Gibbs stood in the door and watched Rodney talking to Colonel Sheppard. The man’s hands flew through the air and he stared at Sheppard with such affection that no one could doubt that he adored the colonel. Luckily Sheppard had a better poker face. Either that or the strobe lights, lack of food, nudity and cold had succeeded in wearing him down.

Samas was so disgusted at the idea of symbiotes that couldn’t even take a host that wasn’t weakened that he refused to come back inside Gibbs and was instead terrorizing the last of the symbiotes and a tank of fish. Tony had his six, and Samas trusted him to watch over them. It was funny, but now that Samas had laid queens on both the homeworld and Atlantis, he wasn’t as desperate to keep himself safe. It truly was the future of the onac species the drove him far more than personal survival.

Sheppard looked up. “Gunny,” he said with a slow smile.

“Sir, congratulations on the promotion.”

The smile got a little bigger. “Yep, and I found the only way to get out of a briefing at the Department of Defense to boot. Good times.”

Gibbs laughed. “I hear the generals were very amused by your description of General O’Neill as someone who never listened to reason.”

Rodney jumped into the conversation and Gibbs had to hold down the rolling fury that threatened to send him out of control. “Yes, yes. He’s smart enough to recognize that O’Neill has clearly suffered cognitive defects from all the concussions he’s taken over the years.”

“Now Rodney, I actually like the general, and he’s not bad when he isn’t being a self-professed asshole who can’t forgive.”

O’Neill chuckled. “I resemble that remark.”

Gibbs stepped to the side so that General O’Neill could come in. Thankfully, Rodney’s hatred for O’Neill seemed to override the need to make moon eyes at Colonel Sheppard.

“Sir.” Sheppard pushed himself up higher in bed. “Is there any word on Sergeant Anders yet?”

“No.” O’Neill grimaced. “But the intel on site led us to our leak. They had gotten a snake into Caldwell. They were waiting for word that the Daedalus was to beam you up before they put a snake in your head. From there…” O’Neill shrugged.

“At least Samas is having fun with his revenge,” Gibbs pointed out.

O’Neill gave him a disgusted look. “After seeing what Samas is doing, I wouldn’t let him near my kitchen counter, much less let him in my head. That snake has a mean streak.”

“More than you know,” Gibbs agreed.

“Yes, yes, you are unimpressed with Samas’ logic. You know, removing genetically inferior members of the species is a healthy tactic for a species with as little genetic variation as the onac. The queen that failed to remove one individual – Ra – nearly destroyed the entire species.”

O’Neill did not look impressed, but this was not the subject Gibbs wanted to discuss.

“McKay, did you leave your laptop somewhere?” he asked.

Immediately, the man’s eyes shifted around the room. Gibbs looked at Sheppard, and he had that wary look that meant he was nervous about what Rodney might have done, and he should be.

“Everyone said that NCIS was secure, and I was just taking Tony’s word for that. It was better to leave it in a government building under lock and key than take it into the field unnecessarily.”

Gibbs narrowed his eyes. That was so rehearsed that it sounded a bad line from a dinner theatre.

“Rodney?” Sheppard asked.

“What? I was thinking of operational security.”

“By leaving your computer with a forensic technician who specialized in computers?” Gibbs demanded.

Sheppard pushed himself all the way upright. “You what? Rodney, have you lost your mind?”

“She’s a technician. She doesn’t even have a PhD. Trust me, no one other than me and maybe Radek could crack that computer without destroying every bit of data in the hard drive. Even Samas wouldn’t be able to get past the more creative traps I have on that machine.”

O’Neill sat on the next bed over. “Ya, sure. That’s why I got a call from her at three am telling me I was an egomaniacal asshole for hiding alien invasions from the public. And do I want to know why my personal number is listed in your computer?”

“She cracked it?” Rodney looked honestly shocked. Gibbs narrowed his eyes. He really hadn’t expected Abby to get in, but he had been guilty as hell about leaving the computer there.

O’Neill rubbed a hand over his face without answering.

“Sir, how badly are we compromised?” Sheppard asked softly.

“Well, she called me instead of CNN, so there’s the good news. We beamed a team over, and she seemed more interested in reading Danny the riot act for losing all moral authority the second he went along with the conspiracy. He’ll be in therapy for a few weeks.” From the glare O’Neill shot Rodney’s direction, he was putting the blame for that firmly at Rodney’s feet. “The computer techs say she didn’t copy anything or forward the data, and she kept it separate from the NCIS computers, so we don’t have a breech there. We just have one very intelligent woman who is refusing to sign any nondisclosure agreements.” Now O’Neill turned his glare on Gibbs. He glared right back.

Rodney got on his most stubborn expression. “She’s brilliant. If she can get past the top two layers of encryption on my machine, she’s better than any of the people I have who do have PhDs.”

O’Neill gave him a nasty grin. “Good, because she’s your problem. Have fun taking her with you, Colonel,” O’Neill said before he stood up. “And you might want to get both Scuito and McKay off Earth before I do something I could be demoted for. Or possible given a commendation. It could go either way.” O’Neill went right past Gibbs without saying a word. Gibbs had known the man long enough to know he was truly pissed. McKay sometimes pushed things a little too far, like pulling Abby into the middle of this mess.

“McKay,” he said slowly.

Sheppard immediately reached out and pulled Rodney closer to him. “Now, Gunny, I’m sure it was a mistake.”

“It wasn’t,” Gibbs said firmly. His gut told him that.

Sheppard grimaced. “Okay, probably not, but there is no killing of geeks. That’s a non-negotiable, Gunny.”

Gibbs stared right at Rodney. “Why?”

“Hey, buddy. Gibbs is not going to kill you,” Sheppard said in a reassuring voice. He then gave Gibbs one of those commanding officer looks that made it clear that disobeying that order would not be worth the grief it caused. “What happened, really?”

“She could go back to NCIS if she signed the non-disclosure agreements,” Rodney pointed out. A switch flipped and suddenly his arrogance was back on. He crossed his arms and glared at Gibbs. “She has a choice now.”

Gibbs felt like he’d been hit with cold water. McKay had wanted to give Abby the option of coming to Atlantis. “So you think you know her well enough to put her in this position?”

“I think she’s brilliant.”

“I knew that already,” Gibbs snapped, “but she’s also unconventional and unpredictable. She has no place on a military base.”

“No, but she does in our city. Sheppard wouldn’t treat her the way Ellis or Everett would have.”

“And if the military decides to get its head stuck up its ass again?” Gibbs demanded. That’s the part that was killing him. Abby could be there when they assigned another commanding officer on a power trip.

“Then she signs the agreements and goes home.” Rodney’s mouth curled downward. “You don’t know what it’s like to be smarter than everyone else and to think so fast that the whole world seems to move wrong, and then find the one person that makes all that okay. She had that with you and Tony and Kate. She needed it back.”

Gibbs took a step back, and watched as Sheppard reached out and took Rodney’s had in his.

“I heard the tapes from when Tony talked to her. I couldn’t leave her there.” Rodney lifted his chin, and Gibbs could see that he would never get McKay to believe anything different. The man had arrogantly made this unilateral decision, and nothing Gibbs did would undo the harm or even convince Rodney to understand his mistake. Abby would feel trapped by all the rules, by the military structure, by the fact that she would be cut off from the nuns, from bowling, from her clubs and her music. This would kill her, and he and Tony wouldn’t be able to stop it. But fucking McKay would still be convinced of his own rightness.

Gibbs turned and landed a punch in the middle of a machine. The metal yielded, and Gibbs could feel a few small bones in his hand break. Immediately Sheppard was up out of bed, his hospital gown not even reaching his bony knees.

A nurse appeared at the door, her eyes wide.

“Stand down, Gunny,” Sheppard ordered.

Gibbs took a step back. “Keep him away from my people,” Gibbs said. He would have said more, only too many words threatened to tumble out at once. Rodney was behind Sheppard now.

“Understood, Gunny. Rodney was out of line, but we will deal with this on Atlantis.”

“So, you’re letting her move to another galaxy?”

“I think I was just ordered to take her to another galaxy,” Sheppard said. “Funny enough, I wasn’t so sure about that trip myself when I found out about it, and I’m willing to bet you had a few doubts.”

Neither Gibbs nor Samas had carried a single doubt with them through the gate. Death was better than a life under guard.

“Give her a chance so see what we’re doing, and if nothing else, she’ll come back understanding why you need to be out there.” Sheppard took a step forward, his hand still braced on the bed. Gibbs could see Rodney’s hand resting against Sheppard’s waist, probably steadying him. The man should be in bed, and he wasn’t because Gibbs wasn’t controlling his temper.

“Yes sir,” he agreed, taking another step back and forcing his fists to unclench. “Permission to take Samas off the science roster until I can work in the same room with Dr. McKay without wanting to hit him?”

Sheppard leaned against the bed. “Permission granted, Gunny. Hey Rodney, you stole my gunny from me, and now I’m stealing your Samas. I love karma.”

“You idiot. Get in bed before you fall down.” Rodney came out from behind Sheppard, and Gibbs turned around and walked off before he gave in to the temptation to punch the man. Rodney meant well, Gibbs understood that, but sometimes, he really pushed things too damn far. Today was one of those days.

Gathering up the tattered remains of his control, Gibbs took several deep breaths before he headed for VIP quarters where Abby had been housed until they all shipped out to Atlantis. At least he got to see his girl again. He just wished that she didn’t have to give up everything so he could have that right.

 

Gibbs stood outside the VIP quarters where General O’Neill had left Abby. She had lost everything, and she was under guard in the middle of the most secure facility in the nation. He’d never wanted this for her. After taking a deep breath, he reached up and knocked. The door opened, and then Gibbs was hit with all five foot ten inches of manic Abby.

“Gibbs! Gibbs, Gibbs, it’s really you!” The force of her impact drove Gibbs back until he hit the other side of the corridor. The guard looked alarmed for a second, his hand on his weapon, but then he smiled and went back to a parade rest. “Where's Tony?” Abby demanded, her legs around Gibbs’ waist.

“Good to see you too, Abby.”

She dropped to the floor and hit him on the arm. “Of course it’s good to see you. You already know I think that, and you’re all about not saying things that don’t need to be said. So you’re here safe and sound, so now I have to worry about Tony.”

Abby logic. Gibbs had missed that more than almost anything else on earth. “I left him guarding someone important.”

“Ooh. Who? Is it someone like the President? I bet the President knows all about this, doesn't he?” She bounced on her toes.

Gibbs had no idea which question to answer first. “I’m sure the President does know about this, but he has his own Secret Service.”

“Yeah, but you and Tony are better. You’re the best. That’s why you’re involved in all this, right? And now I’m involved too!” She smiled, and Gibbs felt a pain just under his ribs. Abby kept bouncing on the balls of her feet, several inches shorter without her platform shoes.

"If you insist on joining a military expedition, they're going to put a lot of restriction on you--on what you wear and how you act," Gibbs said in his most neutral voice. He needed to be careful to avoid pushing Abby too much or she'd set in her heels and insist on doing the opposite.

She nodded. "That's what General O'Neill said, but then he said that since the commanding officer of the expedition only follows the regulations about dress about half the time, that was probably not much of a problem as it would have been last month. Is Colonel Sheppard really that unmilitary? I mean, I know there are lots of unmilitary people in the military, but usually they don't get all the way up to colonel. They get stuck at about captain."

Gibbs couldn't argue any of that. "Colonel Sheppard is more laid back than most, but the last two commanders have been very by the book. They would have insisted on you wearing the expedition uniform and complying with every part of the dress code. Sheppard may have some flexibility, but he will still expect you to wear the uniform."

"Why?" Abby asked with that perfect childlike innocence she still had, despite all the horrible things she'd seen. Gibbs loved her for that ability to never lose her inner child, but at the same time it made dealing with her difficult at times. She had no business in a war zone, and she certainly was not prepared for the realities of the Pegasus galaxy.

"Everyone wears a uniform."

"Yeah, but I'm not everyone." Abby grinned, and Gibbs really had to rein in his temper. He was going to find a way to make Rodney pay for this. Often. However, Gibbs knew when he had lost a battle, so he didn't answer, choosing to retain his ammunition for the coming war. “Can we go find Tony? Then the three musketeers will be together again. Do you think Ducky would take a job with the expedition?”

“No,” Gibbs said firmly. “He has his mother to worry about.” And Gibbs had no intention of telling Ducky anything about the mission. Ducky had done his years of active duty assignments. He’d been far more involved in espionage than most people knew, and even Gibbs wouldn’t know except that he had spotted one or two tells over the years. Ducky probably would feel obligated to defend his world, and the man shouldn't have to. “Let’s go find Tony,” he suggested as he took her elbow and started guiding her down the hallway. It was better to distract her than argue directly. Too late Gibbs realized that he had just offered to take Abby to where Samas was swimming. General O’Neill had brought Samas back to earth to get the symbiote out of Colonel Caldwell.

After finding the Trust’s symbiotes, Samas had been far too angry to come back inside. The younger symbiotes the System Lords were putting out were more and more likely to carry gross genetic defects. Between the fact the queens had been essentially leashed and the fact that human DNA had been introduced to symbiote larva to make them compatible with Jaffa physiology, symbiotes were growing weaker and more corrupt with every generation. Samas could rarely contain his fury when he had to come into contact with these pathetic onac.

They got in the elevator, and the SGC guard assigned to Abby followed them on. "So," Abby said, "I know why you'd want to join this fight, but what are you doing, exactly? What kind of investigations are we looking at out there?"

"DiNozzo's the Agent Afloat. I'm the gunnery sergeant."

"Really?" Abby turned her sharp gaze on him. "Not that you're not awesome because you're my silver fox so of course you're awesome, but don't they have someone on active duty to do the Marine stuff, Gibbs?"

