn’t surprised by that. On a world that didn’t get visitors, there probably wasn’t much need for them.

The men reached them and stopped a few feet away, two standing just behind the third, who appeared to be the spokesman. He had a clear, intelligent gaze that Sheppard found he trusted. It seemed honest and astute.

“The queen has summoned you,” the man advised with a small bow.

“That’s great,” Sheppard replied. “We were really hoping we’d get to meet with her while we were here.”

The man turned his gaze Sheppard’s way. “You misunderstand me,” he said. “The queen has summoned him.”

The man pointed at McKay, who looked about as confused as Sheppard felt. McKay pointed to himself, eyebrows raised.

“Me?”

“Yes,” the guard confirmed, “the queen had called for you.”

McKay blinked at him. “Just me?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.” McKay had gone from looking confused to looking more than a little smug, and he turned to Sheppard with a smirk. “Guess it’s my turn to be thrown at.”

And this was definitely going to be a mission that got brought up over and over again. Fighting the urge to scrub a hand over his face, Sheppard checked in with Teyla. She appeared to be mulling over the same thing he was: why McKay alone would be asked for, especially given that—to the best of their knowledge—no one had spoken to the queen about them. At least no one who would have had any info on them that might have led her to call for McKay specifically. Teyla met his questioning gaze with her steady one, giving him a slight tilt of the head that told him she was curious, but not presently concerned with the situation.

Ronon just gave him a shrug, seemingly bored with the entire proceedings. Sheppard turned back to McKay, who was waiting impatiently, but at least he was waiting.

“We did want to talk with her,” he pointed out. “One is better than none.”

He had a point, and Sheppard hadn’t seen anything so far that actually concerned him, but he still hesitated. He turned to the spokesman again and met his direct gaze with his own.

“He’ll be safe?”

The man seemed slightly insulted by the question. “There is no where in Faloram that is not safe, and near the queen is the safest of all.”

Sheppard couldn’t argue with that, or with the fact that no one had said anything at any point about the team generally—or McKay specifically—giving up their weapons. So he nodded, content with the knowledge that if they had to stage a rescue, they could probably do it with a single gun. Or an empty-handed Ronon. Whichever seemed the most entertaining option at the time.

McKay returned the nod, then pivoted on his heel and started power-walking up the road toward the castle. The two rear guards, clearly not having expected him to take off without them, hurried after him, the spokesman giving the remaining team members another shallow bow before following at a more sedate pace. The team stayed where they were, watching until McKay disappeared around a bend in the road.

Lost in thought, Sheppard startled slightly when Markus’s voice came from beside him.

“It is a great honor to be called before the queen,” he said, tone reverent and a bit wistful. “I hope to be summoned by her before the end of my days.”

“Does the queen often summon people?” Teyla asked him.

“Often enough,” Markus replied, still staring longingly at the castle gates. “They are called to her to provide their knowledge or expertise, or because she wishes to reward them for things they have done. On rare occasions they are called simply because she wishes to see them.” He shook himself and turned back to the team. “What would you like to see next?”

“Actually, could we stay around here for now?” Sheppard circled a finger to encompass the square. “I’d like to be nearby for when McKay’s done.” And in case they needed to go after him.

Markus nodded. “Of course. The tavern would be the best place to wait.”

He raised his hand to direct them to the opposite side of the square from the castle, where a brightly colored awning stretched over a scattering of tables outside the local watering hole. Despite the large crowd that had been in the square just a few minutes before, the tables were mostly empty. Given that it was approaching mid-afternoon, Sheppard figured it was because people had gone back to their normal routine following the queen’s appearance, rather than hang around for any libations. At any rate, the lack of crowds and the clear view it provided of the castle made the tavern the ideal waiting spot.

“That’ll do,” Sheppard agreed. He started in that direction, but was stopped by Markus laying a hand on his arm.

“If you will be staying here, I will return to my shop,” he said. He had a pottery shop in the nearby market, and Sheppard knew he’d left his wife to man it alone while he’d played guide.

Sheppard nodded. “Sure thing.”

“Thank you for showing us around Faloram, Markus,” Teyla said, giving him a smile.

“You are very welcome,” he replied, smiling in return. “If you need anything else, you can find me at the shop. Good day to you.”

“Good day.”

Markus departed back the way they had come as Sheppard led the way to the tavern. After some promises from Ronon that he wouldn’t overdo it—paired with what Sheppard was sure was his version of puppy eyes, if Ronon could actually manage such a thing—he agreed that they could all have one drink while they waited. Ronon grinned and jumped up to get them without giving Sheppard a chance to change his mind.

“Beer only!” Sheppard called after him. “No liquor!”

Without turning around, Ronon waved a hand in acknowledgment and disappeared into the shadows of the tavern’s doorway. Sheppard sighed, hoping he wouldn’t regret letting Ronon drink when there was nothing else to do. He turned back to Teyla.

“What are you thinking?”

She sighed. “I am not sure. I do find it a little odd that the queen would only ask for one of us, but that might be precaution on her part; we are strangers in a world that has none, after all.”

“And if you were going to pick one of us to meet with based on appearance alone…”

“Rodney would most likely come across as the least dangerous, yes.”

“Makes sense.” Enough sense that it actually eased some of the residual anxiety he had about letting McKay go off alone.

Ronon returned, setting three tankards that looked like they were roughly the size of Sheppard’s torso down on the table with a thunk. Sheppard gave him an incredulous look as he dropped back into his seat.

“When I said ‘one’ drink, I didn’t mean the entire keg,” Sheppard admonished.

“We got the special, since we’re visitors,” Ronon explained. “Didn’t even have to pay.”

“Of course,” Sheppard sighed. “Well, pace yourselves, I guess. We don’t know how long we’re going to have to wait. Or what might come out of McKay being left alone to negotiate with royalty.”

“Who happens to be a beautiful woman,” Teyla reminded him.

Ronon snorted into his tankard. “McKay’s shit with women. Especially good-looking ones.”

Sheppard felt the first flickers of unease, and he took a swig of beer to wash them down. The beer was dark and bitter, but didn’t seem to be too strong, so that seemed to be going in their favor; at least odds were none of them would wind up drunk. He took another sip, his gaze wandering across the square, back to the castle gates.

“He really wants to get his hands on whatever’s producing that field, so he’ll be focused on that.” He said it as much to reassure himself as the others. “He’ll be fine.”


-000000-


Two hours and half his tankard later, Sheppard was starting to get worried.

While a steady trickle of traffic had moved up and down the castle road while they’d been waiting, none of it had been wearing the queen’s colors. Nor had they heard anything from or about McKay. They couldn’t even radio him, since whatever field they were in blocked the signal. So they just had to wait, or risk trying to storm the castle. And given that doing so might not be necessary—and might ruin whatever negotiations McKay had managed—Sheppard was reluctant to do that without some actual sign it was needed. Like a smoke signal. Or lots of people rushing out of the gates. Or McKay yelling for help from a turret. Something.

As it was, it was McKay hissing nearly in his ear that was the sign.

“Sheppard.”

Sheppard had been so focused on the castle road that he hadn’t heard McKay approach him from behind, and he jumped, sloshing beer all over their table. Teyla shot back in her chair, narrowly avoiding having the river pour into her lap. Ronon, who’d already drained his own, plucked Sheppard’s tankard out of his hand and, grinning, toasted McKay with it.

