Authors Note: It's great to see so many people are still reading this, thank you to those who left a review. Here's the next chapter as promised, I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Chapter 9

The alarm clock woke Elizabeth before the sun was so much as peaking over the horizon. She rolled over in bed and turned it off, a wave of nervousness descending over her. She took a deep breath to calm herself, she just needed to get it over with. She sat up in bed, running her fingers through her hair to put it in some semblance of order before looking across at Teyla who was awake as well.

"Guess, I'll shower first," Elizabeth said and headed for the bathroom. She showered quickly and wrapped herself in a towel. Teyla was already out of bed when she walked back into the bedroom and Elizabeth gave her a small smile. "It's never this easy to get you out of bed."

"I thought about being difficult, just for form, but you've got enough to worry about without me making you worry about being late," Teyla replied as she walked into the bathroom. "I'll be quick, I promise."

Elizabeth dried her hair and the pulled her suit out of her wardrobe. She'd bought it specifically for today, a grey suit, which according to Teyla was stylish and perfect for her. She'd barely managed to get dressed before Teyla was out of the bathroom in what had to be record time for her. They both finished getting ready and then headed down to the front doors of the building to meet with Laura, Janet and Kate.

"Hey," Laura greeted them when she saw them. "You look as nervous as I feel."

"I feel worse than I look," Elizabeth admitted as the five of them made their way to the gate that would lead them off campus and onto the road into town. They were meeting the rest of their friends there. The whole group was coming to support them, she wasn't sure how happy the court was going to be about eighteen students all showing up at once but they had every right to want to sit in the public seating and watch the trial.

The boys were already there when they arrived, along with the fifth year student Ben Dolan, the boy who had also come forward last year about being drugged and was also a witness for the accusers. Sam and Vala were only few minutes late which was impressive since Vala usually took longer to get ready than Teyla did. They left the school together, Elizabeth walked close to John, seeking the comfort she had only ever found with him, she wasn't ashamed to admit to herself she needed it at that moment.

"You'll be fine," John said as though he could sense the anxiety she was feeling. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, rubbed his hand over her arm a few times and pulled her closer.

Ahead of them Jack was walking with Sam, he was holding her hand tightly. Teyla was on his other side, offering him her silent support. Laura was flanked between Carson and Janet, the two of them were keeping her talking, offering her all the comfort they could. None of them really knew Ben very well; they'd only talked to him a few times while they'd been preparing for the trial. Cameron and Ronon were walking with him though, engaging him in conversation. It was going to be a tough day, they all knew it, but they'd get through it.

Her nerves got worse when they arrived in town. They had ten minutes before they needed to be at the court house and they stopped in a small cafe, got pastries and bottles of water to go since the cafeteria at the school had only just been opening when they left. Elizabeth didn't have much of an appetite but she nibbled on her pastry because she knew she wouldn't get chance to eat once the trial started.

At the court house they were searched as they entered the building. Jack, Laura, Ben and Elizabeth were signed in as witnesses, the rest of the group as public guests.

"We'll see you guys in there," Sam said when the escort arrived to take the witnesses to their waiting room. Elizabeth felt John squeeze her shoulder and she gave him a small smile before following the court officer. The waiting area was small, a little cramped with a couple of couches, a water cooler and a small table and chairs squeezed in.

"Please, wait here," their escort told them. "A representative of the accusers will be with you shortly."

He left them alone then and they all took up seats on the couch. "I knew I was going to be nervous, but man, this awful," Laura finally said.

"I'm gonna be so glad when this is over," Jack replied. Elizabeth sat back and took a deep breath, forced herself to relax a little and started running through her testimony in her head.


They managed to find the public waiting area, a large room with uncomfortable chairs and a water cooler in the corner. There were a few other people there, waiting for one trial or another and Teyla wondered briefly if any of them were there for Cal's trial. They all took up seats, keeping their voices down as they spoke so they didn't annoy the rest of the visitors.

