Fic: Many Hands by frith_in_thorns (AMTDI Challenge)

[frith_in_thorns]

Title: Many Hands
Rating: PG, gen
Character: Team
Word count: 2000
Warnings/Spoilers: None
A/N: Little bit fluffy, little bit plot-lite. Hope you enjoy it all the same!
Summary: Somehow, no one remembered that this was supposed to be a trade negotiation. But no one cared.

The long beams of wood were very heavy, even with six people helping to carry them, but Teyla didn’t mind the exertion. It made a rather pleasant change, if she was honest, from some of their more… exciting… missions.

Not that this one had been planned as a tree-carrying exercise. But what should have been a routine trade meeting had been derailed when they arrived to find the small settlement torn apart by a storm which had ravaged through the area the night before, destroying buildings and crops alike. The Saran had plenty of supplies for themselves, but no longer enough surplus for trade.

The group of two women and four men, and the stripped tree, emerged from the forest’s edge and, by mutual unspoken agreement, dropped their burden down and stretched, wiping sweat from faces and taking deep breaths.

“Hey!” John called from a distance. “No slacking off!”

She waved back in response, pushing strands of hair away from her eyes with her other hand. Several people laughed good-humouredly. She marvelled at the difference between the wary atmosphere the team had encountered a few hours earlier – the villagers not knowing how the Lanteans would react to the sudden curtailment of the promised trade negotiation – and the friendliness and camaraderie there was now. They obviously hadn’t expected the reaction to their bad news to take the form of four voices (one a little delayed, but audible nevertheless) asking how they could help.

“We might as well leave the wood here for now,” Tarl told the other carriers, cheerfully. “They won’t be needing it for a while yet.” He gestured vaguely towards the centre of the settlement, where a large structure was rising beneath the hands of most of the settlement’s men, and John and Ronon. “The job’ll never be finished, at the rate they’re going.”

“You say that too often,” scolded the other woman in the group. “The Lanteans will think you are a bad leader.”

“I am a bad leader, Shay. You shouldn’t have voted for me.”

“Who says I did?” Shay grumbled. She was several years older than Teyla, with grey beginning to show in her dark hair, but she still bettered her in strength, and had somehow managed to keep talking most of the way back through the forest after everyone else was out of breath from their burden.

Teyla laughed, and Shay clapped her on the shoulder, with the sort of well-meaning force she normally associated with Ronon. “I want to see how they are getting on with that building.”

The building in question had been destroyed when the massive tree which had previously marked the centre of the otherwise cleared area in the forest had come crashing down on it. It had been the largest one the Saran had, and used both as a store-house and meeting hall, as Tarl had explained. It had been decided that it would be rebuilt first so that it could be used for sleeping in while the smaller houses were repaired. Nights on this planet were very cold, despite what the day’s heat suggested.

Both Ronon and John occupied precarious positions on the skeletal roof, and waved again at Teyla’s approach. “Are you bringing us drinks?” John called down.

“No, I am getting one for myself.”

“But we’ve been working!” He gave her a pleading smile, which he probably assumed was utterly charming.

“And so have I!”

Ronon spat out the end of a piece of kessel rope he had been holding in his mouth while he used the other end to secure two slats. “Give it up, Sheppard.”

John grinned beatifically and stretched. “You know how it goes. The pretty maiden brings drinks for the manly workers…”

“You’ve been watching too many movies,” Ronon snorted. Teyla was very sure that he was aware of the several nearby ‘maidens’ who kept eyeing him with interest. He could probably have got several drinks immediately, if he asked. For that matter, there were several eyes on John, too.

“Teyla!” another familiar voice called, more commandingly than John had. Shay looked as if she, too, would not mind lingering in the vicinity of the forming hall, so Teyla left her and headed towards Rodney, who had found a piece of shade in what to be a house but now lacked a wall or so, and was making corrections to diagrams he had penned across the whole of the uninjured wooden floor. “I’ve nearly finished,” he informed her.

She took a closer look. She didn’t understand all of the tiny notes he had made to himself around the edges, but she trusted that they meant something to him. “Tarl will be pleased,” she said.

He nodded proudly. “This design won’t fall down. Not that I’ve ever designed a big barn before, with such primitive building materials, mind you, but the principles of engineering still hold. I did try to explain the concept of advanced techniques such as nails, but they just looked at me like I was mad.”

She suppressed a smile. “I’m sure your design will perform excellently.”

“Of course it will. I don’t, however, particularly appreciate projects where people work from the designs as I plot them. It makes me nervous.”

“I will bear that in mind for next time.”

“Yes, well, it has been sort of fun,” he admitted. “Certainly better than running for our lives, and more mature than playing Mr. Muscleman to an admiring crowd.”

Following his gaze, Teyla noted that Ronon had now divested himself of his shirt, and, correspondingly, the number of women available to pass materials up to him had also increased. John looked slightly jealous.

“Wait for it,” Rodney muttered quietly.

“Wait for what?”

John’s shirt magically vanished too. He glanced around, and a couple of seconds later he reached down out of their line of sight, and reappeared shortly with a flask of water and a rather smug expression.

