Chapter Text
Epilogue
THREE MONTHS LATER
"Thank you for your time, sir."
"You're welcome, Colbert. I'm looking forward to the finished result," Captain Holmbeck said as Brad stood up. "And to making my Lieutenants study it. Have a good weekend."
"Sir." Brad drew himself up into attention and saluted. Alpha Company's commander was the most traditional officer in the city, and it still baffled Brad that he actively had to remember all the manners and obeisance that had been drilled into him. Apart from Captain Holmbeck, nobody stood on ceremony here, and he'd gotten out of the habits.
The Captain had given him a few useful additions for his Gate Warfare Tactics document, and he found himself looking forward to sitting down to incorporate them. The document was coming together, and the next step was to send it to Colonel Carter to look at. He was looking forward to that too, because the two times they had done that before she'd spent time going over the points with him, making suggestions and adding her expertise both in Gate tactics and in producing the kind of documents the SGC would take seriously, not just put on a shelf somewhere.
She'd even helped him get time with the people who were the hardest to pin down, scheduling him time with Holmbeck and Gunny Stackhouse.
General O'Neill had been another story. Brad's every email had gone unanswered until Colonel Carter had attached his written questions to her own email, and then the answers had been curt and uninformative. He'd figured that was that, but the Colonel had then, next time a few scientists went to Earth for a conference, written him a 36 hour pass and gotten him an hour of the General's time.
It had made him privately shake his head in disbelief - what officer, even a full-bird Colonel, could dictate her CO's time like that? What had she put into the equation to get him that time? And was he about to spend an hour trying to interview with an extremely disgruntled three star General? It took about five minutes with O'Neill to understand Colonel Carter's approach, because upon realising this was actually something he was interested in, the General had shoved his paperwork into a drawer and called in Teal'c and Colonel Mitchell. Then the four of them had spent the better part of an evening hashing out the tactics of some of SG1's more notable missions. There had been takeout food. it had been weird.
Then, though sheer luck of a control room tech overhearing him when he explained to Colonel Mitchell that the 24 hours leave that would be left in the morning weren't enough to visit his parents in California, he was informed that the Odyssey was beaming a scientist to San Diego for the day, and if that was workable for him they could send him along.
Which was how instead of shopping down the long, long list of snacks, movies and video games the guys wanted him to bring back, he experienced morning rush hour on a spaceship - and that was a whole other story - and managed to visit his parents. Who were obviously struggling not to ask how the hell he'd managed a day visit from his super secret overseas assignment, but were delighted to see him. He brought back his wetsuit, favourite board shorts and his surfboard - the expression of the Odyssey tech in charge of transport had been awesome. Then he'd gone to buy a few overpriced DVDs and games from a 24/7 shop near the Mountain and called it good.
Even Colonel Carter hadn't been able to pin down Colonel Sheppard, who was presumably under the impression that Brad wanted to sit in an office and review mission reports. The man had skilfully evaded every attempt to make an appointment, and Brad had more or less given up until Lt. Brittner had radioed Brad from the infirmary that he should come and bring a recorder.
It turned out that Sheppard and his team were stuck in the quarantine ward for a couple of hours pending the results of their blood analysis, and once Sheppard realised this did not in fact involve paperwork, he'd been glad of the distraction and both engaged and helpful. Brad had been relieved of the recording he'd made, because the rest of AR1 had joined in with the conversation, and information had come hard and fast with Teyla and Ronon contributing. Even after editing out Dr McKay's snarky comments he had plenty of interesting material.
He'd spoken with officers and NCOs and even Gate team civilians, who tended to have surprisingly observant insights into offworld problem situations, coming at things from a different direction. He'd discovered an entire field of verbal defensive strategies and de-escalation approaches that didn't fit into his report, but fascinated him nonetheless, and on the encouragement of Lt. Brittner he'd written down as much about it as he could anyway.
Asking her for help hadn't been easy. There was still a large part of him that hated showing that he needed help with anything, even something that he logically wasn't expected to be good at. Not to mention that he really, really hated owing people favours, but there was no getting away from that.
Last time he'd done any sort of writing that wasn't a report written precisely according to USMC defined standards had been in school. And even then, Military School wasn't exactly big on self-governed research work. He'd finally bit the bullet and broached the subject on one of those early morning missions where the Captain and Michel were hideously awake and chatty, and he and the LT were walking point just to get some distance from the godawful cheerfulness.
