Reading Time: 141 Minutes

Title: Seeking Truth
Series: Priceless
Series Order: 3
Author: SASundance
Fandom: NCIS, Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis, Criminal Minds; JAG
Genre: Crime Drama, Crossover, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Science Fiction
Relationship(s): Radek Zelenka/Miko Kusanagi
Content Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Rape/Non-con/Dub-con, Slavery, Torture, Violence – Graphic, Violence – Domestic and/or Against Children , Violence – graphic, offscreen torture, discussions of past and offscreen rape/non-con, issues around the loss of free will, loss of bodily autonomy, mind control, past murder, 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: 100,261
Summary: Now that Colonel John Sheppard, had been found and brought home, he faced a long and arduous recovery from his time in captivity. Meanwhile, during his search for the CO, Alex Paddington, aka Tony DiNozzo, uncovered a shocking crime that would rock the residents of Atlantis to its very core. With victims rising and an imminent threat to the safety of Earth’s inhabitants, the case would force him to confront some highly personal demons he wasn’t ready to deal with yet. He never expected that while working with the survivors, they would help him to begin his own healing journey as well.
Artist: AngelicInsanity

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“Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.”
Voltaire

Chapter 1 An Ancient History Lesson

A klaxon began blaring out a warning followed by Henri AuClair announcing over the PA, “Warning. Unauthorised wormhole. An alien entity has breached the shield. Warning, Alien entity on Atlantis.”

Tony’s thoughts immediately turned to his daughter. Where was she? Had he made the biggest mistake of his life by bringing her to Atlantis? This was his worst-case scenario and the one thing he instinctively knew without having to think about it was he had to find her. NOW!

He leapt off the sofa at the same time as Jack rose, both men were intent on exiting his residence to determine the threat level. Tony was terrified and desperate to have Tali where he could see her, while O’Neill seemed to be a lot more relaxed. It would appear that enemies attacking the base was way more commonplace for the veteran SGC leader. As they were halfway to the entry/exit to his living room quarters, Tony’s door opened automatically and Cadman, Tali, and Cassie Fraiser tumbled through the doorway. Tali fell into her father’s arms, crying. As explanations tumbled out from the adults, Tony realised that she wasn’t hurt, merely afraid from being dragged swiftly through the corridors at a speed that left her breathless, while the klaxon going off was loud and scary. It also made it impossible for the two women to communicate with her.

He hugged the little girl tight as she sobbed, this time in relief at being reunited with her father but also still fearful, picking up the vibes from the adults around her who were ignoring her and all speaking at once. She hid her face in her father’s shirt and breathed in his comforting scent.

“What’s going on, Papa,” she wailed as he stroked her back soothingly.

“Good question, Miss Annabelle,” Jack answered her, looking at Captain Cadman.

The head of Base Security winced. “Not a lot of data incoming, General. Something activated the gate and penetrated our shield. Something glowing, diaphanous and ribbony which is heading in the direction of the Infirmary.”

Jack groaned. “Those damned Ancients! Tell people not to interfere or try to stop it. I’ve seen them flambé anything that gets in their way.”

As the major was relaying General O’Neill’s order not to approach or interfere, in her comms, Jack was talking to himself. “What the hell would an Ascended being be doing, turning up on Atlantis, fer cryin out loud?”

Reminded of one of his former team leader’s unnumbered rules – there’s no such thing as coincidence, Tony thought about the fact that only hours ago they had rescued Colonel Sheppard. He decided that the two things must surely be related.

“It’s probably connected to the Colonel. One of his Ascended fangirls,” he said facetiously, trying to calm everyone down.

“Fangirls? What fangirls?” Jack barked as Tali squeaked in fright.

Scowling fiercely at the general but keeping his tone light so as not to alarm his little limpet further, he said, “At a guess, I’d say, Chaya Sar but it could be Teer or Hedda too.”

Sending him an apologetic look and tempering his tone, he asked, “Chaya Sar, isn’t she the one you went to see, to find out if Sheppard had Ascended?”

“Yep, that’s the one. She is very fond of him and was worried when she heard he was missing.”

“Who the hell are Teer and Hedda?”

Tony was not exactly an expert on any of this, but he told them what little he knew.

“Early on in the expedition, on a planet known as the Cloisters which AR-1 was exploring, Sheppard got caught in a time dilation field and ended up in The Sanctuary, where the Ancients had created a protected enclave for people who wished to Ascend. Teer and her little sister were born there, and they became close to the Colonel when he saved their brother Avrid. From what I could gather from his mission report, Avrid was pretty much a milquetoast kind of a guy and when Sheppard showed them how to Ascend they offered him a chance to go with them.”

O’Neill motioned to Cadman, “Major, I need your comms for a sec.”

She handed them over and he contacted Carolyn Lam. “Dr Lam, do you copy?”

[“That you General?”]

“Yep. We think that Colonel Sheppard is about to get a special glowing visitor. Do not panic, there is no danger,” he said, crossing his fingers that this was true.

[“Copy that.”]

“We’ll be there asap. Do not hinder the alien who we believe to be an Ascended Ancient.”

[ “Understood General, see you soon,”] Carolyn Lam stated, sounding remarkable composed.

Even though she hadn’t been at the SGC when the Ancient, Oma Desala helped Daniel to Ascend or when the Harcesis child, Shifu dropped by and they were all glowing diaphanous ribbons of light, she was staying nice and calm. He just hoped that everyone else in the infirmary followed her lead. That doctor who was dating McKay was a bit of a loose cannon from what he’d seen and heard.

Handing back Cadman’s comms he said, “Let’s get to the infirmary.”

Tony put Tali down and said, “Have you shown Cassie your drawings yet?”

Cassie, taking the hint said, “No but I’d love to see them. Will you show them to me, Belle?”

Grabbing her hand, Tali dragged her teacher into her bedroom.

Jack looked at him. “You should stay here. We don’t know what we’ll find.”

Tony thought about virtually the last thing that Chaya had said, “I hope the next time we meet, John Sheppard will have returned home.”

“I have a feeling it is Chaya Sar, although I don’t understand how she knew he was on Atlantis, unless she can sense him. I do know she is lonely, and she helped us.”

The general rolled his eyes. “Okay, but what I said before still applies. Don’t get upset or Caro will have my hide.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted.

Tony just hoped he was right, and Chaya Sar had decided to visit them. He knew that she had a soft spot for the colonel and therefore he didn’t think she was a threat to them. As long as everyone stayed cool that was.

As they entered the infirmary, Carolyn was standing guard over the door to the private room where Colonel Sheppard was being kept. Predictably Dr Keller was protesting about leaving an alien with Sheppard, especially unaccompanied. Lam was telling her to stand down and the CMO was not happy.

General O’Neill took in the situation and barked, “Report, Dr Lam.”

“Chaya Sar requested to see Colonel Sheppard. I granted her request.”

“She lied to us when she came here the first time, pretending to be human. Why would you trust her?” McKay demanded indignantly, having turned up a seconds before.

“Because she was following my orders, Dr McKay,” Jack told him sternly. “Now excuse me, but I would like to meet Chaya Sar,” he beckoned Tony to the door.

“C’mon, Agent Paddington, you can do the introductions.”

As they slipped into the room, Tony first, since he already knew her, he noted she was sitting beside the bed, holding Sheppard’s hand. As Jack entered and took note of the Ancient and her non-threatening behaviour he relaxed, evidently agreeing with Tony’s assessment that she was just here to check up on Sheppard’s condition.

Tony smiled at her. “It is good to see you again, Chaya.”

“It is good to see you too, Alex.”

Tony gestured at the general. “Chaya Sar, this is Lieutenant General Jonathon O’Neill,” he said.

The head of Homeworld Command held out his hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Chaya Sar.”

She took his hand. “You have an Ancient gene like John and Alex,” she observed. Then frowned. “A strong one too, but there is something more. I sense there is much Ancient knowledge in your brain. I do not understand Jonathon, how can that be?”

Now it was the general’s turn to frown. “Call me Jack,” he requested, “and I don’t know. I did have a database of the Ancient’s knowledge downloaded into my brain twice, but an Asgard called Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet told me I wasn’t evolved enough for it. Said it would kill me, so he wiped it from my brain.”

She was regarding him intently. “You had the database of all Ancient knowledge downloaded into your brain twice?”

“The first time was an accident, but hey, it let me soup up the Stargate and travel to the Othalla galaxy and find the Asgards. The second time I did it deliberately to help defeat Anubis, then my good buddy Thor wiped it again,” he explained.

“No, only most of it. He left almost a quarter of it behind but blocked it. The blocks were designed to gradually dissolve over time, giving you a chance to absorb the knowledge slowly so as not to overwhelm you.”

“Are you sure?” a gobsmacked Jack asked her.

Chaya inclined her head. “I am certain, Jack.”

“Huh, I guess that explains a couple of things. Sometimes weird stuff just pops out of my fron,” he said. [Ancient for head]

Chaya Sar smiled, “I sure it does.”

Changing the subject, she looked at Tony. “You got to John just in time. He would not have survived much longer. Then Teer and Hedda would have helped him to Ascend but I do not think he would have been happy there.”

Tony wondered, was there a teeny-weeny touch of jealousy? Could an Ascended Ancient feel jealousy, he wondered? “Not that we aren’t happy to see you here, because we owe you for the help you gave us…”

“It was not much,” she interrupted. “I wish I had been able to do more but…”

He interjected this time, knowing her conflicted feelings. “You told us he was still alive and helped determine that he didn’t Ascend. That was hugely helpful.”

He left out the part where she warned him that someone on Atlantis betrayed him, which was instrumental in rescuing him, knowing he must protect the people of Proculus. He felt her gratitude wrap around him like a warm blanket.

Jack nodded. “We owe you a huge debt, we are grateful, and we understand your terrible dilemma, Chaya Sar.”

She bowed her head and stroked Sheppard’s hand lightly. “He has suffered greatly. I only wish I could do more. The Ancients have extracted a terrible price for my lapse,” she said, stiffly. “I cannot even heal him.”

Like Tony, Jack appeared to empathise with her plight because he said, “Well when we get him back to Earth, we can heal some of his injuries with a Goa’uld hand healing device,” he told her.

“But there are things it cannot heal.”

Both men nodded, acknowledging the truth of her statement.

“Changing the subject Tony asked her, “Hey Chaya, we only rescued Sheppard less than a day ago. How did you know he was back on Atlantis?”

She smiled, “There is no mystery, Alex. I heard Atlantis speak to him and I felt her joyous emotions. She has suffered great loneliness since he went missing.”

“Wait you heard her speak, what did she say?” Jack demanded, glancing at Tony.

“Of course, I heard her, and I imagine that Alex could too. She said, ‘My Love, you have returned to me.’ She was speaking to John, so I knew you had found him, and I decided to make sure he was well. He is not, but I hope between your doctors and the healing device of which you speak, that he will be well one day not too distant.”

Jack looked shell-shocked and Tony felt the same way. Chaya had answered Jack’s questions, but she also left them with many more. Seeming to sense their mental confusion she sighed. “I think we must move this conversation to the conference room if you are agreeable – there are things you do not know.”

O’Neill nodded, “I think you are right, Chaya.”

“But will you grant me the gift of just a few more minutes alone with John Sheppard? I will not harm him,” she vowed. “It has been some years since we parted but he has stayed in my heart. It may be some time before we can see each other again.”

“We will wait for you outside,” O’Neill told her, aware that Rodney McKay was still objecting to her seeing John and being quite vocal too.

She smiled. “Dr McKay is suspicious of me, and I will admit that I was not forthcoming when we met, but I meant no harm. When John invited me, I was curious to see Atlantis. If I had proclaimed my identity, Dr McKay would have wished to pick my head, as I believe you say.”

“Pick your brain,” Tony and Jack chorus in perfect stereo, even as Tony had an inevitable flashback.

The Ancient glanced at him sharply for several seconds before saying, “Rodney McKay is a very gifted brain, but if he was circumspect when speaking with people from the Pegasus galaxy, then there might be less pain for all. Telling people all your secrets can often come back to haunt you later,” she observed as Jack nodded and they slipped out of the room to let Chaya spend time with John.

Tony resolved that Chaya Sar had a point. At least once, when hunting for a ZPM, his loose lips had ultimately lost Atlantis access to the crucial power source after they’d spent a lot of time on Dagan, searching for it and ultimately fighting off Acastus Kolya doing it. The Daganian legend told of an Ancient entrusting a portensia (a ZPM) to a group of Sudarian monks, known as the Quindosum, to hide it for them, for the time when the descendants of the Ancients would return to collect it. They had promised to reward the monks highly for their loyalty. Over the next ten thousand years, the Sudarians were culled to extinction, including the Monks of Quindosum but they’d left clues behind as to its location. Believing the Atlantean expedition to be the rightful heirs to the portensia, Allina, an attractive Daganian archaeologist who was attracted to McKay, had asked him about life on Atlantis. When Rodney let slip that they’d only been in the city for a few months, Allina resolved not to turn over the ZPM to them when they found it, since they weren’t Ancients.

Atlantis had a special significance for the peoples of Pegasus, focused as they were on the legends that spoke of the Ancestors returning to save everyone from the Wraith. Instead of explaining that they were the descendants of the Ancients who’d escaped to Earth, and they’d come back to the Pegasus galaxy to reclaim Atlantis, he left her thinking they’d stumbled on the place by accident. If he’d explained that their people were descended from the Ancients after they left the Pegasus galaxy and settled on earth and could operate their technology, he might have salvaged the situation. Instead, his gaffe created the impression they were opportunistic invaders and illegal squatters, hence Allina refused to hand over the ZPM.

This whole laisse faire attitude of the Atlantean expedition not carefully controlling the narrative when seeking out new allies was short-sighted, especially since they had a civilian negotiator at the helm who really should have trained her people better. It was also why the Genii and other races believed that Earth did not deserve to control Atlantis. The expedition was seen as interlopers, rather than the true descendants of the Ancients returning to claim their inheritance. The Genii considered that as the dominant and most militarily advanced race of people in the galaxy, Atlantis was rightfully theirs to occupy now that Earth discovered the city that had been submerged for many thousands of years.

If the narrative had been disseminated by Weir and her expeditionary force of being descended from the Ancients, Tony was quite sure it could have made a dramatic difference to how they were viewed in the Pegasus galaxy. Tony wasn’t sure if it was a massive case of shutting the door after the horses had bolted but he intended to call out this lack of circumspection and fix it asap.

He tuned out the outrage of McKay and Keller protesting about Chaya spending time with the colonel. He trusted her and he was fairly sure that O’Neill did too. He couldn’t help wishing that Rodney were still on Balar, checking out the technology in the Mount Zenich complex. Radek had volunteered to stay and supervise the scientific teams, which was unfortunate because Tony found himself wishing he had one of those Zat guns to shut McKay up. Although if he had one, he might be tempted to turn it on to Keller too!

As Chaya slipped out of the room, she nodded at Rodney. “Dr McKay, nice to see you again,” she said very politely, but not overly effusive before looking at Jack and Tony.

“Shall we get started, Jack? I must not be away from Proculus for too long. While the threat of Wraith is much diminished with battle losses, it is not eliminated, and I would very much like to meet Alex’s daughter Annabelle. I must admit I am curious to meet a young child who speaks numerous languages, plus Alex has agreed to explain music to me. He says some people claim it is the only universal language, so I would like to begin,” she told them.

As they made their way to the conference room near the command centre, O’Neill glanced at Tony speculatively.

“She seems mighty taken with you, Paddington. You aren’t falling for a fallen Ancient are ya?” he said softly.

Tony choked. “Ah, that would be a solid no, General. I only have one female in my life. After my father brought far too many stepmothers and mistresses into our house after my mother died when I was eight years old, I have no intention of repeating that folly with my daughter,” he said, and it was the truth, just not the whole truth. The rest of the truth was that being intimate with anyone – well he just couldn’t trust anyone that much.

“Besides, even if I felt that way about our beautiful Ancient, pretty sure she only has eyes for Sheppard.”

Jack nodded wryly. “True, but you trust her?” he stated shrewdly.

Still speaking sotte voce even though he thought she could probably read their minds he said, “I guess I do trust her, which is unusual for me since I don’t trust easily, but mostly I feel terribly sorry for her. Even with her feelings for Colonel Sheppard – she is immortal, so getting close to someone? Well, our lifespan must feel like a blink of an eye to her.” He said contemplatively.

“I would hate to have to face being lonely for eternity. Those Ascended beings must have been the most sadistic fucks I’ve ever come across when it comes to devising cruel punishments. Makes me sick that I share even a little of their genetic material,” Tony said as they entered the conference room to find Chaya smiling at him.

“Thank you, Alex, I like you too. Your empathy makes you a loyal friend and though it may be brief by my standard, I hope I will become yours.”

Sitting down, she said, “If you wish to summon others to hear what I say, then do so now,” she said looking at McKay and Jennifer Keller, who’d tagged along uninvited.

Jack notified AuClair – that way Henri could brief the IOA directly. He hated dealing with that pompous bunch of buffoons. He also called Cadman, Beckett, Carolyn, Lorne, Teyla, and Dex. While they were waiting, Tony checked in with Cassie and had her put Tali on comms so he could tell her everything was fine, and he would be home in a while, and he was bringing a new friend for her to meet. She was chatty, telling him how Cassie was drawing with her, and she could draw really good dogs.

Satisfied that she was fine for a while, he sat down beside Chaya. As the last person, clone Carson Beckett entered and sat down, Jack got things underway.

“Chaya Sar, you have met some of these people, Dr Beckett and Dr McKay, Lt Colonel Lorne, Teyla Emmagan, Ronon Dex. May I introduce you to Ambassador AuClair who is the Commander of Atlantis base, Captain Cadman who is Head of base security, Dr Carolyn Lam, who is Colonel Sheppard’s doctor and Dr Keller who is the Chief Medical Officer on Atlantis.”

The Ascended Alteran nodded. “It is good to meet you all. Please know I am grateful to you all for bringing John Sheppard home to Atlantis. I care a great deal for him,” she said ignoring Rodney’s, “Oh please!” snarky comment.

“But I am not the only one, who feels much gratitude. Atlantis is most grateful and is filled with joy that her favoured son has come home.” Ignoring the looks of confusion at her words, the beautiful Ancient turned to Tony.

“Alex Paddington, you asked me how I knew that John had returned to Atlantis? I felt her joy and relief and I heard her speak to him. Were you not aware of it too?” she asked, looking at Tony and Jack intently.

Tony nodded, “Yes. I was.” He said shortly.

Jack frowned. “I felt the emotions, but I thought it was a spontaneous outpouring of relief at the successful rescue mission. I heard words, but I didn’t understand them, they sounded like a foreign language.”

Chaya replied in Ancient. “It was a foreign language, it was the language of the First Ones from whom all Alterans including the Ori and the Ancients were descended from.”

She looked at Tony. “Did you understand what I just said?” He nodded and she smiled. “Please tell the others then.”

After he had faithfully translated, she continued in the First language. “Tony can understand the original language without studying it because, in addition to possessing a strong expression of what you call the ATA gene, he has another Ancient gene – the communication gene that gives him fluency in multiple languages including Ancient.”

He translated what she said, hoping she knew what she was doing and not dooming him to a lifetime being a lab rat.

Predictably it was Rodney and Keller who scoffed at this claim, but Chaya ignored them as if they were foolish children. She just smiled serenely, and Tony thought it was a beautiful smile, especially since the pair of love birds were ropable when she simply ignored them. He noted Teyla trying hard to hide a grin, but Carolyn was far less subtle.

Having made her point, she switched to English again. Staring at the general, she said, “Alex is not the only one in this room with a second Ancient gene. Have you ever healed anyone, Jack?”

He started at her question and eyed her cautiously. “Once I did when I had access to the Ancient database the second time. I healed my team member Teal’c who was very severely injured by Goa’ulds. But I can’t remember how to do it.”

“You possess the healing gene, and you still possess the healing knowledge. It is part of what the Asgard left behind but behind blocks. It will, over time gradually release. You may be able to help heal John.”

Rodney interrupted. “I healed Radek once. I must possess it too.”

Chaya Sar studied him intently. “No, I do not detect it. When did you heal him?

“When I found the Ascension machine.”

She again scanned him, and Tony figured she was reading his mind. “You also developed super sensory abilities, could read minds and you were telekinetic – all ancient abilities which an Ascended being acquires upon Ascension. But to possess all of them in a physical body is too much, it results in a catastrophic system overload and burnout.”

