The first difference she notices (besides the obvious) is the coffee.
On Atlantis, coffee is – was – restricted only by availability. She's been told that for the first year or so after the City rose coffee had been a luxury item, rationed tighter than anything, but once Atlantis had started getting regular supply runs from Earth (with each ship carrying massive amounts of coffee, because few of the scientists can function without it) there weren't any restrictions on who could grab a cup or a pot (as long as there was always a pot brewing) at any hour of the day or night, because no matter how hard everybody tried to keep to a concrete schedule things in the Pegasus galaxy were always haphazard at the best of times, and if you couldn't grab a cup to keep you awake so you could actually see your parents during the one hour in the middle of the night they were in the City what was even the point of having parents? But things are different on Earth.
The first time somebody takes a mug from her just as she gets it filled (and these mugs are ugly, nothing like the ones they'd had to leave behind when they'd left home) she shrugs it off. Rodney's always taking coffee from her like that, without even a 'thank you', when he's busy or tired or thinking about something, and it's not like she expects praise for filling a mug, when she hadn't even made the coffee and there are so many more important things people are doing in the cit- base. On the base.
The second time it happens, it's by a scientist, and one who's every bit as caffeine-needing as one of Atlantis's scientists is after a long day rewiring the jumpers or battling sentient plants or translating thousands of lines of Ancient to find the one bit of information they need to save the day, when they know they have to stay up and working for at least another four hours because everybody else has come down with space mono and the work needs to get done yesterday. The scientist blinks at her blearily and mutters something about "get younger every year" and takes her coffee. She gets out a third cup.
The third cup is swept from her hand as she raises it to drink. She looks up, and a lieutenant-colonel (Forrest, apparently) has it, and he doesn't look like he needs it at all, whereas she's been up for almost 40 hours except for a short nap while the situation was discussed in the General's office or possibly a conference room; she isn't certain because they'd barely been allowed to leave the Gate room. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action (though there are far too many cases where once is enemy action), so she goes on the offensive.
"Will you please give me back my coffee, sir," she lets out through gritted teeth, as politely as she can manage. They are, after all, in some sort of a limbo, and if she messes this up for everybody they literally won't have anyplace to go.
"You're too young to be drinking coffee," he says, sipping her coffee. "It'll stunt your growth."
"It hasn't so far."
"You're not getting any coffee until your parents say it's okay."
She's about to retort that her parents give her coffee, and so does everybody else who's been on Atlantis more than a day, but she sees her dads entering, looking just as weary as if they'd been in meetings for the past six hours without a significant break, because of course they had been. It's so much easier to let them cut through the resistance like the Ancient lasers through, well, anything. "Lieutenant-colonel Forrest won't let me have any coffee until I get permission from my parents," she says. "Can one of you please tell him it's okay before I pass out?"
Rodney immediately starts a diatribe about the "coffee police", and John smiles tiredly and says, "It's fine" and fills three mugs because she isn't the only one who needs the caffeine.
Forrest looks back and forth between Rodney and John. "Wait, she's- you're-"
Rodney freezes, panicked expression on his face, and she thinks she's said something wrong but she doesn't know what. John just smiles again and says "We do things a little differently in Atlantis. Did." The last word is almost soundless, but she knows all three of them feel it in their bones. They're never going back home, there's nothing to go home to. And that thought is bad enough to make her forget that she messed up somehow. And then they're hugging, in a three-way exhausted hug where they're all leaning on each other for support and being careful because they're still holding their coffee. The hug is familiar, and at least this time nobody's injured.
***
They've been assigned quarters (she's supposed to call it an apartment) in "off-base housing". Technically two "apartments", but they only use one even though it's smaller than their quarters on Atlantis were because it's not like they own much more than clothes now, anyway. She's not allowed to leave the apartment even though she's gotten the hang of doors that don't open no matter how hard you think at them and aren't just a piece of hide or fabric draped across the doorway like the Athosians' homes had. Still have, she supposes, even if she'll never see them again.
