Chapter 27

Maybe Dave is right, John thought as he made his way back to the car after his intense conversation with his brother. He was sweating profusely from seemingly every pore in his body at the mere thought of losing custody of his child. And if he was being honest with himself, he didn't even know how to approach the situation.

Obviously, their living arrangements weren't normal by any stretch of the imagination. How was he going to fight this custody battle if he didn't even know what to do? It's not like he could hire a lawyer to fight it for him... not with the confidentiality constraints that they faced. At least she would be safe, John thought.

Ronon and Izzy could tell that something Dave had said to John rattled him to the core the moment he came in view. John was hardly paying attention as his mind swirled with thoughts of self-doubt and Izzy's custody. Of course, he wanted nothing more than for Izzy to keep living with him on Atlantis, but would it be better for her if she lived with Dave? He could give her everything she ever wanted: a great education, money, safety, and an overall normal life. She would be in a home with a father and mother figure, away from the dangers of the Pegasus Galaxy…

"Are you okay?" Ronon asked, eyeing John warily.

John nodded but didn't say anything, vaguely aware that he had started the car and was pulling out of the driveway. Could they give her love, though?

John snapped back to reality as his mind focused back to the other situation they were dealing with; how the young woman in the back seat of his car knew all the classified information that she did and what she wanted to talk about. It was never a good sign: someone approaching you on Earth and talking about the Stargate program and alien technology…

A little while later, he pulled into a hole-in-the-wall diner. He tried to focus on the current situation, but his mind kept wandering to Dave's promise of taking full custody of Izzy. Looking back, he wished he had punched his brother in the face… multiple times. Maybe then he would have changed his mind about fighting for custody of Izzy… right? Perhaps it was just wishful thinking.

"I would have come to you sooner but you were a hard man to find." Ava said once they had gotten seated at a table. Izzy was beginning to get the feeling that she was going to be beamed up to the Apollo before too long while they took care of whatever was going on.

"All right, you got our attention. What's this about?" John asked, wrapping his hands around his coffee mug.

"For the past three years I've been working for a company called Stanton Research, a division of Devlin Medical Technologies. I was recruited out of college by a brilliant scientist by the name of Dr. Richard Poole, and together we worked on a secret project, codename 'Archetype.'" Ava explained.

"What kind of project?" Ronon asked.

"We were experimenting with nanite programming, trying to increase the complexity of their interactions." she said, and John and Ronon shared a cautious look.

"Listen, I wasn't aware of what happened to Dr. Mckay and his sister until much later. At the time all I knew was that we had been given a key piece of programming, something that allowed us to make a major breakthrough." Ava said.

"What are you talking about?" John asked.

"Well, it's one thing to inject nanites into a mechanical or biological system for the purpose of affecting changes at a molecular level, but it's quite another to use them as building blocks to create an entirely self-sustaining entity.

"To be honest, I never thought I would see it in my lifetime. But then, all of a sudden, we began making incredible advancements, and the next thing I knew, there it was." Izzy furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. She thought she knew what Ava was referring to, but she couldn't exactly be sure.

"You built a Replicator?" Ronon asked, disbelievingly.

Yes. Yes she did.

"There's no way you had authorization to do this." John said.

"Richard told me the project was being funded at the highest levels." Ava defended.

"And you believed him." John deduced, rolling his eyes.

"Maybe it's a little naïve, but, well, Richard was like a father to me. My own parents died when I was very young. I trusted him." Ava said.

John glanced at Izzy, knowing that what Ava just said was bound to bring up unpleasant memories for the girl. His suspicions were confirmed when she had a pained expression on her face… she knew exactly what that felt like. She might be about to lose another one, John thought, and if that didn't damn bring him to tears, then he didn't know what would.

"But then one day, Richard came back to the lab in a panic. There had been a security breach and he wanted me to shut everything down. But later I found out what was really going on. The IOA's investigation of Devlin Michael was closing in, and Richard wanted to get rid of the evidence. The Replicator, as you call it, killed to escape. If he's threatened, he could kill again." Ava explained.

"You're telling me there's a Replicator loose on Earth?" John asked, his voice low and disbelieving what he just heard.

