Fanfic - "Finding Atlantis" (Part 1)
Title: Finding Atlantis (Part 1)
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing: John/Elizabeth, Team.
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort...it’s a mixed bag.
Warning/Spoilers: 4x01 'Adrift' 4x02 'Lifeline' 4x03 'Reunion' (Set, post 4x04 'Doppleganger')
Summary: No matter how hard they try, Atlantis is still lost without it’s leader.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Stargate Atlantis.
Author’s Note: This fic is inspired by John and Ronon’s desperate want to have Elizabeth back in command. They both said it, they would both prefer to have her home, than have Carter keeping the throne warm.
Feedback: Is Love.
Teyla watched from the doorway as for the second time that month, Ronon was packing his things to leave. She’d watched him that first time, waited outside the door until Colonel Carter had left, her attempts thwarted by his stubbornness before she’d stepped into the doorway, shared a glance with him and watched him continue packing.
“I’m sure there is some way that you can resolve this...tension, you and Colonel Carter seem to share.” Teyla tried, gesturing with her hands in an attempt to make her point seem more, pertinent.
“No. There isn’t.” He growled, packing another knife into his bag.
“Is there not an agreement that you could come to, an understanding. Ronon she is the leader of Atlantis.”
He moved close to her, faster than she’d anticipated and stared down at her with a fierce anger toward an absent party. “That’s why I’m leaving.”
“Ronon, if this is about Elizabeth...”
He cut her off. “She was the only leader that’s ever trusted me, ever respected me.”
“John respects you, as I’m sure Colonel Carter does also.”
“Really?” Ronon stalked towards the window before turning quickly and stalking back towards her. “John is a friend, I know that Teyla but Carter...she’ll never replace-”
“No, she will not. Nor do I wish that she could. But you have to understand, Ronon, we all miss Elizabeth, some more than others...” she glanced at the floor silently for a moment, before meeting his eyes again. “...but we carry on because we know that this is what she would want, we all know that Elizabeth would not want Atlantis to fall.”
“I won’t let Atlantis fall.”
“Really? Then why are you leaving?”
“Because I can’t stay.” He said softly, turning away from her and twisting his hand in the fabric of his bag. Teyla watched him silently as he gathered the remaining items on his bed before he looked up at the painting on the wall and reached to take it down.
“Give this to McKay?” he asked as he passed it to her. Teyla took it with a darkened expression and held the painting tightly in her hands.
“Only for safe keeping, until your return.”
“I’m not coming back, Teyla.”
“We shall see.” She smiled and Ronon couldn’t help but mirror it, however faintly. Looking her over for a moment, he smiled down at her ever-growing stomach then pushed the painting aside and pulled her into his arms in a tight embrace.
“Take care of yourself.”
She nodded against his chest as she buried herself in his embrace, breathing in a scent that had always haunted her, beckoned her.
Releasing her from his arms, he shrugged on his coat and picked up his bag. Tucking his gun into it’s holster he grasped her upper arm gently as he left the room without another word.
**
Carter stood at the top of the stairs watching as Ronon readied himself to leave, making sure everything was strapped up correctly and his holster was tightened properly.
“This is a mistake, Ronon. You can be more help to Atlantis, here.”
Ronon looked up at the Colonel, smirking snidely as she started walking down the stairs towards him and watched as the Stargate engaged.
“This, is the only way I can help Atlantis.” She didn’t miss the bitterness laced in his tone.
Thinking better of it, she stopped her reply before it came out and instead just nodded her head.
Ronon turned to make his way through the gate, though curiously stopped right in front of it. Carter watched him closely as he just stood there, staring at the event horizon as if waiting for something. Rodney and Teyla were standing a few paces behind her and the rest of the gateroom had their eyes stuck on his back, though attention was drawn away from the man taking the slowest step possible through the gate, to the sound of pounding footsteps in the corridor off the gateroom.
In a blur of black and a sudden high-pitched order from Colonel Carter, Colonel Sheppard had bolted across the room, up the stairs and through the stargate without once looking back. Colonel Carter’s head swum with the implications of such a thing happening on her watch and as her heart raced she was at a loss for what to do next.
