"Major Lorne," Dr. Weir said, and gestured to the chair in front of her desk, "Please."

As a means of preserving his own sanity, Lorne treated Dr. Weir's apparent suggestions and requests as if they were orders. The woman preferred to keep things informal, but she was the undisputed leader of the expedition, and Colonel Sheppard had made it abundantly clear to anyone who wasn't sure (practically spelling it out for the individuals among the rank and file who couldn't take a hint) that she was due all of the respect her position entailed, and that he'd come down like a ton of bricks on anybody who didn't take her seriously on account of either her civilian status or her apparently mild ways.

So Lorne came in and sat down, albeit in a casual kind of way.

Dr. Weir secretly loved strict order and chain of command, but preferred an atmosphere of informal relaxation. It had taken a little while for Lorne to acquire his balance around her, because she had very definite ideas of what was and what was not acceptable behavior, but they were quite different from what he was used to, and generally carefully concealed except when necessary because Dr. Weir was very conscious about the image she projected as a leader, and it was important to her that her people felt as if they were allowed to approach her if they were noticing something they thought needed reporting, or were otherwise experiencing difficulties. Even so, the standards to which she held her people were high. High, but ultimately fair.

"How are you feeling?" Dr. Weir asked, opening with pleasantries rather than her true reason for asking Lorne to come up to her office for a talk.

She undoubtedly knew the answer already.

Lorne had found that there was little which happened in Atlantis that Dr. Weir didn't know about. There was a regular meeting with the department heads where everyone was brought up to speed, but on the occasions when Lorne had sat in place of Sheppard while the Colonel was on a mission, he'd gotten the impression that Dr. Weir had heard everything already. It was more like refreshing her memory than bringing her new information. From experience, he knew that was because she visited her department heads, and that most of them came up to her office at the end of their shift at least once a week, especially if something important had come up. These were not formally scheduled meetings, but they were as regular as clockwork.

Thus it was safe to assume that she had spoken to Dr. Beckett late last night, at which time he would have mentioned -among other things- anyone he was taking off duty for medical reasons, or clearing for the same. He'd cleared Lorne for light duty some time ago, restricting him to Atlantis, but when he'd examined Lorne yesterday, Beckett had decided he was healthy enough to return to the field, so long as he was careful and avoided unnecessary exertion (whatever that might be).

"Doc says I'm good to go," Lorne replied, pretending this was news to Dr. Weir.

"That's good to hear," Dr. Weir said, but she was obviously distracted.

That she'd called him in had certainly come as a huge relief to Lorne.

Sitting around the infirmary had been mind numbing, but having to participate solely in light duty assignments bordered on degrading. It mostly consisted of answering calls from various departments for someone with the ATA gene to activate some piece of tech they'd found and were studying. It was exactly as exciting as standing by a light switch and turning it on and off on command… often for hours at a time. And then being called to come and do the same thing to another light switch in another room, all the while enduring the technobabble of people who were infinitely smarter than he was, and eager to prove it by saying things he didn't understand in increasingly dense jargon. Many civilians also seemed to get an unhealthy kick out of ordering around anyone in a uniform, which was when the assignments became especially humiliating.

A return to active duty status gave him back some measure of self respect. He'd still be getting some of those dismal assignments, just like everyone with the ATA gene did, but the fact that they weren't his only possible contribution to the functioning of Atlantis made him feel a lot better.

After a momentary pause, Dr. Weir said, "You're aware of Colonel Sheppard's current mission," it wasn't a question; she was actually telling Major Lorne her reason for calling him up to her office without saying it in as many words.

Dr. Weir knew Lorne kept tabs on all running operations, just like Sheppard himself did, even when he wasn't allowed to actively participate. It was something she'd learned about him, having initially assumed Lorne ignored anything outside his direct purview.

"I am," Lorne confirmed without hesitation.

"Major Dorsey just radioed in a few minutes ago," Dr. Weir informed him, "Colonel Sheppard's team missed a scheduled check-in."

Dorsey knew as well as anyone that Sheppard often failed to report in on time. If he was saying Sheppard had missed a check-in, that meant Dorsey had probably not only waited five or ten minutes, he had tried radioing Sheppard, and then the rest of the team, possibly person by person, himself and gotten no response. Dr. Weir knew that too.