“Hey, McKay.”

“Shh! Keep your voice down.” McKay flapped a hand at him. “I’m on the run.”

“On the—” Sheppard paused as he finally registered what he was seeing. “McKay, what are you wearing?”

While he’d left their company wearing his standard-issue Atlantis uniform, McKay had returned to them adorned in an ornate green-and-purple gown trimmed with golden thread. It had a deep v-neck front and very short sleeves, and Sheppard could see that McKay had been divested even of his t-shirt: his chest and arms were visibly bare. He was carrying his gear in his arms—gun, knife, tablet—but his uniform was MIA.

“These are the royal robes,” he explained with a dignified huff. “I had to put them on before I was allowed to see the queen.”

Sheppard perked up. “Did you? See her? What happened?”

“Yeah, I saw her. She welcomed me to her home, said that she was pleased to have been visited, and then she told her servants to show me around the castle. Which was what I wanted, so I didn’t protest.”

“McKay—”

“I figured I would poke around everywhere they’d let me poke, see what I could discover, and then I’d find you all again and tell you what that was. I had no idea what she was planning, or I would’ve… well, I would’ve still looked around. Actually, I’m not sure I would’ve done anything differently now that I think about it, we really did have to get a look inside—”

“McKay!”

“She wanted me for her harem!” McKay exclaimed, tone caught somewhere between miserable and disconcerted.

At first, Sheppard wasn’t entirely sure he’d heard what he thought he’d heard. But a quick look at Teyla’s bemused face and Ronon’s blank expression told him he had. He eyed McKay’s robes again, and gave him a sideways look.

“You didn’t…?”

“What?” McKay frowned at him for a few seconds before he grimaced as he realized what Sheppard was implying. “No! I—there was going to be some kind of ceremony first,” he mumbled. When Sheppard raised his eyebrows, McKay glared at him. “I had no idea that was her plan until just before I made a break for it,” he protested. “After I was shown what my ‘life of honor’ would be.”

“‘Life of honor’?” Ronon repeated.

“Yeah, that’s how they view being one of her kept men. And apparently when they say ‘honor’ they mean ‘ornamentation’ because her trophy husbands aren’t allowed to do anything. They just sit around, looking pretty.” He jerked his head at Ronon. “I don’t know why she didn’t pick you.”

Ronon smirked. “You calling me pretty, McKay?”

McKay ignored him.

“How horrible,” Sheppard deadpanned. “A life of luxury.”

“They wouldn’t even let me write!” McKay snapped back. “I pulled out my tablet to try to make some notes on some inscriptions I’d seen in the castle—clearing Ancient, I doubt any of those yahoos could even read them—and they stopped me. All gentle smiles and shakes of the head, but it was made clear that literacy is apparently not a skill the queen prizes in her men.”

“Or they simply did not want you, a stranger, making notes about anything in the castle.”

McKay shot Teyla a dark look. “Trust me, I saw her harem; she likes himbos.”

Sheppard scratched his jaw and sat back in his chair. “I dunno; maybe we should stay.”

McKay did a double take. “Are you—are you trying to sell me out?”

“No, but we do really need to get a look at whatever makes this field,” he said, pointing at the sky. “You said so yourself.”

“You are!” McKay was getting red in the face, staring at Sheppard with a look of exaggerated betrayal. “You want to—to pimp me out for tech!”

“Oh, c’mon, McKay. I do not. And it isn’t like you were being forced or held captive or anything, right?”

He didn’t think that had been the case, or else McKay would have been much more panicked about them leaving. But he was still relieved when McKay deflated a little.

“No,” he admitted. “I wasn’t even being guarded. I saw a back way out of the castle and used that to leave. And while I did take the precaution of sneaking, all I had to do was walk out.”

“There you go. We’ll just very politely tell Queen Penembry that she can’t have you for her harem, and we’ll offer her all those farming techniques and medicines you mentioned instead.”

“I say we trade McKay for the tech,” Ronon said, giving McKay a grin.

“Listen here, you—”

“Perhaps we should send back a female team,” Teyla interrupted, giving Sheppard a pointed look. “That would eliminate any potential concerns about, shall we say, undesirable propositions and allow negotiations to be undertaken without any distractions.”

“Yes,” McKay nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, let’s do that.”

Sheppard shrugged. “Fine by me.” He pushed his chair back and stood. “Guess we better get home, then, and ready try number two.”

“Good. Perfect. Let’s go.”

McKay was already making a beeline in the direction of the jumper, which Sheppard had parked at the edge of a field to the west of the town. Sheppard hustled a bit to catch up with him, Ronon and Teyla following behind them a few meters back.

“You are okay, right?” he quietly asked, eyeing McKay more closely. “They didn’t like, try anything, or…?”

“Yes, I’m fine, and no, they didn’t.” McKay shot him a sharp look full of fire. “You think I would have left that castle standing if they had?”

“No, but you are acting a little—” Sheppard wobbled his hand in the air “—squirrelly.”

“They live in a gym, Sheppard.”

“What?”

“Her harem. They spend the majority of their time lounging around a big room that looks like Ye Olde Medieval Village version of a gym. No books, no computers, no nothing. I mean, not that they would have computers, but they really were just a bunch of gym bros. It was… disturbing.”

“Disturbing that you might have been mistaken for one of them, or disturbing that she wanted you to become one of them?”

McKay shuddered. “Both.”

Sheppard gave him a aggrieved look. “See? Alien women throwing themselves at you isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

McKay rolled his eyes. “You have all my apologies for past comments. Now can we please go home?”

“Yeah, but are you sure you don’t want to get your uniform back first?” He gestured to McKay’s outfit. “Otherwise you’re going to have to parade through the halls in that get up.”

He was a little surprised when McKay stood a bit straighter, his chin angling up. “I may not have been receptive to the idea of being in a harem,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want everyone else to know it was offered.”

Sheppard stared at him for a second. “Seriously?”

“Look down your nose all you want, Mr. Notches-On-Alien-Bedposts, but this is one ego boost that I’ll happily take.”

“You don’t need an ego boost, McKay. Your ego is big enough for three people already.”

“Also, these robes are really, really soft.”

Sheppard went through a moment of mental whiplash at the change of topic. “What?”

“No, really; feel this.”

Shifting his gear a bit so that it was secure in the crook of one arm, McKay used the other to pull a fold of the robe away from his body and toward Sheppard, waggling it at him when Sheppard hesitated. Feeling a little stupid, Sheppard took the fabric in his hand and rubbed his fingers over it. Immediately, his eyebrows shot up.

“Whoa.”

“Right?!”

“That’s—what the hell is that?”

“I have no idea, but we are definitely going to see if we can get some of it as part of the negotiations. I want pajamas made out of it.”

Sheppard was still stroking the robe, holding it in both hands now, practically walking sideways beside McKay as he marveled at how soft the material was. He didn’t even know how to describe it, it was that unlike anything he’d ever felt before. He had a better understanding now of why McKay had chosen—or at least agreed—to go shirtless under the robe; he thought he could go for some pajamas made of this stuff, too. Then McKay slapped at his hands, the sudden motion making him let go of the robe.

