Crossing the Line

Chapter One

It was a very pretty cake, he had to give it that much. Nicely frosted, with small smiley faces instead of flowers at the edges. Serviceable, cheerful, and, from the smell of it, delicious to boot. But it had thirty-six candles on it, and therein lay the problem.

Lorne forced a smile and hoped it didn't look too fake. He was sincerely thankful to his team for this; it was really nice of them to think of him, it really was. If he didn't want to be reminded of his age, it wasn't their fault he hadn't told them.

"Thanks, guys, this is. . .this is great." He glanced around the locker room. "Who made it?"

Lt. Cadman grinned at him. "We got Danny to do it, sir -- apparently he's quite the baker in his free time."

Lorne grinned as Cadman and Lt. Riley snickered at Danny's blush, but inside he couldn't stop thinking about the candles on the cake.

Thirty-six years of life, thirty-six years of learning how to fly, how to run, how to shoot an M-16. Thirty-six years of preparation to be on Atlantis and fighting the wraith.

It was fulfilling, of course. Nothing really compared to saving the lives of millions of people -- or freeing entire planets from subjugation, be it from a wraith or another human. And this wasn't even mentioning the sort of paradise it was for officers with even a bit of ambition: provided you actually survived them, missions in the Pegasus Galaxy were the kind that made majors colonels and colonels generals; you only needed to look at Col. Sheppard to figure that one out.

Yeah, being on Atlantis was both a great challenge and a great opportunity, and everyday he thanked his lucky stars that he had gotten the chance to be apart of it. But. . . For all the missions, the good friends, and the birthday cakes, there was something off, something missing. Something Marcus Lorne couldn't quite place.

"Well come on, major, make a wish and blow them out."

Lorne smiled and leaned over the cake. I wish, he thought, I wish for something new. . .for someone. . .and he blew on the candles and watched the smoke drift to the ceiling.


Elizabeth Weir knew there was something bothering Major Lorne. Though he hid it quite well for a man constantly surrounded by people, Elizabeth was an intuitive person. It also may have helped that both Lt. Cadman and Dr. Danny Bergher had approached her with their concerns within hours of each other.

Elizabeth knew Marcus to be a steady man, one who could be trusted to make level-headed decisions in the middle of a firefight. There was, after all, a reason Gen. O'Neill had suggested him specifically as second-in-command when Atlantis was first manned. And it was a tribute to the major's fighting ability and mental health that, at the start of his second year on Atlantis, he was neither dead nor requesting a post several billion light years closer to home.

However, the very nature of being on Atlantis was constricting, to say the least. It was nothing like a regular life -- or even a life at the SGC. There you could go to work and stress, then go home and unwind. It was all work in Atlantis. Not only was he cut off from his family and the life he had spent years making for himself on earth, whether or not Major Lorne was on duty he was constantly surrounded by his coworkers and the stressors -- and there were big ones in the Pegasus Galaxy -- from his workday. This environment left little, if any, time for a personal life; some people just coped better than others. Perhaps, thought Elizabeth, Major Lorne was one of the latter. There was nothing from either his personnel file or her personal acquaintance with him that would indicate this was the case, but you could never really be sure, could you?

Well, Major Lorne was well overdue for some time off, though he would probably refuse it if his team didn't get some; the least she could do was give him some time off from the stress of fighting -- and she had just the right assignment for the job.


"You have got to be kidding me." Lorne shoved the offending papers at Cadman as she walked into the gun room. "Newbie training?"

Cadman grinned. "Don't blame me, sir. Not my fault you didn't want to leave."

"But. . .newbie training. It's just. . .newbie training." Lorne shook his head. He knew what Dr. Weir was doing. He was angry, yes, disappointed, yes, but he knew what she was doing. He just wished she could have found a different way to do it -- preferably, one that did not involve babysitting.


"This is Dr. Rodney McKay, head scientist here in Atlantis and a member of Col. Sheppard's team. He may not look like much, boys and girls, but he's faced the wraith more times than most of us have been off world."

Rodney smiled, said something witty concerning the ratio of stun blasts to the state of Lorne's intelligence, and started nattering on about various wraith-fighting weapons which, oh, by the way, he was actually the brains behind. Marcus, of course, did the intelligent thing and ignored him, choosing instead to go over the dossiers of the first of his new junior officers.

Richard Twellum, captain, thirty-four. On his first off world mission at the SGC he had brokered a ceasefire between two continents of rebel Jaffa -- while they were actually firing missiles at each other.

Luc Abidal, also captain, thirty-one. Stationed until recently in Iran, he had taken out a cave full of terrorists armed only with to rounds of ammo and an M-16.

Anna-Patricia Schweinsteigger, second lieutenant, at twenty-one the youngest person on Atlantis by about three years. On her nineteenth birthday she had ranked just below Col. Sheppard at the dogfight over Antarctica.