Carson who was following along with interest said, “What you mean to say, Lass, is that that the stress of all those abilities at once is too much for a human body to cope with and they die,” he said bluntly.

“Yes, that is what I meant. Only when one is pure energy can one possess all those gifts in combination,” she confirmed.

“And yet, once ascended you cannot use them,” Ronon said cynically.

“Not a universal truth but a rule imposed by the most powerful of the Ascended,” Chaya Sar conceded. “My time is short, let us turn to the real reason I wished to speak to you. I wish to explain about Atlantis.”

Ambassador AuClair, who’d remain silent until now spoke up. “Please do, Chaya Sar. I am curious about why and how the city was talking to Colonel Sheppard.”

“It is complicated. I take you are already aware that Atlantis is sentient?”

“As in alive or perceptive?” AuClair quizzed her?

“As in both alive and perceptive.”

Lorne looked troubled. “Colonel Shepard always swore that the city was alive, but he never said anything about the city speaking to him.”

“He said he felt its emotions,” McKay said. “I told him he was imagining it.”

“And yet, I was recruited to come out here because my ATA gene was of equal strength to his and the general. I was told that Atlantis’ tech was failing, and that people’s morale was low. Why did you think that was,” Tony asked.

“Yes, but the theory was that Sheppard’s ATA gene acted like some sort of a massive battery to recharge the technology or that there was a threshold of gene strength that made everything work – that it was a security feature to stop the city from being invaded and occupied. That may be in months or years the city would be uninhabitable unless we had someone living here permanently who had a gene as equally strong as his,” McKay argued.

“You were partly right. Atlantis detected that many of her inhabitants had the ATA gene but that it had been created by a retrovirus. She was suspicious but because of John, she allowed you to stay. When he disappeared, she thought he must have been here against his will and had escaped or that you had exiled him and she began cutting off non-essential systems, hoping you would leave voluntarily. She had no wish to harm any of you.”

Tony interjected, picking up non-verbal subtexts from Chaya Sar. “We amuse her, like an ant colony.”

“Not even that. More like a herd of wild grazing animals deciding to inhabit her lands and she finds it diverting to observe them. It helps time pass, although she was grateful when you defended her against the Genii. She regards them as intolerable vermin. If they had managed to overthrow your expedition, she would have let her security protocols take over and shut down one system after another. They would have abandoned her in disgust when she became incompatible with maintaining human life,” she said simply.

“So, Alex has saved us,” Teyla stated. Not only because he found John but because his ATA was strong enough to convince Atlantis we could remain in the city,”

“Not just his ATA gene. John’s genetic makeup contained one-fifth of the Alterans’ genetics. Alex possesses two-fifths of the Ancients’ unique genes. She was already bonded to John and was not ready to bond with anyone else so soon, but she was greatly reassured when Alex arrived.” She gave him an enigmatic look and he realised she was referring to his daughter too.

“She was able to read your mind, Alex, and learnt you were trying to find John, so she decided that the inhabitants were not of evil intent, but she prefers interfacing with genuine gene carriers,” Chaya told them, frankly.

“Oh, is this some sort of blood purity fascism?” Rodney protested. “Those born with the precious ATA gene are genetically superior to the rest of us who have had the mouse retrovirus.”

“Chaya was silent for a long pause as she considered his question. “I do not know what fascism is. Atlantis says it reflects arrogance, recklessness, and impulsiveness to mess with a retrovirus without considering the long-term effects. She said it is not the only time you have demonstrated your impetuosity. That Alterans – both branches – the Ancients and Ori and their offspring demonstrated similar disturbing traits that resulted in much suffering for those around them.”

Rodney and Carson studiously avoided looking at each other, probably knowing that she was referring to their rushing in without considering what might go wrong.

Jack had been mostly observing. Now he had a question, “How is Atlantis sentient? Is she like artificial intelligence?”

No, although there is artificial intelligence in the computer that has been here for 10,000 of your years. Atlantis is much older than that. Somewhere between five and ten million years ago, a great plague began to spread across the planet. It had been created by Alterans scientists and it somehow escaped.”

She looked at O’Neill. “You know this part of history?”

“You can read minds?” he deflected.

“All Ascended can read minds, but I try not to consciously do so unless I have a good reason. Sometimes though when people emote strongly, using their emotions to batter other individuals, it can be hard to block them,” Chaya said, and although she didn’t look at Rodney or Jennifer, most people were under no illusion that she was referring to them.

“You reacted strongly when I mention the plague, Jack,” she said although he glanced at Tony who gave a minute shake of his head. He guarded that information because it could be used to reveal his real identity.

She nodded and he felt her say non-verbally, (I will keep your secret safe, Tony.)

“My team and several scientists found an Ancient who had been frozen under the ice in Antarctica. We thawed her out, not knowing she was infected by the plague. Her name was Aiyana, and one by one we all fell ill. She healed us but couldn’t save herself,” O’Neill said succinctly.

He left out a chunk of the story which included that she hadn’t healed him because she was too ill. It had resulted in his being implanted by a symbiote and ending up in Baal’s clutches, tortured and dying so many times he’d lost count. While Lorne and Carolyn knew the full story, they remained stoically silent.

“I see. You are lucky to have survived. Anyway, the Ancient scientists found a way to create massive spaceships such as Atlantis. Do you understand how the Wraith build ships? They use a combination of biological material and…

Carson chimed in, “A biopolymer like substance, a polysaccharide, except that it has organo- metallic compounds mixed together. That amounts to the material used by an insect-like an Iratus bug or a crab to grow a shell. The biopolymer starts out soft and malleable, but it progressively hardens. At first, it’s tough and leathery but ultimately becomes incredibly dense and able to withstand extreme temperature, pressure, or radiation. Aye, lass, we have seen it first hand when Dr Keller’s body was appropriated without her consent.”

Okay, Tony did not know that. That was horrific and he felt a wave of sympathy for the doctor. He should probably cut her some slack, it must have been a terrifying experience.

Chaya looked surprised. “Like Jack, you are fortunate to be sitting here,” she told Jennifer bluntly.

Jack returned to the story. “So are you saying that Atlantis is part human, part Wraith material”

“I was going to say that the Ancient scientists found a way to use Ancient nanotechnology and a substance that was somewhat similar to a biopolymer to create a starship. However, they were able to deactivate the nanotechnology and the substance without taking over Atlantis’ consciousness. You see, she was an Ancient. As Atlantis approached the last years of her life, the Ancients were still at least several generations away from being capable of Ascension. She saw it as a way of achieving immortality. The legend tells us, Atlantis was an Ancient who had never been able to bear offspring and she saw this as her way to help ensure that her people would survive.”

Lorne had exchanged an alarmed look with O’Neill. “Chaya Sar, are you positive that the nanites are harmless?” Everyone around the table looked equally alarmed.

“They had a self-destruct code inbuilt when they were created. Unfortunately, more recent Ancient scientists weren’t anywhere near as circumspect as you know from the encounters with the Asurans. It seems that the closer they got to Ascension, the more arrogant and reckless the Lantean Ancients became, believing their massive brainpower would save them.”

Once again Tony had the distinct feeling that she was directing those pointed remarks to Carson, Keller, and McKay.

Dex who had been his typical silent self suddenly asked, “Why are you telling us this now?”

“Because until now, I did not realise that Atlantis has claimed John Sheppard as her own and bonded with him. She will allow him to return to Earth to be healed but if he does not come home to her, I am unsure of the consequences. I believe that John deserves to know the truth.”

“Bonded as in Atlantis thinks of him as a mate?” Teyla asked as several people choked.

“No, I do not believe in the sense that you mean. But she does see him as her defender and her liberator. I think perhaps the relationship is best described as a favoured son, many generations removed.”

“And if Colonel Sheppard chooses not to return to Atlantis or is unable to,” AuClair inquired.

“That I cannot answer. She may bond with another who she deems as a worthy ancestor of her people but then she may not. I do not know, I’m sorry. Perhaps she may speak with Alex, she may not.”

She stood up and Tony noted automatically that her dress looked pristine and unwrinkled. She smiled, “I must return to Proculus but first you promised I could meet your daughter, Alex and you were going to explain the language of music.”

Tony stood up too. “If you want to come back to my quarters, I will introduce you to Belle and I can play my instruments to you. My piano is still back on Earth, but I have a keyboard and a guitar. Sometimes it is better to demonstrate than explain.”

As they left everyone else sitting feeling shell shocked by what she had told them, she followed Tony out of the room and down the steps of the gate room. Both of them were eager to see Tali.

As they headed back to his quarters, Chaya studied him. “Are you well, Alex?”

Tony nodded. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“I felt a terrible wave of fear, self-loathing and despair emanating from you when I was on Proculus, and then it felt as if you were suffocating before there was this black void of nothingness. I was concerned for you,” she confessed.

“It is called a panic attack. It feels like you are dying, but it is just being overwhelmed by sensory or emotional stimuli which is too much for the body to deal with.”

“I see. So, because you accidentally revealed to Jack that you understood Ancient, you became overwhelmed.”

“You know why Belle and I came to Atlantis. I did not want anyone to know that we were different – that we had another Alteran gene. It would put an even bigger target on our backs. Plus, I used Janae Progenius to find out how to deactivate the personal shield generators and then when I got angry, I fried fourteen of them at once. That got me enough unwelcome attention. How could I explain knowing Ancient without studying it?”

“I see. And the void?”

“Dr Lam sedated me because I couldn’t control the panic attack. It let my brain reset.”

“But you are well again.”

“I am fine.”

“You are upset. I decided to reveal that which you fear, because Atlantis decided to make her presence felt and will continue to do so with the homecoming of John Sheppard. I feel that the news of your extra gene was better coming from an Ancient. When Janus’ AI program decides to reveal its existence, which I believe is just a matter of time, it will seem a minor occurrence compared to Atlantis’ origins,” she explained.

“You’re right, Janae Progenius’ existence is pedestrian by comparison to what you told us about Atlantis,” Tony said, frowning. “I was not expecting that.”

Chaya felt his worry. “Why are you concerned about the AI program, Alex?”

“He’s far smarter than anyone on Atlantis. Look at the stupid stuff smart people like Rodney and Carson had done. Look at the dumb stuff that the Alterans and the Ancients have done – creating the Asurans, creating the Wraith, making themselves into Gods. I don’t want J.P. to destroy us all.”

“Yes, I can see why you would be fearful, but Atlantis has claimed you and Belle as descendants of hers. Not bonded like John, but you defended Atlantis’ defender. She views you as priceless and will protect you and Belle in return. If the AI program ever posed a threat to you, she would not permit it. But she said that the program has determined that you are a worthy mentor, and it has begun to emulate you and your moral code. You are shaping its development, as you do your daughter.”

“I’m bringing up a ten-thousand-year-old artificial intelligence program as well as Belle? Are you kidding me?

“We are…All…So…Screwed,” he groaned in disbelief!

Chapter 2 Teddy Bear Tales

The week following Colonel Sheppard’s rescue had been an extremely busy one for Special Agent Paddington, supervising the military team that had been formed to interrogate and take statements from Kolya’s men. He’d insisted that there be no torture and he was relieved when former Admiral Chegwidden had arrived on Atlantis and backed him to the hilt. The lawyer and former judge also ruled out placing any of them in stasis, just so they didn’t have to guard or feed them, vindicating Tony’s disapproval of the plan. He’d said that while it wasn’t against the Geneva Convention or recognised codes of law, which was only because no one knew that there existed such a thing as a functional stasis pod.

Chegwidden had been mighty surprised to find Tony on Atlantis but then again, he’d been understandably surprised to be read in on the whole Stargate program. Despite being a Navy SEAL before becoming a lawyer, and sent on many a top-secret mission, never in a million years had he expected something as fantastic as the Stargate program or Atlantis. However, despite so many bombshells, the former SEAL had quickly adapted to addressing him by his new pseudonym like a pro. Tony supposed he was used to guarding his clients’ secrets, now he was a big shot civilian lawyer.

Tony was so happy that the hugely experienced lawyer was here, what with the Genii interviews and his desire to throw himself into the investigation of what happened during the foothold situation. Plus, there was the equally urgent matter of locating Lucius Lavin who had in his possession far too many secrets about Atlantis and Earth. And if those matters weren’t enough to have him wishing he had a twin or a clone to help shoulder the load, two days ago his little girl started school. Granted it was different to how he wished it could have been for her, able to attend a normal school but she loved her teacher and her three schoolmates. Moreover, it sure beats being a lab rat in some Trust-run science experiment.

Although initially, it was exhausting getting her into a new routine, since any type of change was hard for her, once Tali settled down into the new schedule, it would make life easier. From Monday to Friday from 0830 to 1430 she would be at school. He knew that his old work smarter not harder philosophy was going to be an important principle to stick to so that he wasn’t an absent single dad. He would try to complete anything urgent after Tali had gone to bed but apart from that, he intended to be fully present with her when she wasn’t at school, unlike Senior who never had time for him.

Since the rescue he’d put out a crude BOLO amongst the less stellar inhabitants of Pegasus, promising a reward for information on Lavin’s whereabouts leading to his capture but he must be taken alive. AuClair had authorised that the reward could be paid out in food supplies or benign goods such as fishing equipment, cooking pots or even seeds to grow crops. Essentially something that wouldn’t be used to commit crimes or artificially accelerate cultural or technological evolution. Tony was more than happy with those restrictions – he thought that so far, the man was proving to be more than an adequate leader.

While Tony hadn’t had much of a chance to spend time with him, from the little he’d seen, Henri AuClair was a good man. He was certainly on board with the entire process of codifying laws on Atlantis and trying to set up interplanetary laws too. He and Richard Woolsey were strenuously arguing the case with the IOA who normally had difficulty agreeing on anything.

Meanwhile, back at Stargate Command, Carolyn Lam was investigating Sofie Danziger’s supposed accidental overdose. Tony knew it was a longshot that they would be able to get her body exhumed, not based on the evidence they had, but Carolyn had reviewed the autopsy report. She confirmed that according to the test results Sofie was pregnant and that the massive level of sleeping pills in her blood did not support an accidental death. What she couldn’t tell him though was if she willingly and knowing ingested them with the intent to kill herself or if she was forced to take the pills by persons unknown.

Hopefully, her review was enough to throw sufficient doubt at the original verdict so they could exhume Sofie’s body to complete a second post mortem to determine if Carson might have missed something or omitted it from the official autopsy report. When he’d been read in on the investigation, A.J. Chegwidden seemed inclined to think it might. Tony hoped they were right because the whole situation – being approx. three weeks pregnant which corresponded with the foothold situation was too much of a coincidence. He partly agreed with Gibbs that there was no such thing but only when it came to criminal investigations.

One of the difficulties in establishing that Danziger was a victim of the serial rapist was that Dr Carson Becket had died at the end of the third year of the expedition to Atlantis. His cloning happened ten days before AR-1 first encountered Lucius Lavin, so clone Carson had no memory of what had happened, because Michael the hybrid Wraith had already stolen Becket’s blood by that point. So, questioning clone Beckett about Danziger’s autopsy would be useless since he didn’t exist then. His memories of the past ceased at the point when Michael stole his blood sample. This Becket had never gone to Lucius Lavin’s planet Winya, he was still being cloned.

Which sucked! If this were a movie or a TV show it would be easy to just change the timeline around and have the foothold situation occur before the Atlantis bosses thought it was a great idea to try the Wraith hybrid enzyme on a mass of Wraith. That way, clone Beckett would share the original Carson’s memory and they could find out why he’d deliberately falsified Sofie Danziger’s cause of death. But unfortunately, this was real life, and the bottom line was that Sofie Danziger’s autopsy had taken place over a month after Beckett was cloned so he had no knowledge of it and that was the end to it.

But while original Becket was dead, Tony was hopeful that someone had been close enough to the bioengineer that she may have told them something valuable. That person might not be Atlantis anymore, in which case it would be General O’Neill who would need to track down the information back on Earth, perhaps Dr Jackson could interview her friends.

However, it was feasible that if it were a civilian, that person was still working on Atlantis and Tony would track down anyone who worked with her. Then he realised that Tali would be home from school any minute, he would ask Captain Cadman to check the records. As he left his office, quickly making his way to his quarters, he saw Teyla with the four kids in tow. The parents of the awesome foursome as they’d been dubbed, agreed to take it in turns to collect the kids from class and drop them home as it helped out Monique Girard and Tony, both being single parents. He found the other parents were incredibly supportive and he appreciated their help tremendously.

As he thanked Teyla and took Tali inside, he headed to their kitchen to fix her a snack, even though lunch was only a few hours before. She regaled him with her maths and reading lessons before telling him how Cassie had announced that they were going to learn each other’s languages, Japanese, Athosian, Canadian, Hankan and hers.

“Papa, what’s my language,” she asked, opening up a can of worms.

Technically Hebrew was the first language she had been exposed to in her first two years but since then she had been with him for three years and he spoke more than one language, depending upon where they were living. But if he had to pick one it was probably English, with French coming a distant second, since they had only lived there for a little over a year.

“English,” he told her and tried not to laugh at her pout.

“But they already know how to speak English,” she told him, folding her arms, an expression on her face that reminded him of Ziva, and he tried not to wince.

“How can I teach them if they can already speak it?” she demanded.

“Guess you could teach your friends French then. You speak it pretty well, Kiddo.”

“Yeah, I pose so, Papa. I can’t teach them Hebrewish, can I?” she asked hopefully.

“It’s just Hebrew and no, you can’t because we are hiding from the bad guys, remember. The other kids don’t know you can speak it, Baby.”

“But Kazumi, Felix and Torren are my friends. They could keep a secret.”

“Maybe, but keeping secrets is awfully hard Tali. I don’t think we can ask them to do that, and they might forget. Besides, someone else might hear them speaking Hebrew.”

“Okay Papa, I’ll teach them French,” she said wistfully.

To divert her from her disappointment, he placed some peeled fruit before her, some shipped from Earth and some native to Pegasus and gave her a juice box. As she started nibbling, he asked curiously, “What language is Hankan?”

Stuffing a piece of melon in her mouth, she beamed. “That’s the language Cassie spoke when she was a little girl on her planet called Hanka before she when to live on Earth. She said it is similar to English but different too.”

After her snack, he decided to take her to the playground and on the way, they could call in on Captain Cadman and ask her to search for anyone who worked with Sofie Danziger.

After Tony dropped Tali off to class the next morning, he got a call from Cadman to say that she’d located someone who had been friends of Sofie Danziger. All but one of her friends were back on Earth so they would have to get General O’Neill to chase it up. He’d gone back to Earth a couple of days ago to attend to some things, but he was intending to return in a few days. Fortunately commuting between the two galaxies was fairly easy with a puddle jumper and the gate bridge.

He figured that Dr Jackson and Colonel Davis would have to chase up Dr Danziger’s former friends. Cadman told him that they were all employed back at Area 51

“Who is the friend still on the base?” he asked.

“Dr Ilsa Meier, she is a bioengineer.”

“Like Sofie,” he noted. “Okay, let’s see if we can catch her before she goes off to work.”

“You want me to come too?” she double-checked.

“Some civilians feel safer talking to a female.” She raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, yeah I know. You are a BIG scary jarhead killing machine who could kick anyone’s ass without raising a sweat, but she probably won’t know that.”

Chuckling she said, “Okay, fair enough.”

On their way to Meier’s quarters, Tony asked, “What can you tell me about Ilsa Meier?”

“She is 37 years old, from Berlin, studied at Frankfurt University of Applied Science before completing a graduate degree in Bioengineering at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, USA.”

Huh, I wonder if McGee knows her, he wondered briefly.”

“Anything else?”

Laura nodded. “Well, she and Sofie had quarters next door to each other.”

“Hopefully, she might be able to tell us something about her state of mind before she died,” Tony said, as they walked down a hallway and arrived at her quarters.

He knocked on her door and they waited. They were about to knock again when the door opened and a dark-haired woman with an oval face and hazel eyes stood before them. “Ya, can I help you,” she said, looking backward and forward between Tony and Laura nervously.

Tony was used to that reaction from innocent people, so he didn’t read anything into it. “Hi, we’re looking for Dr Ilsa Meier?”

“I am she,” she replied carefully.

