Reading Time: 127 Minutes
Title: Finding Haven
Series: Priceless
Series Order: 4
Author: SASundance
Fandom: NCIS, Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis, Criminal Minds, JAG
Genre: Crime Drama, Crossover, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Science Fiction
Relationship(s): Gen, background pairings
Content Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Rape/Non-con/Dub-con, Slavery, Torture, Violence – Graphic, Violence – Domestic and/or Against Children , Violence – graphic, offscreen torture, discussions of past and offscreen rape/non-con, issues around the loss of free will, loss of bodily autonomy, mind control, past murder of OC character, discussions of miscarriage and abortion, discussions of slavery and implications of mind control, non-consensual drug use, discussion of past domestic violence, discussion of canon vaccination and future vaccination programs, discussion of past canon unethical medical experimentation, character bashing (Elizabeth Weir and Ziva David). Not friendly to: McKay, Gibbs, Keller, McGee, Vance. (Note: slavery, mind control, autonomy issues are related to canon events)
Word Count: 119,523
Summary: The head of the new Atlantis Department of Justice arrives in the Pegasus galaxy while the Interstellar Bureau of Investigation recruit another investigator to join Tony’s team. Tobias Fornell, ex FBI agent may be battered by multiple tragedies but he’s hoping to find a new beginning working for the fledgling agency. Home World Command’s secret facility on Balara is now producing vaccines for the mind control drug but Dr McKay is not put in charge of the program. /His exclusion leads to Rodney trying to find out what is going on and butting heads with the Black Queen, who has been put in charge of security for the program and earned the Artificial Intelligence’s undying love and admiration. Yes J.P. has a massive crush on Penelope Garcia. Meanwhile the JAG Corps arrives on Atlantis to conduct classified military hears for the rogue Genii who abducted John Sheppard and causing Tony to stress in case he’s recognised by any of the judge advocates.
Artist: Angelicinsanity
Chapter 6
Aaron Hotchner sat beside Alex Paddington as he read the statements that had been taken for the five surviving Winyans.
He looked up, “These statements are excellent work, Alex. Your team is to be commended.”
Alex nodded, “They did an exceptional job, especially when you consider that no one apart from me had a law enforcement or legal background.”
“Then that makes them all the more admirable. It is obvious that you trained them well, there was no leading of the witnesses, the questions were clear, and they weren’t ambiguous. You have the interviews on tape and there are multiple interviewers, so I think you’ve built a good solid case,” Hotchner told him.
Alex sighed. “We did what we could, and Dr O’Shea helped train them, but we were all highly aware that the Winyans consider these women to be perpetrators. It was hard for some of them to remain impartial, Aaron.”
“Call me Hotch, Alex. It’s what most people did before we went into WitSec.”
“Okay, well as I was saying, this case has been hard on them all. Even the military teams that filmed the interviews are furious. The question is, if we have a solid case, do we try to overturn their conviction with the Winyans or should we take it to the Interstellar Tribunal?”
“At this stage, I’m not sure. Perhaps I could go to meet the survivors, talk to them, and get a feel for the people. It would be better if we could get the Winyans to overturn this at their level of justice but the odds of that happening became a lot more unlikely after they carried out that death sentence on one of Lavin’s victims. For them to overturn their previous verdict, would force them to acknowledge that they killed an innocent young girl.”
“I know, that’s the tough part. Teyla wants to go and talk to the Winyan people. She wants to tell them that she is a warrior, a former leader of her people who has fought and killed many Wraith, and other enemies who threaten her and her people, but she was powerless to resist the drug that Lavin used to stop him sexually assaulting her.”
“If she is willing to do it, then I think perhaps it’s worth trying. Just out of interest, why isn’t she the Athosian leader now?”
“She stepped down as leader to join the Atlantis expeditionary force eight years ago. Her people decided to leave the city and start their lives on a new planet.”
“Would the new leader of her people vouch for her to the Winyans, do you think?”
“I don’t know, I’ll ask her. Ronon Dex has also offered to speak to them and explain he killed a lot of Wraith, many with his bare hands in the seven years after they made him a runner before he joined Atlantis years ago. He is very willing to tell them that the drug that Lavin brewed up affected him so strongly, he would have killed his best friends if Lavin had told him to. Actually, he did shoot Colonel Sheppard and threatened him with violence.”
Hotch nodded, his expression in repose was remote and forbidding but Tony knew that appearances could be deceptive. Tony had been friendly with Derek Morgan back when they both worked in DC. With their similar backgrounds and their involvement in the LEOs intramural basketball games, it was inevitable that they would become friends. Anyway, Morgan had nothing but respect for his Unit Chief and said he was a good man and great agent; that was good enough for Tony.
“Dex is the man-mountain with long locks and bulging muscles?”
“Yeah, that’s him. But don’t make the mistake of underestimating him. His musculature wasn’t earned in a gym pumping iron. It occurred by fleeing for his life and having to kill Wrath every day for seven years as a runner. Now he stays in shape running around Atlantis and teaching Lantean’s how to fight the Satedan way.”
“Huh, I’ll have to ask him about running routes,” Hotch said looking pleased. “Pardon my ignorance, but what is the Pegasus definition of a Runner? I get the feeling it is different to mine.”
Tony nodded. “Oh yeah. I’ve been informed that when the Wraith came upon a particularly strong human that they captured, instead of just consuming them, they put an interplanetary tracker in them and turn them loose so they can hunt them down, or they did. From what I can gather from the pockets of Wraith that are still in existence, they have been too busy trying to evade their former prey-turned-predators to worry about recreational hunting,” Tony explained, grimacing.
Hotch shook his head, looking ill. “I have a feeling that Dex’s testimony might be even more valuable than Ms Emmagan’s. If they are a feudal society, it is likely to be patriarchal.”
“True, but Teyla wants to speak to the survivors just as much as the rest of the Winyans, she wants the five surviving women to understand that none of them had a choice and that they were targeted, like her because she had the temerity to say no to Lucius Lavin’s advances. If someone as physically and mentally tough as she is stood no chance of resisting the drug, then neither did they, no matter how staunch their morals were.”
“Well, it is worth trying. If a few more men who were affected would speak out, it wouldn’t do any harm either,” Hotch said, musingly. “Dex is impressive, I’ll grant you because of his stature and status as a former runner, but it wouldn’t hurt if we could get more people who’ll reiterate what he’s saying. It just might help us start shifting their mindset.”
Tony nodded, “I’ll see what I can do. You’re right, if you tell a lie often enough for it to become an unshakeable reality to those with a vested interest in believing it, maybe the truth can be equally as powerful in the face of ignorance and bigotry,” he mused.
“How is Dr Girard doing,” Hotch inquired professionally.
Tony thought long and hard before he answered. He didn’t even notice he was unconsciously rubbing his arm that she’d sliced open when she’d decompensated and tried to kill herself. Not that he’d put that in any of his reports, but Hotch was a profiler and had already put two and two together to make four.
“No great, but better. She is getting up and dressed each day which is a big step. She is taking part in an exercise program with Colonel Sheppard, and I think that it is helping. She’s on a low dose of anti-depressants although Dr O’Shea doesn’t want her to bottle up her feelings like she did before. I think that the exercise program is going to do more to help her, as she becomes fitter.” He hesitated a beat before he continued.
“She wants to go to Winya too and tell Lavin’s victims that it wasn’t their fault but I’m not sure if Aoife will clear her for doing anything that stressful, yet.”
Hotch raised an eyebrow which was tantamount to a ‘why is that’ query, but Tony was well versed in non-verbal communication.
“Dr Girard visit with Felix didn’t go particularly well, she said she felt terrible rage and then hated herself because she knows it wasn’t his fault. It was a setback that she didn’t need. She refused to engage for days afterwards. It was Colonel Sheppard who managed to persuade her to start exercising again.”
Tony didn’t say it, but he was no longer optimistic that Monique and Felix would be able to reconcile as a family and he felt great empathy for both of them. For the little boy, whose mother couldn’t be with him, and he couldn’t understand why but also, for Felix’s mother who’d been comprehensively betrayed. First by Lavin raping her, then when Elizabeth Weir and Xiaoyi Shen telling her she had to keep her mouth shut about what happened to her. As far as they were concerned, the Girards were just collateral damage.
Tony hated ambitious people who were seduced by power and abandoned their principles, although he conceded that it was possible Ambassador Shen didn’t have any, to begin with. He liked to think that Elizabeth Weir had started out as a principled individual, even if she didn’t keep them.
Hotch tactfully changed the subject since there wasn’t anything to be said; the prospects for the Girards both statistically and anecdotally were grim. “That was outstanding investigative work to uncover the murder of Dr Danziger. Too bad we can’t charge Weir with it or Ambassador Shen but at least with the statements of various witnesses and her diary, we can charge Lavin with Sofie’s rape, “ Hotch said regretfully.
“It won’t bring her back, but it will give closure to her partner Ilsa and her friends,” Tony replied, although they both knew it would never be enough.
Unfortunately, Shen had diplomatic immunity and Weir was dead. Well technically, she wasn’t dead exactly, she was a great big frozen popsicle floating around out in space somewhere. Tony wondered how Dr Lee’s colleagues were doing on creating a virtual Atlantis for Dr Weir and the other Asurans. It sort of felt like they were rewarding them, letting them believe they were on Atlantis, working towards Ascension but then the alternative was just too dangerous. Leaving them out in space, frozen was just inviting some do-gooder to drag them into a spaceship if (when) they stumbled across them and decided to rescue them. If that happened, it was almost certain they would make a beeline back to Atlantis with vengeance on their minds.
Well maybe not Weir, she’d dreamed up the popsicle plan in a moment where she’d been shamed into feeling bad about putting Atlantis in jeopardy, but that didn’t necessarily guarantee she would be of a similar mind when she was unfrozen. She did lie, cheat, and steal in the first place when it came to getting her Asuran followers into the city to get new bodies. They couldn’t take any chances just because surrounded by her former associates she’d been shamed into doing the right thing for a few hours.
Tony wasn’t going to let this matter lie, not when there were all these innocent parents and kids on Atlantis including his daughter. The issue of the Asurans was a ticking timebomb that sooner or later was going to explode in their faces unless they were aggressively proactive.
~o0o~
Tony and A.J. Chegwidden had just returned from a trip to Balara to supervise the interrogation of the Genii prisoners. He’d decreed and A.J. had backed him up one hundred and ten per cent that the MPs, SFs and any additional Marines and Air Force personnel (since this was deemed a US Military operation) guarding the prisoners were not to have been assigned to Atlantis for several very good reasons. For starters, it was credible, taking into consideration just how popular Sheppard was amongst the New Lanteans, that the prison guards would be able to contain themselves from getting violent with the Genii. The second concern was, they were trying their best not to reveal to any of the New Lanteans the exact nature of John Sheppard’s injuries and the Genii scum had been all too eager to fling it in their faces. Unfortunately, some of the military, just like some civilians still had strong homophobic misconceptions and biases against males who were raped. No one involved in the case wanted John to be further victimised by his ordeal if it was humanly possible to avoid it.
As to the matter of charging the Genii rebels, after a lot of procrastinating, the Chair of the JCS in consultation with the POTUS had decided that the Genii rebels would be tried and charged with War Crimes as laid out in the UN Geneva Convention. Their cases would be heard by an interplanetary tribunal consisting of races from the Milky Way galaxy who had no connection to Colonel Sheppard and therefore, no biases for or against him or the Genii. They would also play down as much as possible, details about the effects of the drug compound MCD- 238β since they were still in the earliest stages of mass-producing a vaccine. Even if one of their allies realised how much of a threat it posed to the universe, very few races in the Milky Way galaxy possessed the ability to reach Pegasus or have the wherewithal to find the planet MCD- 238β grew on.
Also, aside from the option of incarcerating the rogue Genii on the Furling retirement moon, Colonel Carter had proposed that another option was that the SGC could contract out their imprisonment to the Hebridians, a society that was technologically somewhat more advanced than Earth. They consisted of two integrated races of people. Daniel had explained to Tony that the Serrikin were a humanoid-like but alien race that was technologically advanced, who’d rescued the humans that the Goa’uld had brought to the planet from Earth millennia ago. As the Hebridians were allies of Earth and had the wherewithal to incarcerate prisoners, it seemed a better option than leaving them unsupervised on the abandoned moon, just in case some good Samaritan in a spaceship might fly by and decide they needed rescuing. That was after all how O’Neill and Harry Maybourne were rescued, albeit Colonel Carter had figured out the transportation device had sent them to the nearby moon of the planet they’d been on and asked the Tok’ra to retrieve the pair.
Still, as Carter had rightly pointed out based on her own time on Atlantis, when it came to the Genii, you really couldn’t be too cautious or too paranoid. Tony approved, it sounded like a much better option to pay the Hebridians, who had their own prison population to manage, and they were most definitely more technically advanced than the Genii, another absolute prerequisite.
In the meantime, Daniel, in between his reading of the Ancients’ Original Code of Justice was consulting with the anthropology department back at the SGC about Earth’s allies in the Milky Way, looking at who would be suitable candidates to sit on the interplanetary tribunal. It went without saying that the Hebridians were advanced enough to have a justice system and law enforcement that was on par with their own. Another suggestion was the Pangarans, who had developed a substance called Tretonin as an elixir of youth that had serendipitously turned out to be the key to freeing the Jaffa from their symbiotic enslavement by the Goa’ulds. The synthesising of Tretonin by Tok’ra and Earth scientists had not only turned the war against the Goa’uld, but it had saved the Pangarans too.
There were also the Tok’ra and the Jaffa who were possible candidates to serve on the tribunal. While Earth had a lot of Allies, many of them had not been able to attain the societal maturation required to sit on the tribunal due to the Goa’uld’s tactic of ensuring that they failed to develop into technologically advanced communities, so they wouldn’t pose a threat and overthrow the false gods.
It was a similar tactic used by the Wraith, who deliberately culled extensively planets every few generations to ensure that their prey didn’t become too technologically mature; it was only due to subterfuge and planning that a handful of planets in Pegasus were able to develop technologically. Ironically, one of these races was the Genii whose subterfuge went so far as maintaining an Agrarian lifestyle of simple farmers on the surface of the planet while deep underground, they secretly built nuclear weapons to defend themselves against the Wraith.
So now Tony and A.J. needed to start interrogating forty-odd Genii rebels, their chief stumbling block was providing them with legal representation. Right now, they’d roped in Richard Woolsey who, like the interview Tony conducted with LCpl. Joseph Favre had acted as their de facto attorney during the interrogations. But it made them realise that for the actual trials, they would need more lawyers. Homeworld Command had decided the fastest way to avoid too much of a backlog was to recruit Airforce and Navy JAGs who could be read in expeditiously. Tony sincerely hoped that he wouldn’t know any of the Navy JAGs since he was supposed to be hiding out from the Trust out here.
So okay, he’d suggested that Hotchner and Chegwidden be brought into Atlantis sure, although he only knew Hotch by reputation, having never actually met him, but A.J. certainly knew who he was. Still, the retired Admiral was a good man and Tony trusted him not to gossip about him but some of the judge advocates he’d encountered over the years hadn’t been all that impressive. Several couldn’t wait to get out of the Navy/Marines so they could join high-priced law firms and start clocking up hours and raking in the big bucks. One former JAG lawyer had even ended up running for Congress, becoming a gun for hire for the Super PACs or special interest lobbyists who had the biggest chequebooks. It was becoming very obvious that Tony needed to take some sensible precautions to subtly change his appearance.
When he checked up to see that the Genii were being treated appropriately, unlike the way they treated Colonel Sheppard, he was relieved to see that General O’Neill had threatened the personnel guarding them if anyone abused the prisoners. Revenge was a hard emotion to resist but once you started down that road it became more and more difficult to halt, becoming an all-consuming monster, overshadowing everyone and everything. A simple truth was that revenge begets more revenge until it destroyed lives and Tony was not going to allow it to metastasize in their nascent system of justice on Atlantis.
He and A.J. reviewed all the security footage that they had insisted be set up to monitor the prison and found that except for one or two episodes of aggro push and shove and trash talk, everyone was comporting themselves better than Tony had expected. He wondered what dire consequences Jack had threatened them with if they indulged in retributive behaviour. Whatever it was, so far it seemed to be working and he felt more comfortable leaving them with the military guards.
As they prepared to head back to Atlantis after conducting several interrogations A.J. looked at him shrewdly. “What’s troubling you, Alex? If it’s the Genii, our Marines and Air Force aren’t letting any of the rebels provoke them.”
“Yeah, I know A.J. I’m proud of them cuz I know that the Genii are doing everything they can to goad them. They rightly realise the only hope they have of escaping is to provoke the MPs and SFs into getting angry and letting down their guard.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“I’m concerned that bringing in a horde of judge advocates raised the odds that there will be people I’ve worked with in the past. You know that I’m supposed to be hiding out here from the Trust. I’m thinking I need a disguise. Just trying to figure out how to get hold of hair dye, coloured contact lenses and clear glasses.”
“Okay, I can see that you can’t exactly walk into a shop and get that sort of stuff around here, but I can. I have to head back to Earth to arrange a sabbatical from my law firm. I left in a hurry and didn’t have a clue what I was getting myself into. Plus, I need to put my finances in order and maybe bring back some of my personal belongings to make life more comfortable. Give me a list of stuff you need, and I’ll bring it back with me.”
Tony sighed in genuine relief. “Thanks, A.J., I appreciate that. When are you going?”
“Two days and I’ll probably be gone for another four or five days, maybe less, depending on how things play out.”
~o0o~
When A.J. returned to Atlantis seven days later having attended to his personal and professional affairs he brought back the list of things Alex had requested. And he watched with interest as the man who people described as a chameleon set about changing his appearance. If he hadn’t already been given a heads up, the former Judge Advocate General doubted that he would have even noticed it going on, the changes were so subtle. With his hair, he was gradually lightening it, the aim being to lighten it a shade or two every few days.
By the end of the second week, his hair was dark blonde, and he’d started wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses. Just for reading initially. He would start to read something in the Mess, curse and make a production out of pulling out his glasses to read and then put them away again when he was done. Sometimes he would eat lunch in the Mess, bringing files to read and jot down notes on, necessitating him wearing the glasses that only A.J. knew, had clear glass inside them. People gradually became accustomed to him wearing them over the next week. Then, as he wore them more frequently and people stopped noticing them, he began wearing the grey- blue coloured contacts and still no one seemed to notice the gradual changes, so subtle were they, eventually shifting to the cornflower blue coloured lenses.
