Reading Time: 122 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 11
Alex Paddington joined retired Admiral Chegwidden at his table after stopping for lunch. It had been a busy morning. He’d been compiling a report on his trip to Winya, including the possibility of getting the Winyans to cultivate and harvest a crop of enchuri for Atlantis and particularly Earth, should the Trust gain access to the Kirsan Fever Virus. He felt strongly that by having the Winyans grow it for them, it may influence their Council of Elders to either reconsider the fate of the five surviving women attacked by Lucius Lavin, with the probable exception of Councillor Tulee Hano, who seemed intractable. Alternatively, if not reverse the verdict the enchuri might still help free them to leave Winya with their children and seek the sanctuary offered them by the Balarans, Athosians or several other civilisations of a similar level of technological development to Winya.
Hi reasons for pushing for them having their convictions overturned on Winya was that Tony felt that would be the most meaningful outcome for Willa and the other ladies to persuade them they had the right to seek a better life. At the moment, they were of the mindset that they were guilty of breaking the law and therefore deserved to be punished. While he still believed that getting the convictions overturned was the best-case scenario, he could see that Ota’s mental health was rapidly deteriorating and he decided that getting her away from Winya might be more urgent than clearing her name and reputation right now. If she wasn’t fit to take care of Leoosh, her eight-year-old son, and that was a possibility, then Elder Tulee Hano might argue for the council to carry out the commuted death sentence immediately.
Which had been why he’d dangled the carrot in front of Magistrate Drell yesterday. It was also why he’d emphasized how sympathetic Thomas Magnum was to the plight of the Winyan victims of Lucius Lavin’s to try to exert some real yet subtle pressure for that to occur. It might go beyond the remit of his job description and against the fictional Prime Directive – Star Trek’s key ethos if not the IOA’s, but he knew that their cause was just, and he wouldn’t lose any sleep over his actions interfering in the Winyans’ justice system. He would however find it difficult to live with himself, if he failed to act and Ota Benn was stoned to death because of something she had no control over
So, he was working on selling his offer of growing enchuri to the Winyans, wanting to get it improved asap, which was interrupted by several minor infractions that required his intervention. One was a couple of Privates First Class who’d gotten drunk after brewing up some home-made hooch and deciding to take a puddle jumper for a joy ride, except for the minor matter that they weren’t able to fly it since neither one had the ATA gene necessary to fly it. Plus, there had been a domestic disturbance with a couple of scientists in a relationship. Since he’d forced everyone into taking sensitivity training on the signs of domestic abuse, their co-workers had reported that Georgiou Elias had been verbally abusive to his partner, Marietta Perkins. But even if it turned out to be a fairly minor one-off incident of verbal abuse, he had announced a zero-tolerance policy for domestic violence, with the full support of the Atlantis command. He also knew that each report required follow-up if he was going to stamp out the sort of domestic violence he’d uncovered during the search for Col Sheppard and prevent future abuse.
It was just a tad frustrating when he was so focused on the situation on Winya, to have to begin an investigation. The bottom line, he was stretched to the max as it was, and he desperately needed help to pick up the slack. He resolved to speak to Amelia Banks today to ascertain her interest in becoming an investigator. Also, with General O’Neill due back in Atlantis tomorrow, he would discuss the situation regarding Nikki and her ex-husband. Maybe he would start looking at FBI agents who he could recruit.
A.J. Chegwidden looked at Alex appraisingly. “You look beat. Bad night?”
“Yeah, didn’t sleep well.”
“Did Belle have another nightmare?”
Alex shook his head, “No, I couldn’t stop thinking about one of the Winyan victims. She’s not doing so well, and I don’t want another situation like Dr Girard’s meltdown from occurring. We got lucky, but the next time might be a different story.”
A.J. nodded. “Okay, aside from that, how are you holding up with the judge advocates arriving on Thursday?”
Alex grimaced. “Yeah alright, that might be on my mind too,” he admitted ruefully as he ran his hand through his longer-than-normal hair which was now a honey-blonde hue. “When we were on Balara, waiting to rescue Col Sheppard, General O’Neill expressed his disgruntlement that we couldn’t just go full on Harry Potter and obliviate the rogue Genii to make them forget about MCD –238β and its effects,” he confessed. “I’m starting to see the merit in that plan! Obliviation would come in handy. Too bad magic isn’t real.”
“It will be fine, Alex. You’ve done a good job of changing your appearance but subtly, so no one on Atlantis is aware of it. It should be enough to prevent anyone recognising you, except someone who knows you very well.”
“From your lips to God’s ear as Ducky Mallard used to say,” he replied sombrely.
“And most of the judge advocates you worked with closely over the years are either too high up the chain of command to be sent here to try cases, or they have resigned their commissions,” A.J. told him comfortingly.
“But the current Navy JAG, Admiral Turner would probably recognise me, A.J.,” Alex said gloomily. It was a risk he hadn’t considered when he decided to come to Atlantis incognito, that he’d stumble into something so huge that it would require ten US judge advocates plus a judge advocate general to try LCpl Joseph Favre and the forty-odd rogue Genii militia members.
“True, but when I had a word in General O’Neill’s ear, he requested that Brigadier General Marc Santiago, the USAF of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps assigned the mission of coming to the Pegasus galaxy to act as judge and I’ve received a temporary re-enlistment and have been given jurisdiction over the five naval judge advocates,” the former JAG told him.
Well, that certainly made him feel somewhat happier, but he was still concerned that Faith Coleman or Bud Roberts might show up. Both were still practising JAs, or they were when he resigned from NCIS, and they would likely recognise him, along with Harmon Rab, and Sarah Mackenzie, although Mac had left the Marine Corps and was now serving as the USMC liaison to the Secretary of State. The possibility of running into herm seeing that they had a huge contingent of Marines serving was still a likely scenario, but not for these scheduled trials thankfully. And Harm, who left the navy to pursue an ill-fated romance with Mac returned to the navy, but he was now XO on the aircraft carrier, the USS Allegiance, so they were highly unlikely to run into each other either.
Although people could argue that he and Tali were safe out here even if their new identities ended up being compromised, Tony couldn’t agree because the cold hard truth was that the Trust was like an internecine Hydra. Cut off one of its heads and it grew back again with a frightening alacrity, spurred on by the allure of mind-boggling wealth and absolute power. Its reach was truly frightening, and there was no way of being one hundred percent certain that the Trust hadn’t compromised individuals. Although it may seem fanciful if not downright paranoid to think that the trust would target a bunch of military lawyers, one thing he’d learnt the hard way was to trust no one when you were undercover. It was a truism that had saved him too many times to make him blasé about this situation, hence the lengths he’d gone to in coming to Atlantis with a new ID.
Before he had a chance to ask if A.J. knew any of the Navy judge advocates that were being sent here, Aoife O’Shea joined them, asking if they minded. Noticing Chegwidden’s smile which was something more than polite, he wondered if he’d missed something. As they chatted about inconsequential topics, lunch, and the movie night on Saturday showing A Few Angry Men and The Presidio, he watched in fascination as they mirrored each other’s body language.
Well, well, well, it seemed the psychologist and the lawyer were getting on like a house on fire. If it worked out, good luck to them. Having Senior seducing much younger women, usually for their money or their connections, as well as their looks, he wasn’t squicked by the idea of older people searching for a little sex, love, and/or romance. Except if they were Senior seducing Tony’s neighbour and doing so it in his bed. Smiling absentmindedly at their less-than-discreet chemistry, he was caught off guard when Aoife addressed him candidly.
“So, Alex, I’ve been elected by your colleague and friends to enquire about your well-being. Possible explanations range from you running yourself ragged with work, you are ill, being head over heels for someone and/or that they rejected you and you are emotionally shattered. I’ve discounted all of the above, but you are working too hard,” she informed him since she knew that any romantic activities or heartbreak wasn’t on his dance card at this point in time.”
Not beating around the bush, he told her, “I didn’t sleep after our trip to Winyan, yesterday, Dr O’Shea. Ota Benn is not doing so well.”
“Ahh! Well, I wish I could tell you that I’m surprised, but we both know she is at risk,” she responded pensively.
“Don’t you think people worrying about me looking a little ragged because of losing a night’s sleep is way over the top?”
She nodded, “I would if that was what this was about, but that’s not what this is about, Alex. What has everyone worried about you is that you’ve dropped quite a bit of weight all of a sudden,” she said, making eye contact with him as she watched his reaction carefully.
He sighed and looked at A.J. in amusement. “Well, you’re all wrong. The answer is twofold and none of the four options is correct,” he said firmly. “The reason is simple really. When my lungs were scarred years ago, it made it hard to exercise. I’d always loved to run but suddenly, every step was a new experience in pain because I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. And my metabolism slowed down too, which is normal as you get older but apparently, it was not so much connected to aging as it was connected with my lungs,” he said, speaking quietly even though the Mess was mostly empty.
“When Vala healed my lungs with her Goa’uld healing contraption and also fixed my knee which I’d injured, it meant I could run without pain anymore and I’ve been doing more miles every day because it helps me think and relieves stress. But the healing device also recalibrated my metabolism to what it was like in my twenties, which was unexpected,” he said, smirking at her. “See, simple explanation,” he said with a touch of smugness.
“And the second reason?” Aoife pressed.
He sighed at her mother-henning him but answered her anyway. “Military lawyers are being assigned to Atlantis to deal with the trials of the Genii and there is a possibility I’ve worked with some of them in a past life,” he admitted as the psychologist hissed sharply as she realised what he was talking about and the repercussions.
“So? The sudden weight loss…” she trailed off as he nodded.
“Started as a pleasant consequence but one I’ve now taken advantage of it to help change my appearance. I used to be an undercover agent and I learnt how subtle differences could help change the way I look and move, as long as someone doesn’t know me well. Besides, it was time to lose all the weight I’d gained after Belle and I started travelling and I couldn’t leave her to go running,” he said enigmatically, as she nodded understanding what he was talking about.”
Aoife hadn’t mentioned the other changes, the lighter hair colour and the longer style that irritated him, the glasses, or the different eye colour so hopefully that had not been noticed by his bunch of well-meaning but nosy interventionists friends. Tali had noticed it of course but he just explained that someone he used to work with might be coming to Atlantis and he was going to be in disguise. She had wanted to get involved too so he’d had Penelope pick out a ball cap and sunglasses before she came to Atlantis to humour her.
O’Shea said, “Well I’m glad you aren’t about to burn out, Alex. But what do you want me to tell the others?”
“Tell them that Vala healed my knee. Don’t mention my lungs because that might identify me. Say that I’m using the additional running as a way to deal with all of the stress from the Genii trials because it’s just me doing the interrogations and paperwork. It’s not a lie, just not the whole truth,” he said as she glanced at A.J. in a less than subtle gesture with her eyes, although thankfully she’d avoided batting her eyelashes at him, as the JAG unconsciously parted his lips and moistened them briefly.
Shaking his head in amusement, Tony said, “Um do you two want to get a room someplace private?”
Looking dumbfounded, they glanced at him and after years of interrogating people who tried to hide things from him, he laughed in their faces. “Hey folks, investigator here! Don’t try to deny it, I can tell when people lie. Plus, I’m a profiler…give it up.”
“Jerk!” A.J. told him heatedly. “I swear, we only got together a couple of days ago. How could you possibly know,” he demanded grumpily, while Aoife actually blushed which Tony thought was beyond cute.
“Your body language,” he grinned at them, tickled to see them both acting like a pair of bashful teenage kids.
He could tell that Aoife wanted more info and he obliged, chuckling. “You were both mirroring each other…dead giveaway,” he declared as O’Shea groaned and put her head in her hands. “If you want to keep your ‘thing’ a secret, you just might want to watch that. And the touching of your hair,” he glanced at A.J. teasingly.
“Obviously, that advice isn’t meant for you, but you could try to tone down the eyebrows working overtime, dude. It’s the male equivalent to ladies batting their eyebrows to signal…ah interest,” he finished, stifling a belly laugh as he rose out of his seat to head back to his office and finish up his report.
He thought he heard Chegwidden call him a smug bastard as he was walking away. Okay so maybe he was a little smug, but it felt good, and it was nice to see those two happy, plus it was fun to tease them even though he’d keep their secret.
~o0o~
General O’Neill was meeting with Ambassador AuClair, Paddington, Hotchner, Chegwidden, and Col Lorne, briefing them about the arrangements for the coming judge advocates arrivals and the hearings. While trying the cases via a tribunal from a coalition of planets had been their preferred option, the highly classified data about the effects of the active element Lavin’s plant the scientists had labelled as MCD –238β had caused them to rethink that plan. In the end, they’d opted to still go with a tribunal of members of various planets but not from the Pegasus galaxy. Instead, they’d selected highly trusted Allies of Earth from their galaxy to hear the four most serious cases, comprising Porteous Kolya, his 2IC Deuter Maden and Lucius Lavin. Their chosen allies would appreciate the need to keep the information about such a dangerous substance top-secret for the safety of them all and the panel would consist of an Orbanian, a Free Jaffa, and a Langaran.
Alex gathered that aside from Lorne and the General, no one else knew who these races were or why they had been chosen to partake in such critical trials. Well aside from the Free Jaffa, who most knew were long-time allies of Earth, actively helping to defeat the Goa’uld. What was more surprising was the representative Jack named as being chosen to sit in judgement on the tribunal was a female Amazon-like warrior named Ishta from the planet Hak’tyl. According to scuttlebutt from Jack and Daniel, she was not only a former High Priestess and the noble leader of the Hak’tyl Resistance (an all-female tribe of Jaffa warriors) she was Teal’c’s mate. Tony reckoned that as a former high-priestess and kick-ass Amazon, she’d be super smart and also pretty ruthless, and he thought for the Genii thugs and Lavin, she would make for a good fit. While Jaffa males were all pretty kick-ass dudes, they had a revenge thing that made them way too reckless for Tony’s taste, going purely off the mission reports he’d read about Teal’c going off the reservation. Hopefully, Ishtar as a priestess would be a lot more measured!
For the sole benefit of the newcomers to the SGC, General O’Neill gave a brief outline of the three races who’d been chosen to sit on the tribunals, who were also Earth’s allies, starting with the Orbanians who SG1 had encountered during their time with O’Neill as their team leader. “
“They were descendants of the Aztec Teotihuacan civilization. Daniel believed the Goa’uld came upon the Teotihuacans and transplanted them to the planet Orban to live as slaves, but they managed to free themselves somehow. We don’t know how. They were a technologically advanced civilisation that we later learnt was at least in part thanks to their use of nanites, which they implanted in specifically chosen children known as Urrones. The nanites, once implanted in the Urrones collected and stored Orbanian knowledge passed on to these children from their mentors and they learnt at an astonishingly accelerated rate. Finally, at a ceremony known as the Averium, the Urrones nanites were harvested from the Urrone children who were approximately twelve years old by then and the nanites were distributed to each member of the society, accounting for their amazing ability to develop technologically.”
Looking pensive, O’Neill informed them, “Our own Naquadah generators are a direct result of the Orbanians’ generator technology and the assistance of a young Urrone called Merrin.”
As Jack started giving a brief outline of the Orbanians, Tony remembered, thanks to his memory that some experts called eidetic (even while many cognitive scientists disputed that it was even a real phenomenon) recalled the downside of their rapid technological advancement. And there was always a cost to be paid. This one though was a doozy and explained why Jack looked so brooding. The Urrone children had, after going through the Averium been left as completely blank slates, unable to take any further part in their society since re-implanting nanites into them were violently rejected, resulting in the Urrone children dying a painfilled death.
That there was another way for these Urrone children to learn, had eluded this highly advanced society. Possibly it was because they had become too dependent upon using Urrones and nanites to learn that they forgot there were other options. Maybe as they became ever more technological it had been deemed to be an acceptable cost to be borne by a small percentage of each cohort- a horrific case of the needs of the many exceeding the needs of the few, to borrow a line from Tony’s favourite Star Trek character. Granted that the Orbanians had conscientiously taken care of the Urrone individuals’ physical needs post Averium in genuine recognition of their tremendous sacrifice for their planet, their existence as what amounted to a life spent as mindless zombies or perpetual babies even as they continued to mature physically, could hardly be called fulfilling.
According to the mission report that Tony had read, the younger Colonel O’Neill leading SG1 had been horrified when he learned this was to be the fate of the young female Urrone known as Merrin. He’d befriended her when Merrin had been sent to Earth to teach Major Sam Carter about the Orbanians Naquadah generator. It appeared that he, like Tony hadn’t hesitated to ignore the Prime Directive about interfering in other worlds’ business either. Risking a court martial and a long stay in a military prison, he’d kidnapped Merrin, hoping to persuade her into seeing sense. He wanted her to request asylum, so he’d shown her what kids her age did on Earth, going to school to learn, but also just having fun and being a kid. Her experiences soaking up Earth culture had the opposite effect to what he’d hoped for, however. She’d insisted on returning to Orban immediately and experiencing the Averium to share her nanites and what she’d learned from Jack with every other Orbanian. He’d been devastated and uncaring that his actions could cost him his military career but the change in Orbanian society had been truly profound as they suddenly realised that the Urrone who had undergone Averium could still learn, just not through the nanite technology. Thanks to Jack’s interference and Merrin’s farsightedness and her sacrifice, Urrone children were no longer mindless drones, spending the greater majority of their lifespan merely existing as husks. Now they were learning as Earth children did, sans the nanites.
What had started as a major interplanetary diplomatic incident, had ended up strengthening the alliance as the Orbanians were reminded that nanite technology may be a fast method of technological advancement, but it wasn’t the only way to learn. The old fashion methods, which had been lost over the generations were now relearnt as Earth supplied specially trained educators and teachers to help the Orbanians begin teaching the generations of Urrones who had been considered unable to learn anything post-Averium.