She couldn't imagine how nervous Elizabeth and the others must be; she wasn't sure how well she'd be holding up if she'd had to testify. The possibility had come up when Mathos had been on trial but in the end she hadn't had to do it, a few other people had testified and there had been enough evidence to put him away without her. She hoped his appeal didn't come to anything, she hoped they didn't ask her to testify if it did.

"You okay?" Ronon asked and she looked up at him.

"I'm fine," Teyla smiled and Ronon looked at her as though he could see straight into her mind.

"You've got that look in your eyes you get when you're worried," he said. "They'll be fine you know, this might suck but they'll get through it."

Teyla smiled. "I know."

"That's not what you were thinking about though," he looked at her, studying her, trying to read her. "Is it?"

"Can't get anything passed you, can I?" she replied with another smile. "I was thinking about Mathos, his appeal, I'm hoping they don't make me testify."

They rarely brought up Mathos, it wasn't something Teyla liked to think about, but when they did, Ronon always got a dark look that made Teyla glad she was on Ronon's good side. The same look crossed his face now and she took hold of his hand and leaned her head on his shoulder.

"They said it was unlikely he'd be granted a full appeal, there are no grounds for one. At best he's likely to get a re-reading of the trial, another judge to go through the court documents and determine if the right decision was made based on the evidence that was presented," she told him. "It's something defenders do, a last ditch effort to get their client free, accusers do it when they lose too."

"You're not worried about it?" Ronon questioned.

"Only a little," she replied, "not enough to keep me up at night."

After twenty minutes of sitting around a court officer came into the room and listed the trials that were about to start and which court room they were being held in. There were three trials occurring at the same time, Cal's was in the second court room and the group took up seats in the public seating where they had a perfect view of the trial.

Over the next ten minutes the final preparations were made, the representatives for the accusers and defenders showed up, two for each side. They stood behind their desks, sorting papers and talking quietly among themselves. A couple of security guards walked in, one taking up position by the main entrance behind the public seating another next to a door behind the witness stand. The court writers arrived, two of them who sat at small desks on opposite sides of the court room, paper and pens in hand, ready to record everything that happened when the trial began. A few more interested parties showed up and took up seats in the public seating area. The judges arrived then, wearing formal suits and sombre expressions as they took their seats.

The lead judge, sitting in the middle of the judging panel cleared his throat. "Bring in the suspect."

The door behind the suspect stand opened and they got their first look at Cal since he'd been arrested at the school last year. His hair was a little longer and he appeared to have lost some weight but otherwise looked no worse for wear from his time in pre-trial custody, the place they kept suspects who were awaiting trial, nice cosy places that were much better than prison. He was freshly shaved, wearing a black suit and shiny black shoes.

He was led to the suspect stand, only fifteen feet from the witness stand it was facing. Both stands had a semi circular wooden barrier across the front of them which, when Cal sat down, came to the middle of his chest in height. The officer stepped back a few steps, a discreet distance from the suspect, far enough to be out of the way but close enough to be on hand if he was needed.

Cal turned his head and looked straight at his former friends. His eyes skimmed over the group and a small smirk tugged at the corner of his lips before he returned his gaze forward to the witness stand. Teyla heard John mutter an insult under his breath, was pretty sure she heard another from Marcus who had never quite forgiven himself for being the one to introduce Cal to the group.

"The trial of Cal Philips commences now. Cal Philips, the charges against you read as follows; possession of a type 2 forbidden substance, supply of a type 2 forbidden substance, four counts of assault in the second degree for causing a type 2 forbidden substance to be taken by a person without their knowledge or consent. How do you plead?"

"Guilty to the charge of possession, not guilty to all other charges," Cal stated.

"The defendant pleads guilty to the charge of possession," the judge stated. "Sentencing for this charge will be made at the conclusion of the trial along with any other charges the defendant is found to be guilty of. Accusers, you may begin."

