I am not continuing to pack and move today, because erg, feel icky, and I am totally claiming a body that reacts to medicine next time around. There has been a slight reprieve in the "end of month, bye, ha ha," so this isn't as disastrous as it looks, but still, icky. Ow.

LJ was a temporary distraction, thank you for that, but then I read leadensky's post and went poking around in my own old WIPs, and... There's one, a SGA-BSG crossover, that I'd still love to read, but I don't think I have it in me to write it after the last few months. I never had much of a BSG fic urge, anyway, but the flailing in the latter half of the second season drove this one urge that I had right up a wall and off a cliff.

So, here. I didn't get much further than the set-up, but the beginnings of a look into, 1) how would you react to a Cylon if you hadn't been wiped out by them? and 2) so what is the difference between a human!Cylon and a human, anyway? If someone else wants to take it and run with it, please, do so.

Given that the folks at the SGC had already dealt with the doubles, Reese, and the human!Replicators, I decided to give the folks on Atlantis (who used to be nice and conflicted about these kinds of things) the Cylon question. And it would probably help if I pointed out that this is SGA circa 206 (Trinity), and BSG post-108 (Flesh and Bone).



They found him almost five minutes out by jumper, which would have made it a good half hour by stroke-and-kick: a completely unknown, human-type person discovered in the water off the side of Atlantis that some geologist had decided was West. Discovered, apparently, because there was fairly friendly little competition going on about who could get the city's sensors to reach the mainland first.

Whatever kept the scientists busy and the advantages coming, John figured.

"So...if one of your people disappeared," he said as a tiny figure moving against the ripples in the water out ahead of them came into view, "...they'd tell you. Right?"

Leaning forward for a better view of the swimmer, Teyla nodded. "Yes. Instantly. Our deception, no matter how successful it is at the moment, is not a guarantee."

He shot her a disbelieving look. "They still think they're going to get snatched by the Wraith?"

She turned to face him with a sad smile pulling at her mouth. "It is hard to erase a fear built over so many generations," she pointed out.

"True." John pulled the jumper into a hover over the person who was now obviously a man. Before the non-Athosian, non-Earthling, dropped-out-of-the-sky guy disappeared under the belly of the ship, John saw him slowly treading water, head tilted up toward them. "Let's just hope it takes less than that many generations to do the erasing. You got the ladder?"

Already out of her seat and headed for the rear compartment, Teyla gave him an affirmative, so John hit the control for the hatch. "The scanners were right," he said, pitching his voice louder as a chilly wind swirled into the cabin, surprising him again with its reminder even Ancient scrubbers were no match for fresh air. "Guy's human. And it didn't look like he was panicking. But if you need--"

"I will call for you if I need assistance, Colonel," she assured him.

Her tone, coming up just shy of condescending, made him twist around to frown at her, although he made sure to keep one hand on the controls.

"Hey. I've done tons more air rescues than you."

Her head came up quickly from securing the nylon to the eyehook on the floor, but the look she pinned him with was bland. "So you have said. And should I encounter any resistance, I have every intention of yelling for the pilot to abandon the controls that are keeping us in the air."

"Right." John could feel, even before her lips twitched, that he wasn't doing a good job of hiding the laugh that almost slipped out. "Knew we should've brought Ronon along," he said.

That ticked her off, all right. Her eyes narrowed and John did smile then, swinging his chair to face front and telling her, "Get whoever that is out of the water, would you?"

He didn't need to hear her sigh. And he didn't feel the jumper bounce as she dropped over the edge, but as he watched, an extra blip appeared on the display and descended toward the blip in the water. Even the scanners on Atlantis weren't any good for watching actual movement, though, so he could only picture how Teyla looped the extra rope around the man and either hauled him up the ladder, or -- more likely from the way the guy had been moving confidently, without signs of exhaustion -- just lent him a hand on the way.

He was peering at another area of the display when he saw the two blips start moving up. Then there wasn't a bounce but a thump, and John turned enough to see the soaked man let out a hard cough that didn't bring up any water but left him gagging, anyway.

