auntiemeesh | SGA fic: Hoarded Gold

Title: Hoarded Gold
Fandom: Stargate: Atlantis
Rating: PG-13 (a tiny bit of bad language)
Genre: gen
prompt: written for

onecheekyhobbit, who requested Stargate: Atlantis, cafeteria, around 10 pm.
Spoilers: Takes place part-way through season five, so everything currently aired is fair game.
disclaimer: Not mine, no profit made.
betaed by

eve11. All remaining mistakes are mine.
A/N: The title comes from a J. R. R. Tolkien quote, "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."

Hoarded Gold

There were five mess halls in Atlantis. One was in the cluster of buildings in quadrant four, section six, jointly claimed by most of the soft sciences except the biologists (who had set up a veritable zoo of Pegasus fauna over in what might once have been a botanical garden, in quadrant three, section one). Rodney flat out refused to eat there, claiming the menu was too full of granola, veggie burgers and homemade yogurt.

The second was in quadrant two, section three, home of Atlantis’ military contingent. Although it was right down the hall from John’s office, he preferred not to eat there when he had the option of going somewhere else. The food wasn’t bad, exactly. But it wasn’t exactly good, either, and they got plenty of it when away on missions. The rest of the time John preferred to have a little variety in his meals.

The remaining three were in the central part of the city. They all served mostly cafeteria style foods, but there were subtle differences between them. The mess hall two levels below the infirmary always had at least one Athosian dish on offer. Teyla made sure to eat here at least once or twice a week. This was where most of the Athosians in the city ate and the connection it provided her with her people was a welcome thing, especially now. She was determined that Torren would always know who his people were, even if his own life ultimately took a different path than that of the Athosians.

The original mess hall was in the north wing (Rodney had given everyone grief over insisting on labeling areas with directional nomenclature that was no longer appropriate, considering the city’s orientation on this new world, but everyone ignored him and continued to call it the north wing) of the main tower, only a few levels down from the gate room. The cooks took care to prepare meals representing a vast diversity of ethnicities, with somewhat unpredictable results. Even Ronon, taught by seven years on the run to eat what was available without complaint, refused to try the sauerkraut soup more than once.

The fifth mess hall was in the engineering building. You could get breakfast any time of the day, there, and they had the best coffee in the city. But its best feature, at least in John’s opinion, was the series of little balconies that ringed the perimeter of the room. These were quiet little places just big enough for one or two tables, and most of them had fantastic views overlooking the city. Looking out over Atlantis, with its soaring towers and irrefutably alien architecture was usually both awe-inspiring and grounding for John, reminding him of why he was here, especially on days like this.

It had been a long and discouraging day, with what should have been a pleasant mission to a friendly world instead turning into clean-up after a Wraith culling. It didn’t happen as often as it used to, thanks to the depredations of the Replicators and Michael’s activities, but it still happened more often than anyone liked. John’s team had come home angry and tired, frustrated by the situation and taking it out on each other, the Wraith being unavailable. After debriefing and getting their medical clearances, Teyla had gone to check in with Kanaan and her son, Ronon had muttered something about finding some marines to spar with, and Rodney had shuffled off to his lab with an unusual air of defeat about him. John had squared his jaw and gone to his office to get a head start on the inevitable mountain of paperwork the mission had spawned – mission report, inventory of resources used, rescheduling of off-world teams for better allocations of man-power, etcetera, etcetera, et-fucking-cetera.

When he reached his limit, he pushed back his chair, closed his laptop, locked up his office, and aimed himself in the direction of coffee. It was only as he entered the large, open room and smelled the distinctive aroma of frying bacon that he realized he’d missed supper altogether and had barely touched his lunch (none of them had, even Rodney had only managed a couple bites of a power bar). It was late, just going on 2200 hrs, but his evening wasn’t anywhere close to over, so he grabbed a sandwich and an apple from the ready-to-eat table, made a stop at the coffee urn and then settled himself at the empty table in his favorite balcony alcove.

The tuna sandwich smelled better than he would have expected and he ate it quickly. The apple, small and slightly bruised though it was, didn’t last much longer. John lingered over his coffee, though. The days were long on this planet and the sun was just setting, turning everything in John’s view a rusty orange-red color. It was breathtaking, but for a moment all John could see was an abandoned city, slowly being overtaken by an arid, lifeless desert. He could almost feel the hot, insistent wind that had blown sand into his eyes, his nose and mouth, even his ears. Three months ago or forty-eight thousand years in the future and John was suddenly unsure which it was, the moment of cognitive dissonance catching him unawares and pulling him in.

