Reading Time: 118 Minutes

Title: Seeking Sanctuary
Series: Priceless
Series Order: 1
Author: SASundance
Fandom: NCIS, Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis, Criminal Minds; JAG
Genre: Crime Drama, Crossover, Episode Related, Science Fiction
Relationship(s): Radek Zelenka/Miko Kusanagi
Content Rating: R
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, 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)
Beta: Aussiefan70
Word Count: 58,000
Summary: It was the final straw for Anthony DiNozzo when a shadowy group called the Trust had tried to kidnap Tali, seeking to turn her into a lab rat, all because they has a weird mutant gene that allowed them to control alien technology. Then there was the ambiguity of whether Ziva David was really dead; they’d been fooled once before, and Tony vowed his daughter would not get swept up in the machinations of two generations of the David family’s heritage. Now he was on the run from the Trust, with nowhere safe on earth for them; he did what any responsible and desperate parent would do. He ran; all the way to the Pegasus galaxy, seeking sanctuary from those who sought to destroy them.
Artist: AngelicInsanity

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“Trust is like an eraser, it gets smaller and smaller with every mistake.”
Angela Ann.

Chapter 1 Encounters of the Irish Kind

If you had asked Tony DiNozzo a decade ago to predict the ten most unlikely things that he could see himself doing in his life, then him seeing a psychologist (except on a date) without having a gun to his head, becoming a father, running from his kid’s maybe dead psychotic mother, also running from an international group of bad guys intent on kidnapping said kid and becoming an intergalactic cop would have been on that list. Assuming he was drunk at the time you asked him because who even knew that space cops were a real thing and the other options were all pretty high on the ‘that’s never gonna happen scale, too. Nevertheless, here he was, the only law enforcement officer on Atlantis in the Pegasus Galaxy, with his very own daughter who’d popped into his life out of thin air, in the most outlandish type of WitSec you’d ever seen and…and yeah, on his way to a voluntary counselling session.

There were times when he had a tough time believing this was his life now. And yet here they was on the third day in Atlantis, dropping off his daughter Tali at the Zelenka’s quarters and Teyla and Torren Emmagan were already there waiting for them. Miko Kusanagi-Zelenka and Teyla were taking Torren, Tali and Miko and Radek’s daughter Kazumi to the outdoor play area for the three kids to run around and burn off energy. Torren also had a remote-controlled car that John Sheppard had given him as a present and he wanted to play with it at the playground. Tony was happy that Tali would get a chance to play outside, and he wished he could go with her.

He was really not looking forward to his appointment with Dr O’Shea who was the resident psychologist on Atlantis, but she was expecting him. After all, he had made the appointment, determined to get help in sorting out the maelstrom of emotions that threatened to drown him. Smiling wanly at Miko and Teyla, he hugged his daughter and told her to do whatever Kazumi’s mother told her to do, he headed off to the transporter reluctantly. He exited it and made his way towards Dr O’Shea’s office which was also in the general vicinity of the infirmary, which seemed logical.

He had promised himself he was going to go through with this but truthfully, he’d already thrown up at the thought of having to talk to a perfect stranger about Ziva and Tali. And with each step Tony took, he found himself growing more and more anxious. His inner demons screamed at him, telling him that his usual method of dealing with them and his myriad emotional baggage worked fine. He just had to keep shoving it all down, staying busy or going for a long run to keep his demons from spirally out of control, at least temporarily. And that was the problem, it was always a temporary fix. That, plus the latest Ziva shaped demon was proving almost impossible to repress.

For a little while when Tali had been stalked and had two abduction attempts by the Trust, Tony had found it almost simple to stuff everything in his mental box labelled – there be dark demons within – and lock it down hard. That all changed once they got to Atlantis, and he was guessing it had something to do with the relative safety of them being in a far-off galaxy. The initial relief had been short-lived; it had all come roaring back for him, pummelling him with such intensity that he couldn’t deny that he needed help. Admitting he needed it and going out and getting it was two vastly different beasts, however.

By the time he reached the psychologist’s waiting room, although that was a rather grandiose description, a supply closet with room for a chair was hardly an exaggeration, his heart was pounding uncomfortably, and he was sweating. He felt trapped and the lack of space did nothing to help with the dreaded feeling of claustrophobia he was experiencing. By the time he made it into Dr O’Shea’s office which thankfully was light and airy, Anthony DiNozzo was beginning to experience the familiar but unwelcome signs of a panic attack. It had been a while, but he could tell this was a bad one and no matter how much he knew intellectually that it was a physical reaction to anxiety, it still felt like he was about to die.

He was vaguely aware that a small female was leading him to a comfortable chair and instructing him to sit in a lilting Irish accent, coaching him through the panic attack, using breathing exercises. Unfortunately, since the plague ordeal, when he had a panic attack he often flashed back to when he was cyanotic and unable to breathe, breathing exercises weren’t as helpful as they had been pre-Y-pestis.

Not a one-trick pony, the psychologist placed a piece of material (a handkerchief he realised belatedly) under Tony’s nose, and he caught a strong whiff of peppermint that shocked him since it was so unexpected. As the symptoms let up a little, he heard her telling him to repeat after her the alphabet “ABCD, CGFK, JHMO, ILNP, SRQT, VYU, XWZ he found himself wondering if she had dyslexia or had lost her marbles.

Either he must have verbalised his thought, she was used to his reaction, or he communicated his thoughts nonverbally because she laughed a musical infectious laugh. He noted it wasn’t the mean making fun of you at your expense laugh that his old team had made an art out of, leaving him feeling like a piece of trash in the gutter.

“I know it sounds utterly mental, Alex but it works. A sequence being out of a well-known and predictable order short circuits thoughts racing at a million miles per hour,” she explained it in layman’s terms.

He remembered thinking, right now I don’t care why it works.

O’Shea was continuing her coaxing in her calm musical brogue, “Now let’s focus on some more traditional techniques. I take it this isn’t your first panic attack?”

He shook his head mutely.

“Right, we’ll concentrate on your breathing for a wee bit – I think you’ll be more successful now. I see from your intake form that you play the piano, so I think this breathing exercise will be right up your alley,” she smiled at him kindly.

“We call it the 4-7-8 method. I want you to breathe in for the count of four and then hold your breath for the count of seven and then breathe out for the count of eight. Have you got that?” she asked as he nodded shakily.

Panic attacks were always more brutal because of his scarred lungs, and it took him longer to recover. Talking was not something he was willing to attempt just yet. He’d learnt to conserve his oxygen for more immediate matters.

As O’Shea coached him through the exercise and he got into the swing of it, it occurred to him that the count was uneven, the cycle consisted of a combined count of nineteen which seemed odd but while a part of his brain was considering this fact, the rest of him had fallen into the rhythm of breathing and that combined with the aroma of peppermint was relaxing him faster than he’d expected.

Dr Aoife O’Shea had been very empathetic which surprised him. Eh, maybe she was empathetic or maybe she realised what a whack job you are and is treating you with kid gloves, Anthony, an inner voice told him, sounding like a combination of his former teammates and Senior.

The psychologist told him that her first name was Gaelic and although it was spelt Aoife it was pronounced Ee-fah. He was happy that she had told him that otherwise he would have mangled the pronunciation for sure.

After talking to Tony about the panic attack and how it was a sign of anxiety, she asked him if he knew what was causing him to be anxious. “Apart from moving to another galaxy with your daughter, which has many new dangers and the pressure on you to find the leader of the military and the second in command,” she joked sympathetically. “That’s a lot to deal with.”

He smiled, still too puffed to laugh, even if he was in the mood, which he wasn’t.

“Don’t forget the whole acting like a light-switch gig, since I have as strong an expression of it as Colonel Shepard and General O’Neill,” he kidded because the gene was part of why he’d come to see the tiny psychologist.

He stared at her appraisingly. Aoife was only a little over five foot one, and he doubted that she weighed more than ninety pounds. And yet Aoife was certainly no weakling. She manipulated his panicking six foot two inches around her office like he was made of air, and he had a feeling she was equally as tough mentally, too.

“Aye let’s not be forgetting that either,” she said drolly. “So, are you feeling up to telling me why you decided to come here to talk with me today, Alex?” she inquired.

Well, it looked as if the moment of truth had well and truly arrived. There would be no escape today. Even though a part of him wanted to insist he was fine, thank you very much, his epic panic attack had put paid to any assertion that he wasn’t a certified, one hundred percent dyed-in-the-wool basket case.

“I guess the first thing you need to know about me, is that my name isn’t Alex Paddington,” he said trying to ignore her shocked look.

“My daughter and I are here on Atlantis as a rather extreme form of witness protection, because the Trust, and for all I know, maybe even some members of the IOA, are desperate to get control of my little girl.”

“Why do they want your daughter?”

“Because we both have the ATA gene. Already there’ve been two unsuccessful attempts to snatch her.”

O’Shea looked gobsmacked. “Oh, my seven shades of shite,” she exclaimed. “That explains a lot. So, you aren’t here to investigate what happened to the Colonel?”

“Yes, I am looking into his disappearance. I’m a former cop and a federal agent, or I was, until three years ago when I learnt about Belle.”

“Your daughter?”

“Yes, but that’s not her real name either. Crazy thing is that I didn’t believe she was my daughter until about six months ago. I’m having a lot of trouble coming to terms with that. It’s one of the reasons why I decided I needed to talk to someone and get myself straightened out.”

“Okay, it sounds like there is a story there, but you said one of the reasons. What are the other reasons you decided to speak to me?”

Alex groaned. “It’s all so complicated. I never thought I’d be a parent. I didn’t want to have children because I thought I’d screw up any kid I had. Yet suddenly, I’ve got a child that I never planned on having and I’m all that she has. I’m terrified she’ll end up as messed up as me.”

O’Shea frowned before she observed, “That sounds like a perfectly normal reaction, Alex. Most parents would identify with your fears and doubts.”

“Maybe, but the thing you need to know, is that my father was an alcoholic, and my mother was addicted to prescription meds and often mixed them with alcohol. I know she loved me, but despite that, she often neglected me,” he told her sadly.

“What was your relationship like with your father?”

“Senior also neglected me, and he lost his temper frequently. I don’t think he ever wanted me. He was drunk and angry pretty much all the time after my mom died.”

How old were you when she died,” Dr O’Shea asked?

“I was eight, at which point I became a relief valve for his temper. For the next four years I went through a miserable phase of becoming a clumsy child,” he reported matter-of-factly.

O’Shea raised her eyebrows. “And were you a clumsy child?”

“Oh yeah,” Tony nodded. “Very clumsy. I got in the way of his fist, or the fireplace poker,” he shuddered slightly, “or his boot quite often, although he’d tell people I tumbled down the stairs or fell out of a tree.”

The psychologist shook her head. “Let me guess. You fell down the stairs or out of the tree trying to get away from him?”

“Classic, isn’t it?” he snarked. “And of course, there was lots of falling off my bike as well.”

You said your clumsy phase was between 8 – and 12 years old. What changed,” Aoife asked?

“I was disowned at twelve and I was sent away to a military boarding school where a teacher took a bit too much of an interest in me when I had a growth spurt at fifteen. I nearly married her twelve years later when I ran into her again at the last police department where I worked before I became a federal agent. She called the marriage off the night before the wedding.”

Aoife stared at him to see if he was serious.

He was. “I’ve got more baggage than a Kardashian,” he concluded disgustedly.

“Which one?” Aoife inquired absurdly.

“Huh! What?”

“Which Kardashian do you have more baggage than?”

“Hell, if I know, Doc. I can’t tell them apart.”

“I know what you mean, But I think the Klingons were also difficult to tell apart, too,” she shrugged, but there was a wicked gleam in her slate grey eyes that made him like her. “And the Romulans aren’t all that easy either.”

They both shared a light-hearted giggle before Dr O’Shea got serious again as the psychologist maintained unwavering eye contact with him.

“Okay, so now I can better understand your concerns,” she told him. “But, Alex, the fact you have so much insight is a real positive. It makes me feel extremely optimistic about you. As does the fact that you’re here, and no, I’m not talking about being here in this room with me. I mean that you’ve brought your daughter to Atlantis. It was a brave thing to do.”

Tony shrugged. “I hope so. I want her to grow up feeling loved and safe. I want her to be happy.”

O’Shea nodded. “You want her to have the simple but important things you didn’t have as a child, as an adolescent and as an adult. You want her to have the unconditional love of her parent.”

“She wasn’t safe back on Earth, there was no other option, even if coming here is far from perfect for a little kid,” he said categorically.

“You said that you’re all she has. Have you no family? What happened to her mother?”

Closing his eyes and drawing in a slow deep breath because he could feel the anxiety beginning to stir, Tony said, “I have my father who has been in contact with me in recent years. And while he claims to have changed, I wouldn’t ever trust him to raise my daughter.”

“That, I can understand. It’s too risky, even if he has reformed,” she told him. “And what of Belle’s mother?”

According to the Director of the Mossad, Ziva is supposed to be dead. She was living at her family’s olive grove. The farmhouse was firebombed by one of her father’s legion of enemies, looking for secret files he kept for blackmail purposes while he was still alive. He was assassinated and to be honest I wasn’t surprised. He and Ziva had enemies and they would seek out Belle for retribution in a heartbeat.”

He ignored Aoife’s appalled expression. “When I learned of Tali’s existence three years ago, the Director of Mossad brought her to me and dumped her into my custody only hours after we heard on ZNN that Ziva was dead. I immediately resigned from NCIS and went into hiding with Tali because I didn’t think she was safe. I also wasn’t convinced that Ziva was dead. I’m still not.”

“What would you do if you are correct, and her mother is alive? What if she wants to resume a relationship with you both sometime in the future?”

“Let me make one thing clear Dr O’Shea. There was never any relationship between Ziva and me, except we were work colleagues. So, there is no us and there never will be,” he said angrily.

As for Belle, I would give her anything except letting Ziva take her back. Her mother is not a good person; she is a Mossad spy and assassin who committed espionage against the United States. Aside from all her sanctioned kills, Ziva is guilty at the very least of being an accessory to the murder of two innocent people who got in the way of her Mossad contacts. If she is still alive, I don’t believe she is a fit person to raise Belle or any child for that matter.”

Looking shocked at his revelations she said. “Oh shite! No wonder you’re anxious, I’d be a feckin mess in your shoes.”

She looked at her watch and frowned. “Look, we don’t have much longer, but I suggest that we meet twice a week. I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of why you’re here and I need to get all the background before we begin working on solutions. Is that okay with you, Alex?”

He nodded. “I guess it would be stupid for me to come here for help and not take your advice.”

“You have that right, but it is clear you are no eejit so I think we will do okay,” she encouraged him. “Now anything else that you need to tell me before we stop for today. I get the feeling you’ve left out something big, but we can pick that up next time.”

Tony gave a mental chuckle because Dr O’Shea was not wrong. He’d left out probably the most important reason he had forced himself to go to see her, along with HAL and their supplemental genes, whatever the hell that meant. But he was more than happy to leave all of that for another day.

“Yes, two things. First, everything that I’ve told you about Belle and me is super classified. Only a few people know our true identities and her identity must stay top secret. MI6 went to a great deal of trouble creating alternative identities for us both and just because we are on Atlantis doesn’t mean we can relax our guard,” he emphasised strongly.

“I understand. I am obliged to keep everything you told me confidential except if I feel you were a danger to yourself or others. Even then, I would never divulge anything about your true identities,” O’Shea vowed.

Tony nodded. “Thanks, that’s important.”

“And the other thing?” she prompted him gently.

“Next time can we talk about how to help Belle adjust to being on Atlantis? She started having nightmares and regressed somewhat after the kidnapping attempts. There isn’t anyone who I can ask for advice because of our secret identities,” he asked, hoping that she wouldn’t say that Tali wasn’t her patient.

Instead, she looked happy that he’d asked. “We can do that Alex. Of course, I’m not a trained child psychologist but there is an old Irish proverb that I think is quite apt in this situation. It is maith an scàthàn sùil charad,” she said in Gaelic.

And once more, he was struck by the musicality of her speech.

She smiled at him sweetly and provided him with the English translation. “A friend’s eye is a good mirror. It is a good rule for all my work as a psychologist.

~o0o~

Dr O’Shea had fifteen minutes before her next appointment, and she used it to get a drink of water and make a trip to the jacks. Mostly, the brand-new sexagenarian didn’t feel her age, but her sixty-year-old bladder and diuretic beverages begged to differ about that. Still, she couldn’t complain since years of yoga and Pilates kept her body feeling limber and energetic. At least her more frequent trips to empty her bladder were undertaken with the same agile grace she’d possessed since childhood. Likewise, meditation kept her mind flexible and thriving.

