Fic: Alis Volat Propris

[melyanna]

Title: Alis Volat Propris
Author: Melyanna
Rating: Kid-friendly
Characters: Ellie Bartlet, Laura Cadman, Kate Heightmeyer, Major Lorne, Elizabeth Weir
Summary: No one has a quiet first day on Atlantis.
Notes: This fic was freifraufischer's idea, and she asked very nicely if I would write it. familyarchives did a lot of cheerleading for it, and sache8 was invaluable when it came to the title of this story.


Ellie Bartlet had never imagined that her first trip in space would be a voyage aboard the Daedalus, a fascinating battle cruiser capable of intergalactic flight, but also a ship that was rather boring to look at after eighteen days with very little to do.

Of course, Ellie Bartlet had never imagined going on a trip in space, so it was all well and good.

It was a bit like being on a cruise ship, she finally decided, though without the benefit of being able to go outside for fresh air. The novelty of being in space and traveling between galaxies was unfortunately not something that lasted long enough to sustain her through the last several days of the journey. By the twelfth day, she was anxious to be on solid ground again, though she understood that Atlantis wasn’t solid ground. Still, she’d have occupation, and that was more than she could say for her life on the Daedalus.

On the last day of the trip, she was standing in the starboard observation room, a room which Major Lorne had explained was used for visual feedback during battles should sensors be down. There was a complicated array of communications equipment in the room’s only console. Ellie had looked around, her arms crossed over herself so she wouldn’t accidentally touch anything, and said that it was a shame that a room with such a beautiful view had such a prosaic purpose. Lorne had smiled a little wistfully and said, “Well, it’s an observation room. I’m sure someone can come up with a more poetic purpose for it.”

The view there, into the hyperspace tunnel, was the most beautiful, striking blue Ellie had ever seen in her life. It reminded her of a trip to Europe where her father dragged her through museum after museum, and the sheer number of paintings of the Virgin dressed in rich blue. The scientist in her concluded that Mary wouldn’t have been able to afford cloth with such a dye, but she wasn’t about to say so to her father.

She sighed, thinking of the last few days before her departure with discomfort. Then there was a soft knock, and Ellie turned around to see Elizabeth Weir standing in the doorway. “Major Lorne said I might find you here,” the woman said.

Ellie was a little surprised by this, but didn’t say anything about it. “How are you feeling?” she asked instead.

Elizabeth rubbed her belly, probably without thinking about it. At seven months pregnant, she’d developed a lot of little habits like that. She and John had adopted one child already, but this would be their firstborn. “I’m fine,” she replied. “He’s pretty calm today.”

“Doctor Weir,” came a man’s voice over the intercom.

Elizabeth tapped her earpiece and said, “Colonel Caldwell, this is Weir.”

“We’re dropping out of hyperspace in a few minutes,” he said. “We’re getting an urgent transmission from Atlantis. Colonel Sheppard wants you to contact the city as soon as possible.”

“Understood,” she replied. “Can we contact them now?”

There was a brief pause. “Yes, we can,” the commander replied. “Do you want to come up to the bridge to make the call?”

Elizabeth looked at Ellie with a wry smile and rolled her eyes. “I’m in the starboard observation room. I think the call can probably be patched through here.”

“Certainly, Doctor. Contacting the city now.”

“Think it’s an actual emergency?” Ellie asked while they waited.

“He may be the most protective man in the galaxy,” Elizabeth replied.

There was a burst of static, and then John Sheppard’s voice filled the room. “Doctor Weir, this is Colonel Sheppard.”

Ellie was surprised by the formality of his address, but Elizabeth seemed unfazed. “This is Weir,” she said. “What’s the occasion?”

“We have an emergency,” John replied. “There was a massive explosion in one of the labs about two hours ago. We’re still trying to put the fire out.”

“What kind of damage are we talking about, John?” Elizabeth asked.

“Three dead,” he answered. “Thirty or forty wounded. I haven’t gotten the official count yet. Been too busy trying to get the fire out.” He sounded incredibly tired. “Beckett’s under the impression that there are some new doctors aboard?”

Elizabeth nodded. There were four, including Ellie. “There are a few,” she said.

“Get Hermiod to beam them down to the level above the infirmary,” John said. “It’s a madhouse in there, but Beckett’ll send someone to get them prepped for OR.”

