The following reports were found amidst the hardcopy that returned on the third run of the Daedalus. They are unique in that there was no corresponding digital version relayed in the weekly data-burst from Atlantis.
August 25, 2005
Major N. Lorne and Dr. D. Parrish were treated for exposure to chlorine bleach. Nature or cause of exposure unspecified. Treatment administered within 30 minutes of exposure. No long term side effects expected from either inhalation or physical contact.
September 2, 2005
Major N. Lorne was treated for degree 2 burns over 1/3 of ventral surface area caused by over exposure to the sun. NL is suspended from active duty until blistering clears, estimated six days. 400mg Acetaminophen qid PRN for pain and inflammation, ABX TBD.
Dr. D. Parrish was treated for degree 1 burns over 1/2 dorsal surface area caused by sun exposure. DP has been discharged to light duty with recommendations for topical treatment.
September 12, 2005
Dr. D. Parrish was treated for severe histamine reaction to a moss discovered on the mainland. DP has been confined to the infirmary until the swelling decreases, estimated 1 day. Treatment regimen of injected cortisone and topical 2% hydrocortisone cream administered.
Major N. Lorne was treated for moderate hives resulting from exposure to a native moss. NL had been treated with topical 2% hydrocortisone cream and released.
September 25, 2005
Dr. D. Parrish was treated for facial bruising following an altercation in the training room. Contusions present on the left side of the face, including a hairline fracture of the left zygomatic bone. Patient denies malicious intent, citing a training accident.
Major N. Lorne was treated for fracture of two bones in his hand (right). NL has been removed from active duty until the fracture heals, estimated 4-6 weeks. Patient also cites a training accident.
Lt. W. Harris was treated for a wrist fracture (left), and dislocated knee (right). Patient refused to comment on the source of the injuries. WH will be returning to Earth on the next Daedalus run.
Sgt. M. Johnson was treated for severe facial bruising and 3 fractured fingers (left - 3,4, & 5). Patient was unable to comment on the source of his injuries, but nodded when asked if training related. MJ will be returning to Earth on the next Daedalus run.
Sgt. P. Visseau was treated for a broken nose, severe facial contusions, and superficial lacerations. PV denies malicious incident; patient will be returning to Earth on the next Daedalus run.
When Nick Lorne was five, he wanted to be a fireman.This wasn’t unusual; two-thirds of the children in his kindergarten wanted to be firefighters or policemen. Because he was an enterprising boy (And because they lived only a block away), he took to spending an hour or two after school at the fire department a few days a week after he turned seven and his mom let him play in the neighborhood by himself. He thought he wanted to be a fireman up until the time he turned ten.
When Nick Lorne was ten, he decided he wanted to grow up to be a civil engineer.
It was a strange choice for a ten year old, but he had his reasons. You see, when he was ten, the bridge over Potterdam River (Which was only three blocks away) washed out in a week of heavy flooding and torrential rains. He spent the whole summer hanging out and watching the reconstruction, and he decided it would be really cool to put things back together better than before. So he started working hard in math class and convinced his parents to buy him books on basic engineering and physics for his birthday. That lasted for a year.
When Nick Lorne was eleven, after weeks of soul searching (And a spectacular week at Space Camp), he decided that what he really wanted to be when he grew up was an astronaut.
Now, Nick was a smart boy; he did his homework. He knew the chances of getting into the space program were slim at best, that he’d do a lot better if he went to one of the military academies. He spent three years convincing his parents that he was serious about it. He spent another year evaluating which of the military academies would be best, and set about making himself a perfect candidate. He was in all the honors classes, he played three sports a year (Soccer, Hockey, & Track – He made captain in Soccer and Hockey), he even went to the summer program at the Naval Academy since there were historically more Navy Air than Air Force pilots in the space program. He ended up going to the Air Force Academy because there was a higher likelihood he’d be able to get his masters before thirty.
When he was twenty-seven, Nick Lorne learned about the Stargate Program and decided he would head up an SG-Team himself one day. He spent four years working his way onto an SG Team and making a name for himself at the SGC.
When he was thirty-two, Nick Lorne deployed for Atlantis (Where he ran his own SG-Team, ran most of a military base, and got to fly something way cooler than a space shuttle). He decided that maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to be when he grew up. He thought that just might be all right.
Everyone in Atlantis knew that Colonel Sheppard lived to fly. They knew it as instinctively as they knew when a storm is coming or whether the city is shielded or cloaked. What they don't know, is that Sheppard is not the only one to have spent his life dreaming of the skies.