Physically, Chegwidden noted that he started dropping weight, at first A.J. wasn’t sure but after two weeks he was certain that he was losing a lot of weight. When he asked him, wondering if he was ill, Paddington chuckled.
“No, but about six weeks ago, the lovely Vala healed my lungs and my knee with that Goa’uld healing device and as a result, my lungs are as good as a twenty-year-old according to Dr Biro. I’m running an extra couple of miles each day and my knee is not protesting, plus I used to have a superfast metabolism, but it started to slow down after my lungs were scarred in the biohazard attack. Then it slowed down again when I hit forty but whatever Ms Mal Doran did to me, it fixed my metabolism again, plus I’m deliberately cutting back on carbs. The weight loss is part of the disguise, but thanks for the concern,” he said with a smile.
“Ah, well that is good news, I was a bit worried. I’m glad about your lungs, I imagine that colds and flu were not fun with scarred lungs.”
Alex had nodded gravely. “No, they weren’t. It is so nice to be able to breathe without it hurting when I run. I’d forgotten how it felt to have normal functioning lungs until she worked her magic with her gaudy device. I’m just sorry for how she came by the ability to use that thing,” he said, referring to Vala being an unwitting host to a Goa’uld.
It wasn’t until the third week of his return that A.J. realised that Tony, no Alex, had also been changing his behaviour, laughing less, frowning more, and seeming to be lost in thought. At first, he worried that he was stressing out about the Navy JAGs who were scheduled to arrive in ten days in anticipation of the trials that were slated to commence in four weeks. He also saw Dr O’Shea giving him looks of concern but when he reverted to his usual jokes and humour when it was just the two of them, A.J. realised that it was just the undercover persona he’d adopted of a serious FBI agent with the weight of the world on his shoulders. It gave the ex-SEAL an even greater appreciation of just how effective Tony must have been going undercover. After all, he’d been deep undercover with the Macaluso Mafia family for a year before bringing them down when a lot of other law enforcement people had failed to do.
It was a rather unique chance to watch a professional undercover agent at work, even if the circumstances were highly unfortunate since the safety of his daughter was at stake.
~o0o~
Nikola Bates was hoping that the interview with Lieutenant Colonel Davis would result in a job offer. She knew enough about Homeworld Command from her time with the NID to know that the bulk of their employees were stationed either at Colorado Springs at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex or Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, otherwise known as Area 51. The thought of being stationed at such remote facilities with oodles of security was exactly what she needed right now. Although she had only been at the CIA for twenty-six months, she needed to leave DC as soon as she could.
The highly sought-after analyst was deeply embarrassed to have gotten herself into such a foolish predicament with her ex-boyfriend; one that she’d never thought she’d find herself in. Bates thought that she’d finally found the one, promptly falling head over heels for Mason Peters, an associate director at DHS. He’d been a perfect gentleman at first, and so romantic in his pursuit of her when she knocked him back several times after he’d asked her out. The rejections had been due to having to work late or just having prior commitments, but he’d handled the rejections gracefully. So, when he asked her out after a handful of regretful rejections, she finally said yes, and he pulled out all the stops to impress her.
Mason had taken her to an expensive restaurant where you normally needed to book a table several months in advance, because all the politicians and their aides and the Capital heavyweights constantly ate there. He ordered imported wines and a twelve-course degustation menu that Nikola would never in a million years have ordered for herself, as it was ridiculously overpriced, even if it were sinfully exquisite. Then he took her dancing, which as a first date, was pretty damned hard to top.
Over the next couple of months, he showered her with gifts: exotic flowers, handmade chocolate, jewellery, designer shoes and handbags that she would never have bought for herself and even sexy French lingerie. Yes, with the benefit of hindsight, it was trite, and so damned clichéd. She couldn’t understand how she’d been dumb enough to have fallen for it. But she had fallen for it, overwhelmed with how special Mason had made her feel. She’d been giddy with what she now recognised was a rush of the oxytocin hormone flooding her brain over and over again. By the time she had agreed to live with him and moved into his apartment, it was already far too late.
The moment she’d committed to a full-time relationship, the controlling behaviour started but at first it was subtle and when she failed to recognise it for what it was, instead accepting his excuses that he was worried terrorists might use his love for her to compromise him, it continued. Not only did it persist, but it also escalated, while his narrative for why he needed to know her movements every hour of the day when she wasn’t with him seemed almost rational at first. By the time he was tracking her movements, limiting her social contacts, and vetting her friends, she was way over her head.
When they first started living together the subject of kids had come up, but Nikola, the product of a broken marriage had wanted to wait until she was certain that their relationship would go the distance. Mason had agreed that they would wait, even though he wanted a baby but said that since she was the one who would be pregnant, she had to be ready to have a baby too. So, when she fell pregnant, Nikola didn’t put the pieces together at first. It wasn’t until far too late she realised that Mason had been swapping out her birth control pills with placebos. Still, learning that she was pregnant, she was concerned – she had huge medical bills for her brother’s care that she was responsible for and the interest on the debt was crippling. What happened if she and Mason broke up?
Nikola thought briefly about having a termination but at thirty-nine she recognised that this chance might not come again, she’d been in several relationships, even briefly married for a couple of years to an NID special agent, Rick Travis Bates but the marriage hadn’t lasted. There was no acrimonious divorce, they just didn’t have that much in common and shouldn’t have married in the first place. She was adrift after her brother’s death, with no other family and Travis was still dealing with the aftermath of life-threatening injuries that saw him discharged from the Marine Corps and joining the NID. They’d helped each other get over their losses and then realised that there was nothing else that was tangible enough between them to build a long-term relationship on.
Her divorce was what led her to leave her job at the NID but upon reflection on her current situation, she should have stayed at the agency, even if there were some anomalies regarding a few key personnel that had made her want to ask questions. So, she’d transferred to the CIA and run into Mason Peters on a night out with some of her fellow analysts. And now, here she was, hoping that this job interview with the Homeworld agency would be the answer to her prayers, well some of them.
Nikola needed a job, a well-paid job so she could continue to pay off Eric’s medical bills and support herself and her baby. She knew that living on base or nearby, in either Nevada or Colorado Springs would be a lot cheaper than staying in DC where the cost of living was prohibitive, not to mention, far too close for to an associate director of DHS who was threatening their safety. Pregnancy had been hard on her; she spent a lot of time throwing up and crying because her hormones were all over the place. It made her feel frumpy and unattractive and often she was just not into sex, especially the sex games that Mason wanted to play after they moved in together.
Nikola was not interested in the whole BDSM scene, Mason often accused her of being staid and boring and perhaps she was, but she liked what she liked. He tried to persuade her, and for the sake of their relationship, she did try some of the less hard-core stuff like being tied up with scarves, (never handcuffs) and blindfolds and some spanking (with hands only) but she didn’t like it. Mason accused her of not trusting him and she couldn’t deny that might be a factor, but she also rebutted it by rationalising that because her family had been slaves generations ago, being chained up and beaten was not something she understood or could get off on.
Of course, she didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to notice that the first time he struck her was after she fobbed him off when he wanted to play. She was ashamed of how she fell for his manipulation which was in hindsight, so damned hackneyed. His horror at his loss of control, a subtle mention of not having an outlet for his physical needs, paired with the stresses of his job and the teary heartfelt vow that it wouldn’t happen again. But of course, it did.
It was a case of rinse, repeat over and over again, with her believing his bullshit for far too long. She felt so ashamed of herself – how often had she spoken disparagingly about victims of domestic violence who refused to leave their abuser and how weak and stupid they must be not to leave their partner?
What Nikola Bates realised now, far too late to save herself from making the same mistake she’d berated fellow victims of DV, was that it had all happened so incrementally. The line that she fervently believed she’d never cross, kept shifting or she kept backing further away from it. If Mason had shown his true autocratic personality all at once, she would have been out of there so fast he wouldn’t have known what hit him, but it was too subtle, or else his excuses were too rational. Take the one for example that he needed to track her movements because terrorists might abduct her to coerce him into acting against the US. While some people might scoff at such a dramatic excuse, Nikola knew of a case of a lawyer who was forced to commit treason and murder because her kid-sister had been held, hostage. Plus, Mason’s contrition was always so genuine, or it seemed to be to Nikola.
Until one day, two months pregnant and reconciled to grabbing what might be her last chance at motherhood, Nikola found herself backed up against the wall and unable to retreat from the line anymore. Mason had wanted sex and feeling shitty after hours of throwing up in the toilet, her hair falling in greasy strands and badly needing to be shampooed but lacking the energy to climb into the shower to attend to it, Nikola had tried to explain why she didn’t feel sexy or in the mood. When she refused he attacked her with both his words, telling her that her first obligation was to him, to fill his needs, that the baby came second, then he backed it up by choking her and giving her a fat lip.
That was when Nikola finally acknowledged to herself that she was living in an abusive relationship and that she needed to get away from him, but she knew that it wasn’t going to be all that easy. He was an associate director at DHS, and he had clout. She would need to find a safe way to get out from under, but she also needed to be smart about it, because she had no one she could turn to for help. The one person she might have gone to for assistance was no longer working in DC and besides, they had a kid too, so she couldn’t involve them, it was too dangerous.
When the inquiry to see if she was interested in working for Homeworld Command arrived via her former husband recommendation, she leapt at the job interview. One of her friends at the CIA swapped cell phones with her when she mentioned she needed to meet up with an ex who needed to see her, but whom Mason was jealous of, Cathy promised to cover for her. After all, she’d been trying to get Nikola to leave Mason for months now. Cathy even lent her friend her car for, and Bates was eternally grateful for her help, which was how she’d ended up sitting down with Colonel Davis at Homeworld, praying that she’d get the job.
It had been going well, her credentials were impressive and apparently, they were in dire need of an intelligence analyst, which was her specialty. It seemed that her previous knowledge about the mandate for Homeworld Command and the existence of the Stargate Program, which granted was limited, made her their number one pick. The stumbling block was when she mentioned she was 13 weeks pregnant which caused Paul Davis to recoil in shock.
“Really? You don’t look it,” he said with an appreciative glance at her still-svelte figure.
To the mother-to-be who felt bloated and frumpy, it was a salve to her battered self-esteem.
“So will you be staying home after the baby is born,” he asked, disappointed that their top pick was probably not going to be a long-term option.
Nikola decided she needed to trust this man if she had any hope of getting away from Mason Peters’ abuse.
“Long term, no. I’ll probably take a couple of months off after the birth, but I’ll need to go back to work to support my child and myself. Plus, I have significant medical bills I’m responsible for, so I can’t afford to not go to work,” she told him.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think the position we were considering you for would be suitable given your current circumstances, Ms Bates. But if we require someone of your skills in the future, then you’ll be the first person offered the job,” he told her with evident disappointment.
Feeling a rising panic beginning to creep over her as she saw her chance slipping away, she tried not to freak out. “Colonel Davis, could you tell me why I’m not suitable for the job you were interviewing me for?”
“Well because you would be permanently situated on base. I didn’t realise the relationship between you and Associate Director Peters was serious enough that you had started a family.”
Taking a deep breath, hoping that she was doing the right thing trusting this man with her life but knowing that she needed this job, she told him the truth. “One of the reasons I’m looking for a new job is because I need to get away from Mason Peters, Colonel Davis I’m in a physically and psychologically abusive relationship and frankly, taking a classified job on a military base is a dream come true.”
Nikola was pretty sure she must have shocked Colonel Davis, but he didn’t show it. “I’m very sorry to hear that, Ms Bates.”
“Thank you, Colonel. Given his position at the DHS, I am fearful about what happens when I leave him, but I refuse to bring my child up in a violent environment. I’d rather die first, so I need to be somewhere he can’t contact me. I know from my time at the NID that he can’t bully or coerce Homeworld Command into revealing where I am.”
Hopefully, after a while, he would move on to someone else, she thought but didn’t say it, because it was a cowardly thing to wish for. If she wasn’t pregnant, then she would hopefully stand up and do the right thing by going to the cops and making a complaint, except if she weren’t pregnant, chances are that she would have kept on letting him move her line in the sand. So pathetic!
Davis looked at her considering, before requesting that his aide make a cup of tea for her while he went to discuss the situation with his boss.
~o0o~
While Nikola Bates was sitting in Colonel Davis’s office chewing on her fingernails nervously, Paul had stormed into General O’Neill’s office, uncharacteristically disgruntled. When Jack realised, he hadn’t been the one to evoke the ire of his second in command he had him go back and start at the beginning, hoping he’d make more sense.
“Do you know an Associate Director at DHS called Mason Peters, Sir,” Paul asked, and he could tell the man was still seething.
Can’t say that I do, Paul. What’s he done,” Jack asked.
“He’s been psychologically and physically abusive to Nikola Bates, the ex-wife of the former head of base security on Atlantis, USM MS Sgt Bates and currently a NID special agent who recommended her. I’ve just been interviewing her for the intel analyst’s job, per your orders, Sir.”
“Eggcellent,” Jack sounded pleased but noted Paul did not look happy. “Problems, Colonel? Aside from her poor choice of a partner.”
“She’s pregnant, and she’s desperate to get away from him, General.”
“Damn it. Think she’d still be willing to consider going to Atlantis?”
“As I said, I think she’s desperate.”
“Okay, if she does agree to the position, we are going to have to fix the situation vis a vis the associate director, because we can’t take the chance that he will simply let her disappear. Aside from this, I hate men who abuse their partners,” Jack said, his expression flinty.
“What did you have in mind,” Paul looked askance at his boss, knowing him well enough to see the cogs turning as he formulated a plan.
“We set the rat bastard up and hope he takes the bait. We’re going need help to set this in motion,” he said musingly.
“You have someone in mind, General,” Paul asked hopefully because this sort of situation was way outside his bailiwick.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do, Paul. Paddington was telling me about an ex-FBI guy who might prove a useful addition to have around. Chegwidden mentioned that a few years later his daughter became addicted to drugs and recently died of an overdose. Been working as a private investigator, using his garage as an office, poor sod. Also, to add insult to injury, he’s a friend and former colleague of Alex’s old boss, Leroy Jethro Gibbs. They were both married to his wife who was murdered because of some revenge plot to get even with Gibbs.”
“Well, that sucks. So, what do you want to hire him as? A fixer?”
Jack grinned. “Exactly. Homeworld Security could sure do with someone like that. Okay, let’s talk to her,” he stood up and followed Paul into his office to interview what he hoped would be Paddington’s new intel analyst on Atlantis.
Chapter 7
Nikola was hoping to be offered a job at the ultra-secret government agency, Homeworld Command so she could escape her abusive partner Mason Peters who unfortunately happened to be an associate director at the Department of Homeland Security. The best-case scenario, they’d offer her a job at Area 51 in Nevada or Star Gate Command in Colorado, and she could simply disappear off the radar, although it was still possible that Mason would call in markers and find her. But when she’d admitted to being 12 weeks pregnant, the interview hit a snag, saying the on-base assignment would be complicate by her pregnancy which left her feeling confused and scared. If she failed to get this job, what was she going to do next? She was relieved when the director of Homeworld Command met with her and offered to help her leave DC.
General O’Neill called in markers, and they exceeded Mason Peter’s by a country mile. The head of the CIA approached Mason, informing him that his girlfriend, Nikola Bates had been seconded to a secret government task force for three months and could not contact any of her associates, friends, or family due to the highly classified project on which she was working. He was explicitly told that for the sake of national security, he must not try to contact her or try to discover what she was doing. Peters had protested vehemently as they’d expected he would, but he was told it was need-to-know and an associate director did not need to know, that it was way about his pay grade.
A Sgt Harriman had been sent to retrieve Nikola’s phone from her co-worker Cathy Landers and return Nikola’s to her and she also sent Mason a text, telling him she was on a secret assignment and couldn’t contact anyone until it was complete. Of course, they knew that he wouldn’t be able to resist tracking her and that was where Penelope Garcia and Thomas Fornell, both ex-employees of the FBI came in. They were running a sting to collect enough evidence to take Mason down for stalking. General O’Neill had even called the DHS Director, Nancy Addison and asked her to order Peters not to try to contact Nikola Bates, who was on a critical mission that required absolute secrecy. Jack also specifically asked her to reassure the Associate Director that Nikola was in good hands as NID Special Agent Bates, her ex-husband was in charge of her security.
At first, Nikola had been reluctant to involve her ex, partly out of embarrassment because of the whole supposedly smart woman falling for the whole embarrassing cliché of an abusive partner but Penelope told her that when it came to what the heart wanted, it could be as dumb as dirt. She confided that she had an unrequited crush on her old boss, even though she knew he didn’t see her that way.
Nikola had expressed her sympathy for the normally bubbly individual. “Water cooler gossip at NCIS was that it was Derek Morgan you had your eye on. Abby said you two flirted constantly, and I know she always expected you would end up together.”
Penelope looked at her oddly. “Are you talking about Abby Sciuto who used to work at NCIS?”
“You know her,” Nikola looked surprised.
“Yeah, through a friend of a friend. I met her a couple of times socially. How do you know her,” Garcia asked.
“I worked with her on a couple of cases, and we had coffee sometimes.”
“Hang on, didn’t you work at the Northwest Field Office in Silverdale Washington,”
“Nope, I worked in DC at the Naval Yard before it was blown up and lived in Silver Spring,” Nikola told her, puzzled. “Is there a problem?”
“Not exactly. Someone got Washington DC mixed up with Washington State on your file, is all. Anyway, my point is that Special Agent Bates recommended you to Colonel Davis, so he must still care about you,” Garcia observed.
“Yeah, I know he does. We stayed good friends after the divorce, but I feel so stupid and besides, I don’t want to put him in danger. Mason is dangerous and well connected.”
“Okay, as to feeling stupid, you know I worked with the BAU for a long time, and I know that stalkers are often sinfully smart – not just book smart but smart about how to read and manipulate people. It’s like they have an inbuilt radar that lets them zero in on their targets’ psychological soft spots, and Hon, we’ve all got them, even if some of us are better at hiding them, they’re still there, Penelope said wryly.
“Guys like Mason Peters use his good looks and his status to charm but his ability to figure out how to manipulate him makes him a threat to anyone he’s attracted to, and it has nothing to do with your smarts. Got it,” the bubbly blonde asked the intel analyst.
“I guess,” Nikola said not sounding fully convinced.
“As for your ex, he’s a federal agent. Plus, he was head of base security out there,” she waved her hand amorphously. If he goes into this with all the data, then I’m sure he can take care of himself, Sweetie,” Penelope comforted her. “You know he’ll be pissed if he finds out about this from someone else if you are still such good friends. I would be.”