“I am Special Agent Alexander Paddington, and this is Major Laura Cadman,” He introduced them, Ilsa probably had a fairly good idea who they both were since they were both new arrivals which always sparked interest and scuttlebutt. “We wanted to ask some questions about your colleague, Dr Danziger.”

Now Meier looked curious. “Why would you want to know about Sofie? She’s been dead for five years? No one bothered asking questions when she died.”

Laura looked at Tony, an eyebrow raised, and he gave a slight shake of his head. No, it wasn’t normal but then again, there were no investigators on Atlantis five years ago.

He sighed in frustration. “Look, I wasn’t here five years ago when she died. If I were, I would have been asking you and her other colleagues the questions I wish to ask you now. I can tell you I have received new information that makes me keen to investigate her death, but unfortunately, you are the only colleague of hers who is still here on Atlantis.”

They saw her hesitate and Laura, stepped up, tough jarhead in abeyance, “We don’t want to upset you, but we do want to make sure that her death is finally investigated. She deserves that and so does her friends and family.”

Ilsa stared at them, seemingly deciding they were genuinely seeking the truth. Sighing loudly, she stepped aside. “Well then, I think that you had best come inside.”

She found chairs for them, clearing off the journal articles as she sat on her bed. Tony realised her quarters were quite small compared to his and Tali’s and he wondered if this was typical of most of the civilian lodgings.

“What can you tell us about Dr Danziger,” he began. “I like to get a feeling for someone when I investigate their death.”

She took a deep breath. “Sofie was Polish, I am German – being European, we had much in common and quickly became friends, not just colleagues.”

Okay, this was good news so far. “What was she like, anything you can tell us, no matter how minor it seems could help us find out why she died.”

“You do not believe that she took an overdose of sleeping tablets accidentally?” Ilsa pressed him perceptively.

Deciding to be straight with her, he said, “I am suspicious. For one thing, I cannot find any record of her being prescribed the medication by any of the Atlantis docs,” he conceded.

“That’s because Sofie brought them to Atlantis when she was assigned here. It came from her physician in Szczecin. She told me that she had battled against insomnia for years.”

“Thank you, that is helpful to know. And what of her family?” he asked.

“She was the only child, but her parents never supported who she was. They thought she should have married already and given them grandchildren. They did not think engineering was befitting for a female,” she said with a snort.

“When Sofie was selected to come to Atlantis she was overjoyed – she used the honour to halt the marriage they were manipulating her into. She was so happy here, she was with her peers and finally able to be herself, even if she struggled at times to figure out who that was.”

Laura leaned forward, her voice soft. “Dr Meier, where you and Sofie together?”

Ilsa teared up. “Yes, no. I don’t know. We were having sex and I loved her. She was an unbelievably beautiful person, inside and out, but Sofie struggled with the morality of loving another female. She was from a deeply religious family. Poland is not how would you say, tolerant when it comes to non-heterosexuality.”

She reached for a tissue and dabbed at her eyes impatiently.

“She was a lesbian but knew her family considered it was a mortal sin. She had tried her whole life to pray away the gay, but of course, it did not work. She simply wasn’t attracted to men.”

“Yet she was going to marry a man?” Tony asked.

“I don’t think she thought she had any option but to marry and produce children. Sofie had been conditioned to see that as her duty to God and her family. But then she came to Atlantis and found that other people did not see sexual orientation in such narrow terms. It excited her and confused her a lot. She found it hard to understand that someone like me has a distinct type which isn’t defined by the person’s gender.” She smiled a little flirtatiously at Tony.

“Did it cause problems between you?” Laura asked Ilsa.

“No, I do not believe so, because I don’t think that Sofie was in love with me, or if she was, she wasn’t as much in love as I was. I wanted us to live together but she wasn’t comfortable in such an outward declaration of our relationship. Few people knew that we were together.”

She shrugged. “I tried to remember that she was sexually inexperienced, that I was her first real sexual relationship and that was partly why she shirked a commitment.”

She saw them look at each other, and she guessed their thoughts. “No, she was not a virgin, but close enough. She had several disastrous encounters with men but never experienced any satisfaction. Plus, I still believe that she was struggling with the belief that her attraction to females was a sin.”

Ilsa stood up and went to fetch a photo of herself with Sofie. “That was taken about two months before she died,” she said, handing Tony the photo.

He stared at the picture, it reminded him of a story that he’d read to Tali about Snow White and Rose Red. Sofie had white-blonde hair and blue-grey eyes. Her hair was short but feminine and quite flattering. She was gazing into the laughing eyes of the curvaceous German and Tony saw Ilsa’s loving expression. He handed it to Laura as he said, “You’re right, Sophie was beautiful.”

Laura agreed. “Yeah, I might be straight but even I can see how hot she was.”

“I sometimes felt like she was out of my league. Men used to flock around her like bees to a flower.”

“Were there ever any who didn’t take no for an answer,” Laura asked curiously.

One or two, until they realised why she wasn’t interested and generally took it in good spirits. But one guy that came to Atlantis not long before she died, wouldn’t take no for an answer. He was staying on Atlantis and at first, she was repulsed by him. I don’t blame her – there was something about him that was disturbing but the more time we spent with him, the more he grew on you. I know that she ended up following him around like a puppy, wanting to please him.”

“Do you know if she had sex with him,” Tony asked her gently?

Grabbing a fresh tissue out of a box on the nightstand near her bed, she wiped her eyes. “Sofie confessed that she’d cheated with him several times, she was terribly upset. I think she felt much guilt. She begged my forgiveness, and I forgave her, but she was still upset.”

He produced a photo of Lucius Lavin from security footage. “Is this the man?”

“Yes, he was the one.”

Why do you think Sofie felt so guilty if you forgave her? You both must have known that Lavin used a pheromone-based plant to control everyone on Atlantis?”

“That was why I forgave her. She had no choice. But Sofie claimed that she was in love with him, and she wanted to have sex with him. She said she felt good so maybe she wasn’t a lesbian, she just hadn’t fallen in love with the right guy.”

Tony wanted to put his fist through the wall. Lavin had done so much harm to this already confused woman.

Every male on the base was infatuated with Lavin too. Gay or straight, they would have all had sex with him if he’d suggested it because the drug messed with their brain chemistry. But that didn’t change their sexual orientation. And it was non-consensual because they were so infatuated due to the DRUG that they wouldn’t, they couldn’t say no, and he knew that.

“Did Lavin know that Sophie was a lesbian?” Cadman inquired calmly.

“When he approached the first time, she told him.”

Tony leaned forward. “What was his reaction?”

“He said it was a waste for such a beautiful woman not to be interested in men. He said he was a healer and maybe he could fix her and make her normal.”

Well, no wonder she was mixed up after the effects of the drug wore off. Lavin was evil,” he stated through his teeth as they were all silent.

“Was Sofie on birth control,” Tony asked because that was bugging him.

“Her religion frowned on sex outside of marriage and viewed the purpose of sex as one to make babies. Besides, as she was not attracted to males, there was no need. One of the benefits of same-sex relationships, Ilsa smiled at them both sadly.”

“But you said she slept with a few men?” Laura said.

“Only a few, and she made them wear a condom. She was paranoid about falling pregnant.”

“What about when she cheated with you?” Cadman asked her, deliberately being provocative to see if Ilsa had truly forgiven her lover.

“I just assumed she did, although I did not ask. She was paranoid about falling pregnant. Said it would bring shame to her family. Dummkopfs! They really messed her up,” Ilsa said angrily.

Taking a deep breath, Tony asked her, “After Sofie died, do you know what happened to her belongings?”

She nodded, “I packed up her things. I didn’t want her parents to find anything that might reveal things about her that she wouldn’t want them to know. Plus, anything that had come from Pegasus, since this is top secret. There was this ugly looking gourd that had been turned into a candle holder that quite obviously was not from Earth, so I threw it out. “Why?” She wanted to know.”

“I wondered if she left behind a journal or a letter.”

“No, nothing like that. I did keep her scientific notes on the project we were working on – they were classified. I submitted them to our supervisor.”

“And that’s it?” he pressed, his intuition twinging.

“Well…I did keep Tadzio, her bear,” she pointed to the slightly tattered and well-loved teddy bear on her bedside table. “She had Tadzio from her childhood. Sofie used to joke and say he was the only male that shared her bed who made her feel loved. I just wanted something that she valued to remember her by. I never meant any harm,” Ilsa said, looking scared.

Tony, in a gentle voice, told her she hadn’t done anything wrong. “Do you mind if I look at Tadzio,” he asked her.

Looking confused she handed him the beloved toy and he immediately noted that the bear showed signs of being repaired several times. He also checked out the red and white uniform. “What is this uniform?”

“Sophie was a proud supporter of the Polish National Football team, the Eagles,” Meier replied.

He thought about using his old portable record player as a kid and tried not to recall how he had found a photo album of the victims of a serial killer in an eerily similar old record player. Kid-Tony had removed the screws and used the space underneath the turntable to hide stuff from Senior and swiftly figured out the loony-tunes Navy chaplain had come up with the same idea to hide his sicko photographs of victims. Tony had hidden his comic books in his player because his father felt that comic books were a waste of time and vulgar, plus the young boy had kept his savings hidden there too, knowing from harsh experience that dear ol’ dad would clean him out of any cash he had when he had liquidity issues.

Senior always promised, “I’ll pay you back, Junior,” but never did.

Staring at the tattered old bear, he had to wonder if Sofie had been thinking along the same lines as that little kid who wanted to protect his birthday money from his father’s greedy grasp. Almost in slow motion he turned the bear over and started to undress him. Once stripped of clothes, Tony studied the bear intently. It was subtle but he detected some more recent surgery that someone, presumably Sofia had carried out on his butt. Could Sofia have used her childhood teddy bear to hide something too? He redressed the bear but instead of handing him back, he pulled out an evidence bag.

“Dr Meier, I need to borrow Tadzio for a few hours. I understand how precious he is to you, and I promise to take good care of him and to return him later on.”

Looking confused she asked, “Why do you need him?”

“I think that Sofie might have hidden something inside Tadzio, and I want to check it out.”

“Can I have him back before tonight? It sounds crazy but Sofie always slept with him and since she died, I started doing it too – it makes me feel like she hasn’t completely gone,” she told him sheepishly.

“I’ll do my best,” he promised the brunette. “And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to keep a part of her alive,” he said reassuringly as he dropped the bear into the evidence bag and labelled it.

A short time later after polite goodbyes to the bioengineer, they departed her quarters and headed back to the infirmary, stopping off to ask a nurse to scan the bear for them while they documented it. The scan revealed something hidden inside and Tony borrowed a scalpel and tweezers to carry out bear butt surgery. As Captain Cadman filmed it, Tony extracted a saran-wrapped thumb drive. When they loaded the drive on a laptop computer, it appeared to be a journal, judging by the dates, which went back to her arrival on Atlantis up until the day before her death.

Unfortunately, the diary was not written in English and Cadman suggested that it was probably Polish. After verifying that it was written in Polish by having a US Marine corporal who spoke Polish, read the first page and he confirmed it was, the priority became finding a translator who was beyond reproach. Tony was waiting to locate someone who was not compromised or biased by the Lavin clusterfuck and remembering his promise to Dr Meier, managed to locate a sewing needle and some thread from someone and he proceeded to make a fairly credible job of sewing up Tadzio. Cadman had been suitably surprised, admitting that his stitching was way better than hers would have been.

He shrugged. “Practice. Belle went through a stage about a year ago when she decided to become a teddy bear doctor. At first, it was pretending to take his temperature and take medicine. Or she would give him injections, but one day she started operating on him when one of her friend’s puppies swallowed a battery and had to have surgery. I found her teddy with half his stuffing removed as she looked for the battery. A few such surgeries and I’d become a pro,” he said modestly.

The major had chuckled at his anecdote. “Oh my God, Belle is so funny but hey you are such a great dad, and a good stitcher-upper,” she told him with a grin. “Also, I’d have never thought to hide anything in a teddy bear. You’re sneaky!”

Although it came out of his childhood need for a hiding place, he wasn’t about to tell Laura that. He didn’t want to come off as whining about how tough his life had been. Smirking, he said, “That’s partly why I’m a good investigator. I am incurably curious; I like to snoop.”

So, while they were at an impasse regarding knowing what was contained in Danziger’s diary he was able to keep his promise to Dr Meier and return Sofie’s bear to her before she went to bed.

By the next morning, the stalemate with Sofie’s diary was blown apart when Jack O’Neill arrived back on Atlantis. He’d also brought Daniel Jackson back with him, who could, of course, speak and read Polish along with a heap of other languages. His teammate, Vala Mal Doran also came along to heal Tony’s lungs with the hand healing device.

After Vala worked her magic with the Goa’uld healing device, fixing his plague scarred lungs, she also picked up the problem with his dodgy knee that prevented him from becoming a professional athlete and healed it too. He was overcome with gratitude to Vala for healing him but also experienced immense gratitude simply to be able to breathe again normally. It had been so long since he’d been able to fill his lungs with air without discomfort that he’d truly forgotten how good it felt to be whole and he honestly felt decades younger. After the plague, everyday tasks that he’d taken for granted up until then had become things that must be endured. Running, which he’d always loved because it helped him think and control his emotions, suddenly had become daily torture. It was something that he must endure to retain what was left of his lung capacity and stave the inevitability of one day requiring an oxygen tank.

Yet, in one single hour today, Vala had changed all that and he couldn’t express his gratitude enough. Overwhelmed by the euphoria that came with all that oxygenated blood, at least that was his justification to excuse him for being so emotional, Tony seized the gorgeous alien, lifted her off her feet and whirled her around easily, hugging the shit out of her. When he felt her breath quicken and her pupils dilate, he put her down abruptly. She didn’t say anything about the awkward moment, but he saw a look of empathy before she made a joke about not forgetting to come in for a 10,000 km service.

He dutifully laughed at her joke, understanding she was protecting him then he changed the subject. He warned her that his daughter was going to be home from school soon and would bombard her with questions.

She chuckled. “Well, since Daniel is going to be busy with his translating, I’ll get her to give me a tour of the place. I’m sure we will get along smartly,” she told him.

Brilliant he mentally corrected her but somehow, he wasn’t irritated like when Ziva mangled her idioms. Perhaps it was because she came from another planet or because he was too grateful to feel irritated. Still, she wasn’t wrong about her getting on well with Tali though. His daughter adored her almost as much as Chaya Sar – she kept asking when the Ancient was going to come back again.

Meanwhile, Tony had been wondering about Daniel Jackson. To have such an amazing facility for languages- was it possible that he possessed the Alteran gene for communication too? He did know that Daniel didn’t have the ATA gene, nor had the retrovirus worked for him, but that didn’t rule out being born with the communication gene though.

It was a pity that Chaya Sar wasn’t there to ask.

Chapter 3 Translating the Truth

Two days later Daniel Jackson notified Tony that he had completed the translation. Not the entire diary, just samples from the beginning and the middle of the file plus the whole three weeks before the foothold situation and the last three weeks before her death. Eventually, they would need to have the whole lot transcribed and translated but at this point, the two samples plus the last six weeks of the diary would suffice for now. As Tony read the translation, his blood pressure began to rise; he looked over at Dr Jackson who was working hard to remain impassive but failing miserably. Even Tony knew his facial masks, usually flawless wasn’t up to his normal standard.

“If this is accurate…WOW!”

“It is, Special Agent Paddington. My Polish is accurate, believe me.”

Tony shook his head. “First off, call me Alex when we are in private, please. Secondly, you misunderstand me. I wasn’t questioning your translation, Dr Jackson. What I meant to say is that if what Dr Danziger is saying is accurate, then this is a massive bombshell.”

“You think she is lying, Alex? To what end?”

“No, I didn’t say she was lying. Just that she might be wrong. In a way, I hope that she is because I don’t want to even think about what it will mean if she was right.”

Jackson grimaced. “I see what you’re saying. Where do we go from here?”

Tony thought about it briefly before calling General O’Neill to his office. “We talk to my nominal boss. I know that Ambassador AuClair is commander of Atlantis I don’t answer to him, I answer to Homeworld Command and theoretically to AFOSI, FBI, MI6, and Interpol. Ordinarily, I would include him in briefings as a professional courtesy, but the contents of the diary is frankly explosive. It’s way above my pay grade so I’m going to toss the whole box and dice back into Jack’s lap and let him figure out where we go from here,” he said honestly.

While they were waiting for Jack to make his way to Tony’s office, he started laying out the situation as he saw it. “To my mind, there are three scenarios. 1. Sofie believes what she has written but that doesn’t make it true. She could be wrong or delusional. 2. Sofie is lying. Why? To protect herself or someone else or she wants revenge for some reason. 3. And by the way, this scenario is far and away the scariest of all is, what if she is telling us the truth?”

As Jack sauntered through the door, he looked at Daniel. “Danny, I take it this is about Dr Danziger’s diary?” he asked, settling into a chair as he noted the gravitas of the two men.

Tony explained, “I asked Dr Jackson to focus on the last six weeks, plus I requested that he translate several weeks at the beginning of the digital diary and also several weeks in the middle of the diary. He hasn’t had time to translate the whole thing, which to cross our Ts and dot our Is we will need to do. But I’m satisfied at this point that we have enough to proceed,” he explained swiftly.

“Okay, campers but I don’t get why you got him to translate the weeks at the beginning and middle of the diary. Aren’t we wanting to know what happened in those three weeks after the foothold situation?” he scowled as he said those cursed words out loud.

“I wanted them mostly for comparative purposes, to ensure that the last block was also written by Sofie. In this case, with three of the main people unable to be interviewed to determine what happened, I’m not going to make any assumptions, I’m going to investigate the shit out of this case because I want that sociopath to be held accountable for his actions. I do not intend for any defense attorney to be able to argue that there were any holes in the investigation.”

Jack saw his intensity and nodded. “Fair enough. And what did you conclude? Are the last three weeks written by the same person as the one who wrote the rest of the diary entries you’ve translated, Danny?”

Daniel pursed his lips, his blue eyes steely. “I think so, Jack, but I’m not an expert so I can’t say with absolute certainty, but I think it’s probably.”

Tony interjected firmly. “I am an expert. After I left my last job when Belle’s mother died, I went back to college to qualify as a psychological profiler, since I’d completed a Masters degree in forensic psychology years ago,” he said, being deliberately oblique about the details of his career as Daniel had no idea who he was.

“I decided, after becoming a single dad to a small child, that the best job for me was a profiler, offering consults to police departments and law enforcement agencies. Of course, that was before the Trust decided to abduct my daughter and we ended up here. Not much call for a profiler to do consultancy work on Atlantis,” he smiled cynically. Anyway, as a profiler, I’m satisfied that Sofie wrote all of the excerpts that Dr Jackson translated,” he said with firm conviction.”

“Fair enough. So, are you going to tell me what Dr Danziger said that has you two in such a snit?”

The anthropologist and the federal agent looked at each, silently urging the other to do the deed but Tony blinked first, after all, it was his job even if Jackson was General O’Neill’s close friend.

Throwing up his hands, he said, “Fine, since this guy here is too chicken to tell you, perhaps it’s better if you just read it for yourself, General,” he told the head of Homeworld Command, handing over the typed-up transcripts of the last three weeks of Sofie Danziger’s life until one day before she died of an overdose of sleeping pill.

Practically right away as he read the damning words Jack began to frown as he read the account of her rape. As he read further his face became thunderous. By the end of the excerpt, he looked ill.

“What the fuck? Is this for real?

Tony quickly explained his three scenarios again.

“So how can we find out which one is true?” he wanted to know.

“Carson is dead and cloned Carson was already a prisoner of Wraith Michael so he can shed no light on what went on. Elizabeth Weir is not here to answer our questions and her Asuran clone who has her consciousness transferred into her nanite body is frozen somewhere. Do we want to risk hunting her down to question her? I don’t know.”

“And lastly, Sofie is dead, although she did leave a record of what happened. But is it accurate? Maybe we will never know the truth, but we can investigate. All we can do is try,” Tony said.

“We can find Lavin and make him pay for his actions,” Daniel demanded furiously.

“Yes, we certainly can do that, and we must! Sofie deserves no less, but this diary raises a lot of red flags that we need to find answers to, if possible,” Jack said emphatically.

He looked at Tony, “What is your analysis so far?”

