Chapter 4
A Mystery Solved

"He may have sustained permanent brain damage!" Dr. Keller was shouting as Agatha, Violetta, Krosp, and Teyla made their way up the Gateroom stairs toward the conference room early that evening.

"Look in my eyes and see if I care," Col. Sheppard shot back.

"I don't believe this. How can you say that?"

"You read Todd's report. You know what he was gonna do to her. He's damn lucky I stopped it before Todd killed him outright."

"I could destroy your career over this."

"Do you really wanna go there, Jennifer? Do you? Because it's bad enough you're defending a would-be rapist—"

"I AM NOT! You're the one defending cruel and unusual—"

"The Eighth Amendment does not apply out here, and you know it!"

"Oh, dear," Teyla murmured.

"What is he talking about?" Agatha asked quietly.

"The Eighth Amendment to the American Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment of prisoners."

"Oh." Agatha tried briefly to picture such a law passing in Europa, then shook her head at the idea of anyone being able to define precisely what would be considered unusual punishment (cruelty, alas, was quite common). "Er, perhaps we should come back later."

Teyla shook her head, but before she could say anything more, Herr Woolsey came out of what was apparently his office. He shot a glance at the conference room before walking over to Agatha's group. "Ah, Lady Heterodyne," he said apologetically. "There was an... altercation earlier between Todd and Prince Martellus. My report's going to state that there was an accident, that Todd didn't know we'd recalibrated the force field protecting the cell and didn't think pushing His Highness into the bars would result in the severity of shock His Highness actually received."

Agatha blinked. "Oh. I see. And... the cause of this accident?"

"Todd got Prince Martellus to confess that he'd planned to drug you and force you to marry him."

Agatha felt herself go pale, but then her blood boiled. "Well. Accidents happen. He is only fortunate that Atlantis is not Castle Heterodyne."

Herr Woolsey hummed thoughtfully. "Well, we should go in. Dr. McKay and Dr. Zelenka said they've worked out what happened to bring you here; they'll be along any moment."

Agatha nodded, and her group followed him toward the conference room, where Col. Sheppard and Dr. Keller were still arguing.

"You know what?" Col. Sheppard said just as they got to the row of open doors leading into the conference room. "If you wanna do this, if you really want to go there, I've got no problem telling the board of review exactly what happened when McKay had Second Childhood."

Dr. Keller paled. "What do you mean?"

"That you tried to deny life-saving measures to the head of another department, and if Jeannie hadn't gotten here in time and used her authority as next of kin to overrule you, McKay. Would. Be. Dead."

"I was there," Herr Dex rumbled from his seat at the long mahogany table. "I'll back him up."

"As will I," Teyla chimed in.

Dr. Keller looked around at them, her hazel eyes wide with panic. "Wait a minute, you guys—"

Col. Sheppard stepped forward, pressing his advantage. "And there's the little matter of that video where McKay supposedly confessed his love for you, the one you watched over and over for weeks..."

"All right! All right, I... I won't report you to the Air Force. But I'm not signing off on Mr. Woolsey's version, either."

Herr Woolsey turned to Dr. Beckett, who was sitting beside Herr Dex looking grim. "Dr. Beckett?"

"Oh, aye, I'll sign," Dr. Beckett stated. "I do understand Dr. Keller's objections, but as far as I'm concerned, von Blitzengaard's no better than Michael."

"He's still a human!" Dr. Keller cried.

"I would not bet on that," Violetta stated.

Dr. Keller stared at her incredulously. "How can you say that? He's your cousin!"

"I have exactly one cousin who is anywhere close to being a decent human being, and that is Tarvek—whom Martellus has poisoned."

"In my city," Agatha added. "If that had happened in Beetleburg, Dr. Beetle would have put him in a bell jar on the quadrangle and left him to rot. In Mechanicsburg... well, you remember what I told you of Castle Heterodyne. Believe me, Frau Doktor, if he was only electrocuted and lives nonetheless, he is fortunate indeed."

"It still shouldn't have happened," Dr. Keller said weakly.

"Perhaps not. But can anyone truly say the outcome was foreknown, that it was allowed with malice aforethought?"

Dr. Keller grimaced. "No."

"And can you say with certainty that Todd did know the force field had been recalibrated?"

"... No."

"Then there is no evidence to contradict Herr Woolsey's claim, is there?"

Dr. Keller sighed heavily and sat down.*

Just then two other men with blue-trimmed jackets, presumably Dr. McKay and Dr. Zelenka, arrived and looked at the others warily. "Did... we miss something?" asked the blue-eyed man with thinning hair (McKay?).

