![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tielan posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
sga_flashficTITLE: Genes In A Twist - Part One
AUTHOR:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tielan
SUMMARY: Sheppard's team encounter a few difficulties while off world. It's a brand new day in Atlantis.With no mistakes in it. Yet.
CATEGORY: Gen, humour, genderbender.
RATING: PG-13
Has been reposted with more story due to sizing and posting issues with LJ.
Thanks,dzurlady and madjm for the beta!
Genes In A Twist - Part One
Colonel Sheppard's team were four hours overdue returning from their planet.
Nothing unusual there, but as the wormhole established, Elizabeth felt a small ray of hope that this might be them. John and his team managed to get into so much trouble - a corollary of having four very remarkable individuals in the one place at the one time.
Right now, there was no other Atlantis team off-world except John's. They'd set out yesterday to look at a set of ruins within walking distance of the Stargate. From what the initial survey had found, the ruins were uninhabited and the structures seemed sound enough to go into. Rodney had promptly demanded they be allowed to go.
The blue glow of the event horizon flickered through the room, and she glanced at Sergeant Miller. The young Canadian tech looked back with a slight shrug. "No IDC, no-- Wait." He began typing. "We're getting a radio signal--"
"Atlantis?"
Elizabeth looked at Miller, who was also getting the signal. The voice wasn't anyone she recognised - a woman's voice, but not Teyla's.
"Atlantis come in. Elizabeth... Elizabeth Weir? Look, I know you're hearing this." Someone muttered something in the background. Then, softer, as though the woman had taken her mouth away from the radio, "Oh, they can hear us. Trust me on this. They're just not responding."
Astonished at the identification and the exchange, Elizabeth answered. "This is Dr. Weir."
"Elizabeth!" The strange woman's voice got louder again. "Look, we've got Teyla unconscious here, possibly injured. We need you to send the Doc out here right away."
Teyla unconscious, probably injured - and nothing about the three men who'd left with her yesterday. Elizabeth was instantly suspicious. "I'm sorry, who is this? Where are Colonel Sheppard, Dr. McKay and Ronon Dex?"
"This is--" A pause. "A friend." There was a muttered conference in the background. "And Teyla's the only one we've found." There was another pause, this time without the conference. When the woman came back on, she sounded slightly desperate. "Look, get Beckett here. You can add a group of marines if you like - Lorne by preference. But you have to get someone out here. We're--" The pauses were becoming annoying. "Look," the woman said with pointed forcefulness, "just send the damned doc out!"
On the other end of the transmission, Elizabeth was becoming freaked, too. The woman seemed to know entirely too much about Atlantis, and the planet hadn't shown any signs of occupation when the MALP went through.
A million scenarios ran through her head, from a Wraith attack that the men hadn't been able to escape to an underground culture like the Gennii, to an unexpected ambush, to... well, anything. John really did know how to find trouble like no-one else.
Still, Elizabeth hesitated only a moment. Teyla was injured and might need Carson's help, everything else - even working out what happened to the guys - was secondary to that.
"You do understand that I won't be authorising anything I think might endanger my people?"
"I wouldn't expect anything less," came the terse answer. "Just get them out here so they can fix this!"
Elizabeth had misgivings - dozens of them. She could manage them - as the leader of Atlantis, she had to. "We'll close the gate and dial out to you. Atlantis, out."
"S-- Okay. Out."
The wormhole shut down and she turned to Sergeant Miller who interrupted her neatly. "I've got Dr. Beckett on his way to the gateroom with emergency supplies. Major Lorne and his team are just gearing up, now."
Problem solvers. There were days when Elizabeth loved living in a city full of people who were instinctive problem solvers - they got things done.
"Thank you, Sergeant," she smiled briefly. "Please also call the probe techs to get one of the basic probes geared up for going through the Stargate. I'm not going to send anyone through without first being sure it's safe first." Whatever had gotten to John, Rodney, Ronon, and Teyla might still be around - and while she hated to be suspicious of the very concerned stranger, she had to be. More lives than just Teyla's rested on Elizabeth's shoulders.
"Dr. Weir?"
"Sergeant?"
"Wasn't the planet Colonel Sheppard's team went to uninhabited?"
She nodded, although her thoughts were elsewhere. The strange woman had known a lot about Atlantis - too much for a mere stranger - from Carson's name to the most likely officer to be sent off-world.
A roiling feeling began in the pit of her stomach. Something wasn't right.
"Elizabeth?" Carson crossed the control room, a medical carry-kit in his hand. "Teyla's injured?"
"That's the report we have," Elizabeth calmed herself and signalled for Miller to dial the gate.
Down on the gateroom floor, the probe was being readied by a couple of industrious techs. Lorne and his team strolled in a few minutes later. Lorne climbed the steps up to the control room, adjusting his earpiece.
"Ma'am. Colonel Sheppard in trouble again?"
She gave him a severe look for that bit of levity. "I hope not," she said. "We have Teyla injured on the planet and apparently no sign of the Colonel and the rest of his team. I'll be sending you in advance of Dr. Beckett - keep an eye out for trouble, and get them back here as soon as possible."
Even as she spoke, the probe was being trundled through the Stargate, and they turned their gazes to the screen where the signal was coming back.
There were three people visible on the screen - three women dressed in plain shifts cinched in at the waist by a leather-like belt, and wearing soft boots on their feet. Not anyone we've met before, Elizabeth thought. The style of dress were unfamiliar to her - and all three looked very uncomfortable as they stood with their hands away from their bodies trying to look harmless. The tall one wasn't succeeding very well - it was something about the way she held herself, tense and proud.
Teyla lay at the feet of the closest one, on her side in the recovery position, clearly unconscious. She seemed unhurt, although Carson leaned forwards, peering closer to try to determine her state.
The probe eye swivelled to check out the surrounding field. Nothing and no-one, just the three women and Teyla.
"See, we're not hiding anything," said the closest woman aggressively, taking a step towards the probe. "Send the Doc through!"
Carson started down the stairs without waiting for Elizabeth's permission. She nodded at the major who hurried down after the medic. Lorne and his men would precede Carson, make sure that the area was clear before giving the okay. Even the probe could miss things.
She watched on the screen as the Major and his team fanned out from the gate, their hands resting on their weapons.
"Nice to see you got here," came the familiar voice, slightly acid. "Where's Beckett?"
Carson walked through the Stargate at that moment, followed by one of his aides. As he appeared on the other side, Lorne spoke into his mouthpiece. "We'll report back in ten minutes, ma'am."
"Thank you, Major. Atlantis out."
The wormhole shut down.
In the next ten minutes, Elizabeth went into her office, typed up a quick report on the incident, and pondered what could have possibly happened to the three missing men. Between the three of them, they had more than enough resources to get out of most situations - with Teyla, the four of them were nigh-unstoppable; at least one reason why Elizabeth kept allowing them to put themselves in danger.
Sometimes, Elizabeth wanted to call up old General Hammond and tell him she knew exactly how he'd felt while supervising SG-1. Hopefully she wouldn't be bald by the time she was sixty, though.
The gate began dialling as she finished off the mini-report - nothing more than a notification, although given the absences of the Colonel, Rodney, and Ronon, she expected the final report to be considerably longer.
"Sergeant?"
"Atlantis, this is Major Lorne." There was a suspicious ebullience to Lorne's voice. In the background, she could hear someone muttering beneath his or her breath. Elizabeth turned to Sergeant Miller and mouthed 'Visuals?'
The visuals came up on the screen - Major Lorne standing, talking into his microphone, his team-mates a bit behind him, not-quite talking to the three women who were standing in a defensive cluster behind them. She could just see the edge of Carson's head as he tended to Teyla.
"Major? Report, please."
"Well, the Doc says there's nothing wrong with Teyla that he can find, but the three...uh...women are a little more difficult." Lorne glanced at the women, a smile playing on his lips. In the background, the shortest of the three women scowled.
A little more difficult? Elizabeth tried to work out what that might mean and came up blank. "Major?"
"The Doc wants to bring Teyla back through, and he thinks it's best that you talk to these...uh...women yourself."
There was a snigger somewhere in the background, then a cough. Lorne's face straightened, but he looked like he very badly wanted to laugh.
"Major?" She was beginning to get really worried by this. First the men of Colonel Sheppard's team vanished, leaving only Teyla, now Major Lorne was acting strange. "Are you sure everything's okay?"
"Ma'am, they are no danger to the city. I promise you that."
A muttered comment from behind him made him convulse, biting his lip to keep from laughing.
If she'd been worried before, she was becoming very worried now.
Unconvinced, Elizabeth went for more information. "Put Carson on."
Carson took up a radio. "They're fine, Elizabeth. Teyla's unconscious, but I don't think it's dangerous yet. There's no sign of brain trauma, but I'd like to get her back to Atlantis and run an MRI and a CAT scan on her, just in case."
"And the women?"
Again, she saw the glimmer of mirth in Carson's expression, although he contained it better than the major. "They're safe. I'm going to need to run some tests on them, too."
She wanted to ask who they were, but that might be overheard and construed as impolite. And those women might be their only chance of finding out where the missing three men were.
"And there's no sign of Colonel Sheppard, Rodney, or Ronon?"
"Oh, there are signs," Carson said with a twinkle in his eye, "but the Major's right. They aren't dangerous to the city, and they'll need to come to Atlantis to get it all sorted out."
She trusted Carson's estimation - even if that twinkle was worrying. "All right," Elizabeth said. "Bring them through now."
On the screen, she watched as the stretcher carrying Teyla was lifted to be taken through the open Stargate behind the probe. The three women followed, ushered in by Lorne and Lorne's team, and she headed down to the gateroom, to meet the group.
"Ladies, welcome to Atlantis..." Elizabeth began.
Lieutenant Mayhew choked on his laughter, and the shortest of the three women turned a sour, blue gaze on him.
"I think this can wait until we're in one of the private conference rooms," said the foremost woman, her expression set in the grim lines of someone who knew the joke was on them. And without a further word, she began up the stairs towards the main debriefing room.
Elizabeth later said she had a glimmer of comprehension right then, especially when the second woman - the tallest, with strong features, no more than thirty - followed the first, shooting Elizabeth an inscrutable look as she passed. She turned to the third one, who wore an expression of petulance on what had probably once been a fine-boned face before time and age softened the features. "We are never going to live this down, you know." The woman stumped off after the first two, her gait...odd.
"Major? Do you want to explain this?" Elizabeth was beginning to get very worried.
Lorne looked a little more serious now. "I think you'd better hear it from them, ma'am."
She walked into the room and paused before her seat. The three women were already seated, and as Carson came in behind Lorne's team, the leader pointed at the door controls. Carson touched it and the room sealed.
The third woman spoke almost as soon as the room was closed. "Before anyone says anything, I would like to emphasise that this is not my fault! I'm not the one who walked into the room and made everything light up!" She glared at the black-haired leader.
"And who was it who said, 'I'm sure it's okay to fiddle around with!'"
"It usually is! They're the Ancients - they don't make machines that...that do this sort of thing!"
"Well, evidently they do, because we weren't like this last night."
Oh. My. God.
"Enough!" Elizabeth cried into the conversation, overriding both women.
All eyes were on her as she looked at the three women, starting with the brown-haired woman whose long hair was tied back in dreadlocks and finishing with the hazel-eyed leader whose expression Elizabeth was used to seeing on a considerably more masculine face.
This is not happening. No, really, it's not. It can't be, because it's impossible.
Sooner or later, Elizabeth thought, she was going to have to redefine the term 'impossible' - here in Pegasus, it never seemed to mean what it had meant on Earth.
"John?"
"Johanna," retorted the shortest of the three women. She had far more hair than Elizabeth had ever seen on Rodney - although it was still thinning. The personality seemed to be the same, though.
"Shut up, Rhonda," snapped 'Johanna'. "Yes. It's us."
She felt for the edge of the table, lowered herself carefully into a chair. This was...scary. And weird. She glanced at them, then at the still-amused major and his team, then at Carson who looked like he was in deadly earnest. "Prove it."
The leader glared at her - a surprisingly direct glare. That in itself almost convinced her. Women were more tuned in to their emotions, but less direct at expressing them, particularly the negative ones. Then she - he? - huffed, eyes narrowed. "Thalen once told Phoebus exactly what he'd do to her if he had her at his mercy. It's one of the reasons why she hated him so much."
Elizabeth stiffened, eyes widening. Yes, she remembered that memory, distant and fading, not actually her own, but Phoebus' mockery of Thalen's leering comment had been in the kiss she planted on her hated enemy - and on Elizabeth's friend and colleague.
But that recollection was disturbing. She turned to the second 'woman'. "Rodney?"