“Ridiculous,” Rodney grumbled, and Teyla laughed.

“They are working hard, though.”

“Apparently.” He broke off. “Ah, there you are!”

A girl of about six was approaching, carefully carrying a clay cup and a plate of the sweet cakes which the Saran were justly proud of, eyeing them as if they were about to jump out of her grip and make a bid for freedom. “I brought them!” she exclaimed cheerfully.

“Excellent!” Rodney praised, and her face split in a gap-toothed grin. “This is Rabbit, my assistant,” he informed Teyla.

“Rabbit?” Teyla asked, raising an eyebrow doubtfully.

The girl nodded solemnly. “I’m called Rabbit today. Names are just pointless labels and shouldn’t be taken too seriously.”

At the familiar mannerisms of Rodney in her words, Teyla had to stifle an urge to laugh. “So what are you called on other days?”

“Rarvet.”

“Rarvet, Rabbit, close enough,” Rodney said. “She’s actually surprisingly bright. For a child.”

Rarvet/Rabbit grinned even more broadly at the questionable praise. “What shall I do now?”

“You can tell Tarl I’ve finished the diagrams.”

She nodded seriously, and then scampered away, leaving Teyla to wonder how Rodney had managed to get her under his complete command so quickly. But he probably didn’t know himself – just took it for granted.

“What are you going to do now that you have finished the designs?” she asked.

“Well, I’m not going to play acrobats, that’s for sure. I’ll be needed to supervise, otherwise heaven knows how these people will interpret my perfectly simple schematics.” He heaved a heavy sigh, but Teyla knew he was thoroughly enjoying himself, being in charge of a problem with no other equally qualified scientists to argue with him.

“Teyla!” Shay hollered, from near the tree line. “Break’s over!”

-

The sun was setting by the time the hall was finished, but it was finished – strong wooden-beamed walls, and wide sheets of bark stripped from the massively bulbous trunks of ama trees forming the roof covering. Most of the women had left the work a couple of hours ago, and had been preparing what would apparently be a celebratory feast. Teyla stood with the group of men with whom she had been working on the wall supports, and watched the others slide down from the roof, with or without the aid of the rough ladders, depending on bravado. The cooler air of the evening seemed to have encouraged John to retrieve his shirt, but Ronon’s was still nowhere to be seen. “Someone stole it,” Rodney hissed in her ear, seeing where she was looking. “Her.” He jerked his thumb at a wildly giggling blonde girl standing with two equally giggling friends a little way away.

Teyla grinned, and shook her head.

“So do we get food now?” John asked hopefully, sniffing the air.

“Not yet,” Rodney said. “I heard them saying something about some sort of ceremony.”

“Hope it’s a short one,” Ronon said quietly. Teyla ignored him, for the sake of diplomacy.

Meanwhile, all of the Saran had joined the group by the walls, including those who had previously left for cooking or other tasks. Excited mutterings bubbled through. Whatever this ceremony involved, it was clearly highly anticipated.

“Come in now,” Shay’s voice called out from inside the hall, and everyone trooped in to find a fire burning, perfectly contained by Rodney’s chimney, and Tarl with a large bucket full of black viscous liquid.

“We’re not going to have to drink that, are we?” Rodney asked, sounding horrified.

There was a giggle from nearer the floor. Rarvet/Rabbit was still following him around like a puppy. “No! It’s paint!”

“Huh?” John asked.

Tarl raised his voice. “We have a tradition. When a new building is complete, those who built it leave their mark inside.”

“What, like signing it?” Rodney asked.

But no one was listening to him to answer. Clearly this was what everyone had been waiting for, and the Saran surged forward to dip their hands in the bucket of paint and press them against the walls. John shrugged and raised his eyebrows.

“I don’t want paint on me,” Rodney complained.

“Don’t whine,” Ronon ordered, and dragged him to the bucket. Teyla noticed that he didn’t really hesitate before putting his hands inside it, despite his protests.

The walls began to fill with painted handprints. And people began to be covered with paint, too, as they were hugged, clapped on the back, had their hands shaken. “Wonder what Elizabeth’ll say about the cleaning bill,” John muttered to her, grinning.

In the middle of the mild chaos, food began to be brought in, and laid in the centre of the floor, around which several plain rugs were piled. People threw themselves down and helped themselves from the dishes, and the team followed suit. Hungry from the work, John even forgot to comment on Rodney’s portion size.

With a plate retrieved for herself, Teyla sat back and looked at her paint smeared team. Ronon particularly, while having failed to get his shirt back, was sporting a large number of handprints on his body, including several on the seat of his pants. He was paying no attention to his markings, however, seemingly fully occupied in munching steadily through as many different types of food as he could reach. John was talking to two young women, and ruffling his hair with a free hand every now and then, seemingly unconsciously. Rodney was surrounded by and apparently lecturing several children who were taking in his every word with wide eyes. She was sure she heard him refer to one of them as ‘Microbe’.

Ronon swallowed a mouthful, and turned to her. “This was much better than a trade negotiation,” he said.

She couldn’t help but agree.