Chapter Eleven
John took a deep steadying breath before he knocked on the door. This was it. This was the worst moment of his life. This would be his greatest challenge, his greatest battle. And it would be with himself. He'd regretted this moment ever since he'd made the decision to come here. But this was something that he had to do. He had to do it for Hope.
The door opened and he came face to face with his younger brother David. Their relationship had been strained in the past, but since their father's death a few years ago they had taken steps toward becoming closer. When Layna had visited with him during their wedding trip she had also helped them a long way towards that goal.
"John," he said, surprise evident in his voice. "What are you doing here?"
"I need your help," John answered.
David looked him over. He saw the dark spots under his brother's eyes, the gauntness of his face. He looked over the clothes that no longer fit him properly because he had lost a few pounds since he'd seen him last. The drastic change in John's appearance was quite shocking. He had been so happy when he'd left with Layna two months ago. David had never seen that side of his brother before.
"What is it? What happened to you? Where's Layna?"
John shook his head without answering. And then he looked down to the ground at his left. David's eyes followed the path of his brother's until he saw it. Resting at John's feet was a car seat with a tiny baby dressed in pink strapped sleepily in its protective casing.
"It's a long story David," John said answering. "Are you going to make me tell it to you standing out here?"
David eyed his brother and then the baby once again before he shook his head. "No. Come in."
John lifted the sleeping Hope up and made his way into the house as David moved aside out of his way. They walked into the living room where John set Hope's car seat down on the coffee table before he began pacing back and forth in front of the sofa. David stood across from him just staring at him.
"When you left here two months ago Layna was barely showing. Can you explain to me how you could show up at my door today with a healthy newborn and no Layna in sight?" David asked him.
"Layna's gone, David," John told him.
"Gone? What does that mean John?"
John shook his head. He didn't have authorization to divulge anything about the Stargate program. He would have to go on half-truths and pray that his brother did what he was going to ask of him.
"I haven't been flying helicopters in Anarctica for the last seven years like you think. I was asked to join a highly classified military expedition. I can't tell you everything, but I can tell you enough. We explore places that not everyone knows about, very distant places. On one of our missions we found Layna. She was the last surviving member of her people, a very powerful and influential group. It turns out that she had skills that were very valuable to our expedition so she joined us."
John stopped his pacing and sat down. "And then you fell in love with her," David continued.
"I more than fell in love with her brother. But the pregnancy changed everything. Layna was no longer the last of her people. And her enemies came after her." He looked from his brother to the baby. "Now, my daughter, our daughter is the last. I need to keep her safe, David. My teams are fighting a war, and until it's over if the baby stays with me there will always be a threat to her." He looked up desperately to plead with his brother. "I need you to take her David."
"John, I…."
"Of course we will," came a voice from the entrance. Both men's heads swiveled to find David's wife Emily standing there. She moved into the room to take her husband's hand. They exchanged a look before she turned away from him. "She's family." She looked from the sleeping baby and up to her tortured father. "I promise we will take good care of her John." She could see in his eyes just how much this was hurting him. There was no way that she could say no. There was no way that she was going to let David say no to this. "For as long as is needed your daughter will have a home here," she promised John.
He nodded before he turned away from her gaze. He forced himself to look at Hope. He didn't know what the future had in store for her, or if at any point he would be able to be a part of it. This might be the last time he ever saw her. There was a very good chance that she would never know him. He was about to break his supreme code; never leave anyone behind.
He reached out his hand to caress the tiny cheek of his daughter. Baby Hope didn't even stir. He would give anything to look into her eyes just once more. But it wasn't in the cards. So instead he said his goodbyes. He kissed her forehead before he stood to leave. He knew that if he didn't leave now he would lose all his courage and change his mind about this decision to leave her safely on Earth.
Emily caught him at the door before he left. "John," she called to him. He turned around slowly in the threshold of the door to face her. "What's her name?" she asked him.
"Hope," he exhaled, just above a whisper. "Her name is Hope."
