A/N: Okay, SO glad I managed to surprise some people with the little revelation last chap. Lol. That was fun. And thanks for all those awesome reviews! Those were even MORE fun!! Okay, so this chap is dedicated to tripwatcher2, cuz all she's wanted from the beginning are 'answers, answers, answers' and now she's finally getting some.

Disclaimer: I wished upon a star...nothing happened.

Chapter Fourteen – A Great Hope

The room fell silent, allowing the tension and shock to dissipate slightly before the explanation continued. Cam tugged on Torren's arm and he slid down beside her on the couch. Teyla had vacated her seat on the couch and Ben had taken it, scooting in close to Liz. John stood near the door with his hands in his pockets as he chewed his bottom lip mercilessly.

"Then what happened?" Ronon asked, he opposite McKay at the table, sitting backwards on one of the chairs.

It was Meredith who answered standing and walking to look out a small window at the back of the room to get some circulation going in her legs, "When we got back to Atlantis the IOA had already evacuated most of the population."

"They left you behind?" Teyla sounded a bit dangerous in her incredulity and John glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

Cam shook her head, "No. We refused to leave." She straightened at the looks some of the 'Lanteans gave her, "Atlantis is the only home we've ever known. We'd only been to earth once and all of us but Torren were too young to remember. And Ben has never been."

"We were able to convince Evan and Radek to let us stay behind, they weren't happy about it, but I think they knew we were only asking out of professional courtesy," Liz shrugged, almost looking amused, "nothing could have made us leave Atlantis. It's our home."

"They came up with a cover story to tell the IOA," Meredith continued, inching somewhat unconsciously toward the younger version of her father, "We knew eventually we'd be found out, but they'd enacted a lock-out protocol on the gate, permanently preventing earth dialing from both sides. So, Liz flew the city to another part of the planet in case they sent the Apollo or the Deadalus. Then we cloaked it."

"Why not another planet? Why stay here?" John asked.

Liz smiled a little and shrugged, "We figured the last place they would look for the city is right where they left it."

John thought a moment and then nodded, "good point."

"We spent the next year and a half working on our plan," Torren spoke again, his voice a little less certain than before, but still commanding the attention of his younger teammates, "Since it was just the five of us it didn't require nearly as much power to run the city and we were able to keep it cloaked the entire time. Thus, safe from Michael and the Wraith."

"When we left, we submerged it." Liz finished.

McKay opened his mouth to protest but Meredith lifted a hand, knowing what he was about to say, "It's actually not that hard. We'd done it a couple times in the past, well, you had anyway. You showed me how once." She shrugged and looked down, "We are sorry we lied to you," she twisted her pen around in her hands nervously while she stood a few personal space preserving feet away fro Rodney, "But it was the safest thing…" she looked up and glanced around the packed quarters, "for all of us."

This time the silence that fell was thick and heavy and only Ronon was strong enough to break it.

"It must have been hard," his voice was low and gruff. Nine heads swiveled to look at him, but he kept his gaze firmly on the ground, "being here. Being home, but pretending it wasn't."

"Having none of us know you," Jennifer added quietly, her red eyes and face sure indications that she was inches from tears. Ronon watched her out of the corner of his eye but she was putting on a brave face, in spite of it all.

Liz nodded, shifting on the couch so she was leaning a little bit more on Ben, "It's been pretty much horrible, but…" she shrugged, "we did what had to be done. We can't afford to regret it."

The other children nodded their agreement and Teyla was reminded of their first meeting. How all the Yanarins had presented a united front, professional, as if well versed in both military and diplomatic proceedings.

"It explains why you are all so accustomed to military procedure," she reasoned aloud. John glanced at her, "Being raised here, on a military base."

Cam smiled and rolled her eyes, "oh yeah. Military brats through and through," she glanced at Ben and Liz, who smiled and nodded, "we always say used to say that our first words weren't 'da da' they were 'Sir yes sir'."

Torren laughed a little and the sound was infectious, and all the Yanarins started to giggle, their overstressed nerves and under-rested bodies betraying them and making them punchy. And the 'Lanteans found themselves smiling without reason and glancing between the children and each other, feeling a little as if they'd missed the punch line of a joke.

"Well, not me," Meredith said, still smiling, "I'm a scientist. All the way."

"Yeah, and insubordinate as hell," Cam agreed, "the apple doesn't fall far from the super computer."

"Hey!" Rodney and Meredith said at the same time. Ronon rolled his eyes and John laughed.

