A/N:

Hey guys! I am still writing. Have no fear. I'm just very very busy. I'm trying to build businesses, am gearing up for NaNoWriMo again, and still editing. Every busy, it is taking me a while to get back to this story but as any of the people who know me and have been following my writing know, it may take me a REALLY long time but I do finish my stories.

And you will hate me for the end of this episode. Fair warning, Character death. But please keep in mind that this is Stargate. No main character is GONE gone. Remember Daniel Jackson? How many times did he die? See my point?

This episode is also going to be shorter because there is a lot more information in it. And if anyone wants to see more of Sophie's family I'll have them posted at the end of Episode 3 part 2 and on my profile page. Although I still haven't found Sophie's mother and grandmother. So It will just be the men for now. What can I say? I'm picky about my characters.

Rainer

Recap:

So the question remained. If she survived, would he accept her transfer to Atlantis without question? Or, despite General O'Niell'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 3 part 1

Still in Woolsey's office

Woolsey must have shut his eyes for a time because the next time he looked up from the files in his hands there was an elderly woman sitting across from him. Her steel grey eyes matching her hair that was pulled back in a bun at the back of her head, looked at him with a mischievous glint filling them, a smile tugging at her lips. Her skin, creased with smile and laugh lines, looked like leather darkened by the sun over the many many years of her life. She was dressed simply in what looked to be the Lantean version of buckskins. There was nothing to indicate where she was from, let alone how she got there.

"Hello." She said after a long moment of staring. "Your name is Mr Richard Woolsey correct?" Her voice sounded as soothing as a warm summer's rain.

He nodded, smiling against his own judgment. "Yes. And you are?"

Her smile widened. "You may call me Naomi for the purposes of our conversation, if it pleases you to do so."

"A pleasure to meet you Naomi." He replied carefully. After all it wasn't every day a random woman showed up out of thin air in your office. Although this was the Stargate program, it did happen sometimes. "May I ask how you came to be in my office, without alerting security?"

Had she not looked like an eighty year old woman, he would have found her expression almost childlike in her gleeful amusement. "It's not as difficult as you'd imagine for my kind." She giggled, and for the life of him her laugh sounded like a brook babbling over stones. "But that is not the question that you should be asking Mr Woolsey." One errant curl worked it's way from the twist of her hair, to be swiftly tucked behind her ear in a manner that was all too familiar.

"You're related to Sophie McIntyre aren't you?"

Her smile turned into a smirk that nearly mirrored the young woman in question. "Very good. Almost as good as General O'Niell when I first spoke to him." She said, not actually answering the question he posed. "I am here because you noticed that those files in your hands are incomplete. I believe you have questions that I may be able to answer."

"She's part Ancient?"

The woman before him laughed. "That's a question isn't it?"

Medical Bay Surgical Wing

"Don't you dare!" Jennifer had snapped for than once as she worked on Sophie, knitting the younger woman back together piece by piece with every tool she had in her arsenal for hours that felt like days. She may not have had much to do with the young engineer, only having anything to do with her when she brought one of the engineers in for treatment, but she had heard the rumors. Not the ones about her past, those the doctor couldn't care less about, she had seen what type of woman Sophie was during the sporadic visits and that had much more weight. But the ones about Ronon, that he liked her. That he really really liked her.

Jennifer and Ronon hadn't been close since she chose Rodney, but she hadn't been willing to let the woman Ronon liked die. It was against the oath she had taken to preserve life. And more importantly, she wanted Ronon to be happy. Having thought Amelia would make him happy, having seen him nearly crushed by the dark haired beauty, having seen the runner fight back from the edge of grief after he was able to relax in the safety of Atlantis, Jennifer wasn't about to stop fighting for the woman's life. Not when she could see how well they fit together after only days.

"Alright that's it." Jennifer sighed, pulling off her rubber gloves. "Marie can you close her up while I go tell them of her status?"

The incredibly capable Asian nurse nodded. "She's a fighter, doctor." Marie asserted. "She'll be okay."

"I wish I had your confidence." Jennifer nodded walking toward the doors. And with a deep breath, she stepped through, her eyes searching for Rodney immediately.

When Dr Keller stepped through the doors, Ronon felt his heart leap into his throat. There was blood on her scrubs. Smears of maroon on her sky blue surgical scrubs that told him exactly what he needed to know. Jennifer's face said the rest. It hadn't gone well.