"Ma'am?" he'd said hesitantly, because sometimes comfortable silence was hard to break.
She'd given him a questioning sort of hum and a bleary glance, and he'd ploughed ahead.
"Colonel Carter has asked me to write something about gate warfare tactics."
She said nothing, but her gaze turned marginally more awake, and she nodded for him to continue.
"I... she said you write a lot of the training documentation we use. Would you.. I've never done this sort of thing before."
"Sure, I'll help you," she yawned, and he marvelled at how unexpectedly merciful she could be. Maybe it was the early hour making her mild. "I'll want something in return though."
Or not.
"Will you help me work on my offensive skills?"
* * *
His first impression of this project when Colonel Carter had volunteered him was that he'd compile something that would go onto the Atlantis wiki. But by the time that Lt. Brittner sat down with him to get the format more in line with official SGC reports, and Major Teldy closed her email with 'I'm looking forward to using this in my training program' he began to realise he was in for something a lot bigger. Thankfully he was already two-thirds in and it was too late to get intimidated.
* * *
...1900 hours, and here is your Ray-Ray with the community announcements! All right, listen up you lot, tomorrow there will be an expedition to gather wood for the furniture building project. If you would like to see more or those awesome seats Gunny Wynn is building and you're free tomorrow - oh, and if you can be trusted not to act like a retard when you're handed something sharp - then report your ass to the jumper bay at 1100 hours.
In other news, our Airforce Overlords would like to remind us all that this coming Wednesday is Intergalactic Scrubdown Day - it's not like this doesn't happen every month or anything like that, but apparently it tends to take some civilia--I mean people, by surprise. So now you know: Wednesday, Scrubdown Day. Report to whoever is in charge of you to find out what you're supposed to be scrubbing down - it ain't hard homes, even Marines can do this shit.
And lastly, anybody who is signed up to spend their day off on PX4-362, also known as 'the planet with the really kickass beach,' should report to the Gateroom at 0900 hours tomorrow, so you better not party too late tonight, because if you miss the dial-out, tough luck!. Right, that's it for community announcement shit, homes, welcome back to hour two of the first ever Ray Person's Space Radio! You haven't gone anywhere, I haven't gone anywhere, so I don't even know why I say welcome back, but nevermind homes and homettes, let's go straight into some kickass music!
(start playlist 'Ray Person's Space Radio')
"So he hasn't been kicked off yet?" Brad asked rhetorically. He'd stopped inside the doorway to listen to the radio, which was turned up inside Michèl's quarters.
Ray had gotten wind of Radio Atlantis during his month at the SGC and gone to see Kay almost immediately after he'd arrived in the city. She had told him that she would let him on the radio after he'd lived and worked in the city for six weeks - he needed to get to know his audience, after all. Between searching for the missing Athosians, Replicator emergencies and fucking hive ships, it had become three months. Brad still thought it had been a sound decision, because the Ray he remembered from Iraq would have thrown in a hell of a lot more profanity.
"I think he's scuffed the line a little," Darren grinned.
"More than a little," Mike said gruffly. From what Brad had picked up they were talking about how Mike's try-out period on AR6 was going. Staff Sergeant Wenckworth would be around for another month, so they were doubling up for a few trade missions to get a feel for if Mike would fit with the team and the missions. From the sounds of it, he was still struggling with the idea of having civilians on his team.
"He likes Kay," Nate said from where he was talking to Laura about the trebuchet project he was helping on. "It's hard to rebel against somebody whose only rule for letting you on the radio is 'don't be an idiot'."
The second song started, and Laura inhaled her beer. Nate patted her on the back, first carefully, then more effectively.
"Is he trolling the scientists? He is trolling the scientists," she laughed, still coughing. "Pluto is a planet? Doctor McKay must be frothing at the mouth."
Several voices sang along with the song from the kitchen, and Brad grinned, leaving people to their conversations to check it out.
Tony's voice drifted out of the kitchen along with the singing, holding court on something to do with intergalactic imperialism. Apparently he'd met more than his match in Michèl Fournier, though they didn't actually seem to be disagreeing much. Brad had heard Michèl mention the expedition's Ethics Committee and thought Tony was probably headed for a recruitment similar to his own, but he wasn't going to warn the guy. It'd be good for Tony to have some people who could keep up and argue back.