This, then, was the first of several shipments of military personnel that were heading over on the Daedelus, along with an ungodly number of lab rats -- scientists, that is. As some small measure of repayment for training the first two batches, Marcus could have first pick of one of any of the first ten to arrive to join his team.

So far, the prospects did not look particularly prospectful. Cap. Twellum was a negotiator, and a good one at that -- but he would not make a good subordinate; he was the sort of man who worked better when no one was looking over his shoulder. Dr. Weir would probably give him his own team as soon as Marcus could train another group or two. Cap. Abidal, for all that he was gifted with the ability to kill others, was unfortunately devoid of the ability to be modest about it. Major Lorne liked the man, but he knew the bragging would get to him sooner or later. No, Cap. Abidal would be put on Cap. Lawrence's team as soon as she was promoted to major: her patience was legendary in Atlantis -- even Dr. Mckay couldn't seem to irritate her. Lastly there was Lt. Schweinsteigger. She seemed to be a promising officer with good fighting skills, great in firearms and decent at hand-to-hand, though she was a bit shorter than your average Atlantean. But then, with a name like Schweinsteigger, who wouldn't be good at defensive maneuvers? Yes, she seemed all right, but there was something off about her. Something not quite right. . .

Aha. There it was. Marcus leaned forward and watched intently as she studied an artifact one of the scientists had brought back to Atlantis.

"No, that was translated incorrectly. It says 'clear', not 'transparent'; it's a common mistake, and usually doesn't make much of a difference, but as you can see here it changes the meaning of the entire paragraph. Dan- Dr. Jackson showed me how to tell the difference: see the small horizontal bar where the-"

Marcus tuned the rest of it out. So that's what it was -- she was a nerd in wolf's clothing. And on a first name basis with Dr. Jackson, at that. Oh well, she couldn't be perfect. Too bad. She wasn't a bad looker, either; nothing particularly stunning, but nothing really unpleasant to look at. If he were ten years younger and a civilian. . .but he wasn't, and that was that.


"-that, but most people just call me Anna; everything else is a bit of a mouthful, really." Anna took a bit of cornbread and looked over Laura's shoulder at Major Lorne, who stood by the mess line holding a plate. He kept glancing at her and at an empty table nearby, clearly waffling on where to sit. Strange, she had seen him sitting with his team every day since she had been there. Maybe he didn't like her? She didn't think she had done anything to irritate him, but you never knew. Some people were just touchy.

She looked down at her nearly-full plate and stood. "Maybe I should go - I think I have something to do right-"

"Is this seat taken?" Major Lorne hunkered down across from her before she could answer.

Anna looked at Laura quickly; having her CO sitting there, after the way he had been acting lately. . .well, it was unsettling, to say the least.

"Actually, I was just leaving, sir, so I-"

"But you just started eating. Stay - I promise I won't bite." The major looked at her with a genuine welcome in his eyes.

Anna sat back down again and smiled nervously at Laura. Men, honestly. First he practically gave her the glare o' death from across the room, then he turned his puppy-dog look on her so she wouldn't leave. Sometimes Anna had no idea what to make of the major: he would smile at her one minute, join Cadman in teasing her about her nerd-like tendencies, and the next minute he would be. . .not angry, really, or displeased with her, but - stoic. Yes, that was it. Not irate, not disappointed, not anything; his lips would set in a firm line, his eyes would go dark, and there would be no more out of him for a day or two. Strange, she had never seen him act this way towards anyone else -- not Col. Sheppard, not the civilians, and certainly not his own team; just her. And speaking of teams, she was now the only one from the first three shipments to arrive who had not as yet been assigned to a team. She knew Major Lorne had the choice of picking one person for his team: it would have been impossible not to, what with everyone competing for the spot; but this was getting ridiculous. Of the first twenty military officers to have come to Atlantis, there were only two left not assigned to a team or to Atlantis, and the other was a trigger-happy marine. Lorne was going to have to choose one of the two, but he was taking his sweet time about it, and until he did Anna was stuck in an Atlantean limbo; as she had not been officially assigned to any area she could have no officially assigned duties at Atlantis, so she had nothing to do but go off world - except that she couldn't go off world with teams until she was officially assigned to a specific team or area. It was getting boring, annoying, and irritating as anything, and not for the first time she found herself wishing Major Lorne would tell her he didn't want her and be done with it.

And yet. . .she really wanted to be on his team. There was just something about him, how he always offered to help anyone, laughed so easily, the ways his eyes sparkled when he teased her. You could tell he was a kind person, you really could -- and she knew he would give his life, without even thinking about it, to save another's. True, that could be said of many people on Atlantis, but Major Lorne was different. Not necessarily better, just different.