She looked him over, poised in the doorway. He was fighting an internal battle. Every fiber of his being urged him to run back into the other room and reclaim his child. His heart screamed at him to take her back with him to Atlantis. His head knew that was a selfish choice. This was what was best for Hope. As her father he had to give her her best chance, and right now, that was not with him. "I can see what a sacrifice this is for you, John," she said sadly.
"She means everything to me," he told her.
"We will love Hope and keep her safe for you, I promise."
"Thank you."
"And John." He paused once again before leaving. "You always have a home here too. When your war is over, when you know that she is safe, Hope will be here waiting for you."
He nodded before he fled. With every word Emily uttered his resolve waivered. He practically jogged to the SUV he had parked in the driveway. He sat in the driver's seat staring back at the house for over an hour. By the time he pulled the car off his hands were bruised and achy from banging on the steering wheel in frustration. And from the space between Layna looked on helplessly.
/
/
/
His men escorted her to the conference room and with a few glances exchanged here and there they were finally left alone in awkward silence. They sat down at the conference table across from one another.
"So," John started, not knowing where else to start. "Colonel, huh?"
That insignia on her uniform was the only thing that had kept him from dialing the gate back to Earth and contacting his brother to check on the baby from the moment he laid eyes on the woman. From what he remembered of the mission reports of SG-1, it was not unheard of for a being born of the Ascended to rapidly age. Adria had grown to maturity in a matter of days. He'd known what he was giving up when he'd left Earth. He'd known that he might miss her childhood, miss seeing her grow up. What he hadn't counted on was that she would do it all in the blink of an eye.
But the insignia she wore was assurance to him that that was not the case. This woman had lived a linear life. She had had a childhood, risen through the ranks of the Air Force. The woman sitting across the table from him was not that baby left behind on Earth. She was another version of his daughter Hope, from another reality or time. His baby was still back on Earth, still safe from his enemies and those who would harm her.
She nodded. "It's becoming the family business," she stated.
He couldn't help but to smile at that. He liked the idea that she had continued in his footsteps. Or rather that the daughter he'd held in his arms six weeks ago would or might someday. He shook his head with the paradoxical confusion. This was more Rodney's realm than his. If he thought too hard on it he knew his brain would hurt.
There was an awkward pause as he looked her over. Paradoxes weren't the only thing confusing him at the moment. As he looked across the room at her his mind began playing the cruelest of tricks on him. She looked so much like Layna, it was no wonder he had thought that it was she who had returned to him onboard that jumper.
The doors to the conference room opened suddenly and Rodney came barging in like he owned the place, as he usually did around Atlantis. "What the hell is that puddle jumper doing in the middle of my gateroom, Sheppard? One of your guys forget where he parked it?"
He had yet to notice the woman in the room with them during his rant. He only looked to her now as he noticed Sheppard's attention hadn't been deterred from his guest even after Rodney's obvious entrance. The woman gave him a curt nod of her head. "It's nice to see you looking so young again Uncle Rodney," she said.
"Uncle Rodney?" Rodney asked, looking to Sheppard. "Who the hell is this?" he asked pointing his thumb in her direction.
John Sheppard's eyes never left her. "Rodney, this is Hope," he said nodding across the conference table in her direction.
"Hope?" Rodney stared at him, the question and his confusion hanging in the air.
"Lt. Col. Hope Sheppard," John answered, formally introducing them. "My daughter."
Rodney looked from one to the other of them. And then he sighed in the way that only Rodney can. "Okay, what'd I miss?" he asked. "I feel like I definitely missed something."
"You should sit down for this," Hope said.
Slowly, warily, Rodney did as she asked.
"Okay just hold on a second," Rodney interrupted before anyone could even start. "Not to be a wet sock or anything and ruin this little family reunion but are you even sure she is who she says she is? I mean did you get any physical proof? Like a DNA scan or something?"
"Of course I did. Lorne is taking it to Keller to run as we speak. But Rodney, I don't need to wait for any tests to come back to know who she is," John said stopping him. "Just look at her."