"She got you McKay."

Neither McKay saw any reason to dignify him with a response.

"Oh wait!" Jennifer sat up suddenly, "The Colonel mentioned something about an immunity to the wraith stunner?" she looked around eagerly, that was information she could most definitely find time to look into.

"Yeah," Liz shrugged, "we all have it. Well, except for Torren." She grinned cheekily at her brother and he made a face.

"You all have it?" Sheppard repeated.

"It's a side effect from when you were on the wraith enzyme," Cam explained, "the drug itself broke down and left your system, but what we call micro-residue was left behind and bonded with your DNA. It didn't alter yours at all, but when you passed it on to us it…rearranged some things. Mostly we just get the stunner immunity thing, and to varying degrees, Ben just has it the strongest."

"Mostly?" Rodney asked.

"Yeah, well, sometimes Mere talks faster than the human ear can actually translate, but that's really just a McKay thing."

"Alright already, can we lay off the McKay jokes?" Meredith said, giving Cam an exasperated look. The other girl just shrugged.

"Why did Torren not receive the immunity? I was on the enzyme for a time and it was passed to Liz," Teyla asked, nodding toward her son, whom she kept finding herself staring at, even if just to prove that this wasn't all a dream.

"We were never really sure, but we think it's because of his wraith DNA, that it somehow counteracted the effects of the enzyme," Cam answered.

Teyla nodded and looked at John, who had his hands on his hips, "what happens now?" he said finally.

"Now we leave," Torren answered, "We've done enough damage already just be being here. Now that we've told you all of this…" he shook his head, "the results will most certainly be catastrophic, at least for us."

Meredith suddenly brightened, "Maybe not. I've been working on the Time-Line Variance Algorithm," she quickly retrieved her laptop and went to set it up at the table where Rodney and Ronon sat, "I think I've got it."

With a couple of clicks she pulled up a document with at least three pages full of numbers, letters and mathematical symbols that baffled almost everyone in the room. Rodney stared at it with rapt attention and a couple minutes later he looked at Meredith with wide eyes.

"You did it! This is the kind of stuff Einstein only dreamed of!" His smile was reminiscent of a child on Christmas morning. Everyone had gathered around the small computer and he pushed forward to get a closer look.

"Actually," the girl blew some blonde hair from her eyes and began hesitantly, "you did it."

Rodney's head shot up, "what?"

"This is your algorithm, I just finished it. You did all the hard stuff," she smiled, "a side project between finding new ways to defeat the wraith, fight Michael and search for ZedPMs."

McKay's expression was a cross between dumbfounded and delighted, "you're telling me…I created a viable means of time travel?"

Meredith shrugged, "well, you wrote the algorithm and wrote the specs in theory. I'm the one who built the thing," Liz gave her a look, "with help, I mean."

"You did?" McKay asked, looking back at the computer.

The girl grinned, "yeah. I call it the flux capacitor."

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."

"What? I love that movie."

"McKay, focus." Sheppard reminded him, barely concealing a self-satisfied smirk.

McKay rolled his eyes and then went back to scrolling through the obscenely complicated algorithm, "this really is amazing," he grabbed the laptop and scooted it further in front of himself, "I mean, I always knew I would do great things but this…this is beyond anything I could have thought possible."

Meredith smiled at his excitement and the two hunched over the keyboard and the rest left them to their musings.

The kids went back to their previous seats on the couch and chair. Teyla and Jennifer joined Ben and Liz on the sofa and John and Ronon each pulled up chairs so they were sitting in a sort of semi-circle.

"So, you're really going back?" John asked, looking at Torren first and then the others.

Torren nodded, answering for them all.

"I thought you said you had nothing to go back to?" Ronon pointed out.

"Well, we're hoping that, in helping you defeat Michael now, we've erased all the bad stuff that happens in the future," Liz explained.

"Like you all dieing and Atlantis being evacuated," Cam said.

"And that we kept all the good stuff."

"Like us being born."

Jennifer frowned, "so that's it? After everything we just…hope for the best?"

Cam looked over at Meredith and her father, arguing quietly and enjoying every minute of it, "pretty much." She nodded, looking back at the younger version of her mother.

"It is a very large hope," Teyla said quietly, looking at John and Ronon and then over to her son, "with a very great risk."

"It's already been worth it," Liz glanced up hesitantly at her father. John met her eyes and smiled encouragingly, nodding that he agreed.

"And hope," Torren said finally, "is all we have."

TBC