Ellie’s eyes widened. This was not what she was expecting from her first day in Atlantis.

“Is it always like this?” she asked, when the call had ended.

“No,” Elizabeth replied. “Usually there’s an emergency going on off-world when something like this happens.” She turned to go. “We’ll be in range in a few minutes. I suggest you get ready to get to work, Doctor.”

Fortunately for Ellie, the three other doctors looked just as nervous as she was as they were beamed down into Atlantis before the city was even in view. They arrived in a small, dimly lit room where a woman in red scrubs was waiting. “You’re the new doctors?” she asked without preamble. “I’m Captain Rush. If you’ll follow me?”

Then they scrubbed up and walked into the fray.

Bartlet Family Farm
Manchester, New Hampshire
Some days earlier

Ellie was very familiar with the kind of nondescript car that was pulling up her parents’ driveway in Manchester, and it was no surprise when two equally nondescript men got out of it with Elizabeth Weir. The car’s fourth occupant was a surprise - an Air Force officer, but not John Sheppard.

Elizabeth made her way up to the front porch rather slowly. The officer and her Diplomatic Service protection were right behind her, but none of them offered to help her. Had her husband been there, he probably would have taken her arm, but she only would have allowed it because the child she carried was his baby too.

“Hello, Elizabeth,” Ellie said, once the older woman had reached the top step. “It’s good to see you.”

“Hi, Ellie,” Elizabeth replied with a wide smile. “I was hoping you’d be here.”

“You’re sticking your head in the lions’ den for me,” she said. “Least I could do.”

“Well, let me introduce you to these people,” Elizabeth said. “Travis Keller and Rob Allen from the Diplomatic Service, and Major Marcus Lorne of the Atlantis expedition. Gentlemen, Doctor Eleanor Bartlet.”

Ellie shook hands with the last one, wondering why he was there. But her father came to the door before she had an opportunity to ask. “Elizabeth,” her father said, “Abbey said you’d called.”

“Yes, sir,” Elizabeth replied. “May I come in?”

“Abbey would probably shoot me if I didn’t let a pregnant woman rest her feet,” Jed replied. “Come on in. I’ll get you a glass of water.”

They all went up into the house, though Ellie and the security men lagged behind Elizabeth and Jed. Ellie stuck her hands in her pockets. “So why’d Elizabeth have you tag along, Major?” she asked.

“She didn’t,” he replied. “Her husband did. He’s a little. . .”

“Overbearing?” Ellie suggested.

“Well, not normally,” Lorne said. “Just now with the baby on the way. Usually you can tell that he’d like to do something to protect her a little more, but she wouldn’t put up with it.”

“So you’re here under orders?”

He flashed her a grin. “Pretty much. I’m usually with Doctor Weir when she leaves Atlantis.”

“John isn’t?”

His smile turned wry. “Occasionally she has to go off-world because he’s gotten himself in trouble. Sheppard put together something of a posse for her.”

“A posse?” Ellie repeated, laughing a little.

“There’s really no other way to explain it. If Sheppard’s not with her, my team is. We’re assigned that way.” Lorne looked rather smug. “I’m in charge, by the way.”

“Never would have guessed,” she replied.

She saw her father over Lorne’s shoulder. He looked somewhat more somber than he had when Elizabeth first arrived. “Ellie,” he said, “I’d like a word.”

Probably several, she thought, but didn’t dare say. “Sure, Dad,” she replied. The major gave her an amused look, and she walked into the kitchen with a small smile.

Ellie’s mother came into the room shortly after she did. She had a smile for Elizabeth. “How’s that baby?” she asked.

“John, Peter, or this one?” Elizabeth asked.

“Oh, any of the above.” Abbey sat down next to her at the kitchen table. “Pictures?”

Elizabeth reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope. “This is a prenatal scan from last week,” she said, handing Abbey the first picture, “here’s one of Peter, and here’s one with John and Peter.”

Ellie had little interest in the ultrasound picture, but the one of John with the adopted baby was really quite adorable. They were in silhouette in front of a large window at sunset, and Peter was on John’s shoulder. “Did you take this, Elizabeth?” Ellie asked.

Elizabeth looked up at it and shook her head. “No, I’m not that talented,” she replied. “I believe Lieutenant Cadman took that one. You’ll meet her soon enough. She manages to meet almost everyone on their first day, it seems.”