Tony could see that having an Orbanian on the tribunal made good sense. They were a peaceful but advanced society, and thus would not wish for the MCD –238β to become a threat, having experience slavery by the Goa’ulds in their distant past. He also noted that Jack had laid his career on the line for one eleven-year-old Orbanian child’s welfare, affecting the whole Orbanian society in the process. Merrin’s nanites had taught them not only about how to teach the Urrones didactically and experientially, in other words, the old-fashion way but to play games, have fun and enjoy their lives creatively via art and music. That knowledge, thanks to the nanites had influenced every single non-Urrone individual and led to a renaissance of cultural development too.
“Orban’s leader Kalan has consented to serve on the tribunal. His son, Tomin will accompany him as his assistant for the duration of the trials,” O’Neill informed them. His tone indicating that there was something significant about his statement, but he chose not to elaborate.
Jack moved on to the next group of allies. “As to the Langarans, when SG1 first encountered them, they consisted of three major antagonistic nations: Kelowna, Terrania and the Andari Federation. The Kelownans discovered their Stargate and a bunch of Goa’uld artefacts roughly a decade before our encounter but never figured out how to use it until we showed up. Technologically, they are roughly fifty years behind Earth, at least in terms of weapons development. The team archaeologist, Daniel Jackson learnt that they were taken to Langara as slaves from Earth by a Goa’uld known as Thanos over three thousand years ago and there’d been wars and disputes amongst the various nations pretty much ever since. Unfortunately, when we encountered them, Kelowna was building an atomic-type bomb using an element they called Naquadria which appeared to be a powerful but artificially created derivative of the element Naquadah. They intended to use the bomb against the Terranians and the Andari Federation.”
Tony felt the stirring of his memory. There had been an accident and Daniel had been mortally wounded – which was when Oma Desala stepped in and taught him how to Ascend.
“Dr Jackson was exposed to a massive dose of radiation when their Naquadria experiment leaked and he saved the Kelownan’s lives, so he decided to go off and become an Ancient,” Jack said irreverently, not having any great love for the Ancients for their arrogant indifference to the disasters they left in their wakes and their refusal to help clean them up after their Ascension.
His disgust was something that Tony was in complete agreement with his boss about. He didn’t know if it was because they both possessed forty per cent of the Alteran genes or not, but Ascension was not something he dreamed about. Unlike Elizabeth Weir who was utterly obsessed with the idea of ascending to a higher plane of existence to the point of willingly sacrificing her high and mighty principles.
“In the shitstorm that ensued and to cover their precious Kelownan asses, the rat bastards accused Danny of causing the explosion,” O’Neill continued. “Meanwhile, the guy who was giving Daniel a tour of the facility, one of their resident Brainiac’s, a geek named Jonas Quinn just stood frozen when Danny leapt in to save them from a cataclysmic accident,” he growled, making it obvious it was still a painful topic and Tony empathised. He would never forget Ari shooting Caitlin Todd where she stood close enough that blood and brain matter adorned his face.
Oblivious to Tony’s mental anguish, Jack continued his briefing, “Quinn was deeply embarrassed by his government’s appalling cowardice and by his failure to save his planet,” implicit in his tone was the general’s opinion that it was more than justified, even if he didn’t voice it. “And so, Jonas defected to Earth, bringing with him a very small but valuable amount of the Naquadria for Carter and her minions to play with, in the hope that Daniel’s sacrifice wouldn’t end up being entirely in vain. Of course, Daniel soon broke the Ancients’ most cherished rule of non-interference, and they kicked his ass back down to the physical plane where we stumbled across him.”
O’Neill tapped his index finger lightly on the table as he let his previous sentence hang in the air, before finally resuming his account. “ But I’m getting ahead of myself. Jonas Quinn eventually replaced Dr Jackson as the fourth member of SG1 after Danny’s Ascension. Unfortunately, the partly Ascended Goa’uld Anubis learnt of Langara’s existence when he captured and interrogated Quinn when we were on a mission. No surprise that he promptly invaded Quinn’s home world or that Jonas decided to go back and help rebuild after Anubis wreaked havoc on his home world, especially when the three Langaran nations had little choice but to put their petty squabbling aside and unite for the security of their peoples.”
It was clear by the vitriolic tone of voice that the general was no fan of the warring factions but then he was no politician and never would be. That much was plain. Resuming his tale, he became more animated.
“By that time, Daniel was expelled by the Ancients’ exclusive little Ascension Club for not following their rules. Ironically, the straw that probably broke the camel’s back was his intervening to protect his beloved wife’s people – the Abydonians from Anubis,” he told them with a hint of malicious glee, plus a large side helping of sarcasm.
Lorne and Tony sniggered, both men appreciating Jack’s cynical sense of humour even as Hotch and A.J. looked shell-shocked by his revelation. For Jack, this was ancient history, and he was very blasé about it all, but for the two newest members of Atlantis, this history of early SGC missions left them floundering like fish out of water. Tony admitted it was a lot for them to take in – it was after all their planet’s greatest secret.
“Anyway campers, long story short, Daniel returned to SG1 with a wonky memory and Quinn returned to his home planet. The Langarans have faced some pretty tough times since then, we thought they’d been destroyed by the Ori, (the kin of the Ancients for those taking notes) but they survived. Although like lots of planets in the Milky Way, they lost a substantial number of their population,” O’Neill mused as he considered the huge cost to fight the Ori.
“Jonas is high up in the Langaran joint government now, second only to the Chief Minister and he has agreed to act as the second of our judges on the tribunal.” He glanced at A.J. and Tony, “He did request that in return for his sabbatical from governing, he be given a tour of Atlantis and access to the Ancient’s Code of Law.”
Tony nodded; recalling that Quinn was able to read and process information at an accelerated rate to a human from Earth, so it was not surprising that he would be eager to read the Ancient Code of Law. He had been given access to sensitive data while he was serving with Stargate Command, and he had quite obviously gained Jack’s trust for him to have accepted him onto his team. He could understand why O’Neill had asked him to serve on the tribunal, considering the highly sensitive and dangerous information that was bound to come out.
Ambassador AuClair looked pleased. “I think that these two candidates are exceptional choices, General O’Neill. And the Jaffa have proven to be our very staunch allies, but I admit, I thought that when you mentioned their participation that you would naturally pick Teal’c or Master Bra’tac.”
Jack shrugged, “I considered it, but first off, I wanted to avoid the accusation that the tribunal was biased and since Teal’c and Bra’tac are as close to me as family, I decided it wasn’t a wise move. Plus, I thought it was important to have at least one female judge and given that the two other judges are leaders of their people and Ishtar was the Noble Leader of the Hak’tyl Resistance, she seemed a great choice. Plus, she is a former High Priestess who possesses valuable attributes and will contribute much to the tribunal. I think they’ll work very well together,” he explained as everyone in the room nodded in agreement.
“And will they be staying in Atlantis,” A.J. asked curiously.
“Yes but the actual trials will take place aboard the Odyssey, which has a large conference room and as a bonus, they will have a platoon of Marines for security for the three prisoners,” he said before turning to the Genii military trials.
“Ten judge advocates, consisting of five Navy and five Air Force members plus the USAF Judge Advocate General, who will supervise the Air Force JAs will arrive tomorrow. They will be trying most of the Genii militia under US military law since Col Sheppard is a member of the US Air Force and they will proceed before the interplanetary tribunal trials that should get underway in a little over a month from now. The Interstellar Tribunal will try three major participants, Porteus Kolya, his second in command Deuter Maden, and Lucius Lavin because they are the masterminds and are the most complex. Of course, the court martial of L Corp Favre is complicated too,” he conceded.
Tony cleared his throat and spoke. “Just to clarify, the Lance Corporal will be conducted under British Military Law using UK JAG personnel and separate from the Genii trials that will take place on Atlantis. Favre’s court-martial will take place back at Stargate Command in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex with a five-person jury consisting of UK officers. Failing that, the British government has agreed to us making up the numbers from the ranks of the Canadian, New Zealand and Australian military.
O’Neill nodded. “With the military trials of the Genii, since this will be the judge advocates’ first trip through the gate, we’re going to give them a day or two to acclimate to the city before we assign them to specific Genii to represent. Col Lorne, they’ll need temporary quarters assigned,” he told the Acting Commanding Officer who nodded.
“Yes, Sir, I’ll see to it,” he responded efficiently.
O’Neill acknowledged him with a slight nod. “As you know, the majority of the trials will be military tribunals and they will require military personnel to serve on the jury. Normally we would randomly select Atlantis personnel, but it has been decided that it would be almost impossible for personnel to remain impartial, considering the harm caused to Colonel Sheppard. Therefore, to try to avoid the appearance of impropriety we will be reducing the size of the jury to the minimum allowed under the USMCJ rules of five members and empanelling Stargate Command military personnel from Cheyenne Mountain, not Atlantis troops.”
No one seemed all that surprised about that snippet of information since it had previously been discussed by the lawyers and Tony before this meeting. Everyone, especially Commander AuClair was pleased with the decision however, thinking it was a good compromise, even if it complicated matters by having additional personnel temporarily assigned to Atlantis, which Jack duly addressed.
“That means we will require extra quarters for them, however, if this is a problem, we can set up a barracks aboard the Odyssey or appropriate one of the meeting rooms,” he said, once again looking at Lorne who said he would check with the relevant NCOs and report back to him if there was an issue.
“Alrighty, once the trial is over we can send the jury home and bring in the next panel. Since the plan is to have two trials running concurrently, Judge Advocates General, General Marc Santiago and Ret. Rear Admiral Chegwidden (who will be temporarily recommissioned for the duration of the trials) will officiate as judges. We hope to get through these trials expeditiously before we transport our diplomatic guests from Hak’tyl, Langara and Orban to Atlantis for the major trials.
Tony spoke up, “And the plan for incarcerating any of the prisoners found guilty is to be transported to and detained in the Milky Way still?”
“Yes, Carter recommended that we consider contracting out the incarceration of the Genii with the Hebridian Government, another of our technologically advanced allies who manage their prison population admirably. Most importantly, the mixed race of humans and Serrakins that form the Hebridians civilisation, which is highly evolved, have managed to stay off the radar of the Trust. So, security shouldn’t be an issue in any plans to escape. The Hebridians have various prisons, so the group won’t be housed altogether to discourage any ideas of mutinies and even if they did, they have no way to find their way back to Pegasus without a ZPM to power up the gate to travel so far away.”
Tony was pleased by those details, which sounded like the optimum choice, better than letting them run around on some dystopian moon or for Earth to have to build an off-world prison since they couldn’t put them into jail back home for obvious reasons. Tony looked around the room and saw everyone else seemed to approve of the solution too.
What was clear from the meeting was, life was about to get extremely hectic on Atlantis!
Chapter 12
After the meeting adjourned, Tony stayed back to speak to Jack about Nikki and the former Sergeant Bates.
Guessing about what he wanted to discuss, Jack kicked off the conversation. “I’m sorry I got called away before I had a chance to read you in on why we decided to deep-six Nikola Bates’ assignment, Alex. Garcia tells me she explained our rationale for caution that until we had a chance to discuss it with you, it felt it was better to delay her assignment. She’s currently stationed at Nellis Air Force Base.”
“Yeah, Pen told me she was working at Area 51,” he agreed as Jack looked a bit surprised at his form of address. “Garcia and I went out socially a few times as friends of friends, back in DC,” he informed Jack said with a fondness that he didn’t try to hide.
“Is there something I need to know about? Like is she likely to request a permanent transfer to Atlantis,” Jack asked, wondering how his 2IC would handle that contingency.
Chuckling, Tony shook his head. “Maybe. There is someone she’s interested in, but no transfer on my account, General. As I said, we’re friends. I’m not about to run tattle-tailing to the boss, although I will say this, I’d be thrilled to add her to the agency if she did stay here. Plus, she’s pretty damned infatuated by our AI presence, Sir. I think J.P. reciprocates her feelings. From what I’ve seen, J.P. has a serious case of hero worship going on,” he confided, trying to keep a straight face.
Is our IA friend gender specific, do you think,” he asked curiously.
Tony chuckled, “I asked J.P. that same question and was told no gender had been assigned by Janus, but our young AI is currently running around in a male Vulcan’s body, so he said that we can use male pronouns until he changes into a female form. He said he’s trying to find himself,” Tony explained, wondering how he got himself into such a wacky situation with Janae Progenius, because how the hell do you mentor a ten-thousand-year-old computer program having artificial intelligence?
“Okaaay, so what you’re saying is J.P. is gender fluid. Good to know,” O’Neill quipped, wondering who his data analyst was getting too cosy with and therefore who he needed to eliminate to get Garcia back to Earth. He did not pay attention to office romances, but Col Davis was certainly very protective of her. And her former teammates from the BAU would raise holy hell if she didn’t go back home again. They believed that Jack was coercing her to work for him for some evil militaristic purpose, which kinda pissed him off. He might not be an angel, but he was nothing like the Trust. Those guys made Genghis Kahn look like a peace-loving hippy in comparison to all of the plotting and the evil machinations.
“But could you throw me a bone or something? Is it serious or a holiday romance,” he whined. “Paul will be distraught,” he protested pathetically.
Tony just shrugged noncommittally, “You could ask Penelope if you are desperate,” he said helpfully as Jack scowled.
“Fine then. Don’t gossip, see if I care,” O’Neill pouted, resolving to keep a close eye on who the Black Queen interacted with apart from Paddington and Janae Progenius. Surely she wouldn’t be having some weird ass relationship with the Ancient AI, would she? Paul would go postal on him, that’s if he was reading Davis’ feelings for Garcia correctly.
Grinning, Tony told him, “Good because I’m not gonna tell anyone. But regarding Nikki Bates, I still want her here. She is a top-notch intel analyst and although she wasn’t field trained, she accompanied me to Baghdad as my translator, but ended up working with me in the field to track down a murderer. She is kickass and made of very stern stuff,” he said thinking of the body they found and how she volunteered to take a liver temperature so they could figure out the time of death using a scalpel and an old fashion thermometer. He doubted that McGee, even though he was a field agent would have been able to do that. Hell, he probably wouldn’t be able to do it now, not even after a decade and a half working crime scenes.
“You trust her with knowing that you’re on Atlantis,” Jack wanted to know.
“I do; loyalty to family was really important to her, so she’ll get why I decided to come here and why it needs to remain secret. She’s good people.”
“Okay, if you’re sure. Her security clearance was fine by the way, not a hint of involvement with the Trust. Plus, Ms Bates has her reasons for wanting to get off the grid,” O’Neill told him. “It is personal, not professional so since you made me feel dirty and ashamed for wanting to gossip about Garcia, I think I should respect Ms Bates’ privacy too.”
Tony shrugged. If Nikki wanted him to know about her private life, she’d tell him. It wasn’t as if he was going around telling everyone the truth about Tali’s conception, so he could hardly be a hypocrite about it. As long as she did her job and kept his identity secret, he would settle for that, but he hoped that they could still be friends. He missed having people who’d known him in his past life. Sure, he had people who knew who he used to be, but it wasn’t the same as them knowing him back when he was Tony DiNozzo, senior field agent. Which was probably why he’d enjoyed hanging out with Penelope so much…well aside from the fact that she was such ‘good people.’
“Right, well she’s carrying out security clearances for the civilian scientists and military personnel at Area 51 because we keep losing data and technology from there, presumably because of the Trust but once she’s finished up I’ll see about reassigning her.” O’Neill looked at Tony who was still hanging about. “Was there something else you wanted to talk about?”
Tony nodded. “Garcia said that Nikki’s ex-husband was Sergeant Bates, former head of Atlantis base security and after he was injured by a Wraith who ejected out onto the city, he was medically discharged from the Marines. She also mentioned he’s now a federal agent working for the NID.”
“You want to recruit him for Atlantis,” O’Neill surmised, genuinely surprised by the notion.
“Maybe. That would probably depend on Nikki. Pen said their divorce was amicable, but they’d need to be able to work together to some extent without it getting awkward. And then there is Belle and me. I trust Nikki but I wouldn’t want her to tell Bates about us. If she’s still really friendly with him like Pen reckons, she might find it difficult to conceal my identity from him. I figure I need to wait until she comes here, and I can sound her out about if it would be a good fit.”
Jack considered what Alex said. “Sergeant Bates wasn’t exactly the most popular person here on Atlantis when he was head of base security,” he said slowly. Do you think it is wise to bring him back again as a civilian?”
Tony shrugged at his boss. “Look, I’ll admit that Bates doesn’t have very good people skills and he’d need to work on that but to be fair, Dr Weir put him in a terrible situation, General. He was kinda between a rock and a hard place.”
“How so,” O’Neill asked parking his butt on the edge of the table. The head of Homeworld Command anticipated that their conversation wasn’t concluding just yet and standing would send a message that he wasn’t interested in what Paddington had to say. Since nothing could be further from the truth, he wanted to communicate a non-verbal message of being ready to talk to his agent.
“One of the first things that Elizabeth Weir did after arriving on Atlantis was to appoint Sergeant Bates as the head of base security,” Tony said.
Jack quirked an eyebrow, basically inviting him to offer more information. “I’m aware!”
“Okay, so while she was the Commander of the expedition, she didn’t consult the second in command, Colonel Sumner, or Major Sheppard when he became military commander after Colonel Sumner’s.”
“Not seeing the point you’re trying to make. It obviously would have been better all around, had she consulted with her 2IC but it’s still not a hanging offence. Lots of leaders aren’t inclusive, they’re authoritarians – it is the name of the game.”
“I’m aware of that too, General, but remember that Bates was military – she should have consulted with Bates’ CO before appointing him. If her head of base security had been a civilian, then I see no issue, but the truth is that she set him up to challenge his CO when there were inevitably disputes between Weir and Sheppard. She used Bates to shore up her position. Sheppard couldn’t afford to let a Sergeant overrule him as the head of the military so he pushed back on occasion, ordering Bates to stand down, which he did reluctantly, and it caused ill will for him with both Sheppard and Weir who demanded his loyalty.