They both turned to look the woman over. She had John's nose and chin but in spite of all that she was very much the spitting image of her mother. Especially her eyes, they were carbon copies of Layna's. One good look at her and there was no denying what her lineage was, that she was who she claimed to be. She was Hope Sheppard of Atlantis, the baby daughter he'd left on earth six weeks ago. And she had returned a full grown woman.
"I know who she is," John said. "I knew it the moment I laid eyes on her."
Rodney conceded. "Okay, well how in the hell did she get here then?"
"Well I'm betting if you ever manage to shut the hell up she'll be able to tell us."
Rodney was silenced as he was put in his place once again by John Sheppard. The men looked to Hope expectantly as she sat there smiling at them. She shook her head to clear it from the memories these two men bickering had conjured. Some things just never changed, and these men were not exceptions to that rule.
"As you are aware there are millions of parallel universes and alternate timelines. In one such timeline the Goa'uld System Lord Ba'al created a machine that tracked and calculated solar flares. With this device he could use the Stargates to transport himself to any time and place that he wanted. I borrowed his idea and created a similar device which I built into my jumper," she gestured to the doors leading back out into the gateroom, "and used it to bring myself here, to this time and place."
As she was wrapping up her story Rodney was practically jumping out of his seat. "The puddle-jumper out in the gateroom is a time machine?" he questioned. All the numbers and equations and the applications for such a device began running through his brain. Just the opportunity to study something of this magnitude was absolutely incredible and she had brought it to within his reach. He'd wanted to study a working time travel device ever since the Dr. Elizabeth Weir from the first Atlantis came out of the stasis chamber and told them of Janus' incredible invention. John saw where Rodney's mind was going as the man's eyes started to glaze over in reverie.
"Rodney," he said trying to get the other man's mind back on the present.
"Yeah?" Rodney answered absently.
"Bigger picture," he reminded him.
Rodney shook his head to clear it. "Right, right. You were saying," he said to Hope, now on the edge of his seat. He was eager to pick her brain for more information but he would have to wait for that opportunity later.
"Why did you come here, Hope? Why here, why now?" Sheppard asked.
She knew what he was really asking. If she could travel through time to alter the past, why hadn't she chosen to travel back far enough to prevent the death of her own mother? Why hadn't she chosen to travel even further and prevent the Atlantis expedition from awakening the Wraith in the first place? Of all the millions of points in time that she could have picked to travel to and alter why was this point in time the one that she had chosen?
"I chose this time carefully. This war with the Wraith, where I come from, it does not end well for Pegasus. I came back to stop it all before it begins, before everything unravels completely. If I had come at any point sooner or later, what I have planned would not work. I chose here and now because this is the turning point. I came back to save Pegasus, and in doing so we will save Earth and everything in between."
"And how the heck do you plan to do that?" Rodney asked dubiously.
She looked to him pointedly. "With the knowledge of the Ancients."
"We've been trying to unlock their secrets for years. Are you telling me that sometime in the near future we finally do?" Rodney asked.
"No. You do not."
"I don't understand. You said we need their knowledge to defeat the Wraith. How do we obtain what we've searched for for years in time now to do whatever it is you plan?"
Hope and John stared intensely, silently, at one another across the table. Rodney looked perplexedly from one to the other of them. Clearly they knew something he did not. "Someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" Rodney cried out.
John never took his eyes off of his daughter. "She has the knowledge of the Ancients Rodney. It's in her head."
Rodney shook his head. "No. We know that that's not possible. Our physiology is not advanced enough yet to handle that amount of data. When it was uploaded into General O'Neill's brain it took the intervention of the Asgard to keep his head from exploding. Even if you had the knowledge in your head, before it eventually killed you, you wouldn't be able to consciously use it."
"That is true," she said, nodding her agreement. "But my physiology is different from anything you've encountered so far."