He clicked his fingers several times, trying to think of something. "When Kolya had us during he storm, we were sitting out on the balcony trying to conserve body heat. You called me gentlemanly." It was more than a little eerie to see Rodney's smug expression on a woman's face, but it convinced Elizabeth.
That was a better memory, even through the long, cold, uncertain hours as they waited for news of John to come back. Her lips curved in a brief smile remembering the arm Rodney offered her. "You were," she answered, trying not to be disconcerted by the entirely feminine face looking back at her, "Then."
Ronon didn't wait for her to say his name. S/he smirked, knowingly. "Whipped cream and the preserves jar."
Everyone in the room did a double take at that, and Elizabeth fixed Ronon with a brief glare before she met the wide eyes of the other men - er...people - in the room. "It was a conversation," she said, her tone of voice warning them that they'd better not jump to the wrong conclusions, even if her complexion wasn't going to play ball.
Carson sat back, and Lorne's expression turned neutral, but the black-haired woman - it was definitely John's hair, anyway - arched a brow at Ronon, who shrugged, then winced, then kept smirking.
Elizabeth took a deep breath. They were who they were - at least in mind.
In body...
"You're..."
"Women, yes," said Rodney briskly. "Look, after we got through the gate yesterday, we went straight for the ruins and found an old man camping out there."
"A hobo," John added. "He was half-mad, rambling about crazy stuff."
"We tried getting some sense out of him, but..." Rodney shrugged.
"We wandered around the ruins, Rodney poked things." John shot a venomous glare at Rodney. At least some things hadn't changed. "There was a flash of light and when we woke up..."
"When we woke up, we were women," said Ronon. 'His' voice was disconcertingly alto, although it retained some aspects of the resonant quality of his masculine voice, it was definitely a woman's voice. Elizabeth glanced at him and was caught by the wry humour in the tanned features. Of the three once-men, it looked like Ronon was the most philosophical about it - at least for the moment. It was...weird, to say the least.
"In that clothing."
He shrugged.
Elizabeth looked at the others. "But Teyla was still...Teyla?"
"Well, of course she is," said the woman who'd once been Rodney. "She's always been a woman!"
It was definitely Rodney. Nobody else could try her patience like this.
"I was suggesting that since you were changed into women, maybe Teyla was changed into a man."
The three not-women exchanged glances and shrugged as they turned back to Elizabeth. "She looked the same," Ronon said.
"We didn't check," John said, dry as any humorist.
Elizabeth nodded. The infirmary nurses would have contacted them if there'd been any issues with Teyla. Still, she looked at the erstwhile women sitting at the table before her and concluded that there was no delicate way to say this. "You're...quite sure you're women?" She got three very disgusted looks. "Okay." Pure practicality forced her to admit, "You know, this sounds..."
"Farfetched?" John said.
"Crazy," she returned, then looked at Carson helplessly. "Could they have been...transported into female bodies?"
The doctor shrugged, more serious than the soldiers who were still finding the situation funny with expressions that couldn't quite hide their amusement. "It's possible, but there's a...certain resemblance..."
Elizabeth had to admit it was true. The men - former men? - while retaining their minds, also seemed to have retained some basic genetic characteristics. Feminised, of course, but still...them.
"Look, we need to go back there," said John. "Whatever did this has to be able to undo it." And there, again, was the note of desperation in his - her voice.
Elizabeth looked from Rodney to John to Ronon. "And if it can't?"
"Don't even suggest that," Rodney said sharply. S/he sounded a little desperate as well.
Carson shrugged. "I'll have to run some tests on them," he said. "Mostly to see if these bodies are them just...female."
"Might it wear off?" Lorne offered. He seemed to have made it past the amusement stage, at least.
"Like a...a..."
Rodney snorted. "Like a spell?"
"Well, when was the last time you heard of people changing sex without surgery involved?"
Elizabeth saw John's hand twitch. Rodney was less controlled - his hand made it to the edge of the table before his mind remembered he no longer had the body part he was instinctively reaching for - and that no surgery had been involved. Judging by Ronon's slightly quizzical air, the Satedans had never made it to the 'sex change operation' stage in their civilisation.
"Go with Carson," she said, making the decision. They could argue this until the twelfth of never. "Get the tests run. We still haven't heard from Teyla."
"Get dressed in something that isn't so airy," Ronon murmured, shifting his...her legs.
Now was probably not the time to notice that they were long, muscular legs - and quite definitely unshaven.
This time, Elizabeth couldn't help the smile, although it vanished as John added "And we don't want the whole base to know."
"Or even half of it," said Rodney.
Which explained the conference room and the closed doors. "You do know the rumour mill will be working overtime on this?" Carson asked.
He would know, too. The infirmary was a hotbed of gossip gleaned from patients as they lay around to the tidbits that the nurses picked up as they went through the base. Gossip tended to collect at the infirmary - so much so that Carson had once exclaimed they should just call the place 'the grapevine' and have done with it.
John sat up and leaned forward. "Look," he said forcefully, "trust me on this, it's better that very few people know about this until after we're back to normal."
One of the soldiers looked disappointed.
"I agree," Elizabeth said, firmly. As a woman in a leadership position, she was very aware of the criticisms and denigrations that came her way - and Atlantis was chiefly a civilian expedition. A woman in John's position, in an organisation as male-shaped and male-dominated as the US Air Force... Never mind that John seemed exactly the same in his mindset; the soldiers he was supposed to be commanding would look at him and see a woman, and that would colour their perceptions immediately.
No, this incident was best kept behind closed doors - at least for the moment. Afterwards, well, it might be funny afterwards, but for the moment and for the good of the expedition, the fewer people that knew now, the better.
Elizabeth turned the full force of her authority on Lorne and his team. "I shouldn't need to tell you that these events aren't to be discussed around the base." Lorne nodded, then glanced at his team for their assurance. "As far as the rest of the expedition is concerned, you returned with three strangers who will be staying with us for a while."
"A very short while," muttered John, leaning her forearms on the table and sticking her head in them. "I hope. God, this is not happening!"
Except it seemed it very much was.
--
There was no denying that they behaved like the men they'd used to be.
It wasn't anything as crude as belching, swearing, or scratching their balls, but now that he knew who they were, the difference between them and real women was very marked.
"It's not like we're any different," grumbled Rodney as he opened his mouth for Carson to take a swab of cheek cells for the PCR test.
"Other than being women," said Ronon from across the room. He seemed to be taking the sex change considerably better than either of his team-mates. Presumably the immediacy of the Wraith meant that philosophical discussion about gender roles and sexual discrimination wasn't really given much consideration among the Satedans. Certainly, Teyla's people were fluid and flexible in their roles: if something needed doing, whether hunting or cooking, it was done by whoever was to hand and best suited for the job.
Of course, some degree of the self was wrapped up in the body, and with the body came sex, and with sex, gender. And gender came with a lot of baggage - at least on Earth.
Even the walk from the conference room to the infirmary had produced reactions from those they passed.
Curiosity was the foremost reaction, which came as no surprise. Three strangers being escorted through the base was news enough. What was slightly more worrying was the quick head-to-toe summary that most of the men gave the erstwhile women.
There weren't any leers - the men on the expedition were trained better than that - this was just the once-over most heterosexual men gave a woman upon meeting her. Laura had explained this to Carson over dinner one evening. "They look. Most of them don't mean anything by it, but when you're a woman in the military, you get judged on your face first and your competence second."
And the three former men grew visibly uncomfortable beneath those gazes.
Carson wondered if he could get Elizabeth to authorise bringing Kate into all this. After all, she was the base psychologist. And there would certainly be issues if this set of circumstances continued for more than a couple of hours.
"We're not women, Ronon," Sheppard said shortly, his eyes narrowed at the close-mouthed Taiwanese nurse who wasn't at all fazed by the Colonel's glare. "We're still us."
"Other than being women." Ronon repeated.
"We are not--" The Colonel cut off his statement as Kia held up the cotton bud - what the Americans called 'q-tips'- pointing it towards his mouth.
Swabs from the inside of the cheek were providing the genetic samples Carson needed to perform a PCR test on them. They'd also drawn blood and would run a few tests on those samples. It might take a couple of hours, but at least they'd have some information about whatever had happened to the men: whether they were still genetically male - in which case the question was how their bodies had been 'remoulded' into female form, or if they were now genetically female - in which case there were a whole new set of issues to look at.
The other thing that worried him, more than a little, was genetic Chimerism, where a person had two different DNA patterns. It was possible that the men were still 'male' in some of their cells, while others - most noticeably the ones that made up their physical appearance - were 'female'. Which then presented the problem of exactly how to DNA type them.
So many possibilities of the human body and so little knowledge of all the variations and how to deal with them!
"All right," said Carson, having sealed up the DNA samples. "We've got your DNA, weighed and measured you all. Go get into something more comfortable."
He was fixed by two very direct stares.
"What?" Rodney yelped.
"Slip into something more comfortable?" Sheppard asked with a pointedness that was close to fury.
Carson tried for reasonable as he wondered if it was too early for them to be exhibiting signs of hormonal fluctuations. "Colonel, I don't imagine those outfits are very comfortable. If you want to stay in them, you might get some odd looks. I thought you'd want to get back into your fatigues."
After a moment, the anger faded. "Yeah," Sheppard said briskly, "I'd like to get back into some decent clothes."
"I'd like something with a bit of support," Ronon noted. At a blank look from the other two, 'he' tapped his chest.
The other two glanced down at their own breasts as though finally realising that they'd need support for the 'extra flesh'. Rodney looked horrified and began feeling himself up with no regard for how it might appear. "My God, I'm huge. Really huge."
Carson choked with helpless laughter and saw the other nursing aide - a middle-aged woman whom he'd picked for both her discretion and her sense of humour - turn away, her shoulders shaking. Exactly how Rodney had managed to ignore that he was now somewhat top-heavy was something Carson would never know.
Sheppard had a sour expression on as he regarded his own significant mammarial increase. The Colonel seemed to have managed to acquire a rather curvaceous body type, compared with Ronon who'd managed to end up with an athletic build and not much breast at all. On the other hand, Ronon had also lost a good six to eight inches of height and some thirty to forty pounds of muscle.
Rodney didn't look like he'd lost any weight at all. She wasn't exactly plump, but she was tending that way - give it another ten years and most of her weight would be around the hips and waist...
I'm predicting Rodney's body type, Carson thought to himself. Rodney's body type as a woman. Oh, Lord...
"You're going to need something for that," he managed, dragging his mind back to the conversation at hand. "Sue?"
Sue got control of her expression, although she was still smiling. "Well, I think there might be several women on the base who are the right size... I could ask."
Carson looked at the three.
"Discreetly," Sheppard said after a moment.
The aide nodded, still smiling, then coughed and briskly took herself off, passing an incoming nurse on the way.
"Dr. Beckett? You wanted to know when Teyla woke up?"
Carson handed the DNA samples to Kia, indicating that they were to go to the PCR preparation area, and she nodded and walked off behind Sheppard, Rodney, and Ronon, all of whom had gotten up to go see Teyla.
It struck Carson quite forcibly that they didn't walk like women.
All three men had been shifting somewhat edgily during the various processes, a slight movement from side to side, as though they couldn't quite get comfortable.
Maybe they couldn't. After all, a rather vital piece of male equipment was no longer present, and that had to make a man feel slightly...naked. Even if they weren't in male bodies, the three were essentially male in their history, in their memory, in their thought processes and patterns.
They're quite literally men trapped in women's bodies.
Which, Carson imagined, wasn't quite as funny as everyone else had initially found the situation. And would swiftly become very unfunny if it couldn't be reversed.
"Teyla?" That was Sheppard, standing right up beside the bed, at a range where she couldn't ignore him - if she'd even been trying.
She was half-sitting up in the bed, one hand pressed to her forehead as though to ward away a headache. At the Colonel's query, she opened one eye, then the other. She looked at him without any comprehension, then at Rodney, then Ronon - all with the same blank expression.
Carson stepped around to the other side of the bed, indicating that Sheppard should back off. In his present form, Teyla wouldn't recognise him, and the sight of three strangers would probably confuse her. "Teyla?"
At his voice, she took her hand from her head and opened her mouth, then stopped. Her eyes flickered to her hand, remaining there for a long moment.
Carson felt the beginnings of fear unwind in him. "Do you remember anything, Teyla?"
"I..." She dragged her gaze away from her hand, and then looked at Carson. "Doctor?"
"Yes. You're back in Atlantis now, Teyla."
"Atlantis?" The dark eyes looked around her at the infirmary, dazed. There was something like confusion in her expression and Carson began to worry. "Teyla?"
Then she looked back at the three men - well, women - standing on the other side of her bed. The moment stretched out and her team-mates shifted somewhat uncomfortably. Slow recognition began to dawn. "Colonel?"
Sheppard grimaced, the female features turning sour. "Yeah."