Leave it to Abby to go straight for the heart of the problem. The woman was too sharp by half. Of course, if that weren't true, she wouldn't have found a way to break McKay's security protocols.

"Gibbs?" she prompted him again as the elevator stopped on their floor. They were only two short corridors away from the biology lab, and Gibbs needed to find a way to explain Samas.

"It's complicated. I was a security risk, and they reactivated my commission to contain the risk." That was such a cold description of a very heated reality. Gibbs' own government had come damn close to dissecting him... Either that or they would have locked him away for life with no trial, no chance to defend himself. He'd understood the risks when he'd invited Samas to first join with him, but back then nothing had mattered. With Shannon and Kelly gone, Gibbs didn't care if he died. The problem was that he'd started caring in the years since then. He cared about the fact that first Tony and now Abby were getting pulled into the mess that he'd started.

"But..." Abby narrowed her eyes. "Gibbs?" Right in the middle of the hall, she stopped and crossed her arms. "Spill it, mister."

Gibbs stopped and glanced toward the guard. The man was carefully not looking at anything, so the SGC clearly didn’t have any rules about keeping Abby away from any additional information. There was no way around it--Gibbs was going to have to have this discussion in public.

"Has anyone told you about goa'uld?"

"No..."

"They're a parasitic species that burrows into the brain and takes over the host. They have used humans for thousands of years."

She wrinkled her nose. "That sounds awful. Does it kill the host?"

Gibbs wished that were true. "No. The host is locked inside his body and can't control it."

"And what do goa'uld do?" Abby's quicksilver brain was clearly already working overtime. She had that expression on her face like when Gibbs brought her a particularly difficult piece of evidence.

"Enslave millions," Gibbs offered. He didn't add that they had all but destroyed their own species.

Abby grimaced. "Oh. Not good. McKay's laptop had more stuff about the Wraith and how they eat people. People are getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop here, aren't they?"

"Yep," Gibbs agreed. He turned to head down the corridor.

"Which doesn't explain why the government would think you were a security risk," Abby said, circling right back around to where they started.

Gibbs honestly tried to find a way to present the truth. "The goa'uld are one branch of a species called onac," he started, but he wasn’t sure where to go from there.

"And there are less evil versions of the parasites?" Abby asked.

Gibbs felt a flash of resentment at the word parasite. Yes, goa'uld were, but their species had never been designed to exist parasitically. Samas' pain over that had sunk into Gibbs' very bones. "Tok'ra are parasites that are trying to stop the goa'uld for about the last two thousand years, but the original species was symbiotic and only lived in hosts for short periods of time."

"Whoa. Then something is seriously hinky because symbiotic and parasitical relationships are completely different. I mean, I'm not a biologist, but that seems like a pretty major difference."

"It is," Gibbs agreed.

"And you're telling me this because you want me to know that not all the onac are parasitic, so I'm guessing that all this not telling me stuff is about not telling me about something related to a non-parasitic onac," Abby guessed. In her own twisted way, she had landed exactly on the truth.

Gibbs stopped again. He honestly didn't know how to finish this conversation, but at this rate, Abby was going to figure it out on her own. Maybe that was for the best. Or maybe he should have the guard escort her to where Tony was watching over Samas. Tony could handle her.

"Hey," Abby said softly. "You can tell me anything. Even if you were going to tell me you had a symbiotic onac in you, I wouldn't stop calling you my silver fox."

Gibbs' gaze snapped right to Abby.

"Which I'm assuming is true because everyone says you're not talkative, although the words 'functional mute' are usually used. But you aren't... not with me. You talk about lots of stuff like the nuns and my bowling game and my crappy taste in men. But right now you're doing a lot of not talking."

"Not easy, Abbs," Gibbs confessed. She always had made it easy for him to let down his guard.

She smiled at him. "Nope," she agreed. She flashed him a handsign. "Is he here now?" she asked in ASL.

"No," Gibbs signed back. "He's swimming."

Abby's whole face lit with pleasure, although Gibbs wasn't sure if she was excited at the idea of an alien or if she was happy at guessing right.

"Do you like him?" Abby signed.

"He's a good man," Gibbs answered. The guard was starting to shift nervously, so Gibbs switched over to spoken English. "His name is Samas. He's several thousand years old."

Her eyes got large. "Really?"

Gibbs nodded.

"Oh my god. That's amazing. That's totally amazing. I'm so completely excited about meeting my first alien."

"You've already met him."

"I have?" She frowned.

Gibbs reached the door to the biology lab and took out his security badge to scan it. "I met Samas when I was in Colombia. He didn't know that the US military had reopened the Stargate. He thought he was trapped on Earth, so he stayed with me."

"Oh my god. That means he was with you the whole time I've known you. How often did he come to work with you?"

"Pretty often," Gibbs admitted.

Abby was grinning like a loon. "Did he ever talk to me?"

Gibbs didn't answer right away. Samas no longer used the reverberating voice with those from Atlantis, but he wasn't sure the Earth people were ready to accept that. "Sometimes," he signed in ASL. The he slid his card through the reader and the lock disengaged. Gibbs pulled it open and waited until she had gone through before following.

She caught his arm and leaned into him as they walked between . "Cool," she said. "I think I'm going to like this new world of yours Gibbs."

"This isn't a game Abby. If you don't sign that release and go home, you're going to be in danger."

"Um..." Abby cleared her throat and looked down at the floor.

"Abby?" Gibbs demanded.

"I told the director, which was totally embarrassing, but I'm not ignoring the problem, but I just think it might be better if I got a little bit of distance."

Gibbs knew immediately that something was really wrong. "From what?"

"Just some boyfriend trouble." The light and airy way she said it made all the hairs on the back of Gibbs' neck stand up.

"Abbs."

She held out for a second before her expression crumpled. "Okay, so he might have been involved in a murder, but he might not have been because he cleans up after crime scenes, so he might have just... can we skip this part? Because honestly, he hasn't bothered me since the last time I moved."

"You had to move?" Gibbs could feel his blood pressure rise.

"Um, a couple of times. He was leaving me gifts that were a little disturbing, but on the good side, he will totally not be passing the psych tests needed to go to another galaxy." She gave him a huge smile, and Gibbs could feel a cold rage rising.

"What did Director Sheppard do about this?"

"Um, she pressed charges when he stole medical waste and staged a crime scene to get my attention. He's on parole now, but it's really hard to prove that he's breaking the protective order I took out."

Gibbs closed his eyes and counted to ten. Abby might be brilliant, but there were times when she didn't see things that were right in front of her. How many murder cases had he worked where some guy was obsessed? Abby was in serious trouble, but she was joking about it. If Gibbs weren't confined to base, he would go to the Navy Yard and have a few words with Jenny. Luckily for Jenny, there were several hundred Marines with orders to keep him on base.

"So where's Tony?" Abby asked with a false sort of cheerfulness. She’d been in a bad situation, Gibbs could tell that. If worse came to worse, Gibbs could go talk to SG19 and ask them to take an interest in this boyfriend of Abby’s. Tony had been very impressed with their work.

Right now Abby needed support. Despite her relentless energy, he could see how their conversation drained her. "Through there, near the open tanks," Gibbs said. He nodded to where he could see Tony’s shadow as he sat near one of the tanks, dangling his fingers in the water. He and Samas were playing keep away with Tony’s blood. Abby went up on her toes to kiss his cheek and then she ran down the center of the room calling “Tony!”

“Gunny, should I inform the general that someone needs a special visit?” the guard asked.

Gibbs looked over, surprised at the man’s candor.

“The general would not approve of letting a geek go undefended. Protect the geek and don’t let aliens on the planet, those are the two commandments that every SGC soldier learns or he gets a quick transfer out.” The guard waited, a serious expression on his face.

Gibbs turned to see Tony swinging Abby in a circle. “I get the feeling that she’s going to be somewhere this guy will never find her. She’s safe.” Tony put Abby down, and then he pointed to the water. Gibbs watched as Abby dropped to her knees next to tank. Tony crouched down and leaned into her.

Safe.

She wasn’t, not in Pegasus, but apparently she wasn’t safe in the Milky Way either. Gibbs just had to find a way to protect her, and part of that meant that making sure the military didn’t move Colonel Sheppard again. If the Air Force sent someone else like Ellis, Abby would suffer. Well Gibbs just needed to make sure that didn’t happen. God knows Samas had been in favor of much more direct action with Ellis, and maybe next time Gibbs wouldn’t argue against it.

John stepped through the wormhole and took a deep breath. For the first time in months, he felt whole, as if he’d left some vital part of himself in Atlantis and he had just now found it.

“Colonel on deck!” Someone called, and rows of marines and airmen all saluted.

John figured he had a reputation to live up to. “So, I guess none of you managed to sink the city,” he joked. Familiar faces grinned back at him, but some of the new faces took on that look of utter neutrality that generally meant that they didn’t know what to think of whatever officer stood in front of them.

Elizabeth smiled at him as she came down the stairs. “We’ve managed,” she said. Teyla followed a step behind, her smile even warmer. John could feel his breath catch in his breath as he saw the women. These were his family.

Rodney hit John with a shoulder as he passed. “If anyone is doing any experiment that might sink the city, they’d better stop now before I find out. I’ll be the labs.” He strode off so fast that if John didn’t know better, he’d say that Rodney had completely forgotten that they’d decided to have a relationship. Hopefully that wasn’t the case because John could only have the whole emotionally honest conversation so many times before he choked on the words.

“At ease,” John told his soldiers. His. They were his and he was back. He was grinning like an idiot, but he couldn’t seem to stop. It wasn’t quite how he’d pictured addressing his troops on his first big assignment as a colonel, not that he’d expected to get this high up in the ranks. “I’m glad to see familiar faces, and I’m sure I’ll get to know every one of you in the near future. After all, this is a small city, and we all have to work together. So for right now, you all have work to do,” John told them. “Dismissed.”

The lines broke, and quite of few of the men and women John knew nodded at him, smiling as they headed for the transporters.

“John. I am pleased to have you home,” Teyla said, and something in her expression told him that she meant that down to the core of her being. It couldn’t have been easy for her to try and deal with Ellis. When she reached him, she leaned forward, and he met her halfway, touching foreheads.

“I’m happy to be home,” he said when he straightened up.

For several seconds, she looked into his eyes, her hand rested against his arm. “Many of us rejoice to have you home again, and to have you wearing a ranking to show the respect your world has for you. This will reassure many of the good will of Earth. However, I am very busy and I find that time is running short. You will have to excuse me.”

“Oh. Sure,” John said. He felt a little stab of worry that Teyla didn’t want to spend time with him. However, she smiled at him and squeezed his arm before she offered a nod.

“I shall see you again soon,” she said before she turned and headed out.

“She’s planning something big,” Elizabeth said, and she gave John a cryptic smile and wink that let him know it was some big secret.

“Should I worry?”

Elizabeth laughed. “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” she said. “I assume you know Major Lorne,” Elizabeth said, which was an odd sort of arrangement. A civilian was formally introducing him to his own second in command. John suspected that wasn’t normal.

Major Lorne stood to one side, looking all spit and polish. John recognized him from his file photograph, but honestly John had figured the man would relax when he didn't have an Air Force photographer pointing a camera at him. Not so much. He was all starch and straight lines. This could be interesting. "Colonel, it's good to meet you," Lorne said, giving John a smile and a small nod.

"You too, Major. So, you're one of General O'Neill's?"

"Yes, sir. Ever since he was Colonel O'Neill. I've been on geek duty a few times, so I think he hoped I would keep the geeks safe and stop any future rebellions." Lorne gave a small shrug to suggest he didn't know how he'd done on that front. While no one had taken the gate hostage, John did know there were deep divisions and many of the geeks were wildly unhappy, none of which was Lorne's fault.

"Well good job on not driving the geeks into open warfare."

"I do my best, sir," Lorne said, and John was guessing that was as close as Lorne would come to saying that it wasn't easy when Ellis seemed to be driving them toward that very goal. John slapped Lorne on the arm in a manly show of support.

John turned back to Elizabeth. "I assume we're having a command staff meeting later."

She laughed. "Of course. I know how you've missed my meetings."

"The very highlight of my day is listening to Rodney rant about the broken waterlines in a greenhouse," John said dryly, but the fact was that he did miss that. He missed knowing everything about Atlantis, knowing which parts of the grand old dame were being slowly brought back to life and even listening to Rodney rant. Sometimes John could almost imagine that Atlantis was amused by Rodney's passion for her.

"I'll make sure to bring up some plan to give archeology more resources. I'm sure we can get Rodney to rant for you," she teased. With a smile, she turned and headed up the stairs, leaving John with his new second in command.

John really hoped that this worked. He wasn't much for playing nice with others, but it wasn't because he hadn't wanted to play nice. It just seemed like his version of playing nice seemed to piss off other officers.

Plastering on his best ‘everyone loves me grin,’ John asked, "So, any issues I should know about?"

"Nothing of immediate concern." Lorne's voice had that telling neutrality that John had used with his own superior officers far too often for him to miss it.

"Anything of secondary concern?" John asked. Lorne gave a small twitch. "Major?" John asked in a sharper tone. He didn't want to have some second who was always trying to play games with him. As a champion game player, he knew how much grief junior officers could give commanders.

Lorne seemed to let a tiny bit of starch out of his spine. "It's nothing major, sir. We just have a few divisions I've noted among the Marines.”

John sighed. He had to expect that the Marines who came later wouldn't have the same respect for Atlantis geeks. "Walk with me," he said as he headed toward the transporters. Lorne followed without comment. "Geeks versus goons?" John guessed as they reached the transporter. He went inside, and for a second, he ran his hand over the familiar controls and let himself feel the intense relief of knowing he was home. However, the major was watching, so John chose a destination and tried to play it cool.