Her head snapped around to Rodney and Teyla, standing motionless on the stairs as if they’d known something she didn’t.
“What just happened?” she asked the silent, shocked room.
“Colonel Sheppard has relinquished his command.” Rodney said flatly.
“Right, well...I...” Sam turned back to the gate that had now shut down, staring at it and wondering what the hell she had done.
**
“You’re stupid.” Ronon smirked as John pulled the Velcro straps from his backpack and let it fall to the ground, before turning around and picking it up.
“Yeah well, you’re not exactly the height of intelligence either.”
“Fair point. So, where to?” Ronon pointed with his gun down the dirt path ahead of them in askance.
“Yeah, sure. Who knows, we might find somewhere to stay for a bit, before moving on.”
“Did the Doc give you what you needed?” Ronon asked.
“Yeah, she didn’t quite understand what I needed such a heavy sedative for, but for some reason I must look trustworthy.” John grinned.
“Proved that wrong just now.” Ronon laughed and John nodded.
“Well, yeah.”
**
“What the hell was that?!” Sam bellowed as she sat down at the briefing table across from Rodney and Teyla.
“We,” Rodney gestured between himself and the heavily pregnant Athosian beside him. “...weren’t actually in on it. We don’t know where they’ve gone, what they’re doing....” he stopped for a moment. “ok, so we do know what they’re doing...but we don’t know how.”
“They’re going to try and go after Dr. Weir?”
Rodney winced before he answered her. “Yeah.”
“Goddamnit McKay!”
“Hey! It’s not my fault!” he defended. “Nor is it Teyla’s.” he threw in, receiving a small smile from her in return.
“I believe that Colonel Sheppard and Ronon believed this to be their only chance in finding her, Colonel Carter, please-”
Carter cut her off. “No, no I’m not going to just let this go, Colonel Sheppard has disobeyed the chain of command, he’s undermined me, he’s undermined the IOA, there is no redemption for this. I have to report this to the SGC, this can’t happen in a place like Atlantis...”
“Colonel Carter, I understand that you have to report what’s happened to your superiors, and I’m sure that John knows that, but can you not see that by conducting such a desperate act, there is more at play here than simply Colonel Sheppard’s past affiliations with questionable behaviour?”
Carter stared at Teyla, glanced at Rodney than turned to Teyla again. “Maybe,” Carter stood up and began pacing the room, rubbing her face. “...so, his feelings for Dr. Weir have driven this? Is that what you’re saying?”
Teyla smiled gently. “I am not implying anything, Colonel, simply attempting to help you see that Colonel Sheppard is not the kind of man to suffer himself willingly if not for a cause he believed to be of great significance.”
“She’s that important?”
Rodney’s eyes widened in disgust and Sam backtracked. “No, I didn’t mean it like that, Rodney...I...I just meant...”
Teyla stood and grasped her arm. “We understand what you meant, Colonel, it is alright.”
Sam let out a breath and glanced at Rodney apologetically. “Elizabeth means more to us than you’ll ever understand.” Rodney spoke to the table and Sam’s eyes fell.
“Rodney, I...”
“I know that you’re used to having a team, Sam, they’ve done this because the only leader that’s ever given either of them an ounce of credit has been considered a reasonable casualty in a time of war when they, as soldiers, need her the most.” Rodney slowly stood, emphasising his point as he stepped towards her, stronger in his resolve that she’d ever seen him. “I don’t know if you understand that, because I certainly don’t...but they need her in their way...as we need her in our way. You don’t have to understand it, and you don’t have to keep it secret. Just do what you have to do, and they’ll do what they have to do.”
With his point spoken, Rodney stepped around a stunned Colonel Carter, placed a hand to Teyla’s lower back and led her out of the room before him. Leaving Sam to lament on the fact that in the few weeks she’d been there, she’d learnt nothing of these people at all.
**
“So, you feeling any remorse for not letting Carter in on this?” Ronon asked as they made their way down the dirt path, leading to a village they’d visited a few times for trade, one they’d not been to since before the replicator attack.