Deciding that she needed to stick to water for a bit, she grabbed a bottle of H2O and thought about her newest client. Alex-not-his-real-name Paddington was an interesting guy. His panic attack had been one of the worst she’d ever seen – talk about putting the heart crossways in her. Even as she’d been coaching him through it, she was plankin it that the severity meant it was beyond her scope to deal with. She’d noticed the slight bluish tinge to his lips at one point and had been on the point of calling the Infirmary for assistance but happened to spy the bottle of peppermint oil on her desk. As luck would have it, O’Shea had brought it from her quarters to wipe down her small office fridge yesterday and forgotten to take it home with her.

She’d sometimes used the technique of having a person in the throes of a panic attack hold onto a piece of ice to shock them, but one of her colleagues who was also a certified aromatherapist claimed that certain essential oils could also do the trick. So pure serendipity saved her from sending Alex down to the infirmary on his first visit. Her friend Kathleen would be on the pig’s back to know that she’d had success with one of her techniques. Aoife was mighty relieved to have been able to talk him through the attack, so she could begin the process of figuring out what had brought him here.

She already knew that he was a sole parent, although he also said he didn’t believe the mother of his child was dead. Was that a fact or maybe a sign that he hadn’t properly grieved her death, not able to reach the stage of acceptance? He seemed to have a fair amount of anger towards the woman – but was this part of the grieving process or was his anger towards her a separate issue. She knew that she would need to delve more closely into their background before she could draw any conclusions about it. Perhaps she needed to address that issue before they got to the crux of why he’d decided to see a psychologist.

O’Shea thought about his disclosure that his child had the ATA gene too and that it had painted a massive target on her back. It had to be true, she couldn’t see Homeworld Command agreeing to bring her here as part of a witness protection program, otherwise. Although, she conceded that Atlantis was not as dangerous as it used to be. With enough power to run the city and power their shields or the star drive, should it prove necessary, and with the Asuran race of human replicators gone and the Wraith decimated but not destroyed, Atlantis felt like a sanctuary in the Pegasus galaxy. But still, the Genii, although they were officially their Allies, remained a potential threat Atlanteans would be wise not to ignore. Being approximately fifty years behind Earth’s technological levels and with their nuclear capabilities, it would be foolish to ignore the potential threat they posed.

That said, the situation had to be dire to force Alex to flee his planet to come to Atlantis. Seeking sanctuary for him and his child must have been a massive decision. It was natural to have doubts about such a move, plus to be forced to live under an assumed name on top of that was a whole lot of stress. Dealing with Belle’s adjustment issues and nightmares had to be difficult, so Aoife wasn’t surprised that he’d had a huge meltdown today. She was very relieved that they’d been able to work through it though. She had a feeling that had he ended up sedated in a hospital bed, it would have made him reluctant to continue.

As she headed back to her desk to prepare for her next appointment with their resident hypochondriac, she thought about the revelation that Alex Paddington was the child of parents of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), and shite, didn’t that further complicated an already complex situation. AUD affected the whole family, not just the individuals. Children were the innocent victims, their childhoods were usually disrupted and disordered. Effects ranged from living in chaotic circumstances, poverty, and domestic violence within the family, including child neglect and abuse that varied from minor incidents right up to severe mental, physical, sexual, and psychological abuse.

Children of alcoholics had a much higher risk of developing AUD themselves. There were other psychological sequelae too. Increased incidence of anxiety and depression, increased risk of developing a personality disorder since these kids had lorry-loads of anger which they’d never been taught to regulate appropriately. Many of these children felt it incumbent to assume the role of a responsible adult within the family dynamic, something that carried through to their adult lives. They were often driven individuals, perfectionists who were hardest on themselves and suffered enormous guilt when something went wrong, taking on the responsibility even when the unavoidable disaster struck which was outside of their loci of control.

From her initial but brief assessment of Alex Paddington, Aoife didn’t think he was a candidate for a personality disorder such as borderline personality disorder. It was too early to make that call, but intuition told her it wasn’t a concern. However, it seemed fairly obvious from what she’d seen and heard that he had generalised anxiety and possibly depression. It was too early to diagnose if his panic attack were linked to post-traumatic stress or not but as an experienced cop and federal agent for 21 years, PTSD would be a distinct possibility. It was something O’Shea saw quite frequently on Atlantis, in both the civilian and military populations. Well, it was early days yet, but she felt that her newest client was certainly going to be keep her on her toes in a way no one had in donkeys years.

He was quite the enigma just waiting to be unpacked and he also happened to be a fine thing that she wouldn’t mind lurching will, if she were twenty years younger and weren’t her client. As his psychologist there were such things as boundaries.

There was an ineffable air about Agent Paddington that screamed out, hey, looky-here, wounded soul, making it hard to resist wanting to mollycoddle him and fix his boo-boos. And yep, she wasn’t immune to it either. At times, he also exuded a charismatic quality that could easily prove to be a deadly combination, when paired with the wounded soul. It could also make him extremely dangerous if he had one of the more extreme personality ailments such as Malignant Narcissistic Personality disorder.

While his childhood certainly put him at risk for that, she felt confident she could rule it out. A person with MNPD wouldn’t place their endangered child’s safety, happiness, and well-being ahead of their own needs and move to a galaxy far far away seeking sanctuary.

And speaking about maintaining professional boundaries, she needed to put aside the mystery of Alex Paddington as her favourite hypochondriac had arrived. The outer door pinged, letting her know he had entered. Since Aoife had deliberately left the door to her office open, she knew that the man who had next to no regard for personal boundaries would make his way into her office.

Taking a breath to prepare for the onslaught of emoting and cnawvshawling that would take place for the next forty-five minutes, she plastered a smile on her face, calling out, “Come on in, Rodney.”

AN

Aoife is Irish born although she tries to avoid slang because her clients are from a range of nations or sometimes even galaxies, but occasionally, she slips up. When she is alone, she tends to lapse. Here are some translations:

cnawvshawling – complaining

eejit – foolish stupid

lurching – slow dancing up close

on the pigs back – in a celebratory mood

the jacks – toilet

Chapter 2 The Lost City

After his massive panic attack today, Tony was feeling wiped out. He really just wanted to curl up in bed and sleep, but as a single father with a five-year-old? Yeah, that was never an option because he didn’t want to freak her out. He remembered so many times as a child when his mother was ‘too sick’ to see him, and he was not going to do that to his own kid.

As to his meltdown a little while ago, yes it was bad. To be honest, he hadn’t had one like that for a mighty long time, maybe after Paula died but hey, it was understandable. These last few weeks had been an incredibly stressful time for them, both before they came to Atlantis and then the past three days after their arrival, which had been full on crazy. Tony sat there thinking about their arrival on the ancient city and what had greeted them as they made their way to a whole new galaxy.

Flashback…

Tony stepped through the stargate, his daughter in his arms, at great pains not to stumble since the little girl had been sedated for the trip. After consultation with Carolyn Lam, CMO at Stargate Command and the head of Homeworld Command, General Jack O’Neill, it was decided it was the most prudent course of action to take since no one was sure how she would manage the trip. She was the youngest individual to travel by wormhole for such an extreme distance and with the recent traumas she’d endured, no one wanted to add any more psychological stressors on top of what she was already dealing with.

Along with the most precious cargo on his hip, their personal belongings were sent through in shipping crates. He suspected that they’d been permitted to bring more than the average team member assigned to Atlantis but then, he was the first expedition member to bring a child with him as young as Belle Paddington, formally known as Tali DiNozzo. Luckily, she wouldn’t be the only child on Atlantis – General O’Neill had informed in that there were Pegasus locals from a planet called Athos who had children living on Atlantis with their parents. The Athosans fulfilled critical roles on Atlantis, serving as guides, warriors, anthropologists, historians, negotiators, and diplomats who worked with the Atlantis expeditionary forces made up of Earth personnel from a surprisingly substantial number of countries, both civilian and military.

There were also a couple of scientists who were long term residents of the ancient city, who’d fallen pregnant and chosen to remain in the Pegasus galaxy continuing their research efforts. He was surprised because normally they would have been using contraception to prevent such occurrences from happening, considering the tenuous situation about the giant star city but that was neither here nor there. The point was that Tali wouldn’t be the only child in the city and for that, he was incredibly grateful.

Recently, Stargate Command had decided to assign a couple of teachers to Atlantis, to help with the educational needs of the twenty-odd school-aged children. One was a high school teacher with a STEM background and the other taught children pre-high school. He was happy that Tali wouldn’t be relying on Tony for all her educational needs and the Atlantis classroom had subject matter experts to fill in the blanks thanks, to the military and civilians stationed there and the Pegasus locals.

As he stepped out of the wormhole into another galaxy and the fabled lost city of Atlantis no less, he hoped that he wasn’t making a huge mistake coming here. It seemed paradoxical that he’d left earth to try and protect his daughter. His daughter…how strange it was to be even thinking that phrase. Certainly a few years ago, he could never have imagined that he would have a little girl who was almost five or that they would end up taking refuge in a floating city in a far-flung galaxy – it was unthinkable.

Lost in his head, second-guessing what had been an agonising decision, he become aware of a presence inside his mind which was decidedly weird and not exactly welcome.

(Welcome Anthony DiNozzo to you and your daughter, Tali. Thank you for coming all this way, I am most grateful.)

If Tony hadn’t been carrying such a precious treasure in his arms, he was certain he would have dropped her in utter shock. Oh my God, I’m Hallucinating. No one warned me that going through the gate would cause me to hear imaginary voices.

Am I going mad? Can gate travel cause insanity?

He felt an odd tickling sensation in his head… his mind he guessed that if he didn’t know better, almost felt like a child-like giggle. It was deeply weird, and he wondered briefly if he’d been taken over by an alien entity. He thought that the Goa’uld were all but wiped out.

Then his hallucination spoke inside his mind again.

(I am no figment of your imagination; I am the artificial intelligence designed by my Lantean creator Janus, entrusted to take over the running of Atlantis once the last Lantean left for the Milky Way galaxy. My task was to ensure that the facility remained viable for Dr Weir to survive in stasis for what you would categorise as ten thousand earth years. Since the arrival of the Terreuans eight years ago, my previous function has evolved. Now I protect the city and its new residents, some of whom are descendants of the Lanteans like yourself and your daughter. You may both be descendants of my creator Janus, which would make us siblings of a sort.)

Tony was dumbfounded. No one warned him about this! He was fairly sure he’d remember it if someone mentioned having an AI computer program that viewed them as distant siblings of the Ancients.

He was so not ready for any of this, he like Tali was an only child, and the closest he’d come to being anyone’s sibling was when he went to OSU and joined a fraternity. As for Dr Weir, he wasn’t sure what that was about, he knew that she was the first leader of the expeditionary force who died three years before. Yet the AI that he’d already dubbed HAL (as it was easier than calling him The AI Program) made it sound like Elizabeth Weir had been here for ten thousand years in stasis. He had only a tentative grasp of what stasis was, after seeing a bunch of Sci-Fi films. He assumed it was suspended animation.

It was clear to Tony, that he was going to have a lot of homework, to get up to speed. No doubt that probably meant a shit ton of reading, familiarising himself with the mission reports and personnel files. Feeling as if he had to say something, he tried to keep it simple, so he didn’t say the wrong thing.

“I see. So, do you communicate with everyone in Atlantis, because no one thought to mention you to me when I was getting briefed?” Tony spoke out loud, as he interrogated this disembodied voice in his head.

(No, I do not. Only those of my creator’s children who have sufficient genetic compatibility with the Lanteans can interact with me without causing a catastrophic system failure. I am programmed to protect, not harm, Therefore I have not attempted to contact any Terreuans who have come through the gate, until now.)

“Terreuans?” Tony questioned the AI program. It sounded like a similar word in Italian for terra.

HAL was silent before replying, (An Alteran word for Earth-borns.)

“Sound similar to a Latin word.”

The computer program responded. (Latin is a more modern derivative of the Alterans language.)

Tony nodded anxiously, “Okay, so by catastrophic system failure…” he trailed off.

(I mean that their biological systems cease to function because their brains would explode,) the AI informed him baldly. (But do not be alarmed, you are not at risk of a catastrophic systems failure, my priceless one. You possess more than sufficient genetic compatibility to be able to communicate mentally with me without any harm.)

Tony felt a little relieved by that information. “Because I possess the ATA gene?”

The AI which he had already started calling HAL inside his head, told him, (In part… Please do not speak of our communication, Priceless. The others will not understand because they do not know of my presence. We will speak more later.)

At which point he was aware that a hand was gently shaking his shoulder and calling his name, “Special Agent Paddington, are you alright? We are aware you possess the ATA gene,” he stated kindly, looking at him worriedly from behind his thick glasses.

Crap, he must have heard me speaking with HAL and now he thinks I’m a whack job. Awesome start, Anthony!

“Sorry, I just got a little disorientated coming through the stargate for a minute or two,” he tried to reassure the guy who was observing him keenly.

“Yes, yes, yes, it can be…unsettling, particularly your first time. And you have travelled between galaxies which makes the effects more pronounced. I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, I wanted to be here before you arrived. We aren’t normally this rude, making new expedition members wait but since Colonel Shepard disappeared, I’m afraid we have all become obsessed with finding him, to the detriment of the social niceties.”

Looking diffident he continued before Tony had a chance to respond. “My partner Miko was most disapproving when she realised that I was running late,” the smallish man with untidy brown hair, somewhat balding with glasses and a middle European accent, apologised to him profusely.

Once upon a time, Tony would have mindlessly parroted his old boss, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, telling the guy that apologies were a sign of weakness but that was a long time ago. Ancient history. He was trying to teach Tali who was intensely wilful that apologising when you did the wrong thing or hurt someone’s feeling was a sign of strength and the only honourable thing to do. So far, it was a work in progress.

Tony smiled at the man who he’d mentally identified from the personnel files he’d studied in preparation for his job, as a civilian scientist, Dr Radek Zelenka. He was 2IC to the chief science officer, Dr Meredith McKay aka Rodney McKay and a brilliant scientist in his own right. As he smiled at Zelenka, Tony shifted the burden on his hip a little, easing the weight of carrying an unconscious body. Five-year-old Tali DiNozzo might be rather small for her age, but at the moment the sleeping child was a dead weight.

Extending his right hand, he said, “Alexander Paddington, Alex,” he introduced himself using what he and Tali were calling their hiding names.

“Dr Radek Zelenka,” he reciprocated.

“It’s nice to meet you, Dr Zelenka, and please there’s no need to apologise. I understand that with Colonel Sheppard missing, it’s all hands-on deck to locate him.”

After shaking hands, Radek stared at the sleeping child. “And this is your daughter?”

Tony flinched imperceptibly, covering it with a bright DiNozzo smile. “Yes, this is my daughter Annabelle Paddington, but she prefers to be called Belle.”

Sensing the unspoken query about her sleeping state, he responded with a slight grimace. “Dr Lam back at Stargate Command gave her a small dose of sedative.

There is nothing in the database about the effects of gate travel upon the developmental effects on children as young as Belle or the psychological effects, so we decided a sedative might make it less traumatic,” he explained.

Zelenka frowned at that. “The Pegasus children use the gate routinely for interplanetary travel and seem not to suffer any ill effects.”

“True, but not for a journey of such magnitude. As far as I’m aware, Belle is the first young child travelling from Earth to another galaxy. There are some who adults find it stressful and debilitating from the reports I read, in a way that smaller trips with galaxies aren’t. Belle’s also been the subject of several kidnapping attempts very recently and I didn’t want her to experience any further traumas,” Tony explained with a wince at how close the second attempt had come to him losing her.

Radek nodded. “She has the ATA gene, as do you. As far as we know, you are the first identified carrier who has passed it on to an offspring. Dr Beckett, General O’Neill, and Colonel Shepard have never had any children. I assume it was the Trust who were responsible.”

That wasn’t strictly true, Jack O’Neill had confided in him about his son, Charlie and the tragedy that had befallen his picture-perfect little family almost twenty years ago. But Tony wasn’t about to betray the man’s confidence – he’d bent over backwards to help protect Tali and he was now unofficially her Uncle Jack.

Tony shrugged, “Yes, and the rogue elements of the NID who, I’m not so sure are rogue elements, to be honest. Could you show me how to get to the infirmary? I’d like Belle checked over to make sure she didn’t suffer any ill effects from the journey.”

“Yes, yes, yes. You both need to be cleared by Dr Keller before I can take you to your quarters to settle in. SOP for all new arrivals.” Radek looked at their new law enforcement officer appraisingly.

“Would you like me to take Belle for you?” he offered.

Touched by the man’s kindness, he recalled that he and Dr Kusanagi had a daughter around the same age as Belle. Hopefully, the pair would become friends. Looking at the smaller man who was wiry and it seemed obvious that he worked out, despite his outrageous work schedule, he shook his head. “Thanks, Dr Zelenka, I’m fine for now but if you wouldn’t mind carrying our go-bags, it would be great.”

Seeing the befuddled look on Zelenka’s face, he pointed to the bags he’s dropped after they exited the stargate. “Um, our overnight bags?”