She's not allowed to leave the apartment, and when she leaves the apartment with somebody else she's not allowed to talk to or in front of anybody she doesn't know. There are more rules that she's supposed to be following (sometimes it seems like Earth is all rules), but she hadn't really paid attention in the orientation they'd been given. Besides, she's sick of rules. She's sick of sitting in the same small apartment without anybody to talk to or much to do. They had to leave behind War and Peace and the movies. There's a computer, but the intranet's servers all got left behind, so she can't talk to anybody on it. And she doesn't know how to contact anybody except for Rodney and John with the "cell phone" which Rodney had spent a few hours muttering over yesterday to make its use as similar as possible to the communicators they're used to having in their ears.
She's heard a lot about Earth, mostly complaining about being forced to go back from people who are going to be reviewed or for some reason have to brief the SGC or the IOA in person; and longing for it from people who just transferred in (although she understands how they might prefer somewhere where there are no Wraith, some of the things they long for sound really weird when they try to explain them to her), so she wants to see what it's like for herself, not through the eyes of others or the lens of a camera. Maybe she'll understand the strange parts of movies better if she goes exploring. And who knows; maybe she'll see somebody she knows.
She opens the door and steps out into the hall. All of the floors here are covered in some sort of fabric that isn't a rug because it reaches all the way to the walls. It's soft, but if they'd had it in Atlantis it would all have gotten stained really quickly, like most of the rugs. There are- were- too many accidents which escaped the labs for anybody to be delusional enough to think otherwise. She memorizes the number on the door as she closes it; she doesn't know her way around, and it should help her find her way back once she's done exploring.
To go anywhere on Earth you have to go outside and walk, like you're on the mainland or offworld or something; there aren't any transporters or jumpers here. Of course, she's explored the city even more than she was allowed (not that she ever went anywhere dangerous, or at least more dangerous than usual; Atlantis warned her about collapsed sections and various other dangers), and everybody had to go running regularly, as part of the mandatory combat training (nobody on Atlantis is was a civilian; they all knew they might have to fight for their home at any moment), so she doesn't think she'll have a problem, no matter how large this city is. Well, except for running out of time, but she has plenty of that; her dads are probably going to be in meetings until late.
She's a little bit hungry, and she knows there's food in the refrigerator that she should have eaten before she left, but she wants to try pizza, which the Earthborn have raved about universally. She tries to get directions, but she isn't on Atlantis, so there's no reply. There probably aren't any maps, either, since there aren't any transporters. She's going to ask somebody, and she'd known she'd have to break the "no talking to anybody" rule sooner or later, but she hadn't thought it would be this soon.
When she gets outside, the door closes loudly by itself, and she jumps at the unexpected thunk. There aren't any people out here to ask where to find a mess that serves pizza, so she starts walking towards where the tallest buildings are, because there's got to be a mess there, right?
The path here isn't dirt, like it is on the mainland; or any of the various materials Atlantis's floors are made of. It's more like rough stone, but how did they get so much of it and with such large sections? She knows from movies that people usually walk on the smaller sections on the sides of the path that are raised up higher than the rest, so that's where she walks. Every once in a while a car drives past on the other part.
It takes her a while to reach a more populated area of the city, and then she just wanders around for a while, marveling at the differences from Atlantis. There's writing everywhere here, none of it in Ancient and most of it in English, saying things she doesn't entirely understand although she understands most of the words used. Everybody's wearing bright clothes, with only a few wearing uniforms, and it feels like being on the mainland for one of the Athosian holidays, with everybody so bright and different from everybody else.
She stops a man wearing an unfamiliar uniform, hoping he isn't a hostile (there's always the possibility, even on allied worlds. She chose him because he doesn't look busy and it's easer to approach somebody in uniform, even if it's unfamiliar uniform) and asks him where she can find a mess hall serving pizza.
"A mess hall…?" he says, like he doesn't understand what she's saying. Perhaps they have a different term for it on Earth, at least outside of the SGC? She tries again.
"Everybody's always talking about pizza and I wanted to try it myself, but we don't have any at the apartment and I don't know where any mess halls are."
"Are you one of the military kids?" he asks.
She's never heard herself called that (most of the people she knows she's known her whole life, or theirs if they're younger), but John is in the Air Force. "Yes?" she says tentatively, not certain if the "military kids" have both of their parent in the military, or if she counts too because of just one.