The room fell quiet, as Elizabeth had just broached the subject of contention. To her credit, she didn’t apologize for it. Instead, she looked from Jed to Abbey to Ellie and said, “Well, we might as well talk about it. This is why I came.”

Abbey put the photographs down and slid them back across the table. Elizabeth didn’t pick them up. “This isn’t the first time Ellie’s name has been on the list of candidates for the Atlantis medical staff,” she said. “She was on the short list when we first came back to Earth.”

“Why didn’t I hear about this then?” Jed asked.

“I took her name off the list,” Elizabeth replied. “I thought it would be politically problematic if the President’s daughter dropped off the face of the earth. The next year, she didn’t appear on the list, probably because I had removed her the first time.”

“So how did she end up on the list now?” said Abbey.

“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” the younger woman answered. “But I didn’t think it was necessary to take her name off the list anymore. I wanted Ellie to have the opportunity to decide for herself. She’s exceptional at her job, and I believe that she would be an invaluable asset to the expedition. As does my chief surgeon.”

“Ellie,” her mother said, “I just don’t want to lose you like this.”

“Mom,” Ellie protested, “you’re not losing me at all! Yes, I’m going to another galaxy, but I’m not running away from you.”

“Are you running away from something else?” Jed asked. “I have a hard enough time letting you go without thinking that you’re turning your back on something.”

“Sir, that’s unfair,” Elizabeth said. “Ellie’s work has come under undue political scrutiny because of you, and you know it. If she’s running away from anything, it’s the press. In Atlantis, she’ll be able to do her job without reporters following her every move. She’ll be among colleagues who won’t care whose daughter she is. She’ll be able to do and say things without fear of political retribution.”

This was why Ellie had been so grateful to Elizabeth for coming. She’d never been fond of conflict, least of all with her father. When it came to the unfortunately common conflicts in her family, she’d been the least confrontational, and the least able to hold up a position in the heat of an argument. Perhaps it had been a cheap move on her part, but Elizabeth was sitting there and articulating far more clearly than she would have the reasons she had for going.

She could make sense of numbers and charts and all manner of scientific things. But the secret to debate had eluded her for as long as she could remember.

“Besides,” Elizabeth continued, “I wouldn’t want her on the expedition if I didn’t think she had the right motivation. And as for the danger. . . Well, you sent me, didn’t you?”

An uncomfortable silence filled the room, and Ellie knew exactly what her father wasn’t saying as Elizabeth stared him down. Yes, Elizabeth had been close to Jed for many years, but there was still a difference between a dear friend and a daughter.

Elizabeth suddenly gasped and winced, and everyone in the room lunged toward her. “Elizabeth, are you all right?” Abbey asked.

Ellie looked up to see that Major Lorne had rushed to the door. “Ma’am?” he said.

“I’m fine,” Elizabeth replied. “Really, I’m fine. The baby just kicked me hard.”

The relief was palpable, and Elizabeth rubbed her stomach, looking up at Ellie’s father. “Sir,” she said, “I’m having my baby in Atlantis. I’m not sure what more ringing endorsement I can give.”

From the look on her father’s face as he nodded, Ellie knew this was over, even if the conversation continued. It wasn’t the first time Elizabeth had won such an argument, but Ellie suspected this time that the baby had won the argument more than Elizabeth had. Somehow, that didn’t strike her as unusual either. And eventually, her mother might come around and stop thinking that Ellie was abandoning the family.

“Surely you didn’t come all the way out here just for this,” Jed said, after Major Lorne brought Elizabeth a pillow for her back.

“I was in the neighborhood,” Elizabeth replied. “I’m on Jon Stewart’s show tonight.”

“You did not come back to this galaxy just to be on The Daily Show.”

“Of course not.” She smiled. “I’m having a baby in three months. I need to buy stuff.”

But as Elizabeth steered the conversation away from why she’d come, Ellie began to suspect that buying things like maternity clothes and baby toys was a convenient official reason. She’d always known that Elizabeth was intensely loyal, but she didn’t know that the woman would go to such lengths - literally - for someone who wasn’t even working for her yet.

It would be nice to work with someone who possessed that kind of loyalty.

