Monday: Birth & Death

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

Hi! I’m brumeier, and this week we’re going to be looking at both sides of the coin, so to speak. Today’s theme is BIRTH & DEATH, and you can tackle those concepts together or separately, literally (the birth of a baby) or figuratively (the birth of an idea).

Just a few rules:

No more than five prompts in a row.
No more than three prompts in the same fandom.
Use the character's full names and fandom's full name for ease adding to the Lonely Prompts spreadsheet.
No spoilers in prompts for a month after airing, or use the spoiler cut option found here.
If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space, or use the spoiler cut.
If there are possible triggers in your story, please warn for them in the subject line!

Prompts should be formatted as follows: [Use the character's full names and fandom's full name]
Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt

Some examples to get the ball rolling...

+ Stargate Multiverse, Any, out of the ashes of destruction something new begins to grow

+ Marvel Cinematic Universe, Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes, sometimes they need a reminder that it’s not all just death and destruction

+ Hawaii Five-0, Steve McGarrett/Danny Williams, the birth of Steve and Danny’s first grandchild

+ Any, Any, a symbolic rebirth as they leave their old life behind to start over

We use AO3 to bookmark filled prompts. If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3 please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2016 collection. See further notes on this new option here.

Not feeling any of today’s prompts? Check out Lonely Prompts Spreadsheet 1 (not very current), Lonely Prompts Spreadsheet 2, or the Calendar Archives, or for more recent prompts, you can use LJ's advanced search options to find prompts to request and/or fill.

While the Lonely Prompts Spreadsheets and LJ's advanced search options are available, bookmarking the links of prompts you like might work better for searching for in the future.

tag=birth&death

Comments

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

Stargate Multiverse, Any, out of the ashes of destruction something new begins to grow

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

Marvel Cinematic Universe, Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes, sometimes they need a reminder that it’s not all just death and destruction

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

Hawaii Five-0, Steve McGarrett/Danny Williams, the birth of Steve and Danny’s first grandchild

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

Any, Any, a symbolic rebirth as they leave their old life behind to start over

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

Stargate SG-1, Daniel Jackson, the first time he helped a woman give birth

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

Forever, Henry Morgan and Abe Morgan, the first time Abe sees Henry die.

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

Sense8/any ensemble fandom, any ensemble, the birth of a new cluster

[ami-ven.livejournal.com]

Stargate Multiverse, any, no one outside the SGC could understand what it was like to die for your country planet, and live to keep serving.

[ami-ven.livejournal.com]

Any, any, "Don't take this the wrong way, but why aren't you dead?"

[ami-ven.livejournal.com]

Any, any, "You can't give birth here!"

Fill 1/2: Ronon, Gen

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

As long as people checked in with their CO, they were allowed to go pretty much anywhere on their designated Sundays - the Athosian mainland, anywhere in the city, to that one really pretty deserted beach planet, to one of the well-known market planets for a day of shopping (though Elizabeth and John both preferred they go in groups if they were going offworld).

Ronon went back to Sateda. He tried the other places first - went to the Athosian mainland with Teyla, went hiking on Planet Waterfalls with Toriel’s team, went to the beach planet with a huge group of civilians and scientists. But that never felt right. So, back to Sateda he went. He packed enough food and gear for a day, and he told John, and John told Chuck, and the gate was ready to dial by the time he arrived at the gate room.

There wasn’t much he could do in the big city, in the buildings, with the rubble everywhere, so he hiked outside of the city to his grandfather’s old cabin in the woods. He’d borrowed some tools from the engineers, and he set about repairing the cabin. Even though his grandfather had been dead for two decades, he still remembered the process - chopping down a tree, stripping it, cutting it down to planks, planing it.

Those simple skills his grandfather had taught him with the hopes that one day he’d put them toward building a home for a wife and child were skills he’d used to survive the Wraith while Running.

At the end of the day, he returned to Atlantis, and he gave the tools back to the engineers - and gave them a wild bird he’d caught, so they could have their own roast.

After that, the scientists were plenty more willing to let him borrow tools and whatever he wanted.

Over the months that followed, the cabin was coming along well, and Ronon wanted to build some kind of mostly self-sustaining garden so it would have food. As he contemplated the possibilities - that would involve bringing some more wild game to Dr. Parrish on botany - he was hiking through the city, and he noticed - tendrils of green creeping up through the stone floor of a wide courtyard.

Instead of continuing on to the cabin - which he kept covered to protect it while he was gone - he turned to the courtyard, knelt, examined the tiny shoots. They’d broken through stone, with the power of time and persistence. Against the ash-gray of the stone, the colorlessness of the destruction, they were beautiful.

There weren’t enough Satedans left in the galaxy to rebuild this planet.

But there was one Satedan who was willing to try.

Fill 2/2: Ronon, Gen

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

He’d heard Parrish and some of the botanists talk about green buildings, buildings that were covered in plants as a form of insulation, to contribute to clean air, and maybe so a building could grow its own food.

Just like he had as a youth, when he was contemplating a new painting, he could see it, all of Sateda a verdant paradise. Atlantis’s very own garden.

He turned around and headed back to the gate, headed straight to botany, where Parrish was trying to cultivate a cocoa plant from Earth so they could make their own chocolate.

“Ronon! I thought today was your Sunday.”

“It is,” Ronon said. “Teach me about gardens.”

“Okay. Why? If that’s not too much to ask.”

Ronon told him.

“Oh! Well, the basics of gardening are plant it, feed it, water it, give it light, but for something like that you’d need - a water system, nutrient system. With sufficient supplies, pipes, some timers, you could build a pretty big garden. Of course, I don’t know what plants on Sateda need like I do plants from Earth.”

“I can find out,” Ronon said, because portions of the Capital Library were still fairly intact.

