Chapter One

'I'm nervous.' Elizabeth said quietly to John.

'Don't be.' Rodney snapped from the balcony.

Elizabeth and John exchanged a glance before staring determinedly at the gate. Rodney took one final tentative look at the control crystals and slowly walked down the stairs to join his makeshift team. A team which was looking particularly reluctant to be escorting him on his initial use of the device he had created which enabled them to use their gate to open wormholes to the same gate in parallel universes. Elizabeth, who'd secretly hoped the device wouldn't work, had been persuaded that this device would be essential in helping them defeat the Wraith. And after days of meticulous planning, this was to be the day.

The team that stood before Rodney was made up of Weir, Sheppard, Zelenka and Beckett. People, he had informed Elizabeth, whose expertise would be invaluable to the trip. Elizabeth had suspected that his asking to take her along was, in part, flattery to convince her to authorise the expedition, but she was thrilled to have the opportunity to take part in such a ground-breaking expedition.

While they were away, Elizabeth was leaving Atlantis in the capable hands of Teyla and Steven Caldwell, who had unfortunately insisted on being present before allowing the expedition to take place. Elizabeth briefly wondered if he'd made such an arrangement so he could step in and take her place if things went awry, but there was too much going on to worry about Caldwell's ulterior motives.

Elizabeth looked to Rodney for permission to activate the gate; she didn't want to rush him on this, knowing how much it meant to him. After a moment's hesitation he nodded.

'Dial the gate Chuck.' Elizabeth said.

The wormhole stabilised and they waited, knowing that the shield would be raised on the other side to make radio communication.

'Hello.' Elizabeth said, expecting to hear her own voice in reply.

'Could you tell me who this is?' The voice of Rodney McKay asked.

Elizabeth turned to look at Rodney with a smile before replying, 'My name is Elizabeth Weir, and you are Doctor Rodney McKay.'

'Meredith McKay. Rodney is my middle name. Can you please explain what is going on here?'

'This quite complicated to explain so I'm going to hand things over to our own Rodney McKay.' Elizabeth said.

'Umm, hello...me. Anyway, we're from a parallel universe – I know you're probably wondering how that is possible, but for some months now I've been developing a device which enables us to reconfigure the DHD to dial to our very own gate but in a...'

'Parallel universe. Doctor Radek Zelenka, our head of Science, has been working on a similar project.' Meredith said.

'What? Zelenka? If he's head of Science, what am I? You, I mean?' Rodney said.

'I am the leader of the Atlantis expedition.' Meredith said proudly.

Elizabeth looked at Rodney and shrugged, before indicating for him to continue.

'Congratulations on that,' He said gruffly, 'Anyway, would you permit for us to come through the gate.'

'Absolutely. Come right through.'

Elizabeth looked back over her version of Atlantis and smiled to the personnel she had gotten to know so well over the last two years and smiled at them, hoping that if anything did go wrong that they would be alright.