“Captain Rush, are those the new doctors?” someone with a Scottish accent was saying. “Thank God. You, Cartwright, Ito, and. . . Giancara, get them set up.”

The Italian nurse, whose English was accented, but not heavily, brought Ellie up to an operating table, where a patient was moaning. “I want Beckett,” he was saying. When Ellie was close enough, the man grabbed her arm just above the elbow. “Get me Beckett. I don’t want anyone else anywhere near these lacerations.”

Ellie shook his grip loose. “Doctor Beckett is with someone a lot worse off than you,” she said. She didn’t know if that was exactly true, but it wasn’t an unreasonable guess. “So just shut up and let a perfectly capable surgeon operate on you.”

He suddenly looked at her curiously. “Hey, aren’t you-”

Ellie nodded to the anesthetist to knock him out before he could blurt out her name or her father’s. Then she turned to Giancara and said, “So what have we got here?”

“Punctured small intenstine,” the nurse replied. “Some lacerations, possible damage to the appendix.”

“Do we have X-rays?” Ellie asked.

The nurse looked over her shoulder. “Medic, those scans!”

A woman ran up and hit a few keys on a nearby computer console that Ellie hadn’t even noticed yet. Up came whatever the Ancients had come up with instead of X-rays, and her eyes widened. “Well, that’s different.”

Quietly, the nurse said, “It does take some getting used to, Doctor.”

Ellie, who had never wanted to be an ER surgeon in her life, took a deep breath and nodded, looking back at her patient. “Scalpel.”

It was something akin to a war zone in there, only the enemy was far less tangible and the casualties were most often a nurse who didn’t move fast enough. The operating room was obviously understaffed (Ellie suspected that some portion of the medical staff was dealing with burn victims elsewhere), but things were even more tense than she would have imagined. It took her until she was almost through with her first patient to realize that some of these doctors were probably operating on friends.

Ellie was closing her third patient - a middle-aged woman with shrapnel lying dangerously close to a major artery - when the man whom she assumed was Doctor Beckett came by her table. “Is there a problem here?” he asked.

She looked up in the middle of a stitch and blinked, surprised. “No, sir,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re taking your sweet time is why,” he replied in his light brogue. “We’ve got sixteen people in pre-op waiting to be operated on, and here you are trying to create a masterpiece with your stitches!” Ellie quickly pulled the thread taut. “You don’t have the luxury of time to make everything look pretty, Doctor, and the patients waiting out there certainly don’t. You get it done right, and you get it done quickly.”

The man stormed off, and Ellie and Giancara exchanged a glance. She finished up the rest of the stitches hurriedly, even though the researcher in her was protesting the lack of caution.

So her first day in Atlantis came and went in an operating room. After the first eighteen hours of surgery, a nurse led her off to a small room off the infirmary where she could sleep for a while. She awoke sometime later to the sound of familiar voices. Turning over on her cot, she saw Elizabeth standing in the corridor, and John stepped into view a moment later.

They kissed briefly, and then John placed both hands on her abdomen. “I’m sorry I didn’t find you before now,” he said. “It’s been insane.”

“I know. It’s all right,” Elizabeth replied. “The baby and I are fine.”

He nodded. “You’ve gotten so big since you left.”

“It’s been almost a month.” She shook her head. “John, where’s Peter?”

“He’s with Teyla. She’s got him in her quarters, a long way off from the fire.”

Ellie decided then that she didn’t know why she was still watching them, so she sat up. The cot squeaked, and John and Elizabeth both looked in her direction. “Ellie,” Elizabeth said. “I’m sorry, did we wake you?”

She shook her head. “I don’t really know.” She started to look down at her watch, but then remembered that she’d taken it off before going into surgery. “What time is it?”

John looked at his wrist. “Twenty-six-thirty.”

Ellie blinked several times. Elizabeth helpfully added, “You got here about twenty-one hours ago.”

Still feeling exhausted and in over her head, Ellie rubbed at her eyes with her palms and yawned. “I should get back in there.”

John took two steps toward her. “Back in surgery?” he asked.

“Yeah. I just got a three-hour break.”

“Why don’t you walk a bit and wake up a little more before you get back to cutting people open?”

Elizabeth touched John’s arm. “John, I’m going to find Peter. Teyla could probably use a break.”

He nodded at her, and then he walked into the room and took Ellie’s arm. “Come on, Doctor Bartlet,” he said, pulling her to her feet, “let’s take a walk.”

