"We are ready, Colonel," Teyla called toward the cockpit as she finally closed the jumper's hatch.
"About time," Rodney said with a huff, dropping the last sack of pret, then cursing as he had to step over it to make his way to the cockpit. "If I'd been meant to play Old MacDonald, I'd have been born with a hundred fewer points to my IQ, unlike Farmer John." He skirted around a crate of fruit and finally made it into the cockpit, collapsing into the copilot's seat with a sigh of relief. "My God, I'm ready to go home."
John gave him a quirky look that didn't manage to cover the exhaustion he too felt. "Ronon?" he asked.
"Let's go," Ronon said.
John took the jumper up into orbit in a long, easy arc that let them pass over the farms and fields of Quisit. The same farms and fields they'd just spent five days laboring in, helping bring in the harvest. The Quisit weren't paranoid about visitors, they were just really isolated, with the only stargate in their solar system orbiting a gas giant twenty-seven hours (by jumper) out from their planet. That distance had protected them from casual contact.
They'd also had five years of bumper crops and were in transports over the thought of trading their surplus for badly needed iron ore. The stuffed-to-the-gills jumper was just a taste of what they'd be thrilled to provide. The team figured they'd borrow the Daedalus for a quick trip to do the heavy lifting rather than back and forth in jumpers.
For now, it was good to be heading back to Atlantis with a jumper jam-packed and a very successful trade agreement under their belts, even if they did all have blisters. The Quisit still used scythes. Rodney had every intention of introducing them to the combine harvester as soon as possible.
Up and up the jumper rose until Quisit was a blue-white-green curve disappearing below and the stars were brilliant before them. The jumper's viewport obligingly shaded the brilliance of Quisit's sun, breaking blinding bright over the single lavender moon.
Ronon was thumping around in the back of the jumper.
"What the hell is he doing?" John asked, without looking back. Two different HUDs had sprung up before him and Rodney knew he was plotting a least-time course to the stargate. What Rodney wanted to know was why the Ancients (apparently even they had their share of idiots) had placed the stargate so inconveniently. When least-time equates with twenty-seven hours...what were they thinking. Also, they had been on Quisit five days and no showers.
At least the jumper had a tiny toilet slash washroom. Nothing like traveling on a ten thousand-year-old space ship and squatting over a bucket to make you feel like an usurping monkey. No one was happier to discover the toilet than Rodney. Except for Teyla.
Rodney glanced back, couldn't tell, and debated getting up and looking or... "Teyla, what's Ronon doing?" he yelled.
John winced.
Teyla poked her head past the bulkhead door. "Ronon is rearranging."
"What? He's suddenly come all over with the need to redecorate?" Rodney demanded. John chuckled. The inertial dampeners and artificial gravity kept the interior from feeling it, but on the HUD, the jumper heeled over and accelerated along the course for the stargate.
"He has cleared one of the benches, as well as arranging the bags of pret into a more comfortable position for resting," Teyla said before disappearing.
"Might as well get some sleep," Ronon rumbled, dreadlocked head appearing for an instant somewhat above where Teyla's had.
"I hate you," Rodney said, meaning, I wish I could lie down and go to sleep. too, that was such a good idea, not that I'll ever admit it, you hairy thug.
"You can get some sleep too," John told him.
Rodney glanced at him sidelong and shook his head. "Teyla snores." He wasn't leaving John up here alone with just the silence of the stars for company. He looked even more wiped than Rodney felt. He suspected John had been sitting up on watch every night, despite the Quisit's apparent friendliness.
"I do not!" Teyla shouted from the rear compartment.
"How would you know?" Rodney shouted back.
"Shut up," Ronon said.
"Don't make me turn this jumper around," John called.
Rodney sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. John made a tiny adjustment to their speed. "So...Elizabeth probably won't believe we got all this just for helping out and promising them iron ore."
"Face it, McKay, not every mission has to end in hostilities."
Rodney snorted. "Just yours."
"I resent that."
