Chapter Text
It Could Be Something in the Air
“I think there’s something in the water
Well, then again, it could be something in the air
Well there’s none to be found
In the dirt on the ground
And the choices I’ve made are at heart anyway
I think it must be the water.”
The Jealous Girlfriends, “Something In The Water”
Next time I volunteer to go check out a planet’s suitability to serve as an Alpha Site to get away from training civilians… please shoot me. Or at least tell me that it’s a really stupid idea. And then proceed to shoot me.
The only, and I really mean the only saving grace M9I-379 had is that at least it was mostly devoid of murderous flora, fauna, fungi or mineral structures, we didn’t freeze to death or nearly died of heatstroke, no Genii spies, no Wraith and hey, none of that shit I encountered in my time at the SGC, either. However…
“Lieutenants. Corporal.” Right. Time for the debriefing. At least they gave us a towel each. Not that it had much effect, considering that we’re basically soaked through but yeah, points for effort.
But, okay, I get it. The Wraith are coming closer, and we really do need that damn Alpha Site yesterday, so yeah, no rest for the Marines, only the sociologist with a broken ankle and a bit of a trauma reaction. I nod. And tell myself to stop channeling the Major, as I apparently I have taken to ever since this whole business with the Wraith Armada began. “Sir.”
Sheppard nods, too and gestures towards the chairs. “From the look of all of you, I got a feeling we’re gonna be here a while, huh? Sit down, all of you.”
Errr. “We’d uh rather not, sir.” I still have no idea why Cuevas and Strickland keep deferring to me of all people but apparently, we have, once again, decided that I speak for all of us. Or at least I’m pretty sure both of them feel the same let’s call it reluctance to get in contact with our dripping wet uniforms any more than necessary that I feel. We’re Marines but that only means we won’t tell you just how shitty it feels, not that it doesn’t feel shitty in the first place.
Sheppard, for his part, just raises an eyebrow. “Okay, fine, suit yourself.” For someone under the pressure of organizing the defense against an armada of murderous space vampires with only a few hundred people, finding a suitable alpha site for non-essential, non-fighting qualified personnel, McKay and Zelenka getting on his nerves because of the damn chair and a hundred other things, he looks surprisingly relaxed. But I guess that’s just Sheppard being Sheppard. “Alright, talk to me, Lieutenant. What’s the story to your uh state?”
I can’t resist the temptation of sharing a look with Cuevas to my right and Strickland to my left and of course it’s me who gets the job of reporting. Fine. “Not a lot of story, sir.” Really, there isn’t. At least not from the point of a simple recon mission, that is. “We did a sweep of the conditions on M9I-379 and came to the conclusion that it’s not suitable for an alpha site.”
Now Sheppard leans on his forwards, hands folded loosely. “That’s weird. MALP telemetry and camera footage showed that it’s basically perfect.”
“MALP telemetry showed a load of crap,” Strickland mutters and makes Sheppard give her the raised eyebrow. Strickland, bless her little corporal’s heart, takes the cue and adds a belated, “Sir,” and that’s it. That’s right, sir. Marines totally can behave themselves.
Sheppard looks from her to me to Cuevas and back to me. Uh-oh. I can just keep myself from clearing my throat. “I concur with Corporal Strickland, sir. MALP telemetry and footage gave us an incomplete assessment. That planet really wouldn’t work.”
“Why, Lieutenant?” Oh come in, it’s gonna be in the damn mission report. I really just want to get out of my soaking wet uniform. Please. “Look, Lieutenant, I know you’re gonna write me a mission report, and it’s gonna be a good mission report because all of yours are,” is that a compliment or an insult, “but here’s the thing: I don’t have time to read any of them right now, and you don’t have time to write them. So, indulge me, Lieutenant.”
I’m this close to asking him if that was an order but I think he’s probably closer to snapping than I originally thought. There’s this little twitch thing in his… whatever. Indulging my commanding officer, sure, I can do that. Under one condition, “I’d like nothing better, sir, but seriously, we need to get rid of those uniforms, first.”
