A/N: We have arrived! This is the very last part of the last chapter. Fear not, though, because the next installment is about 3/4 ready by now. It's a little more complex so I want to finish it fully before publishing (so I can go back and verify the cohesion) but hopefully it won't be that long now.
I want to thank you all again for reading and commenting. It really means the world to me.
Chapter 20, part 2.
After the workout, Alice went back to her room to take another shower, and finally ended up at the chow hall where she usually had breakfast with Jake. He didn't disappoint—he came by just a few minutes after she did, still sleepy and yawning. Alice greeted him cheerfully and for a moment they simply sat at the table, just bantering and playfully bickering about something unimportant.
"You're right chipper this morning," Jake noted after a while.
"Am I?" She hid a smirk. He wasn't wrong—she felt better than she had in weeks or even months. Since before Jareth, she realized.
"That vacation must have done you a lot of good," he guessed and Alice nodded. Yes, that was part of it; it had given her some respite, a relief from constant worry, and a look back at what real life was like; but it was far from the only reason.
"I can't even begin to tell you how awesome it was to go back home for a while," she agreed. "Mom was upset she couldn't get us both at the same time, but alas. At least you may get a chance to be there when she begins her big exhibit. She told you about that?"
"Yeah, she mentioned it in her last e-mail. She also said something about your new admirer?" He cast her a suggestive look and for a moment she felt panicked—how the hell did mom know about Karim? And then she remembered another incident that she could have been referring to and laughed.
"Oh, yes! That was definitely a lost connection," she joked and then shook her head. "Jodie's fiancé's brother tried to hit on me at Jodie's engagement party. I tried to let him down gently." She grinned.
"I don't doubt you did." He chuckled. "And how's Aaron? What's the Sarah situation?"
The reminder made her sigh. "I am not sure. She wasn't there—she was in New York turning a new movie."
"She left him alone with the kid?"
"Not that Aaron complained, he very obviously worships the ground Ike… crawls on." She smiled at the memory. "But he is feeling lonely. It's as you said, it's been on the rocks for a long time, but he's starting to finally see it. And Sarah's disconnect from Ike only makes it easier. Although on that score I think I gave him a bit to think about." And she explained her concern that Sarah might have been suffering from the postnatal depression.
"You give her too much credit," Jake dismissed it. "It's in her nature to be a cold bitch."
"Jacob!" She protested.
"I've never liked her," he confessed, shrugging. "I think she only wanted to use Aaron as leverage to raise her own profile."
"I disagree. I just think they weren't ready for a child—or rather, she wasn't ready. Aaron seems more in his element in all of it. I mean, he's there day and night—he schedules his days to never be away from Ike for more than five or six hours."
"He's committed, I'll give him that."
"And what's been going on here?" She asked, reaching out for a water bottle to take a sip.
"Oh, not much… just the biggest damn space battle since the Asurans went out," he answered casually, a twinkle in his eye.
Alice almost spat the water out. "What?!"
"Yeah, you missed it by three days… right after you left we got intel that a large meeting of Hives in the alliance was going to happen, twenty-three ships in total, plus cruisers."
"Twenty-three ships? All in one place?" She shook her head in disbelief.
"Yeah, it piqued our interest, to say the least. But we only had the Daedalus and the Apollo in the galaxy, the Hammond was halfway back to Milky Way, the Odyssey on Earth, and you know of course that Sun Tzu and Gagarin are still both in the dry-dock."
"Two ships against twenty-three? That's some long odds if I've ever seen any."
"We've recalled the Hammond, of course, but there was no guarantee it would be back in time. Nevertheless, Sheppard and Woolsey felt that it was the kind of opportunity that we couldn't just pass by."
"Let me guess, we went shopping for allies?" There was no other way. Even with the Hammond, no commander in their right mind would mount an attack against such an armada as the Wraith were going to gather.
"Bingo!" Jake nodded and stole a few grapes from Alice's tray. She rolled her eyebrows and then urged him on with a gesture of her hand. "Everybody in this galaxy is past the breaking point by now. The Wraith are on a real rampage, so it wasn't even that difficult, from what I understand. Sheppard got the Travelers to commit six ships—they're not very powerful, but it's something. Lorne convinced the Vareans to lend us another two—"
"I didn't know the Vareans had ships!" Alice interrupted him, surprised.
"They're not hyperspace-worthy, but McKay and Zelenka managed to install our spare hyperspace engine from Daedalus on one of them and a retrofitted Wraith one on another, and they have pretty decent firepower. The Vareans weren't willing to risk their own people, though, so our troops manned the ships. Nevertheless, two ships is better than nothing, even without the crew. The Vareans decided to trust us after we'd cured that guy of theirs—that's your handiwork, right?"