"Yeah, and that's probably a good thing," Col. Sheppard replied, ushering Agatha, Violetta, and Krosp to seats on the opposite side of the table from Dr. Keller before sitting down next to Dr. Beckett.

Teyla sat between Col. Sheppard and Agatha, and Herr Woolsey sat at the head of the table as the doors swung shut. The latecomers looked at each other and shrugged, then sat down next to Dr. Keller, who smiled tightly at the man who was probably Dr. McKay.

"Well," Herr Woolsey said with an air of calling the meeting to order. "Now that we're all here... Dr. Beckett, what have you found?"

"Well, I can definitely confirm that Lady Heterodyne's locket is suppressing a second consciousness that is not the result of Multiple Personality Disorder," Dr. Beckett replied. "The overall pattern of brain activity changes completely when Lady Mongfish is in control, and there's one specific area where little to no activity occurs while the locket is engaged but that becomes very active when the locket is disabled. And having spoken with Lady Mongfish, I can tell she's a totally different person. The advantage of the locket is that we won't have to worry about Lady Heterodyne suffering the kind of strain Dr. McKay faced under similar circumstances when Lt. Cadman's consciousness was trapped in his mind."

Dr. McKay grimaced. "I thought we agreed never to speak of that again."

"Sorry, Rodney, it's the closest parallel."

Agatha frowned. "What kind of strain did he suffer?"

Dr. McKay sighed. "Look, the base psychologist recommended that I try sharing control with Cadman, but when Cadman would take over, she did all kinds of stuff that I'd never do. We fought over it... and then I started having seizures, and it was affecting my heart..."

"If we hadn't been able to separate them," added the other man, with sandy madboy hair and glasses—Dr. Zelenka, probably, given his accent—"either the stress would have killed him, or one consciousness would have died and left the other in control."

Agatha hissed.

"But we don't have to worry about that, milady, like I said," Dr. Beckett repeated. "The locket eliminates the conflict between personalities."

"Yes, but I received it just in time," Agatha replied. "Before I got it back, we did fight for control. I could not wake up unless she went to sleep, but when I went to sleep, she would wake up... my body was getting no rest at all."

"But separation is possible, correct?" Herr Woolsey asked.

Dr. Beckett nodded. "Aye, using the same method we used to separate Rodney and Cadman." He turned to Agatha. "Wraith fighters—they're called Darts—have a device that uses a beam of light to dematerialize a person, store the pattern in a buffer, and rematerialize him or her at the other end. That's how they capture their prisoners. We have access to some intact Darts from a hive that crashed here a few years ago; we can use the control crystal from the Gate to stabilize the circuit if we have to. But it won't be difficult to separate your consciousness from your mother's while you're in the buffer and rematerialize you in separate bodies."

Dr. McKay frowned. "Wait, where are you going to get the matter for the second body? That only worked with us because Cadman's pattern was still in storage."

"Well, we've a handful of options, really. Wraith cloning is right out, as that copies the consciousness as well as the body. My first choice would be Asgard cloning, since that's capable of copying only the body; it would still be a living, breathing human form, just with a completely blank slate for Lady Mongfish's mind to move into. But if we can't get hold of the technology, then what we do have here in the city is the Replicator table."

Herr Woolsey frowned. "I'm not sure I can authorize that, Doctor."

"I'm aware of the risks, Mr. Woolsey," Dr. Beckett stated. "Believe me, it's far from my first choice, even if we adjust it to make a nanite-built human body. But if it's a choice between that and leaving Lady Mongfish in Lady Heterodyne's mind, I'd have to recommend that we chance it."

"Perhaps it should wait until we are nearly ready to leave," Agatha suggested. "You are having trouble enough with Martellus; it may be best not to have my mother separately in custody any longer than necessary to avoid giving her time to find a way to escape. And that could give you the time to find this... Asgard?"

"Little grey aliens," Col. Sheppard explained. "Passed themselves off as the Norse gods in the Milky Way. We got a rogue branch here in Pegasus, weren't nearly as keen to ally themselves with us as the others had been to ally with Earth."

"Oh. Huh."

Herr Woolsey nodded. "All right, assuming we have time to locate an Asgard cloning facility, I'll authorize the search. We should check with Stargate Command, too, to see if there's anything in the Asgard database that would allow us to construct our own."

Dr. Beckett nodded back. "Thank you."

"And you foresee no other problems with Lady Heterodyne's remaining here in Atlantis?"