“Let me consult with engineering. I’m sure we could come up with something. Do you have pictures of Sateda?”

Ronon thought of Major Lorne, who wandered around the city with his camera sometimes, looking to take pictures of things he wanted to paint later. “I can get some.”

He found Lorne in the military command office, doing paperwork.

“You want to borrow my camera? What for?”

Ronon told him.

“Oh, well - that’s less a photography thing and more a surveying thing. I was a surveyor, back on Earth. With a couple cans of spray paint and a drone, we could map the city aerially, which would be more efficient,” Lorne said. “I could shift my Sundays so they’re the same days are yours if you like. So we can work together.”

Ronon nodded. “Thank you.”

And like that, a project was born.

The Sateda Garden.

The first time Ronon stepped through the gate with Lorne, Parrish, and Zelenka by his side, he felt hope like he hadn’t felt since that first time John told him he could get his tracker removed.

Sateda was going to be reborn.

Re: Fill 2/2: Ronon, Gen

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

This is lovely!! I love the idea of Ronon creating a second life for Sateda, something that will benefit the expedition and anyone else who might travel through. And I'm glad he's not doing it alone. What a hopeful fill, thank you!

[squidgiepdx]

due South, Fraser/Kowalski, Selecting a newborn puppy that Diefenbaker sired.

[squidgiepdx]

Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Honoring those who have fallen

[squidgiepdx]

Stargate Atlantis, Evan Lorne/David Parrish, They weren't expecting twins!

[squidgiepdx]

Any, Any/Any, Having the most awkward "birds & the bees" talk with their child.

[squidgiepdx]

Any, Any male/Any male, "Wait. I'm pregnant?!?!"

Re: Fill 2/2: Ronon, Gen

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

You are so welcome! Sateda as a garden would be awesome.

...and also a pretty getaway for Ronon and Evan. :)

Fill: drabble

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Abe knew it would happen at some point. He’d even thought he had prepared himself, but the reality had been nothing like he’d imagined. It had come out of the blue; he and his father had been walking down a sidewalk when a truck had veered off the road. A small child stood directly in the way and Henry had launched himself to save her. He had thrown the girl free, but had been crushed against a wall. Abe still remembered watching Henry’s last few laboured breaths, and the gut-wrenching fear that he would never see him again after all.

Re: Fill: drabble

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

Poor Abe. I think no matter how prepared he was, it's still terrible to have to watch Henry die right in front of him. No matter how often he's seen it or how certain he is that Henry will be back. Especially if he's suffering.

This gave me a lot of feels.

Re: Fill: drabble

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

I could imagine Abe would have the cocky teenage confidence that he could cope - until he had to.

Fill: Stargate SG-1, Daniel Jackson + Clone!Jack, future fic

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Daniel Jackson said, “but why aren’t you dead?”

Plenty of people had come to visit him in his final days. There had been all kinds of crazy offers to extend his life - reimprint him into a clone body, use of a sarcophagus, maybe even program him into an organic Asuran body.

He’d refused all of them. He’d died and come back so many times that the thought of coming back yet again was a nightmare. For all that the history books were extolling the virtues of SG-1 as intergalactic heroes, trailblazers, diplomats, inventors, discoverers, everyone had missed the parts where they were human. That Daniel was a monster without his coffee; that when Teal’c ran out of patience it was terrifying; that Sam with a lot of ideas and not a lot of sleep was another exploding star waiting to happen; that Mitchell in a crisis was shoot first, ask questions later, cry much much later; that Vala was still trying to put herself back together after what Qetesh had done to her. That Jack had always been one big ball of emotion underneath his sarcasm.

The man standing in the doorway was Jack O’Neill as Daniel had first met him, wearing khakis and a leather jacket, dark-haired and lean, hands in his pockets, disarmingly boyish.

“What makes you think I’m not?”

Jack had preceded all of SG-1 into death by sheer virtue of age.
Daniel pushed himself up slowly on his hospital bed, pushed his glasses up his nose. “This is like that time in Ba’al’s cell, isn’t it? You’re a hallucination. Ascended. Something. You had the Gene.”

“You that desperate?”

“They want to keep me alive.”

“No one should live forever.”

“I know I didn’t help you, but -”

“I’m not a hallucination.”

“Then you should be dead.”

“Just came to say goodbye. You were the first, so it’s kinda poetic, isn’t it? That you’re the last.”

Daniel sucked in a shaky breath. “I never - never told you. How much I cared about you.”

“You couldn’t,” Jack said, “and I couldn’t say it either. Not the way I wanted to. Not the way that mattered.”

“Is it okay?” Daniel asked. “To finally step away? Will the kids be okay without us?”

“Haven’t been kids for a long time.” Jack stepped closer, leaned in, pressed a soft kiss to Daniel’s cheek.

When he pulled back, Daniel realized.

“Jon.”

“Yeah.”

“After you left, I never heard - no one ever said -” Daniel felt tears start to slip down his face, couldn’t stop them. He was being irrational, Jon wasn’t Jack, was a whole new person after four decades.

“That was how I wanted it. Like I said, just came to say goodbye.”

Daniel stared at him for a long time. Then he nodded and said, “Goodbye.” And he lay back, closed his eyes.

As he world faded away, he heard someone say,

“Dad? Is it over?”

And Jon responded, “Yeah, Daniel, it’s over. Where are the others?”

“Sam, Murray, and Charlie are getting coffee. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Let’s go home.”

“Goodbye,” Daniel whispered, and then his world was light.

Re: Fill: drabble

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

Oh, oh that made me want to cry. Well done. Thank you so much!

[tigriswolf]

Z Nation, author's choice, how the mission would've gone if [character a] had died instead of [character b]