Alice waved her hand dismissively. "So we had two of our battlecruisers, six Traveler ships, and two Varean ones—ten against twenty-three is still not enough. Who else?"
"The Wraith," Jake revealed and grinned seeing Alice's baffled expression. "Sheppard reached out to Todd—the one implicated in the Super-Hive affair, remember?" She nodded, so he went on: "Todd is… well, you know as well as I do. Sometimes he's working with us, sometimes against us, but he's no friend to the big alliance. He managed to convince a few Queens who had been on the run from them that this was their best shot at getting rid of the competition, and thus delivered seven Hive ships."
"Nice," Alice said appreciatively. "Seventeen doesn't sound that bad anymore. Was there anyone else?"
"No, but we rolled all our F-302s and every last Jumper. We don't have that many pilots so I got to fly one in the battle, too. If you were there, I'm sure you'd be at the brunt of the attack…"
Alice nodded. That was obvious, but more than bemoaning a wasted opportunity, she was interested in learning what happened.
"Well, we got there all at once and bam! The intel proved right. They were all there, just hanging around. We started blasting them the moment we came out of the hyperspace. All the fighters and Jumpers were launched, too, and our main job was to keep the Darts off the Travelers' and Vareans' ships, their shields being subpar in comparison to our BC-304s." Jake was now growing more somber as he spoke. "It was real tough battle, I tell ya. Nothing like I've ever seen. My Jumper got a few good scratches, I have to admit, but I got a couple kills of my own. I gotta say, sis, I never really appreciated just how hard your job was before that. Flying those things in a straight line is hard enough, but flying, aiming those damned drones, and avoiding being hit at the same time?" He shook his head. "I'm never gonna make fun of you again, I promise. We could've used you out there."
"You should've recalled me," she agreed.
"There was no time, really. We've spent every moment gathering support and organizing." He shrugged.
"So how did it end?" She prompted after a beat.
He grimaced. "Not in the blaze of glory, I'm afraid. When it got heated, half of Todd's Hives fled the field and jumped off into hyperspace. We lost one of the Varean ships with all crew, and the other one was seriously banged up, many people wounded. The Travelers got hit the worst; they lost three ships, and other two were almost out of commission by the time the battle ended. Apollo got hit pretty bad and was venting atmosphere for a while, but they plugged it up. Daedalus lost its shields and hyperdrive and was about to get killed dead when the Hammond appeared—in the nick of time, as they say."
"And the Wraith?"
"Seven dead and gone, two more disabled—we had to give them to Todd, that was part of the agreement—and the rest run away when Hammond came. They were all pretty banged up, too."
Alice nodded soberly. "So not a mortal blow, but we bled them good."
"Yeah, but we gave a lot of our own blood, too. There were twelve people aboard the Varean ship that went up, two more got sucked out into the vacuum on the Apollo, and we lost three Jumpers and seven 302s. Plus nearly thirty of the Travelers."
Alice shook her head slowly. So many people… who were they? Did she know them? She must have. She knew every single person in the Atlantis expedition and most of the BC-304's crews. And the 302 drivers… she had been one of them once, trained with them, flew with them. What if one of those lost was Archer?
"Do you know names?" She asked quietly, looking down at her tray, nearly empty by now.
"I can't give you the full roster off the top of my head, but you know… lots of good guys. And gals," he hastened to add, though Alice couldn't care less about misogyny in his language at the moment. "There was a ceremony to add their names to the memorial, you can check there."
The memorial was a recent addition in the City: one of the walls of the Gate Room had been covered in tiny wooden plates, painted blood red, with the names of every member of the expedition who had lost their life since they had stepped through the Gate to Atlantis so many years ago. It was Woolsey's idea, one that everyone quietly appreciated, for there was no one in the City who hadn't lost a friend or colleague. The plates were manufactured by the Lacronans on the mainland in recognition of the Atlantians' continued support to the growing settlement.
Alice took Jake's advice and went to check the memorial straight after breakfast. She stood in front of the black wall, reading the golden letters slowly, each name bringing a memory of a face and a voice to her mind. Thirty-one people lost at once—that had to be some kind of record. Atlantis expedition was leaking blood all the time, but usually not as much in a single day, or even week or month. She had to admit, however, that she felt a great sense of relief not finding Archer's name on a plate. Or Espinoza's, she had to admit. But Allen, her old backseater from her stint on the Prometheus was there, and Fiona Trove, with whom she had shared a room on the battlecruiser. Alice remembered that Fiona had a small child—probably more people who had perished did. It put a significant damper on her mood.