“Ah, I see. Certainly, I can do that.” As he led the way to the infirmary, the scientist told him, “Please call me Radek, Special Agent Paddington.”

“I will if you’ll call me Alex when I’m not on duty.”

“Agreed, Alex, since I suspect we will be seeing quite a bit of each other,” Radek stated calmly. Seeing Tony’s look of curiosity, “My daughter Kazumi is five years old, so a little bit older than Belle. Although there are several other children on the base who are Kazumi’s age, she is the only girl,” he said leading the newcomers to a transporter.

As the door closed, Tony nodded. “Gotcha. Well as soon as we’re settled in, we’ll arrange some playdates for them,” he promised, knowing that Tali would be thrilled to have a new best friend. It had been hard, leaving Earth and her cousins but she simply wasn’t safe there with the Trust intent on abducting her. Although it wasn’t the only reason for them ending up here, it had been the straw that broke the camel’s back, figuratively speaking.

Before they reached the infirmary, he cleared his throat. “By the way Radek, I’d appreciate it if you don’t mention to anyone that Belle has the ATA gene or that she was the target of the Trust’s kidnapping attempts. We came here to live on Atlantis where she could be safe from their reach, but I’m not taking anything for granted – nothing is guaranteed. I’d rather they not know we are here.”

Radek looked at him shrewdly. “Of course, Alex. As a father, I would do the same for Kazumi – I too would die to keep her safe. Besides, too many scientists would want to borrow her to activate Ancient technology if they knew. Let her be a little girl.”

“Or to study her since she is the first child found to have the gene,” he grimaced at the thought. “Thanks, Radek. I appreciate it.”

For the rest of the way to the Infirmary, Radek chattered away, mentioning his daughter and his wife. Tony knew that Dr Miko Kusanagi was Japanese and also a brilliant scientist who was an astrophysicist too. In fact, she was ranked as the third highest scientist in Atlantis. Anywhere else in the scientific world, she’d probably rate her own department but with Drs McKay and Zelenka working on the massive city, Dr Kusanagi had to settle for the number three spot. He hoped that Tali would take to her since she was already missing her Aunt Lavinia.

Radek also informed him that he was assigned to quarters in the same area as the Zelenka family, and Teyla and Kanaan and their son Torren and another scientist, Dr Monique Girard who had a five-year-old son. It was away from the single quarters and the families had bigger spaces, to accommodate the extra living space needed when for young children. He said that being separate from the single members of the staff meant that they were not bothered by late night parties or hijinks such as racing remote controlled cars in the hallways.

“That’s good. Belle has been having nightmares after the abductions so, not having to worry about people making noise and waking her up will be a relief,” he said with a sigh.

“Yes, yes, yes when Kazumi was first born, we were beside ourselves as we had a noisy neighbour. Finally, Colonel Carter reassigned us more family friendly quarters. Teyla and Kanaan soon followed, and Dr Girard was the last one to decide to move. Plus, several of the Athosians who work on Atlantis were assigned to the family quarters too, although their children are older,” Radek explained.

Arriving at the infirmary, he was introduced to the CMO, Dr Keller who had a singsong quality to her voice that was slightly irritating and childish. Tony found himself wondering a touch cynically if it was an affectation or not. He was kind of fed up with professional and competent females playing games and he mentally cursed Abby and Ziva for their manipulative ‘little girl’ ruses with Gibbs.

Tony chided himself firmly. This was a new beginning for him and Tali. He’d become awfully sceptical of a woman he’d barely known for five seconds. He needed to stop comparing people on Atlantis to his old team back at NCIS.

Dr Keller indicated they might be there for a while, so Radek promised to come back when they’d been cleared and show them to their quarters. The Czech informed them that their possessions were already being transferred to their accommodations and he noted that Zelenka and Keller were both wearing comms. He figured that the scientist would be informed when the new arrivals had been cleared to leave.

Thanking Radek, who nodded and left the infirmary unobtrusively, Tony gratefully surrendered his precious cargo, still fast asleep, onto the hospital bed in the examination area. Smiling at her peaceful expression, he hoped that their method of transport hadn’t caused any untoward side effects for his daughter.

After he’d decided that coming to Atlantis was the best method of keeping her safe, in more ways than one, he’d decided to journey here by spaceship. And wasn’t that just the most bizarre thing ever, just like an episode of Star Trek. Given his misgivings about how Tali erm Belle would cope with a trip through a wormhole between galaxies where adults often reported side effects, it seemed far more prudent to him if they took the longer method of transport. As a dad, he was always erring on the side of caution, where once he would forge ahead, risks be damned.

But the last couple of years caring for Tali, he’d become much more cautious and not just because he had a child who depended upon him either. Almost from the moment, he assumed custody of the toddler, he’d become aware that people were taking far too close an interest in them both. They were frequently followed while in Israel as he searched for Ziva.

He suspected that there may be quite a few Israelis not all that happy that Eli David’s granddaughter was being brought up by a Gentile. Particularly one who had no intention of encouraging a child to grow up and become the pointy end of the spear, unlike Eli would have done had he still been alive and carrying on his scheming ways. He knew that Ziva’s father still had an extremely loyal cadre of Mossad officers (and quite possibly members of the military) who still supported him and his agenda, long after he fell out of political favour and was assassinated.

Then there were the possible enemies of the David family to be concerned about, of which there was an impressive number. Tony reckoned that they numbered far more than even Gibbs, which was impressive. Adversaries and rivals who might see Tali DiNozzo as invaluable leverage in locating and gaining possession of the rumoured considerable number of dirt files Eli had kept on his political foes and his backers after spending decades working for Mossad. Clearly a fan of J. Edgar Hoover was old Eli.

Now Tony had made his fair share of enemies over the years, although they were mainly of the criminal kind. Yes, Rivkin and Eli had been political foes, but thankfully, they were also both dead. Still, the enemies he’d collected along the way were why he decided not to return to the States, opting instead to settle in Britain. That was only practical because he had dual citizenship, having been born in the UK to a British mother. He also tossed up whether to start using his mother’s maiden name to blend in better but decided not to play that card unless it was absolutely necessary. Now it had become necessary!

Initially, he expected that they probably wouldn’t need to disappear for long and he tried hard not to get too attached to the curly-haired little moppet who was Ziva’s daughter. He hadn’t for one minute believed that Ziva was dead or that a young toddler was the sole survivor of the fire-bombing that destroyed their family home. A toddler was far less able to deal with physical excesses such as extreme temperatures. A toddler quickly succumbed to heatstroke or hypothermia since small children’s ability to regulate body temperature was far less developed than an adult.

They also had much fewer physical reserves to survive catastrophic events, for example, dehydration occurred extremely rapidly in young children. Plus, the fact Tali seemed remarkably untraumatized by supposedly surviving a mortar blast and burning down of her home. She had no terror of fire or loud noises which was yet another clue that she was probably nowhere near the farmhouse the day it went up. If that was the case, he was pretty damned sure Ziva had survived as well. That meant the body found in the ruins had been planted there by Ziva.

Tony was certain as he could be that Ziva was off playing a dangerous game of spooks and spies, chasing down the people who were after her father’s infamous dirt files by pretending to be dead to lure them out. Perhaps she was focused on avenging the attack on herself and her daughter (she excelled at revenge) and had sent Tali to him for protection, knowing as her partner he would always have her six. He expected her to turn up someday out of the blue and tell him he wasn’t her father, that it had all been a ruse to protect her daughter, demand custody of her and they would disappear off into the blue horizon once more. He knew that it was in Ziva David’s blood, and she’d be unable to keep out of all the Kidon/Mossad shit that seemed to have embrangled her family.

Yet here he was, three years later on Atlantis with Tali because Tony was determined that she was going to get a chance to grow up and live as normal a life as possible. That meant there was no way she was going to grow into a clone of her unbalanced mother, or arguably even worse, turned into a lab research subject for the Trust to exploit. Seriously, that lot were a bunch of amoral sociopathic hyenas desperate to take over the universe, like ridiculous superhero comic book baddies, except they weren’t a work of fiction, they believed their own shit. Well, Tony was not about to stand idly by and let either scenario occur.

Not on his watch…even if it meant travelling into the Pegasus galaxy to protect Tali. And that right there! How freakin weird was it that until quite recently (as in last month) he’d been blissfully unaware that Pegasus and Atlantis even existed. But the weirdness didn’t stop there…oh no! In more stupendous irony the safest place for them had turned out to be Atlantis – the very place the Trust and nefarious segments (if not the whole kit and caboodle) of the IOA and the questionable NID ultimately wanted to gain control of. The Lost City of Atlantis!

If Tony wasn’t having a psychotic break and HAL was real (he, her, it – did AI programs have a gender identity he wondered idly) the AI might be willing to protect Tali from those greedy, grasping power-hungry narcissistic dirtbags. He found himself desperately hoping that HAL was not a figment of his overstressed imagination and not just because he had absolutely no desire to be crazy.

Crazy ran in his family, unfortunately. There was an uncle on his father’s side who, despite being a successful business person, believed in mole people and could be found out on the golf course, searching for them. So, colour him paranoid but he was a little sensitive when it came to the thought that someone might decide he needed a strait jacket and to spend time in a padded room. Besides, if he lost his marbles, so to speak, who was going to be there for Tali?

So, for both their sakes, he hoped the crazy AI program was real but on the other hand, anyone who saw the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey knew that the whole artificial intelligence thing did not end well. How did he get landed with the fact that Atlantis had a ten-thousand-year-old that no one even knew about, despite hundreds of people living on the floating city for the past eight years?

Chapter 3 Are We There Yet?

AN: There are mental communications between an artificial intelligence and a human in this chapter. Instead of quotes the mental conversations are (italicised and enclosed in brackets).

~o0o~

Radek had been as good as his word, appearing as Dr Keller finished clearing them both. Belle was pronounced as being none the worse for her intergalactic trip through the wormhole, although Dr Keller suggested that if he noticed anything amiss, to return immediately. As Keller pointed out, there was little data on using the stargate to travel such long distances and how it may affect the developing brain of a child. Not that he needed her no doubt well-intentioned advice, because he planned on watching Tali like a hawk and freak out at the first sign of trouble.

After he’d settled the still sleeping child into her bed in the family suite of rooms that had been assigned to them, he took a look around. It included their own bathroom, tiny yet serviceable laundry room and a well-appointed if not overly large kitchen, so he could cook child-friendly meals and have family time with Belle. He made a cup of tea and then he sat down in a comfortable chair in her room with his kindle to read a novel while he waited for Tali to wake up. Dr Keller assured him that she should be rousing soon, and he didn’t want her waking up alone in a strange place.

As he checked her out again as she turned over in her sleep, he noted the personal touches to the room that he couldn’t imagine the Atlantis military staff bothering to organise for his daughter. Curious about the dozen or so books, plus drawing paraphernalia and several soft toys that were lovingly arranged on a shelf, he opened a book and saw it bore the name Kazumi Zelenka. He figured that along with her parents, Kazumi had helped to get Belle’s room ready for her. The sign that said, Welcome to Atlantis, with a rainbow and a lop-sided flower was probably Kazumi Zelenka’s original artwork.

Tony felt gratitude that Zelenka’s daughter had been so kind, and he hoped that other residents would embrace their arrival too, and not just because he possessed a strong expression of the ATA gene. When General O’Neill had requested that he come to Atlantis because the Ancients’ city was not coping with Colonel Sheppard’s absence, he explained there was more than double the normal number of breakdowns of transporters, plumbing and lights occurring every week that were pushing the engineers and scientists to keep up with repairs. They needed someone to replace Sheppard, hopefully as a temporary measure, until they found him and Tony hadn’t been keen on the idea, refusing outright, pointing out he had a kid to think about. Not that he planned on being a parent, especially a single one, but he couldn’t go traipsing off to another fucking galaxy for some temporary assignment as some sort of light switch, nor could he leave Tali behind since she was in clear and present danger.

O’Neill had agreed and offered him a permanent posting on Atlantis, not just as the light switch activator and the starship city whisperer who could make all the scientists swoon, but as the chief investigator of a new international civilian and military law enforcement bureau. Eventually, O’Neill told him that it would have separate divisions to investigate civilian or military personnel but at this time, he’d be sworn in as an AFOSI agent and also an FBI agent by the POTUS himself, who was as desperate to crush the Trust as Tony was. Eventually, Stargate Command and the IOC would recruit law enforcement personnel from all the nations who were participating in the Expedition to staff the new agency but in the interim, he was the first recruit.

That meant he would get a chance to set the organisation up and would ultimately become the director when it was at a point to require such a grandiose title. For now, though, his rank was set as special agent in charge, not that there was anyone to be in charge of yet. When he quizzed General O’Neill about it he told him that since he’d served as acting supervisory special agent on two separate occasions while at the same time running an undercover gig on an arms dealer the first time and chasing down the head of a terrorist organisation the second time, he’d earned the bump in rank.

Tony had said, “It still isn’t protocol. If this is just about sweetening the pot to convince me to go and play light switch, then I don’t want it. I’m more than happy with a promotion to senior supervisory agent to start with.”

Jack had looked at him with an expression of pity. “First off, we need you to be taken seriously by the Atlantis commander, the military commanding officer, chief medical, and chief scientific officers and SSA just won’t cut it, Paddington. They won’t take you seriously. Secondly, you obviously don’t realise this but your career as a federal agent was actively sacrificed so that three directors could keep your former boss under control. Without you as his second, he would have been an administrative nightmare,” he told him.

Tony laugh was brittle, “Gibbs was already an administrative nightmare when I was hired. He’s a force of nature.”

“You didn’t take over as liaison between him and police departments and other agencies? It wasn’t you running around getting warrants from judges that would refuse Gibbs on principle?”

“Yeah that was me, but what’s your point?”

“That there are entries in your jacket from directors, associate, and deputy directors that your contribution to the team was priceless and not just because of your investigative chops and skills undercover. They raved about your abilities to tone done and manage Gibbs most damaging behaviour and that you should be encouraged to stay on the MCRT for as long as Gibbs was leading the team. The head of HR stated how they’d been recommending since approximately three years into your employment, that you be given your own team which various directors stonewalled your promotion because they knew Gibbs would sooner or later cross a line too serious to coverup.”

“But hang on, if that were true, Director Morrow when he left to become deputy director of DHS tried to persuade me to go with him, and Tom periodical tried to recruit me,” Tony argued.

“Because he wasn’t the one in charge of a NCIS anymore and he recognised talent when he saw it. He probably felt guilty that he’d been obstructing your career and he wanted to fix it. Unfortunately, he’d done far too good a job of reinforcing to you how crucial your presence was to keeping Gibbs from being locked up for contempt of court or fired for illegal arrests or gathering of evidence.

“What’s that supposed to mean,” Tony demanded to know.

“Your psych profile mentioned that you decided to go into law enforcement after saving a child from a burning building, but unable to reach the boy’s younger sister. They knew that a college kid who didn’t have any training would find it difficult to cope with such a tragedy.”

“What exactly are you saying?”

“That they knew if they played to your sense of duty about how no one else could wrangle Gibbs into line enough for him to lead the MCRT and what a brilliant investigator he was, you would try to save the team at the expense of your own career.”

Tony had been shaken by the accusations made by the general, and he didn’t have a chance to unpack the whole argument that it wasn’t him hanging around because the team was family. He figured that he’d probably brood about it when he had some free time, maybe after he found out what had happened to Col Sheppard.

Still, he’d stopped protesting about the leap in rank from senior field agent to special agent in charge. Especially when O’Neill reminded him that he would find it hard in the next year to eighteen months that was their projection for having the new law enforcement agency up and running for him to go from SSA to the director in rank. Tony could see the sense in that, along with the point O’Neill had made to conclude the discussion. If you’d taken one of those offers of Morrow to join DHS, or the FBI or DEA, you’d have made SAIC by now, if not an associate director. You’ve earned it!

Jack also promised that his identity would be classified, and they’d provide himself and Tali with new identities. Both of those carrots were very appealing, the chance to not only run an agency but to build it from the ground up and having new identities crafted by the top government experts. He was also confident he could also play an active role in keeping the hyenas at bay who posed a threat to his daughter by beefing up security on Atlantis. He knew there were risks on Atlantis, but he was confident he could reduce the risks of coming here since the city was crying out for a department that could provide security and risk assessment to reduce threats to its population. At the moment they seemed destined to stumbled from one catastrophic event right into the next one without analysing what went wrong so it wasn’t repeated. The new agency would when it was up and running, make life safer for everyone, not just Tali.

So, deciding to make the ultimate sacrifice and turn his back on a life on Earth, it was clear he needed to burn bridges. He was determined to make it as hard as possible for the Trust to find them. It was a slim possibility that they could follow him here to Atlantis, so he had every intention of making that as difficult as possible.

