Hi to everyone!

I was considering writing a whole story as a sequel, but I didn't know whether I would have enough time. But I didn't want to leave Katrin just yet and so I'm just going to do a series of one-shots, they'll be different genres, different lengths and not neccesarily in chronological order. If you have any suggestions for events or situations that I could write feel free to let me know and I'll do my best.

Anyway, this one-shot is set nearly five years after the events of 'The Ones You Love.'

Hope you like it, and please review!

---

When Katrin awoke it was to find sunlight already streaming through her window. She lay still listening to the waves lapping against the city, feeling comforted by the soft sounds. Another day in Atlantis and she knew that it would be an interesting one, not that every day on Atlantis wasn’t interesting, but today was different; today, marked her first step into adulthood; it was her birthday and she was eighteen.

She quickly got washed and dressed and headed down to the mess hall. She wasn’t surprised to be greeted by a chorus of happy birthdays from the middle table. She hadn’t even got in through the door when Elizabeth walked over to her and gave her a hug.

‘Happy birthday, Sweetheart,’ she said with a smile, before kissing her.

‘Thanks,’ she grinned back. She was hustled over to the table where she received the same greeting from John, Teyla, Ronon, Sam and even Rodney, who had put his lap top to one side to join in the breakfast celebration.

She laughed as a tray of food was placed in front of her and everyone took their seats before piling presents in front of her.

‘All for me?’ she asked, with a smile.

‘This one is from Ronon and I,’ Teyla said, handing her a cloth wrapped present. She took it gratefully and carefully unwrapped it. Inside was a beautiful, hand-carved box full of pastels, oil paints, pencils and charcoals. She looked up at them in shock.

‘This is beautiful; thank you.’

‘We are pleased that you like it,’ Teyla said with a warm smile.

‘I wanted to get you sparring sticks,’ Ronon told her with a grin. She laughed at him as he wrapped an arm around Teyla’s shoulders; it sometimes amazed her that the two of them were getting married in a few months time; they always seemed so different from each other, but they were happy and if they were then so she was.

‘Art supplies are less dangerous,’ she grinned ay him.

‘And this is from me,’ Sam said with a smile, pushing forward the biggest box on the table. Katrin went to pick it up. ‘No, believe me, that’s not a good idea,’ Sam told her. Katrin narrowed her eyes in suspicion.

‘I’m a bit worried now.’ Sam just smiled and nodded at the box. Slowly Katrin opened it, ripping away the paper to reveal a sturdy wooden box, with holes in the top. A rustling sound came from inside it and Katrin froze, an idea slipping into her head. ‘You didn’t?’ she asked, looking at Sam with wide eyes.

‘I didn’t what?’ she asked innocently. Katrin lifted the lid; curled up, fast asleep inside was a tiny Lantor. Katrin looked down at the animal affectionately, before looking over at Sam and hugging her tightly.

‘Where did you find another Lantor?’

‘Well they’re popular pets on PX3 45R,’ she grinned, ‘and I thought Gismo could do with some company, female company, don’t worry.’

‘Do you remember how much trouble her pet caused the first time?’ Rodney asked her incredulously.

‘Yes Rodney, which is why I took the liberty of inhibiting its ancient genes before I brought it back to Atlantis,’ she replied smoothly.

‘Oh…well that’s alright then,’ he mumbled.

‘I love her Sam, thank you so much.’

‘No problem,’ she smiled, before turning to Rodney. ‘So McKay, where’s your present?’ He glared at her.

‘Katrin,’ he said, turning away from Sam, ‘I do have a present, but I haven’t got it with me at the moment,’ he explained looking sheepishly at her.

‘A likely story,’ John told him with a grin.

‘I have, it’s in my lab at the moment.’

‘Please don’t tell me you’ve got her another one of those Ancient bracelet things,’ John teased.

‘How many times do I have to tell you; that was an accident.’ Rodney argued. ‘How was I supposed to know it injected poison into anyone without the Ancient gene?’

‘You still haven’t got me a replacement present for that one,’ Katrin told him cheerfully; she could laugh about it now, but at the time it had been terrifying. Rodney had assumed the bracelet was decorative, when in fact it had been a prisoner’s cuff, designed to inject a non-ancient prisoner with a paralytic poison if they became dangerous; of course this one had broken and so just injected her for the hell of it. They had only just managed to find an anti-toxin before it shut down her respiratory system; not a great sixteenth birthday all in all. John had nearly killed Rodney that day and Rodney had been the most repentant she’d ever seen him when she was finally back to normal.