Lorne only answered when they came out in a new corridor. John had chosen a fairly quiet part of Atlantis so they had some privacy. "No sir," Lorne said. "More Everett's Marines versus Ellis' Marines versus yours, and can I say, sir, your Marines are not amused by what they consider sub-par performance during training."

John groaned. "Well, crap."

"That's about it, sir. I think they take a sort of perverse pleasure out of telling the rest of us how quickly we would have died if we'd been here during your first year."

John could imagine how much experienced soldiers from the SGC would appreciate that. The worst part was that John would probably agree in private. The problem with Ellis and Everett was that they tried to treat Pegasus like a traditional war zone. When aliens got boots on Earth, every alarm in the entire complex went off. On the other hand, every soldier could go home and feel secure walking to the park without a weapon.

Pegasus didn't have that luxury. Enemies were everywhere, and you just had to get used to it. The first wave hadn't even expected to go home, so they were all a special brand of crazy and they'd accepted that faster than John had anticipated. But these new guys were like their commanders... they thought they could wage a war instead of running a city. John had read every report, and he could see the mistakes in their approach, even if, as a major, he had no way to get anyone to listen to him.

Well to be fair, the general listened, but with the IOC backing Ellis, General O'Neill had been limited in what he could do. He refused to micromanage Ellis. At the time, that had driven John crazy, but now he appreciated that he had a commanding officer who wouldn't get involved unless John really fucked up big, and Ellis had. He'd fucked up huge.

"Who's in charge of training?" John asked as he walked the familiar hallways.

Lorne named a sergeant that John only recognized from the file. He was a solid man, but he was SGC trained, so he had a certain way of doing things.

John turned so he could watch Lorne. "Gibbs is head NCO," he said. When Lorne looked relieved, John might have adored the man just a little. At least his second appreciated what Gibbs and Samas brought to the table, even if General O'Neill tended to look a little constipated when people mentioned the name. John new one way to teach his people a few lessons. "Have Gibbs and Teyla set up some training sessions. Make sure that you get a nice mix of first wave Marines and the ones who came later."

Lorne gave him a conspiratorial grin. "So, let your Marines kick the SGC Marines in the ass, sir?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," John agreed. He did love making his point clear without having to call people stupid to their faces. No one could keep up with Gibbs when he had Samas with him, and Teyla was a special brand of scary all her own. The first wave folk could minimize how badly they got beat on, but John was guessing these SGC guys were going to discover a whole new level of pain and humiliation as a ninety pound woman and a fifty year old man kicked their asses.

"I'll go make that happen," Lorne said, which seemed like a pretty subtle way of asking to be dismissed. John nodded and Lorne turned and headed back toward the transporter.

For a second, John stood in the hall and rested his hand against the wall. "Hey old girl. Miss me?" John asked quietly. Yeah, it was stupid to talk to a giant flying city-ship, but talking to inanimate objects was the least significant of John’s many mental disorders. There was something seriously wrong with him because he hadn’t even contacted his birth family, and yet he could feel the immediate relief of being back with Rodney and Elizabeth and Teyla. They were home. They were family.

If the Air Force knew how much he loved them all in his own dysfunctional way, they’d pull him from the posting because they would never trust him to make logical decisions without being overly influenced by his need to protect his people.

“There you are.”

John whirled around to find Rodney standing behind him with a lifesigns detector. “Yeah, here I am.”

Rodney narrowed his eyes and studied John. “Okay, what weird thing do you have under all that stupid hair?” Rodney demanded.

In that moment, John loved Rodney so much that he couldn’t even catch his breath. Let the world turn around them, but Rodney was his constant. Without giving Rodney a chance to say a word, John strode forward and caught Rodney up in an awkward hug with Rodney’s arm caught between their bodies. After a second of stiff surprise, Rodney leaned in and tilted his head back. John kissed him hard. He had no time for slow starts or careful exploration—he simply crushed his mouth against Rodney’s until he could hear Rodney moan.

When John started shoving Rodney toward a wall, Rodney fisted his jacket. They hit the wall harder than John intended and Rodney gave a little grunt. Before John could apologize, Rodney had slid his hand behind John’s neck and he pulled him closer.

Then Rodney must have stashed the LSD somewhere because he forced his other hand down the front of John’s pants where he awkwardly fumbled in search of John’s cock. At least, that’s what John assumed he was doing. John was a little distracted kissing Rodney so hard that the man would forget his own name. Given the way Rodney kept twitched his body and how he was now pulling John’s hair, John thought he was on the right track.

Rodney opened his mouth farther, and John sucked on his lower lip before thrusting his tongue into John’s mouth. There was nothing slow or gentle—only the hunger of two men who had waited too fucking long. Rodney pulled at John’s hair hard enough to force John’s head to the side and then Rodney’s tongue pressed into his mouth.

John clung to Rodney’s arm and rocked his hips forward against Rodney’s trapped body. He could feel his hard cock fighting the tight uniform pants. Then Rodney’s fingers found their way past John’s underwear and those long, talented fingers started working the shaft of John’s cock.

“Shit,” John cursed. Rodney took the opportunity to nip at the curved arch of John’s neck. John panted as his desire started to turn into a white-hot need to come. Now. He pressed his knee between Rodney’s legs and thrust slowly into Rodney’s leg, humping him. It was undignified and awkward and so utterly perfect that John almost came at the first thrust.

Rodney finally let go of John’s hair and grabbed his ass, pulling their bodies closer together, and then Rodney was humping him. Rodney moaned his approval and widened his legs, his hand still shoved down John’s pants. John gave a brief thought of returning the favor, but he was afraid they both might fall over. John’s hands flat against the wall on either side of Rodney’s head was about all that was keeping him from tumbling over.

However, John didn’t have time to consider any other strategy because Rodney had been altering the angle of his body and his thrusts in tiny increments, and suddenly he found the sweet spot. He cried out, and his hand tightened around John’s cock.

John cursed and arched his back as flashes of light went off behind his closed eyelids. Rodney made rough sounds that John assumed were his own version of happiness. His thrusts grew faster, and John grunted as he tried to avoid being the first to come. It was a close thing. Rodney was grinding himself against John and suddenly he jerked and went still, his whole body tight. Only then did John let go of his own iron control and come. He could a drop of his semen slide down his inner leg, and he could only slump forward, hands still braced on the wall as he gasped for air.

John wasn’t even a little comfortable. He was in a public place with the cold wall under his palm when he really wanted to feel Rodney, to run his hands over Rodney’s hard angles and soft curves. However, as much as it had been rough and uncomfortable, it had been oddly perfect. John could feel the hard knots of muscle loosen as his whole body relaxed.

“I can do better than that,” Rodney muttered.

“Much better and you’ll break me. Then you’ll have to explain to Teyla how you broke me,” John pointed out.

There was a brief pause, and then Rodney shoved at him. “Idiot,” he said fondly. “You’re just lucky I have a soft spot for that hair or I would never put up with you.”

“Right,” John said, nodding his head as he pushed himself back from the wall so he stood straight. He definitely needed to find somewhere to sit and a fresh uniform. “It’s all about the hair.”

Rodney snorted. “So why did you come down this hall?” he asked.

John shrugged. “I wanted some privacy. These corridors are quiet.”

“Abandoned,” Rodney corrected him.

“Okay,” John agreed. Rodney clearly had something going on in his brain, and that usually meant that it was just easier to go along.

“There are some living quarters around here.”

“Uh huh.”

“Nice ones.”

John gave Rodney a sharp look.

“Okay, fine. Maybe I had my eye on a few rooms over here, but I needed some place away from all the stupid people because Ellis kissed Kavanagh’s ass and approved scientists who had no business being on Atlantis, and I couldn’t deal with him.” With an angry huff, Rodney turned and walked off down the hall.

Not even sure what they were talking about, John followed. “Rodney?” he asked when Rodney stopped in front of a dead panel.

“Idiots. I’ve spent months putting up with idiots because of the American military. They don’t pay me enough.”

“I’m pretty sure you could buy a small country with your back pay,” John pointed out.

Rodney grunted and pulled out a crystal. There was some sort of plastic piece on the end, and Rodney pulled it off before plugging it in again. Rodney ran his hand over the sensor and the door opened. “These are some sort of family quarters. Two or three bedrooms attach to one main room,” he said as he walked in. John stopped as he saw the room. There was a balcony that ran the length of the main room, and the curtain stirred in the breeze. This tower was on the edge of the city, so they had an uninterrupted view of the ocean as it stretched out to the horizon. Rodney’s work projects were spread over several tables he’d clearly pulled in, and two couches were pushed up against the walls.

“You did all this?”

“Tony helped,” Rodney said. “I rigged the sensors to show me in a lab in the west tower, and I get an alarm if anyone is looking for my lifesign.”

Rodney sank down into one of the chairs and fingered the delicate machinery that lay in pieces on the table. “When you came here, I thought maybe you knew.”

John shook his head. “Nope. I just wanted a little privacy to get my mind wrapped around the idea that I’m home.”

Rodney grinned at him. “You know, I do my best work when I have the space to spread out properly,” he suggested.

“Oh?” John leaned against the table and canted to the side with one hip thrust out. He knew it was a damn good “fuck me” posture. If he was lucky, Rodney might take him up on the offer.

Rodney looked him up and down. “Definitely. And the bedrooms up here have real beds.”

“I think you should show me,” John said.

“I think I could show you a lot,” Rodney said with a sort of bravado that John found absolutely endearing.

“That sounds like a plan.” John started unbuttoning his jacket. He didn’t need to walk the halls in a wrinkled uniform that looked like it’d been torn off during really enthusiastic sex. As it was, a tiny spot of semen had soaked through the fabric, although John assumed that people weren’t going to be looking at his crotch. Hopefully.

“When do you have to be back?” Rodney asked.

“Not until the staff meeting at three.”

Rodney’s smile got wider. “Oh yeah. I can work with that.”

John could feel his cock give a little twitch. To hell with recovery time, he was ready to go.

John leaned against the door and looked into Elizabeth's office. She looked wearier than he remembered, which was ironic considering that the last time he'd seen her, they'd been dealing with a Wraith siege. “You ready for our meeting?” John asked.

Elizabeth looked up from her computer and smiled. “John. You're early.”

“No time like the present,” he said with a shrug. Elizabeth pushed her computer to the side, so John took that as an invitation. “I thought I might take some time to figure out what's changed other than I really love having my very own major.”

Elizabeth chuckled. “Rodney and Teyla think very highly of Major Lorne.”

“Hey, he actually likes paperwork, or at least he likes finishing it and getting it off his desk, so I think he's nifty-keeno,” John said as he sat across the desk from her.

Elizabeth smiled until the sides of her eyes crinkled up. “I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone describe him like that, but I'm glad you like him.”

“I like General O'Neill, so it stands to reason I'd like the guy O'Neill picked for me as a second.” John let the grin slide off his face, and he could see Elizabeth immediately react and become more serious. “I want to go check out the planet where Lorne spotted Lieutenant Ford.”

With a sigh, Elizabeth leaned back in her chair. “The chances are that he ran the second he saw the uniforms, John.”

“But that means there's still a small chance he's there. After all, there can't be too many planets around here that have enough radiation to cook any sort of electronic devices. If it were me, I'd set up a permanent supply depot there and travel off world where the radiation wouldn't kill me as quickly before coming back.”

Elizabeth nodded. “But if that's the case, you're going to have to establish some way to track the wormhole. Otherwise you'll spend weeks searching the jungle and never find him.”

John felt the relief wash through him. He was back, and Elizabeth wasn't saying no the way most of his other commanders had. She just wanted him to think it through. “I thought about asking Rodney to put some sort of alarm on the gate, something that would warn us when it was being used and someone would likely be near it.”

“That sounds like a good idea.” She gave him a sympathetic smile. “We'll find him, John.”

“Yes,” John said firmly, “we will. So, can I escort you to the meeting?” he asked, grandly holding out his arm for her.

She laughed and stood. “Why thank you so much, good sir.” She took his arm in one hand and gathered up her computer in the other.

“So, who's coming to command staff meeting now?” John asked. In the past, it had been Bates, him, Elizabeth, Rodney and Teyla, but Bates was gone and John hadn't seen a lot of Teyla since she'd welcomed him back to the city. Now that he thought about it, that was a little strange, but he’d had his hands full with Rodney and Lorne, although clearly in very different ways.

Elizabeth's voice was suddenly more distant. “Major Lorne and yourself, me, and Rodney.”

John stopped and because Elizabeth was holding his arm, she stopped with him. “Not Teyla?” he asked.

“Colonel Ellis felt it was inappropriate.” Elizabeth's mouth twisted.

“Who keeps track of Pegasus natives on Atlantis?”

“Either Rodney or myself,” Elizabeth said.

“And do you want to keep doing that?” Suddenly John didn't know where he stood. He hated the idea of cutting Teyla out, but he also didn't want to go head-to-head with Elizabeth on his first full day back to work.

The façade of pleasantness that Elizabeth had been tending just sort of collapsed. “God, no,” she said wearily. “I didn't want to change the security protocols without you, but if you want her back...” She looked at him with undisguised hope.

She didn't have time to finish because John was hitting his radio. “Major Sheppard to Teyla.”

“I am here,” Teyla answered, serene as ever even though John suspected she must be fuming about being cut out.

“We're having a command meeting if you'd like to join us.”

There was a brief pause before she answered in that same calm voice, “I would. I shall be there shortly.”

Elizabeth smiled at him, and John decided to push things one step farther. “So, how would you feel about having my chief NCO in the meeting to talk about how things look from the trenches?” John asked. Technically Lorne knew as much as Gibbs, but Gibbs had an insight into things and he had a five thousand year old passenger. John never would have invited the Genii onto the city, but Samas' decision just might have saved their lives. Ladon had been instrumental in helping fight the Wraith.

“I hadn't anticipated that, but Bates did always come to our meetings, didn't he?”

