Sleep failed to come at a decent hour last night, so, I spent a little working out an outline for a chapter fic and when I got in from work sat down and wrote the first few chapters. I'm posting the first one to see what you all think and schedule willing, I'll put up the second chapter tomorrow. Let me know if this any good. Thanks!
Disclaimer: I own nothing associated with Stargate: Atlantis.
Chapter 1
"Damn it," Dr. Olivia Gray whispered as she dropped the small stack of files she was carrying. She kneeled down and started to gather her things together when a deep laugh made her look up only to see Dr. Daniel Jackson smiling at her.
"Let me help you, Olivia," he said and he kneeled down next to her and helped her gather the papers that had slipped from the files folders. She sighed and let him help her clean up her mess for what felt like the millionth time since she joined SGC three years earlier.
"Thanks, Daniel," she said with a small smile and that he easily returned before she turned her eyes back to the papers and files.
"You know I'm going to miss this." Olivia's smile turned into a frown as she looked back at him and stood with the files in her hands. Daniel handed her the small bundle of files he held and she tilted her head to the side.
"Miss what?" she asked and he smiled a sad smile at her.
"Helping you clean up your messes all the time." Olivia blushed but her frown remained firmly on her face. She adjusted her grip on the files and looked at him.
"Are you going somewhere?" she asked and Daniel shook his head.
"No, but you are," he said and Olivia laughed.
"I'm not going anywhere," she said but Daniel shook his head. "Where am I going?" she asked suddenly worried she had been released. She didn't want to stop her work with the SGC. She loved learning more and more about the Ancients and with the discovery of Atlantis she only wanted to continue her work. Especially after she had spoken with Dr. Elizabeth Weir, the leader of the Atlantis research team, about the things they had discovered and about the new enemy they had stumbled across.
"Dr. Weir has requested your presence with her research teams in Atlantis and General O'Neil and I have granted it," he told her and once again the files were on the floor. Daniel laughed but Olivia could only stare at him. "Olivia?" he asked as he waved his hand in front of her face. A smile unlike any he had ever seen lit her face and she hugged him tightly. Daniel laughed again and returned her embrace before she quickly backed away from him and gripped his shoulders to tight, her knuckles were white.
"Seriously?" Olivia asked and Daniel nodded.
"I'm more than capable of finishing our work on my own, and besides they need a decent linguist on the base," he said and she hugged him again.
"I know you have to have had something to do with Dr. Weir asking for me to join her team," Olivia said as she pulled back and looked at her fellow anthropologist and mentor. Daniel grinned and adjusted his glasses.
"I may have mentioned your name once or twice," he said with a shrug and Olivia sighed and gathered up her files once more, and again with Daniel's help. "You'll do great things with Dr. Weir and her team, Olivia, I know it," he said as he stood and she smiled at him as she held onto the files, however, her grip was a little firmer than before.
"Daniel, I don't know how I am ever going to thank you," Olivia said and Daniel raised his hand to her face and gently rubbed his thumb across her cheek. Olivia felt her pale cheeks flush at his touch, but she kept her expression neutral.
"You don't have to Olivia," he said with a smile before he lowered his hand. "Dr. Weir has requested a meeting with you at eleven, she is going to ask you to join her team and sign the necessary paperwork." Olivia nodded and he left her alone in the corridor.
Olivia smiled sadly as she turned and watched him walk away before she herself turned and made her way down the corridor, but in the opposite direction. She had come to consider Daniel one of her best friends since she joined SGC, but as they worked together she always got the feeling that he felt more for her than he let on.
Besides, Daniel was older, had experienced so much, and she was probably misreading his kindness for something else. Olivia was the youngest scientist on the base and at twenty-seven she had the most to prove, which she had done with Daniel's help over time on the base. She glanced at her watch and gasped when she saw it was 10:30. She still had the files to deliver to Dr. Harris before she would be able to meet with Dr. Weir. Picking up her pace, Olivia rushed around the corner only to collide with a tall man sending her files to the floor yet again.
"Oh good heavens," she said before she quickly kneeled down yet again and hastily began gathering her papers and files once more. "I'm sorry, I'm just in a bit of a rush," she said quickly as she grabbed at the files. The man squatted down to help her, but she grabbed the last file and stood. The man stood as well and Olivia pushed her curls from her face and looked up at the man she had ran into. He was dressed in the standard dark military uniform and she remembered him from one year earlier when she had watched the Atlantis team go through the gate to the address Daniel and her had discovered.
"I'm going to assume you're Dr. Olivia Gray," he said and Olivia furrowed her brow but nodded. "Dr. Jackson told us a lot about you," he said making Olivia blush when she realized he must have warned them of her slight clumsiness when she was excited or in a rush. "Ma-, Lt. Colonel John Sheppard," he said and Olivia smiled.
"It's nice to meet you," Olivia said and John smiled as he looked at her. "However, if you'll please excuse me Colonel, I have to deliver these files." John nodded and stepped aside so the young doctor could pass. "Have a good day," she said quickly over her shoulder and was on her way once again.
John smiled to himself and shook his head before he continued down the hall. Dr. Gray seemed nice enough, but he couldn't help but feel that she was going to be an interesting addition to the Atlantis team.
After an eventful and rather frightening trip to Atlantis, nearly six weeks of managing to get lost more than she had the courage to admit to anyone, and after ten months on Atlantis Olivia had settled into the Ancient city rather well. Late one night, Olivia was sitting in her lab pouring over text that she had been given to her a few days earlier after Major Lorne's team had returned from off world; however she was having little luck translating the text.