"That's right." Ava confirmed, looking quite like a shamed puppy with its tail between its legs.

"How long?" Ronon demanded.

"Well he escaped three weeks ago. We've been working on a way to track him but so far have had no success. He could be anywhere by now." Ava responded.

Izzy looked at her father and Ronon. Yup, they're definitely pissed.


I was beamed back to the Apollo after my dad and Ronon went on some kick-ass mission to find this Replicator. I wasn't worried about them per-se, I was more annoyed that this person had the audacity to build a Replicator in the first place, and then track us down whenever they had a snafu at whatever top-secret facility they were working at.

I watched through an observation window and listened through the speakers as my dad continued to interrogate Dr. Richard Poole, Ava's boss. He'd come in and out every little while as they gathered pieces of information about the Replicator that was loose on Earth. Like other Replicators, he had strength, speed, and agility well beyond any normal human levels and they narrowed the search to a five-block radius, but nothing smaller than that.

They needed more information, Dr. Poole wasn't being very cooperative, and Dad was starting to lose his patience.

"See, I've had this really crappy few days, so I'm beginning to lose my patience." Dad said, slamming his hands on the table in front of Dr. Poole. He didn't even flinch. "So whatever you can do to make this easier, may work in your favor."

I didn't see this side of my dad very often – the side where he was dealing with a crisis and was in basically in charge of solving it. He was a different man then; one who was focused on the current situation and tried everything he could in order to solve the problem. This man was fierce when he needed to be, and anyone could tell by watching the scene in front of me unfold.

"Where, at my trial?" Dr. Poole scoffed. "In front of a judge and jury? We both know that's not going to happen. They're going to put me in some deep, dark hole at Area 51, never to be heard from again, and nothing I say or do now is going to make any difference."

"Well, maybe not for you, but what about the girl?" Dad asked, pushing the right buttons in order to get his attention. Dr. Poole's eyes snapped to John's and his mouth was agape in disbelief.

"She didn't know that this knowledge was obtained illegally. She's completely innocent!" Dr. Poole claimed.

"Well it's like you said," Dad reasoned, "there isn't going to be a trial."

"But she's helping you!" Richard exclaimed.

"Not good enough." Dad said, towering over Richard. "What's it going to be, Doc?"

The "interrogation" ended when Dr. Poole finally decided that he was going to help them. I grinned through the glass, though he couldn't see me as my chest filled with pride at watching him work. I left the small observation room to go meet him as I was sure he was about to be beamed back to Earth to locate the Replicator. I knew I couldn't go with them, but I at least wanted to say goodbye before he went. We had gotten into that habit early on in my coming to Atlantis, because I never knew what day could be our last, given the nature of his job. I tried to not take that on as a burden, but it's difficult.

Security came and escorted Dr. Poole out of the room and my dad turned to walk down another corridor. I jogged up next to him, and he slung an arm around my shoulders.

"Hey, pal." he said. I didn't know why, but I was getting the feeling that he was hiding something. Maybe it was the way that he seemed to be trying way to hard. From the outside he looked fine, but it seemed like something was bothering him.

"Hey." I replied. "Heading back down?"

"Yep." Dad replied. "I have to go to the armory and gear up, and then we're going to head down and catch this thing before it can do any damage… if it hasn't done any already."

I nodded, not knowing what to say.

"I'm sorry about all of this, Izzy. I was hoping that it would be a little break and some time away from the craziness for a while, but so far it's not working out that way." Dad said, squeezing my shoulders.

"It's okay." I said. "I understand."

"This shouldn't take too long. We have the area narrowed down to a few city blocks so hopefully, we'll be able to get the situation under control before too long." Dad explained.

I nodded again.

"And then I need to head to the SGC and talk to General O'Neill about something. When that's done, we'll have a few days to do whatever you'd like before we head back home." Dad said. I smiled at his use of the term "home", because that's what it had become to me. Earth was no longer my home because there was nothing here for me. Home is where my dad is, and as long as I'm with him, then everything is going to be okay.