"Resent away, flyboy."
Jumper seats weren't tremendously more comfortable than any other Ancient furniture, but compared to the Quisit's hard benches and straw mattresses, they were heaven. The jumper had climate control, too, so the interior was just right, not too cold or too hot. John was drumming the fingers of his free hand against the arm rest. He made a funny face, stretching his jaw while keeping his mouth shut. Suppressing a yawn, Rodney thought. He immediately had to suppress one of his own.
"You want to check on Teyla and Ronon?" John asked.
"Right, right, I'll do that," Rodney said. He wearily pushed out of the copilot's seat and went to look in on the rear compartment.
Ronon was stretched out over a bed of sacks of pret laid out over the crates of vegetables and fruits, both fresh and preserved, they'd spent ages loading into the jumper. Teyla was curled up on the padded bench, using her jacket as a pillow.
She was not snoring. Ronon, on the other hand, made a distinct, though not unpleasant, snuffly noise.
"Both conked out," Rodney reported. "Twenty-seven hours. God. The jumper is full and there's nothing for me to eat. I'm going to end up in a hypoglycemic coma, just wait and see."
"I've got an MRE and some powerbars in my day pack. If you can find it back there, they're yours," John said through another muffled yawn.
"You could have told me before."
"You would have ate them before."
"So, Prime Not Prime?" Maybe it would help John stay awake.
John blinked and then nodded, "Yeah, why not?"
~*~
"One thousand three hundred forty-five."
"Not."
"Forty-three million, one hundred one thousand, five hundred ninety-nine."
"Prime," John replied.
"Next?" Rodney demanded.
John gazed blankly at the viewport.
"Sheppard?"
He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, okay," he mumbled, then frowned. "It's forty-three million, one hundred one thousand, six hundred seven."
"The universe is manifestly unfair," Rodney declared.
"You're just figuring that out? I thought you were a genius, McKay."
"So, your turn."
"Forty-three million, one hundred nine thousand, five hundred eight. Give me the fourth prime less than it," John said.
"First of all, not prime."
John grinned at him. "I know."
He wasn't a mathematical savant, so it took him some time. John waited. "Forty-three million, one hundred nine thousand, four hundred eighty-three," Rodney said.
Nothing.
"Sheppard?"
He looked over and sighed. John's head was dipped forward in a neck-aching angle and his hand had gone slack on the jumper's joystick. A thought from Rodney brought up their course. They'd drifted off by two degrees. He wished he could just let John go on sleeping, even if he did wake up in need of a chiropractor and a Vicodin, but they really didn't want to visit the seething orange-yellow gas giant. The atmospheric pressure down in it would implode the jumper like a soap bubble.
"John!"
That got him blinked open eyes that weren't quite focused and a hand batting out. Rodney did not grab John's wrist. That way led to being flipped on his back or some other humiliating and potentially painful trick Ronon had drilled into John's reflexes.
"Rodney?" John asked.
"That would be a yes and I'll assume since you can successfully identify your best friend, you are also awake enough to correct our flight path and engage this thing's autopilot."
"What?"
Rodney nodded at the HUD. "Asleep at the wheel ring a bell? Guess it's lucky there are no ditches or telephone poles to drive into out here."
John looked and cursed. "Shit." His hands went to the controls and the jumper smoothly resumed the correct course. "I can't believe I fell asleep."
"You're exhausted. It's not like it's a surprise."
"Maybe it was just listening to you. It's nearly put me in a coma before."
"Hardy haha," Rodney said. "Look, why don't you go in back and catch some sleep? I'll stay up here." He held his hands up. "I promise not to touch your settings, I'll just monitor the sensors and make sure we don't run into an asteroid or something."
John looked at him uncertainly, before another yawn overtook him.
"Okay, see? That's it," Rodney said. "Let's go, Sleeping Beauty. Don't make me get Teyla in here."