“Nope.”
“None at all?”
“Nope, finding Elizabeth wasn’t her priority, but it is mine. So I’m fine with it.”
“Really?”
“Well, there is that little part of me that’s thinking, ‘oh crap, I’ve just ruined my career’ but there is that other part of me that’s singing that I’ll never have to write another mission report again.”
Ronon chuckled. “I never liked her.”
“Carter?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“She’s not Weir.”
“Ronon, that’s not a reason not to like Carter, she’s a good Officer.”
Ronon looked over to him, smirking slightly before looking back at the road. “She might be a good officer, I just don’t trust her that’s all, she’s different. Her heart’s not in Atlantis.”
“Well, you’re right about that.” John shrugged.
“Weir is Atlantis.” Ronon said sombrely and John swallowed deeply, hugging his P-90 a little tighter.
“You’re right about that too.” He whispered, when the village came into view.
**
“Darak.” John greeted, shaking the man’s hand, the leader of the small town.
“Colonel Sheppard, it is a pleasure to see you again. Have you come to trade? Dr. Weir is not with you? We most frequently deal with her on these matters.”
John glanced at Ronon. “No, we’re not here to trade. Actually we’ve come to request your hospitality for tonight.”
“Of course, please, I will lead you to the Inn, there will be rooms there.”
“Thanks.”
**
Elizabeth stood silent and stiff as she followed with her eyes, the other ‘machines’ wrapping yards of white and brown material around her in an ornate gown. Somehow she’d developed herself as a sort of higher figure in the Asuran council, though she knew in the part of her heart that was still human, that Oberoth heeded nothing of her suggestions, words or opinions. She was merely a statue on the pedestal of Oberoth’s arrogance. A trophy of his battles against the humans on Atlantis.
She could hear their whispers when the halls were quiet, questioning her loyalties, her desires, her humanistic traits. Sometimes she thought that perhaps she frightened them, or that they envied her and while that was entirely possible in the time Niam had existed, she did not believe that there were many Asuran’s who harboured his same desire for ascension, nor would she wish to help them with all they’d done to her, all she’d suffered as they ‘repaired’ her.
She’d screamed as they’d taken her. Stared after the empty hall, the ghost of John there, fighting to save her. She could see him behind her eyes as she fought them, as Oberoth tackled her spirit to the ground and buried her in one illusion after the other. She’d seen Teyla die at the hands of the wraith, Rodney died in a tragic explosion in Atlantis. Ronon became a runner time and time again, dragging her through the dirt as she suffered the pains of her city defeated.
That was all until he’d discovered her weakness.
He laughed manically as she’d fallen to the ground, fumbling over herself, begging for a reprieve though he offered none. John’s body lay strewn over rocks, shattered, dead, drifting into the river of her fears. He fought wraith to get to her, only to be fed on inches from touching her hand. Elizabeth ached for his fingers to brush her face, aching to remember what he’d smelt like as he wrapped her in his arms, sweaty and spent in the sparsely decorated room that she called home on Atlantis. Oberoth had attacked her past with John, twisted and contorted her memories, throwing them back at her with a pure, horrifying cruelty.
Time and time again she thought she’d made it home, falling into John’s arms with a relief so strong she could barely breathe. Only for her heart to be ripped out for the thousandth time, taking a small piece of her soul as it did.
Until she stopped believing. Until she stopped falling for his tricks and convinced herself that she was never getting home, that the John in his visions lacked something Oberoth could never take away from her. Love. She fought so hard that she could see through the image, see the cold harsh blackness in the eyes of her friends and once again, Oberoth had underestimated her.
She stood, and she’d turned to him with eyes as cold as stone. “Stop.” She had said, quietly, firmly and with a convincing quality that she wasn’t sure she could muster. Oberoth had smirked in triumph before clicking his fingers to have her lead away.
That’s when it had all stopped.
**
Ronon reclined on his bed, chewing on a bone from the meal Darak had sent up to them as John paced the room, every now and then noting things down on his blueprint of Atlantis, hoping that the Asuran city bared a certain resemblance on the inside, this time around.
