Probably not at all what you were expecting but I hope you enjoy it.
Title: Legacy
Rodney looked around the room and was surprised to see how many children were there. From nursing babies to rebellious teenagers, they shared space with the adults. He had expected the adults. They had worked together, fought and bleed for one another. But the kids...
A girl broke away from her parents and went to stand at the podium in front of the Stargate. The soft hum of conversation fell away and the Gate room was suddenly silent. Rodney recognised the girl as one of the engineering apprentices. One of Radek’s students. Lorne’s oldest daughter – Joanna.
He didn’t hear what she was saying at first, still looking around the Gate room at all the kids standing with their families, standing in front of their parents. John leaned in and told him what his brain just couldn’t grasp. “All the kids are here, Rodney. Every one of them.”
And then Rodney tuned in to what Joanna was saying up at the podium. “Skinned knees and sprained wrists were treated with a huff and a story about how we had it all so easy now that Atlantis was a colony. And after the inevitable lecture about how the transporters were not launching pads” – there was a small spattering of laughter at that – “or how the Ancient gadgets were not toys for little children, there would be a lollypop or a bit of candy to cheer us up.”
Rodney waited with his breath caught in his throat as Joanna looked down at the paper she had brought up with her. “I remember when I was little, just after my mother died in the factory explosion; I asked him if he was going to die one day too. He scoffed at me in his usual manner and told me he was going to live forever.
“I was fourteen when the Drogon Incident happened,” she continued. “I asked him after why he didn’t have any children of his own. He told me he wasn’t going to trust his immortality to just one child. And he wouldn’t explain further,” she told him. Rodney was choking up with her. He knew where she was going, because he’d once had a similar conversation with Radek. About kids and immortality and life after death.
“Four days before he passed away... Four days before he died, I was sitting next to his bed when he woke up for the last time. He reached out and smiled to me. His last words to me were ‘my legacy’.” She sucked in a shuddering breath and Rodney felt his heart stop in his chest.
She fought back her tears, eyes as wide as her mother’s had been. And standing a little taller, shoulders squared, she announced in a hoarse voice: “Uncle Radek had no wife and no children of his own. But he is survived by twelve nieces and fifteen nephews.” And then she turned face the closed coffin next to her. “We are his legacy,” she said. “His immortality.”
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timeasmymeasure
FILL: Legacy (PG)
Date: 2011-10-25 01:32 pm (UTC)Title: Legacy
Rodney looked around the room and was surprised to see how many children were there. From nursing babies to rebellious teenagers, they shared space with the adults. He had expected the adults. They had worked together, fought and bleed for one another. But the kids...
A girl broke away from her parents and went to stand at the podium in front of the Stargate. The soft hum of conversation fell away and the Gate room was suddenly silent. Rodney recognised the girl as one of the engineering apprentices. One of Radek’s students. Lorne’s oldest daughter – Joanna.
He didn’t hear what she was saying at first, still looking around the Gate room at all the kids standing with their families, standing in front of their parents. John leaned in and told him what his brain just couldn’t grasp. “All the kids are here, Rodney. Every one of them.”
And then Rodney tuned in to what Joanna was saying up at the podium. “Skinned knees and sprained wrists were treated with a huff and a story about how we had it all so easy now that Atlantis was a colony. And after the inevitable lecture about how the transporters were not launching pads” – there was a small spattering of laughter at that – “or how the Ancient gadgets were not toys for little children, there would be a lollypop or a bit of candy to cheer us up.”
Rodney waited with his breath caught in his throat as Joanna looked down at the paper she had brought up with her. “I remember when I was little, just after my mother died in the factory explosion; I asked him if he was going to die one day too. He scoffed at me in his usual manner and told me he was going to live forever.
“I was fourteen when the Drogon Incident happened,” she continued. “I asked him after why he didn’t have any children of his own. He told me he wasn’t going to trust his immortality to just one child. And he wouldn’t explain further,” she told him. Rodney was choking up with her. He knew where she was going, because he’d once had a similar conversation with Radek. About kids and immortality and life after death.
“Four days before he passed away... Four days before he died, I was sitting next to his bed when he woke up for the last time. He reached out and smiled to me. His last words to me were ‘my legacy’.” She sucked in a shuddering breath and Rodney felt his heart stop in his chest.
She fought back her tears, eyes as wide as her mother’s had been. And standing a little taller, shoulders squared, she announced in a hoarse voice: “Uncle Radek had no wife and no children of his own. But he is survived by twelve nieces and fifteen nephews.” And then she turned face the closed coffin next to her. “We are his legacy,” she said. “His immortality.”