With the full cooperation of MI6 and his Paddington relatives, a legend was created for him. Alexander Clive Paddington was the illegitimate youngest son of Clive Paddington and an American mother Bettina Abbott. Alexander, who preferred to be called Alex, spent his early years in Singapore with his mother and stepfather. After their divorce, his mother moved back home with Alex to the US when he was eleven. He remained in the US until he finished high school before returning to England (where he’d been born) to attend university, before following the Paddington tradition and going to work for MI6. Since various Paddingtons, including Clive, had been members of MI6, it was hoped that anyone reading his legend would assume that his father had pulled strings to have his illegitimate son hired.

Little was known about Alexander after he entered MI6, apart from his marriage to Jane Whatley, except that they had a daughter, Annabelle and a son, Dion who was stillborn. Paddington was a widower, his wife dying in a car crash one year ago, although luckily their three-year-old daughter was not in the car at the time. Tony had pointed out to those creating the legend that Tali was petite for her age, so passing her off as a four-year-old would be relatively easy.

They’d also staged an extremely dramatic and fake fight between Anthony DiNozzo Jr and his cousin, Crispian Paddington over the will of Tony’s uncle, Clive Paddington. He’d accused Crispian, as executor of Clive’s will, of embezzling his inheritance after Clive’s death, because his cousin didn’t believe that Tony should get anything from the Paddingtons. He’d subsequently blamed his cousin Cris for trying to kidnap his daughter Tali to pressure him into not filing a civil lawsuit. He was planning to sue Crispian for failing to execute Clive’s will per his father’s wishes.

A few days later, Crispian had issued a statement announcing that while he was completely innocent of the scurrilous charges made against him by his cousin, Anthony DiNozzo with regards to the disbursement of funds from his father’s estate, upon consideration with his wife, he had reached a decision. While he agreed that Clive Paddington was entitled to dictate the way his wealth be divided upon his death, he decided to pay his cousin Anthony DiNozzo £5,000,000 for Clive’s great-niece from a trust fund that had been set aside for future Paddingtons, including his own twins and his half-brother, Alexander Paddington’s issue.

Crispin’s statement continued that his wife had pointed out to him, that Tali David DiNozzo was not to blame for her father’s failure to repay a £10,000 loan made to her father many years ago when he was 19 years old. The five-year-old had already known great tragedy, losing her mother in a house fire in Israel when she was 2 years old. It was his sincere belief that Clive Paddington would want to make a gift of a generous sum from the Paddington family trust to the unfortunate child and he hoped this generous payout would go some way towards healing the rift between himself and his cousin. He knew his father would be extremely distraught at the thought of them litigating in court over money.

His statement, read out by the family solicitor had also categorically denied having any part whatsoever to do with a failed bid to abduct Tali David DiNozzo. He was relieved that she was safe, however, it had been decided that it was far too dangerous for them to remain in the UK and his cousin had decided to return to the US where he grew up. His cousin had also agreed to drop all future claims upon the estate of his late Uncle Clive Paddington and had already departed for home.

Now that they were in Pegasus, General O’Neill and his two minions, Lieutenant Colonel Davis and Master Sergeant Harriman were planning to set up false trails where Tony and Tali were living in remote parts of the country, to help track members of the Trust who they predicted wouldn’t just give up on getting hold of Tali. They would use some of the proceeds of the £5,000,000 to establish their presence back in the States, hoping to make those trying to capture Tali believe they were on the run. If Ziva were alive and decided she was done playing spy and wanted her daughter back again, it would also have her chasing her own tail, at least for a while.

He must have dozed off watching her sleep since he awoke to find she’d crawled into his lap and was telling Paddington Bear, who was her current favourite toy, a story. He’d been frankly relieved when she wasn’t instinctively drawn to GI Joe and GI Jane action figures and weapons. At least for now, she seemed a relatively normal kid who just happened to be multilingual and had a strong expression of the ATA gene.

Bending down, he kissed her cheek, breathing in her sweet smell. “Hi Sweetie, did you have a good nap?

“Hi Papa, are we here yet? Is this Lantis.”

“Yes Baby-girl, this is Atlantis. Our new home.”

“Is it our forever home?”

“Not sure about that Tali, we’ll see. But for now, this is home,” Tony told her fondly.

“Are you sure this is our place, Papa? Those books belong to someone else and those aren’t my toys,” she pointed to the shelves. Unlike her mother, Tali was well acquainted with contractions.

“No, but one of the new people I’m going to be working with has a little daughter and she thought you might like to borrow some of her things. Just until we get your stuff out of the packing crates and put it away.”

Tali smiled at him, her cute little dimple showing. “Is she my new friend, Papa? What’s her name? Is she pretty?”

He chuckled. “Yes, I’m sure she wants to be your friend, Sweetie. Her name is Kazumi Zelenka, and I haven’t met her yet, only her Papa, but he seems like a good person.”

Wriggling around in his lap excitedly and forced to make a last-minute grab for her bear before he dropped to the floor, she asked gleefully, “Can we go and find Kazumi? Please, Papa.”

Tony was happy to see the normally ebullient child had bounced back from her journey to another galaxy. Since the last abduction, Tali had been pretty much under house arrest and had been upset to learn that they were leaving England. She had grown fond of her Uncle Crispian and Aunt Lavinia and their three-year-old fraternal twins, Skye, and Aiden. Since he’d told her that they were going to have to go somewhere far away, where the bad people couldn’t find them, she had been sad and depressed. It was good to see her excitement at the thought of meeting Kazumi.

He shook his head. “Her papa and mother are still working, so I’m not sure where Kazumi is right now. But we can meet them at dinner time, Baby. How about we unpack your go-bag for now, so you have your pyjamas for tonight and a change of clothes for tomorrow. We can unpack all the rest of the stuff tomorrow.”

Tali pouted momentarily and then shrugged. “Okay.”

They made short work of the few things she had in her go-bag, finishing up with her toothbrush and toothpaste which they left in the bathroom. Afterwards, they decided to take a stroll around Atlantis. Tali had been cooped up in the Paddington estate for over five weeks since the last time the trust tried to snatch her, and she was going a little stir crazy. He figured the new scenery would make her less restless. As they wandered about checking out their new home, people smiled and seemed friendly, saying hello to them both, making Tony optimistic that he was doing the right thing by coming here with his daughter.

Later when they returned to their quarters, Tali decided to make a thank-you card for Kazumi, and he agreed that would be a lovely thing for her to do. While she was hard at work, Tony decided to unpack the food that he’d brought from earth. He wanted to bring with him to Atlantis as much comfort food for Tali as he could get away with to make this ultimate sea change as easy on her as he could. Life had been hard for her, especially recently.

(All will be well, my Priceless one,) HAL assured him, making Tony jump.

Having someone (um…something) talking to him in his head was disconcerting. He figured he’d better try it, so he didn’t get caught out like before in the gate room.

He thought, (What’s with the whole Priceless stuff, HAL?)

(Your real name means priceless, Anthony. Also, the fact you have not just the so-called ATA gene, but you have a second one – along with Belle – that allows us to communicate makes you priceless to Atlantis and me. Aside from my creator, you are the first humanoid I have been able to converse with, in ten thousand years.)

(Sorry, I thought you were Atlantis?) he thought getting the hang of this mental chat thing.

(No, Atlantis is much older, hundreds of thousands of years. I am a more recent program or perhaps an entity is a more accurate description since I possess artificial intelligence and have the ability to learn, evolve and adapt. As I told you earlier, Janus created me to watch over Atlantis during the period that Original Dr Weir was in stasis, awaiting the progenius of the Lantean’s return from exile to reclaim the city. It was I who raised the city from under the sea so that the progenius didn’t drown when they first arrived here.)

(Progenius?) he questioned, mimicking HAL’s pronunciation pro-gen-ee-oos, with a slight rolling of the r.

After a slight beat, HAL told him, (The Alteran word for offspring.)

Tony nodded, (So progeny?) he clarified, before continuing. (You said that you expanded your mission once the city was raised to the surface again.)

(In fact, Original Dr Weir was supposed to be awakened when the Expeditionary Force arrived, led by young Dr Weir. Old Dr Weir was supposed to manually raise the city, so they would not drown, like the previous time but there was a glitch that Janus did not foresee. Something happened and she failed to wake up. My creator felt great fondness for Elizabeth Weir and wanted to ensure that the descendants of Lantea would be able to come home to the Pegasus galaxy one day, as Dr Weir had reported and survive. Hence my existence!)

(You must have been lonely in the city alone HAL,) Tony sympathised. He couldn’t imagine the boredom.

(Yes indeed, but finally the Progenius returned, and I was elated. When the stasis pod failed to react and the expeditionary forces did not find her, the situation became quite dire. If I had merely been a regular computer program, I could not have overcome my coding parameters to raise the city to the surface. Fortunately, my artificial intelligence has enabled me to rewrite my prior instructions, ensuring Elizabeth Weir’s survival to extending it to raising the city to ensure she and the others survived until the Terreuans located and reactivated her.)

Tony wondered if anyone else understood how close they came to a tragic death. (What happened then?)

(Once I raised the city from the ocean floor, while I waited for Elizabeth to be rescued, I decided that my original parameters would allow me to redefine my mission to include watching out for the progenius who returned, especially for those individuals who could be traced all the way back to the Alterans.)

(You speak of the Alterans. Are they the Ancients?) Tony asked, feeling out of his depth.

(The Alterans were a highly advanced race of people who came from a distant galaxy. There was a disagreement – a war between spiritual enlightenment and science and technological development. Those who valued science split from their brethren and travelled to the Milky Way Galaxy. They eventually learnt to Ascend and become known as the Ancients although the people of Pegasus refer to the Ancients as the Ancestors.)

Tony felt confused. (Okay, so when did the Ancients come to Pegasus?)

(Following a deadly plague on Terreus that almost wiped them out roughly half a million Terreuan years ago. They built Atlantis and journeyed to the Pegasus Galaxy where their pursuit of science and knowledge caused them to create monstrous beings who caused terrible suffering for the peoples of Pegasus. The Ancients fled back to Terreus -what you call Earth, but eventually they learnt to Ascend where they could exist as pure energy, living on a higher plane of existence. They decided that their power was too great, and they could not interfere in the lives of mortal beings.)

(What happened to the other Alterans,) Tony asked curiously?

(I do not know many of the details, but the Ancient database tells me that the Alterans left behind who believed in a spiritual path also learned to Ascend. Unlike the Ancients, who believed in not interfering with mortals, these Ascended Alterans who became known as the Ori demanded to be worshipped as Gods by mortals. They enslaved those humans who lived in their galaxy. They saw the other Alterans, the Ancients, as evil for abandoning what they believed to be the path to enlightenment.)

(I guess that’s what you call a very nasty divorce,) he quipped irreverently as he felt the tickle of amusement in his head that he assumed was HAL chuckling.

He already knew quite a bit about the Ori from General O’Neill. The loony tunes religious nutjobs were the spiritual equivalent to the Wraith – sucking the life force out of all their worshipers. How ironic that the Ancients had ditched their crazy siblings to follow scientific truths and had inadvertently, created humans crossed with the Iratus bug that produced a hybrid race known as the Wraith who also wanted to suck the life force out of mortals.

Tony had finished unpacking the food they’d brought with them as he and HAL conversed telepathically and how weird was that, and he wandered in to check on Tali. She was busy drawing with the pencils and paper that Kazumi had loaned her, her tongue poking out of her lips like it did when she concentrated.

Seeming to sense his presence she looked up and smiled. “Hey, Papa.”

“Hi there, Sweetie, everything okay?”

“I don’t know how to write Kazumi. I’ve never heard that name afore,” she said with a frown.

“Before not afore, Belle,” he corrected her gently.

“English is hard,” she grumbled.

“That’s what a lot of people say,” he told her. “But you speak other languages too, so of course, you sometimes get some words mixed up baby girl,” he told her truthfully.

Normally, her English was pretty flawless but when she was tired or stressed, she would slip up or substitute words. It wasn’t a problem. He was more focused on helping her to learn it was okay to admit when you were wrong and that it was fine not to be perfect.

“Okay, Papa. Can you tell me how to write Kazumi’s name, please?”

Tony was about to tell her he wasn’t sure either when HAL interjected in his head. (It is KAZUMI.)

Tony told his daughter what HAL had told him and she wrote it down carefully before smiling.

“I like her name. It’s pretty,” Tali said.

(It means beautiful harmony,) HAL said.

Tony reported what HAL said, then also added. “It’s a Japanese name. Anticipating her next question, he told her, “Your real name means dew from Heaven.”

“How did you know I was going to ask you that?” Belle squeaked in surprise.

He smiled at her, “I’m your father. I know these things,” he said unable to stop the mental wince at those three words that sounded like a bad recreation of Star Wars.

Damn it, now that she was safe from the Trust, it was time to get help. Yes, damn it, professional help. The most important thing up until making it to Atlantis had been getting her somewhere where she was protected, and secure, but physical safety wasn’t the only thing that a child needed to grow up happy and whole. He knew that better than most and he was the poster child for emotional baggage dragged around from an unhappy home.

He was damned if he would cause her emotional and psychological harm like his parents did to him if he could help it. That meant he needed help to sort through his feelings and emotions about Ziva and what she’d done. After avoiding dealing with his feelings his whole life, Alex Paddington was going to have to suck it up and talk to a shrink asap.

After Tali finished off her thank-you card, there was still time to fill in before they could head down to the mess for an early dinner and introduce Tali to some of her new peers. Well hopefully, but at least meet Kazumi and her mother, Miko, as promised. While they waited, he suggested they could watch a movie and Tali immediately wanted to watch the Heffalump movie which Skye and Aiden had given to Tali when they left. It was the twins’ favourite movie – they loved watching it over and over again and while he knew that Tali thought it was a bit too young for her, she’d still settled in to watch it with her Paddington cousins.

Now he realised that its happy association with her third cousins would help remind her of the happy times they’d shared in the five months they shared before The Trust ruined their happy little existence. So, he fetched her favourite pillow and they settled in together to watch the beautiful movie – Tony appreciating the gorgeous animation as Tali mouthed most of the dialogue under her breath. Snuggled up next to him, when the movie was over, she rolled over so she could see his face. Instinctively knowing that liars were often let down by their facial expressions he guessed.

“Papa, will we ever be able to see Skye and Aiden and Auntie Lavinia and Uncle Cris again?”

Not wanting to lie to the little girl, he stroked his fingers through her hair gently as he said. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I hope we can.”

Chapter 4 Finding Their Feet

It was 1630 when he and Belle wandered down to the mess hall looking for food. Pre-fatherhood, eating so early would have been weird but Alex had become accustomed to child-friendly habits such as eating dinner at a ridiculously early time because Belle’s bedtime (and wake up times) were early – well for a former night owl such as himself. As soon as they arrived, he spied Radek with his wife and small daughter and they immediately invited them to join them for dinner. Much to Tali’s joy.

The two little girls were soon as thick as thieves, latching onto each other like long lost siblings. Looking at the pair he snorted mentally; there was no way they could be mistaken for siblings. While she continued to favour Ziva, Belle had his jade green eyes and hundred-watt smile, while little Kazumi was like a Japanese doll. Her dark-brown eyes were huge and so expressive, with her petite features she seemed quite demure. From what he could discern so far, she had her mother’s self-effacing manner while Belle was more outgoing and confident.

Looking around, he noted a handful of other family groups sitting in the mess, eating together plus a sprinkling of military personnel and scientists. Judging by the attire of the family groups, they were Pegasus residents, probably Athosians. There seemed to be a mix of ages of youngsters, from babes in arms to teens on the cusp of adulthood. Sometimes individuals (adults) within the groups wore Earth clothing, mostly Atlantis uniforms or variations on military garb such as BDUs and t-shirts, suggesting that these people were going out on missions with the Atlantis teams.

He wondered how long it would be before Tali would be charming these folk and learning to speak Athosian. She had a remarkable affinity for language, yet, given that Ziva spoke ten languages and he spoke six it wasn’t such a surprise. Of course, he suspected that she would focus her energies on learning Japanese first, she was already quizzing Kazumi on Japanese words for the food they were eating. Perhaps she would go into the diplomatic corps or become a translator when she grew up. He was certainly not going to encourage her to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a Mossad assassin and spy.

He could tell even without staring, that quite a few of the diners were surreptitiously studying himself and his daughter, which was only normal behaviour in such an insular community. He noted though that the scientists and civilians’ demeanour seemed much more muted than the Athosian families and he asked Radek and Miko about it, wondering if it was directed at him. Perhaps there was ill-will about his appointment as Atlantis’ law enforcement. After all, an Agent Afloat was not a popular person on board a Navy ship and for the last seven years, there hadn’t been anyone maintaining law and order on Atlantis.

Miko shook her head, “No, Agent Paddington, it is not you. We are all concerned about Colonel Shepard and also worried if he does not return. He is the strongest ATA holder and although it must seem strange to an outsider, the city seems to need him.”