“I think right from the beginning, Dr Weir was on a power trip, trying to smack down the military and unfortunately, Bates was her patsy. Should he come back to Atlantis as a federal agent, I won’t put him in that sort of no-win situation. I’ll also be making sure that Bates works on his interpersonal and communication skills because they suck, quite honestly. I think he must have attended the Leroy Jethro Gibbs University of Interpersonal Relations and Communications and gained a fucking PhD.”
Trying not to guffaw at that imagery, the general responded with, “Okay, if ya want him, he’s all yours,” Jack shrugged with an ‘on your head be it’ air. “Pending input from Ms Bates, of course,” he amended. “She cannot divulge your previous identity and if that’s gonna be a problem then he can’t come back here,” he said with finality.
Seeing that Alex still wasn’t making a move to the door, he sighed. “What else?”
“Fornell. Penelope said he’s been working for you. I want him,” he said. “He’s a good agent and even if it’s just while we are on high alert during these military trials, I need someone with experience who can run the routine investigations that might crop up without my close supervision.”
“I thought he was pals with Gibbs,” O’Neill objected.
“As far as I know, Gibbs ended Fornell’s career by testifying about a case he worked on a decade earlier when he spoke to a witness but thought she was lying and didn’t report it to the defence. Unfortunately, he was wrong to have held it back. Plus, the ME doing the post-mortem didn’t pick up the killer was left-handed, or at least the slash wound was delivered left-handed by the killer.”
“So, I take it that the convicted killer was righthanded?”
“Yeah, apparently, but thanks to Gibbs, I shoot with both my right and left hand. Many people are ambidextrous or the victim might have injured or been restraining the killer’s right hand, so I don’t think it is as damning as the defence attorney made it out to be at the retrial.”
“Anyway, although Fornell should have included the witness statement, Gibbs tampered with evidence on cases so many times over the years, and he’s always skated. Hell, he terminated the person accused of killing his wife and daughter on the say-so of Mike Franks, and then he covered up for the yellow-bellied weasel on more than one occasion. He covered up for Ziva, not to mention his former mother-in-law for capital murder, and he’s still carrying a badge. Not defending what Fornell did, it was wrong, but he wasn’t doing it for personal gain or to protect his family.”
“So bottom line, do you trust him if he comes here?”
“Yeah, and I’d like to look at the files for the case against Gabriel Hicks and the serial killer cases if Homeworld can access them. I’m curious because of the profiling on the case. I’d like Hotch’s opinion on it too,” he said.
“Okay, I’ll see what I can do, Associate Director,” Jack deadpanned.
“What?”
“If you have Fornell, Bates, Nikola Bates, Captain Cadman goes to FLETC to become a federal agent and an AFOSI Agent and Amelia Banks has agreed to be retrained as a Fed too, then you’re going need the bump in rank, buddy,” the director of Homeworld Command taunted him.
Conceding that he might be right, Tony decided that two could play the twist-the-knife game, and responded cheerily, “Don’t forget to add the highly inestimable Ms Penelope Garcia to the list too, Sir.”
“Oh God, Paul is gonna kill me for temporarily assigning her here. Not to mention all of her former colleagues at the damned BAU,” he groaned with a faux theatrical shudder.
“What’s Col Davis’ skin in the game re Garcia,” Tony asked curiously.
“Methinks he might have feelings for the lovely Ms Penelope,” the general said woodenly. “Let’s hope you’re wrong about her dalliance with a New Lantean,” he said fervently. “I have no desire to have to deal with a lovesick 2IC.”
“I might be wrong,” Tony said seriously, “But not about that!”
Jack just moaned as Tony cracked up.
~o0o~
The next morning at breakfast, Tony stopped Col. Lorne in the Mess at breakfast to ask if he had time for a quick word, and now after mostly picking at his food and dropping Belle off to class, he was making his way to the Acting CO’s office. He’d always thought Evan’s office was way too tiny to be the CO’s and it turned out he was right. After he’d been appointed as the acting commanding officer, he’d refused to move into Colonel Sheppard’s more impressive-sized room, stating that it would be a waste of time because he would just have to move back again as soon as they found John Sheppard. As a morale-boosting move, it was pretty damned smart, because it broadcast loud and clear to his fellow Lanteans that Lorne was confident his appointment was only going to be a short-term one.
As it turned out, they were now approaching the eight-month mark of Lorne acting as the CO, and while theoretically, John was probably physically fit enough to take over some of the administrative duties, he still hadn’t been cleared medically or psychologically. Even if he had, with the trials of all of the Genii and Lavin getting underway soon, General O’Neill on the advice of the temporarily reinstated JAG Admiral Chegwidden, advised that he should not assume command just yet. Which left Evan looking at remaining in the role for at least another couple of months and doing it in a ridiculously small office.
Knocking first and waiting for an invite, he entered and took a seat without waiting for permission. “What can I do you for,” Lorne asked.
“Have you received the list of the judge advocates arriving today yet,” Tony asked him anxiously.
Handing over the list, Evan watched his friend’s expression with concern. “Problem I should be aware of?”
“I was afraid of that,” Tony replied, after quickly scanning the list and seeing his worst fears had been realised.
Brig Gen Marc Santiago Judge Advocate General USAF
Judge Advocates: USAF
Maj Megan Chambers – Western US: stationed at McChord (WA), Nellis ( NV), Vandenberg (CA) European: Aviano AB Italy.
Capt. Ayesha Khan – Eastern: stationed at Langley, VA, Scott (Il), JB Anacostia Bolling (DC), Pacific – JB Hickam- Pearl Harbor AB (HI).
Capt. Stewart Tines – Central: Stationed at Grand Forks (ND), Petersen (CO), Pacific: Yokota AB (Japan),
Capt. Ryan Richards – Western: Stationed at Beale (CA) Europe: Ramstein AB, (Germany).
Capt. Sara Abrams – Eastern: JB Andrews (MD), Charleston (SC), Europe: Spangdahlem AB, (Germany), RAF Mildenhall (UK).
Judge Advocates: USN
Cdr Leila Piroshki – RLSO Western Pacific – Stationed in Japan and Singapore
Lt Cdr Gregory Vukovic – RLSO Southwest – Stationed at Naval Base San Diego, Transferred to Falls Church, (VA) in 2011
Lt Cdr Tali Mayfield – RLSO Southwest – Stationed at Naval Base San Diego, RLSO Northwest Served at Bremerton WA, Honolulu (HI)
Lt Cdr Cathryn Graves – RLSO Southwest Worked at Naval Base San Diego before transfer to DC Naval Yard in 2014
Lt Cdr DeShayne Jennings – RLSO Southeast -worked in Pensacola, Fort Jackson, (Fl) Fort Worth (TX) New Orleans (LA) Guantanamo Bay (Cuba)
~~
Looking even more concerned now, Lorne asked, “Problem, Alex?”
“Yeah, I recognise two of the Naval judge advocates on the list, Lorne. Lt Cdr Vukovic who worked at Falls Church in VA and Lt Cdr Graves. She worked at the DC office since approximately 2014 and considered herself to be quite the young legal hotshot. Luckily, I was only involved in two or three cases where I gave evidence in cases where she was defending. Hopefully, she didn’t pay all that much attention to me,” he said trying to be optimistic.
Lorne thought that Alex was being way too sanguine. The truth was that Paddington was charismatic and even though Evan was straight and not into guys, he was not blind either. He knew Alex was too damned attractive to be easily forget, but still, Alex was older and looked a lot different from what he did when he first arrived. He had to laugh at the gradual changing of the federal agent’s appearance but when he noticed it, he put down to the agent contemplating going back to Cheyenne Mountain or Earth for some reason to do with an investigation. When the others had been wringing their hands in woe before deciding he needed an intervention, Evan told them all not to bother Alex about it but had been duly ignored. Now he realised the former undercover operative had foreseen just this eventuality and tried to prepare for it. What were the odds though?
“And what about Lt Cdr Vukovic,” he asked uneasily.
“He was assigned to the Falls Church Office, midway through 2011 and there were four courts-martial which I testified in. He was prosecuting two, so the MCRT was cooperating closely with him on those. He very well may recognise me,” he concluded pessimistically.
“Maybe not. You’ve done a pretty good job of subtly changing your appearance. The only thing the brain trust identified was all the weight you’ve dropped but now that I have a reason to, I’ve just realised that you must be wearing coloured lenses too because I’m sure your eyes are green like Belle’s. Plus, the faux glasses do help too, along with the lighter hair colour and longer length. Vukovic isn’t going to be expecting you here, especially as an AFOSI/ FBI agent with Belle. I’ve read your jacket – you’re considered to be one of the best undercover operatives in law enforcement. Let’s hope for the best.”
Tony sighed, “Your right, nothing else to be done. Can you at least put Vukovic in quarters that aren’t near mine? I’ll also try to get A.J. to assign him to cases I’m not testifying on if possible,” he said, thinking out loud.
Lorne nodded, I’ll stick the navy judge advocates into quarters in the west tower with all the single members, might keep them occupied if they have any free time on their hands. The Air Force JAs can bunk in with the single scientists in the southern block. You know, I’m pretty sure that Vukovic and Graves weren’t on the original list.”
Lorne checked his records, finding an earlier list of personnel and compared it to the one he’d shown Tony before telling him, “Yeah, I was right. Vukovic and Graves weren’t originally assigned to Atlantis. Lieutenants Jayne Karlson and Peter Patrick were supposed to be here.”
“Okay, so why didn’t they?”
Lorne shook his head. “Maybe they refused to sign the NDA or there was some issue with their security clearances,” he said checking through the ton of files pertaining to the JAG personnel until he located it. “Okay, well that’s a bit weird. Patrick had a car accident ten days ago and was seriously injured, he’s paraplegic. As for Karlson, her mother suffered a stroke last week and she was granted compassionate leave,” he revealed uneasily.
“Oh yeah, I agree. One of them having to pull out I could accept. Shit happens, but two navy JAs having to withdraw due to external circumstances is way too coincidental for my liking,” Tony said uneasily.
“Well, until we can find out more, let’s hope for the best with this pair,” Lorne said mentally crossing his fingers that Lt Cdrs Vukovic and Graves weren’t too observant. “ You’d better go talk to Admiral Chegwidden asap so he can make sure to assign them both to cases you won’t need to testify in.”
“Right, and at least all the shit with wearing coloured contact lenses, and glasses and dying my hair wasn’t a complete waste of time,” Alex said, trying to look on the bright side.
~o0o~
Ten days later, the military trials of the rogue Genii militia were already underway. Tony was keeping his head down, metaphorically if not literally. He knew that would be too suspicious if he avoided the JAs completely, given his position on Atlantis, although he and A.J. had decided that as Atlantis’s AFOSI agent, he would deal with the AF judge advocates and Captain Cadman being a Marine, would liaise with the Navy judge advocates. Meanwhile, when they ate in the mess, he used the other Atlantis members who had children to help camouflage his and Belle’s presence, as well as Cassie Fraiser, Ronon Dex and Amelia Banks. His reserved demeanour didn’t attract speculation amongst the normally gossipy Lanteans since most people simply assumed that with almost forty trials being held, SAIC Agent Alex Paddington had a lot on his plate.
So, he kept his head down, working his butt off and he hoped like hell it would be enough. It was, after all, no mean feat helping organise thirty-nine military trials, so hopefully, no one expected him to be running around laughing and joking without a care in the world, not with so many to coordinate. If with everything he’d done so far to prevent him being recognised failed, there wasn’t all that much more he could do about it.
They had allocated four weeks for the trials. They were fortunate enough to be able to run two trials per day since they had two sitting judges but even with the two JAGs presiding, they still needed two judge advocates per case (prosecution and defence) and a five-person jury. Just organising jury members was in itself, something of a logistical nightmare due to the custom of having officers on juries, although there was the precedent that if an enlisted person were on trial, they could request that up to a third of the jury be enlisted personnel too. Since the Genii were acting as a rogue force and therefore their rank was immaterial, the powers that be had decreed that two of the five-person jury could consist of enlisted personnel, which made things a little bit easier. However, it was still difficult to find personnel to seat the juries.
Many of the Atlantis staff had taken part in the rescue of Colonel Sheppard, so that meant that they were limited in who could be assigned to juries. That was why they’d limited the jury pool of Atlantis military personnel to anyone who had arrived after the rescue mission took place. Lt Jennifer Hailey immediately found herself pressganged into jury duty, along with the others who had arrived with the Hotchners aboard the Zephyrus almost two months ago. The Zephyrus, having just returned with more supplies, found their currently crew quickly co-opted into serving on a jury too and even then, they still needed extra military personnel from Cheyenne Mountain to be shuttled in via Midway II.
Bottom line, even with the halving of the number of personnel permitted on each jury, they would still require two hundred service members to fill the juries which was certainly going to be very challenging logistically to pull off so many trials one after the other. Tony, like everyone on Atlantis, was stretched thin and definitely could have done with more agents to assist in keeping the peace. Atlantis residents, civilian and military were on edge, not just with the influx of so many temporary personnel but also because their emotions over Col Sheppard’s abduction and torture were still quite volatile. While most people weren’t privy to the true horrors he’d received during incarceration, there were obvious physical effects they could see. That and the fact he was not yet cleared to return to active duty was confirmation enough for Lanteans to know he’d been cruelly beaten and starved.
Therefore, it was hardly surprising that as the trials were taking place, petty disagreements soared as tempers flared and boiled over, requiring Cpt Cadman and Tony to spend time putting out fires every day. Often, they needed to confine miscreants to their quarters because the Brig was where they were holding the Genii while their cases were being heard. The last thing Atlantis needed was for their paths to intersect with the rogue Genii.
At the end of the first week, tempers were continuing to spill over, and minor disagreements had escalated. Still, everyone involved in the trials believed that the first ten Genii had received a fair trial and it was not surprising that all ten had been found guilty of abduction, unlawful incarceration, and torture of Colonel Sheppard, but it was cause for much celebration. However, that left twenty-nine more Genii to face trial before the more complex cases of Porteus Kolya, and his 2IC and Lucius Lavin could be tried.
So there was much relief on Friday night when Ambassador AuClair announced that Daniel, Vala, Cassie and Amelia had organised a Movie Night for tomorrow night. Ronon Dex had led a hunting party to catch an elk-like beast and got lucky, bagging three. In honour of the lawyers and the judges, the mess staff was going to spit roast them for dinner before the movies commenced. Tony had also noticed that Vala and Daniel had been sticking close with the judge advocates in their off hours, keeping them distracted. He detected Jack O’Neill’s hand in that situation, especially Vala’s outrageous flirting with Gregory Vukovic who had a reputation as a player.
Still, the whole feast and movie night was a genius move on several levels since there was still a long way to go to ensure that John Sheppard received justice for the crimes committed against him. Hopefully, people would let off steam in a less violent destructive fashion.
Back when they’d been discussing what to do with the Genii and Lorne and General O’Neill had expressed their preferred option of just double zatting them or hoping they’d resisted so that the rescuers could have taken them down with extreme prejudice, Tony had objected. He’d expressed the belief that it was important to try these men so that justice could be seen to be done. The Atlantean multinational military forces needed to know that what happened to their CO would not be tolerated. Leaving no individual behind was an important credo but out here in a distant galaxy serving their country far from home where alien foes were a constant reality, they needed to believe that the powers that be back home would always have their sixes.
Finding and rescuing John Sheppard had been a crucial part of the ‘leave no one behind mantra’ but until justice was served, and seen to be served, it was only a part of the equation. Transparently conducting military trials on Atlantis even if they were restricted, would go a long way to achieving those objectives in a way that ultra-secret trials or disappearing them never would. Hopefully, too, justice would bring with it, validation, and closure for the colonel. It was a difficult yet integral part of his recovery, albeit merely the beginning of a long road stretching out before him. And yet all journeys needed to begin somewhere.
At the same time, justice which is seen to be done was an equally important deterrent to ensure that troops wouldn’t be tempted to act unlawfully or dishonourably in the future. Atrocities should never be condoned, no matter how egregious or abhorrent the enemies’ actions were, and these Genii trials were sending a message to serving troops that the Lantean troops would be held to the highest standards of behaviour.
If there was one thing that Tony still agreed with Jethro Gibbs about, it was that armed forces and civilian law enforcement professionals should be held to a significantly higher standard of conduct than the average person on the street. It was just a pity that Gibbs wasn’t able to hold himself to those higher standards, first as a Marine when he lost his family and went off seeking revenge, nor when he swore an oath as a federal agent then ignored it, covering up capital crimes for his family and friends.
Pushing aside those maudlin thoughts, Tony felt a degree of grim satisfaction in witnessing this first test of the nascent law enforcement agency they were building on Atlantis. When he’d first stepped foot on the giant city, he had no idea that such an enormous challenge of these trials would be part of his first serious case. He was proud that so far, they had been able to rise to the challenge, but he tried not to feel too much pride. They still had a long way to go before the case was over, but he did allow himself to bask just a little in the glow of a promising start.
~o0o~
The six female JAG lawyers had decided to ditch their male colleagues on Friday evening after a week-long slog-fest, trying ten cases. That they still faced another twenty-eight more cases in the next couple of weeks meant that their plan to cut loose tonight was not so much of a celebration as a mere blowing off steam. They were all still coming to terms with the fact that these trials weren’t trying US military personnel on one of the USA’s many military bases around the world, but an alien race called the Genii. And if that wasn’t bizarre enough, the hearings were taking place in an ancient floating city in the Pegasus galaxy. Most people on Earth had no clue that they had conquered space travel within the Milky Way with space ships and gate travel, let alone that they’d encounter hundreds of alien races and even discovered the fabled Lost City of Atlantis in a far-flung galaxy.
