A/N: Hey guys! This is the final part of episode 2. Don't kill me. There is a reason for the way I wrote it. So please put down the tomatoes. At the very least take them out of the cans! And put down the jars very slowly... And the rotten cabbage... Yes I see you in the back corner over there. That would only make the bunnies sick!

Okay enough joking. In all seriousness, I absolutely love the support that I've been getting for this story so far. You all are amazing. I know I haven't been doing my personal Thank Yous, and that is remiss of me. I apologize for that. You all have been beautiful so far. Wonderful really. So I know it's not enough, but thank you thank you thank you! And I will have a more complete list of thank yous' and replies in coming chapters. But I'll wait till the end of posts to do them so if you're like me, then you can skip them if you really want to.

Any of you who have read my stories before know I'm a huge fan of foreshadowing and cliffhangers, as well as the preceding chapters. So please bear with me. I can't resist! And you'll love me in the end. I'd love to say I promise but that'd break my number one rule for writing. So moving on. I hope you all enjoy this closing post.

If it rains all week as the weather forecast is promising, the next update will hopefully, fingers crossed, be on time. If it's sunny though, I have a garden to build so I might be late. Gotta get my tan somehow. ;-) Joking. I just promised to get the gardens done. And I never make a promise I'm not positive I can keep. Also, there's a bug going around and I caught it. No gardens do not wait until I feel better. Yay... Oh well. And I still have a mountain of editing to do on my original story that I wrote for NaNo. Does it ever end for a writer? No obviously. I can't remember who said it, but someone famous said, stories are my children, they are never fully grown only abandoned to live their own lives with someone else. Were they describing a marriage or some more nefarious thing?

Anyway, enough of me talking.

Oh one final note. I'm looking for a cover for the story. Any ideas?

Recap:

There were times he was frustrated by the fact that everyone thought he was all brawn and no brain. There were times it was true. Ever since coming to Atlantis though, he had started listening. And after Luka had gotten used to him, he learned a lot. Including the fact that the shield was designed to run through each floor and bulkhead in case of a breach. That that system hadn't had power since the Great Wraith war of the Ancient's. There simply hadn't been enough power.

But now that there was full power, there was the emergency systems. The systems that never came on, drew no notice, and went unseen until needed. Like the case of a catastrophic hull breech. "We have full power right?" Ronon asked, making sure.

"Yes but I don't see how that helps."

"The emergency fields." He said looking at Rodney like he was an idiot and enjoying every single second of it. "Suck the air out of everywhere that they are."

"Oh of course." Rodney yelled. "Because trusting inactive systems to save our lives is fun when you're about to die!"

Part 5

Engineering

Fighting in the dark felt natural. This wasn't the first time. It felt like she was home again.

Metal slid through flesh and bone like a hot knife through butter as she made her way through the sea of invaders to the moon pool aperture controls, while she danced her deadly ballet. Leather wrapped handles became sticky as spraying fluids coated her hands and dried in place. Hands, used to constant work, hummed as the swords sang and crunched in her hands. Muscles throbbed under her skin, burning as if she had be dipped in acid.

Dodging shots from guns she had never seen before, she kept going. But there wasn't any end to them. They just kept coming. She knew she was flagging. She was slowing down. One got past her guard and it felt like a sledgehammer was trying to grind her bones to dust.

It wasn't until the alarms began blaring that she saw an end in sight. "What is that?" Teyla asked over coms in her ear. "What's happening?"

Gasping for air as one of the invaders kicked her back against a section of stacked floor decking, she answered with a groan. "Someone..." She licked her lips, pulling to her aching feet. "Purging air."

"Purging the air?" Teyla asked from her hiding spot.

Sophie nodded, limping as quickly as her injuries allowed to Teyla's position. She could already taste the air getting thin. Her lungs were already screaming for oxygen. "We need to get to the submersible, before all the air is sucked out."

Somewhere far above a countdown clicked away.

Seconds passed. Alarms blared punctuating each one. Somewhere a door slammed with a hiss and a clang. Heartbeats thundered in ears as the seconds past. Blood, coursing faster through veins like it had been thinned with lighter fluid, burned in frustration and impotent rage.