“Okay, that’s enough,” McKay told him, smoothing the fold back down. “You’re wrinkling it, and we don’t even know how to launder this fabric yet.”

“So prissy.”

“Be nice and I’ll make sure you get a set of pajamas, too.”

Sheppard thought about it. “Blue ones?”

“Sure.”

“Deal.”

McKay did manage to get them pajamas in the material, which the Falorans called nirrul. In fact, he got some for the whole team. Sheppard’s were blue, as requested. McKay’s were the same royal green that was in his pilfered robe, and Teyla’s were a deep, rich red. Ronon’s, however, were purple, and came with a small card requesting that he visit the queen personally. Sheppard laughed himself to tears at the look on McKay’s face when Ronon showed them all the note.



—-00000000—-



Gyydon put Sheppard in the mind of a mid-eighties dystopian sci-fi film. Ironic, considering his life, but the comparison couldn’t be helped. The Gyydon cityscape had that look: all sharp lines and primary colors popping out from behind the dullest of grays. The architecture in the city was similar to brutalist stuff back home, everything a right angle, blocks and rectangles stacked on top of each other. They even appeared to be made of a concrete-like material, simply adorned with something that could have been steel.

The Gate was housed in one such building, a compact little nondescript block just to the north of the city center. When they’d come through the Gate, Sheppard had been a little unnerved to find giant metal doors flanking the only entrance to the Gate room. But he figured it was different than what the blast doors they’d had back at the SGC. He did, however, ask the woman who had greeted them about it. Her name was Rosca, and she gave off the same no-nonsense air that his drill instructor back at the Academy had.

“They are in case of any attack through the Stargate,” she informed him. “Once the doors are closed, they cannot be reopened from inside the room. Anyone locked inside would have no other option but to go back to wherever they came from.

He nodded in understanding. “Makes sense.”

He had noticed that the Gyydon DHD was inside the room with the Gate, but he was a little surprised to find that their basic defensive strategy was to just lock their enemies in the room and wait for them to leave. Still, it would probably be effective. And given that Gyydon only occasionally got visitors—none of them Wraith—he figured they simply hadn’t needed to develop more aggressive tactics.

Rosca led them from the Gate building out into the city, offering to give them a quick tour before they met with the Trygeron, a three-member group that oversaw all Gyydon’s political affairs. Sheppard accepted, figuring they should see as much of the city as they could before they entered into any negotiations, and Rosca began leading them through the streets at an unexpectedly brisk pace.

Sheppard eyed the people they passed, trying to get a feel for the place. Everyone they saw wore some combination of blue, red, and yellow, though there was a lot of variance in the shades. No one sported the notoriously gaudy makeup styles of the eighties—and thankfully the hairstyles were slicked-back rather than giant—but the clothing designs definitely matched the vibe of the architecture. Rosca herself wore a sweater in dark yellow paired with blue slacks, and oversized red-frame glasses that Sheppard had an odd suspicion she didn’t really need. At least, the lenses didn’t have that slightly wavy appearance to them that indicated magnification. For some reason, that detail made him like her more.

As they moved through the city, Rosca pointed out specific buildings or areas of interest, providing a brief description of each for the team’s benefit.

“To your left is the city book repository,” she advised at one point. “We have accumulated over ten thousand volumes covering a vast range of topics.”

She gestured in that direction, toward a large three-story square. Aside from a set of wide double doors at its base, the only other breaks in the solid structure were the windows that sat about three-quarters up the wall on each floor, long slits that ran all the way around the building like glass stripes.

“We have something similar,” Sheppard told her. “We call them libraries.”

Rosca looked impressed, and intrigued. “You have more than one?”

“We can have more than one just in one city,” McKay replied. “Though they may both have copies of the same books.”

“How wonderful,” she murmured, studying McKay with a piercing gaze. Just as he began to squirm, she continued on.

“The east of the city is given to production, while the west contains all of our city services: water, waste, and the like.” She threw a look at them over her shoulder without breaking stride. “You may visit it, if you like.”

Sheppard noticed that McKay was frowning around them, but before he could ask him what he was thinking, he was already saying it.

“Where do you get your power? Is that generated in the west, too?”

For the first time, Sheppard noticed that he couldn’t see any power lines anywhere. There were street lights on each corner, most of them glowing in the gloom of the overcast day. And clear light—not quite warm and not quite cool—burned in many windows. He figured that the lines might be underground, but he suddenly found himself curious, too, as to how exactly Gyydon got its power.

Rosca had stopped, and was watching McKay again, her hands neatly clasped in front of her. “Yes, we produce all of our power at one of the service stations in the west. Why?”

“What’s your power source? What are you burning for this light?” McKay pointed at the street light they’d happened to stop beneath, and Sheppard realized that’s what he’d been frowning at.

Rosca, however, seemed confused. A small line had appeared between her eyebrows, and her lips had thinned. “Why would you burn things for light?”

“Because it’s one way to do it,” McKay replied, with what Sheppard felt was just a touch of condescension. “What do you use, then? Water? Wind?” He gave the gray sky a sarcastic look, and added, “Sun?”

“Our scientists have perfected a method by which all of our energy needs are met through a continual process.”

That sounded vague to Sheppard, but he saw McKay’s general air of interest snap into intense focus, and found himself paying closer attention.

“Are you saying that you pull things apart to create power?” McKay asked, a hint of concern in his tone. He fisted his hands and placed them together in front of him as he talked, separating them with a sharp motion in illustration of his question.

Rosca gave him a humoring smile. “No, Dr. McKay. We combine atoms to create power.”

Sheppard only had a general understanding of nuclear power and its various sources, but he knew that what Rosca had said was a big deal because McKay froze, staring at her with wide eyes.

“You’ve created a stable nuclear fusion process?” he asked in a strangled voice. “And it provides ongoing power?” He paused, looking frustrated. “How?”

“It is not my field of expertise,” Rosca told him, “but I am sure the Trygeron will be happy to share that information with you once you have reached a trade agreement.”

McKay nodded. “Yes, yes of course. We’ll have to ask them.” He flapped a hand in the direction they’d been headed. “Please, lead on.”

Rosca gave him another searching look before she turned and continued down the street. McKay very purposefully met Sheppard’s eyes, and Sheppard motioned for Teyla and Ronon to take point. As they started walking again, he fell into step behind them with McKay, who looked agitated. Well, more agitated than usual. His hands wouldn’t be still, seeming to move of their own accord, dancing over the butt of his P90, then moving to his pockets, then grasping each other.

“What’s up?” Sheppard asked him in a low voice.

“They’ve figured out nuclear fusion, that’s what’s up,” McKay furiously whispered back. “Do you know what this means?”

“No, but I’m pretty sure you’re going to tell me.”

“We’ve been trying for decades to get fusion right. We got the more dangerous fission process down pretty quickly, and made sure to use it first and foremost to try to kill each other,” he bitterly tacked on, “but fusion’s a lot harder.”

“Fusion’s the sun, right?”

“Yeah, and if we could get it right, we’d have a clean, safe source of energy that could power the entire Earth for who knows how long.” McKay waved an emphatic hand at the light they were passing under. “And they’ve done it!”

“So what I’m hearing is we’d really like to get our hands on whatever it is that they know.”

McKay huffed in irritation. “Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying, with an added bonus of ‘Don’t Screw This Up, Sheppard’ thrown into the mix just for fun.”