"Well, she should avoid strong electromagnetic fields that could damage the locket, and with an ATA gene as strong as hers, she shouldn't go exploring on her own. But other than that, aye, I think it's perfectly safe."

"Thank you, Doctor." Herr Woolsey turned to Agatha. "Even now, a large portion of the city remains unexplored, and we have found a significant number of dangerous, even lethal, experiments the Ancients left behind. We don't want anyone accidentally activating another one. So for that reason, please do either stay in well-traveled portions of the base or ask for an escort before you go anywhere."

Agatha nodded. "That is quite reasonable, Herr Woolsey. We will do so."

"I also wanted to discuss the objects you built while you were asleep these last few days."

She blushed slightly. "Is there a problem?"

"Well, the death rays we've put in our armory for safekeeping. There's nothing wrong with them; that's just standard practice here. It's the other robots you built, the small ones, that could be a problem."

"My little helpers? Why?"

"They're self-replicating."

"And?"

Herr Woolsey sighed. "I see you haven't heard about our problems with the Replicators. They were a form of robot developed by the Ancients, originally to fight the Wraith. But they've been the scourge of four galaxies. They overran the Ida Galaxy, forcing the Asgard to flee to the Othalla Galaxy, and even there they weren't completely able to eradicate the threat. In the Milky Way, we had to resort to an Ancient superweapon to destroy the Replicator swarms before they could wipe out all human life. And here in Pegasus, we prompted them to attack the Wraith, but they concluded the best way to do that was by a scorched-earth method, destroying human worlds to eliminate the Wraith's food source."

Agatha felt the blood drain from her face. "But... my little clanks would not do such a thing. They are made to assist in the lab. I have to wind them every day. And by the fourth generation, they are not capable of making more."

Herr Woolsey shook his head. "I'm sorry, Lady Heterodyne. I can't take the risk of your losing control of them. We've already dismantled the ones you made, and I have to ask that you not make any more."

Agatha sighed heavily. "Very well. I do understand."

"She may not be able to stop herself when she is in fugue," Krosp cautioned.

"But we can watch," Violetta noted. "And if we cannot stop her, we can stop them from spreading."

Herr Woolsey nodded once. "Fair enough. Thank you."

"And how are you going to monitor 24/7?" Dr. McKay challenged. "What if she keeps sleepwalking?"

"She is rested and aware that her surroundings are safe," Krosp replied. "I have been with her long enough to know that the chances of her continuing to sleepwalk are practically zero."

"And we can have the city keep an eye on her, too," said Col. Sheppard. "You know Lantea never sleeps."

"Yes, well, that's what we need, some kind of 24/7 surveillance at least," grumbled Dr. McKay. "She's probably going to be here a while."

Agatha's heart sank.

"Ah," said Herr Woolsey. "I take it, then, that you and Dr. Zelenka are still working on the problem of return."

"There are complications," Dr. Zelenka replied. "And there is still a great deal of uncertainty in the math—"

Dr. McKay nodded. "Yes, yes, but while we may never know the exact how, we do at least know what caused the malfunction, thanks to the data burst we got from Earth in this morning's scheduled dial-out. There were actually three interlaced energy signatures in the wormhole, not two, and now we know why." He started to get up but paused and looked at Agatha. "Ah, Lady Heterodyne, you are familiar with the concept of the space-time continuum?"

"It is still new to me," Agatha replied, "but Teyla has explained—the, eh, fabric of the universe through which the wormholes tunnel."

"Yes, good, exactly. Okay." He stood, picked up a small device, and pressed a button on it, and what had looked like an empty black picture frame on the wall lit up in the center. "It turns out we do have some knowledge of your story in this universe, thanks to a webcomic called Girl Genius. We can... explain what a webcomic is some other time. Unfortunately, it's still a work in progress, so we don't know everything that happened. But fortunately, the story's far enough along to have filled in some blanks that you couldn't have known about." He pressed another button...

... and the picture frame displayed a caricature of the thing that had been falling toward Mechanicsburg when Martellus grabbed Agatha, one of Jäger Gen. "Mamma" Gkika challenging it, and its door opening to reveal... Baron Wulfenbach with a round device in his hand. Agatha, Violetta, and Krosp gasped in unison.

Col. Sheppard frowned. "Who is that?"

"The baron," Agatha answered.

Dr. McKay changed the image to show Mamma Gkika attacking the baron and demanding his surrender and the baron pretending to surrender before pressing a button on whatever the device was. Reading the conversation in English was strange, especially given the artist's rendition of an Old Mechanicsburg accent in Mamma Gkika's speech, but Agatha was more focused on the action anyway.