They went into the recovery room, where Giancara and another nurse were wheeling in another patient. “Doctor,” Giancara said, “good, you are awake. Doctor Beckett needs you back in surgery in a few minutes.”

Ellie nodded, and the nurse walked off. Then she looked around the room. “Oh, one of my patients is awake,” she said, spotting her first patient.

“You operated on him?” John asked, sounding rather surprised.

“Yes, he was rather. . . vocal, before he was sedated.”

He was rather vocal again almost as soon as he spotted her coming toward his bed too. He groaned and said, “I told you to get Doctor Beckett.”

“Rodney, is that any way to treat the doctor who probably saved your life?” John said. “Sorry, Ellie. McKay has really low tolerance for. . . well, pretty much everything.”

Ellie stood at the foot of the bed and looked at his charts while the man continued ranting. “I wanted Carson operating on me. He knows my medical history and would have taken certain precautions that she wouldn’t know to take.”

“Mr. McKay, this kind of histrionics won’t do you any good,” she said, not looking up.

“See? She doesn’t even know who I am!”

“And I don’t really care.” While he tried to sputter out a response, she added, “You could be the king of the Watusis for all I care. You were my patient, so I operated on you. It’s what doctors do.”

“I thought you were supposed to be the quiet one,” he said, taken aback. “And what the hell is a Watusi?”

“King Solomon’s Mines,” John replied. “And what do you mean, quiet one?”

“She’s Ellie Bartlet,” Rodney said. “She’s supposed to be the quiet one of President Bartlet’s daughters.”

“You need to rest, Rodney,” Ellie said, putting his charts back. Then she pulled a rubber band off her wrist and pulled her hair up again. She’d forgotten that she’d taken it down before her nap. She probably looked like a complete mess. “I’m going back into surgery. I don’t want to hear you complaining when I come out again.”

Without waiting for a reply, she marched off.

Somewhere in the middle of the second day, Beckett let her and the other doctors leave for some much-needed rest. Someone told Ellie how to get to the mess hall, where she poured herself the nastiest cup of coffee she’d ever had in her life and put her head down on a table.

“You must be on the medical staff,” said a nearby voice.

Ellie looked up to see a woman with sandy red hair standing over her. “What gave it away?” she asked.

“I was helping put out the fire,” the woman said. “We were finished twelve hours ago. You, on the other hand, look like you haven’t slept in a couple days.”

“I was beamed down to the infirmary two days ago when the Daedalus got here,” Ellie replied. “I’ve had about three hours of sleep since then.” She blinked a couple times. “And it’s just occurred to me that I have no idea where I’m supposed to sleep, or where any of my stuff is. . .”

She planted her face on her arms again, and the woman patted her back. “Wait here,” she said. “I’ll find out. Wait a minute, who are you?”

“Eleanor Bartlet,” she replied.

A few minutes later, the woman returned. “Doctor Bartlet?”

Ellie still didn’t lift her head from the table until she was poked in the ribs. “That didn’t take long,” she mumbled.

“I ran into Kate and Major Lorne. He was looking for you, apparently.”

Ellie looked up at the trio, and Major Lorne smiled at her. “How was your first day, Doctor Bartlet?” he asked.

“Ask me after I’ve slept for eight hours,” she replied. “You might not like my answer right now.”

Lorne gently helped her to her feet. “Well, I was trying to find you to see if you knew where your room is,” he said. “I gather from the lieutenant that’s a no.”

“I’m not sure I care, Major,” Ellie said. “I could probably fall asleep on the floor and be happy.”

“Now, maybe, but you’d be miserable in the morning. Well, afternoon. It’s morning now.”

“I didn’t need to know that.”

“Well,” the first woman said, “I’m Laura Cadman, and this is Kate Heightmeyer. I gather you’ve already met Major Lorne?”

Ellie yawned. “He was with Elizabeth when she came to visit my parents.”

At some point, Lorne put his arm around Ellie’s waist and started propelling her toward an exit. “Doctor Weir visited your parents?” Laura asked.

“Laura,” said the other woman.

“Lieutenant, Ellie is former President Bartlet’s daughter,” Lorne clarified.

“Oh.” They walked out into the hall, and Laura added, “Hey, that’s pretty cool.”

