By Tassos
An SGAtlantis/ Farscape crossover
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this fic. All characters will be returned unharmed – well, relatively unharmed – it's dangerous out there.
Spoilers: Farscape: Peacekeeper Wars, Stargate Atlantis: general spoilers into early season 2
Rating: ages 10 and up. Nothing you wouldn't see or hear on TV.
I have vague notions about where this fic is going and given it's current length…yeah. The Farscape side of things will pick up as this continues. If you've read my other fic you know I tend to get a bit setup-y and plotty and take my time getting there.
As always, flames, criticisms, opinions, random thoughts, questions, comments, corrections, and this- totally-sucks, are welcome and encouraged.
Prologue
When the ship fell from the sky, the villagers thought it was the Wraith come again. But there was only the one ship and it crashed in the forest with no sign of movement. Nevertheless, the Eseasans had long since learned the benefits of caution, so they waited before sending a few volunteers to investigate.
The ship had plowed into the ground and lay half buried from the impact of the crash. It was of a strange design, cylindrical and sinewy and pearly white underneath fresh dirt. The villagers couldn't find a door but they found a window. Soon after they sent their fastest runner back to the village with instructions to get word to the city that a new alien race had landed. It was only after the runner had sprinted off that the villagers saw the boy lying behind the dead alien, bleeding and staring out at them in pain, pleading silently for rescue.
An argument followed. Then the two women who had come to help dig told the men that they could go hang themselves. What about the boy's family? What about what he might know about the new alien? What about the fact that a child was dying the longer they took and what if he was their child? No one wanted to risk the wrath of anyone or anything, or even touch the new alien, so finally, after another runner went to the city and came back with word of a compromise. The Elders were going to ask Atlantis for help. They had the medicine and the guns.
While they waited, the villagers set to digging out the door.
One
The new alien looked like a fish. John Sheppard watched it through the site of his P-90 as Beckett carefully checked for any signs of life in the thing. Its skin was rubbery and white, gleaming iridescently with gill-like things on the side of its head. Its clothes were white too, and John couldn't help but wonder at the white fixation. Maybe color hurt its eyes.
"I'm pretty sure he's dead," said Beckett quietly from inside the little ship. He knelt gingerly over the alien in the cramped space trying to avoid the blue goo that was probably blood and absolutely everywhere. "No sign of a pulse. These wounds look pretty bad." He waved at the ship's flight controls that were embedded in the alien's abdomen.
"Yes, and we know how dead the Wraith can look," muttered McKay from behind. John ignored him and simply nodded to the nurses and two marines who'd come with them that they were clear to help move the body. On the opposite side of the hatch, Ronon shifted his grip on his weapon. It took them a few minutes of untangling straps from the mangled body, but soon Mr. Fishy was tugged and pulled out of his chair and Beckett was once more diving into the cockpit only this time he didn't worry about the blood, blue or red, only the boy lying in the middle of it.
He couldn't have been more than ten years old. He'd been protected from the brunt of the impact by simply having been buckled into the back seat, but his crash straps over his shoulders and across his chest were now fused to his body, blood oozing from where they'd dug through his clothing and into his skin.
"Unconscious," said Beckett as his fingers found the boy's neck. "Rapid and thready. He's in shock. Probably internal bleeding from the looks of it."
"Will he be all right?" asked John, lowering his gun.
"If we get him back to Atlantis," said Beckett. "He's cold and I don't like this bleeding." He sat back a bit, considering. "I think we'll cut him out of the seat belt. Don't want to risk reopening anything till we get back to the infirmary. Come on, now."
John shifted out of the way of the nurses and let them get to work while he and Ronan joined Rodney and Teyla with the Eseasans. "What do you make of the creature?" asked Hovath one of the Elders who'd joined them at the site.
John shrugged. "I'm glad it's dead."
"But what was it doing with a human kid? And in a ship like that, the technology alone . . ." said Rodney. "You don't think it's related to the Wraith, do you?"
"Not enough hair." John glanced over at Mr. Fishy who was bald and wearing clothing a Wraith wouldn't be caught dead in. But McKay had a point about the kid. His eyes were drawn back to Beckett and his team as they carefully cut the boy loose and got him onto the stretcher. He was so young it was painful to see him so badly hurt. John was glad he was unconscious and glad that his black shirt and dark pants masked the blood.