John kissed me on the head before leaving, so I stalked off and sat in a room resembling Rodney's lab on Atlantis with a fascinating guy by the name of Dr. Lee. He was a balding man who resembled a lobster with his sunburn and was wearing a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt. I deduced that he had been on vacation when this crisis happened. He was communicating with the team on the ground trying to catch this thing, but he seemed to be pretty good at multitasking since he was trying to carry on a conversation with me at the same time.

"So, you're Colonel Sheppard's kid?" Dr. Lee asked, glancing at me over the top of his glasses from where he was bent over a computer.

"Yeah." I affirmed, smiling.

"I knew the minute I saw you. You look just like him… well, the female version of him, of course." Dr. Lee said with a chuckle.

"So I've been told." I replied, laughing slightly.

"You like Atlantis?" He asked.

I didn't really know how to answer this question. Of course I liked Atlantis; it had become my home. The people there: Ronon, Teyla, Carson, Evan, Jason, Jennifer, Landon… and John, my dad – they had all become my family. And though things weren't always easy with the many dangers of the Pegasus Galaxy, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I had been on Atlantis for several months and I couldn't wait to be back on Earth, but once I got here, it just didn't seem right. Earth was no longer my home because I had no reason to be there. It had nothing to offer to me.

I felt like I couldn't really explain these things to the scientist in front of me. After all, I had just met him and he probably wouldn't understand. So, I settled for, "It's home," and left it at that. He seemed satisfied with this answer, and turned back to looking at a map with several different dots on it – what I assumed were the positions of the people on the team.

I crossed my left leg over my right and rested my elbow on my knees and my chin in my hand as I listened to the conversation over the radio. They had to beam Sergeant Bates to the Apollo because he had been injured. A few minutes later, Dad came over the radio.

"Lee, come in." he said.

"Yeah, go ahead." Lee replied.

"We've got a problem. Poole's dead." Dad said. My heart clenched. Ava spun around in her chair from behind us and looked at Dr. Lee. "You still tracking the Replicator?"

"Uh, yeah. Just hang on." Dr. Lee said, typing away at a few keys on his keyboard. "Okay, I've got him. He's on the move heading south. He's right by… whoa!"

"What happened?" I asked at the same time my dad said "What?" over the radio.

"Uh… I just lost the signal." Dr. Lee said. "It wasn't me, it just disappeared."

"Well, get it back online. Me and Ronon are going after him."

I started biting my nails. It was a nasty habit, and I did it when I was nervous. This definitely had me nearly shaking in my boots… er, shoes. Being so close to my dad and hearing him communicate while he was on this mission made the dangerous nature of his job seem more realistic than normal.

After what seemed like forever, they had been beamed back to the Apollo, two injuries and two casualties later… no Replicator. They were back to square one and at a loss for what to do. I sat along the wall outside of Dr. Lee's lab and waited for the debriefing to finish. I didn't know anyone else on board, and I had nothing to do since I was restricted from most of the Apollo except for the cafeteria and my quarters, so sitting here was as good a place as any.

I eventually dozed off. The events of the past several days had thoroughly worn me out and I was more bored than most other times in my life. I woke when my dad gently shook my shoulder.

"Meeting done?" I croaked, accepting the hand he offered to help haul me off the ground.

"Yeah. We'll figure out the rest of the plans tomorrow after we've gotten a chance to sleep it off." Dad said, leading the way to our quarters.

"How much longer until you find him?" I asked, rubbing my eyes sleepily.

"Hopefully not much longer." Dad said. "I am very sorry."

"It's fine." I said, dismissing it. "It's not your fault."

"Yeah." Dad agreed. We parted ways to get ready for bed, and before too long, I was hugging my pillow to my chest and looking at the tiny room with the bunk beds in the corner. Dad came in a few seconds later and seemed to notice my hesitation. He was wearing black track pants with white stripes on the outside of the leg and a t-shirt with a panda on it. I should have known he would have brought that – it was one of his favorite outfits.

"You want top or bottom?" he asked.

"Top." I said. "It weirds me out when I can hear people moving around above me."

Dad chuckled at this and nodded before hugging me close and kissing me on the head.

"Sleep tight, pal." He said. I nodded against his chest and yawned hugely, immediately giving away just how tired I was.