Brad stuck his head around the door to find they'd dragged a table and chairs in there. Tony was at the stove stirring a big pan of something fragrant, shoulder to shoulder with Michèl, who was looking through his spice cupboard and holding up open spice jars for Tony to smell. Brad was pretty sure Michèl had borrowed a 10-litre pan from the mess kitchen for the occasion.
Tim Bryan was at the table, pounding dough and interjecting the occasional comment about if the expedition was justified in interfering in the culture of other societies. There were two of the huge mushrooms that grew on Barliti in front of Christopher, who was cleaning and cutting, and Garza was chopping up a stack of vegetables with deep concentration. Lee was in the corner, whisking something in a bowl with a meditative sort of expression while she listened to the discussion and the radio.
He'd intended to be there when AR7 invaded Friday evening dinner, but Captain Holmbeck had thought that Friday at 1800 hours had been the right moment for his interview about gate warfare, and Brad had been happy enough to pin the man down at all. That's how it had happened that they were all already there when he arrived. He knew that almost everybody had at least interacted at some stage over the three months that had passed since Nate and the guys had arrived, but still, the guys in full force could be a little... overwhelming. Darren, Michèl and Laura could handle it, but he'd half wondered if Lee would get as clammed up around the guys as she used to be around him. He was glad to see her looking fairly at ease.
Oh shit homes, do you know that feeling when you need to sneeze but you can't? Ray's voice broke in as a song ended. He sounded a little nasal. Why doesn't that have a name? Hey I know, we're gonna call it blue sinus balls from now on. Right. I should probably stop talking now, so here's Bambee, for all of you who are secretly still a 13 year old girl
Brad snorted as the music started.
"Is he wearing his radio? Can we call him to bitch about his music choice?"
"Hey man, get your viking ass over here and chop some of those vegetables," Tony spotted him.
"Do I look like a rabbit?"
"No, but you're gonna look like an idiot when your ass gets scurvy," Tony shot back, tasting something from a spoon and making a surprised little hum of pleasure.
"I'm not gonna get scurvy. Doc, you tell him."
"It's a possibility," Bryan said dryly, shaping the dough into balls.
"You hear that? Sit down and help out, dawg."
"I want a second opinion. Lee, am I gonna get scurvy?"
"Brad," she informed him seriously, "it is my considered medical opinion that you'll absolutely die of scurvy unless you sit down and chop some vegetables within the next five minutes."
The guys snorted.
"Ya got told, dawg."
"Way with the fuckin' bedside manner," he huffed, sitting down and picking up a knife. It wasn't like he hadn't been about to offer help, but this felt good, the banter. His two teams mixing. Like something slotting into place.
"I'm just concerned about your health," she said, eyes huge and wounded. It was that expression that never failed to twang his subconscious protective instincts even when he knew she was messing around. "Anyway, what am I, a nurse?" she waved her whisk dismissively. A blob of whatever it was in the bowl landed on Garza's face. "Oops. Sorry"
"'s nice," Garza scraped it off his face and licked his finger.
"In the field you get your ass patched together. In the infirmary you get bedside manners," Bryan put the dough balls on a tray and put them into the oven. He shared a look with Lee, and Brad remembered Bryan dealing with a hundred ailments in his trademark brisk manner - if he'd been too nice about it, he would never have managed any sleep. In theatre, everybody wanted some personal attention to feel human, and the medic was the obvious place to get it.
Now he thought about it, he and every other Marine he knew instinctively understood that the seriousness of the situation was inversely proportional to the amount of shit you got from the doc. If he bitched you out, that pretty much meant it wasn't too bad. You didn't get worried until he went all comforting. He'd seen Lee do the same - she'd snapped at a sergeant with a twisted ankle that he should sit down and stop bitching until she got to him, but on a recovery mission after a Wraith attack she'd sat with the panicked, crying suddenly-geriatric Marine, and had held his hand until he'd fallen into a sedative induced sleep.
They've brought the guy home to the infirmary, where he'd lived for another two days. Mostly he'd slept, with occasional moments of clarity in which he'd dictated letters to his family and awkwardly said goodbye to his platoon mates and friends. Brad still wasn't sure if it wasn't better to just be dead instantly.
"And if you set your pubes on fire because you're bored, you get a tube of salve and a 'get the fuck out of my sight'," Lee said, deadpan. Christopher made a little choking sound.
"Have you two been sharing stories?" Brad asked the two medics.