"I want you to know," Keller began. "That we did everything in our power to put her back together, and she's stable for the moment. But she was really banged up. I don't know what the fight was like for the rest of you. But whatever she went through, it looks like she got into a fight with a meat grinder. There isn't a section of her body that isn't damaged in some way. Everything from bruises to crushed veins." She turned to Teyla then. "You did a good job by the way. She would have been dead a long time ago otherwise."

Teyla sighed in relief, hugging Torren closer. "After we realized that they wouldn't die, she kept them distracted, away from the safe room and the boys, until the alarms sounded. I do not know precisely how. I was too busy doing the same with the sniper rifle from the top of the pipes. I do know that she was in the middle of the fight. She was..." Teyla looked at the floor, searching for the words to describe what little she had seen. "I have never seen anything like it."

"That would fit." The doctor nodded. "The point is she's stable. I'm going to keep her in a medical coma and under observation for a while, to give her a jump start on healing. I can't make any promises, but I'm hopeful. She's a fighter," she repeated Marie's words, "and she's got a lot to fight for."

"Can she have visitors?" Daniel asked, pushing himself away from the wall he leaned back against.

Keller nodded, untying the last string of her mask. "Yes, just give us a little bit to get her cleaned up and settled in a bed. Then only two at a time for now though."

Jack stood up, pulling his jacket down. "Well then, Teal'c why don't you take the kid in for now? Her family is already on their way." While the Jaffa nodded, Ronon felt his heart sink somewhere past his stomach. That was news that he wasn't ready for yet. He had planned on it, eventually, but not now. "I need to have a word with Sheppard and his team. Sam, Daniel, Cameron, Vala, if you wouldn't mind being a part of that meeting?"

Ronon had been planning the traditional introduction to the parents. Explain his intentions, assure them that he did respect and care for her. Some time way way way down the line when they had actually gotten used to each other, when they were settled as a couple and knew what the expectations were. Not now! Especially with her injured and unconscious. He would be alone under that scrutiny, with only Luka as back up. As much as he liked Luka, he wouldn't be much back up in that situation.

"Ronon!" John yelled, snapping him from the panic that began to gnaw at his gut. "Let's go."

Teal'c looked down at the little boy beside him with a knowing smile. He too had felt nervous when first meeting his previous wife's family, even though she had been a gift from Apophis for services rendered. Her father had been a terrifying man. It must be a father thing. "Does young Ronon have reason to be as nervous as he appears?"

"If Grandma and Grandpa are coming, then so are the uncles, and momma's four legged family."

The former first prime chuckled, remembering his first "vacation" with the engineer and her son. "Then he has much reason to be nervous."

Outside on one of the many balconies that ringed most of the city, this one providing the break area for the medical staff, Jack leaned back against the railing. As the others took their seats, he pondered the news he had to share with the newest expedition members. His old team already knew, having been in the same room with the single ancient in the history of ancients that he could stand appeared the first time to warn them. She was the only one who wasn't infuriating and condescending while she made them work for the answers they wanted. She smiled, and laughed, was even kind in her manners while she was making them work for the answers.

They had met her just after seeing Oma the first time. They were having coffee and pie, on one of their very few off days. It seemed like even in their separate lives all four of them gravitated toward each other. Teal'c was a normal thing, since he had been trying to introduce him to earth. But Sam and Daniel had just showed up at lunch, not knowing what compelled them at the time. When General Hammond showed up things just got downright odd. They had taken seats and ordered as if they had all made plans to meet up. Before they had sorted it out and even gotten their coffee, a woman dressed in buckskin who looked to be no more than twenty years old sat with them. He never remembered her pulling up a chair.

She explained many things that day. And he had to admit he respected the nearly insane amount of precautions she went through to make sure that only people she could trust got the information. Later when Hammond retired and then died, she really didn't want to trust Landry at first. But eventually he had to be told. She wasn't happy but in the end Landry wasn't as dumb as she had thought and found out some of it on his own. It was pointless not to tell him the rest.

"Jack?" Sam asked after minutes passed with him staring off into space. She had been letting her hair grow out further. It looked good he noticed. He wasn't too sure about the color, but she was supposed to be undercover. So brunette worked, he supposed. It made her blue eyes pop.