“Laura, maybe you should calm down,” Kate said. “Major Lorne may end up carrying Doctor Bartlet any minute now.”

They got her belongings quickly enough, and Laura and Kate ended up dragging most of her stuff to the quarters she’d been assigned while Lorne carried her duffel bag and continued leading her through the corridors of the city. When she got to her room, she might have thanked them for their help - she thought about it, at any rate - and collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep before the others had even left the room.

There was a hand shaking her shoulder when she woke up sometime later. “Doctor Bartlet,” a woman said. “Doctor, you need to get up.”

“Can’t make me,” Ellie mumbled, burying her face in her pillow.

“Doctor, you’ve been asleep for nine hours,” the woman said. “You need to get up or you’ll never get to sleep tonight.”

Ellie pushed herself up and looked over her shoulder. It was the blonde woman who’d been helping her earlier. “I think I probably could have slept till next week.”

She smiled kindly. “You could be right.” She backed up enough to let Ellie sit up and swing her legs over the side of the bed. “I’m Kate Heightmeyer, by the way. I don’t think Laura actually introduced us while you were still conscious this morning.”

“I have vague recollection of it,” Ellie said. “I’m Ellie Bartlet.”

“Well,” Kate replied, “I’ll take you on the grand tour of your quarters. Bed here, desk there, closet in that corner, and your own bathroom through that door.”

Ellie got to her feet and headed toward her duffel bag. “Any chance there’s a bathtub in that bathroom?”

“Just a shower, sorry.” Kate shrugged. “You should feel lucky, though. The rooms we were all occupying when we first got here didn’t have much of anything. We think those rooms were temporary quarters for people working in the control room.”

“Well, I hope you don’t think I’m being rude,” Ellie replied, grabbing fresh clothes from her duffel, “but I feel pretty disgusting and probably smell at least as bad, so I’m going to take a shower.”

The bathroom was on the small side, but it didn’t really need to be very big. Ellie took a couple minutes to look around, and discovered that the Ancients were pretty good at utilizing space. Then she stepped into the shower and was confronted with a console that presumably controlled the water temperature, pressure, and who knew what else about the shower. None of the buttons were labeled with anything she could understand, so she depressed a button at random.

Half a second later she was doused by icy water at high pressure. She gasped in surprise and slammed her fist down on the button in the middle, which thankfully shut the water off. A few seconds later, there was a knock on the bathroom door, and Kate said, “Ellie? The hot water is the bottom button.”

Drenched and freezing, Ellie called back, “Thank you, Kate.”

She spent a lot longer than normal in the shower, but she felt infinitely better once she was done. She stepped out of the bathroom dressed in a pair of grey cargo pants and a white shirt that had been provided to her back at the SGC as a uniform. Kate was still there, but Laura Cadman and Major Lorne had arrived while she was in the shower. “We’re here to help you unpack,” Cadman announced. She had a bottle in her hand, and Ellie thought she smelled cookies.

She looked from face to face, and Lorne shrugged. “I’m just here for the alcohol,” he said. “And Cadman told me I didn’t have a choice.”

“Don’t you outrank her by a lot?” Ellie asked.

“Most of the time,” he replied.

She and Lorne were sitting on the floor a little while later, pulling some of her personal belongings out of a suitcase while Heightmeyer and Cadman were sorting through clothes. “So,” Lorne said, “how was your first day here?”

“Is it over yet?” Ellie asked. “To be honest, it was a bit of a nightmare.”

“Hey,” Laura said, across the room, “I broke something in McKay’s lab my first day. It can’t be worse than that.”

“I operated on McKay ten minutes after I was beamed down from the Daedalus,” Ellie replied.

“Okay, she wins,” Kate said.

“McKay is. . . an experience,” Lorne explained, picking up a photograph of her with her father at her graduation from med school. “He’s a genius and we can’t live without him, or else I would have shot him years ago.”

Ellie laughed. “That sounds like something my father would say.”

“Well, take comfort in the fact that he treats all of us like dirt at one time or another,” Kate said. “Of course, he’ll be hitting on you at some point.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re cute, intelligent, and most of all, blonde,” Lorne explained. “That would be the Rodney McKay trifecta when it comes to women.”

“Although he probably won’t think you’re a real scientist,” Kate added.

“I’m an oncologist,” Ellie said.