Seven destroyed Hive ships and two more disabled—not counting all the cruisers and Darts—was not an insignificant victory, but was it worth it? She didn't know how people in charge—Woolsey and Sheppard—did that. How did you look at the odds and decide: yes, we will risk it, even if we know it will cost us dearly? How did you send people into a battle knowing that some of them wouldn't come back? Alice was used to sending people into danger by now, but it was different when they were only risking their lives but still had a good chance of coming back unscathed. Even after amassing a fleet of seventeen ships, they had been six vessels short of making it an even number with how many the Wraith had had. Woolsey and Sheppard knew they'd be losing people, the only question had been how many. How did anyone ever make that kind of decision? How did they decide some casualties were acceptable? And how could they live with themselves knowing that there were thirty-one souls now on their conscience?
Not that Alice was questioning their decision. Nine Hive ships were out of the race, and who knew how many Wraiths had been aboard; for sure the number was in hundreds. They would never feed on a single human being again, and therefore many thousands lives might have been spared. Losing nine ships was a big blow to the Wraith alliance, too. They had more—the twenty-three that the Atlantis-led attack had hit was only a part of the total number of allied Hives—but it couldn't be denied that it tore a hole in their ranks. It was a win, for sure—but a bloody one.
Alice lingered at the memorial for a while before moving on to officially report to Perrault and, afterwards, McKay, and finally pick up her normal duties. The entire expedition seemed to be in low spirits, which Alice ascribed to the loss of life in the space battle. It wasn't until late at night, back at Karim's room, when she learned that there was another reason.
"They wanna replace Woolsey?" She repeated after Karim, propping herself up on her arm to look at him, appalled. They were lying on his bed, just lazying around, catching up on what had been happening over the past two weeks. Karim spent some of this time in the infirmary and so obviously he didn't take part in the battle, but he knew what was going on.
He nodded gravely. "They've been looking for an excuse for a while. And now, they found it. They say he took full responsibility for how the battle went—told the IOA pukes it was his decision and that Sheppard had been against it."
"Had he been?"
"I don't know, I wasn't there," he reminded her. "But I seriously doubt it. He wouldn't let Woolsey commit that many people if he didn't think it was worth it. Woolsey's a good soldier, though, he knew his position here was tenuous at best, knew they would just continue to look for excuses to get rid of him and would eventually find one, if not this, then something else. So he took it all on himself and they jumped at the occasion."
Alice shook her head and dropped back onto a pillow, exhaling loudly. "And he was just starting to get almost life-like!" She joked, but rather half-heartedly. The truth was, she couldn't quite imagine this place without Woolsey. He had been such a fixture… always in his office or in the operations center when they went out for missions and always there when they returned, or at least so it seemed. Alice never knew another commander—he had already been the leader of the Atlantis expedition for over a year when she came on. It seemed like there was a curse on the position—nobody could stay in it for too long, although Woolsey had already outlasted both previous commanders.
"Everybody is a little bummed about it," Karim continued after a short pause. "And not a little concerned about who they're gonna pick to replace him. If it's one of those IOA twits…"
He didn't need to finish; Alice quite agreed. She let out a frustrated groan and rolled over to her side to look at him again. He was laying on his back, head on his crossed hands, and his face was smooth and composed as usual; but he was talking more than he had ever spoken in her presence, which was nice enough, she thought. The fact that he was completely naked under the comforter didn't hurt, too. She couldn't help herself—she reached out with her hand and started tracing the jagged scar on his clavicle. It was her handiwork and she felt really bad about it, even though he had laughed her off, saying that with his two hits on her arm and calf, they were even. Still, a flesh wound was quite a different thing than a shattered bone. Not for the first time, she wondered who had put him back together, but she didn't ask.
They didn't speak for a while, Alice studying the scar in great detail, committing it to memory. She knew he was looking at her and when she peeked at him, she saw his eyes on her face, the old penetrating gaze that seemed to pierce right inside her skull.
"What are you thinking about?" She asked, the corner of her lip twitching. It felt good to be able to ask, finally; she had so often wondered what was going through his mind when he stared at her so.
"Marveling," he answered curtly. She made a face at him and he smiled and continued: "About you. That you're here. Hasn't hit yet."
She rolled her eyes. "And here I was thinking you were always so super-confident."
"I know my worth on the battlefield," he replied musingly. "I'm damn good at what I do and that is a major point of pride. But outside of it… not so much." He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "I'm not particularly bright, or sociable, or fun to be around."
