Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Setting/Spoilers: For Season Three's First Strike, and generally for Season Four. Purely speculative, past the obvious.
Notes: Here's to hoping the writers of Atlantis, old and new, acknowledge the effects of Elizabeth's leave-taking, as well as those of Sam's coming in. Feedback, as always, is appreciated and loved.
Sam remembered Atlantis as a city of stained glass and light that reflected and refracted; fascinating and valuable for the wealth of knowledge that sat untapped and unknown; beautiful for the promise it held. It had a persona that reverberated through the busy halls, and thrummed in the control room. Science and history were invariably intertwined, a mesh that there, in Atlantis, made a perfect sort of sense.
Of course, it wasn't all quite as romantic as that, even the one time Sam had had the opportunity of visiting. Beauty, likewise, twined with politics, and dragged Atlantis from the brightness of mythology into the grey area of the mundane. As a newly-promoted Full Colonel, Samantha Carter didn't expect the transition to be easy in any respect. It was her first command of this size, one that in all honesty should have been afforded a Lieutenant Colonel if the consequences hadn't been so potentially heavy and costly – or, if the command hadn't been in another galaxy. One of the two.
Having lived from Captain to Major to Lieutenant Colonel under two commands, in a team never exceeding five, it would have been an understatement to say she was more than a little nervous.
The time on the ship over to Atlantis had been useful for something, at least; and Sam, having read most of the mission reports and viewed the important video messages, began to catch up on the ones that at one point not so long ago, hadn't been necessary. She felt like a grad student all over again, trying to cram for a test in the macroeconomics class she'd never really got the hang of. The information and the underscoring emotion were nearly too much to assimilate.
She leaned back in her chair, unable to stop a soft "Oh, boy" from escaping under her breath.
Later, Sam thought that pretty much summed it up.
oOo
Log: Weir, Elizabeth
Security: Admin
Date: 03/07/07
There is an inexplicable feeling of ending, today; an odd sense that everything from here is nothing more than a downhill slide – if I should be so lucky for it to be a 'slide' rather than a 'tumble', complete with an injury or two or four. There's a strange sense of foreboding that's nagging the back of my mind, and will not let me alone. Everything seems just left of center, deceptively familiar in every way except sense and intuition.
oOo
Atlantis was in disarray when she arrived.
It looked like an abandoned warzone; and as it was, the cleaning effort looked like a huge undertaking. An airman looked at her curiously from his post; a pair of passing scientists glanced warily at her. Something less than outward hostility hovered near the surface of Atlantis like a rising awareness and caution.
Sam could understand it. Like science and history, here the military and civilian made an unlikely, but functional, combination. The militarization of Atlantis was something that on all accounts was a decision long in coming, made easier by Dr. Weir's incapacitation and forced by the IOA.
And true to their fears, she was here as an instrument of change, to throw out long-standing systems worked and ironed out though repeated trial and error. Frankly, it was a decision that she agreed with – at least, for the moment. Sam Carter had never been anyone's pawn, and she didn't intend to start making a habit of it. Determination mixed with wide-eyed wonder and realization to make for some nervous butterflies in her stomach.
Her welcoming committee was comprised of Atlantis' front line team, who greeted her with weary faces, and variations of a tired 'welcome to Atlantis'. She had met them all before, briefly, with the exception of McKay, whom she'd had the dubious pleasure of working with on more than one occasion. Sheppard saluted stiffly; Teyla did not smile; Ronon fidgeted in the background; and even McKay didn't make a pass at her.
There were the obligatory words of welcome; the equally requisite small talk. Both were awkward, and lasted only the space of two or three comments. She dismissed Sheppard, and Ronon fled, Teyla close behind except for one staying, wary smile. McKay was only shortly behind her, looking like he wanted to say something he eventually decided not to.
Sam wondered if this was a good thing or a bad thing.
For the first time, she ascended the steps, generally familiarized herself with the control room, and learned that the technician's name was Chuck. The office off the main would have been nice except for the fact that it wasn't hers. Pictures littered the desk, relics and artifacts covered the walls. A clay pot sat inconspicuously but meaningfully by the base of the computer.
Sam had never liked or disliked Elizabeth Weir, though she had come to respect her in the midst of a blackmailing session filled with genuine smiles (even if they were a little wary) and a vague understanding she was sure Dr. Weir had come, here in Atlantis, to actually comprehend. Her things went untouched for the moment.