“How would I screw it up?”

“I’m just saying: don’t screw this one up.” McKay sighed. “Aside from a stash of fully-charged ZPMs, this might be the most important thing we could have discovered.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Sheppard told him.

It wasn’t long after that that Rosca led them to a large plaza set right beside the street they had been following. The plaza backed up to a low, u-shaped building set far back from the street. All around the border of the plaza were trees—the most they’d seen in one place so far; the city might have green power, but it didn’t have a lot of greenery. Under the trees were benches and tables made in the same material as the buildings, and Rosca directed them to one close to the street.

“Please wait here; I will get your escort to the Trygeron.”

She walked with the same brisk efficiency back across the street and toward a multi-level building on the other side, where Sheppard could just make out another woman—this one wearing all red—waiting for her. He took the opportunity of the team being alone to relay to Teyla and Ronon what McKay had said about the Gyydon power source.

“So access to this information will need to be one of our priorities in negotiations,” Teyla summarized.

“Yes, absolutely,” McKay confirmed. “If we could replicate it, it would be huge. For everyone.”

“Very well.”

Teyla’s response was almost a sigh, and Sheppard looked her over. They’d already agreed that she would be the team spokesperson for the negotiations, as much out of necessity as due to her diplomatic skills. It had been made clear to them early on that Gyydon was a matriarchal society, with women in almost all of the leadership positions. There had been no indication that men were mistreated or viewed as lesser—Sheppard, McKay, and Ronon had been treated no differently than Teyla thus far, and Sheppard had spotted men out and about in the city just like the women—but men simply weren’t trusted to be able to handle positions of power.

To keep with that social structure, Teyla had become the team’s de facto leader for the mission, at least when it came to discussions with the Trygeron. While they hadn’t planned for Teyla to go it alone, Sheppard had noticed that before Rosca had left, she’d addressed Teyla directly when speaking about fetching the escort. So when she returned and told them that only Teyla would be allowed before the Trygeron, he wasn’t all that surprised.

McKay, probably still daydreaming about getting his hands on their fusion specs, was, though. He looked around sharply in surprise. “What? Why?”

Rosca’s smile was almost pitying this time. “Because she is a woman. The Trygeron chambers are no place for men.”

“But—”

“Can we talk with Teyla for a moment, before she goes with you?” Sheppard asked, cutting off McKay’s protest.

Rosca looked slightly confused by the request, but nodded. “If you need to.” She turned to Teyla. “Once you are ready, we will be waiting for you by those doors.” She pointed to where the other woman was still standing, and Teyla nodded.

As Rosca once again left them alone, Sheppard focused on Teyla. “Are you okay with going by yourself?”

The glance Teyla shot him was tinged with exasperation. “Yes, I will be fine.”

“I don’t doubt that, but are you okay with it?”

Teyla looked at him fully then, eyes searching. “Is there any reason I would not be?”

Sheppard gave a half-shrug. “I don’t know; have you had any bad feelings about any of this?”

“I haven’t,” McKay butted in. “Especially not since we found out they have nuclear fusion. Get in there and wrangle us a deal, Teyla. I believe in you.”

“They seem okay to me,” Ronon said. “A little haughty, maybe, but no worse than McKay on his worst days.”

“Excuse me! I am not haughty!”

McKay glared, Ronon rolled his eyes, but Teyla’s focus was still on Sheppard.

“Have you had any bad feelings?” she asked him.

“Not bad, no. Just a little… weird.” He shrugged it off. “Maybe it’s just the setting,” he suggested, motioning around them. “This feels a lot like a specific time period on Earth and that could just be what’s throwing me a little.”

“The eighties?” McKay piped up, distracted for the moment from being disgruntled with Ronon.

“Yeah.”

McKay nodded. “Honestly, if they had Russian accents, I could half belief I was just back in Siberia.”

“And there’s nothing at all off-putting about that,” Sheppard sarcastically replied. He focused back on Teyla. “Look, so long as you feel okay with it, I’ll be okay with it,” he told her.

“I am fine with going alone,” she reiterated, giving him a small smile.

Sheppard returned the smile and gave her a teasing shoo. “Then off you go; negotiate away. We’ll just wait here.” He looked around the square—gray buildings, gray pavers, gray tables and chairs—and sighed. “In this concrete box.”

Teyla shook her head at him, but turned and walked over to join the women who were waiting for her. Sheppard waited until they disappeared inside before he sat down on the hard bench beside Ronon.


-000000-


They’d tried playing “I Spy” to pass the time, but a color-based guessing game didn’t work all that well when pretty much every stationary thing was gray, and it had fizzled out after only three rounds. Rodney’d pulled out his tablet and was engrossed with something on it, so Sheppard had taken to people watching. For once, Ronon wasn’t restless but instead seemed almost lethargic. He was leaned back beside Sheppard, elbows braced on the table behind him and legs stretched full length in front, watching the people around them, too.

The city stayed fairly busy, from what Sheppard could see. A steady stream of foot traffic moved both through the plaza and in the street that ran beside it. Gyydon didn’t have any vehicles, but it wasn’t large enough that motorized transport would really be necessary. The only non-pedestrian means of transportation they had were large tricycles, and he got a kick out of it every time one zoomed by on the street, people stepping aside for it to pass. He was idly wondering whether he could get one to ride around Atlantis when McKay’s voice pulled him from his musings.

“There are a lot of women here. More than men.”

Sheppard glanced over his shoulder to find McKay frowning off across the plaza. Following his gaze, Sheppard took a quick headcount of the people he could see. There were thirty-two women in sight, and only eight men.

“It is a matriarchal society,” he reminded McKay, “and we’re in the government area of the city. I would expect there to be more women than men here.”

“Maybe, but I noticed it even when we were in the other parts of the city; there were always more women than men.”

Sheppard turned to give him a disapproving look. “Have you been counting the women since we got here, McKay?”

“I count things reflexively,” McKay defensively replied. “I can’t help that.”

“There are a lot of women together here.”

Sheppard glanced over at Ronon, who was still watching the plaza around them. Pivoting around on the bench, Sheppard studied the crowd more closely. He quickly realized that Ronon was right—there were female couples everywhere he looked. A few walked by holding hands, others had their arms linked together, and there was even a couple kissing on a bench in the far corner of the courtyard.

He also spotted a man and a woman holding hands walk by, but—just like the ratio of women to men—the ratio of female only couples to male-female couples was skewed in one direction.

“I wonder if it’s a product of their social structure or if it’s completely separate from it,” McKay distractedly commented. Sheppard watched him go back to his tablet, his gaze distant.

Feeling eyes on him, Sheppard turned to find Ronon frowning at him. He found himself frowning in response.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You don’t think…?”

Ronon let the question hang, and it took Sheppard longer than it should have for him to realize what he was getting at.

“You mean Teyla?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw McKay’s head snap up. “What about Teyla?”

“Ronon thinks they might have asked to see Teyla alone because they’re interested in her.” McKay just continued to stare at him blankly, so Sheppard added. “Romantically.”

“Oh.” McKay’s face cleared, and he looked vaguely concerned. “Oh.” He seemed to mull over the possibility. “Do you think that’s why?”

Sheppard shrugged. “I mean, maybe?”