Because this information was so top secret, the chances of them ever being able to share this information with anyone, was remote at best. The hoops they’d had to go through to be assigned to this case were extraordinary and the NDAs they’d been forced to sign before they could be read in on the Stargate was mind-blowing. Tonight, was the first chance they’d had since arriving here to appreciate the enormity of the fantastic situation they found themselves in and the prospect of two days R&R before the trials recommenced on Monday meant they were in the mood to party. They had started out in the Mess and were eyeing the local talent sans Tinder and Match, thinking that some mindless sexual activity might be just the stress relief they needed to deal with the taxing week ahead.
So far, they’d identified Col Sheppard as single, and a definite candidate based on his position as CO and his good looks and physique, but they also knew he was a witness and victim, plus he was on medical leave, so off-limits. Lieutenant Colonel Lorne was a definite contender with his dark hair, blue eyes and good looks but had a reputation as being strait-laced. Ronon was a definite hell-yeah, his whole warrior façade, his to-die-for-body and his long locks of curly hair made him a person that stood out from the crowd. He’d been right up the top of everyone’s fuck list so there was a certain amount of disappointment when Amelia Banks, his girlfriend joined him for dinner and gave him a far-from perfunctory kiss on the mouth. She had a predatory air about her, that matched Dex’s dangerous vibe, making it clear he was already claimed by her.
Major Megan Chambers shook her head regretfully. “Guess we can cross Ronon Sex off the list,” she pouted, deliberately messing up his name.
Lt Cdr Tali Mayfield shook her head, “It’s Dex, not Sex, Meg.” Seeing the major’s sardonic expression, the somewhat ingenuous brunette realised the malapropism had not been accidental, it was a pun.
“Oh…um, well I think that you’re right. That woman is acting pretty proprietary even if she left her ‘Back Off, Bitch, he’s mine,’ T-shirt at home, she said, only half joking.
Captain Sara Abrams shook her head. “What a waste. I would have liked to ride that -wild Mustang; I do so love me a well-endowed one,” she said looking regretful. “I wonder what she has that he wants, she’s not exactly centrefold model material,” she said somewhat archly as she appraised the competition critically.
Abrams was brunette like Amelia, with deep brown eyes and she was way curvier than the athletic analyst. In her experience, the best sex to be had was with someone who was already in a stable relationship. That way, both participants knew it was purely physical and there was no risk of emotional attachments being formed or feelings getting hurt. Abrams resolved to watch and wait, perhaps Ronon Sex might not be averse to a little extra-curricular activities but for tonight at least, she’d be looking elsewhere.
Ayesha Khan was not really into no-strings sex, but she played along with the other officers. As a female Muslim Air Force officer, she just wanted to fit in as much as possible and not advertise her differences. So, when Daniel Jackson wandered into the mess, she already knew he was in a relationship with Vala Mal Doran, who according to scuttlebutt was an alien space pirate. She nudged the others and said, “I’ve always preferred me some brains over brawn, but Dr Jackson also has some impressive pecs and guns from what I hear.”
Lt Cdr Cathryn Graves eyed him up. “Yeah, he’s got a pretty nice ass too but unfortunately, he and Vala Mal Doran are joined at the hip,” she told Ayesha regretfully.
Abrams, eyeing Daniel lasciviously said, “Word has it they’re joined in a much more intimate way than their hips, if you catch my drift,” as Ayesha flushed and looked uncomfortable. Her Pakistani-born mother would not approve of such discussions and she’d wanted to organise an arranged marriage for Ayesha before her daughter rebelled and enlisted in the Air Force.
When Aaron and Jack Hotchner appeared in the mess and made a bee-line for the table with the other families that were filling up rapidly, Lt Cdr Leila Piroshki drooled. “There goes tall, dark, and handsome. He’s a marathon runner and the civvy prosecutor. Pretty much ticks all my boxes,” she said dreamily.
Ayesha responded, “But he’s got a fourteen-year-old son, Leila.”
“So what? I don’t want to play happy families with the man, just fuck him stupid, Khan, “ she responded crudely. “Don’t go getting all moralistic with me when I just have a little itch I want counsellor dreamy-boat to scratch,” she told the Air Force major.
“Leila is here for a good time, not a long time, isn’t that right, Piroshki,” Tali Millfield taunted the auburn-haired, green-eyed bombshell.
The Lt Cdr shrugged. “What can I say, I love me a marathon man, they’ve got stamina,” she boasted.
It was at that point that Cadman, Alison Porter and Sgt Stackhouse entered the Mess, accompanied by the AFOSI/ FBI agent, Alexander Paddington. All six of the judge advocates stopped their banter to stare blatantly at the group.
“Oh my, I want me some of that,” Cathryn Graves faux whispered, staring at the tall, athletic-looking agent. He’s gorgeous,” she pronounced.
Khan decided to tease her, “Sargent Stackhouse? Planning on slumming it with an NCO are we, Graves?”
“No, you imbecile, Agent Hot Stuff. I’m a sucker for a guy with hair that I can hold onto as he drives me wild.”
Sara and Meg agreed. “He’s pretty damned hot, shame he hides those baby blues behind, those big ‘ol glasses,” Meg said while staring at him with her tongue hanging out but then, none of them were being exactly discreet.
All six of the judge advocates decided that he was top of their list for nocturnal escapades and each one was fantasizing about having sex with him when Vala wandered over and sat down beside them.
Enjoying yourselves, ladies,” Vala asked in amusement, knowing exactly what the six officers were up to.
“Definitely,” Leila agreed, not taking her eyes off the federal agent.
“Far be it for me to interfere with you compiling a fuck-list, ladies, but I feel I need to dash your hopes where Agent Studly is concerned. He lost his wife in a car crash some time ago, and he only has eyes for one female on Atlantis. So, I wouldn’t waste your time trying to bed Alex,” she advised them gently.
“So, tell us, who is the competition? The brunette with the doe eyes or the red-headed Marine,” the blonde Cathryn Graves asked curiously.
Vala sniggered, “No, not Dr Porter nor Captain Cadman. Her name is Belle…”
Just then, Belle spied her father approaching the large family table, having sent her down to dinner earlier with Teyla, Felix, and Torren. She squealed in excitement and announced loudly enough for the entire Mess to hear, “Papa, you’re late! Don’t worry, I saved you a seat next to me.”
Sniggering, the space pirate told them gleefully, “That’s your competition, ladies. Meet Belle Paddington, his daughter. She’s four years old and he’s completely besotted by the little minx and so is practically everyone on base. But be warned, she’s territorial about her daddy,” she counselled them before wandering back to the table where Daniel, Amelia and Ronon were sitting, finishing up their not-beef burgers with much enthusiasm.
As Vala walked away from the six female JAG officers, she said softly to herself, “Don’t worry Alex, I have your six.”
Chapter 13
Vala Mal Doran never told anyone, but when she was healing people with the Goa’uld healing device, she was able to visualise injuries that she needed to focus on to heal them. The healing device wasn’t just a point it at the person and ‘let it do the job’ technology; the wearer was the interface between the device and the patient and was a very necessary component to power and direct the process. Of course, a crucial aspect of that interface was that they have trace elements of Naquadah in their system to ensure that only Goa’ulds could use the healing device. Fortunately, that meant that even though she no longer carried a Goa’uld, she was able to use the technology.
However, along with the physical injuries that she was able to visualise during the process, she was also able to see emotional and psychological scars and injuries too. Not that the healing device could heal those types of injuries; or if it were possible, it was beyond Vala’s level of healing. However, it was Vala’s personal opinion that the device couldn’t actually heal anything other than physical injuries or illnesses, which made sense because Goa’ulds were not exactly known for their empathy or caring nature. Caught up in their massive scale of narcissism, realistically they were only capable of experiencing a handful of emotions, mostly terribly destructive ones, chiefly associated with anger. So, it made sense that they wouldn’t envisage a need to heal someone’s mental trauma or emotional distress, since they were incapable of feeling empathy for anyone.
So even if it were possible, at least in a theoretical sense for someone to use a Goa’uld healing device to heal mental trauma and emotional damage, the bottom line was it would never occur to a Goa’uld to attempt it. Vala was self-aware enough to know that even if it were possible for a non-Goa’uld to heal non-physical wounds, she was too deeply flawed from her own horrific trauma – years of being a helpless host for the most malignant narcissistic being imaginable – to heal anyone else’s pain. First, she would need someone to heal her.
Despite this, she could still see all the mental trauma and emotional damage people carried around with them whenever she wielded the Healing Device, she just couldn’t do a damned thing to mend them. When she healed John Sheppard after his rescue several months ago, being able to visualise his horrific levels of emotion and psychological damage on top of his physical wounds left her a basket case for days. Knowing the only thing she could do was physically heal him didn’t nearly adequately fix him had been deeply depressing, especially as Vala and Dr Lam weren’t confident enough about the device to try to heal his severe malnutrition. Thus, they’d opted to take a more conservative but time-consuming approach which she found frustrating.
Yes, Vala had healed John’s broken ribs that had occurred quite recently and some other recent fractures, but the bones that had been broken months before and left to heal misaligned was also something the healing device couldn’t correct. Still, when Dr Lam was finally ready to rebreak and reset the bones in their proper alignment, Vala would be ready willing and overjoyed to speed up the recovery process significantly. The healing device could counter the effects of swelling and pain, but the trauma of how those injuries occurred was beyond her abilities to heal and it frustrated her terribly.
She had been able to heal the physical results of his sexual abuse, saving him from what Dr Lam had called a temporary colostomy which Carolyn had been ecstatically happy about and learning about it, Vala understood. John Sheppard would have loathed it, even if it were reversible when everything had a chance to heal up. And she’d also been able to heal all the terrible scarring and burns on the Colonel’s genitals, much to the doctors’ relief but it still didn’t feel like it was enough for Vala, being able to see just how much emotional trauma remained.
Knowing someone was suffering mentally and emotionally was one thing but when she was quite literally able to visualise that hurt, like on an X-ray or a scan was truly intolerable. John was going to face years of trying to process all that pain and trauma and it frustrated her not to be able to help him heal.
It was why she always felt like using the device to heal someone was such an intimate and incredibly personal experience. Vala had never let on to anyone that she was able to see an individual’s innermost pain, but she had always instinctively protected an individual’s privacy. Intuitively, she felt that if they realised she held such intimate knowledge about them, it would make people terribly uncomfortable in her presence, not to mention incredibly vulnerable because that’s how she would feel too if their roles were reversed.
And when it came to the dishy Atlantis investigator, who at General O’Neill’s request she did a healing session on Alex Paddington, she was immediately able to see the damage done to his lungs. She was surprised that he was still able to walk around with that much damage, to be honest, and she’d also zeroed in on his knee that had a lot of scar tissue build up and also damage done by what the Earth doctors called arthritic changes. Both of which she was able to heal fairly easily. But she was also able to see evidence of past injuries by following the calcium build-up over previously broken bones, some so old that they must have occurred in childhood. Then there were injuries she recognised as bullet wounds, thanks to scarring. It told a tale of someone who was injured more than average, far more than a lot of the military personnel that she frequently was called upon to heal back at Cheyenne Mountain.
That alone told her that Alex Paddington was either a trouble magnet, like her Daniel and General O’Neill, or he was far too cavalier about his own life in the pursuit of protecting other people. But while she had scanned and healed him physically, Vala found a great deal of emotional pain and psychological trauma, some of which reminded her of Daniel’s pain. Fear of abandonment, fear of being hurt, feelings of utter worthlessness, shame and self-loathing like she’d never seen, except for her own, which for her had resulted from being an unwilling human host to an evil narcissistic parasite. That monster Qetesh used Vala to commit unspeakable crimes against humanity and left her feeling sullied and overwhelmingly shamed. Guilt that she instantly recognised when she encountered it in Alex…so much guilt and self-hate it left her breathless and close to tears.
Vala wasn’t sure why Alex lived with so much pain and suffering, some of it fresh, some of it long-term, but it left her feeling a deep kinship with this man and made her deeply protective of him. In personality, Alex reminded her a lot like herself. She was social, chatty, talkative to the point of driving other people to distraction and all too willing to use her sexuality to charm people into doing what she wanted. With the myriad of masks that each used as a form of protection and camouflage, they could easily have been twins. Well okay…twins if it weren’t for the fact that she was hundreds of years older than he was, having spent far too long in a sarcophagus to extend her host’s lifespan.
Now that she was free of the hated creature at long last, Vala was highly skilled at infiltrating groups, using masks and her superb acting skills to fit in because she had always felt as if there was nowhere she truly fit in. And Vala watched, enthralled by Alex’s chameleon-like ability to fit in smoothly with the enlisted personnel, the officers, and the civilians, shifting personas with the skill of someone with plenty of practice. Understanding on an instinctive level why he was the way he was, without knowing the gory details, she also saw all of the vulnerable things he tried to hide: his soft caring side, his need to protect others, even at the cost of his own welfare. His mind was as sharp as any of the geniuses who inhabited this city, despite downplaying his level of intelligence. In that regard he reminded her of General Jack, yet another intensely complex man, more comfortable making people think he was of only average intelligence but was anything but merely average.
Healing Alex physically, but not emotionally, knowing all the pain he dragged around with him, his similar personality traits to her own and his innate goodness as a person had made Vala feel unbelievably maternal towards him. That was also awkward as she felt rather attracted to him and might have made a move if she wasn’t so hung up on her patron saint of lost causes, Daniel Jackson. After giving birth to her daughter Adra who was Alteran, Vala’s longing for children had been reignited and she yearned to have a child with him, believing he’d make a great father. So, while she admitted that Alexander Paddington was gorgeous and that daughter of his was so damned cute, she was still holding onto the hope that somehow, someday, Daniel would finally be able to put his ghosts to rest.
Which wasn’t to say that she wouldn’t protect Alex with the energy of a fierce lioness protecting its cubs. When she saw those six females tonight in the mess, clearly on the prowl, composing a target list of their prey, she wasn’t about to stand idly by and let them mess with Alex. She’d already seen them eyeing off Ronon and Daniel – they weren’t exactly subtle – but she knew that Amelia and Ronon had their measure and Daniel was immune to their games. She’d seen it too many times as a member of SG1 where stunningly beautiful women tried to seduce him, and he was oblivious to their attempts. She knew, because when she tried flirting with him, he thought she was teasing him, so she had no fear that they would succeed in enticing him into their beds for a meaningless encounter and hurt him.
No, it was Alex that had roused her considerable ire at the thought of those hussies wanting a quick roll in the sheets with him since she’d noted his unmuted reaction when someone suggested he was in a relationship or was the object of someone’s desire before he brushed it off. She had a pretty good hunch about what caused such extreme reactions to the mention of having sex with someone. Just as she had a damned good idea about how John Sheppard’s injuries had come about too. Luckily for the lady lawyers, they had the good sense not to make John a target because she would have felt obligated to protect him too.
Plus, there was the request from Jack, to run interference with the team of lawyers, and keep them entertained during their off-duty hours that had brought about the plan for tomorrow night. Vala, Cassie and Amelia had plans to take the legal team for a picnic to the mainland in a couple of jumpers to keep them busy during their days off after she realised that the New Atlanteans were uncomfortable having such a large contingent of lawyers on their floating city. Especially because some of them were tasked with defending the Genii, which put them at odds with every other person on Atlantis.
Yet it wasn’t until tonight as she was watching that female hoard of hyenas salaciously preparing a list of targets to be pursued, that General Jack’s request combined with some of the emotions she visualised when she healed Alex started falling neatly into place. The revelation made Vala see that she had even more in common with Alex than she’d realised.
After she was freed from her Goa’uld parasite, she’d gone back to surviving as best she could. She knew that people referred to her as a space pirate, but she preferred to think of herself as a survivor. To get hold of the booty she needed to mix with the high rollers and charm them out of intel or even help her get past their security measures. Vala would have to be on guard constantly, never able to relax or trust anyone which was exhausting. But being on high alert could be exhilarating too, especially as her fame grew and she needed to keep on reinventing herself to stay ahead of the game. Plus, it also distracted her from thinking about the horrors she endured as a host
Which was how she immediately noticed what Alex had been doing recently, reinventing himself. It happened so gradually that no one noticed it. Alright perhaps General Jack did, that man had a seriously dark side – she’d seen it after using the healing device on him a time or two and she also knew that he was not as dumb as he wanted people to think. Well unless it came to dealing with Cassie and her ruined wedding that is. Then he was a buffoon!
But while everyone had noticed Alex’s weight – losing roughly thirty pounds was not something easily hidden – Vala catalogued the other changes. The glasses, his hair – wearing it longer and it was a lot lighter in colour than it was when she first arrived, something she’d unconsciously put down to being bleached by the sun until now. She also realised something else. With the weight loss, which he explained away as being able to run further now that she healed his lungs and his knee injury, plus the healing had reset his metabolism to high, she noted that he’s been subtly changing his physique too.
In addition to the extra running that he did without fail every day, joining Ronon and Aaron Hotchner as they churned out the miles, Paddington also encouraged John Sheppard and Dr Girard to join a Pilates exercise group and he’d joined it too. At first Vala and the others in their social group had teased him about doing Pilates, seeing that the majority of the participants were female. He’d replied that it was a good form of rehab for John, who was making steady progress but was nowhere near ready to take up regular running sessions with Ronon yet. It was an irrefutable statement and most of the men shrugged and figured Alex went along to meet women. Now Vala recalled something that Laura Cadman had said about Pilates changing your body’s shape through burning fat and toning that resulted in leaner more defined muscles. Amelia had replied that was the exact opposite of lifting weights which bulked up muscles that many people seemed to admire, especially males.
While she was not averse to the occasional dalliance with a muscled-up he-man, as a personal preference, Vala preferred her guys to be lean and sculpted. After all, in her line of work, flexibility and balance were two attributes highly desirable when you needed to extricate yourself from tricky situations. Heavily muscled types generally weren’t terribly flexible or capable of squeezing out of tight spaces or using narrow rope bridges to escape when being hunted down with the loot. Ronon Dex was a rare exception to the rule, being surprisingly flexible from what she’d seen. Then again, his impressively buffed physique had been honed when he spent seven years on the run from the Wraith and killing most of them with nothing but his bare hands.