“Yep,” John agreed. “I know you and Samas haven't always seen eye to eye, but he has some good insights as well.”

When Elizabeth pulled her hand away, John thought he had made an error, but she pursed her lips and seemed to think about it. “He was one of my biggest supporters when first Everett and then Ellis tried to cut me out. I was frankly surprised at the amount of effort he put into backing my claim to the city.”

“He's always wanted us to stand on our own feet, not beg Earth for some corner to play in,” John pointed out. Samas was rather uncomplicated that way.

Slowly, Elizabeth nodded. “Then let's invite them. This is a new start, and it's time to make different decisions.” John had been prepared to call, but Elizabeth touched her radio. “Dr. Weir to Samas,” she called. John watched as she listened to the response. She then said, “We have a command meeting beginning in five minutes in the main conference room. I wanted to invite you and Gunnery Sergeant Gibbs to attend.” Her smile grew wider. “I shall look forward to it. Dr. Weir out.” She touched the radio again.

“You invited Samas?” John asked. Technically Samas wasn't in charge of anything. It was Gibbs as the NCO that might warrant an invitation.

She shrugged. “He's been unwelcome enough that I thought he needed an explicit invitation to come up here. Colonel Ellis was not pleased that Samas was asked to come back to earth to deal with Colonel Caldwell's symbiote.”

“General O'Neill was even less pleased when he saw what Samas did when he found the goa'uld,” John admitted. “It was a little gross.”

“I have heard Rodney describe Samas' cannibalism in ways that sometimes concern me,” Elizabeth admitted. She stopped at the entrance to the conference room, and John stopped to allow her to go first. She gave him a small smile and went inside.

“In his defense, he tells everyone that story. Wait. That may not have actually been defending him,” John said.

“Defending who?” Rodney asked as he charged into the room without looking up. A little part of John had been prepared to try and cover for Rodney’s stammering and blushing and generally screwing up as he tried to keep their relationship a secret. Instead, Rodney was just Rodney.

“You and your weird admiration for Samas’ ability to eat members of his own species when they disappoint him,” John offered.

In true Gibbs fashion, Gibbs chose that exact moment to show up, although Samas was in charge. “I do not eat disappointing onac; I vomit them back out,” Samas announced primly. Gibbs could never pull off that attitude, but Samas did excel at it. “Colonel Sheppard.” Samas tilted his head in John’s direction.

“Samas, Gunny,” John said, greeting both. He didn’t comment on the fact that Samas chose a seat as far away from Rodney as he could before standing behind it. Major Lorne came out of the transporter with Teyla, and John smiled at both of them before claiming his own chair next to Rodney who was buried in his computer. John suspected that he was trying to avoid looking at Gibbs. Yeah, what Rodney did with Abby was wrong, but Gibbs was taking his grudge a little too far. John made a mental note to have Tony smooth a few edges there.

Teyla greeted him with, “John, I am pleased to return to this council.”

“You never should have been off,” John said. Teyla gave him an amused look, Gibbs/Samas snorted, and Elizabeth gave him a small smile. Only Lorne avoided showing any sort of disgust for Ellis’ policies, and even then, he stood at Teyla’s side, making his own support for her inclusion clear.

“Shall we start?” Elizabeth asked. “I know that not everyone has had a chance to review the agenda, so any specific decisions can be postponed until Thursday and everyone will be included in the command staff emails to ensure that everyone is up to date. Today I was hoping to review each of our respective areas.” Elizabeth waved a hand at the seats, inviting everyone to sit.

The words washed over John as he listened to Teyla’s concerns that Pegasus natives were both disturbed and alarmed by Earth politics. Samas commented on the split in the marines between those who had come with the first mission and those who had come to serve under Everett and Ellis. Lorne supported his conclusion that the groups needed time to work and train together before they could be trusted together off-world. Rodney did his best to convince everyone to give the hard sciences more support since the science staff were responsible for saving everyone’s lives on a regular basis, and then Elizabeth turned to John.

John took a deep breath and plunged into the deep end. After all, these were his people, and he trusted them. “I want to bring something up for discussion.” His announcement caused the room to shift. Samas leaned forward and Rodney actually looked up from his computer.

“John?” Elizabeth asked, her tone concerned.

“Okay, I know I'm the newbie and two weeks before I came to Atlantis, I didn't know about people from other planets.” John stopped, not sure how to broach this topic or how much of O’Neill’s concerns he had a right to share.

“Your planet is in a rather unique position,” Teyla observed, filling the silence.

“Unique.” Rodney snorted. “Stupid would be another. How can people not notice an alien armada fighting over the planet? Morons.”

“Not everyone has your brainpower. Be nice to the people of your home planet,” John said. Rodney rolled his eyes, and suddenly John had found his balance again. “However, my point is that after working in General O'Neill's office, I got a very fast education in the problems facing the home world.”

“Oh?” Teyla leaned forward. “Is there some specific danger?”

John considered how much he wanted to share. Major Lorne was watching him with a barely disguised alarm. He knew something more was going on.

“I know that Stargate Command has a lot of experience handling the universe, but I got to thinking... if something did happen and we had refugees come through the gate, how would we handle it?”

“John?” Elizabeth asked. “What are you thinking?” She had an edge to her voice, and John remembered too late that she was the other person O'Neill had briefed on his plan.

“Yeah, I'm being paranoid, but after a crash course in a dozen different enemies, I think I'm entitled. I'm the military leader. I'm supposed to think about worst case scenarios that won't ever happen, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around just how large and dangerous the universe is.”

“There are a lot of enemies out there,” Lorne said slowly. “But I've been in the SGC for a long time, and I know what those people can do.”

“I don't doubt it,” John agreed. “I read the reports, but there's something different between reading reports and then watching football with a man in holey sweats and realizing that this guy who's drinking beer has, more than once, been the only person between your whole planet and destruction.”

“That could prove distressing,” Teyla agreed. “How can we assist you in feeling more comfortable with this new understanding?”

John loved how calmly Teyla handled everything. Let the world catch on fire, and she'd be standing there with a bucket of water and a calm suggestion that if all they had was a bucket then they should use a bucket. “I want to know how bad this could get if everything went wrong at once. I want some logistics on potential fallout if the worst happens.”

Rodney frowned. “What sort of logistics?” He cocked his head to the side as though trying to figure John out.

“Okay,” John said slowly. If Earth fell quickly, there wouldn't be anyone to save, and Atlantis would only have to survive the lack of supplies. They’d done that before, so it didn’t worry John. “What if Earth had one week's notice that something was coming, and they weren't going to be able to stop it. What are we looking at in terms of refugees through the gate?”

Elizabeth sat back, all her emotions tucked away behind a mask. Teyla looked thoughtful, but Lorne... that man definitely had a case of indigestion going.

“Do I assume that they have a ship with beaming capacity in orbit?” Rodney asked.

John nodded.

“Okay. Beaming is still dangerous if you get people too close together or beam someone into the middle of a wall. So you can't just beam them straight into the gate room and have them walk through. You're going to need a staging area, probably the training rooms on level 23. That means moving people down to the gate room from there, which will require moving large numbers of people through hallways and elevators.” Rodney started typing on his computer. “Are we assuming they're scanning everyone for symbiotes or giving them health checks?”

“Nope,” John said. “Assume worst case--they're just shoving people through as fast as they can.”

“That's relative,” Rodney said, his voice distant. “The ZPM can handle reopening a wormhole every 38 minutes, but the human computers the SGC uses would burn out after a couple of days, so they would have to pause between dialing. And then there's the mass issue. The gate has a huge energy curve up front. If you sent 100 kilograms or 10,000, it's the same, but you do reach a certain mass where the gate starts to pull energy exponentially, so you would have to limit the number of people coming through to avoid depleting the ZPM too soon.”

Gibbs spoke up. “Take into consideration that you'll have a backup on our end.”

“Why?” Rodney asked.

“Because they're going to be stunned at their first sight of Atlantis, and they're going to try to stop,” Gibbs pointed out drily.

“I guess that goes under the heading people are stupid,” Rodney said.

“Ya think?”

“Rodney, give me some numbers,” John practically begged. He got a dismissive wave in return. People were definitely not going to guess they'd gone from friends to lovers at this rate.

“Okay, so estimate 250 people per hour, given the traffic jam on our end. To maximize the gate, they should open it 22 times in a day, for 5,500 people a day, and if they had a week to evacuate, that would be 38,500.”

Major Lorne looked horrified. “That's all we could evacuate in a week?”

“That's assuming that there wasn't rioting or an international crisis that forced them to overuse the gate and burn out the computers,” Gibbs said softly. “For them, that's best case scenario.”

Teyla looked at all of them with obvious confusion. “That would seem to be a great number of people.”

“It's not even a small part of the population,” John said, but his mind was already moving on to what that “small” population could do to them. “If the SGC sent all food stores on base through the gate with our refugees, how much would that be?” He looked at Lorne. Lorne seemed to be the sort of major who would have those sorts of answers.

“It's a small base, sir, four hundred people on average,” Lorne said, “but I know we always had about four months' worth of provisions stocked. We went into quarantine more often than you might expect.”

John did a quick calculation. “Four hundred people times three meals a day times four months gets you 144,000 meals, which sounds like a lot until you think about 38,500 people.”

“Not even four days,” Rodney said, his voice soft, but still stricken with emotion. “We'd have four days’ worth of food, and then what?”

“There are no allies that could accommodate such a flood of people,” Teyla said softly. “If fear I would not know what to do.”

“What do you suggest, John?” Elizabeth asked.

John didn't know what to suggest; he only knew that he had a boulder of fear sitting in his stomach right now. “Assume these people are going to show up tomorrow. What are our greatest needs?”

“Housing them,” Lorne immediately said.

“No!” Rodney blurted out. “Four days! Four days of food! That's a slightly more pressing problem.”

“Rodney, I am sorry,” Samas said, “but Major Lorne is correct. To have that many people in the city would necessitate putting them in areas that had been hastily cleared. Someone would stumble upon some dangerous piece of equipment or forgotten experiment. That would kill us long before the hunger had a chance to.”

Rodney slumped in his seat. “Great, I get to die and I get to be hungry while I'm doing it.”

The despair pulled at John. “Hey, buddy, this is just an exercise. No one is coming through the gate, and you're not going to die.” Before he realized that he probably needed to play it cool around Rodney, he had leaned over and rested his hand on Rodney's shoulder.

Rodney gave him a weak smile. “Yes, yes. Of course they aren't coming tomorrow, but you have not been in the program long enough to see the truly stupid risks they take with alien technology. It's only a matter of time before they blow themselves up.”

“They've been doing this longer than you, McKay,” Lorne said with a hint of frustration in the tone. Yeah, Lorne was O'Neill's creature in more ways than one.

Rodney graced Lorne with a truly vicious glare. “And I'm truly shocked they haven't gotten themselves killed up to this point. In most of the alternate dimensions they examined using the quantum mirror, Earth is enslaved.”

“Way to bring the pessimism, Rodney,” John said.

Samas chuckled. “On the more optimistic side, in those universes the goa'uld must face the consequences of their actions and suffer slow and painful deaths resulting from genetic degradation rather than dying in battle.” Samas' smile terrified John just a little bit.

“I'm going to ignore that,” John said. “And I'm going to try very hard to never piss you off. You hold a grudge Samas.” John didn't add that he was like Gibbs that way, but he suspected that most of the people at the table were already thinking it. “Priority one is clearing more space in the towers.”

Rodney suddenly got a suspicious look on his face. “Ellis already had two scientists working on that.” John could almost hear the gears in Rodney's head whirring away as it tried to make sense of the patterns it was seeing.

“Are they good enough to get the job done?” John asked.

“No,” was Rodney's blunt answer. “But if this is a priority, I have more scientists I can switch over.”

John shrugged. “Your call, but if that gate opens and people start pouring through, I'm going to ask you where to put them.”

“Scientists. Dammit.” Rodney brought his hand down on the table in a rare show of real anger.

“What?” John was confused. Rodney didn’t normally swear at the idea of scientists.

Rodney rubbed a hand over his face. “If the SGC evacuates, they’re going to send their scientists first. There is nothing worse than a scientist who is cut off from his experiments. They’re all going to want labs and access to resources so they can continue to fight the… the whoever took Earth.” Rodney grunted, but it was pretty clear he knew who posed the real threat. “Many of them will probably bring experiments that need secure lab space. We are going to have to open a lot more space.”

“Which shouldn’t be a problem, right?” John asked optimistically.

“Oh yes, and the last time we tried to open a block of science labs, that didn’t end in people dying and Radek nearly having his brain liquefied,” Rodney snapped, but John understood the worry that lay behind that snark. That had been a horrible experience for all of them.

“Can we limit them, tell them they have to wait until we have facilities?” Elizabeth asked.

“Only if you want them running around and trying to find someone who will try to bully you into giving them what they want,” Rodney said. The man understood politics better than John because John had not seen that possibility, even though it made sense.

“We cannot allow that,” Samas said. “In times of unrest, people flock to leaders they perceive as strong enough to protect them and wealthy enough to provide for the needs of the people. If we are to have 40,000 new people, they must see us as both.”

“We can clear more towers if we have more military escorts,” Rodney said. “We’ll have to go slow on the science areas, but Samas is right. We’ll need to get the scientists settled quickly.”

John nodded. That would give the first wave and second wave marines more time to work together, so this would help on more than one front. “Lorne, coordinate with Rodney and make sure every science team has an escort.”

“Yes, sir.” Lorne nodded. “Permission to shuffle the teams around?” Lorne asked.

“Permission gleefully given, especially since they’re going to be pissed at you and not me when you assign the new partners,” John said. Lorne gave him a shit look, but the stone in John's gut lightened a little. “So food is the next problem. Rodney, what would it take to get more hydroponics and gardens open?”