“You really think they’ll keep her in the city?”
John nodded. “she’s too valuable to them, if they just dumped her in some remote part of the Asuran city system, how would they seep the information they want out of her, and how would they use her as bait for us?”
“wait, hang on...you think they’re using her to lure us there?” Ronon sat up, tossing the clean bone onto the table.
“Well, no, they’re too busy fighting the wraith at the moment, which is why we have to get in there now. We can’t leave this any longer, we can’t wait for them to stop fighting to wraith only to turn their attention back on us.”
“So, get in, get Weir, get out?”
“Pretty much.”
“So how are we gonna know where she is?”
John bit his lip. “She’s still human, right...”
“I hope so.”
John winced. “She is, so she’ll be the only human life-sign in the entire base.”
“So, we can’t get in without the gate, and as soon as we walk through, they’ll be all over it.”
“That’s alright, I’ve got a plan.” John grinned and Ronon looked at him dubiously.
**
“Colonel Carter, I’d like to request that Dr. McKay and Teyla join my team, ma’am.”
“Really, Major?” Carter leant back in her chair. “Do you have a reason for this request?”
“They’re the best Ma’am, I just want to insure that the best get back out there.”
Sam smiled, “Well that’s very admirable of you, Major and I’ll certainly take it into consideration. At the moment, Teyla won’t be joining any teams due to her condition, but I’m sure we can find a place for Dr. McKay, in time.”
“Ma’am, would it help you decision if I told you Dr. McKay was already taken with the concept.”
“Not really, Major, but it’s something. You’re dismissed.”
Lorne stared at her for a moment as her head tilted back down to her laptop, before he left the room frantically worried that her hesitance was too much of a risk against their plan, though he was wrong in his assumptions when Dr. McKay appeared at his door later that night with a massive grin on his face.
“Sam’s assigned me to your team, now we’ve just gotta get the clearance for both Jumpers.” Lorne clapped him on the shoulder before running back into his room to pack for the following day’s mission.
Part 2
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing: John/Elizabeth, Team.
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort...it’s a mixed bag.
Warning/Spoilers: 4x01 'Adrift' 4x02 'Lifeline' 4x03 'Reunion' (Set, post 4x04 'Doppleganger')
Summary: No matter how hard they try, Atlantis is still lost without it’s leader.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Stargate Atlantis.
Author’s Note: This fic is inspired by John and Ronon’s desperate want to have Elizabeth back in command. They both said it, they would both prefer to have her home, than have Carter keeping the throne warm.
Feedback: Is Love.
Teyla watched from the doorway as for the second time that month, Ronon was packing his things to leave. She’d watched him that first time, waited outside the door until Colonel Carter had left, her attempts thwarted by his stubbornness before she’d stepped into the doorway, shared a glance with him and watched him continue packing.
“I’m sure there is some way that you can resolve this...tension, you and Colonel Carter seem to share.” Teyla tried, gesturing with her hands in an attempt to make her point seem more, pertinent.
“No. There isn’t.” He growled, packing another knife into his bag.
“Is there not an agreement that you could come to, an understanding. Ronon she is the leader of Atlantis.”
He moved close to her, faster than she’d anticipated and stared down at her with a fierce anger toward an absent party. “That’s why I’m leaving.”
“Ronon, if this is about Elizabeth...”
He cut her off. “She was the only leader that’s ever trusted me, ever respected me.”
“John respects you, as I’m sure Colonel Carter does also.”
“Really?” Ronon stalked towards the window before turning quickly and stalking back towards her. “John is a friend, I know that Teyla but Carter...she’ll never replace-”
“No, she will not. Nor do I wish that she could. But you have to understand, Ronon, we all miss Elizabeth, some more than others...” she glanced at the floor silently for a moment, before meeting his eyes again. “...but we carry on because we know that this is what she would want, we all know that Elizabeth would not want Atlantis to fall.”
“I won’t let Atlantis fall.”
“Really? Then why are you leaving?”
