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thefroggTitle: Where We Live (3/?)
Author:thefrogg
Beta:ohpuppies
Rating: PG13-ish
Disclaimer: Everyone but Webber belongs to other people. Damnit.
Summary: Lorne's team has long been responsible for Todd's security. When they take Todd out to investigate an abandoned Wraith base, their changing attitudes towards the captive Wraith sparks a series of events no one in Atlantis is ready for.
Author:
thefroggBeta:
ohpuppiesRating: PG13-ish
Disclaimer: Everyone but Webber belongs to other people. Damnit.
Summary: Lorne's team has long been responsible for Todd's security. When they take Todd out to investigate an abandoned Wraith base, their changing attitudes towards the captive Wraith sparks a series of events no one in Atlantis is ready for.
Silence followed them to what was once probably a child's bedroom, and was now serving as Lorne's studio; it was still mostly bare, just a stool, easel, table and painting supplies.
Including two canvases. They were both of Todd, the finished painting of when Todd had given Lorne the Gift, black-clad arm stretched out along the side, a mix of aging-pain and ecstacy written in soft brushstrokes; the other, half-finished and still set up on the easel, had him framed in the doorway, hands belted to his sides, his expression one of resignation, fear, pride and determination.
Todd had spent long minutes staring at them, one black finger tracing the air just over the surface. His pleasure hummed softly in the back of Lorne's mind, pride in his talent and quiet amazement in the undercurrents, the same way he could tell when Todd spoke the truth; it probably had something to do with the tagging, perhaps some leftover side effect of the Gift. Lorne wasn't ready to ask about it.
That didn't mean he couldn't ask about something else, though. "You said you tagged me as part of your Hive," Lorne said, trying to distract himself.
"Hmm." Todd turned the page in one of the sketchbooks Lorne'd left on the table, admiring the character sketches, fluid lines mapping out movement and the passage of time.
"I thought you had to be born to a Hive."
"Usually. Or part of a Hive captured by a rival queen."
"And unusually?"
Todd stilled, even his breath freezing in his chest.
"Todd?" Lorne had a sneaking suspicion he wasn't going to like the answer.
"Hmm." Todd returned the sketchbook to its place on the table and stared out the window. "There are some, among the Wraith, capable of...gathering their own Hive."
"And you're one of these."
"Yes. Each Hive is made up of...I will save the vocabulary for a later date. Drones, warriors, technicians, officers...a queen, if they're lucky enough to have one. And a handful of what loosely translates to 'learning pillar.'"
Lorne could read the shame on Todd's face, in the lines of cheek and jaw, the tendons standing out from his neck, the way he wouldn't meet Lorne's eyes. It oozed, like thick tar, smothering the Wraith's earlier pleasure.
"Each Wraith knows the bare basics: a drone knows how to fight, how to use his weapons; a technician knows how to operate their equipment. Enough to perform simple duties while cut off from the Hive."
"That's why the other Wraith we captured didn't tell us much of anything," Lorne guessed.
"Chances are, what they could have told you, you could not understand. And if you could, you would be unable to use it."
"And a learning pillar?"
"The foundation upon which a Hive is built. A repository for skills and knowledge, to be drawn upon by members of that Hive."
"In other words, the most valuable part of a Hive," Lorne said in spite of himself, bracing himself for the Wraith version of Everything you thought you knew was wrong.
~~~
Sam waited impatiently for the two minutes it took Daniel to get to the conference room back at the SGC. General O'Niell was in Washington, D.C., as usual. At least Woolsey would take longer to show up.
If she timed it right, she might be able to avoid talking to him at all.
"Hey, Sam," Daniel greeted her as he slid into the seat at the console, apparently pleased that she wasn't wearing some flavor of "Oh my god, we're all going to die" on her face.
"Daniel." She smiled ruefully.
"You have," Daniel checked his watch, "about twelve minutes before Woolsey gets here. Official or unofficial?"
"Unofficial. God, I don't have a clue how I'm going to write this one up."
"I'm sure you'll come up with something. Now spill."
"Sir, yes, sir!" she answered snappily, giving him a mock salute.
"I'm surrounded by wise guys."
Reminded of her own contingent of 'wise guys', Sam sobered. "I think we're going to start having a problem with factions here."
"Factions as in political or diplomatic factions or factions as in SG1 vs. the NID?"
"Factions as in...SG-1 vs. SG-3. Or, perhaps, SG-3 vs. the rest of Atlantis."
"Factions as in Sheppard's team vs. Lorne's," Daniel said flatly.
Sam nodded. "Todd's back. Sheppard doesn't trust him, Ronon wants to shoot him and be done with it. And Todd's practically a member of Lorne's team now."
Daniel blinked and leaned back in his chair. He took a deep breath and spoke quietly. "Remember our first encounter as a team with Apophis?"