Taking a sip of water, he warned. “Okay, my very preliminary analysis is that her account of how Lavin chose her is entirely consistent with two of the other accounts of how he chose his victims. Sofie turned him down vehemently on several occasions, so Lavin was under no misapprehension that the woman had no desire to have sex with him.

“In her diary, she wrote that when he tried to get up close and personal, she told him she was a lesbian – even explained what it was to get him to stop harassing her. Lavin told her that lesbians didn’t exist in the Pegasus galaxy, that she just hadn’t found a real man who could give her pleasure. He said he was a healer and once he awakened her body she would be cured and be able to please a man.”

Daniel and Jack’s expressions showed what they thought of that heap of crap.

“Her diary account is consistent with what Dr Meier told me and Cadman, given this took place more than five years ago. Sofie flipped him off but one thing which seems consistent with his victims is that they all rejected his advances. I think that when we find more victims, we’ll find that he was rejected by them prior to them coming under his thrall (and having no ability to refuse him) and that was why he targets them.”

“So, the victims were chosen because they rebuffed him when they were able to make a rational decision,” Daniel surmised.

“Yes. This is a guy who was a nothing-burger before he stumbled upon that damned plant. Suddenly he has all this power – they are his puppets. Now he can take revenge on the people who made him feel like a nobody. Adoration is addictive, especially when there is no one to bring you back down to Earth,” he said with a wince.

“Let’s look at how he wanted a puddle jumper and how when Sheppard told him he couldn’t have one, he became belligerent. Probably right there was what was the trigger was for him to invade Atlantis and they made it far too easy for him to succeed. Did he have a legitimate reason for wanting a puddle jumper? He probably figured that it would be easier to try to get more of his herb with one, but remember, he also didn’t know at that point that the jumper could cloak itself. He wanted one because he was used to people giving him whatever his precious heart desired and he didn’t react well to being told no, he couldn’t have it.”

“According to Colonel Sheppard’s report, he grew visibly alarmed when AR-1 decided to leave after only a brief time,” Jack observed.

Tony nodded at Jack. “Exactly, they weren’t in close enough contact for him to infect them and he grew belligerent, and the villagers tried to prevent them from leaving until he called them off, hoping to persuade them to come back. The same thing happened when Dex threatened to shoot Sheppard when he challenged Lavin’s control over the Atlantis crew. In my opinion, it was at this point that the colonel understood that it wasn’t just a simple case of mass induced hero worship of a buffoon. He realised it was an extremely crude mind control by a dangerous individual and the implications were truly frightening. Underneath the bonhomie and seemingly harmless act, Lavin was extremely dangerous and that’s why Sheppard deescalated the situation.”

“Okay, I agree with your analysis so far, but what does this have to do with Danziger,” Jack asked?

“Some of what she wrote is verifiable or consistent with her account, so that tends to give credence to the more inflammatory parts of her claims. That Dr Weir was also a victim of non-consensual sex with Lavin? Which was why Danziger went to her when Dr Beckett confirmed she was pregnant. That Dr Weir pressured her not to make an official complaint, but Sofie was adamant. That Weir suggested that she could terminate the pregnancy, but Sofie informed her it was against her religion.”

“See that’s what doesn’t make sense for me. If Sofie was so opposed to terminating the pregnancy, then how does killing herself make any sense? Aside from Roman Catholics considering suicide a mortal sin, killing herself is effectively terminating her pregnancy,” Daniel argued. “She must have been in a very dark depressive state to have taken that option.”

“There’s no indication that she was suicidal in her account, nor is hiding the thumb drive in her childhood bear a sign of suicidality either,” Tony informed them firmly. “It could be a sign of paranoia perhaps, but I can’t remember working a sole case where a person killed themselves but hid a suicide note. Hiding her diary is more consistent with her claims of being pressured to remain silent.”

Daniel looked ill. “So, you don’t believe she accidentally took too many pills?”

“Nope. Dr Lam agrees with me by the way.”

“Let me clarify that what you’re saying is that it wasn’t a suicide even though she was terrified of being pregnant and unmarried,” Jack stated. “Even though she told her partner that her family and church would disown her, you are saying that you don’t believe that she took her own life.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, even though she was messed up over the rape. She told Ilsa that she was in love with Lavin and had an enjoyable time with him went they had sex, which reinforced the bullshit he told her. But later after the drugs wore off, even though she was convinced she had feelings for Lavin, she was still not attracted to men and according to her diary she was deeply conflicted about it.”

Yet despite that, you feel certain she didn’t kill herself.”

“Yes, that is what I am implying, even if I can’t prove it, yet. So that only leaves one other explanation – that someone else forced her to ingest those sleeping tablets – that means Sofie was murdered.”

Jack had probably already figured out the direction the investigation was headed but hearing it laid out so baldly, he reacted emotionally. “Son of a bitch! You think Elizabeth killed Dr Danziger?”

“Or arranged to have her killed,” Tony said looking at the stricken men empathetically.

Daniel was unequivocally not ready to entertain the idea. “No, that can’t be. Elizabeth spent her life negotiating, trying to bring peace to the world. She believed in non-violence, and always tried to negotiate with enemies – why would she kill Danziger, especially if Lavin raped her too. She was a strong woman who stood up to asshat Vice Presidents and military generals. She would never cover up for a serial rapist,” he protested furiously.

Tony watched him sympathetically, recalling how he’d refused to believe Gibbs was guilty of shooting Pedro Hernandez because he was the alleged killer of Shannon and Kelly.

“It doesn’t make any sense. Why would she do that? How can you accuse her when she isn’t here to defend herself? There is no credible motive,” Daniel berated him in the classic case of shooting the messenger.

With infinite gentleness, Tony outlined what he suspected was a credible motive, knowing that both men had the greatest of admiration for Weir. “But she did have a motive. On the very last mission before the foothold situation, she came so awfully close to being fired by the IOA, Daniel. For someone outside the military or the governmental Old Boys’ club, this job was a dream come true for her on so many levels. She got to be in control over the military and got a chance to put her own belief system of negotiation not war into practice over hostile races. Plus, she got a chance to be on the cutting edge of technological discoveries. Commander of Atlantis was a once in a lifetime dream job, that she would never be able to beat.”

Daniel stared at him with huge hurt puppy dog eyes but as much as the archaeologist wanted to protect Weir and her legacy, Tony had a responsibility to victims like Sofie.

“If the IOA found out the utter seriousness of the foothold situation, that if not for Sheppard’s cold, the whole of the base and its personnel would have been lost to a sociopath who could command very scary technology, it would have fired her. She was probably desperate to avoid losing her job,” Tony said.

Looking extremely unhappy, O’Neill agreed with his theory. “I know how you felt about her, Danny boy, I held her in pretty high esteem myself, but Paddington is right. When the Daedalus rescued the Ancient ship, Tria and her captain Helia reclaimed Atlantis, Elizabeth was destroyed by their decision. She argued that we shouldn’t hand back the city to the Ancients, which ran counter to the position she advocated when negotiating treaties with Indigenous groups back on Earth.

“After the Powers That Be made the call that we surrender Atlantis back to the Ancients, when she discovered that per our agreement with them, a representative from Earth was permitted to remain on Atlantis, Elizabeth pleaded with me to let her stay. She was crushed when I told her that Helia’s people and the IOA had already ruled her out of contention because they didn’t believe she could let Atlantis go.”

“That doesn’t make her a murderer, Jack.” Daniel objected.

Tony said, “No it doesn’t, Dr Jackson. But it does go to motive and that is a critical component of proving a crime,” he told him compassionately.

“Weeks later after they arrived back on Earth, the other major player from Atlantis had all reluctantly moved on with their lives from what I was told. Yet despite her having a comfortable apartment back in DC, Elizabeth remained in a pokey apartment in Colorado Springs near Cheyenne Mountain. Even though she had plenty of job offers she just sat around, wallowing in a pity party because she wasn’t on Atlantis.

“According to Sheppard, they were all so concerned about her state of mind, that they dragged her out of her apartment for a meal when the alarm was sounded about the Asuran killing the Ancients and taking over Atlantis. Which was how she and Dr Beckett ended up being on the unauthorised rescue mission to save Atlantis being blown up by Stargate Command as per my standing orders.”

Jackson looked heartsick. “I didn’t know that but still, I can’t imagine she could kill someone or countenance just so she could keep her job. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Sorry, Space-monkey,” O’Neill said, showing off his soft side although Tony had already seen it before with Tali. “But you of all people cannot forget Shifu’s dream.”

“Power corrupts,” Daniel whispered brokenly. “Oh fuck!”

Tony didn’t understand what they were talking about. Who the hell was Shifu? But he did understand how corruptive power could be, especially when one had never experienced it before. From what he knew of the former commander, she was not a team player – she didn’t belong to a political party but if she had, it would probably be a libertarian or else radical far left.

Getting such enormous power suddenly was intoxicating and it must have made it extremely difficult to give it up. If she believed that she would be sacked, it would be an all too easy step to convince herself that the theory of greater good applied in this situation. If she honestly believed that Atlantis was at risk unless she was in control, then getting rid of one person threatening her survival could be justified fairly easily in her mind.

O’Neill got them back on track. “How would she kill Danziger?”

Tony started writing a list. “I need to talk to Dr Meier again to figure out how she got hold of Sofie’s sleeping pills. I will say this, poisoning someone is frequently viewed as a method favoured by females because it is less physically violent and less up close and personal, so to speak.”

As he was mentally running scenarios about how it could have been done, another thought gave him a mental head slap which hurt just as much as Gibbs’ physical hits had done. “Oh SHIT!” he muttered frantically.

“What’s wrong” O’Neill reacted worriedly. “Are you okay”

“No General, I’m not okay. What if Weir got rid of Danziger because she was ordered to?”

Jack looked stunned. “By the IOA, oh fuck!”

Daniel looked befuddled. “Why would the IOA want to silence Sofie? You said that they’d jump at the chance to fire her so close to her almost losing her job just days before the foothold situation?”

It was then Jack and Daniel saw in action Tony’s freaky ability to see cases in ways that no one else could. He groaned,” For the same reason why she would have feared for her job. They realised if they fired her so close to the last time she nearly lost command of Atlantis it would make them look incompetent for not following through and terminating, which could lead to their jobs being terminated.”

“Or they saw the potential for that damned herb and wanted to keep it quiet,” Jack finished cynically.

Tony nodded. “Yeah, or that! What a shitstorm, General. So, I guess that answers that question I was getting ready to ask. We don’t brief Ambassador AuClair. What about Woolsey? Can he be trusted?”

Jack shook his head. “Nope, he was in the thick of the IOA wanting to fire Weir over the hybrid Wraiths, but then he followed her back to Atlantis and recommended she be permitted to stay. He had as much skin in the game as she did,” he groaned theatrically.

“So, anyone we can trust to try to get into their database,” Alex demanded frustratedly.

“Carter,” Jack declared at the same time as Daniel said, “Sam.”

“She was Commander here on Atlantis for a year after Weir was declared MIA. She might be able to access the IOA database,” Jack explained to Tony.

“You trust her?” Tony asked, not feeling super trusting at this point, although in his mind he had plenty of reasons not to trust.

“With my life,” O’Neill stated simply.

“Sam would never betray her team,” Daniel said with quiet conviction.

Tony grunted. “I hope you’re both right,” he said.

Daniel looked askance at him. “You’ve not very trusting, Alex.”

Tony laughed hollowly. “No, I don’t suppose I am and for the life of me, I can’t seem to figure out why that might be,” he said sarcastically. “Hmm let’s see, perhaps it has something to do with both my partner and my boss in Baltimore being dirty cops, or maybe it was because a mad, revenge obsessed director sent me on an unsanctioned uncover op where I was nearly killed in a car bombing.”

“What the fuck?” Jack looked livid.

“It could have been because an insanely ambitious director threw me to the wolves, well technically handed me over to Mossad after I killed one of their Kidon operatives in self-defence after he took exception to my arresting him and he almost killed me. I don’t know gentlemen, are they reason enough to explain my paranoia‽” he asked rhetorically.

“Oh, my lord, tell me this is a joke,” Daniel looked at Jack who just shook his head.

“Doubt it, Danny.”

“But wait! There’s more!” Alex said ignoring the byplay and parodied the infomercials as he jumped up to pace around the smallish room.

“There was also a secret plot dreamed up by my director and merrily adopted by SecNav and other well-connected intelligentsia to produce zombie assassins for hire. Boy did that end up coming back to bite them on the ass. And oh, yeah, you guessed it – I nearly got killed again while undercover because they didn’t read me in their little zombie assassins.

“Was zur Hölle?” Daniel muttered in German under his breath.

“Plus, there was the coverup of my boss’ assassination of his wife and daughter’s killer and letting his MIL get away with the murder of the guy who ordered their deaths.”

He looked at the anger and amazement on their faces as he vented his rage and frustration and it just egged him on.

“Need more?” he asked his audience before he proceeded to ignoring them shaking heads, as the words continued to pour out of his mouth. “How about my teammate’s revenge killing of her father and the director’s wife’s killer (well his alleged killer) and my boss and his boss’ tacit support, turning a blind eye to it.

Daniel cursed again in German, “Verdammte Scheiße!”

“Yeah, I know, right? Then there was the fucking political pressure brought to bear to quash a DOJ investigation into all of my boss’ unlawful activities, including the murders because HEY! He cleans up their shit!”

He fell back into his chair, looking sheepish as he concluded his rant, “And those are just the highlights of the corruption I’ve encountered over the years, folks. So, fuck yeah, I admit that I have trust issues up the wazoo and how the hell is that any surprise?”

“Wow, and I thought the Goa’uld were the most corrupt bunch of monsters but your bosses sound like they could teach them a thing or two,” Daniel told Tony, shocked at his experiences in law enforcement. “How in Tartarus did you manage to avoid their taint?”

Tony merely shook his head, not entirely sure that he had. Some days he hated that as time went by, he’d let stuff go. Even the fact that the DOJ investigation hadn’t found anything to censure him with, unlike McGee and David wasn’t all that much of a comfort. Especially when Vance had been happy to accept his resignation to protect Leroy Jethro fucking Gibbs, despite his corruption.

Jack threw him a sympathetic look. “Well, I have to say that the IOA and The Trust and ‘the Rogue NID’ could probably give them a run for their money. But I can absolutely understand how you’ve developed a slight problem with trust, Alex. One day, you’re going to brief me fully on this shit and I am going to clean it up,” he rubbed his hands together in glee before turning serious.

“But first things first, Campers. We need to clean up this particular pile of shit. Alrighty, let’s make plans.”

It was decided that Jack and Tony would brief those people who they trusted, to investigate these new claims made by Dr Danziger via her diary individually so that they didn’t raise suspicions by having meetings that excluded people who were used to being consulted. The general would brief his 2IC Paul Davis, and A.J. Chegwidden, plus he would contact Samantha Carter and recruit her to spy on the IOA. Alex would talk to Captain Cadman and Lt Colonel Lorne about the disturbing developments.

Meanwhile, they would continue to hold meetings on the matters regarding their Genii prisoners and not reveal that Dr Danziger had left behind a diary. They would simply put her death down to a probable suicide – which if there had been a conspiracy to murder her, wouldn’t cause the IOA to feel threatened. Meanwhile, Jack would use his black ops sources to try to find intel on Henri Auclair while Tony and Cadman would go back and re-interview Ilsa Meier to try to find out if Weir had the means and opportunity to kill Sofie.

Shortly after that Jack slipped out the door quietly. They decided it would be better to leave separately, not draw attention to their meeting together. After he’d gone, knowing they had time to kill before Daniel could depart, they decided on a story about why he’d come to Atlantis. He’d tell people that Vala had promised to come and heal Tony’s dodgy knee when she had time. So, Daniel had decided to tag along and catch up with the Mount Zenich complex to check out the database.

They’d also agreed to meet tonight in his place on the pretext of watching a movie since the family quarters he’d been allocated were the only ones big enough to accommodate them without arousing any suspicion…well hopefully.

As they settled in for a reasonable interval to pass by before Daniel sallied forth, Tony decided to ask about Jack and Daniel’s discussion about Shifu.

“Dr Jackson, do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“It’s Daniel,” he smiled at the investigator. “And go ahead. What did you want to know?”

“Okay, Daniel. Who is Shifu?”

Seeing the pain flash across the archaeologist’s features, Tony cursed his curiosity. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. Forget I asked. Let’s talk about the Ancient genes.”

“Yeah, I don’t have it,” Daniel said, with a shrug.

“Not to activate tech, but I guess you haven’t had a chance to be brought up to date about the four other Ancient genes that Chaya Sar explained to us is what made them unique from other races. She reckons that I have one, a communication gene which means that I can understand Ancient languages and read them too. She reckons the gene makes me good at communicating with others and I can learn new languages fairly easily.”

He knew there was more to it than simply languages, but he was just going to focus on that for now. He glanced at his companion who was looking fascinated.

“Who is Chaya Sar?”

“She is Colonel Sheppard’s Ancient girlfriend,” he said facetiously. “No, she’s really an Ascended Ancient who lived on a planet called Proculus. A simple agrarian society and when the Wraith attacked them, she couldn’t just watch the people of her planet getting murdered, so she lashed out and killed them. Her fellow Ascended beings were very unhappy with her for breaking their ‘Rules’ and they banished her to live out eternity on Proculus where she was allowed to protect the people of Proculus, but not a soul more or they’d destroy the planet.”

Daniel was nodding, “Sounds like a comparable situation to an Ascended Ancient that Sam picked up on a planet called Velona back in the Milky Way. Orlin had a massive crush on her and followed her back to Earth and retook corporeal form to be with her.

Tony just nodded, “Well she is a drop-dead gorgeous woman and a certified genius so that’s understandable that an Ancient would be attracted to her. But to paraphrase, Chaya Sar, there are four additional genes: communication, telekinesis, healing, and super sensory perception. So, I was wondering, with the extraordinary number of languages you can speak, if maybe you have the communication gene too. Maybe when you go back to the SGC, you could ask Dr Lam to compare your blood to mine or if we could go and visit Chaya Sar and ask her,” he suggested.

Daniel looked intrigued. “Wow, that’s just…wow. What did you mean by super senses?”

“I am only speculating here remember, but when McKay got zapped with the Ascension machine and was hurtling towards Ascension and died, the mission reports say that he developed supersensitive hearing but I’m sure that must only be a part of it.” He grinned boyishly. “I like to imagine that it’s a bit like that TV drama called The Sentinel that was aired from 1996 to 98. It was about an Army Ranger who had a life and death encounter in the Peruvian Jungle, and he developed hyper acute senses and an anthropologist who is researching Sentinels or protectors in primitive tribes, who helps him control them,” he said.

Daniel shook his head, “Yeah, I must have missed that one. In 1996 I was too busy translating the glyphs of the stargate and travelling to Abydos with Jack. And then I got married to Sha’re, a beautiful Abydonian Princess and help Jack kill Ra, the first of many megalomaniac Goa’ulds we killed over the years,” he said casually. But I get the drift.”

Tony shot him a shrewd look. “Marrying a princess on another planet is a pretty impressive excuse. I bet you didn’t even have a television, did you?”

Daniel gave a small grin, “Nope. I didn’t have much time to watch TV, he said apologetically.

Tony just laughed. “Good thing there are DVDs, I’ll hunt them up and we can watch them sometime. I bet Vala would get a kick out of them,” he said jokingly.

Daniel was silent for several minutes, thinking about what Tony had revealed.

“Thank you, Alex. I think I would very much like to meet Chaya Sar one day and I’ll talk to Dr Lam when we go back about the blood comparison. It would be cool to have an Ancient gene.”

“You probably already knew all this stuff when you were Ascended,” he shrugged.

“Maybe but when I came back, I didn’t remember any of it.” He was silent again but finally started to speak. “Sha’re had a child, a boy,” he said softly.

“Your son?”

“No. A year after I married her, a new Goa’uld System Lord named Apophis invaded Abydos and kidnapped Sha’re and her younger brother Skaara. They became hosts for Apophis’ queen Amonet and his son Klorel. I joined SG1 and spent years trying to save them. Then Apophis and Amonet broke one of the Goa’uld’s most immutable laws – they created a human child together that was part Abydonian part Egyptian, but the child (known as a Harcesis) was forbidden because he carried with him the genetic memories of the Goa’uld.”

Tony listened in horror as he explain what had happened. Daniel’s wife had been abducted and raped, forced to carry a child with that monstrous parasite. Little wonder he’d reacted so violently to the situation with Dr Danziger.