The next morning, she arrived in her office to find it bare and cleaned except for the wall hangings that were left as decoration. Sam didn't know whether to feel slighted or relieved, but in any case she understood and moved on.
oOo
Time is fickle, and generally not on your side – if there's anything to be learned by going to another galaxy, it's that. A whole year we had to ourselves, I sometimes think – an entire year, uninhibited, to discover the unknown secrets of the city, to put our skills to the test and our minds to work, only to remember the incredible peril that followed us relentlessly, and the people who in the midst of their work, died for it. I think sometimes I'm becoming too detached, or too focused; only to not be able to decide on what.
We are here, surrounded by secrets that through necessity must remain unknown, fending off half a dozen enemies at once.
We are here. It's almost too tantalizing, and at the same time, too horrifying. The body count rises.
oOo
The next day, Ronon sat abruptly opposite her at lunch.
"You're replacing Dr. Weir."
It was a statement, not a question; and she acknowledged it with as much briskness as he had said it. "Yes."
Ronon ate in silence for about half a minute, Sam waiting patiently.
"Some people didn't like her," he remarked off-handedly, almost savagely tearing off another piece of his sandwich with his teeth.
The subtlety, if you could call it that, was intended so that she couldn't miss it. A question and a test put to her at the same time. Straightforwardness, even if masked with a thin veneer of diplomacy, was welcome. Sam thought she liked Ronon.
Who are you, really – and why are you here? Echoes from a long-ago briefing came back to her, Dr. Weir matching Colonel O'Neill stare for stare across the familiar red-and-black table.
"A lot of people did," Sam eventually countered.
She never knew what Ronon made of it. He nodded, finished his food, and left.
oOo
The feeling of idealism that originally came to the city has come and gone several times over. I can't think of a more difficult time than our first year here. But we struggled, and persevered, to find not only hope in the form of the Daedalus, but also born from our own struggles. There's something to that.
Every one of us here, no matter how long the tour, has been changed. It seems almost as if with that change came the change of our mission – or maybe that's just the idealism in me that refuses to die, thinking our mission was once something other than it is. I like to think not.
oOo
The days progressed a little more slowly after the first few weeks, the fastballs she was forced to dodge more often than not coming mercifully slower and less often.
Much like at home, here the military and civilian coexisted purposefully, if not entirely seamlessly. The atmosphere had been established in the expedition's first year, Sam knew, when stranded and desperate, they could have only been sure of reliance on each other. The rift that existed now between the two was small, and enough mutual respect ran back and forth for it essentially not to matter. It was an established equilibrium, one that Sam hoped wouldn't be disturbed too much.
There was already dissention in the respective ranks over how to accept the new changes – or probably more accurately, her. It was generally concentrated more in the science contingent, and members of the expedition who had been present from the very beginning. The military, being military, for the most part had no problems with a new military commander. Syllogism never failed.
For the others, it was a simple equation, dependent on place: time, combined with experience, invariably breeds trust or distrust in varying proportions. There were experiences she hadn't gone through, threats and fears she hadn't faced, and therefore, a trust she didn't have.
There were a thousand threats and fears she had faced back home, some of them life-threatening, some of them planet-threatening; but none of them relevant to this place and situation. A resume really was only black words on white paper, even discounting rumors. The fact was that these people didn't know her.
After all, it was sentiment and setting that had prompted revolutions.
Dr. Weir had undoubtedly dealt with much of the same thing; only in an inverted sort of view. Partisan politics. The IOA had wreaked a backlash on themselves.
oOo
There are issues, I know, throughout the expedition and even back on Earth with my handling of these situations thus far – defensively, and to hear it told, passively. A storm is brewing, certainly, and there's not much to be done about it one way or another in way of preventative measures. But it was exploration that was the expedition's original goal, and necessity took us beyond the corridors of Atlantis. We cannot be faulted for it; or for where the continuance of that policy has led us.
oOo
Every week there were letters waiting for her in mail call, either in digital form or handwritten – in Daniel's case, it was often the latter – which made things simultaneously harder and easier.
Dissociation was difficult; and even in another galaxy, not an option. They had been through too much together. It was nice to know that someone missed her, though. It was really the only bright spot of the letters.
SG-3 discovered a tablet that might shed some light on a new weapon against the Ori, one of Daniel's letters read. It's not clear yet if the 'weapon' is based on knowledge or power, or even existent at all. What's more interesting is that a portion of the writing is in Goa'uld, so we're thinking it might even be a Rosetta stone of sorts. Vala's helping translate; though it might be going a little easier if she wouldn't keep throwing in phony words.
In her own letter filled with a horde of decidedly noncontiguous and extraneous news, Vala flatly denied it.
Colonel Reynolds' command is most unlike your own or Colonel Mitchell's, read Teal'c's message, which despite being the shortest of the bunch, said the most. A balance I had long since acclimated to seems to be missing on the occasions I have accompanied them off-world.