"Todd isn't exactly Teal'c, Daniel, it's not like we can feed him milk and cookies and expect him to be satisfied with that."
"No, he's not. But the parallels here are striking. Would that he was Teal'c, would you be treating him as you have? Or would you have treated him as the resource that Teal'c was for us?"
"That's not even an issue here. We know what kind of resource he is--"
"Sam," Daniel interrupted gently, "I've read the reports. I know what he's capable of. I also know that there's been jack squat done in terms of research into, oh, I don't know, an alternate source of food. Or some kind of technique or drug that would make them able to feed without traumatizing their food source to death."
Sam couldn't answer.
"Maybe that's why he's willing to work with you. Maybe he sees working with humans as the only hope his people have, because from what I've seen? Long term, his people are living on borrowed time."
"And in the meantime, we still have to feed him," Sam said unhappily.
"You want my advice?"
"Daniel..."
"Talk to him. There's been an awful lot of blame going on, and not a whole lot of actual diplomacy. If you want, I'll ask Jack if he can afford to lose me for a bit."
Blackness swept over Sam before she realized she'd shut her eyes. She longed for the days of SG-1, where even shoot-outs with the Goa'uld and watching Jaffa march in formation and a hundred other horrors seemed so much simpler than trying to justify... She shook herself. "Bring up the possibility with him. I don't know if it'll be necessary."
"Just remember, the offer's open." Daniel paused. "Even if Atlantis doesn't need it," he added.
"Thanks." Sam took a deep breath. "So."
"So...I take it he's not staying in the brig this time around."
Startled laughter lit Sam's face. "No, apparently Major Lorne dragooned him into moving in with him."
"You're serious? Of course, you're serious. Good tactics, too, especially since Ronon's apparently hellbent on shooting him..."
"Lorne stormed the Jumper Bay when Sheppard's team returned with him and staged a jailbreak," Sam continued, unable to hide the amusement at the misuse of the word. "Teyla's lucky she's on maternity leave, or else they'd probably all still be in there negotiating Todd's release."
"Every time I think one of our teams has taken the cake in the 'general weirdness' war, someone from your end of the universe outdoes them. I don't know whether to laugh, or just shut my eyes and try to make it go away."
"Speaking of making it go away..."
Daniel glanced at his watch. "Yep, you got...just enough time."
"I think my report will go something like...Glad you could join us, Mr. Woolsey," Sam said, pasting a bright, and patently fake smile on her face.
"Yes, yes, I'm sorry I'm late, we weren't exactly expecting you to call," Woolsey grumbled, fumbling with his handkerchief.
"As I was telling Dr. Jackson here..." Sam took a deep breath and glanced at Daniel, eyes twinkling. "Lorne asserted his given duties in a manner designed to both gain trust and build an environment of diplomacy with a previously dismissed portion of the Pegasus population."
The silence once she'd finished was rather strained as Woolsey tried to decipher what she was talking about, and more importantly, whom.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, we have a team due to be checking in, and I don't want to leave them stranded out there if they need help. Dr. Jackson, Mr. Woolsey, I'll speak with you again during the weekly updates." She waited for Daniel to salute her, his grin mocking, before cutting the link.
~~~
By the time Todd finished, Lorne felt physically ill. He wanted to throttle Colonel Sheppard, Ronon, Carter...half the marines on base. Even the dubious comfort of suspicion was lost to him; Todd couldn't lie. Not like this. Not when he was Hive.
"I did not tell you all of this to make you guilty, or to drive a wedge between you and John Sheppard," Todd rasped, mouth dry from talking.
Lorne shook his head, the taste of bile clinging to the back of his throat. "Sheppard did that on his own. Here," he said, going back to the kitchen. "Let me get you some water." He pulled out a large glass and filled it, his fingers brushing Todd's as he handed it over.
Golden eyes shuttered as Todd drank deeply, each swallow unnaturally loud.
"Since you tagged me as Hive, what can I expect from it?" Lorne asked, trying to get the topic onto more solid, if personal, grounds. Even grounds he was unsure he could handle.
"Tagging is passive in nature. It allows me to track you, if we are in close enough proximity; it acts as a homing beacon. You can sense my emotions, my...intent, I suppose." He set the glass on the counter and licked his lips. "If you were Wraith, you could take what knowledge you needed."
"So that's how I know you can't lie to me."
"No, not unless I'm not aware of it. If what I know as the truth is not actually true, it will still feel like the truth to you, but I can not lie to you purposely."
Lorne idly wondered what it would take to convince Todd to tag Sheppard; he sensed it would make things a great deal easier for all of them. Except with their history... He banished the thought. Given what he knew - information that was refusing to settle in his brain so he could possibly look his CO in the eye without shooting him - tagging was not a means to an end.