“But they’ll let her go if she says no, right? I mean, they’re not that kind of a society, are they?”

“I, mean, I haven’t gotten that impression, but—”

He cut himself off as he saw two women sitting on the other side of the plaza jump to their feet, their attention focused across the street. Even as he turned to look in that direction, he caught others doing the same, all with expression of surprise or bafflement.

At first, he couldn’t see anything that would have been cause for alarm. Then he realized that there was smoke coming out of one of the upper story windows of the building Teyla had been taken into. It had been difficult to make out at first, given that the smoke was the same color as the clouds covering the sky, but it was evident that there was a fire somewhere in the building. The people in the area started streaming toward the building, and Sheppard stood, preparing to do the same to go after Teyla. Ronon had already taken a few steps forward when the sight of a familiar figure making its way across the street toward them made them all stop.

Keeping out of the way of the people moving toward the building, Teyla walked away from it, meeting the rest of the team at their table.

“We should leave.”

Her tone was calm, even though she bore visible injuries. Her knuckles were bloody and her left cheek swollen as if she’d been punched, but it was her expression that gave Sheppard pause. She looked quietly livid, and he felt a chill run down his spine even though her fury wasn’t directed at him.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“What the hell happened?”

Teyla spared Ronon a glance before returning her gaze to Sheppard. “I am fine, and we should leave.”

Striding past them, she headed away from the street and the building that was on fire, angling to go around the u-shaped building at the back of the plaza instead. Sheppard dumbly trotted after her, trying to figure out exactly what the hell was going on. He spared a glance behind him to make sure that Ronon and McKay were following them, then he hurried forward to catch up to Teyla.

“Should we be running?” he asked her, only half joking.

“Not yet,” she replied.

She led them to a street that ran parallel to the one they had left behind, then turned left, breaking into a jog as she did so.

“Are we going to be chased?” Ronon called out to her, sounding like he was looking forward to it.

“I hope not,” she called back.

Behind them, muffled only slightly by the distance, they heard what sounded like gunfire and screaming. Still jogging at Teyla’s side, Sheppard threw a worried look over his shoulder. He could just about make out the trail of smoke in the sky, growing thicker against the clouds. Behind him, McKay was wearing a fearful expression, while Ronon just looked impressed. Sheppard turned back to Teyla.

“What did you do?”

She gave him a grim grin. “I may have started a coup.”


-000000-


It turned out that the Trygeron had wanted Teyla for a relationship—or at least one of them had. The details all came out during their debriefing, which was held once they’d passed their post-mission physicals, and once Teyla had calmed down. Sitting around the briefing room table, she explained what had happened for both Elizabeth’s and the team’s benefit.

“From what I gathered in my meeting with the Trygeron, power within Gyydon society is closely tied to two things: one’s position and one’s relationships,” she advised them. “One may obtain more power either by moving into a position that grants it, or by entering a relationship with someone who has more power than you yourself do. Their power boosts your own, and it appears that many enter relationships for that reason alone: to gain more power.”

“And the Trygeron are the most powerful women in the country?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yes, and that was the start of the problem. There were only three of them, and the power was imbalanced among them.”

“How so?”

“Of the three, two—Kyama and Lemaron—were together. Their combined power effectively gave them control over the Trygeron, rending the third member—Hedona—essentially powerless.”

“How did that lead to us having to make a run for it?” Sheppard asked, far more curious about the events than he was about the loss of potential allies.

“In order to gain more power than Kyama and Lemaron held together, Hedona sought a relationship with me.”

Elizabeth gave Teyla a look Sheppard couldn’t read. “You would be that powerful in Gyydon society?”

“Apparently so,” Teyla replied. “As an outsider, and a leader in my own right—” she gave Sheppard a glance “—I would be considered equal to any one member of the Trygeron. Since I was presented as the sole leader of our group, without any peers, that made me even more powerful than any of them.”

“And that made you an attractive prospect to Hedona,” Elizabeth surmised.

“Very.”

“How’d that lead to a coup?” McKay asked. “Did you tell her to just overthrow the other two or something?”

Teyla gave him a dry look. “No. But she would not take no for an answer, and I would not say yes. I had no interest in pursuing a relationship with her, and pretending to have one so that she might gain power was unacceptable to me. I resorted to responding… violently after she attempted to restrain me from leaving her rooms.”

She flexed her hands where they rested on the table, lightly clasped together, and Sheppard eyes were drawn to the bruising on her knuckles.

Ronon whistled. “Bad move on her part.”

“I succeeded in leaving her rooms, but she followed after me. She was yelling, trying to make out that I had attacked her unprovoked.” The anger flared again in Teyla’s voice, but Sheppard saw her breathe through it, and she continued in a steadier tone. “I noticed that Kyama and Lemaron had emerged from their own rooms, drawn by the commotion, and were standing in the hallway behind Hedona. I had planned to seek them out anyway, to tell them of what had occurred, so with them there to witness it, I again asked Hedona what she wanted from me. When she repeated her desire—to enter into a relationship with me so that she could gain the power to wrest control of the Trygeron from the others—Kyama and Lemaron heard.”

“So are they the ones that set fire to the building?” Sheppard inquired. “I’m still trying to figure that part out.”

“No, I did that.”

“Why?”

Teyla turned to Elizabeth. “To draw attention to the building, and to the fight that had started among the Trygeron members.”

Elizabeth nodded in understanding. “A distraction for your escape, and a distraction for those who would be the first to come after you.”

“Smart.” Sheppard gave Teyla a smile, pleased when she returned it.

McKay, though, was just this side of bereft.

“We could’ve had fusion,” he whined. He gave Teyla a pitifully hopeful look. “Do you think we could go back? Y’know, without you, maybe?”

Teyla patted his hand. “I do not think it would be wise, Rodney. At least not any time soon.”

“We’ll put it on the future plan, Rodney,” Elizabeth assured him.

“And how far out is that plan?”

“Oh, a decade or so.”

The thud of McKay’s head hitting the table almost drowned out his groan of dismay. Sheppard slapped him on the back.

“Cheer up, McKay. Maybe by then you’ll have figured it out yourself, and you can brag that you’re the one who did it.”

McKay sat up to level a glare Sheppard’s way. “Oh, sure. I’ll add it to the docket of the few hundred other things I have to manage. I’m sure I’ll get to it in no time.”

“We believe in you, Rodney,” Teyla told him. She had almost a faint smirk on her face, and Sheppard realized she’d repeated McKay’s words to her back to him.

“Flattery will not make me work faster,” he grumped.

“You work better under pressure, right?”

McKay cast a wary glance Ronon’s way. Ronon was watching him intently, but Sheppard could see the signs of humor around his mouth, and he bit back his own smile.

“I work exceptionally well under pressure, yes, but I don’t need any more.” McKay narrowed his eyes suspiciously under Ronon’s continued scrutiny. “Why?”

Ronon pushed back his chair and stood, heading for the door. “No reason.”

After a second, McKay scrambled up to chase after him. “What are you planning?”

“Don’t worry about it, McKay.”

“Have you met me? I worry about everything.”

Sheppard grinned to himself as he watched them leave, their voices fading as they got further away. He turned to find Elizabeth watching the empty doorway with clear amusement, and even Teyla was smiling.

“What do you think Ronon’s planning?” he asked them.