He knew he was right when John acquiesced without further protest, set the autopilot, and let Rodney tug him to his feet, then chivvy him back into the rear compartment. He wasn't this compliant in the infirmary, even when he was on drugs. They stumbled over a sack of pret and John leaned against Rodney's shoulder, heavy and warm.
"But where do I sleep?" he whined. John could be as whiny as the next man, but usually he reined it in better. He'd been pushing himself too hard for too long, though. Rodney recognized the signs from his own mirror. Except John did it on determination and Rodney did it on nerves — when they couldn't get Carson to hand over some uppers. If John didn't get some rest soon though, he was going to crash, and not just the jumper. Oh, well, maybe this damn twenty-seven (make that twenty-six) hour trip would be a boon after all. As long as a hiveship didn't drop out of a hyperspace window on top of them, this would be the first chance at uninterrupted, safe rest any of them had had in months.
Rodney looked around and frowned. Good question: where was John going to sleep? Except for the bench Teyla had and Ronon's makeshift bed, there wasn't another clear space to be found. He guided John over to the end of the bench. Luckily Teyla was tiny and there was room to sit John down beyond her feet. Her sock clad, but bootless feet, Rodney noted. She'd taken off her boots as well as her jacket and tac vest.
"Give me a minute, I'll figure something out," he said.
John slumped down onto the bench like all his bones had come undone, elbows and knees akimbo, head drooping. Rodney knelt by John's feet and began unlacing his boots.
"Rodney," John drawled, petulant as any sleepy child. "What're you doing?"
"Taking off your boots."
"Okay. Why?"
"You'll be more comfortable," Teyla said, startling Rodney.
John just twisted and smiled at her. "Hey, Teyla."
She smiled back at him before raising an eyebrow at Rodney.
"It's okay, I got him to set the autopilot," Rodney said. "I'll monitor everything."
Teyla gave him another smile, this one full of approval. Rodney ducked his head and worked on getting the knots on John's laces undone. What kind of insane knot-tying frenzy did John get into, anyway? Gordian didn't cover it. At the same time, he pretended he wasn't flushed with warmth. Truthfully, there wasn't much he and Ronon and John wouldn't do to please Teyla. If they could and they always felt badly when they didn't.
"Hah," he muttered and tossed the boot away. One boot down, one to go.
"Here, John, you should take off the vest, too," Teyla said. She sat up and assumed a modified lotus position. John fumbled with his tac vest, too tired to coordinate his fingers, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, "fuck it," so that Teyla chuckled. Eventually the tac vest came off, followed by the thigh holster and John's sidearm.
Apparently there was a knack to John's knots. Rodney got John's other boot off much faster. When Rodney had levered the boot off and stopped grimacing over the eye-watering state of John's socks (five days, oh my God, trench foot loomed), he looked up to find John had toppled over and had his head on Teyla's shoulder.
"Ah, can you just hold him there a minute?" he asked. He had to suppress a smile. John was rubbing his head against Teyla just like a cat, his eyes closed and his lips turning up. Teyla had an arm braced around his torso. "I'll clear a spot for him."
"That is not necessary, Rodney," she whispered. "The bench is large enough for both of us."
"Are you sure?" Of course, he thought, John gets to collapse and cuddle up with Teyla. I get to watch the jumper sensors.
"Yes, if you will just help me get his feet up."
Teyla tugged and Rodney lifted and they arranged John with his head in Teyla's lap, ignoring his mumbled complaints that he wasn't rag doll, even while his arms flopped around just like one.
Rodney's back creaked when he straightened up. He rubbed at it with one hand and looked down at John and Teyla, waiting for the kinks to loosen up. Teyla was stroking her fingers through John's hair, her expression secretive yet pleased. Rodney found himself reminded of a pietà, only sans the tragedy. John muttered, rolled onto his side, and mashed his cheek against her thigh.
"If you get tired of being a pillow, you can come up and keep me company," Rodney said finally.
Teyla looked up.
"I will take a shift watching the sensors so that you may rest as well," she replied.