Rodney was growing tired of the cryptic speeches and the looks passing back and forth. "Does someone want to clue me in here? I'm not used to being the only one in the room who doesn't understand what's going on." He turned to Sheppard. "That's usually your job. But you two seem to know something that I don't."
They were both silent again, staring, daring the other to speak first.
"She's an Ancient," John finally said, his eyes still never leaving Hope's face. He studied every inch of it, burning her into his brain. She was her mother's daughter, through and through, and in more ways than one. He had suspected all along that Layna was different. In the back of his mind, since finding her on that empty planet, he knew that there was something familiar about her. There had been a reason he had been drawn to her, why he had been the one to find her, why he couldn't get her out of his mind. He had felt that same way twice before, with two other Ancient women, Chaya Sar and Teer. But his experiences with them paled in comparison to what he shared with Layna.
After they had returned from the Asgard rescue mission and Rodney had told him what he'd observed with Layna, how she had ascended, the cogs in his head had started turning. He'd questioned it all. The only reasonable conclusion he could draw from it was that Layna had been an Ancient all along. And if she had been an Ancient, what did that mean for their daughter? It meant that she was unique, and important as her mother had said she was. It meant that the Asgard or the Wraith or whoever found out just how unique she actually was would never stop coming for her. So he had sent her away.
And now she was there, staring across the conference table at him.
Hope removed her gaze from the older Sheppard and turned to address Rodney. "Not quite. I'm a child of the Ancients. The last."
Realization finally dawned on him. "Layna," he breathed. Rodney let the information sink in, all the implications and ramifications running through his head. He turned to John sitting at his side. "You knew what she was?"
"I had my suspicions," John answered. "We all knew there was something different about Layna. We just could never put our fingers on it. But then there came the point where that didn't really matter anymore."
"You're like an ancient woman magnet," Rodney muttered after a beat.
"I think you may be exaggerating a bit," John retorted.
"Am I though?" Rodney said, his face indicating clearly that he was unconvinced.
John gave the other man a look that took whatever other smart remark he might have right out of his mouth. He turned to the woman sitting across the table. "You obviously have some sort of a plan for the Wraith. Something that will hopefully finally end all of this? What is it?" he asked Hope.
"I have to warn you it's not going to be easy. Even with my help the end is still a long way away. There are a lot of steps that are going to have to be completed. The first of which you're not going to like very much." She directed the last directly at John Sheppard.
John clasped his hands together on the conference table as he leaned forward, inching closer to her. "And why is that?" he asked.
"The plan requires an alliance of power and you have a certain… history with the intended allies."
"Don't tell me it's who I think it is," chimed in Rodney, regretting the prospect for everyone in the room.
There was only one other power within the galaxy with a strength great enough to help defend against the Wraith. Until recently they had been decidedly neutral. And then they had launched two separate assaults on the city of Atlantis, the last of which had taken the life of one of their very own.
"Yes. I'm sorry Colonel but you're going to have to make nice with the Asgard," Hope said, confirming their worst fears.
/
/
The fires burned bright and hot through the village as the Wraith cruiser touched down on the surface of the planet Castinus. As the bay doors to the vessel opened, the Wraith Commander known to the people of Atlantis as Charlie marched out of the craft surrounded by a small army of drones. As he and his entourage walked towards what remained of the village the cries of the human population dying slowly around him was music to his ears.
This was not the first planet that he and his men had visited as of late and it certainly would not be the last. He would not rest until they were all dead. The humans of this galaxy were all tainted, dirtied by Atlantis and ruined to Wraith forever. There was nothing left for them in this galaxy. They needed to be purged and it was his honor and his privilege to do it.
It had been several weeks since Colonel Sheppard and his team had managed to escape his custody onboard the Hive. His Queen had not been very happy with him at his failure. One of his men had paid for the disappointment with his life. But as her second, he had been given a second chance. As a way of getting himself back into her good graces his Queen had charged him with finding Atlantis and bringing her the key to Earth. He would not let her down again.
"Have you done what I asked?" he asked as one of his Lieutenants greeted him.