“What happened to your wife,” he asked gently.

“She died, I couldn’t save her,” Daniel said desolately. “But before she died, she communicated with me via a Goa’uld ribbon device, sort of a psychic joining of our minds about where the Harcesis child was because he was in great danger.”

“I am so deeply sorry for your loss, Daniel, not that any words can help. But Chaya mentioned that the Ancient communication gene also helped a carrier to be able to read other people’s minds,” he said.

Daniel looked a little overcome. “I think that we must find out more about these abilities and how to test for them,” he mused.

Gently redirecting him, Tony asked, “Why was the Harcesis child in danger?”

“Shifu, his name is Shifu,” Daniel said. “Apophis wanted to find his son badly because he was even more arrogant than the average System Lord and it was his flesh and blood son; the other Goa’uld War Lords wanted to kill him because of the danger he posed to them. Our people wished to use his knowledge to defeat the Goa’uld, especially when a half Ascended Goa’uld threatened Earth and none of our normal technology could touch him. The rogue elements of the NID were desperate to get their hands on Shifu and they had zero scruples as you know,” he said grimly.

“What happened to him?” Tony was almost afraid to ask.

“We found the baby on a planet called Kheb where he’d been hidden, and an Ancient named Oma Desala was protecting him. That’s when we discovered how powerful an Ascended being truly was and I broke my vow to Sha’re to look after her son. I let Oma Desala take him and raise him.”

“What made you decide not to fight Oma Desala for him,” Tony asked gently, making sure there was no censure in his tone.

“I just believed that Oma Desala would protect him from the Goa’ulds. She’d already destroyed two battalions of Jaffa troops that tried to take him by force. She proved she could protect him, and I trusted her.”

“You talked to her?”

“No, not then. We just seemed to communicate somehow.”

And that gave even more credence to Tony’s theory that Daniel had the Ancient communication gene. “Well, I’d say that your Sha’re would forgive you for not keeping your promise. You did what you thought was right for Shifu.”

Daniel nodded gratefully. “I know, I keep reminding myself of that. And I know she would be so proud of the person he’s become,” he boasted, looking like an immensely proud father.

Tony stood up and fixed them both another coffee, hoping to hear the rest of the story. Both men had been disturbed by the contents of Dr Danziger’s diary and even if the topic of Shifu was painful for Daniel, it was fascinating, and Tony could feel his anger bleeding away.

AN:
Verdammte Scheiße! ~ Shit Damnit!
Was zur Hölle? ~ What the Hell?

Chapter 4 Conspiracies and Corruption

Daniel and Alex were still in his office. The federal agent had made another cup of coffee knowing how much coffee the archaeologist ploughed through every day. He was almost as addicted to it as Gibbs had been. Daniel grasped the full mug eagerly, taking a sip and closing his eyes in appreciation.

Tony smiled a little at his evident pleasure before returning to the story Daniel had begun.

“So, you found Shifu again?”

“Yeah, a year after we found him on Kheb, he came looking for me on Abydos and Sha’re’s father, Kasuf contacted me.

When I arrived back on Abydos, my father-in-law, explained that a whirlwind came out of the stargate, speaking his daughter’s name, so he sent for me and took me onto the plain where he heard the voice. A mini whirlwind formed just as he described, and I called out to it, identifying myself, hoping, I guess that Sha’re had found a way to return to us but instead, out of the wind a young boy appeared. He told me his name was Shifu and he was  the Harcesis child of the union between Apophis and Sha’re.

It was a shock because the Harcesis should only be about two and a half years old at that point, but this lad was much older. Somehow, we believe that he had been aged artificially, using nanite technology like the nanites that rapidly aged Jack on a planet we explored called Argos. Dr Janet Fraiser – Cassie’s mom estimated that Shifu was approximately eight years old. We think Oma Desala found a way to switch off the nanites though since Janet said she’d stopped his accelerated aging and he was aging normally.”

“Why would Apophis want to accelerate his aging,” Tony asked inquisitively.

“We believe he intended to use Shifu as a host as his current one was quite old.”

“Euww, that’s one very sick puppy!” Tony told him grimacing. “So why did Shifu come to find you?”

“He came looking for me because he wished to learn about Sha’re but even though I believe it to be true, I think he also came to make me stop trying to find him. Everyone wanted the intel he carried about the Goa’uld, but he said that Oma had taught him that he must bury those memories to be happy or he would become evil.”

“That sounds like wise advice,” Tony commented, thinking of how he tried to protect Tali from the reality of who her mother was. To possess the racial memories of such an evil race would be too big a burden for an innocent child to carry and not be driven insane.”

“Oh, it was but the Tok’ra and the powers that be at Stargate Command insisted that we needed it. He tried to tell me that no good would come out of possessing the knowledge of such an evil race, but I didn’t understand. I thought that my principles and intellect would protect me from corruption. In the end, Shifu gave me his genetic memories that were buried in his subconscious. While I was in an unconscious state, I was experiencing a vision or a dream, living through an entire year.”

Tony again was struck by the whole communicating psychically, more confirmation about his suspicion. “I take it by what you said earlier that you found that you couldn’t handle it,” he asked the archaeologist sympathetically.

Daniel laughed but it wasn’t a happy one, it was cynical and full of self-loathing. “You could say that. I started building our planetary defences, splitting people up into small teams so that only I knew what was going on. I began to distrust even those closest to me who are family to me – Jack, Teal’c and Sam. I amassed great wealth from the government who had no choice but to give in to my demands,” he said shamefacedly.

“When Sam tried to stop me, I threw her in jail and spied on her conversations with Jack. The day the weapon was launched into orbit around the planet he came to stop me. I threatened to take out Moscow because they and the other superpowers were not happy that we – that I had control over the weapons platform. I had built a backdoor into the program because I didn’t trust anyone, and I hijacked it once it was launched. Jack tried but failed, to stop me and when Russia threatened us with nukes, I happily destroyed Moscow and millions of people without batting an eyelid. My principles, my pacifism, my intellect were in no way a match for the evil genetic memories I possessed,” he admitted brokenly.

Tony could see how even after all this time it was soul-destroying knowledge that good could not subvert the evilness. “Holy shit, what a terrible lesson to have experienced, Daniel.”

“You’d think that being a mass murderer would be the worst burden of that vision, wouldn’t you? But I think that what I find even more difficult to reconcile about myself in that vision was that everyone believed I had sent Teal’c off to collect materials for the weapons array and he was killed, but I only let them believe that. The truth was that I hated him: for being First Prime of Apophis and betraying him, for him saving me from Amonet, and lastly for him killing Sha’re. I hated my teammate who had helped us innumerable times to defeat the Goa’uld and I wanted him to suffer horribly.”

Daniel hung his head and Tony knew he was crying silent tears of shame and horror. He stood up and got the distressed man a glass of water, resolving not to push for any more information. He felt inexpressible sorrow for what this extremely sensitive and intelligent individual must have experienced to learn such a difficult lesson. With too much power, even the most moral ethical person could be corrupted, and Tony had witnessed it before on a more limited scale, but Daniel experienced it personally in the broadest world view possible. It was one thing to know it intellectually but to have experienced such a vivid vision of actually committing such a heinous act, wiping a huge metropolis off the face of the earth would surely be enough to drive most people insane.

Neither man talked and Tony considered the matter closed so he was shocked when Daniel practically whispered, “I have never told anyone else this before, but in my vision, Teal’c wasn’t dead. I had locked him up and was conducting horrific and painful medical experiments on him. I am a monster.”

Tony rebutted that. “I cannot imagine how you must have felt, living through that, and seeing yourself be corrupted by the evil of the Goa’ulds but you must hold onto the fact that it was not real. You did not destroy Moscow or lock up Carter and you wouldn’t experiment on Teal’c.”

“I wiped out every last Ori – that’s genocide on a cosmic level. Was Shifu trying to tell me something? Maybe I am not so different to that psychopathic guy in my dream.”

“That’s totally different,” Tony objected. “You didn’t destroy the Ori because they disagreed with you or thwarted your plan for dominion over the universe. That was the Goa’uld and Ori’s shtick, and you are forced to defend yourself and everyone in the Milky Way galaxy and the only way was to take extreme measures. It sucks that you had no choice. You had to defend yourself and protect innocent people who can’t defend themselves. Trust me, Daniel every time I’ve killed someone, it feels like I lose a piece of myself, but I try to remember that I didn’t initiate the threat, I just chose to end it.

“I know it isn’t easy, but someone has to make those types of soul-crushing decisions lest more people be enslaved or murdered. You didn’t just save Earth, you saved countless billions of lives all across the Milky Way and beyond. Do you honestly believe that the Ori would have stopped their domination after taking over our galaxy? You would be living in a fantasy world if you truly think that. And the very fact you are tying yourself up in knots over being forced to destroy every last Ori tells me that you are one of the good guys who had the thankless job of doing what had to be done.”

Talking as a cop who had faced the same sort of moral dilemmas, even if it was never on the same grandiose scale, seemed to help reassure Daniel he wasn’t some terrible monster.

He nodded gratefully. “Thank you, Alex. What you say makes good sense. You know what I’ve realised since the Ori? Nothing is ever as black and white as I always thought it was.”

“Too true, Daniel. And that kind of sums up the Dunning Kruger cognitive bias in a nutshell.”

Daniel smirked at him. “Yeah, I guess it does. Years ago, we found this female android on a planet where the rest of the inhabitants had been wiped out. She was extraordinarily complex, and super intelligent but had the emotional development of a child, which turns out to be a super dangerous combination. She took a liking to me because I tried to be her friend.”

Because that was Daniel’s role on SG1 – to befriend people, to try to create Allies for Earth in their fight against the Goa’ulds (insert applicable bad guy: replicators, Ori, Lucian Alliance, evil Earthlings etc.) He’d come by his role because like Tony, he was a communicator, able to speak other languages and not just verbal ones, also able to decipher non-verbal cues. Like Tony, he could empathise with victims or aggressors which was a complicated way of saying they both were good at profiling individuals. It was inevitable that Daniel Jackson would befriend an android who was programmed to act like a child.

After a slight pause, the archaeologist slash saviour of the world resumed his story.

“She was constructed by nanite technology and after hurting me when she lost her temper, she made some replicator blocks as a peace offering so we could play together. When we realised Reese created the replicators that destroyed everyone on her planet and then began to expand and destroy whole worlds, Jack wanted her permanently deactivated, but I still genuinely thought I could reason with her.”

Oh Daniel, of course, you would! Tony groaned silently.

“It’s my pacifist academic side, the one who believes that if you are rational and talk about your problems, that rational discourse and the willingness to compromise can solve just about any dispute,” he said self-deprecatingly.

“Back then, I thought that the military was always far too quick to blow everything up or shoot everyone. That they always took the easy way out, because they were generally a bunch of meatheads with too much-damned power, even when Sam was a teammate and one of the smartest and kind-hearted people I know. Such a putz,” he groaned.

“Then when Reese felt threatened by us, she created more replicators, even though the last time as they began self-replicating, she lost control of them. Having fought them before and nearly lost everything, and even knowing that the Asgard couldn’t defeat them, General Hammond ordered the base self-destruct protocol to be engaged to save Earth. Meanwhile, I kept trying to talk her down in the embarkation area in the gate room that she’d sealed off.

“What happened?”

“Jack, Teal’c and the rest of the base were trying to destroy her toys as she called them as they were destroying the base. Any humans who stood in their way were attacked as they kept on replicating. Teal’c managed to shoot through the blast doors with his staff weapon with literally seconds to spare and even though I honestly believed I was getting to her, and she was shutting down her toys, Jack shot her, and the replicator blocks shut down. Sam and General Hammond had just enough time to shut down the self-destruct, but it was an awfully close thing,” he admitted with a wince.

“That was a good thing, right,” Alex asked, trying to suss out what point he was trying to make.”

“At the time I was utterly convinced that I’d gotten through to her and Reese was shutting down her replicators. So, when they burst through the blast doors and killed her, I saw it as unnecessary, and I was so furious with Jack at that moment that I wanted to kill him. I yelled at him and told him he was a stupid son of a bitch. I accused him of destroying our best chance at learning how to deactivate the replicators who were taking over the galaxy and beyond.”

“But if you were wrong and she didn’t shut her toys down, then Cheyenne Mountain would have been destroyed, along with Reese and every last person at Stargate and NORAD too.” Tony pointed out rationally. “You just told me how close it came to going off.”

Daniel nodded. “True. A few seconds more and they wouldn’t have had time to shut it down.”

“And say for a moment you were right, and Reese was shutting her ‘toys’ down. There was no way of knowing for sure if she could do in time to shut down the self-destruct, Daniel.”

“You’re right, I never thought about that.”

Alex shook his head. “Jack did the only thing he could do, he chose to save hundreds of lives in the mountain and the SGC so that they may be able to figure out a solution at a later time. I’m sure he factored in the possibility that if she could be persuaded to deactivate them, it might give Earth a huge advantage in the battle against them later on, but I don’t see he had a choice.”

Daniel nodded. “I know, I know. I behaved abominably towards him and acted like a snide little brat. I’d argued strongly for us to activate her, and he was less gung-ho, as in are you out of your god damned mind.

“It’s human nature to want to prove people wrong when we don’t agree with them,” Alex suggested calmly.

“You think I was trying to prove I was right, and Jack was wrong?”

“I wasn’t there. I can’t answer that.”

Daniel sighed. “Maybe I was trying to prove a point but after the Ori and having to wipe them out, black and white didn’t seem so clear cut.” He picked up a pen off Alex’s desk and started fiddling with it, but the agent could see his mind was else ware

“I’ve since come to realise Jack was right to be cautious, but I was so keen to find new knowledge and lifeforms that I didn’t think about the risks. When the shit hit the fan, he had to make an impossible decision. Even if I had been successful, I doubt that General Hammond would have believed me that it was safe and shut down the self-destruct of the stargate.”

“Probably not. He couldn’t take the chance,” Alex agreed with him. “You were too compromised at that point.”

“If he activated it in the first place, he had to believe that killing everyone on the base was the lesser of two evils and I’m equally sure he wouldn’t have done it lightly,” Daniel said

“You’re right, it’s part of military and law enforcement training to sacrifice yourself to save others, yet, to sacrifice so many lives on the base is not a decision I’d ever want to make – even if I didn’t have to go through with it,” Alex shuddered at the thought. “Which is why, taking the word of a civilian, no matter how trusted you were, was never going to happen, in my opinion. And that’s why Jack didn’t have a choice, he had to kill the android.”

“Yeah, as years went by, I kind of worked that out,” Daniel admitted wryly. “Plus, I know that while I did believe that Reese held the key to defeating her toys that were devouring planet after planet, I was also furious because Reese was like a child. She saw me as her friend, and I wanted to protect her.”

“You got too emotionally involved with this android and saw her as a kid, not a dangerous threat that could wipe out the whole planet, even if she didn’t intend for it to happen. The thing is that with so many lives resting in his hands, O’Neill could not afford that luxury, and he’s a big softie around kids,” Tony observed, seeing him with Tali and her friends and from what Cassie had told him.

“Yeah, I did get way too involved. All that crap I directed at Jack for months, my whole meltdown, my sulking and then my decision to Ascend because I wasn’t making a difference. Now I can see that to some extent it was a self-indulgent emo pity party and a passive-aggressive payback for him killing Reese when I believed I could have resolved it peacefully. I was so insufferable!” he moaned.

“Honestly, I can’t imagine how I’d have felt when I was poised to release Merlin’s weapon on the Ori if some smartass do-gooder had turned up, telling me to wait… that they had a peaceful way to resolve it. Would I have hesitated and if I had and it didn’t work, where would we be now,” Daniel groaned.

“I realise it is not a straight-out analogous situation but a cop or a fed often faces a domestic violence situation gone bad where the guy (and it is the guy most of the time) has lost it and has their partner and frequently their kids are being held hostage with guns or a knife at their throat. You have the guy’s parents pleading with you, telling you their son would never dream of hurting their wife/partner/kids. They promise you that their darling boy is just frustrated or has been badly misunderstood, and they beg you not to shoot him.

“The fact that the wife has taken out a restraining order because he beats her or has threatened to kill her makes no difference – in their mind, their son is the victim. Most of the time, there is no talking these monsters down and they don’t care if they take their partner or kids with them, so it’s not like you have a choice. But you’re still gonna cop all the anger and abuse when you have to do your job and kill the abuser.”

“Wow, that must suck!” Daniel said sympathetically.

“Yep, it does,” he agreed.

Five minutes later, Daniel departed Tony’s office, saying he was going to find Vala. Tony wasn’t sure what their relationship was – were they together, were they just friends with benefits or neither of the above, just teammates? He didn’t know and really, it was none of his business.

~o0o~

Later that day, Tony and Captain Cadman went back to re-interview Dr Meier about the three weeks before Sofie Danziger died. He knew that Daniel considered Elizabeth Weir a friend and colleague – he’d said as much, but their talk helped him put his admiration of her into clearer perspective. A part of the archeologist  had believed, hell, probably still did, that the military was a bunch of meatheads with raging testosterone levels and that smarter, more rational people like himself or Elizabeth Weir were better equipped to make decisions that might affect the future of humanity. Maybe he was right – but Tony didn’t believe that Elizabeth Weir should have been selected to head up Atlantis.

Her wilful downplaying of the foothold situation and the danger posed by an individual like Lucius Lavin being allowed to wander around Atlantis unchallenged aside, some of Weir’s inexplicable decisions left Tony banging his head. How someone as critical of the military as she’d been, could have signed off on the whole unethical Michael and the hybrids debacle, truly left him wanting to shoot her for being so stupid. A diplomat of her calibre couldn’t claim ignorance of the contents of the Geneva Convention, nor ignore the relevance of her decision for Atlantis to help the Hoffans finish their vaccine without the proper intel, and have checks and balances in place. Effectively, their advanced medical expertise without understanding who the Hoff were and their agenda was, had made Atlantis equally culpable in the deaths of half of their population from vaccine side effects. It was something that even a Trekkie with no military or political education could have explained, thanks to the Prime Directive, which forbade the members of the Star Fleet Alliance from interfering with the internal and natural development of alien civilisations.

That assistance without the necessary safeguards in play became the catalyst for everything that followed, especially Wraith Michael’s hybrids and the even more horrific chimeras he created. The Wraith’s insane quest to avenge the heinous crime perpetrated against him by Atlantis, he then repeated but magnified it a millionfold upon all humanoid races across Pegasus. That could so easily have been avoided by observing the Geneva Convention and not carrying out hideously unethical medical experiments on the Wraith in the first place. Instead, history would judge the Lanteans and Michael most harshly, and rightfully so as the ones responsible for the genocide of countless numbers of people and races. What it illustrated was the perils of having someone in charge of a military, and civilian base who wasn’t well versed in strategic thinking, risk analysis and following laws and codes of conduct

Even the situation with the Genii could have been avoided from the outset but for Dr Weir’s inexperience and her obsession to gain the secrets of the Ancients before the expedition ever left Cheyenne mountain. She was so gung-ho about finding Atlantis that she never bothered to see to it that the expedition forces had read and committed to memory all of the mission reports of the Stargate teams over the eight years they had been exploring the galaxy. If she had done so, Sheppard or Lt Ford would surely have seen it as an analogous situation to what happened to SG1 on a planet called Euronda.

The SGC was desperate to have an ally with advanced technology that could destroy Apophis, who was threatening Earth’s existence and were willing to supply them with deuterium to power their reactor and their weapons. The Eurondans, who were at least one hundred years more technologically advanced than Earth, were willing to share their technology in return for the deuterium. They completely ignored the huge elephant in the room that they were fighting a civil war against other Eurondans and were evasive about the causes of the war. The powers that be were too enamoured by their tech to examine the Eurondans too closely, only to discover they’d nearly allied themselves with a bunch of white supremacists, wanting to wipe out the “breeders” who didn’t fulfil their concept for racial purity.

If either Ford or Sheppard was familiar with that mission, they should have been able to use analogous logic to be suitable sceptical about wanting to become allies with a militaristic society without the absolute necessity of acquiring extensive intel on the Genii. But in her rush to get to Atlantis, Weir ignored the  sage wisdom that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. How could the Lanteans learn from history if they’d never bothered to read about it?”