“Because I can’t stay.” He said softly, turning away from her and twisting his hand in the fabric of his bag. Teyla watched him silently as he gathered the remaining items on his bed before he looked up at the painting on the wall and reached to take it down.
“Give this to McKay?” he asked as he passed it to her. Teyla took it with a darkened expression and held the painting tightly in her hands.
“Only for safe keeping, until your return.”
“I’m not coming back, Teyla.”
“We shall see.” She smiled and Ronon couldn’t help but mirror it, however faintly. Looking her over for a moment, he smiled down at her ever-growing stomach then pushed the painting aside and pulled her into his arms in a tight embrace.
“Take care of yourself.”
She nodded against his chest as she buried herself in his embrace, breathing in a scent that had always haunted her, beckoned her.
Releasing her from his arms, he shrugged on his coat and picked up his bag. Tucking his gun into it’s holster he grasped her upper arm gently as he left the room without another word.
**
Carter stood at the top of the stairs watching as Ronon readied himself to leave, making sure everything was strapped up correctly and his holster was tightened properly.
“This is a mistake, Ronon. You can be more help to Atlantis, here.”
Ronon looked up at the Colonel, smirking snidely as she started walking down the stairs towards him and watched as the Stargate engaged.
“This, is the only way I can help Atlantis.” She didn’t miss the bitterness laced in his tone.
Thinking better of it, she stopped her reply before it came out and instead just nodded her head.
Ronon turned to make his way through the gate, though curiously stopped right in front of it. Carter watched him closely as he just stood there, staring at the event horizon as if waiting for something. Rodney and Teyla were standing a few paces behind her and the rest of the gateroom had their eyes stuck on his back, though attention was drawn away from the man taking the slowest step possible through the gate, to the sound of pounding footsteps in the corridor off the gateroom.
In a blur of black and a sudden high-pitched order from Colonel Carter, Colonel Sheppard had bolted across the room, up the stairs and through the stargate without once looking back. Colonel Carter’s head swum with the implications of such a thing happening on her watch and as her heart raced she was at a loss for what to do next.
Her head snapped around to Rodney and Teyla, standing motionless on the stairs as if they’d known something she didn’t.
“What just happened?” she asked the silent, shocked room.
“Colonel Sheppard has relinquished his command.” Rodney said flatly.
“Right, well...I...” Sam turned back to the gate that had now shut down, staring at it and wondering what the hell she had done.
**
“You’re stupid.” Ronon smirked as John pulled the Velcro straps from his backpack and let it fall to the ground, before turning around and picking it up.
“Yeah well, you’re not exactly the height of intelligence either.”
“Fair point. So, where to?” Ronon pointed with his gun down the dirt path ahead of them in askance.
“Yeah, sure. Who knows, we might find somewhere to stay for a bit, before moving on.”
“Did the Doc give you what you needed?” Ronon asked.
“Yeah, she didn’t quite understand what I needed such a heavy sedative for, but for some reason I must look trustworthy.” John grinned.
“Proved that wrong just now.” Ronon laughed and John nodded.
“Well, yeah.”
**
“What the hell was that?!” Sam bellowed as she sat down at the briefing table across from Rodney and Teyla.
“We,” Rodney gestured between himself and the heavily pregnant Athosian beside him. “...weren’t actually in on it. We don’t know where they’ve gone, what they’re doing....” he stopped for a moment. “ok, so we do know what they’re doing...but we don’t know how.”
“They’re going to try and go after Dr. Weir?”
Rodney winced before he answered her. “Yeah.”
“Goddamnit McKay!”
“Hey! It’s not my fault!” he defended. “Nor is it Teyla’s.” he threw in, receiving a small smile from her in return.
“I believe that Colonel Sheppard and Ronon believed this to be their only chance in finding her, Colonel Carter, please-”
Carter cut her off. “No, no I’m not going to just let this go, Colonel Sheppard has disobeyed the chain of command, he’s undermined me, he’s undermined the IOA, there is no redemption for this. I have to report this to the SGC, this can’t happen in a place like Atlantis...”