Maybe he hadn't been doing as well as he'd looked from above, John thought. He certainly didn't look like much. Skinnier than half of the new scientists, and there was hardly enough of him beneath all the layers of clinging, dripping clothing to make John believe that the guy could have doggy-paddled his way to Atlantis without drowning. Still, John kept his eyes on them both -- after a glance his way, Teyla helped the man up so he was sitting, instead of braced on all fours -- and kept his left hand on the controls and right on his sidearm until Teyla nodded.

Trusting her judgment, and that she'd gotten a good sense of whether she could handle taking care of or, if necessary, taking down the man they'd just rescued, John twisted his shoulders, releasing at least a little of the tension knotted there, and swung the jumper around. He didn't bother not to look back as he heard Teyla speak just as another cough ripped through the cabin.

"So, hi. Welcome to our cozy ride. I'm Sheppard," he said when the loud, air-sucking breaths quieted again. "And that's Teyla who plucked you out of the ocean."

A throat cleared, twice, and then, "Hi. I'm...I'm Leoben. Conoy. Thanks for the rescue."

John shrugged. "No problem. Always nice to get out, you know?"

Conoy didn't respond, and for a moment John regretted again not having a rear-view mirror. Didn't have to be big, he'd mentioned more than once within Zelenka's hearing; just big enough to be able to have a clue about what was going on in all of that space behind his back. But right then, Teyla stepped up to brace her hands on the center console.

"We are...not going straight back to Atlantis?" she asked, speaking softly but not gently.

Stupid to think that she wouldn't notice even a bit of a detour. He wasn't going to explain out loud, though. "Not quite yet," he said.

Not a peep from the back seat. Maybe Conoy had heard, maybe he hadn't. Or maybe he'd figured it out on his own. Teyla gave John a long look that held both understanding and annoyance, but then she moved again to the rear and John pushed most of his concern out of his mind and brought them around for a pass over the other blip -- a much larger, non-life sign blip -- that he'd also picked up on the HUD.

"Is that your ship sunk down underneath us now?" John asked, careful to make it nothing more than a casual question.

"Yes," came a rough response. Immediate. Not defensive or antagonistic. Just affirming the fact of ownership with a throat that had sucked in more than a little seawater, John thought. Okay. Still didn't answer how he and his crashed ship got here without a stargate, though.

"Well, there's no way we're picking it up from the ocean floor with only one of these, so I guess you get to give us your story back on dry land," John said cheerily.

The rasping sound of amusement that got wasn't an evil cackle or anything threatening; it sounded just like a guy startled into a laugh. It still made John's hands twitch on the controls, something that felt an awful lot like the itch that only sometimes came right before a shot would ring out tightening between his shoulders again.

Conoy cleared his throat. "Any story you want," he said.


A twitchy feeling wasn't a good reason to restrain someone, but it was a good reason to be relieved to see the extra men positioned and waiting in the jumper bay as he slid the ship into its berth. Just two: Lorne and Chambers. John signaled them as he stepped out, with Teyla and Conoy trailing behind, and got a nod from Lorne.

John turned to Conoy. "We'll head down to the infirmary first, I think," he said, only partly to cover Lorne leaving. "They'll check you out, get you something dryer than what you're wearing..."

"That would be good," Conoy agreed, his voice smoother now after the hot drink Teyla had offered him on the jumper. He pulled the blanket around his shoulders tighter and a crooked smile spread, charming, inviting John to bond. "Not that just being out of the water isn't an improvement already."

John knew his own smile in return wasn't going to win any prizes for sincerity, but it had fooled plenty of commanders and more than one friend in its day, so it would do. "Just about anything would be," he said with a nod, and dropped back half a step to wave Chambers and Conoy out into the corridor in front of him and Teyla.

"Go let Weir know where we'll be," he told her under his breath.

She cocked her head, one eyebrow going up. "Major Lorne...?"

One quick negative headshake was enough to stop her, even though she had kept her voice as quiet as his. "Headed straight for the infirmary."

"I see," she murmured, and he expected that she did, but he gave her the bare bones of an explanation, anyway.

"Just a feeling."