The change was instant. A broad smile spread across her face, and she began to laugh.
"It's not that funny," said Ronon, frowning a little. Sheppard looked similarly discombobulated, while Rodney's sulky expression was back.
And Teyla kept laughing. Loudly. Her laughter rang through the infirmary, bold and strong, and with an edge that Carson thought was close to hysterical. Certainly, it wasn't Teyla's usual amusement.
"Teyla?" A finger at her wrist checked her pulse, but it seemed normal, not elevated. She wasn't having a fit or a hysterical interlude, it was just laughter.
Loud, steady laughter that was very unlike Teyla at all.
Her laughter stopped suddenly as she winced, her hand going to her forehead again as she leaned back. "Oh, that hurts. I think I'm going to lie down again..."
"But you can't just do that!" Rodney burst out. "We need to know what you saw - if anything happened differently for you. Did you fall asleep with the flash of light? Do you feel any different?"
Her eyes had shut and she was shaking her head. "There was a bright flash of light. That's all." She winced, her hand pushing at her brow.
"Teyla?" Carson asked, suddenly concerned. "Does your head hurt? I can give you some aspirin..."
"It's just a headache," she said abruptly, opening her eyes. "It'll be better for some sleep."
It was more like a dismissal than anything else, delivered flatly and with little room for protest.
Of course, little room wasn't the same as no room. "How can you sleep at a time like this? We need you to remember what you saw so we can get changed back!" Carson winced. While he could understand Rodney's frustration, the female voice made the words sound even whinier than Rodney's usual grumbling.
"Teyla," Sheppard's fingers touched her wrist, anxious. "Are you okay?"
Teyla looked up at him. "I'm fine, Colonel," she said. "But I could do with some rest, if you please."
Rodney opened his mouth to protest again, Ronon caught Carson's eye, and grabbed Rodney by the arm and towed him out. "We'll find some clothes." Even as a woman, it seemed Ronon was fairly strong. Rodney tried to struggle but found himself dragged along.
"What? No! I mean, yes, but Teyla might-- There's no need to--"
Sheppard followed them as Rodney's protests dimmed, but turned back at the door. "You don't remember anything?"
Teyla shook her head. "Nothing." Sheppard gave Teyla a long look, then a brief half-smile and nod and went. The door closed behind her and the others, and Teyla turned to Carson, her eyes pleading. "No more questions, please. I'm tired."
Tiredness wasn't unusual in someone who'd been unconscious for a while. If the flash of light or whatever had injured her in some way, then her body would pull all its resources into getting better, which meant she'd sleep more.
"No more questions," Carson said in reassurance. "But I'm going to take a swab for the DNA test," he said, pulling out one of the cotton buds for the swab.
"DNA - but I am not--"
"It's just a precaution, Teyla," he reassured her. "We want to be sure that you're okay. It'll only take a moment."
She seemed reluctant to open her mouth, but Carson was insistent. Looking fine wasn't the same as being fine - as any doctor worth his salt knew. Besides, with the other three changed, there were too many questions about what had been done to them - and what might have been done to Teyla.
Once the sample was taken, he sealed up the swab and tucked it in his shirt pocket. "Rest for a couple of hours. You've been unconscious most of the day from the sound of it and I don't want you to fall unconscious again."
"I'll be fine," she said, shifting a little. "Can I go to my quarters?"
"I'd rather you didn't," Carson said. "We'd like to keep an eye on you for the moment. Like I said, you've been unconscious for most of the day and we don't know what happened to you while you were in the ruins."
She seemed sulky about it, but lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
Carson paused to watch her at the door of the room. He had a vague sense of unease, as though something wasn't quite right. Oh, Teyla seemed hale and healthy, but...different. Perhaps it was just the contrast to the three 'women' who were quite clearly themselves in mind, but not in body, perhaps it was something more. He patted the DNA swab in his pocket; at any rate, the DNA test would tell them.
There was no sign of the trio when he returned to the outer ward.
"They went to find some clothing," said Sue, still smiling as she took the blood samples and began splitting them into the various test tubes they used for the blood tests. "They said they'd be back afterwards."
As it turned out, 'afterwards' was a little later than Carson expected.
For starters, they had to get cleaned up and find suitable clothing. Apparently this took nearly twice as long as it did for 'normal women'. Carson was tempted to ask what benchmark Sergeant Dachaus used to define a 'normal woman' but decided against it, figuring he didn't really want to know the answer.
Then Elizabeth called to say that she was holding a meeting with the trio and Lorne to jog their memories and she'd send them to him after, complete with the recording.
In the meantime, Carson set about preparing the samples for the PCR, defining the primers and setting up the thermal cycler. The four samples were put in and the machine started the slow process of charting the DNA fragments which would tell them a little more about the bodies the men were now in - and whether anything had happened to Teyla that they just couldn't see.
He also did a few more basic tests on the tissue samples they had. The results were...interesting.
Carson went through the tests results, contacted a few of his staff and rearranged some schedules so there'd be minimal traffic up this end of the infirmary. The last thing they needed or wanted was for this to become very public knowledge. It might have to go into a report somewhere, and there would inevitably be gossip, but Elizabeth would be able to keep it eyes-only for command and medical personnel. He hoped.
Around the two-hour mark, there was a groan from the next room.
He hurried in and found Teyla hunched over, her head resting in her hands.
Carson crossed the room "Teyla?"
"Doctor," she still seemed a little disoriented. "I don't think this is helping," she said.
"Too much sleep does that," he said. "Do you feel pain anywhere? Dizzy? Sick?"
She lifted dark eyes to him. "A little dizzy," she said. "I think I've been sleeping too long."
Carson nodded, patting her on the shoulder. "Well, go take a shower and come back when you're done. We'll be going over the others' tests then and I'd like you to be there."
Teyla nodded and left, striding briskly along.
He returned to his notes.
When the Colonel, Rodney, and Ronon did turn up, they were restless, shifting shoulders, twitching limbs, tugging at the edges of their clothing, trying to get comfortable, apparently unable to manage it.
As they seated themselves in the office Carson had chosen to discuss all this, he made a mental note to review the files on the incident where O'Neill, Jackson and Teal'c were swapped into each others' bodies - it might provide some insight on how to deal with this situation, although at least the body into which they'd been switched was male.
Rodney was the most restive of the three. She kept pulling at the side of her shirt.
"Stop that," Sheppard said. She - he'd leaned back in his chair, apparently relaxed, and sitting...well, the way he usually sat, with his ankle resting on his knee. Ronon had his legs apart, and in spite of Carson's knowledge that it was a male mind in a female body, it was more than a little disturbing to see the typically male sprawl enacted by a feminine form.
"It doesn't fit right," Rodney muttered, still yanking at the black t-shirt. His breasts seemed to be causing him some discomfort.
"Seems to fit fine from where I'm sitting," Ronon remarked.
Rodney looked up, a dawning horror on her face. "You're checking me out!" Her voice was shrill. "Stop it!"
"Why? Sheppard's been doing it too."
Sheppard was going a lovely shade of pink that Carson had never seen on the man before. Of course, now Sheppard was a woman, so it wasn't exactly--
"It's a reflex action," the Colonel said. "Don't tell me you haven't been checking me and Ronon out."
"I would never--"
Sheppard ran right over Rodney's attempt at protest. "Don't worry, Rodney." She smiled a variation of that sour, cynical smile that usually indicated the man was making a point. "You're not my type - too shrill."
"Too shrill? Oh, that's wonderful."
"But reassuring," Ronon smirked.
Rodney turned to Carson, pointedly ignoring his team-mates. "So have you worked out how to reverse this yet?"
Carson stared. "I haven't even worked out what's been done to you," he said, more sharply than he'd intended. "Which is why I was planning to ask you questions now - or, at least, once Teyla gets here." At their expressions, he explained. "She went to have a wash and freshen up. Why don't you start at the beginning and she can join in when she gets--"
"Carson?" His earpiece came to life.
"Elizabeth?"
"Do you have...our guests with you?"
He glanced over at the three women who were watching him, unable to hear Elizabeth. For whatever reason, they'd been issued with Atlantis standard clothing, but no earpieces. "Yes, they're here."
"Teyla as well?"
"No, she went to shower."
In the background, he heard Elizabeth giving orders for the marines to locate Teyla. "Elizabeth?"
"We just got a call from off-world," she said, sounding more than a little grim. "And someone who knows our IDC codes and looks like Teyla has just walked out of the Stargate."
Uh-oh.
--
If Elizabeth was shocked at the transformation of the men she knew, the appearance of Teyla through the Stargate - again - was even more shocking.
The marines had their weapons up and pointed at the woman before she'd taken more than two steps into the city. As she saw the weapons rise, Teyla dropped the items she'd been carrying, lifting her hands to show she wasn't a threat, and lifting her eyes to Elizabeth's balcony in wary question. "Dr. Weir?"
"Teyla?" Elizabeth rested her hands on the metal railing for balance, staring down at the figure on the floor. She hurried down to the Gateroom floor. "Teyla?"
This Teyla looked considerably the worse for wear; her hair roughly tied back, her skin smudged with dirt and her fatigues loose and grubby. But the steady gaze that looked back at Elizabeth was very familiar. "Is there something wrong, Dr. Weir?"
"Where--?" Elizabeth caught herself. Until now, she'd thought the three women really were the Colonel, Rodney, and Ronon. They'd certainly behaved enough like them, and she had been seeing faint glimpses of the men they'd been yesterday in the women they were today.
"I do not know where Colonel Sheppard and the others are," Teyla said immediately. "We were exploring the ruins in the afternoon, when there was a flash of light. When I woke I was alone and judged it to be morning." She indicated the things she'd dropped on the floor - two flak vests and assorted weaponry. "I did not see what happened to them, but it has taken me most of the day to release my bonds. I searched the ruins but could find no sign of them but for their equipment."
Her wrists were red and chafed, rubbed raw from the struggle, and there was a note of desperation in Teyla's voice - if it even was Teyla.
Whoever this person was - whether Teyla or someone else - they were exhausted. Even as Elizabeth watched, the woman swayed slightly.
"Get her to the infirmary," she said. "We'll sort this out there."
Teyla wasn't a fool. Even if she didn't understand all the nuances of Earth culture, she was sharp enough to realise that something wasn't quite right. Rather than moving off with the marines, she regarded Elizabeth. "Dr. Weir, has there been trouble in my absence?"
"Not exactly. Teyla, please go to the infirmary and we'll sort it out."
The other woman didn't move. "And four marines are necessary to escort me there?"
Elizabeth could understand the slightly tense note in Teyla's voice. It wasn't the first time the Athosian woman had been under suspicion, although the intervening years had established her as one of the expedition. "It's a precaution, Teyla. You'll understand when you see Carson."
She wasn't so sure the other woman believed her, but Teyla lifted her chin and walked ahead of the marines, dignified as any queen.
One of the marines scooped up the dropped flak jackets as she contacted Carson. It was convenient that three of their 'mystery people' were still with him - but the absence of the other Teyla was worrying. She sent some spare marines to scour the city, looking for Teyla - another Teyla that was wandering the city, then went back to her conversation with Carson. "Is there any quick test that you can perform on her to prove she is who she says she is?"
"I--" Carson hesitated. "We're just waiting for the DNA results to come back - but, Elizabeth, if this is what I suspect it won't make a difference."
She wanted to ask what he suspected right there and then. She held off. Why make him go through it twice? "I'm about to call Lorne and his team to keep an eye on things in the infirmary, and I'm heading there myself."
"All right. The PCR is done, Nurse Corell is setting up the charts - in another fifteen minutes we'll have some of our answers."
"But not the important one." Not the solution to the problem.
"No," said Carson.
Lorne and his team intercepted Teyla and the marines in one of the side corridors, so when Elizabeth got to the infirmary, the section where Carson was working was...crowded.
She dismissed the marines and closed the doors. They hissed shut behind her, sealing her in with Carson, Teyla, the sex-changed trio, one white-haired aide, and Major Lorne and his team.
Teyla was sitting on one of the gurneys, staring warily at female-John, who'd come up beside her as Carson examined her wrists. John - or Johanna - was staring warily back.
"Rope?" Carson asked.
"From our packs," she said, dragging her gaze from John's. "And well-tied. It took me some time to find the knife with which to cut them." As he let go of her wrists, she stepped carefully away from John, clearly disturbed by the lack of personal space that was being granted her. "It hurts a little when it is touched."
"It should heal clean," Carson said. "But I'd like to get some antiseptic cream on them." He turned away and began rummaging in a nearby drawer.
Teyla's team-mates had been watching her during her conversation with Carson, hawklike in their intensity. She smiled at them, brief and distant, and otherwise ignored them.
Of course, they weren't about to do the same. "Who tied you up?" John asked.