"He's so small," said Rodney quietly. John nodded in agreement. Small and fragile but alive and with a good chance of survival now.
The marines bundled up the alien onto the second stretcher, and after goodbyes and well wishes from the villagers, John preceded Beckett back to the jumper.
"Mom, please! Please can I go over there? It's just across the street," D'argo twisted and pointed past the crates to the bustling market outside.
D'argo's mom didn't spare him a glance as she inspected labels in the shaded light. "No."
"Mo-om," D'argo tried again but she cut him off.
"I said no, D'argo. We'll go after we're done here or not at all." This time she gave him a pointed look that clearly said 'only if you stop whining.'
D'argo groaned loudly but knew better than to say anything. His little sister stuck her tongue out at him from his mom's other side. D'argo rolled his eyes at her, frustrated that the parts store was right across the street and he was stuck here bored out of his mind. "Mom – "
"No."
D'argo scowled. "I have my necklace, you know," he grumbled, picking at the short chain around his neck where a modified comm and a Hynerian Empire identification chip were soldered on as a permanent homing beacon. His parents had given it to him when he was little and constantly wandering off around Moya, and since then it had allowed them to find him when he got separated from them on planets, which, granted, didn't happen much, but sometimes. It was actually kind of exciting, though D'argo knew better than to just wander off. His mom was nothing if not creative when thinking up punishments.
He certainly wasn't going to wander off now and throw away all chance of going to the parts stall, but he was far from happy about it. His mom cracked open the crate and looked inside with a small frown. Muttering to herself, she moved on to the next aisle of food crates. D'argo let his shoulders slump and groaned again. This was taking forever. By the time Mom found food she was satisfied with, Dad would be back and it'd be time to go.
D'argo sighed loudly and kicked the nearest crate, looking away quickly when Mom glanced at him.
"Why do you want to get parts anyway?" she asked.
"It's for my project," said D'argo. "The next part is to make a motor, but Dad said I had to find the parts myself and nothing on Moya I can have is any good. So I have to go before we leave."
"We'll be stopping again before we get back into Hynerian space," said Mom.
"But it'll be weekens and weekens and I need the motor before Dad'll let me build the rest."
"This is your little car?"
"Yeah!" D'argo said with relief. She finally got it. He'd only been working on it since they'd left Hyneria. Parents were so dense sometimes. "So can I go?"
"Not alone," Mom smiled this time. "We'll be finished here soon. All right?"
"Yeah." D'argo sighed again but nonetheless followed her down the next aisle. At least he would get to go for sure now after suffering through all this. Bored and getting tired of walking and standing, he began to fall behind. He was well within eyesight and almost wished he wasn't when his sister Zhaanah got a piggyback ride when she was too tired to walk.
A shadow fell over him and D'argo looked up to see a white alien staring at him. He didn't recognize the race but didn't see any obvious weapons. Mom was pretty far away and the crates hid the guy from her line of sight.
"You are from the living ship?" asked the guy who was probably a female judging by voice tone. She was staring at him intently which was kind of freaking him out.
"No," D'argo immediately denied as he backed away and reached for the knife on his belt. He wasn't supposed to talk to strangers that weren't selling him anything. After last year with the Peacekeepers, D'argo never intended to again. The woman took a step towards him.
"Mom!" he shouted, but the next thing he knew the alien grabbed him and he was looking down the wrong end of Mom's gun with a needle at his throat. D'argo dropped his knife he'd managed to draw, heart racing and neck cringing away from the needle. He was caught and trapped, he was pinned and couldn't move, if he struggled he could die, he could die anyway, Mom wasn't moving, she was too far away. D'argo's breath caught and he didn't dare breathe.
"Let him go," said Mom, deathly cold.
"You are from the living ship," repeated the woman.
"You're a Pathfinder," Mom blinked.
"And you have something of ours."
"Let him go."
"When you give us the ship, you will get your offspring back." And then everything went white.
There was lingering pain beneath a hazy feeling when D'argo began to wake up. The second thing he noticed was that everything smelled wrong. It wasn't the smell of Moya but of something harsher, so when he finally opened his eyes it wasn't a surprise that he wasn't in his bed at home.
