Title: Isobel
Author: bluedrgn52
Pairing: Eventual McShep, Isobel/Arik (my characters), Implied Carter/O'Neill and O'Neill/Jackson (but I wouldn't classify it as a cross over really, I shortly borrowed them and a few SGA characters through out the story, but they're kinda background.)
Rating: Eventually MA, but this is pretty much set up and innocent.
Spoilers: It's pretty AU, but I'd say if you've seen seasons 1,2 and 3 you're pretty ok. After that, I blur the lines a bit.
Word count: 31,000 something at this point
Summary/Warnings: You might go WTF at first, but it'll all be explained. Don't worry. I made up a few characters and it's an AU. I think that's about it.
Disclaimer: Just borrowing the characters, except for Isobel and Arik, who are mine. :D
Author's Notes: I really miss Dr. Weir, so she's in this one as the expedition leader still. It's pretty much straight Atlantis AU, but follows the time line from the show.

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Chapter 1

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When Isobel came into being, she knew quickly that she was going to have a problem. She couldn't tell people why she was here. She also knew it was important that she tell them *why*. She didn't know who they were, she just knew that the man with the bright blue eyes and the man with the hazel green ones needed to be told what was happening. All she could do was scream. So she did. A lot.

"We can't keep a baby here Colonel!" she heard a man say.

"She appeared McKay." Another man said, "Out of thin air."

"We can't keep her here." A female voice said. "It's too dangerous for a baby to live in this city right now. With the Wraith and everything else, we simply can't."

The man with the green eyes left, leaving blue eyed McKay and the woman with her. She opened her mouth and screamed.

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One Year Later

A child who looked about the age of 5 ran down the hallway, escaping the man she called Daddy.

"Isobel come back here now!" He yelled.

"Daddy daddy daddy!" Issa chanted. "You can't catch me!"

Daddy came up behind her and swung her in the air right as the door opened. "Momma." Issa said softly.

"Jack, put her down." Mommy said.

"Sorry Sam. We were having some fun." Daddy said.

"I didn't break anything." Issa said quietly.

"I know baby." Mommy said.

Issa spaced out for a minute and when she came back she said, "We have to leave here soon."

"Another one hun?" Jack said roughing up her hair.

"Yes." Issa said. "Soon. This week. I just wish I could remember why it was so important."

"Okay baby. Where to now?" Sam said. Jack went into the study and pulled out the globe.

"Hmm. We haven't been to Florida in a while." Jack said.

"That'll work. We have a house on base there." Sam said.

"I want to go to Disney World." Issa said, putting her thumb in her mouth.

"Nap time kiddo." Sam said picking her up.

"Okay Mommy." Issa said cuddling into her mother. "Can I sleep in your bed?"

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Almost Two Years After That

"Isobel," the teacher said, "Can you answer the question for me."

"I'm sorry." Issa said. "Yes. It's 37, which also happens to be a prime number."

"Very good." The teacher moved on. Math was so easy. Issa wished the teachers actually could teach her things she didn't already know, but apparently they either didn't know how or didn't believe she would be able to understand it. Thankfully, Mommy taught her more than the schools did. Daddy said school was just an illusion.

Issa went home and sighed. She was tired of moving around. Every other month they were moving. She grew too fast. She knew that she wasn't normal. She also knew that no other kids she had become friends with would stay that way for long, because she was going to grow up. She just aged too fast to keep friends. Her only friends were Mommy and Daddy. And she had her own reservations about them. She'd talk to them that night.

She got home and opened the cupboard and grabbed an MRE. She ripped it open and ate it. Why she liked them she didn't know. She ran her hand down on her wrist. The black band was there, but she couldn't remember why. When she was smaller, she had it on her ankle. She couldn't remember them. All she could remember was that she was supposed to tell them something and it was important. She didn't know what or why though. It was slipping away.

Dad walked in the door right as Issa cried out in pain. She fell to the floor and Daddy was right there, cradling her like he always did. Issa grew suddenly, and she looked to be the age of 15.

"Shit." Jack said.

"We need to move again, don't we dad?" Issa noticed her voice was different. Not as much of a child's voice anymore.

"Yeah. We do." Daddy said. "I'll call Sam."

Issa just sighed.

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They moved to Colorado this time. Issa didn't like it as much because they weren't near water. She loved the ocean. She couldn't place it, but it made her feel so much more at home than anywhere else.

"Mom." Issa said as Sam walked in her room, carrying the shopping bags they had purchased to give Issa some new clothes.

"Yeah baby?" Sam said.

"How come I don't really look like you or Daddy?" Issa asked.

Sam sighed and sat down. "It's a long story."

"Was I adopted?"

"Sort of." Sam sat down. "We should have Jack in on this too." Sam said softly.

"Just tell me mom. I can handle it."