‘Well excuse me for being slightly nervous about giving presents after nearly killing you with one.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Katrin told him with a laugh, ‘Besides you’ve taught me enough over the past however many years to make up for any missing presents.’ Rodney gave a smug smile that was directed at John.

‘See,’ Rodney told him.

‘That doesn’t get you out of buying her one for this birthday,’ John warned.

‘I’ve got one,’ Rodney argued back.

Katrin glanced over at Elizabeth and shared a knowing look with her; as far as she could tell John and Rodney would never grow out of winding each other up and she was glad of it because she was sure she would miss it if it was gone.

‘Here are our presents, Sweetheart,’ Elizabeth said quickly, pointing out three packages on the table.

‘Three presents?’ she asked with a smile.

‘Elizabeth didn’t go for the one I really wanted to buy you,’ John grinned.

‘Which was?’

‘A car,’ he replied, ‘But then she pointed out that you can’t drive and there are no roads in Atlantis, so that blew that idea out of the water.’ Katrin rolled her eyes, not bothering to laugh at the joke, but giving him an affectionate smile instead, before picking up the first package. She ripped away the brightly coloured paper to reveal a small silver box. She opened it up with a click to reveal an Atlantis headset. She grinned up at them, before taking it out and looping it around her ear.

‘See, you’re a true expedition member now,’ John told her.

‘Indoctrinating her,’ Rodney muttered.

‘I love it, thank you,’ she replied, tapping it a few times and talking to each of them in turn over their headsets. She moved on to the second gift and opened it to find a beautiful silver watch and bracelet set, with her name engraved on the back of each. She thanked both of them for it, concentrating the majority of her thanks on Elizabeth, as she was sure John hadn’t had anything to do with picking it, before slipping them onto her wrists.

The final present was flat and A4 in size. She gave the two of them a confused frown and saw them exchange a look, before ripping off the paper to reveal a large envelope.

‘Okay, now I’m intrigued,’ she grinned. She opened up the envelope and pulled out the official looking piece of card inside. She looked at them in shock, hardly daring to believe what she was seeing; an adoption certificate. She read through it, hardly taking in the words; here in her hand she had official evidence that she was now the daughter of John Sheppard and Elizabeth Weir. She looked up at them, complete amazement on her face and she couldn’t find the words to say.

‘We know that you’re an adult now anyway, but we thought we’d make ourselves your official parents as a present,’ Elizabeth said gently.

‘But, when you got married, they said it wasn’t possible,’ Katrin muttered. She remembered being so upset when John and Elizabeth had got back from their honeymoon and told her that setting up official adoptions over two galaxies was impossible, especially since she wasn’t actually living on Earth; she had simply remained under Elizabeth’s guardianship.

‘Well a lot can change in three years,’ Elizabeth explained, ‘And we pulled a few strings here and there.’

‘Perks of being a renowned diplomat and the Military Commander of a base in another galaxy,’ John joked, before turning to her seriously, ‘Do you like it?’

‘Like it…?’ she asked, amazed that he even had to ask, ‘I…’ but she couldn’t speak because she knew if she did she’d start to cry. She simply nodded instead and went and wrapped her arms around both of them, trying to convey just how amazing that present had been. They hugged her back and she tried to subtly wipe away the tears on her cheeks, but Elizabeth spotted her easily and gave her a nod of reassurance.

‘And, just to finish things off,’ John said, when she’d sat back down, ‘We have a little off world excursion planned.’ Katrin looked at him uncertainly; off world excursions to John could mean anything.

‘Excursion as in a relaxing afternoon by a mountain lake,’ Elizabeth assured her.

‘Well that sounds good then,’ Katrin replied, giving them a grin.

---

The afternoon by the lake was even better than Katrin had expected it to be. Elizabeth had managed to convince the SGC and IOA to let her off world for the afternoon, although it was getting to the point where she wouldn’t have to ask for much longer. Katrin knew that she hated being limited by what the SGC thought especially when she had spent her first nine years here doing pretty much what she liked, but it seemed that they were finally giving her the recognition she deserved and Daniel had said that her movement would only be watched for a few more months.