"Yes Commander, the elders have all been rounded up as ordered," answered the other with a respectful bow before he turned and began leading the way for his superior.
There wasn't much of the village left untouched by their advanced assault teams. In a matter of hours the entire settlement had been turned to complete ruin. The only thing they had left intact was a single stone structure where the humans they had spared were being kept. They quivered as he walked into the room, terrified of what would soon be in store for them.
"Which one of you is the leader?" he demanded.
No one moved to answer. Humans thought they were so brave, so defiant in the face of their superior adversary. But there were many different ways for him to get the answers that he wanted from them. And they all would bring him great pleasure and satisfaction while bringing the humans great pain and misery.
There was a woman cowering in a corner, trying to get as far away from he and his men as the confines of the room would allow. It was an exercise in futility if ever he'd seen one. He smiled as he moved to her, relishing the thrill of it all as he dragged her kicking and screaming in front of the others.
"You don't seem to understand," he said addressing the humans. "I will have my answers. One way or another. Though I do thank you for choosing to do this the fun way."
With the last he attached his hand to the woman's chest and began to slowly feed off of her. The terrified looks on the faces of the watching humans satisfied him almost as much as the feeding itself. The woman slumped to the floor at his feet, lifeless.
"All right. Now how about we try this again?" He looked from the terrified faces staring back at him to the lifeless woman on the floor and back again. "She obviously was not the leader among you. So tell me who is before I decide to feed again."
A few looks were exchanged among the humans before a man stood from the group. "I am Atares. It is my village and my people that you have devastated here today."
"You call this devastation. We call it a cleansing. You are no longer pure. And if you are not suitable for feeding, we no longer have any use for you."
Atares looked pointedly to the woman's corpse on the floor. "What is it that you want from me?"
"The attempts of the humans of this galaxy to ally against us with Atlantis is quite laughable. To think that you could contend with our power, the mere notion is ridiculous. But your friendship with Atlantis does afford us this rare opportunity. We know that you know the gate address of the city, and the security access code to deactivate their shield. I require this information and you will give it to me."
Atares shook his head. "No."
He rolled his eyes dully as he raised his feeding hand in intimidation. "Need we do this once more?" he asked.
"I cannot give you what I do not have," Atares argued. "Only the leaders of the ten have been trusted with the key to entrance into the city. Castinus does not have a seat on the Council. Congratulations. You've conquered my world but you will leave here without what you've come for."
The minds of some of these humans were strong, but not strong enough to resist his probing. He saw in the man's mind that Atares was telling the truth. The key to Atlantis was not with these people.
"Very well," he responded, bowing his head slightly. He registered slight relief in the eyes of Atares and his people before he turned to leave the hovel. "Kill them all," he ordered his men as he walked out of the doors and made his way back to his waiting cruiser. Their screams comforted him on his journey. There were always other planets. One of them would lead him to Atlantis. He would have his revenge. It was only a matter of time.
/
John Sheppard kept his eyes glued to the tabletop in front of him. It was all he could do to keep himself from jumping across the table and doing something he wouldn't regret but would certainly get him drawn up on military charges and sent straight back to Earth. Hope and Ronon sat to John's right, Rodney and Teyla to his left, as a delegation of five Asgard sat across from them. Mr. Woolsey, recently returned from Earth, stood at the head of the table in the city's conference room.
It had been three days since Hope had come through the gate. And in that time they'd had no choice but to reach out to the Asgard. Most of the plan that Hope had laid out for them depended on their cooperation. Rodney had been able to use the remaining Asgard exoskeleton suit to transmit a long-range broadcast signal extending the Asgard the invitation to the city for peace talks. John was understandably not happy about any of the events that were unfolding since Hope's arrival.
Her presence here was distracting to say the least. Every step he took through the halls was met with whispers from various members of the expedition. Everyone was talking about the new Colonel Sheppard visiting the city from the future. It was buzz-worthy news of course, but John was finding the scrutiny of it all very difficult to take.