"I beg to differ." She impulsively leaned in and planted a soft kiss on the bare skin of his shoulder. "You are very bright and I love to be around you. You may be right about not being too sociable, but then again, neither am I."
His eyes flicked back to her. "You didn't always feel that way about me, though," he stated. "At the beginning, you were hardly speaking to me, and always looking away…"
She laughed. "You noticed, huh? I admit, I felt pretty uncomfortable with you at first. You have a certain air about you…" She waved her hand to indicate his entire person. "You wear your mask of serenity all the time, but your eyes… they're like two black holes. I always feel like you're seeing straight into my soul when you look at me."
"I wish." He smiled and there was genuine warmth in it now. "I'd love to know what's going on in your brain at all time, though I'd probably not understand most of it," he teased. "Don't get me wrong, you wear your emotions on your sleeve, but you keep your feelings pretty close to vest. I had no idea you had any inkling toward me until last night when you barged in and made it apparent—and thank god for that!" He shook his head. "Otherwise I'd still be stuck in my own arse."
Alice chuckled. "Well I'm glad you think so." She paused for a beat, and then added sweetly: "I know it sounds corny, but—I'm really happy to be here with you right now."
He didn't respond to that—not with words, anyway, though his feelings on the matter were made quite clear to her in the course of the night. He really did let his actions speak for himself.
The official announcement didn't come until almost a week later, though the rumors grew so wild that at one point Alice heard even General O'Neill himself would be coming to lead the Atlantis expedition. Of course, the idea was preposterous—a three-star general had no business heading an outpost of three hundred people, most of them civilian scientists, six million light years away from the Pentagon. Alice put little stock in the gossip that Carter was going back, too. The colonel had the command of the George Hammond and it didn't look like she was going to hand it over to anyone else anytime soon, although, Alice had to admit, her recent mad dash and last minute heroic rescue of the Atlantian fleet during the battle with the Wraith alliance might have scored her enough points to endear her to the IOA.
There were too many people in Atlantis to gather everyone, so only department heads and team leaders had been invited to the actual announcement by Woolsey himself. Alice waited with Karim and Cooper for Perrault to come back in one of the break rooms, playing chess with Will while Karim watched. She had just check-mated him the third time in a row when Perrault finally entered and, with a sigh, dropped onto one of the armchairs.
"Well?" Cooper prompted him immediately, but he had to wait; the commandant got himself a can of soda from the nearby mini-fridge and didn't speak until after taking a big gulp.
"Mr. Woolsey is out," he confirmed, though everybody already knew that. "He thanks all of you for your service, dedication, and loyalty, and impresses upon you that you should be kind to the next commander."
"And that will be…" Cooper waved his hands in a go on! gesture.
"A man named Matthew Cox." Perrault took another sip of his soda. "He is a brigadier general in your Air Force."
"I know Matthew Cox!" Alice exclaimed, and all three heads turned to her. "I've met him, what, seven years ago, just after I joined the Program. He was heading the entire 302 training scheme and I think he was the leader of the 302 McMurdo contingent. I didn't know he was promoted to general."
"Well! And what did you think of him?" Perrault seemed as interested as the other two.
"I remember him as a good commander," Alice replied thoughtfully. "He was very level-headed, although he had his higher pressure moments." She smiled at the memory of Cox blowing off after her instructor had cut her off in her third or fourth flight in an F-302 and she had managed to reboot the machine on the fly, surprising everyone since they hadn't known that was possible. He had been angry at her instructor, though, not at her; she remembered that he had praised her then. "An experienced guy, very measured and straight-forward, will tell you the thing exactly as it is—the good and the bad. I didn't really know him all that well, he was four ranks and twenty-five years my senior we, didn't really spend any time together outside official duties. But I had a rather favorable impression of him on the whole."
"Well, that doesn't sound half-bad," Perrault said appreciatively.
"I am surprised the IOA didn't put in one of their own for the position," Cooper commented, and Alice had to agree. She had been almost sure that they would push another bureaucrat, someone worse than Woolsey—who, on the whole, had turned out to be a decent guy and not a bad commander.
"They are citing errors in judgment regarding military strategy as the official reason for dismissing Woolsey," Perrault explained. "And with the Wraith alliance looming out there, they don't have an excuse for choosing another civilian."
"I'm surprised they didn't give it to Sheppard," Alice put in offhandedly. "It's high time he got a rank bump."
"They tried," Perrault affirmed, surprising all of them. "He refused the position, though not the promotion. He's supposed to go to Earth for a certification from your Air War College?" The intonation made it a question and he looked questioningly at Alice.