"Where are your parents?"
"In a meeting."
"And they let you just wander around the city on your own?"
"Um, not exactly. But it isn't anything I haven't done-" belatedly she remembers that one of the biggest rules is "do not talk about Atlantis, period" and finishes with "…back home."
"Okay, tell you what. Why don't I give you a lift home and you can have your parents take you out for pizza later?" For a second, her heart rises with hope before she realizes he doesn't mean home to Atlantis, he means "home" to the apartment. But it's fairly obvious that she's not going to get the option of not going back there, so she nods and follows him to a car she recognizes as a police car. He opens the door on the right at the front for her and closes it once she gets in. When he gets in on the other side, he asks her where she lives.
"102," she says confidently, because there's no way she could have forgotten the number that quickly.
"102 what?" he asks after a pause.
"Apartment 102?" she tries, getting the feeling it's the wrong answer.
"What street is it on?" he asks.
"What do you mean?" she asks.
"Do you know the street name?"
"Streets have names?"
He chuckles. "Guess not. I'm going to take us to the police station, okay? We can get a hold of your parents from there."
She doesn't have a choice about the police station, apparently, so she saves her arguments for later.
***
"Another one?" a woman behind a desk asks.
"What do you mean, another one?" the police officer asks.
"Haven't you heard? There have been no fewer than five kids brought in because they were wandering around the city on their own. We have interrogation room 2 set up for them once you finish the paperwork, since they all seem to know each other."
"Thanks," he tells her, and leads Jeannie to a chair in front of a desk. He takes the one on the other side of the desk.
"I'm going to ask you some questions, okay?" he says. She wants to fidget and play with the stuff on his desk because it doesn't look Ancient or dangerous and she hasn't seen it before, but she knows better than to fidget with anything on anybody's desk, even if they aren't a scientist. "What's your name?"
"Jeannie Sheppard-McKay," She says, and spells it for him. He types slowly, only using his index fingers, and she wonders why he doesn't type right.
"Who are your parents?"
"Dr. Rodney McKay and Colonel John Sheppard." She's using their titles and full names because visitors from Earth always wanted to know that sooner or later, she supposes because they don't know John and Rodney personally and are lucky if they've even heard of them.
His eyebrows rise at something (maybe he knows of them for some reason?). She really wishes people would stop looking so surprised without telling her why because it's annoying.
"How can I get in touch with them? Do you have their phone numbers?"
"You can't call them now!" she exclaims. "They're in meetings and they're going to be there all day and you really don't want to interrupt."
"Why not? We're going to have to let them know eventually, and if we call them now you won't have to hang around here for as long."
She rolls her eyes. "Like that's motivation to call them. I've been in much more boring places. And you don't want to interrupt McKay for anything that isn't life or death, trust me."
The woman from the desk by the door stops next to the desk. "Don't bother," she says. "Another of them, a boy named Taro Zelenka, is also refusing to give contact information until his parents are done with work because of someone named McKay."
"Taro's here?" she asks with interest. She hasn't seen him in a couple of days, not since they all piled into cars by ones and twos and threes, except for the Athosians and their families who aren't allowed to leave the base.
"Sure, I'll take you to him. If you're done here?" she looks at the police officer.
"Just about," he tells her, and then asks Jeannie, "When can I call your parents?"
"I'd say 2200 to be safe, because even though they're usually still working then they don't mind when I call or stop by. But we just got here and all they have to do is meetings, so 1600's fine."
They're looking at her like they're shocked. "Your parents leave you alone until 10 pm usually?" the police officer asks in a choked voice, like it's weird, like the people he knows don't regularly work that late even though everybody does.
"No, there are usually people around but then we got here and I don't know where anybody I know is."
The woman takes her back to interrogation room 2, where Taro is, and they spend an awkward five minutes trying to talk, but they don't know what they're not supposed to talk about (they're going to learn that, at length, in the debriefing tomorrow) and they aren't left alone; there's another officer sitting in the corner watching them like they might run around and start turning on Ancient devices if he doesn't watch them closely, despite the fact that they know the potential consequences far too well to ever do that. He has what smells like coffee and it's kind of driving her insane that he isn't giving them any, or even offering, but she really doesn't want to leave a bad impression on the people who are already going to be telling her parents that she broke the rules, so she just tries to ignore it.