"Oh, ah, thanks. Not necessary, but, yes, some rest would be nice." He rubbed his back again. "Though my back is never going to recover anyway."
"There's nothing wrong with your back," John said. One hazel eye slitted open. "Call me if something comes up."
"I will, of course," Rodney snapped. "Don't you trust me?"
John closed his eye and shifted on the bench to give Teyla a little more room. "Yeah," he said, like it was nothing, it was obvious, and there had never been any awful, painful break in their friendship, never been a Doranda. Rodney opened his mouth twice, couldn't find anything to say, and finally retreated into the cockpit.
Ronon snored through the entire exchange.
Teyla smiled and patted John's shoulder.
~*~
Six hours later, Ronon dropped into the copilot's seat, startling Rodney out of the nearly mindless routine of watching the sensors and trying to stay awake.
"Go," Ronon told him.
Rodney stared at him. "Do you even know — "
"If something changes I'll wake Sheppard."
One more look at the readouts and Rodney nodded. He staggered back into the rear compartment, toed off his boots, dropped his vest next to them and crawled onto the bench with Teyla and John. The bench wasn't wide enough or long enough for all of them, but he didn't care. He wasn't sleeping on sacks of pret.
He woke with Teyla curled between himself and John, John's hand tangled in his shirt, clutching, one of his arms pinned beneath them and numb from the shoulder down. Teyla had her head on his chest and was drooling a little. John's face was buried in the back of Teyla's neck. Below the waist, their legs were all tangled together.
It wasn't exactly comfortable, but Rodney didn't move. He was warm and safe and Ronon was up front, keeping watch. Everyone he cared about was right there with him in the jumper.
Unfortunately, his stomach insisted on growling audibly. Very audibly. Rodney watched John's eyes blink open, translucent as a wilderness stream, moss green and gold-flecked, and more than a little confused. "Hunh?" John mumbled.
"Hey," Rodney croaked. His stomach complained again.
"That you?"
"Sorry," Rodney whispered, hoping Teyla wouldn't wake too.
"Wish I had one of your picture-taking gadgets," Ronon said, making them both look up. He loomed in the doorway to the cockpit.
"Everything okay?" John asked. He began extricating himself from the tangle of legs and arms, with Rodney's help. He still looked owlish, blinking against the light, mussed more than usual. Once sitting up, he stared down at his socks and seemed befuddled.
"Fine. Heard McKay's stomach."
John was looking at his watch. "You're kidding me?"
Rodney struggled into a sitting position while still holding on to Teyla. "What?"
"I slept fourteen hours?"
"You needed it," Ronon declared.
"Hunh."
John's gaze settled on Teyla then rose to meet Rodney's. "Guess so."
~*~
Rodney looked at his watch and groaned.
"What is it?" This time, John didn't add, but Rodney heard it anyway.
"Check the date. We're missing the entire Christmas special dinner," Rodney lamented. Visions of the turkeys and hams, even three geese, the candied yams, mashed real Earth potatoes, vats of artery-clogging gravy, cranberry sauce and puddings, plates of cookies, candies, all the delicious and traditional foods the Daedalus had delivered with their regular supplies floated before his mind's eye. All of it would be gone, gone, gone to the slavering hoards before they made it back to Atlantis.
Ronon grunted.
"Still got that MRE somewhere, unless you ate it while I was asleep," John offered. He shrugged and then extended his legs, wiggling his toes in his socks. "Can't say I miss Elizabeth's party."
Rodney nodded. "I still miss the food."
"I figured," Ronon said.
"What?" Rodney looked up.
Ronon was shifting two crates and then pulling out several baskets. He handed them to Teyla.
"Food."
"Well, yeah, that's what we traded the Quisit for," John said.
Teyla set the first basket on the tiny bit of deck that was clear.
"No, food for us. Had Nellen put some stuff together," Ronon told them. He set the second basket down. "Knew we'd be in here while your Christmas thing was going on."