"Dr. Gray?" a soft voice asked and Olivia looked up, smiling at Teyla Emmagan. Teyla was the leader of the Athosian people that resided on the mainland not far from Atlantis. Her people had taken refuge with the Atlantis team when the Wraith, an enemy Dr. Weir and the others had come across, attacked their planet.
"Teyla, for the hundredth time, please call me Olivia," the curvier woman said as she pulled her reading glasses from her face and sat them down next to her handheld. Teyla gave her a small smile and nodded her head as she walked further into Olivia's lab. "Did you need something?"
"No, I just wanted to see how you were fairing," Teyla said. "Colonel Sheppard told me what happened when you had gone off world with Major Harrison's team a few days ago." Olivia blushed and laughed softly as she pulled at the hem of her dark green blouse.
"Yes, well, embarrassing stories seem to spread like wild fire around here," Olivia said making Teyla smile. While walking to a village on P3M875, Olivia had managed to trip crashing into Sgt. Marks who then stumbled into Major Harrison who had very ungracefully landed in a large puddle of mud at the base of the small ledge they had been walking along. "Major Harrison has barred me from ever going off world with his team again, which I don't mind. I don't think Major Harrison likes me that much to begin with, besides I've been coming across some pretty amazing things in the Ancient databases these last few days." Olivia had elected to work on base instead of venturing off world for a time, at least until Major Lorne would be in need of a negotiator again.
"How is your work coming?" Teyla asked and Olivia sighed before she tightened her hair and hastily swiped a stray curl from her forehead.
"The translations are a little choppy," Olivia told her honestly. "I mean, the images Major Lorne brought back are a little hard to read. Some of it isn't even making any sense to me."
"Do not stretch yourself too thin, Olivia," Teyla said and Olivia nodded her head.
"I know, but Dr. McKay is insisting on finding the source of those high energy readings," Olivia said. "He thinks it could lead to a ZPM, but Dr. Weir won't let him venture into the ruins without finding out what it says first and my job is to work the translations." Teyla smiled and nodded her head remembering what had happened to Colonel Sheppard not long ago when they had come across similar energy readings and ruins.
"You still need your rest," Teyla said and Olivia smiled.
"I'll get to bed soon," Olivia said and Teyla nodded her head although she had the feeling the young doctor wasn't going to be retiring to her quarters anytime soon.
"Good night, Olivia," Teyla said and Olivia waved before she returned her attention to her translations. Teyla sighed quietly before she left the lab and headed to her own quarters.
The next morning Olivia was rushing down the corridor from her quarters to the lab, hastily pulling her curly black hair back into her now trademark high ponytail. She had woken up later than she wanted to and was in a rush to get to work before Dr. Rodney McKay came in demanding a status report on the translations she was working on. She rounded the corner as she lowered her hands and ran right into a broad chest. She stumbled back but was grasped quickly and saved from falling on her backside. She looked up and forced a smile through her blush as she looked up at Ronon Dex.
"I am so sorry," she said quietly as he let go of her and she pulled at her pink blouse. He shook his head as if to say it was no big deal, but Olivia stammered on. "I-I've got to run, I'm sorry," she said again before she moved around him and continued on. "I have got to stop running into people."
Through Teyla, Olivia had met Ronon, but for some reason he made her nervous. It wasn't his size that made her nervous and it wasn't the fact that he was from the Pegasus galaxy. She figured it had to be the fact that he was always silent and would more often than not just sit back and observe. Olivia was used to people who talked constantly, like Rodney and even Dr. Radek Zelenka on certain occasions, and when she got started, Olivia was hard to stop. However, Ronon was completely opposite of everything she was used to. So, Olivia being Olivia; she avoided him as much as possible.
"Dr. Gray you're late," Rodney said as she walked into the lab. Sighing, Olivia walked over to her computer and quickly started to open up the translations. "You've been on this base long enough to know that you can't show up for work anytime you wish."
"Dr. McKay, I am well aware that I am two minutes late," Olivia said as she typed in her access codes. "However, I was in here until three in the morning so forgive me for wanting to get two hours of sleep and a shower."
"Sleep and hygiene are the least of your priorities when we have the possibility of locating another ZPM," Rodney said and Olivia looked up from her computer and narrowed her dark brown eyes.
"You may like to smell like the living dead, Dr. McKay, but I don't," she snapped before she quickly pulled the data up. He was about to respond to the insult, but Olivia cut him off. "The ruins don't say anything about an energy source," Olivia said. "The text is more like broken poetry."
"What are you talking about? Dr. Kyle said the energy readings were off the charts outside the ruins," Rodney said as he all but shoved her out of the way.
"Well, their readings were wrong," she said. "The readings Dr. Kyle was getting could have been a fluke in the equipment."
"What is this? 'The darkness binds . . . eternal light'," he said before he stood straight and looked at Olivia like she was insane. "This makes absolutely no sense. Are your translations even right?"
"Yes, they are right," Olivia said firmly. "I know the ancient language backwards and forwards, Dr. McKay, I'm not an idiot. The images of the scripture weren't the best. I couldn't make out half of them. As I was going to explain to you this morning, I think it best that I go to the ruins myself and translate them there."
"You think you should to the ruins? With your off world record?" he asked and Olivia rolled her eyes.
"Yes and one mistake out of thirty trips off world does not mean I have a bad record," Olivia said firmly as she crossed her arms over her chest. He seemed to scrutinize her for a minute before he turned around.
"Come on, bring your hand held," he said and Olivia grabbed her computer before she quickly followed him from the room. "We'll talk to Elizabeth and see what she has to say about this."