So as much as Dr Jackson liked, revered, or needed Elizabeth Weir to succeed as the civilian academic commander given authority over what was, essentially, a military base of operations, Tony assessed that she had been a serious impediment to the success of the mission. He also had no qualms about investigating if she had set out to murder the Polish bioengineer. The agent’s sole agenda was to demand justice for Sofie and to make sure that her, lover Dr Meier remained safe.

What they managed to learn from Dr Meier was that Weir came to see her lover several times in the lead up to her death. Sofie said she was talking to her about her work but when Ilsa had mentioned that to Weir after Sofie’s death when the commander had come to her quarters to box up her belongings to be shipped back to her parents in Poland, she seemed surprised that Dr Meier knew that she’d been in Sofie’s quarters.

“Do you think that she knew that you and Sofie were lovers?” Laura asked.

“I am not certain, but I do not think so. She thought we were friends, best friends but I did not want her to say anything to Sofie’s parents. She did not wish them to know she was lesbian, so I respected that wish. She was gone, what good would it do?”

“How did Dr Weir react when you informed her that you’d already gone through Dr Danziger’s belongings?” Tony wanted to know.

Ilsa thought about that for a while. “I think she was surprised, maybe a little irritated, that I’d already finished it. Said there might have been classified data that I wasn’t supposed to see. I assured her that she was on my team and there was no classified material but that I handed it into our supervisor already.”

“Did you ever work on anything that was classified?” Laura asked curiously.

Meier shook her head. “No more secret than the fact that everyone’s work is classified but that was mostly due to the fact we are on Atlantis.”

“Did anyone else stop by Sofie’s place before she died who didn’t normally visit her?” Tony asked casually.

“I didn’t see anyone. It is possible but I don’t think so.”

“Did anything or anyone strike you as odd?” Tony pressed, feeling that she was holding back.

“No, nothing before Sofie died.”

Looking at Cadman dubiously at her qualified answer, Tony said, “What about after her death?”

“Ilsa frowned. “I may have been imagining it but a few days after I packed Sofie’s things and Dr Weir took them away, I felt like someone might have been in my quarters when I was at work.”

“Why, was something missing?” Tony leaned forward, his face deliberately blank.

“No, but a few things seemed out of place.” Ilsa smiled at them wistfully, “Sofie used to tease me, and she call me compulsive because I like to organise my books alphabetically. I also like my makeup to be sorted by colour.”

“And you found your books and makeup weren’t in order,” Laura clarified

“Yes, but that doesn’t prove anything. I was so bereft after she died, I might have easily mixed things up.”

It was true that it didn’t seem like a lot to go on, Tony speculated silently. On the other hand, someone could have been looking for her diary or something else.

Ilsa stared at the pair and said, “Why are you asking me questions about what happened after Sofie died? Are you going to tell me what you found in Kadzio?”

Tony answered her seriously. “Sofie kept a diary. She journaled practically every day since her arrival. It was on a thumb drive.”

Cadman said, “Ilsa, we can’t prove it yet, but we think Sofia might have been killed.”

“She didn’t kill herself?”

“We don’t believe so, but until we can prove it, we need you to be careful. If anyone wants to know why we have been asking you questions, then you tell them we are reinvestigating her death because we think she committed suicide. If we are right and Sofie was killed, saying we suspect suicide will keep you safe, Doctor,” Tony warned her seriously.

She nodded, looking scared which was good. He didn’t want to freak her out, but he wanted her to be careful what she told people.

“And please, don’t mention that Sofie kept a journal or that we have it,” Laura told her. “We hope we’re wrong, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe.

And to keep you safe, I want you to take this,” Tony handed the bioengineer a personal shield generator that they had recovered from Balar.

He activated it so it would work for Ilsa who didn’t have the ATA or the retrovirus version either. He demonstrated how to use it and told her to wear it under her clothes, so no one knew she had it. He explained that she would have to switch it off to eat or drink but recommended that she use it when she was alone in her cabin or if she felt threatened.

He also offered to get her quarters changed so she was closer to him or Cadman, but she decided not to move, although she was grateful to have the personal shield generator. Tony just hoped that they hadn’t put her in danger. Still, shifting her rooms would have been tantamount to acknowledging that they believed that Sofie Danziger was murdered, and most people would assume that the information had been acquired from Dr Meier. Which it had, but not because of any information that Sofie had told them though.

As they made their departure, he knew that it was time for him to talk with his survivor of Lucius Lavin’s rape. This was not going to be pleasant…for either of them but it needed to be done.

~o0o~

In the end Tony decided to talk to Teyla, not sitting down in an office but doing something physical. He felt that with all the stress hormones their talk was going to stir up, that movement would help to get rid of them. When he was stressed, he ran. sometimes he wished he could run and keep going until he was far away. When finally, Tony did run away to Europe and then to a galaxy far, far away, he discovered that his problems didn’t just automatically disappear. They just followed him along for the ride!

Running was still his preferred form of stress release where he managed to switch off all the extraneous thoughts rampaging around in his head. However, he knew that his witness did not favour running. Teyla preferred her exercise to focus on maintaining hand to hand skills and martial arts for more pragmatic purposes as in surviving enemy attacks. While he was not averse to sparring and fighting either, it wasn’t conducive to having a highly personal conversation with a victim of a horrible crime.

Finally, he decided to teach her how to shoot hoops – it was something that once he got into a rhythm, he found almost meditative. He knew she was a proponent of meditation, but he’d found sitting still to be incredibly difficult. If shooting hoops didn’t work – hell, he guessed they could go for a walk around the perimeter of the city. At least the views would be spectacular.

As he explained how to aim the ball and the basketball hoop on a half-court that some Marines had built beside the kid’s play area, Teyla watched intently and then agreed to give it a try. For someone who didn’t play sport, although she had impressive hand/eye coordination – most likely from her mastery of bantos fighting which bore some similarities to a martial art known as Escrima, she wasn’t bad at all.

As he started to get into the zone, shooting goal after goal without missing, the Athosian woman shot him an admiring look.

“You are very good at this, Alex.”

“He showed her some of his trick shots, his dribbling skills, one-handed shots and a couple of slam dunks and she smiled.

“I suspect you train just as diligently as I do with my bantos rods. It is as if you and the ball are one. This is what I try to teach my students, to become one with the rods but most do not seem to understand the concept,” she said a little wistfully.

“When I was a young adult at college and even at high school, I certainly devoted a lot of time and practise to basketball,” he said, fumbling to find a way to begin this difficult conversation in a way he never fumbled the ball.

Sensing his discomfort, the courageous Athosian who was the former leader of her people, sighed. “I find that when you speak true words that are from your heart, there is no need to agonize over what to say. Speak from your heart, Alex Paddington. Be not afraid.”

Sighing heartily,” he said, “This is tough. I don’t want to upset you, Teyla.”

“And I do not wish to be upset but sometimes it cannot be avoidable. What must be will be.”

Admitting that Teyla had spoken truthfully, he decided there was no easy way to say this. “Okay, well as much as it pains me to bring this up, Teyla, I have discovered that you were not the only one on Atlantis who Lucius Lavin forced to have sexual intercourse and fell pregnant.”

Tony had been expecting Teyla to be shocked, to want to know who else had been violated. Those reactions would have been perfectly normal and expected. Her lack of reaction made him suspect she already knew.

Deciding to ask her straight out, “So you already knew about Dr Danziger? Did she speak to you before she died?”

Looking bewildered, she asked, “Who is Dr Danziger?”

Quick to pick up on the implications, he narrowed his eyes at her. “Was there someone else on Atlantis who Lavine raped and impregnated, Teyla?”

She was silent for so long that he thought she wasn’t going to speak. He aimed the ball at the hoop and released it, watching as it found its mark. If only interviewing victims/witnesses was as easy.

Finally, as he retrieved the ball and threw it to her for her turn to take a shot, she said. “I have suspicions, not surety and it is not my story to tell,” she said sadly before deftly changing the subject. “This Dr Danziger – how did she die, Alex?”

“That is a good question, Teyla. Her cause of death was from an overdose of sleeping tablets. There are only three possible ways that she consumed too many sleeping pills. 1. It was a terrible accident and Sofie didn’t mean to take almost a whole bottle. 2. She took the pills deliberately because she felt so bad about the rape and pregnancy that she wanted to kill herself. 3. Someone else gave her the pills to kill her.”

Teyla looked at him, her eyes wild and her mouth agape. Murder was something he was used to – having investigated it for so many years. The Athosian, while she was used to fighting for her life against the Wraith and used to seeing so many humans fall prey to them, had probably never seen a murder of someone so close to home before.

It must seem shocking!

Chapter 5 Unburdening

Tony had just divulged to Teyla that there were only three possible explanations for how Dr Sofie Danziger, another one of the serial rapist’s victims had died three weeks after the foothold situation that nearly cost them control over the city. It was purely happenstance that Sheppard had a cold which saved the day and the whole damned thing was just covered up, including his victims, ultimately ending up costing Sofie her life.

“Why would anyone wish to harm this woman, let alone kill her?” Teyla asked looking horrified.

“I believe that Sofie was killed. She had been taking sleeping pills off and on for years. I don’t believe she could have overdosed accidentally. I think she intended to report Lavin’s actions and her pregnancy and someone on Atlantis or back on Earth didn’t want Lavin’s takeover of Atlantis to be broadcast to Homeworld Command,” he said bluntly.

“How do you know that she did not kill herself,” she wanted to know? “Maybe she was not thinking clearheadedly, and she merely wished to kill her child. I am ashamed to say that one or twice after I discovered I was with child…his child, I wished that the baby would not survive. If I didn’t have the support of Kanaan, I may have become even more desperate,” she admitted looking shattered.

He sighed. “Teyla, Dr Danziger was a bioengineer, a scientist. She would have known very well that an overdose of sleeping pills would not have aborted her baby – it would have killed them both. And as for not having support, Sofie had a lover, who I suspect would have stood by her and like Kanaan, helped to raise the child.”

“If Sofie had a lover, how can you know for certain that the baby was Lucius’?”

“Because Sofie’s lover was a woman,” Tony said, “so Sofie was positive it was his since she did not like having sex with men. As for feeling bad about wishing that you had miscarried, that is a totally normal reaction to the situation you found yourself in, Teyla.”

“It was unforgivable. Torren is a priceless gift, regardless of the way he was conceived. It was not his fault, and I should never have wished for his death,” Teyla said, two lone tears making the way down her tawny cheeks. She did not try to brush them away and somehow that made her pain all the more powerful, even more tragic.

“I am not arguing that Torren is not a precious gift or that he was completely innocent in this situation. I think he is a great kid and an absolute credit to you and Kanaan. You’re both awesome parents but I am saying that despite those facts, you should not blame yourself for having perfectly normal human feelings. Anyone would feel the way you did, Teyla.”

“I know that you wish to console me, Alex and you are truly kind, but you cannot understand. No one can until you have been in that situation.”

Tony took a massive breath, which seeing as he now had healed lungs thanks to Vala Mal Doran, had the effect of not calming him down but making him feel lightheaded. Oh shit! He was on the cusp of another panic attack because he realised just now that he was about to share his own terrible secret with Teyla, something he’d never even contemplated. Yet fair was fair, she had been forced to confess her own terrible experience to him, so perhaps it was his turn to share.

Knowing he needed to get his anxiety under control before he could do that, he started reciting the phonetic alphabet out of sequence under his breath, fully aware that Teyla was shooting him weird looks. When he finally felt calm enough to proceed, he stowed the basketball in a locker and gently took her arm.

“Walk with me, please?”

He wasn’t sure if she acceded without asking questions because she had in her own fashion just told him he was full of shit and didn’t know what he was talking about, and now felt guilty. Either that or she was a kind caring person and must have noted his distress and wanted to help.

As they took the path that would circle the entire perimeter of Atlantis, he was silent as he struggled to find the courage to begin. But then he reminded himself that she would not judge him, and he threw his pathological caution to the winds. Caution against being thought of as weak which somewhere in his screwed-up psyche had become a defining attribute to his persona – something that his team used against him time and again.

“I have never been impregnated against my will, Teyla. You were right about that. But I have been forced to have sex against my will and forced to impregnate a woman without consent.”

Teyla, who in repose was a serene individual despite her fierceness in defence of others, stumbled.

“I am sorry, Alex. I should not have said that to you.”

“You did not know, Teyla. You are only the second person I have ever told.”

Smiling ever so gently, she put a small gentle hand on his arm. “Then it is fitting since you were only the second person I told, too.”

“Belle’s mother was my work partner for over eight years,” he began softly. “We investigated crimes and put away bad guys. Oh, I’ll admit that we also flirted with each other, but my boss had a rule that you couldn’t date a team member. Not that it would have mattered, because I never wanted to have a relationship with her. We both had heaps of baggage, so it would have been a disaster waiting to happen and after Wendy ran out on me the day before we were supposed to be married, I’d never start a relationship that I knew from the get-go was doomed to fail.”

Teyla was frowning in bemusement. “Alex, I do not understand. Why would a receptacle to house your belongings be an impediment to having a meaningful relationship?” she asked carefully.

He gave a sad smile. “My bad, Teyla. Having baggage is a euphemism – a code word for a heap of emotional problems. We came from troubled backgrounds, similar in many ways, yet different. My mother died when I was eight, my father was a narcissist who resented having to look after a child. Not that he did a particularly decent job of it, and when I was twelve, he disowned me. They were both alcoholics and I pretty much brought myself up. So, I don’t trust people easily, I think they will let me down.”

“And Belle’s mother?”

“Ziva had a loving mother who, unlike my mother, was not an alcoholic and she had two siblings she adored so she had a loving home – at least until her mother and siblings died over the years. But while my father was a narcissist who could be brutal when he felt threatened, her father was a sociopath – he turned Ziva and Ari into trained killers because there was a war in their country, and he used them to move up the ranks.”

“In our war against the Wraith, Athosians train their offspring to kill,” Teyla observed.

“Oh, I know that, but would an Athosian deliberately impregnate a Wraith if that were even possible to have a son who could be trained to destroy the enemy within, even though his mother was Wraith? That is what her father did to create Ziva’s older brother.

“Would one of your people order his daughter to kill her half-brother when he realised that his son was siding with his mother’s people? Would he use her killing of her brother to ingratiate his daughter’s path into another country’s forces to spy on them? When he thought she might be becoming sympathetic to the ally’s values over her own country, would he pick an Athosian and order him to go in and seduce her to regain control over her?”

“Never!” the former Athosian leader spat out the denouncement. “That would never happen because it is morally wrong. We Athosians have little left after generations at war with the Wraith, but we have our honour!” she spoke proudly, her head high and once again she reminded him of an exotic queen.

“Well Ziva’s father did,” he told her sadly. “And she had been brought up to obey and respect him. Furthermore, she absolutely adored him – he could do no wrong in her eyes. She probably also hated him somewhere deep in her heart but would obey him no matter what. Does that sound like we’d have been a match made in heaven to you?”

“I can see your point. You each had many receptacles,” she said jokingly as they shared a bittersweet smile. “I can see why you did not wish to be with her.”

“I rebuffed her overtures many times. I think her father believed I could be contained as a threat if she were controlling my dick,” he said crudely. “But I think a part of it was that experts had taught her how to use sex to get what she wanted – get what her father needed. She couldn’t accept that I couldn’t be seduced when my reputation at work was of a…” he paused realising that a skirt-chaser, a playboy or a womanizer probably wouldn’t make sense to the Athosian. “A serial dater, so when I rejected her overtures, I became a challenge.”

“John once explained to me the concept of a woman scorned,” she commented.

“Yes, that is true, although it probably doesn’t transpose well to the Pegasus galaxy.”

She shrugged. “No one regardless of gender appreciates being ignored,” she said astutely.

Tony, thinking of his childhood, where he was mostly ignored, interspersed with regular bouts of abusiveness thrown in, nodded. “True enough but on Earth, some parents teach their daughters that their self-worth is defined by being able to marry a male or to be pretty or please men. If ignored, then they feel like they have failed in their reason to exist.”

“That is very sad, how can they abuse their daughters so?”

He shook his head. Any time that he caught a glimpse of Ziva’s manipulativeness in his daughter he panicked, not wanting her to grow up to emulate her like that.

“Anyway, after Ziva left our agency she said she wanted a fresh start, to put all of her violence and killing behind her in the aftermath of her father’s death, ironically when another assassin killed him. So, after resigning she returned to her childhood home.”

“To lose her father must have hit her hard, even if he was not an honourable man. My heart was broken when I lost my father to the Wraith,” Teyla said. “To reject violence must have been like a rebirth for her.”

“It seemed a little hypocritical that it happened right after she assassinated the man who she believed was responsible for her father’s death. A man who’d sanctioned who knows exactly how many other people’s deaths, including his son and right before he died, an innocent guy who recognised him when he was sneaking around undercover. Plus, let’s not forget her father who she felt moved to avenge cost our boss’ wife her life and robbed her two young children of their mother.”

“You hate her,” Teyla said softly.

“Yeah, I suppose that I do, Teyla. But despite me making it clear on many occasions that I had no intention of having sex with her, when I went to find her to warn her that someone was trying to kill her, Ziva drugged me and had sex with me. She had non-consensual intercourse because she wanted a baby. I don’t know how many times she raped me – I can’t remember because the drug makes you lose your memory, but it was probably more than once and while I was with her in Israel, there are quite a few times I cannot remember what happened.”

Teyla said, “I remember having sex with Lucius – I think it would be worse not to know what he did. At least I know what he did.”

“I don’t think that there is a scale of better or worse when it comes to rape, Teyla. You have horrific memories that you are forced to live with. I have no memories and my imagination probably conjures up the worst-case scenarios. Both our experiences suck.”

She nodded. “Perhaps you are right, Alex. You said you went to warn her she was in danger? That was very caring of you.”

“Talk about no good deed goes unpunished,” he said cynically. “You know what is ironic? Ziva turning over a new leaf was supposed to be because when she went home, she reconnected with an old friend of the family and learned that she’d been engaged to be married to Ziva’s half-brother who Ziva killed on her father’s orders. It supposedly made her see her sibling as a person, not merely a tool for her father to manipulate, or that’s what she told me. And yet, she seized upon the opportunity to manipulate her former teammate into conceiving a child without consent.”

By this stage, their rather bracing walk had sped up as the much smaller Teyla was almost running to keep up with Tony’s much longer legs. Teyla was right, he realised. He hated her so damned much!

Grasping his arm and sinking down onto the path for a rest, she sighed when he realised that the incredibly fit woman was huffing. He stopped and sank to the ground beside her.

“When did you find out about Belle?” she asked gently.

“When her mother was killed in an explosion at her farmhouse she inherited from her father. One of her father’s enemies blew it up. She had left instructions that if something happened to her, Belle was to be brought to me in the US to be raised,” he said.

“How old was Belle?”

“Almost two years old, but I convinced myself that Ziva wasn’t dead and because I didn’t remember being raped, I was certain that she was another man’s baby, who Ziva had been sleeping with when she went back home. So, I came up with this fairy story er…a children’s tale,” he corrected himself seeing Teyla’s confusion at the unfamiliar word.

“I told myself that Ziva wasn’t dead, but she was pretending to be as she was in grave danger and so, she sent Belle to me because she knew I would protect her. One of the few traits that she admired about me, was my loyalty to everyone on the team.” He’d resigned to keep Gibbs from losing his job and going to jail, for shit’s sake. How stupid could he be?

“When did you discover that Belle was your daughter?”

“We were in a car accident, and I found out we both have the same blood type. My blood type isn’t common, and it made me suspicious but someone at the lab notified the Trust that we both had the Ancient gene and they tried twice to abduct her. I still couldn’t believe it because I never had sex with Ziva, or so I thought, but I had a paternity test done, and redone and it concluded that she is my daughter.”

“Why are you sharing this with me?”

“I wanted you to know that even though I love Belle with all my heart, there are times I wish I had never gone to find her mother to warn her someone wanted her, wanted all of our team dead. Which is tantamount to wishing that my daughter didn’t exist. And I feel so ashamed about it, you know?” He paused, trying to hold himself together.

“Every time that Belle does something that reminds me of her mother, I start feeling sick to my stomach and I wonder – one day will I end up hating my daughter too? I feel guilty – I don’t want to end up resenting her. Like Torren, Belle is innocent, and she didn’t ask to be brought into the world. I have to keep reminding myself she is a victim, like me.”