They gated to a planet that Katrin had heard a lot about from Torlin, in fact she suspected that Torlin was the one who had suggested the location to John and Elizabeth. It was beautiful. Mountains surrounded a crystal clear lake, with huge trees growing on all sides as the sun shone down warmly. Katrin had gasped in amazement when the forest fell away and she saw the view.

‘Told you it was nice,’ Torlin had said with a grin.

They had laid out a picnic at the waterside and Katrin had simply enjoyed the company. Torlin was there along with Ronan, Teyla, Sam and Rodney, who had refused to leave his laptop behind and was now tapping the keys, and of course Elizabeth and John.

She still couldn’t believe how far she’d come from the seven year old girl orphaned by a Wraith attack. Now she was eighteen, a young woman who had hopes of a future and who had wonderful family and friends around her who she loved more than anyone else and who she knew would do anything for her. She glanced over at them now from where she sat on the shore with Torlin, watching as they talked and laughed and smiled together. A day didn’t pass by when she wasn’t thankful for them all.

‘Kat,’ Torlin said, waving his hand in front of her eyes as she stared.

‘Sorry, miles away.’

‘You’re telling me. Here; Aylia asked me to give this to you on your birthday before she left.’

‘She remembered?’ Katrin asked in amazement. Aylia’s family had moved back to their home planet a few months ago, much to both Aylia and Katrin’s disappointment. Aylia had argued with her parents for weeks about the move, but in the end she had had to return with them. Katrin really did miss her, for all the times they fell out and got on each others nerves they had always been there for one another. It wasn’t that Katrin didn’t have friends on Atlantis; it was just that Aylia had been the one who had first come up and talked to her and they had always had fun together.

‘Well, I prompted her,’ Torlin shrugged, ‘But she still got you one.’

Katrin unwrapped the present to find a small photo album, each page containing two or three pictures of her and Aylia from the last however many years. Katrin flicked through it, smiling as the memories resurfaced.

‘I can’t believe she did this, it’s lovely.’

‘I was impressed,’ Torlin replied.

‘So, have I got a present from you?’ she asked, putting the album to one side.

‘Well, that would be telling!’

‘Oh come on.’

‘Fine, but not here, do you wanna go for a walk?’ Katrin glanced round at everyone; John, Ronan and Sam were playing Frisbee and Elizabeth was talking to Teyla and Rodney; no-one would miss them for a few minutes.

‘Sure.’

They walked back along the path that they had used to get to the lake for about five minutes, before heading off into a small clearing a few hundred feet to the right. Torlin pulled her down beside him onto a fallen tree; she giggled as his hand ran around her back and he drew her head towards his and kissed her gently.

‘You’re just trying to put off giving me your present,’ she teased, pulling back and smiling at him.

‘Would I?’ he asked innocently, before kissing her again. She lost herself in the touch for a moment wrapping her arms around him, until he slowly moved back.

‘Present, now,’ she said, holding out her hand. He rolled his eyes and pulled a small box out of his pocket and handed it to her.

‘Now I was going to get you a necklace, but you and I both know that nothing’s going to stop you from wearing the one you’ve worn for the last eleven years, so I went for the next best thing.’ She opened the box and saw a silver ring, set with purple and white stones; her hand went to her mouth in shock.

‘This is beautiful,’ she whispered.

‘It’s not an engagement ring, don’t worry,’ he told her with a laugh, ‘I’m dreading your parents finding out that we’re even together, let alone anything else.’

‘But this is too much,’ she said, even as she slipped it onto her middle finger.

‘Well you’re worth it and after six months it really is time I got you some jewellery.’ She looked up at him and smiled, before pulling him into a hug and kissing him passionately.

‘I love you,’ she said.

‘You’re only saying that because I got you an expensive ring,’ he teased. ‘Ow,’ he muttered as she hit him on the arm.

‘You know full well that I’m not!’

‘I know,’ he grinned, ‘I love you too. Now we should probably be heading back, don’t want them to get suspicious.’

‘You know I think we should tell them about us today; what do you reckon? We could just throw it in there,’ she teased as he pulled her to her feet and began walking back to the path.

‘Well if you do I’ll be running back to Atlantis before you finish your sentence.’

‘You’re such a wimp!’

‘Do you know how many guns your Dad owns?’ Torlin asked incredulously.

‘He’d be fine, besides he likes you.’