"Doctor," he heard someone say. He turned his head toward the voice and saw a sebacean woman with brown hair. And then D'argo realized that he was staring at a sebacean. He tried to sit up and move but his body wasn't doing what his head was telling it too. He could barely move! And there was that pain a little louder now. D'argo took a deep breath but that just made the pain worse.
"Whoa, there lad, calm down, calm down. No one's going to hurt you here," a man came over and put his hands on D'argo's shoulders to push him back to the bed. His accent was off for a sebacean. "There's a good boy. Just sit back. You're safe." D'argo stared at him, wide eyed and confused and not at all convinced that he was out of danger.
"Get away from me!" D'argo tried to push the man's hands away but he was too weak. "Get away!"
"Calm down, son," said the man removing his hands and taking a step back. "Just breathe – that's it. Nice and calm. No one's going to hurt you."
D'argo watched him carefully. The man raised his hands to show he meant no harm. He had a soft face and whiskers like an old man though his hair wasn't gray. He wore a white coat and smiled.
"No one's going to hurt you," he repeated. "You're safe here. You were in a bad accident and that's why you're hurt, but it's over now and you're safe, lad."
D'argo didn't remember much after the light. It was like a dream. He remembered waking up strapped into the woman's shuttle then seeing a blue funnel that could only be a wormhole in front of them. Then another bright, white light.
The man slowly lowered his hands. "I'm going to come closer now, all right?" D'argo tensed and shook his head. He didn't want the sebacean anywhere near him. The man smiled again and said, "I'm not going to hurt you, I just need to check your bandages." He waited for a response but all D'argo could do was shake his head.
"Stay away," he whispered even though part of him knew he really couldn't prevent the man from coming closer.
"All right," said the man. "I'll stay back. We'll talk for a bit, all right? My name's Carson. What's yours?"
D'argo blinked. His name? He couldn't tell him his name. He couldn't tell him his name at all. The white woman had wanted him for Moya; most others would want him for Mom or Dad. The peacekeepers had wanted him for Dad. What if they already knew his name and were just testing him? What if they found out? What if they tortured him to find out? What if – ?
"Hey, hey, hey, calm down," said Carson softly, his voice cutting through the sound of D'argo's own panicked breathing. "It's all right. No one's going to hurt you. If you don't want to talk it's all right. I'll talk. Do you know what happened to you? Do you remember the crash?" D'argo shook his head again and the man went on. "Well, some friends of ours found you in a ship that crashed with another alien, person. Do you remember being in the ship?" A jerky nod. D'argo remembered seeing a sebacean face through a window. "We don't know what happened to make you crash but you were badly hurt. You have some broken ribs and were bleeding on the inside. That's what hurts right now. I gave you some medicine to help with the pain, but all that thrashing around probably didn't help, did it?" He smiled again. "If you like, I can make the pain go away, but I'll need to look at your bandages first."
"Doesn't hurt," D'argo denied. It really did underneath the haze, but he still didn't want Carson coming near him. He wanted Mom and Dad and to be on Moya or at home on Hyneria. Thinking of them, D'argo's hand reached instinctively for his necklace but his hand didn't find it. Scrabbling at his own neck, he started to panic again and was surprised when Carson grabbed his hands and held them down.
"My necklace!" D'argo's voice was high and scared. "Where's my necklace!" It was the only way they'd find him! He had to have it. He'd never not worn it. It wasn't supposed to ever come off. "Get away from me!"
Carson told him to calm down, but whatever hold D'argo had had on calmness was gone, just like his necklace. He tried to push hands away but they wouldn't go. He tried to curl up and get away himself but it hurt too much. He tried and tried but there were more people and then everything started to slip away into darkness.
Dr. Carson Beckett sat beside his newest patient with a small frown on his face. It had been a half hour since his nurse had given the boy a mild sedative after his panic attack. He'd torn a few stitches Carson had had to go back and replace but that had been all. He was sleeping fitfully with his left hand near his neck. He'd sent a nurse to find the necklace. It was the least he could do considering the poor child had been scared out of his wits. Maybe they'd get a name out of him once he had it back, though given the personal space bubble a size to rival Rodney's, Carson doubted it.
He looked up when Dr. Weir entered followed by the Colonel and Rodney and rose to greet them.
"How is he, Carson?" asked Elizabeth as they joined him by the bedside.
