Epilogue

They come out of the Stargate’s pool of artificially stabilized event horizon. The first ones to return were always the ones either pushing or lugging the heavy duty equipment in front, beside, or behind them. Already the Daedalus was on her way back and would be there in orbit to beam her accompaniment of Atlantis personnel and their stuff back to their rightful places within a few hours. After the equipment, came the people. In the middle of the outpouring came Kanaan with a sleepy Torren in his arms and Little Michael beside him. Without hesitation, Michael bounds to his mother. Kenmore drops to her knees and catches her son in her arms, smiling and laughing as though he’s just come back from a school fieldtrip that he was sooo excited to tell her all about. Although much more restrained as was her people’s tradition, Teyla waits and watches her own returning family approach her with no less as big and grand a smile than Lieutenant Kenmore has on her face. Kanaan’s steps are hurried and in the last few feet between them, both Teyla and he rush forward to meet each other. Sometimes their people’s customs needed to be… rushed a little. Immediately they touch their foreheads together and she wraps her arms around both of them. Kanaan slips his free arm around behind her back and holds her close; his splayed hand gently pressing on the small of her back, sending a comforting chill up her spine and tingling throughout her body. Torren yawns and curls up into his father’s neck, finally falling into the sleep he’d been trying to stave off for hours now. Like Teyla had said once before, their little boy was acutely aware and sensitive to his father’s anxieties. Almost immediately he starts snoring these tiny contented little snores that both parents found so endearing. Teyla and Kanaan look into each other’s eyes, smiling and laughing.

“You are well,” her partner asks.

“Yes,” she nods while keeping their foreheads together, “Very much so now that you both have returned.”

Kanaan’s smile broadens at her and they start to turn a little from left to right in sways, in their own little world, as Kenmore had already left with her own son and other Atlantis personnel were still coming out of the gate.

“I have been thinking,” Teyla tells him, “Perhaps I could take some time off and we could return to visit our people.”

Kanaan nods, he likes the idea. “I would have to check with Doctor Brown first to see if I might be able to take some time off as well,” Kanaan tells her. Teyla’s smile broadens at him, her eyes glittering.

Acknowledgements

As is usual with my acknowledgements page, I go in chronological order based on what’s going on in the story’s timeline so I will undoubtedly end up thank a few people repeatedly for various different things. So to start things off, I’d like to thank Jennifer Johnson for her work with the Stargate Atlantis television series as Associate Producer and for everything that that job entails. As Sharon Gosling wrote in the Stargate Atlantis: The Official Companion Season 4, “… the next time you sit down to watch an episode [of Atlantis], spare a thought for Jennifer Johnson and her [post-production] team!” and that’s what I’ve done here. Welcome back to Atlantis Jennifer Johnson. Another Stargate Atlantis production thank you goes out to James Robbins as the production designer of the series. He is the man responsible for the look of the sets of Atlantis because he is at the beginning of it all as the man responsible for the beautiful concept drawings upon which they’re all based. I have two of these drawings from the Atlantis’ premiere episode, the ruined Ancient city on Athosia and the Wraith hiveship buried in a tree-covered hillside, and, in my opinion, Atlantis would not have been as inspirational a series as it was without you. In the story and as with Jennifer, welcome back to Atlantis James Robbins. I’d also like to say thanks to the Art Director Chris Beach, Construction Coordinator Scott Welenbrink, Set Decorators Mark and Robert Davidson, and Property Master Kenny L. Gibbs for their work on the Atlantis Season Five episode “The Prodigal” for what Torren’s crib and for helping to give me an idea of kind of what Teyla and Kanaan’s bed looks like along with what is shown of Teyla’s Athosian dream bed in the Season Four episode “The Kindred, Part I”. Again it was beautiful inspiration and wonderful to incorporate in Teyla’s personal moments in this story because it’s little things, little touches like that that make a story believable as belonging to the Stargate Atlantis series. And I thank you for it. Thanks also goes out to Peter DeLuise and Damian Kindler, who came up with the story and wrote the screenplay (Peter) for the Season 7 two-part episode “Evolution” for the information from it I used here. It was a wonderful Anubis episode to reference here. And helped me show exactly how much of a Goa’uld Anubis still is. Thanks Carl Binder for his writing of and actor Gidon Karmel for playing Major Leonard in the Season Three Atlantis episode, “Phantoms”. It let me show how much a character like John Sheppard is moved when losing someone under his command and how he might feel about those people personally, something he would never actually talk about unless it were either Teyla, Ronon, or Rodney and even then, they’d usually have to be in imminent danger first. Thank yous also go out to the Stargate Wiki database and everyone who contributes to it for its article on Anubis. It helped fantastically for reference to give Team Atlantis all the information they could possibly use to fight on of the greatest foes of Stargate SG-1 and the Stargate franchise in general. I’d also liked to thank Brad Wright for writing “The Shrine” episode of Atlantis’ Fifth Season, especially those moments between Ronon and Rodney and for revealing just how much Ronon has come to love and protectively cherish his friendship with Rodney. And also for revealing, on Ronon’s part, just how deep and important it’s become to him. It’s another leap forward from what it was in the Season Three “Tao of Rodney” episode. And it’s a bond I couldn’t resist bringing back in this story. Thank you. And huge gratitude goes out to both Brad Wright (again) and Robert C. Cooper as the creators of the Stargate Atlantis First Season episode “Hide and Seek” for the perfect and absolutely best way to bring one of SG-1’s greatest villains and the villain that was the major reason behind the SG-1 episodes “The Lost City Parts I and II” which led to the premise behind the Stargate Atlantis series, to his end. Talk about bringing it full circle here. Everything always comes back to home.;-) And it’s all due to you guys. Seriously, thanks isn’t enough, but it’s a start so thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, etc.…  And thanks to the joke machinations of Martin Wood and Dan “Lieutenant Sly Siler” Shea for the iconic SGC gi-normous wrench. I thought it was about time that it made its Atlantis debut, even if it’s only in the novels and not on the screen. But here’s hoping for that someday.   And sorry to the wrench’s fans that it’s only in the story as a mention, I’ll try and get it out of the SGC and into the Lost City somehow. I’d also like to thank the fans of the Stargate Atlantis series for reading this story. It’s my first two-part story and I hope you enjoyed it. It was a blast to write and I hope you feel it would fit in like an Atlantis episode. It’s my goal each time I write an Atlantis story that it does credit to the television series it’s based off of and is accurate to both the series and the franchise in general. I’m a fan too and absolutely the number thing I hate is when someone writes a story for a beloved series and don’t seem to know a damned thing about it, its canon, or its continuity. So I hope I did you proud. If not, just tell me. It only helps to make me a better Atlantis writer and my stories not disrespect or disappoint one of my favorite sci-fi series of all time. And as always in my acknowledgements, my last thank you is to my mother. She is my first reader, my first editor, and my first fan and my biggest one too. She is always at the front of my thoughts and my last thought when I’m finished writing one of my stories because I can’t wait for her to read it and tell me what she thinks doesn’t work as a fellow Stargate Atlantis fan and what does work as a fellow Stargate Atlantis fan. I love you and hope you like this trip through the Stargate of the Lost City of the Ancestors. Thank you for coming on the adventure with me, I’d have you on my gate team anytime. I love you.