Looking embarrassed, Teyla reached out and put her hand over Tony’s larger one. “I am sorry that I said you couldn’t understand; you do understand even if you weren’t impregnated. Somehow, knowing the person who forced you to conceive a child against your will for many years must be much harder than when it is a stranger. I do not find myself comparing Torren’s mannerisms to the man whose seed created him. Also, while I hate him to a most passionate degree, I cannot imagine how it would feel if one of my teammates betrayed my trust the way that Belle’s mother did.”

Tony shook his head, “As I said, I don’t think we can compare, all rape is evil. It takes away control from the person and that is very hard to deal with no matter how it happens, but I’ll admit that I struggle to deal with Ziva ignoring my wishes. That’s why I decided to go and talk to Dr O’Shea, she is the only other person I told, about how I was drugged. Everyone else who knew us believed we had an affair, and I was irresponsible enough not to use protection,” he said.

“Does it help?” she said curiously, “to talk with her?”

“I don’t know – I think it is too soon to say. But she is great at giving me advice about Belle. Like when she wants to talk about her mother or has nightmares about the Trust trying to steal her away from me. I’ve never really had anything to do with kids. I’m not good with them.”

“That is not an accurate statement, Alex. You are a wonderful father. And that is not just my opinion. Miko and Monique think so too.”

Never good at receiving praise since it wasn’t something he grew up with, he ended up flushing a pretty shade of pink at Teyla’s compliment. S0 he used a tried but true means of dealing with it – he deflected.

“Anyway, I wanted to inform you about my investigation into Sofie and to let you know that I have put out a wanted notice to arrest him when we find him. He will be facing charges to do with a score of things, his unlawful insurgence of Atlantis, his aiding and abetting in the abduction of Colonel Sheppard. Without that damned drug of his, the colonel wouldn’t have simply gone off with Kolya’s men, he would have fought back, left clues or someone would have remembered something.

“But I also intend to charge him with rape – I want Dr Danziger to receive justice. I cannot bring her back to life, but I can make the man who raped her, sorry he was ever born. I know that I’m asking a lot, Teyla but would you consider testifying against him in court. I will try to protect your privacy, and Torren and Kanaan, too by arguing for the proceedings to be a closed court so that only the judge and lawyers will be there?”

Teyla looked overwhelmed. “I…I do not know. Can I think about it? Before it happened, I used to think of myself as a warrior who would stand up for others. Now I do not know if I can even stand up for myself,” she told him forlornly.

He nodded. “Absolutely. Take your time. We haven’t caught Lavin yet, but it is only a matter of time. He is not a particularly popular fellow. He is a conman, like my own father. Offer people a reward for turning him in and if it is substantial enough, even his friends would have no qualms about ratting him out,” he said.

“I would talk to Kanaan too,” Teyla stated nervously.

“Yes, you should. He deserves to have input into your decision, Teyla.”

He stood up and when his companion rose as well, he started strolling back towards the children’s playground and the half basketball court. As they walked together, Tony shortened his stride so that Teyla could keep up with his long legs. He wanted to address several things that Teyla said previously.

“I know you said you didn’t know for sure if Lavin raped anyone else, but you have suspicions. I appreciate that you say it is not your story to tell, but Teyla please consider talking to these women or hell, maybe I’m assuming, and he was into guys, too but take care. I am concerned that someone wanted to keep the truth of what happened from getting out and they killed Sofie to try to stop her from speaking out.”

He handed her a personal shield generator. “Just to be on the safe side I want you to wear this under your clothes. I know you can take care of yourself but if someone tries to shoot you, this will stop it from harming you. By the way, if anyone is curious about our talk, tell them I was trying to persuade you to teach me how to fight with bantos rods.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “And what shall I tell them that I said. I could say that I agree to tutor you,” she teased him. “Where would that leave you?”

“Studying bantos fighting with a sensei…a master…an expert…a mentor,” he clarified when he realised, belatedly that she probably didn’t know the word. “I would be honoured to be taught by someone of your skill and knowledge, but I know that every man and his dog wants to be your student.”

“There are no dogs on Atlantis and even if there were, they could not take bantos classes, Alex,” she riposted seriously.

“Earth saying, Teyla,” he said with a grin, not sure if she was trolling him or not.

“Thank you for your concern, and I am not offended by your offer of a personal shield generator, Alex. I will try to talk with any who may have been a victim of Lucius Lavin, but I cannot promise they will listen to me.”

“At least warn them that Lavin is going to be arrested and charged with Dr Danziger’s rape. Just please don’t mention her name or that I believe she was murdered. If someone on Atlantis did kill her, I don’t want them to figure out what we know. Just tell them you don’t know who the witness is.”

“I will try, but I cannot promise I will succeed, Alex.”

“Please just do your best. It’s all anyone can do. And Teyla, I want you to know that if you decide you can’t testify against Lavin publicly, remember that you’ve already taken back the power he stole from you. You’ve made a fine life for your family – you should be proud of yourself. Even if you decide not to confront him at trial, you can still confront him privately. If you need backup, I’ll go with you and support you all the way.”

Thank you, Alex. You are indeed a loyal friend to colleagues.” She looked melancholy, fiddling distractedly with a brown leather plaited bracelet she wore around her wrist. “It’s just hard, having your self-rule stolen away from you. I keep wondering why he picked me.”

“I do have a theory about why he chose you and Sofie. He targeted you because you were strong decisive women and you both dared to tell him no, when he came onto you. Lavin is a weak man, and he cannot bear it when someone tells him no; just like when Colonel Sheppard refused to trade the puddle jumper for some stupid crap, so he suddenly became desperate to have one. He almost succeeded.”

Teyla had been listening intently, nodding as he spoke. “Yes, he almost succeeded”

“When AR-1 entered the village and he clapped eyes on you, he wanted you. You are a beautiful woman and I’m sure many men have desired you, but you also radiate self-confidence and strength. You, Teyla Emmagan are everything that he is not and that’s why he was desperate to take that away from you, just because you dared say no to him. It is his pattern when a strong woman refuses his advances to force her to have sex, to make himself feel powerful because he is weak and loathsome.

“You told me I was a good father a few minutes ago. Well trust me when I tell you you’re a survivor, you have known much loss and hardship in life, yet you have created a family and fought for your happiness. You are NOT weak.”

~o0o~

After their emotionally exhausting conversation, Tony returned to his office. Not only was he feeling drained by the emotive topic of conversation with Teyla since he’d ended up telling her about Ziva, but he and Captain Cadman had also informed Dr Meier that they believed her lover had been killed because someone wanted to cover up the whole shitstorm foothold situation. This was a case that was difficult for him on a psychological and emotional level, and he wanted to get Lavin in custody and bring closure to his victims. He’d always fought hard for the victims of crime but this one was far more personal.

As he checked out the messages waiting for him, he zeroed in on one from a source he’d cultivated in the search for Colonel Sheppard who was turning out to be a gem. Etar Mondu had contacted Atlantis – well specifically Tony regarding a sighting of Lucius Lavin earlier today. According to the informant, who was an itinerant farmhand, that shitbag Lavin had returned briefly to Amullie, the planet where he’d pulled his superhero con on the naïve townsfolk, courtesy of the personal shield generator. It was also where Sheppard et al had killed Acastus Kolya in a shootout eerily like an old western movie. His source, Mondu, had been in the tavern when Lavin turned up on the planet. He’d not received an overly effusive welcome from the locals and had left before Etar could nab him.

It was disappointing not to have caught him, but Tony organised to pay his informant, despite his failure to bring him in. He knew that if he paid his informants, even for the smallest scraps of Intel or even when they tried and failed, word would get out that he was true to his word and others would also begin to cooperate. It wasn’t all that different to the criminal informant network he’d nurtured in Philly and Baltimore when he was a cop. And if some of his Pegasus sources weren’t exactly squeaky clean, then he was prepared to live with that. They often had sources of information and knew people that weren’t accessible to a law-abiding individual.

He began to organise to send off a payment consisting of food, some MREs, some dried meat, flour, sugar, and bread for the nomadic farmhand. Plus, a small quantity of homemade hooch, courtesy of a Czech scientist and Amelia, feeling benevolent, had sweet-talked the pastry chef to throw in some apple and cherry Danish from the mess. The kickboxing technical analyst and Captain Cadman insisted on delivering the payment to Etar Mondu and armed with the personal shield generators from Balara that they’d requisitioned for the errand, Tony intended on tagging along too. Since it was too late in the day, they agreed to go tomorrow right after Tony dropped Tali off at school.

Other than that minor excitement, the rest of his working day was fairly uneventful. He dealt with all the messages that had piled up with him, not in the office.

A.J. Chegwidden dropped by to discuss the dire need for more lawyers, and he grinned, thinking about Gibbs’ opinion about lawyers. He discussed his suggestion that O’Neill talk to Aaron Hotchner, a former prosecutor, to add to their fledgling criminal justice system but the situation was complicated because he was in WitSec with his son Jack. That inevitably led to a further discussion of Tony’s situation and his thoughts on Atlantis and personnel. He was so glad Chegwidden had agreed to come to Atlantis, he was sorely needed, that was for sure.

By the time Tony made it back home he was tired and looking forward to some quiet time with Tali. Arriving back at his quarters he was surprised to see Tali already waiting there but instead of the other kids and Monique who was supposed to be on afternoon collection duty today, it was just Cassie and his daughter.

“Hey guys, I’m sorry, have you been waiting long?” he apologised – Gibbs’ ridiculous rule six was the very first one he tossed out and stomped all over right after he left DC.

Cassie laughed, “No, we only just got here. Felix’s mom got stuck in the lab and so I offered to drop the kids off today. Belle was last on the list,” she told him as she prepared to leave, bending down to pick up her backpack and smiling at Tali.

As Tali hugged her teacher, Tony noticed she seemed to lean into the hug, even though she had a huge smile on her face. But he had worked undercover for years, had spent time with Cassandra Fraiser when she first arrived on Atlantis, and he recognised acting when he saw it. Inwardly sighing because he’d been looking forward to spending some quality time with his kid, he knew that his daughter’s teacher needed a friend. He was extraordinarily grateful that Cassie had agreed to come to Atlantis to teach the kids; he owed her big time.

Smiling a friendly smile at the younger woman, he said, “Would you like to come in, have some afternoon tea? Belle is always ravenous when she comes home from school,” he teased, although it was also the truth. She seemed to have inherited the DiNozzo appetite.

Cassie seemed to be considering his invitation, but reluctant to accept for some reason. Perhaps the same reason she was smiling so brightly but he could tell it was fake. After all, he had a helluva lot of practice plastering fake smiles across his face, but nobody ever seemed to notice, except once upon a time maybe Abby Sciuto and Ducky. And Palmer too, until he went all being a father is so hard and I’m sure that Senior did the best that he could because kids are ungrateful little brats on him.

Pushing the still hurtful memories of his former life as Anthony DiNozzo, Very Special Agent down firmly where they belonged because the past needed to remain buried, he took her arm and pulled her into their quarters, laughingly. “C’mon Ms Fraiser, I insist.”

Allowing herself to be shepherded meekly inside, he offered her a seat on the sofa and went to rustle up some tea and a snack for his hungry offspring. Noting that it didn’t take long for Tali to ensconce herself down next to her teacher and start chattering about Charlotte’s Web, he focused on slicing up some fruit for Tali and crackers, hummus, and baba ganoush dips which the mess staff made periodically. If he were back home, he’d have added several different soft cheese and raw vegetables, but it was Atlantis, and some things just didn’t transfer well across galaxies.

Still, they would manage.

Chapter 6 A Shoulder to Cry On

Every afternoon once Tali with school for the day, Tony would make an afternoon snack for his hungry child, and they would sit together as she ate. She would talk about all the exciting, wonderful things she had learned that day. It was a part of their new routine since she started school and he looked forward to that precious time they spent together. He realised that with each passing year, these one-on-one father and daughter times would become increasingly rare.

He knew that all too soon he would ask his daughter what she did today, and she’d reply with a petulant, “Nothing,” or a shrug and a disinterested, ‘stuff Papa,” and he knew that this was a priceless gift that he mustn’t waste or take for granted. One day, instead of regaling him with stories about what Torren said, or Kazumi did, or what Felix got into trouble for this time, teenage Tali would start talking about her friends but not by name. When he asked her which friends, she’d roll her eyes and tell him, “Just Friends,” because parents with adolescents made it their business to let him know what was awaiting him, further down the track.

It reminded him of a quote by respected author Harvey MacKay that was worth remembering…

“Time is free but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.”

Oh, and how incredibly apt was that? He had lost two years of his daughter’s life because he didn’t know she existed and he would never get that time back, never see her take her first step, speak her first word, try he first solid food. Never get to see the first time, that’s not a dyed-in-the-wool smile it’s an I have got gas smile finally became a genuine DiNozzo grin. And yeah he was fucking pissed about it, but now wasn’t the time or the place to become all bitter and twisted. They had a guest!

Today, they’d missed out on their special father-daughter ritual because he’d sensed that something wasn’t right when Cassie Fraiser dropped Tali home from school. Being empathetic by nature, he invite Cassie in to have afternoon tea with Tali and himself, putting together a few water crackers and dips to accompany the fruit that he made sure Tali ate every day. As they nibbled on the snack, Tali’s prattle seemed to have a cheering effect on the teacher, her smile seemed more genuine. She even managed to laugh at something Tali said, and he was pleased that he’d decided to invite her in. He figured she was probably missing her friends back on Earth.

After their afternoon tea, he would usually clear up the dishes, washing them and leaving them to dry. Most afternoons weather permitting, he and Tali usually took a walk, ending up at the outdoor playground where she could run around and burn off steam. He’d learnt that she was a lot like him, she needed to move, to run around to switch off her overactive brain. He suggested that Cassie should come with him, and Tali insisted, grasping her hand, and pulling her along. She wanted to show Cassie how high she could go on the swings and her teacher didn’t have the heart to refuse.

Once they reached the playground and Cassie had admired her student’s skills on the swing, she became pensive. When Tony asked if she was okay, she smiled but it was full of sadness.

“We were at the park for the first time after I came to Earth when SG1 rescued me from Hanka. Janet, my adoptive mom, Samantha Carter, Teal’c and Daniel Jackson, all made it a special occasion and brought food. It was unlike anything I had experienced back home. Sam took me to the swings, and she showed me what to do and then Jack suddenly appeared and gave me a puppy. He told me it was an Earth rule that every kid had to have a dog,” her voice wavering a little bit.

“What’s wrong, Cassie, you seem down. Hard day?”

She pulled a face that was more of a grimace. “Just feeling a bit sorry for myself,” she admitted reluctantly, as she parked her butt down on the seat of the swing and started swinging gently.

“Did the kids do something wrong?” Tony asked as he leaned against the framework of the play equipment casually.

She started and shook her head emphatically.

“Oh no, Alex, the children are wonderful. It’s just that tonight was supposed to be my hens night and in three days it was supposed to be my wedding,” she admitted tearily. “I’m just having a bit of a pity party, don’t mind me. I’ll be fine.”

Aha, Tony thought. That was the reason why Cassie needed to get away from her life and Earth for a while. He winced, having some idea what she was going through. Wendy had really done a number on him. Messed him up good and he wasn’t sure that he had ever gotten over being dumped in such a spectacularly public way.

“When my fiancé informed me before the wedding that she was calling it off, people told me I’d get over it. I didn’t believe them,” he told her, as her eyes became big as saucers.

“You got dumped, right before the wedding? What was wrong with her?”

He laughed hollowly. “Yep, the night before! And you know, she never explained, not really, just said she decided she wasn’t ready. She said it wasn’t anything I did, just she didn’t want to get married. Over the years I decided it was probably because I was a cop and cops don’t make a lot of money, like teachers, they’re never going to be rich. Or maybe she was worried that I was going to get killed. Who knows?”

“So, the people who told you that you’d get over it, were they right?”

“Nuh, not really. I still think it must be because I wasn’t good enough, that there was something wrong with me. I kind of had to raise myself, with two parents who were alcoholics and my mother died when I was eight. My father was always telling me it was my fault, that I was weak and stupid. Wendy leaving me at the last minute, after I thought I was going to have a wife and a family messed me up so much that I never let anyone get that close to me again.”

“Wow, what a cow!”

He chuckled, “You know what…I ran into her some years ago. She’d married some guy, had a kid, and divorced him, so I figure I was lucky – that could have been me. She wanted to try again.”

“What happened?”

“Looked at her kid and realised that if I started something with her, sooner or later she’d break my heart again but this time it would be worse because there would be her son who’d get hurt too, so I turned down her generous offer,” he smiled grimly. “It still hurts but I’m very glad I didn’t marry Wendy.”

He didn’t ask Cassie what happened to her fiancé; he figured if she wanted to talk about it, she would but he didn’t want to pressure her. He could remember all the well-meaning but completely unsolicitous advice he’d been offered and most of it was worthless.

“I can’t have babies,” she said sorrowfully. “Nirrti, the Goa’uld who was experimenting on the people of my planet, trying to make a superhuman for a host, killed everyone on Hanka except for me. But her genetic manipulation caused infertility problems. I didn’t care so much when I was younger but every year, I find it harder to accept, she said tearfully.

“When I began getting serious with Jeffrey, I told him that I wasn’t able to have children and I told him that if he wanted to have kids we should break up. He said he didn’t care about having kids. That I was all he needed to be happy.”

Tony had a terrible feeling he knew where this was heading but he hoped he was wrong. “What happened, Cass?”

“The bastard cheated on me, and I found out after going all-out, booking a fancy wedding that not only had he cheated on me, but he got her pregnant. When he confessed, he said he loved me more, but he had to do the right thing for the kid.”

“Is that why you came to Atlantis?”

“I needed to get away from the memories but also from all of the well-meaning friends and acquaintances who either told me he was a jerk, and I was better off without him or gave me names of fertility specialists or health gurus who helped them have a baby. I knew they were all trying to help…”

“Yeah, they just made you feel worse. I’m so sorry, Cassie, you’d make an awesome mother. The kids all think you are fantastic,” he told her gently, only for her to burst into gut-wrenching sobbing.

Gently he removed her from the swing and led her to a bench, sitting them both down as he took her into his arms and let her sob her heart out. Tali was bug-eyed as she saw her teacher crying so piteously. She scrambled down off the climbing frame and ran over to them.

“Is Ms Fraiser okay, Papa?”

“Yeah, Sweetheart. She is just feeling sad and needed to let the tears out of her heart because they were taking up too much room. She’ll feel better when she lets them all come out,” he told her. He was damned if he was going to bring up his daughter to see crying as a sign of weakness.

He might not have had good role models to emulate, what with their ideas of what made you weak, but being around Senior, Gibbs and Ziva had certainly taught him one thing…what he shouldn’t do.

~o0o~

Tony knew that he couldn’t say anything that would fix Cassie’s feelings or her situation. Of course, there was more than one way of being a mother if she wanted that. As a child who had been adopted, she would be fully aware that it was a viable option, so he had no intention of pointing out the incredibly obvious. What he did intend to do was to give her emotional support, a shoulder to cry on and encourage her to make some kickass female friends. To that end, he invited her to eat dinner with him and Tali in the mess tonight and he invited Laura and Amelia along too.

He knew Amelia was missing Ronon, so she jumped at the opportunity to join them, even if it was a little earlier than she normally ate. Still, Amelia was ridiculous fond of Tali and realised that the early dinner was him being a responsible parent and feeding his kid at a family-friendly time, she was all in. He just sent them a brief message asking them to please spend the evening with a friend of his, who was in desperate need of female company as she was feeling down. He would not betray her trust about why she was feeling shitty, just that she was.

He had some idea what she was going through, but he could never know her pain at being unable to have her biological children. He was not going to pretend that he did, but he did have insight into what it felt like to have a wedding and marriage all planned out only to have the rug pulled out from under you. It hurt and made you question yourself in an impossible quest to know – why me?

He could provide distraction in the form of Amelia and Laura who were both pretty awesome women. He didn’t know what the hell women got up to on hens nights. apart from the almost obligatory male stripper, which was probably not an option but hey, he wouldn’t bet against Amelia. She and Chuck were extraordinary, so who knows what was possible.