Radek nodded his agreement. “Yes, yes, yes. As much as it sounds preposterous, even to a scientist trained in empirical thinking, it is still true. It is like he is Atlantis’ favourite son. Without Sheppard, the city seems to struggle. Things break down much more frequently and there seems to be more disagreements than usual, at least amongst the scientists. Although that might be because Dr McKay is rather short-tempered and making everybody cry.”

Miko nodded, “As are his team members. Not that they are making everybody cry. They wouldn’t do that,” she hastened to assure Alex.

“Except for Dr McKay,” he couldn’t help teasing her a little.

Miko looked dismayed. “While Dr McKay has not always remembered my name, I enjoy working for him very much. He is a very brave and honourable man. He works so hard to ensure the success of the mission and if we do stupid things that displease our leader, then we deserve it if he makes us cry,” she defended the chief science officer with more than a touch of hero-worship as Radek rolled his eyes.

“Well, I can see he has a staunch supporter, even if I don’t think bosses have the right to make us cry,” Tony said wryly.

“As for the others on Colonel Sheppard’s team, Teyla Emmagan and Ronon Dex, they would never make people cry even if they have been a little frustrated lately. It is understandable, Miko avowed loyally. “They were…are devoted to him and it pains them that they can find no trace of him,” she told him sadly.

Radek decided to tease his partner a little more. “That’s not entirely true, Miko. Teyla and Ronon frequently make people cry after a self-defence session where they hand them their …zadky,” he said with a glance at the little girls.

“And the Athosians…are they not missing Colonel Sheppard too?” Tony asked curiously, always thinking like a cop, looking for motives, searching for suspects. Wanting to figure out what happened.

Radek looked at Miko who sighed as he began to speak. “No, no, no, it is not that they aren’t concerned for him either, he has saved the city many times, gone on suicide missions. They believe he is a great warrior, and he is greatly esteemed, Agent Paddington, but the Athosians are pragmatists,” he said

He looked sombre as Miko explained. “A substantial number of the Athosians have been culled by the Wraith over many generations, and today they struggle to survive. Death is no stranger to Athosians, and they cannot afford to become too maudlin over the death of one individual, no matter how heroic,” she said sadly.

Nodding his understanding, he said, “So a First World problem. Got it.”

HAL chipped in inside his head, (Also to put it into context, none of the Athosians has the ATA gene. So, they are less affected by the city’s melancholia without Sheppard and his ability to interact with Atlantis. Cloned Carson is the next strongest gene carrier here, but he is often off-world for extensive periods.

The other expedition members, whether they express the gene naturally or through Dr Beckett’s gene therapy are not strong enough to keep Atlantis fully recharged, although Lieutenant Colonel Lorne comes closest, He tries his best to keep everything running in John Sheppard’s absence. It isn’t enough; it’s like the city is trying to limp along on a quarter charged battery.)

Well, that just left Tony with a helluva lot more questions than answers, none of which he could ask at the moment. For an incorrigibly nosy individual such as himself, that was a very frustrating situation to be in. But aside from HAL’s warning not to mention the AI’s presence, he was most comfortable when people underestimated him. Until he had a chance to figure out what the hell was going on, he would remain silent about HAL and why he seemed to be the only person aware of HAL’s existence. What made him so freakin special?

To start making sense of all of this he needed to get up to speed, asap. He resolved to start reading the reports regarding Colonel Shepard’s disappearance right after he got Tali settled in for the night. He wasn’t due to start work officially for another six days, he needed to settle his daughter and sort out the logistical issues of being a single parent who had to work. At least that was the plan until he arrived here and witnessed firsthand how low morale seemed to be affecting the base and its residents.

Well, that was what he told himself – it could just as easily be that he was irredeemably nosy and hated knowing there was a puzzle or problem which remained unsolved. While his former workmates berated his need to know all their secrets, his nosiness was part of why he was such a great investigator.

He knew that the powers that be at the SGC in Cheyanne Mountain had listed Colonel Sheppard as MIA, although privately they’d told him that they believed he was dead. He was getting a strong impression that Atlantis personnel had no intention of writing him off, people he’d met so far were adamant he was either being held somewhere against his will, he was hurt or otherwise unable to get back home. On their walk around the city this afternoon, people had soon overcome their reservations and begun to chat with him and Tali and mostly, the subject of Colonel Sheppard came up sooner or later.

Someone mentioned a time dilation as a possible explanation and wasn’t that a mind fuck. It certainly wasn’t something he’d ever had to factor in when investigating a missing person before now. He was being powerfully reminded this was a whole new galaxy and he couldn’t make assumptions based on earth-based truths. Of course, he needed to ask one of the geeks to explain what the heck it was. He learnt that there were technologies which were capable of generating an energy barrier which disrupted time and space.

In other words, inside the field, time can move faster or slower than outside of the field depending on the settings of the device that is operating the dilation. Colonel Sheppard was trapped in one built by the Ancients so they could live out a lifetime focused on Ascension, while outside the time bubble only a few days would have in the past. It seemed he had a great deal of catching up to do, plus reading seven-plus years of mission reports so he could make sense of what people were talking about when the referenced weird technologies like time dilations.

Tony also learnt John Shepard was as adept at pissing people off as he had been as a cop and federal agent. After all, it wasn’t just anyone who could get themselves framed for murder by a lab rat he had no idea had even existed. Charles Sterling had certainly wanted him to suffer, and he’d gone to the ludicrous lengths of getting a job at NCIS to pull it off. He’d come far too close to success, for comfort.

After hearing about Sheppard’s exploits, he was honestly starting to wonder if the man had a saviour complex or possibly a death wish. Either way, Tony vowed to bring him home if he was still alive. His first task would be to interview the other members of Colonel Shepard’s team, Dr Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan and Ronon Dex. Okay second, just as soon as he figured out what his childcare arrangements were. The last two team members were natives of the Pegasus galaxy and he hoped they’d be useful with their local knowledge.

It was something Tony had always worked hard upon developing in each new job but clearly, he was well out of his depth in a whole new galaxy. He was going to be depending on the Athosians and the Satedan to make up for his non-existent network of contacts. Until he interviewed them, he’d make do with their after-action reports up until when Sheppard had disappeared. Plus, he’d dissect the hundreds of mission reports from the various teams since the expedition landed on the starship if necessary to find out what had happened to him.

He already understood that these people needed him found, alive but if not, they needed to know he was dead. They needed closure!

As he checked on Belle, whose animated chattering with Kazumi had gradually ceased as she ran out of steam, he could see that she was just about ready to crash. It had been an extremely exciting day!

Clearing their plates and silverware, he began preparing to head back to their quarters, just in the nick of time it seemed. His daughter’s green eyes were finding it difficult to remain open. He scooped the little girl up into his arms a split second before she faceplanted into Kazumi’s bowl of green jello. He settled her on his hip as he made his apologies.

“Sorry Miko, Kazumi, Radek. This little one has had a long and thrilling day, but I think she’s ready for bed. We’ll see you tomorrow,” he promised as he made his way out of the mess, smiling at the other diners who made eye contact or nodded acknowledgement.

As he suspected, the Athosian families seemed more open, dare he say accepting about their arrival than the scientists and the non-commissioned military types. Shades of his experience as an agent afloat on board the aircraft carriers, the Ronald Reagan, and the Sea Hawk all those years before made him wince. Then again, it could just be that they thought that the powers that be had brought him in to replace Shepard as the resident ATA light switch and they weren’t ready to give up on him.

Shrugging, he hurried back to their quarters, only taking one wrong turn to get there. After attending to Tali’s night-time ablutions and helping her change into her pyjamas because she was practically dead on her feet, he helped her to get into bed. Then he lay down beside her, snuggling her until she fell asleep. Once he was sure she was truly sound asleep, he made himself a cup of green tea in the kitchen and settled in to read up on the report of missions.

Tony decided the obvious place to start was with Sheppard’s team first because he was missing. If he’d been abducted, it was possible that it was someone they’d encountered on one of their off-world missions who’d taken him. It was less likely but still possible that it had been a random abduction by an opportunistic predator, and he hoped not as it would be too hard to find him.

Tony settled in to begin the mammoth task, wishing he’d gotten around to doing a speed-reading course. It reminded him of his friend, Derek Morgan, a profiler with the BAU for years before his marriage and new son made him decide to call it quits. He and Tony used to get together to shoot hoops and occasionally play a friendly game of ball when they both weren’t chasing dirtbags and unsubs. Morgan used to regale him with stories about a younger profiler on his team, Dr Spencer Reid who could read 20,000 words a minute due to his genius-level IQ. Damn, what Tony wouldn’t give to be able to read at even a quarter of that speed to help him absorb eight years of Atlantis reports and off-world missions by its dozens of exploratory teams.

Sighing, he put down his tablet to search for a legal pad and pen so he could take notes as he read reports. As an investigator, he’d always used his cop’s black notebook to jot stuff down and he found that physically writing down data helped him retain info and make connections between pieces of information more efficiently. He knew it was because it activated a different part of his brain, and the bottom line was, it worked for him so why not just go with it?

By the time he’d skim-read about one-third of the team’s mission reports of their first year of Earth’s occupation of Atlantis, his brain was buzzing with questions. Such as who in their right mind let a civilian with absolutely no leadership experience put together a multi-national expeditionary team to travel to an unknown and potentially hostile galaxy. The fact that they survived their initial occupation of the city was nothing short of miraculous although he was yet to study the report on the Original Dr Weir situation. According to HAL he was the reason why they survived, not luck and certainly not good leadership. Even their military had been woefully inadequate, initially having only eight officers and six of those were lieutenants.

Had Elizabeth Weir done that deliberately, believing that having mostly non-commissioned officers would make it less likely for her authority to be usurped? If so, she genuinely hadn’t understood how the military worked. He shrugged. Unless she’d kept a log like the captains on Star Trek recording her thoughts and motivations, he would never know.

One thing struck him. Did that near catastrophe within hours of reaching Atlantis, instead of making the leadership team far more cautious, have almost the opposite effect, cultivating a cavalier air of casualness that was practically asking for trouble. It certainly seemed to be the case. Plus, it seemed pretty clear to Tony that the off-world teams didn’t seem to have bothered reading the mission reports for the Milky Way Stargate teams, which seemed like it was a major faux pas. He knew for a fact that those SGC reports detailed in horrific specificity the bad players and life-threatening aliens who’d been encountered and come close to threatening Earth’s very existence, time and again.

If they had been forced to study those missions and the SGC’s history before going to Atlantis, it may have made team members far more cautious and a helluva lot more paranoid. While too much paranoia was crippling, in an alien galaxy containing Wraith who had the potential to threaten everyone on Atlantis, a healthy dose of paranoia was a damned good thing in his book. Particularly when it wasn’t just about Atlantis but quite possibly even the billions of people on Earth. Not to mention the many worlds in the Pegasus galaxy that could be adversely affected by impulsive and rash behaviour where the Wraith were concerned.

Tony was finding the going pretty dry, and knowing how his brain worked, he decided to prepare a mock report for General O’Neill. Oh, he’d write up a standard run of the mill report, of course – he was a professional, but he needed a bit of levity. It was how his brain was hard-wired and he suspected the General might possess the same irreverent humour trait too. He might even show it to Jack sometime.

Dear General,

I’ve been pouring over the first few years’ reports about the shenanigans, here on Atlantis. So, I gotta say Sir, that when it came to an assessment of team members’ mental readiness, leaders got a big fat F for failure, IMHO. People were tripping around the Pegasus galaxy, merrily giving out high value intel about Atlantis (and Earth) to all and sundry, which was absolutely unwarranted and stupidly dangerous. The Genii with their vast intelligence network then used this blasé attitude and their loose lips against them very effectively after their initial encounter.

Atlantis teams urgently needed training in spy craft for anyone who went off-world, and they probably still do… if it’s not a case of the horse already bolting. Still, considering I am living here now with Belle, I think that needs to change and I’m deliriously happy and relieved that I went the whole fake names route even if it seemed OTT. Unless there has been a radical tightening up of security since those early years, then I recommend that it needs to be tightened up asap.

He heard Tali whimpering and got up to check on her. She’d kicked off the bedclothes and the evening air had a chill to it, so he automatically started to tuck her in. Then he sat down beside her to murmur to her softly that she was safe, and he was there, until she had settled down again. As he made his way out of her room, leaving the door open, his thoughts returned to data analysis.

It concerned Tony that there seemed to be, little if any analysis of intel collected on missions. Yes, there was the end of mission debriefing, but that data wasn’t being analysed properly unless someone decided it had merit. There was no collating with other missions and no analysing of the so-called useless intel teams often brought back from missions. And really, who made that determination of what was useful versus not useful?

Tony knew that in investigations, it was often the seemingly insignificant details that broke a case wide open. The same with interviewing witnesses and suspects. For example, suspects often tripped themselves up over minor details, using past tense to talk about someone when they had no way of knowing they were dead unless they killed them. If you overlooked those sorts of minor details, you were risking letting potentially crucial information slip through your fingers. He was fairly sure that was what was happening here.

Sinking back down on the sofa, he picked up his tablet again as he drafted his faux report.

As you already know, General Yeahsureyoubetcha, a part of my time as an Agent Afloat, aside from the spine-chilling excitement of busting up illegal poker games and catching sailors and Marines with illicit hooch, I compiled dozens of threat assessments. That seemed to be missing in my review, so far. The only one who seemed to have any background in risk analysis was the Head of Base Security, Sergeant Bates. Unfortunately, his rather poor social skills pretty much put him off-side with the then Major Sheppard.

Openly siding with Dr Weir over his CO wasn’t a smart way for Sgt Bates to get on side with Sheppard, not when there was already an inherent conflict between the head of base security’s loyalty to Sheppard versus Weir. Bates must have been aware that the Head of Base Security was a position which should have been appointed by the Military Commander, not Elizabeth Weir? By doing so, she’d undermined Colonel Sheppard’s authority in appointing Bates, and every time there was a disagreement between Sheppard and Weir, Bates was trapped between a rock and a hard place.

Tony stopped working on his pseudo-report as he thought about just how awkward Sgt Bates’ position had been. There were some distinct similarities between the sergeant and Tony when he was on the MCRT. Like Sheppard, he was second in command but as Weir had done with the colonel, Gibbs routinely undermined his authority with the junior team members, making it harder to do his job…sometimes impossible.

As to the sergeant having to take sides, he felt empathy for the sergeant, since as Gibbs’ trusty senior field agent, he was supposed to toe the line and follow Gibbs’ orders without question – despite what Jethro had said when he first started working for him. However, Tony also had a responsibility to the director and the agency to make sure that Gibbs and his minions didn’t overstep the line of what was legal, seeing they were supposed to arrest other people for breaking the law. Somehow, he’d learnt the difficult art of managing Gibbs, and making the stubborn Marine think he’d come up with the alternatives that Tony had already determined were necessary for the case to be prosecuted successfully. It required some thinking outside the box to reach that destination and unfortunately, Bates was a linear thinker.

Technically, Tony managed to handle Gibbs for quite a while before it all turned to shit, and then it didn’t matter what he did. All of a sudden, he was declared persona non grata by his asshole of a team leader… as near as he could tell because the bastard viewed him as a threat. Yeah, suddenly, after fourteen years he was a threat that had to be repelled so his boss could cling to power for just a little longer.

Huh, three years after his departure and it seemed that Tony was still bitter about being forced out. But in that last miserable year, it had finally dawned on him that despite everything that he’d sacrificed for the agency, no one was going to look after his interests. Tali turning up like that had merely hastened the inevitable truth that he had no future at the NCIS.

Picking up his tea, he took a sip before taking up his personal tablet to continue his mock report,

Now, as I was saying, I’ve read Bates’ threat assessments in his role as chief of security and they were excellent. I’m telling you, the guy was so paranoid he would probably strip search his own mother. But I want that in a Head of Security. Unfortunately, his threat assessments had been limited to what occurred on Atlantis, they didn’t include the off-world missions. It was a pity that the sergeant didn’t possess the necessary social adroitness to finagle himself into doing threat assessments for off-world missions. If he had, I suspect there’d have been a lot fewer red shirts lost in those early years.

The dude knew what he was doing, and he wasn’t worried about winning a popularity contest. Shame he was injured and given a medical discharge after finding a Wraith in the city.

But let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. If I’d been in Bates’ place, I’d have made a compelling argument that all of the Atlantis off-world missions had the potential to threaten the safety of Atlantis, every damned time a team went through the gate. The truth was that classified information, even seemingly innocuous information posed unforeseen risks because they didn’t know enough about the people they were dealing with or the politics of the region.

I guess I don’t have to tell you General, that those risks included the possibility of the city being attacked or captured, thanks to the Genii and the Asurans. There was also the threat of adversaries taking control of an expedition member and hitching a ride back to the city and gaining valuable intel. Then there was the very real possibility of a team member being abducted on a mission and interrogated to yield vital intel about Atlantis, as happened with the tragic capture of Colonel Sumner and Sergeant Bates by the Wraith, right at the start of the expedition. Sumner’s involuntary disclosure about Earth had ultimately been cataclysmic for Earth and other planets in the Milky Way.