"Sleeping now," he replied. "He was terrified when he woke up; wouldn't let me near him."
"Poor kid wakes up in a strange place with three broken ribs . . ." Sheppard let it trail off.
"Did he say anything?" Rodney asked all business. "Name, address, why he was with that other alien?"
Carson looked at the physicist. "When I say terrified, I mean he was hyperventilating when I asked him his name. He tore four stitches when I touched him, and when he found out his necklace was gone about threw himself out of bed."
"Necklace?" asked Elizabeth.
"We had to cut it off for the surgery. I sent a nurse for it."
"Necklace, right. Can I get that checked out before it brings the Wraith down on us?" said Rodney.
"Or any other . . . thing," said Sheppard with a pointed look.
"Good idea," Elizabeth agreed. "Let's hope the alien has understanding friends if they come investigating."
"I'll send it on then," said Carson turning back to the boy who was beginning to stir. The sedative hadn't been a strong one since he was already on strong pain killers. "If you could back up please, I don't want to overwhelm him," he said taking a step back himself.
This time, the boy's eyelids fluttered open then closed, before finally staying open. As before there was a moment before recognition set in and another attempt to sit up as the child's wide eyes took in the new people in the room. "No, no, lay back," said Carson wincing as he imagined the stitches pulling. "We'll not come any closer. I want you to meet some friends of mine." He turned slightly to do the introductions. "This is Elizabeth, Rodney, and John." The boy followed with his eyes, lingering on Sheppard.
Elizabeth smiled. "Hey there," she said in her best reassuring voice. "We came to see how you were doing. I know you're scared but you have nothing to worry about here. We're not going to hurt you." The boy glanced at her before his eyes went back to Sheppard. Carson looked at the Colonel who was smiling lopsidedly at the boy.
"What's your name?" Sheppard asked with his best charming smile. The boy's eyes flickered down then up but he remained silent. "Come on, you gotta have a name," Sheppard said teasingly. "I bet I could guess."
"Guess a name from a culture you know absolutely nothing about? You'll be guessing into the next century," said Rodney. "Just give him a nickname already so we can get to the questions."
"Rodney," said Elizabeth with forced patience as she, Sheppard, and Carson glared at him. "You're not helping."
"Don't you have other things to be doing right now?" added Sheppard.
"Other than wondering who he was traveling with and if it's a threat? Not really."
"You're human."
All four adults turned at the boy's words, the lad looking both surprised he'd spoken and nervous now that he'd attracted their attention. It was a nervousness that was quickly turning into another panic attack.
"Shh, it's all right," said Carson gently hoping to prevent it. "We're not going to hurt you. You're safe here." He took a step toward the bed but stopped when the boy flinched away from him.
"Don't touch me!" he cried. "Don't touch me!"
"It's all right, I'm not going to touch you," soothed Carson but the boy just stared at him, hands clutching at the blanket as if it could protect him, frightened.
"What do you want with me?" he whispered.
"Nothing. Hey, it's all right," Elizabeth said as Carson exchanged glances with an equally bewildered Rodney and Sheppard. "We don't want anything from you. We just want to help." She crouched down on her heels so she wasn't looming. The boy followed her movement as if hypnotized. "We just want to help. Will you let us do that?"
"I want my necklace," the boy whispered. It took all of Carson's willpower not to reach out to him again. He was so alone and scared, though of what, Carson had no idea.
"All right lad, we'll get you your necklace," he said gently. He placed a hand on Elizabeth's shoulder to draw her away. Rodney and Sheppard followed and the boy's eyes never left them, burning a hole through their backs. "I think you should leave now. He needs to rest and he can't do that panicking all over the place."
"Do you know what set him off?" asked Elizabeth in concern.
"Your guess is as good as mine at this point," Carson sighed. "He's only woken twice."
"He seemed surprised we were human," offered Sheppard.
"Which makes absolutely no sense since what else would we be, circus monkeys? Trained dogs to run around in circle sniffing our nether regions? Although I wouldn't be surprised if he mistook Sheppard here for a wookie," said Rodney.
"Who you callin' 'scruffy looking'," the Colonel shot back.
Rodney gave him a sideways look with just a hint of a smile. "Fine, nerfherder."
"You know you just don't have the legs to pull off the Princess – "
"Gentlemen," Elizabeth cut in before they could continue. "We don't want to hear it."