Sam looked at her oddly and Issa wondered why she looked at her with fear. She had never feared her before. Why now?

"You're not from your dad or me. We're kind of like a surrogate family. We were given guardianship of you shortly after you were born." Sam stated, then tucked Issa's hair behind her ear.

"Who was I born to?" Issa asked.

"We don't know." Sam said.

"Why do I grow up fast?" Issa asked next.

"Again, we don't know." Sam said.

"What do we know?" Issa asked impatiently, her hands crossed over her chest.

"I can't tell you all of it. But we know where you came into being. We know who found you. We know that you're engineered to grow up quickly but we don't know WHY." Sam said.

"Why are you afraid of me mom?" Issa asked her.

"Well, there was once a woman in a similar situation. Her name was Adria. She was very bad." Sam said. "She wanted to rule the universe."

"What? Out of some comic book?" Issa asked snorting.

"No." Sam said. "Jack will help me when he gets home. Can we just wait?" Sam asked.

"Sure mom. We'll wait. It can wait a while longer." Issa sighed. At least they answered her questions. "I'm not bad mom."

"I know honey." Sam said and gave her a hug.

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Issa walked down the hallways to the SGC. It looked familiar. Somehow. She just didn't remember why. She knew though, this wasn't where she was supposed to be. She was due to grow up again in another month or so. She didn't want to keep doing this. She didn't know if it was going to stop or not.

She took the tests that they gave her. She knew she passed them. They were child's play. Things she had known since she was the appearance of 5 or so. In reality, she was only 4 years old. She looked like she was 15.

"Did she pass?" She heard her daddy talking to someone else and paused outside of the open door.

"Jack, she passed with flying colours." The other man said.

"Daniel, she's not Adria." Jack said.

"But why was she sent here? WHO sent her here?" The man named Daniel asked.

"We don't know, but she's not evil. We would have noticed." Jack said.

"I just don't know if it's a good idea to send her to Atlantis or not." Daniel stated.

Issa's mind flashed colours and sounds. Atlantis. Blue and green hallways, an ocean outside. Atlantis was home.

"We don't have a choice. They're sending her." Jack said. "After the next cycle."

Issa heard shuffling and quietly walked away. She kept walking until she found a lab. She probably wasn't supposed to be in there, but she didn't care. It called to her. She went in and found no one there. That was good. She found the object that was calling her and walked over to it. Touched it. It glowed bright yellow, then dimmed back into an orange colour. She ran her hands over a few other objects in the room and they all glowed, but it was more of a blue glow. Something inside her hummed. She knew she was close to understanding now. She screamed out in frustration.

"What are you doing?" Someone asked.

"Nothing." Issa said, stepping back into the hallway and running away to her room.

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"What happened?" Jack asked coming into the bedroom Issa had been assigned.

"I heard you and that guy Daniel talking and I ran away because he said something about me going to Atlantis. I want to go dad, but I didn't want you to know I heard you. Then I went into a lab and I touched something. It felt like … I can't explain it. I just *knew* to touch it. It was almost like it was calling to me." Issa said as she tucked her legs under her.

"You can't wander around here Isobel. There's some pretty dangerous stuff. But Sam wants to see you in the lab you went into. They're analyzing the stuff now." Jack said.

Issa sighed. "Okay."

They walked to the labs and found her mom bent over a keyboard looking completely at home.

"Mom?" Issa said from the doorway.

"Come here hon." Sam said, and wrapped her arm around Issa.

"What's going on?" Issa asked. People were looking at her weird.

"What did you do to this device?" Sam asked holding up the large orange crystal.

"I touched it." Issa said. "Then it glowed and flashed bright yellow and then it went back to glowing orange."

"It's called a ZPM." Sam said. "It's pretty special. This one was depleted. Can you tell me where you touched it at?"

Issa pointed, but didn't touch it again. "There." She said. Sam wrote something down then moved on and catalogued everything else that Issa touched.

"Why is this important mom?" Issa asked.

"To our knowledge everything in this room was out of power." Sam said. "It was all shipped back from Atlantis and deemed useless until we could figure out how to power it again."

"Oh." Issa said, shifting her weight on her other foot then said, "Do I get to go to Atlantis?"

"Yes baby you do." Sam said. "I'll be going with you. Jack has to stay here, but I didn't want to send you alone."

Issa fiddled with the wristband. "Do I know people there?" She asked.

"You do." Sam said, "But I don't know if you'll remember them and I'm pretty sure they won't recognize you."

Issa snorted and pulled her black hair back into a ponytail. "Okay. Well, what can I do to help? I can't go until my next growth period, so put me to use here."

"Well, you can touch some of these things and see if they turn on for you." Sam started, "Then we'll get your help with some equations."