"Apparently the button was just a trigger," Dr. McKay explained. "The device activated about five seconds later, at the exact moment you four entered the portal. And that has caused all sorts of problems."

"The most recent updates," Dr. Zelenka continued, "show that the device created a... like a bubble surrounding the town of Mechanicsburg inside which time has stopped."

"And what that initially meant for you was that you arrived at the Refuge of Storms two and a half years into the future. That accounts for the first energy signature in the wormhole, although it was overshadowed by the other two."

"Also why we thought it looked like a solar flare, which can redirect a passing wormhole to a different point in time. Most of the time it merely returns the wormhole to the starting Gate a few decades earlier or later, but there have been some occasions when the wormhole connected to the receiving Gate, generally with a much greater time difference. Col. Sheppard once had the misfortune to be sent 48,000 years into the future."

Dr. Beckett frowned. "When was this?"

"After we found you," Col. Sheppard replied, "when we were still lookin' for Teyla."

"Ah, right. Sorry, Rodney."

Dr. McKay shrugged off the interruption. "The portal device in the Refuge of Storms wasn't nearly as robust as a Stargate, and faced with the power surge from that kind of incoming wormhole, it melted down as soon as you came through. That should have shut down the wormhole completely. But since time was frozen at the point of origin... y'know, that's one scenario that's never come up in almost twenty years of Gate travel."

"McKay," Col. Sheppard warned.

"Right, right. Now, the comic has progressed only as far as you three making your getaway from the Refuge of Storms; Lady Heterodyne's been rescued by the Jägers, and Lady Mondarev's just been caught by Gil, who is looking extremely messed up and not at all sane."

Dr. Zelenka nodded. "But he's been trying to find a way to undo the time stop to rescue his father and, he thought, also you."

"Assuming he finds a way to get to the device and assuming he's desperate, under some kind of time pressure, or just not thinking straight, or possibly all three, what's the easiest way to shut it down?"

"Blow it up," said Herr Dex.

Dr. McKay nodded once and pointed to him. "Which, as you may recall, was the solution you offered when we were trapped on an alternate version of the Daedalus with a malfunctioning alternate reality drive. And my response was?"

"Could rip a hole in space-time and kill us."

"Well, more than just us, but yes."

Agatha's blood ran cold. "What are you saying?"

Dr. McKay grimaced. "Having that portal still open on the Mechanicsburg end, forming a weak point in space-time, makes it far more likely that blowing up the time-stop device would tear a hole in the fabric of the universe. The rift probably opened at or near the event horizon of the portal, and if the device still had a copy of you in its buffer, that would account for the fact that you came through in one piece on the other side."

"Yes, but the tear would have unleashed an immense amount of energy," Dr. Zelenka added. "To dial the Stargate between Earth and Atlantis requires what is known as a Zero Point Module—it extracts vacuum energy from a self-contained region of subspace, like a-a miniature universe in a bottle. Just for reference, it takes three ZPMs for the city to fly. This event in your universe would have been many times stronger than that. Given the energy required to redirect the wormhole through the rift, through the centuries, across the intergalactic void..."

Dr. McKay looked Agatha in the eye for the first time and concluded sadly, "It probably destroyed your entire solar system."

Agatha's vision went grey around the edges. "No... no..."

"I'm sorry, Lady Heterodyne."

But before Agatha could break down, she was gripped by the same Spark-fueled rage that had swept over her outside Sturmhalten when Baron Wulfenbach, in retaliation for her mother's having just snared him with the only wasp in the world capable of enslaving a spark, had killed her would-be boyfriend, nearly killed Zeetha, and ordered the slaughter of the circus. "No," she declared as she shot to her feet. "We stand in the jewel of the Ancients, in a great company of sparks. Do not tell me there is no hope, no way to go back."

"There's no planet left for you to return to!"

"I mean go back—an hour, two hours, five, ten, early enough to save Gil and Tarvek, to stop the baron, to save everyone."

"Look, you heard what Zelenka said about the power requirements."

"Then we find a way to reduce them. Return to the Milky Way, leave from another planet, use a solar flare to reach the correct time and only then try to cross back through the rift. There has to be a way. And if you will not help me," she added, knowing her tone was growing dangerous and not caring at all, "then I will find that way myself. But I cannot allow my people, my city, my planet, to come to such a fate. I must fix this or die trying. I am the Heterodyne!" she concluded, and all the mugs on the table rattled.