After introducing Cassie to Laura who she’d met and Amelia who she hadn’t been introduced to, he sat back, eating his dinner, watching the three women interacting with Tali. Occasionally Cassie would throw him a grateful look – she knew what he was up to, but she didn’t seem to mind. He wasn’t going to tell her to cheer up, suck it up or things could be worse. He couldn’t fix what was wrong but at least he could fix her night for her and take her mind off what she was supposed to be doing in a galaxy far away.

He was only half-listening to her talking about her students, how in the next semester, they might have up to five more students as some of the troops were seeking permission to relocate families on Atlantis since they now had two well-qualified teachers providing schooling.

“It will be good for the kids to have more classmates. We might be able to play some team sports if they do come, she said sounding excited.

He had to agree that team sports could teach kids a lot of valuable life lessons, and more students would make it less insular.

Cassie was saying, “I’ve never been a huge believer in star signs, but I have to say, having three Taurean students and one Gemini is a pretty weird dynamic,” she joked.

I’m sorry, what did she just say? What are the odds- pretty damned slim as in all but impossible to have three of the four five-year-old kids, all born in April? The question was just how close together had they been born?

Deep in thought, he didn’t see Jack, Daniel and Vala come into the mess, or A.J. Chegwidden come in a few minutes later and join them. He did hear General O’Neill whistle sharply to summon him to their table and looked around with a start. Wow! his situational awareness, normally extremely sharp could do with a major tune-up.

Bowing to his guests and daughter, he apologised, “I’m being summoned, Ladies. I’ll be back.”

That prompted a round of giggling, then a spontaneous eruption of Terminator impressions from the three adults at their table on the balcony that ranged from lame through to criminal and one from Tali that was pretty darned cute even if she had no clue what she was parroting. Still, for all their butchery of a classic movie quote, he was prepared to forgive them just this once since Cassie was laughing and it wasn’t forced. Mission accomplished!

He left the females to it, a contented smile on his face as he left the balcony and made his way inside. Feeling goofy, he stood in front of the General who was effectively his boss now and in the spirit of impersonations, said, “You rang,” in his best Adams’ Family butler’s voice.

Chegwidden snickered, Daniel and Vala looked befuddled (oh yeah, no TV) and O’Neill rolled his eyes. He pointed at the vacant chair.

“Sit, Paddington. Good Lurch impersonation by the way,”

Tony sat and waited. No one spoke and finally, Tony decided to get the proverbial ball rolling.

“Okay, good chat everyone. If there’s nothing else, I need to get back to my daughter and our guests. I don’t want them to think I’m rude and socially inept.”

He started to rise and Vala started giggling. “Oh Alex, I want to keep you!”

A.J. snorted loudly, and muttered something about, “Classic.”

Daniel was giving Jack the puppy dog eyes along with a “Jaaaaack!” That one-word admonishment seemed to speak volumes to his former team leader and good friend.

Looking thoroughly irritated, Jack pointed his finger at him and said, “Oi you! I hadn’t finished yet. Sit your ass back down.”

Standing as he stared into his boss’ deep chocolate brown deeply set eyes, detecting a large serving of embarrassment and some side emotions thrown it that he wasn’t able to decipher, Tony replied drolly, “In order to finish, it is necessary to begin.”

Slowly he sat and waited.

“Thank you, Obi-Wan Kenobi. I was just trying to find a way to start,” Jack groused.

“Someone said to me earlier today and I quote, ‘I find that when you speak true words that are from your heart, there is no need to agonize over what to say. Speak from your heart, Alex Paddington. Be not afraid.’ Although,” he said thoughtfully, “I suppose that should be, ‘Speak from your heart, General O’Neill. Be not afraid.’ So, what’s on your mind, um in your heart, boss?”

Glaring at him, Jack said, “Why were you embracing my niece at the playground this afternoon? What are your intentions?”

Tony found himself staring at Jack as if he had grown three heads. “What are my intentions?” he repeated in a strangled voice. “Permission to speak freely, Sir,” he requested politely.

After Jack looked alarmed, he reluctantly agreed, after all, he had asked the question. “Fine, speak. Speak freely.”

“Appreciated, General. Okay here goes. With the greatest respect and all that jazz, you, Jack O’Neill are a genuine cloth-eared donkey’s ass, sir. Call yourself Cassie’s uncle, huh? Then tell me, what day is today?”

“It’s Wednesday but what does that have to do with the price of fish, huh.” He pointed his finger at Tony. “Stop avoiding the question.”

“Oh shit!” Vala exclaimed. “It’s Cassie’s hens night.”

“But she called off the wedding,” Daniel protested as Vala exchanged dramatic eye rolls with Tony. It kind of felt like they were having a competition.

“Exactly,” Tony said drawing the word out exaggeratedly. He stole a glance at a smirking Chegwidden who was sitting back enjoying himself immensely. “And Cass thinks of you as an honorary uncle too, or her friend, Daniel. Some friend!”

“What? Wait” What did I do? I wasn’t embracing Cassie at the playground,” the archaeologist whined.

Vala must have kicked Daniel under the tablet because he squawked loudly. “Owww! What was that for, Vala?” he demanded in a wounded tone.

“Because both you and Jack are idiots, and I couldn’t reach him, or I would have kicked him too.”

“Hey! What did I do?” Jack looked affronted before pointing his finger at Tony. “And you, stop changing the subject and answer my question.”

Vala rose, addressing Tony, who stood up as well, Chegwidden following suit a few moments later. “Well, well, well, aren’t you two gentlemen gallant. Your mamas raised you right,” she praised them, planting a somewhat chaste kiss on their cheeks.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to join the hens’ party. I’ll leave you to explain the facts of life to Dumb and Dumber here, Special Agent Studly.”

She winked at Tony, but he caught her arm to prevent her from leaving. “Please, Vala, don’t bring it up unless she mentions it. I only told Laura and Amelia that she needed a night out with the girls.”

“Gotcha. I’ll be the soul of discretion, oh studly one. Now I’ll leave you to explain to the uncles here how dumb they are,” she whirled on her heels and sashayed off toward the table out on the balcony, her hips swaying as every straight guy in the mess admired her shapely ass.

Glaring at Tony, Jack whined, “Alright you, speak! Why is she calling us stupid?”

Daniel piped up, “Yeah, why? I get why Jack is dumb but what did I do?”

Seeing that the pair was going to begin one of their infamous old-married-couple riff sessions, he decided to cut them off at the pass. Tony pointed his finger at both men. “Vala thinks you’re both dumb asses because…you are idiots. Cassie is feeling shitty about the fact that on Saturday she was supposed to be getting married.”

“But Lachlan Maddox was a lying cheating jerk, and he broke Cassie’s heart,” Jack objected before subsiding, darkly muttering under his breath about breaking Lachlan into tiny pieces and scattering them across the Milky Way. In this case – not an empty threat!

“But Cass was the one that broke off the engagement,” Daniel argued. “Are you trying to tell us that she’s having second thoughts?”

Shaking his head at Tony, A.J. couldn’t contain himself any longer. “Vala was right, you are a pair of idiots. Just because she called off the wedding and he was a prick, doesn’t mean that she isn’t hurting and feeling sad about it.”

“Be that as it may, you still haven’t answered my question about why you were embracing Cassie today?” Jack demanded like a broken record caught in a scratch.

“That’s because I thought two guys as smart as you both are, would be able to work it out without a map! I was wrong, you aren’t smart enough to figure it out without the step-by-step instructions. So here goes… I had my arms around Cassie, consoling her because she needed a shoulder to sob on. She’d been sad all day, and neither of you stepped up and were there for her so she picked me, a perfect stranger.”

He was righteously happy to see both of them looking guilty. Good! The idiots deserved it.

“I could tell she was upset about something when she walked Belle home. I asked her to stay for afternoon tea. Then we dragged her to the playground, and I asked her what was wrong. She told me, she sobbed, and I put my arms around her and held her and let her cry.”

As he gave them the unvarnished truth the two men looked increasingly aghast.

“I decided that what she needed was a Clayton’s hens night. She came to dinner in the mess with us, and I invited Captain Cadman and Amelia Barnes along to the Claytons hens night,” he retorted caustically.

“Oh wait…you wanted to know my intentions? My intention was to try to be a supportive friend and try to make her feel better. Is that okay, gentleman?”

A.J. glanced at the balcony table where Vala had joined the other ladies and they were all giggling, even Tali. “Looks like you excelled beyond expectations, Alex. Good Job!”

Daniel was frowning, “I don’t get it, what’s a Claytons hens night? I’ve studied marriage rituals in countless cultures on innumerable planets across the solar system, including modern western cultures and I’ve never encountered that ritual. What does it comprise of?”

Even Jack was looking at Daniel as if he’d suddenly sprouted wings and a unicorn horn in the middle of his forehead. “Oh, for crying out loud, Space Monkey. Surely even you have heard of Claytons?”

Looking mystified, he shook his head. “No.”

The three men in unison, chorused, “It’s the drink you have when you’re not having a drink.”

Frowning he objected, “That’s stupid!”

Taking a deep breath, Tony explained, “It’s a non-alcoholic drink that superficially looks like whiskey and was marketed as being suitable to drink when you didn’t or couldn’t consume alcohol, Daniel.”

“Oh, I see,” he said uncertainly. Clearly, he didn’t, though.

Jack meanwhile returned to his original topic. “So, for clarity’s sake, you were not trying to seduce my emotionally vulnerable niece into taking a rebound roll in the hay with you. You were just consoling her. Have I got that right?”

“Oh, for fucks sake, O’Neill,” Tony snapped. “You asked me to keep an eye on her because she was going through a tough time. I was trying to be a friend to her. She is my daughter’s teacher, not to mention I’m sixteen years older than her. So, no I wasn’t trying to seduce her.”

Daniel said conversationally, “Sixteen years age difference isn’t that big of a deal. Sha’re was almost thirteen years younger than I was when we fell in love.”

It was A.J.’s turn to kick him.

“Hey, what was that for?” he glared at the former SEAL.

“You’re not helping, Jackson,” he pointed at Jack looking feral and Tony who had just turned green.

“It can’t have escaped your attention that Cassie seems to have developed a huge crush on you,” Jack said accusingly.

Seeing that Tony looked like he was about to lose his dinner, A.J. jumped in quickly. “I suspect that it has, General. If he spent even a tenth of his time bedding all the women (and guys too) over the years who’ve developed secret crushes on him, he’d never get any work done. And he gets a helluva lot of work done,” he defended the agent he used to work with once upon a time.

“Not helping, either.” Tony mock glared at A.J.

“Look, while I did have a reputation, it was pretty much a way to fend people off after my fiancée left me standing at the altar. I have a small daughter – she is the only female (or male either, before you ask) in my life. I have no intention of having any type of relationship, even just sex,” he said with an imperceptible shudder. The only one who caught it was Jack and his eyes narrowed but he dropped the subject.

“Okay, well it doesn’t hurt to be clear about these things,” Jack muttered irascibly. “So, before you return to your Claytons hens night, what are we going to do on Saturday to make the day go easier for Cassie?”

Tony shot him an incredulous look, “We?” he said sarcastically. “I’d have thought my organising a stunningly awesome Claytons hen night means I’m off the hook and it is up to you guys to fill the void.”

“You’ve just spent the last fifteen minutes berating Danny and me about how dumb we are? Do you honestly think we should be trusted to come up with a plan to make Cassie feel better about being far from home in the Pegasus galaxy, instead of a bride at her dream wedding?” Jack snarked at him slyly.

Exchanging an exasperated look with the former JAG, Chegwidden chuckled. “He does have a point, Paddington. It would probably be total FUBAR if Dumb and Dumber here organised it.”

Tony threw up his hands in the air, frustratedly. “Fine! A.J. and I with be the brains and you too can do all of the heavy lifting,” he said with a cat who swallowed the canary grin. “All you two have to do is follow orders and move the furniture.”

Ignoring the grumbling from Jack and Daniel, he glanced over at his fellow brains trust. “Any thoughts, Admiral?”

Chegwidden regarded his almost empty plate of food as he considered the situation. “Seeing as how I have a daughter who is of a similar age as Cassie, I would venture a suggestion that we stay right away from doing anything that she may associate with a wedding,” he observed.

“Good thinking. What about if we organise a celebration of the fact that we not only found Colonel Sheppard after all those months in captivity, but we also successfully rescued him without anyone getting injured,” Tony suggested.

“I like it – it will be a good morale booster for the base who was disappointed to get Sheppard back only for him to ship straight out for Cheyenne Mountain, Jack said, “But if we have a dinner celebration, it will still leave her at a loose end for most of the day.”

“True. Okay, what about we do an all-day movie marathon. Kid-friendly family movies in the day or we set up two movie theatres, one G rated the other one for adults. We have a cookout for lunch and dinner so that way, even people on duty get to participate,” he proposed.

A.J. his fellow brains trust said, “Hey, that’s not a bad idea. And perhaps Dumb and Dumber here can organise for anyone who wants, to record a five-minute video message to Colonel Sheppard. Or maybe get Cassie and Vala to organise that,” he suggested helpfully.

Tony grinned. “Sounds like a plan,” he said. “I propose we adopt Project Kill Two Birds with the One Stone. All those in favour, say, Aye,” looking pointedly at the three men who got a clue and said, “Aye.”

“Excellent. The Ayes have it then. I’ll ask Cassie to pick out the movies for the kids – I have a heap to choose from.”

Jack gave him the stink-eye. “If this is some clever ruse to get Cassie to come to your quarters…”

“Don’t be a jackass, General. If you are so concerned then you can chaperone and pick out some movies for the big kids,” Tony told him.

Jack undertook the task of meeting with Ambassador AuClair and Colonel Lorne to get permission to hold their celebratory definitely not a wedding movie marathon and cookout. To be fair as the boss of Homeworld Command, he was the one who should be granting permission. Still, all four men at the table knew he loathed the political machinations involved in his job, including this one. But as Tony pointed out, it would also help to deflect any suspicion that AuClair might have about being kept out of the loop, since they were deliberately keeping him (and the IOA) out of the whole foothold investigation.

Daniel volunteered to ask Rodney to set up the big screens and the tech to play the movies in surround sound.

Tony looked confused, “Why?”

“Why what,” Daniel said?

“Why ask the chief scientific officer to put up a few TV screens and speakers? It’s kinda below his pay grade, isn’t it?”

“But who else could do it?” Daniel asked, nonplussed.

Laughing his ass off, Tony told him, “Probably at least half the privates, corporals or sergeants in this mess, Daniel. Home theatre setups are increasingly common in most homes – hell, I could probably even do it, but I would just talk to Chuck. He’s Atlantis’ Walter O’Reilly. No need to bother the head scientist about doing something so commonplace.”

“And your point, Paddington,” Jack asked because he was sure there was one.

“Just that everyone expects him to handle anything if it’s the slightest bit technical or scientific. Atlantis has heaps of techno-geeks and science geeks running away ready to help but at the first sign of trouble, no matter how trivial, everyone yells for Rodney McKay. It’s completely unnecessary and it runs the risk of him getting burnt out, plus it does nothing to build up the skills of the rest of the geeks, military, and civvies.”

“Okay, fair point. Besides, he isn’t here. He’s gone back to Balara again with a bunch of eggheads to study the database in the Ancient compound inside Mount Zenich.” Jack pointed out.

Daniel said, “Oh that’s right, I forgot he was off-world again. He’s been acting weird.”

“I think he’s feeling kind of guilty for what happened between Colonel Sheppard and Lance Corporal Favre,” Tony observed.

Daniel protested, “But he isn’t to blame.”

Chegwidden disagreed. “Au contraire, Dr Jackson. From what I’ve been told, Dr McKay has been pedalling that dumb shit about the colonel being Captain Kirk for the last eight years. Seems to me that the CSO is an insecure jerk who aspires to be a sex god to women.”

“A.J. is right, if he hadn’t been emoting his feeling so damned loudly, then well over half of the people here wouldn’t believe that guff that Sheppard can’t keep it in his pants. Including that dumb son-of-a-bitch, LCpl Favre,” Tony agreed.

“You have to remember that the guy saying this shit about the military commander is the top civilian on Atlantis, for fuck sake. People respect him, so they pay attention to what he says,” Chegwidden told Daniel.

“Joseph Goebbels, famously said if you tell a lie often enough, then it becomes the truth,” Tony said. “Seeing as he was the chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda, he probably knew what he was talking about.”

“But even if what he said was not true and I agree that it was stupid, you have to support the right to free speech, Gentlemen. As a SEAL, a Judge Advocate General and a lawyer, surely you of all people must appreciate the need to protect free speech, Admiral.” Daniel argued fervently, his ceaseless idealism on display again.

Tony had had a difficult day, between dealing with Teyla’s pain and Sofie’s diary reaching out to them from beyond the grave. He knew how dangerous it was to tell a lie over and over again. It was what happened to rape victims so that even they started to believe that they must have somehow wanted it, therefore it wasn’t really non-consensual, so, not a crime. It was what Lucius Lavin and predators like him did. He was so not in the mood to hear a bunch of bullshit about freedom of speech and poor Dr McKay didn’t mean any harm.

“Rights come with responsibilities, Dr Jackson. We are obligated to understand that free speech comes with consequences, good and bad. When you open your mouth and shit comes out of it, and then other people use what you said to do something illegal, unethical, or morally wrong, even if you can’t be held legally responsible, I think you should be prepared to accept the role your words played in inciting the behaviour,” Tony growled.

“Free speech should never be sacrosanct when it threatens someone else’s existence. Freedom of speech on a military base such as Atlantis under a semi-permanent war footing, especially lies or untruths are hazardous to the personnel, or the facility is a luxury. It cannot be tolerated by the noble principle of free speech, Dr Jackson,” Chegwidden argued.

“If you want to say anything you want, even if it threatens the security of Atlantis, and places other people at risk, go back home where lies don’t imperil the CO or the whole damned base. If people want the privilege of working in the city of the Ancients then accept that they can’t go around saying whatever they damn well, please.

“I guess what I’m saying is that if you value the right to free speech so damned much, then you also have to be prepared to accept that the right comes with responsibilities,” Tony averred. “So, if you run your mouth off without thinking about the consequences, then in my book you also get to feel guilty about it when others use what you said to do bad shit. I’m not gonna pat your hand and tell you it’s not your fault.”

“But Rodney runs off his mouth all the time. It’s just Rodney being Rodney. And he has helped save the world,” Daniel attempted to justify his frenemy’s behaviour.

“Sorry but that is crap, Dr Jackson. Just because someone does something all the time does not give them a free pass. Where is the line here?” Tony demanded heatedly, “Is it okay for a serial killer to kill because, hey it’s who he is and besides, he invented a weapon that saved the world? What about the rights of the people just trying to live their lives, who he killed? Sure, it’s an extreme analogy but sometimes ya gotta go there to tear down a fallacy.”

“Words matter. They matter a fucking lot. Words can foster peace, they can give comfort, they can engender love and they can bring healing to one person or the whole damned world. Words can educate and change attitudes, and that’s a good thing – a necessary thing but we must NEVER lose sight of the fact that words also have a downside. An unbelievably bad downside!” Tony retorted visibly incensed.

“Words can be toxic, they can harm, even destroy others. They can incite hatred, hysteria and fear and trigger terrible wars and insurrections. Words can incite unconscionable violence against others, they can brainwash people and create mindless slaves when employed by individuals who are evil or even just foolish arrogant insecure jerks.

“Never underestimate the power of words, Daniel. Speech is a weapon that can be wielded for good or for evil and no one’s right to say what they think, or feel should be more important than the rights of others to live, safe and sound. Not even if that individual saves the world every other day of the week.”

He pushed back his chair and headed back to his table outside where the four women were listening intently to Tali talking. He was vibrating with fury, and he had to take a few deep breaths as he strode out to the Claytons’ hen party table. Still feeling too angry and not wanting to upset Tali, he spied Dr O’Shea eating with Dr Biro and made a sharp detour towards her table.

“Hey, Doctors, sorry to interrupt your meal but can we get together sometime tomorrow, Aoife? I think I’m going to need your help with an interview of a witness,” he asked, being deliberately vague.

She nodded. “How about if we meet for lunch, or I can check my appointments and let you know in the morning?”

“Lunch sounds fine. Can you come to my office?” he asked her.

“I can do that. I’ll even collect our lunch on the way,” she offered. “Any preferences.”

“Thank Doc, sandwiches and fruit if they have it or salad,” he said, grateful that he was able to turn his thoughts to putting extra nails in Lucius Lavin’s figurative coffin.

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