"239," she says, because there's no way they're not allowed to play prime/not prime, even if they aren't allowed to talk about anything because it's classified.
He smiles at her at the resumption of their usual boredom-breaking game, that they have to play at least once a year because of drills, when they're supposed to just sit there and not go anywhere and actually get the weapons they aren't allowed to touch except for when they're being taught, because the danger of the Wraith is even greater than the danger of them accidentally shooting somebody. Every year, they've been invaded at least once (although sometimes it's not by the Wraith), so nobody (not even the crew of the Daedalus or the people back on Earth) has any illusions that Atlantis shouldn't have drills. They play at random times when the city isn't being invaded, too, just because it's fun to do. "Prime. 767."
They play for a while (not the hours upon hours they do sometimes, but she doesn't know exactly how long) before the man with the coffee in the chair clears his throat. "You guys want something to drink? I can get you sodas."
"Coffee," she says, eagerly seconded by Taro. "What's soda? Can we have some of that too?"
"Are you sure you wouldn't rather just have the soda?" he asks. "The coffee here's kind of nasty."
"So?" she asks. "It can't be worse than the stuff some of the scientists make. As long as it's not decaf there's no problem."
"No decaf. Got it," he says, his eyes round. "Cream? Sugar?"
"Don't even think about putting anything in my coffee except for coffee." She knows that goes for Taro's too, but she doesn't say anything about it because he's edging for the door and looks like he understands it.
"I'll just go, uh. Get those," he says, and makes his escape.
"Think he's actually going to bring us some?" she asks.
"Why wouldn't he?" Taro asks, because somehow he's managed to avoid the insane adults who think there's some sort of age restriction on drinking coffee. She envies him, she really does.
"Earth people are weird," she says. "There was this lieutenant-colonel who didn't let me have any coffee until my parents told him it was okay. Took my cup away from me and everything."
"That's stupid," he says. "I hope it was just that guy, because if it isn't it's going to be forever until we can have any when our parents aren't there."
"Yeah, hopefully it was just him. I mean, the guy who was in here did say he was going to get us some."
"You realize he never actually said that?"
"He implied it, though."
"Implications aren't promises and you know it."
"I suppose you're right. But he looked like he was going to get coffee."
"He looked like he was terrified."
Now that it's been pointed out to her, she can see it. "But why? I mean, all we did was play prime/not prime."
"Beats me. Earth people are weird."
Eventually he returns. Objectively, he hasn't been gone for very long, but she isn't inclined to be charitable with her estimation of how long he's taking until she sees the cups he's carrying in some sort of a tray designed for carrying cups (which has to make carrying full cups easier than trying to keep a tray level enough that you don't spill while the drinks are sliding around) and smells coffee.
"Once you're done with the coffee," he says as they seize the cups he isn't hanging onto, "I brought some Sprite too if you want it."
"What's Sprite?" she asks, before Taro elbows her in the ribs. The police officer's eyebrows raise, and she thinks maybe Sprite is something common on Earth.
"We used to live someplace they don't have it," Taro covers for her slip smoothly, showing he'd paid more attention than her to the debriefing they'd been given before they'd been allowed off the base.
"Oh," he says, and his brows drop. Apparently he believes Taro. "It's a soda. I think you'll like it." She resists the urge to ask what a soda is because he says it like they should know, and even though questions were always encouraged on Atlantis, they're supposed to try to fit in here, which means not asking questions they would probably know the answers to if they'd lived on Earth their whole lives.
The coffee is gone all too soon, but he doesn't seem inclined to go get more coffee, so she asks if they can have the Sprite. Grinning, he sets two cans down on the table. They're closed and there isn't a can opener in sight, so she guesses there must be a way to open them built in, but it isn't immediately obvious enough that she can figure it out without so much as a hint. "How do you open it?" she asks after a moment of thought.