Herr Woolsey cleared his throat quietly. "I understand this is difficult news, Lady Heterodyne. Perhaps we should all take the evening off and come back to the problem fresh in the morning."

Agatha frowned at him. "You do not forbid me?"

"No, I don't. If our Earth were destroyed, or if such a thing happened to Atlantis, I'm sure we'd all at least consider whether it would be possible to go back and undo the damage. And there have been times when such a plan has worked. But there are many ramifications to consider beyond the scientific possibility, and I think we all need at least one night to sleep on it."

"He has a point, Agatha," Krosp said quietly. "Nothing back there will change overnight. We can take tonight to... to..."

"To mourn," Violetta concluded, putting a hand on Agatha's arm. "And tomorrow we can start the work to bring them back."

Agatha took a deep, ragged breath and let it out again, and the rage drained away as she did so. Then she nodded. "All right. Herr Woolsey, is... is there a piano somewhere that I could play for a while?"

Dr. McKay raised a finger. "Er, actually, I got one for my birthday a couple of years ago. I... don't normally let other people play it, but under the circumstances, I... it would be selfish of me not to share."

"That is most kind of you, Herr Doktor. Thank you."

"All right," said Herr Woolsey kindly. "Dismissed."

"Do you mind if we come with you?" Teyla asked as everyone else stood, indicating herself and Herr Dex.

Agatha blinked. "Why?"

"You might need the support."

Agatha shrugged. "All right. No, I do not mind."

Teyla smiled and Herr Dex nodded once, and they followed Agatha, Violetta, and Krosp to the door, where Dr. McKay was waiting for them.

"Hey, um," Dr. McKay began as he led them out, "sorry for what I said about the whole sleepwalking thing. I just... Replicators kinda make me grouchy. I mean, I managed once to make one that wasn't a menace, but she—it was basically a walking self-destruct mechanism that we smuggled onto the Replicators' homeworld to destroy all the ones we could catch there. And it really is massively unsafe for you to wander around by yourself. I just... need to learn when to keep my mouth shut."

Agatha managed to smile. "Thank you for your concern, Herr Doktor. I am sure that I have much to learn."

"Ah. Yes. So... the quadrangle in Beetleburg you mentioned, is that at a university?"

"Yes, Transylvania Polygnostic. I was a student there until Dr. Beetle was killed."

Dr. McKay made a slightly distressed noise. "I'm sorry. I'm no good at small talk. I'll shut up now."

"It was kind of you to try."

The remainder of the journey was mercifully short, as the room where Dr. McKay had set up his piano was near a transporter on the north pier. "I really don't recommend that you come out here alone," he said as he led the group to the door. "Most of this building is still unexplored. But here we are." He waved his hand in front of a panel beside the door, and the door slid open to reveal a bright room with large west-facing windows. A sleek black baby grand piano sat in the center of the space, and there were a few chairs and settees—seating for eight, probably. "Pretty much nobody else knows this room is here, and it's soundproofed, so y'know, you can play as loud as you want. Just... don't break the keyboard or anything. Kind of hard to get a repairman out here."

Agatha chuckled. "I will be careful. Thank you."

Dr. McKay hesitated a moment. "You're not wrong, Lady Heterodyne. I apparently did the same thing when Sheppard was missing. And I can't tell you how many times we've been the ones who've had to save Atlantis or Earth or one galaxy, the other, both. So it's... it's good that you want to try. And if there's a way, we'll find it. You just need to be aware that there might not be."

She looked him in the eye. "The laws of physics were made to be broken, were they not?"

He suddenly broke into a sideways smile. "You know what? I like that attitude. Hey, maybe we can get you set up with a lab on the mainland or offworld or something, someplace where your experiments wouldn't be a risk to the rest of the base."

"If it is possible, I would like that. Thank you."

"Right! Well, I... won't keep you. See you at supper?"

"Perhaps. Thank you again, Herr Doktor."

Dr. McKay smiled and nodded and left, and the rest of the group filed into the room. Violetta was the last in and closed the door behind her. Krosp took one chair; Violetta took another; and Teyla and Herr Dex sat down together on a settee. Agatha, meanwhile, sat down at the piano and rested her hands on the keys, unsure what to play.