"Really? Had he been taking any classes while here?" Alice was surprised. "I know he's a pretty smart guy, but honestly, I've never seen him study."
"What do you mean?" Cooper asked curiously. "Why would he be taking classes?"
"You have to complete additional education at the Air War College to get promoted to the rank of full-bird colonel," Alice explained. "It's a ten-month course if done in person, though you can do it via CD and correspondence, too, but it usually takes up to two years then. It's considered a de facto requirement for the promotion, although there have been cases where it had been waived."
"So what does it mean that Sheppard is going to get certification?"
Alice spread her hands helplessly. "Apparently, he's been doing the course. I don't see how else would he be able to get certified at the AWC."
"I had no idea officers still have to like, study and stuff," Cooper admitted. "It's weird, isn't it?"
"No, why would it be?" Alice shook her head. "If you want to have more responsibility and a broader role, of course it makes sense that you should be provided some education on how to do it. Moving up the ranks until captain is pretty easy—just do your job and don't fall out of line and you're virtually guaranteed a promotion every two years. Jumping from captain to major is not as simple, though—you have to complete the Squadron Officer School and meet eligibility criteria, including your Time In Service, Time in Grade, and a good mark on your OPR—and each subsequent step requires more professional learning and has higher criteria to meet."
"Really? And did you do the Squadron School classes?" Will asked curiously.
"Yeah, I completed it before I finished AFIT. I figured it wouldn't hurt, and there was a slot open—it's a six-week in-residence course. You can do it online, too, but you have to have minimum of seven years TIS and I didn't have it then."
"And now you are ready to be promoted?" Cooper grinned at her.
She smiled back, but her eyes flickered to Karim's composed face for a second. "Technically, under the current schedule, I won't be eligible for the promotion until I've had at least nine years of TIS, there's still a few months left." Not that it mattered all that much to her anymore—she wasn't planning on staying in the uniform for longer than a year afterwards, anyway. She restrained the urge to look at Karim again, or to shake her head in disbelief. The fact that she contemplated leaving the service was baffling. Not so long ago she would have laughed at the mere idea. She decided to redirect the discussion away from herself. "At any rate, it's high time for Sheppard to get the full-bird, I think, however he's getting it."
"Hear, hear." Cooper nodded. "Pity he didn't want the job, though."
"Oh, I don't know," she replied musingly. "I mean, I'm sure he'd be a good expedition leader, but I can understand why he didn't want it. It may be a bit unusual compared to a similar position on Earth, but it is a desk job more than anything else. I wouldn't want that for myself either."
"At least not until we haven't got rid of the Wraith," Perrault agreed. "And so General Cox is coming instead. Apparently he's bringing a staff with him."
"Staff? What staff?" William asked, bewildered.
"Woolsey didn't say, so that's all I know."
"An XO, perhaps?" Alice wondered. "Or a first sergeant? Though that would be a little redundant in our situation…"
"You've lost me again," Cooper complained.
"An Executive Officer is usually a company grade officer who serves as a staff administrative assistant to a commander of a squadron or above," Alice explained for the benefit of them all; Perrault and Karim may have been military, but being from different countries they were probably unaware of such specificities as well. "A first sergeant is usually a master sergeant whose job is to look after the morale, welfare and conduct of the enlisted personnel, and to directly advise the commander in all things concerning them. But on Atlantis we have almost as many officers as enlisted people, and it seems like a first sergeant would be an overkill."
"Whichever it is, it seems like Cox has his own idea how to run this place," Perrault noted and they all agreed.
"You know what this means, though?" Alice asked later that night, lying on her sofa wrapped in a blanket and Karim's arms. "The relaxed military protocol we've been so used to around here might have to be redressed. Cox is not a man that would appreciate the loose atmosphere we've got going on. Woolsey might have been stuck up in his own way, but he was a civilian."
"You're saying that this thing that we have might become even harder," Karim acknowledged soberly.
"Yeah. I mean, I think we're doing a good job in public—I may have to work a little harder at it than you—" she puffed, a momentary frustration bubbling up in her, but it disappeared as quickly as it came "—but, all in all, I don't think anyone suspects anything. But we have to find a better way to meet. I actually have an idea." She scrambled to sit up and he helped her. She turned around to face him and continued: "If we continue meeting at one of our rooms, someone is bound to notice, if not in real life than by looking at the footage from cameras all over the damn place."
"You're suggesting a secondary meeting spot?"
"Yes. This City is huge, we can find a cozy room somewhere where people don't normally go."
"Wouldn't that attract more attention, though?"