Elizabeth held up her hands as she stood. “Whatever it is, don’t tell me.”

“Plausible deniability?” Sheppard suggested.

“I have a feeling I may need it in this situation.”

“Yeah, probably.”

Elizabeth paused in gathering up her things to give Teyla a penetrating look. “You are okay, right? After what happened?”

Teyla nodded and gave her a small smile. “Yes, I am fine. I am still a little annoyed by the events, and a little bruised—” she held up her hands “—but otherwise unharmed.”

Elizabeth studied her for a moment more, then nodded as though satisfied with whatever she read in Teyla’s face. “Good.” Heading for the door, she added, “I’ll see the two of you later, then.”

As she left, Sheppard took a second to study Teyla himself. She had reassured them all during Beckett’s routine check-up that Hedona’s intentions had been purely political, and that nothing untoward had happened beyond the attempt at keeping her captive. According to her, it had been no different from any of the other times they’d been held against their will and had to fight to escape. For his part, Sheppard had no doubt that Hedona—if she were still alive—was deeply regretting the mistake of trying to make Teyla do anything she didn’t want to do.

All things considered, Teyla did seem to be completely fine, aside from the visible residuals of her earlier anger. Sensing his gaze, she turned to him and raised her eyebrows in question.

“You think we should check on Ronon and McKay?” he asked her.

She sighed. “Probably. Ronon has been in a very mischievous mood recently; there is no telling what he might be planning to do.”

She rose from her chair, and Sheppard did the same, following behind her as they exited the room.

“It’s like having two overgrown kids,” he commented as they headed toward the labs.

She shook her head in exasperation, but her smile was genuine. “Yes. Yes, it is.”



—-00000000—-



They were sure there was a least one ZPM on PL2-945. Pretty sure, anyway. The Ancient database had mentioned there having been an outpost on the planet in days long gone by, and McKay had picked up a very faint but promising energy signature when they’d emerged from the Gate. So they were pretty sure something was there.

The problem was trying to find it.

The energy signature was faint enough that it was going to take some time to cover enough ground to create any sort of triangulation for locating it. And the landscape of PL2-945 wasn’t going to make that easy: it was rocky and hilly, with deep, narrow gorges and periodic gusts of wind that could almost lift you off of your feet if you were out on open ground. Because of the location of the Gate—inside one of those gorges—they hadn’t been able to bring a jumper, and were instead going to be forced to leg it across the planet.

But McKay was sure there was something worth finding, and Sheppard was willing enough to let him try. So they carefully made their way up and down the rocks, McKay glued to his readouts while the team followed him, Sheppard staying close enough to make sure he didn’t fall into any crevasses.

They’d been at it for an hour or two and were following a trail that led down what looked like a dried creek bed when they came to a dead-end. It was the third one they’d found so far; Sheppard rolled his eyes but let McKay shuffle past him, back the way they came. McKay was muttering to himself, eyes still locked on his tablet, and for that reason he didn’t notice that Ronon had stopped with his back to them, blocking the way out. McKay ran directly into him, nearly knocking the tablet out of his hands in the process. He bobbled the tablet a bit before getting it back under control, and glared at Ronon’s back.

“What are you doing?” he irritably asked. “Move, we have to go back out.”

“Not without a fight,” Ronon rumbled.

That got Sheppard’s attention, and he hurried forward, pulling McKay backwards so that he could squeeze past him to get to Ronon. Peering over Ronon’s shoulder, he could see that the way back out was now blocked by several large men, all lined up in the creek bed ahead of them. More were poised above them, perched along the edges of the walls, and all that had a clear sight line to the team were pointing notched arrows their way. Sheppard noticed that they were dressed in an assortment of furs and animal skins, and wore sturdy boots that looked ideal for walking over the rocky terrain.

“McKay, I thought we didn’t pick up any life signs when we came through the Gate,” he stage whispered, keeping his eyes on the men who seemed to have the clearest shots.

“We didn’t, but that was several kilometers of wandering ago.”

“And you hadn’t checked since?”

“I was a little busy tracking the energy signature!” McKay snapped. “Why didn’t you do it?”

“Because I was a little busy keeping you from falling and breaking your neck,” Sheppard shot back.

Teyla’s firm voice cut in. “However we wound up in this situation, what are we going to do about it now?”

Sheppard glanced over his shoulder at her, and she raised her eyebrows in question. He looked back to Ronon, who had his blaster raised and appeared to just be waiting for Sheppard’s signal before he took out anything that moved. Sheppard was weighing the pros and cons—the other guys had the high ground, but his team had more powerful weapons—when McKay spoke up again.

“We’re going to do what they want.”

Sheppard turned to stare at him. “Excuse me?”

McKay held his tablet out and jabbed a finger at it. “Look, the longer we’ve searched, the clearer the signal has gotten,” he advised in a low voice. “I’m convinced we can find it and I’m positive that we definitely want to, but it will be a lot easier to do that if we don’t have the locals baying for our blood and chasing us all over the place. So let’s just play nice and see if we can make friends, hmm?”

“And what if our blood is what they want?” Sheppard asked.

“Ronon could probably take them all out bare-handed if he wanted to,” McKay replied, waving a hand dismissively. “For that matter, they could’ve just shot us before we even knew they were here.”

“True, but it isn’t like they came in peace,” Sheppard pointed out. “They’re armed.” He could just make out the creak of a bowstring being held taut, and really hoped that none of the men around them had weak fingers.

“Yeah, with bows and arrows,” McKay scoffed. “Not that worrying in the grand scheme of weaponry.”

Sheppard gave him an incredulous glance. “Arrows can do a lot of damage, Rodney.”

McKay looked even more aggravated at that. “And who here has actually been shot by an arrow?” he asked, holding up his hand and turning to them all with an almost arrogantly expectant air. “Right, just me. And I’m saying we should cooperate.”

He stared Sheppard down, the conviction in his gaze unwavering. And even though Sheppard wasn’t completely sold on surrendering, he decided to trust McKay’s instincts. Or at least give into his greed for Ancient technology.

“Okay, fine. But if I get shot, I’m going to kick your ass.”

“Accepted.”

Sighing, Sheppard turned and put his hand on Ronon’s shoulder. “Let it go, big guy.”

Ronon gave him a doubtful look, but lowered his blaster and moved aside so that Sheppard could slip past him. Coming to stand in front of the locals, Sheppard held his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“Alright, take me to your leader.”


-000000-


It turned out their leader was a woman named Jacha, a warlord who oversaw a tribe of a few hundred who called themselves the Dayoom. After being stripped of their weapons, the team had been taken on a winding course through various interweaving gorges until they’d finally emerged in an open area about the size of a football stadium. High cliffs closed it in on all sides, with dark slits in the cliff walls indicated where various gorges left it, like crooked spokes radiating out from an oblong wheel.

A deep stream ran along the far side of the area, while the middle was filled with a small village of domed huts, all of the same size and materials. People could be seen all around the area: adults drawing water from the stream; children running between the huts, their laughter echoing off the cliff walls. As the team passed, an individual here or there would pause to look their way, but for the most part they were ignored. Sheppard took note of that, and hoped the disinterest was a sign of ambivalence toward visitors, and not an indication that they wouldn’t be alive long enough to be worth sparing interest for.