Startled at the question from an apparent stranger, a polite veil dropped over Teyla's features. "I do not believe we have met," she said.
At her words, John's expression set, the rather pretty features grim. "Oh, we've met."
"Teyla, it's us," Rodney said.
Her expression remained blank.
"Sheppard, Rodney, me," Ronon said, pointing from John to Rodney to himself.
Teyla blinked, then turned unerringly to Elizabeth, bewildered by the declaration. Elizabeth felt both amusement and pity at the other woman's confusion. "It seems that they've been...changed into women."
There was a snicker from one of Lorne's team, standing back around the edges of the infirmary. Elizabeth quelled it with a glance - or maybe it was Rodney's fierce glare. At any rate, the man subsided, although his eye still danced with amusement.
All things considered, Elizabeth was glad that most of this had been kept quiet. As the military leader of the expedition, John required respect of the men and women in his command. And, in spite of the alleged gender equality present in western society, men still commanded more respect than women with greater ease.
With her years of negotiating experience behind her, Elizabeth was very aware of this.
But she doubted any of this was in Teyla's mind as she regarded what Elizabeth had just told her with frank surprise.
"Changed?" She looked them up and down, still wary, but with a growing recognition.
"It's still us," John said. He was resting his hands on his hips the way he did any time he was waiting for something, and Elizabeth saw comprehension dawn in Teyla's face as she took in his stance. "We're just...not in our bodies."
Carson had moved to Teyla's side and began smearing cream on her wrists. "Actually, Colonel, given that some of the physical characteristics have been...inherited by these bodies, it's entirely possible that you are in your bodies - just the bodies you would have had if you'd been born female." He glanced at John as he put the cream aside and took up the bandages.
"But that's not our bodies," Rodney argued. "I mean, we're not women. We look like them, but we're not."
"And it is...you?" Teyla was still watching her team-mates, her eyes wide. She didn't find any amusement in the situation, at least, which was a sop to their pride.
"It's us," said John. "We were talking about movies on the walk to the ruins. You still haven't seen 'Nightmare on Elm Street'."
Something in her face eased. "And I do not wish to," she replied, smiling. "As I indicated."
John muttered something about taste in movies or lack thereof, but Teyla just smiled, then turned to Carson as he finished binding her wrists, and then began putting things away.
"So who tied you up?" Rodney asked.
"I do not know," she said, easing herself back on the bed. Her shoulders slumped a little. "I remember your shout and the flash of light - from the walls. After that, I woke up and was alone in a room at the back of the ruins."
"We checked all the rooms before we left," said John.
Ronon shrugged. "Looking for our clothes," he said. "You weren't there."
"Well, you were," said Rodney, hastily. "But you were with us - unconscious and-- What are you wearing, anyway?"
For the first time, Elizabeth realised the shirt and trousers Teyla wore had clearly been made for a larger person. "My clothing was gone when I woke." She sounded slightly annoyed. "However, there were other items of clothing - I believe this is Colonel Sheppard's clothing. They were the closest fit."
"Did you bring back the rest of our stuff?" Rodney asked, looking huffy and quite comical in her annoyance. The expressions Elizabeth was used to in Rodney looked very odd on this woman who resembled him. "You know, this is quite ridiculous. We should be going back to the planet to work out what was done to us!"
"Actually," John said, her eyes resting on Teyla, "we should be looking for the other Teyla we brought back with us. Because if this is Teyla, who was the other one?"
"The other one?" Teyla looked to Elizabeth.
"They returned with another woman," she explained. "She looked like you."
"Didn't behave much like her," said Ronon.
Rodney glared over at his team-mate. "And you bring this up now?"
A nurse entered the room and began talking to Carson in a low voice, handing him a couple of folders and a sheaf of loose paper.
The shrug came from shoulders that were only slightly less broad and muscled than Ronon's usual form. "She looked like Teyla."
"And we don't look like Rodney McKay, John Sheppard or Ronon Dex - but we're still them!" Rodney exclaimed shrilly.
"Rodney, will you calm down for just a minute, please," Carson interposed without looking up from the charts the nurse had given him. "In fact, everyone sit down and be quiet!"
Rodney opened her mouth. John propelled her into a seat and rolled her eyes at Elizabeth who smiled in spite of herself. If it was weird to see her colleagues as female, it was weirder still to realise that she was almost getting used to the unfamiliar person behaving in familiar ways.
"All right," Carson said after a moment's more study. "Well, genetically, you're definitely who you used to be - the electrophoresis of your PCR shows an almost precise correlation with your original DNA tests."
Silence.
"Which means?" John asked.
"It means you're basically the same genetic person - just female." He glanced up.
"Just female?" Rodney huffed. "So how do we become basically the same genetic person - just male?"
"I don't know," said Carson. "But it probably has something to do with the flash of light and whatever you touched before it went off."
"I didn't touch anything!" At the looks Rodney's team-mates gave him, he protested, "Well, nothing dangerous."
Somehow, Elizabeth doubted that. "I think we might have to ask the other Teyla," she said at last. "Since she seems to have disappeared."
"Which makes it rather difficult to ask her," Lorne noted from the side.
"The marines are looking for her through the city," said Elizabeth.
"But will they find her?"
"Uh, there may be a slight problem with that," murmured Carson.
Elizabeth focused on the doctor. "Carson?"
The doctor sighed as he set the board down on his lap. "The electrophoresis of Teyla's PCR - the other Teyla - matches Teyla's record in everything except one point."
"Her Wraith DNA?" Elizabeth asked.
Carson shook his head. "Actually, that's still there." He looked at Teyla. "However, according to this graph and our tests, Teyla is also in possession of the Ancient gene."
The Ancient gene?
"Teyla's got the Ancient gene?" Rodney's voice shrilled in disbelief.
"I'd say it's the person imitating Teyla who has the Ancient gene."
"And very strongly, too," Carson said. "Sue ran the gene tests twice because she didn't believe it the first time. It's even stronger than John's gene."
Elizabeth was startled. As far as they'd been able to tell, none of the Pegasus natives had the Ancient gene. To find one who had it - and stronger than John... "An Ancient?"
Carson shrugged. "It might be. Even when compared to John, it's nearly off the chart."
Ronon sat forward, the tension clear in her shoulders. "Why'd she return with us, then?"
"To watch our reactions," said John. He looked disgusted. "It's a practical joke, and she wanted to watch us and laugh." One hand made a gesture that encompassed himself, Rodney, and Ronon.
"Doesn't seem very...Ancient-like."
"It explains her mirth when she woke up." Carson said, sitting down heavily in his chair. "And I let her out into the city."
"You had no reason to know it wasn't Teyla," Elizabeth said, trying to comfort him. Her mind was already working through the ramifications. "And it might not even be a 'she', you know." They stared at her. "If you could be changed to become female, then the other Teyla might not be originally female either."
It was Lorne's turn to enter the conversation. "You mentioned an old man at the ruins."
"He was crazy!" Rodney exclaimed.
"And the Ancients can't be crazy?"
"So you're saying that a crazy, practical joker of an Ancient turned us all into women just for laughs?"
"And now has free run through Atlantis." John sat up. He both looked and sounded grim. "We need to find her."
"Agreed," Elizabeth said. "The marines are out looking--"
"With nearly forty-five minutes head start? She could be anywhere in the city by now!"
"The life-signs detector was calibrated to detect a Wraith," Teyla said, cutting across Rodney's protest. "Can it not be adjusted to show only the people in possession of the Ancient gene?"
Elizabeth smiled briefly at Teyla's offering to the conversation, but Rodney was faster to the criticism. "That would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that one-third of the expedition has the Ancient gene."
Ronon frowned. "It's still better than the whole expedition."
"And you could calibrate it so it only picks up the people with the strongest manifestation of the gene," pointed out John.
"What? Why me?"
"Because," said John with mild malice, "you're the genius around here - as you like to remind us so often."
Various smiles and smirks appeared and were hidden, although Carson rolled his eyes and Teyla sighed.
"Oh, so when it comes to saving your ass, then you actually remember I'm the genius?" Rodney huffed and folded his arms. "So you're going to go out and hunt the Ancient once I've finished tinkering with the life signs detector?"
"If I have to."
"I will hunt her down," Teyla said, her voice quiet but clear in the silence.
Carson nodded. "At least there won't be any question when you've caught her."
"I'll help," Ronon offered immediately.
Elizabeth opened her mouth to veto that idea and was beaten to it by John. "Uh, no offence, Teyla, Ronon, but neither of you have the Ancient gene at all."
"So?"
"So you can't use the life-signs detector."
"And neither you nor Ronon will be going anywhere into Atlantis to hunt down an Ancient." Both women stared at Carson, their expressions disbelieving. "I'm sorry, but you're not yourselves."
"We're fine," said John. Elizabeth winced at his belligerence. "And we'll be much better if we're allowed to hunt this prankster down."
"You are not accustomed to those bodies," Teyla said.
"We still know how to fight." Elizabeth thought it odd how Ronon could still growl as an alto.
Teyla stood and moved into a clear space in the centre of the room. "Then come at me."
Under any other circumstances, Elizabeth would have said it was suicide. Ronon was a match for everyone in the base except for Teyla.
But when Ronon stood and lunged at Teyla, she turned easily and used the momentum of the attack to unbalance her team-mate. Ronon sprawled on the floor, although he rolled and was back on his feet again. He - she - bounded in again, lashing out with one fist, and was easily blocked - without any effort. Elizabeth didn't know much about fighting, but even she could see the way Ronon was trying to use a weight and reach that didn't belong to him in this form.
Ronon was laid out within seconds, easily vanquished. "Do you understand?" Teyla asked.
He understood. He didn't like it, but he saw. Dark eyes blinked in angry understanding of the point, and Elizabeth regretted the necessity of the example.
Teyla held out a hand to pull Ronon up. "You know how to fight in the body you had," she said, solemn as a teacher lecturing a student. "Not in this one." Ronon made a grumpy noise and dusted himself off. He seemed only a little self-conscious at being beaten, although Elizabeth gathered that it was okay for him to be shown up by Teyla. If it had been one of the men, it might have been a different story, but Teyla was okay.
"So we're basically stuck here," said John with a huff.
"I'm afraid so, Colonel," Carson said. "Elizabeth?"
"Major Lorne will accompany Teyla," she said. "He's got the gene to operate the detector."
Lorne glanced at Teyla, then back at Elizabeth. "Necessary force?"
"Disable," John said. "Don't kill." The expression on her - his - face was tense, but Elizabeth suspected that John understood he'd just be in the way.
"Dr. Weir?"
Elizabeth found Teyla looking at her, waiting for the formal approval. She appreciated the gesture. "Do it."
Teyla met Major Lorne's gaze. "I must change into my own clothing first."
"You go do whatever you need to," he said easily. "McKay still has to get the life-signs detector recalibrated."
For the first time since she'd arrived through the gate, Teyla's mouth curved in a smile. Even the sight of her formerly male team-mates hadn't been cause for laughter to her. "So there is time for me to have a wash?"
Lorne glanced at Elizabeth, who nodded, half-smiling herself at the Athosian woman's plain desire to be clean again. "Yeah, guess so."
"Colonel, Major, Ronon, I'd appreciate your assistance in mapping out search patterns through the city," she said.
Technically, Ronon wasn't necessary, but it would give him something to occupy himself - and it would be better than watching him - or her - pace in caged frustration. As he'd said to Elizabeth once before, he didn't deal well with waiting.
"Rodney--"
He held up a hand. "Yes, I'll get the calibrations done. I'll probably have to set up in the conference room - it's the only place close enough. Get Miller to bring one of the control laptops in and I'll work on it there."
"How long will it take?"
"Oh, thirty minutes, maybe an hour."
Elizabeth looked around the room, a glance to be sure everyone knew what they were supposed to be doing. "Then let's get things moving."
--
Genes In A Twist: Part Two
NOTES: I've never written genderbender fic for Atlantis. It was supposed to be a quick foray into crazyland. And turned into a reasonably long, ZOMG-eat-my-brain fic.I'm waiting for a beta to get back on the rest of the story, but this is the part that's really relevant to the challenge prompt. I'll post the rest later.
AUTHOR:
tielan SUMMARY: Sheppard's team encounter a few difficulties while off world. It's a brand new day in Atlantis.
CATEGORY: Gen, humour, genderbender.
RATING: PG-13
Has been reposted with more story due to sizing and posting issues with LJ.
Thanks,
dzurlady and madjm for the beta!Genes In A Twist - Part One
Colonel Sheppard's team were four hours overdue returning from their planet.
Nothing unusual there, but as the wormhole established, Elizabeth felt a small ray of hope that this might be them. John and his team managed to get into so much trouble - a corollary of having four very remarkable individuals in the one place at the one time.