“More power,” Rodney said flatly. “That's a major endeavor, and even if we have gardens ready to go, it won't keep us from starving after four days. We would have to start growing food in anticipation of needing it, and that’s going to take a lot of water and environmental control.”

“We could store food in advance,” Teyla said. “Most worlds do grow more than they need in case they find themselves faced with hungry refugees or a poor harvest.”

“Enough to feed 40,000 people until a new harvest comes in?” Rodney demanded.

Teyla tilted her head in his direction. “No,” she admitted. “And people will ask why Atlantis is suddenly in need of such resources. Given the respect most people have for Colonel Sheppard, to suggest that he is worried about his homeworld falling could come across as a prophecy in their eyes.”

“Oh, let’s not go there,” John said. “I really wish you would start telling people that the Ancient crap is a load of shit.”

“I most certainly shall not,” Teyla said firmly as she pinned him with an unhappy glare. Yeah, Teyla thought he was an Ancestor, but clearly she was perfectly okay intimidating Ancestors.

Samas spoke next. “Why tell them anything more than we are preparing for refugees? The Wraith are awake. Atlantis accepts that in its ignorance it contributed to this, and as the only place where food can be grown in safety, we hope to become a supplier to any world that has been forced to flee their fields and stores.”

“Of course.” Rodney started his finger snapping, which usually led to good things. “We clear out long-term storage silos—we know we have them—and then we start cycling the grain through. We raise as much as we can and the older grain that is in danger of expiring, we use on humanitarian missions. It would give us the perfect excuse to keep thousands of pounds of grain in the city at a time.”

“We can lock down MREs,” Lorne added. “If we continue to request them from the Daedalus, but restrict their use to emergencies, we can get a healthy stockpile going. But that would mean that we would need a new source of easily carried food for gate teams.”

Lorne had barely stopped speaking when Teyla jumped in. “My people have created ba-shee for generations. We would be happy to teach you to make it, although it would require hunting more game or importing a larger meat animal.”

John wondered how Earth biologists would feel about sending them some cattle, although buffalo might be better adapted to the environment. The planet had some larger predators that might see domesticated cows as one big buffet. “What exactly is ba-shee?” he asked.

“It is a mixture of a number of carefully dried and crushed products including meats, berries, nuts and a local root called mahee mixed together with spices, salt, honey and fat and then stored in small portions that are carefully wrapped. The mixture will remain fresh for years,” Teyla explained.

“Pemmican,” Rodney blurted. “Native Peoples had the same thing. It doesn’t require refrigeration, but if the fat isn’t properly prepared, you can get really sick.”

Teyla raised an eyebrow. “I believe my people might know how to render fat, Rodney.”

“Yes, yes.” Rodney gave her a flappy hand wave. “But this is going to take power, especially if we want to get up and running quickly. I can get all the Hoff on the greenhouses, but we are going to need to put a lot of seed down, and that’s going to take labor.”

“My people shall help,” Teyla said firmly. “No matter who receives the food, to help those in need is a noble goal.”

“Which means we still need power.” Rodney was getting truly frustrated. “Elizabeth, we have to reconsider Doranda.”

John looked from one to another. “Doranda?”

Elizabeth’s expression turned sour. “It’s an abandoned Ancient outpost. Apparently they were experimenting with power sources; however, they failed and nearly destroyed the planet.”

“And I know how to fix it,” Rodney blurted out. “It’s not like that stupid project Ellis and Kavanagh had going, and the very fact that my mission got scrubbed because of their stupidity is utterly unbelievable. Unbelievable,” Rodney said again, his voice rising. “If we can get that working, we’ll have all the power we need!”

“Or you’ll blow up the planet with yourself on it.” Elizabeth’s voice was sharp enough that John figured they’d had this fight before.

“If we want to do this, we don’t have a choice,” Rodney slammed his laptop shut. “We need the power.” He raised his chin and got that crooked frown that meant he wasn’t about to budge off his position.

“Not enough to take these risks. Colonel Ellis taught us that,” Elizabeth said, equally as adamant.

“Colonel Ellis didn’t listen to his science advisors, something other people are in danger of doing.” Rodney glared at her. “And in case anyone has failed to notice it, this plan includes letting people know the city is still in one piece, which means we need the shields. Actually, we probably need the star drive as well just in case we have to evacuate.”

The vein on the side of Elizabeth’s neck was starting to stand out. “I’m not willing to take the risk.”

“Hey!” John interrupted. “I thought we agreed that we weren’t making any decisions here. Teyla, Gibbs, and Samas are out of the loop, and quite frankly, so am I. I don’t even remember a Doranda on the reports I read.”

Elizabeth glanced over at him, her aggravation still front and center. “Then we can table this discussion until later.” Her tone made it perfectly clear that she didn’t plan to change her mind on this one.

Teyla stepped into the breach, shifting the attention away from the fight. “I hoped to discuss tonight’s celebration. The Athosians wish to come to the city, and I have requests from at least a dozen worlds who hoped to send officials to celebrate our success.”

“Success?” John looked around the table in confusion. “Success with what?”

“With regaining our true leader,” Teyla said, inclining her head in his direction.

Luckily Lorne was a good second because he filled in the details John seemed to be missing. “Teyla has been planning a welcome home party, Colonel. Quite a few of our allies would like a chance to welcome you back. Samas has agreed to run security if you want to allow officials in, ma’am,” Lorne told Elizabeth.

“This would be a chance to show our allies that our priorities have shifted back to a more collaborative relationship,” Teyla said, and John knew her well enough to know that she was also warning Elizabeth that a failure to allow their allies into the city would be seen as proof that the Atlanteans weren’t going to play nice no matter who was in charge.

Elizabeth smiled. “Of course,” she said. “Teyla, coordinate with Gibbs on security measures. Samas, can I trust you to bring your own skills to this job?”

Samas smiled. “No one with ill-intent shall get past either Gibbs or myself.”

Elizabeth stood. “I think that’s all for today. Welcome back everyone.” She smiled at each of them, and people started wandering out of the meeting. “John, may I speak with you for a minute?”

John had been about to leave, and he stopped. Rodney flashed him a sympathetic look and then he headed out, closing the door behind him. “Oh, I know that tone of voice,” John said. “What did I do?”

Elizabeth sank back down into her chair. “Nothing. However, can I assume that you spoke with General O’Neill?”

John nodded. “Yeah. We worked together for six months. He’d have to think pretty poorly of me to keep this a secret after that. After all, I’ve seen the reports from the Ori in the Milky Way.”

“And so you choose to share with the entire command staff?” Elizabeth clearly didn’t approve on that front.

“These are smart people, Elizabeth. I trust them. But if they don’t have the right information, they aren’t going to make the right choices.”

“Like Doranda? John, adding more stress to Rodney is going to push him to take dangerous risks.”

“Oh, I trust Rodney’s sense of self-preservation if nothing else,” John pointed out.

Elizabeth sighed. “I hope you’re right. If not, you’re going to have to pull him back because he does not listen to me. I’m afraid that he’ll never forgive me for being unable to protect him from the military.”

John couldn’t even process that for a second because it didn’t make any sense. “What?”

“It has been a hard six months, John. Rodney was often belittled and ignored, and he hasn’t been himself. I’m afraid he feels he has to prove something to us. Don’t let him push too far.” She gave him a thoughtful look, and John tried to not squirm under her gaze. “How will you explain this to the SGC?”

John had given that some thought, especially since he didn’t want them to know that O’Neill was making contingency plans. “I’m going to point out that we’re sitting on the greatest cache of Ancient weapons we’ve ever found, and we haven’t devoted the time and effort to exploring it. I am arranging exploration of scientific towers no differently than I would explore any ancient outpost we found on another planet. After all, if we find a weapon sitting in a dusty lab, we’re all going to be pretty embarrassed.”

Elizabeth tapped her fingers against the tabletop. “They’re going to point out that nothing here defeated the Wraith.”

“Which doesn’t mean they didn’t have weapons to use against the Ori. After all, they had some way to prevent the Ori from following them and hunting them down.”

Elizabeth nodded. “It’s a good story. And what is the reason for clearing residential towers?”

“I don’t plan to tell them,” John said with a smirk. “Those are going down as training and teambuilding exercises designed by Lorne to mitigate the ‘us versus them’ attitudes in our marines. We all have the same loyalty.”

“To Pegasus?” Elizabeth asked with a deceptive mildness.

“To Earth,” John corrected her. “We’re doing this for the home planet.”

She softened her words with a small smile. “That could work. But right now, I believe you have a welcome home party to prepare for. From what I hear, it will be the event of the season.”

John groaned. He’d grown up going to social events, and they were a level of hell. He had trouble with people in general so large numbers of people who demanded his attention didn’t sound like fun, especially not when a lot of them looked at him like he was an Ancient. “Great,” he said weakly.

Elizabeth headed for the door, patting him on the arm in passing. “You’ll live, Colonel,” she offered without much sympathy. However, her smile softened her words. She might not always agree with him or cut him slack, but John didn’t doubt that she was happy to have him home.

Tony used his hands to drum out a tune on the door. "Come in!" a voice called. Tony definitely needed to show Abby how to mentally open doors because not everyone could sweet talk Atlantis into opening someone else's door. Luckily, he could. He gave a little push, and the city opened Abby's door without a grumble. Sometimes when Tony tried to override Rodney's lock, Atlantis would give him a little twinge... a little nonverbal complaint about privacy and making Rodney unhappy.

"Tony!" Abby sang as soon as she saw him. "Oh my God. Have you seen the view? Of course you have, because you live here, but this is incredible!" She stood at a tall window and looked out at the city laid out below. Tony thought Atlantis looked like a snowflake with all her blue and metal structures and sharp edges. "It's gorgeous," Abby said in a reverent voice.

"She's a beautiful lady," Tony agreed. "So, have you seen where you're working?"

"It's only perfect," Abby said with a bounce in her step as she came over to give him a hug and a quick peck on the cheek. She had on the uniform pants, but she also wore her black t-shirt with the large red star. It was a strange look, but that was Abby. "I am testing all sorts of substances that come in. Some are trace evidence from teams, and the teams around here get into some really weird stuff. It's really interesting, and it's not as emotionally satisfying as completely screwing over some murderer who thinks he can get away with it in my city, but it's way, way more fascinating. I mean, I'm testing alien substances, although really I'm the alien one since they're native to the area."

When Tony needed a smile, nothing could replace a good Abby babble. "So, you like it?"

"Like it? I love it. And yeah, there are some heads that need slapping and I may totally ask Samas to do that for me since Gibbs can't really slap scientists, but we're going to get it worked out."

"What?" Tony was mildly alarmed at the idea of Abby siccing Gibbs or Samas on anyone. They were too upset about her being here at all. At least Gibbs was. Samas was weirdly arrogant about being able to defend his family. Then Gibbs started in on Samas about how that was the sort of thinking that got both their families killed in the first place, and then it turned into a very odd evening with Samas eventually coming out of Gibbs to shake his fins angrily. Yep, the homefront was a little less peaceful these days, but on the up side, Tony was getting nailed to the bed way more often.

"Have you seen their paperwork?" Abby demanded. "You'd think these people had never heard of chain of custody or tracking a sample. It's like they can't work without two graduate assistants and a TA following them around. They have an entire closet for samples that have been separated from the original paperwork so no one is quite sure where they came from. A whole closet.” Abby’s voice rose to a near-shriek. “And you do not want to know how they handle it when they aren't sure what department a sample falls under. I mean, if it's obviously a plant, David handles it and if it seems like something that would blow up, Rodney gets it, but if it's in the fuzzy middle, it's a madhouse."

"It is?" Clearly Tony had failed to notice a whole lot of potential drama.

"Yes. They send it around to the departments based on who has time, which doesn't make sense. They don't even have someone sort samples by organic or inorganic or do basic DNA tests to determine which of the biology departments it best fits into. I'm telling you, I'm going to have my hands full, and I have already made it very clear that my wrath will come down on the next person to mess up their paperwork. Rodney may threaten them with cannibalism, but I'm almost sure he won't do it. I totally will hack their files and delete all requests for time off or raise reviews. If they can't do the official paperwork correctly, then they aren't going to file the paperwork for the stuff they want."

Tony stared at Abby. This was a side of her he hadn't seen since he was brand new to NCIS and he failed to file the correct paperwork on one of his DNA samples. He had forgotten how scary she was. "Just remember we're on the same side, Abs," he said. He actually wasn't sure how to handle this Abby because mostly he avoided her crusader-girl persona by doing his paperwork correctly.

She rolled her eyes. "Peter already threatened to go to Dr. Weir. I told him to go ahead since there was no way that the government is letting me off Atlantis, so if we can't get along, he's going to be the one who gets the boot."

"Peter?"

"Dr. Kavanagh. At that point, Rodney suggested that he would be lucky to get off the city because Rodney has been thinking of serving him up with fava beans for at least a month now, and I pointed out that I know how to dispose of a body without leaving evidence." Abby dropped down onto her oversized chair. "I think we freaked him out."

"Probably," Tony said weakly. Maybe having Abby and Rodney in the same space wasn't the best idea. Tony was feeling a little sorry for the scientists. And Dr. Weir. Tony was definitely feeling sorry for Dr. Weir. "Do you have everything you need?"

"And more," Abby smiled. "The equipment here is amazing. And Rodney promises to get all my personal belongings rematerialized in the next day or two. He just needs a large space, and with the rain and the big spaces filled up with the official cargo, he hasn't managed to get around to it."

"Wait. What?" While Tony was used to Abby-logic, which only tangentially connected to actual logic, he was having a harder time than usual.

"My personal belongings. You know, the coffin and all my clothes and by sword collection and my blood splatter artwork and my bowling balls. He said he got all of it. He said he picked up all your stuff and Gibbs' too, but I don't know if he really got it or if he just grabbed what they had on base."