She wouldn't say what she was thinking. Not yet. It was too early for that. But Lorne knew she was thinking that Sheppard's team was in trouble. He'd had this conversation with Dr. Weir many times, and he'd learned that she expected him to react as if he was as concerned as she was, while at the same time showing outward calm. It was a good trick to pull off, since he wasn't worried yet, and it was hard to feign veiled concern when he was actually unworried. But it was what Dr. Weir wanted now, so he would do his best at it... which admittedly wasn't very well.

"They are in an Ancient structure," Lorne pointed out, knowing full well how Weir would react, but knowing also that he was expected to say something and it was all he could think of at the moment, "Reception can get a little sketchy in places like that."

"I'm aware of that, Major," Dr. Weir said, but there wasn't as hard an edge to her voice as there had been on earlier occasions when Lorne had made such a blasé statement.

She understood him pretty well by now, knew he wasn't as careless as he sounded, and trusted that he would treat any assignment she gave him (officially or unofficially) with utmost seriousness, regardless of his personal feelings about it.

These days, Lorne usually had a good idea what Dr. Weir wanted from him before she even asked. But the phrasing this time caught him off-guard.

"I want you to prep a team. I want to give Col. Sheppard a little while longer to check-in, but I also want a team ready to go looking for him in case he doesn't, or to back him up if he needs more than Dorsey's team out there. Especially since that team will have to take another jumper."

Normally, she chose Lorne's team by name for a mission of this variety. But she was leaving it up to him to suggest a team now, which she was likely to approve unless his suggestion was incredibly outrageous. It was a small privilege, but one she normally reserved for Sheppard. It was also a subtle indication that she didn't want Lorne's team for the mission for some reason but didn't want to say as much. Only too clearly, Lorne remembered his conversation with Colonel Sheppard right after his most recent mission, making him wonder if the privilege of making a suggestion in this instance was meant to dull the sting of insult at not being chosen for it.

He decided that now was the time to pretend to be thicker than he actually was, to try and spare Dr. Weir the thought that she'd hurt his feelings (a concern which shouldn't be entering into it), while at the same time testing to see if she was willing to trust him as she had before this latest fiasco.

"My team's good to go, Dr. Weir," Lorne said, as if there was the slightest possibility she didn't already know, "My team hasn't been on a mission since I was injured, and Col. Sheppard already approved a replacement for West, so we're a full team again."

Dr. Weir dropped her gaze for just a fraction of an instant, at which point Lorne knew that the delicate way wasn't going to cut it and he would have to be more direct.

"Yes, I'm aware of that, Major," she said, looking across the desk at him again, "But, considering what you endured on your previous visit to the planet in question, it would be unfair to send you back."

"With all due respect, Ma'am," Lorne replied, cautiously but unflinchingly meeting her eyes, "This is my job."

Serving under Colonel Edwards, Lorne had learned a lot of things, though not typically from the Colonel himself. One of the things Lorne had learned was that he wasn't exactly the brightest bulb in the string. He might have thought that once, but his first off-world mission had taken a large bite out of Lorne's high opinion of himself. He'd gotten a rude dose of reality, more than he'd been prepared for, and it had taught him some serious lessons about humility. It didn't bother him much that he wasn't the smartest guy in the room, that wasn't his job. And he didn't waste a lot of time wishing he was smarter.

Of course, not everything he'd learned on that mission had proven useful to him here. Having become semi-fluent in the language of the Unas, as well as being passably versed in their culture before he -as part of Colonel Edwards' team- had been reassigned to a new mission, for example, had done him no good whatsoever since he'd come to Atlantis, and he didn't expect it to.

But that first off-world mission had taught him to be somewhat philosophical about things which were hard or unpleasant. Not only had that particular mission held moments of mortal terror, and also death, it had included about three months of consistent failure. Three months of supervising a mining operation that seemed unlikely to ever get far enough off the ground (or more accurately into the ground) to have been worth all the effort, and listening passively to the increasing frustration of his CO while at the same time trying to keep the men under him from getting discouraged.