‘Yeah, because he doesn’t know that I’m going out with his daughter.’ Katrin laughed at him; for some reason Torlin was terrified of John finding out about them. Admittedly it had been her who’d suggested they keep everything a secret, just for a bit, while they got used to being together, but for some reason Torlin had got it into his head that John would go mad at him. It was quite sweet in a kind of paranoid delusional way, but she was sure they’d find out soon enough and she would rather it be from the two of them instead of a rumour.

‘One day he’ll know, you realise,’ Katrin teased.

‘But not today,’ he grinned kissing her before running back along the path and pulling her with him.

When they got back to the lake everyone still seemed to be caught up in the same activities. Elizabeth turned as she saw the two of them coming back and waved.

‘John wants you to go and play Frisbee, Sweetheart.’

‘Why, he knows I’ll beat him,’ she said, loud enough for John to hear.

‘You wish ‘Trin!’ John yelled back. She laughed and ran over to where the boys were playing, Torlin and Sam following in her wake.

She had a great time as they played; enjoying just spending some quality time with the people she loved the most. She took great delight in making John run for the Frisbee, occasionally throwing it into the lake and willing him to fall in, but he stayed on his feet quite successfully. They had been playing for about twenty minutes when he threw the Frisbee straight into the lake behind her.

‘I’m not getting that,’ she told him.

‘You’re closest ‘Trin,’ John replied, grinning at her. She narrowed her eyes at him, but cautiously turned towards the lake and waded into the water; it was cold. She kept on glancing back to check on John, not trusting him to remain where he was, but he stayed still and she reached the Frisbee, the water just above knee height and her thin trousers soaked through. Her fingers had just closed around the disk when she heard splashing in the water behind her. She turned to see John running towards her smiling manically.

‘No!’ she shouted, pointing a finger at him and taking a few steps back. ‘No! Don’t you dare, I’ll get wet! Elizabeth!’ she yelled. But Elizabeth just laughed and a few seconds later John had reached her and pushed her straight into the water. She gasped at the coldness of it, before struggling back to her feet, dripping from head to foot. John was laughing at her, from where he stood. ‘That’s it,’ she told him and a moment later she had thrown her whole body weight against his side. He staggered back for a couple of steps before falling backwards with a splash. Within a minute all of the men, with the exception of Rodney who had been pushed in once and come out swearing blue murder, had joined the fight.

‘You coming in Elizabeth?’ John called. Elizabeth shook her head.

‘Not a chance!’ she called back.

‘Now that sounds like a challenge to me, don’t you reckon ‘Trin,’ John said quietly, turning to her with a grin.

‘She’ll kill you,’ Katrin warned him before she was pushed back into the water by Torlin, who grinned triumphantly at her. By the time she came back up from under the water, John was already half way to the shore. Katrin watched in amusement as Elizabeth got to her feet and tried to order John to stand down; old habits obviously died hard, but John just laughed at her, scooped her up with ease and carried her to the water, while she yelled at him to put her down.

‘Katrin,’ she pleaded as John walked past her, Elizabeth still tightly in his arms.

‘You should have helped me, Elizabeth,’ she grinned. Only moments later John had thrown both Elizabeth and himself into the water; she came up and delivered a painful sounding slap on John’s arm, before pushing him back over and heading towards Katrin, a smile on her face.

‘Nicely done,’ Katrin nodded to her.

‘Thank you.’

It didn’t take long for Teyla and Sam to be treated to the same treatment as Elizabeth and soon they were all playing in the water. Even Rodney joined in after awhile, although Katrin found herself well and truly yelled at when she splashed water into Rodney’s face. John, however, was having none of it.

‘Rodney, it’s her birthday, you can’t shout at her and get away with it.’

‘I made it clear when you started this childish fight that I wasn’t to be splashed. I had a bad experience with water as a child, my sister pushed me into a river and-’ but he got no further because suddenly John had tackled him into the water. Rodney surfaced, spluttering and coughing and demanding that he be treated with more respect, but it was hard to hear him over the laughter of the others.

‘No daughter of mine is being yelled at on her birthday,’ John grinned at her as he walked back and Katrin replied by pushing him into the water, not realising that he was close enough to grab her wrist. She was pulled back into the water along with him.

The afternoon passed by quicker than Katrin could believe and when they returned home as the sun was setting she felt a wonderful mix of exhaustion and contentment.

---

Please review!