“Yeah, but I already know that Mason’s jealous of Rick because he’s always worse after I’ve talked to him or texted him. It feels like we are going to be painting a huge target on his back, she tried to explain.
“And because he’s already so jealous, this will make it a much easier sell, Hon.”
So, Nikola had agreed reluctantly, and Penelope hugged her and told her that General O’Neill had organised for Nikola to go into protective custody until they could in his vernacular, ‘take out the trash,’ and Garcia was going to stay with her and digitally assist Fornell and Bates with the sting operation.
Little did Nikola expect that the General’s idea of protective custody and a safe house was orbiting around the Earth on the Spaceship Zephyrus. Working at the NID she’d been read in on the Stargate program, but it was one thing to know about it and another thing entirely to find yourself aboard a battle cruiser 304-class, high above the earth. Not only that but they’d been beamed aboard like something out of a Star Trek episode with technology given to them by a now-extinct race of aliens. It was phantasmagorical and gave her a deeper understanding of what Rick had been forced to give up when he received a medical discharge from the Corps following his attack by an alien enemy combatant.
So, the sting used a lookalike Nikola who carried her phone so that Mason (if he stayed true to form) would use to track her down after a few days’ absences when Nikola had sent him a carefully composed text message. It said that since she’d been working with Bates again they realised that they’d made a mistake, that they still loved each other and wanted to start over. Nikola also told Peters that he scared her when he hit her, and she’d decided she didn’t want to be with him anymore.
Tobias Fornell had already explained that by exploiting his jealousy over her ex-husband, Rick Bates and then her rejection of him for his abuse, they had created the perfect storm where he wouldn’t be able to ignore all of the orders not to contact her. His ego couldn’t accept any other course of action except to find her and regain control over her. They planned to trap him in a NID location, meanwhile, they would have Fornell shadowing him via a bug that the DHS director (and John Sheppard’s ex-wife) would plant on his phone until he broke into the fake NID office space and then take him down safely.
Nikola was very worried about her body double and also her ex-husband, she would never be able to forgive herself if they were injured but everyone assured her they had it all under control. The facility that they’d chosen for the sting, using Nikola’s phone as bait was a CIA-owned office and all of the staff were undercover Marines from the Zephyrus. So really, Mason didn’t stand a chance when he stormed into the office, blustering about the DHS needing to interview Nikola Bates on an issue to do with national security.
In the end, he was taken down without anyone getting hurt, aside from copping his spittle as he lost it and was cursing them out ferally. When faced with a room full of badass Marines, Peters caved fairly easily, only truly dangerous when he was one-on-one with his life partner, as was the case with most bullies. They took him into custody and indicted him with a raft of charges, Nikola also took out a restraining order against him and Rick also convinced her to make a complaint about his physical attacks on her. If he were found guilty, Peters would spend a significant period in federal detention, although he’d hired some pretty well-connected attorneys. The good news was that he’d been terminated from his position at the DHS and even if he beat the charges he was facing, which was a possibility because sometimes money talked louder than the law, he would never work in federal law enforcement or intelligence again.
While Nikola wouldn’t feel completely safe until he was incarcerated and not just awaiting trial, she felt much more secure but still thought the idea of working on base at Area 51 or Cheyenne Mountain still sounded like a good idea. She had no idea that neither location had been where she had been head-hunted for, her assignment was quite a bit further from DC than she imagined.
~o0o~
Penelope Garcia had just returned from helping Nikola clear out her possessions from the Georgetown condo she’d shared with Mason Peters, although Pen hadn’t been all that shocked to discover that the piece of shit had trashed most of her stuff. Men like him didn’t take it well when their partners dared to leave them. Luckily, the photograph albums that Nikola prized more than anything since they contained photos of her dead mother and brother had survived his vengeful destruction, although he obliterated any that were of her ex-husband.
She’d helped the intel analyst salvage what she could and then they had both been beamed back to the Zephyrus where Nikola was going to be holed up for the next few days. The battle cruiser wasn’t due to start back on a supply run to Atlantis for another week and whilst they were carrying out routine servicing and repairs, almost half of the crew was on leave. It was as good a place as any and safe too for Nikola to lick her wounds and grieve over her losses in private.
Meanwhile, Garcia had to get back to work. She needed to doublecheck why Nikola Bates’ background check was wrong and inform Colonel Davis and General O’Neill asap as the military types would say. She was also supposed to be getting together with the gang for dinner at Dave’s place if the BAU didn’t get a case. She was looking forward to hanging out with her old co-workers but knew that they’d try again to get her to spill her guts, especially Derek who was no longer working as a federal agent, so he was a lot pushier than the rest.
Reaching her office at Homeworld Command, she sighed in contentment at being home. There was no denying that it was fun getting to stay on the Zephyrus as it orbited the Earth and beaming up and back to help the CIA intel analyst had been fun but encountering Mason Peters’ cruelty when he destroyed Nicola’s possessions reminded Penelope of just how much ugliness people were capable of inflicting upon others. It was a little too close to the horrors she’d seen at the BAU which had finally forced her to seek new horizons. It was how she ended up at Homeworld, tracking aliens and those who wanted to consort with Earth’s enemies to rule the Earth.
She had already requested a meeting with the director and assistant director, now she just needed to figure out whose head was going to roll and if it was human error or deliberate sabotage. Slipping into her chair and booting up her computer, she set to work. As she investigated, she realised this was bad, but maybe if they decided not to offer Nikola the job at Atlantis, Homeworld would still offer her a job at the SGC. Penelope wouldn’t put it past Mason Peters to make trouble for her in DC, even if he were in prison. Rich types like him always had people willing to help him, regardless of his crimes.
One hour later she entered the conference room with her trusty laptop where her bosses were waiting for her to show them the problem. Since Penelope had initiated the meeting, after they exchanged greetings, both men looked at her expectantly.
She took a deep breath and said, “Houston, we have a problem!”
General O’Neill groaned dramatically. “Really? You’re going to open with that?”
“Sorry Sir, just trying for a bit of levity. Okay, so Nikola Bates worked for almost five years at NCIS.”
Paul looked confused. “I don’t see the cause for panic, Penelope. We already knew about her history with NCIS.”
“Yes I’m aware of that, Colonel but according to her background check, she worked out of the Northwest Field Office in Silverdale, Washington.”
“Right, so the likelihood she ever encountered Anthony DiNozzo is slim to nothing since he’s never been to the state of Washington on NCIS business,” Paul stated calmly.
“Except that she didn’t work at the Northwest Field Office, she worked at the Washington Field Office, at the Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling in DC,” she said in exasperation. “There was a massive slip-up!”
Both men looked annoyed. “Okay, that’s a bad slip up but the MCRT that DiNozzo worked on is located on the Marine base at Quantico. So, it isn’t all that likely that Bates worked with him,” Jack argued, still not understanding.
“But she did, General. Several times, she even went to Iraq with him on an investigation. The NCIS HQ is at Quantico now but remember that it used to be in DC before Harper Dearing planted a bomb and blew up the building in May 2012. That’s when they moved the headquarters out to Virginia. Nikola left NCIS about six months before the bombing, just after her brother died.”
“Damn it! How did we not know this?” Jack demanded.
“I’m not sure, Sir. It appears to be a human error as far as I can tell. Bates was living in Silver Spring and working in Washington DC. I’m assuming that Sergeant Michaels got confused and made an honest mistake, I can’t find any evidence of him being corrupt, General.”
Jack shot a look at Colonel Davis. “This will require a full investigation, Colonel. It could have been a disaster if Bates had turned up on Atlantis.”
Penelope shook her head. “Maybe not, Sir. I think Nikola had a bit of a thing for Agent DiNozzo. We kind of chatted about fieldwork and she told me about her trip to Baghdad with him as his interpreter. She said he kept her safe when she did something boneheaded by acting impetuously. She told me that even though she was there as his interpreter, he respected her, didn’t treat her like an idiot and let her help with the investigation.”
“So, you saying she might have been smitten by him,” he said musingly. Any idea about her attitude to the rest of the team?”
“Nothing good. She said Gibbs was an angry bully who terrorised the staff, McGee was a whiny passive-aggressive who thought he was the smartest person in the building and David was a bitch who thought she was better than everyone else because she was Mossad, and her daddy was the director!”
“Yeah, sounds like there’s no love lost there,” Jack agreed. “Did she happen to say anything more about Ziva David?”
“Just that David wanted to go to Baghdad on the investigation into a Marine reservist’s death and tried to persuade Nikola to rescind her application to go, by using classic Mossad psyops techniques to psych her out. David was pissed when Bates wouldn’t withdraw her request to be considered for the mission. Nikola said Ziva was even more pissed off when the acting director chose Bates because Ziva was a liaison for Mossad at that time.”
“Okay, well maybe this is salvageable, but I think we need to talk to Agent Paddington about this development, So, for the moment, I think we’ll offer Ms Bates a temporary position at Area 51, or she can return to her job at the CIA until we consult Alex about this. Good pick up, Ms Garcia,” the general told her as she grinned at the acknowledgement.
“And thanks for letting me spend time aboard the Zephyrus, General. It was of the most incredible experiences of my life.”
“Which leads me to another issue I wanted to discuss with you,” he smirked at Colonel Davis. “How would you feel if I asked you to take a temporary assignment to Atlantis and profile an Artificial Intelligence program that was created by an Ancient called Janus, ten thousand odd years ago to protect the city after he and the other Ancients returned to Earth? I need someone to assess and analyse any possible threat it poses to the expeditionary force and the Athosians who are living on Atlantis.”
Penelope gasped in surprise and seemed lost for words. Wow, she definitely didn’t see that coming. She was thrilled and terrified since she wasn’t a field agent, even though she’d worked with the BAU for over fifteen years. More importantly, Hotch and little Jack (who was not so little now) were on Atlantis and although Nikola had wrongly believed she was talking about Dave Rossi when she said she had a crush on her former boss and she hadn’t disabused her of the notion, it had been Aaron Hotchner she was talking about.
She knew her feelings weren’t reciprocated. When she started working with the FBI, (recruited by Hotch, who kept her out of prison for her hacking activities) he’d been married to Hailey Hotchner and then baby Jack came along. After they divorced, Hotch was distraught and then George Foyet was after him. Hailey and Jack went into WitSec before Foyet tricked the US Marshal Kassmeyer, torturing and killing him before posing as their protection, killing Hailey while Hotch had to listen on the phone, and something died in him. Finally, years later when he started dating again, it was the athletic Beth who he chose, bonding with her over their marathon training. They were together for some years before she was offered a promotion overseas and Hotch encouraged her to take it.
Penelope always wondered if it was penance because Hailey gave him an ultimatum, her or the BAU, and he picked his job. Did he think that he didn’t deserve happiness or was it that he felt it would be hypocritical of him to ask Beth to put him and Jack before her job and promotion? Still, even though he was single again after he and Beth broke up, Penelope knew he wouldn’t be attracted by someone like her. She wasn’t dainty or athletic like Hailey or Beth and Hotch was serious and conservative by nature, he internalised his thoughts and emotions while she was the exact opposite. She was exuberant, optimistic to the point of rainbow-coloured unicorns and shared her emotions with her friends and co-workers. Plus, she wasn’t exactly a size zero stick-thin supermodel either, she was voluptuous and hyperfeminine, and she would probably drive him crazy with her chaotic extrovertedly cheerful personality.
No, a relationship between them would never work out, but it didn’t mean that she wouldn’t be pleased to see her former boss again. When he left, the only person who got a chance to say goodbye had been Dave and it hurt the team immensely. At least she’d get the opportunity to spend some time with him and Jack, who was now a 14-year-old. Wow and didn’t that make her feel old, since it only felt like yesterday when his proud father brought baby Jack into Quantico to meet the team.
Yep, Garcia loved the thought of her new temporary assignment in Atlantis and as a bonus, she got to spend time assessing a ten-thousand-year-old artificial intelligence program, how good was that?
Meanwhile, she had a ton of things to do before she left next week with General O’Neill. First thing on the agenda, she needed to vet the candidates for two additional psychologists/psychiatrists to join the Atlantis contingent, including one with specialised training in treating survivors of sexual assault and one who had training in child and adolescent mental health but could also treat other issues, particularly PTSD and drug and alcohol issues.
Next thing, she needed to brief Master Sergeant Harriman (affectionately known as Walter) in case the not-so-dead Ms David managed to get released after being detained for entering the US on a false passport. She and Paul Davis had laid some false trails regarding where Anthony DiNozzo and his daughter were hiding after he’d reportedly come back to the US after the epic legal stoush with his cousin Crispin Paddington. They’d even prepared a scenario that, if required would fake the deaths of Anthony and Tali DiNozzo and implicate the Trust so that Ms I- faked-my-own-death-for-three-years David could pursue her daughter’s killers.
Penelope wasn’t usually an advocate of keeping a mama away from her baby but in her honest opinion, Ziva David didn’t deserve the title of a mother. She may have given birth to Tali David DiNozzo but that didn’t automatically make her a loving or fit parent. She’d deliberately not informed Tali’s father of her existence and then when she was entrenched in some stupid revenge plot that involved her crazy ass family in what read more like a cheesy B-grade soap opera plot, Ziva decided it was a good idea to fake her death. She had shoved a not quite-two-year-old at a stranger (who also happened to be her father), one that had no idea she existed. All so she could continue her revenge cosplay shenanigans instead of doing what a responsible parent would do and reach out to Tali’s father and former teammates for help or go into witness protection. Letting her daughter think she was dead was cruel enough, but then returning three years later and wanting her back again was beyond brutal.
If Ms David truly believed she needed to fake her own death to protect her daughter then she should have owned the decision and stayed dead. Let Tali and Tony get on with their lives and stop jerking them around. Plus, Penelope had to admit that she had little to no sympathy for an assassin and a spy and it was her opinion that she was not a suitable role model for a child. So, no, the Black Queen had zero reservations about ensuring she was never able to find Anthony and Tali DiNozzo, even if she had to send her on a hundred wild goose chases over her lifetime to make it so. Garcia was someone who would have given everything she had to have been reunited with her dead parents, but they were good honest people. Ms David was not!
Oh, Penelope got that the assassin had been warped by her father’s abuse, turning into a monster, much the same way as the serial killers she’d help track down and put behind bars for life had often been moulded into killers by poverty, parental neglect and abuse or trauma. She grieved for the tragic injustice of their lost childhood and innocence, as she did for Ziva, but they still needed to be stopped from going on to inflict their pain, and their psychopathology on blameless victims. Unfortunately, the only way to do that was to lock them up and throw away the key.
Even when you discounted her assassin kills for Mossad, David had hardly been an upstanding citizen, she’d been an accessory to the killing of an ICE agent and obstructed justice by covering it up during the investigation while she was a Mossad liaison to NCIS. Then she’d been an accessory to the death of a journalist who was killed by her father, and that was not that long after she’d sworn an oath to the US as a citizen and another oath to NCIS as a federal agent to uphold US laws. Finally, while she was happy to cover up the deaths of an ICE agent and a US journalist when her father (who in Pen’s eyes was a bona fide murdering monster), she arrogantly demanded retribution when someone had the temerity to put out a hit on Eli David. She murdered the man she believed had called for the hit on her sperm donor (an old friend of the David family) who had vehemently denied his involvement.
And as abhorrent as all those acts were to Penelope, possibly the most heinous in her view was when her father ordered her to kill her own half-brother, not because he’d been warped into a murdering terrorist but because he was no longer loyal to their father. There could be no crime more shocking in her eyes and she was determined to make sure that the cycle of abuse that ostensibly had begun with Eli David did not continue to blight Tali and perpetuate like cancer into future generations of DiNozzos.
~o0o~
Penelope scrambled out of the generic black SUV favoured by her protection detail as one of the teams of Marines escorted her up to Rossi’s front door, waiting with her until the FBI profiler answered the door. As she went to enter the house, Cpl Ames told her that the team would remain outside to secure the perimeter and to send him a text when she was ready to leave. She nodded her acquiescence to his request and disappeared inside.
Dave stared at her in concern. “Kitten, why do you have a military protection detail” Are you being coerced into working on some military project against your will,” he asked her, and not for the first time since she started working for Homeworld Command.
Garcia sighed. “Like the last dozen or so times you’ve asked me, no, nein and nyet, Dave. I’m working for the good guys, I swear and I’m doing it of my own free will because I believe in their mandate,” she said as they walked down the hallway to the kitchen, knowing that the rest of her former colleagues were already waiting.
Like the half dozen previous times they’d had dinner at Rossi’s sprawling ranch-style house that was set back on a half-acre of land, complete with a landscaped swimming pool, the others always arrived first. They had been vetted by the Homeworld security team and she was the last person to arrive. As she entered the kitchen, she noted that none of the spouses or offspring were present, although she could hear the kids in the yard outside.
She propped and stared at the serious miens of her friends: Spencer, Derek, J.J., Emily, Luke, and Tara, all looking at her as if she were a timebomb about to explode. She glared at Rossi. “What is this? Some sort of lame intervention?”
“C’mon Mama,” Derek spoke soothingly to her. “We’re all just worried about you. You gotta admit that you travelling around with a bunch of jarheads to make sure you don’t try to run off, isn’t normal and then you announce you’re being sent off on some clandestine trip, but you can’t say where it is, and you don’t know how long you’ll be gone.”
“Oh, my God! Is that what you all think? That I’m acting under duress,” she demanded with a touch of hysteria in her voice.
Spencer looked at her seriously. “Well, you left the FBI because you needed to do something less stressful after more than fifteen years in law enforcement. You accepted a job with a non-profit organisation and you and Alverez start dating, then suddenly you proclaim to be working for a covert government agency. You moved out of your place, and you loved that apartment, Pen and you also broke up with Luke. We are concerned about you, you are family,” he said, awkwardly as emotional topics weren’t really his forte.
She shot an embarrassed look in Luke Alverez’s direction, and she took a few steps across the room and hugged Spencer, who stiffened up like he always did at exuberant expressions of affection.
“Okay, I thank you for your concern but I’m not under duress. Look, seeing as I’m going to be off the grid, at an uber secret military base for an indeterminate period, my Boss gave me the okay to give you some basic facts, with the understanding that if you are indiscreet, you could be putting yourselves and me at risk.”
She looked at her former colleagues, who were also her family, trying to gauge the room to see how they were handling what she had to say but was met by implacable expressions from the guys. J.J. seemed more open to hearing her, but Emily and Tara looked sceptical, although maybe not quite so much as the men. Of them all, her chocolate Adonis looked the most obstinate; if you were going to try to explain the notion of stubbornness to an alien, all you would need do was show them a photo of Morgan’s expression – it oozed pig-headed intractability. Granted, it was also a stunningly handsome visage, but his expression was not open-minded by any stretch of the imagination.