Right now, there was no other Atlantis team off-world except John's. They'd set out yesterday to look at a set of ruins within walking distance of the Stargate. From what the initial survey had found, the ruins were uninhabited and the structures seemed sound enough to go into. Rodney had promptly demanded they be allowed to go.
The blue glow of the event horizon flickered through the room, and she glanced at Sergeant Miller. The young Canadian tech looked back with a slight shrug. "No IDC, no-- Wait." He began typing. "We're getting a radio signal--"
"Atlantis?"
Elizabeth looked at Miller, who was also getting the signal. The voice wasn't anyone she recognised - a woman's voice, but not Teyla's.
"Atlantis come in. Elizabeth... Elizabeth Weir? Look, I know you're hearing this." Someone muttered something in the background. Then, softer, as though the woman had taken her mouth away from the radio, "Oh, they can hear us. Trust me on this. They're just not responding."
Astonished at the identification and the exchange, Elizabeth answered. "This is Dr. Weir."
"Elizabeth!" The strange woman's voice got louder again. "Look, we've got Teyla unconscious here, possibly injured. We need you to send the Doc out here right away."
Teyla unconscious, probably injured - and nothing about the three men who'd left with her yesterday. Elizabeth was instantly suspicious. "I'm sorry, who is this? Where are Colonel Sheppard, Dr. McKay and Ronon Dex?"
"This is--" A pause. "A friend." There was a muttered conference in the background. "And Teyla's the only one we've found." There was another pause, this time without the conference. When the woman came back on, she sounded slightly desperate. "Look, get Beckett here. You can add a group of marines if you like - Lorne by preference. But you have to get someone out here. We're--" The pauses were becoming annoying. "Look," the woman said with pointed forcefulness, "just send the damned doc out!"
On the other end of the transmission, Elizabeth was becoming freaked, too. The woman seemed to know entirely too much about Atlantis, and the planet hadn't shown any signs of occupation when the MALP went through.
A million scenarios ran through her head, from a Wraith attack that the men hadn't been able to escape to an underground culture like the Gennii, to an unexpected ambush, to... well, anything. John really did know how to find trouble like no-one else.
Still, Elizabeth hesitated only a moment. Teyla was injured and might need Carson's help, everything else - even working out what happened to the guys - was secondary to that.
"You do understand that I won't be authorising anything I think might endanger my people?"
"I wouldn't expect anything less," came the terse answer. "Just get them out here so they can fix this!"
Elizabeth had misgivings - dozens of them. She could manage them - as the leader of Atlantis, she had to. "We'll close the gate and dial out to you. Atlantis, out."
"S-- Okay. Out."
The wormhole shut down and she turned to Sergeant Miller who interrupted her neatly. "I've got Dr. Beckett on his way to the gateroom with emergency supplies. Major Lorne and his team are just gearing up, now."
Problem solvers. There were days when Elizabeth loved living in a city full of people who were instinctive problem solvers - they got things done.
"Thank you, Sergeant," she smiled briefly. "Please also call the probe techs to get one of the basic probes geared up for going through the Stargate. I'm not going to send anyone through without first being sure it's safe first." Whatever had gotten to John, Rodney, Ronon, and Teyla might still be around - and while she hated to be suspicious of the very concerned stranger, she had to be. More lives than just Teyla's rested on Elizabeth's shoulders.
"Dr. Weir?"
"Sergeant?"
"Wasn't the planet Colonel Sheppard's team went to uninhabited?"
She nodded, although her thoughts were elsewhere. The strange woman had known a lot about Atlantis - too much for a mere stranger - from Carson's name to the most likely officer to be sent off-world.
A roiling feeling began in the pit of her stomach. Something wasn't right.
"Elizabeth?" Carson crossed the control room, a medical carry-kit in his hand. "Teyla's injured?"
"That's the report we have," Elizabeth calmed herself and signalled for Miller to dial the gate.
Down on the gateroom floor, the probe was being readied by a couple of industrious techs. Lorne and his team strolled in a few minutes later. Lorne climbed the steps up to the control room, adjusting his earpiece.
"Ma'am. Colonel Sheppard in trouble again?"
She gave him a severe look for that bit of levity. "I hope not," she said. "We have Teyla injured on the planet and apparently no sign of the Colonel and the rest of his team. I'll be sending you in advance of Dr. Beckett - keep an eye out for trouble, and get them back here as soon as possible."
Even as she spoke, the probe was being trundled through the Stargate, and they turned their gazes to the screen where the signal was coming back.
There were three people visible on the screen - three women dressed in plain shifts cinched in at the waist by a leather-like belt, and wearing soft boots on their feet. Not anyone we've met before, Elizabeth thought. The style of dress were unfamiliar to her - and all three looked very uncomfortable as they stood with their hands away from their bodies trying to look harmless. The tall one wasn't succeeding very well - it was something about the way she held herself, tense and proud.
Teyla lay at the feet of the closest one, on her side in the recovery position, clearly unconscious. She seemed unhurt, although Carson leaned forwards, peering closer to try to determine her state.
The probe eye swivelled to check out the surrounding field. Nothing and no-one, just the three women and Teyla.
"See, we're not hiding anything," said the closest woman aggressively, taking a step towards the probe. "Send the Doc through!"
Carson started down the stairs without waiting for Elizabeth's permission. She nodded at the major who hurried down after the medic. Lorne and his men would precede Carson, make sure that the area was clear before giving the okay. Even the probe could miss things.
She watched on the screen as the Major and his team fanned out from the gate, their hands resting on their weapons.
"Nice to see you got here," came the familiar voice, slightly acid. "Where's Beckett?"
Carson walked through the Stargate at that moment, followed by one of his aides. As he appeared on the other side, Lorne spoke into his mouthpiece. "We'll report back in ten minutes, ma'am."
"Thank you, Major. Atlantis out."
The wormhole shut down.
In the next ten minutes, Elizabeth went into her office, typed up a quick report on the incident, and pondered what could have possibly happened to the three missing men. Between the three of them, they had more than enough resources to get out of most situations - with Teyla, the four of them were nigh-unstoppable; at least one reason why Elizabeth kept allowing them to put themselves in danger.
Sometimes, Elizabeth wanted to call up old General Hammond and tell him she knew exactly how he'd felt while supervising SG-1. Hopefully she wouldn't be bald by the time she was sixty, though.
The gate began dialling as she finished off the mini-report - nothing more than a notification, although given the absences of the Colonel, Rodney, and Ronon, she expected the final report to be considerably longer.
"Sergeant?"
"Atlantis, this is Major Lorne." There was a suspicious ebullience to Lorne's voice. In the background, she could hear someone muttering beneath his or her breath. Elizabeth turned to Sergeant Miller and mouthed 'Visuals?'
The visuals came up on the screen - Major Lorne standing, talking into his microphone, his team-mates a bit behind him, not-quite talking to the three women who were standing in a defensive cluster behind them. She could just see the edge of Carson's head as he tended to Teyla.
"Major? Report, please."
"Well, the Doc says there's nothing wrong with Teyla that he can find, but the three...uh...women are a little more difficult." Lorne glanced at the women, a smile playing on his lips. In the background, the shortest of the three women scowled.
A little more difficult? Elizabeth tried to work out what that might mean and came up blank. "Major?"
"The Doc wants to bring Teyla back through, and he thinks it's best that you talk to these...uh...women yourself."
There was a snigger somewhere in the background, then a cough. Lorne's face straightened, but he looked like he very badly wanted to laugh.
"Major?" She was beginning to get really worried by this. First the men of Colonel Sheppard's team vanished, leaving only Teyla, now Major Lorne was acting strange. "Are you sure everything's okay?"
"Ma'am, they are no danger to the city. I promise you that."
A muttered comment from behind him made him convulse, biting his lip to keep from laughing.
If she'd been worried before, she was becoming very worried now.
Unconvinced, Elizabeth went for more information. "Put Carson on."
Carson took up a radio. "They're fine, Elizabeth. Teyla's unconscious, but I don't think it's dangerous yet. There's no sign of brain trauma, but I'd like to get her back to Atlantis and run an MRI and a CAT scan on her, just in case."
"And the women?"
Again, she saw the glimmer of mirth in Carson's expression, although he contained it better than the major. "They're safe. I'm going to need to run some tests on them, too."
She wanted to ask who they were, but that might be overheard and construed as impolite. And those women might be their only chance of finding out where the missing three men were.
"And there's no sign of Colonel Sheppard, Rodney, or Ronon?"
"Oh, there are signs," Carson said with a twinkle in his eye, "but the Major's right. They aren't dangerous to the city, and they'll need to come to Atlantis to get it all sorted out."
She trusted Carson's estimation - even if that twinkle was worrying. "All right," Elizabeth said. "Bring them through now."
On the screen, she watched as the stretcher carrying Teyla was lifted to be taken through the open Stargate behind the probe. The three women followed, ushered in by Lorne and Lorne's team, and she headed down to the gateroom, to meet the group.
"Ladies, welcome to Atlantis..." Elizabeth began.
Lieutenant Mayhew choked on his laughter, and the shortest of the three women turned a sour, blue gaze on him.
"I think this can wait until we're in one of the private conference rooms," said the foremost woman, her expression set in the grim lines of someone who knew the joke was on them. And without a further word, she began up the stairs towards the main debriefing room.
Elizabeth later said she had a glimmer of comprehension right then, especially when the second woman - the tallest, with strong features, no more than thirty - followed the first, shooting Elizabeth an inscrutable look as she passed. She turned to the third one, who wore an expression of petulance on what had probably once been a fine-boned face before time and age softened the features. "We are never going to live this down, you know." The woman stumped off after the first two, her gait...odd.
"Major? Do you want to explain this?" Elizabeth was beginning to get very worried.
Lorne looked a little more serious now. "I think you'd better hear it from them, ma'am."
She walked into the room and paused before her seat. The three women were already seated, and as Carson came in behind Lorne's team, the leader pointed at the door controls. Carson touched it and the room sealed.
The third woman spoke almost as soon as the room was closed. "Before anyone says anything, I would like to emphasise that this is not my fault! I'm not the one who walked into the room and made everything light up!" She glared at the black-haired leader.
"And who was it who said, 'I'm sure it's okay to fiddle around with!'"
"It usually is! They're the Ancients - they don't make machines that...that do this sort of thing!"
"Well, evidently they do, because we weren't like this last night."
Oh. My. God.
"Enough!" Elizabeth cried into the conversation, overriding both women.
All eyes were on her as she looked at the three women, starting with the brown-haired woman whose long hair was tied back in dreadlocks and finishing with the hazel-eyed leader whose expression Elizabeth was used to seeing on a considerably more masculine face.
This is not happening. No, really, it's not. It can't be, because it's impossible.
Sooner or later, Elizabeth thought, she was going to have to redefine the term 'impossible' - here in Pegasus, it never seemed to mean what it had meant on Earth.
"John?"
"Johanna," retorted the shortest of the three women. She had far more hair than Elizabeth had ever seen on Rodney - although it was still thinning. The personality seemed to be the same, though.
"Shut up, Rhonda," snapped 'Johanna'. "Yes. It's us."
She felt for the edge of the table, lowered herself carefully into a chair. This was...scary. And weird. She glanced at them, then at the still-amused major and his team, then at Carson who looked like he was in deadly earnest. "Prove it."
The leader glared at her - a surprisingly direct glare. That in itself almost convinced her. Women were more tuned in to their emotions, but less direct at expressing them, particularly the negative ones. Then she - he? - huffed, eyes narrowed. "Thalen once told Phoebus exactly what he'd do to her if he had her at his mercy. It's one of the reasons why she hated him so much."
Elizabeth stiffened, eyes widening. Yes, she remembered that memory, distant and fading, not actually her own, but Phoebus' mockery of Thalen's leering comment had been in the kiss she planted on her hated enemy - and on Elizabeth's friend and colleague.
But that recollection was disturbing. She turned to the second 'woman'. "Rodney?"
He clicked his fingers several times, trying to think of something. "When Kolya had us during he storm, we were sitting out on the balcony trying to conserve body heat. You called me gentlemanly." It was more than a little eerie to see Rodney's smug expression on a woman's face, but it convinced Elizabeth.
That was a better memory, even through the long, cold, uncertain hours as they waited for news of John to come back. Her lips curved in a brief smile remembering the arm Rodney offered her. "You were," she answered, trying not to be disconcerted by the entirely feminine face looking back at her, "Then."
Ronon didn't wait for her to say his name. S/he smirked, knowingly. "Whipped cream and the preserves jar."
Everyone in the room did a double take at that, and Elizabeth fixed Ronon with a brief glare before she met the wide eyes of the other men - er...people - in the room. "It was a conversation," she said, her tone of voice warning them that they'd better not jump to the wrong conclusions, even if her complexion wasn't going to play ball.