Alice nodded. "That's why I'm gonna hack the system." She smirked, seeing his raised eyebrows. "We'll use the transporters. I'll program the sensors to become blind to the single passage from a specific transporter to our room, and I'll disable the cameras there, too. It won't look suspicious, there are quite a few areas where those are still not working after some of the beat-up the City had been through over the years. We may even use one of those, if we find it convenient. And so when we go there, we'll effectively disappear from anyone's view—but we'll still be just a few yards from the transporter, so if someone calls for us over the radio, we'll be back within a couple minutes."
"What if there's another City-wide blackout or quarantine?"
"We can always say we were exploring the City. Or I can fabricate some sort of energy spike that I wanted to investigate and asked you to accompany me for safety." She grinned.
"Very creative," he praised, giving her a crooked smile. "Will it work?"
She sighed. "We'll wait and see."
Cox arrived the next day, with a couple crates full of stuff and a young, harassed-looking officer in tow. Almost the entire expedition had come to see the new commander, crowding near the Gate, on the stairs, and at the operations center level. Woolsey and Sheppard, and Sheppard's team, met him at the Gate and exchanged the first formal greeting. Alice stood on the landing of the stairs, so she couldn't hear what they were talking about, but she had a good vantage point to ogle them to her heart's contentment.
Cox hadn't changed much. He had always been rather short, but he looked minuscule standing next to Ronon—even though he towered over Teyla. Alice thought he looked a little stockier than he had when she'd seen him last, but that may have been the angle or the uniform. His hair was visibly thinner, but still dark blonde, without a single gray strand. Alice couldn't see them from where she stood, but she remembered he had rather pretty hazel eyes.
The young officer he had brought with him was a couple years younger than Alice, but also a captain, judging by her epaulettes. She was an inch or two shorter than Cox, slim, almost willowy, with olive skin and thick, dark brown hair twisted into a braid and pinned into a bun above her neck. She was wearing a service dress uniform and carrying a briefcase that didn't seem to belong to her—it was too large for a woman, though Alice realized that sort of thinking had its source in a sexist stereotype.
Cox talked with Woolsey and Sheppard for a few minutes, before turning to the crowd in front of him and clearing his throat.
"Good morning, everyone," he greeted them, though it was actually afternoon; one could forgive the slip, though, since it had been morning on Earth when he was there a moment ago. "As you may have surmised already, my name is Brigadier General Matthew Cox and I am your new commanding officer. I have to say that it is a great privilege and honor to be given a chance to lead such an outstanding group of distinguished civilians and elite servicemen. To be here, of all places, is in itself a humbling experience and I may only hope to do right by this legacy of Ancients that is now in our hands. I am aware that I have some big shoes to fill and I beg that you may give me some leeway to get comfortable in the position before our first crisis." Snickers filled the room and he smiled reservedly. "I am looking forward to meeting all of you, and to working with you in the time to come. And now, please, everybody go back to your duties. Dismissed!" To underline that the he had finished, he nodded and then turned around to speak with Woolsey and Sheppard again in a low voice.
"I like him!" Jake professed. He stood right behind Alice and had no problem watching the event from above her head. "That was a great little speech. Just the right amount of kiss-ass, humor, and authority."
"Yeah, he's a good guy," Alice agreed. They were waiting for the crowd to thin out before they'd move on themselves. "Wonder if he remembers me?"
That question was answered for her a couple hours later. She was in her lab, sitting cross-legged on a chair and staring at a whiteboard, running over some calculations for what felt like the gazillionth time and coming up with the same answer each time, getting more and more frustrated and angry at herself, when the door opened and Cox entered, accompanied by Woolsey, Sheppard and the officer he had brought with him. Alice didn't look at them or moved for a few more seconds, eyes peeled to the rows of equations until she came to the end. She let out a sigh of despair and only then got up and turned to the newcomers.
"General, this is Captain Alice Boyd." Sheppard began the presentation. "You had just met her brother downstairs—she is one of our best Jumper pilots, an excellent scientist in McKay's department and a member of the Fourth Atlantis Reconnaissance Team. Boyd, Brigadier General Matthew Cox, our new CO."
Alice smiled and shook the hand offered by the general. "Yes, I know, of course. It's an honor to meet you again, sir."
"Again?" Sheppard raised his eyebrows questioningly.
"Captain Boyd used to be a 302 driver in my squadron for a little while," Cox said, proving that he didn't forget her. "I remember pinning the single silver bar on your shoulders, Captain, congratulations on your promotion."
"Thank you, sir, and the same to you." She smiled. "Who would have thought we'd meet again six million light years away?"