Shaking his head to clear the thoughts that drifted like clouds though his mind, Jack straightened. "To get straight to the point, Sophie and Luka aren't human. At least not fully." When the newer members of the Stargate program were stunned into silently staring at him like they were trying to see through to the back of his skull, like it had answers to the questions they couldn't even begin to formulate yet. Did no one read the mission reports? "Daniel," he barked. "Why don't you explain? It made my head hurt the first time."

A small smile at his long time friends expense was all the answer he got before the scholar stood, releasing the raven haired aliens small hand with a small squeeze. "Several years ago, we were approached by a woman who was later identified as an ancient. Now she couldn't tell us much without breaking the cardinal rule of the ancients."

"Be a giant pain in the butt." Jack muttered, sinking into a chair with a groan. Sitting behind a desk was not helping his aging bones any.

Daniel chuckled in his chagrin. "Yes." Moving to the rail like a teacher about to lecture in front of the class, he continued. "What she was able to tell us led to the fact that one of the four most advanced ancient races that concluded a treaty on Heliopolis, also known as PB2-908 that was originally designated P3X-972. Where they left a vast database of all their knowledge, as well as the treaty."

Rodney snapped his fingers multiple times like he just had an idea that would shake the foundations of science as the galaxies knew it. "Like the one we found in Pegasus shortly before we left."

The historian sighed, nodding. What was it with people interrupting him? "Yes Rodney, except the on the Pegasus was for the most advanced races in Pegasus. Now getting back to my point. The Alliance of the Four Great Races had a clause in it, from what the Asgard were able to tell us, that would allow expansion of the Alliance to include other races that reached a certain level in development. Earth and the Tauri were included shortly before the Asgard committed mass suicide." He waved a hand like he was erasing an invisible chalkboard, that part of the lecture no longer important to the whole.

"The Alliance at the time only included the Nox, Asgard, Alterans, and the Furlings, or what we would know better as the Valkyrie." Realizing that only those from earth had any hope of understanding, he backed up a little in his narrative. "The stories of today are slightly muddled. Some say that the Valkyrie had wings themselves, others say they rode on winged horses. They became what everyone tends to think about when they think of angels. But in reality according to the Asgard and Ancient databases seem to be something more along the lines of a warrior culture."

Ronon perked up a little. At least they should be more interesting than most of the aliens he had fought with and against since the fall of Sateda. And if learning about them calmed his tempestuous mind for a moment, maybe it would help.

"Like the Valkyrie of legend they were apparently formidable and incredibly deadly but also very wise. In legend, they were the guardians to Valhalla, and had you died honorably, preferably in battle, they would escort you into a large banquet hall with never ending food." Both Ronon and Rodney liked the idea of that. "If you died dishonorably they would let your soul wander about nameless and unsung, never to be heard of or reborn again. They were apparently the judge, jury, and executioner for the afterlife. They were also the original explorers. The Alterans may have been the gate builders, but the Furlings were the original galaxy explorers. But they also have a genetic memory that they, as I understand it, learn to block out at a very young age only accessing it in very small amounts as the need arises."

"Now up until about a decade or so ago, we had assumed the Furlings had died out entirely. We had thought we found their home planet, even skeletal evidence. It seems though, that we were wrong. The four races knew what was happening to the Furlings, that they were dying from something similar to the ancient plague. So they tried their own ways of extending the species, ascention, cloning, advanced healing. Nothing seemed to work. So they tried something radical, even crazy, for them."

"They took genetic samples from as many furling as possible and tried creating hybrids among the other races. It didn't work at first until they got to humans. It worked but with severe limitations. So being the scientist they were, the Asgard and the Ancients began experimenting with how to get the Furlings back to full strength. That was when a small group of Furlings, believing that the Asgard and Ancients had become arrogant in their power, split off from the main body and left the galaxy. We think to another planet in the Pegasus system, but we aren't entirely sure because soon after the war with the wraith broke out and the Ancients were forced to back to the Milky way."

"Daniel." Jack snapped in his boredom. The explanation was dragging on longer than his patience would allow.

"Almost at the end Jack." Daniel waved placating the general as he had through much of their history together. "Eventually they somehow mixed all five and came up with something that was beyond what they wanted and the subject escaped onto earth, mixing into the local population. In their haste to find the subject, the Asgard created the Valkyrie legends, and the Lanteans created Angels. Through the years that subjects descendants grew and thrived mixing with the humans and somehow eventually in our day, seven pure blooded Furlings with incredible and uncharted abilities exist. Sophie and her entire family. Luka on the other hand is half Furling and half Tok'kra which makes him one of the few remaining Harcesis. Because they were created from all five races, their genetic memory isn't just the Furling memory. It's everything. And Luka has the knowledge of all six of the most powerful races known to the Milk Way."