Nick Lorne was sixteen when he got his civilian pilot’s license. Growing up in the Midwest, the big excitement of his childhood summers was when the family drove up to Oshkosh for the annual EAA Fly-In. As his mother liked to point out, he’d been attending the convention since before he’d been born.
When he was eight, Nick convinced his father to leave him in the care of the fighter pilots near Warbird Alley. He’d curl up against the landing gear and listen to them tell stories for days at a time, running errands in exchange for their ‘supervision’. By the time he was ten, Nick knew what he wanted to be when he grew up.
Six months in Atlantis and sixteen dead under his direct command, Nick decided that those fighter pilots had lied through their teeth. They’d told him stories about aerial combat and lifelong friendships. They’d told him nothing about losing men under orders and implacable enemies, and some of them had been older than he’d been when he shipped out for Atlantis. They’d sparked a dream, that was understandable and beyond their control. But far worse – they’d given him a way to reach it, and never tempered their words with the solid weight of the experience that they must have possessed.
He’d learned the indescribable joy of the sky from his father, but he’d found the means to achieve it through the Air Force. Flying might have been his dream, but it wasn’t his alone. Nick knew that every dream had a price. Even so, the Wraith just constituted one hell of a price tag.
Author's Note: This isn't at all what it was originally supposed to be, but the seriousness/angst spilled over from a Teyla piece I'm doing and I couldn't really stop it.As a warning, I have not recently handled standard issue tags, nor have I ever handled those from the period referenced, so feel free to let me know if I committed a major faux pas.Thanks to LadyKoori for a RL check on older tags.
David slid the top off of his ‘treasure’ box and stared inside. The box had been a birthday present from Nick a few months after he’d moved to the city (And six weeks after they’d started sleeping together), something that Nick had picked up off world. After peering inside for a moment, trying vainly to make his thoughts settle for the first time in the three days since he’d heard the news (Lieutenant Cadman had been kind enough to stop by and tell him herself), he set the cover beside him on the bed and tipped the contents, his one piece of ‘Earth’, out into his hand.
Everyone in Atlantis had knick-knacks; they’re the little things that expedition members bring along to remind them of a person, or a place, or simply an event that they left behind. Photographs are popular, so are key-chains. It’s a common (And understandable) thread that binds them all together - this need to hold onto the familiar in an incredibly unfamiliar world. Nick had told him once that even John Sheppard, who was known for his loyalty to Atlantis and lack of ties to Earth, had knick-knacks.
David’s knick-knack is not what anyone would expect, but then that’s not so unusual; he’s been ‘not-what-people-expect’ since well before he joined the Stargate program. David’s talisman, his one physical piece of memory, is a set of dog-tags. They were his father’s, his real father’s, and David has possessed them for almost as long as he can remember.
When anyone asks, and not many people do, David tells them that his parents are alive and well in Phoenix. He doesn’t mention that what he really means is that his mother and step-father live in Phoenix and his father is buried in Missouri, the victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound when David was five; people don’t really care that much anyway, and it’s easier not to think about it.
Until he moved to Atlantis, David never really understood why his father had done it. Now that he’s seen the incredible and the incredibly terrifying, seen what they’ve done to survive (And knows he’ll have to go back to ‘normal’ someday, if he lives that long), he thinks he might get it. He also thinks that if Nick had ever asked, he might have told him the whole truth and not just the gloss; he might have even explained his persistent requests that Nick leave the tags on the night stand, regulations be damned. But Nick had never asked; he was willing to take what David offered and not push. It made David both love and hate him just a little bit more.
David traced the imprinted lettering on the tag, James Raymond Parrish, and wondered absently if his father would be proud of him, of the choices he’d made. After a moment, the practical part of his mind kicked in again and David set the tags down next to the box cover. Then, he reached to his left and grasped the object that had motivated this unwanted trip down memory lane. It was another pair of dog-tags, these charred and twisted with the rubber silencers all but gone.
He coiled the chain around his fingers and pressed a gentle kiss to the tags, whispering the good-bye he’d never been able to say in person and all of the other things he’d wanted to but had never found the time for. He settled the tags into the box, followed them with his father’s, and then slid the cover closed. He rose, placing the box on the corner of his desk, and turned to leave. He’d been hiding from reality for almost three days now; it was time to start moving on.
~ Finis ~
A/N 2.0: This is completely canon, in that we have no way of knowing how long Lorne was MIA in Coup d'Etat or how quickly the news that the bodies were fakes circulated.