“Hello? Anyone home? Atlantis to Colonel Sheppard!”

John blinked and found himself staring into darkness, sunset over and moonrise still at least an hour away. Rodney was standing at the table with a laden tray, hovering really, looking at John with something approaching concern writ large across his face. Pulling himself back to the here and now, John cleared his throat. “Jeez, McKay, you leave anything for the rest of us?”

“Oh, please, Mr.-I-haven’t-eaten-in-a-week-but-I’m-fine.” Rodney dropped his tray to the table, expression resolving itself into a more familiar irritation. “I missed both lunch and dinner today, if you’ll recall, and this is a perfectly normal, healthy amount of food.” With that, he started eating a mountain of scrambled eggs with quick, neat bites. By the time he’d finished the eggs and moved on to his sausage, John had pretty much collected himself.

***

He’d just come back to the table with a fresh cup of coffee (the first cup having gone cold at some point while he was staring into the ocean) when Ronon walked up with a tray that was nearly as full as Rodney’s. Nodding to John, Ronon greeted Rodney with a grunted, “Fatman.”

“Chewie,” Rodney acknowledged without pausing his intake. “Break many marines this evening?”

“Nah. Bent a few, but don’t worry, I left Sgt. Remmick alone. He’ll be waiting for you tomorrow morning.” Ronon bent to his waffles, seemingly unperturbed by Rodney’s halfhearted moan. Rodney had signed up for Remmick’s P. T. class voluntarily and went to every session without fail, but also made sure to complain about it with an almost religious fervor.

Before Rodney could go into full rant mode, John leaned forward and stole one of his sausage links. Biting off one end, he raised an eyebrow, daring Rodney to protest.

“Hey, my sausages, get your own!” Rodney obliged, wrapping a protective arm around his tray.

“But where would the fun be in that?” John asked innocently, making as much work of chewing and swallowing as he could.

While Rodney sputtered and prepared what would surely be a dazzling comeback, Ronon leaned in from the side and stole his last remaining link. “It’s for your own good,” he grinned, eating the sausage in one bite.

“Fine,” Rodney muttered rebelliously, “but when my hypoglycemia kicks in and I can’t think fast enough to save the city from its imminent ghastly destruction, you’ll only have yourselves to thank.”

Before John could reply to that outrageous statement, Teyla appeared, cradling a cup of fragrant tea. “I believe the cook has just put out a new tray of sausages, Rodney,” she stated as she sat in the last empty chair. “I am sure John would be happy to gather some for the table.”

John wondered, as he stood up to follow her orders (she phrased them politely, but when she spoke in that tone of voice, everyone did what she desired), exactly how long she’d been lurking before coming over to join them.

Returning to the table with the requested sausages, plus a plate of home fries and a bowl of the nuts from P3R - 455 that tasted vaguely of cinnamon, he decided it was time to employ a bit of strategically saved up gossip. “What’s this I hear,” he asked, “about you and Dr. Monahan, Ronon? She seems very…enthusiastic.”

“Yes, Ronon,” Teyla followed John’s lead, “she was telling me all about your date during our bantos session the other day.”

Ronon went on the defensive, immediately trying to deny that there had been anything like a date. “I was just helping her move some boxes,” he growled.

“Wait a minute,” Rodney chimed in, “you had a date with Sally Monahan?” He laughed gleefully. “Every able-bodied man in engineering has been vying for her attention ever since she got here. You’re not going to have running water for a month when this gets out.”

That was all it took to get Ronon on the offensive, attacking the idea that engineering had any able-bodied men in it, at all. And from there it degenerated to all four members of the team mocking and deriding each other. To a casual observer, their words were nearly as cutting as they had been earlier in the day, but what was missing then, that anyone who knew them could hear now, was the affection that bound the team together.

Behind them the mess was quiet and their voices and laughter echoed out into the night. A startled seabird rose from the water and spiraled up to its nest atop a nearby tower. It added its skreeling protest to the voices rising over the ocean waves below, drifting towards a distant horizon.

end

John's sunset:
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