Carson sat back, and Lorne's expression turned neutral, but the black-haired woman - it was definitely John's hair, anyway - arched a brow at Ronon, who shrugged, then winced, then kept smirking.
Elizabeth took a deep breath. They were who they were - at least in mind.
In body...
"You're..."
"Women, yes," said Rodney briskly. "Look, after we got through the gate yesterday, we went straight for the ruins and found an old man camping out there."
"A hobo," John added. "He was half-mad, rambling about crazy stuff."
"We tried getting some sense out of him, but..." Rodney shrugged.
"We wandered around the ruins, Rodney poked things." John shot a venomous glare at Rodney. At least some things hadn't changed. "There was a flash of light and when we woke up..."
"When we woke up, we were women," said Ronon. 'His' voice was disconcertingly alto, although it retained some aspects of the resonant quality of his masculine voice, it was definitely a woman's voice. Elizabeth glanced at him and was caught by the wry humour in the tanned features. Of the three once-men, it looked like Ronon was the most philosophical about it - at least for the moment. It was...weird, to say the least.
"In that clothing."
He shrugged.
Elizabeth looked at the others. "But Teyla was still...Teyla?"
"Well, of course she is," said the woman who'd once been Rodney. "She's always been a woman!"
It was definitely Rodney. Nobody else could try her patience like this.
"I was suggesting that since you were changed into women, maybe Teyla was changed into a man."
The three not-women exchanged glances and shrugged as they turned back to Elizabeth. "She looked the same," Ronon said.
"We didn't check," John said, dry as any humorist.
Elizabeth nodded. The infirmary nurses would have contacted them if there'd been any issues with Teyla. Still, she looked at the erstwhile women sitting at the table before her and concluded that there was no delicate way to say this. "You're...quite sure you're women?" She got three very disgusted looks. "Okay." Pure practicality forced her to admit, "You know, this sounds..."
"Farfetched?" John said.
"Crazy," she returned, then looked at Carson helplessly. "Could they have been...transported into female bodies?"
The doctor shrugged, more serious than the soldiers who were still finding the situation funny with expressions that couldn't quite hide their amusement. "It's possible, but there's a...certain resemblance..."
Elizabeth had to admit it was true. The men - former men? - while retaining their minds, also seemed to have retained some basic genetic characteristics. Feminised, of course, but still...them.
"Look, we need to go back there," said John. "Whatever did this has to be able to undo it." And there, again, was the note of desperation in his - her voice.
Elizabeth looked from Rodney to John to Ronon. "And if it can't?"
"Don't even suggest that," Rodney said sharply. S/he sounded a little desperate as well.
Carson shrugged. "I'll have to run some tests on them," he said. "Mostly to see if these bodies are them just...female."
"Might it wear off?" Lorne offered. He seemed to have made it past the amusement stage, at least.
"Like a...a..."
Rodney snorted. "Like a spell?"
"Well, when was the last time you heard of people changing sex without surgery involved?"
Elizabeth saw John's hand twitch. Rodney was less controlled - his hand made it to the edge of the table before his mind remembered he no longer had the body part he was instinctively reaching for - and that no surgery had been involved. Judging by Ronon's slightly quizzical air, the Satedans had never made it to the 'sex change operation' stage in their civilisation.
"Go with Carson," she said, making the decision. They could argue this until the twelfth of never. "Get the tests run. We still haven't heard from Teyla."
"Get dressed in something that isn't so airy," Ronon murmured, shifting his...her legs.
Now was probably not the time to notice that they were long, muscular legs - and quite definitely unshaven.
This time, Elizabeth couldn't help the smile, although it vanished as John added "And we don't want the whole base to know."
"Or even half of it," said Rodney.
Which explained the conference room and the closed doors. "You do know the rumour mill will be working overtime on this?" Carson asked.
He would know, too. The infirmary was a hotbed of gossip gleaned from patients as they lay around to the tidbits that the nurses picked up as they went through the base. Gossip tended to collect at the infirmary - so much so that Carson had once exclaimed they should just call the place 'the grapevine' and have done with it.
John sat up and leaned forward. "Look," he said forcefully, "trust me on this, it's better that very few people know about this until after we're back to normal."
One of the soldiers looked disappointed.
"I agree," Elizabeth said, firmly. As a woman in a leadership position, she was very aware of the criticisms and denigrations that came her way - and Atlantis was chiefly a civilian expedition. A woman in John's position, in an organisation as male-shaped and male-dominated as the US Air Force... Never mind that John seemed exactly the same in his mindset; the soldiers he was supposed to be commanding would look at him and see a woman, and that would colour their perceptions immediately.
No, this incident was best kept behind closed doors - at least for the moment. Afterwards, well, it might be funny afterwards, but for the moment and for the good of the expedition, the fewer people that knew now, the better.
Elizabeth turned the full force of her authority on Lorne and his team. "I shouldn't need to tell you that these events aren't to be discussed around the base." Lorne nodded, then glanced at his team for their assurance. "As far as the rest of the expedition is concerned, you returned with three strangers who will be staying with us for a while."
"A very short while," muttered John, leaning her forearms on the table and sticking her head in them. "I hope. God, this is not happening!"
Except it seemed it very much was.
--
There was no denying that they behaved like the men they'd used to be.
It wasn't anything as crude as belching, swearing, or scratching their balls, but now that he knew who they were, the difference between them and real women was very marked.
"It's not like we're any different," grumbled Rodney as he opened his mouth for Carson to take a swab of cheek cells for the PCR test.
"Other than being women," said Ronon from across the room. He seemed to be taking the sex change considerably better than either of his team-mates. Presumably the immediacy of the Wraith meant that philosophical discussion about gender roles and sexual discrimination wasn't really given much consideration among the Satedans. Certainly, Teyla's people were fluid and flexible in their roles: if something needed doing, whether hunting or cooking, it was done by whoever was to hand and best suited for the job.
Of course, some degree of the self was wrapped up in the body, and with the body came sex, and with sex, gender. And gender came with a lot of baggage - at least on Earth.
Even the walk from the conference room to the infirmary had produced reactions from those they passed.
Curiosity was the foremost reaction, which came as no surprise. Three strangers being escorted through the base was news enough. What was slightly more worrying was the quick head-to-toe summary that most of the men gave the erstwhile women.
There weren't any leers - the men on the expedition were trained better than that - this was just the once-over most heterosexual men gave a woman upon meeting her. Laura had explained this to Carson over dinner one evening. "They look. Most of them don't mean anything by it, but when you're a woman in the military, you get judged on your face first and your competence second."
And the three former men grew visibly uncomfortable beneath those gazes.
Carson wondered if he could get Elizabeth to authorise bringing Kate into all this. After all, she was the base psychologist. And there would certainly be issues if this set of circumstances continued for more than a couple of hours.
"We're not women, Ronon," Sheppard said shortly, his eyes narrowed at the close-mouthed Taiwanese nurse who wasn't at all fazed by the Colonel's glare. "We're still us."
"Other than being women." Ronon repeated.
"We are not--" The Colonel cut off his statement as Kia held up the cotton bud - what the Americans called 'q-tips'- pointing it towards his mouth.
Swabs from the inside of the cheek were providing the genetic samples Carson needed to perform a PCR test on them. They'd also drawn blood and would run a few tests on those samples. It might take a couple of hours, but at least they'd have some information about whatever had happened to the men: whether they were still genetically male - in which case the question was how their bodies had been 'remoulded' into female form, or if they were now genetically female - in which case there were a whole new set of issues to look at.
The other thing that worried him, more than a little, was genetic Chimerism, where a person had two different DNA patterns. It was possible that the men were still 'male' in some of their cells, while others - most noticeably the ones that made up their physical appearance - were 'female'. Which then presented the problem of exactly how to DNA type them.
So many possibilities of the human body and so little knowledge of all the variations and how to deal with them!
"All right," said Carson, having sealed up the DNA samples. "We've got your DNA, weighed and measured you all. Go get into something more comfortable."
He was fixed by two very direct stares.
"What?" Rodney yelped.
"Slip into something more comfortable?" Sheppard asked with a pointedness that was close to fury.
Carson tried for reasonable as he wondered if it was too early for them to be exhibiting signs of hormonal fluctuations. "Colonel, I don't imagine those outfits are very comfortable. If you want to stay in them, you might get some odd looks. I thought you'd want to get back into your fatigues."
After a moment, the anger faded. "Yeah," Sheppard said briskly, "I'd like to get back into some decent clothes."
"I'd like something with a bit of support," Ronon noted. At a blank look from the other two, 'he' tapped his chest.
The other two glanced down at their own breasts as though finally realising that they'd need support for the 'extra flesh'. Rodney looked horrified and began feeling himself up with no regard for how it might appear. "My God, I'm huge. Really huge."
Carson choked with helpless laughter and saw the other nursing aide - a middle-aged woman whom he'd picked for both her discretion and her sense of humour - turn away, her shoulders shaking. Exactly how Rodney had managed to ignore that he was now somewhat top-heavy was something Carson would never know.
Sheppard had a sour expression on as he regarded his own significant mammarial increase. The Colonel seemed to have managed to acquire a rather curvaceous body type, compared with Ronon who'd managed to end up with an athletic build and not much breast at all. On the other hand, Ronon had also lost a good six to eight inches of height and some thirty to forty pounds of muscle.
Rodney didn't look like he'd lost any weight at all. She wasn't exactly plump, but she was tending that way - give it another ten years and most of her weight would be around the hips and waist...
I'm predicting Rodney's body type, Carson thought to himself. Rodney's body type as a woman. Oh, Lord...
"You're going to need something for that," he managed, dragging his mind back to the conversation at hand. "Sue?"
Sue got control of her expression, although she was still smiling. "Well, I think there might be several women on the base who are the right size... I could ask."
Carson looked at the three.
"Discreetly," Sheppard said after a moment.
The aide nodded, still smiling, then coughed and briskly took herself off, passing an incoming nurse on the way.
"Dr. Beckett? You wanted to know when Teyla woke up?"
Carson handed the DNA samples to Kia, indicating that they were to go to the PCR preparation area, and she nodded and walked off behind Sheppard, Rodney, and Ronon, all of whom had gotten up to go see Teyla.
It struck Carson quite forcibly that they didn't walk like women.
All three men had been shifting somewhat edgily during the various processes, a slight movement from side to side, as though they couldn't quite get comfortable.
Maybe they couldn't. After all, a rather vital piece of male equipment was no longer present, and that had to make a man feel slightly...naked. Even if they weren't in male bodies, the three were essentially male in their history, in their memory, in their thought processes and patterns.
They're quite literally men trapped in women's bodies.
Which, Carson imagined, wasn't quite as funny as everyone else had initially found the situation. And would swiftly become very unfunny if it couldn't be reversed.
"Teyla?" That was Sheppard, standing right up beside the bed, at a range where she couldn't ignore him - if she'd even been trying.
She was half-sitting up in the bed, one hand pressed to her forehead as though to ward away a headache. At the Colonel's query, she opened one eye, then the other. She looked at him without any comprehension, then at Rodney, then Ronon - all with the same blank expression.
Carson stepped around to the other side of the bed, indicating that Sheppard should back off. In his present form, Teyla wouldn't recognise him, and the sight of three strangers would probably confuse her. "Teyla?"
At his voice, she took her hand from her head and opened her mouth, then stopped. Her eyes flickered to her hand, remaining there for a long moment.
Carson felt the beginnings of fear unwind in him. "Do you remember anything, Teyla?"
"I..." She dragged her gaze away from her hand, and then looked at Carson. "Doctor?"
"Yes. You're back in Atlantis now, Teyla."
"Atlantis?" The dark eyes looked around her at the infirmary, dazed. There was something like confusion in her expression and Carson began to worry. "Teyla?"
Then she looked back at the three men - well, women - standing on the other side of her bed. The moment stretched out and her team-mates shifted somewhat uncomfortably. Slow recognition began to dawn. "Colonel?"
Sheppard grimaced, the female features turning sour. "Yeah."
The change was instant. A broad smile spread across her face, and she began to laugh.
"It's not that funny," said Ronon, frowning a little. Sheppard looked similarly discombobulated, while Rodney's sulky expression was back.
And Teyla kept laughing. Loudly. Her laughter rang through the infirmary, bold and strong, and with an edge that Carson thought was close to hysterical. Certainly, it wasn't Teyla's usual amusement.
"Teyla?" A finger at her wrist checked her pulse, but it seemed normal, not elevated. She wasn't having a fit or a hysterical interlude, it was just laughter.
Loud, steady laughter that was very unlike Teyla at all.
Her laughter stopped suddenly as she winced, her hand going to her forehead again as she leaned back. "Oh, that hurts. I think I'm going to lie down again..."