Jack stood again, knowing the order he was about to give violated several mandates and an untold number of treaties. But he had seen what ultimate power did to people who didn't have to work for it. They all had. So even more than the Stargate program, this was one secret that was going to be guarded like no other had been in the entire history of any galaxy that he had been to. They were just going to be a normal family, hiding among hundreds on a secret base in a far away galaxy. "It goes without saying people, this is so top secret that it's in another galaxy. Understood? No official reports. No memos. No sticky notes stuck in a file. No whispers over coffee. The Furlings have permission from the Alliance of Five to quite literally rip out tongues that wag."

"So what can they actually do?" Ronon asked. If they were so deadly, why was Sophie lying in the medwing on deaths door.

Sam turned to him in her chair, pushing a lock of blond hair back behind her ear. "From the data we were able to translate before the ancients destroyed it all, and what the family told us, they're almost indestructible with different traits from all five races. And an adult male at full strength might be able to rip a Wraith limb from limb. We honestly thought that was an exaggeration until after the foothold situation that you and Teal'c dealt with. There was a body in one of the access tunnels." She looked a little bit sick at the memory. "He had been ripped apart at every joint and looked like he had been crushed and twisted apart just under the ribs. But there was no security cameras in the tunnels and we never found any proof."

The giant Satedan could feel a growl growing in his chest. It was full of something he honestly wasn't sure if he could ever feel again. He thought it had died on Sateda. It went far beyond the fleeting desire that he had felt for any of the Atlantis personnel. It burned brighter than the sun and was more consuming than the black hole that the Ori gate had been blocked by. It was the thing of legend among his people. And he was no longer nervous.

Sheppard, looking thoroughly unconvinced, asked. "So what?"

Jack waved to Sam, letting her take it away. "The Ancients, the Nox, and the Asgard before they died all approached us separately and requested our help to insure the Furlings or Valkyrie survive. Because, apparently, they are..." She trailed off, twisting an errant lock back behind her ear. "Well actually they didn't say exactly what they were capable of. But they did say that without them planets will fail. So they tasked us with protecting the family. While we would normally ship them off to a gateless but defensible planet, or hide them with the Jaffa."

Ronon growled, quietly he thought. A hand slid onto his shoulder, quite literally holding him to the chair he sat in.

Sam, not hearing the growl, continued. "But that Sophie is under contract with the government, if she were to disappear someone would notice. And since her family weren't exactly on the list of transfers to Atlantis, without telling anyone who they are, getting them clearance was nearly impossible. But apparently they are experts the Furling culture so we were able to get them hidden among the others, temporarily. After that, we'll have to find something else."

Ronon's eyes fell to the ring on Daniel's hand that the scholar was nervously twisting. "Atlantis is the safest place for them, right?" Jackson asked. "What about finding the Furlings that were supposed to be in hiding in Pegasus?"

"That's the ideal and why I worked to get them on the research teams." The female general nodded.

McKay, as usual when he was overruled, scoffed. "Which would explain why I wasn't allowed to look over the cultural division or the translation team."

"And why there are two members on my security teams that I didn't approve." Sheppard groused.

Jack smirked. It wasn't often that someone had the guts to speak against his orders, or even bothered to question them anymore. But Sheppard did, and probably because of that he liked him, as annoying as he was. "Two decorated giant special forces marines, who's records show that they aren't just grunts but have brains, yeah. I can see why you would hate that."

Teyla, ever the peace maker and strategist, broke into the staring contest between the general and the colonel with a cough. "What exactly did the ancestors request of us? Surely not a dating service to create more Furlings?" She ignored the groan from Sheppard, he was the one who had first mentioned those sites in a really bad joke that she didn't get to begin with. Then he had to explain the joke which made it worse.

"Protection, first and foremost." Jack answered. "Behave like everything is normal. Keep an eye out for whatever isn't. Let them do their jobs, do yours. That's all." He shrugged.

A/N: Review please. And don't hate me until the end of Episode 4 if you must.

Rainer