Rodney reached forward and opened one of the baskets. "Oh. Oh!" he exclaimed in delight. It appeared to packed with all the best things the Quisit had cooked during their five day stay on the planet. There were the little ball cheeses, fruits, pots wrapped in towels and still warm with casseroles and soups, desserts, a cold fried meat that genuinely did taste like chicken, candies wrapped in paper tucked in every corner and niche. "Oh, wow, are those the tarts with the yellow jam?"
John leaned forward. "Cool."
Rodney plucked one out and stuffed into his mouth, chewing blissfully as the taste exploded on his tongue, tart and sweet as morning sunshine, with just the faintest hint of sour. The pastry left little flakes on his thumb and he licked them off. He reached for another tart only to the hit John's hand reaching for it too.
"Hey!"
"Did I tell you those taste exactly like lemon?" John asked guilelessly.
"You lie."
John snatched the tart and ate it in three neat bites, before answering. "Nope."
Rodney reached back into the basket and pulled out some of the spiced, meat-and-vegetable filled dumplings. Ronon pulled out bottles of the cider-like beer and handed them around. Teyla slapped John's hand when he reached for a second tart, then they shared out everything from both baskets, trading and eating with their fingers, laughing when Ronon mocked their lack of manners.
John checked the sensors and their progress periodically, then padded back to the rear compartment and planted himself on the bench between Teyla and Rodney again. Ronon sprawled on his bed of pret sacks. Rodney kept eating until he felt too full for more and even then nibbled on a sweet-spiced bun, leaning back and feeling replete.
Teyla had her tac vest on her lap and was pulling something from one of the pockets. Three small packages, each wrapped in a strip of bright cloth. With a wide smile, she handed one to each of them.
"What's this?" Ronon asked, pulling his package open impatiently.
"A gift," Teyla said. "I saw them in the Quisit market and remembered your holiday includes gift giving."
"Not my holiday," Ronon pointed out.
"You're part of the team, you still get something, buddy," John said, smothering yet another yawn. He smiled down at the package in his hands and began opening it carefully.
Rodney held his in his hands, feeling oddly shy about opening it. He couldn't imagine what Teyla could have traded for on Quisit that he'd want, but he didn't want to hurt her feelings, either.
"Hey, Rodney?" John asked.
"Yes?"
"You don't have that...thing with you, do you?"
"What thing — Oh." He groped around through his pack and found it. He'd stuffed it into one of the pockets when they were gearing up for the mission and not thought of it since.
Closing his hand around it, he pulled it out of the pack and held out his fist to Teyla.
Teyla looked surprised then held her hand out palm up.
Rodney dropped the pendant strung on a silver chain into her hand.
"I took the Wraith device out of it and John got the chain on Earth. We thought you should have it back," Rodney blurted. He'd always felt guilty about going through her stuff, even though Bates had been right in a backward way.
"Oh," Teyla said.
"What Wraith device?" Ronon said, sitting up.
"Long story," John said. He held up the contents of the package Teyla had given him. Four interlocking circles of silver, gold, bronze and what looked like platinum gleamed in the jumper's cool light. Ronon held a similar item.
Rodney hurried and opened his own package to find the same. He looked at it for a moment then smiled.
"It's us, right?"
Teyla nodded. "Yes."
John pulled his dogtags over his head, opened the chain and quietly threaded the charm onto it. "Good luck," he said.
Rodney tightened his hand on his charm, then did the same, while Ronon calmly braided his into his hair.
"Christmas," Ronon said. "Tell me about that? You give gifts? Why?"
John groaned and covered his face. "Why don't we let Elizabeth explain once we get back?"
-fin
- Summary: The team bonds and naps on the flight home from a mission that didn't go wrong.
- Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
- Rating: G
- Warnings: none
- Author Notes: for eretria
- Date: 12.24.06
- Length: 3475 words
- Genre: gen
- Category: Team, vignette
- Cast: John Sheppard, Teyla Emmagan, Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex
- Betas: murron
- Disclaimer: Not for profit. Transformative work written for private entertainment.