"But you can't just do that!" Rodney burst out. "We need to know what you saw - if anything happened differently for you. Did you fall asleep with the flash of light? Do you feel any different?"
Her eyes had shut and she was shaking her head. "There was a bright flash of light. That's all." She winced, her hand pushing at her brow.
"Teyla?" Carson asked, suddenly concerned. "Does your head hurt? I can give you some aspirin..."
"It's just a headache," she said abruptly, opening her eyes. "It'll be better for some sleep."
It was more like a dismissal than anything else, delivered flatly and with little room for protest.
Of course, little room wasn't the same as no room. "How can you sleep at a time like this? We need you to remember what you saw so we can get changed back!" Carson winced. While he could understand Rodney's frustration, the female voice made the words sound even whinier than Rodney's usual grumbling.
"Teyla," Sheppard's fingers touched her wrist, anxious. "Are you okay?"
Teyla looked up at him. "I'm fine, Colonel," she said. "But I could do with some rest, if you please."
Rodney opened his mouth to protest again, Ronon caught Carson's eye, and grabbed Rodney by the arm and towed him out. "We'll find some clothes." Even as a woman, it seemed Ronon was fairly strong. Rodney tried to struggle but found himself dragged along.
"What? No! I mean, yes, but Teyla might-- There's no need to--"
Sheppard followed them as Rodney's protests dimmed, but turned back at the door. "You don't remember anything?"
Teyla shook her head. "Nothing." Sheppard gave Teyla a long look, then a brief half-smile and nod and went. The door closed behind her and the others, and Teyla turned to Carson, her eyes pleading. "No more questions, please. I'm tired."
Tiredness wasn't unusual in someone who'd been unconscious for a while. If the flash of light or whatever had injured her in some way, then her body would pull all its resources into getting better, which meant she'd sleep more.
"No more questions," Carson said in reassurance. "But I'm going to take a swab for the DNA test," he said, pulling out one of the cotton buds for the swab.
"DNA - but I am not--"
"It's just a precaution, Teyla," he reassured her. "We want to be sure that you're okay. It'll only take a moment."
She seemed reluctant to open her mouth, but Carson was insistent. Looking fine wasn't the same as being fine - as any doctor worth his salt knew. Besides, with the other three changed, there were too many questions about what had been done to them - and what might have been done to Teyla.
Once the sample was taken, he sealed up the swab and tucked it in his shirt pocket. "Rest for a couple of hours. You've been unconscious most of the day from the sound of it and I don't want you to fall unconscious again."
"I'll be fine," she said, shifting a little. "Can I go to my quarters?"
"I'd rather you didn't," Carson said. "We'd like to keep an eye on you for the moment. Like I said, you've been unconscious for most of the day and we don't know what happened to you while you were in the ruins."
She seemed sulky about it, but lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
Carson paused to watch her at the door of the room. He had a vague sense of unease, as though something wasn't quite right. Oh, Teyla seemed hale and healthy, but...different. Perhaps it was just the contrast to the three 'women' who were quite clearly themselves in mind, but not in body, perhaps it was something more. He patted the DNA swab in his pocket; at any rate, the DNA test would tell them.
There was no sign of the trio when he returned to the outer ward.
"They went to find some clothing," said Sue, still smiling as she took the blood samples and began splitting them into the various test tubes they used for the blood tests. "They said they'd be back afterwards."
As it turned out, 'afterwards' was a little later than Carson expected.
For starters, they had to get cleaned up and find suitable clothing. Apparently this took nearly twice as long as it did for 'normal women'. Carson was tempted to ask what benchmark Sergeant Dachaus used to define a 'normal woman' but decided against it, figuring he didn't really want to know the answer.
Then Elizabeth called to say that she was holding a meeting with the trio and Lorne to jog their memories and she'd send them to him after, complete with the recording.
In the meantime, Carson set about preparing the samples for the PCR, defining the primers and setting up the thermal cycler. The four samples were put in and the machine started the slow process of charting the DNA fragments which would tell them a little more about the bodies the men were now in - and whether anything had happened to Teyla that they just couldn't see.
He also did a few more basic tests on the tissue samples they had. The results were...interesting.
Carson went through the tests results, contacted a few of his staff and rearranged some schedules so there'd be minimal traffic up this end of the infirmary. The last thing they needed or wanted was for this to become very public knowledge. It might have to go into a report somewhere, and there would inevitably be gossip, but Elizabeth would be able to keep it eyes-only for command and medical personnel. He hoped.
Around the two-hour mark, there was a groan from the next room.
He hurried in and found Teyla hunched over, her head resting in her hands.
Carson crossed the room "Teyla?"
"Doctor," she still seemed a little disoriented. "I don't think this is helping," she said.
"Too much sleep does that," he said. "Do you feel pain anywhere? Dizzy? Sick?"
She lifted dark eyes to him. "A little dizzy," she said. "I think I've been sleeping too long."
Carson nodded, patting her on the shoulder. "Well, go take a shower and come back when you're done. We'll be going over the others' tests then and I'd like you to be there."
Teyla nodded and left, striding briskly along.
He returned to his notes.
When the Colonel, Rodney, and Ronon did turn up, they were restless, shifting shoulders, twitching limbs, tugging at the edges of their clothing, trying to get comfortable, apparently unable to manage it.
As they seated themselves in the office Carson had chosen to discuss all this, he made a mental note to review the files on the incident where O'Neill, Jackson and Teal'c were swapped into each others' bodies - it might provide some insight on how to deal with this situation, although at least the body into which they'd been switched was male.
Rodney was the most restive of the three. She kept pulling at the side of her shirt.
"Stop that," Sheppard said. She - he'd leaned back in his chair, apparently relaxed, and sitting...well, the way he usually sat, with his ankle resting on his knee. Ronon had his legs apart, and in spite of Carson's knowledge that it was a male mind in a female body, it was more than a little disturbing to see the typically male sprawl enacted by a feminine form.
"It doesn't fit right," Rodney muttered, still yanking at the black t-shirt. His breasts seemed to be causing him some discomfort.
"Seems to fit fine from where I'm sitting," Ronon remarked.
Rodney looked up, a dawning horror on her face. "You're checking me out!" Her voice was shrill. "Stop it!"
"Why? Sheppard's been doing it too."
Sheppard was going a lovely shade of pink that Carson had never seen on the man before. Of course, now Sheppard was a woman, so it wasn't exactly--
"It's a reflex action," the Colonel said. "Don't tell me you haven't been checking me and Ronon out."
"I would never--"
Sheppard ran right over Rodney's attempt at protest. "Don't worry, Rodney." She smiled a variation of that sour, cynical smile that usually indicated the man was making a point. "You're not my type - too shrill."
"Too shrill? Oh, that's wonderful."
"But reassuring," Ronon smirked.
Rodney turned to Carson, pointedly ignoring his team-mates. "So have you worked out how to reverse this yet?"
Carson stared. "I haven't even worked out what's been done to you," he said, more sharply than he'd intended. "Which is why I was planning to ask you questions now - or, at least, once Teyla gets here." At their expressions, he explained. "She went to have a wash and freshen up. Why don't you start at the beginning and she can join in when she gets--"
"Carson?" His earpiece came to life.
"Elizabeth?"
"Do you have...our guests with you?"
He glanced over at the three women who were watching him, unable to hear Elizabeth. For whatever reason, they'd been issued with Atlantis standard clothing, but no earpieces. "Yes, they're here."
"Teyla as well?"
"No, she went to shower."
In the background, he heard Elizabeth giving orders for the marines to locate Teyla. "Elizabeth?"
"We just got a call from off-world," she said, sounding more than a little grim. "And someone who knows our IDC codes and looks like Teyla has just walked out of the Stargate."
Uh-oh.
--
If Elizabeth was shocked at the transformation of the men she knew, the appearance of Teyla through the Stargate - again - was even more shocking.
The marines had their weapons up and pointed at the woman before she'd taken more than two steps into the city. As she saw the weapons rise, Teyla dropped the items she'd been carrying, lifting her hands to show she wasn't a threat, and lifting her eyes to Elizabeth's balcony in wary question. "Dr. Weir?"
"Teyla?" Elizabeth rested her hands on the metal railing for balance, staring down at the figure on the floor. She hurried down to the Gateroom floor. "Teyla?"
This Teyla looked considerably the worse for wear; her hair roughly tied back, her skin smudged with dirt and her fatigues loose and grubby. But the steady gaze that looked back at Elizabeth was very familiar. "Is there something wrong, Dr. Weir?"
"Where--?" Elizabeth caught herself. Until now, she'd thought the three women really were the Colonel, Rodney, and Ronon. They'd certainly behaved enough like them, and she had been seeing faint glimpses of the men they'd been yesterday in the women they were today.
"I do not know where Colonel Sheppard and the others are," Teyla said immediately. "We were exploring the ruins in the afternoon, when there was a flash of light. When I woke I was alone and judged it to be morning." She indicated the things she'd dropped on the floor - two flak vests and assorted weaponry. "I did not see what happened to them, but it has taken me most of the day to release my bonds. I searched the ruins but could find no sign of them but for their equipment."
Her wrists were red and chafed, rubbed raw from the struggle, and there was a note of desperation in Teyla's voice - if it even was Teyla.
Whoever this person was - whether Teyla or someone else - they were exhausted. Even as Elizabeth watched, the woman swayed slightly.
"Get her to the infirmary," she said. "We'll sort this out there."
Teyla wasn't a fool. Even if she didn't understand all the nuances of Earth culture, she was sharp enough to realise that something wasn't quite right. Rather than moving off with the marines, she regarded Elizabeth. "Dr. Weir, has there been trouble in my absence?"
"Not exactly. Teyla, please go to the infirmary and we'll sort it out."
The other woman didn't move. "And four marines are necessary to escort me there?"
Elizabeth could understand the slightly tense note in Teyla's voice. It wasn't the first time the Athosian woman had been under suspicion, although the intervening years had established her as one of the expedition. "It's a precaution, Teyla. You'll understand when you see Carson."
She wasn't so sure the other woman believed her, but Teyla lifted her chin and walked ahead of the marines, dignified as any queen.
One of the marines scooped up the dropped flak jackets as she contacted Carson. It was convenient that three of their 'mystery people' were still with him - but the absence of the other Teyla was worrying. She sent some spare marines to scour the city, looking for Teyla - another Teyla that was wandering the city, then went back to her conversation with Carson. "Is there any quick test that you can perform on her to prove she is who she says she is?"
"I--" Carson hesitated. "We're just waiting for the DNA results to come back - but, Elizabeth, if this is what I suspect it won't make a difference."
She wanted to ask what he suspected right there and then. She held off. Why make him go through it twice? "I'm about to call Lorne and his team to keep an eye on things in the infirmary, and I'm heading there myself."
"All right. The PCR is done, Nurse Corell is setting up the charts - in another fifteen minutes we'll have some of our answers."
"But not the important one." Not the solution to the problem.
"No," said Carson.
Lorne and his team intercepted Teyla and the marines in one of the side corridors, so when Elizabeth got to the infirmary, the section where Carson was working was...crowded.
She dismissed the marines and closed the doors. They hissed shut behind her, sealing her in with Carson, Teyla, the sex-changed trio, one white-haired aide, and Major Lorne and his team.
Teyla was sitting on one of the gurneys, staring warily at female-John, who'd come up beside her as Carson examined her wrists. John - or Johanna - was staring warily back.
"Rope?" Carson asked.
"From our packs," she said, dragging her gaze from John's. "And well-tied. It took me some time to find the knife with which to cut them." As he let go of her wrists, she stepped carefully away from John, clearly disturbed by the lack of personal space that was being granted her. "It hurts a little when it is touched."
"It should heal clean," Carson said. "But I'd like to get some antiseptic cream on them." He turned away and began rummaging in a nearby drawer.
Teyla's team-mates had been watching her during her conversation with Carson, hawklike in their intensity. She smiled at them, brief and distant, and otherwise ignored them.
Of course, they weren't about to do the same. "Who tied you up?" John asked.
Startled at the question from an apparent stranger, a polite veil dropped over Teyla's features. "I do not believe we have met," she said.
At her words, John's expression set, the rather pretty features grim. "Oh, we've met."
"Teyla, it's us," Rodney said.
Her expression remained blank.
"Sheppard, Rodney, me," Ronon said, pointing from John to Rodney to himself.
Teyla blinked, then turned unerringly to Elizabeth, bewildered by the declaration. Elizabeth felt both amusement and pity at the other woman's confusion. "It seems that they've been...changed into women."
There was a snicker from one of Lorne's team, standing back around the edges of the infirmary. Elizabeth quelled it with a glance - or maybe it was Rodney's fierce glare. At any rate, the man subsided, although his eye still danced with amusement.
