Content Warning - This first part has a bad word in it.
She went to her room a half-hour before they were due to return. Over the past months it had developed into an unplanned ritual, a superstitious act of faith that provided her with a few minutes away from the eyes of those who looked to her for guidance. It was her sanctuary: a few brief, precious moments of privacy for bargaining with God. In those moments she waited, she prayed, she pictured their faces in her mind...and she tried not to think about what she would do if they didn't come home. She supposed she should feel guilty for taking this time, for putting these ones above the others in her heart. She did not. This was her time; these were her people in a way that even the others were not. These moments, this heartache came from the intimacy of her soul, and she would not apologize for being human.
Her staff never disturbed her during these sessions. She hadn't needed to ask; they had understood and had taken it upon themselves to give her this time alone. They didn't even contact her as the scheduled activation drew near; she knew to the second when it would be and always returned to the command center with five minutes to spare. She was blissfully, gratefully alone for twenty-five minutes...to hope, to plead, to anticipate. This time was sacred. At least, it had been until now.
She stared angrily at the note that she had found slipped under her door. The letters were uneven, the message crude: Go home, Bitch. The shock of it stole her breath; she could feel her ribs pressing painfully beneath her skin. It wasn't the first hateful comment she had received, and it wouldn't be the last. As leader of Atlantis she couldn't please everyone all the time. She had made enemies, some of whom weren't the slightest bit hesitant in giving Fury a voice. She had ignored the others, as she should do with this one. For some reason it was harder this time. She wondered if it might be because the note had intruded on her solitude, on a time that was supposed to be hers alone. She thought to herself that it wasn't just that. There was something malevolent about this message, something truly unsettling. Maybe it was the handwriting, the way the large scrawl of red ink slasked across the page. Maybe it was the undiluted hatred of the tone. There was just something so wrong about it...
She shook her head briefly and dropped the note on her desk. She was making too much of this, letting her private fears affect her judgment. She could use the city's systems to solve this mystery, of course. It would be easy enough to pull up the record of who had been outside her door this morning, who had stopped for a moment to deliver an angry missive to its intended target. Atlantis saw everyone and everything. Elizabeth wasn't sure she wanted to do that; she'd never done it that way before. It was her belief that a little rebellion was good for the soul...and good for the city. People had to be allowed to express their frustrations without fear of repercussion. Granted, she preferred civilized discussions in her office to anonymous hate mail in her private quarters, but she wouldn't be choosy. Besides, if she responded to this with any show of strength, wouldn't she be validating it by default? There was also Caldwell to consider; she couldn't afford to give the impression that she was weak, easily frightened...unfit for command.
The thought of command reminded her; with a glance at the clock, she realized that it was time to return to her duties. Leaving the note on her desk, she tucked the matter away in a compartment of her mind. The problem and its solution, if any, would just have to wait. She had something infinitely more important to do.
SGA--SGA--SGA
As she stood in the command center, able to breathe deeply for the first time since they left four days ago, she acknowledged that the group that had just walked through the Stargate was special to her. Teyla: beautiful, strong, and intelligent. Elizabeth respected and admired her; they were friends, even if certain factors in their relationship prevented them from being closer. Elizabeth admitted to herself that there was uncertainty involved, as well as a good dose of envy that she had absolutely no business feeling.
She turned from that thought before it could fully form and studied the other members of the group. Ronon: strong warrior and unpredictable element. Of the four, he was the one she knew least. She accepted that he was a valuable asset to the team and to Atlantis, but she wasn't naïve enough to think that he played by the same rulebook as everyone else. Due to loyalty, he could be trusted. For now.
Rodney was being his usual, slightly annoying self. He had been talking when he walked out of the gate, and he continued to do so. She listened with amusement, wondering how anyone could string that many multi-syllabic words together that quickly without choking. He was absolutely brilliant in his field (and better than 99.9 percent of the population at just about anything, he would claim). More importantly he was a good man with a kinder heart than most people realized, and he was more courageous that he believed himself to be.
While she had made peace with her feelings for this team, she was still uncomfortable admitting, even to herself, that the fourth person was more important to her than the others, more important than anyone she had ever known. She'd given up trying to deny it a few months ago, but that didn't mean she had to like it or act upon it. John Sheppard appeared to be listening with full attention to Rodney's chatter, but his eyes had been searching the command center from the moment he stepped through the gate. His gaze locked with hers and he nodded, so slightly that Elizabeth was sure nobody else even noticed. It was a private communication, meant only for her to understand: I'm here, and you're where you ought to be, and we're both safe and whole.
It was in response to that unspoken thought that she smiled and said warmly, "Welcome home."
He grinned up at her and replied, "It's good to be back. You're going to just love what we found on our trip." His eyes were bright, and the message they conveyed now was Do I have the coolest job in the universe, or what?
They had found something important. She could see it on all of their faces, and the enthusiasm was contagious. She answered with as much cool professionalism as she could muster because she knew he got a kick out of it. "I'm sure it will be very interesting. We'll meet in the conference room after you check in with Dr. Beckett."
He made an appropriately sarcastic remark about doctors and moms before leading his team away. She stepped into her office to hide a smile and devoted herself to paperwork for the next hour.