Cam's morose tone was palpable, even through his usual dose of attempted humor. Team night just isn't the same without you. Ever since Vala discovered sci-fi, she and Teal'c have banded together in a sci-fi fetish. Without a fifth person to break a tie – and that's if Jackson doesn't turn on me, too – more often than not we end up watching some God-awful horror flick from the forties. You know the type. Who'da thought a five person team would beat a four person just for the sake of having a tie-breaker?
The general message of all of them was the same, variations on a theme: We miss you, we need you, come back. More pronounced in some words, unsubtly hidden in others, it was all the same. The thinly-disguised pleas were music to her ears, and for that reason, Sam hid them in her desk-drawer, never taking them out after the first eager reading. She was tired of feeling guilty.
oOo
The reports on the Asurans are coming less frequently but with more urgency; but there's nothing to be done that won't land us in trouble more dire than what we've already accomplished. Attack them, and find a counterstrike thrown back at us; it's not appealing, and furthermore, Atlantis is not strong enough to sustain and throw off an attack of that magnitude. I am not looking forward to this particular briefing, if only for certain military insistence and involvement.
Defense has always come first and foremost. There are few things that could possibly come before the protection of good people. But I do find myself wanting to point out that in most cases, and certainly where Atlantis is concerned, making a first strike has never resulted in anything but a counterstrike that may or may not be more powerful and longer in planning.
oOo
In Sam's mind, it was the increasing military personnel that had ultimately called for the formal militarization of Atlantis and a revision of most of the then-current organization; a natural, and at this point necessary, follow-through of something that had begun a while ago. The informal sort of formality of the military here was, again, like the atmosphere that permeated the SGC; and though the more rigid personnel that had come with her seemed to set the example for change at first, it had dispersed. In a small way, it had relieved her. Even she wasn't quite comfortable with that sort of formality anymore. As long as there were currents of respect running through the ranks, it was enough.
Likewise, the strict formality Colonel Sheppard had assumed at her arrival eventually began to fade when she didn't push it. Once when he came in to hand in a report, Sam asked him for his opinion on the military presence.
"Actually, it was something Dr. Weir had been concerned about since about halfway through the expedition's second year," he said, standing indifferently in the doorway of her office. "It only really came to a head once you came."
It could have been taken as an accusation or a reassurance. Sam thought it felt more like a resignation.
Another variable inevitably changes the outcome of an equation: thus, preexisting respect plus varying amounts of more time and different experience yields respect in a different context. Less desperation and near death experiences offer fewer chances to forge bonds as potent and lasting.
It made sense. Teyla's comment only reinforced that idea when she came in to turn in her own report.
"Immediately before Elizabeth…" Teyla's pause was almost unnoticeable before she continued on as if nothing had happened. "…she was concerned she might be forced to step down by your world's IOA."
It was the first time anyone had said her name; and Sam, who had at times wanted to remind them that she knew perfectly well that they had all been on a first-name basis with each other, was somewhat relieved. Her features moved in a combination of sorrow and awkwardness; and Sam felt like an intruder, not for the first time, in this woman's office. Teyla, surprisingly, was the first to sit down opposite her, with hints of what might have been the olive branch of peace, or maybe even friendship. There, in that chair, she looked like she might have been comfortable. Once. Recently. Maybe again.
There were no promises.
"It's a wonderful thing to have girlfriends," Vala had once remarked to her on a self-decided girls' night, her face masked in green and Sam's toenails painted blue, while Pretty Woman played softly in the background. And just as Vala had been a stark contrast to Janet, Teyla was in every way the antithesis of Vala, except for her endurance and strength, both physical and not. There was a sort of familiarity in it, and for the moment, Sam felt a little more at home.
She had the hot chocolate she'd stashed away in her temp quarters after her arrival with Teyla that night in the commissary, surrounded by the glow that Atlantis exuded, awash in a calming blue that didn't really do much for her that night. The chocolate was warm, though, and for the moment, it was enough.
oOo
I've never been one to believe in astrology, though it seems as if the Fates have aligned the stars, and the result is not in our favor. Too much is coming together at once. It feels like a punishment for choice, or inadequacy.
Teyla at least understands this. John waved it off when I mentioned it, putting it down to 'imagined pressure', I think it was. Odd, as I know for a fact he feels it, too, if only through his jittery body language. I think he forgets at times I came to this expedition as a diplomat.
oOo
John Sheppard at times reminded Sam of Cam Mitchell in one of his moods: full of a mix of resignation and denial that only resulted in a brooding anger guaranteed to drive away anyone within a ten-foot radius. The last time it had happened to Cam, Vala had said something to him about needing to get over himself. Vala had lasted longer in that particular spat (Sam and Daniel had taken bets; Daniel had won), Cam and Vala subsided, and the world went back to being as normal as it ever was.
