Chapter 72
2008
If someone had told him that one day he'd spend days at a time in the command centre of a floating city and rescuing colleagues off spaceships which could jump between different universes, he'd have called them crazy.
Had the same person told him, he'd get home after such a day, to that very same city to find his very pregnant wife asleep in their bed, and that that wife would be Alexandra Lorne, née Woolston, he'd have laughed and cried at the same time.
That she'd wanted his name was insane enough, but to have her by his side now, in another galaxy, after losing a child and after all the dangers they'd been through together was a miracle.
It wasn't even three o'clock yet, but she was already fast asleep, the way she usually was at this time of day. She got up at the same time he did, went to her office to work a bit and then, once she was too tired from sitting down, she'd make her way to their apartment to sleep.
She'd grown enormously, he thought, as he sat down next to her, and it was no big surprise, really. They only had a week to go until their son was supposed to arrive.
Whispering her name, he lay down next to her, pulling her back closer against his chest. Her body was warm against his and as he brushed his hand over her stomach, he could feel the soft thud as their son kicked, almost in greeting. "Come on, we have an appointment."
She grunted and put a hand on his arm. "Nothing's happening anyway," she murmured, making him laugh.
"Nothing?" he whispered into her ear, stroking her stomach and feeling her twitch.
"Nothing," she agreed, turning her head to look at him. She hadn't been able to lie on her back in months now. "I swear, Caleb is never coming out of there."
"I'm sure he is," he said. "Shall we go and ask the good doctor how much longer he thinks it'll be?"
Alex grunted and turned her face a bit more, a clear invitation for a kiss. He complied without hesitation. "I take it Sheppard's team is back safe and sound, then?"
"You bet."
With a nod, she started sitting up, grunting once more. "Good," she said. "Would have hated to waddle after them on a rescue mission in this condition."
"You don't waddle," he grinned as she got up and threw on the jacket which hadn't closed in months now. She'd switched to the standard issue maternity pants the moment the shipment had arrived via Daedalus. This being the third pregnancy on Atlantis, the IOA and the Air Force had finally decided to provide the expedition members with those as well. They'd arrived relatively late, but better late than never.
"I do," she said quietly as she pulled the wide elastic band over her stomach.
"It'll be okay," he said for the umpteenth time. Their baby was alright, she was okay and according to Doctor Langdon, the resident gynaecologist, they shouldn't expect any complications. Their child had turned two days ago, and it wouldn't be long now.
Alex nodded, but she didn't look entirely convinced. She reached for her hairbrush. "I can't believe we're going home," she sighed, combing through her hair and looking out the window. "Doesn't seem real."
"We'll only be gone for a couple of weeks."
Alex grimaced. "Yes, two weeks at home after the birth, then ten days on the Daedalus. Fun times." Especially with a crying infant. But Beckett was right, Evan thought, they should be home when the time came. Home and with their family. This time around things had to be just right. For all three of them.
Langdon seemed satisfied. He nodded at her with an appreciative nod as he handed her the paper towels so she could remove the rest of the lubricant. He was a rather small, balding dark-skinned man whose very presence exuded confidence despite his stature. It must be his eyes, Alex thought as she sat up and found the amber eyes smiling at her.
"I don't think it'll be longer than another week at most. I guess I'll tell Mr Woolsey to send you home tomorrow, if that's still the plan?"
"It is," Alex nodded. Her mother and brother had already booked their flight and they'd be there on her due date. This would give them some time to prepare. The nursery in their house wasn't ready, the house not baby proofed yet. Under normal circumstances, had Evan still been a regular officer stationed somewhere on Earth, he wouldn't have been able to be there for her. He'd be stationed somewhere on the globe and would only be able to take paternity leave once their son was born. But this was different. Their circumstances were far from normal.
"Alright then, I'll type up my report straight away," Langdon nodded at her, then at Evan. "I wish you all the best." He sounded sincere and Alex knew that he was. He'd been through this with them both, but he'd been a comfort to her especially. First when they'd tried for a baby, and then when they hadn't managed to conceive, he still encouraged her to try.
A knock on the door made her sit a bit more upright and she smiled at Evan as he put the blanket over her again. "Come in!" Langdon said loudly and the door opened with a soft hiss to reveal Beckett standing there.
He'd been revived from stasis not long after the recovery of Johnson's body and Doctor Keller had been able to stabilize the deterioration of his cells. He looked just as he always had, but Alex still hadn't fully come to terms with having him back. And it was him. In every sense, except that he needed extra medication, because his body wasn't the same and because Michael hadn't been as thorough in cloning him as Ba'al had been with his duplicates. But Johnson's body had been the missing link Keller needed to come up with a long-term solution to their problem.
"How's our youngest patient?" he grinned as he stepped into the room and Langdon patted Alex's shoulder.
"I'd say, he's in perfect shape," he said and Beckett took a deep breath.
"How're you two doing?" Beckett asked, his Scottish accent soothing as always. He looked first at Alex, then at Evan. They hadn't really had the chance to talk about what had happened, not even in three months of him being back.