For three days he had kept his distance from her. For those first few hours, going over the plan to change the future in that conference room, he could not take his eyes off of her. But the more he looked at her, the more he thought on it, and that was part of his problem. She was Hope Sheppard. She had his blood running through her veins. But she was not his daughter. She was not his Hope.
His Hope was on Earth, in the safe care of his brother where he'd left her six weeks ago. And now as he looked at the grown woman who had returned to his reality, he was reminded of that terrible choice he made to send his baby daughter away. And in his already tortured soul, he couldn't rectify the two. So purely for his own self-preservation, he began to keep his distance.
"Thank you for agreeing to meet with us," Woolsey began. "We understand that it is a concession you have not made in quite some time and we want you to know that it is greatly appreciated."
"The chance to rid us of the threat of the Wraith could not be passed up," the leader of the delegation voiced. He had introduced himself as Nall.
"On that point we are in agreement," Woolsey offered.
"Your methods of the past, however, we are not in agreement with," John hissed under his breath, the temptation to resort to anger too hard to resist.
Hope placed her hand over his on the table in an effort to stop him before he went too far, before his anger completely took over his self-composure. The contact of her skin on his was almost electric. He turned his attention from the Asgard and looked at her. He didn't know what it was exactly but a sense of calm started to wash over him. The anger he felt towards these Asgard began to ebb away. For a moment he missed it. The anger had been all that he'd had left to hold on to. But with Hope's hand on his, he knew that wasn't true anymore. Whatever happened, he had her now.
"Colonel Sheppard," Mr. Woolsey began, ready to stop a volatile situation before it even began. He hadn't thought having the Colonel sitting in on these talks was a good idea to begin with given his history with the Asgard. But he was the ranking military leader of the expedition and a key member of the senior staff. As such his presence was somewhat of a necessity in talks of this magnitude so there hadn't been much of a choice in the matter.
John waved off Mr. Woolsey before the man could continue. "But it's in the past," he started, trying to convey his newfound resolve to his people. "Even so, before we continue this, I just need to know one thing first." He paused briefly before he asked the question that had been rolling around in his head for the last two months. "Why did you take her?" he asked. He had to know for sure. What had they planned for Layna, for the baby she carried? What had he lost his wife for? What had he sent his child away to protect her from?
Nall exchanged a look with his party before he turned back to lock his dark orbs on John Sheppard once again. "We took her because we believed the child she carried was the child of the Ancient prophecies, the one destined to bring an end to the Wraith."
John had been hoping for answers, but all he got from the Asgard's answer was more confusion. "What are you talking about?" he asked.
But it was Teyla who gave him his answer. "The prophecy of the Ancestors," she breathed, remembering the stories from her childhood. Her team turned curiously to her.
"You know what he's talking about?" John asked her.
She nodded her head as she turned to stare back at her people. "It's a story that has been told over the ages, passed down from generation to generation, that one day the Ancestors would be reborn, once again bringing peace to our galaxy, ending the terror of the Wraith once and for all."
"Why are we just hearing about this now Teyla?" Rodney asked.
"It has been so long, many lands have even forgotten the true origin of the story as a prophecy. It has diminished so much that now it is told mostly as a bedtime story to our children. There are not many left who even still believe in the prophecy," she explained.
"Yes, we never believed the story either," began the Asgard Jaikal. "But news of your mission on the Wraith Hive ship several months ago spread across the galaxy. We heard how powerful the child was before even being born, and we remembered the story. We knew that it had to be the child told of, that the prophecy was true."
"So you kidnapped them?" John asked.
"That is our way," offered Nienun matter-of-factly. "It has always been our way. Taking the occasional being in order to help us toward our goal of self-preservation is how we have survived longer than our counterparts."
"Well, when you explain it like that, you sound no different from the Wraith," Ronon mumbled angrily across the table at them.
"Gentlemen," Hope said, breaking the tension in the air. "I feel we are getting away from topic." She looked to Mr. Woolsey and he nodded his thanks to her for diffusing the situation before he once again took the floor.