Because otherwise, three of your Marines might be incapacitated by fucking pneumonia by tomorrow morning at the latest and yep, you can see the exact moment he realizes it, too. Finally we’re getting somewhere. “Right. Of course. Uh…”
Another look, first at Cuevas, then at Strickland and I realize that if we really want this to be over as soon as possible so we can all go and do something useful, we only have one option. “Requesting permission to divest ourselves of all wet equipment, sir.”
It’s almost funny how Sheppard blinks, blinks again and then says, still looking a bit like a deer in headlights, “Here?”
Don’t laugh, oh God, Reece, don’t laugh. Keep your fucking face straight, for the love of God. “Yes, sir.” Did I just hear Strickland snorting very faintly under her breath? Or was that Cuevas?
“Lieutenant…”
“You can turn around, if you prefer to, sir.” Dammit, Cuevas. She still keeps me fooled with that no-nonsense “If the Corps had wanted Marines to have a sense of humor, they would have issued us one” act, and then she goes and says stuff like that, completely straight-faced, but you just know that she’s making fun of you. You can’t ever prove it to her, and that’s the worst about it.
From the look of it, Sheppard must know that, too. He narrows his eyes, just for a second or so, probably ready to ask her if she’s really trying to bullshit him but apparently, that’s gotta take a backseat to more pressing issues for the moment. “Permission granted. And now, talk, people.”
Okay, then. Both Cuevas and Strickland shrug at me and I gesture at them to start getting out of their gear while doing the same myself. Sheppard, to his credit, doesn’t turn around but makes an effort not to stare and look very professional about it. Sometimes, Air Force guys and their delicate sensibilities can be kind of endearing.
Anyway, while I take off my flak vest, I do start talking. “Like we said, sir, MALP telemetry and footage only showed part of the big picture. When we arrived at M9I-379, we didn’t find anything out of the ordinary, so we proceeded to secure the perimeter and then set off to do some recon further inland.” And off goes the jacket. Finally.
“Which was when you were hit by whatever deluge got you wet to your bones?” Yeah, we wish.
“Not exactly, sir.” Pretty sure I just heard Strickland mutter something under her breath again but when I throw her a warning look, she just gives me one of her “I didn’t do anything, LT!” looks and goes to take off her boots. Yeah, good idea. Wet boots are the worst. “This actually isn’t a weather issue.”
“Then what kind of issue is it, Lieutenant?” Uh-oh, close to snapping again.
Better hurry up with this shit. While getting rid of my socks and then going for the trousers, I try to explain what the fuck happened on that planet. “It’s a the water in the stream we discovered about two kilometers away from the gate was intelligent and also apparently laws of physics didn’t really apply there issue, sir.”
That shuts him up effectively long enough so all three of us can finish stripping down to our underwear and wrapping the towels they supplied to us in the control room around ourselves. At least they finally learned to stock stuff that’s big enough to cover everything essential. “Come again, Reece?”
Right. Maybe go a little differently about it. Also, I know my fellow Marines are fighting a really desperate fight against breaking out in grins at Sheppard’s reaction. I do get that. It’s not every day you can shock that guy with a mission report. After all, his team still holds the Atlantis record for most weird shit ever since arriving here. And all of us have seen some really weird shit since arriving here. Anyway, “About two kilometers inland, we discovered a medium size stream. We tried to do a preliminary test whether the water was drinkable and collect some samples for further analysis back in Atlantis.”
“Operative word being tried,” Cuevas injects and looks like she’d considered growling that. Can’t really fault her for that. She was the first one to get drenched.
Sheppard frowns. “Take a seat, everyone.” Huh?
Oh, he’s being serious. It’s an actual order. Okay, fine, why not? At least we won’t be sitting there in soaking wet uniform trousers, anymore. I give both Cuevas and Strickland a short nod and we all take a seat, careful not to have the towels reveal anything and get Sheppard’s Air Force overlord panties in a twist about needless propriety again. Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate his caution and proper treatment of subordinates but by now, all of us know that he’s a decent officer and a decent person and trust him not to make a mess of something like this. We probably wouldn’t have done it if it had been just one of us and him but we’re three versus one, and we have bigger problems than three Marines voluntarily wrapping themselves in towels in front of their commanding officer.
