Jedi Buttercup was kind enough to let me play in her sandbox. Read the original story at jedibuttercup . livejournal . com / 360617 / html

Flick. Scrawl.

I'm watching a god sign an agreement.

Flick. Scrawl.

Part of him wanted to giggle at the sheer absurdity of it all. Poseidon's frown when the IOA representative informed him that he needed to initial every page showed his agreement.

Flick. Scrawl.

The IOA representative was watching politely. Darian Cobb had raised the most objection at adding an unknown factor into the Atlantis expedition, but as long as he does nothing to irritate the god sitting across him at the table, Daniel couldn't care less what he thinks.

Flick. Scrawl.

Only ten pages yet. Anyone else would have been left alone when the paperwork in question was two inches high, but somehow even the country representatives wanted to see Poseidon personally sign the agreement. The circus that passed for the negotiations for the inclusion of seven demigods into the Atlantis exhibition, Poseidon's own son included, was the funniest thing he'd seen for a while.

Flick. Scrawl.

Daniel wondered how long exactly Hermes would need to actually convey the other six agreements to the other parents, and would they actually sign them personally, one page at a time.

Flick. Scrawl.

Poseidon had comfortable loafers on, he noted, in contrast with the perfect suit he wore.

Flick. Pause.

Somewhere in the middle, he stopped, head cocked up, eyes unseeing.

A couple minutes into that, the IOA and various countries representatives was beginning to give him a hesitant look. He supressed his annoyance - he'd been appointed the liaison with Poseidon and Olympus without anyone actually saying so.

"Is there a problem?" Daniel ventured.

Poseidon's eyes snapped back to him. "No," he closed the thick ring-bound document and handed it back to Daniel.

"The agreement-" Cobb started-

"Is signed." Poseidon said. "Hermes will be back with the others soon." He'd gone back to looking upwards.

Eyebrows raised, Daniel opened it. The stylized trident in the first few pages had replicated itself all the way through the document, a more complex version in the final page. Well. That answered his question. He really couldn't see Zeus from the stories sitting patiently signing the thick agreement. When he returned his attention to Poseidon, Daniel realized that it wasn't worry on his face. It was, instead, a quiet joy interlaced with surprise.

The next half was spent watching Poseidon forcibly dragging his attention back to the room every few minutes. The French representative was watching him intently. He'd eloquently stated that if there are superpowered beings on earth, he prefers if they were at least be able to observe. Daniel tried not to think about what could make Poseidon abandon the pretense of humanity he'd held for so many days.

Hermes arrived with the sound of fluttering wings, and spent a few seconds looking at the direction Poseidon had just had his eyes on before placing the agreements on the table.

"Are we done?" Poseidon asked.

"For this part. Doctor Jackson will take over from here." Cobb answered. He picked up the stack, and said, "I'll take my leave. Doctor Jackson. Poseidon."

The meeting room was emptying. The negotiations were done. The final plans - which included everything from permission for swords and bows to post-graduate educations for seven teenagers - had been drawn. The kids will arrive tomorrow. The parents might show up too. He wondered how Athena would look like. They had seen only the two, yet, after all.

Poseidon, sea god, whose attention had been caught up by something some time ago, waited in the room while Hermes almost immediately disappeared. Hermes, messenger of the gods, whom in the tilt of his head and the movement of his face had an unvoiced conference with Poseidon before going.

"One final thing, then," Poseidon murmured, distracted, and Daniel Jackson turned towards him. Poseidon had his head tilted again, as if listening to a very faint voice, before striding with a very definite air.

Their military guards scrambled to keep up with their sudden movement, but Poseidon did not let up his relentless speed. Some of them had to run into the transporter just before its door slid closed. Daniel's flashed hands was the only thing that kept them from brandishing noted that sometime between exiting the meeting room and this hurried walk, the god's clothes had changed to casual jeans. The transporter's door opened to the highest part of the central tower, from which Poseidon headed straight to the stairs leading up to the highest observation point. Instead of heading out, he went to a small door that slid open at his look.

Daniel blinked. He'd never seen that door before. No - he never noticed that door before. At Poseidon's tilted head, he went into the room alone.

A crumpled form was in the room. A small form. A few steps took him beside the very young child, on the floor, asleep in a flowing white dress. One hand disappeared among masses of hair, the other outflunged.

"The thoughts of your expedition are small, but strong. Just strong enough to be embodied, but for the will of the Ancients in Pegasus. Only this brief respite, far from their reach had allowed her this."

Daniel paused, looking up. His hand was still feeling the girl's slow pulse. Beyond the door, one of the guards was on radio with the informary.

Poseidon smiled down at the form. "It is rare, even for us to see such a thing coming to be. It is even more rare that one had to fight so hard to come into being. The Ancients had suppressed her - imprisoned her very essence - these long years. She'd been fighting - all of hers had been fighting for her - as much as these thing go."

"She's a new god?" Daniel asked. The child suddenly felt unreal to him. The protesting sounds she made reassured him, and he automatically wrapped his hands around her when she pulled herself up into his lap.

"No." In that word Daniel could see the truth. He could see more to Poseidon's words that anybody else could - echoes of thoughts and glimpses that never managed to form a picture. "We of Olympus are different from her and her kin. Yet, young as they are, they are tied to this time and people as we were before them. Hermes already sent them the news."

Certain now that she was uninjured, merely asleep, the details surrounding her began to register. She'd been sprawled in the exact center of the room, Daniel realized, the exact center of Atlantis, the lines between sea green and azure and red ochre on the floor arcing away from her, echoing the same faint metallic glints in her dress. The pattern on the bronze hem echoed the familiar decorative and functional panels all over the city.

"Who is she?" Daniel heard himself ask. He stared at the stark symbolism. "What is she?"

"I believe you know that already." Poseidon hid his secrets behind smiling eyes, and would obviously not reveal more. Mind muttering unheard imprecations to beings that think themselves better than humans, he stayed beside her until footsteps heralded the arrival of the medical team. Poseidon moved from where he was hovering near the door to the circular wall.

The protectiveness he felt as he had to release her, to move back to give the med team space, the relief at their arrival hit him like a brick. Suddenly, the girl felt so very, very familiar.

All of hers.

Atlantis.

The very young Atlantis, with long curled lashes on her cheek and tiny little hands.

"We can't go back to Pegasus-" Daniel whispered, panicked, that protective streak already outrunning his other thoughts, "the Ancients-"

"Will not interfere. She had become, and she is not bound by their rules. For as long as there is Atlantis," and in Poseidon's implacable voice Daniel saw the people, the boundaries set by her people, lines even the ascended cannot cross, "they cannot touch her."

It was the images and certainty that overlaid Poseidon's words that reassured him. He forced himself to breathe - slow and steady - and looked at the medical team; he'd lost some time in his epiphany and panic. They had finished with the girl, and was just about to leave with her, and he was torn between going with them and not leaving Poseidon alone in his city.

"Go," Poseidon said, indulgent and commanding at the same time, and Daniel would have snapped back at him, but he was looking at Atlantis, and when he looked back at Poseidon, the god was already gone.

He ran to catch up.