All things considered, Elizabeth was glad that most of this had been kept quiet. As the military leader of the expedition, John required respect of the men and women in his command. And, in spite of the alleged gender equality present in western society, men still commanded more respect than women with greater ease.
With her years of negotiating experience behind her, Elizabeth was very aware of this.
But she doubted any of this was in Teyla's mind as she regarded what Elizabeth had just told her with frank surprise.
"Changed?" She looked them up and down, still wary, but with a growing recognition.
"It's still us," John said. He was resting his hands on his hips the way he did any time he was waiting for something, and Elizabeth saw comprehension dawn in Teyla's face as she took in his stance. "We're just...not in our bodies."
Carson had moved to Teyla's side and began smearing cream on her wrists. "Actually, Colonel, given that some of the physical characteristics have been...inherited by these bodies, it's entirely possible that you are in your bodies - just the bodies you would have had if you'd been born female." He glanced at John as he put the cream aside and took up the bandages.
"But that's not our bodies," Rodney argued. "I mean, we're not women. We look like them, but we're not."
"And it is...you?" Teyla was still watching her team-mates, her eyes wide. She didn't find any amusement in the situation, at least, which was a sop to their pride.
"It's us," said John. "We were talking about movies on the walk to the ruins. You still haven't seen 'Nightmare on Elm Street'."
Something in her face eased. "And I do not wish to," she replied, smiling. "As I indicated."
John muttered something about taste in movies or lack thereof, but Teyla just smiled, then turned to Carson as he finished binding her wrists, and then began putting things away.
"So who tied you up?" Rodney asked.
"I do not know," she said, easing herself back on the bed. Her shoulders slumped a little. "I remember your shout and the flash of light - from the walls. After that, I woke up and was alone in a room at the back of the ruins."
"We checked all the rooms before we left," said John.
Ronon shrugged. "Looking for our clothes," he said. "You weren't there."
"Well, you were," said Rodney, hastily. "But you were with us - unconscious and-- What are you wearing, anyway?"
For the first time, Elizabeth realised the shirt and trousers Teyla wore had clearly been made for a larger person. "My clothing was gone when I woke." She sounded slightly annoyed. "However, there were other items of clothing - I believe this is Colonel Sheppard's clothing. They were the closest fit."
"Did you bring back the rest of our stuff?" Rodney asked, looking huffy and quite comical in her annoyance. The expressions Elizabeth was used to in Rodney looked very odd on this woman who resembled him. "You know, this is quite ridiculous. We should be going back to the planet to work out what was done to us!"
"Actually," John said, her eyes resting on Teyla, "we should be looking for the other Teyla we brought back with us. Because if this is Teyla, who was the other one?"
"The other one?" Teyla looked to Elizabeth.
"They returned with another woman," she explained. "She looked like you."
"Didn't behave much like her," said Ronon.
Rodney glared over at his team-mate. "And you bring this up now?"
A nurse entered the room and began talking to Carson in a low voice, handing him a couple of folders and a sheaf of loose paper.
The shrug came from shoulders that were only slightly less broad and muscled than Ronon's usual form. "She looked like Teyla."
"And we don't look like Rodney McKay, John Sheppard or Ronon Dex - but we're still them!" Rodney exclaimed shrilly.
"Rodney, will you calm down for just a minute, please," Carson interposed without looking up from the charts the nurse had given him. "In fact, everyone sit down and be quiet!"
Rodney opened her mouth. John propelled her into a seat and rolled her eyes at Elizabeth who smiled in spite of herself. If it was weird to see her colleagues as female, it was weirder still to realise that she was almost getting used to the unfamiliar person behaving in familiar ways.
"All right," Carson said after a moment's more study. "Well, genetically, you're definitely who you used to be - the electrophoresis of your PCR shows an almost precise correlation with your original DNA tests."
Silence.
"Which means?" John asked.
"It means you're basically the same genetic person - just female." He glanced up.
"Just female?" Rodney huffed. "So how do we become basically the same genetic person - just male?"
"I don't know," said Carson. "But it probably has something to do with the flash of light and whatever you touched before it went off."
"I didn't touch anything!" At the looks Rodney's team-mates gave him, he protested, "Well, nothing dangerous."
Somehow, Elizabeth doubted that. "I think we might have to ask the other Teyla," she said at last. "Since she seems to have disappeared."
"Which makes it rather difficult to ask her," Lorne noted from the side.
"The marines are looking for her through the city," said Elizabeth.
"But will they find her?"
"Uh, there may be a slight problem with that," murmured Carson.
Elizabeth focused on the doctor. "Carson?"
The doctor sighed as he set the board down on his lap. "The electrophoresis of Teyla's PCR - the other Teyla - matches Teyla's record in everything except one point."
"Her Wraith DNA?" Elizabeth asked.
Carson shook his head. "Actually, that's still there." He looked at Teyla. "However, according to this graph and our tests, Teyla is also in possession of the Ancient gene."
The Ancient gene?
"Teyla's got the Ancient gene?" Rodney's voice shrilled in disbelief.
"I'd say it's the person imitating Teyla who has the Ancient gene."
"And very strongly, too," Carson said. "Sue ran the gene tests twice because she didn't believe it the first time. It's even stronger than John's gene."
Elizabeth was startled. As far as they'd been able to tell, none of the Pegasus natives had the Ancient gene. To find one who had it - and stronger than John... "An Ancient?"
Carson shrugged. "It might be. Even when compared to John, it's nearly off the chart."
Ronon sat forward, the tension clear in her shoulders. "Why'd she return with us, then?"
"To watch our reactions," said John. He looked disgusted. "It's a practical joke, and she wanted to watch us and laugh." One hand made a gesture that encompassed himself, Rodney, and Ronon.
"Doesn't seem very...Ancient-like."
"It explains her mirth when she woke up." Carson said, sitting down heavily in his chair. "And I let her out into the city."
"You had no reason to know it wasn't Teyla," Elizabeth said, trying to comfort him. Her mind was already working through the ramifications. "And it might not even be a 'she', you know." They stared at her. "If you could be changed to become female, then the other Teyla might not be originally female either."
It was Lorne's turn to enter the conversation. "You mentioned an old man at the ruins."
"He was crazy!" Rodney exclaimed.
"And the Ancients can't be crazy?"
"So you're saying that a crazy, practical joker of an Ancient turned us all into women just for laughs?"
"And now has free run through Atlantis." John sat up. He both looked and sounded grim. "We need to find her."
"Agreed," Elizabeth said. "The marines are out looking--"
"With nearly forty-five minutes head start? She could be anywhere in the city by now!"
"The life-signs detector was calibrated to detect a Wraith," Teyla said, cutting across Rodney's protest. "Can it not be adjusted to show only the people in possession of the Ancient gene?"
Elizabeth smiled briefly at Teyla's offering to the conversation, but Rodney was faster to the criticism. "That would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that one-third of the expedition has the Ancient gene."
Ronon frowned. "It's still better than the whole expedition."
"And you could calibrate it so it only picks up the people with the strongest manifestation of the gene," pointed out John.
"What? Why me?"
"Because," said John with mild malice, "you're the genius around here - as you like to remind us so often."
Various smiles and smirks appeared and were hidden, although Carson rolled his eyes and Teyla sighed.
"Oh, so when it comes to saving your ass, then you actually remember I'm the genius?" Rodney huffed and folded his arms. "So you're going to go out and hunt the Ancient once I've finished tinkering with the life signs detector?"
"If I have to."
"I will hunt her down," Teyla said, her voice quiet but clear in the silence.
Carson nodded. "At least there won't be any question when you've caught her."
"I'll help," Ronon offered immediately.
Elizabeth opened her mouth to veto that idea and was beaten to it by John. "Uh, no offence, Teyla, Ronon, but neither of you have the Ancient gene at all."
"So?"
"So you can't use the life-signs detector."
"And neither you nor Ronon will be going anywhere into Atlantis to hunt down an Ancient." Both women stared at Carson, their expressions disbelieving. "I'm sorry, but you're not yourselves."
"We're fine," said John. Elizabeth winced at his belligerence. "And we'll be much better if we're allowed to hunt this prankster down."
"You are not accustomed to those bodies," Teyla said.
"We still know how to fight." Elizabeth thought it odd how Ronon could still growl as an alto.
Teyla stood and moved into a clear space in the centre of the room. "Then come at me."
Under any other circumstances, Elizabeth would have said it was suicide. Ronon was a match for everyone in the base except for Teyla.
But when Ronon stood and lunged at Teyla, she turned easily and used the momentum of the attack to unbalance her team-mate. Ronon sprawled on the floor, although he rolled and was back on his feet again. He - she - bounded in again, lashing out with one fist, and was easily blocked - without any effort. Elizabeth didn't know much about fighting, but even she could see the way Ronon was trying to use a weight and reach that didn't belong to him in this form.
Ronon was laid out within seconds, easily vanquished. "Do you understand?" Teyla asked.
He understood. He didn't like it, but he saw. Dark eyes blinked in angry understanding of the point, and Elizabeth regretted the necessity of the example.
Teyla held out a hand to pull Ronon up. "You know how to fight in the body you had," she said, solemn as a teacher lecturing a student. "Not in this one." Ronon made a grumpy noise and dusted himself off. He seemed only a little self-conscious at being beaten, although Elizabeth gathered that it was okay for him to be shown up by Teyla. If it had been one of the men, it might have been a different story, but Teyla was okay.
"So we're basically stuck here," said John with a huff.
"I'm afraid so, Colonel," Carson said. "Elizabeth?"
"Major Lorne will accompany Teyla," she said. "He's got the gene to operate the detector."
Lorne glanced at Teyla, then back at Elizabeth. "Necessary force?"
"Disable," John said. "Don't kill." The expression on her - his - face was tense, but Elizabeth suspected that John understood he'd just be in the way.
"Dr. Weir?"
Elizabeth found Teyla looking at her, waiting for the formal approval. She appreciated the gesture. "Do it."
Teyla met Major Lorne's gaze. "I must change into my own clothing first."
"You go do whatever you need to," he said easily. "McKay still has to get the life-signs detector recalibrated."
For the first time since she'd arrived through the gate, Teyla's mouth curved in a smile. Even the sight of her formerly male team-mates hadn't been cause for laughter to her. "So there is time for me to have a wash?"
Lorne glanced at Elizabeth, who nodded, half-smiling herself at the Athosian woman's plain desire to be clean again. "Yeah, guess so."
"Colonel, Major, Ronon, I'd appreciate your assistance in mapping out search patterns through the city," she said.
Technically, Ronon wasn't necessary, but it would give him something to occupy himself - and it would be better than watching him - or her - pace in caged frustration. As he'd said to Elizabeth once before, he didn't deal well with waiting.
"Rodney--"
He held up a hand. "Yes, I'll get the calibrations done. I'll probably have to set up in the conference room - it's the only place close enough. Get Miller to bring one of the control laptops in and I'll work on it there."
"How long will it take?"
"Oh, thirty minutes, maybe an hour."
Elizabeth looked around the room, a glance to be sure everyone knew what they were supposed to be doing. "Then let's get things moving."
--
Genes In A Twist: Part Two
NOTES: I've never written genderbender fic for Atlantis. It was supposed to be a quick foray into crazyland. And turned into a reasonably long, ZOMG-eat-my-brain fic.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-16 11:38 pm (UTC)although, minor nitpick: The third woman spoke almost as soon as the room was closed. "Before anyone says anything, I would like to emphasise that this is not my fault! I'm not the one who walked into the room and made everything light up!" He glared at the black-haired leader. I'm pretty sure you mean 'she glared', since at that juncture Elizabeth doesn't yet know who they really are. Otherwise, rock on.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-16 11:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 12:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 02:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 01:35 am (UTC)I really hope you continue with this, it has so many possibilities...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 02:27 am (UTC)Possibilities, yes. Whether people want to see those possibilities...very different matter.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 02:29 am (UTC)Um, mind if I friend you so I know when you post it?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 02:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 02:01 am (UTC)I seriously can't wait to see what you end up doing with this. Definitely a "This is not happening" moment. Just really really well done.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 02:35 am (UTC)From what I gather of most genderbenders, the boys change sex and promptly go for it like bunnies since they are now OMG!HawtWomen. But that might just be me and my unfortunate sampling skills.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 03:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 02:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-23 01:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 12:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-23 01:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-17 04:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-23 01:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-18 03:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-23 01:23 pm (UTC)Thanks.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-23 03:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-18 11:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-23 01:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-18 11:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-23 01:24 pm (UTC)Dead from Laughter
Date: 2006-04-19 01:06 am (UTC)You seriously should be writing for the show, an episode such as this would go down in the history books.
Wikked
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-19 03:52 pm (UTC)Oh this is going to be FUN.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-04-23 01:24 pm (UTC)