Mentally shaking herself, she continued, “Okay, the most important thing you all need to get through your thick but caring skulls, my friends, is that the job that I accepted at the non-profit when I left the BAU wasn’t a bona fide job. It was an extremely elaborate ruse by a multi-national crime organisation to recruit The Black Queen aka me to hack for them.”
She noted the concerned expressions but thankfully, they all held their tongues as she continued her account of how close she’s come to the Trust getting their claws into her.
“They set up a dummy non-government organisation to lure me in, knowing exactly how to target me since I’m a well know bleeding heart liberal and I was duly hooked and would have disappeared, never to be heard from again. An ultra-secret counter-intelligence agency that I’m not able to identify, pulled me out just in the nick of time. Turned out that the crime cartel they saved me from are a bunch of extremely bad hombres, and to put that into context, they are much worse than the serial killers that the BAU hunt down. I’ll reiterate, if the Dark Force had successfully recruited me, I wouldn’t be here talking to you all and able to lecture you all about how ridiculous you are being.”
“And the jarheads,” Luke asked her delicately.
“Are there to make sure I don’t get acquired by the evil cartel against my will. I was given the option of going into WitSec, but I remembered what Derek said once about the Mob and witness protection.”
Everyone looked at Morgan who shrugged. “Actually Mama, it wasn’t me, I was quoting a buddy of mine who brought down the Philly Don, Mike Macaluso. Tony reckoned that the reach of the mafia was so embedded into all the branches of law enforcement that WitSec wasn’t all that secure for people who testified against them.”
Rossi nodded, “ Well he’s right about the Mafia and WitSec, but are you trying to tell us the Mafia want to kidnap you, Kitten,” he asked her, sounding extremely alarmed.
“No, not the Mob, Dave but if the mob can break through the security of the US Marshalls, I figure that an international crime syndicate that poses a credible threat to the national security of many sovereign nations would also be able to infiltrate a law enforcement bureau too. I don’t have any dependants, or I might have gone into WitSec, but it’s just me and I decided I wanted to stay and help take these monsters down. But I had to agree to the protection detail and move somewhere that was easier to guard. My highly protective boss and his boss said it was non-negotiable.”
Morgan jumped up and started pacing. “So, you ARE in danger?”
“Yes, obviously. But not from the people I’m working for, Hot Stuff.”
Tara Lewis, one of the most recent profilers on the BAU who’d stayed silent until now, spoke up. “Is that why you broke it off with Luke, Penelope?”
Garcia sighed and looked at Alverez apologetically. “No. Look, not that it’s anyone else business, apart from ours, but I realised I was in love was someone else. So, I knew that wasn’t fair to him to start something I couldn’t truly commit to.”
That rapidly shut down the conversation as her former co-workers looked at Morgan and Dave, apparently seen as the two most likely candidates for Garcia’s unrequited love interests since she flirted shamelessly with both men over the years.
Glaring at her friends, she said, “Now I’m not sure how long I’m going to be gone but can we get the rest of the family in here, and maybe have some wine? That’s if this little ‘Intervention’ of yours is done?”
When no one objected she crossed to the back entrance and went out to greet Derek’s wife Savannah and J.J.’s Will before encouraging them to come inside because the half-baked intervention was over. So, Will LaMontagne came inside with Henry and Michael, and Savannah carried Derek’s cute as-pie mini-me, Hank Spencer Morgan into the kitchen, which made the already crowded space feel even more so, despite it being larger than the average home. Dave suggested they move proceedings to the dining and living space and they migrated en masse as drinks were handed out and a huge wooden board of delicious antipasto put together by Rossi appeared out of thin air.
The rest of the night passed quickly between sampling Dave’s impressive wine cellar and his awesome pasta dishes. Savannah and J.J. supplied tiramisu and a white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake for dessert which was absolutely sinful. Everyone was suitable mellow, having over-indulged with the food and wine before reluctantly beginning to depart. One by one they hugged Garcia and told her to take care of herself and come back soon.
Finally, she was left alone with Rossi who poured her a glass of cognac and said, “Subtle, aren’t they?”
Penelope considered playing dumb but since he did bring it up, she said, “Well you do have a reputation as an Italian Stallion, Dave.”
Gesturing to his hair and goatee, he retorted, “Think I’m more of a Silver Fox these days, Kitten,” he said with a touch of wistfulness.
Garcia chuckled, “Perhaps, but you’re still a damned sexy silver fox and you never want for female company.”
He smirked, since what she said was true. “You ever tell him how you felt?”
She gave him her best innocent look. “Who?”
He just gave her a ‘don’t be obtuse look,’ so she shook her head. “No, I’m not his type. How did you know?”
“Kitten, you flirt with all of us on the team, but not him. Your flirting isn’t indicative of your interest in someone, it’s just a shield that you use to protect yourself. I know that your flirting is harmless banter, ergo I figured out a long time ago that you have real feelings for him. But you know that even if all of Peter Lewis’ proxies were tracked down, he won’t come back here, not until Jack’s old enough to go to college, and maybe, not even then,” he told her regretfully.
She took a sip of Dave’s excellent cognac, appreciating his superb taste in brandy, before saying neutrally. “Yes, I do know that. I think he made the right decision. And even if he were to come back, there is no way a relationship would work, I’m not his type,” she said honestly.
Dave looked like he wanted to disagree but decided not to. Changing the subject, he said, “Before I let you go, I want you to pick a duress word so that if you are kidnapped, made to work under coercion or the super-secret spooks you’re working for do overstep the line you’re willing to cross, you can alert us, and we’ll drop everything to get you out.”
Sighing, she decided it wouldn’t hurt, especially if the Trust ever got their hands on her, she said, “Fine…what about pepperoni pizza?”
“Because you are vegetarian? That’s pretty damned sneaky, Kitten,” he told her fondly, “ I’m just praying you never needed to use it.”
Penelope shared Rossi’s sentiment because if the Trust ever did manage to abduct her, it would mean that the world was in terrible jeopardy.
Chapter 8
John Sheppard was feeling emotionally wrought from the incident debriefing regarding his capture and incarceration he’d just undergone although, to be technical, it had also served as his official statement, for the legal proceedings against the Genii and Lucius Lavin. It wasn’t until he’d been back almost a month on Atlantis and therefore nearly two months following his rescue that he’d been cleared by Dr O’Shea to make a statement detailing how he’d been abducted and what had occurred during his captivity. He’d been insisting for almost two weeks that he wanted to get it over and done with, partly since no one was allowed to talk to him about all of the things that were connected to the case.
That informational void had left him feeling alienated and isolated when people knew things that were going on and he didn’t, but his psychologist was adamant that she wasn’t going to okay him making a statement until she felt it wouldn’t be detrimental to his recovery. She pointed out that he would need to go into a degree of detail about his torture and sexual abuse that he still hadn’t managed to do in a highly supportive environment in their counselling sessions. She asked him what made him believe he was ready to bare his soul to give sworn testimony. She reminded him that it wasn’t just his mental well-being that was at stake but the integrity of the case against the accused.
Even if he had been too headstrong to heed her better judgement and potentially compromise the charges, she had been obdurate. Sheppard was more than a little surprised, he’d thought she’d be a pushover, but nothing could be further from the truth, O’Shea had a core consisting of tungsten that he couldn’t budge or bend. Also inconveniently, she seemed to have the absolute confidence of both General O’Neill and SAIC Paddington, who refused to schedule his debrief/deposition until she gave her approval. When he bitched about her to Alex during a break in his swimming session, Alex asked him why he was in such a hurry.
“It won’t hasten your return to active duty, John. It might do the opposite.”
He nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, I know.”
“So why are you pushing this so hard,” Alex inquired curiously.
“Because everyone is tiptoeing around me when they talk to me, not telling me about what happened with my abduction and other things going on that are a direct result of it too, that no one will talk about either.”
Paddington looked at him neutrally. “And what if I told you that you are much better off not knowing too much at this stage of your recovery, that it would only make you feel like shit?”
John ran his hand through his hair that permanently looked like bed hair, a sign of his exasperation. “It surely can’t be worse than I’m imagining, can it?”
Alex looked at him steadily. “Trust me, you are better off not knowing yet. And as to the matters that were uncovered during my investigation of your disappearance, most of it isn’t directly related to your abduction and there are a limited number of people who know about the investigation. For the privacy of the victims, it is need-to-know only.”
“And I don’t,” he said, a little resentfully.
“No, you don’t, just as we’ve limited the individuals who know the full extent of your abuse and torture, above what is physically apparent. Most people have no need or right to know, and you probably don’t want them to, either. We are trying to respect your right to privacy,” Alex told him gently but firmly.
Sheppard felt somewhat churlish when it was pointed out that he wanted his sexual assault to be classified, but felt he was entitled to know about other individuals’ personal details regarding serious crimes.
When he kvetched about it to Dr O’Shea during a session, she had told him that Alex, Lorne, and General O’Neill’s refusal to read him in on the supposed crimes of others such as Dr Girard (who he’d swiftly figured out was a part of the investigation), should reassure him. When he asked her why, she retorted that it proved they’d guard his right to privacy too, even against Rodney and Jennifer Keller who was demanding to know what they were concealing.
Yet now that he’d finally been allowed to put everything on the record, John felt gutted, physically, emotionally, and psychologically. General O’Neill and Agent Paddington had told him to go away, and rest and Dr O’Shea had supported them, which bugged him mightily since he was eager to hear all the stuff they’d been holding back from him. They had been adamant though, and he dragged himself back to his quarters to sleep like some doddery old octogenarian needing a nana nap. It was highly mortifying for John that he needed it, even if he was loathe to admit it.
After several hours of sleep, he still felt like something the cat had caught and dragged back home but at least he could keep his eyes open. Since the mess was still serving a very late lunch if he hurried, he ended up heading there, knowing if he started missing meals, Dr Lam would kick his butt. Since the bone remodelling procedures were due to take place next week, the last thing he wanted to do was get her back up and postpone it, so he dutifully lined up to get his carefully balanced meal and supplement drink. He would be so happy when he was on a fully unrestricted diet once more and he no longer needed the supplements. They came in a variety of flavours, but they were all way too sweet for his taste, and the cloying sweetness of them didn’t do anything to disguise the chalky aftertaste either.
Still, as Paddington had observed when John had been whining about his diet being restricted, it was better than dying. Alex told John quite bluntly that when he was found, his body had gotten to the stage where it had already consumed all of its body-fat reserves and was breaking down its own muscle mass. In a last-ditch effort to stave off starvation and death, he’d begun catabolising his organs. They’d found him in the nick of time and the idea cannibalising of his own body was a bit too zombie-like for his taste, as in extremely disturbing.
‘Hey John, what will we digest today? Your liver, your heart or maybe a sweetbread treat of the yummy pancreas? No… let’s snack on your brain! After all, you won’t need it for much longer.’
After his power nap and late lunch, he made his way to Agent Paddington’s office, insisting on receiving a briefing on the investigation into his disappearance and the mission to retrieve him. He was shattered to learn that the betrayal delivering him into the hands of Porteus Kolya was one of his people who’d been responsible for his abduction and months-long incarceration and horrific torture. It shook him up a lot more than he expected, probably because he wasn’t expecting that the abusive, toxic relationship of someone he was barely aware of, would have prompted them to sell him out so callously.
He’d said, “I don’t understand, why was L Cpl Favre jealous of me?”
Paddington had looked pained, and John figured he wasn’t going to like his answer.
“He is an abuser Colonel, and Dr De Rosa expressed her admiration for you on numerous occasions. Based only on that, he concluded that you had seduced her, especially when you assigned her to accompany you to Blentos.”
“Because Lucinda was the most qualified botanist for the mission,” John snapped.
“Yeah, don’t shoot the messenger!” The federal agent eyed him evenly, as he assessed the Air Force colonel‘s ability to process further information.
John looked chagrined. “Sorry,” he apologised, and Paddington looked momentarily shocked. Even after more than three years, having someone in authority apologise to him so effortlessly caught him off guard.
“S’kay, but you need to bear in mind that for someone as pathologically jealous as Joe Favre was about Dr De Rosa, it didn’t take much to trigger his possessiveness.”
“Okay, I get that, but what I can’t understand is, why pick on me? Surely Ronon would be a more likely candidate?”
“Ordinarily, I might agree. He does kinda rock the Fabio vibe,” Alex acknowledged with a harmless smirk.
“Then what is it that I’m missing,” John demanded in frustration. He looked at Alex’s grim expression, the one that said, ‘You aren’t going to like what I have to say,’ and said, “Please just tell me.”
“You became the prime suspect in the non-existent affair he suspected Dr De Rosa of having, because it was common knowledge that you were Atlantis’ very own James T. Kirk, Captain of the Enterprise and the bedder of any and all attractive females in the Pegasus galaxy. The scuttlebutt was if it has a pulse then you want to bed them,” the AFOSI/FBI agent stated with a shrug.
John initially started laughing until he stared at Paddington and saw he was totally serious. “C’mon, no one believes that stuff. It’s just Rodney’s usual shit-talking,” he objected angrily.”
As John ran his hands through his unruly lock, his hair become even more disordered which Tony didn’t think was possible. Turns out he was wrong, it could.
“Hate to break it to you, but there are quite a lot of people who do truly believe that crap, especially amongst the newbies. McKay hasn’t exactly been circumspect about your man-whore escapades, Colonel. And it is a proven phenomenon that the more you repeat something that isn’t true, the more chance there is that people start believing it is factual. It’s the whole basis of brainwashing and why cults can zombify their members so thoroughly,” he contradicted Sheppard implacably.
“But everyone knows that Rodney is just ranting,” Sheppard objected, desperately not wanting to face harsh truths.
“Not everyone, Col Sheppard. Maybe the original expeditionary team did, back when you were actively fighting to survive on Atlantis, and you were saving everyone’s asses, but I truly doubt that. Now, with the danger of daily annihilation having faded somewhat, and new personnel arriving all the time, some fervently believe the narrative that you’ll bed anything with a pulse, including LCpl Favre,” he told John calmly.
Knowing how much of a can of worms had just been opened, Paddington stood up and made him a cup of honey-sweetened herbal tea because coffee was still restricted. While he was doing so, he called Teyla over comms, requesting her presence asap. He briefly contemplated calling the other two members of AR-1, but Rodney was restricted from coming near him by order of General O’Neill. Besides, he intuitively felt that the Athosian would be best for this task, she was strong but had a quiet empathy that would not make the colonel feel undermined or belittled.
~o0o~
Penelope Garcia decided to take a break from her work, she’d been working for over five hours straight getting up to speed with the secret notes left by a ten-thousand-year-old Ancient known as Janus. Janae Progenius, the artificial intelligence program had supplied the research notes and translated them for her because obviously, she wasn’t able to read the Ancients’ language. Her skill with language was limited solely to computer coding, which was why she had Dr Jackson and Alex Paddington checked over J.P.’s translation. General O’Neill had insisted on it.
As she left the small office which was situated a few doors down from the agent’s, she thought about how good it was to see the federal agent again. She knew his real identity, having met him once or twice for drinks when she’d been with Derek Morgan, her chocolate Adonis, in the before ‘Savannah and Hank Spencer’ days. She’d even tagged along once with J.J. and Prentiss many years ago when Derek and Tony had played a couple of pickup games of basketball when their caseloads permitted. More recently, she’d been laying multiple false trails for him and his small daughter (now known as Belle) to try to draw the Trust into chasing fake reports of his movements. So far, they’d identified a few unimportant minions and she was using them to locate more individuals associated with or working for that evil cadre.
Of course, Penelope had been doing her level best (and if she were being immodest, she might say that was pretty damned high quality) but now that she’d actually made the acquaintance of the cutest curly-haired little moppet, she was beyond committed to tracking down the Trust and making them pay. Belle was enchanting, she could see she’d inherited a lot of her daddy’s traits and Garcia, who had always wanted to be a mom, felt her hormones kick up into high gear, whenever she and little Kazumi Zelenka were around. For this precious little girl, Penelope would make sure that she didn’t have to spend the rest of her childhood looking over her shoulder because of an accident of her genes.
As for Alexander Paddington, she was pleased to see that the former NCIS agent had finally been given the recognition that his undeniable talents demanded. Derek had on occasion, privately fumed that such a gifted agent had been cooling his jets as a senior field agent, playing second fiddle to an arrogant bully. Morgan had been scathing about the agency and the NCIS director for allowing the brilliant agent to languish far too long, playing nanny to a volatile former Marine. Derek reckoned his boss relied on hiring talented but psychologically damaged individuals, chaining them to the team in perpetuity and taking credit for their work. Knowing that Alex’s SAIC rank was merely a temporary one until the fledgling law enforcement and intelligence agency expanded in the future with more staff, she knew how thrilled her former Agent Hot Stuff would be if he knew of his old friend’s promotion.
Still, for all that Alex looked amazing, bursting with health and vitality, he seemed subdued, restrained. She wondered if he was still mourning Ziva David, not that Penelope could understand that witch treating him or her daughter with such contempt, faking her death that way, then trying to come back and steal Belle away from him, with Eshel, her newest lover. She hoped Alex wasn’t pining over her, because from all she’d learnt of the woman since she resurfaced recently, she was pure poison. Granted, her father had been a real piece of work, not fit to raise a child, let alone three offspring, but Ziva had made her own choices over the years, including walking away from that precious little one and pretending to be dead.
Penelope knew from Morgan that Tony DiNozzo’s worst trait was that he was pathologically forgiving to those people he chose as his friends and family, and she worried that his inability to hold a grudge might end up with him getting his heart stomped on by Ziva David. Although she felt an infinitesimal sense of guilt at not informing him that the mother of his child was sitting on her two-faced tuchus in prison, she also wanted to save him and little Belle from having their hearts broken…again. So, when she bumped into him in the Mess, grabbing a cheese salad sandwich and a piece of fruit that she couldn’t place, she invited him to eat lunch with her. Seeing that her lunch was equally portable – a veggie wrap and a tub of yoghurt – he suggested heading outside to eat in the forecourt to take advantage of the Atlantis sunshine.