"That one is surprisingly universal," she said brightly. "Apparently bored Marines share some common harebrained trails of thought, because of the twelve field medics we have, only Doc Usipaaki hasn't encountered that one."
"Apparently Finnish Marines do different idiotic shit when they get bored," Bryan supplied. He held up a chocolate bar for Lee to see, and she nodded, so he broke it into pieces to melt it.
"Like seeing who can hold their extremities into snow or ice water the longest," Lee said dryly.
Brad wondered at 'extremities' instead of 'limbs' and--oh. Right. Ouch.
The conversation turned to other insane things Marines did while bored, though of course they'd only ever heard of other Marines doing these things, they themselves were far too sensible. Or at least, too sensible to admit to doing crazy shit with two medics in the room.
Bryan had come over with the molten chocolate, evading Brad and Garza's attempts to swipe a finger through the bowl, and leaned in over Lee's shoulder to very slowly add it to whatever it was she was making. Brad watched him, still a little amazed at how being here had changed all of them. He'd always known Tim Bryan as a man with the inheld fury of somebody who wanted to believe in the good of humanity and hadn't quite resigned himself to being perpetually disappointed.
Lately he seemed to be smiling more, move looser, speak easier. It had to be that he was no longer surfing the tsunami of shit that Iraq had been from a corpsman's point of view. After spending four months travelling the galaxy with a field medic of his own, Brad had more appreciation for just how hard Iraq must have been for Bryan. Atlantis, with its shockingly competent command and missions where he was actually allowed to help people, had clearly done wonders for his morale. Brad thought that having been adopted by the field medics crew had also helped - Tim had been the first of the guys to make social connections outside of the team. It was still strange to think that Brad's LT was one of them.
So this one time way back, my band opened for Limp Bizkit. Man, we sucked. But then again, so did they. Only difference is that they became famous and I joined the Marines, then went to another galaxy to kick space vampire ass and make radio. I don't know about you, homes, but I think I got out ahead of the deal there. Oh hey, there's somebody standing on the other side of the radio booth!
There was a muffled sort of thumping sound, and Ray's laughter.
Man, you look a little irate. Was it something I said? What's that? Sorry, can't hear you, this place is soundproofed. Ohhh, let's do charades! Five words, first word is... hey, mouthing the word is cheating, man. Pluto? Pluto. Second word, small word.. two fingers.. is? Is. Pluto is... kill? slice neck? flatline? negative? Not? Pluto is NOT a planet? Ya know homes, I think that's pretty damn insensitive, that just because it's kinda small and doesn't get all dominant about its environment and shit, you call it a dwarf. Harsh, man. Plus, kinda politically insensitive. Can't we go with 'little planet' or something?
From the living room, the sound of Laura's hysterical laughter could be heard. The conversation in the kitchen had come to a halt, everybody listening in horrified fascination.
Oh, really, you insult my intelligence? Seriously, you just declared yourself smarter than a Marine corporal? Homes, they make us hand in our brain cells along with our taste buds before they'll even let us off the bus on the first day of bootcamp. There's yeast cultures in the homebrew lab smarter than me. Declaring yourself smarter than me isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of your own intelligence.
Brad snorted. Anybody willing to spend more than an hour with Ray Person - granted, when he wasn't hopped up on Ripped Fuel and adrenaline and 40 hours without sleep - knew that Ray was far from stupid. What almost nobody knew, because it was the kind of secret that Ray guarded with great care and tons of distracting bullshit, was that he had a full ride to Northwestern's engineering program waiting for him when he got out of the Marines.
What not even Ray knew, because Brad only knew because he'd happen to overhear in a conversation between his Captain and Major Lorne, was that Dr Zelenka had suggested Ray for an apprenticeship. Which might actually mean that Atlantis could be interested in having him back when he got that degree.
....Are you okay? You look a little red in the face. Anyway, that song was released in 1998... Seriously, should I ask for a medic to come down? Oh, you don't need a medic? Let me play you a nice soothing song then, here's -- oh, hello Colonel sir.
Everybody burst into laughter when Ray's voice lost its taunting tone at those last words, though there was still an undercurrent of glee, because there was nothing Ray liked as much as a reaction, and this was about as big a reaction as you could get.
You've come to collect your friend? Wonderful, I was beginning to get a little concerned about him.
And then, because Ray absolutely did not know how to stop when he was ahead...
Is there anything you'd like to say to our listeners?