Still, as she returned to her table to resume her dinner, she realised that Alex was trying to hide out in plain sight from someone. He rarely hung out in public with anyone anymore aside from the parents and kids, although he was still friendly with his friends in private, inviting them to come around and watch movies. And since the General had gone out of his way to request that Vala keep the JAG lawyers busy, she’d bet her stash of Cerador rubies that he was trying to fool one of those ten officers. Hence her vow to have his six as the military people liked to say. Since she was rather a sucker for a sexy ass, she certainly didn’t mind having Alex’s. Even disguised by his Atlantis uniform trousers, it was a mighty fine one if she was any judge… and she was one helluva a judge having lived a very long life.
And that was another thing, she realised belatedly. It was only recently that Alex had started wearing the Atlantis Uniform exclusively when previously, he usually chose to wear civvies. He was trying to hide amongst the crowd, she realised and having been privy to his emotional and mental pain, she was determined to help him in any way possible.
Overwhelmed by her epiphany, she wandered back to her Daniel and her dinner which was probably cold by now.
~o0o~
As Vala sauntered somewhat absently back to their table, Daniel noted that she seem preoccupied and then his quick hearing caught what sounded like a vow spoken sotte voce. “Don’t worry Alex, I have your six.”
As she sat down he asked the uncharacteristically pensive space pirate, “What are you up to, Vala?
“Just trying to save a friend from ending up as fodder for that pack of hungry female hyenas,” his normally sassy friend told him bluntly.
“Alex? Why were you trying to save him, he seems perfectly capable of looking after himself,” Daniel told her seriously.
“My Daniel, give him a gun or a Zat and I’m sure he is more than capable of defending himself, but those hussies wouldn’t be coming at him with a gun.”
Ronon looked up from his half-eaten second not-beef burger. “What does that mean?”
Vala pursed her lips disapprovingly, although she recognised that a large part of her condemnation was because they’d dared to target Alex and Daniel. “They are composing a fuck-list for the weekend,” she said angrily.
Amelia exchanged a look with Vala who she’d come to like a lot. While Ronon had been back at Stargate Command with Colonel Sheppard, Vala had befriended her and helped her to not feel too desperately lonely in her partner’s absence.
“Well, that’s not exactly shocking. Alex is a pretty hot guy,” she observed. Seeing Ronon about to weigh in, she added. “Don’t worry babe, I prefer my guys with more muscles than Alex but plenty of people are keen on a lithe toned physique. I’m just saying,” she told the three other occupants of the table.
Giving Amelia a steely-eyed look that had the ladies at the JAG table overly- optimistic that they might stand a chance of snaring the tall Satedan, Dex said. “Don’t see the problem. Alex can handle a few hot-dog females.
Giggling at Daniel and Vala’s confusion, she explained. “I think Ronon means horn-dog females. The term horn-dogs are usually only used to refer to males, babe,” she told her partner gently.
“If the leather foot covering fits,” he said cheekily. “Anyway, my point stands. Alex can take care of himself, Vala. He might even enjoy a bout or two of uncomplicated sex,” he said, astutely understanding that this was just conquest sex, no strings attached.
Daniel nodded. “I have to agree with Dex. Stop mother-henning him, Vala. Those ladies aren’t a threat, they seem pretty harmless” he said, somewhat foolishly.
She smiled at him, pulling out the dangerous grin that meant, ‘Oh boy, you are so far out of your depths, you’re about to drown, and said, “Really? Is that so? Then I suppose that neither of you two hotties will be upset when I tell you that you made the JAG ladies’ fuck-list too, gentlemen.
Daniel looked alarmed. “What? Oh, no. You’ve got to help me Vala, you know I’m not comfortable around sexually aggressive women,” he begged her as she and Amelia jeered.
“And why is Ronon on the list anyway,” the genius archaeologist demanded, looking at Amelia. He’s with Amelia and she’ll rip the face off anyone who tries to get too friendly with him.”
Rolling their eyes at his naivety, Amelia took up the cudgel to try to make him understand. “They don’t care because they don’t want a deep and meaningful relationship with you two, they just want a couple of pretty guys with hard bodies and well-endowed dicks for a couple of hours of mindless sexual gratification, Daniel.”
“Wow, I feel so demeaned,” Daniel whined.
“Welcome to the age of equality,” Amelia quipped facetiously.
Ronon quirked an eyebrow, the one that had two slash marks in it that marred the physical perfection of his features and yet to Vala made him more handsome since he wasn’t perfect. Daniel bit though, taking the bait.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Nodded to the four male JAG officers sitting at a table at the back of the mess. “What do you think those boys are up to,” Amelia asked Ronon and Daniel, who looked at her cluelessly.
Chuckling throatily, Vala told them, “They’re just doing what men have always done, busy working on their own fuck-list, gentlemen. When Alison Porter and Laura Cadman came in with Alex, their eyes practically popped out of their heads and they were busy rating their assets and adding them to the list,” she told them laughingly.
“Not Lt Cdr Vukovic,” Amelia told them. “He was too damned busy checking out Alex’s ass.
Vala stared at her new gal pal. It was something she really liked about being here on Atlantis, the women had offered her their friendship. Back at Stargate, many of the female staff were downright hostile towards her. She could count on one hand the female friends she had there, even after being on SG1. With Sam off commanding the warship George Hammond and Dr Caroline Lam on leave for a special project in the Pegasus galaxy, Vala found it pretty lonely there without some friendly females.
“Are you sure about the Lt Commander? I wasn’t getting gay vibes from him,” she asked Amelia.
“No, neither was I. Perhaps he’s bi,” she said, “but it was hard to miss him checking out Alex, who for the record, does have a really cute ass, so I can’t really blame him.”
When Ronon was about to object, Amelia scowled at him. “Oh please, Ronon! Like I haven’t seen you checking out Vala’s ass a time or three,” she said smugly as Vala choked.
While she certainly wasn’t displeased to hear Ronon had been admiring her assets, she was also hoping that Amelia was right about Vukovic being gay or bi and that he wasn’t interested in Alex for a more sinister reason.
“I don’t get it,” Ronon told them as Vala realised she’d missed some of the conversation. “If they all wanted to have a weekend of marathon sex, why not just hook up with each other? The people they’re targeting may not be interested or available,” he said shooting his significant other with a look.
“Because of fraternisation regs,” Daniel supplied. “The military has all sorts of complex rules and regulations about relationships and sex. It’s just easier for military personnel to look outside the box, especially when there are civilians to choose from, he said with a shrug. I guess it’s the equivalent of a Navy ship on shore leave.
~o0o~
Tony kept a low profile over the weekend, but as the outstanding undercover operative he’d always been, even as a child who had needed to stay out of the way of a violent drunk, he knew that holing up with Tali in their quarters would only draw inadvertent attention to himself. So, they’d eaten breakfast at home on both mornings and he’d organised a picnic lunch outside on the concourse with the rest of Tali’s class as the kids raced their remote-control cars around the racetrack built by a bunch of off-duty Marines for the kids. Although Tony suspected that the Marines planned to use the track when it was unoccupied.
After Tali had challenged Col Sheppard regarding his gender bias, giving Torren and Felix remote control racing cars, but not Kazumi Radek, the next shipment of supplies brought to Atlantis via the Zephyrus which arrived earlier this week had also contained two remote control racing cars. One for Kazumi and the other for Tali. Naturally, she’d been delighted and given the colonel a massive hug in delight. He wasn’t entirely convinced that Kazumi was equally as excited, but since Tali had rabbited on about how great it would be, she’d dutifully gone along with his daughter’s plans to beat the two boys.
Today was the first day they’d had a chance to hold proper races rather than holding makeshift ones in the family rec room and hallways. Tony reckoned it was a good excuse to stay out of the way of the JAG officers and let off some steam with the kids after the trials this week. After hearing what the younger kids were up to, Jack Hotchner and the older kids had turned up to watch them and then appropriate the track to race the robotic cars they had been building with Janae Progenius. Once the artificial intelligence had created a holographic image for himself that was able to interact with the Atlantis residents, J.P. ended up spending a lot of time socialising with the teenagers, seemingly fascinated by them in a way that the little kids didn’t manage to capture his imagination.
Penelope reckoned it was because the teens were at the point developmentally of exploring who they were, which despite being ten thousand years old, was a process that J.P. was also embracing enthusiastically. Tony conceded she probably had a point, but he wondered if it was because they tended to be more excepting of innovation and technology. Plus, older individuals tended to be more paranoid about the presence of the AI hologram.
So, the kids and their parents had a fun day and were well and truly tired out when the spit roast was ready for dinner, which was also eaten outdoors. The movie night kicked off, starting with a Jack Nicholson classic A Few Angry Men, chosen in honour of the visiting Air Force and Navy JAGs, and then later the Presidio, staring the great Sean Connery, yet another favourite actor of Tony’s. The younger kids were trying to stay awake in the family wing, watching Minions, despite being exhausted by running themselves and their parents ragged all day. When the second movie The Presidio began for the grownups, Belle and the rest of the little ones were already in bed, leaving the recreation/ movie room to the teens who were hanging out with J.P. watching Guardians of the Universe in the family wing. Jack Hotchner had also invited a few of the younger crew members he’d met onboard the Zephyrus on his trip out to Atlantis, including Lieutenant Hailey to watch the movie and the next one in the franchise with the rest of the teens. Reportedly a fun time had been had by all.
The next morning Tony was feeling pretty chilled out as he went for his usual daily run around the outer perimeter of Atlantis with Ronon, Hotch and Lorne who usually joined them a few times a week but dropped out partway through. He ran for fitness, not because he enjoyed running like the other three guys. The acting CO preferred to paint watercolour landscapes, so he usually dropped off at around the five-mile mark. After completing their usual eight miles, Tony was headed back to his quarters for a much-needed shower when Gregory Vukovic engineered a not-so-accidental run-in with him that had him mentally cursing his bad luck. His instincts were telling him this hadn’t been the innocent chance encounter Vukovic made it out to be.
“Good run, Agent Paddington?”
“Yes thanks, Lt Commander, it was excellent,” he responded calmly, trying not to panic.
“We’re headed off to the Mainland for some sun and surfing later on. Will you be joining us,” he asked with an innocent look, but Tony couldn’t help but feel that Vukovic was subtly flirting with him.
Huh, he’d never gotten the impression Greg was bi or gay when he worked with him back in DC. Still, Tony couldn’t say that he was all that shocked. Even almost a decade after the end of DADT some military personnel remained exceedingly cautious, fearing it would still damage their careers. But if Vukovic were that cautious about his sexuality, why would he be flirting with Tony on a military base, even if he was being reasonably overt about it? It could be that the lawyer thought he was so far away (which was true) that he didn’t feel the need to be as discreet as he would normally be but that didn’t seem terribly logical. Truthfully, while it may seem paranoid, something made Tony think that this was a ploy to get close to him.
Deciding to play clueless, he shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t. I have to help my daughter come up with a costume for her book report, tomorrow. Belle wants to go dressed up as Wilbur the pig,” he said laughingly. “It’s times like this I miss her mother even more than usual,” he prevaricated, “I’m hopeless with this sort of stuff.”
Vukovic’s expression was priceless. Surely the JAGs knew he had a kid, or maybe it was the idea of Alexander Paddington making a kid’s costume that left him bemused. Ha, with his prior experience making a spaceman’s costume out of one of Senior’s three-thousand-dollar designer ski suits for Halloween when he was nine, a pig should be a breeze. Wow, wanting to dress up as a spaceman all of those years ago, did he have some sort of presentiment that he’d end up living on a huge spaceship so far away from Earth? Nuh not likely!
“That’s a shame, I’m looking forward to body surfing,” he said
As they approached the family quarters section, Tony said, “Well I need to go shower, enjoy your day of sea and sand, Lieutenant Commander.”
Vukovic’s roving eyes took in his sweaty but toned body, making Tony feel uncomfortable. Dressed in running gear, shorts, and a tank top, he was feeling way too exposed especially since the usually loose sportswear was wet with his sweat and clung to his athletic frame. He was not distressed by Vukovic’s roving eye because he was a guy – he had quite a few friends in college and law enforcement with fluid sexuality, and he didn’t have a problem with it. Nor was it the first time a guy had hit on him, often it was a lot more aggressively than Vukovic, but the truth was that regardless of the gender, any sexual overtones at this point in his life caused him to freak out. Dr O’Shea said it was a normal reaction to what had happened to him. Even if the assault occurred over five years ago, he’d only found out about being drugged and raped less than a year ago. But that was Anthony DiNozzo, not Alex Paddington so he couldn’t reveal his weakness, he needed to stay in character as a loving husband who’d lost his wife in a car accident.
As he turned to go, the lawyer laid his hand on his arm. “Thanks, it sounds fun, spending time on an alien beach. Maybe tonight you might be ready for some adult company after your daughter is asleep, Agent Paddington,” he said.
It took every ounce of control he had not to physically flinch at the unwelcome encroachment into his personal space, but he managed it… just. Feeling that a panic attack was a distinct possibility, Tony knew he needed to get away asap. Decided to play dumb (after all, he’d had a lot of experience doing that over the years) he chuckled as he walked away.
“Thanks, but the other kids’ parents are as clueless as me, so we agreed to get together and make it a group effort,” he said, deliberately misunderstanding the sexual subtext of Vukovic’s invitation. “Don’t forget the sunblock! The sun in Pegasus is a lot fiercer than in the Milky Way,” he advised Gregory, who hopefully seemed not to have recognised him.
As he entered his quarters, Cadman (who along with Teyla, Cassie, Amelia and Vala had formed a roster to stay with Tali when he went running) assessed him critically. She knew he had panic attacks after his massive one when Atlantis welcomed Col Sheppard back after they rescued him. In fact, it was after that incident that the head of base security had come up with the plan to stay with Belle so he could run every day. As a Marine, Laura was well acquainted with the benefits of regular exercise for PTSD. Tony appreciated their assistance because even though Tali was normally still asleep when he got back from a run, he would never leave her alone. That left him with the option of squeezing in a run when Tali was at school or had playdates with supervision, but his preference was to get up early and run as the sun came up and the city was waking up. The peace and quiet helped him think and his running partners weren’t exactly the chatty types, so it all worked out fine.
Laura took one look at him and asked, “Do you need me to call Dr O’Shea?”
He considered taking her up on the offer but seriously, he just wanted to get into the shower and wash all the sweat off and get clean.”
Shaking his head, he told her, “No, I’m going to take a shower,” as he ducked into his room to grab fresh underwear and a clean uniform, even being off duty, he wanted to blend in. He suspected that she’d be still there when he emerged from his shower, and he appreciated her having his and Tali’s sixes. He figured he’d probably tell her part of why he was so freaked out or he could chat to Teyla who knew pretty much everything and would get why he panicked.
While he would never wish membership of their exclusive club on anyone, he was comforted by the fact that he could talk to the Athosian and that she understood what he was going through. At times he’d been tempted to share his experience with Monique too, but given her perilous psychological state, he’d always stopped himself. Perhaps he should ask Aoife’s thoughts on if any benefits for her might outweigh the risks when he had his regular appointment with her. With the first of the Genii trials underway, he’d skipped last week’s session when a work crisis came up, but he wouldn’t be missing this one.
Chapter 14
In his session with Aoife, Tony had done most of the talking and she’d basically listened as he told her about the panic attack that had threatened to overwhelm him following the invitation by Lt Cdr Vukovic on Sunday morning and his unwanted physical contact. At first, as the tale unfolded, she was wondering if the trigger was just that Alex had been the victim of non-consensual intercourse with a work colleague (Ziva David) and that anyone who was a work colleague (which in this context meant everyone on Atlantis) made sexual overtones towards him was perceived as a threat.
Frankly, it was to be expected since he reacted badly whenever someone tried to play matchmaker and she had to wonder how long it might take for him not to feel threatened by the possibility of intimacy. Although the fact he had opened up to Teyla Emmagan was a positive sign, she was also a victim and with a partner, was safe and non-threatening in a way that his mostly single colleagues weren’t. And his opening up and sharing his experience ended up being good for both of them. Supporting another person could end up helping to heal you, provided it was done altruistically and not as a way of wanting to avoid dealing with your own trauma.
But another possible explanation occurred to her about his violent reaction to the JAG lawyer making a pass at him. The fact that he was so unsettled by the attention gave her pause to consider if homophobia was at the root of such a violent reaction to what sounded like a benign invitation, which could have been a misunderstanding. Of course, it was equally possible that she’d immediately lept to this explanation since one of her clients was currently struggling with his own homophobic prejudice, in massive conflict with him also having sexual feelings for another man. Which was why she listened but held her own counsel for now.
Changing tack, she asked, “So how have you been sleeping? I’m thinking that dealing with so many Genii trials, you might be pushing yourself too hard, Alex.”
He gave a brief chuckle before responding, “Didn’t we already have this conversation in the Mess? I told you that the main reason I’ve lost weight was because Vala healed my lungs because you gave General O’Neill a shellacking after my epic panic attack? Thanks for that by the way.”
“Yes you did,” Aoife conceded. “Was it the truth,” she looked at him inquisitorially.
“Yes, it was,” he told her as she quirked her left eyebrow at him silently.
“I swear… and as I told you at first it was just lucky happenstance until I started worrying about the judge advocates that were about to descend on Atlantis and got me thinking,” he conceded.
“Care to share,” she told him as he chuckled.
“You make that sound like an invitation but we both know it is anything but,” he told her cynically. “I already told you about the intentional reason I kept up the running and weight loss.”
O’Shea sighed. You know I can’t force you to talk, Alex and even if I could it would serve no purpose. You have to want it,” she reminded him.
