Emily stared blankly out across the great expanse of ocean beyond Atlantis. She struggled to suppress a sigh. She had countless memories of the things that had happened when she was a little child running wildly around the safe parts of the city. However, those lingering memories were very faint. Ever since she woke up, nothing made sense. Her mind wandered to what happened three months ago.
Strange voices echoed around her in an unfamiliar language for days. Warmth touched her skin, but she could never respond. Her eyes would never open to see what was happening around her. Emily could barely breath on her own. She wasn't Emily then, at least not yet. After days of this torture, Emily finally awoke with bleary eyes and a complete understanding of every strange language she heard during her time in between true life and unconsciousness.
The second she opened her eyes, a flock of doctors and nurses were at her side. She could hear one of them talking to someone named Dr. Weir. Her questions were stopped by the calamity around her along with her sudden realization. She was in the old infirmary only strange clothing filled by stranger people surrounded her. Emily's first verbal contact with these new people came shortly after this sudden realization.
"All right, everyone! Give the girl some room!" an authoritative male voice commanded.
All reluctantly backed away from her gurney. A man with clear blue eyes, styled black hair, and obvious five o'clock shadow wearing a plain black shirt and khaki pants under his lab coat came rushing forward.
"She's just fine," replied one of the doctors who had been checking her eyes.
The blue-eyed man opened his mouth to say something, but Emily cut him off.
"He's right. I'm perfectly fine."
"You can talk?" he asked, obviously frazzled.
"Of coarse I can? Why wouldn't I be able to?"
He blinked a few times before opening his mouth to say something.
"Don't even try an apology on me! Your language took no time to understand."
"No, it's not that."
"Then what is it?" Emily asked impatiently.
"I didn't expect you to be able to talk so soon after being frozen for thousands of years."
Emily's heart skipped a beat as she sat up with speed one wouldn't have expected from someone in her physical state. "Thousands?"
"Yes-"
Emily held up a hand. She needed to get her breath back. Thousands of years in that stasis pod and she didn't feel a day older than she did when she was put in there.
"Who's in Atlantis now? No . . . why is there natural light?" she demanded, suddenly realizing that the warmth on her body was coming from the sunlight beaming through a window on the other end of the window.
"That's nothing for you to worry about now. Just get some rest." He gently pushed her back onto the bed. She didn't fight for one second. Shock had overcome her as she stared around her. What had happened?
Desperately, she grabbed one of his sleeves. "What's your name?"
The pure desperation in her voice stirred something inside the man. A few moments of tense lingered between them before he answered. "Dr. Beckett."
She nodded with a weak smile sleep beginning to overtake her. "I'm . . . I'm . . . I don't remember my name!" With that, Emily drifted off into a drug-induced sleep.
She was suddenly torn from her thoughts by her name being called over the communicator in her ear. She pressed the bud that was in her ear.
"What do you want, Zelenka?" she demanded in Czech. She was fluent in almost all the languages represented in Atlantis.
"Rodney's had another . . . incident."
Emily sighed. "What now?"
"He didn't read the instructions you left him."
"He what! Why didn't you . . . never mind. What happened this time?" she demanded in a clearly frustrated tone. Rodney had been short circuiting everything he built since she started to give him blueprints of Ancient devises.
"Uhhhhh, I think it would be better if you saw this for yourself."
Emily sighed. "Fine. I'll be in the jumper bay soon." She pressed the ear bud with a sigh. So much for her reflections.