"Long couple of days, huh kiddo?" he asked, rubbing my shoulders. I nodded again, letting myself practically doze against him. I was exhausted. "Hopefully everything will be over soon and we can relax a bit."

"Me too." I agreed, talking quietly. I pulled away and crawled onto my bed and under the covers, laying on my side and facing the wall. Maybe if I closed my eyes I could pretend that I was in my comfortable bed on Atlantis, not on a hard cot on the Apollo. Dad flicked off the light, and the room was plunged into darkness. I felt the bed rustle slightly as my dad crawled into the bed below me.

"Dad?" I asked quietly.

"Hmm?" He grunted, acknowledging that I was talking to him.

"When this whole thing is over, I think I decided what I want to do." I said.

"What's that?" Dad asked, his voice just as quiet as mine.

"Can we go to the zoo?" I asked. It was a silly request, I realized, but I think I needed something calm to do after the past several months of excitement.

"Sure, kiddo." John replied.

I smiled, even though I was exhausted. "Goodnight." I said.

"Night." He replied. We were asleep within minutes.


Dad's uniform on Earth was drastically different than his uniform on Atlantis. His outfit the next day consisted of a light blue shirt, navy suit, and jeans. He looked nice, and I wish he dressed like that more often. He looked... normal.

He met with Nancy in the morning. He said it was something about using her security clearance to access Dr. Poole's research files. I stayed behind, of course, because neither of us wanted another encounter with her together – at least, not yet. It was bound to happen eventually, but part of me hoped otherwise.

Like yesterday, Dad kept coming and going throughout the day. Nancy had managed to get a hold of the files he was looking for and gave it to him, which was the key that they needed in order to figure out where the Replicator would go next. They found a memo using a code word for a shipment of neutronium, which was the base element needed in order to construct the nanites needed to build a Replicator. In the tussle the day before, they had managed to damage the Replicator, so if it wanted to repair itself, then it would have to go there. Sergeant Bates organized a stake out, and a few hours later the Replicator showed up. Sometime in the middle of a fight, Dad stuck a knife with a tracking device in the Replicator and the Apollo beamed the Replicator into low-earth orbit, which effectively neutralized the Replicator.

Finally, the problem had been taken care of.

Throughout this whole ordeal, they had discovered that Ava was also a Replicator. She had been crucial in locating the other Replicator, so they felt as if they couldn't just neutralize her (even though she was merely a machine), so they decided to put her in a virtual reality. She would be able to live freely there, without fear of harm or doing harm to others. She also wouldn't compromise any of the classified information that she knew.

After the decisions were finalized, Dad and I were beamed down to Earth to the SGC. Dad had to talk to General O'Neill about something, what I didn't know, but my gut told me it had something to do with what had been bothering him ever since his father's funeral.


John took a deep breath and knocked on the door to General O'Neill's office. Now that the Replicator situation had been taken care of, he needed to know what to do regarding Izzy's custody issue. He wanted to fight it more than anything – hire a lawyer himself and tell off his brother, and then take Izzy back home – but he couldn't. Atlantis was classified, and he didn't know how to get around telling the lawyer exactly what was going on if he had any hope in securing the custody of his child. He needed help.

"Come in." General O'Neill said from behind the closed door. John turned the handle and pushed open the door.

"General." John greeted.

"Sheppard. Congratulations on a successful mission." He said, standing to shake John's hand.

"I wouldn't call it that successful, but, thank you." He said humbly, regretting the loss of three lieutenants in the process of catching the Replicator.

"Can't win them all." General O'Neill consoled, sitting in his desk chair as John took a seat in front of the desk. "What can I do for you?"

"It's about Izzy, sir." John said, running his sweaty palms over his pants and swallowing the lump that was rising in his throat. "My brother… he wants custody."

General O'Neill's eyes widened at the news. Of all the things he expected Sheppard to say after coming into his office, this was certainly close to the bottom of the list.

"And, I don't know what to do." John admitted, his face sad and his eyes wide.

"Thankfully, this isn't the first time something like this has happened." General O'Neill explained. John nodded, silently begging him to continue. "About ten years ago, one of the members of the base was in a custody battle over his two children with his wife. Unfortunately, he lost because of the classified nature of his job."