“Now, tell me the goddamn story, Lieutenant. Lieutenants. Corporal. Either one of you. Tell me how you got soaked through, how Dr. Ferreira ended up with a broken ankle and apparently a traumatic reaction and what you meant with “intelligent water” and “laws of physics not applying” and make it quick.” That’s gonna be… interesting. I mean, either you want the whole story or you want it quick.
Okay, fine, that’s not gonna fly.
I take a deep breath. “Yes, sir.” Anyone want to continue? No? Fine. “Like I said, two klicks away from the gate, we discovered a stream. When Lieutenant Cuevas went to get samples, the water suddenly surged up and drenched her.”
Sheppard frowns. “What do you mean… surged up and drenched her?”
“She means that there was an almighty wave that went down on me like the goddamn flood went down on Noah.” Cuevas is a lapsed Catholic, just like me. Unlike me, however, she hasn’t given up speaking in religious terms now and then. I’m still not sure whether I find it amusing or grating.
Our commanding officer seems to have decided on barely sustained patience. “Just like that? A biblical deluge?”
Cuevas looks very much like she’s ask him if he fucking listened but I do like her enough not to let her risk her career over something as singularly stupid as this. “Yes, sir. An unprovoked drenching, followed by the stream rising up and the water behaving… against the laws of physics.”
“Can be a little more specific, Lieutenant?” Of course he’d ask that.
I try to remember that I’m a linguist and therefore his request shouldn’t be so hard to fulfill. But I’m also a Marine, and I’m thoroughly done with this day and all I want is to have blessed thirties minutes of silence, lying in a tub full of hot water and then go back to training civilians in How Not to Die During the First Three Minutes of a Wraith Encounter 101. Ah, hell. “Basically, it behaved like water behaves in zero G, only that we weren’t in zero G. Blobs of water floating around, strings of water just hanging in the air, that kind of thing.”
“And the pulling. Jesus, fuck, don’t forget the damn pulling.” I look at Cuevas, gesturing her to go on because like hell I’m gonna run this show all on my own. Strickland is just lucky that she’s a damn enlisted who can leave the field to the LTs without it being suspicious or I’d make her share the burden, too. “Soon as I was soaking wet, something started pulling me to the stream. Not really hard but noticeable. Lieutenant Reece ordered Dr. Ferreira to keep his distance and got Corporal Strickland to help her pull me away.”
“Which was when the water got us, too,” Strickland injects and reminds me again of the fact that she actually doesn’t mind me and Cuevas as much as she minds the rest of the LT posse or she would have just kept her trap shut and let us do all of the work.
I appreciate that enough to take up the thread again but Sheppard beats me to it. “Soaked you, too?” We nod. He frowns again. “And Dr. Ferreira?”
Yeah. Well. I clear my throat. “Went against my order and came up to help Corporal Strickland and me.” Which is commendable – and not really punishable in the strictest sense because he’s still a civilian and technically not required to follow any military orders but fuck, by now he should have known better – but was also pretty stupid. “Soon as he came close to the water, everything kinda… stopped.”
“Stopped, Lieutenant?” Look, sir, either you want us to get done as fast as possible or you keep interrupting us. Which one is it?
Oh, shit, Cuevas looks like she’s close enough to saying exactly that and yeah, not gonna happen. “Yes, stream stopped flowing, blobs of water in the air just sort of froze, that kind of thing.” Yes, sir, that’s exactly how we looked, too, and if you interrupt any of us just one more time, I’m probably going to be the one risking her career. Good God, and here I told myself not to channel the Major. “And then suddenly it was like Dr. Ferreira was the sole target. Everything just… swept towards him.” I can’t suppress a shudder and just hope that Sheppard ascribed that to the fact that I’m wearing nothing but my underwear and a towel.
“Yeah,” Strickland takes up the thread, “that was just fucked up.” She blinks. “Err, I mean…” Sheppard just waves it aside and gestures for her to continue. Time and again, it really is nice to see that his Air Force overlord sensibilities don’t extend as far as language because if they did, the entire Marine Corps contingent – including me, good God – would be fucked. “It just all surged towards him and put him in some kind of full body size bubble, raising him up a couple inches. Damn, poor guy nearly drowned in there.”
“Which at least explains why he needed emergency mental health care,” Sheppard says and I like the fact that he doesn’t scoff something about damn soft-heartened civilians or some such nonsense. Because trust me, everyone would have needed immediate trauma therapy after that. “And the broken ankle?”