"Funny you should mention that Colonel," said Carson. At the three's sudden attention he went on. "Seems our wee lad here isn't what you or I would call completely human."
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow at that. "Not completely human?"
Carson shrugged a bit helplessly. He was still going over the scans from the Ancient's equivalent of an x-ray machine from before and after surgery. At first he'd wondered if the changes were because he was a child, and organ sizes in a growing body were sometimes difficult to judge. Then other things showed up like extra nerves, the warped shape of his liver, and the oddities in his DNA, including a few sequences that were nothing human and nothing that Carson for the life of him could identify. "I'm still looking into it, but there are definite deviations in his physiology and DNA."
"Like Teyla?" asked the Colonel, his eyebrows drawn together in concern.
"It's not Wraith," Carson shook his head. "It was the first thing I checked. I don't know what it is. Whatever genetic modification went on he was either born with or it happened very young. As far as I can tell, outside his injuries, he's a healthy, mostly human child." He looked over his shoulder at the boy who was still watching them with wide, scared eyes.
"Do you think he knows?" asked Elizabeth following his gaze.
"I don't know," Carson sighed. "If he did, I doubt he'd tell us. At this rate, earning his trust is gonna take a while. He won't let anyone near him without a fight."
"I'll talk to Dr. Heightmeyer," said Elizabeth.
"I'd appreciate it."
"Meanwhile, see what you can find out."
"Maybe we should bring Jinto over from the mainland," suggested Sheppard. "Give him a face his own age."
"Aye. And I want to give him his necklace as soon as I can." He looked at Rodney who nodded.
"Yes, yes, I'm sure it's probably safe. Hope so anyway."
"Good luck, Carson," said Elizabeth as they turned to leave. Carson nodded, knowing he'd need it.
The humans left quietly. Only Carson came back to tell him to try and sleep before going to another part of the room. He was obviously the healer or diagnosian or whatever they were called here. Regardless, D'argo was grateful for the space to think. He could still feel the muted pain in his chest that receded as his body finally relaxed. At the moment he wanted nothing more to curl around the pain that was more than physical in his chest. He was kidnapped and alone and his parents couldn't find him. He just wanted Mom and Dad. He wanted to be safe with them at home.
It was the tears that brought him back to himself. No, he couldn't cry. That would be showing enemies a weakness, and Mom had drilled him that if he was ever caught he had to be strong. Dad said the first thing he should do was not panic. D'argo wiped his eyes and reflected that he hadn't done such a great job at not panicking. He was just so scared. He didn't know what was going on. That's what he had to do next, figure out what was going on and giving away as little as possible while he did. Mom always said watching and being silent was good, and D'argo knew it worked from spying on their passengers on Moya. Even when they knew he was there, they sometimes forgot and said things they wouldn't if it had been Mom or Dad or Chiana. Maybe not Chiana.
So what did he know? D'argo looked around the room he was in. It was gray-blue and all hard angles and weird panels. He didn't recognize any of it, and it didn't look like anything that he'd seen on Dad's tv from Earth. But he did know they were human. The armed man had Dad's name and Dad's flag on his arm. And everyone was speaking English; even D'argo had switched to it automatically. It had taken a minute for him to realize which made him fell stupid now because it was so obvious.
Only it didn't fit with what his parents had told him of Earth. They said they couldn't go because humans were still afraid of aliens and might hurt them. These humans had found him with the Pathfinder and hadn't seemed too freaked out by it. D'argo couldn't be sure though because he'd never been kidnapped by a non sebacean only to get rescued by humans before. He'd never been kidnapped before at all. And he still didn't know for sure if they'd really rescued him or not either. They were probably lying so he'd trust them, but D'argo wasn't going to fall for that. He'd do what Dad would do . . . or maybe Mom since Dad tended to piss people off, and D'argo didn't want to do that, especially since they had guns that they carried around.
The man with Dad's name and flag made him nervous. He was a soldier and you never knew what they would do right away, especially if they wanted answers to questions. For now, D'argo wasn't going to trust anyone and he wasn't going to panic. All he had to do was get his necklace back. But even if he didn't, Mom and Dad could still get close enough to find him. Pilot and Moya would help and so would Chiana and Grandma. They would find him. D'argo knew they were already searching.