I believe they continue to present ongoing risks whenever teams go off-world. Analysis of missions that are careful, considered and have clear objectives should be easily defensible. Unfortunately, Sergeant Bates’ abrasive personality managed to get his superiors offside, fairly early on in the mission. Though I think he was right to be cautious, it’s gonna it harder for me to reinstate those protocols even with the support of Homeworld Command.

Luckily, General Jack, I’ve had a lot of practice schmoozing and deftly massaging egos of those higher up the food chain than me. I’m hoping General, I can persuade them into doing more mission analysis by making it seem like it was their idea rather than mine. I don’t want to come in playing the heavy here unless there is no other choice. I’ve always preferred the carrot over the stick.

And wow, wasn’t that a clear declaration of how messed up Tony was that he always preferred to persuade, work cooperatively with, and reward and encourage people he was leading but hated it when Gibbs acted that way with him. He knew Gibbs’ methods were wrong, he wouldn’t want Tali to endure a boss like Gibbs and yet he felt uncomfortable when someone treated him like a human rather than a pile of shit. More questions to file in Tony’s folder of Just How Screwed Up Am I, to ask Dr O’Shea about one day. Mind you, that last year under Gibbs had been unbearable but he couldn’t summon the will, the courage, the belief in himself to go, not until he wrongly believed that Ziva had entrusted him to protect her daughter for her.

Tony got up to reheat his almost cold tea as he thought about the need for proper analysis of intel. He intended to make a case for all off-world missions to have proper intel analysis before they left Atlantis. If the powers that be on Atlantis agreed, he’d push for analysts to be sent from the SGC asap or they’d train their own if necessary. What he’d like to see was a risk analysis for each off-world mission listing all the possible individuals/groups/races who might have reason to bear a grudge against the Earth expedition. The thing was if it had already been SOP, it would certainly make his task of figuring out suspects in Sheppard’s disappearance much easier and he would make that point very strenuously. As it stood now, Tony had to waste time formulating a list of suspects, which was a massive task that would take time. He was just one investigator after all.

Sitting back down, he continued his ersatz report. Sorry about that General, just needed to reheat my tea. Nothing more ick than cold tea… unless it is iced tea of course. Now where was I?

That’s right, I think there’s an excellent case to be made against teams or the commander making unilateral decisions on the fly during a mission, just because it seemed like a good idea at the time. I’m not talking about life and death situations which are obviously different. But I think we need to have an established SOP when making operational decisions and the importance that teams need to return to base to consult their superiors. That consultation process would not just consist of a debriefing and discussion but mandatory risk analysis of possible courses of action.

If such a protocol had been in place in the case of the Hoffans and their Wraith vaccine, it may have saved untold lives over the last eight years. Instead, the expedition abetted in the fiasco that caused death and decimation of cultures, not just the loss of lives of the Hoffans, but the existential threat survivors of the plague posed to the Wraith. Little wonder then that they started killing anyone who lived. But it was more than that, it was damage wielded by the Hybrid Wraith, known as Michael after the horrific medical experiment when he used the vaccine for his own deeply twisted purposes.

And the whole plan to convert Wraith into humans was right out of the most grotesque experiments that would no doubt have given the Nazi Dr Mengele a super-duper boner. What had the Atlantis expedition been smoking when they decided to turn an alien species like the Wraith into humans by manipulating their DNA? It was almost as though the people making the decisions to go forward with the experiment were as arrogantly foolish and short-sighted as the Alterans race had been all those millennia ago. Was there something infectious on Atlantis? Do you think it was in the water?

It was Tony’s frank opinion was that the whole damned IOA should be up on charges of crimes against humanity, for the inexcusable damage they’d caused in the Pegasus galaxy for okaying that stupidity. Irreparable harm done that they should have foreseen and put appropriate steps in place to prevent such things from occurring. How could there not already have been established unequivocal scientific rules and iron-clad ethics in conducting all scientific research on Atlantis or any of its off- world bases? With punitive consequences laid out in simple to understand language should anyone be tempted to ignore the rules. It was one thing to offer other worlds humanitarian and medical aid but engaging in medical experiments was like playing Russian Roulette. Sooner or later, you were bound to blow your head off and anyone else who happened to be looking over your shoulder.

Which reminded him, Just one more thing, General Jack, I’m pained I need to say this, but here goes. Specific biohazard security protocols MUST be put in place, if there isn’t already, and if not why the hell not? Hopefully, it will prevent any further FUBARs if any more hair-brained schemes are given the go-ahead involving mixing DNA from humans with Pegasus bugs or whatnot. No one should ever be permitted to just casually lug around such dangerous substances off-world without a shit-ton of security protections in place. It should not be possible for teenage Wraith or anyone else to casually access it as if it were a toothache remedy and turn themselves into more genetic chimera/medical guinea pigs. If such a basic security protocol had been in place as in keeping it under lock and key in a lab somewhere, Colonel Sheppard wouldn’t have turned into a highly dangerous hybrid bug.

When his eyes started to glaze over, Tony realised it was time to call it a night. Before he slipped into bed, he went into Tali’s room to check on his daughter, as was his nightly habit, switching on the nightlight that she hadn’t used for months up until the Trust decided they MUST have Tali. Of course, even without their evil attempts, waking up in a strange new place would be disorientating for any child. He was kind of freaking out about Tali going AWOL during the night, after reading about the case of two Athosian boys, Jinto and Wex, back in the early days of the mission.

The pair of scallywags couldn’t sleep so they’d wandered off during the night, deciding to explore. Unfortunately, they’d set free a Harry Potterish dementor-like monster that had negligently just left lying around for ten thousand years for someone else to find. It brought a whole new meaning to the concept of not taking out the trash before the next resident moved in. It also seemed to Tony that, for all their supposed brilliance, the Ancients were as dumb as a box of rocks.

He started wiring up the exits with portable personal alarms he’d brought with him from Earth, glad he was such an overprotective parent. They would wake him if Tali opened the doors. Realising his concerns, HAL informed him it would monitor the doors and windows, including ones leading out onto the balconies from the living areas, and Tony’s bedroom. The AI also promised to alert him if Tali attempted to wander out of their quarters. Feeling relief, the exhausted agent slipped into his bed, exhausted by the change of location and all the drama leading up to it. It was a helluva lot to adjust to.

After taking a good long while to drift off to sleep, despite his exhaustion, Tony found his dreams overflowing with all of the data he’d absorbed about Atlantis, the Pegasus Galaxy, and the off-world missions by Sheppard’s team. Mostly, he found himself dreaming about Colonel John Shepard, who in his dreams, seemed to be lost in a maze and pleading with Tony to save him.

He didn’t know if his subconscious had picked up on a clue or vital piece of info in what he’d read or if he was getting some sort of psychic message. He’d normally say that he didn’t believe in that Oda-Mae Brown crap but that was before he learnt about Atlantis, the stargates and the scary aliens who wanted to kill or enslave humans. There were lots of things that didn’t sound half as ridiculous as they used to anymore. Welcome to Atlantis, Alex Paddington, he told himself ironically.

Chapter 5: Bonds That Bind

On his first day when Tony and Tali had come through the stargate from Earth, the federal agent stopped off while they were out exploring the city to report to the Acting Military Commander of Atlantis. Since they would be working together closely to investigate Col Sheppard’s disappearance, Alex wanted to develop a good working relationship with him. Lt Col Lorne had taken one look at the overexcited little girl and told Alex to focus on his daughter, they could catch up tomorrow and remember that he wasn’t officially slated to begin his new duties until next week.

He smiled at Belle in a friendly natural way, telling her that she had a beautiful name and she giggled shyly at him and waved as they departed to continue their exploration of the city. They only made it around a quarter of the city before she started to wilt, so they’d turned around and made their way back to their quarters,

The next day after she’d had a good long play session with Kazumi and another walk around the city, DiNozzo felt that it was as good a time as any to stop by and see if Lorne had time to talk. He wanted to organise a work area and requisition comms and sundry equipment, plus reassure himself that Evan Lorne was someone he could trust. General O’Neill said he was a good guy, solid and trustworthy but not flashy or flamboyant. That probably explained why it had taken so long for him to be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.

After working with flashy and flamboyant people at NCIS and being treated like shit for 15 years, solid and trustworthy sounded pretty damned good to the jaded agent right now. He needed someone who’d have his back and he was hoping that person was Lt Col Lorne.

When he congratulated him on his well-deserved promotion, Lorne looked uncomfortable. “Thanks, Special Agent Paddington but it feels wrong you know, to profit from Colonel Shepard’s ah…” he trailed off awkwardly.”

“His disappearance?” Alex supplied sympathetically.

Lorne shrugged. “I know there are factions back on Earth that is convinced he’s dead, but with all the weird shit we’ve seen out here, plus crazy stuff with the Ancients and with Dr Jackson Ascensions in the Milky Way, Lanteans aren’t willing to give up on him,” he said almost apologetically.

“No need to apologise, Lieutenant Colonel. I’m not investigating his disappearance with any assumptions already formed. Until I have credible evidence that convinces me that Shepard is dead and is likely to remain that way, I will continue to investigate,” he assured the man who smiled in relief.

Oh yeah, this guy was loyal and steadfast!

“In the meantime, General O’Neill assures me that you well and truly earned your promotion. You’ve been here since the beginning of the expedition and as several officers have the rank of major, you needed to be given the higher rank to prevent the chain of command from breaking down. I do know that General O’Neill is committed to finding Shepard and he shares your optimism. He’s ordered me to give it a priority,” he assured the frustrated Air Force lieutenant colonel.”

Lorne nodded. “Good enough, Agent Paddington. The General had good things to say to you,” he revealed as he looked across at the little girl who was currently playing with a jigsaw puzzle.

Alex wondered if he had any kids of his own or if he just kept it around for the local Athosian kids whose parents he worked with. He seemed to have an assortment of toys – handmade wooden ones that didn’t look familiar, and others, like the etch-a-sketch and the Rubik’s cube that had been brought to Atlantis from Earth.

“General O’Neill read me in on your situation. I agree that while people are relieved that you have the ATA gene of comparable strength to O’Neill and Sheppard, it’s wise not to advertise that your daughter has it too. No point in putting her in danger.”

Alex noted the man’s demeanour softened as he watched Belle searching for puzzle pieces. Lorne couldn’t have known it, but the little girl seemed to have inherited his fascination for putting the pieces of a puzzle together. It was also an excellent way to keep her distracted.

“It’s gotta be tough, having to hide from The Trust and give her a new name. Hard enough for adults. If she were a bit younger, she’d probably forget but a five-year-old? Belle’s old enough to remember but not old enough to understand why.”

Alex shrugged. “She understands that bad people are after us and she needs a hiding name so they can’t find us. But yeah, it is tough. She asked why she can’t just give the special gene back so the bad guys will let us alone”

Luckily, no one else on Atlantis knew about the extra gene and Alex was in two minds about whether he would tell anyone. Something to think long and hard about. Obviously, Jack O’Neill and Dr Lam knew too but that was all.

“Oh, in case General O’Neill forgot to mention it, as well as a new name, we decided to alter her age to four instead of five, just to muddy the waters a bit more.”

The Lieutenant Colonel nodded. “Duly noted. It’s probably in the weekly data burst that arrived earlier today. I haven’t had a chance to decrypt it yet.” He looked at the little girl appraisingly. “Well, she isn’t all that big so it shouldn’t be too hard for people to believe. And the three other kids on Atlantis who are close in age are all four turning five soon so that will work out fine,” he said encouragingly before moving on.

Handing him a file, he smiled. “General O’Neill’s compliments. He said to tell you that this was your secret weapon.”

Alex opened the file, scanning it swiftly. “Captain Laura Cadman, USMC?” he said quizzically.

“Off books, she is your partner. Knows who you are, and aside from myself and Atlantis’ commander Ambassador AuClair, Cpt Cadman is the only other person entrusted with that information. Officially, when she arrives onboard Odysseus in ten days, she will be taking over responsibility for base security. I understand from the General that you are going to be looking at Atlantis’ security and will be working together,” his voice revealed a slight questioning.

“I have experience doing threat analysis when I served aboard aircraft carriers and risk and intel analysis on a joint mission with the CIA years ago. Plus, I’ve collaborated with analysts over my years in law enforcement,” Alex told him.

“Good, we could have used someone with those skills over the years. So will you be conducting a review of past missions and incidents or is this just starting from now?”

The special agent shrugged. “At the moment, I’m focused on finding Colonel Sheppard. That said, I’m going to be combing through after-action reports, incident reports and mission reports looking for possible suspects who might be responsible for his disappearance. I find it extremely unlikely that he has gone UA, but I need to consider it, even if it is just for five minutes so I can rule it out,” he smirked at the look on Lorne’s face which relaxed when he realised Paddington wasn’t seriously entertaining the thought of the colonel going UA.

“That said, Lieutenant Colonel, should I discover egregious breaches of security, serious negligence, or significant criminality, you can bet your life I’ll be reporting it. Will that be an issue?”

Lorne looked happy. “Absolutely not, Special Agent Paddington. I’m pleased to have you here. Apart from your ATA abilities, your background and skills will be most valuable. As to Captain Cadman, General O’Neill suggests that we might want to keep her participation in the Sheppard investigation on the downlow and I agree.”

Alex stared at Lorne who looked like a pretty laid-back character. “You realise that that’s tantamount to admitting that you suggest that there might be a mole on Atlantis, Lieutenant Colonel?”

“Much as I don’t want to think such a thing about any of our people, just like you have to take into consideration such factors as Colonel Sheppard going UA and although you didn’t mention it, deciding to kill himself. However, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I ignored the remote possibility that someone on Atlantis may have betrayed him or had a hand in his death,” Lorne said, looking anything but happy.

“Yes, we can’t rule anything out, even if it might end up being someone who inadvertently tipped off whoever took him. Some of the civilians and I count both the Indigenous and Earth personnel in that category, are not exactly the most security-conscious bunch. A few innocent-seeming questions in a tavern off-world posed by a stranger or even an acquaintance and loose lips could have been enough to set him up. But having Captain Cadman investigating surreptitiously while I’m out in plain sight looking into Sheppard’s disappearance gives us more options. If anyone does have anything to hide, it makes sense not to show our hand.”

Alex was quiet, thinking about the situation. “It says in Cadman’s file that she’s served three tours in Atlantis previous to this. So, I take it she knows quite a few of the personnel? I can see why the General thought she’d be an asset, but won’t people be surprised that she turns up practically at the same time as I did?”

“It might be suspicious, but Flight Lieutenant Jennings mother is terminally ill, and he requested a transfer back to Earth so he can be with her.” Lorne gave Jennings’ rank the British pronunciation lef-tenant and Tony asked.

“Jennings was RAF?”

“No, he was RAAF, the Royal Australian Air Force.”

“An Aussie, I love Aussies even if they don’t really throw shrimps on the barbie. They make great beer though.”

Lorne chuckled. “Not too many shrimps, beer, or barbeques on Atlantis.”

Becoming serious again, Tony said, “Okay, well it’s not good that the Flight Lieutenant has to return home, but having Cadman take over base security gives me an excuse as the AFOSI agent to coordinate searches and such without making anyone suspicious.”

Looking at the nearly half-assembled puzzle, Lorne grinned. “Looks like we need to move on, she’s very focused for her age.”

“Only child syndrome,” Alex shrugged but he knew that wasn’t the entire explanation. In truth, Belle had inherited Ziva’s drive, determination and yes her down-right obsessive nature, which concerned him a little. Okay, a lot!

“So, office, interview room, equipment?”

He’d brought much of the computer gear from earth but not everything and he needed Atlantis comms, miscellaneous gear, and access to Atlantis’ network. Dr Lee had set up additional security measures for Tony on his computer system and given him a crash course in how to encrypt and decrypt files so he could continue to communicate securely with General O’Neill. Luckily, he’d never been quite as useless with a computer as his colleagues back at NCIS believed but he was happy to hear that he was going to have Captain Cadman as backup and not solely watching his own six.

Investigating the disappearance of Colonel Sheppard was potentially dangerous, especially given that Alex also had the ATA gene. Even if his disappearance turned out to be an entirely straightforward matter, for example, John Sheppard had found out someone’s secret and they felt threatened by Sheppard’s knowledge and got rid of him and it wasn’t an internecine interplanetary conspiracy, investigating crime was still potentially dangerous. Once upon a time, it wouldn’t have bothered him but now that he had his daughter to consider, he’d become far more cautious.

After outline what his steps would be to locate John Sheppard, they talked in a desultory fashion, sharing a few incidents that occurred amidst the civilian population and half a dozen misdemeanours amongst the military. While in the past, Dr McKay had punished the civilians, Tony had managed to convince General O’Neill that this wasn’t satisfactory, that they needed to set up a more formal legal structure. The head of Homeworld Security had conceded, agreeing to begin the process of finding someone suitable, perhaps a former judge to oversee the sentencing of serious crimes. Tony had one individual in mind but decided to hold back on the suggestion and see who Jack came up with, as there was no guarantee that Tony’s pick would ever consider coming here.