Finally, she let her fingers drift as she thought of Mechanicsburg, its bright mountain sun and the dark legacy of the Heterodynes, its fire and strength and its willingness to love a lost orphan girl because she belonged to the town as much as the town belonged to her. She thought of Adam and Lilith and their little house in Beetleburg, helping Adam in the machine shop and Lilith in the kitchen, of playing a duet with Lilith while their construct friends danced despite their awkwardness, of Adam giving her silent comfort when she wept over her own frustrations. She thought of the circus and its Heterodyne shows, its strangeness and its kindness, its courage in battle and its wisdom in disappearing to England after Sturmhalten. She thought of wild, wonderful Zeetha, the best friend she'd ever had, and of other friends like the Jägers, her cousin Theo DuMedd, her former roommate Sleipnir O'Hara. She thought of Tarvek and his schemes, of his willingness to help her and her triumph in saving him with the Si Vales Valeo. And she thought of Gil, warm, wonderful Gil, who'd risked his life for her, who'd believed in her when everyone else thought she was stupid old Agatha Clay, who'd built a mechanical orchestra just so he could dance with her to his own music...

—the same tune, she realized with a start, that she was playing now. She jerked her fingers off the keys as if they burned.

"That was beautiful," Teyla said. "Why did you stop?"

Agatha swallowed hard. "Gil s-said he wrote that in P-P-Paris..." Her voice broke, and she shut her eyes to try to stave off the tears.

She suddenly felt someone sit down next to her on the piano bench and sensed someone else coming over to stand next to the piano. She could almost believe she was back in Beetleburg with Adam and Lilith, but of course she wasn't, couldn't be.

Gil had gone to so much trouble to save them after they'd been killed helping her escape Castle Wulfenbach. And to what end?

"Hey," said Herr Dex, and Agatha peeled open her eyes to find that he was the person leaning his hip against the piano, looking down at her with compassionate brown eyes. "'Bout fifteen years ago, the Wraith attacked my planet, Sateda. I was captured. They put a tracker in my back, made me a Runner, hunted me all over the galaxy for seven years. Teyla, Col. Sheppard, Dr. Beckett... they saved me. Then when we came back to Atlantis, they sent a camera..." He swallowed hard. "Sateda was destroyed. For a while, I thought I was the only one left."

One traitorous tear slipped down Agatha's cheek.

Herr Dex shifted uncomfortably. "Anyway, my point is... I've been there. I know what it's like. I know how it hurts."

"As do I," said Teyla. "The day Dr. Keller and I discovered that my people had been captured was one of the worst days of my life. And it was not long after that I learned I was pregnant, and my child's father was among the missing."

Agatha sniffled. "You have a child?"

"A son, Torren John. He has been spending some time with my people, but I will bring him home later this week. He gets very lonely here sometimes because he's the only child in Atlantis."

Agatha was appalled. "This whole wonderful city, and only one child?!"

"Eh, to Earth, it's a military base and a research outpost," said Herr Dex. "But that's gonna change soon. Bunch of us are goin' to Earth next month; Gen. O'Neill's retiring, big promotion ceremony for a lot of people. Me and Amelia, we're gonna get married."

Teyla nodded. "Yes, and we think more of the married people stationed here will begin receiving permission to move their families into the city. But Atlantis is not a safe place for children who won't follow rules and run off to play where they have no permission to be. My people discovered that within their first month living here; we had to move most of them to the mainland in part to prevent the children from unleashing dangerous experiments."

Another tear rolled down Agatha's cheek.

Teyla put her arm around Agatha's shoulders. "Agatha, your desire to undo what was done to your universe is admirable, but it does not mean you cannot grieve for your losses now."

Herr Dex nodded. "Like I said. We've been there."

And that was all the permission Agatha needed to break down and weep. Teyla took Agatha's glasses, closed the lid over the piano keys, and moved her arm slightly to allow Herr Dex to put a hand on Agatha's shoulder. Agatha didn't know how long she cried, but it was enough to leave her feeling hollowed out.

As she finally fumbled for her handkerchief, Herr Dex patted her shoulder, straightened, and turned to Violetta. "How 'bout you?"

Krosp had taken off his coat and was curled up in Violetta's lap, and she was petting him absently; Agatha couldn't tell who was comforting whom. But Violetta took a deep breath and shook her head. "I stopped crying for dead relatives when I was five. My lady lives; that is what matters."

Teyla handed Agatha her glasses. "My people have a memorial tea ceremony. If you three would care to join me?"

Agatha put on her glasses, sniffled, and nodded. "I think that would help. Thank you, both of you."

Herr Dex actually smiled. "Anytime."


.


* I don't actually dislike Keller, but she does have an... idiosyncratic view of medical ethics.