That mission had taught Lorne tremendous patience, long before it had taught him anything else. Those three months had been the start of what proved to be a highly unpleasant year serving under the hard-bitten and largely humorless Colonel Edwards, who had been cantankerous with his equals and even his superiors (and this was at the best of times), and often unreasonably demanding of his subordinates. As the Colonel's second, Lorne had been required to support his CO in all things, even when he disagreed, and had been the firewall between the Colonel and his men whenever Edwards got angry or frustrated… which was quite often. It had been a miserably hard job, one Lorne did not miss for an instant. When he tested positive for the ATA gene and was given the opportunity to be reassigned to Atlantis, Lorne couldn't have been more thrilled to have been sent to a completely different galaxy from his former CO, even though he hadn't known in advance what sort of position he would have on Atlantis or what his new CO might be like.

He'd known without doubt that anything would be better than serving under Edwards, and being in another galaxy from the ill-tempered colonel altogether was just about far enough away to suit Lorne's preference. Being given his own team to command was a great and unexpected bonus. Getting assigned as second-in-command of the military operations on Atlantis was more than he'd ever expected.

Having bosses he actually dared to like was beyond anything Lorne could have imagined. Dr. Weir was very smart, and she was also very good at reading people, weighing and measuring them with just a look or a few words. And she knew Lorne wasn't saying that it was specifically his job to go after Sheppard every time the Colonel was late reporting in. That was the least of it.

He was the second in military rank for Atlantis. He was the leader of one of Atlantis' most versatile teams. That team had heretofore been the first choice of both Weir and Sheppard as backup, especially in tenuous situations that might call for negotiation or shooting or both at any given moment. At the end of the day, Lorne's job was to protect and serve the needs of Atlantis to the best of his ability. But he could only do that if his bosses would let him.

Dr. Weir knew that too, and said with a sigh, "And you think I should trust you enough to let you do it."

"Dr. Weir," Lorne said genuinely, "I would never tell you what your job is," he offered her just the slightest bit of an amused look before adding, "Only what mine is."

Letting his bosses know what he could and could not do without making them look bad was more or less a part of his job, one that was getting easier all the time.

"You know," Dr. Weir told him, "I'm normally not very fond of passive aggression from other people," she paused, and Lorne wondered for a half-second if she was actually annoyed with him before she sighed and concluded, "But it works for you. You have a Go, Major."

With a nod, Lorne replied, "Thank you, Ma'am."

Sheppard failed to check-in within the time limit Dr. Weir set, and so Lorne's team was deployed in a jumper. Though Lorne's team had a new member, Lorne remained the only man on the team with an ATA gene, making him the only pilot. But he wasn't worried. Sheppard's team had two people with the ATA gene, and Dorsey's had three and so did one of the people on McKay's research team.

Not that Lorne planned to get stranded, severely injured or killed, but he always had to take into account his value on a given mission. In this case, he was imminently replaceable as the jumper's pilot, a status he much preferred as it gave him more freedom to act.

He parked the jumper next to the one Dorsey's team was guarding.

"I guess you know Sheppard's orders stand," Lorne informed the unhappy looking Dorsey, "You and your team stay here. Only now you've got two jumpers to keep an eye on."

"You only brought your team?" Dorsey asked uneasily.

"Busy day in Atlantis," Lorne replied cheerfully, "Dr. Weir wanted to send help, and only one team could be spared sooner rather than later."

"Then at least take two of my guys as backup," Dorsey insisted, "We haven't seen anything out here in hours, and can easily take cover in the jumpers if it comes to that. You're headed into Lord knows what, with just the four of you and whatever may be left of Sheppard's team."

"Until I see otherwise, I'm assuming the Colonel's team is a hundred percent intact," Lorne said fiercely, then he relented, mostly out of sympathy, "But I'll take you and Janko," Janko was the only member of Dorsey's team who didn't have the gene and -despite being the team leader- Dorsey was the least skilled pilot, so that made them the logical picks, "Have one of your guys in each jumper, ready to take off if they need to."

"Yes sir," Dorsey replied.

Though they were both majors, Lorne had seniority and held a position above Dorsey in the Atlantis chain of command. Besides that, Dorsey was a go with the flow kind of guy, good at his job but not remarkably so, and self-aware enough to realize it.

When he'd first been assigned to Atlantis, Lorne had some trouble with other team leaders who were his equals in rank because they felt they held seniority as they'd been in Atlantis longer, but Dorsey wasn't one of them. With Dorsey, the trouble only started if you made him babysit members of the geek squad. So long as he was providing backup to another team or escorting medical personnel, he was typically good as gold.

