A/N: This is a story I wrote quite a while ago, and as a result the first couple chapters aren't great. I've done what I can to revise it, but I do think it gets better as it goes. Could just be my own opinion, though. I decided to upload it anyway, because I've put a lot of work into it. I've wanted to write a Keller fic for a long time because she has so little background; I love working with blank-slate characters. Also, I apologize for anything non-canon that may have slipped in here when I wasn't looking...call it AU if it makes you feel better. I myself an not a Keller/Lorne shipper, but because my sister is I have dedicated this to her. :)
HOW DID I GET HERE?
Poor man. He'd knocked himself out.
By running into a stun bubble
Jennifer Keller shook her head and smiled ruefully as she looked over Major Evan Lorne's vitals with a flashlight.
Poor, silly man.
Over the past two years, since Jennifer became the chief medical officer of the Atlantis base, Major Lorne had somehow managed to end up in the infirmary twelve more times than even Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, the runner-up on the "most trips to the infirmary" list. Why Jennifer felt the need to keep a running tally of how often certain individuals needed her attention still escaped her, but she did like lists. The problem was, while Colonel Sheppard's injuries usually resulted from close combat and enemy encounters, Major Lorne usually ended up here for this sort of thing: running into force fields, tripping down the stairs, even choking on jello in the cafeteria once. Jennifer smiled when she remembered that. Colonel Sheppard hadn't let him live that one down for months.
All of a sudden the lights came on. She could hear her staff murmuring questions about whether that was a good sign or not. Screaming klaxons informed her that the self-destruct was still armed. Jennifer glanced at Major Lorne's medical monitor now that it was working again, satisfied that there was nothing wrong with him. He'd been hit with an electromagnetic pulse, effectively neutralizing his neurotransmitters' ability to communicate with adjoining cells. Had the pulse been any stronger, perhaps she would have had to worry about effects on his vital systems, but as it was it only seemed to affect the parts of the brain involving motor systems. Jennifer stuck an IV in his arm anyway. She'd give him something to make his return to consciousness a little less unpleasant than it had to be.
The power had been out for several hours now. Jennifer had been busy helping her patients as best she could with that low-tech flashlight, but it was slow-going at best. In the meantime, she had been trying to catch wind of what was causing all this. When Lieutenant Richards and Second Lieutenant Carlson had brought Major Lorne to the infirmary twenty minutes ago, they had hastily tried to explain what they knew. Michael, Atlantis' arch-enemy, the wraith-human hybrid, had somehow taken over the control tower and turned off power to the rest of the city. He had also captured Teyla and her baby, Torren. Major Lorne's team had been trying to access the control tower when he ran into the force field that surrounded and protected the control tower. Sometime since, Michael had found a way to arm the self-destruct. Jennifer wondered how much time they had. She was desperately trying not to panic, but keeping calm when her life was in danger wasn't something she was particularly good at. Unfortunately.
She took a deep breath. The power was back, and that was good; it meant Colonel Sheppard and Doctors Rodney McKay and Radek Zelenka were getting through Michael's defenses. She hoped. The loud clanging reminding her over and over that the city was about to explode beneath her didn't instill much confidence. She found herself wondering where Ronon Dex and Richard Woolsey, the political leader of the Atlantis expedition, were. She hadn't heard a word about them since…no. Jennifer was not going to let herself worry about things she couldn't change.
Jennifer's attention returned to the present at Major Lorne's soft groan. She quickly approached his bed. "Major?"
He looked around with unfocused eyes, wincing at the lights now shining on his face. He looked like he probably had a headache the likes of which only disrupted neural functions could give. He sort of looked at her, still not seeing clearly. At least the medicine should be helping his nausea.
"Doc….what happened? I was on the stairs…Michael. Teyla!"
His vision seemed to clear as adrenaline flooded through his veins and he struggled to get up. Jennifer would have none of that.
"Major, you are in no shape to do anything right now. Please just lie back down until you're fully recovered. It shouldn't take too much longer, if you can just be patient."
He cooperated, with a resigned, "Yes, ma'am."
"Look, Colonel Sheppard's team already has the power back, and from what I can tell they're probably pretty close to taking out Michael's hybrids." She hoped he couldn't tell she was lying through her teeth. She had absolutely no idea where Colonel Sheppard's team was, if they were even still alive.
"I should be out there, helping them…" He trailed off, clearly aware that he wouldn't be much help for a while yet. He certainly didn't look that great. Then he pursed his lips. "Is that the self-destruct? When did that come on?"
"Um," Jennifer didn't want him to worry him needlessly, but he had a way of making people feel guilty when they didn't tell the truth. "Yeah, it's the self-destruct. It came on six or seven minutes ago."
"How long is it set for?"
"I don't know. Probably not much longer."
The alarm stopped.
"See? I told you Colonel Sheppard would handle it," Jennifer forced what she hoped was a reassuring smile and squeezed the major's shoulder. "I bet any minute now someone will tell us that all the hybrids are dead and Teyla's safe."
"I sure hope so," he said, half-worriedly, as he closed his eyes again. "If anything happens to Teyla…" Again he trailed off. Jennifer knew what he meant though, "If anything happens to Teyla I'll blame myself. If anything happens to Teyla life will have lost a little happiness." Jennifer knew Major Lorne had a soft spot for Teyla. He hid it well, but Jennifer's job was understanding people beyond what they could tell her with words. She thought it was cute, especially the way he always pronounced her name "Tee-la" versus everyone else's "Tay-la." It was cute, but Jennifer also found it a little sad. She hated admitting it to herself, but ever since her second week on Atlantis, she had been captivated by this charming man.