"All of it?" Tony had seen the crates they had brought, and there was definitely nothing large enough for a coffin. He would have noticed that. "Wait. You said he has to dematerialize it?"

Abby grinned. "Can you believe that he has a dematerializer? And Samas helped reverse engineer it from Wraith technology? Tim would be beside himself. I mean, he likes to make out that he's better than anyone when it comes to computers and tech, and it turns out that Gibbs is way better. Or Samas anyway, but Samas has been part of Gibbs the whole time we've known him."

"Rodney took Wraith technology to Earth?" Tony was pretty sure his jaw was on the floor. That was breaking regs so spectacularly that Tony had trouble believing Rodney would do it. As much as Rodney bitched about stupid rules, he tended to follow them.

"Oh, he said to not mention that,” Abby said with a cringe, “but I'm sure he didn't mean I shouldn't mention it to you because you're my Tony. So, what do you think about setting up a Monday night bowling league?" Abby blinked up at him with such earnestness that Tony had to mentally catch up. Bowling night. That was definitely an Abby thing to say.

"We don't actually have a bowling alley."

Abby nodded as if he'd just agreed with her. "Teyla said she knows where we can get some straight wood, and Radek is going to help me figure out a good hall to convert into bowling lanes. We're trying to decide whether to have six or ten lanes. I mean, with the current population, six lanes is fine, but you have to assume the city is going to grow. So, are you coming to the party tonight? Everyone is singing Colonel Sheppard's praises, but after the stories I've heard about Ellis, I am not surprised." In typical Abby style, she changed the topic before Tony had a chance to even wrap his head around the last topic. However, he mentally shelved the bowling alley idea. Besides, if Teyla was involved, it was a ninety percent done deal anyway, so Tony shifted to Colonel Sheppard’s coming home party.

Tony had suffered his own issues with Ellis, so he was thrilled to celebrate John Sheppard’s return. Ellis’ love for doubling Tony's NCIS paperwork was one thing, but his threats against Gibbs and Samas had made Tony seriously consider helping the man have an accident. He wouldn't have killed Ellis, but he certainly wouldn't have minded if the man took a bad enough fall to get discharged. "He assigned Gibbs to wash dishes to punish him for speaking his mind, so yeah, he wasn't the best," Tony said. If Abby was going to blow, it was always better to do it in private.

"Radek told me about that." Abby narrowed her eyes. "He's lucky that he got off the city before I got here because I would have made his life a living misery." Suddenly she leaned forward and reached for Tony's hand. He let her pull him down so they were both squished into the one chair. "Hey, you, what's wrong?"

Tony let out a strangled laugh. "I'm supposed to be asking if you're okay."

"Why?" Abby tilted her head to the side.

"Because you just got dragged to an alien world."

She snorted. "I think I just bullied the Air Force into letting me come to an alien world. It's not the same thing. Actually, I'm kinda proud of my ability to bully the armed forces. It makes me feel all testosterony," she said with a shimmy.

"You had some help."

Abby gave him a curious look. "Meaning?"

Tony sighed and really prayed he wasn't about to start a geek civil war. "Rodney set up that laptop as a trap."

"Of course he did. And?" Abby looked at him like she was waiting for him to say something that mattered.

"And he tricked you into getting involved." Tony grunted when a very sharp elbow jabbed him in the stomach. Hard.

"Do you think I'm stupid?"

"I never said that. I never even implied that!"

"No, but you show up with Evan Lorne who is all metals with no ribbons to show he served in arenas that would let him earn those sorts of honors. And then you have an entire covert ops team at your command, and they guard you like they're expecting Syrians to jump out of the woodwork. Then in the middle of all that weirdness, Rodney shows up knowing everything about computers. Newsflash--computer guys do not accidentally leave their computers behind."

Tony stared at her, his brain hurting a little. "You knew?"

Abby grabbed his hand. "Alien worlds? Wormhole travel? I completely didn't know any of that. I thought you were involved in some black ops agency. Considering that your secret is hugely implausible, I'm forgiving myself for getting the details all wrong. But I knew Rodney was issuing a challenge."

Tony rubbed his hand over his face.

"Tony?" Abby asked, concern in her voice.

"I have no idea if that will make things better or worse for Gibbs."

"For Gibbs? Tony, you aren’t making any sense.”

Tony sighed. "Abby, he is furious that Rodney pulled you into this. Homicidally furious. He won't even let Samas work with Rodney because he's having homicidal fantasies."

Oddly Abby laughed. She actually laughed, and Tony wasn’t quite sure how to handle that. Yeah, Abby wasn’t one for conventional responses, but she didn’t usually laugh in the face of Gibbs’ fury. “Have you been testing out Radek’s homemade vodka?”

“Oh, Tony.” She gave him one of her little smiles, the one that suggested that she loved him, even when he was an idiot. Honestly, that wasn’t fair because Tony hadn’t done anything truly stupid for at least five hours. “Gibbs is just being Gibbs. He gets intense. He’ll calm down—he always does.”

“No, Abby. You don’t get it. He has Ari levels of fury and obsession going on.”

She nodded. “I don’t doubt it. That’s Gibbs.”

Tony stared at her. Clearly he was failing to communicate.

“Oh, Tony,” she said again. “Back before you came, Gibbs flew through probies. Stan Burley started asking for an in-house transfer to another team inside a year, and after five years when he couldn’t take any more, he took an agent afloat job. And he was used to congressmen and senators and everyone calling him names and ordering him to do all the crap work, but Gibbs couldn’t remember his name and made it pretty clear he didn’t trust Stan. The other poor little newbie agents didn’t even stand a chance. They’d move a stapler and Gibbs would totally come unglued in a quiet and sort of terrifyingly menacing sort of way. And then you came along and he mellowed. Like overnight he mellowed.”

“Now I know you’re giving me shit.” Tony tried to stand, but Abby caught his arm and held on.

“I was there, Tony. You weren’t. The longer Gibbs worked with other people, the more tense he got, but with me and Ducky, he was different. We thought it was because we weren’t there in his sphere. You know, investigations. Only then you come along and it’s like he can let his guard down a little. This Gibbs you’re describing… he’s totally the pre-Tony version of the bossman.”

“If you’re trying to make me feel—”

“Nope,” Abby cut him off, “Gibbs loves you and I don’t have to try and patch you up because you’re all whole now. But don’t worry about Gibbs. When someone did something he didn’t like, he would get all intense and send people running to Morrow’s office for transfers, and then he’d get over it. And yeah,” she said quickly before Tony could get a word in, “he’s going to be more cranky because it’s me. When he first met me, I was so nervous and straight out of school, and NCIS had this complete asshole running the forensics lab, and he used to call me labgirl and ignore my findings. Gibbs was the first team leader to stick up for me and tell me that my work was better than his. Gibbs was my papa bear, and he always will be. But I’m a grown woman, Tony. I have a right to make my own choices, and when Gibbs sees I’m happy, he’ll come down off the red alert. Promise.”

Tony frowned at her. As much as he could see that she believed every word, Tony still wasn’t sure that Gibbs would forgive and forget, not when Rodney had put Abby in the middle of the danger.

“Trust me,” Abby said quietly. “He wants us happy, and if he sees we are, he’ll deal with everything else. He always does. I mean, he got over Stan leaving, and you do not want to know what a complete terror he was about that. Gibbs is not a fan of change.” She made an exaggerated ick face.

“No,” Tony agreed, “he isn’t. He was seriously worse before I came?”

Abby laughed. “Oh, Tony, you have no idea. I mean, none. So, you have to help me pick an outfit for the party. I read the regs, and uniforms aren’t actually mandatory for people who aren’t military, only recommended and required when handling dangerous materials because the uniform fabric is non-reactive, so that makes sense. The rest of the time, the only dress code is to wear something. So I plan to shake this place up and remind people that if you can’t have a little fun while hunting down murders and fighting space vampires, then what’s the point in doing it?” With a cheeky grin, she jumped up from the chair and headed for her closet.

“I’m thinking goth princess,” she announced. “What do you think?”

Tony chuckled. “I think I’m going to take a camera so I can catch people’s faces when you walk in.”

“Oh, oh, oh. I want copies,” Abby bubbled.

Yeah, Atlantis was never going to be the same, but Tony had to believe it was going to be better. Every city needed a little Abby to cheer the place up and keep cranky old marines and scientists from getting too stuffy. Tony wondered what the city thought of her, but maybe his imagination or his city-sense or whatever it was that he felt was failing him because all he could sense was the distant touch of Sheppard as he walked through the corridors. And satisfaction. Sheppard was definitely satisfied about something. Carnally satisfied. Tony was distracted from Abby’s wardrobe choices as he could feel the cool almost glossy presence of Rodney tangled in Sheppard’s contentment.

Well damn. The boys had finally found each other.

Tony drifted through the party, smiling at a diplomat from the world that traded a cinnamon type spice that was popular in the city. The woman flashed him an inviting smile, and Tony noticed Gibbs' attention immediately shifted their way. While Abby seemed confident that Gibbs would eventually calm down, Tony wasn't seeing it yet. Gibbs' frustration, obsession, and jealousy seemed to be out in full force.

"Tony," Teyla said as she moved to his side and slipped a hand around his arm.

"Teyla. It looks like you got anyone who's anyone here tonight."

"Sometimes a grand gesture is needed," she agreed. "That shirt looks handsome on you."

Tony looked down at the cream colored long shirt. It had a subtle horizontal pattern common for many Athosian-made textiles and he'd paired it with a dark brown leather vest. "Thank you. I appreciate you helping me find a good tailor."

"Of course," Teyla nodded to a diplomat passed them. Before she could leave, Tony brought up Abby.

"So, I hear you got pulled into helping create a bowling alley."

Teyla's smile seemed to grow warmer. "Abby is a generous soul. I am very pleased to help her in her attempts to get your people to find more balance in their lives."

"We're back to the idea that Earth humans are uptight, right?"

Teyla laughed. "Perhaps not uptight as much as... very driven. Driven and perhaps unrealistic. I had thought all of you shared this, but Abby seems to bring a more balanced energy to Atlantis.”

Tony had never heard anyone call Abby balanced, but then Teyla did see the world a little differently. “She’s pretty determined to get people to have a little fun.”

“Good. I have suggested to Elizabeth that we have a scheduled day of rest, but she fears that such a practice might cause more stress.” She gave him a thoughtful look. “I fear I didn’t understand her logic.”

“Did she say the scientists would stress about being forced away from their work?” Tony guessed. Rodney would be beside himself if someone told him to stay away from his lab. Teyla gave him a slow nod. Tony sighed, no sure how to explain this, but he found with Teyla that honesty worked best. “The scientists are going to worry that if they lose any time, they might be too late to save us from the next disaster. If the Wraith show up, they don’t want to be in the position where they need two more hours to complete some critical work only to realize that they’d spent six hours off having fun the week before.”

Teyla gave him a long look as if searching for some sign that he was teasing her. Eventually she put on her most conciliatory expression. “I do not mean to insult,” she said slowly, “but that appears to be a rather arrogant response. We cannot control the universe or determine when some disaster might strike and if we live in fear of the next disaster, we lose the ability to enjoy what happiness fate has allotted us.”

“Yeah, well you have Rodney on your team. Do you really think he would handle it well if someone told him to stay away from his lab?”

Teyla tilted her head to the side. “I have been told many times that Rodney is unique.”

“Not so much,” Tony said. He looked across the room at the officials from other planets mingling with the Atlantis residents. The Hoffans had on formal wear with tall collars and clothing that stuck to neutrals. Their Genii scientists had clothing that looked out of the 1800s in yellows and blues and greys. The Earthers all wore their uniforms, except for Elizabeth who had on an evening dress that would have looked at home on a red carpet. Tony suspected that she had chosen that intentionally to appear more neutral and less a part of the Earth bureaucracy that Ellis had taught so many Pegasus natives to distrust. “They’re all in uniform. They don’t let themselves stand down, even at a party.”

Teyla looked around at the huge gathering of people. “I had thought you brought little in the way of clothing.”

“We’ve had the chance to import more.” Tony looked over at Abby who had a red dress that had a high hem in front and then went all the way to the floor in back. She had added platform boots that made her tower over most of the attendees and a black leather corset. Everyone seemed to find a reason to wander her way, and she was laughing and flitting from suitor to suitor. “When Earth people tell stories or watch movies, the good guy always wins at the end because he’s smarter or he works harder. The bomb will be ready to go off, but the hero turns it off with one second to spare.”

“I had noticed that. I thought perhaps you chose to bring the movies that would offer you comfort.”

Tony shook his head. “No, they’re pretty much all like that. Oh, if you watch French films or Russian films you’ll see the good guys lose sometimes, but Western culture generally tells us that we have to be good enough to save the world.”

Reaching out, Teyla rested her hand against his arm. “That is a heavy burden to carry. My people understand that death is inevitable and that the good guy will often lose and become food for the Wraith.”

“And that’s where my people think your people are carrying a heavy burden. They would call that despair.”

“Despair would imply that we have given up. We do not. We simply know that to fight often means to lose. We will not allow ourselves to carry guilt for our inevitable failures, and we will not ignore our lives and families in some quest for a perfect solution.”

Tony looked over to where Sheppard stood at the corner of one of the food tables, clearly trying to blend into the background. Rodney was nearby, browbeating anyone who came within fifty feet. Watching Rodney play guard dog for the military leader of Atlantis was a little amusing. Or a lot. Tony could admit he was a lot amused. Hopefully Atlantis hadn’t started whispering to anyone else about their relationship, though. Carson and Lorne definitely thought he was crazy for thinking the city had feelings or thoughts, and Miko would start talking about Japanese mythology when Tony tried to broach the subject. So Tony was pretty sure he was the only ones who got the telepathic updates. Just in case he sent a mental command out to protect the two of them, to hide their secret from everyone else.