Teyla, was mobile enough to slide into the submersible gracefully. Sophie on the other hand, was not. She had all but thrown herself into the sub, breaking a few bones, some that she would really have preferred not to break, sprain, dislocate, strain, or injure in some way. On her way down, she slammed the round hatch door shut behind her, spinning the airlock closed behind her. And then collapsed onto the floor, barely conscious.

"Will the boys be okay?" Teyla asked, as soon as the lock was shut, looking out the reinforced view window.

The blond nodded. "They're behind doors that are designed to be their own life boat." She gasped, pulling herself into one of the pair of seats at the controls, clutching her ribs. "Basically, the entire city could blow apart and the rooms like the one they're in, would break away from the city. Mild maneuverability with thrusters. It's own air supply, food, water. Enough for six months with just those two. If it was a full complement of engineers, it would only last two weeks."

She grunted, shifting awkwardly in her chair. "Teyla, do you have any medical experience?"

The Athosian, still staring out the window nodded her assent. "I have been trained in a little emergency medicine for field missions. Do you think the boys will medical attention?" She asked, trying to look at the solidly locked door that their children were locked behind. "The door looks to be solid from here."

"It is." Sophie gasped doubling over. "The code for the door is currently nine zero one zero four two. As soon as the green light begins flashing, you're going to have to spin the wheel above our heads and get them. Luka will be watching on the cameras." Her voice shook, she could hear it. Even feel it as the air pushed up her throat to form sound. Everything hurt. There wasn't a bone that didn't feel like it had been rattled to jelly, a muscle that didn't feel pummeled like a piece of meat. She could feel the air that didn't travel back through her nose and mouth fight to find another way out, only to get trapped under her skin.

Her lungs... One of the hits had broken a rib that punctured her lungs. Oh that wasn't good.

Teyla must have heard the slight waver. "What is wrong?" She asked, turning back. "Sophie? Why are you telling me this?"

Her eyes felt tight and heavy. "Won't be awake." She gasped, feeling the air begin to hiss between her skin and muscles. "As soon as you seen the green light... Tell the team and Romanov to come here." Each word labored and painful as she forced them out. "Get the boys."

And then she collapsed.

And Teyla, unflappable Teyla, began to panic.

Quickly she tapped the comms in her ear, guiding the younger woman to the cramped floor of the small sub. "Doctor Keller come in!"

A tense moment later Jennifer responded. "Teyla what's wrong?"

"I do not know." She answered, carefully running her hands over Sophie's sprawled form. "Sophie was talking to me and then she passed out." She winced feeling down Sophie's leg, then her ribs. "She has multiple broken bones." She tore the jeans Sophie was wearing open from ankle to hip. "Her skin is tight and her leg is cold and stiff but I feel a break in her lower leg. And possibly a few ribs as well." Then Sophie took a breath and Teyla saw her skin inflate. "Doctor! She's blowing up like a..."She searched for the right word. "Like a balloon!" Sheppard had gotten Torren one at something called a fair.

Keller was quiet a moment and then began, "Teyla we can't get to you so I need you to be very calm, because you're the only one that can help her. Where are you? I need to know what you have around you."

"We are," Teyla started, licking her suddenly dry lips as she tried to slow her racing heart. "We are inside the submersible in the engineering bay. Sophie said the air was being purged in our section."

She could hear the quick inhale of air from the chief of medicine. "Okay I know Sophie has a med kit in the submersible because we went over it." Her voice no longer shook with the nerves that had been apparent in her first years as head of medicine. It was calm and reassuring even as Teyla was trying not to freak out about Ronon's chosen lying on the floor at her feet. "I know it has a scalpel in it. It should have steri-pads and a local anesthetic. Is she breathing easily? Or does it sound fluid filled, like she's breathing in water?"

Sophie's chest rose and fell without a hitch like the smooth workings of the machinery and cities that she toiled over. "She is breathing well." Teyla answered, listening to her friend's breathing.

"I think her lungs must have been punctured by her ribs, miraculously not causing her lungs to fill with blood. But from your description it sounds like some if her air is escaping between her skin and muscles." Jennifer said. "Her leg is more worrying because it sounds like a fracture with compartment syndrome. Which mean her leg is filling with blood, if she's unconscious now we don't have enough time to treat it non invasivily so I need you exactly what I say without hesitation, otherwise... well it could be very bad."