"Oh, well, I've always known you'd go on to do great things." He nodded curtly. "You were one of our best recruits. And I understand that you're a vital member of this expedition."
Alice felt a rush of warmth on her cheeks and almost laughed. Some things never changed—and her blush-prone face was one of them. "Thank you, sir, I try to do my best."
"You learned how to take a compliment!" He exclaimed with amusement in his voice. "Good for you."
"The general is taking a tour of Atlantis," Woolsey put in. "He wanted to meet everyone in the City."
"That will take a while," Alice noted; the expedition numbered over three hundred people, plus a few Athosians—and Ronon. "I won't take any more of your time, then, sir."
"Nonsense, we have all the time we want, don't we, Mr. Woolsey?" Cox didn't wait for him to respond and continued right away: "Martinez, what's the time?" Then he realized that he hadn't presented the young officer, and rectified it immediately: "Oh, I'm sorry, Captain. This is my XO, Captain Gloria Martinez."
"Nice to meet you." They shook hands.
"It's seventeen twenty Juliet, sir," Martinez replied, meaning that it was five twenty PM, local time.
"Plenty of time, then." Cox then threw a curious look at Alice's whiteboard. "What are you working on, Captain?"
"I'm trying to calculate the zero-point energy of the vacuum within the pocket of subspace-time contained in a ZPM, but I'm afraid I'm a bit stuck." She shook her head, frustration rising back up again. "In our universe, the fermion and boson fields cancel each other out, which results in incredibly weak observable zero-point energy, yet somehow within the ZPM, the zero-point energy is many orders of magnitude greater than nuclear, and we have no idea how that's possible. It's like supersymmetry doesn't exist there." She then noticed the expressions worn by Cox and his entire party, and smirked. "Sorry. At this point it's a theoretical exercise, though if successful, it may lead to greater understanding of zero-point energy, and, someday, maybe, to us being finally able to create ZPMs of our own. That's a big if, though," she cautioned.
"Sounds complicated." Cox nodded. "But if we could make our own ZPMs… it would be an enormous advantage. Worth pursuing, surely. Carry on, captain."
"Yes, sir." She smiled and they said goodbye and left, to Woolsey's relief. Alice wondered when he would be going back to Earth. He had stayed to introduce Cox and provide him with maximum of information that he could, but probably he was expected in Stargate Command the next day, or maybe even that night.
He came along Alice's lab the next morning to say goodbye. They chatted for a moment and Woolsey thanked her for her exemplary service—eliciting another of the treacherous blushes—and she replied in kind.
"It won't be the same without you, sir," she told him truthfully. "I can only hope that you're going on to do something equally important."
"Oh, I don't know yet." He waved his hand dismissively. "One thing is for sure: nothing will quite compare to this. It's been quite a ride."
"That is has, sir," she agreed. Then they shook hands one last time and Woolsey left.
Life under Cox turned out to be quite alright. It was true that bases took after their leaders, but leaders had to adapt to changing circumstances, too; and Atlantis was mostly peopled with civilians, the military being in the minority. Cox must have recognized it because he didn't drastically change anything about the culture of the place—in fact, it seemed that he rather enjoyed the relaxed protocol, once he got used to it. Alice met him quite often in the gym, as he took residence in the penthouse of the same North Inner Tower that her quarters were in; it made sense that he'd go to the same one, for it was closest. He looked a different man when out of the uniform, and he spoke to her in an easygoing manner that was both informal and yet still commanding of respect. Observing him interact with others was also pretty illuminating. He seemed to change the level of address and even his vernacular based on who he was speaking to; and whenever she saw him in a more official setting, she noted that he didn't simply rely on the power of his office to order people around; instead, he asked, pleaded, encouraged and coaxed people—especially the civilians—into doing what he wanted. He could be blunt and curt when situation called for it, but he reserved the authority to give direct orders for appropriate occasions. Alice felt like she was learning a lot about leadership just from watching him.
The old Atlantis routine had come back; the Fourth Recon Team was, once again, going out every two to three days on missions of various nature: exploring the galaxy (there still remained plenty of worlds in the Ancient database they hadn't visited), providing support and S&R to other teams, escorting civilians (scientists and medical teams), running resupply to off-world outposts and friendly planets, negotiating deals, gathering intelligence, fighting Wraith, delivering Keller's gene therapy, and doing anything else that needed to be done. Their team was valued for their combat experience, scientific expertise (both Alice's and William's), ability to fly a Jumper, and, more than anything else, for their high success rate. It was as if they had become a single organism—each knew what the others were thinking in any situation, and they could act all the more efficiently for it.