"We're good," Evan answered. "Thanks, Doc," he nodded at Langdon.
"Of course. I'll see you in a few weeks." Langdon hadn't been offended in the least when Alex and Evan had said that they wanted their child to be born at home. He even seemed to understand. No big surprise, given than he was Beckett's colleague and they were bound to have exchanged stories. With another nod, Langdon left through another door, which closed automatically behind him.
Beckett reached out and briefly patted Alex's hand. "You look happy, dear."
She felt a soft pinch in her chest at these words, but she nodded. "Looking forward to going home. Thanks for making it happen." She was almost sure, hadn't it been for Beckett's appeal, the IOA would have insisted Evan stick to the rules of the Air Force. But their case was different. Still, after all this time, those in charge still felt like they owed him and her something. Most likely O'Neill had finally made this happen.
"Thank you," Beckett said, his blue eyes serious as he looked at them. There was no trace of a smile left on his lips as he nodded. He'd said it before, had thanked them for his life, and it made her feel as uncomfortable now as it had back then. And she knew Beckett wouldn't stand for her waving it off. Because he knew who Johnson had been and Alex didn't have the guts to argue that Johnson wasn't their child, because Johnson had been a clone. Because so was Beckett. She couldn't bring herself to say it, and she wasn't even sure she could honestly claim she'd ever felt that way.
"I," he cleared his throat, "I was thinking about joining you. I haven't been back on Earth since… you know… and I believe it is high time I return home for a while." That couldn't be easy. She and Evan exchanged a glance. They'd been declared MIA once. But there'd never been a funeral for them. They'd never had to face relatives who'd been sure they were dead. Not really. But she could see that Beckett might need some support.
"Sure thing," Evan said, "We'll be there for three weeks by the looks of it, then return on the Daedalus. Is that gonna be enough for you?"
Beckett sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Not sure it ever can be."
"It's not perfect, I know, but it's all I could come up with." Jonas handed her the bowl and sat down next to her.
Frowning she looked into the beige plastic dish at the three lumps of vanilla ice cream and slices of dried banana draped around them. "Is that…"
"Supposed to be a banana split? Yes. I failed."
Alex threw he head back and laughed as she tucked her feet under her legs. It was one of the few sitting positions that here still halfway comfortable. "It looks really good, thank you. Can't believe you have a freezer in here!"
Jonas blushed slightly, picked up his own bowl and sat down on the couch next to her. Anna and Oliver had been on leave back on Earth for a week now and they wouldn't be back until next month, so it was just her and Jonas sitting in his small apartment, books spread out on the narrow coffee table in front of the massive window overlooking the ocean. It was late, way past their usual working hours, but they'd still had a lot to discuss.
The crystals which McKay had brought along had been encoded and only a week ago had he managed to crack that code, giving them access to the data stored on them. It seemed Ba'al had managed to access some of the database after all, but the information was split up upon several crystals and piecing them together would take months. A first look into the texts however had revealed that it was mostly a history of the alliance which had been formed in the Pegasus galaxy.
The Ancients and a splinter group of Nox had indeed settled here and the information itself was more than exciting. The language in Nox writing had more similarities to Goa'uld, and that in itself was more than interesting, and it had been the reason why it'd been so hard to decipher. Earth had lost contact with the Nox years ago, but this new revelation would soon lead the SGC to try and make contact with them once more.
And then there was that other race whom they'd encountered in this galaxy. By the looks of it those beings had approached the Ancients upon arrival, but had since been lost to them. They'd vanished with no trace but their writings on the steles and the databases on that planet. Or at least that was what Alex and Jonas had gathered thus far.
But right now they'd decided to put this project on hold. There was no trace of Zero Point Module technology in these information, so there was no pressure from McKay or the other physicists to keep digging deeper, and with Alex on maternity leave, they wouldn't have a full archaeological team to oversee off-world digs anyway, especially since Anna didn't really want to go off-world anymore.
"Are you okay?" Alex asked, picking up her spoon and starting to stir the cinnamon into the vanilla ice cream. Evan would love this, she thought, reminding herself to make this for him once they got home. "All in all?"
Jonas hesitated before answering, then he put his feet up to rest on the notebooks on the coffee table. "I am," he said with a nod and he turned his head to look at her. "Thank you for asking."
"Don't you want to take a few days off? Go to Earth or visit your people on Larsa?"
He shrugged and a shadow seemed to cross over his face, darkening his features. "Maybe another time." He'd been here since his arrival, taking days off occasionally, but never really expressing the wish to see something else. Things had been different when he'd been on Earth as a member of SGC.
"Okay," she said, picking up a bit of ice cream and dried banana. "Just let me know if you want a place to crash that's not under a mountain."
That made him smile. "I will." He was looking at her now, blue eyes glinting in the moonlight. "How about you? Are you alright?"
With a sigh, she patted her bump. It had taken some time, but since the gift he'd given her, she'd been more comfortable around him again. "I'm about ready to stop being this massive to be honest."