In the center of the village grew a solitary tree, its broad arms stretching over a hut that was slightly larger than the rest. The team was led into this hut, and shoved onto their knees before Jacha.

Like their captors—which Sheppard had discovered were not all men, once he was in the midst of them during their trek to the encampment—Jacha was a large person. She rivaled Ronon in height, and while the layers of clothing she wore hid most of her physique, Sheppard would have bet money that she out-muscled him, too. She had striking features: dark hair and olive skin, with high cheekbones beneath amber eyes that shone with intelligence. And suspicion.

She studied the team in silence for several long minutes, her face not betraying her thoughts. Sheppard felt McKay start to fidget next to him, and he subtlety nudged him with his shoulder, hoping to keep him quiet. They had no idea what Jacha was like, but Sheppard got the strong impression that she wouldn’t care for McKay’s rambling, and it would probably be best to keep him from going off if at all possible. Thankfully, it appeared McKay got the message and he kept his mouth shut.

Eventually, Jacha spoke, her voice a warm, raspy alto that was pleasant to listen to, even if what she was saying wasn’t.

“Why have you trespassed in Noska?” she demanded.

“We’re explorers,” Sheppard explained. “We visit other worlds to learn about them and meet the people there.”

Jacha glared at him. “You have come to take it?”

“No, we didn’t come to take anything,” he replied.

“We did not know anyone lived here,” Teyla advised. “If we had, we would have introduced ourselves first.”

“Lies!” Jacha boomed. “I should kill you all for the insult!”

“We aren’t lying,” Sheppard tried again, but Jacha silenced him with a backhand across the face. He saw stars for a split second, and he cautiously worked his jaw to make sure it wasn’t broken.

Beside him, Ronon had attempted to leap to his feet even as Jacha had pulled back her hand to deliver the blow. Two of the men who had been standing guard behind the team had jumped forward as Ronon moved and grabbed him by his shoulders, forcing him back to his knees. Even now, they held him there as he fought against them.

Jacha turned to watch his struggles, her expression suddenly guarded. Ronon bared his teeth in a half-feral grin, his eyes blazing with fury. Jacha turned from him, seeming to almost be bored, and focused again on Sheppard.

“Who sent you?” she asked.

“No one sent us.”

“What do you want?”

“I told you, we’re explorers. We just wanted to explore the place.”

“Lies.”

“He’s not lying!”

McKay had finally broken and couldn’t keep quiet anymore. He glared up at Jacha as she came to stand in front of him, and Sheppard almost groaned.

“McKay—” he warned in a whisper.

“He’s not lying!” McKay repeated, ignoring Sheppard and adding a chin tilt to his glare. “Whether you believe what he’s saying or not doesn’t change the fact that he’s telling the truth!”

For a second, Jacha just stared down at McKay. Then, fast a lightning, she had him by the hair, his head pulled back and a blade Sheppard hadn’t even seen her pull hovering over his face.

“I will cut out your tongue if you speak to me that way again,” she growled.

Sheppard felt a stupid flicker of pride when, instead of cowering, McKay just glared harder. He must have been exceptionally pissed about the possibility of missing out on finding some Ancient tech for his anger to override the fear a direct threat of violence usually inspired in him. He didn’t even heed Jacha’s warning.

“Wouldn’t change the fact that Sheppard told you the truth,” he told her.

Jacha was studying McKay with an assessing gaze, and Sheppard almost thought that he saw respect in her eyes. Then she roughly released her hold on him and stepped back again, sneering down the line of them.

“What shall I do with these insolent trespassers?” she wondered aloud, as if to herself.

Ronon decided to answer her, though. “Get your men to stop holding me back and we can fight it out.”

Sheppard looked over at him, only slightly surprised. Ronon had stopped struggling against his guards, and was now kneeling stock still, nearly vibrating with energy as he watched Jacha with a hungry expression. As she stepped over to him, he pulled slightly against the hands gripping his arms, straining toward her almost as if in invitation. Again, she studied him for a while with no change in her face. Then, her mouth crooked up in a small smile.

“Take them away,” she said, stepping back from the team.

The team was grabbed again and hauled to their feet, but before they could start toward the hut door, Jacha’s voice stopped them.

“Except that one; I will keep him.”

Sheppard turned to see her pointing at Ronon with the knife she still held. Ronon, on his feet once again, just stared her down, unmoving. It looked for all intents and purposes like a stand-off, except one party was armed while the other was being held by his arms. Sheppard immediately wriggled against the hands that had taken hold of him.

“Take me instead,” he said. “I’m the leader, you should take me.”

“Shut up, Sheppard,” Ronon growled, not looking away from Jacha.

Jacha, likewise, didn’t look away from Ronon as she responded. “Get them out of my sight.”

And with that, Sheppard, McKay, and Teyla were all escorted from the hut. Well, McKay and Teyla were; Sheppard was more or less dragged out as he tried to get loose and rush back after Ronon. Considering that each of the men pulling him along had at least five inches and forty pounds on him, it was a futile struggle.

They were led to another hut closer to the edge of the village and pushed inside. Aside from the door—which Sheppard heard being barred from the outside—the only other opening in the hut was a round hold in the roof, right in the center. From the signs of burning beneath it, Sheppard figured it was an air hole to let smoke out of the room. It might have been a viable escape route except for the fact that is was too high up, and that it was crisscrossed by wooden poles, which they had no way to saw through.

There were a couple of benches by the wall across from the doorway, and a bucket of water sat beside the door. Sheppard ignored the water for the time being, and went to sit on one of the benches. He gingerly prodded the side of his face where Jacha had hit him. It was tender already, but not too bad. The thought crossed his mind that she had probably held back; he had no doubt that she could’ve easily knocked him out had she wanted to.

Teyla came to sit beside him, sighing softly as she lowered herself onto the bench. McKay, however, stayed on his feet, pacing back and forth in front of the door.

“What do you think she meant when she said she’d keep Ronon?” he asked.

“I do not know,” Teyla replied.

“What do you think she’s going to do to him?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think she’s going to do to us?”

“We don’t know, McKay.”

“I—” McKay stopped in his pacing and stared at them. “Right, right.” He strode over to sit on the bench beside Sheppard and Teyla’s.

“So what do we do now?”

Sheppard sighed. “Now we figure out a plan.”


-000000-


The plan they wound up with was just about the only option they had: trying to attack whichever guard came to check on them, and then making a break for it. The downside to that plan was that they had to wait for someone to actually make the check. Which meant it was over an hour before they heard someone approaching the hut.

Quietly, they all got into place, McKay lying down on the bench directly across from the door with Teyla and Sheppard positioned at either side of it. The hope was that seeing McKay down across the room would distract the guard long enough for Teyla and/or Sheppard to incapacitate them. It was a weak plan at best, but it was all Sheppard could come up with and neither Teyla nor Rodney had complained about it, so it was what they were going with.

There was the faint sound of footsteps approaching, then the scrape of the bar across the door being removed. Sheppard readied himself as the door was pulled open, then swung the empty water bucket as hard as he could toward the shadowed figure standing in the doorway. The figure managed to deflect the bucket with its arm just before being hit in the chest with it.

“Hey!”

Sheppard stopped mid heave as he prepared the bucket for another swing. “Ronon?”