“Lieutenant Reece was the first to react and jumped to pull him out of the bubble by his feet,” Cuevas supplies. I’m almost grateful for her non-nonsense kind of tone because the last thing I want Sheppard to believe is that any of us were engaging in needless heroics. “She succeeded but I guess the Doc just somehow botched the landing and that’s when his ankle got broken.”
Sheppard leans back at me and nods. “Still, good thinking, Lieutenant. Any of you got an idea why that happened?”
I shake my head. “No, sir. No idea.” I make the mistake of looking from Cuevas to Strickland and… oh come on. We’re not actually going to… oh fine. I sigh. “However, after Dr. Ferreira recovered sufficiently to be able to speak, he said something about the water feeling… possessive.”
“Possessive, Lieutenant?” I knew I should just have kept my trap shut. Thanks so much for making me do this, fellow female Marines.
I heave another sigh, tired of playing it cool and professional. “Possessive, sir. He said that he was sure that the water in that stream had the capability of feeling and communicating emotions and that it was… very emotional when it enveloped him.”
Another Sheppard frown. That’s kinda a relief. I’m almost sure the Major would be yelling at me by now. He’s not that big on yelling – or at least he wasn’t anymore when I left Earth almost a year ago – but he’s not the most patient sort of commanding officer. And that’s why I’m kinda annoyed that apparently, I still miss him enough to actually channel him when I’m really stressed out. “Can any of you confirm that?”
I shake my head, and Cuevas and Strickland mirror it. “No, sir. And quite honestly, we really didn’t feel like testing the hypothesis by further engaging with the water.” Which is a fancy of saying “And then we decided to get the hell out of Dodge” and I really hope that Sheppard…
“So… bottom line?” Oh, finally.
Trying not to let my relief show too much, I make a stoic face and tell him, “Bottom line, sir, please do not establish an alpha site on that planet.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You’re sure about that? Because look, Lieutenant, we’re really running out of options here and…”
“Fuck no, sir.” Oh God. I think we broke him. Or maybe our careers.
Because we just all but yelled that at him, at the same time, in that same annoyed and maybe a little bit horrified tone and he’s just sitting there and blinking at us and then, just when I think that now he’ll yell at us, after all – we did just interrupt a superior officer, and that’s a no-no, even in Atlantis – does a kind of unexpected pivot to asking, sounding at least a little terrified, “Wait, are you telling me you brought an unknown intelligent entity into this city?”
Oh, now you’re asking the important questions? “No, sir. At least not from everything we could tell.”
Ready to snap, ready to snap, ready to snap. “Lieutenant…”
It’s Cuevas saving our asses, sounding way more no-nonsense than I probably would have by now. Sheppard actually snapping is not a pretty thing and even though I managed to get rid of most of my timidity regarding superior officers here, that is something guaranteed to make me flounder. “We retreated as fast as we could with Dr. Ferreira in tow. About a klick away from the stream, the pulling stopped and our wet uniforms were just that: wet uniforms. We also waited an hour before contacting Atlantis.”
Thank God for Joanna Cuevas, honestly. That report seems to have calmed him down somewhat. “So you think that whatever caused this was confined to the river?”
I nod and move to confirm, taking the reins back. “That would be our assessment, yes.”
He takes a moment to review that, leaning back in his chair, folding his arms in front of his chest. I’m almost sure he’ll give us some crap about how we could possibly qualified to make that assessment but in the end all he says is, “Alright, Lieutenant. Sounds plausible, and I trust your judgement.”
Errr… what? It’s my turn to blink a little bewilderedly, and even through the haze of exhaustion, stress and fear that’s been gradually creeping up on every Expedition member, I realize that something… big just happened. A superior officer just told me that he trusts my judgement, just like that and somehow… that wasn’t what I expected to hear today. I blink again and then remember something. “I’d still recommend a full decon sweep through the control room and burning the damn uniforms. All of them. Just to be sure. Sir.”
That earns me the narrowed eyes again and I’m almost sure he’ll immediately take back his statement about trusting my judgement but in the end, all he says is, “Just to be sure. Right. Anything else, Lieutenant?”