Remembering why he started out on this uncomfortable process, he sighed. “Fair ‘nuff,” he bitched before giving in a touch sulkily.
“Look, it is true that I love to run, and it has always helped me cope with stress. Runner’s high is a beautiful thing! But running has always helped me organise my thoughts. Lots of people think that I’m dumb because I’m not a linear thinker. My colleagues used to get so pissed off when I’d seem to pull a clue out of my ass that would break a case wide open or supply a lead when everyone else was coming up empty. Used to drive them crazy,” he said reminiscently.
Aoife waited as Alex seemed deep in thought before continuing with what seemed like a complete non sequitur, that another counsellor might think of deflection, but she had gotten accustomed to his thought process and let him continue. “Do you remember those string art pictures that were all the rage some time back?” He didn’t wait for a response, just continued with his monologue.
“You start out at one nail and depending on how complicated the picture, you end up travelling back and forwards, sometimes in no discernible pattern or logic with your string until almost right at the very end, as the picture, pattern or figure begins to emerge, you get an idea what you’re creating. For me, solving cases, and solving patterns is just like that. I flit back and forth, trying not to form too many conclusions or try to figure out what the picture is at the beginning because if you think that it is an owl, and the pattern is really for a hippopotamus then you’re going to end up making a lot of false starts and have to go back and undo it before you can get going again.”
She merely nodded, content to let him talk, confident his preamble was headed somewhere.
“But then I found out, the more I worked cases, the better I got at seeing patterns that no one else could see or at the very least, I could predict what the pattern might be a lot quicker than anyone else on the team did. Running has always helped me to pull a lot of disparate facts and evidence together to make a coherent whole. So yeah, running makes me smarter,” he said with a shrug.
Aoife told him, “You do know you aren’t dumb, don’t you Alex. I’ve seen your IQ scores, you are on par with some of the smartest people on Atlantis, but unlike the majority of people who think linearly, the non-linear thinkers are often perceived by left-brain dominant thinkers to simply make lucky guesses…”
“Or to pull random stuff out of their butts while everyone else is working with their nose to the grindstone,” Tony interjected. “Yes, I know that is a lot of bullshit, once I began to study psychology, particularly cognitive psych I learnt about the left brain/right brain thing. I learnt that linear thinking was most common, but I made it my business to research non-linear thinking modes: divergent thinking, out-of-the-box thinking and lateral thinking. And a psychology professor I dated told me utilising movies to solve cases was a sign of an analogical thinker while most people are logical thinkers. Then after years of people telling me I had ADHD, I discovered that I had all of the signs of being a kinaesthetic learner and thinker, which explains so many of my quirks that drove all my colleagues to distraction,” he said with a touch of asperity.
“But it is one thing to know something intellectually, it is quite another thing to truly accept it when since childhood you’ve been called stupid,” he told Aoife and she got some sort of clue how much of a fish-out-of-water his life must have been when he was growing up, aside from the challenges of having both parents battling addictions. He’d certainly faced more than his fair share of challenges.
“So kinaesthetic learners/thinkers use movement to help them think?” she queried, not familiar with the term but she was hardly an expert on cognition and learning either.
He astonished Aoife by rattling off a list of ten signs of a kinaesthetic learner without missing a beat, and in order though she had no way of knowing this:
- “Your knee is constantly bouncing when you sit down.
- You kick a ball, toss a ball, shoot hoops, or spin a basketball on your finger while holding a conversation.
- You are always gesturing with your hands.
- You annoy everyone because you constantly crack your knuckles.
- You get in trouble a lot for tapping your pencil on your desk or clicking your pen.
- You pace back and forth when you are cramming for tests.
- You mime as a mnemonic device to boost your memory.
- You think best when you’re exercising.
- You remember your notes best when you’ve written them down by hand rather than typing them out.
- You touch everything you pass in a store without thinking about it…”
As he recited the ten signs, Tony made an exaggerated air tick with his forefinger to indicate it applied to him for all the examples except for number four (annoying people by cracking knuckles) before posing a question which Aoife somewhat belatedly realised was part of the aforementioned list.
“Why do you do this stuff? Because you’re a kinaesthetic learner.”
“Impressive recall. Clearly, you’re also blessed with eidetic memory,” she commented as he shrugged.
“There is a lot of controversy regarding if eidetic memory even exists or not,” Alex Paddington PhD, shrugged, “but I wish that I’d come across that kinaesthetic list a long time ago. It would have made my life a lot easier growing up. I could have printed off copies and distributed them to teachers every year,” he said pensively.
Aoife had little trouble picturing how difficult it must have been for him at school, and that was on top of the issues he would have faced coming from such a dysfunctional home life.
“Not to mention my old teammates at my last job used to bitch and moan about a lot of stuff on that list. Well, not Probish, she had her own little quirks, which made her much more excepting of mine, “ he smiled softly as he thought of Ellie Bishop. He missed Probish!
“So much of that information on kinaesthetic learning resonated with me. It explained why even after I left the police force I continued to use my little black notebook and wrote everything down in my own sort of code, so I didn’t forget anything before I had a chance to write up my report. Sometimes, it was the smallest of details that I’d jotted down that helped crack the case,” he told her before chuckling. “Wow, we really got off topic, didn’t we?”
Aoife grinned back at him. “Oh, I don’t know. I learnt something new about kinaesthetic thinkers and I also learned more about you, so maybe we diverged but I think it was well worth the insight,” she told him calmly.
“Let’s recap on what you were saying. Running helps you think, and it helps you deal with the stress in your life.”
“Exactly, and thirdly, I enjoy running. I like feeling in control of my body and runners high is awesome. Anyway, because my lungs are no longer scarred and Vala healed my injured knee, I can run a lot further and a lot faster…which I do. I usually do at least another three miles per day.”
“And that’s resulted in the changes in your body,” Aoife murmured.
“Partially,” Tony conceded. “In my teens and my twenties and even in my early thirties, my metabolism was really high – I had trouble keeping weight on, especially when I was stressed, but after the biological attack that scarred my lungs,” he said, referring to catching the pneumonic plague, “it slowed my metabolism down a lot. At the same time, it made it much more difficult to run to maintain my fitness. Running was painful and not a pleasure anymore. I did it to retain lung function so I could remain a field agent and continue to investigate cases. I didn’t want to sit behind a desk pushing papers,” he sighed.
“A living hell for a kinaesthetic learner,” Aoife pointed out.
“Exactly! Vala’s healing had an unexpected effect on me though. My higher than average metabolism returned, so even without the extra distance I can now run, I’m still burning a lot more energy. If you factor in the extra three miles per day, getting super fit and losing weight was a lot easier proposition. I ended up packing on extra pounds when I left NCIS and took custody of Belle because I was living places where I didn’t have people who could watch her so I could go running and I wasn’t eating healthily either.”
“Okay, so I can see the truth about your dramatic weight loss, apart from the extra miles, but with your background in sports medicine and rehabilitation, you know that too much weight loss too quickly isn’t healthy?”
“Oh yeah, I’m aware of that Doc but you know that Belle and I are living here under an assumed identity, and I used to work at the Naval Criminal Investigative Service?”
Aoife nodded. “ Aye, I remember.”
“Well, we investigated crimes committed by Marines and Navy personnel and also crimes committed against them and their families.” She nodded. “When we charge military personnel, we worked with Navy JAG corps to send them to prison or give them a bad conduct discharge, depending on the crime they committed.” He stopped and stared at her intently.
She felt as if she was missing something important and it took her a minute or two to connect the dots. “Well, shite! Don’t I feel like Fecky the ninth,” she exclaimed in disgust as he smothered a snigger. “Yer trying to change your appearance so you won’t be recognised, and everyone was worried you might be headed for burnout or a breakdown,” she said in disgust.
“It wasn’t just dropping weight,” he confessed. “I grew my hair longer and lightened it to dark blonde, but most people probably assume it was bleached by the sun. Plus, I’m wearing coloured contacts and glasses to change how I look,” Tony admitted.
“ I missed the whole specky four-eyes bit. And the coloured lenses,” she said, sounding chagrined before looking him over carefully. “ You’re wearing the Atlantis uniform. That’s new,” Aoife commented. “Trying not to stand out?”
“I used to do a lot of work as an undercover specialist,” he admitted. “It can be a whole lot of minor changes that change your look and if you do it gradually enough, most people don’t even notice it.”
“Except for rather dramatic weight loss,” she pointed out wryly as she grinned at him.
“Yeah, I didn’t exactly have enough time to do it slowly, plus an increased metabolism was an unexpected bonus,” he admitted reluctantly
“So lay it on me, Alex. Do you know any of these lawyers,” she demanded curiously.
“Yeah, I’ve worked with two of the Navy judge advocates on cases when I was an NCIS agent,” he admitted ruefully.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Alex. Don’t tell me, let me guess. One of them wouldn’t be Lt Cdr Vukovic would it?”
“Got it in one, Dr O’Shea,” he joked even though he didn’t really think there was anything to laugh about. Still, it was better than having an embarrassing panic attack or curled up in a foetal position, sobbing.
“And the other one,” she asked him.
Lt Cdr Cathryn Graves… but I only worked with her a couple of times, and she was acting as the defence counsel. so in effect both times I was testifying against her client.”
Aoife looked befuddled. “And that mattered because…”
“There was no witness prep between me and the defence attorney, just being cross-examined by her,” he explained. “So hopefully she won’t recognise me,” he said trying to sound optimistic.
“What about Vukovic, how many times did you and he work together?”
He pulled a sour face. “Eight, maybe ten cases. A few when he was prosecuting and so he was working with the MCRT prepping us for the trial, although Gibbs and I didn’t need much prep to be honest. He worked mostly with the two junior agents, so perhaps he hasn’t recognised me either. After all, I’m the last person he’d expect to see here on a top-secret military base in a far-flung galaxy, especially after resigning from NCIS,” he said, and Aoife wasn’t entirely clear if he was trying to convince her or himself.
“Did you know that he was interested in other blokes,” she asked curiously
“No, but then I never had anything to do with him socially. Ours was a professional relationship but if he was gay or even bi, that was certainly not common knowledge. I’d have to say that he was strictly closeted but even after Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed, a lot of military people didn’t feel comfortable coming out. A large proportion of personnel remain extremely homophobic, especially in command roles,” Tony said, thinking of the gay crimes they’d investigated over the years.
“So, let’s assume for a moment that he recognised you. Wouldn’t it be dicey for him to put the moves on you as an AFOI agent if he is still closeted?”
“One would think so, but maybe he decided the time was right to come out,” he said. “It’s been almost four years since I resigned. A lot can change,” he said, looking around at their surroundings.
She nodded but didn’t seem convinced. “Alright, if he is interested, it is still pretty risky on such a classified military base for someone who’s been so secretive,” Aoife mused. “Unless…is there any way he might have thought you’ve welcome his overture,” she asked. “Look Alex, you know I don’t have a problem with it if you are into guys or are bi,” she reminded him.
“I know,” he said, remembering her ex-husband was gay. “And for the record, I’ve never had a problem with anyone’s sexuality as long as it takes place between consenting adults. What people do is no one else’s business. I’ve got friends from college and law enforcement who were gay and bisexual, but I haven’t personally been sexually attracted to guys.”
“Okay, is there a reason why he might have thought you were, though,” she persisted. “I’m just thinking that my ex Liam, wouldn’t have been so forward in this situation unless he really thought he stood a chance with yer,” she said doggedly.
He shrugged and considered the proposition carefully. Finally, he admitted, “Well there had always been scuttlebutt floating around NCIS from practically the day I joined the major case response that Gibbs only hire me because I was sleeping with him,” he revealed, sounding embarrassed. “Especially when I got to do the abridged investigators course, which was BS since I was a seasoned investigator and a detective and that’s why my application was expedited through the Federal Law Enforcement Training College,” he said, a touch of exasperation creeping into his voice.
“And then the speculation gained even more momentum after he appointed me as the senior field agent within six months of completing a condensed course at FLETC. Except SFA was part of the carrot he used to lure me into signing up with NCIS, I refused to go there as a probie.”
When Tony went there, he’d been highly ambitious – but that ambition had faded as his loyalty grew and he started regarding the team as his family.
“So why was everyone convinced you slept your way into the job?”
“Ah, well, Gibbs is a bastard, almost impossible to work for or with. He always fired agents who were assigned to him, even Stan lasted longer than most, but he moved on after he developed a stomach ulcer due to the working conditions and Gibbs’ toxic personality.”
“And you lasted what…fourteen, fifteen years?” He nodded and she eyed him speculatively as she continued to think out loud. “Okay, I guess I can understand why people might have speculated about you,” she conceded. “Did you have a crush on Gibbs, it would explain why you put up with him so long, even if it was never acted on,” she mused.
“Not a crush,” he denied, “but I will cop to absolutely hero-worshipping the ground he walked on him. I’m ashamed at just how fucking gullible I was; I let him get away with so much shit,” he admitted, shifting awkwardly in his seat before continuing.
“I can see in hindsight that every other agent he recruited for his team, except for Probish had major daddy issues. I realised far too late that I viewed him as a father figure which I didn’t have growing up. Unfortunately, over the years, I was forced, little by little to admit that the man had feet of clay and that he wasn’t the hero I made him out to be,” Alex told her, his face pink from embarrassment.
“Aye, hindsight can be a grand thing, Alex. My mam used to say, may you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the foresight to know where you’re going, and the insight to know when you’ve gone too far.’ I’ve never completely understood that piece of Irish wisdom but as a psychologist, I like to think it is about what we do in counselling sessions,” she said wistfully.
While he was still trying to parse out the meaning of her statement, Aoife was on a roll. “So, people who already thought you were having a sexual relationship with him, probably saw his abuse and it confirmed their suspicions,” she asked.
“Yeah, why else would any self-respecting person take so much crap and contempt from their boss unless they were together,” he agreed his voice filled with bitterness. ”Fuck! What a pathetic weak idiot I was!”
“Bollox, from what you just said, your boss targeted people for his team with daddy issues. That says a whole lot more about the man than it does that you were so loyal to him for so long, Alex. You’re a profiler – profile Gibbs.” Personally, from what she knew of the man, Aoife thought he was a real sleeveen.
He nodded, it wasn’t the first time the thought had occurred to him, but it always made him feel disloyal. After all, his time at NCIS wasn’t all bad but maybe it was something he needed to do, at some later point when all this crap was sorted out.
Satisfied that Alex hadn’t rejected the idea, she continued to follow her narrative. “Okay then, so if there was speculation you were sleeping with Gibbs, Vukovic had cause to think you might be open to his invitation and he decided to take a risk.”
Something else occurred to Tony and he groaned audibly.
“What’s wrong,” Aoife demanded concerned.
“I finally realised something. “Senior believed I was gay. He said that was why he disowned me, but I think it was also partly about trying to break into my trust fund from the Paddington’s,” he said.
“Why would your father think you were gay?”
He shrugged. “One of his prospective investors told him I was hitting on him.”
“Sweet Baby Jaysus! Why would he say that?”
“I tried to explain to Senior that his new best-buddy cum investor was acting inappropriately towards me, but Senior was drunk most of the time and didn’t want to believe it because the guy had serious money. In retrospect, he was Mafia and looking for ways to launder money but dear ‘ol Dad was too stupid to realise he was conning the con,” he said with a small cynical smile.
Aoife had the impression that behind his cynicism was a huge amount of hurt at his father for failing to believe him.
“To be honest, I thought after he got sober that he’d forgotten all about what happened until out of the blue, one of the junior agents at NCIS who’d been ordered to guard Senior when he was under investigation for murdering a business partner, started asking me out and I couldn’t figure out why.
“Dorneget had always been loud and proud about being gay, despite being in law enforcement, which I admired. It was brave of him.”
Aoife nodded, “Shite yes! And probably just a tad foolish.”
“Anyway, I couldn’t figure out why Dornie was pursuing me all of a sudden, and I worried that somehow I’d given him the impression that I was interested in him. I’ve always been a flirt, you see, and I’ll often flirt with people regardless of gender. It doesn’t mean anything, but I figured Dornie might have gotten the wrong impression.”
“And what did he say when you asked him, Alex,” she prompted him when he paused looking lost.
“Ned told me that Senior said that I was gay. Turns out, Dorneget wasn’t the only one Senior confided in about his ‘gay son,’ either. He became involved with a homeless woman who was terminally ill. When she confessed to him that she was a lesbian and that was why she was estranged from her family, he told her all about his own gay son and how much he regretted that it led to their falling out,” he finished, in a strangled voice.
Aoife wasn’t sure if the emotion was anger, embarrassment, or betrayal; probably it was a combination of all three. Shaking her head in disgust, she returned to the childhood abuse. “How far did your father’s friend go,” she inquired of him gently.
“Far enough. Showing me gay porn while he wanked,” he said, supremely uncomfortable with the topic. “I told Senior, who said I was making it up. I didn’t realise it back then, but Giacomo had already got in and told Senior that he caught me watching gay porn and that I tried to come on to him.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t enough to stop him,” she said because they both knew that paedophiles escalated, they didn’t stop even when their target fought back. That often exacerbated the situation and by now he would have had little fear of being caught. “What else?”
Tony realised that Aoife already knew and conceded reluctantly, “Typical enough grooming behaviour. He started slipping me alcohol and then would fondle me and made me reciprocate. Tried to force me to give him a blowjob so I kicked him in the balls and went crying to Senior who was practically paralytic but when he thought his gravy train might leave he became enraged, calling me a liar and a sexual deviant and then beat me. Giacomo convinced him to call a doctor since he broke a couple of bones,” he said rather casually.
Too casually, Aoife thought. “How did Senior come to disown you and send you away to military school?”
Sighing as he recalled the catalyst for his exile, the psychologist noted he was showing initial signs of a panic attack, she acted immediately, coaching him through the steps they established to deescalate his anxiety levels. By now, he responded to her coaching with an almost Pavlovian response to her cues, and he thanked her, feeling angry at himself for his emotional response. His ‘almost panic attack’ was all the confirmation she needed that something worse had happened.