“Colonel Carter, I understand that you have to report what’s happened to your superiors, and I’m sure that John knows that, but can you not see that by conducting such a desperate act, there is more at play here than simply Colonel Sheppard’s past affiliations with questionable behaviour?”
Carter stared at Teyla, glanced at Rodney than turned to Teyla again. “Maybe,” Carter stood up and began pacing the room, rubbing her face. “...so, his feelings for Dr. Weir have driven this? Is that what you’re saying?”
Teyla smiled gently. “I am not implying anything, Colonel, simply attempting to help you see that Colonel Sheppard is not the kind of man to suffer himself willingly if not for a cause he believed to be of great significance.”
“She’s that important?”
Rodney’s eyes widened in disgust and Sam backtracked. “No, I didn’t mean it like that, Rodney...I...I just meant...”
Teyla stood and grasped her arm. “We understand what you meant, Colonel, it is alright.”
Sam let out a breath and glanced at Rodney apologetically. “Elizabeth means more to us than you’ll ever understand.” Rodney spoke to the table and Sam’s eyes fell.
“Rodney, I...”
“I know that you’re used to having a team, Sam, they’ve done this because the only leader that’s ever given either of them an ounce of credit has been considered a reasonable casualty in a time of war when they, as soldiers, need her the most.” Rodney slowly stood, emphasising his point as he stepped towards her, stronger in his resolve that she’d ever seen him. “I don’t know if you understand that, because I certainly don’t...but they need her in their way...as we need her in our way. You don’t have to understand it, and you don’t have to keep it secret. Just do what you have to do, and they’ll do what they have to do.”
With his point spoken, Rodney stepped around a stunned Colonel Carter, placed a hand to Teyla’s lower back and led her out of the room before him. Leaving Sam to lament on the fact that in the few weeks she’d been there, she’d learnt nothing of these people at all.
**
“So, you feeling any remorse for not letting Carter in on this?” Ronon asked as they made their way down the dirt path, leading to a village they’d visited a few times for trade, one they’d not been to since before the replicator attack.
“Nope.”
“None at all?”
“Nope, finding Elizabeth wasn’t her priority, but it is mine. So I’m fine with it.”
“Really?”
“Well, there is that little part of me that’s thinking, ‘oh crap, I’ve just ruined my career’ but there is that other part of me that’s singing that I’ll never have to write another mission report again.”
Ronon chuckled. “I never liked her.”
“Carter?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“She’s not Weir.”
“Ronon, that’s not a reason not to like Carter, she’s a good Officer.”
Ronon looked over to him, smirking slightly before looking back at the road. “She might be a good officer, I just don’t trust her that’s all, she’s different. Her heart’s not in Atlantis.”
“Well, you’re right about that.” John shrugged.
“Weir is Atlantis.” Ronon said sombrely and John swallowed deeply, hugging his P-90 a little tighter.
“You’re right about that too.” He whispered, when the village came into view.
**
“Darak.” John greeted, shaking the man’s hand, the leader of the small town.
“Colonel Sheppard, it is a pleasure to see you again. Have you come to trade? Dr. Weir is not with you? We most frequently deal with her on these matters.”
John glanced at Ronon. “No, we’re not here to trade. Actually we’ve come to request your hospitality for tonight.”
“Of course, please, I will lead you to the Inn, there will be rooms there.”
“Thanks.”
**
Elizabeth stood silent and stiff as she followed with her eyes, the other ‘machines’ wrapping yards of white and brown material around her in an ornate gown. Somehow she’d developed herself as a sort of higher figure in the Asuran council, though she knew in the part of her heart that was still human, that Oberoth heeded nothing of her suggestions, words or opinions. She was merely a statue on the pedestal of Oberoth’s arrogance. A trophy of his battles against the humans on Atlantis.
She could hear their whispers when the halls were quiet, questioning her loyalties, her desires, her humanistic traits. Sometimes she thought that perhaps she frightened them, or that they envied her and while that was entirely possible in the time Niam had existed, she did not believe that there were many Asuran’s who harboured his same desire for ascension, nor would she wish to help them with all they’d done to her, all she’d suffered as they ‘repaired’ her.