One big happy family, Cam would mutter at times, most of the time ruefully, even as he grinned.
Rodney, however, was another story. Teyla had mentioned in passing one day she was concerned; and Sam replied she would do what she could.
"Hey, McKay," she said brightly that afternoon, strolling into McKay's lab and allowing herself a look around; though she was careful not to touch anything and push McKay's numerous buttons both metaphorical and literal. Mainly the former.
"Yes, yes, what do you want?" he snapped, typing furiously on his laptop.
"Oh, you know, two-days-overdue mission reports, seeing if you need my help saving the world, that sort of thing," she replied.
"Yes, I'm working on it right now, and you standing there isn't going to make me go any faster. And the idea that I couldn't save the world without you is preposterous. As you and I both know."
She leaned over his shoulder. "That would be an article for a scientific journal," she observed candidly.
He shut his laptop, and spun to face her. "What do you want?" he repeated.
"To see if you're okay," Sam said bluntly. "Your team is getting worried; Sheppard says you haven't come up for air in days. Come on, Rodney, science can wait for you to get some lunch and prove to the rest of world you haven't died."
McKay scoffed. "Please. Like you're going to tell me what to do. It's not like you're Carson. Or Elizabeth." His spine stiffened after he said both names, but he turned away.
Sam smirked humorlessly. Somehow, it was a relief. "You know, what really gets to me is the fact that all of you seem to think I don't know exactly what you're all going through, or that I don't realize just what I represent to the greater portion of this expedition – or what an extremely volatile combination that is."
"Do you?" challenged McKay, his eyes darting nervously out of habit, but refusing to back down.
Janet. Daniel. The Colonel. Teal'c. General Hammond to Elizabeth Weir. Changes, changes, in more ways than one. Everything was intrinsically complex, inseparable; devastating in consequences both emotional and not.
Sam cocked her head. "You tell me, McKay. I think you know better than anyone else here." Her head jerked in illustration; her voice hard with too many memories to count.
She left without another word; and Rodney didn't stop her.
oOo
Five hours later, the mission report was on her desk along with a McKay-style apology (or as close as she would get to one) attached by a yellow post-it note.
oOo
I'm not so idealistic as to believe that diplomacy solves everything; truthfully, diplomacy rarely solves anything – its strength lies more in the area of the preventative. I'm not arguing that Atlantis give up aggression altogether, which would almost certainly be fatal. But is suggesting that perhaps we have more enemies already than we can handle at the moment over the line?
Oh, if only they would all just finish each other off. What idealism.
oOo
The log ended there, and no more entries followed it. Elizabeth Weir's voice was shunted from her mind, the last words echoing in the stillness of the office that had once been hers, like a long-forgotten prophecy.
Like so many things in stumbling through this unfamiliar office, finding the other woman's personal log had been a mistake, one that unlike the others, Sam had not been able to take her eyes away from. Though the computer showed hundreds more in archive form, she closed out of it. Some things should be held sacred.
"Colonel," came Sheppard's voice from her doorframe.
She looked up. "Colonel," she replied. "What brings you here this time of night?"
"Just wanting to confirm the fact that tomorrow's mission will be needing a jumper," he said, and continued, gesturing vaguely at her. "I figured you'd still be up."
Sam smiled. "Well, sleep waits for all of us. I assume you're familiar with the idea?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he replied easily. "So, the jumper?"
"Is authorized," she replied, standing up. "And on that note, I'm going to try and catch some sleep."
"I thought sleep waited."
"Ah, but only when there's work to be done. And while work does tend to pile, it isn't pressing."
Sheppard grinned. "Procrastination. Now that sounds more like my kind of philosophy."
"I do need to make a quick stop at Rodney's lab," she said, walking out the door with Sheppard, and the lights turned off. "See you tomorrow bright and early."
The lab was empty when she reached it, though the lights were still on, indicating he'd be back. Sam dropped a flashdrive on his desk on top of another yellow sticky note:
I think this belongs to you.
She had only skimmed one of the files it contained, which jumped out at her because it was a whopping five hundred pages long, and soon closed out, putting it back in the desk drawer where she'd found it.
Sam had heard once that a person could be understood by understanding their friends and contemporaries, and had never believed it. She thought that maybe the meaning had gotten lost in translation; because it was through one'sfriends that a person could be understood. If time with Daniel had taught her anything, it was that the Thesaurus is not as holy as it may at first seem.
After all, even through its at-first awkward changes and rearrangements, SG-1 had been about as dysfunctional, unalike, and close as you could get without setting foot in a mental institution.
She was learning that the same applied here.