One of the accusers stood, straightening his suit jacket and stepping out from behind his desk. He gave a very brief rundown of what had led to the charges against the defendant and then allowed to the defenders to make their own statement regarding their defence.

"The accusers call their first witness to the stand, Laura Cadman."


They had been visited briefly by Miss Harper, the representative of the accusers that gone through their testimonies with them last week and would be the accuser to question them on the stand. She had once again given them a quick run through of what they needed to do, the order they would be called in. They'd been left alone again after that and Laura had been getting more and more nervous as the minutes ticked by. She was going to be called first; the trial would already have started on the other side of the door.

"You'll do fine," Elizabeth told her. "Just be honest, you know what happened to you, you know everything you need to say, you'll be fine."

"You sound like you're trying to convince yourself as much as me," Laura smiled.

"Maybe a little," Elizabeth admitted.

"Cal will be in there," Laura said, looking between Elizabeth and Jack. "He'll be sitting right in front of me. I don't know whether that scares me or just makes me really mad. He made me vulnerable and weak, he messed me up so badly that I didn't even feel like myself, he took all my control from me."

"And now you're taking it back," Elizabeth said. "You'll take back all the control he took from you and by the end of this trial, we'll have taken all of his control from him. He'll go to prison, for a long time, he'll have no control of anything there."

"That's unusually vengeful for you Elizabeth," Laura half smiled. "But I guess I'm not the only person he did those things to," she took a breath. "You're right, we'll kick his ass, the four of us," she glanced at Ben.

The door to the court room opened, it was angled so they couldn't see into the court room from where they were sitting, and no one in the court room could see them. "Laura Cadman," a voice called.

She took another breath to try and calm her raging nerves. "See you on the other side."

Her eyes fell on Cal the moment she walked through the door, she kind of hated that he looked completely fine, pre-trial custody was too good for him, he should have spent all these months in prison. Innocent until proven guilty, Laura told herself, they can't treat him like a criminal until he's found guilty of a crime.

There was a smirk in his eyes, cockiness to the way he looked at her though he was careful not to make it obvious. She decided she was more angry than scared; she wanted to dive across the damn room and smack that arrogant look off his face. She stepped up the single step onto the witness stand and sat in the witness chair.

"Laura Cadman," the lead judge said and she turned to look at him. "This is a court of truth and justice, do you swear that anything you say here today will be the truth?"

"I swear it," Laura responded as she'd been told to. The penalty for breaking the oath was prison time, not that she was planning on lying.

"Then begin," the judge stated and Harper stepped forward. Laura took a moment to glance at her friends, her gaze lingering on Carson and Janet, they'd both been her rocks through the whole Allinyas ordeal.

"Miss Cadman, in your own words, please tell the court about your first encounter with the Allinyas drug."

Laura nodded, "I was out with some friends, we went to the clubs. I'd had a few drinks but I know my limits, I wasn't drunk. I don't remember everything that happened that night, only flashes of it. I remember feeling dizzy and light headed, music was too loud, lights too bright. I remember being annoyed about the music and then one of the speakers I was standing near to exploded. My friends realised I'd been drugged and took me back to the school along with my friend, Elizabeth, who had also been drugged. They took care of us through the night, it was a horrible experience from what little I remember, not just for me but for them as well."

"How did you know it was Allinyas?"

"One of my friends, her parents are healers and she'd heard about the drug, knew a little bit about its side effects, she figured it out," Laura replied with another quick glance at Janet.

"The defendant, Cal Philips, was he with you that night?"

"Yes," Laura said looking directly at Cal and keeping her expression neutral. "He came out with us, bought a round of drinks for people because he'd lost a bet with us."

"And you believed him to be responsible for spiking your drinks that night?"

"At the time, no, I thought he was my friend."

She continued to answer questions, going through each time she had been drugged, how she'd felt, how she'd been treated and how they had come to discover that Cal was responsible for all of it. She felt drained by the end of it, and that was before the cross examination started.