She’d screamed as they’d taken her. Stared after the empty hall, the ghost of John there, fighting to save her. She could see him behind her eyes as she fought them, as Oberoth tackled her spirit to the ground and buried her in one illusion after the other. She’d seen Teyla die at the hands of the wraith, Rodney died in a tragic explosion in Atlantis. Ronon became a runner time and time again, dragging her through the dirt as she suffered the pains of her city defeated.
That was all until he’d discovered her weakness.
He laughed manically as she’d fallen to the ground, fumbling over herself, begging for a reprieve though he offered none. John’s body lay strewn over rocks, shattered, dead, drifting into the river of her fears. He fought wraith to get to her, only to be fed on inches from touching her hand. Elizabeth ached for his fingers to brush her face, aching to remember what he’d smelt like as he wrapped her in his arms, sweaty and spent in the sparsely decorated room that she called home on Atlantis. Oberoth had attacked her past with John, twisted and contorted her memories, throwing them back at her with a pure, horrifying cruelty.
Time and time again she thought she’d made it home, falling into John’s arms with a relief so strong she could barely breathe. Only for her heart to be ripped out for the thousandth time, taking a small piece of her soul as it did.
Until she stopped believing. Until she stopped falling for his tricks and convinced herself that she was never getting home, that the John in his visions lacked something Oberoth could never take away from her. Love. She fought so hard that she could see through the image, see the cold harsh blackness in the eyes of her friends and once again, Oberoth had underestimated her.
She stood, and she’d turned to him with eyes as cold as stone. “Stop.” She had said, quietly, firmly and with a convincing quality that she wasn’t sure she could muster. Oberoth had smirked in triumph before clicking his fingers to have her lead away.
That’s when it had all stopped.
**
Ronon reclined on his bed, chewing on a bone from the meal Darak had sent up to them as John paced the room, every now and then noting things down on his blueprint of Atlantis, hoping that the Asuran city bared a certain resemblance on the inside, this time around.
“You really think they’ll keep her in the city?”
John nodded. “she’s too valuable to them, if they just dumped her in some remote part of the Asuran city system, how would they seep the information they want out of her, and how would they use her as bait for us?”
“wait, hang on...you think they’re using her to lure us there?” Ronon sat up, tossing the clean bone onto the table.
“Well, no, they’re too busy fighting the wraith at the moment, which is why we have to get in there now. We can’t leave this any longer, we can’t wait for them to stop fighting to wraith only to turn their attention back on us.”
“So, get in, get Weir, get out?”
“Pretty much.”
“So how are we gonna know where she is?”
John bit his lip. “She’s still human, right...”
“I hope so.”
John winced. “She is, so she’ll be the only human life-sign in the entire base.”
“So, we can’t get in without the gate, and as soon as we walk through, they’ll be all over it.”
“That’s alright, I’ve got a plan.” John grinned and Ronon looked at him dubiously.
**
“Colonel Carter, I’d like to request that Dr. McKay and Teyla join my team, ma’am.”
“Really, Major?” Carter leant back in her chair. “Do you have a reason for this request?”
“They’re the best Ma’am, I just want to insure that the best get back out there.”
Sam smiled, “Well that’s very admirable of you, Major and I’ll certainly take it into consideration. At the moment, Teyla won’t be joining any teams due to her condition, but I’m sure we can find a place for Dr. McKay, in time.”
“Ma’am, would it help you decision if I told you Dr. McKay was already taken with the concept.”
“Not really, Major, but it’s something. You’re dismissed.”
Lorne stared at her for a moment as her head tilted back down to her laptop, before he left the room frantically worried that her hesitance was too much of a risk against their plan, though he was wrong in his assumptions when Dr. McKay appeared at his door later that night with a massive grin on his face.
“Sam’s assigned me to your team, now we’ve just gotta get the clearance for both Jumpers.” Lorne clapped him on the shoulder before running back into his room to pack for the following day’s mission.
Part 2