"Great. I'm a light switch." Issa said chuckling.

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"Not only does she have the strongest gene we've ever seen, even stronger than Colonel Sheppard's, she somehow can focus the gene to make the items do what she wants them to do." Sam said, reporting to General Landry.

"Well, they'll want her in Atlantis. Does she want to go?" He asked.

"She does. She wants to go now." Sam said.

"Why?" The General asked.

"Because she said if her aging continues and doesn't level off like Adria's did, she wants to get as much done as quickly as possible for the Atlantis expedition." Sam said.

"I agree. Send her when she's ready. We've got two fully charged ZPMs now thanks to her. I think we can send her a little early." Landry said.

"Thanks Sir." Sam said smiling.

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Issa walked through the gate and as soon as she stepped out, she knew she was home. The smell of the ocean, the hum of the city vibrated in her cells and she knew this is where she was supposed to be.

"Hello." She said to a dark haired man.

"Hi. I'm Colonel Sheppard. This is Rodney McKay," he pointed to a fidgety looking man with bright blue eyes. He looked up from his data pad and waved, then went back to whatever he was working on. She remembered him, "And this is Elizabeth Weir." Elizabeth held out a hand and Issa took it.

"I'm Issa." She said.

"Hello again Sam." Colonel Sheppard nodded his head at Sam.

"John." Sam nodded back.

"Welcome back." Sheppard said. "Though you've grown."

"I do that." Issa said smiling sarcastically.

"I'm going back to the labs while you do your grand tour thing." Rodney said.

Sheppard rolled his eyes. "Don't worry, we'll find him when we get around that way."

Issa took a step forward and the floor lit up.

"That's new." Sheppard said. Issa stopped. "No, keep going."

The hallways glowed beside her, a soothing blue green, the floor lit up the same colous below her.

"Mom," Issa said turning to Sam, "I feel…safe. At home. I belong here."

"This is where you came from." Sam said.

"It explains a lot." Issa said, snorted and continued walking.

"Why isn't the power on throughout the city? You have ZPMs, why aren't you using them?" Issa asked.

"What do you mean we have ZPMs?" Sheppard asked.

"Uhh. Issa re-activated the dead ZPMs on Earth. They sent one through with us." Sam said.

"Not what I'm talking about mom." Issa said. "They haven't even discovered it yet." She sighed. "This is just gonna take a few minutes…" She opened a panel on the wall just as Sheppard was starting to yell out "What do you think you're doing?" Sam stepped in front of him and said "Just let her do it Sheppard. She knows more about this place than ANYONE. You and McKay included."

Sheppard scowled. Issa laughed. "You haven't been there." She said in awe, sitting back on her legs. "How could you not have found it yet? It's right in the systems on the first page of diagnostics on every report."

"Where?" Sheppard asked.

"The storage room." Issa said simply.

"Where is it? And what are you talking about? The first page of diagnostics is always gibberish." Sheppard asked.

"No. It's not." Issa said. "It's coordinates. Of course, they're hidden in case someone who isn't supposed to have the city takes it. But it's not *that* hidden."

"Show me." Sheppard said, then tapped his radio calling McKay back.

Issa shrugged. "Three levels down, below the control room."

"It was flooded when we first got here." Sheppard said. "There's nothing there but an empty room now." He looked disappointed.

"You aren't really that dense are you?" Issa asked and Sheppard glared at her. She was like McKay, only smaller and female. "Do you really think the Ancients would have left everything in the open, and wouldn't have protected their best hope for the city's survival from a flood?"

"Ok. Let's go." Sheppard grabbed a hold of Issa and dragged her down the hallway just as Rodney ran up behind them. Sam grinned. This was going to be an interesting day.

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"What are you on?" McKay asked Issa.

"Nothing." Issa said perplexed.

"You can't do the calculations like that. It makes no sense. It's basic physics. You're not following them." Rodney snorted.

"Only to someone with a brain that's limited." Issa said smirking. "Here. I'll write it out in layman's terms." Issa started writing on the white board again, making her equations simplified. The previous math she had been doing was far beyond just about everything Sam had seen before and she knew Rodney was equally pole axed. Sam could follow what she was writing now, but not all of it.

"See. It's not too hard. You were really close when you did this report. It was just off by a few equations." Issa handed Rodney a tablet.

"This is when I had my super brain from the ascention machine." Rodney said. "You can understand this?"

Issa shrugged.

"Well, ok. Do your thing." Rodney said waving. Sam caught Rodney's eye and waved him over.

"How's she doing?" Sam asked.

"She's amazing." Rodney grinned. "She's improved the power in the city by 65% and is smarter than both of us combined. Though I hate to say that, and I never admitted it." Rodney said quickly. Sam smiled at him. "Not to mention, she can repower ZedPM's with a single touch, and found the Ancient's secret stash of drones and two ZedPM's right under our noses. And she's only been here for three days. Who is she?"