“There’s speculation that he ran afoul of a really bad biology teacher in his childhood,” Laura said. “For some reason, he doesn’t think medicine qualifies as real science.”

Ellie rolled her eyes, and Lorne just laughed. “So,” he said, “surely Rodney alone didn’t ruin your day.”

“No, thirty-seven hours in surgery when I hadn’t been in an operating room since I graduated would do that.” Ellie sighed, running her fingers around a picture frame. “Didn’t help that the chief surgeon yelled at me.”

“Carson yelled at you?” Laura asked.

“Is that his name?” Ellie replied. “Maybe yelling is the wrong description, but he was pretty unhappy with me.”

“Why?”

“I wasn’t moving fast enough,” she said. “I was terrified, actually. I’m a researcher, not a trauma surgeon. Sure, you learn to do it all in med school, but it had been a while since I operated on anyone. I didn’t want to screw anything up by rushing, but he told me I couldn’t afford to be that careful.”

Laura sat down on the floor next to Ellie and put her arm around her. “Carson’s really just a big teddy bear most of the time,” she said.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Ellie replied.

“I’ve been dating him for a while now,” Laura said. “Besides, I talked to him earlier, and he didn’t say any of the new doctors were awful.”

“That doesn’t mean-”

“He was just stressed, Ellie,” Laura interrupted. “He’ll probably find you and apologize tomorrow, and be really embarrassed that he had no idea who you are.”

“You know, this is completely surreal,” Ellie said. “No one’s not known who I am since I was nine. It’s weird, but highly amusing.”

“I knew who you were,” said Lorne.

“Would you have known if you hadn’t come up to my parents’ farm with Elizabeth?”

He smiled. “No comment.”

Laura hopped up abruptly. “Kate, get those cookies out,” she said. While Kate walked over to Ellie’s new ten-thousand-year-old desk to get a box, Laura explained, “Kate’s mom owns a bakery. Every six weeks she sends a box of the best cookies in the universe.”

“They don’t get stale in transport?”

“Amazing, huh?”

The foursome finished unpacking before they’d reached the bottom of Laura’s wine bottle or Kate’s cookie box, and without activity, even the lively conversation wasn’t really enough to keep Ellie awake. Kate sensed this and herded Laura out of the room. Major Lorne required less coercion, but lingered behind the girls as they left. “Hey,” he said, “you didn’t get to see the city when you came in, did you?”

“No,” Ellie replied, opening a drawer to find where Kate and Laura had stashed her pajamas. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you need to see it.” He smiled. “Tell you what, I’ll get you in the morning and take you up in a puddle jumper so you can see what this place looks like.”

She hadn’t the faintest idea what a puddle jumper was, but found herself nodding anyway. “Promise me this isn’t some kind of hazing ritual.”

As he opened the door, he pointed at her and smiled. “You’ll regret saying that once you’ve seen what I’m talking about.”

When he was gone, Ellie changed into her pajamas, but instead of going right to bed, she sat down at her desk and opened up her laptop. Launching her word processor, she did something she’d meant to do her first night in this new galaxy.

Dear Mom and Dad, she wrote,

I’d thought I would have the time to write to you on my first day, but it turns out that this is late on my second day. Possibly my third. I haven’t quite figured out how long the days on this planet are.

When we arrived at the planet, we found out that there was a huge medical emergency going on, and the infirmary needed all hands on deck. Yes, Mom, I was in surgery for a very long time. I knew when I signed up for this that they expected all doctors, whether researchers or physicians, to pitch in in the infirmary, but I wasn’t expecting to be thrown into ER on my first day.

I haven’t slept nearly enough, another new doctor and I managed to get ourselves lost with the transporters, and I nearly froze in the shower before I figured out how to work the thing, but it all builds character, right, Dad? It’s an amazing experience nonetheless.

Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, but I already feel like I can do a lot of good here. Major Lorne, whom you met in Manchester when Elizabeth was there, has been incredibly helpful, and I’ve even managed to make a couple friends outside the infirmary too. Believe me, this is kind of amazing, given how much I’ve been in the infirmary. But most of all, people here weren’t even asking me what my name was when I walked into the operating room. I was just a doctor, and who I am and what the press thinks of my research didn’t matter, even if it was just for a day.