And Keller talked her through it. Through jabbing the local into Sophie's muscles like a disturbing pincushion. Through each slice in the small blond's skin that comically sounded like someone letting the air out of tires. Through the deep cut in her leg and massaging it until the dark blood turned angry red. Keller never wavered, though the Athosian's hands shook.

Green light flashed beyond the view screens finally. The sound of the klaxon horns finally calming Teyla's thudding heart. The teams could get to them now. Help could some. And almost immediately did.

Like magic, the giant doors of the engineering bay slid open and teams swarmed in. Ronon and John at their lead, both looking like they needed an extended visit to the med labs, both armed to the teeth with rage and worry etching their haggard faces. Like solider ants the security teams and marines flooded the room, securing the bodies of the suffocated invaders just in case they weren't dead enough, which might actually have been a possibility, seeing as they didn't die the first time around.

Teyla, quickly cycled the air lock above their heads as soon as the all clear was given and the medical teams began to swarm the room. "Over here! Sophie needs attention!" She called, trying to drag her friend from the metal coffin that had saved their lives, wincing as she felt bones grind together under the unconscious woman's skin.

In less time than it took for her to call for aid, the workers dressed in blue scrubs had pulled both of them out and onto body boards. "I am fine!" She tried to tell them as they checked her over. "It's not my blood!" Hovering, John held her on the gurney she had been transferred to.

And then she caught sight of Ronon.

Standing as still as stone, he watched. He saw the small blond, her skin unnaturally pale, stained red. And, as fury that he hadn't felt in years suffused itself into every fiber and strand of DNA that comprised him, he almost ached to rip every single one of the dead invaders into pieces so small that the scientists would need their strongest microscopes to find what was left of them. But he didn't move. He barely even breathed as she was rushed away.

"Where's Luka?" He finally whispered, as if it was a prayer to a deity that he wasn't sure he believed in anymore. It didn't matter is he and Sophie weren't official yet, they had taken the first step and he had made her a promise, on Sateda that meant that until she said otherwise Luka was as good as his son. With her in capable hands, Luka was Ronon's next priority, at least until they both were in the med labs and he could watch over them both.

An hour later in the Medical Wing.

Pacing the entire length of the waiting room didn't take very long at all, but at least it helped him to wear off some of the nervous energy that he was overflowing with. Glancing, for what felt like the thousandth time that hour, at the operating room doors that he had been ejected from by a few dozen marines. There was only so many times he could stand to hear her groan in pain, even under anesthesia. At least she wasn't screaming, Luka had said not looking up from the tablet screen on his lap with the air of one who knew what they were talking about.

Ronon had wondered for a time how the little boy could be so calm with his mother in surgery. Then he looked at the screen. Somehow Luka had tapped into the security feeds of the O.R. He was watching everything that happened. Every time the heart monitor dipped, or the ventilator shuddered, or the brain activity monitor beeped in warning, Luka's little tan hands turned white as he gripped the arms of the chair he was crouched in.

If they didn't hear some news soon, he swore he was going to put his hand through something. Person or wall it didn't really matter.

John had tried to get him to sit down for a few minutes. But Ronon's glare was lethal, so Sheppard had ended up taking the seat instead. Teyla had only smiled sadly, bouncing Torren on her knee as she sat next to Luka, holding the little boy and rocking him back and forth when the beeping got worse. Romanov and Radek both sat in the corner, clicking away on their laptops, every once in a while looking up at the doors hoping for surgeons to walk through. Their presence made sense at least.

Who didn't make sense was Rodney, Major Lorne, and several marines that he only knew in passing or when he was... training them. Some who were on the security teams and had only just finished getting patched up themselves. Casts and sterile gauze was worn by almost everyone around the room. But there they sat, waiting in tension filled silence, their eyes glued to the door as if staring at it could make them open.

As far as Ronon knew, these soldiers never even spoke to her other than to get their orders. But their rear ends were glued to the plastic seats of the make shift waiting room, right along side him. Or at least they would be, if he would sit down.