Between missions, Alice continued to work on half a dozen scientific projects at once; the theoretical zero-point energy problem wasn't going that well, but she was making progress on all the others. She enhanced the expedition's radios by boosting the effective range and introducing cognitive multi-linear frequency handler; basically, it was now enough to say a person's name to be connected to them directly, without others being forced to listen in. The program was also learning in real time, so if someone used a nickname or a title, it would make the connection and the next time patch directly to that person when the nickname or title was used with specific circumstances. For example, if only the Fourth Recon Team was in range and someone said "Captain", it would connect them directly to Alice—but within Atlantis, they would still need to add the name for it to work, there being multiple captains in the City. But if Jake wanted to talk to her, he would only need to say "Allie", for that was a unique identifier for her. It also worked for teams—Perrault only needed to say "Team" to link up to Alice, Cooper and Karim, but if Sheppard used the word, it would connect him to Teyla, Ronon and McKay. Besides the radios, Alice was also making great strides in her work with nanite programming to target and deliver medicine to cells affected by disease directly, and she also dabbled with some success with Asgard transporter technology and force shields; she even had a pet project related to neutronium and how the Asgard were able to harness its energy.
She and Karim had followed up on her plan to create a secondary meeting place, and they continued to spend most nights together. They were very careful on how they acted in public, though; it wasn't that hard for Alice to keep a straight face because Karim's was always composed, and he never did a single thing—besides looking at her in his penetrating way, which he had always done, though now she knew why—to show his feelings publicly. The hardest thing was to talk around their relationship during Alice's weekly sessions with Borden; he was perhaps the only one who noted that something was afoot, though she'd never made a peep on the subject. He couldn't miss the fact that she was now feeling much more relaxed and confident than she had been before; her nightmares had become much less frequent, and even when they happened, waking up beside Karim had an instant calming effect on her.
And so time slipped by without anything of much note happening. Not that Alice was bored; each mission was different, and many were dangerous. She gained a couple new scars to her collection—a knife wound to the thigh that missed the artery by a hair's breadth, and a shallow cut made by Wraith claw across her collarbone. Her scientific work kept her mind occupied when the team was on stand-by. She enjoyed her relationships in the City—the romantic one with Karim, of course, but also friendships with Cooper, Perrault, Sheppard, McKay, Keller, Ronon, Teyla, Lorne, Banks, Porter, and others. She also got to spend a lot of time with Jake, which, before he had come to Atlantis, hadn't been possible since they both had left home, fourteen years ago. She appreciated Cox's unofficial mentorship, and she felt valued among her colleagues. And to add a cherry on top of what had already been a very good few months, in September, not long after her twenty-ninth birthday, she was informed she would be receiving not one, but two awards—an Air Medal to recognize continuous meritorious service in flight (the official commendation mentioned flying a fighter, which was technically true, since Jumpers were categorized as such for administration purposes) and a Bronze Star for her efforts against Jareth and her part in finding a cure for people affected by his mind-bending. The latter one was, of course, classified, and so the official citation only mentioned for valor in combat and described the events in very broad strokes—while captured by enemy forces, managed to escape and free her fellow servicemen and so on. She also got a device on her Purple Heart for getting shot (twice). The decoration ceremony took place in early October (Alice wasn't the only one being decorated), presided over by Cox. It was a nice affair, with everyone wearing their Sunday best—for the servicemembers it meant service dress uniforms instead of the standard Atlantis ones—and drinks and other refreshments later. Alice felt conflicted about the Bronze Star—she wasn't sure if she deserved it, after all she did allow Jareth to escape; although she was selfishly glad that she hadn't fired then, for it would have doomed Karim, she recognized that the Wraith was a nefarious force who continued to spread fear and misery across the galaxy and she wished there had been a way to take him down without harming Karim. Nevertheless, the decoration was a big deal—it was pretty high up in the order of precedence of military awards, and she couldn't deny that it made her proud to wear those two additional ribbons on her chest. They gave her additional bragging rights and solidified her authority in the eyes of strangers—those who knew how to read a ribbon rack, at least, which, she realized, weren't that many outside of the service.
In November, she went home with Jake for another vacation, and to attend Jodie's wedding. It was a grand affair which neither of them enjoyed, but their cousin looked radiant with happiness, and Alice figured that was the only thing that really mattered. They spent a wonderful week home with their mom, visiting Aaron and Ike—now fourteen months old—often and seeing their other family as well. But when Alice was stepping through the Stargate to go back to Atlantis, she truly felt like she was coming home.
Her real home.
THE END.