She knew she was being silly; he was no knight in shining armor destined to ride in on a pure white horse and save the day, but she daydreamed anyway. She couldn't help it. Yet, deep down she truly wanted him to be happy, and that's why she never said a word to him. As long as he had eyes for someone else, she simply wouldn't cross that line. End of story.
o~0~o
Jennifer had been on Atlantis for two years. She had arrived on the Daedalus when it brought supplies and personnel to this base in the Pegasus Galaxy. She had been overwhelmed. Nothing like this had entered even her wildest dreams; a home-schooled smarty-pants who had skipped several grades but had never left Wisconsin until now. Even for medical school she had chosen to attend the University of Wisconsin, a mere three hour drive from her family's farm. Now she was hundreds, thousands of light years away.
It happened after she graduated med schooll; as usual, she had come out at the top of her class and graduated with honors and the promise of a good career. She wanted to be a small-town family doctor, treating knee scrapes and ankle sprains and the occasional tractor accident. Ever since her mother died, that had been her dream. That had been such a silly accident. Her mother had gone out to feed the horses, but something had spooked their young buckskin and he'd kicked her in the sternum. She shouldn't have died. Jennifer still felt pain when she thought about it. If only she and her father had known what to do! But they'd arrived only moments before Alicia Keller breathed her last. Now after nearly a decade of intense study Jennifer knew exactly what she could have, should have done. She'd stopped beating herself up about it years ago, but she'd vowed to make amends by keeping that from happening to anyone ever again. But she'd been too smart. She'd been out of med school barely two years when she got a call from the Air Force, of all people, offering her a job.
Not intending to take the job, she thought she may as well talk to them. When she was ushered into a back room and required to sign several nondisclosure agreements and given a top-level security clearance contract, though, she started worrying.
"What have I gotten myself into?" She wondered as a thin balding man came in and shut the door behind him. It was just the two of them in the room now. Jennifer stood and nervously awaited the man's pronouncement. He smiled warmly and held out his hand.
"General Miles Smith, pleasure to meet you Dr. Keller."
She shook his hand and murmured a response.
"We have been monitoring the graduates of the nation's top medical schools for some time now, looking for someone such as yourself who is both very bright and very trustworthy. What I'm about to tell you cannot leave this room, understood?"
Speechless, Jennifer nodded.
"Good. This is going to come as a shock to you, but for the past ten years the Air Force has been in possession of a device, called a "Stargate," that creates a stable wormhole to allow almost instantaneous transport to any other Stargate in the galaxy, of which there are many. I don't pretend to understand the science behind it—never was that intelligent myself—but I do know it works. I myself have been off-world six times."
General Smith was right. Jennifer was shocked. Dumbfounded was, perhaps, a better word. She couldn't believe what she was hearing, but she didn't think the man was teasing her or anything. Then again, Jennifer had a problem with gullibility.
The general continued, "About three years ago, a mission revealed the location of the lost city of Atlantis. It is on a planet in the Pegasus galaxy, which is who-knows-how-many light years away. Whatever the case, long story short, we sent a team, set up a base, and now have a running operation of several hundred people. The medical staff has been overtaxed, and we've been looking for someone to add to the team for the past year. We weren't finding any promising candidates, and then you came along."
Jennifer just stared blankly.
"Obviously you'll want to think about it, but we need a decision by a week from today."
He ushered her out. She was in a daze as she drove home. On a whim, she took a left instead of a right when she got into town and ended up at the family farm instead of her apartment. Her dad had kept the farm running the same as always after his wife died, insisting, "It's what Alicia would want." Jennifer suspected he was right, but he was getting older and Jennifer worried about him.
When she knocked on the door instead of going right in, her dad could tell something was wrong.
"Hey, Jenn, what's up? Is everything all right?"
Jennifer had never been good at keeping secrets, and she knew her dad was the most trustworthy person on the planet.
So she told him everything.
He was equally shocked.
"You're kidding me. Wow, what an honor. A horrifying prospect, but still, Jenn, they want YOU! Can you believe it?"
Jennifer laughed, "No, I really can't." Then, guiltily, she added, "You know you're not supposed to know this, right?"
He squeezed his daughter's hand and said, "I know, Hon. I won't breathe a word. Who'd I tell anyway?"
He had a point. He barely ever went into town, and the only person he every really talked to other than her was Jimmy Peters, the young black man they had hired to help with the farm after her mother's death. He was the sweetest guy Jennifer knew, but he wouldn't believe a word of the Atlantis story.
"I knew I could trust you." Jennifer winked at her dad.
They had grown close since that tragic day. Jennifer had been twelve, and smart enough to finish her schooling on her own for the next three years while her dad and Jimmy looked after the farm.
"I want to go, but I'll miss you, and this farm, so much."
He smiled. "I'll miss you too, but this is the sort of thing you don't turn down. It's the chance of a lifetime, and then some."
"Yeah, I know, but…you know how I am with outdoors-y stuff and creepy aliens. Farming is one thing, having to live off the land and fight off scary monsters is quite another entirely."
Her dad looked at her seriously, "Jenn, I know you can be squeamish, I know you're easily scared, but that doesn't make you any less valuable as a doctor or as a person. I have utter confidence in your ability to handle yourself in any situation, and it could be a good learning experience. Just remember I'm waiting here for you when you come back and the good Lord is always looking out for you. Even in the Pegasus galaxy."
She grinned at him. "Thanks Dad. That's why I love you so much." She gave him a squeeze.
"I love you too, Jennifer Eden Keller," he responded, hugging her back.