He looks startled, but then he takes the can and opens it for her while she watches how he does it. She can probably do it if she tries, now, unless he did something she didn't see. But she doesn't have to right now because the can's open and he's handing it to her. Cautiously, she takes a sip; she's drank a lot of disgusting things (some of the foods they'd traded for had been less than appetizing; she suspects there's a reason they hadn't had to trade much for them), but she'd rather keep those experiences to a minimum. It tastes strange, but in a good way. She drinks a little more.
Then she realizes she can't breathe and her head is starting to pound. The can slips from her hand and some back corner of her mind notes that she itches all over, but she's more concerned with not being able to breathe. Taro snaps for the police officer to get a doctor, and the only reason he doesn't run from the room is because this is Earth and the doors don't slide open on mental demand here. Taro's trying to get her to calm down even though that's kind of hard to do when you can't breathe. And then her vision darkens and her knees buckle and the last thing she hears is Taro cursing in Czech and Japanese.
***
She wakes to the all-too-familiar smell of the infirmary's disinfectants and an unfamiliar ceiling. She blinks a couple of times before she remembers that she isn't in the infirmary because they aren't on Atlantis anymore, they're on Earth. John's face comes into her field of vision and she realizes she isn't alone in the room. "Hey there," he says, his voice as calm as it always is. "You gave us a bit of a scare." His face doesn't hide his fear, even though it's starting to fade.
"Sorry," she says. "I don't know what happened. I was just drinking and then…"
"It's okay, you just inherited McKay's citrus allergy. You just have to be careful about what you eat and drink and you'll be okay."
"What's citrus?" she asks.
"There isn't any in the Pegasus galaxy as far as we know," he says. "Don't worry, we'll make sure you can recognize it. And you shouldn't be afraid to ask if there is any in the food you're given."
"'kay," she says.
A woman who's probably a nurse, even though she isn't wearing the uniform all the nurses on Atlantis had worn, appears at the door, Rodney behind her. "Jeannie," he says with relief at seeing her awake and recovered. Then he starts in the usual rant. "Why did you wander off when we told you not to? You could have died! You almost did die! This isn't A-" he cuts himself off. "Home. This isn't home, and you can't just do things like that! You could have gotten run over, or kidnapped, or killed. What were you thinking?"
"I was bored," she says, because she was terrified too, before she woke up and talked to John, but Rodney's always comforting to argue with, even when he's panicking. "You can't just leave me there with nothing to do and expect me to stay."
"I blame you," Rodney says to John. "You and your exploring of the city and your running every morning and dragging her into it too. You've set a bad example and it's no wonder she was wandering around alone and almost got herself killed. It must be in the genes."
"Hey!" John exclaims, and she expects him to say his usual 'they're your genes too, you know', but he just glares at Rodney instead.
"Um," the nurse says from the door, "Do you mind keeping it down? And we have some paperwork to be filled out."
"I'll handle it," John says, getting up out of the chair. "You two stay here and discuss your boredom." He smirks and leaves the room following the nurse.
"I thought Lorne did all of the paperwork?" Jeannie asks, confused.
"Oh, well, it's a different type of paperwork that Lorne can't do," Rodney replies. "It has to be filled out by one of your parents."
"I'm sorry you had to come," she says in a tiny voice around the ball of fear that's making her instincts scream for her to be silent, because usually when she's scared she's hiding from someone or something. "I know you were busy today."
"Hey, it's okay," he says. "Well, I mean, not okay because apparently you inherited my allergies, and why that machine doesn't have some way to prevent something like that I don't know, but it's okay in the sense that this is the kind of thing it's all right to call us about, because you almost died and we were just in meetings anyway, not messing with unstable ZedPMs or anything that really needs you to concentrate, and we certainly weren't offworld so you wouldn't have had a problem reaching us. Actually, you should have called when you got picked up by the police, or when you got lost, or- those meetings are torture, it would have been all right to call when you got bored enough to think of leaving the room and we would have at least sent somebody. Speaking of leaving the room, I thought we told you not to do that! Earth is different than what you're used to, even if you think you know it from watching movies."