"Did you ever see Mr Philips drug your food and drink, or anyone else's?"

"No, I didn't."

"At any time did you suspect he was responsible, did he act in any way that one indicate he was drugging you?"

"No, I had no idea until Jack told us."

"So then you, yourself, have no way to know who was responsible for what happened, no proof, no evidence?"

"No but..."

It went on like that for a while as the defenders attempted to tear her testimony apart. She did the best she could, she told the truth and she couldn't do any more than that, even if she'd wanted to smack the defender as well as Cal by the end of it.

"Thank you Miss Cadman, you may step down from the stand now," the judge told her and with a last glare at Cal she followed the court officer back through the witness room. She wasn't allowed to talk to the other witnesses, she was led straight through the other door into the corridor outside the court room. She was informed she was free to go or could stay and watch the remainder of the trial from the public seating.

Once she was on her own she took a deep breath and headed down the corridor to the bathroom where she splashed some cold water on her face and took a few minutes to calm her rattled nerves. It was done now, all that was left to do was to watch and wait. She headed back to the court room, slipped in the back and went to sit next to Janet.

"Good job," Janet whispered, squeezing her friend's hand.

"The accusers call their next witness to the stand, Elizabeth Weir."


She told them everything that had happened, at least everything that she could remember. They'd asked her how it had all made her feel, that part had been harder to talk about, it wasn't easy to sit across from someone and talk about how they'd made you feel vulnerable, afraid, alone. Elizabeth made a point of looking at Cal, looking him straight in the eyes as often as she could because she wanted him to see that he didn't make her uncomfortable, even if he did make her feel that way.

"Miss Weir, I hear you're in the Atala guild at your school?" the representative of the defenders questioned.

"I am," Elizabeth said a little confused.

"They're considered by many to be one of the two most elite guilds at the school, very difficult to get into, congratulations on that."

"Thanks."

"They work you hard, particularly in the second semester with the guild competition coming up. Extra meetings and more practices outside of those meetings. A lot of pressure, I would think, to perform well, given the reputation of the guild?"

"There is a pressure but nothing more than we can't handle, and they always tell us that our school work comes first."

"Yes, of course, you also have exams in the second semester."

"Objection, is there a point to this?" the accuser interrupted.

"There is one," the defender stated and the judge allowed him to continue with an order to hurry up and make his point. "Exams are also in the second semester, and so is parents week, I can imagine that there's a great deal of pressure, stress, anxiety."

Elizabeth finally realised where the defender was going with this and sighed inwardly. "Like I said, there's pressure, but no more than I could handle."

"Perhaps," the defender gave her a condescending smile. "Or perhaps it all became a little bit too much. The stress and the pressure, all those nerves, it's understandable that you could have felt weighed down by it all. Perhaps you'd heard how the Allinyas drug could take away the stress, the anxiety, to make your problems seem very far away for a while. Perhaps you chose to test that theory, found that it was true, you couldn't have realised at the time how addictive it was."

"I never took it willingly, or knowingly," Elizabeth stated simply.

"You want us to believe, Miss Weir, that Cal Philips, spent his money to acquire the drug and then repeatedly gave it to you, without receiving payment himself. He drugged you twice, correct?"

"That's correct," Elizabeth said, keeping her anger in check.

"And he drugged your friend, Miss Cadman, many more times than that, your other friend Mr O'Neill, Mr Dolan. I wonder how much of his supply that would have cost him, how much money he basically threw away by dropping bits of his product here and there. That doesn't sound much like the actions of a drug dealer to me, giving away his drugs for nothing. Does that sound like something a drug dealer, any drug dealer, would do?"

"He wanted to get us addicted..." Elizabeth began to explain.

"Just answer the question, Miss Weir, does that sound like the typical actions of a drug dealer to you?"

"No, not the typical actions but..."