Deciding to just rip the scar off the wound, he told her, “After the beating, I was on painkillers, and they’ve always fucked me up. I woke up in bed in the middle of the night with Giacomo buck naked, pressed up against me, with one hand wrapped around my dick and the other one getting ready to penetrate me. He probably would have succeeded in raping me but our butler Bartholomew Baines, who my mother hired not long before she died came to check up on me.”
Tony stole a peep at Aoife and seemed to pre-empt what she was going to say. “No, to my knowledge, he’d never done that before. There was a huge dramatic scene with Giacomo insisting that I’d asked him to teach me about sex, that it was all my idea. Bartholomew called the police, Giacomo paid them off and I was disowned and sent off to RIMA with my virtue still intact. End of story. Lucky escape as far as I was concerned.”
“What happened to the butler… Baines?”
“ He was fired but then a few weeks later he mysteriously vanished without a trace,” Tony said curtly.
Aoife thought that she’d heard all of the shit that Alex had endured growing up, but she was wrong. It might have seemed that this session had been a massive avoidance of the key issues, but she realised that this was another clue as to why Belle’s conception was so traumatising. Being sexually assaulted when he was under the influence of drugs wasn’t the first time it had happened, and that information certainly clarified the situation and made it that much more complex. Deciding that she needed to re-evaluate her treatment goals, the psychologist elected to move on from that episode for today. They needed to finish up soon.
As she started restating what they’d discussed, she said, “Okay, we both know that we will be returning to what happened with Giacomo in a future session,” she said, aiming to project an aura of firm empathy.
He nodded with a moue of disgust. “Second part of the Irish homily hey Doc? The ‘foresight to know where you’re going’ portion of the program,” he tried to tease but came up short since it was forced.
Aoife smiled at his antics before something else occurred to her. “Okay, so if it wasn’t just that you react badly to any and all overtures to engage in sexual activities in light of your partner’s betrayal and not because Vukovic is a male, why do you think you were triggered so strongly? Was it because you are afraid he knows your true identity?”
Tony paused, realising Aoife had a point. “Maybe? But other people know about me: you, Col Lorne, Capt. Cadman, General O’Neill, Admiral Chegwidden, Col Davis, Penelope Garcia, and I’m not having meltdowns over it, so maybe not.”
“Then what is making you so anxious,” she challenged him but with kid gloves.
He stared at her helplessly. “There’s a perfectly good reason, I’m fairly certain, and it’s inside my head somewhere but out of reach,” he told her in frustration.
Watching him for a few moments, she recalled some of the new data she’d acquired and stood up from the counselling space and fetched her office wastepaper basket, emptying out the small amount of trash and placing the basket on her desk, she grabbed a yellow legal pad. Tony watched as she tore off pages and scrunched them up to make a collection of paper balls which she dumped in his lap.
“Shoot hoops, Agent Paddington,” she instructed him as he realised what she had in mind. He gave her a delighted grin, one that was completely free of his usual restraint and her heart skipped a beat or two before settling obediently back into a normal sinus rhythm. Good Lord the charisma he could unleash if he chose to go into politics was slightly scary, but he didn’t understand the power he could wield, thanks to an upbringing that reinforced his worthlessness.
Aoife watched on in amusement as he became totally focused on his task, yet paradoxically bursting with unmistakable joie de vivre which was both wonderful and sad. This is what he should have been like as a small child if fate hadn’t dealt him a hand where his parents were both wealthy addicts who instilled in him so many rules about what was proper behaviour but was in fact a heap of shite. When he was fresh out of makeshift balls, she carried the basket over to him and dumped the contents into his lap and returned the wastepaper bin to the desk.
After approximately five more hoops, he let out a loud caterwauling war cry of triumph and gave her a grin. “Doc, you a certified awesomely incredible genius. I know what triggered my anxiety,” he told her before his smile dimmed and he took on a serious mien.
“That’s great news, Alex,” she enthused. “So, what was it?”
“I told you when I first met you that the Trust targeted Belle because she has the ATA gene. Not only is she the first child that we know of, but her expression of that gene is as strong as mine is,” he explained, omitting to mention her second gene.
“Yes, I remember, and I recall that aside from yourself and General O’Neill, the only other person who has one as strong is Col Sheppard,” she replied. From the little I know about these people, they would really like to get their hands on your little girl.”
He winced. “Yes, you’re not wrong. So, if someone suspects that I’m here on Atlantis and wants proof, what would be the best way to confirm my identity,” he asked?
“Irrefutable proof would surely require a DNA comparison, that’s if they already have a sample? Do they?”
Yeah, they do. My DNA is on file at NCIS, so they could get hold of it if they wanted to. Plus, there are the blood tests that were done last year in France when we were in the car accident, remember? She had blood tests as a precaution in case there was internal bleeding, and she needed a transfusion. I was blood tested because I was driving, and they needed to know that I wasn’t drunk. The trust had bribed the lab to send through test results of anyone they screened who possessed the Ancient technology gene, which was how we ended up on their radar.”
“Okay, so what did you just figure out?”
Looking extremely disturbed, he posed another question, “What is the easiest way to obtain DNA to check against my previous sample, Doc?”
“Thinking about what freaked Alex out, she said, “You think that Lt Cdr Vukovic was trying to get a sample of your DNA by having sex with you?”
“I think it’s a possibility. If he has been compromised by the trust and forced to it, then that would easily explain why he would approach me in such an overt manner,” he reasoned.
“Well, it makes more sense than the other reasons we discussed, I’m sorry to say. And regarding your anxiety, with so much riding on you managing to remain undercover, I can totally understand your unconscious reaction to Lt Cdr Vukovic was to panic.”
Surprising both of them, Tony hugged Aoife. He had hoped that being able to talk to someone who understood the entire complicated situation would help him figure out what triggered his panic attack. It turned out, it was his paranoid induced self-preservation instincts.
Now it was time to figure out what to do about it.
Author’s notes:
Sleeveen — sly, calculating person
Specky four-eyes – someone who wears glasses
List adapted from Kinesthetic Learner | 10 Signs You Might Be A Kinesthetic Learner (studyright.net)
Chapter 15
Later that evening Tony had already started trying to work out what his next step should be by calling an evening campfire. Basically, it was a brainstorming session consisting of everyone currently on Team Tony (those individuals who knew him previously or knew who he was), except for Henri AuClair, who had a migraine. Fortunately, Ronon and Amelia had kindly offered to stay with Tali. He was fairly sure they were going to binge on the Power Rangers, and it seemed that the kid’s show had become Ronon’s guilty pleasure, although Tony vowed not to tease him about it. As protectors went, his daughter couldn’t have been in better hands than Ronon and Amelia.
As he briefed the other attendees on the situation, he acknowledged that there was a possibility he was overreacting, and this was just a simple case of Gregory Vukovic looking for a simple case of no-strings sex. But the point was, even if he was wrong about this particular incident, sooner or later someone was going to start getting curious about him, particularly when the new agency was up and running and he was announced as the new director. It was inevitable and it was better to be prepared for when it did because he’d known right from the beginning due to the international military and scientific makeup of the residents, the rogue factions within the NID and IOA, not to mention the Trust were bound to have sleeper agents embedded in Atlantis It was why he insisted on using a false identity when he came here.
“Why didn’t you tell us you had worked with two of the Navy judge advocates,” Jack asked him?
“Because I only found out about their were coming hours before they arrived. I assumed that with the level of security clearance needed for the mission, there weren’t that many JAG lawyers who’d be cleared to come to Atlantis,” Tony responded evenly.
Lorne backed him up. “Yeah he asked, and I showed him who was on the list hours before they arrived. In retrospect we should have checked with Agent Paddington much sooner,” he admitted ruefully. “Sorry Alex, it should have occurred to me.”
Chegwidden decided to throw his two cents worth in. “To be fair, I think that Alex is probably correct. There wouldn’t be that many people who would have a security clearance high enough to be sent here. These judge advocates have probably all served on sensitive espionage and treason cases involving top secret and SCIF data to be considered for such a mission. And he and I canvased the fact that he might encounter someone he’d previously worked with at NCIS.”
Admiral Chegwidden is correct and that’s why we decided to take steps to change my appearance, people,” he agreed with the re-upped Lantean Acting Judge Advocate General of the Navy JAG Corps.
“Wait, all your exercising and dramatic weight loss? That was intentional,” Laura blurted out disgruntled. “You do realise that people were freaking out? A lot of them were worried, thinking you were heading for a breakdown due to stress,” she protested.
Trying not to show his irritation at constantly having to address this issue he said, “Look it was partly serendipitous. Vala healed my lung disease and fixed my dodgy knee. I’ve always been a runner but with my fucked-up lungs and my dodgy knee, it seriously became more of a chore that I had to do if I wanted to maintain my fitness, if I wanted to be cleared for field work. And I really wanted to continue doing fieldwork, so I ran.
After Vala used her big gaudy healing device on me, I quickly realised I could run without my lungs torturing me anymore, I upped the distance I was running because it felt great to run again. Also, I started losing weight that I’d gained as I got older which became harder to lose. Working too many hours, I was mostly living off takeout or skipping eating, and getting too little sleep didn’t help with staying fit.”
Cadman shook her head, “Skipping regular meals messes up your metabolism.”
“Not sleeping regular hours does as well,” Garcia said. “It also messes with other endocrine functions like circadian rhythms,” she said disapprovingly.
O’Neill was heard to mutter something about jackass jarheads and no way to run a team, as Cadman objected.
“Nothing to do with Marines, Sir. That particular jackass was an arrogant narcissist who didn’t see his people as anything but weapons that he could point and shoot to win his wars.”
Tony glared across at A.J. who was nodding his head in agreement with Laura’s appraisal of Gibbs. The Admiral took the hint to move the discussion onward. “Okay, I think we’ve strayed slightly off-topic here. So, we were at lunch one day when Paddington and I discussed what bringing a bunch of JAGs to Atlantis might mean should they be people who recognised Alex – which was how Operation Disguise was born,” he said with a smug grin.
“So, you deliberately added extra miles to your daily run,” Penelope clarified for the record, even though he’d told them this already.
“Not exactly, because I was already running an average of three miles a day more because my lungs were healed and running was fun,” Tony told her. “As I already told you when you asked, at first it was purely serendipitous, Penelope.”
“So, what did Operation Disguise consist of,” Cadman pressed him, far from mollified that they’d been fooled so thoroughly.
Appearing to be deep in thought before finally beginning to speak, he said. “Over the years, I’ve become a specialist in undercover operations. I spent a year undercover in the mob where if I’d been outed as a cop, they’d have made sure I took a very long dirt nap…”
“Or went swimming in deep water with nice new cement shoes,” A.J. quipped irreverently.
Grimacing, he nodded, “Yeah or that. For that job, I ate like a horse and spent hours a day in the gym, bulking up muscles that I don’t usually have. As I said, I had more of a runner’s physique in those days, plus I dyed my hair black to fit the stereotypical image of a mafia thug and adopted a pretty fair to middling New Jersey accent – one of my uncles was from New Jersey,” he shrugged.
“And for Atlantis?” Jack prompted
“For Atlantis, I wanted to go for super-fit athletic because I was already running eight miles, so I just cut out carbs as much as possible, avoided lifting weights and did an hour of Pilates every day religiously to make sure I didn’t bulk up.
Laura huffed. “ Pilates, I thought you were doing that to encourage Col Sheppard.”
“Yeah, I was. It’s the perfect form of exercise for his situation, it was created for rehabilitation, but I took advantage of the Colonel doing it to join in too.
Lorne chuckled. “Many of the guys thought you did it to pick up women since it was mostly females in the class,” he informed him.
“Not my fault if most guys are ill-informed about the benefits. It’s just as beneficial for guys as it is for females,” he snorted, shaking his head and muttering, “What a bunch of dumbasses,” under his breath.
Anything else,” Laura demanded, her expression still frosty.
“Yeah, I started lightening my hair…”
“It’s longer than you usually wear it, Mon Frere,” Penelope observed, giving him a fond look. “It looks good on you.”
“Yes, it is longer than I usually wear it and to be honest I prefer it shorter because it’s easier to control, but it does help change my appearance. And I changed my eye colour to grey-blue and then later blue by wearing coloured contacts and then I started wearing non-corrective glasses.”
Cadman looked discomforted. “How did I not notice that you were doing all this stuff? I work with you every day.”
Jack, with his years of black ops, exchanged a knowing look with A.J. who was a former special ops navy SEAL. “Because campers, you were all so fixated on the most dramatic physical change that you overlooked all the other changes which were minor in comparison and happened gradually. Yet incrementally, it all contributed to helping Paddington to change his physical appearance. Quite successfully, I’d say,” he chuckled at Cadman’s unimpressed expression.
“Plus, he’s wearing the Atlantis uniform,” Jack noted casually. “And he started acting a lot more reserved in public. He even changed how he moves, he told them, grinning proudly. “He’s a chameleon and that’s only one of the reasons why he’s considered one of the best undercover operatives in US law enforcement,” the head of Homeworld Command bragged because Tony belonged to him now.
“Your right, Sir. Everyone was so busy thinking he was working too hard being a single parent and all.” Cadman shook her head in disbelief. “The latest theory going around is that you have some sort of eating disorder,” she told Tony who smirked uncomfortably, not sure why people were making such a fuss about a bit of weight loss, except he supposed that McKay’s breakdown and Dr Girard’s desperate suicide attempt might have sensitised everyone to their fellow Lanteans’ wellbeing.
“Yes, yes, Alex is good, Chegwidden agreed, impatient to get everyone back on track. “He’s more than good, but can we focus, people? The more important point is, what are we going to do about the Vukovic and Graves situation? I’m with Alex and Col Lorne. How did they vet two navy judge advocates at the very last minute.”
Good point, Admiral,” Jack agreed. It can take weeks, sometimes months. Plus, what are the odds of two individuals bailing on us at the last minute like that?”
Garcia gasped. “You’re suggesting that the car accident was not an accident,” she said.
“I think it’s something we need to look into. I have a guy who can investigate,” Jack said, thinking of Fornell.
“But how could they cause a stroke,” Lorne mused.
“It is possible,” Tony stated. “Starve the brain of oxygen by cutting off the carotid artery or maybe some sort of drug. Hell, if it is the Trust and there are aliens still running around loose, who knows what sort of technology they’ve come up with or stolen.”
“Alrighty – we need to check this out, Campers. Leave it with me,” Jack said looking murderous. “But the question is, if we do have a couple of vipers in our midst, what do they want, and what do we plan to do to stop them? I’m open to suggestions.”
Cadman snickered. “Well on the question of what they want, for what it’s worth, Amelia Banks informed me that all of the female JAG lawyers have Alex on their fu…err their list of people they were targeting for sex during their weekend R&R, along with other non-military targets, like Aaron Hotchner, Daniel, and Ronon. She also told me she caught Vukovic totally fixated on your ass in the Mess, on Friday night, so it could be just lust, Alex.”
Penelope giggled. “Well from a purely platonic point of view, I can kind of see where he’s coming from,” she pretended to fan herself. “It is pretty fine and a little birdy who was up close and personal with it a long time ago did say that his muscles have muscles,” at which Col Lorne choked.
Tony scowled at her. “I can’t believe she told you that, Garcia,” he grumbled at her. Damn, Abby Sciuto, that’s the thanks he got for saving her from Ari’s sniper rifle that night in her lab… molesting his ass and speaking out of turn about his glutes. This was so damned embarrassing!
“She told me it was magnificent!” she teased as he groaned, turning bright red.
Jack was impatient and not in the mood for jokes. “Can we get back on track? I need to talk to Paul Davis and light some damned fires under people. After the fiasco with the CIA analyst knowing Paddington, I’m sceptical that Davis would do this without giving us a heads-up about it. Looks like I need to take a quick trip back to the office. I was intending to go back at the end of the week, but I’ll be heading out in the morning.”
A.J. was not amused to hear about the less-than-discreet sexcapades of the JAG personnel. “Meanwhile, can we declare some sort of a quarantine? Maybe say Belle’s class was exposed to some Pegasus contagion so we can put the kids and parents into lockdown until we have a clearer picture of what we are dealing with. If Alex’s hunch about Vukovic trying to seduce him to get a DNA sample is correct and we block him, he might go after our little Paddington, instead.”
“Atlantis and I agree,” Janae Progenius replied, its Tuvok persona as the inscrutable Vulcan male remarked, suddenly appearing in the unsettling way he had when he detected something that he deemed to be within his purview. It occurred when it concerned the children, Paddington, or Sheppard’s safety and to a lesser extent, O’Neill’s too since he began spending extended periods on Atlantis.
Beaming brightly at him, Penelope asked the artificial intelligence, “What do you two agree with, Sugar?”
“Frowning, he told her, “No, neither Atlantis nor I have discussed the sweet crystalline chemical substance obtained from various plants (especially sugarcane) which you refer to as sucrose and use to sweeten food and drink. It is not that surprising as neither of us finds it relevant since we do not eat or drink, but since it was you who asked me, we will take it under advisement and notify you of our stance on the matter, Black Queen.”
Smothering the chuckle that he frequently experienced whenever Tali said something funny without meaning to, Tony did permit himself an epic eye roll. “J.P., Penelope wasn’t asking you about your thoughts on sugar, she was using it as a form of address, as an endearment,” he explained patiently while the rest of the humans tried not to laugh.
“Ah, I see. Thank you for explaining that to me, Sweetheart,” he told Tony with a straight face as DiNozzo questioned if J.P. was trolling him or was grossly misunderstanding the subtle nuances that were the English language combined with Ms Garcia’s ebullient conversational style. It was a bit of a minefield!
Deciding to quit while they were ahead, Jack brought the topic back to the beginning.