If General O'Neill was trying to calm him down… it was certainly not working.

John opened his mouth to say something to that effect but General O'Neill silenced him by holding a hand up.

"It was after that situation that the IOA opened a Child Services division so that parents wouldn't lose custody of their child, to either a former spouse or a disgruntled relative, in your case. Sometimes it still does happen, but this way it can be handled in a matter that won't involve revealing the Stargate program."

"So, what do I need to do?" John asked, bouncing his leg up and down nervously.

"We'll have you fill out some paperwork, which will include your paternity results and her mother's will stating that she was to be placed in your custody. Don't worry, John. The IOA can be rather… persuasive, as I'm sure you know." General O'Neill said. He was familiar with John's situation. He had only recently taken over for General Landry, but he had been allowed in several different meetings to discuss the nature of Izzy's case before she was given security clearance and permission to go to Atlantis to be with John.

"I'll have the documents sent to you as soon as soon as the IOA gets a file together. For the time being though, you and Izzy will both have to remain here until this situation can be taken care of." General O'Neill said, knowing that neither John nor Izzy would be happy about it.

John nodded, swallowing thickly. He had hoped to be able to keep this situation from Izzy, but now he knew that he would have to tell her.

"How long will this take?" John asked, scratching the back of his neck.

"Could be a week, could be a month." He said, shrugging.

"What are we supposed to do in the meantime?" John asked.

"Relax, spend time together. Maybe you'll be able to go off-world with one of our teams if you need something else to do." General O'Neill suggested.

John nodded and buried his face in his hands, taking a calming breath.

"It's going to be okay, Sheppard." He consoled. John made eye contact with him and nodded.

"I guess I'm going to have to tell Izzy." John said. "There isn't really any other way around it."

"Good luck." General O'Neill said, looking sympathetic to John's predicament. John took that as his cue to leave, so he nodded and thanked General O'Neill before leaving.


A/N: Next chapter is coming VERY soon – I promise.

Thanks to those of you who followed/favorited the story!

Special thanks to…

thewolf74: I love that you're always one of the first to review – thanks for being so faithful to do that! I never liked Dave, either. I thought he was a douche, but in this I made him even more so. Mwahaha. :)

charmingskyblue304: I'm so glad you are enjoying the story! Thanks for reviewing! It's always nice to hear feedback. Hopefully this chapter wasn't a let-down. The good stuff is coming next chapter (which is going to be posted in the next couple of days).

izzysheppard: I'm truly glad that you didn't make your way to Pennsylvania to murder me for that cliffy. This chapter didn't really jump into the issue much, but I hope that it was satisfactory. Next chapter will be posted in the next couple of days. I promise. :)

WhiteWolfwoman: Thank you so so much for reviewing! You actually gave me an idea for the next chapter… you're right, Izzy is scary when she's mad. You will definitely see that soon. :)

stargatesg11973: Thanks so much for reviewing! I love it when new usernames come up on my e-mail saying they reviewed. I hope you continue to enjoy!

OMG: Thanks for reviewing, as always! I posted a little sooner than I normally would because of your enthusiasm. I was gone over last weekend so I didn't get to write much, but the next chapter is coming in the next couple of days, so I hope that makes up for it. :)

Shellbean: Thank you thank you for reviewing (as always)! Maybe John will be punching Dave here in the future… maybe not. Guess you'll see. You actually gave me the idea for this chapter, so I really appreciate it! Keep reviewing – maybe then I'll get more ideas.

LoveStoryFanatic: Thanks, dude! Sorry (kinda) sorry for the cliffy. I always hated it when other author's did that to me, and then I went ahead and did it. Whoops. Next chapter will be posted in the next couple of days to make up for the long(ish) wait for this one.

csweeting2: I'm so glad to hear that you are enjoying the story! Thank you for reviewing and telling me that. It motivates me to write and makes me happy. Keep 'em coming! I hope you continue to enjoy.

guardianranger: Thanks as always for reviewing on this, and for being so patient with my Flashpoint fics. I've been debating on writing an epilogue for "Sincerely, Me" and finishing it or waiting until I come up with new ideas/plot twists/etc… any thoughts on that? Anyways, hope you continue to enjoy this one!