"When we were fighting our way out of the Genii prison camp," Todd started slowly, "I would have tagged Sheppard if I had had the strength. But by the time I had drained the guards, and restored what I had taken from him, he had already..."
"He'd already proved himself little better than the Genii," Lorne finished for him, wondering if mind-reading was part of being Hive. Or if that had to do with the sense of secrecy he could feel lurking beneath Todd's melancholy, a hint of 'not ready for it all, just yet' he was willing to live with.
Including two canvases. They were both of Todd, the finished painting of when Todd had given Lorne the Gift, black-clad arm stretched out along the side, a mix of aging-pain and ecstacy written in soft brushstrokes; the other, half-finished and still set up on the easel, had him framed in the doorway, hands belted to his sides, his expression one of resignation, fear, pride and determination.
Todd had spent long minutes staring at them, one black finger tracing the air just over the surface. His pleasure hummed softly in the back of Lorne's mind, pride in his talent and quiet amazement in the undercurrents, the same way he could tell when Todd spoke the truth; it probably had something to do with the tagging, perhaps some leftover side effect of the Gift. Lorne wasn't ready to ask about it.
That didn't mean he couldn't ask about something else, though. "You said you tagged me as part of your Hive," Lorne said, trying to distract himself.
"Hmm." Todd turned the page in one of the sketchbooks Lorne'd left on the table, admiring the character sketches, fluid lines mapping out movement and the passage of time.
"I thought you had to be born to a Hive."
"Usually. Or part of a Hive captured by a rival queen."
"And unusually?"
Todd stilled, even his breath freezing in his chest.
"Todd?" Lorne had a sneaking suspicion he wasn't going to like the answer.
"Hmm." Todd returned the sketchbook to its place on the table and stared out the window. "There are some, among the Wraith, capable of...gathering their own Hive."
"And you're one of these."
"Yes. Each Hive is made up of...I will save the vocabulary for a later date. Drones, warriors, technicians, officers...a queen, if they're lucky enough to have one. And a handful of what loosely translates to 'learning pillar.'"
Lorne could read the shame on Todd's face, in the lines of cheek and jaw, the tendons standing out from his neck, the way he wouldn't meet Lorne's eyes. It oozed, like thick tar, smothering the Wraith's earlier pleasure.
"Each Wraith knows the bare basics: a drone knows how to fight, how to use his weapons; a technician knows how to operate their equipment. Enough to perform simple duties while cut off from the Hive."
"That's why the other Wraith we captured didn't tell us much of anything," Lorne guessed.
"Chances are, what they could have told you, you could not understand. And if you could, you would be unable to use it."
"And a learning pillar?"
"The foundation upon which a Hive is built. A repository for skills and knowledge, to be drawn upon by members of that Hive."
"In other words, the most valuable part of a Hive," Lorne said in spite of himself, bracing himself for the Wraith version of Everything you thought you knew was wrong.
~~~
Sam waited impatiently for the two minutes it took Daniel to get to the conference room back at the SGC. General O'Niell was in Washington, D.C., as usual. At least Woolsey would take longer to show up.
If she timed it right, she might be able to avoid talking to him at all.
"Hey, Sam," Daniel greeted her as he slid into the seat at the console, apparently pleased that she wasn't wearing some flavor of "Oh my god, we're all going to die" on her face.
"Daniel." She smiled ruefully.
"You have," Daniel checked his watch, "about twelve minutes before Woolsey gets here. Official or unofficial?"
"Unofficial. God, I don't have a clue how I'm going to write this one up."
"I'm sure you'll come up with something. Now spill."
"Sir, yes, sir!" she answered snappily, giving him a mock salute.
"I'm surrounded by wise guys."
Reminded of her own contingent of 'wise guys', Sam sobered. "I think we're going to start having a problem with factions here."
"Factions as in political or diplomatic factions or factions as in SG1 vs. the NID?"
"Factions as in...SG-1 vs. SG-3. Or, perhaps, SG-3 vs. the rest of Atlantis."
"Factions as in Sheppard's team vs. Lorne's," Daniel said flatly.
Sam nodded. "Todd's back. Sheppard doesn't trust him, Ronon wants to shoot him and be done with it. And Todd's practically a member of Lorne's team now."
Daniel blinked and leaned back in his chair. He took a deep breath and spoke quietly. "Remember our first encounter as a team with Apophis?"
"Todd isn't exactly Teal'c, Daniel, it's not like we can feed him milk and cookies and expect him to be satisfied with that."
"No, he's not. But the parallels here are striking. Would that he was Teal'c, would you be treating him as you have? Or would you have treated him as the resource that Teal'c was for us?"
