Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 93

Chapter 93 - Morning Woes

Breaking off a yawn, Eventus accepted the cup of tea Doctor Baker was offering him while silently lamenting just how long it had taken to program in the necessary repair parameters.

“Surprised you turned down the coffee.” Baker said as he took a seat on the other side of the cafeteria table.

“I've always preferred boiled leaf juice to boiled bean juice.” Eventus admitted, adding a couple drops of honey to the drink before slowly stirring it in. “And it's not like there's a perceivable difference to the stimulant level given my people's more robust physiology.”

McKay had tried one of his people's stimulant drinks while they were traveling on the Enterprise and likened the resulting rush to a triple shot of espresso. Not exactly a drink Eventus had any experience with even before his rebirth, but even knowing it was coffee based he was curious enough that it had gotten a place on his list of drinks to someday try.

“So, you just waiting for the others before heading off?” Baker inquired idly.

Eventus glanced over to one of the other tables where Rayla was sleepily glaring at her cherry danish. The Elf having gotten the same two hours of sleep he had due to wanting to beat the computer at least once before going to sleep.

“Pretty much.” He admitted before shaking his head slightly in bemusement. “I'd make a joke about Daniel and Vala wearing themselves out last night, but I honestly have no idea what's going on with those two's relationship.”

Almost as if on cue, mostly because he'd timed his comment to the approaching voices, the pair in question walked through the cafeteria doorway.

“You were the one snuggling me, you know.” Vala retorted smugly.

“Not on purpose!” Daniel whined, mortification rolling off him strongly enough that a telepath a mile away would probably be able to pick it up. “I was asleep! And cold!”

“Yes.” Vala agreed with a grin. “I noticed from the way you kept trying to warm your feet on me.”

“Which I wouldn’t have done if you hadn't snuck into my bed in the first place.” Daniel countered with a huff as he walked over and grabbed a breakfast tray from the serving area.

“I told you, sometimes I get lonely.” Vala muttered petulantly, following Daniel's lead and grabbing a tray of her own.

Eventus held up a hand to wave the pair over, silently lamenting the fact that he didn’t have a bag of popcorn to munch on given how entertaining the two’s bickering could be from an outside perspective.

It was obvious from the way he stopped that Daniel saw the wave, however for some reason the Archeologist looked distinctly torn at the idea of joining them.

Luckily it seemed Vala had no such compunction as she slipped past the reluctant man and plopped herself down on the bench next to Eventus.

“So how’d you sleep?” She asked in a cheery tone.

“All right.” Eventus admitted, shooting his half empty mug a forlorn look. “The pull outs on the jumper are actually more comfortable than the beds at the SGC.”

Not for lack of trying on their part or anything, but the cushions on the jumper were made out of the same meta-materials as the beds on Atlantis, so it was a high bar.

“And you couldn't tell us that before?” Vala complained with a pout.

“He probably didn't want to deal with you sneaking into his bed.” Daniel groused, finally giving in and taking a seat across from Vala to start his breakfast. 

Waiting for the Archeologist to take a sip of juice, Eventus shot Vala an over the top flirty look. “Only if she buys me dinner first.”

Daniel choked, turning a glare on him as Vala broke out giggling. “Don't encourage her!”

Eventus shook his head in bemusement at just how continually tightly wound the Archeologist was turning out to be. 

“Why not?” He inquired, glancing over to Vala who was now finishing up a powder sugar coated donut. “Vala gets that I’m joking. You get that I’m joking. Doctor Baker gets that I’m joking. Even Rayla would probably get it.” He inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement of her current state. “If she hadn’t fallen asleep at the table.”

“Have not.” Rayla mumbled, lifting her head up slightly from where she was resting it on the table to glare sleepily at him. 

“Sure.” Eventus drawled, holding back a chuckle at the obvious lie. “Finish your breakfast, you can sleep on the spaceship.”

“But anyways.” He continued, focusing back on the now grumpily eating Archeologist. “I do have more for you this morning than perfectly timed jokes, Doctor Jackson.”

Daniel glanced back up from his breakfast as Rayla slowly began to eat her danish. “Oh?”

“Do you remember Supervisor Cyla Urbanus?” Eventus inquired.

The blank look Daniel gave him was answer enough, and the Lantean was about to expand further when he recalled the SGC files had called her something else.

“Or maybe you know her better as, Ayiana?” He added questioningly, and a look of understanding flashed across Daniel's face. 

“The Ancient they discovered near the Antarctic gate.” The Archeologist confirmed with a nod. “I was ascended at the time so I never got to meet her personally, but I read everything Jonas wrote about the encounter.”

“Well.” Eventus continued. “I found a copy of her personal journals buried in the outposts database.”

Tens of thousands of years of what had no doubt been a bright and interesting life that had culminated in a final hundred or so entries highlighting her loneliness at being the only one left. With of course the additional capstone of gnawing guilt from being the one who had killed all those who had remained by triggering Dakara. 

After reading those last entries, he hadn’t been even remotely surprised to find that the final entry had been nothing more than a heartfelt apology to souls that would come and a maudlin goodbye detailing how she was setting out on one last trek to throw herself into the unstable vortex of the Stargate.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a USB drive and slid it over to the body swapped man. “I downloaded a copy of it alongside what other scattered personnel records I could find into a human compatible format for you.”

“Would you believe he was able to just flip a switch and change the entire system over to English?” Baker interjected with an amazed shake of his head as Daniel almost gingerly picked up the USB drive and slid it into one of his jacket’s zip up pockets.

“It was more complex than just flipping a switch.” Eventus confessed, not seeing any point in making light of the actual difficulty. “The outpost didn’t have a translation matrix for your written language, so I basically had to use a combination of the neural interface and my own knowledge to construct one.”

“It won’t cover everything of course.” He warned so they wouldn’t be surprised when they inevitably ran into things that were still in Lantean. “But in those cases the system should know to reference you back to the original text.”

A sudden thought occurred to him, and he grinned over at the pair of doctors. “You know, you guys might want to ask Doctor McKay for an early copy of the new dictionary he's putting together. Because he's doing a pretty good job at creating english names for the various things and concepts your people don't have names for yet.”

Only some of which seemed to have been borrowed from various science fiction properties, which he didn't particularly begrudge the man for given in most cases the technobabble was a lot easier to pronounce then whatever word his people had used.

“And how many things did he name after himself?” Daniel snarked, showing a remarkable understanding of Rodney's character. 

Eventus couldn't help the chuckle that slipped out. “A few, but you don't have to use them. Though personally I'd give him Makaynium.”

Daniel stared at him for a moment before letting out an annoyed sigh. “I hate that that works.”

Reaching over the table, Vala playfully tapped the Archeologist’s hand with her spoon. “Eat your breakfast dear, we have a long day of flying through space ahead of us.”

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Author’s Notes: As much as I tried to think of other reasons for Cyla Urbanus ending up where she did, attempted suicide always seemed the most likely. So for this story she ended up freezing to death while going to dramatically throw herself into the unstable vortex of the Stargate. 

Meanwhile Vala continues to push all of Daniel’s buttons in the most amusing ways. But of course, that's the fun part.