{014}

There was no denying the beauty of the planet. Its rolling emerald hills were dotted with spots of snow that had yet to melt in the rising warmth of the midday sun. The picturesque landscape made me think of home. Colorado during early winter was one of my favorite times of the year. Just enough snow to make the landscape almost serene.

It was the first time in almost three weeks that Weir had allowed me off-world. The incident on M3G0697 had sunk me pretty far into the dog house. After a firm talking to by Weir and Sheppard, some explaining to Teyla, and getting my ass handed to me by Aiden in a few sparring sessions, I was essentially forgiven. With the understanding that under no circumstances was I to take such an uncalculated risk again.

That had me snorting. It was a large reminder of how different Weir was from O'Neil. Reward didn't often come without risk. The good doctor did not find it amusing when I pointed this out. Her non-amusement was also backed by the fact that she had removed me from off-world missions, relegating me to simply overseeing my staff on incoming artifacts and planetary data. Something Dr. Moro, my second, normally saw too.

Basically, I was grounded.

As well as temporarily demoted. If something needed translating, Moro went in my stead. I knew it was Weir simply making sure I understood the consequences of my actions but that didn't stop the doubt from lingering in the back of my mind.

To me, it felt as if she was reminding me that I was in no way indispensable. That there were people more qualified than myself available to take my place. And more than willing to.

This feeling was made worse by the fact that I hadn't had much contact with my team since their apparent forgiveness. It wasn't like I was hiding. It felt more like I was being avoided. Even Aiden, who has been my best friend since childhood, has taken to avoiding me. This was further cemented by Connor who had been refusing to speak with me at all. The tasty Lieutenant hadn't uttered a word to me, which wasn't much less than the rest of the team. My attempt at an apology had fallen on deaf ears. Well, more like it had fallen on his back. The minute I had opened my mouth to try and talk to him he had turned on his heels and walked away.

Upside, I got a really great view of his ass as he did.

Downside, the ache in my chest furthered the depression that had taken hold.

Loneliness had begun to sink in, rooting itself deep in my gut the same way it had at the SGC after the discovery of my 'genes'. At least on Earth there were places to escape to. Vacations to take. Other Aliens to see. Sg-1 had never purposefully avoided me. Or made me feel abandoned. Here, in the Pegasus, I was stuck in either my office or in my room. There was nowhere to hide and the looks from my colleagues kept shooting me when they thought I wasn't looking kept me well away from the mess hall and common areas.

So, it didn't bother me much when I learned that one of the junior archaeologists hadn't been able to decipher the Ancient in the local temple that had been found. Moro was currently off-world with the Alpha team again and none of the other archaeologists were as fluent in Ancient as I was.

Despite the chill; the cold crisp air was heaven sent. Part of me was hoping to get back to my regular duties after this trip. Prove to Weir that I was an asset and not a liability. Leeman was more than excited to have me on his team, and I was seriously considering asking Weir to transfer me to his team permanently. Sheppard could have Moro for all I cared.

"I thought you said the temple ruins were close to the gate?" I huffed, taking Leeman's offered hand as he helped me over a small ridge. "This is not close to the gate."

"Sure it is," Leeman smiled, readjusting my pack that had come loose. He had been all chipper smiles and robust enthusiasm since they first stepped through the gate. Not that I could blame him. This was his first mission as a commissioned officer and not as a sergeant. "It's only a few miles." I snorted.

"Your definition of close and mine are very different," My breaths were short and rapid, a grim reminder that I needed to exercise more. Damn was I out of shape. "So, you said that this temple is abandoned?" The change in subject would help me keep my mind off the lactic acid building up in my legs.

"Yeah," Leeman smiled excitedly. He loved talking to me about this stuff. Always the curious mind. "The whole planet seems to be abandoned. Dr. Monroe believes that the temple is from one of the earliest Ancient civilizations, which is why the language is somewhat different. States that it's the beginning of the Ancient language before they started to fully develop. Definitely sounds interesting, but I've never heard Dr. Jackson speak of anything this old before when it comes to the Ancients."

I frowned.

"Dr. Lisa Monroe?" Leeman nodded his smile fading when he saw the look of obvious hurt cross my face before being replaced by my usual smile. Here I thought I could avoid the young archaeologist. Then again, it was Moro who was in charge of the junior members, and she was busy. Damn.

"Something I need to know?" The young officer asked concerned. I shook my head and rolled my eyes. There was no way I was telling him about what I had witnessed between him and his CO. That genie was staying in the bottle. Knowing I would have to face her was kind of hard. Not that Leeman or the good doctor would understand why.

I've had my share of awkward encounters but finding Dr. Monroe walking out of Connor's room with tousled hair and disheveled clothes while he stood in the doorway in just his shorts was not something I wanted to repeat. The flirtatious wink she had sent him hadn't helped the situation. He must have seen the hurt look on my face because his small smirk for the young doctor had turned into a grim frown when his stormy eyes met mine.

I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt. The clinch in my chest whenever I thought about what I had witnessed was a reminder that I still wasn't quite over it. Apparently, the Lieutenant was more pissed at me than I thought if he was asking me to dinner one moment and then sleeping with my colleague the next.