"What is the more likely scenario," the defender continued to interrupt her. "That Cal Philips is a drug dealer who secretly ran around your school, drugging unwilling people, using up his valuable product and making no money from it, or that you took the drugs willingly and made up a story to cover for yourself when you were caught."

By the time the cross examination was over and Elizabeth was allowed to step down from the stand she had a headache. She was led through the witness room, gave Jack a small smile of encouragement, as she passed him and then went and found herself a bench to sit on. It had been hard, she'd known it would be, made harder by the fact that she could tell Cal was laughing about it all on the inside. She felt drained, mentally and physically.


It had been ten minutes since Elizabeth had been led from the witness stand, the accusers and defenders were analysing her testimony, the defenders were still trying to tear it apart. John had been more than angry when the defenders had questioned her, they'd known it was coming, the suggestion they'd made the whole thing up but it had still made him angry. It had only taken Laura a few minutes to join them after her testimony, Elizabeth should have been there by now.

"I'll be back," John whispered to Teyla who gave him a quick nod. He slipped quietly out of the back of the court room, finding Elizabeth sitting on a bench down the corridor.

"Hey," he greeted as he walked over to sit beside her. "That looked painful."

Elizabeth gave him a small smile, "Could have been worse."

"I thought you would have come and joined us."

"I'm coming, I just have a headache," she told him and then sighed. "I'm glad it's done. I don't think I've ever been that nervous about anything, ever, not even our first date."

John smiled. "Well, now I'm just hurt."

Elizabeth laughed quietly and leaned to the side toward him, letting her head drop onto his shoulder. They'd come such a long way, he thought, there was a time when Elizabeth would never have openly accepted comfort from him, or anyone else. He kissed the top of her head seconds before the door to the court room opened and their friends all walked out.

"They're breaking for lunch," Janet explained. "Poor Jack is still stuck in the witness room."

"At least he's got Ben in there," Laura replied and took a seat at the other side of Elizabeth. "So, that was not fun."

"No, it wasn't," Elizabeth replied. "But we've done it now, we don't have to do it again... I hope."

"I'm definitely ready to eat now, I had no appetite this morning but I'm starving now," Laura stated. "Where are we heading for lunch?"


"Why, Mr O'Neill, did you not come forward along with your friends when you realised you had been drugged as well?"

"Because I'd seen the way they were being treated, people didn't believe them and those who did, pitied them. I didn't want that, I didn't want people to see me as weak and vulnerable so I kept quiet about it. I figured the police were already looking for the person who did it, they didn't need to know about me as well," Jack replied, the defenders were being brutal in their cross examination and Jack was more than ready for it all to be over.

"So you let your friends take it on all alone," the defender stated. "Let me ask you Mr O'Neill, why did Cal come to you, you and not Miss Cadman or Miss Weir, when according to your statement, Miss Cadman had been drugged more times than you?"

"I was in a bad place," Jack admitted. "I was still suffering from being drugged and then I received news that brother... that my brother had been killed. I was a mess and Cal tried to take advantage of that by offering me a way out, a way to make the pain go away."

"And how long was it after discovering who was behind the drugging before you informed Principal Morlin of what you knew?"

Jack sighed. "A day, it was a day."

"A whole day?" the defender questioned. "You were being drugged against your will, your friends were being drugged against their will and you took a day to come forward about it? Or perhaps Mr Philips came to see you in your room, he was your friend, he was concerned about your welfare. Did he catch you Mr O'Neill, did he know what you'd done, that you'd been taking the Allinyas yourself? Did you decide to make up a story that would implicate him, make it so no one believed him? Did you know he had possession of the Allinyas drug, that he had some in his room which would be found if the police searched it?"

"I did take a day, because I was in a bad place, because I was hurting from the loss of my brother. I was tempted, for a short time I was tempted but my conscience kicked in and I went to Morlin, I told her everything. Cal was never my friend, he only pretended to be."

Cal looked down sadly, as though those words actually hurt him, he was acting for the judges and Jack could only hope they didn't fall for it.

TBC