As they made their way outside, she considered Tony’s exceptional reputation undercover, noting it was well deserved as she noted how he’d subtly changed his appearance. He’d lightened his hair colour to a honey-blonde tone, was wearing coloured contacts to change his eye colour to blue and lost weight. Even more impressive, he’d somehow also changed his gait, more military predator than the cocky federal agent. Even his clothes when not in Atlantis uniform, were far less formal or designer wear, much more jeans and tee-shirts or wearing military BDUs that helped him blend in as military rather than civilian. If she hadn’t known he was already here on Atlantis, she might not have recognised him.
In privacy, they chatted about the rest of her old team at the BAU, and how Derek was blissfully happy with his Dr Savanah and little boy, Hank Spencer. Garcia talked about how pleased she was at being able to catch up with Jack and Hotch again, and Tony told her they seemed to be settling into Atlantis fairly well. He pointed out that it was a huge change to have to embrace, especially for someone who brought a teenager here. Which fortuitously gave her the natural opening she was looking for, instead of manipulating the conversation, which would be dangerous since Penelope had seen Agent Delectable’s true IQ score. She knew not to underestimate this man for a moment.
Looking at Alex’s blue eyes (and that was mighty jarring since she’d kinda drooled over his green-grey orbs, but she agreed that they were too distinctive) she told him. “Derek said you went to Paris to try to find Ziva. Was there any sign of her?”
He chuckled, but it was bitter, cynical; hardly his light-hearted humour she’d observed on previous encounters.
“Not just Paris, I went to Tel Aviv too,” he told her. “And no, I couldn’t find a trace.”
“I’m sorry, Alex,” she said softly as he glared at the horizon.
“Don’t know what I was thinking, dragging a two-year-old around from pillar to post, looking for her mother, who doesn’t want to be found.”
“You still think she’s alive, then?”
“There is no way that Belle survived and Ziva didn’t, it had to be a set-up,” he insisted stubbornly.
“If she’s alive, what then?”
“Then nothing. We are in Pegasus. Not like we are going to run into each other.”
“Couldn’t you pull strings, have her assigned here as an agent?”
Tony shook his head. “Doubtful, her previous history of passing unauthorised classified intel while she was a liaison to NCIS would make it pretty damned unlikely for her to be granted the top security clearance needed, especially without her father pulling strings for her.” He shrugged apathetically, “Besides, what would she do here? At best, she was an average investigator without her information sources, and those wouldn’t be much use here.”
“But you’d be here together as a family,” Garcia pressed him, curious to see what he’d say.
“Pen, there isn’t going to be a HEA, even if I’m right and she’s alive.”
Sensing that she was straying into forbidden territory, she dropped it and changed the subject. “Did General O’Neill tell you what happened to your intel analyst?”
“Briefly, but he got called away to Balara to deal with something to do with Operation WOHZ soon after you guys arrive on Atlantis. He told me that she’d worked at NCIS at the DC headquarters with me before we were relocated to Quantico after the bombing, but I’m having trouble placing a Nikola Bates,” he admitted sheepishly.
Penelope pulled her iPhone out of her pocket, even though the cell coverage sucked in the Pegasus galaxy. But it still stored photos and she could play games on it, so it wasn’t completely useless. Pulling up a photo of Nikola, she handed it over to Tony.
He looked at it, frowning. “That’s Nikki. Nikki Jardine, he objected.
“She married NID Special Agent Rick Travis Bates, formerly Master Sergeant Bates, head of Atlantis base security, although they’re divorced, but still friends.”
“Bates is with NID?”
“Yep,” Garcia confirmed, as Tony looked thoughtful.
“And Nikki married him? The guy who Teyla socked,” he asked incredulously.
“Yes to the first question, Agent Dishy. Not sure about the second,” she admitted, her eyes twinkling with merriment.
“Yeah, sorry, that last one was a rhetorical question, Pen. Wow, how did they end up together, do you know?”
Garcia chuckled. “Of course, I do, I did her second background check, mon ami. She transferred over from NCIS to the DHS and then went to work for the NID… and that as they say, is history.”
“I thought General O’Neill said that Bates was a CIA analyst,” he asked her.
“Right, she was. Transferred out of NID after the divorce, wanted a new beginning,” she said, not mentioning how well that worked out. ”She had some nice things to say about you, though,” she teased him as he looked worried.
“So, she knows I’m here,” he asked, his brow furrowed.
“No, Sugar. I just mentioned that I knew someone who used to work at NCIS, and she said she’d worked with your team and that you and she went to Baghdad to investigate a murder. Once we realised that she had worked with you, General Two Ls slapped an embargo on her assignment, she’s working at Area 51 currently. He was going to consult with you about whether to bring her on board or not,” she told him.
“Yeah, then Dr Lee demanded his presence to open some Ancient tech, they found on Balara, and he never got a chance,” Tony finished off for her, contemplatively.
He changed the subject, mentioning he needed to get back to work and Penelope agreed she should too. As they wandered back to their respective work spaces she was chatting about her assignment to assess Janus’ artificial intelligence program, which according to the technical analyst, was as far beyond the level of Earth’s AI as a 3-year-old was to a mathematics professor. To describe her as giddy with excitement barely even scratched the surface.
After she went back to work, she thought about her encounter with Hotch when she first arrived on Atlantis. She’d been a bit surprised to see him and Jack waiting to greet her as she stepped out of the jumper following behind General O’Neill who had piloted the ship. The General was certainly clocking up the frequent flyer miles on his commuting between Earth and Atlantis and looking a little frayed around the edges. So, to find her old boss and his son, waiting to greet her, had been a bit of a shock. She knew they’d bump into her of course, not that they’d appoint themselves as her welcoming committee.
So, like a klutz, she had stumbled and the only thing stopping her from a highly embarrassing face plant was that she cannoned into General O’Neill, who looked a little bemused. Before she had time for more than a briefly mumbled apology, Jack Hotchner had come running up and enveloped her in a massive hug. Whoa, since when had the teen suddenly become all arms and legs, he was very nearly as tall as she was now.
Throwing her arms around the young man she hadn’t seen for three years but had known since he was a baby, she felt overcome with emotion at his exuberant reunion. Steeling a look at his father, she noted that Hotch had a grin on his face, a rare sight, except when it came to his family. She figured he was happy to see Jack so joyful at greeting a familiar face from before the ‘fleeing into WitSec without any warning’ days. As she felt the teen shaking a little, she guessed he was struggling to control his emotions.
Rubbing his back soothingly, she said softly, “I’m so glad I got to see you again, Jack. I’ve missed you and your Dad.”
“Me too, Penelope, It’s great to see you again. How long can you stay?”
“I’m not sure, Sunshine. It might be a month or two, maybe longer.”
“Really? That’s great,” he said, sounding more in control of his emotions. “We can show you around, this place is lit,” he enthused, and Hotch finally approached and gave her an awkward hug since Jack was still clinging to her, reluctant to let her go.
Releasing her, he gave her a small but genuine smile. “Welcome to Atlantis, Penelope, it’s so good to see you.”
Beaming, the blonde technical analyst responded, “When I heard that the general wanted me to come play with Janae Progenius, I was so happy but knowing my two favourite WitSec guys and their kids were here too, I couldn’t sleep because I was so excited.”
Hotch gave her his amused look and said, “Well that’s very flattering, but just how many other guys do you know in WitSec, Ms Garcia,” he asked playfully which made her heart overflow with joy. He was not normally one to wear his emotions on his sleeve, but she felt sad that his happiness was at seeing a friend. Life had not been fair to him.
Feigning nonchalance, she shrugged one shoulder at him since the other was still holding onto the ectomorphic clingy teen. “Besides you? Only one, but co-incidentally, Alex Paddington is living on Atlantis too,” she said airily. She caught Hotch’s momentary surprise, only because she’d worked with him for years.
“You know Alex,” he asked.
“Through Morgan,” she acknowledged, “but he’s definitely my third favourite WitSec guy after you two and I’m also looking forward to catching up with him.”
“I don’t remember him,” he said frowning. Aaron prided himself on his memory of faces.
“Not surprising, Sir, you never met him. And Alex didn’t work for the bureau, although he was a fed.”
She could see him do the math, probably arriving at the DEA or DHS and he nodded. “Well, that makes more sense, especially since he told us that Paddington isn’t his real name.”
It was at this point, General O’Neill tactfully interrupted them to say, “Sorry to break up your happy little reunion, Campers, but we have to report to the Infirmary asap and let the vampires suck our blood and scan us for passengers.”
He started herding Penelope out of the gate room, which she barely noticed since Jack was still clinging to her like a lifeline and Hotch had chosen to go along too. Since the General didn’t object, she just decided to go with the flow and listen as Jack told her how he was building a robot with his tutor, an artificial intelligence hologram called J.P. She couldn’t help exchanging a grin with Hotch as Jack prattled on excitedly, although Penelope was sure that he’d be mortified by her describing it as such.
By the time they reached the infirmary, Hotch had to peel Jack off of her, as he was proving to be doing a fine job of imitating a limpet. In the end, it was on the promise that she’d eat dinner with the Hotchners which finally persuaded the teenage Jack to head back to class, Hotch gave her a look as she disappeared into the Infirmary which left her feeling all warm and fuzzy.
O’Neill chuckled. “Wow, that’s the most excited I’ve seen Jack Hotchner since he arrived. He thinks you hung the moon, you know.”
“He’s just excited to see a familiar face. I’ve known him since he was a baby. After he lost his mother, Hailey, the BAU members all became like de facto aunts and uncles to Jack. Then when he and Hotch were forced into witness protection we never had a chance to say goodbye. It’s awesome to finally see them both again,” she said as a dark-haired man with blue eyes approached them.”
“General O’Neill are you and this lovely lady here for your screenings,” he asked, his Scottish accent tipping off Penelope that this must be Dr Carson Beckett, the clone.
O’Neill looked relieved and knowing he’d had run-ins with the CMO Dr Jennifer Keller, she intuited that her boss had been hoping not to encounter her.
Giving an enormous sigh that would do a rebellious teenager proud, he said, “We are, Carson. Let’s get it over with. I hear that Dr Lee is getting pretty impatient.”
Failing to take the hint, Dr Beckett eyed Garcia appreciatively. “I’m Carson Beckett and you would be?”
“Rolling his eyes, Jack did the honour. “This is Ms Penelope Garcia, the chief technical analyst at Homeworld Command. Stop making cow eyes at my analyst Carson, she is on a short-term assignment on Atlantis,” he said firmly as Penelope blushed at the General’s bluntness. Sometimes it was better to just ignore things.
~o0o~
As Tony made his way back to his office after lunch with Garcia he was mulling over what he’d learned. He’d been disappointed when he discovered that his intel analyst had been put on hold. Now that he knew who it was and why O’Neill had decided to delay her appointment, he realised that Jack had just been looking out for Tali and himself. He had been true to his word about having their back. It made a nice change from previous bosses who hung him out to dry without a qualm.
He was pretty sure that Nikki would protect his identity, she knew all about family. He’d gotten a chance to get to know the real person rather than the germaphobe that most people saw her as when she worked at NCIS, especially during the investigation in Baghdad. Despite Abby nicknaming her Neat-Nut-Nikki, she’d been far from neat, actually a bit of a slob with her personal belongings which, although incompatible with her anal-retentive work persona, Tony found a lot more approachable. He was also impressed by her sensory acuity to certain scents because his ability to distinguish perfumes had enabled him to crack a case of a murderous little old lady physician a few years before and he rightly recognised how useful it could be. And so, it proved during the investigation.
And while Jardine’s germophobic behaviour led people to think she was a nervous type, Tony soon learnt that was far from the case. When they discovered that a suspect they wanted to question had been murdered, and they needed a time of death, Nikki volunteered to take a liver temperature while he went off to question a person of interest. Since they didn’t happen to be carrying around a liver probe, they had to make do with a regular thermometer and cut into the deceased cadaver using a scalpel to place the thermometer into the liver, guided by Ducky on the sat-phone back in DC. Despite her being an intelligence analyst and not a field agent, she’d done the extremely unpleasant task and hadn’t wimped out. He wasn’t convinced that Cate or McGee would have been able to do it, but Nikki was damned tough!
She was also caring, impulsive and headstrong, insisting on contacting a young man and his sister in a notoriously dangerous location, despite the Marines’ objections that it wasn’t safe. The siblings’ father had helped her brother, a Marine stationed in Baghdad on patrol when he’d been ambushed and seriously injured. The Iraqi man had rendered crucial lifesaving measures for her brother, only to be killed himself by the Marines who were sent in to rescue their comrades after mistaking the good Samaritan as an insurgent. So, Nikki told him she wished to meet the brother and sister in person – to thank them for their father’s efforts to save Eric’s life at the cost of his own. She’d even brought a computer to Iraq as a gift to the young girl as a means of self-education as she was not permitted to go to school.
And, when he found out on the flight back from Iraq that her brother was still in a coma and she visited him every chance she got, hoping he’d wake up one day, he couldn’t blame her for her germophobic habits. People in comas were incredibly vulnerable to opportunistic infections and everyday run-of-the-mill viruses such as influenza and even the common cold could be deadly to them. So yeah, he didn’t think she was so crazy although he knew she was a hell of a strong individual. Nikki would understand why he opted to come here, living under a fake identity, because she understood that you did what you had to do to protect your family.
Still, knowing that Nikki…Nikola had been married to the former Sergeant Bates, the first head of Atlantis security certainly complicated things in Tony’s mind. When Garcia had mentioned that Rick Bates was an agent with the NID, he’d gotten rather excited, thinking that he’d make a powerful addition to the team of investigators Tony was putting together should he be interested in returning to Atlantis. After all, the guy had been so paranoid and suspicious that he would probably want to strip-search Santa Claus if a crime had been committed during the festive season. Now, having too many paranoid agents was probably as bad as having gullible ones, but having one individual like Bates on the team could be a good thing if he were channelled effectively.
Plus, there was the added bonus that Rick Bates already had the security clearance to come to Atlantis and didn’t need to be read in. That was a pretty big drawcard. However, if Nikki were here and Bates was here, things could get complicated really fast. Penelope reckoned that Nikki and her ex were amicable but that didn’t necessarily mean it was true. People said that they were still friends with exes after divorce or splitting up but that didn’t mean that they were being honest with each other or themselves. And honestly, even if they were best buds, it still left him with concerns.
Would Nikki be able to maintain his secret identity around the chronically suspicious ex or would she give him up, without meaning to? While he wanted to have both join the new agency, perhaps it wasn’t practical, considering their previous relationship, for him to have both of them work for him. Maybe he needed to pick. Sometimes it sucked to be the one making decisions but if he could commandeer Cadman and Banks as investigators, then he’d pick having a brilliant intelligence analyst over the paranoid Rick Bates if he were forced to choose between them.
Chapter 9
Aoife listened to Rodney ranting about the illegal and outrageous confiscation of his stash of stimulant medication, insisting that he needed it. Doing a mental eye roll, something she’d become adept at in the three years she’d been practising on Atlantis with him having a weekly session, she wished he’d been more chastened over his mental breakdown. She was after all something of an optimist, like most clinical psychologists, who believed that people were capable of growth and personal development and change. Granted it wasn’t as easy as movies, books and TV made it out to be.
Numerous studies showed that a client who’d completed therapy didn’t necessarily mean that they’d achieved the therapeutic goals they identified, which drove them into attending counselling and therapy in the first place. It was often quite the opposite, which in turn saw them ending up with them being on an endless merry-go-round of therapist shopping, looking for that elusive Holy Grail of ‘the quick fix’ when they weren’t seeing the immediate progress they wanted and expected. Often the same client circled the available pool of counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists in their location, searching for an elusive cure for their problem or issue.
Sometimes it was because the client wasn’t open to making the necessary changes, for instance, it might require a paradigm shift or behavioural change and then some situations were intractable to talking therapy, for example, personality disorders, since a person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder didn’t believe there was anything wrong with them – it was everyone else who had the problem. Similarly, a psychopath knew that certain actions were illegal or immoral and negatively impacted others, but they just didn’t care.
Of course, therapist shopping was not a factor in her clients in Atlantis, at least not until there was more than one of them practising here. Still, she knew that one of the most important predictors of personal growth was whether an individual was capable of insight and/or a desire to change and absent those traits, the individual would usually fail to attain their personal goals in coming to therapy or counselling. Knowing that Rodney McKay turned up week in and week out and had also darkened the doorstep of her predecessors, Dr Kate Heightmeyer and after her tragic death, her replacement Dr Artie Russell, Aoife had long since reconciled herself to the fact that Rodney wasn’t looking to change. He turned up every week purely to have a safe place to vent his spleen upon his fellow New Lanteans.
However, today was a whole new ballgame, this wasn’t voluntary therapy, this was mandatory counselling, and she and Dr Biro both would be required to sign off that Dr McKay was fit to resume his duties again. This meant that their former power dynamic had shifted, and she wasn’t going to tolerate all his dryshite rantings during these sessions. Rodney might feel like the wronged party just because it fit his victim mentality, but the facts remained, he deliberately chose to hack into Homeworld Command. He also chose to take stimulants so he could keep trying to outwit the fiendishly clever and highly addictive software security program protecting the Homeworld Command servers and he paid a hefty price for his hubris. It seemed that the self-proclaimed smartest person in three galaxies couldn’t deal with being bested and he’d become pathologically obsessed with cracking the security code. To the point of ignoring everyday matters such as sleeping and eating.
Unfortunately, his hold on reality had snapped when he’d developed the unshakeable delusion that Alex Paddington was behind his failure to gain access to the details of the project that Homeworld was conducting. He’d continued to blame Paddington, and his daughter Belle and compounded his mess by threatening revenge on them during the psychotic break. Until she was convinced he didn’t pose a threat to the Paddingtons or himself with his obsessive need to learn classified data, the powers that be refused to let him return to his normal duties. Dr Zelenka was Acting Chief Scientific Officer and Rodney was fit to be tied. By this point, his entire existence was wrapped up in his role as Atlantis’ chief science officer and the de facto one as the most brilliant person in two (or was it three) galaxies he’d self-assigned himself.
Aoife refrained from sighing, she wished she were flutered because alcohol would make listening to McKay’s grievance-driven venting a whole lot less aggravating. Truthfully, hitting her head with a mallet would probably be a less painful option, but the former would be a heap more enjoyable until faced with the inevitable hangover. In the end, she sensibly decided to choose option number three and pulled out her iPod and stuck in her earphones, tuning out his ranting by listening to some of her all-time favourite Irish music groups comprising The Cranberries, U2, The Corrs and Boomtown Rats. He was so caught up in his grand indignation, he never even noticed that she’d stopped listening to him.