"Quite right," he began. "You're here so that we can join forces against our common enemy, not continue to fight amongst one another."
"You're suggesting some sort of alliance," the leader Nall said.
"Yes," Mr. Woolsey answered. "For our part, we've managed to cripple the Wraith to a certain extent in the past by turning them against each other. But now they are a united front. And you will no longer be able to hide in the shadows as you have in the past waiting for the carnage to end. Because the Wraith are now set on destroying everything in their path."
Hope sat up and leaned across the table, directing her attention to the Asgard delegation. "But as we stated in the message that brought you here, we have a way to stop them, to rid Pegasus of the threat they pose."
"We could do it on our own," Sheppard began. "But it stands a better chance if the entire galaxy is behind us. All the populated planets and the humans of Pegasus are represented in the Coalition. But you call this place home as well, and so you're the last holdouts."
"We had a plan for the Wraith once before as well," offered up Aitrik. "A plan that your people went to great lengths to destroy."
"Excuse me but the Atero device, which by the way you stole and then forced me under threat of death to activate, would not have only destroyed the Wraith but everything else in the galaxy along with them," cried Rodney.
"And how is that different from what you say the Wraith are doing to Pegasus now?" countered Aitrik smartly. There was nothing anyone in the room could say to that.
Mr. Woolsey cleared his throat. "Regardless, your participation in the alliance will require that you no longer experiment on any being from this or any other galaxy."
"Those terms are unacceptable," said Nall instantly.
The humans at the table all took in a deep breath. They all knew that this would not be easy. "In exchange for that concession we will provide you with the answers to your reproductive problem," offered Teyla.
The Asgard faces staring back at them were unchanged at the offer. "You are not capable of such a promise. We have been working for ten thousand years to solve this problem. You couldn't possibly be able to offer us any kind of feasible solution," said Nienun.
It was Aitrik who went on to state the obvious. "You lack the intellect."
Everyone in the room tried not to take that too personally. Everyone, that is, but Rodney McKay. He always took an assault on his intelligence harshly. It was what defined him the most. If he wasn't the smartest person in the room then he wasn't Rodney McKay. And with all the brilliant minds in the room with them now, it was clear how uncomfortable he was.
"Maybe they do," Hope conceded. "But I do not."
Soin studied her appreciatively. There was something different about her, even if he couldn't quite put his finger on it. She was not like the others. "Who are you?" he asked.
"A better question might be what," she answered. "With all the trouble you went through to try and procure me for your own selfish purposes, you should know who and what I am."
Nall seemed genuinely intrigued. "You are the child born six weeks ago?" he questioned.
She had thought this all through ahead of time, before she even stepped into her time machine. The future was safer for her and those she loved if certain truths were smudged in this time. John Sheppard had been right to fear for the safety of his baby daughter. The people who had pursued her all of her life to try and use her and exploit her abilities had been unending. There was no reason to believe that it would not be the same for the baby back on Earth.
But after coming here to this time, she had the unique opportunity to change all of that now. If she were to assume the identity of the Hope of this timeline in the eyes of those who would use her, then she could spare her younger self and her father from it all. She would take on all the responsibility and infamy here and now to give them a chance to live a normal life. If she fulfilled her destiny, there would be no need for any of her pursuers to know that there existed another Hope Sheppard in this timeline.
"Onboard your very ship," she confirmed, nodding her head. "After you took my mother and accelerated her pregnancy. I am the child of the Ancient prophecy. I am the last of the old and first of the new Alterans. And I can and will help you if you agree to this alliance and to our terms. I am your only chance."
There was silence in the room as they contemplated. She could tell that they were doubtful. They didn't believe that she was who she claimed to be. They needed proof. They needed a demonstration. Even a small show of her abilities would convince them.
Hope opened her mind to them. She projected her thoughts into all five Asgard minds simultaneously. 'You want proof,' she said to them and them alone. 'Here it is.' And she showed them everything. And she knew she had their agreement.