"But the door opened. I mean, if it wasn't all right for me to leave the apartment it wouldn't have opened, right?"
"What? Why would you-" he stops suddenly. "Oh. Oh. Things don't work the same way here, honey; Earth doesn't have any automatic age restrictions like home does because it's all mechanical. Like on the mainland, remember?" She nods; the mainland is so different from Atlantis that it's difficult to forget even though she's never been allowed to go often, and even less since the Wraith destroyed all of the long-range sensors. "So you have to be more careful here because the city's not going to stop you from doing anything. Plus, you know, the usual problems with some things not being safe for anybody."
"Hey guys," John says, reappearing in the doorway. "You ready to go?"
She doesn't feel 100% herself again, but this isn't like the infirmary on Atlantis. She doesn't know anybody here and it's making her nervous; on Atlantis, you never relax around strangers, not if you have any choice in the matter (not that you always do), even if they're allies. So she nods and slips off of the bed and they leave together. She wants to cling close to them, but they unconsciously fall into the usual distance they walk from each other, close enough for comfort (and to be able to knock each other to the floor if they have to) and far enough apart that they're free to move separately and don't make just one target. She's in the middle as always. To truly complete their usual pattern, the rest of the team should be here, but they're not allowed to leave the SGC. Earth makes no sense; they're all Lanteans, so how come some people have to go offbase and some have to stay on it?
Outside (it's slightly odd to be outside in a city without being on a balcony or pier, but that oddness is drowned out by the oddness of the city itself; everything here seems to be grey but the plants, and there's no sense of connection with the city, nothing there when she reaches out with her mind) John and Rodney both pull keys out of their pockets, and then they're all looking at each other in what's almost confusion; more than one jumper at a time is only used when there isn't enough room in one, and apparently each of them drove a different car to the hospital. This is the first time they've had to deal with splitting up when they're going the same place (or at least the adults are; she isn't sure what's going to happen to her. They know her too well to think she'll stay in the apartment, and they don't want her to get lost again).
"Where's Taro?" she asks, because he'd been there when she'd collapsed and she hasn't seen him since.
"Oh, great, Taro escaped too?" Rodney says. "What is with you kids? Half of the scientists had to pick their kids up from the police stations, so I know it's not just the two of you."
"He didn't call you?" John asks, surprised. "He called me."
"Well, obviously, since I learned about it when you ran out of there. But, no, he didn't call me."
"He's probably scared of you," Jeannie says. "And the doctor would have let you know anyway, right?"
"Sure, if they had any idea who I am!" Rodney exclaims. "This isn't like home, the doctors here have no clue who you are or who I am or who Sheppard is, and they don't even have access to your medical records."
"I suppose he didn't call Zelenka either?" John says. "We should do that, because it's probably not a good idea to leave Taro at the police station. He might decide to try out his Pegasus galaxy pickup lines or something."
"Oh, god, I can imagine," Rodney moans, already pulling out his cell phone.
***
She rides back to the SGC with Rodney. They aren't allowed to get past the gate until one of the guards makes a call, and they have an escort to get down to the SGC proper, which she thinks is a bit weird because she'd been there yesterday and Rodney had been there earlier today, and neither of them had an escort then. She follows Rodney to a meeting room where John and Weir and people she doesn't know are.
"Is this bring your children to work day that I didn't know about?" one of the strangers asks.
"Yes!" Rodney snaps. "Because apparently none of you idiots considered that our kids have never been anywhere they weren't allowed to wander around at will, so that's what they've all been doing. In the city."
"You let children wander around alone in Atlantis? After everything I've heard about Atlantis…that's an incredibly irresponsible thing for you to do."
"Oh, please, like we didn't try to keep them confined at first? But first of all, all of Atlantis's positions are essential to some extent or another. We'd never be able to have anybody watch them in emergency situations, when it's most necessary. Also, all of them have the gene, because apparently the baby machine checks for that and not things like, oh, severe allergies? It's not like we could just lock them in a room. Plus, Atlantis is incredibly childproofed. You wouldn't believe the number of things that can't be turned on by children. Really, they were the safest people there."
"And you never told us about them?"