"That's not even an issue here. We know what kind of resource he is--"
"Sam," Daniel interrupted gently, "I've read the reports. I know what he's capable of. I also know that there's been jack squat done in terms of research into, oh, I don't know, an alternate source of food. Or some kind of technique or drug that would make them able to feed without traumatizing their food source to death."
Sam couldn't answer.
"Maybe that's why he's willing to work with you. Maybe he sees working with humans as the only hope his people have, because from what I've seen? Long term, his people are living on borrowed time."
"And in the meantime, we still have to feed him," Sam said unhappily.
"You want my advice?"
"Daniel..."
"Talk to him. There's been an awful lot of blame going on, and not a whole lot of actual diplomacy. If you want, I'll ask Jack if he can afford to lose me for a bit."
Blackness swept over Sam before she realized she'd shut her eyes. She longed for the days of SG-1, where even shoot-outs with the Goa'uld and watching Jaffa march in formation and a hundred other horrors seemed so much simpler than trying to justify... She shook herself. "Bring up the possibility with him. I don't know if it'll be necessary."
"Just remember, the offer's open." Daniel paused. "Even if Atlantis doesn't need it," he added.
"Thanks." Sam took a deep breath. "So."
"So...I take it he's not staying in the brig this time around."
Startled laughter lit Sam's face. "No, apparently Major Lorne dragooned him into moving in with him."
"You're serious? Of course, you're serious. Good tactics, too, especially since Ronon's apparently hellbent on shooting him..."
"Lorne stormed the Jumper Bay when Sheppard's team returned with him and staged a jailbreak," Sam continued, unable to hide the amusement at the misuse of the word. "Teyla's lucky she's on maternity leave, or else they'd probably all still be in there negotiating Todd's release."
"Every time I think one of our teams has taken the cake in the 'general weirdness' war, someone from your end of the universe outdoes them. I don't know whether to laugh, or just shut my eyes and try to make it go away."
"Speaking of making it go away..."
Daniel glanced at his watch. "Yep, you got...just enough time."
"I think my report will go something like...Glad you could join us, Mr. Woolsey," Sam said, pasting a bright, and patently fake smile on her face.
"Yes, yes, I'm sorry I'm late, we weren't exactly expecting you to call," Woolsey grumbled, fumbling with his handkerchief.
"As I was telling Dr. Jackson here..." Sam took a deep breath and glanced at Daniel, eyes twinkling. "Lorne asserted his given duties in a manner designed to both gain trust and build an environment of diplomacy with a previously dismissed portion of the Pegasus population."
The silence once she'd finished was rather strained as Woolsey tried to decipher what she was talking about, and more importantly, whom.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, we have a team due to be checking in, and I don't want to leave them stranded out there if they need help. Dr. Jackson, Mr. Woolsey, I'll speak with you again during the weekly updates." She waited for Daniel to salute her, his grin mocking, before cutting the link.
~~~
By the time Todd finished, Lorne felt physically ill. He wanted to throttle Colonel Sheppard, Ronon, Carter...half the marines on base. Even the dubious comfort of suspicion was lost to him; Todd couldn't lie. Not like this. Not when he was Hive.
"I did not tell you all of this to make you guilty, or to drive a wedge between you and John Sheppard," Todd rasped, mouth dry from talking.
Lorne shook his head, the taste of bile clinging to the back of his throat. "Sheppard did that on his own. Here," he said, going back to the kitchen. "Let me get you some water." He pulled out a large glass and filled it, his fingers brushing Todd's as he handed it over.
Golden eyes shuttered as Todd drank deeply, each swallow unnaturally loud.
"Since you tagged me as Hive, what can I expect from it?" Lorne asked, trying to get the topic onto more solid, if personal, grounds. Even grounds he was unsure he could handle.
"Tagging is passive in nature. It allows me to track you, if we are in close enough proximity; it acts as a homing beacon. You can sense my emotions, my...intent, I suppose." He set the glass on the counter and licked his lips. "If you were Wraith, you could take what knowledge you needed."
"So that's how I know you can't lie to me."
"No, not unless I'm not aware of it. If what I know as the truth is not actually true, it will still feel like the truth to you, but I can not lie to you purposely."
Lorne idly wondered what it would take to convince Todd to tag Sheppard; he sensed it would make things a great deal easier for all of them. Except with their history... He banished the thought. Given what he knew - information that was refusing to settle in his brain so he could possibly look his CO in the eye without shooting him - tagging was not a means to an end.
"When we were fighting our way out of the Genii prison camp," Todd started slowly, "I would have tagged Sheppard if I had had the strength. But by the time I had drained the guards, and restored what I had taken from him, he had already..."
"He'd already proved himself little better than the Genii," Lorne finished for him, wondering if mind-reading was part of being Hive. Or if that had to do with the sense of secrecy he could feel lurking beneath Todd's melancholy, a hint of 'not ready for it all, just yet' he was willing to live with.