He didn't even notice the group of brass that had filed in silently to take the few empty seats around the room. Ronon didn't notice that they all took turns sitting with Luka, comforting him like the family that they were. Perhaps not by blood, but family none the less. He didn't see the disk that the little boy handed O'Neill, and Jack's awkward one armed hug. Or the book that Daniel handed him. Or the tiny chip Carter had placed in his palm. Or the traditional greeting of the Jaffa and small pack that Teal'c gave the comparatively tiny boy.

Jack, never one for waiting patiently, turned to the waiting group, his eyes landing on the almost fidgeting lieutenant coronal. "I see you survived. Congratulations." He nodded. "Any idea what happened or for that matter who your uninvited guests were? Let alone how they got on board this base? Or even knew it exited and was here?"

"We haven't exactly gotten to the question portion of our presentation yet, Sir." The younger man replied, still raw from the very narrow victory. "All we really know is that they were nearly unbeatable."

O'Neill nodded once more, stretching his long legs out in front of himself, his arms resting across his slowly expanding stomach. All the time at his desk job was not helping him loose the beer gut that he had been acquiring, neither was all of the beer. It was all Teal'c fault. The Jaffa could eat or drink anything without gaining a pound, and now that he had officially taken on the role of Jaffa ambassador to the Taur'i, he always had time for a beer after work, and watching a football game on Sundays. "Rodney." He began. "Do you have any thoughts on the subject?"

The Canadian scientist sighed, too tired and sore to even attempt being his normal irritating self. "All I can tell you is the source of the virus and that if it hadn't been discovered, we would all be dead."

"Was it the replicators?" Samantha asked, stroking Luka's hair comfortingly.

McKay shook his head. "No. Actually it began in the weekly databank synchronization that we just started a few months ago in order to speed up the analysis."

"When was it..." Daniel ran his hands through his short brown hair, giving himself the appearance of a hedgehog with glasses. "Hatched or whatever you call it?"

"The very first sync after we touched down, Atlantis was infected." Rodney answered, not bothering to correct Jackson. "But now that we know what we're looking for, my teams have been finding evidence of it in the earth base systems as well. It's easier to dig out of in the earth systems, but it's still..." Rodney looked up and caught all the glares turned in his direction. "How to put it in simple words that your tiny minds can understand."

"Dug in there like a tick, Sir." Romanov answered, not looking up. The very southern expression sounding incredibly funny with the Russian accent. "Apologies. I have a southern, I believe the term is belle, as a partner. The idioms have rubbed off a bit."

"On you too?" Radek laughed, clicking away. "I thought it was just me."

Woolsey's Office

Woolsey pushed his glasses up his nose once more, turning a page through the two files that were nearly five inches thick together. He could tell there were holes, things that were missing from the official files. But since these had been hand delivered to him by Jack O'Neill himself, it was highly unlikely he'd get his hands on the unofficial files. If they even existed at all.

What he read was both comforting and highly disconcerting. On the surface, the pages showed nothing but a highly gifted child and his moderately talented mother. She was replaceable as far as paper went. It would take about ten to twenty people to cover all her specialties, but this was Stargate, nothing was impossible and everyone was gifted. But there was something missing, and it was clear to him at least, that was why she was in Stargate. As a child, he wasn't truly essential, there were other people that could do what he did as well, people that were already on the payroll. But there was the small matter of his parentage and the questions that surrounded it do to the timing.

So the question remained. If she survived, would he accept her transfer to Atlantis without question? Or, despite General O'Neill's push and General Carter's recommendation, Ambassador Teal'c's weighted hint and Daniel's blatant approval, even General Landry's almost threat and Radek's wholehearted approbation, would he, Richard Woolsey, deny the transfer? Oh who was he kidding. Even the IOA wanted her on Atlantis. And he liked her despite it all.

Episode End

A/N: So... What'd you think? Don't kill me! I know everyone wanted to see what side Sophie is on and see her kick butt. *ducks away from a flying can* I can't show it to you yet! Watch where you're chucking those things! The bunnies can't hop out of the way that fast!

Sorry. I get rather... umm chatty and silly when I don't feel wonderful. You should see me in pain. I tend to act like a drunken giggly prom date, after I get some aspirin. Yeah... Subject change!

Okay see the little review button down at the bottom? You know what I want you to do.

Update: Thank you lizziemackenzie for the catch of spelling mistakes!