“Colonel Sheppard feels guilty for every death in the city, even for those who died when he wasn’t here.”

Teyla turned toward the colonel. “I know this. You think this is more than simple guilt over his inability to help us while ascended?”

Honestly, Tony believed that had something to do with it. Tony followed the evidence, and the evidence did suggest that Sheppard had been ascended. If he’d come here to save Atlantis or the people of the Pegasus galaxy, then he’d suffered some pretty substantial setbacks. “Even if he was only human, he would feel guilty and he would wonder what he could have done to save everyone.”

Teyla sighed and looked sadly in the direction of her two teammates.

“We’re all as messed up as Rodney. Rodney just shows his desperation more,” Tony said. “He will fail one day, and you watch. He’ll blame himself and others will blame him.”

Teyla whirled on him, anger in her eyes. “They ask the impossible from him. They cannot expect that this will come without loss and failure.”

“Yes, they do expect exactly that,” Tony said. “I know what Colonel Sheppard brought up in the morning meeting, and I’m warning you that Rodney is going to kill himself to try and make sure we’re ready for any possible disaster. If he fails, he will hate himself and the others very well might hate him, at least for a while.”

Teyla had a look of horror on her face now.

“Keep an eye on him, and don’t assume that he’s okay, even if he tells you he is and pushes you away,” Tony said. “Rodney looks at me like a big brother, but on our world, a big brother is the first person to call you an idiot when you screw up. If something happens, I can’t help him through it. Not easily.”

Teyla looked back at Rodney. “The more I know of your people, the more I question your sanity.”

“You and me both,” Tony agreed. “And that’s why we have to spend a little time protecting Abby too.”

“Why?”

Tony considered his words since he was not only giving Teyla information on Abby but information on the sometimes questionable psychology of all the people of his planet. “My people are often bothered by things that are too different. They want to believe they’re normal, and so they want everyone around them to be similar in some way. Most of the people who first came to Atlantis didn’t have that way of thinking, and so they love her. Even Lorne smiles more around her. But some of the newer people are going to be uncomfortable around her. And she tells the truth—sometimes more than people want to hear.”

With a heavy sigh, Teyla watched Abby across the room. For a time they stood shoulder to shoulder, and Tony knew he had found the right ally, even if Teyla was having trouble processing this bit of Earth insanity. “You seem quite capable of enjoying that which is different,” Teyla finally pointed out.

“I’m sort of the exception, although I come with my own faults and glitches.”

Teyla’s hand returned to his arm, and she gave him a little squeeze. “We are all deeply flawed.”

“Yep,” Tony agreed. “But I’m not flawed in the same ways as most of my people. That’s why General O’Neill could never predict what I would do, yet you always guess where I’m going.”

“You are more transparent than you suspect.”

“Not to my own people. But these people need to be distracted from how uncomfortable they are with Abby. I plan to give up the uniform, and that will distract a number of them. They’re going to get very upset that I’m not toeing the line and fitting in with everyone else, but NCIS regs don’t require that I wear the uniform, and it will give her some cover. I was hoping you could make sure the Pegasus natives give her a little support until she’s found her niche. After that, she won’t care if haters hate her for being herself.”

Teyla let her eyes fall closed and she gave him a formal head bow. “I am very honored that you came to me with this concern. I will make sure that we welcome her so she has a firm community in which to stand.”

Tony leaned forward, and Teyla met him halfway, their foreheads pressing together. “Thank you,” he whispered, the worry in his heart easing. Teyla was more than capable of handling this.

“You are my friend, and I extend my friendship to any you find worthy,” she said. She stood up straight and looked him in the eye until Tony realized that she was making a very solemn vow.

“And I am equally willing to trust your judgment of others,” he promised. The others still sometimes brought up her trust of the Genii who had betrayed them. However, after working with Ladon and Dahlia Radim and Avonli Hozek and the various techs who had transferred in and out of Atlantis, Tony could see why she trusted them. They were fanatical, but they were determined to do what they saw as the right thing for their people. If they had to die, they would. They would sacrifice themselves in a blink for one chance to kill the Wraith. They were terrifying, but they were good people who adored their families with the quiet desperation of a people who knew their children, their parents, their sisters and brothers would be eventually stolen away by the Wraith.

Teyla smiled at him. “There are many dignitaries here, and I should greet them,” she said.

“Of course.” Tony bowed his head toward her and took a step back. She turned and headed into the crowd.

Tony returned to scanning the guests and wandering from group to group. So far, everyone was thrilled to have Colonel Sheppard back. Tony had overheard more than one group muttering about the ridiculous complexities of Earth politics, and quite a few had compared the Earthers to the Genii. Tony couldn’t entirely dismiss that comparison. Hopefully those mutters wouldn’t turn into anything darker, but Tony made a mental note to discuss that with Teyla and Elizabeth.

The number of off-world people who recognized Tony and greeted him surprised him. Despite having explained the concept of NCIS multiple times, most of the galaxy continued to address him as arbiter. Of course they understood he was not the chief arbiter and he could not decide the fate of those who had committed serious crimes, but his willingness to deal with petty theft and rowdy kids off the books had definitely giving them a skewed idea of the role of NCIS on a ship. As long as Jenny Shepard never heard rumors about how he was handling his job, that was fine.

Vish of Degas was moving toward Sheppard now. He wore the long robes of the priesthood. One of the first changes to come out of command staff after Ellis left was an order to allow the priests back into the library towers. They spent their days reading and transcribing Ancient texts onto scrolls that could be carried to other worlds, and in the process they were quickly sorting and tagging the various files by subject matter. Ellis hadn’t seen the value of categorizing what appeared to be a library of philosophy and pleasure reading, and he really hadn’t seen any reason to legitimize the religious beliefs of the Degans.

Most of the native groups hated him for that.

People who scrambled to rebuild after every Wraith attack revered those who had time to invest in the arts—music, literature, painting, and even textiles were considered great luxuries. To deny a group the ability to pursue their art not out of a need for more hands to bring in the crops but out of a disrespect for literature or culture was unthinkable.

Only Ellis clearly thought that way. When Tony had tried to talk to him, Ellis hadn’t even understood why anyone cared about Vish and his priests.

But as much as Tony did respect what the priests did with their scrolls and their storytelling, Sheppard deserved a night without being put on a pedestal and worshiped as an Ancestor. Tony started moving to intercept Vish. Given how panicked Sheppard looked, Tony thought he needed a more effective defensive line than Rodney.

“Vish!” Tony called out. He slid into place between Vish and his intended target. Hopefully Sheppard would take the distraction and run. “I wanted to apologize again for Ellis. You know he didn’t speak for most of us.”

Vish raised an eyebrow and Tony could have sworn the edge of his lip almost twitched into a smile. “I certainly know he did not speak for you or for Lady Elizabeth,” Vish agreed. “We are grateful to have our true leader home. Obviously, we are not alone in our gratitude.” Vish had a scroll in one hand, and with the other he gestured toward the crowds. It did look like most of the city had joined representatives from dozens of worlds. Around two hundred Athosians, an equal number of Hoffans, and around fifty Degans mixed with the three hundred or so Earthers, a handful of Genii and young people who’d opted out of ritual suicide on M7G-677, and probably a hundred or so dignitaries from their trading partners. The Wraith would have considered this a regular feast.

Unfortunately, one of Vish’s fellow priests moved to the side where she could block Sheppard’s retreat. Vish twitched an eyebrow at Tony. Move and countermove. Damn but Tony did like this man. He could play a mean game, the whole time maintaining a zen calm that allowed him to deny ever playing a game. “If you will excuse me, Arbiter Tony,” he said as he started to slip around Tony.

Tony glanced back and saw Sheppard trapped between a Degan priest and a table laden with enough sugary treats that even Rodney wouldn’t have been able to make a dent in it. Tony took a step to the side to block Vish again. “I hear you found a very interesting text recently.” In fact, Tony had been hearing rumors for a while now, but he’d taken that as a sign to avoid the Degans. Tony really didn’t want to hear a translated version of the "Joy of Bowels," and boy didn’t he wish that was an exaggeration. Teyla might think Earthers were nuts, but the Ancients had been a special breed of stark-raving mad.

“Very interesting,” Vish agreed. “I will be happy to do a private reading for you. But it must be later, Tony. I do need to present my gift to the Shepherd.” Vish grabbed Tony’s arm to keep him in place and moved around him. Tony gave Sheppard and apologetic look, but the colonel just shrugged wearily before putting on the most insincere smile Tony had seen since leaving DC.

“The Shepherd has returned,” Vish said to the colonel. The capitalization of the title Shepherd was clear in his voice.

“Yeah. Great to be back,” Colonel Sheppard said. “I should probably… you know…” He gestured toward the crowd that he’d been carefully avoiding.

Rodney stepped in. “Priest guy. You. Yeah. I’ve had to send three different technicians to fix the terminals in your tower. I don’t have an unlimited supply of crystals you know. Or, I do, but they take a long time to grow, and I can’t keep up with the number you’re burning out.”

“Of course,” Vish answered without even a twitch of aggravation. He also didn’t move, and with his second assistant, he continued to keep Sheppard trapped in his corner. Getting caught in a corner with no escape was definitely not smart. Tony hoped that John used a little more tactical sense next time. They had compared notes on the misery of growing up rich enough that every nose pick ended up dissected by the social elite, so Tony knew the man had better skills than to get trapped by a dessert table.

Vish quickly held out the scroll. “I only wished to offer my own present to mark this day. We were transcribing a text that theorized that the truth of all things may be found in the single beat of a butterfly’s wings when we came across this. We have held it for its proper owner. We had faith you would return.”

John looked like he was ready for a full panic attack. Give him Wraith, and he handled it with aplomb, but the man sucked at social gatherings worse than Tony. Or Gibbs. Hell, he made Rodney look downright smooth by comparison.

“Yes. Thank you,” Rodney answered for John. “Now go away.”

“Rodney,” John snapped. “I apologize. I think we’re both tired. Thank you for the gift,” John said, even if he held the scroll awkwardly.

“Of course, Shepherd Colonel John,” Vish said. He smiled at then turned away. He wandered into the crowd.

“Geez Rodney, rude much?” John asked quietly.

“Yes,” Rodney shot right back without a hint of apology. “He creeps me out, and the IOC wouldn’t have dragged their feet nearly as much if they hadn’t been worried about you going all local warlord and minor god. The Dagan priests are a huge part of that.” Rodney crossed his arms over his chest and got a mulish look on his face.

“I seem to remember you going along with the plan to convince them I was an Ancestor,” John hissed back. A couple of party guests turned to look, and Tony moved to intercept them and lay on some DiNozzo charm. Yeah, no one would be guessing these two slept together any time soon.

“I believe in evidence. You could fly a time machine with no instructions.”

“I have the gene,” John snapped a little too loudly and a dozen more people turned to look. Tony let his own voice get louder as he called to someone halfway across the room and waved. The woman got a confused look on her face, but she waved back.

“Fine. Be that way,” Rodney said, and then he was stomping through the crowd. People retreated out of his path, but Tony noted that Abby had already abandoned her admirers and she was making a beeline for him. John was so getting an earful later. Abby never let her favorites go unavenged, and Tony got the feeling that Rodney was now a favorite.

Tony looked over, and given the look of unrestrained fury on Gibbs’ face, he knew it too. Well, no one had promised him that life would get easier if he jumped headfirst into an alien transporter to follow Gibbs.

Realizing he couldn’t do anything about that whole mess, Tony turned to see if he could help Colonel Sheppard. Sheppard was reading the scroll when Tony looked at him, but the shock on his face sent alarms screaming up Tony’s spine. He hurried to Sheppard’s side. “Are you okay?” he asked. Sheppard had turned an unhealthy shade of white. Atlantis herself wasn’t showing any sign of alarm although that sense of her presence was suddenly sharper. “Colonel Sheppard?” Tony reached out to touch his arm.

Sheppard looked up, made eye contact with Tony for a fraction of a second, and then he bellowed at the top of his voice, “McKay! McKay, get over here!” Tony fell back a step, and the entire crowd fell silent. “Rodney!” Sheppard yelled, and then Rodney was running, shoving people out of his way to get to John faster.

“What? What?” Rodney’s voice cracked and he looked around with wild-eyed panic. Tony distantly noted that security had moved toward the exits, and Gibbs was at Elizabeth’s side, one hand wrapped around Abby’s arm. From the looks of things, Abby was trying to pull away, but Gibbs wasn’t budging. “What?” Rodney demanded again.

Sheppard thrust the scroll at him. With an expression halfway between annoyance and worry, Rodney looked down, and now Tony could see the mathematical symbols covering the thick paper. That was a strange thing to put in a book about the flap of a butterfly wing. He looked over toward Vish, and he was grinning widely. The other two priests were close by his side, whispering and looking so very smug.

“Is it?” Sheppard demanded. “Rodney, is it really what I think it is?”

Rodney was breathing faster, his eyes scanning the scroll with fast, almost panicked movements. He didn’t even look up from the scroll when he took a hand and swept all the pastries off the table and onto the floor. Tony leaped back to avoid getting splattered with strawberryish sweet jam.

“Hey!” he protested, but Rodney ignored him as he laid the scroll out on the now empty spot on the table.

“Rodney?” Sheppard demanded. He stepped right up to Rodney’s side, and Tony stepped back as Radek pushed forward.

“Where did you get this?” Rodney looked up, but he only glanced at Sheppard because his gaze searched the crowd until he found Vish. “Where did you get this?” he shouted across the room.

Vish smiled. “I told you. The Ancients found many secrets in the beating of a butterfly’s wings. This secret seemed most appropriate for the Shepherd’s returning gift.”

Elizabeth had moved away from Gibbs’ side, and she was crossing the room, threading between little clusters of curious people.