“You said that you and Atlantis agreed. What exactly did you agree about,” he said bluntly.
“That tomorrow morning, she will enact the security protocol, locking down all of the quarters in the family wing, due to a possible contagion threat, while the Black Queen’s boss goes back to investigate the situation on Terreua regarding the threat to the Paddington’s security,” the Vulcan explained to the meeting.
“But hang on, what about the trials? Hotch and I are going to need to testify,” Tony objected.
Looking faintly amused at J.P.’s antics, especially by being relegated to Garcia’s boss, Jack overruled the concern, “Not a problem. You can both testify via video link,” he told him reasonably.
“But the kids, they’ll miss out on school,” he protested, anticipating that not only would he go stir crazy if he was locked up but so would the kids.
“No problem, Alex. As you know, Cassie didn’t want to be housed in the single’s section of the civilian quarters, she would much prefer being sheltered from unwanted advances by being assigned quarters in the Family wing. Which is serendipitous because she can still teach the little ones and the older kids can do school via video link too,” he said breezily. “ It should only be for a few days, or J.P. here could pop in and teach the older kids for a few days.”
Janae Progenius nodded, his Vulcan features impassive as he replied, “Thank you, Darling. I would enjoy that opportunity very much.”
Studiously avoiding checking out O’Neill’s reaction to J.P. calling him darling, but still feeling a sense of panic about being locked down, triggering memories of when he had pneumonic plague, he tried another tack. “It would save time if General O’Neill went back to Earth to see what he can discover and I investigate here on Atlantis,” he said logically.
Admiral Chegwidden nodded but by the speculative expression, Tony didn’t think that he was going to be a lot of help. “Agent Paddington has a point, but perhaps we should leave it up to Base Security to make inquiries, he said firmly. “There’s no need for you to make yourself any more of a target, at least until we know more,” he told Tony.
Seeing that Jack was in full agreement he gave in reluctantly. Then it hit him, they were just trying to look out for his best interests, which by extension also meant looking out for Tali too. He shouldn’t be acting a lot more mindfully now that he had someone who was depending on him, but it was just so difficult to break old habits that dictated he should be the one taking risks.
Laura was looking a little overwhelmed as she said, “Well it is a base security matter. But who do we want to approach, so we don’t tip our hand,” she pondered out loud.
It was J.P. who spoke up eagerly, “I think it would be prudent if I were to interrogate the staunch defenders of the principles of governance and statutes, Sweet Cheeks,” he said quickly as several people around the table choked.
Cadman as a Marine was made of sterner stuff. She riposted with a hint of teasing in her voice, “ Oh you do, do you? And by the way, since I have four cheeks, Janae Progenius, which ones specifically would you be referring to?”
Her inquiry caused Penelope to giggle as each of the four other senior military officers struggled to retain their professional comportment since it would hardly be fitting for them to comment or react to a female officer’s physical attributes. Tony was less constrained by military protocol, so he settled for a snort that was perilously close to a laugh, knowing that Laura was evil and enjoying the unorthodox situation a little too much.
J.P. might or might not be trolling them regarding the use of endearments, but Cadman most definitely was!
After what seemed forever with everyone studiously avoiding eye contact and examining the surface of the table, the floor, or the wall, essentially anywhere but looking at anyone else lest they start each other laughing, the AI finally answered her question with a cheeky, “All of them.”
Cadman immediately started crowing at Penelope, “Hear that Dark Queen? Alex isn’t the only one with a sweet ass.”
Grinning back, Penelope said, “Ah but is it a magnificent ass, Captain Cadman?”
Shaking her head, which coincidentally was now a becoming shade of red, Laura tried getting them back on point again. “J.P. why do you think it is a good idea for you to approach the JAG lawyers?”
“Because I could ask them why they were making lists of people on Atlantis who I consider to be under my protection. I’ll demand that they tell me why they are stalking my people,” the Tuvok doppelganger told them in all seriousness.
It was Evan Lorne who took up the conversational gambit. “What makes you think that Vukovic or the others would tell you, J.P.?”
“Well, my Black Queen and Agent Alex have explained to me that the people from Terreua are likely to be threatened by androids, robots, and artificial intelligence entities such as Janae Progenius – with and without holographic interfaces or nanite technology, due to their fears that we will go 2001 on them, P.J. enlightened them gravely.
” While I normally try to appease peoples’ fears by being non-threatening, in this instance, I could play upon them; just like Agent Alex used Mr Woolsey to play good cop so he could play uber seriously badass (as in I’m gonna rip out your entrails and beat you to death with them) bad cop, which is how like Ronon Dex, Captain Cadman and Colonel Lorne described him on Midway II. I was confused at what they meant until I reviewed the footage of Lance Corporal Favre’s interrogation, and I learnt a lot,” he said, making at least four individuals cringe as Garcia, Chegwidden and O’Neill smirked and sniggered like juveniles.
“Okay, sounds like a plan,” the re-upped Navy Judge Advocate General declared grinning. “But perhaps Ms Garcia and Agent Paddington can rehearse with you because I don’t want you frightening the judge advocates to death, Janae Progenius. I need them alive and able to do their jobs so we can get these trials out of the way,” he told the AI hologram calmly.
“Very well, Admiral Snuggle Bear. I will do as you say,” he said as everyone else in the room witnessed the former Navy SEAL visible flinch and wondered why.
Only Tony suspected that the endearment might have been more than a random one since he doubted that anyone else knew about A.J., and Aoife being ‘together.’
He was highly suspicious it might be something that Aoife called Chegwidden and studiously avoided looking at the Admiral, so he didn’t give the game away. If he was correct in his guess, the odds were high that the ten-thousand-year-old Artificial Intelligence was not as gullible as he’d assumed.
Which meant that J.P. had been trolling them all tonight, he decided, feeling equal parts horror, amusement, and pride. Tony desperately avoided examining the emotions too much, not wanting to categorise them as paternalistic since he wasn’t old enough, hell he wasn’t smart enough to be Daddy to the AI. No, his feelings were more like his feelings towards a probie, he reassured himself, blaming Chaya Sar for the ridiculous notion of J.P. as a naïve youngster.
~o0o~
General Jack O’Neill was furious, angry enough to want to murder someone. In the end, he would have to settle for claiming scalps instead, but it didn’t do anything to quell his fury at the stupidity, the imbecilic short-sightedness or perhaps it was a massive case of target fixation that could have been catastrophic had the dumbass plan succeeded. And even though they’d thwarted it before it could cause massive damage to the security of Anthony and Tali DiNozzo, it exposed certain weaknesses that needed addressing.
The whole shit show happened thanks to a comedy of errors starting with Homeworld Command. In Jack’s absence, Paul Davis had dropped the ball massively. On the one hand, there were extenuating circumstances but had the plan succeeded, that really wouldn’t have mattered all that much. The only good thing about this SNAFU was that they were almost certain that the threat hadn’t come from the Trust, which was a massive relief. And yet, the fact that the plot had originated from their own people was hugely embarrassing for POTUS, Homeworld Command and the Pentagon and it had left Jack feeling massively betrayed. He figured that Paddington was going to feel even worse once Jack returned to Atlantis to brief him on the situation.
Jack was still having trouble coming to terms with the fact that two of the Joint Chief of Staff (Army and Marines) were such obsequious fanboys of Rodney McKay that they, plus a CIA dark ops department had come up with a plan to frame SAIC Alexander Paddington and have him removed from Atlantis. Their twisted logic was, that McKay’s continued antipathy towards Alex and Belle Paddington and the possible threat he posed to them (as assessed by Dr O’Shea) was the reason Rodney had been benched as Atlantis’ Chief Science officer. Therefore, once Alex and his daughter were no longer on Atlantis, McKay would be cleared to resume his position and he’d return to working on several research projects they held a vested interest in, but currently languishing on the theoretical drawing board awaiting his return to the lab.
The stupidity of having a clearly unstable genius running around working on super classified stuff was breathtaking but either it hadn’t occurred to the Pentagon and CIA war hawks, or they were living in Pollyanna Land. To Jack, both of those scenarios were equally frightening, as well, as the utter callous lengths they were capable of in attaining their goal of getting Rodney back to work. As to the simplistic belief that removing Paddington would solve Rodney’s issues, that was frankly scary.
According to Dr O’Shea, Garcia and her Black Queen Security Protocols merely identified psychological flaws in the intruder and then applied suitable pressure to prevent the Homeworld Command servers from being breached. In this case, Rodney’s firm conviction that he was smarter than everyone else was what made it impossible for him to accept that he couldn’t penetrate Homeworld’s computer servers and back out gracefully. And then his abuse of stimulants did the rest. As O’Neill tried to point out to the Brains Trust, those psychological vulnerabilities were already there, Penelope Garcia’s unique security firewalls just highlighted them. And until those insecurities were properly addressed, Jack had no intention of signing off Rodney as a fit to return to the lab, regardless of his attitude to Paddington.
Frankly, the fact that McKay had used the Zombie mind control drug against Colonel Sheppard, and everyone had overlooked it as a joke, or just Rodney being Rodney had floored him. It was long past time for people to get a free pass on unethical, borderline or out-and-out criminal behaviour just because they were geniuses who stood in the way of Earth’s enemies such as the Wraith, Ori or the Goa’ulds. It was not good enough!
As he returned to his office after a briefing with the President, Jack felt sick to his stomach knowing that two of the JCS – General Conrad and General Rosen had, with the help of the CIA elite covert ops group, Special Activities Centre (SAC), formerly known as Special Activities Division (SAD) conceived of a plan to take advantage of the JAG officers going to Atlantis for the Genii trials. Their intent had been to frame Paddington for a crime he didn’t commit and then to have him removed from Atlantis. Fornell investigated Lieutenant Patrick’s car crash and found credible evidence that the car had been tampered with, which meant that the poor bastard’s paraplegia had been collateral damage in their plan to destroy Paddington. Plus, President Walsh informed him that Generals Conrad and Rosen had all but admitted that the CIA also engineered Mrs Karlson’s stroke, messing with her blood pressure meds and swapping them with meds to likely induce it.
Their vile plan substituted two stooges onto the legal team at the last minute, hopefully avoiding detection. They’d signed off on Lt Cdr Vukovic and Lt Cdr Graves’ security clearances, knowing full well that Jack, technically on Atlantis, was busy overseeing the setting up of the off-world research and MCD -238β vaccine program. The only good news Jack had gleaned from all this crap was that they didn’t have a clue who Paddington really was, such was the outstanding job that Paul had done on creating DiNozzo’s legend – it was truly a work of art. It was just very unfortunate that his 2IC, who normally drove Jack bat-shit crazy with all his anal-retentive attention to detail, had dropped the ball while dealing with another FUBAR situation that had blown up in their faces.
One that also concerned Paddington and made Jack antsy about the consequences. While the director of DHS, Nancy Addison was busy dealing with the fallout from a crisis in the US Secret Service, one of her associate directors had taken it upon themselves to release Ziva David from detention after some bleeding-heart do-gooder called in a favour. And that right there was why Jack hated DC, politicians and sycophants with their wheeling and dealing and their sociopathic I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine, mentality.
Finding out about it too late to prevent Ziva David’s release, Davis had been chasing his tail, trying to figure out where she had gone to ground and what she was up to. Jack had to concede that his actions had been understandable since neither he nor Davis trusted her as far as they could throw her. It was only after several days he’d located her, back in her old stomping ground in DC, not surprisingly having contacted her former colleagues and teammates from NCIS, using the pathetic excuse of staging her own death and abandoning her own kid to protect Tali and her MCRT family. DiNozzo had never believed she was dead, and he was right. It was highly likely that her enemies never did either.
Jack who knew the former Director of the Mossad by reputation, having worked in Black Ops for some years before going to Abydos, felt sure that Eli David would have been proud of the daughter he raised. She’d coldheartedly let her kid and her colleagues think she’d died, setting up Trent Kort for a hit to gain the upper hand on her real foe. Paul had established that her miraculous ‘arisen from the dead story’ had already been accepted by her NCIS teammates as they joyfully welcomed her back into the fold. Sure, her former colleagues hadn’t appreciated her lack of trust, but they’d been too busy being happy that she was still alive to stay angry with her for manipulating everyone so cold-bloodedly three years ago. O’Neill reckoned she was her father’s daughter alright, the former director had been renowned for his reptilian-like lack of emotions, but Jack felt with this stunt, Ziva may just have exceeded her mentor!
It was clear to Jack, and Paul agreed with his analysis, that Ziva David was caught up in a whole lot more shit than simply reuniting with her daughter. For now, she was under surveillance until they figured out what she was planning but when she showed her hand, Homeworld Command’s plan would swing into action, sending her off on a wild goose chase. Plan A was to let her start searching for Tali with a false trail they’d deliberately laid and leak her search to people who they suspected but couldn’t prove were connected to the Trust. Hopefully, while David was searching, the Trust would have her followed, drawing out other Trust operatives in the process. If the Trust didn’t take the bait, then Plan B would be enacted; they would stage Tali and Anthony DiNozzo’s death. They would plant just enough information about the Trust linking them to the tragedy, hoping she’d act true to form and set out to hunt them all down and destroy them. After all, she had avenged her father’s death, although the intelligence community was sceptical she’d murdered the person who was really responsible for the hit.
But they weren’t at the point of enacting either plan just yet. David had an agenda, a reason for her to return to DC and all they could do at this stage was watch and wait. It did however mean that with Tali’s mother contacting NCIS, it was time to read Paddington in on the fact he was correct. Ziva David had not died, she had, as he suspected, faked her own death with the help of Adam Eshel at the very least, if not the Israeli powers that be. In hindsight, Jack should have told him sooner; now he was going to be hit with the double whammy of knowing that she was back and that people in power in the government were prepared to throw him under the bus to prop up Rodney McKay.
Of course, Jack was a pragmatist from way back, long before he became involved in the Stargate Program. He also possessed a healthy dose of cynicism, long before his son Charlie had killed himself with Jack’s own service revolver and wasn’t that a terribly terrible irony right there. He had been around weapons all his life, his beloved grandfather taught him how to hunt, and he’d used guns to take out people during his special ops work but he’d never been enamoured by them.
He didn’t collect guns, he didn’t need to adorn his person with lethal weapons, like some pathetic little rat bastard who was sadly lacking in the dick and brains department. Guns and weapons would always be necessary evils, tools to protect and to keep his country and later his planet and the galaxy safe from evil power-crazed enemies who posed a threat to their existence. But to walk around with them as if they were some macho fashion accessory or status symbol was not something he felt compelled to do to feel manly. Truth be told, he was more than capable of protecting himself and his family with only his bare hands.
For Charlie to have died by his service weapon seemed such a cruel merciless mockery, especially when so many kids grew up in homes where you couldn’t take more than a few steps before tripping over a gun lying around fully loaded. Although time had tempered the pain somewhat, he would never be able to forgive his lapse, and nothing would ever bring his son back.
Having somehow lived through the direst experience imaginable, it took a helluva lot of crap to bring him to his knees, but as he got to the bottom of this plot to rid Atlantis of Alex Paddington’s exceptional talents, Jack O’Neill’s fury mounted. He swore that he’d make those bastards pay for what they’d tried to do. Aside from the fact he genuinely liked and admired Paddington and (the cynical old warrior was captivated by his daughter) Atlantis owed him a huge debt of gratitude for finding Colonel Sheppard. That debt alone had been a priceless contribution – even without him uncovering a series of significant crimes including murder, blackmail, and rape. But he’d also discovered a terrifying threat that could subjugate the entire population on Earth, potentially saving billions of lives and immense suffering. If that wasn’t enough of a contribution, Alex delivered a psychological profile that had given Homeworld a huge kick up the pants regarding letting a bunch of Asuran replicators float around deactivated in deep space at the outer edges of the Pegasus galaxy that further reinforced his contribution to the Stargate program. And he’d only been on Atlantis for less than a year
The thing that made Jack even more ropeable was that he’d tried for so damned long to get even one AFOSI or NCIS agent assigned, first to Cheyenne Mountain and latterly Atlantis, always to be knocked back with the excuse that they would need to read someone in, and it was a security risk that people felt couldn’t’ be justified, especially since they’d coped perfectly well without having a dedicated law enforcement presence within the Stargate program. Alex’s presence had shown just how ludicrous that stance had been when he barely arrived before identifying the terrifying risk to not just Atlantis but every person on Earth. His skills as an agent meant that the Stargate program stood an excellent chance of thwarting the zombification of the world at a time of increasing peril (already experiencing a resurgence of worldwide authoritarian movements producing millions of people who’d appeared to have drunk the crazy let’s elect despotic dictators Kool-Aid. Of course, that was even before factoring in having a mind control drug that could remove free will from even the most level-headed, strong-minded individual.
Jack O’Neill was going to make damned sure that anyone trying to mess with Alex Paddington, or the new law enforcement bureau would regret it because, to his way of thinking, Paddington’s skills and ability were just as priceless as a brilliant astrophysicist like McKay. Jack was going back to Atlantis in two days but first, he had several people he needed to see. Those fools who thought they could set his agent up and get him fired because he lacked any backup didn’t realise just how adept Alex was at forging a talented team out of a seemingly ragtag group of heterogeneous individuals, it was awe-inspiring. He’d immediately recognised Amelia Banks and Capt. Cadman as individuals who could be recruited to the nascent agency.
Jack understood the importance of having people to watch his six and he was going to see if he could get Alex more assistance. Since he was currently in DC, the Homeworld director would start with former FBI agent Tobias Fornell. Plus, he would have Colonel Davis swap out both Alex and Tali’s DNA with someone else in their files, if it hadn’t been done already so that should someone manage to get their hands on it, it would not lead back to Anthony and Tali DiNozzo.
There are plots within plots within plot going on! Amazing that you were able to keep it all straight.
Absolutely love Aiofe! And that scene with JP dishing out all the endearments was beyond hilarious. 😆