The waves were crashing on the east pier. They were soothing to her. Something she could close her eyes to and imagine being somewhere serene and quiet. Somewhere were she wasn't worried about if she would be transferred off of Atlantis and back to Earth. She leaned back against a pillar and sat down and remembered the day she asked to join the Stargate program in Atlantis.

Isabella O'Neill was walking from a briefing room in the Pentagon. An Airman stopped Isabella. "Miss O'Neill your presence is requested in General O'Neill's office immediately. I was sent to escort you."

Isabella nodded and followed the airman through the maze of hallways; they finally stopped in front of the door labeled, "Brigadier General J O'Neill." Isabella knocked on the door, and entered after being told to. "Good day General. You requested to see me."

General O'Neill stood up and flicked his hand in the air, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that the way you greet your uncle?" He walked over to her and enveloped her in a hug, "My dear Bella, so good to see you"

"Good to see you too. We work in the same building and never see each other. I even work under you in Homeworld Security and yet see you rarely in meetings," Bella sat in a chair across from Jack.

"Well Bella, I actually called you here cause we need someone to join the program in Atlantis. Kinda be Woosely's second civilian person… so he doesn't you know piss too many people off…" Jack said handing her a file. "I know you know a lot about the program and you were basically raised around the air force and know how we work and how people tend to you know…" O'Neill made his circular hand motions.

Isabella flipped through the file, "When would you like me to be in Colorado Springs or will I be taking the Daedalus or Odyssey?"

Jack stood up, walked around the desk, and placed his hands on the arms of the chair, "We will be taking a plane this evening, and tomorrow a jumper will arrive in the morning for us to head out in. You didn't think your dear old uncle would let you go alone?"

Bella smirked, "Of course not." She stood up and walked to her door. "Well I am going to pack up my office and then pack my bag. I'll see you in a few hours."

Jack nodded, "…O'Neilll, Miss O'Neilll. You are needed in the gateroom."

Isabella opened her eyes and looked around her. She lifted her hand to her ear and pressed her comm, "I'm on my way." She sighed and stood up and walked back into the main part of the city and headed into a transporter. Isabella walked into the gateroom and up the stairs and into the control room.

"Ah Miss O'Neilll, you are just in time. We are to receive visitors from a planet that SGA-4 was on. I thought you would like to be here to greet them, since that is your job to be our foreign correspondent," Woosely grimaced.

Bella rolled her eyes, "Really Mr. Woosely, you must get over it. I am here to help out. The IOA believed an extra person to help you with correspondence would be best."

"She has yet to make new enemies, and she has been here a full 4 months. You made enemies within what the first week?" Colonel John Sheppard made his presence known as he joined the duo looking over the gateroom.

"I think I did a decent job with correspondence."

"We really should move down to the gateroom" Isabella nodded down to the wormhole opening up. "Colonel Sheppard, you are missing your team members."

"Pull Rodney away from his knick-knacks he got on the last mission? Nah… I figured they didn't need to be here to see this amazing guy that SGA-4 met," Colonel Sheppard scratched the back of his neck.

Isabella watched as Woosely made his way to SGA-4 and their guest hidden in between the team. Colonel Sheppard leaned towards Bella. She could feel his breath in her ear, "Will I see you after this on the East Pier?"

Isabella nodded as she walk towards the guest, "Welcome to Atlantis. I am Isabella O'Neilll and this is …"

"Colonel Sheppard! When the team came through the Ancient Ring, I knew I was missed! I mean, come on… I haven't seen you Colonel Sheppard in a year!," He looked back at Bella and grabbed her hand and kissed it, "Beautiful lady, who are you? You must have heard of me, Lucuis!"

"Ummm…. ?" Isabella pulled her hand away. "Unfortunately."

Sheppard stood between Bella and Lucius, "You really need to stop appearing here and there. This is Dr. O'Neilll, and this is Mr. Woosely. What now did you do, to bring attention to yourself?"

"Nothing!" Lucius stepped back. "How could you assume I would do anything? I just have been perusing around. You know the usual."

Sheppard rolled his eyes, "Sergeant, can you please bring Lucius to his room, and make sure he has a guard at all times."

Lucius threw his hands us, "Hey, Hey… can I make a friend with this lovely lady first?" He stepped closer, "How would you like to join me in my room later?"