"Wish I knew." Sam said.

"Mom?" Issa said turning around. "Can we have lunch?" she put the marker down. "I'm hungry."

"Sure Iss." Carter said.

"I'll make sure no one touches this." Rodney said.

"Thanks." Issa said and then wrapped her arm around Sam's waist, following her to the cafeteria.

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"So she's smart. So what." Ronon said.

"She's more than smart!" Rodney stated. "She's a flipping super genius!"

They were in the cafeteria eating a late lunch.

Ronon shrugged. "You're smart."

"She's like 10 times smarter than me!" Rodney said quietly. "By even admitting that, I'm letting myself down. But the point is, we can't lose that. Even with everything she's done, she's the only one who can maintain it. So if she leaves, we can't keep what she's doing. Well. Of course, we'll have the ZedPM's, but we can't follow her equations on maintaining power levels as they stand. There's just so much."

"Can she fight?" Ronon asked.

"I don't know!" Rodney smirked. "It's not like I said, 'Here, take this big stick and try to hit me.'"

"I will." Ronon said.

Rodney rolled his eyes.

"Here's your chance." Rodney said and pointed as Issa came into the mess. She grabbed an apple tossed it in the air, caught it and took a big bite. She had a data pad in one hand and was reading as she sat down. Ronon stood up and walked over to her.

"Wanna spar?" He asked her.

"What?" Issa said coming out from her dazed reading mental state.

"Gym. Let's see if you can fight." Ronon said and walked away.

"C'mon. He likes to hit people with big sticks." Rodney said taking pity on her.

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"Don't be too hard on her. She's just a kid." Rodney said.

"I've never fought before." Issa said looking at Ronon. "It can't be *that* hard."

Rodney snorted. "I'll bring you ice packs later."

Ronon threw her a stick which she caught. She twirled it in her hand to get the feel of it right as he attacked. She stepped aside.

"Nice one." Ronon said.

"I don't want you to hit me." Issa said.

"That's the point." Ronon said.

"Got it. Don't get it. Hit you." Issa stated.

"Yup." Ronon said.

Ronon came at her again, and Issa moved out of the way so quickly Rodney blinked.

"How did you do that?" Rodney asked.

"His left foot moved quicker. I knew which way he was going to attack from. I moved the other way." Issa said simply, and then twirled the stick again.

"Come hit me." Ronon said.

Issa gripped the stick and ran quickly up on Ronon. Just as he turned to avoid her, she changed directions, hitting him directly in the stomach.

"She can stay." Ronon said, gripping his stomach.

"What?" Rodney said perplexed.

"No one has ever hit me the first time sparring since I was 15." Ronon said.

"Huh. It's all in the math you know." Issa said.

"What do you mean?" Rodney asked.

"You can see the moves if you put it into math. Then you take the logical choice." Issa said shrugging.

"Whatever works for you." Ronon said.

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Issa was working on equations on the white board a week later when she felt it. The gut clenching pain.

"Get Mom." She turned to Rodney and pleaded before she collapsed on the floor unconscious.

She woke up three days later in the infirmary. She saw Sam sitting next to her and McKay and Sheppard arguing in the doorway. There was a pretty doctor next to her as well. She recognized her immediately.

"Dr. Keller, what happened?" She croaked out, her voice dry and low pitched from three days of disuse.

"You had an episode." Keller said diplomatically.

Issa chuckled. "You mean I got older again. How long was I out?" She turned asking Sam.

"Three days." Sam said. "I was so worried."

"Three days?" Issa asked, "That's the longest I've ever been out."

"We figure it's because of how much you've been using your brain, and when you grew again, it needed more time to recover."

"Am I going to be ok?" Issa asked.

"As far as the Ancients machinery is concerned, yes." Sam said.

"But you don't really know, do you?" Issa asked. She had one hell of a headache.

"Not really." Dr. Keller said.

"Thanks Doc." Issa said, then stood up, looking for a mirror.

"There's one in the bathroom over there." Sam said pointing.

"Thanks mom." Issa said.

Issa walked into the bathroom while Sam went over to McKay and Sheppard. She closed the door and turned around looking at her new body for the first time…again. She was grown. Probably early 20's, and if she did say so herself, she was really hot. Her long black hair flowed to the middle of her back, her blue eyes stood out in the mirror like icebergs. She took her hair band, which was the black wrist band, and flipped it up into a messy ponytail. She inspected her face, there were no lines, and she looked like a perfectly healthy 20 something. She sighed. She wondered how long she'd get to keep this body before she changed again. She stepped out and saw McKay and Sheppard standing next to her bed. She met their eyes and it hit her. She knew her purpose.

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End Chapter One

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