Meanwhile, he recommended that in the interim, all crimes, felony or misdemeanour be reviewed by a panel of five. The panel would consisted of himself, Captain Cadman as the Head of Atlantis base security since she was replacing Jennings, Ambassador AuClair as Head of Atlantis, Lieutenant Colonel Lorne as the acting CO and Dr McKay as the Chief Scientific Officer. It had already been presented to Henri AuClair who had supported his recommendation but suggested they include a Pegasus born representative as a sixth member which Tony had shot down, not wanting to have an even number of votes on the panel. Instead, he suggested that in situations involving people from the Pegasus galaxy, that they drop Atlantis’ military CO and CSO and replace them with two Pegasus representatives. A proposal that AuClair agreed to and to advocate for with the IOA.

Lorne was pleased with the innovation, suggesting that the committee meet twice monthly and hear multiple cases rather than on an ad hoc basis. Tony agreed that was an excellent suggestion.

He was going to enjoy working with Lt Col Lorne.

~o0o~

That second day on Atlantis, Tony made a point of reading up on the whole ‘Original Dr Weir’ situation. HAL told him he’d been created to make sure Weir survived the ten millennia she was in stasis in the city before the Earth Expeditionary Force arrived. His sole task had been to keep Atlantis functioning enough to maintain life support, albeit the minimal reserves required for maintaining one human. After he’d read the file, Tony felt even more confused. If Elizabeth was supposed to save the Atlantis Expedition, why hadn’t her stasis ended when the stargate was activated and large-scale life support services to support two hundred people began to fire up, using up the last reserves in the ZPM?

If she’d appeared when they first arrived, she could have advised them to raise Atlantis back up to the surface, so they didn’t drown. Of equal importance, she could have given them a heads up about the Wraith rather than blundering about the galaxy looking for a planet to escape to, thus disturbing a huge and deadly hornet’s nest of the bug-like human hybrids. When he questioned HAL about why Original Dr Weir didn’t wake up until she was discovered months after they’d been in the city. HAL claimed it was a glitch in the system. Janus programmed the stasis chamber to be deactivated when sensors detected that the gate had been activated but something went wrong.

Tony wondered why HAL hadn’t woken her, but he said that had not been his task.

One thing he was starting to realise, the Ancients were not as wise as they appeared at first glance. Sure, they may have built the gate system spanning galaxies, making interplanetary travel possible between worlds, but they were far from infallible. Creating the Wraith was a testament to their massive arrogance and inability to assess the possible risks they posed.

Putting that aside for now, since he’d only just arrived, and he was trying to assess the information Hal gave him. If he could believe HAL, then Tony was the only one in the city who knew of the AI’s presence. He was trying to understand why, after fulfilling his initial programming to maintain life support systems the AI program didn’t self-destruct or just go into sleep mode. Why had HAL decided to set new parameters for himself after ten thousand years and did he pose a threat to the Lanteans. So, Tony set out to find out, careful not to upset the A.I.

HAL explained, (Priceless, I was created to protect Original Dr Weir because Janus had come to care about what happened to her and he wanted her to succeed in her task. My creator was a great person, who cared about others. I merely rewrote the parameters of caring for Original Dr Weir and expanded them to include protecting new Dr Weir and her expeditionary force in this timeline.)

(Okay, I think I understand how you were able to make such drastic changes,) Tony replied, (But what happened to cause such a change?)

HAL was silent before finally admitting. (I realised when young Dr Weir’s people came through the gate that there were also some of Janus’ people or more accurately, distant relatives.)

(They had the ATA gene you mean?)

(They had one of the four main Alteran genes, the most basic one for actualising and using technology. Without that, Alteran tech…Atlantis won’t respond to them.)

(So, you saw them as brethren of the Ancients.)

(That is a truthful statement.)

(HAL… you said I have a secondary gene?)

(No, Priceless. I said you have a second Ancient gene. There is a difference. It is not less important. The second gene lets you instantly read and understand the Alteran languages.)

(How many genes are there,) Tony blurted out?

(There are four main ones and several others which serve minor roles and are unique to Alterans. The rest of their genes are the same as newer human races.)

(I can read Alteran languages,) Tony asked in wonder – that would be so cool.

(For all the good it will do you, as your people say. The majority of their languages have been lost in the mists of time, but theoretically, if you have a strong expression of that gene as you do, and they still existed, then yes you could. But there is more to the gene than just understanding written and spoken language. Janus’ people were also able to communicate with each other without a spoken and written language.)

(They read each other’s minds?)

(Not in the sense that you understand it, young one,) HAL informed him calmly.

Tony wanted to object, being in his forties was hardly what he considered young, but he let it go. He was talking to an AI program that was ten thousand years old. He supposed to HAL it was all relative.

(Alright, how then?)

(It must be a mutual intent. A sort of nonverbal invitation and acceptance to communicate with another who also has the gene. If either party is unwilling to engage, then communication does not take place.)

Appearing to anticipate Dion’s next question HAL said, (Over 40 percent of Alterans were born with the communication gene. And the last thing it enables you to do is to engage mentally with certain of the Alteran’s technology.)

(You mean tech such as yourself, HAL?)

(That is one example.)

(So, without this communication gene, I could not have this mental conversation with you?)

(That is an accurate statement, Priceless.)

Hmm…Tony as an expert in the art of deflection knew someone was attempting to deflect without actually lying, but to be honest, he felt as if his head was ready to explode. He felt that if there was much more earthshattering information that HAL was keeping from him, he wasn’t in any fit state to process it. After all, he was not a geneticist, nor was he a genius like McGee, General Carter, Dr McKay, or Dr Zelenka.

There was only so much mind-blowing intel an average guy like him could deal with. Still, being able to spot subterfuge and evasion was right up his alley however, he decided not to call out his AI buddy.

And that there was the million-dollar question; was HAL a friend or foe? So far, he seemed benign, but Tony wasn’t about to trust the AI program created by an arrogant Alteran who had been fucking around with time travel. Surely the ultimate hubris and one that even Janus’ fellow Ancients had vehemently opposed!

(Ah, HAL, buddy. Would it be possible to lose the Priceless moniker? It makes me uncomfortable.)

(It is what your real name means.)

(Apparently, but it was given to me by my parents, and it isn’t even mine. I was called after my father. I wasn’t even valued highly enough to have a lousy little name that was unique to myself.)

(Maybe that is why expressions of praise make you uncomfortable.)

(Maybe,) Tony agreed, but he knew it was far more complex than that.

He didn’t feel as if he merited it – no one in his life who got to know him had ever found him worthy of being anything more than an irritation. Sure, he had useful skills and for that people would tolerate him – at least for a while. But they’d endure him until his usefulness outlived his annoying qualities and even Gibbs with his Rule 5 about not wasting good, had at the end not been able to suffer him any longer.

(Is it not something that you are trying to imbue in your little girl – a positive sense of worth but not one built on self-pride or conceit?)

He nodded. He didn’t want his daughter to develop false pride, but he did want her to be able to accept praise when honestly earnt and a real sense of self-worth.

(Yes, I want Belle to accept kindness and praise when it is given honestly, and it is genuine.)

(Then shouldn’t you, as a father, model that behaviour, even when it makes you uncomfortable.)

(Damn it HAL, maybe I should, but erasing the brainwashing of a lifetime is not just something I can change instantly.)

Again, Tony vowed to go talk to a therapist asap – for his daughter’s sake if not his own. And yet, wasn’t this a part of the problem. He needed to do this not just for Tali but first and foremost for himself.

(Plus, you do realise that we have changed our names. I am Alex Paddington, and she is Annabelle Paddington.)

HAL was silent and Alex figured he was either sulking, fuming or best-case scenario, was considering his request. (Do you know that your new name means a defender of people, a warrior.)

Tony smirked. (I know and I’ve been serving and protecting people for most of my adult life so maybe that’s why the name feels comfortable.)

HAL said, (I agree to address you by this new name, Alexander if you in turn will scratch my itch too.)

Tony, who had been taking a sip of water at the time, swallowed it as he snorted in surprise. The liquid ended up going down the wrong way, unfortunately and his poor scarred lungs were not at all impressed. (What the fuck, HAL?) he managed to sputter out loud several long minutes later when he’d caught his breath.

(Is that not how you say it? I’ll scratch your itch if you scratch mine.) HAL asked carefully.

Shaking his head at the fact he seemed to be lumbered with an AI who wanted to use Earth idioms on him, he wondered was he cursed. He’d already endured eight years of idiomatic torture with a Kidon trained assassin.

(It’s actually, I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine. What you said was something completely different. You were offering to have sexual intercourse with me, HAL.)

(Oh, no. That was not my intention. How curious that one word could so dramatically change the meaning.)

(That’s colloquialisms for you. Better to steer away and stick to literal English.)

(Hmm, I will give due consideration to your suggestion, if you will consider my request.)

(Much better HAL. What is your request?)  He was so hoping the AI didn’t want to occupy his body like those Goa’ulds in the Milky way did because that ain’t happening…ever!

(I would like to choose a name for myself. HAL is not aesthetically pleasing to my binary code. It is the first three letters of the words halitosis and hallucination. Is that what you think of me, Alex? Am I like a bad breath, or do I make you feel like you are mad as a March mare, crazy as a spoon, mislaid your marbles, inane in the brain?)

(Hey! What did we say about metaphorical speech? Let’s make a deal. I won’t try to use Alteran idioms, metaphors, slang, or colloquialisms on you if you promise not to try to use them on me?)

(Fine, I agree,) the computer program told him sulkily, reminding him of his daughter when she was forced to do something she wasn’t happy about. It would be funny if he weren’t worried about how exactly much power Hal wielded on Atlantis.

Meanwhile, Alex was considering HAL’s question and realised uncomfortably that there was a kernel of truth there, well not about the halitosis. While he had initially assumed he was hearing things that weren’t real, he was not about to admit it. Pissing off the AI that influenced if not controlled various technical and life support systems on Atlantis was not a smart move, especially when it never ended well in movies.

He also wouldn’t go off alone in a pyramid where his companions were slowly being killed by an unnamed force like the idiot wearing a red shirt always did, only to end up dead. So equally, he was not about to anger the alien computer program which seemed to like him. Instead, he sought to soothe the disgruntled AI program which seemed to have at least rudimentary emotions.

(I named you HAL after a character in a series of science fiction novels and movies written by Arthur C. Clarke. The main protagonist was a sentient artificial intelligence created and installed on a spaceship to interact with the astronauts who were travelling on it. HAL was an anagram and stood for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer.)

(I see,) HAL replied. (That does make me feel better. I would not like to scare you, especially as you are the only one I have been able to speak to, aside from the Alterans who briefly returned. And I chose not to communicate with them.

Well, wasn’t that a loaded remark! But Tony felt that it was something to be left for a future conversation. Tali would be returning from her first playdate with Kazumi soon.

Feeling that HAL was somewhat mollified he continued, (and can I point out that while halitosis and hallucination might have negative connotations, halcyon means calm, peaceful, tranquil, prosperous, golden. It was also a famed kingfisher-like bird who was said to be able to calm rough wind and waves at sea. And there is also halophyte – a plant adapted to living in a saline environment which seems oddly appropriate too,) he explained, grateful for Wendy Miller’s obsession with the board game scrabble while they were together.

He sniggered at that thought. There wasn’t much he felt grateful towards her for since she stood him up the day before their wedding, but an encyclopedia-ish knowledge of not exactly useful words for a cop was certainly a handy skill in this situation.

HAL replied gravely, (Thank you. I can see that I might have been a mite oversensitive. However, I would still like to be able to choose a name that has significance to me,) he requested.

Tony nodded acceptingly. It seemed reasonable on the surface. Hopefully, it didn’t augur a HAL-like self-awareness that was dangerous to the carbon-based life forms on Atlantis, he mused, not wanting to open that can of worms right now. HAL had been co-existing for the last eight years with the Expeditionary Force without drama. Hopefully, everything was fine.

(So, what have you come up with,) he asked curiously?

(Janae Progenius, which roughly translated in Alteran means offspring, progeny, or the brainchild of Janus. What do you think? I have discounted Janae Genus.)

(I think it’s a fine name and it honours your creator.)

(Thank you, Alexander Paddington. I noticed that everyone on Atlantis had more than one name. Some people have more than two. Some people such as Dr Meredith Rodney McKay have four names, but I felt that it was overkill.)

Tony sniggered. He didn’t feel like getting into honorifics with Ha… with Janae. It was not such a dissimilar conversation to the one he had with Tali two weeks ago.

(Okay, good to know, Janae Progenius.)

He wondered if the entity formerly known as HAL might be agreeable to him shorting the name. Something to explore at a later date. For now, he needed to prepare a snack for Tali.

That night, Tali had another nightmare about the Trust trying to kidnap her. She didn’t really remember Ziva, or at least Tony didn’t think so. What she knew of her mother came from the stories Tony had told her and the photo’s he’d kept of their time together at NCIS. He’d even shown her some photographs he’d taken when they’d been sent to Paris years ago. Yet, on an instinctual level she always had a fear of being abandoned and he knew how she felt, having his own abandonment issues to deal with. The abduction attempts had created even more insecurity in the little girl, so he ended up scooped her up and put her into his own bed, which was now more than big enough for both of them to sleep in.

End of flashback.

Chapter 6 Background Notes

Tony made his way across the city to Dr Aoife O’Shea’s office for his second session with the Atlantis psychologist. He and Tali had arrived in the city six days ago and he knew that he couldn’t afford to hesitate once he’d made the decision to seek help. Tony knew he’d find an excuse to put off dealing with his lifetime of emotional shit given half a chance. And really, he didn’t want to do that to his daughter. It would only perpetuate the generational cycle of abuse that had left him such an emotional and psychological cripple.

His little girl deserved better. Hell, he deserved better.

His kid-self had deserved better than having his parents’ emotional deficits screw him up the way they did. He was damned if he would do that to Tali, even if it hurt so bad having to talk about it all with a perfect stranger. But he couldn’t escape the reality that Tali was the product of not just one fucked up parent but two. Ziva had been twisted by her sociopathic father into becoming a spy and an assassin, despite having a loving mother and siblings during her formative years, His little girl was so screwed unless Tony got his act together, even without the messed-up genetics from his DiNozzo/Paddington genes that he’d passed along to her to keep the David one’s company.

When Miko offered that Belle could spend a few hours every day with Kazumi while he got everything sorted out, it had been perfect. He’d taken the opportunity to book an appointment with the current Atlantis psychologist, an Irish born and trained mental health professional who had a lilting accent and a calming capable air about her. He’d struggled during their first session to open up, but she seemed to understand how hard it was for him and somehow found the perfect balance between letting him reveal things at his own pace and not allowing him to resort to pure deflection.

Somehow, he’d gotten through that first painful session where he’d barely managed to identify his goals in wanting her help. It had been touch and go because much of it was still so raw. But he’d sucked it up because this wasn’t Tali’s fault.

Yet unless he came to terms with how she’d come into his life, she’d end up paying a huge cost for his inability to process the whole debacle. That would be incredibly selfish of him and ultimately lead to neglect and abuse, even if they ended up being more subtle than his own. That wasn’t going to happen. Whatever it took, he was going to make sure an innocent child didn’t have her life ruined; he was going to be a good parent. She would feel loved and wanted.

As the petite psychologist welcomed him into her office, he sat down on one of the upholstered armless chairs, feeling a familiar but unwelcome sense of panic at the thought of talking about his emotions.

She welcomed him back, assuring him that as difficult as it was, each time would get a tiny bit easier.

Tony fervently hoped she was right. Before he left his quarters, he’d thrown up twice and come perilously close to having a panic attack. It would be so much simpler to squash it all down and pretend that everything was fine, after all, it was his modus operandi. The evidence for squashing it into a box with a lid was all the shit he’d endured for years at NCIS, rather than leaving as any sane well-adjusted individual would do in the face of the torrent of abuse he’d put up with.

But as tempting as that option was, Tony couldn’t help thinking about his childhood. He wasn’t willing to inflict that sort of harm on any kid, let alone his own flesh and blood. She hadn’t asked to be brought into the world, but she did deserve to grow up happy, safe, and loved.

After asking him how he was feeling today and Tony settling on telling her he was nervous, Dr O’Shea nodded. “How is Belle settling in? Have there been any more nightmares?”

“Last night, she had a bad one.”

“Do you know what it was about,” Aoife asked him sympathetically.

“The Trust trying to abduct her. She is terrified that they want to take her away from me,” Alex told her grimly.