Bella raised her eyebrow, "No, thank you. You are a guest and I will only meet with you in public," Bella stepped back. "I am going to take leave." She turned and left the gateroom.

Bella made her way to the East Pier, taking her time by walking the majority of the distance before using a transporter. She walked out to the edge of the pier and stretched out, only to feel two arms wrap around her. Bella leaned back into the hug, "Mmm… The mission reports said he was interesting, never thought I would have to experience his presence."

John nodded and sat down, bringing Bella down with him. He placed a kiss on her shoulder. "Sometimes you just have to ignore him. Now stop thinking about Lucius. Today was supposed to be our day off and we can actually have a couple hours alone finally."

"You just think I will be sucked into whatever popularity plan Lucius has this time, but it's not like I don't have you to keep me entertained," Bella turned and lightly kissed his lips, and then turned around to watch the waves dance in a comfortable silence. Her mind drifted to when she first met Colonel Sheppard.

Bella was pacing in her room. She walked the Daedalus many times, read mission reports, and read the books she brought with. She was not good with being stuck in a confined space for three weeks. Maybe she could walk the Daedalus one more time. Her comm beeped requesting her on the bridge. Bella made her way up to the bridge, "Colonel Caldwell, you requested my presence?"

"Ah, yes, Miss O'Neilll, look out the window, notice the planet we are stopped on? This is going to be your new home. I hope you are ready to work," he smiled at Bella. "Now we will be transporting down, and the Daedalus wills make its way down to unload in a couple hours. Go grab a bag of necessities, and we will head down."

Bella nodded and walked to her room, she threw her backpack together, and made her way back to the bridge to see Colonel Caldwell asking permission to transport them both down to the control room of Atlantis. When the okay was given, she felt herself move within the Asgaard beam, only to see a control room emerge in front of her, "No matter how many times I do that, it never gets old."

Colonel Caldwell laughed, "I see you have the love of Asgard technology like your uncle does. Mr. Woosley, I'm sure you remember Dr. Isabella O'Neilll?"

Woosley nodded, and stepped forward offering his hand to her, "Dr. O'Neilll, it is good to see you again. I am looking forward to working with you."

"As am I," Bella returned the handshake and looked around the control room to see people going about on their daily duties. "Shall I get right in to my duties?"

"Yes, actually…" Woosley looked over to the stairs, "Colonel Sheppard, you are late. I would like you to meet a new addition to our team, Dr. O'Neilll."

Bella turned to face the Colonel, Woosley was addressing. She was stunned. He had hair she wanted to grab after running her fingers through, and his eyes showed a playfulness that she was attracted to. She was pulled out of her trance, by Colonel Sheppard talking, "I am sorry Dr. O'Neilll, my team just got back from offworld and I just made it down from the jumper bay after getting everything organized."

"Understandable, if Atlantis is anything like SGC I would find it a rare occurrence when teams actually arrive back on time, unless it is a simple trade mission with a people we are allies with," Bella smiled at Sheppard.

"Now, Colonel why don't you show Dr. O'Neilll her office, so she can get down to work?" Woosley threw out there.

Colonel Sheppard placed an arm around Bella's shoulders and turned her to face the way they needed to go, "Got it."

Bella walked quietly next to Colonel Sheppard. She shifted her bag and felt it being lifted from her shoulders, and she slightly stumbled backwards as she was stopped. Colonel Sheppard smirked, "What do you have in this thing?" He placed it around his shoulders, "By the way, you can call me John, only military use my title around here."

Bella nodded, "Thanks for taking my bag. If I can call you John, you must call me Bella." Bella followed John through the halls, coming to an office. She stopped in her tracks, "Wow. I was expecting a little closet."

"Nah, not here." John placed her bag on the desk, "we hook you up with an official Atlantis-issued computer that McKay connected to the mainframe, and…" John grabbed her arm lightly and led her to the window, "we like giving people offices with a view."

Bella leaned on the rail next to the window, "I don't know if I will be able to concentrate with this view. This is spectacular. Uncle Jack was not kidding when he said I would not want to leave." Bella jumped back as the windows were covered with what looked like a part of the wall," what the?" she turned to John, "Did you do that?"

"No, you must have the ATA gene. Atlantis tends to respond to your thoughts."