Back when he'd served under Colonel Edwards, Lorne had frequently been assigned as point guard, a habit that he had never broken. However, Reed had his back on that one, or more accurately his front, and would nudge his way into the point position unobtrusively unless Lorne ordered otherwise. It was generally frowned on for a team leader to routinely purposely put themselves in the spot where they could most easily be taken out. It was their job to coordinate and give orders, and they couldn't do that if they were dead. Lorne knew that, but sometimes he had trouble thinking of himself as a leader.

He preferred to think he was just doing his job.

"Huh," was Reed's grunted comment when they reached the ridge overlooking the Temple.

Lorne climbed up to join him. In the dying light of the rapidly setting sun, the Temple almost looked more like a sleeping dragon than anything man-made. Which seemed to be because the top part was Ancient-made. It took Lorne a second to realize that there was actually a man-made structure wrapped around the Ancient building like a protective shield.

"Weird," Lorne remarked, and immediately started down the other side of the ridge.

This was partly because he'd seen stranger things, but primarily because he'd learned that the sight of alien structures had a way of unnerving men if they stood around gazing at them for too long. Besides which, he knew the team had at once taken in the open ground between here and the Temple, and he didn't want to give fear of that exposed place the opportunity to take root.

In the near-darkness, they would be difficult for anyone to spot, so there wasn't much reason to worry, even though they were not carrying night-vision equipment of their own on this one, so they would have to turn on flashlights if they wanted to see better, which would give them away before they had a chance to look around. Moving fast under the cover of dusk was their best way of avoiding being noticed. If Lorne took the time to talk all that out, they'd be into true nightfall, which was actually easier to see in than dusk. The men at his back were experienced enough to figure it out on their own later, if they hadn't already.

Wordlessly, Reed climbed down alongside Lorne, reclaiming the point position only once his leader confirmed via gesture that they were headed right for those steps at the front of the Temple.

They approached the Temple without incident, whereupon Lorne arranged the group so they would be well-spaced going up the stairs. If things went sideways, spreading out would allow them to better aid one another, and also reduce the chances of all of them coming under fire at once.

As it turned out, Lorne needn't have bothered. They made it up the stairs and into the first room of the Ancient building without encountering any trouble. That in itself made Lorne a bit uneasy. Experience had taught him that it was better to know who or what you were facing right away than to have to wonder.

Once they had achieved the cover of the building and secured the room, Lorne stopped and tried to radio Sheppard. He didn't expect a response, nor did he receive one.

"It's never that easy," Dorsey remarked, though if he'd had charge of the team, he would have done the same thing and they both knew that.

"Someday it might be," Lorne said, turning on the light attached to his P90 in preparation for going down hallways that wouldn't allow even moonlight to enter, "One can always hope."

The rest of the team followed suit, clicking on their lights and blinking as their eyes adjusted.

"Looks like we've got multiple choices," Dorsey remarked, aiming his light at three different open doors, "They all look about the same to me."

"You and Janko stay," Lorne said, "Keep an eye out, but remember our people are in there, so don't start shooting until you're sure of your target."

Dorsey gave Lorne a withering look, saying without speaking that this wasn't his first rodeo, and that he didn't care for being left behind (again). But Lorne couldn't help that. If Janko or Dorsey happened to accidentally shoot one of Sheppard's team, somebody would ask what orders Lorne left them with. On account of the conditions under which they often worked, it wasn't all that unusual to give, hear or carry out a 'shoot anything that moves' order. Lorne didn't want to split the team into pairs, which he would have to do if they were to check all three tunnels at once. But he also didn't want to leave unexplored tunnels behind him without anyone to watch them. Leaving Dorsey and Janko to watch those tunnels was the only thing that made sense, and Dorsey knew it. If the roles were reversed, Dorsey would do the same thing. But that didn't mean he was happy about it.

Sheppard not infrequently brought Lorne's team along and then left them watching the 'Gate, or guarding some entrance or keeping another area secure, so Lorne knew how Dorsey felt. It was boring work, and generally made the recipients of such assignments feel left out, but somebody had to do it. But Lorne also knew that it didn't actually matter how any of them felt, they still had to do their jobs.

"Coughlin, take point," Lorne said, deciding that Reed had had enough of that position for the moment, but knowing Reed wouldn't willingly let Lorne himself take it, "But be careful. Just because we've lost touch with a team doesn't mean they're in trouble. We don't want to be shooting at our own guys. But, if they have been taken out by someone or something, we don't want to be next either."