"We thought you would attempt to remove them and their parents from Atlantis," Weir says. "Were we wrong?"
"No, probably not, but-"
"Nobody wanted to leave," John says. "If push came to shove, maybe that 'declare independence from Earth' resolution would have finally passed."
"More like I'd have to stop ignoring the results of it," Weir admits.
"You lied to us?" Rodney exclaims. "Why?!"
"We needed Earth, and we especially needed them to not try to destroy Atlantis. The last thing we needed was to be even more overextended than we already were."
"And just how long has Atlantis been voting about seceding?" one of the strangers asks, as Rodney asks "How long has it been passing?"
"We've had the vote every year since we reestablished contact," Weir says. "It's passed by an increasing margin every year but the first one." This shocks everybody.
"Every year…?" the stranger echoes. "But why?"
"Why did we vote? I don't think you realize. Before contact was reestablished, every person on Atlantis expected it to be a one-way trip. Even after, for far too many people it was. And the SGC and the IOA kept threatening to pull back people and the entire expedition. It didn't exactly make for good feelings towards Earth, except for as where we'd come from."
"Dr. Weir? Isn't this the sort of thing we really shouldn't be sharing with the people we work for?" John asks. "I seem to remember that from those diplomacy lessons you gave everybody."
"Normally you'd be right," she says. "But you should really take a look at the reassignments before you think I'm the one ruining our futures." She indicates the papers in front of each of the chairs around the table, angry like Jeannie's only seen her a couple of times, because when the situation gets bad enough for her to be this angry everything's so bad that it's an emergency and Jeannie's hiding like she's supposed to.
"You're splitting everybody up," John accuses, skimming through it.
"And not just here at the SGC, on different teams," Rodney says. "They're all over the place, different states and countries and continents, especially the teams and the scientists, like they want to break up any relationships, even friendships."
"Ronon and Teyla aren't being allowed to stay on Earth, the two of you aren't allowed to leave, even on missions, because you're not assigned to SG teams, most of the couples are being placed in completely different countries from each other- I don't even want to know why they want the kids to have to choose between their parents- and apparently, they're not letting us argue for changes."
"What?"
"Either we accept the reassignments or we quit or we'll be fired."
"And the kids?" John asks. "If we quit, will the SGC still give them papers so they can stay on Earth with their parents?"
"What do you take us for, monsters?" the stranger asks.
They all stare at him. "Do you really want us to answer that?" Rodney asks.
He drops his eyes, looking a little bit ashamed. "Yes, we'll get papers as soon as we get their information. But surely you can't be planning to quit! Where will you go, what will you do?"
"Some of us have had our salaries accumulate for 20 years without using it," John points out. "I'm sure we can think of something."
"But you're all valued members of the SGC."
"Don't give us that crap. If we were valued you wouldn't be screwing us over."
"We're just a little overstaffed-"
"Are you going to need two weeks' notice, or can we leave as soon as Jeannie gets her papers? I mean, since you don't need the time to replace us…"
"We haven't even finished the debriefings yet!"
"Two weeks' notice it is. I'll get that typed up. Sheppard, Weir, can you see how many I need to have printed out? I'll probably have to go to a Kinko's, I don't think I'm allowed to print very much here and I'm sure pretty much everybody will want one."
"Of course, Dr. McKay," Weir says.
***
"Oh, God," Rodney moans. "I can't believe we got away with that."
"I don't think you can call it getting away with anything," John replies. "I mean, we quit. It's not like they could keep us there or anything."
"You're right! They couldn't keep us there, so we're good to go." He pauses. "But go where? I mean, we're here, and I don't really want to stay here, because, you know, memories, and even if most of them took place on Atlantis, Colorado Springs kind of reminds me of them. But I don't know anywhere else we could go, really. Unless you do?"
"I've heard you have a really great sister who might want to meet her niece."
"Oh, yes, of course, Jeannie. That's actually not a half-bad idea," Rodney concedes, then moans. "Except for how she's going to kill me for not telling her about our Jeannie."
"Well maybe you should call her and do a little damage control before we show up on her doorstep," John suggests. "Try to calm her down enough that she only maims you- I like you alive."