He laughed and shook his head. "Not what I meant, but okay." There was still that trace of sadness in his eyes and his smile didn't look entirely sincere, but she knew it wasn't because of her.
"What did you mean?"
Another short hesitation, which he masked by eating some of the ice cream. "Everything. You've never really talked about Johnson… I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to, but I was wondering… it must be bothering you."
She'd expected a sting, but it didn't come. She just sat there, turning her gaze towards the bowl in her hand as she felt her son kicking again. "It is," she admitted with a sigh, "and chances are there are more like her in the Milky Way at least. There are more Ba'als there, too. I mean, the Tok'ra claim they've captured them all, but I don't think I'll ever be able to believe it." She put the bowl down on the sofa and folded her hands on her massive stomach. Moving was difficult by now. Sitting itself was exhausting. Really, it was high time Caleb was born and she could start binding her own shoelaces again.
"What does Evan say?"
Alex shrugged. "We're on the same page there… and we decided to try and not let it bother us. There's nothing we can do about it anyway…" They'd decided on that a long time ago, but their resolution had been shaken more than once since then. "We just have to try and be good parents to this little bugger without letting what happened before influence how we raise him."
Jonas scoffed sceptically and, without announcing it, took her hand. His fingers were cool, but firm. There was nothing romantic in that gesture, but she felt how he tried boosting her confidence just by touching her. They'd become even closer in the previous months, which made this touch almost natural. Almost. He brushed his thumb over the back of her hand. "You've come so far. You'll do fine."
"So have you," she said quietly, squeezing his hand and looking at him again. There was a sombre expression in his eyes, his lips unsmiling as he returned her gaze. "You have."
He nodded once. "Maybe. But only because you guys let me tag along here… it's different from what it was like on Earth."
"I agree. Life at the SGC isn't bad, but only if you really get the chance to live off-base. And this base here is a lot nicer. The people are different too."
"Yeah… I'm still gonna miss you when you're on Earth." With a shrug, he picked up her bowl and placed it on the table. "May I?" he asked, stretching out his arms.
Alex didn't hesitate as she nodded and he moved closer, wrapping his arm around her shoulders securely. A few years ago this would have been unthinkable. She would have been too worried how this gesture of friendship would infuriate Evan. But it was what it was. She and Jonas were friends and they'd become even closer since he'd arrived here, especially since he'd become more open again. She leaned against him, her head resting on his shoulder. "You started seeing someone?" she asked tentatively. "Evan said something."
Jonas shrugged. "Lieutenant Rush."
"Oh, sexy. Does she have a first name, or do you just call her Lieutenant?"
"Ha…" he shook his head and let go of her. "No, her name's Amanda. She was a nurse at the SGC but was transferred here about half a year ago. But it was just dinner and…" he trailed off, folding his arms over his chest and looking out on the ocean again. "I…"
"You're not sure you're ready yet?"
He shrugged again and nodded. "Don't think I'll ever be."
She didn't know what to say to that. What would things have been like, had Evan died on that Hive? Or any other time he'd been in mortal danger? Would she ever have been able to start seeing someone again? Doubtful. She hadn't even managed to start dating again when they were broken up.
With a sigh, he leaned back and wiped his hands over his face. "But I want to be ready!"
Alex didn't laugh. She understood all too well what he meant. Clearing her throat, she stretched out her own legs so her right foot was touching his left. "When we lost Nora," she began, "I was sure I'd never want to try again. I was hurting so badly… and so was Evan."
"I know… I saw you."
"Yes, you did… and it nearly broke us… do you like this girl?"
Jonas didn't look to happy at the prospect, but he nodded again. "I don't know… she's attractive and clever, but it's not enough."
"If you don't feel comfortable, that's okay too."
"She's so unlike Amee," he said softly and it took Alex a moment to place the name. A name she'd never heard before. And then it hit her. His wife. Of course. He'd never spoken her name before. "And…" he trailed off once more, his voice choked. The soft glint of tears in his eyes made it hard for her to look at him. Before he'd been angry and distant. This was new.
"I'm sorry," was all she managed to say, the words sounding hollow in her own ears. They were said, because they were expected. And of course they were true, but they also didn't do any good.
Jonas wiped his face again, his lips twitching and without waiting another second, she put her arm around him and pulled him close. A shaking, quivering body against hers, as the tears finally fell. Alex swallowed hard, her mind racing with empty words as she held him and she felt his hot tears fall on her shoulder.
His arms encircled her, pressing her against him and Alex closed her eyes, allowing his pain to wash over her as well. She knew it. Knew what it was like to see everyone move on with their lives and feeling stuck. Feeling like nothing could ever be done to make the pain go away. And it never would. Not for him. And not for her.
A/N: Another Jonas scene I really needed to write. Sorry if this chapter felt a bit like a buffer, but there was so much that needed t get out. Hope that was okay for you? See you in the next chapter in which there will be a birth… and if that's not gonna be hard to write, then I don't know what will be.
