Major and Commander

Chapter 2: Hope and Disappointment


Elizabeth Weir sank into her chair with a groan. Now more than ever she wished she could have a stiff drink in her hand, unfortunately they couldn't afford to waste any space on something so frivolous in their supplies from Earth. Instead she decided to make do with some Athosian wine she'd received as a gift.

"Got any in there for me?" Weir looked up to see John Sheppard standing in the door to her quarters. "Sorry I should have knocked or something." He said looking around at the door frame.

"It's fine John." Weir said giving him a small smile. "I didn't want to drink alone anyway." She grabbed a spare glass and sat down on her couch and poured them both a sizable amount. Before John said anything she gulped down half her glass and refilled it.

"You okay, Elizabeth?" John asked with a raised eyebrow.

Dr. Weir took a deep breath and leaned back with the glass in her hand. "Honestly, I'm not sure." She said.

"I know what you mean." John said.

After Commander Shepard had introduced herself everyone in the room had practically gone into shock. It had taken hours of explanations and technical talk between herself, Dr. McKay, and the Commander to piece together what had happened to Commander Kaya Shepard. Between the three of them they had been able to find the only possible explanation.

The Commander and her boyfriend/mate had been at the heart of a massive Dark Energy discharge. Coupled with the effects of the enormous amounts of Element Zero, of which Weir only had a vague understanding of, Commander Shepard had been shot into a tear in the fabric of space time at many, many times the speed of light. The tunnel of massless ness that she had traveled through had been mistaken as an incoming wormhole by the stargate here in Atlantis. Dr. McKay theorized the only reason she appeared here in Pegasus rather than back in the Milky Way was that by the time the massless corridor had stabilized she had already moved beyond the galactic circle. Her trajectory must have put her close enough for the Atlantis gate to redirect and open a wormhole for her to rematerialize through. As for the time travel, well the laws of physics are pretty much considered general guidelines when one considered the forces at work.

What bothered Dr. Weir the most however wasn't the fact the woman had traveled all the way here from a future Earth that was in a universe so completely different from their own, but what had caused her to take such drastic measures in the first place. The images of the Reapers and their proto-forms would haunt Dr. Weir's nightmares for a while.

"What do you think of her?" John asked suddenly breaking her train of though.

"I think she's been through hell and back." Weir said honestly. The only evidence they had that the Commander was telling the truth was her word and the images that she'd stored on her omni-tool, but it was hard to fake the look in the woman's eye's as she told Weir and her team her story in her fight against the Reapers. Shepard had seen more combat in the last five years than even General Jack O'Neil had in his entire lifetime and against monsters far worse than anything Weir had heard of aside from the Wraith.

"It's a lot to take in." John agreed. He'd seen his fair share of hurt soldiers before, but the Commander was something else entirely. She'd literally carried the weight of the galaxy on her back and had somehow managed to come out on top, but not without scars. "So what are we going to do?" he asked.

"Whatever we can John. If I could sent her home I would but we don't have that ability, the best we can do is make her comfortable and hope for the best. Dealing with displaced universe hopping time travelers fresh from the war of the century wasn't something I was prepared for to be honest." Elizabeth said.

John finished the rest of his wine and stood up. "You'll figure it out Elizabeth. If anyone can help her it's you." He left leaving Elizabeth with her thoughts and a glass of half empty wine.


As Dr. Weir and Major Sheppard tried to figure out what to do. Kaya walked through the hallways of Atlantis like a woman on a mission. The scuttlebutt must have made the rounds because most of the base personnel gave her a lot of odd looks. Although that might have has something to do with the fact that she was only wearing a hospital gown and that almost fifty percent of her body was covered in rapidly healing scar tissue.

It had taken her the better part of an hour to give the good Dr. Becket the slip, but there was someone she had to find. She had questions she needed to ask and so far there was only one person that seemed to be smart enough to be able to answer them. She ignored the pain in her body as she marched down the corridor.

It took a bit but she finally found the person she was looking for, and conveniently he was in the mess hall. "Dr. McKay." She called out when she reached him.

"Can't a guy go five minutes and eat-" His back had been turned to her and his head had been buried in a data pad so he hadn't seen her walk up, Dr. McKay had stopped his rant midsentence when he realized who had been calling for him.

"Commander Shepard! Should you be up yet?" He practically squeaked.