With a few minutes to spare out of their 45-minute session, she switched off her iPod and made a timeout motion with her hands. It took several minutes to gain his attention, maybe a hurley stick would work better if she had one handy. Probably a golf club would work well enough too, and she knew at least one person who had a set. Sending him on his way, Aoife smirked. The Chief Science Toddler was not going to get her to sign him off for a return to his regular duties for a good while at this rate!
It took several more sessions where Rodney came into his mandated therapy sessions and vented his spleen, screaming abuse at the people who were out to destroy him, ruin his reputation, take his sanity or whatever tangent he took off on and her letting him go on his merry self-destructive way before he finally got around to demanding to know when she would clear him to return to his position.
“At the rate of your progress in the three sessions we’ve had when Hell freezes over, Dr McKay,” she told him bluntly. “And even then I think it would be highly unlikely.”
“What? That’s outrageous.”
“What’s outrageous is you coming in here for mandatory therapy and evaluation and thinking you could rant and rave about how mean everyone is being and how it isn’t your fault.”
“But I always do that,” he said, confused.
“Yes, I’m aware,” she responded dryly as she folded her arms. “You’ve done it with Dr Heightmeyer, Dr Russell, and me for years, but that is beside the point. They were counselling sessions that you voluntarily attended and requested. You spent your weekly session bitching and moaning about all of the dumbass things your underlings did that drove you crazy and we permitted that because we were validating your feelings, even when they were half-baked, just so that other people weren’t subjected to your toxic level of vitriol.”
Watching his facial capillaries rapidly suffuse due to a rush of blood, Aoife hardly needed to be adept in discerning body language to know that he was furious and getting ready for another session of venting his spleen, so got in quickly.
“This. Now. Is. Different!” She made a circular motion with her hand. “These are mandatory sessions you’re required to attend by joint order of the Director of Homeworld Command and the Commander of Atlantis. It requires you to submit yourself so I can evaluate your mental status and determine if you are a threat to yourself or anyone else. Should I find you to be a danger to anyone, I’m so ordered to engage with you in therapeutic sessions until I can state that you are no longer a threat to yourself or anyone else.”
“That is ridiculous, I’m no danger to anyone,” he asserted furiously.
“So far, I have been unable to determine if that is the case because you have indulged in massive temper tantrums, preventing me from being able to evaluate your mental and psychological status. Until that changes, Hell will freeze over before I can or will sign off on your return to duties and even then I anticipate you will continue to require supervision.”
When he exploded, yelling that he didn’t need therapy or evaluation, Aoife stood up and walked out of her office, pausing to let his protection detail know that the session had ended abruptly before making her way to inform AuClair that Dr McKay was unlikely to be returning to his duties as CSO in the immediate future as he was not cooperating with her. Henri wasn’t happy with her sitrep but there was little they could do until McKay realised he only had one option – cooperation – otherwise he would remain benched for the foreseeable future.
Henri sighed in frustration. “Damn it. I had hoped he’d be more cooperative, after all, it is in his best interests to collaborate. But I suppose letting him get away with his outrageous behaviour all these years has made a rod for our own backs.”
~o0o~
Session four started a little more promisingly. Rodney appeared chastened and didn’t launch into a tirade as soon as he sat down. He looked at Aoife pointedly and waited.
“So, let’s talk about why you have a protection detail trailing around after you. Tell me about the piano. Do you play?”
“When I was younger. I haven’t played for years,” he told her shortly.
His body language spoke eloquently that this was not a topic he felt comfortable with. Seeing his desire to avoid the topic, along with the fact that the baby grand piano had seemed to be a tipping point for his psychotic break, she felt vindicated in her decision to start with it.
“Well, that is understandable, at least for the last eight years; you’ve been on Atlantis and the piano only recently was transported here. But how old were you when you stopped?”
“I was twelve. My teacher informed me that while my technique was sound, I lacked the artistry to become a famous concert pianist. So, I turned my attention to other pursuits,” he told her through clenched teeth.
“Most people will never achieve the proficiency or the artistic creativity to become a world-famous concert pianist, but they continue to play,” Aoife told him neutrally. “ I include myself in that group, but despite lacking the talent to become a concert pianist we find it is a satisfying and creative outlet. Music feeds the soul and it’s an excellent form of stress relief.”
Seeing the stubborn look on his face, she said, “Did it even occur to you that your piano teacher was wrong, or did you just give up at the first obstacle you faced? Perhaps the woman was right, but not for the reason she told you. If you weren’t prepared to fight for it, you’d have never been prepared to deal with negative reviews from critics, had you started performing. Giving up was easier for your fragile ego than the thought of trying and failing, I suppose,” she mused out loud, as he scowled, obviously trying to bite his tongue.
“Pity though, if you were still playing, it would be a healthy way for you to vent your feelings without projecting toxic emotions on other people.” Seeing his livid expression, Aoife said, “But you probably don’t care about that,” before changing the topic to how he’d been sleeping.
Aoife knew their exchange was a small concession, but she was prepared to put it up there in the win column, although, time would tell if McKay’s more cooperative demeanour today was an outlier or a sign that he was buckling down and ready to participate in their sessions.
~o0o~
Garcia was inwardly squealing in delight at having what she reckoned was the best gig for a computer nerd such as herself. Interviewing the Artificial Intelligence known as Janae Progenius on the Lost City of Atlantis (which turned out to be not so lost, just in another galaxy) was true Nirvana for the Black Queen. It was hard to credit that the Artificial Intelligence program that had been created ten thousand years ago was so freaking sophisticated. At that time, most humans on Earth had just started moving from a hunter-gatherer nomad existence into forming permanent agriculture-based settlements. The Ancients who fled back to Earth to escape the Wraith must have found them a very backward people when they returned and eventually began to mingle with the natives.
Still, that was a topic for another time, perhaps in a conversation over a bottle of Bordeaux with the dishy Dr Jackson. Right now, she needed to focus on J.P. (as Alex called it) since the AI’s self-chosen name was a bit of a mouthful. General O’Neill was concerned that J.P. might pose a threat to the human inhabitants of the Atlantis base. Her mission was to try to assess the risk of that occurring and come up with possible mitigation strategies. This meant that she got to hang out with the AI who’d crafted a holographic representation to allow it to interface with the human population on Atlantis, Penelope included.
As she stared at the dark-skinned figure who had a freakishly perfect resemblance to a Star Trek character from Voyager called Lieutenant Commander Tuvok, a Vulcan and the Second Officer of the spaceship. Up until a few days ago, the artificial intelligence had been using a holographic copy of the Voyager character Seven of Nine, but J.P. said that it had grown weary of male expeditionary members checking out its gluteus maximus and mammary glands instead of maintaining polite eye contact when communicating with Seven of Nine. Intrigued by why Janae Progenius was so enamoured by Voyager, Tuvok err J.P. informed her that on the show, their carbon-based doctor had been killed. The ship’s Captain Kathryn Janeway had enacted the emergency medical officer protocol – an artificial intelligence program equipped with a holographic interface that permitted the program to treat patients.
Garcia could see the relevance, although it was certainly a very unusual example of life imitating art, she thought. “So why not choose the holographic representation of the emergency medical officer, J.P.,” she asked him, trying to get a handle on how the AI processed information.
Rather than explaining, Tuvok stood up from the chair he was sitting in and changed form to another male figure who bore an uncanny resemblance to a younger Richard Woolsey.
“WOW, is that what the Voyager Emergency Medical Officer looked like,” she asked. Pen had never really been a fan of the later shows in the franchise, turned off after she’d tried to immerse herself in Deep Space 9 and just not getting into it, even if Avery Brooks was sex on legs. She’d much preferred Babylon Five to DS9 and her difficulty in getting into it made her reluctant to give Voyager a try when it aired, but perhaps she needed to get up to speed with it to help her relate to J.P.
“It is, so you see that using this particular hologram might be problematic for some New Lanteans,” the AI told her.
“First and foremost, Mister Woolsey, I’d imagine,” she quipped.
Janae Progenius cocked its head to the side considering her comment. “Do you think so? I thought you Terreuans had a proverb that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery?”
Penelope chuckled. “So, we do but having a full-on doppelganger…most people find that much too creepy, J.P.,” she told her companion gently.
Woolsey (The Emergency Medical Officer hologram) frowned. “Human cultural mores and social intricacies can at times be quite befuddling,” he expressed, fractiously.
“Yeah, I know, Sweetie, to us too,” she agreed cheerfully.
Staring at the hologram she asked politely, “So do you think it would be possible to return to tall, dark, and Vulcan again, J.P.? Your younger Richard Woolsey hologram kinda creeps me out a little bit too,” she admitted.
Looking inscrutable, the AI shifted back to Lieutenant Commander Tuvok’s image, and she felt a lot more comfortable. There was something about Richard Woolsey that set off her alarm bells ringing at eardrum-breaking volume. Of course, it could just be that as a former black hat computer anarchist/ hacker such as herself, he was the epitome of the pencil-pushing bureaucrat who was more concerned with pettifogging rules than what was right. She was sure he was a perfectly nice man, even if he was on the IAO.
“Thanks, Hon, that’s much better,” she sighed, feeling much relieved. “So anyway, I just wanted to take a look at your coding if that is possible?”
Tuvok looked inscrutable. “There is a lot of it. What specifically are you looking for?”
Garcia straightened her glasses, her red frames matching her lipstick perfectly as she chose her words carefully. “You do understand that my boss and the IOA are nervous about having an Artificial Intelligence entity here on Atlantis, right? They worry that at some point down the track, you may pose a threat to our safety,” she told him candidly. “I just want to look at Janus’ coding to see if you may pose a risk to the humans living on this base.”
P.J. folded his arms and frowned. “I was programmed by my creator not to harm humans,” the AI reassured her.
“I realise that Sweet Pea but let me remind you that the Ancients also programmed Asurans to be incapable of harming them and look how that worked out for Helia and her fellow Ancients. They wiped them out after rewriting their coding.”
“After the Chief Scientific Toddler messed with their coding to get them to destroy the Wraith,” J.P. countered swiftly.
The data technician and computer hacker extraordinaire nodded ruefully, knowing J.P. was referring to Rodney’s rather arrogant decision to leap in without considering that there might be unwanted consequences to messing with the Asuran’s coding. Particularly when doing so when they were under such life-threatening conditions with nanite-based life forms trying to destroy them.
“I have been here the whole time since the Terreuans arrived and posed no threat to you Terreuans, Penelope. Why are you so concerned?”
“Because humans don’t always think before we act, as you pointed out with the situation concerning the Asurans. Plus, not all humans are well-intentioned. What if someone messed with your code deliberately to try to make you kill everyone on Atlantis – some governments do not approve of us occupying the city – or else they want to be the ones who are in control,” she explained.
P.J. considered her words carefully. “I see what you are saying. Humans are still a mystery to me. I will show you my coding, although I remain unsure of how to put your fears at rest, since I had never anticipated the scenarios you have outlined. I must consider it further. You are very intelligent, Penelope Garcia.”
She chuckled, pleased that her initial request had been so well received.
~o0o~
Janae Progenius was analysing the conversation he’d been having with the Black Queen. The AI thought about the sound that Penelope Garcia had made when she chuckled; it was highly pleasing to Janae’s sensors. The truth was the entity had been in awe of the human ever since he’d had a chance to witness her brilliant coding work for Homeworld Security server security protocols. Her work was truly marvellous and amazing, it was evil personified without actually being negative or dangerous. The Chief Science Toddler’s psychological breakdown was more to do with his abuse of drugs and his refusal to concede defeat but punishing someone with a children’s entertainment program was pure genius.
The program had to admit that its security protocols were a tad more extreme and might involve electric shocks delivered in increments of increasing intensity (with proper warnings of course) since the AI was not programmed to harm humanoid lifeforms, nor did Janae have any desire to harm anyone. Viewing her work was a revelatory experience for the AI entity and it resolved to enact some of Garcia’s more subtle forms of deterrence in its own security programs, after receiving the Black Queen’s permission, of course. It would be too rude to just appropriate her work and not give her the proper attribution for it.
Those musings were one the AI had before Janae Progenius had a chance to meet the lovely lady in the flesh, although watching the Chief Science Toddler McKay try to circumvent her coding, the AI program felt as if he knew the Queen rather intimately. Now that he had the chance to be in the same room with her, his awe for her had only increased. Janae wanted to listen to her speech which was certainly somewhat unique, especially her liberal use of endearments which Janae found curiously attractive. As a holographic interface, he watched her communicate with others and noted how tactile she was, a hug, a hand squeeze or a hand on someone’s shoulder and Janae recorded the response to her tactile interactions by the recipients. From the galvanic reactions within the epidermis from the stratum corneum, right down to the deepest level of the stratum basale, the relaxation of muscles, a smile, an unconscious leaning towards her, laughter and even a reciprocal tactile engagement were all common responses to the Black Queen.
Janae Progenius wondered what it would feel like to be touched by her. Did it feel different to be touched by Radek Zelenka or Rodney McKay? Wistfully, J.P. wished there was some way to experience that type of interaction with the residents of Atlantis because although the AI was able to communicate with all of the Terreuans who didn’t have the Ancient Communication Gene, a holograph was not corporeal. While it served its purpose well enough as an interface with the human Lanteans, it wasn’t enough. J.P. had briefly considered when embarking upon this journey to be able to interface with the non-Ancient gene-holding Lanteans, that it would be possible to build a physical body capable of sensory perception like the Asurans, but he knew it would never be permitted by the Lanteans. They were understandably paranoid about anything remotely connected to nanite technology.
Janae Progenius had seen how compromised Dr Elizabeth Weir had become after she had been absorbed into the Asuran form, she’d changed fundamentally. Suddenly she was willing to put her personal needs before those of the very people she’d sacrificed herself for when she chose to stay in the Asuran home world so that Colonel Shepard’s team could escape with the ZPM, as the Terreuans called it. Janae reasoned that the immortality of the nanite technology had created not only a terrible arrogance but also removed a crucial obstacle to doing whatever one wished. As Alex had tried to explain to him, just because something might be possible, it didn’t mean that it was a good reason to do it. The threat of death made humans more cautious, and more measured, since most people didn’t want to cease to exist, choosing to protect their corporeality if at all possible.
Even aside from the fact that a physical body built from nanites would be seen by the Terreuans as a threat to their existence, Janae Progenius acknowledged that the Ancients’ creation of the Asuran had been a huge miscalculation. Just as the Wraith had been, ending in disaster – a blight upon the entire galaxy and its inhabitants. But it did make him think…a lot!
Especially since the AI entity had been tutoring young Jack Hotchner in robotics in the last couple of weeks. Janae found that tutoring the young offspring on Atlantis was a satisfying experience. The youngsters were far less rigid in their thinking and able to accept the whole concept of artificial intelligence far easier than their older brethren, who frequently felt threatened by it.
At first, when Janae started working with Jack Hotchner, they were building very simple robots, programmed to do the most basic of tasks but their projects had certainly captured J.P.’s attention. The AI could see how robots could be devised to make some tasks, especially dangerous ones, more efficient and safer than humans carrying out the same task. The MALP was interesting, it was a remotely controlled exploratory mobile analytical laboratory probe that could be sent through the stargate to determine what was on the other end of the wormhole before any humans set foot on a planet that may be highly hazardous. It was able to send data collected telemetrically and transmit audio-visual communication back to the base.
But having seen various robots in Science Fiction films such as R2D2 and 3CPO from the Star Wars movies that humans seemed to find endearing, Janae was entertaining the idea of creating a robotic-type structure to house itself in. The artificial intelligence was certain it could build one as they weren’t complex. It would have the added bonus of Janae Progenius being able to travel away from Atlantis. After ten thousand years of being unable to go off the star city, which seemed like a most attractive prospect. Up until recently, it was not something that the AI had ever considered but since working on robotics with young Jack, the idea that it might be physically possible meant that Janae started to consider it seriously.
~o0o~
After their fifth session of mandatory counselling, although in all honesty, Aoife considered the first three to be null and void since Rodney had been non-compliant, she’d decided to change things up a little after evaluating what he revealed to her. She’d decided to shift their next session to the music room in the family residential wing. The psychologist had a hunch and wanted to explore a theory she had, and the fact McKay protested so loudly when she’d mentioned it, suggested she was heading in the right direction. So, despite his objections, she remained obdurate that their next session together would take place in the music room, the location where he flipped out. She couched his breakdown more sensitively than that, even if the CSO would never have attempted to spare anyone else’s feelings by being tactful. However, the bottom line was that she was conducting their session in the music room housing Atlantis’ baby grand piano, whether he liked it or not!
This change of venue cost Rodney two more sessions when in an act of rebellion, he failed to show up to his appointments, but it also strengthened her resolve, knowing she was onto something of significance. Meanwhile, the time was not exactly wasted since Aoife spent the time tickling the ivories of the beautiful instrument. She knew she would never be a great pianist, but she still enjoyed playing. One day, she was going to get Alex to play for her, from all accounts he was highly gifted, but she was certainly competent enough to give preparatory classes to little Belle and Kazumi. It was a highlight of her week.
As per the last two sessions, O’Shea sent another notification to Rodney that his sixth session would take place in the music room adjacent to the family wing at 1330 tomorrow. She could outwait him, he was desperate to return to his lab and resume his duties and that wasn’t going to happen while he was refusing to cooperate. She wondered how long it would take before he cracked but in the meantime, she was able to try out some pieces that she wouldn’t have had time to work on otherwise. The piano was certainly very fine. Paul Davis had certainly done an excellent job in choosing and having the instrument shipped to the Pegasus Galaxy.
The next day after lunch, Aoife made her way to the music room, which was usually not being used at that time of the day, only to discover Rodney already inside, staring angrily at the baby grand like it was getting ready to accost him. She schooled her expression, not wanting to set McKay off unnecessarily since she had a feeling it wouldn’t take much for the scientist to blow.
Greeting him normally, she invited him to take a seat in one of the armless single sofa chairs she’d arranged to be brought in when she decided to hold their sessions in the music room. He slumped into the seat and scowled at her but after almost two years of hearing him vent every week, she was impervious to that look on his face.
As she took her seat, she said, “You know that glowering puss of yours doesn’t work with me, Rodney. I’ve seen it far too often,” she informed him carelessly, referring to his sulky expression.
She made herself comfortable in the other leatherette chair and met his scowl head-on. “I trust you are fully recovered now. We miss several sessions through you being indisposed,” she said pretending innocence, knowing full well there was nothing wrong with McKay apart from reluctance to come here.
Little did he realise his violent objection to being in the same room as the piano suggested deeply conflicted feelings about it, contrary to his declarations to the contrary. Avoidance was not a sign that he was at peace with his decision to stop playing the piano, but she wasn’t going to poke that bear just yet.