"Better to be safe," she agreed, and inclined her head and turned off at the next cross-corridor.

That left Chambers ahead and John behind, and he quickly moved up to walk next to Conoy, who had at least dried off enough to not be traveling with his very own puddle. He was calmly turning his head from side to side to examine the patterns on the walls and the doors that stayed closed as they passed. The bubble tubes got a pause, a delighted grin, and, finally, a question.

John shrugged. "Most of them are decorative, I think," he said.

Conoy noticed the wording, wryness dimming and transforming his grin, but he didn't push it, and they moved on.

They didn't take any transporters -- never show off your shortcuts -- so even though it seemed like they were hurrying, it was almost ten minutes until they got to the infirmary. When they arrived, Beckett immediately took over. And if Conoy saw anything odd about Lorne and the three other armed men and women arrayed strategically around the room, nothing blocking their line of sight or their range of motion, he didn't even blink.

"All right, then, off with those," Beckett said, already pulling the blanket away from Conoy's grasp and leading him over to a bed with a hand at the man's elbow. "Everything off will help both you and us."

Another cough caught Conoy as let himself be propelled, but he didn't raise his hands to get started on any of his buttons. Instead, once he was breathing normally again, he slowly turned his head to look over toward the door.

John turned, too, and saw Weir standing there with her "possibly untrustworthy company" face on. He had never actually used the word before, but "haughty," he'd decided months ago, nailed that expression.

He stepped into the silence. "Elizabeth Weir, Leoben Conoy. Conoy," he tilted his head toward the man, "this is our leader."

"Hello," Weir finally said, moving forward with a politely warm smile. "I'm glad you're safe."

Thankfully, she didn't put out her hand to shake. John never had been able to gauge when she would or wouldn't, but maybe he finally had trained her out of doing it altogether.

Conoy's head cocked, his eyes narrowing as a bemused smile appeared, disappeared, grew. John frowned, the twitchiness starting up again. He felt Lorne shift at his side.

Then Conoy's smile slowly brightened, and he said, "Hi," smooth as can be, using twice the charm he'd thrown at John back in the bay. "So am I."

And Weir responded. It was just a slight change in the warmth of her expression, not something that just anyone would notice, and twitchy wasn't the right word any more, John thought. He drew in a breath to say something, anything, but Beckett broke into that bizarre moment first.

"Yes, I'm sure everyone is thrilled, but there's no telling how long that will last until I perform some tests."

With a rusty laugh, Conoy bent his head finally getting started on his shirt. So he didn't see Weir's raised eyebrow at the sharpness of Beckett's tone, but John did, and he wasn't the only one.

Beckett's lips pressed together. He didn't apologize, though; he never did when he was on his territory. "After that cough," he said directly to Conoy, "I'd like a look at your lungs, if nothing else."

"Sure," Conoy said. His one-shoulder shrug turned into a full twist as he worked the wet cloth off of his arm. "Gotta keep things in working order, right?"

"Exactly," Beckett agreed firmly, waving over the doctor standing by with the Ancient equipment.


Weir waited until they were in her office, the door closed -- as if they didn't all know how little the Ancients seemed to think of soundproofing -- before she pinned John with the look that he'd known was going to come.

"I assume there's a reason there were six armed people for one half-drowned man," she said as she sat down in her chair.

Not sure if he should be confused or annoyed, John turned on Teyla.

"I informed her of where you were taking Conoy, and of your...unease," Teyla said.

Annoyed, John decided. Definitely. "You didn't mention that a big part of my 'unease' is the ship that he didn't mention?"

Irritation rose in her eyes, and she paused before she said, "You didn't--"

"He came here in a ship?"

John gave Teyla another frown before turned back to answer Weir's sharp question. "Yes. A ship. The signature isn't anything like any Wraith ship I've seen, but it's large, so not something that the sensors should have missed."

"Huh," Lorne said. "Large like an X-302, or like the Daedalus?"

John snorted. "Think...minivan with wings."

Lorne's eyebrows went up. "Aerodynamic."

....

[yep. that's it.]


Now I'm going to go find a popsicle.