And then there were the times he watched her, like he was right now when he thought she wasn't looking. It was a look she had gotten lots of times -- and she had eventually dated a good percentage of the lookers. But Major Lorne was her superior officer; he would never be stupid enough to be attracted to her.

Would he?


"So you're from Texas?" Cadman speared a piece of broccoli and twirled it in front of her eyes. "You don't sound like it."

Lt. Schweinsteigger laughed. She had a nice laugh though she used it so often it could get on your nerves. "You know, most people don't -- it's just the north and east ones who have that ridiculous accent. Actually they wouldn't believe I was from Texas when I enlisted; and they wouldn't believe I was eighteen, either, so they- what?"

Cadman's mouth opened and closed several times before she spoke; Marcus thought she looked a bit like a red-haired fish.

"You're enlisted?"

The lieutenant nonchalantly ate several pieces of watermelon before she answered. "Used to be."

"But you're not anymore."

Though her posture was relaxed, Marcus could see her shoulders were tense, her hand clenched around the fork. He had known she'd made the jump from enlisted to officer somehow, due in part to Gen. O'Neill, but the specifics of how and why had been classified. Clearly there was something behind it she was uncomfortable talking about; if only Cadman could see it and shut up already.

One of Schweinsteigger's shoulder's twitched slightly. She was either about to lie or evade the question.

"No, I'm not. Got lucky in a situation at the SGC once or twice."

Lie.

"Really?" Cadman wasn't buying it either.

Marcus almost felt sorry he had made her stay. If she wasn't stopped now, Cadman could go on for quite some time. It's not that she was insensitive -- far from it. It's just that she didn't know the lieutenant like-

Like what? Like he did? He had trained her for a week, not exactly a bonding sort of thing; and she and Cadman had probably gotten friendly, considering there weren't that many women on base who had as many things in common as they did - flying, explosives, things like that. To tell the truth, Cadman probably did know her better than he did.

But still, the girl was obviously nervous. Well, only one thing to be done in a situation like this.

"Hey Cadman, did Dr. Weir come see you earlier today? I think she had some questions about P3X-989 - remember the mice?"

"No, actually she-"

Lorne patted her on the back. "Well, maybe you should go see her."

"Right now, sir?" Lt. Cadman looked at the half-eaten food on her plate and frowned; the look she gave him suggested she would like to kill him or have him committed to an insane asylum - or maybe both.

"Yes, right now. I don't think this is her lunch hour, and, you know - never keep a diplomat waiting."

She huffed off; he'd be on the wrong side of her snark for several days, but. . .for the grateful look Lt. Schweinsteigger gave him, he didn't think he would mind too much.

Except now they were alone. Marcus cleared his throat and grabbed the pepper shaker.

"So. . .you're from Texas, then?"

She laughed.


It was easy talking to him after that. He was a good man, like she had thought, and he was sarcastic enough to rival Dr. Mckay, though much less understated. He was still her superior officer, of course, but that didn't mean they couldn't have a friendly chat once in a while.

Just as long as those chats didn't get too friendly - and as long as he figured out who he wanted for his team, and soon.


All right, so this was not exactly going to be a fair and unbiased process.

Like there had been a chance of that.

Marcus Scott Lorne was a practical individual; he knew himself, and he knew he was attracted, albeit shallowly, to the lieutenant.

The female lieutenant, that is.

Being such, if he were to adhere strictly to protocol he would have told Elizabeth he wanted Lt. Petit for his team as soon as he realized he had a crush, so to speak, on the other lieutenant.

But he hadn't.

And now he had to choose.

If he were honest with himself, he had to admit that both were about equally suited for the job. Petit's specialization was explosives, which could help them escape from sticky situations; Schweinsteigger's was flying, which often stopped sticky situations from happening. He had had special ops training, which would help in enemy territory; she had been trained as a linguist, which would help in friendly territory. He had some training at negotiating with terrorists; she had some training with a sniper rifle. He had years of experience; she had good brains and an opinion that consisted more of gut feeling and less of promotion-wanting.

Thus the quandary.

It should have been easy. It wasn't like he was in love or anything, he was just minorly attracted. He knew why, of course. He had been feeling down and bored, and she was new and interesting. The fact that there were no women on Atlantis he felt comfortable flirting with only added to it. It was just a minor crush - if thirty-six year olds had crushes - and it would soon pass. He should, of course, choose Lt. Petit. It was the only logical thing to do, really.

But would it really be so bad, just this once. . . .He had, after all, given up what life he had to be on Atlantis. . . .Didn't he deserve at least this? It was such a small thing. . . .No one ever needed to find out.

It's not like he was going to fall in love with her.

His conscience twinged.

It almost made him change his mind.

Almost.

Smiling, Marcus pulled out a pen and started filling out the paperwork.