Bella shook her head, "I forgot," the blinds reopened. Bella turned back to face her office, "according to medical reports I have the ATA gene, and have been warned to not touch anything in McKay's lab."

John laughed as he sat in a chair and propped his legs up on her desk, "That's always a good idea. Well, your stuff will be delivered to your quarters after dinner, and dinner is about to be served. Would you like to accompany me to the mess? You can meet more of the Atlantis crew."

Bella nodded as she pulled out some folders from her backpack and placed them on the desktop, "That would be nice. Thank you for the invite."

John stood up, "No problem, you are about to become one of the Atlantians." He held out his arm, and Bella took it.

"So gentlemanly of you."

Sure Bella was attracted to John right away, but she had no idea anything would happen, especially after Woosley cornered her to remind her about the strict no relationship rules between crew members. Boy, that went out the window two months into Bella's stay on Atlantis. Though she was not happy with what happened on PX-2951, but Bella was willing to thank them silently for pushing her and John into a relationship.

Bella was accustomed to her position on offworld teams. Any new people that seemed like there was a great place to trade with, she would go with usually SGA1 or SGA2 to make trade propositions. Bella checked her tac vest and nodded over to Ronan, who was smirking at her, "What?"

The Satedan shook his head, "Anytime Woosley went with us, he never used a tac vest or brought a gun."

"Well Woosley is IOA, and I grew up around the Air Force before I worked for the government. I know how wrong simple trade missions can go. Ask me sometime about when Colonel Carter was kidnapped and then was attempted to be traded as property." Bella acknowledged John, Teyla, and McKay as they joined Ronan and her in the gateroom.

"I don't plan on having to deal with someone trading you or Teyla on any of our missions, Bella." Sheppard looked over at them and then led the way through the wormhole.

Bella followed the group through the gate, "Maybe, it'll be the other way around and Teyla and I will be breaking you out of slavery."

"Excuse me! But we have more important things to worry about then a hypothetical situation that will never happen. I have power reading that were not reported on the last mission," Rodney was poking away at his tablet while walking along side the group.

Bella nodded, "Is it possible it was just overlooked? Sergeant Miller was just commanded to make contact with the people. There is not a scientist on his team."

Rodney glared over at Bella, "Well now that you are helping Woosley, you should force him into making changes and make sure there is someone capable on every team to take readings that could be hazardous to us."

Sheppard stopped and looked back at Rodney. Bella could not see John's eyes through the sunglasses he wore, but she knew he was rolling his eyes at Rodney. "Rodney! Sam went through each and every team before she was reassigned, and it's not like we needed to know about power sources. It would be nice to find an unused ZPM, but I highly doubt it. Now just worry about if the power source is something massively disastrous to us, which I highly doubt. So stay quiet, we could scare the townspeople." Sheppard nodded to the group they were coming to. The people stopped what they were doing and looked onto the team stunned.

Ronan nudged Bella and whispered into her ear, "Think Rodney already scared them? I thought they greeted Serg. Miller's team like they were family."

Sheppard motioned forward, "Maybe the welcoming committee will explain the lack of happiness to see us."

Bella watched as John watched over to the group walking to them. John was unable to greet them before the leader questioned him, "Who is in charge of these women?"

John stepped back and looked at Bella and Teyla, "Them? They are part of my team"

"Then not your wives?" The leader nodded to his men, who walked over to Teyla and Bella and grabbed onto them. Ronan jumped into stance ready to attack.

"Woah! What is going on? What's wrong with Teyla and Bella?"

"We do not approve of unmarried women being accompanied by unmarried men. It is against our laws. We must take them into custody," the leader had his guards take Teyla and Bella.

Bella turned to John, "Go back to Atlantis, and see what you can find in the database about the laws of these people. See what you can find to help—"

"Quiet! Men do not take orders from women," Bella and Teyla were thrown into a dark and dank jail cell.

Bella looked at Teyla, "Well, they are really friendly here."

"I do not understand. Your prior research did not show any hostility with these people. Did they Isabella?"

"No. I looked at all the dealings the Ancients had with this people and the inhabitants. They never had a problem. Cultures do tend to change over years, and it has been over 1,000 years since the Ancients had any dealings with anyone," Bella leaned against the wall and made her way to a sitting position on the floor.