"Probably not." Shepard agreed. "But I need to talk to you. Will you wait here while I get some food?" She asked.

"Uh sure." McKay said.

Shepard made her way over to the chow line and proceeded to pile her plate full of everything that was available. When she had returned and sat at the table McKay was at he was staring at her with his mouth open.

"What?" She asked.

McKay startled and shook his head, "Sorry, it's just that I don't think I ever seen someone eat that much before."

Shepard would have laughed if she didn't have a mouth full of food. "It's alright, the same implants that were used to help bring me back to life do wonders for my body. The make me stronger, faster, and heal quicker that a normal human, but they trade off is my body burns a lot more calories than normal. When I get injured they speed up my metabolic processes even more to help aid with the healing. I'm starving."

McKay was decent enough to go back to whatever he was working on before she had interrupted him while she ate. He was a little nervous being around the Commander especially considering what she was wearing. She didn't seem to care though so he put it out of his mind. When she was done he looked at her.

"McKay I need to know something. First is it possible for you to recreate the event that brought me here? Is it possible for me to return home?" She asked. There was no sign of pleading in her voice and her eyes were steady and clam. McKay was again reminded what this woman had gone through. It was easy to believe that she'd basically been an intergalactic super spy for all the emotion she was showing at the moment.

"Technically it's possible. We've had a few instances where we've dealt with alternate universes in the past and we've even dealt with time travel before," He saw the faintest glimmer of hope in her eyes, "but never from somewhere so different than out own." He finished. "Stargate Command back on Earth has access to a few technologies that allow travel between alternate universes, but they're very unpredictable. I wouldn't even know where to start." He said truthfully.

Shepard nodded. "So possible but realistically beyond the realm of possibility." She said completely unphased. "Next question, There was someone else that was with me when I fell into the energy matrix of the Crucible. If I ended up here is there a possibility that he could be somewhere else in this Galaxy." If Shepard were to be honest with herself getting home was a second priority compared to finding out what had happened to Garrus. So far she'd kept all of those emotions bottled up until she had a chance to get some answers. She'd deal with those once she'd assessed her situation and learned if there was anything to be done.

McKay nodded, "You mean your boyfriend, Garret or something right."

"Garrus, and he's my mate, my. . . husband in human terms." She said slowly. It was the first time McKay had seen her crack even if it was only for a moment.

"That's much more possible." He said softly. The Commander looked up and only now could he see how much she had been hurting. It must have been incredibly painful for to not know what had happened to her friend. "The problem is that his trajectory must have been slightly different from yours there are millions of stargates in this galaxy and we've only just started exploring it. He could be anywhere."

"If he made it to this galaxy then I'll find him. Garrus is one of the best danm soldiers I've known. If he made it than he'll survive. I'll find him."

"That could take years though." McKay argued.

"It doesn't matter. I don't leave my people behind. After what happened on Virmire I swore to myself I'd never do that again or die trying." She said.

It took McKay a few seconds to remember what the Commander was talking about. Shepard had been forced to leave one of her crew behind in a nuclear blast that she had used to destroy a cloning facility early on in her fight against the Reapers.

"Okay, okay. I see I can't persuade you, how can I help?" McKay asked.

Shepard had not been expecting McKay's offer of help, she raised an eyebrow at him. "Well you could teach me how to use that stargate thing so I can start looking as soon as I get better." She said.

"Or you could come with us as we go exploring the galaxy ourselves." A voice said behind her.

Kaya turned around to see John Sheppard standing behind her with his own tray of food. "You'd let me come with you?" She asked.

"I don't see why not. You're probably the most qualified combatant in this entire city and you do have experience fighting galaxy spanning threats." John said.

Commander Shepard narrowed her eyes at what John had said or specifically what he hadn't said. "Something tells me you have your own version of Reapers here. What aren't you telling me?" He voice had become brittle as ice.

John sat down. "Dr. Weir told me not to tell you this just yet but something tells me that if I don't you'll just run off on your own and get yourself into trouble."

"Wouldn't be the first time." Kaya admitted.

"Although I am tempted to just let you go. Who known in a few years maybe you'll have solved all our problems by yourself." John teased.

Kaya wasn't amused and leveled a glare at the Major.

He sighed. "Okay here's what we know so far."


A/N: Hope you guys like the update. Please Read and review