The figure stepped forward, into the beam of light coming through the opening in the roof, and revealed itself to be their missing teammate. He was scowling Sheppard’s way, and rubbing his arm where the bucket had hit it.

“What’d you hit me for?”

“I thought you were a guard,” Sheppard explained. “We were going to make a break for it.”

“How did you escape?” McKay asked, hurrying over to join them by the door. “Did you find some weapons? Should we be running? I feel like we should be running.”

“It’s fine,” Ronon told him. “We’ve been invited to stay.”

“Stay?” Teyla exchanged a look of confusion with Sheppard. “Would we wish to stay?”

“What’s going on, buddy?” Sheppard asked. “Last time we saw you, you and Jacha looked about two seconds away from leaping at each other’s throats.”

“We did,” Ronon answered. “Sort of.”

“Don’t tell me,” McKay sarcastically cut in, crossing his arms over his chest. “You defeated her in hand-to-hand combat and became the new chieftain and now we have an entire tribe of huge warriors at our beck and call?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

Ronon shifted on his feet, not quite looking any of them in the eye. “She, ah—”

He paused, and Sheppard suddenly realized that he was uncomfortable. What the hell had happened?

“You didn’t—you didn’t lose, did you?” he tentatively asked.

Ronon’s angry gaze snapped to his. “No!”

“Then what is it?”

“She was flirting.”

Sheppard blinked at him. “Come again?”

“All that stuff, back in the hut, it was flirting. She was, y’know, trying to make herself look like a good prospect.”

Sheppard looked over at Teyla, who seemed amused, then at McKay, who apparently couldn’t decide whether he wanted to be angry or disgusted. His expression kept shifting between the two as he gaped wordlessly in Ronon’s direction. Sheppard turned back to Ronon.

“So you’re telling me that I got hit in the face to get you a date?”

“It’s not like I asked her to!” Ronon protested.

“She threatened to cut out my tongue!” McKay exclaimed. “And she definitely ripped out some of my hair,” he added with a whine, rubbing the back of his head.

Teyla was watching Ronon with a curious expression. “Why would Jacha threaten us if she merely wished to spend time with you?”

Ronon lifted one shoulder in an awkward shrug. “It’s their culture, apparently. They look for partners that match them in status and skills. They’re warriors, so Jacha being their leader means she’s the strongest and fiercest one, and she was looking for someone that could match her. Everything that she did in the tent was her way of testing us, to see what we were like. And, y’know…”

“And she liked you best,” Sheppard finished for him.

“Yeah.”

“Well that’s just great,” McKay said. “Make sure you invite us to the wedding. In the meantime, do we get to leave?”

“Jacha wants us to have lunch with her,” Ronon told him, “and then you all can continue searching the planet for that energy signature. She’s even offered to give you a guide to help navigate through all the gorges.”

That sounded better than anything Sheppard had hoped for. Though, considering he’d expected they’d have to, at best, run for their lives, pretty much anything that didn’t involve mortal peril was an improvement. Then Ronon’s words registered, and he did a double take.

“Wait—what do you mean by ‘you all’? Is she not letting you go?”

Ronon looked pained. “I promised I’d spend time with her while you’re doing your survey. To, y’know, get to know each other.”

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” McKay muttered.

“It’s what we agreed to, McKay,” Ronon snapped at him. “I’ll spend time with her to decide if we’re compatible, in exchange for you getting to wander wherever you want to inside her lands to find that energy reading you’re looking for. And you get to keep whatever you find, no questions asked.”

McKay raised his eyebrows, surprised. “Either she really has no idea about technology, or she really, really likes you.”

“I believe it to be the latter,” Teyla murmured, giving Ronon a sly smile.

Ronon sighed, and Sheppard studied him a bit more closely. He looked a little annoyed, but also a little embarrassed, and Sheppard wondered just exactly what he’d promised Jacha.

“You aren’t doing this under any kind of duress, are you?” he asked him. “Because we can forget about the energy reading; it’s not that important.”

“I beg to differ!” McKay argued.

“She wants to talk.”

Ronon said it with the same defeated tone Sheppard expected he would use if he’d been told he had to clean all the bathrooms on Atlantis. Biting back a smile, Sheppard gave him an innocent, “Oh?”

“To get to know each other—she wants to talk.”

“Maybe you could convince her to spar instead?” he suggested, tongue in cheek.

“Prove your worthiness that way?” Teyla added.

“We already did that,” Ronon said. “That’s why we’ve gotta talk now.”

“Oh.”

Ronon sighed again, then motioned with his head for them to follow him. As they started retracing their steps back to Jacha’s hut, he cast a despairing look McKay’s way.

“Just find that thing as fast you can, McKay.”

“I’ll do my best,” McKay solemnly promised.

In the end, it took them almost another two hours to locate the energy source, which turned out to be nothing more than a nearly depleted beacon from the otherwise long-destroyed Ancient outpost. By the time they returned to the Dayoom village, Ronon looked practically haggard. Jacha, however, looked as cool and self-satisfied as she had when they’d left her. Before they departed the village on their way back to the Stargate, she gave Ronon a small dagger in a leather sheath. Then she raised her hand in farewell and ducked into her hut without looking back.

Sheppard asked Ronon about the dagger as they walked. “Parting gift?”

“Offer of marriage,” Ronon grunted in reply.

Sheppard’s eyebrows shot up. “Are we going to be planning a wedding?”

“No.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to keep the, uh, knife if you say no,” he pointed out.

“It’s half the ritual,” Ronon explained, sounding like he was doing so through gritted teeth. “I’d have to give her one in return.”

“And?”

“And I’m not going to.”

“Didn’t like her?”

Ronon shot him an annoyed look. “You want me to leave and come live here?”

“Nope. But she seemed, y’know, nice. For a warrior woman.”

Ronon aimed a pointed look at Sheppard’s bruised cheek. “Really.”

“I mean, she’s not the first woman to hit me,” he said. He cast an overly wounded glance Teyla’s way. “Hell, Teyla hits me at least once a week.”

“You should practice your blocking technique more frequently,” she casually shot back.

Sheppard nodded in acknowledgment of the truth of that statement. “This was the first time I got smacked while playing wingman, though,” he admitted.

Ronon shook his head. “I’m just mad we had to go through all of this and McKay didn’t even find anything.” He raised his voice so McKay—who was walking farther ahead, closer to their Dayoom guide—could hear him. “You said it was going to be worth it, McKay!”

“Hey, we got a free lunch!” McKay shot back. “Just because you didn’t enjoy your little flirtation doesn’t mean it was a wasted trip!”

Ronon growled something unintelligible under his breath, and Sheppard made a mental note to warn McKay before his next sparring session with Ronon. Or, better yet, to not warn McKay, but bring Teyla along so they could watch.

“And you did get a cool dagger out of the deal,” he reminded Ronon, nodding to where Jacha’s gift was tucked into his belt. “I’d consider that a plus.”

“It is a nice blade,” Ronon conceded.

Sheppard clapped him on the shoulder. “See? It all turned out fine in the end. McKay was proven wrong, we got some free food and made some friends, and you got a shiny new knife to play with.”

Ronon nodded, before he turned to Sheppard with a faint frown. “What’s a ‘wingman’?”

Sheppard blew out a breath. “Oh, boy.”