The first thing Lorne noticed upon stepping out of the jumper was the smell. He crinkled his nose at the musty scent that permeated the jumper bay. "Looks like someone ignored the last batch of 'no sex in the jumper bay' memos. Again."
Parrish stepped out beside him, and made a face. "Apparently."
"Let's get out of here. It'll be better in the 'Gate room."
* * * The second thing Lorne noticed upon returning from his 'weekend' on the mainland with Parrish was the massive hickey on Colonel Sheppard's neck. That was a little more disconcerting, and he carefully refrained from commenting. What he did comment on, was the newly opaque walls of Doctor Weir's office. He asked Doctor Zelenka, who was hanging out and apparently shooting the breeze with Sergeant Campbell. "Hey, Doctor Z, I didn't know the walls did that."
"Elizabeth's office? Um, neither did we. Is good thing. Very good thing, yes."
Lorne nodded slowly, able to take a hint. "I'll trust your judgment on that one." He looked around. "Is Doctor Weir back from her negotiations?"
Zelenka shook his head. "She is due to return shortly."
"Right, well in that case I'm just going to, you know, shower." Lorne gestured vaguely to the transporter.
Zelenka nodded. "Of course. Your trip was enjoyable?"
Parrish cut in, and Lorne was happy to defer.
* * * The third thing Lorne noticed completely by accident. He made the mistake of leaning against the wall in the transporter (in his own defense, it had been a long day of trekking around in semi-tropical jungles), and pulled his hand away to find it covered in something he was pretty sure he didn't want to examine too closely. Of the white & kind-of-sticky variety.
"You have got to be kidding me."
Parrish looked up from his tablet. "What's wrong?"
Lorne looked at his hand again, then wiped it forcefully on his pants. "You probably don't want to know."
Parrish raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"Apparently more than one someone missed the recent batch of PDA memos."
Parrish blinked in confusion, looked at the spot on the wall that Lorne's hand had rested, and then blushed. "Oh. Um, do you want a tissue?"
The doors slid open onto the residence wing. "Nah, I'll just wash it off. Makes me wonder what exactly went on while we were gone, though. I get the feeling we missed the party."
Parrish smiled sweetly and led the way down the hall. "Good thing we made our own, then."
* * * The next morning, breakfast was an oddly subdued affair. Lorne didn't actually notice how subdued until he was on his second cup of coffee. That was around the time he realized that the coffee tasted stranger than usual, although it might have been the sugar substitute that tasted so strongly - he'd forgotten to take any with him when he'd been on the mainland, and the native honey always tasted stronger during the first few cups. Unfortunately, he wasn't in the mood for very sweet in his coffee today, so he settled for cradling the mug in his hands and looked around at the others who were preparing for first shift.
There were less people than normal, even at such an early hour, and everyone was too cheerful for 0600. Strained smiles were scattered through the room, and the conversations he could hear seemed awfully generic. The mess was normally gossip-central, and yet everyone was discussing work. At 0600, while on their first cups of coffee. Something had definitely happened while he'd been out of the city. The trick was going to be getting someone to talk.
That proved easier said than done. Lorne tried asking Cadman. He tried asking Sergeant Callis in the mess. He tried asking Ronon. Everyone he talked to would stammer and blush and find a sudden urgent appointment in the other direction (well, except for Ronon. He'd just smirked and walked away with a fair approximation of Sheppard's swagger).
* * * That evening, Lorne literally stumbled into the answer he'd been looking for. Well, he stumbled into a potted plant while listening to Brown and Lindsay discuss the merits of various members of the anthro department, but it led to an answer just the same (he'd never realized they were quite that familiar with the digging types, but then he'd be the first to admit that he didn't know them terribly well).
The plant he ran into was known jokingly around the botany labs as Aphrodius majoris, because the pollen contained a chemical that acted directly on the sex drive. Luckily, it only bloomed once every two years, and only on the Northern plains of the mainland, so it was more a curiosity than a concern.
When he tripped over it, he accidentally knocked open the flower, and got a lungful of pollen. He spat it out, but the sweet flavor remained on his tongue and suddenly things fell into place. It was the same taste that had been in his coffee that morning.
Oh. Of course.
It made perfect, if demented, sense that sex pollen would hit the city on the one weekend he was off on the mainland trekking through the jungle with a botanist. There were times that his life seemed patently unfair. But maybe, just maybe, he could salvage something from this. After all, they had security cameras scattered throughout the city at this point. One of them had to have caught something...