“Rodney, please tell me this isn’t a joke,” Sheppard asked.

Rodney turned and looked at John. “I can’t be sure until I get to my lab and run simulations.”

“But?” Sheppard prompted him.

Rodney gave him a crooked smile. “But this looks like the formula for recharging a ZPM. We can bring her back to life. All of her.”

Sheppard fell back against the wall for a second, his eyes glazing over.

Elizabeth reached Radek’s side, and they both stood on the far side of a battlefield of crushed pastries and looked at the scroll. “Rodney, are you sure?”

“A hundred percent? No, of course not. But if this isn’t the right formula, it’s close enough to take thirty years off our research.”

Radek muttered in Czech, and then Sheppard pushed away from the wall and strode right through the crowd. Everyone was muttering now, whispering about the idea of having all the power of the Ancients back in the city. Tony cringed a little as he realized that this was definitely going to be making the rumor mill, and that meant eventually some Wraith worshipper would take the story back to the hives. However, for right now, this was great news.

Sheppard reached Vish and for a second he stood right in front of the man. Vish was small with white hair, a slender frame, and laugh lines around his mouth and eyes. He smiled at the colonel. “Welcome home, our Shepherd,” he said just loud enough for his voice to rise over the mutters.

“Best present ever,” Sheppard said, and then he caught Vish up in a hug and spun him around. The room broke out in cheers, and someone started a strange whooping that some of the locals used to sound a victory. Others picked up the sound and soon the entire room was full of whooping people with the Marines adding in their own “Hoo-rah” until it made a strange and repetitive sort of music that echoed off the glass and metal of the Ancient-built room.

Tony stretched until his fingers pressed against the wall. Gibbs’ come was leaking out of him, and he was in the wet spot, but he couldn’t have cared less if someone had offered him money. Gibbs hummed as he let his fingers trace the line of Tony’s spine.

“I can’t believe they found the ZPM formula in a book on butterflies,” Tony muttered.

Gibbs chuckled. “Funny. Before he took off, Samas commented that it was the most logical place for the Alterians to leave it.”

Tony tilted his head to the side and made an uncomprehending noise. Gibbs closed his eyes for a second, and the lights dimmed so that the moon shining in through the balcony was the only light. When he opened them again, he leaned in and pressed a kiss against Tony’s shoulder.

“Anyone who was interested in only war would disregard that library. The only people who would value that particular library would be those who had a wider interest in the world.”

“So the Genii or even Earth’s military never would have found it.”

“Because all they care about are weapons. The Ancients left those plans for people who wanted to build something, not for people who only cared about war.”

Tony felt something like a sigh in the back of his head. Atlantis agreed. “Do you think that’s why they scrambled the database?” Tony asked.

Gibbs slid his hand down Tony’s back and rested it against the round of his ass. Gibbs had freed Tony’s wrists, but he still wore the cuffs, and his ankles were still strapped to the sides of the bed. Gibbs kneaded his ass for a second before answering. “Samas thinks that the database was scrambled before they left. There’s evidence that someone tried to clean up parts of it.”

“Maybe someone found her before we came?”

“Maybe,” Gibbs said softly.

“You don’t think so?”

“I think Samas would disagree, but he isn’t here to give all his reasons why he would disagree.”

Tony nodded and let his eyes fall closed. It’d been an exciting day. “How are the sprogs?” he asked. Samas’ kids had to be close to maturity by now. Tony had been speaking to Teyla in general roundabout ways, and she seemed to think that some of the younger Athosians would consider it a great honor to carry a life that might outlive them by thousands of years. Tony suspected that the influx of young Athosians volunteering as guides was related to his comment that if Samas had children, he would want his children to join with individuals who could teach of not only daring and bravery, but also honor. Ellis had only allowed a couple of teams to take local guides, but they’d all had those guides assigned to them before Ellis had come. Sheppard had spent most of day one rearranging the teams, and local guides were now assigned to most of the gate teams.

“Samas said that some of them might be worthy of chasing if they can only grow up and stop annoying him.”

“The fact that he would chase his own kids to get material for more kids…”

“Don’t think about it, DiNozzo,” Gibbs advised him.

Tony hummed. He could go with that. “So how did Earth take the news of the ZPM formula?”

“Cautiously,” Gibbs said. “Rodney couldn’t promise that it would work, so he forwarded a copy to Carter, and they’re both going to see if they can get the numbers to work using the depleted ZPMs they already have.”

“So it’s a race?”

“Yep,” Gibbs agreed.

“Rodney will win.”

“Probably. Samas seems to think that now that he has the formula, he can find a reference to it in the database. He wants to spend a week or two searching the computer.”

Tony shifted and he could feel the slickness in his asshole. “Are you okay with staring at a computer all day?”

“It’s worth it,” Gibbs said, “although Samas and I agree on keeping the actual recharging station a secret in case Earth gets any ideas about giving up on their own facility and turning us into a battery recharging station.”

Tony opened his eyes. “What?”

Gibbs brought his hand up and rested it against Tony’s cheek. “Earth needs to be able to take care of her own needs. If Earth has no ability to recharge ZPMs, then it’s forced to rely on us. That makes us more valuable, but it also means that Earth has to hold onto us more closely.”

Tony nodded. “Got it. And considering that we have sprogs to think of, having Earth too close would be a bad thing.”

“Yeah, it would. For them and us,” Gibbs agreed. “The universe is a dangerous place, and no planet can rely on another. They need to stand on their own, so let Carter find a way to charge their ZPMs.”

The logic made sense, even if Tony was a little surprised at the idea that Gibbs would keep the recharging station a secret if he found it. Then again, Tony found that most of the people on the city would do anything to protect her. Well, her and Sheppard.

The Degans had been whispering about a great find for weeks… months maybe. None of them had turned the formula over until John came back. And Tony had a gut-level feeling that Zelenka had done a little creative editing of Ellis’ emails to make the man look even guiltier of incompetence than he really was… although he was definitely incompetent on his own. Tony even suspected that Teyla had undermined Ellis, failing to warn him about simple problems in an attempt to encourage him to move on.

Unfortunately, the military didn’t let colonels just move on without transfer orders.

“If you had a chance to go back to Earth, would you?” Tony asked.

Gibbs’ hands stilled. Lying in the dark with alien moonlight cutting lines across their shared quarters, Tony had everything he wanted. Earth had his father and Ziva and McGee and his job at NCIS headquarters, and as much as he cared about all those things, he had conflicted feelings about each and every one. Here things were simpler.

“Would you?”

“No, not unless you did,” Tony answered.

Gibbs grunted. Tony suspected that was the only answer he would get out of Gibbs. Even if Earth had exiled Gibbs and threatened to lock him in a cage for the rest of his life, there would always be some part of him that was loyal to his home. That loyalty would keep him from saying anything more.

“Abby said something funny today,” Tony said.

“If the next words out of your mouth include McKay, I’m getting a gag.”

“No.” Clearly Gibbs was still unhappy. “She said that you were a lot more intense before I came into your life. In fact, she said that before me, you were always this unreasonably cranky when things didn’t go the way you wanted them to.”

“She did, huh?” Gibbs rolled closer, trapping Tony’s right arm between their cooling bodies.

“Yep.”

“It might be true,” Gibbs said cagily.

“She said that you even tried driving Stan away until you got used to him and then you threw a fit when he transferred out.”

Gibbs gave another grunt. “When I have Samas with me, most people annoy me,” he said after a long silence.

“Why?”

They lay in the dark and the quiet so long that Tony thought Gibbs might have fallen asleep. Without Samas in him, he did need more rest. However, he finally answered. “People lie about their emotions. Worse, they lie to themselves, so they say things they think are true when that’s not how they feel. Stan used to tell me how much he enjoyed working with the Senate, and his voice and every physical reaction pointed to the truth of that statement, but I could smell the misery from him when he talked about his time there. How can someone not know themselves? How can I trust people who don’t know themselves?”

Tony blinked as he struggled to understand what Gibbs was implying about him. “Are you suggesting that I’m emotionally healthy, because I’m not even close, boss.”

“You’re as close as I am.”

“Exactly,” Tony said dryly.

That earned an amused chuckle. “I mean that you tell me how much you loved growing up rich, and I can hear the lie and I can smell your misery when you talk about your childhood. Those two match. When you lie, you know you’re lying. You’re just very good at it.”

“Thanks. I think. So what about Abby and Ducky?”

“They’re the same. Their emotions match what they’re saying, even if they might be telling a lie at the time. McGee though, I have a harder time with him. He puts on a show of confidence, but he lets his insecurities show through, and then he smells of anger. I don’t know what to think of him yet.”

“And Ziva?” Tony asked. If they were having one of those rare moments when Gibbs was in the mood to share, Tony really wanted to know why she had earned such an immediately trust from him.

Gibbs took a deep breath and sighed. Tony stayed still as he waited for Gibbs to sort his thoughts. “She believed Ari was innocent. She said it, she believed it, and her emotions matched it.”

“And she was wrong,” Tony pointed out.

“Yeah,” Gibbs agreed sadly. “She was. But she’s the one who shot Ari in my basement, not me. Even when she pulled the trigger—even when she held him as he bled out—she still loved him. She grieved him deeply, but she loved the truth more. She put my life and our case ahead of her own feelings, and she was willing to consider that she was wrong. She never would have agreed to come to my house and back me up if she hadn’t been willing to consider the possibility that she had made a mistake. That meant a lot to me.”

“Well crap,” Tony said softly. Okay, he could see why Gibbs had given her his stamp of approval. He still maintained that a Mossad agent didn’t have the right skills for an investigative team, but he understood why Gibbs had taken her in. After all, he and Tony had been a two-man team before, so they could solve the cases while she learned the job. It had a logic to it. Besides, that would have majorly triggered Gibbs’ protective instincts. “Are you sorry we left her behind?”

“No. She was too brittle to handle this well. Then again, I would have said that you would be better off at home, too, and you have told me more than once that you would rather be here.”

Tony barely managed to avoid saying that the same was true of Abby, but he bit his tongue at the last second.

“If you hadn’t come, I don’t know who Samas would have chosen for her heirs. I hate to think of a bunch of queens made with Kali’s memories, but Samas might have used her blood.”

Tony frowned. He knew that the symbiote he’d hosted and left behind on Samas homeworld had been asexual—what passed as male in their species. “Queens?”

Gibbs used his arm around Tony’s waist to pull him closer. “The children he spawned after you gave up your symbiote included three queens all with the DNA of your symbiote and the memories that symbiote had taken from your mind. Of the children now maturing under Atlantis, two of the survivors are queens, both using your genetic lines. Congratulations, Tony, you have twin girls. In Igigi culture, saying that you’re worthy of spawning a queen is the highest compliment.”

Tony pushed himself up on one elbow. “Queens? Seriously? There are going to be DiNozzo memories running around five thousand years from now?” Tony wasn’t sure if he was proud or horrified. Maybe both. Damn, he hadn’t even raised his girls and they’d inherited his messed up father issues and his insecurities. Maybe Samas had edited those things out.

Gibbs pulled him back down, and Tony huffed as he hit the mattress. “Calm down. You’re a great father, and they’re both strong girls. Of course in true Igigi fashion, they’re very focused on killing each other, but in that way, they’re not all that different from human offspring and their siblings.”

“Crap. I’m a father. Wait. Why didn’t Samas tell me I was a father?”

“Because he didn’t want you to get upset about the three other girls that weren’t quick enough or smart enough to avoid their sisters. It’s the Igigi way, and he was afraid you would want to protect all five even if that wasn’t the best choice for the species.”

“It seems pretty cold to let them die,” Tony said, his stomach churning a little as he realized he’d lost most of his girls before knowing he had them. He remembered the symbiote’s memory of cutting through the water, the excitement and danger all around him. He knew that his girls had probably been equally excited to get out there and prove themselves, and they wouldn’t have wanted him to protect them. Still. He’d lost three girls.

“That’s why humans who haven’t hosted are never going to really understand. For Igigi, it’s better to throw your strength against the enemy and die than to live without ever testing yourself. It’s their way.”

Tony thought about his symbiote’s eagerness to get out of Tony and try and tempt the queen into taking his blood. And he knew that one wrong twitch, and Samas would eat him whole. That was part of the joy.

“Igigi are even more alien than Wraith, aren’t they?”

“Maybe,” Gibbs admitted, “but Samas is worth the trouble, and your girls are too.”

“Yeah.” Tony smiled as he thought of them one day taking hosts and looking at the world where their father had walked. He imagined how excited they’d be to find a whole new universe full of new enemies to fight. “They’re going to give the Wraith hell.”

“Oh yeah,” Gibbs agreed. “They wouldn’t be DiNozzos if they didn’t give someone hell.”

“ZPMs and a whole generation of Igigi ready to take on the world—the Wraith ain’t seen nothing yet,” Tony said softly. Lying there, he floated in that half place between sleeping and awake and let his mind drift. The city whispered lullabies to him, and he imagined the dark ocean beneath her rusted and damaged skirts where his children played. It wasn’t just his girls, though.

Other symbiotes raced between broken struts and darted down to take fish. Some sung of Kali as she’d been when she was young. She’d dive out of her human host with her fins extended, just as fierce as any queen. They sung of a young Yu who would twist and turn, lure his enemy in and then flip around to catch them in his jaws before cutting them in half. Symbiotes sang of the beauty and cold destruction of physics mingled with the hot passion of Carter. They sang of Daniel’s losses and his strength. Many of them sang of O’Neill and his steel determination. They sang of their mother Samas and the great host Gibbs. However, they were frustrated. They had no new songs, and they wanted more. They wanted to see the world. They wanted to meet the Wraith their mother spoke of and feel Wraith blood on their hosts’ hands.

Atlantis hummed her lullabies louder, and Tony drifted off still dreaming of his children.