“Yes, knowing how driven you are to resume your position as Chief Science Officer, I concluded that you must have been deathly ill to miss out on two sessions last week. Indeed, I told General O’Neill and Ambassador AuClair that there’s no way you were acting the maggot,” she smiled at him sardonically as he looked sublimely uncomfortable.
Giving a sardonic mental laugh, Aoife started the session with a non-confrontational generic matter as to whether he was eating and sleeping normally, Rodney grudgingly answered her questions, intermittently shooting fierce looks at the baby grand like it was evil personified. She ignored it because it was consistent with his modus operandi, blaming others for his woes, even if he had to anthropomorphise a beautiful instrument to have someone or something else to blame other than himself.
As Aoife began exploring his calamitous decision to hack into the Homeworld Command servers, she could see the tension in Rodney’s body increase and she suspected his blood pressure was rising too. Knowing it had been through the roof when Dr Biro committed him for a mandatory medical assessment following his psychotic break, Dr O’Shea also knew that he was on Beta Blockers and was supposed to be on a low-sodium diet. Backing off, she let him cool off as she stood up and decided to play some Mozart to try to lower the caffler’s blood pressure. The last thing they needed was for him to stroke out on her. It seemed abundantly clear to O’Shea that McKay wasn’t going to be declared fit to assume his duties anytime soon.
She started off playing Allegro – Sonata No. 16 in C Major K 545 as Rodney winced and try to object over the top of her, making it hard to focus. As she began the first ten bars of Fantasia in D Minor K. 397 Aoife was completely unprepared for what happened next. Rodney jumped up out of his chair and she expected him to go hurtling out the door but instead, he made his way over to the piano, physically grabbing her hands to restrain them, dragging them from the keys.
As if that wasn’t enough to shock her, McKay told her harshly, “Stop it! Stop making that din.”
Feeling suitably pissed at him, Aoife snarked back, “If I were mad, I would!” essentially telling him she had no intention of stopping.
You are an exceeding woeful pianist, you know. Your phrasing is atrocious, and your technique is shoddy. Amadeus is no doubt spinning in his grave by now,” he told her scathingly in his inimitable blunt fashion.
Since the psychologist had been trying to lower McKay’s blood pressure and ensure that the pompous ingrate didn’t have a stroke, she was feeling justifiably miffed with her churlish client.
“Póg mo thóin,” she told him rudely. (Kiss my arse.) “I supposed you could do better,” she goaded him.
Now normally, Rodney McKay was far too smart to fall for such an obvious ploy, but he was hardly in a rational or thinking state. He was a massive ball of negative self-indulgent emotions: indignation, anger, reprisal, self-righteous victimisation, and last but far from least, wallowing in self-pity. Any ability to sense the impending trap was infinitesimally small to non-existent and he walked right into her trap.
“Of course I could!”
“Me arse and Katty Barry,” she jeered, her accent becoming more pronounced. When he looked at her uncomprehendingly, she grinned. “It means, yeah sure you can.”
Which was enough for him to push her quite literally off the piano bench and start playing scales and arpeggios with a look of deep concentration on his face.
Giving him a final metaphorical shove, not wanting to lose the opportunity fate had handed her, O’Shea pushed just a little bit more. “While my phrasing might not be flawless and my technique far from perfect, that sure doesn’t sound like Mozart to me, Dr McKay.”
Scowling at her, he continued to warm up. “Only a rank amateur would play without warming up, Dr O’Shea,” he sneered at her. “Now shut up and let me concentrate,” he commanded as she gave a smug grin.
It hadn’t been her intention to challenge him to play so soon in the process, but she couldn’t pass up the opportunity when it landed literally in her lap. For the rest of their session, Rodney proceeded to school her about how much of a superior pianist he was compared to her strictly amateur talents. With a bit of luck, and prodding from her, it should be pretty easy to encourage him to play as a way of managing his stress.
Notes:
Rondo Alla Turca – Sonata No. 11 (K. 331)
Irish slang:
caffler- an idiot
dryshite – boring
flutered – very drunk
hurley – a stick that bears some resemblance to a hockey stick used to play the Irish sport of hurling.
póg mo thóin – kiss my arse
puss – a sulky face
Chapter 10
Aaron was looking forward to his first trip off-world which would be to visit the planet Winya, despite the serious nature of the trip. Heading off with Ronon Dex, the Pegasus native in tow, as well as SAIC Alex Paddington plus a bunch of Marines for protection, he hoped that they would be able to help these young women and their offspring. Lucius Lavin, like so many other sexual predators that Aaron had the great privilege of sending to prison, had certainly cut a swathe of destruction and heartache in his wake. Typical of his ilk, he was utterly uncaring about the people he destroyed, just as long as his base desires were sated
The purpose of their visit to Winya was mostly to get a feeling for the five surviving victims to try to figure out what options would best suit their needs. Did they wish to remain living on Winya with their children or would they prefer to leave their home planet and settle somewhere that wouldn’t view them as women of loose morals as would be their fate if they remain on Winya? Then he would talk to the village elders, have Ronon Dex try to talk some sense into them and proceed from there. He knew that if the victims wanted to remain on Winya, it was going to be a lot harder to overturn their verdict now that they had carried out the death sentence on Mayuna Pavu. Overturning the verdict would require them to admit that they had killed a blameless victim.
It would be much easier for them to carry on thinking of her as a criminal rather than a victim of crime, who had been wronged, not just by Lavin but when they compounded Lavin’s crime by punishing her so unjustly. That said, if Willa and Heleen Upo and the other victims truly wanted to remain on Winya with their children, then he was going to try to make sure it could happen.
In a ridiculously short space of time, the puddle jumper made the journey from New Lantea and was landing on Winya. Hotch noted that the expedition members were greeted cordially enough by quite a few of the villagers. A skinny young boy came running up to greet Alex Paddington and the women on Major Teldy’s all-female team, dragging a younger sibling beside him.
Alex grinned easily at the youngster who he introduced as Jeroze and his little sister Adrexa, both children clamouring to know if their father was alright. Hotch recognised the names as the two Lavin children born to Filiya Lavin, his lawful wife and felt sorrow for the poor kids whose father abandoned their family to pursue his lusts. Those two and undoubtedly their mother were also victims of Lavin, and he was happy to learn that Paddington had helped set their mother up in a business that enabled her to support herself, Jeroze and Adrexa. Children should not be punished for the sins of their fathers, no matter how heinous his crimes are.
Hotch found himself sitting down in the cottage shared by the two sisters, Heleen and Willa Upo, the second and fourth of the Winyan victims. He agreed wholeheartedly with SAIC Paddington that calling Lavin’s victims ‘wives’ only helped to legitimise the belief that they were willing participants rather than drugged sex slaves, and he was glad the Agent had drawn such a firm line in the sand with how they’d been labelled.
Heleen was a 29-year-old willowy honey-blonde, and she had been Lucius Lavin’s 2nd victim. She’d given birth to her seven-year-old son, Artez, and her daughter, Remae who had just turned six. She was a tailor, specialising mostly in making leather garments and her leather vests and coats were impressive. Heleen was very reluctant to consider leaving Winya, even knowing that her commutation of death would take place at the latest in another nine years. However, if someone decided to take her children in and adopt them, conceivably it could occur at any time.
Her elder sister Willa, who was a seamstress was a lot more than open to the idea of leaving their home planet behind and seeking asylum on another world. Her motives were not so much that she didn’t want to die by stoning, but she was of the firm opinion that her twin girls, Yashael and Yahnore would always be seen by their people as tainted due to the way they’d been conceived and they would find it difficult to be accepted. The dark-haired buxom 31-year-old felt that it was better to leave with her six-year-olds and start someplace fresh; she was trying desperately to persuade Heleen to leave with her son and daughter too. Although both women felt shamed for what had happened, Willa was firmly focused on the hurdles their children faced in remaining on Winya. As the sisters’ parents were dead, their father died a few weeks ago and their father’s sister had disowned them when they were found guilty, Willa didn’t feel like anything or anyone was holding them back.
Disturbingly, Ota Benn, Lavin’s first victim appeared to be very listless if not downright disengaged. Hotch agreed with Dr O’Shea’s assessment that she was deeply traumatised by the death of Mayuna Pavu (her young cousin) after Pavu miscarried Lavin’s baby. Tragically, all five of his other victims had been forced to watch her stoning and were obviously traumatised by it but none more so than poor Ota had been raised with Mayuna and felt her death very deeply. She’d almost lost her son Leoosh while she had been pregnant, but miraculously the baby had survived, creating fertile ground for the dark-skinned beauty to develop survivor’s guilt. That and Mayuna’s mother blaming her for not protecting her from Lavin certainly wasn’t helping her mental state at all. Sadly, Ota’s mother died a couple of years ago and she was outcast by the rest of her family, so she struggled to keep going and Hotch’s heart went out to her.
She and eight-year-old Leoosh had moved to a one-room shack where she scraped by, earning barely enough to feed and clothe them since she was the only professional candlemaker on the planet since her mother had passed on. The Winyans bought her candles grudgingly since there was no choice, but they either ignored her or they regularly berated her for her loose morals. Leoosh was often picked on by the other children in Winya, aside from his half-siblings. He was closest to Artez, Heleen’s son, often Leoosh ended up staying with the Upos when his mother was too depressed to care for him.
Dr O’Shea felt that it was imperative Ota escape the toxic environment and begin to heal and Hotch agreed, having seen far too many sexual assault survivors during his years at the BAU. Alex said that Teyla Emmagan had already spoken to her people about the Winyans, and they were willing to offer the five surviving victims asylum in New Athos. Their own race had been decimated, first by the Wraith and then by the lunatic Wraith-hybrid known as Michael, intent on creating a super Wraith-human warrior class to take over Pegasus. The Athosians would welcome the prospect of five young women of childbearing age and nine youngsters to bolster their number should they choose to leave Winya.
The Atlantis personnel seemed to think it was a good match, although the Athosians seemed to live in more primitive dwellings, which did not mean that they were less evolved, just that they had been more focused on survival. Winya’s population had never been large enough to warrant anything other than cursory attention from the Wraith, unlike the Athosians over many generations. Perhaps it explained why their attitudes seemed more enlightened; they’d accepted a female leader in Teyla before she’d decided to join the Atlantis expedition in taking the fight up to the Wrath eight years ago. All in all, New Athos seemed like an excellent place to relocate the Winyan mothers and their offspring to and Hotch felt that it couldn’t happen fast enough for this deeply depressed young woman in front of her.
After trying to engage Ota in conversation and failing to elicit more than monosyllabic responses, Hotch gave up. Not that he was going to give up on her, to the contrary, he was more determined than ever to fight for these young women’s lives, but he was unsure if it was worth the effort to try to get their sentences overturned here. He was leaning more towards taking the case to an interplanetary tribunal since it was apparent that it wouldn’t make much difference to the Winyan’s attitudes towards them, even if they were successful.
Moving on, Alex introduced him to Lavin’s fifth victim, a 22-year-old baker, Lahn Yeeps, who’d worked for Lavin in his bakery as his assistant before she had become his fifth victim. Lahn was only sixteen when he began raping her, resulting in her bearing him two children, a five-and-a-half-year-old girl named Shaelli and a four-year-old son whose name was Edu. The three of them lived with Lahn’s father, Yas Yeeps who remained very supportive of his daughter. Yas blamed himself for Lahn going to work for Lucius Lavin. Yeeps had supplied Lucius with the flour he grew and milled so Lavin could produce bread and various other baked goods for over fifteen years. Yas had arranged for his daughter to apprentice under Lavin when she was just thirteen.
Despite Lavin’s constant propositioning, neither he nor Lahn had ever taken the serial predator seriously, after all, he was a married man with two children. Yas and Lahn had always written off his interest as harmless joking, only later realising that nothing could have been further from the truth, but by then it was far too late. By the time Lavin had discovered his evil herb on one of his jaunts to other worlds, no one stood a chance of resisting him.
Knowing that his daughter had her sights firmly set on marrying the handsome young son of the magistrate, Wodren Drell, he knew that she would never willingly agree to lie with a married man. Lavin was three times her age and homely in comparison to the strapping young man she had set her heart on. Her father had argued strenuously that she had been bewitched into being with Lavin. But none of the male panel would accept his claims, mulishly insisting that many people witness how devoted to him she was and freely engaged in public acts of lewdness, including multiple acts of debauchery with his other common-law wives.
Yeeps was certainly in favour of Lahn and her children leaving Winya if they could find someone to take them in, and he had no intention of being left behind. He wanted to remain in his daughter’s and grandchildren’s lives and agreed with Willa Upo that the children would undoubtedly end up being discriminated against for something they’d had no control over. Nor could he bear the thought of his child being stoned. When Alex mentioned that there were planets who’d expressed interest in the Lavin’s victims and their children joining them, he’d been cautiously optimistic.
“But how do we know that these people are willing to accept five mothers and nine children? Why would they be willing to do so,” he queried warily.
Hotch looked over at the AFOSI/FBI agent, knowing this was more in his bailiwick to address.
~o0o~
Paddington understood why Hotchner had deferred to him, having only been on Atlantis for a few short weeks and not knowing any of the other races who’d offered Lavin’s victims asylum. Out of the five planets that were technologically on par with the Winyans, he was personally acquainted with only two. Still, he could vouch for both races, so he took up the slack and proceeded to tell the protective father what he knew.
Alex told him, “Well the Todraeyans took in refugees from Belara soon after the plague struck the Balarans, and when the Wraith demanded that the Balaran survivors be handed over to them or they would destroy Todraeya, they stood up to the Wraith. While several of their people wanted to turn them over, Elson, the village leader stood firm, saving the refugees. The Balarans repaid their kindness, helping nurse the sick, along with a healed from Atlantis.
“As for the Athosians, my friend Teyla told me that her people have always taken in refugees and asylum seekers for as long as they could remember, but since being forced to leave Athos after being decimated by the Wraith and Michael’s atrocities, they are even more open to newcomers joining them on New Athos. Their former leader, Teyla Emmagan has already asked her people if they would accept the Winyan ladies and their children and they said they were more than willing to welcome them. I’m sure they’d have no problem with you coming too.”
“And what of the other three races,” Yas questioned.
Alex shrugged. “I have only been in the Pegasus galaxy for a short while, Yas. I don’t know them, only what I’ve been told by Dr Alison Porter, but she felt that they were also planets that would welcome the women and their children. I do know the leader of the Todraeyans and several of the Balarans, too. They helped us rescue Col. Sheppard some months ago after he’d been abducted by our enemies. I also know quite a few Athosians, some who work as guides on Atlantis. They are all good, caring people.”
“I see, and what of the City of the Ancestors, would the New Lanteans welcome the Winyan women and their children?”
“I’m sure they would, they took in the Athosians years ago when the Wraith attacked their original planet, Yas. But ultimately, the Athosians found living in the city to be too different to their former home and they weren’t happy there. They wanted to live closer to nature, where they could grow crops and rear animals to feed their people, not live in a highly advanced technological city that contained dangers that could threaten their existence. The Ancients left many dangerous things lying around when they abandoned Atlantis and returned to my home planet in another galaxy,” he explained.
“I think that the Winyan children would find it equally difficult to adjust to Atlantis, even their mothers would find the technological advances very challenging. The New Lanteans who are many hundreds of years more advanced technologically than Winya only understand a small portion of the Ancestor’s most complex technologies. We could not build another Atlantis or create what we call a ZPM, a power source that is way beyond our abilities.”
Yas nodded, “That does not sound like a place where Shaelli and Edu would be happy growing up,” he conceded. “But how do you feed your people? Do you plant crops on the mainland of New Lantea?”
Alex shook his head. “Most of the food we need is brought in from our home planet in huge spaceships. The rest we trade with our allies and various trading partners, although we are considering paying people to plant and harvest crops for us,” he said, thinking of the enchuri plant that cured Kirsan Fever. “Do you think that the Winyans might be interested in cultivating a crop for us,” he asked.
“If Thomas Magnum was doing the asking, I’m sure of it. He has gained much respect and favour for the ethical and fair way he treated Filiya Lavin, so she can support her young ones,” Yas said baldly.
Tony grinned inwardly. The goodwill created by Magnum might be used to cultivate some cooperation with the Winyans, particularly if Lavin’s victims chose to leave the planet. While the Winyans might be happy for Willa and the others to leave, equally, they might also see it as them trying to evade their punishment and of course that was partly true. And really who could blame them? Willa also wanted to give their children a better life, no child who feels unwanted could truly have a happy childhood or achieve their full potential, something the junior Anthony DiNozzo could attest to.
After farewelling the four Yeeps, he led Hotch to the village tavern to introduce him to the last of the Winyan victims, Neese Luta, a raven-haired 23-year-old who worked as a barmaid. Although very beautiful, she appeared dispirited and had dark shadows under her large dark-brown eyes. The younger men were practically undressing her with their lascivious insolence and comments, but she seemed to accept it as her lot in life, infuriating Hotch and Tony who wanted nothing more than to kick these men’s asses. All they could do was treat her with the utmost respect, requesting that she talk with them if Mistress Lavin gave her permission. They ordered some of the local ale, not that they would drink it, but it helped pave the way for the tavern-keeper to let them have time with Neese.
Hotch glanced at him curiously. “Mistress Lavin? Is she related?”
Tony nodded, “She is Lavin’s mother and not exactly proud of her son. Even before he deserted his wife and two kids, he was in here every day, hitting on Neese and Mayuna who both worked here as barmaids.”
“But she still employs Neese. So, she is sympathetic to her?”
Tony scowled. “Not exactly, but she does care about the twin boys, Bale and Bada so she didn’t fire Neese, however she works her practically to death in return for food and clothes for them and provides them with a half-falling down shed to sleep in.”
Hotch frowned and Tony remembered Penelope saying that he could be quite foreboding, once when she, Tony and Derek Morgan had been comparing notes on their respective team leads. Hotch’s frown reminded him of a Muppets character, Sam Eagle who just oozed disapproval.
“Will she let Ms Luta speak to us then,” Hotch asked.
“Probably,” he said vaguely as he watched Neese emerge from behind the bar to accompanying catcalls and slaps on the rump from various horny young and not so young males in her path that she tried to avoid, unsuccessfully. Her reddened cheeks revealed her genuine distress and triggered both men’s fury at what she was forced to endure. While they were tempted to intervene, they knew if they made trouble it might threaten their chances of overturning the case or preventing the mother and children’s relocation. But that knowledge didn’t make it any easier not to intercede.
