Elizabeth sat at her desk looking at the letter in front of her

"Dr. Weir, I appreciate your offer of an extended leave of absence to return to Earth and take care of business. However, all the services will have been completed before I would be able to reach Earth. My grandfather will be in charge of procedures and we are not close. He wishes to quickly conclude this matter and return to his business on the other side of the country. I have expressed my wishes, but as he is the only person willing to be responsible for taking care of what needs to be done, my hands are tied. My feelings on the subject are strong, of course, but there is no point in beating a dead horse.

Please allow me to remain here on Atlantis. What little I have left is here. My work is here.

Peter Kavanagh."

She put the letter down.

"All right, Kavanagh, " she murmured.

"I'm letting you stay, sending my best team to the mainland after your precious materials, turning a blind eye when you miss one work shift out of 3. Let's see if you can finally find a way to pull it together."

Weir dropped her head into her hands. Ever since they'd gotten to Atlantis, things had seemed to go wrong at every turn for the curly-haired scientist. Since his near-torture during the bomb situation, she'd been careful to maintain a careful, professional attitude to his missteps, but it hadn't been easy. Not that he made more than any of the other scientists, but he did seem to have a gift for finding the situations that made him look especially bad. Some of it was a simple matter of not listening to his superiors, but more often it couldn't be chalked up to anything but extraordinarily bad luck.

His personality didn't help. She found Kavanagh harder to read than Sheppard or even McKay. He was a mass of contradictions: obnoxiously and insubordinately curious but always wary, shying away at the last moment from the deepest essences of the discoveries that so excited him. Always eager to get out of harm's way, but quick to offer a hand up to a nameless soldier after a skirmish when no-one else could be bothered. The first to run away from a fight, the last to give up in an argument.

And now this, the tragic accident that had taken his family…

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, reflecting, remembering the day his name had surfaced on the pile of personnel she was vetting as candidates for the Atlantis expedition. It had been a sunny and bright day. She could still smell the hyacinths and wet earth, still see the tall Gothic windows all around them as she mounted the steps of the old university building. A small sign in the lobby had indicated the way to the guest lecture in the main hall.

"Dr. Kavanagh?"

A quick appraising look.

"Yes?"

"That was an inspired presentation."

He looked down, smiling in spite of himself.

"It did go…even better than I'd hoped. You can never be sure what you're going to get with this type of event. A lot of factors at play. I'm sorry, uh…thank you…Ms…?"

She held out a hand.

"Dr. Elizabeth Weir. I've heard about your work and I'd like a word with you. When would you be free?"

He took her hand, cautiously, his eyes still bright with the excitement of being on stage, his lips rounded and ever so slightly curved.

"Are you with the AAAS?" His fingers clasped hers a little longer and more warmly than was appropriate, the tiny flutter in his pulse betraying how much adrenaline was still in his system. He dropped them, looked down hastily and cleared his throat, finding a safe place for his hand at the edge of the papers he was carrying.

"No, our goal is…quite a bit more experimental and progressive. I think you'll be very interested in hearing what I have to say."

A quick look at her from the corners of eyes that were suddenly cocky and playful with the lingering exhilaration of holding the crowd's attention, their intoxicating response to his ideas.

"You're not terrorists, are you?"

"Um, no, we're…explorers. Of this galaxy and possibly…others."

"Aeronautics?"

"Intergalactic travel. Things that can only be described as concepts, because no-one has seen them yet. The frontiers most people on Earth don't even have any conception of. I know you have some idea what I'm talking about, given where you work now. We're just another branch. At some point many or most of the personnel there will know about us, but you were one of the few chosen for a chance to get an advance briefing. I can't say any more here, of course. But I promise you won't be disappointed if you agree to hear more about it."

His eyes widened, went dark and serious.

"How did—ah, I would—yes, be very interested," he breathed. He cleared his throat, suddenly embarrassed.

"What about, um, this Thursday? At my laboratory? Given what you seem to know, I assume you have clearance?"

"That shouldn't present a problem. Till then, Doctor." Her eyes sparked, promising, luring his with the excitement she couldn't conceal any time she even thought about the possibilities of what she had been building for the past several months. She saw his pupils widen fractionally in response and smiled to herself as she broke eye contact and walked away, aware he was looking after her.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The lab was quiet except for the bubbling of experiments in various stages of progress. He waved a hand dismissively as she looked around.

"Hobbies. My real work is—well, you heard some of it and I believe you'd like to hear more?" His eyes anticipated the possibility that her interest had waned, gave her a last chance to back out. She lifted her chin slightly.

"Please, Dr. Kavanagh, go on."

He opened his mouth, then paused.

"Before the lady has spoken? I wouldn't dream of it. You had some very…provocative things to say at our last meeting, Dr. Weir. I'd like to hear more about all that first."

"Of course. Let me tell you about it…"

He watched her with absorbed interest as she began to detail their discoveries to date and the possibilities that lay ahead of them.

"And this is a civilian operation? For the purposes of science and exploration? How closely will the military be involved?"

"Yes, of course. There will be the necessity of a military contingent, naturally, to protect the expedition. But our focus will be researching what could be the most important breakthrough of our age."

That seemed to satisfy him and with a quick, shy look that signaled a boundary crossed he invited her to a corner of the lab where a collection of drawings and notes was laid out. His hands followed his explanations over the papers, across the boards, expounding, building castles of air and logic, drawing her deeper and deeper into his world, his eyes consuming and alive as they searched hers for an answering spark, his passion pulling her out of her own natural reserve until she laid a hand over his and told him he was the one.

If only there were a way to harness all that energy without crushing it…She couldn't help feeling she had failed at every turn so far, until—she was finally learning the strength to admit it to herself—she'd stopped seeing him as a scientist or even as a man and only saw the mirror he had become of the ways she could never, would never succeed.

If there had been a warning, an indication of what was to follow, perhaps it was that moment, when he looked right into her, the glow in his eyes fading as he read with devastating clearness how little she understood of what he had just built for her. He had looked down and for the first time she felt the chill, the slight change in his attitude, a withdrawal that left her frightened and defensive at the feelings of inadequacy it raised in her.

But he had forgiven her then, too intoxicated by the possibilities she had offered him to resist. One hand went out, she thought at first to touch hers as she had done to him, but at the last second he put it on the papers detailing her offer. Precise, scrupulous honesty of thought and action, and she'd taken it for integrity. Had she been wrong? Certainly there was no way she could have predicted how much it would hurt when he turned his talents against her, when the increasingly scornful withdrawal became a permanent part of his attitude toward her and the probing mind started following her every decision to its most likely outcome. She made a soft, disturbed sound at the thought and laid the letter down, rising from her chair.

In the end, it didn't matter. She had been chosen for her role just as she had chosen him for his.