I’ll write to you again once I’m really settled and once I’ve had more sleep. But I just wanted you to know now that this was the right choice for me. I’ll have opportunities and learn things here that I never would have been able to on Earth. This is a group of people who would only be assembled for something as big as Atlantis, and I feel deeply honored to have been asked to join them.

Love,
Ellie

Ellie woke before dawn the next morning and was in and out of the shower before Major Lorne came by to ask her to meet him in the control room. She managed to get there without getting overly lost. When she walked in, she just had to stop and stare. Down below was the Stargate, a device she’d heard so much about but had never seen in person. As she stood there, the gate started to light up, and someone at a console announced, “Incoming wormhole!”

Seconds later, some sort of blue essence sprang to life inside the gate, and Ellie suddenly felt like she knew what at least half of the term “puddle jumper” meant. She turned to see Elizabeth Weir walking in from a glass-enclosed room. “It’s remarkable, isn’t it?” the woman asked. “Never really gets old.”

A team walked through a bright blue puddle a few moments later, and Ellie watched with wide eyes. “So how are you settling in?” Elizabeth asked.

“Well, my first couple days were interesting.”

“So were mine. We all almost died, and I was convinced that John had absolutely no faith in me.” At Ellie’s raised brow, Elizabeth elaborated. “You have to understand: John was never supposed to be in charge of anything, let alone everything.”

“What happened?”

“That,” Elizabeth said, “is a very long story.”

Ellie decided that she wasn’t likely to get a straight answer on that now, so she asked instead, “So is all quiet?”

With her hand over her abdomen, Elizabeth smiled. “For now. It won’t last.” She glanced past Ellie and said, “Major Lorne, good morning.”

“Morning, ma’am,” he said. Ellie turned and saw him, and he smiled. “You ready, Ellie?”

“Well, I have no idea what we’re doing,” she replied, “so I guess there’s no time like the present.”

“What are you two doing?” Elizabeth asked, looking amused.

“Well, Ellie didn’t get to see the city when she came in,” Lorne explained, “so I thought I’d take her up in a jumper to see it the right way.”

Elizabeth’s smile broadened. “Just make sure she’s back in time for Carson’s orientation, all right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” As Elizabeth retreated the way she’d come, Lorne turned his full attention on Ellie. “It’s this way,” he said, pointing out a nearby staircase.

“After you, Major,” she replied.

He led the way, but as they walked he looked over his shoulder and said, “You know you can call me Marcus, right?”

Ellie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. If the rumor mill here was anything like any other place she’d worked at, she and the major would be the latest gossip by the end of the day.

He led her up to a cavernous room above the control room which housed several large, odd-looking objects which she could only assume were puddle jumpers. They walked into one of them, and Lorne led her up to one of the front seats, taking the other himself. As he started pushing buttons, he explained, “This ship requires the ATA gene to fly. I don’t know if you have it or not, but Beckett’s developed a gene therapy that works about half the time.”

“Is it necessary?” Ellie asked.

“Having the gene? No.” The ship began to move. “Well, it probably makes life a little easier for some people, depending on what their jobs are. For you, I don’t really know. But Doctor Weir’s managed to run this place for five years without the gene.” He hit another switch and said, “Can you close your eyes?”

She did as he asked, and listened to the low hum that the ship seemed to emit. “All right,” he said at last, “this is what your first impression should be. Take a look.”

Ellie opened her eyes, and she gasped. They must have been way up in the planet’s upper atmosphere to get this kind of view. Far below them was the city of Atlantis, floating on the water. The ocean was reflecting the sunrise, and the city’s elegant spires reached for the heavens. The sight left her speechless.

He brought the ship down from their vantage point and began flying around the city, pointing out various things, like the Daedalus still docked on one of the piers. Ellie was too much in awe to respond, and eventually Lorne stopped talking and just let her watch as he flew around the magnificent city. They skimmed low over the water and circled the central tower. Through all of it, she could barely contain her amazement.

They’d circled the city a couple times and gone straight up for one more high-altitude view before Lorne brought the ship back down into the bay over the control room. When he’d parked it and shut it down, they stood up and faced each other. “I don’t really know what to say,” Ellie began. “Thank you for showing me that.”

“It was worth it just for the look on your face. That never gets old,” the major replied. Then he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. With a smile, he added, “Welcome to Atlantis.”