Uh. Well. I clear my throat, getting Cuevas’s and Strickland’s approval once more before I say, “I suggest you make this mission report classified, sir.”
“Oh come on.” What, now he throws up his hands in annoyance? When we’re almost done?
Okay, okay, I know. It does sound a little ridiculous to classify a mission report to keep it away from the population of a place so secret that most people on Earth have never heard of it or the organization that sent us here but bear with me. We’ve got a good reason for suggesting that. I can’t help raising an eyebrow sardonically when answering, “You really want Biology, Psychology and Physics clamoring for permission to visit it, sir?”
“Good point.” Yeah, thought so. I just bet that for a moment, he’s tempted to ask what Dr. Ferreira thinks about that and if he’ll keep his trap shut but then he must have remembered that Dr. Ferreira is probably the one person on this temporary team who definitely does not ever want to remember that mission ever again. Also, Dr. Ferreira is a sociologist which means, and even Sheppard knows that, he keeps the hell away from the MINT posse and their overbearing prejudice against the humanities. He makes a face. “Classified, it is. Dismissed.”
At that, we get up, collect our uniform items and leave the briefing room, all miraculously without the towels falling down. Once in the corridor, I expect a few raised eyebrows and weird looks from people passing, at least, but no one even bats an eyelid. Either we’re all too fucked up from preparing for the Wraith Armada or serving in Atlantis taught us that there are a lot of things weirder than three female Marines coming out of a briefing room in towels, uniforms in hand.
I’m about to suggest that we get rid of them but Cuevas beats me to it, grumbling, “He hates us,” in the direction of the briefing room that still has Sheppard in it.
Strickland immediately moves to contradict her, even going as far as grinning. “Nah, he doesn’t.”
“Yes, he does. Fuck, I would hate us.” That’s a little harsh?
And really, “Honestly, I think he kinda likes us.”
“Easy for you to say.” What is that even supposed to mean, huh? “You’re his favorite Marine.”
Yeeeeah no. I give her a deadpan look. “No, Lieutenant Ford is his favorite Marine.”
That was a no-brainer. Ford is on his goddamn team, after all. And Sheppard likes him. I know he does. He likes mentoring him, and that’s fine. Lord knows Aiden Ford can use some mentoring.
Cuevas, however, doesn’t really like Ford – I think it’s really just a personality thing, you know, a Pitbull against Labrador kind of thing – so I’m not really surprised and hearing her say, “Right. Somehow, I keep forgetting about Boy Wonder.”
Aw, that wasn’t nice. “Now, don’t be mean.”
She grimaces, and I’d laugh so very hard right now if that wouldn’t endanger the precarious position of the towel wrapped around me. “It’s my natural state of being.” Now, that’s not actually…
“True.” Strickland! That is not a nice thing to say about a superior… “What, LT? It is.”
Alright. Fine. I concede. “Yes, and we all love her for that.” Well, that’s not actually wrong, either? I mean, she’s not an easy person to like but she grows on you? In a way? Somehow? Anyway, “Now let’s go find a place to burn this shit, we all got stuff to do.”
“Damn, you finally learned to sound like an actual Marine. Achievement unlocked, Reece.” The worst thing about this is that the appreciation in her voice is most probably real. Dammit, Cuevas.
I manage to give her the finger, even with my hands full of my uniform, and full-on channel the Major one last time. “Well, fuck you, Cuevas.”
“We love you, too,” Strickland answers before Cuevas can spin this little bitch fest out, even smiling like a little ray of sunshine while saying it.
Which is my clue to break this up once and for all, before it becomes too weird. I roll my eyes and grumble something like, “Go do stuff.”
Fortunately, both of them simply acknowledge it with a hearty, “Yes, ma’am!” and then turn away to hopefully find a way to burn their uniforms before going back to defense against the Wraith Armada related things.
I, for my part, will first find one of the lunatics in Chemistry to tell them to have some fun with all of my uniform items and then proceed to my quarters for those thirty minutes of blissful quiet and a hot bath and then try to convince Zelenka and McKay that they please stop pulling off random natural gene carriers from their actual duties for tinkering with the damn chair. Someone damn well has to, and since Sheppard has his hands full of important things, it might as well be me. Oh. Joy.