They heard the click of a door opening and the sudden low-level background sounds of Maker Street. There was an outraged huff which Brad assumed was Dr McKay realising he'd just been baited into playing charades for no reason, and then Colonel Sheppard's laconic drawl.
Yeah, I think 'sinus blue balls' is a crap name, Person. I think we should go with 'snjet'.
Then, more faintly and moving away from the microphone:
Come on Rodney, Ronon will have finished your plate if you don't get back soon.
They heard footsteps moving away, then the door again and apparently Ray was back in the booth.
Homes, I've just been out-cooled by our pointy-haired Airforce Overlord. Let's listen to some music while I recover my ego, okay? I'm reliably informed that this one should be a crowd-pleaser, so here is Komputer with Valentina - dedicated to all the ladies out here, from Ray-Ray.
Brad was amused to see Lee recognise to the song and smile. Apparently Ray was right about the crowd pleasing part.
"Man, I'm not sure if I want to claim him as team or pretend I don't know who he is", Garza said finally.
"Do you remember the time he got half the platoon to act like lemmings and run off a cliff into the lake?"
"If you think that's weird, you obviously weren't there in Afghanistan when he convinced a whole bunch of people that standing outside in a sandstorm was good for your skin."
"I feel so normal now," Christopher laughed, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Dawg, you travelled through a wormhole to another galaxy, you're on a floating city which is also a spaceship, and it talks to you. You ain't never gonna be normal."
* * *
Right homes, I gotta run now, or my teammates are gonna eat all the food and I'll be all sad and hungry and forced to beg for scraps or MREs and shit.
Brad picked up the last of the chairs and watched Mike and Garza angle a large table through the door of Michèl's quarters. Laura and Christopher carried the other four chairs they'd borrowed from Dr Zelenka across the hall. The two teams together made for a full house, twelve people strong, but it was a good sort of busy. The tables were set at top speed, and then everybody milled around, impatiently commenting on Ray's closing of his radio show. It was 1955hrs, so he hadn't run late quite yet, but they'd been sitting in the mouthwatering scents of fresh bread and alien curry for long enough that there wasn't much patience.
I should be back next--oh, hello LT, wanna be on the radio?
Brad frowned and whipped his head around to see Nate standing on the balcony, hand pressed to his ear.
--let you know that we've just barely managed to wait with eating until now, so you should probably hurry.
Nate sounded amused, and Ray laughed.
Solid copy sir! All right, Ray Person's Space Radio signing off, have a good evening, don't do anything I wouldn't do, lah lah, blah blah, have some more David Bowie
Ray's already fast speaking pace sped up toward the end and it sounded like he was grabbing his stuff together. They could hear the sound of a headset getting thrown down and everybody laughed as 'Life on Mars' came on with an audible click.
Michèl and Tony brought in the food, and people settled around the tables. Brad was amused to see how they naturally found places according to volume and liveliness. Loud and animated on one end of the long table - Darren was telling Tony, Laura and Garza about the flying pigs-like animals AR4 had encountered on one of their last missions. They'd kept a chair free for Ray.
Calmer on the other end, with Mike talking to Michèl about being a civilian on a Gate team, and Christopher listening with interest. Next to Christopher, Bryan and Lee were discussing breakfall technique and the plan for her to give a few guest sessions at the start of BJJ class. Aikido was the only civilian-dominated martial art in the city, and with its non-competitive and sometimes theatrical style got little respect from Marines, but there was no denying it taught you really excellent ukemi. He'd seen her roll out of throws and falls that should have broken bones, and everybody could stand to learn a little more of that.
On Brad's other side was Nate, looking around the table with the sort of quiet contentment that he'd never thought to see from the man. Nate was at home here too, and Brad hadn't known how much he'd hoped for that until he saw it was true.
"Hey Brad," Nate said, noticing his look. He smiled. "Seen any penguins yet?"
Just then the door slid open to admit Ray, who looked like he'd been running full-tilt across the city.
"Have no fear! Ray-Ray is here!" he crowed, spotting the open chair and dropping down in it as Tony and Michèl sent the pan of alien curry and the bread basket around the table.
"No penguins," Brad said when he'd filled his plate and sniffed appreciatively. He looked around the table, at smiling faces and clattering of cutlery and Garza juggling a bread roll while chanting 'hot-hot-hot'. At some of the best people in this galaxy and the next. "But plenty of other good stuff."
THE END