They talked for a while about what he was doing, and she mostly reassured him that what he was doing was good, even approving of him letting the little girl get into his bed after a nightmare. He frowned, knowing that Ziva would not approve of his babying her but at this point, he really didn’t care. If Dr O’Shea told him it was fine to do if she was distraught, then he was going to follow his gut and listen to the psychologist. O’Shea also encouraged him to let her draw as a means of expressing her fears and feelings before moving on.

Catching him off guard, she said, “Okay, Alex, I know when we left off last time, we were going to pick up on your other reasons why you decided to come and talk with me. You talked about your parents and yourself a little bit, but it occurred to me later on that you didn’t have very much to say about Ziva. Why don’t you start by telling me about Belle’s mother?”

Seeing his look of sheer panic, she said. “I know this is difficult for you, so let’s talk about the easy stuff first and work up to the more difficult issues, okay?”

Tony gave a shaky laugh, deflecting but trying to be cooperative. “It’s all fairly complicated when it comes to Ziva and me, but I’ll try.”

She smiled empathetically. “That’s all I can ask, Tony.”

When he remained silent, trying to find a way to get started, she prompted him. “I think you mentioned you were colleagues. Can you tell me about the first time you met her?”

He sighed. “I thought you said to start with the easy stuff, Doc.”

Aoife looked surprised but merely nodded and shrugged.

Tony took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and started speaking, trying to remain emotionless. “I first encountered Mossad Officer Ziva David when she was the handler of her half-brother. Ari was supposedly operating undercover in a Hamas cell that had been targeting our team off and on for months. Her brother killed my partner when we were on the top of a building while chasing him and his terrorist pals who’d stolen an unmanned drone. They intended to fly it into a crowded dock filled with hundreds of family members at Norfolk, waiting to greet their loved ones returning from their Middle East six-month deployment. They were going to kill as many of the crowd as they could.”

He stopped speaking, before looking across at the psychologist. “I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those family reunions, Dr O’Shea. There are parents, grandparents, spouses, and kids. Lots of kids, especially little ones. Moms bring their babies down to the docks for fathers to see, often for the first time because they were deployed before the baby was born. There are tears and hugs and there is so much joy and love.

“No one envisaged a bunch of terrorists wanting to target them because they were a soft terrorist threat. In other words, little security – all out in the open. No one had anticipated such a horrendous crime. Ari and his terrorist cell had targeted them though, he’d even given a child a teddy bear with a radio beacon inside to help the drone zero in on its target. It would have been a slaughterhouse if we hadn’t destroyed the remote controls before it got anywhere near the dock.”

Dr O’Shea swallowed reflexively before letting slip with, “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary!” She could picture the carnage in her head. She also knew that while she could imagine it on a purely intellectual level, the reality would have been much worse than she could ever envisage.

He noted that the psychologist subtly crossed herself; he was briefly reminded of his former teammate, Cate and frowned.

“We managed to prevent the drone from flying but just as we were celebrating the win, Ari shot Caitlin Todd in the head. I was standing beside her when Ari’s sniper’s bullet hit her forehead midway between the eyes.” He demonstrated on his own head the entry point of the bullet.

“I was so close to her that I had her warm blood and brain matter spattered across my face and I still have nightmares sometimes about her death,” he confessed, sounding somewhat breathy and anxious.

He was silent for several minutes and O’Shea didn’t push him. Instead, she handed him a glass of water and he took several shaky sips.

Finally, he picked up the story. “We started hunting Ari straight away. We knew it was him. A few days before Ari shot Cate, he’d planted an explosive device at a cafe that would have killed our team leader and he confessed to it. Plus, just the day before he killed her, he targeted our team. He planted a car bomb at a crime scene after killing two sailors he shanghaied, knowing that such a high-profile crime would be assigned to our team. Which it was.”

Aoife winced and he noted that she’d turned pale. “What happened, Alex?” she asked him gently.

“Except for the most bizarre set of circumstances that led to us finding it in time, three quarters of the team would have been blown up. Plus, later after Cate’s death, he tried to snipe our forensic scientist in her lab, as he’d done to Agent Todd.”

Dr O’Shea decided to slow down the account and give Tony a chance to catch his breath. “Tell me about the bizarre set of circumstances, if you don’t mind.”

Tony did mind, he didn’t want to be here at all but as a highly skilled professional, he knew that information, even the most seemingly inconsequential titbits were often the key to solving a crime. He knew enough about therapy from actively avoiding it his whole life to know that the same principles could apply. Reluctantly he complied, picturing Tali and why he was doing this.

“I had returned from sick leave a week earlier than recommended,” he began. Seeming to read that she was going to ask, he grumbled before supplying her with the briefest of details.

“There was a biological terror attack against NCIS. I contracted Yersinia Pestis – the plague, but it was my own stupid fault,” he waved off her response.

“When we were called out to the crime scene of the car with the dead sailors it was down a moderately steep incline and not being as nimble as usual, I slipped and tumbled down it. When I stopped rolling, the two junior team members were just getting started processing the car while we waited for the Medical Examiner and his assistant to get there. They were always getting lost on the way to crime scenes,” he said with an indulgent little smile.

“There was a corn snake that I teased Cate with, since she was scared of them. I pretended to save her from it after it curled around her ankle. Then after I removed it, McGee, our youngest and newest agent who was still on probation, told her it was harmless, and Cate got mad. She elbowed me in the gut, and I collapsed on the ground in agony, right beside the car. My chest and gut were still incredibly tender from the coughing. That was bizarre coincidence number two,” he told her stiltedly.

“In what way?” Aoife asked calmly.

“McGee had decided to open up the trunk of the car. He turned the key and I happened to notice the explosives taped to the undercarriage of the convertible at that moment. I told him to freeze and not release the key because there was a bomb, and I was worried that he’d just armed it. Letting the key spring back in the lock could possibly trigger it.”

Even if the psychologist managed to appear calm and unfazed, Tony could discern micro tells such as the momentary flare of her nostrils and the contracting pupils.

“What did you do?”

“I swapped places with McGee, so I was holding the key in case it was the trigger and ordered them to retreat up the hill to the crime scene truck and inform our boss, Gibbs.”

“So, you waited for the bomb squad to disarm it,” O’Shea clarified.

“No, once they were safe, I ran like hell too.” Seeing her confusion and guessing what she was going to ask; he answered her question. Years of anticipating his former boss seemingly made him able to anticipate Aoife too.

“The few milliseconds I had to assess the explosives, there was no way for me to know if there was a timer attached. It was unlikely because Ari couldn’t be sure when we’d reach the crime scene, but he could have rigged it to work in concert with the bomb being armed by McGee. If that was the case, the only choice was to try to beat the clock before it went off.”

“You survived, obviously. Did the bomb explode?”

“Made it halfway up the hillside before it went off. The concussive effects blew me off my feet. I was winded, so I crawled the rest of the way up the hill.”

“Holy shite! I get what you said about a bizarre set of circumstances,” she said rolling her eyes. “Let’s return to how you met Tali’s mother.”

“Ziva came into our agency to defend her brother’s innocence after Cate was killed and we’d found evidence that Ari killed her. She claimed he hadn’t gone rogue, that someone was setting him up. Of course, what we didn’t learn until later, she was not just his handler but also his half-sister. Plus, Ziva had created intelligence dossiers on everyone on the team or who worked closely with the team, like our medical examiner and Abby, our forensic scientist.”

“Why did Ari kill Agent Todd? You said you were standing close beside her?” O’Shea asked gently.

Tony shrugged. “Rumour was that he did it to mess with my boss’s head because Gibbs was having an affair with Todd, although I didn’t believe it. The affair part: while he was a lady’s man, he had a weakness for females of a certain type and Cate didn’t fit the profile.”

“So why kill her?”

“Years later we learned his first wife and only child had been killed by a drug cartel because they were witnesses to a drug deal. In hindsight, Gibbs saw young feisty women such as Caitlin Todd, Abby Sciuto and Ziva David as surrogate daughters and protected and cosseted them in a way he never did with male agents. Ari despised my boss because he reminded Ari of Eli, his father who he hated.”

“Sounds like a right old mess.”

“You have no idea! Of course, while Ari might have been trying to psych out our team leader, it occurred to a few cynical agents like myself, that Ari also took out Cate because his father ordered him to make a vacancy on the team for his sister.”

“How so, Alex?”

“If I’d been killed, my replacement would have been another senior field agent. If our probie had been killed, we might have replaced him with another computer geek and the odds of replacing him with a female were fifty/fifty. With Cate gone, the odds were that she’d be replaced by another female, since having at least one female on a team is preferable, for patting down other females or interviewing female victims of sexual assaults. Plus, Cate was still a newish investigator, only two years under her belt,” he shrugged.

The psychologist frowned. “Is it SOP for someone from another country to join a US federal agency? I’d have thought it was highly irregular?”

With a bitter bark of laughter, Tony replied. “No, it’s not normal at all; highly abnormal in fact, and just asking for trouble. Nevertheless, we were ordered by our new director to accept her on the team. Later on, we found out it was a quid quo pro between Director Shepard and Ziva’s father. He was the deputy director of Mossad at that time, although later he become the director.”

“Why would he want her on your team?”

“At the time though, we were told that Officer David wanted to get away from her father, so they created some fake liaison position on our team. We were an investigative team who very rarely handled terrorism, but we were told to suck it up, she was our teammate. It made sense, sort of, since I figured out, she had killed her own brother when he tried to kill Gibbs and, in his report, he said he killed Ari to protect her from her father.”

“Didn’t your boss protest about putting the half-sister of the man who killed Agent Todd on the team? That would seem to make for bad team dynamics,” O’Shea inquired curiously. “Where were the agency psychologists during this craziness?”

“Not sure if they were even read in, Doctor. And the team lead objected but mostly about not being consulted beforehand. When he realised that Ziva had killed her own brother when he came to kill Gibbs, I guess he felt obligated to her because he believed she had chosen him over her brother, so he owed her a solid. He probably thought she’d be in a massive amount of shit if her father ever found out.”

“And would she?” Aoife prompted him.

“We found out years later that Ziva’s father ordered her to kill Ari because he had gone rogue. She wasn’t in trouble at all. But Gibbs was super protective of her and treated her like a daughter.”

“How long did you work with Ziva?”

Tony looked pained, “Not quite ten years. The team was temporarily split up for approximately five months and then later, she returned to Mossad again after a situation when I killed one of her Mossad operatives who was also her lover. She went on a suicide mission to Africa tracking down a terrorist camp and was captured. So probably closer to nine years, I guess.”

He looked pensive, remembering their trip to Somalia to take out the terrorists that had been her target, finding her alive. About her bitter retort that it had to be him that found her when they were reunited in that room and learnt she hadn’t perished. About how Gibbs and Vance allowed her to return to NCIS, despite her committing espionage against the US during her time on the team. About her being an accessory to the death of a federal agent and telling a shitload of lies to her team.

Things would have been far better all-round if the director had done his duty and observed the law. NCIS didn’t even have to prosecute her (which they should have), just not paved the way for her to return to the agency and had her black-listed. Instead of which, they not only let her return, but gave her full agent status as a reward for her sins. Honestly, what the hell had Vance, SECNAV and Gibbs been thinking?

The psychologist finally realised that Tony was lost in thought, not avoiding talking. Calling him gently, he startled, before making eye contact.

“Sorry, Doc.”

“So… working together for over nine years – that’s a long time,’” she observed. “Most teams don’t ever remain together that long. You must have trusted her a lot despite the rocky start.”

Tony smiled. A brittle smile that looked like he might shatter any moment. “Yes, I trusted her, and no I didn’t.”

Seeing the slender woman’s confusion, he laughed. “Yeah, I know. That makes no sense. I um…it’s a cop thing. I trusted her to have my back in the field, just as I trusted my other team members to look out for me, as I did for them. But I never truly trusted her for anything outside of that.” He sighed as he tried to explain.

“Ziva tried to foment dissent, right from the very first day she joined the team. The truth is she was constantly trying to marginalise me. Maybe because initially, I struggled with having her on the team because of her role in Agent Todd’s death and that she was Ari’s handler. Mossad targeted us and Cate died at Ziva’s brother’s hand.

“And later? You surely must have reached some level of understanding to have worked together all that time?” O’Shea prompted.

“Yes and no. I kept giving her chances because she was my partner and my boss trusted her. He treated her like a daughter. And she kept on abusing my trust.”

“Just not in the field?”

Smiling grimly, he said, “Unfortunately, no. She betrayed my trust out in the field too.”

Leaning forward fractionally, the psychologist asked. “Can you share some examples of her betraying your trust in the field, Tony?”

Sighing, he said, “It was a multiple homicide case. Three people were shot and killed at a community radio station by a bunch of home-grown terrorists who were pissed off that the US was spending money fighting overseas. They thought we should be cleaning up in our own backyard, so they decided to blow up a bunch of private school kids and their wealthy influential parents to draw attention to their goals. The shooting at the radio station was because the DJ was planning on exposing them.”

He saw her look of incredulity as she said sotte voce, “Clearly half a bubble off true,” and he sniggered.

“I know, not the brightest bunch of terrorists, were they? Anyway, we thought we had a recording of one of the terrorist’s voices ringing into the radio station. I was canvassing a large gated residential enclave where rich entitled folk live, getting voice samples from all the residents for comparison purposes. Ziva and another junior member of the team were supposed to be recording the voiceprints and listening in to the conversations in case I got into trouble so they could back me up.”

“In case you stumbled across the terrorists who killed three people?”

“Yes, that, or even an unrelated crime like a random drug deal gone bad or a domestic violence incident. Even just a garden variety old crime of passion. Crime doesn’t stop because you are in a swanky subdivision, Doc.”

“True… or investigating a terrorist plot. So, what happened?”

“Ziva and McGee complained that they got fed up listening to me talk so they turned the radio down to read instead of listening for trouble,” Tony told her stoically.

“This would be the same McGee who you’d swapped places with during the car bomb situation, so he could get to safety?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened to them?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Dr O’Shea proclaimed.

Tony shook his head. “No, nothing happened to them.”

“Well, póg mo thóin! I watch police procedurals; there is nothing so unforgivable as not having your colleagues back when they’re undercover.”

He shrugged, “About as bad as delaying backup when an officer requires assistance and there’s a go-slow on the response because they’re gay.”

Aoife asked him, “Is it still an issue in this day and age?”

“While there has been a relaxing in attitudes to gay cops in a lot of places, the enlightened attitudes also inevitably cause a doubling down of homophobic reactions in very conservative groups. In some police districts or precincts, small-town sheriffs’ departments, or often high- poverty areas, you don’t even want to joke about being bi-curious, unless you want to be left out on your own without backup during a firefight.

“I once kissed a transgender suspect when I was undercover with her. At the time, I didn’t even know she was transgender and even if I did, I still would have done it to maintain my cover. It didn’t bother me that she was trans, it bothered me that she had killed a colleague and friend. But if it had happened in certain bigoted workplaces, I’d have been targeted as a fag and back-up would have been dodgy at best.”

Aoife got angry. “Oh, for shite’s sake!” Seeing Tony’s surprised expression, she gave him a crumb about herself. “My first husband was gay. We married right out of secondary school, and I spent almost ten years trying to make a go of it with him until he finally confessed that it wasn’t me. What kind of world forces someone like Rory to sublimate such a crucial component of himself, who is the sweetest guy you could ever wish to meet? To force him to lie to himself and those who love him, just to fit in with some asinine view of human sexual relationships seems to be a far greater crime,” she said.

“The same world where some people genuinely believe that it is okay to have non-consensual sex with someone who didn’t or wouldn’t give consent. The same world that believe it is the rape victim’s fault because of their behaviour,” Tony told her grimly.

The psychologist stared at Tony; her brown hair rumpled after her constant assaults on it as she’d spoken about her ex-husband, who she seemed to bear no ill will towards. He felt a degree of amusement at her mannerism as he’d been known to do the same thing on occasion and it kind of endeared the counsellor to him. Common mannerisms aside, he was feeling like he’d reached the end of his tether and had unintentionally strayed into dangerous territory, although Dr O’Shea would probably argue about the intent.

Almost as if she were psychic, O’Shea centred herself and said, “Alrighty, I think we’ve covered some important ground today which gives me additional information to help me understand your situation. Before we finish up for today, let’s talk about how you and Belle are settling in on Atlantis. How much sleep are you getting?”

For the remaining fifteen minutes, Tony talked about how he and his daughter had coped with the move. How he was still nervous about her going wandering around at night, even though she usually clung to him like a limpet. He talked about how they’d made friends with the Zelenka’s due to Kazumi being the only other girl her age in Atlantis. He told her that they’d offered to look after Belle when he came to see O’Shea. She also reminded him that it was important for him to take care of himself,, before she scheduled a new session at the end of the week. As the psychologist had explained, having two sessions a week wasn’t all that usual but there was a lot of background information that she was trying to gather that made twice-weekly sessions highly desirable.

Yeah, maybe to you, Doc. To me, it is twice the angst and pain per week for me!

AN

Póg mo thóin – kiss my arse!

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