When she reached them, she visibly relaxed. “Mistress Lavin said that because it was Thomas Magnum’s agent making the request she would grant me a short audience,” she informed the men.
Hotch shot Tony a questioning look and he shrugged. “Later,” he promised as they made their way out of the dimly lit tavern to find a more private place to have their conversation. After introducing Hotch to the barmaid, he remained in the background and let him to speak with Neese.
~o0o~
After Alex and Prosecutor Aaron Hotchner were meeting Lavin’s victims, Ronon accompanied by Dr Porter were trying to soften up the Winyan elders who had ruled against Lavin’s victims. Ronon was extremely angry that they’d returned Lucius Lavin to his people to be tried for his crimes over five years ago. He had not been in favour of returning him to the Winyans after he’d caused so much damage on Atlantis, especially having been given access to their database and all their mission reports. He was a spy and Ronon would have had no problem in killing him to safeguard the base, but he’d been overruled by Dr Weir.
If he’d had any idea that these poor women would have faced a trial for something they had no control over, he would have killed the asshole without a moment’s hesitation, never mind what Weir decreed. That a young girl, barely a woman had been stoned to death while Lavin had merely been banished from Winya, only to betray Sheppard at a later point in time filled the Satedan with rage-filled guilt. These people were just so frunkled, but he felt impelled to try to make them understand the terrible wrong they’d committed.
“You were all infected too. You must know that none of these women had a choice,” he argued, glaring at them.
“Women cannot be forced to lay with a man.” Magistrate Wodren Drell stated firmly.
“That is not true,” the Satedan stated, equally as firmly. “Lavin used that herb to force women on Atlantis to lay with him too. Women who before coming in contact with Lavin’s herb had refused to lie with him because they found him to be an abhorrent person and they wanted nothing to do with him. Yet under the influence of that plant, they were unable to resist his commands.”
Abo Trewe one of the five-man-council who’d judged the women, a middle-aged man with a rather rotund body and faded red curls, cut quite short to his scalp shook his head. “All of Lucius Lavin’s wives were smiling and happy to lay with him, Specialist Dex. They did so in public, which was most shocking and immodest. They even partook in that depravity as a group, which is highly repugnant to our tenets of public decency.”
“It was most apparent that they experienced great pleasure and scandalised our people with their unseeing acts of debauchery. I saw nothing that proved that Lucius Lavin had coerced them; they were willing participants. We had no choice but to punish them lest they corrupt the other women on Winya with their licentiousness,” Tulee Hano argued angrily, his round moon-like face going red in anger.
Ronon took a deep breath before he continued. “After the Wraith decimated Sateda, where I was born, they decided it would be amusing to make me a runner. In the seven years before the New Lanteans rescued me I killed more than a hundred Wraith, most with my bare hands. After I joined Atlantis and fought as a member of their elite AR-1 team, I’ve lost count of how many hundreds of Wraith I’ve helped defeat but it is a great many.”
When he took a breath, Magistrate Drell acknowledged, “ Ronon Dex, you are a true Satedan Warrior. Pegasus owes you much gratitude for your contribution to beating back the Wraith.”
Ronon nodded. “I thank you, Magistrate, but the point I wanted to make was that despite all of my military training, the physical and mental skills I developed after all my years as a Sateda soldier, I was just as defenceless against Lavin’s plant as those women who he forced to lie with him and forced to carry his children. He forced me, an Athosian warrior of great skill and training to go on a dangerous mission to a Wraith-protected planet to harvest more of his plant for him and he placed our healer, Dr Beckett in charge of the mission.” Dex’s anger was clear for them to see as he looked around at the old men.
“Now Beckett was a very skilled, highly trained healer, but he had no military training nor tactical leadership skills, no fighting skills. Yet Teyla, Beckett and I went off on what amounted to a suicide mission…” Seeing the looks of incomprehension, the Satedan tried to subdue his impatience. “That means a mission where the warriors were expected to die carrying it out. One that I would never have agreed to if I had been in my right mind, but because Lavin told us to, we did it happily, laughing with joy because the evil plant made us happily comply, even though we almost brought the Wraith back to Atlantis, They would have killed everyone and none of us would have done that except for that plant because it robbed us of our free will,” Dex growled.
The elder males listened to Ronon with rapt expressions as he passionately told them his tale. Hotch who along with Alex were listening but not contributing, realised that the man was extremely charismatic if he felt strongly about something, even though normally, he was rather taciturn.
“Then when Colonel John Sheppard, who was not affected by the plant because he was sick, kidnapped Dr Beckett to wean him off the effects of the plant, Lucius ordered us to track him down and bring them back. When I found Sheppard, I shot him with my gun just because Lavin was angry with John. Luckily for him and me, I only stunned him but if Lucius had told me to, I am sure I would have killed my truest friend and a warrior brother who saved my life, not because I wanted to but because I couldn’t resist.”
“ If someone with my military training in resisting torture and interrogation was unable to resist the effects of the plant, then how can you expect those young women, some of them still practically girls, like Mayuna Puvo and Neese Luta to fight its effects,” he demanded furiously.
The elders’ council looked perturbed and conflicted except for Tulee Hano who argued, “But they were laughing and happy to lie with Lucius. They showed inappropriate pleasure in being with him. They were not chaste,” Tulee Hano stated obstinately.
Ronon wanted to pound these men, or as Amelia would say, throat-punch them so they would shut the fuck up. He had been arguing so passionately for the Winyan victims that he had barely noticed that Alex Paddington and the newcomer, Aaron Hotchner had joined their gathering, so he was somewhat surprised when Alex chimed in before he lost his temper with these funklers.
“Forgive us for interrupting your conversation Ronon Dex, Magistrate Drell, Tulee Hano, Abo Trewe, Gerde Yemel and Ando Jeet. My boss, Thomas Magnum requested that I speak with the Winyans on a matter of great urgency. But Prosecutor Hotchner and I couldn’t help but hear some of what you were discussing, and I think that I can be of some assistance.” He drew out his tablet, having already loaded the security footage on it in anticipation of having a chance to show it to the Winyan elders to illustrate Ronan’s argument.
“This is a recording of what took place five years ago on Atlantis after Lavin showed up and infected everyone with his herb. You can see pictures of Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan and Dr Carson Beckett returning from the suicide mission Lucius Lavin sent them on just so they could harvest more of his plant for him to continue controlling everyone on Atlantis. The Wraith had been chasing the trio and it was pure luck that they didn’t let the Wraith back through the stargate and onto the City of the Ancestors, which would have ended in death for the entire population.”
He held the tablet out exhorting them to, “See for yourselves.”
He showed them the somewhat grainy black and white footage, but it still clearly showed the three of them, laughing and acting stoned off their faces, acting like it was some huge joke. Then suddenly, when Sheppard was furious with them and tried to take the plant material from them, Ronon became violently angry and drew his weapon, threatening John as Lucius egged him on to attack Sheppard.
“In my humble opinion, and one which I know is shared by Thomas Magnum, if Colonel Sheppard hadn’t backed down at that point, and had Lucius ordered Ronon to kill his leader, Dex would have complied, because Lavin had complete control of his mind and body,” Alex told the elder males with utter conviction.
“Ronon nodded. “Absolutely and I can also quite honestly say that if Lucius had ordered me to lie with him instead of the females on Atlantis who he forced, I am convinced I would not have been able to resist his order, either.”
“The five elders looked outraged. “So, you are enticed by men,” Elder Gerde Yemel asked him, his dark-skinned features showing his obvious disapproval.
“No, I am not drawn to men, even though on Sateda it is not considered to be immoral or wrong if you are. My mate in Atlantis is female, as was my intended mate back on Sateda before the Wraith murdered her. That’s my point though; that while I would never willingly agree to lie with Lucius if I were in my right mind, under the influence of that yetsaak plant, I would not have been capable of saying no to him. Truthfully, Dr Beckett and Dr McKay were acting even more infatuated with Lucius than I was, but he didn’t want us to lay with him, thankfully. He only coveted strong-minded beautiful females who emphatically turned him down when they were in their right minds before he used the plant to force them to comply with his sick desires.”
Alex leapt in for a second time, “There was one young soldier who was particularly disparaging about Lucius Lavin’s attempts to seduce the women in the City of the Ancestors. He called Lucius a loathsome piece of animal manure and laughed at him, not realising that ridicule only hardened Lavin’s resolve to get what he wanted. Once the soldier was affected by the MCD –238β plant Lucius sought to have his revenge on the corporal by forcing him to perform a lewd oral act upon him.”
Hearing the shocked gasps of outrage, Tony wasn’t all that surprised since he already knew that sexual attraction to someone of the same gender was not considered appropriate by Winyans. Dr Porter on Major Teldy’s team had explained it was rooted in less moralistic and more of a pragmatic basis due to them having a relatively small population. Procreation was considered to be the number one duty of the Winyan people to grow their small population into a larger one, so it didn’t wither and die out. While he had no reason to doubt Alison’s hypothesis, he did think that over time, the pragmatism was slowly being engulfed by a didactic point of view of same-gender sexual relationships.
“I believe it was purely to degrade and disgrace the youngster, since I don’t believe that Lucius was attracted to men, only females,” Alex told them firmly. “Plus, I think that he enjoyed forcing the women to become pregnant since he has confessed to us that he drugged them with a tonic to make them fecund. I think he was arrogant enough to want to create as many children from his seed as humanly possible,” he said scathingly, knowing that the Winyans would not understand if Tony were to speak of Lavin flooding the gene pool with his genetic offspring.
It did give him an idea about how to convince the Winyan Elders to agree to Willa and her family and any of the other victims being permitted to leave Winya and seek sanctuary, though. The Winyans according to Dr Alison Potter’s report might not know about the scientific basis of genetics but they understood it on a practical level, having bred and raised domesticated animals to help them feed their population. They understood the need for more than one sperm donor to prevent such things as birth defects, spontaneous abortions, and declines in fertility rates well enough that he could use it to help persuade them not to fight the victims from seeking sanctuary on other planets. Especially with the help of the highly esteemed Thomas Magnum.
Speaking of the devil, Ando Jeet, a wizen older man with rheumy pale blue eyes asked, “And what of Thomas Magnum? Did he also succumb to Lucius’ drug, Investigator Paddington?”
“No, Council Member Jeet, Thomas Magnum was not living in Atlantis at the time when Lucius Lavin took over the whole city, and neither was I. We have only joined the city in the past year,” he explained. “But I, like my boss, am convinced that if we had been unlucky enough to be at that time, we too would have been helpless to resist the effects of the drug like everyone else did, apart from Colonel John Sheppard who had an illness granting him resistance to the plant’s effects,” he said
The five men looked searchingly at him and saw no deceit in what he said and that was hardly surprising since he essentially spoke the truth.
Magistrate Drell nodded slowly. “Specialist Ronon Dex become a legend amongst the peoples of the Pegasus galaxy for his courageous exploits as a runner for seven long years. It is clear that he is a great and powerful warrior, so if he tells me that Lucius’ plant stole away his will to resist, I feel strongly that we must reconsider our beliefs, but that will take time and honest searching of our hearts and minds. What was it you wished to discuss with us Investigator Paddington,” he asked, calmly changing the subject.
Tony nodded slightly in acknowledgement. It was what he hoped for, that they would not reject Dex’s plea to examine their guilty finding without giving it due consideration. He always knew that it was going to be difficult to change their position after the Winyans enforced the death penalty upon an innocent young girl. No one liked to admit they were wrong, but when that error resulted in such a horrific travesty of justice, sadly it lengthened the odds of them being unwilling to admit their mistake.
Still, Tony was hoping that they’d softened their resolve and given the Winyan Elders chance of being able to back down without losing too much face. While he wanted vindication for these victims… these mothers and their offspring, and he knew how important it was to their recovery, he was a realist and planned for the next best contingency – them escaping their people and their wrong thinking. If that was what it took to rescue those families, he would still count that as a win for the good guys!
“My associate, Mr Thomas Magnum is looking at planets willing to cultivate and harvest a crop of enchuri plants which is used to treat the childhood malady Kirsan Fever. He is willing to pay a handsome price to suppliers in return for the harvested crop,” Tony said solemnly.
Magistrate Drell nodded. “Thomas Magnum is truly an honourable man. I would expect no less of him. His payment and treatment of Madam Filiya Lavin have been beyond our expectations, revealing him to be a most generous and noble individual. On behalf of our fellow Winyans, I would say that we would welcome the opportunity to supply him with whatever amount of enchuri he may require.”
Tony nodded. “Then I will pass along to him, you offer to provide him with a crop of the plant. If he is interested, I will return to negotiate the terms of the contract and promise that you will be amply rewarded. I can also tell you that Mr Magnum is very interested in the fate of the five surviving Winyan females since several of his good friends in the City of the Ancestors also fell victim to Lucius Lavin and he is very supportive of both groups of ladies,” he told the Magistrate subtly.
The Winyan magistrate nodded to the council, Ronon, Hotch and Alex. “Specialist Dex has given us much to think about. That someone as strong as him is standing before us, saying that he wasn’t able to resist Lucius’ herb has given us ample reasons to think about reconsidering our decisions,” he admitted.
Tulee Hano leapt to his feet, his expression hostile. “I do not agree, Magistrate Drell,” the pudgy balding man stormed out of the town meeting hall, angrily.
Leaning forward and lowering his voice, the tall thin magistrate continued, “Please understand that Elder Tulee Hano is a cousin to Mistress Filiya Lavin, Lucius’ lawful wife, whom he abandoned. Tulee blames those young women for luring Lucius away from his responsibilities and for breaking up his cousin’s marriage. It will be most difficult to alter his attitude to see them as victims, Investigator Paddington,” Drell confided candidly.
~o0o~
Later, as the delegation was inside a puddle jumper on their way back to Atlantis, Tony was deep in thought when Hotch nudged him none too gently.
“So, you promised to tell me about Thomas Magnum later when we were talking to Neese Luta. I’ve never heard of him until today but now I heard him referred to on three separate occasions while we were on the planet and he appears to be someone who has a lot of influence amongst the Winyans,” Hotchner said impatiently. “So, who is he?”
“Not only on Winya. Many planets in Pegasus hold Thomas Magnum in very high regard,” Ronon responded cryptically. “He is seen as a highly honourable individual.”
“But who is he? I’ve been here for almost three weeks now and I’ve never heard of him until today,” Hotch grumbled.
Col Lorne couldn’t resist teasing Aaron as he piloted the jumper for the relatively short hop home. “Thomas Magnum is a fictional character, a former Navy SEAL living on Hawaii, working as a private investigator. Alex here a big fan of the original series, not so much of the reboot,” he taunted roguishly.
Alex had just rolled his eyes at Lorne before replying wearily, “Reboots seldom live up to the original, they lack creativity,” he confided before listing off, “MacGyver, The Odd Couple, Battlestar Galactica…”
“Charlie’s Angels, Charmed,” Lorne agreed grinning as the others snickered at him. He shrugged. “Hey in my defence, I have a younger sister who loved the originals and hated the reboots.
Dusty Mehri joined in, “Okay, what about Hawaii Five 0 and SWAT,” she argued.
Alex grimaced, “Yeah, alright the SWAT reboot wasn’t too bad, just lacked originality. It had a lead that was way hotter than the original,” he conceded as Lorne opened his mouth to tease him, but he shut him down before he uttered a syllable. “That observation re hotness is supplied courtesy of Cassie, Amelia, Cadman, and Penelope. Who am I to argue?”
“Okay, you have a point,” Evan conceded wryly as Hotch snickered.
“And Vala hadn’t seen the original Hondo played by Steve Forrest, but she was positively drooling over Shemar Moore,” Tony said, looking at Ronon who agreed.
“Oh yeah they were all girl fanning over that guy,” he said in a slightly amused but also quite miffed fashion because Amelia was pretty vocal about Hondo’s attributes Tony thought, containing his amusement before continuing to tease Hotch.
“So yeah, the storylines on the reboot were okay but Hawaii Five 0, Dusty? C’mon, that whole guff in the reboot about Steve McGarrett being given means and immunity was super lame. That would never happen. Plus, he never went through FLETC or the Police Academy – any case he worked would get thrown out on a whole bunch of technicalities; no wonder Danno had to arrest the crims. It was pure eye candy bullshit, unlike the original procedural that focused on a bunch of hard-working average looking cops. The original was way more true-to-life than the flashy superficial reboot.”
“But all the explosions, the gun battles and blowing up shit were lit, Alex,” Gunnery Sergeant Dusty Mahri objected, practically gushing, if you could describe the super tough Marine thusly, and live to tell the tale, which wasn’t all that likely.
“Typical blow ’em up jarhead,” Tony snorted.
“And proud of it!” Dusty retorted, grinning like a loon.
“So, let’s just pretend for a moment that if the Governor had given a cop or a federal agent carte blanche and control over a Marine Recon special ops squad and let them choose the team and disregard the United States Military Law and codes of conduct, Sarge. Would you still think it was an awesome show, huh?”
He laughed maliciously as Dusty tried to say she’d be fine with it just as long as they were still running around the island blowing up shit, but she couldn’t tell a brazen lie, unfortunately. She was a shitty liar!
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, Mehra,” he crowed as she scowled at him and the other members of her team and Lorne chuckled at her.
Major Anne Teldy smirked, at her teammate “Oh, Alex gotcha there, Sarge!”
Hotch didn’t look amused at the byplay amongst the group, he looked mighty pissed. “Okay, I’ll ask again. Who is Thomas Magnum,” he said and yep, there was the Sam Eagle Muppet intimidatory stare again.
Tony fought back his laughter, knowing Hotch would not appreciate it right now. Instead, he took pity on the ex-Fibbie and said, “ Me! I’m Thomas Magnum, Hotch. When I was just a lowly rookie cop, I started forming a network of criminal informants and contacts. Helped me solve a lot of cases, so when I came to Atlantis and was looking for Col Sheppard, I had to start forming a new information network to pursue leads and tips that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.”
“Okay,” Hotch responded, “but why use a fake name?’
“Protection. I have a four-year-old daughter who depends on me to take care of her. I use an alias and a mysterious boss to protect my identity because I’m not always dealing with people who are on the up and up. Informants can sometimes be some pretty bad types so it’s safer if they don’t know who Thomas Magnum really is,” he said seriously.
Aaron Hotchner nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”
“Yep. Older. Wiser. A helluva lot more risk aversive,” Alex told him wryly as he pictured his daughter waiting for him back on Atlantis.
Notes:
Frunkled – cretin, imbecilic, buffoonish
Yetsaak – an expletive – similar to damn it