Sighing, I ran a hand through my windblown copper locks. It was getting ridiculous how much his little tryst was affecting me. What was I, a fucking high schooler? Rolling my eyes, I followed Leeman through a small forested area towards where the temple stood. I could just make out the stonework through the thinning trees. Something was off.

"Took you guys long enough," One of the soldiers posted at the front of the temple smiled at them as they approached. "Thought I might have to send out a search party." Leeman barked out a laugh before pointing his thumb back at me.

"Blame her," He smirked, pushing me under the bus. "Stopping to smell the flowers every chance she got. Like we were in the sound of music."

"If someone would learn to fly a Jumper we wouldn't have had to walk," That was a sore spot for Leeman, and he knew it. "Zelenka is still fixing the last one you nearly crashed." The young officer feigned a hurt expression before his face broke out in a large grin.

"Sergeant Gillians, Ma'am." The soldier introduced himself.

"Nice to meet you, Sergeant," Happily shaking the hand he held out. "I'm…"

"Oh, I know who you are," He interrupted me smiling. "You're pretty famous with the soldiers. A lot of them saw how you took down the Wraith on the planet when we first got here. Impressive." Biting my lip, I attempted a fake smile, ignoring Leeman's stare. Although very few people witnessed what had happened, the news of my sudden 'change' had spread throughout Atlantis

"Yes well…" Great, now I was speechless. Unsure of what to say when I couldn't remember the incident myself.

"Why don't we get you inside to take a look at the writing." Leeman steered me into the stone structure that looked much like an old church from the early 1800's, except the stone was newer.

"There you are," Dr. Monroe's rather nasally voice broke through the silence of the temple causing me to wince. Her condescending tone and harsh stare were not what I needed at the moment. I was in no mood to have to play the alpha dog. "I've been waiting here for hours."

"It's a long hike." I sighed, stepping up on the small platform where she stood in front a large stone wall that stood at the far end of the temple. It was littered with writing, clear and concise, running up and down like an excel spreadsheet. The oldest writing started on the left-hand side, two lines per group and at least sixty groups per column with more than fifty columns leading towards the right-hand side where the writing became newer and newer.

"The writing is clearly Ancient," Monroe spoke as if she were talking to a child. The urge to punch her was growing harder and harder. "I estimate it to be older than ten-thousand years."

"It's not Ancient," I loved being able to burst her bubble. "Looks like it though, doesn't it? The cuneiform is off. The oldest text of Ancient is indeed far over ten-thousand years old and it looks nothing like this. Whoever inhabited this planet must have taken part of the Ancient script and used it making their own language. Not uncommon really. Many tribes in Papa New Guinea did the same thing during colonization. That's how languages such as Pigeon arose."

Monroe stood back, her grey eyes assessing the stone wall, a scowl fixed in place on her face. She didn't like being contradicted.

"The stone isn't ten thousand years old, either." I was mostly speaking to myself now and to Leeman because I knew he was eating this up.

"You can't know that." Monroe bit out. Smirking, I turned to the young archaeologist.

"Neither can you," my face turned dark. "You can't go making assumptions without taking samples and running tests. None of which you have done. I understand you having confusion on the language, but your wild assumptions on its date of construction without running tests are not appropriate. You are a scientist, not a theorist." Monroe's lips turned up into a snarl as I turned back to look at the newer writing on the stone.

"Did you say this planet was uninhabited?" I asked as I ran my fingers over what looked to be the most recent markings on the wall. Fresh stone tumbled from the indents of the writing.

"Yeah," Leeman nodded. "Gillian and his team swept the planet. Nothing. Why?" Swallowing back the lump in my throat, I turned to the Lieutenant.

"These inscriptions are new," biting my lip, I turned to Monroe. "What was your theory on what the temple was used for?" Monroe shrugged.

"Sacrifices," She shrugged. "There are bone piles in the sublevels of the temple, stacked neatly. Skulls caved in."

"We need to go."

"You will not be going anywhere."

Leeman whirled around to face the intruder, catching the hilt of a sword to the face before he had a chance to raise his gun in defense. Monroe screamed as the young officer fell unconscious to the ground, tears falling down her cheeks in loud sobs. Raising my pistol, I pointed it at the intruder's head, hands shaking. Where were the rest of our teams?

"Put the weapon down, woman," his voice was thick, gravelly with a harsh accent that reminded me of my time in Norway. He was a tall specimen, standing well over six feet with bulging muscles and steely dark eyes. His long light hair was pulled back into a braid at the top of his head, the sides were shaved away and tattooed with dark ink in a script that wasn't too dissimilar from the script on the stone wall.

"We didn't mean to trespass," Trying my best to keep my voice from shaking, I stared the man down, my icy blue eyes never wavering from his. "We weren't aware this planet had residents." The man sneered uncaringly.

"Put the weapon down," He repeated, stepping forward. "Or we kill your men." Monroe choked back a sob at the mention of killing. Sighing, I bent down slowly and placed the pistol on the ground before kicking it towards the man who signaled something to his men outside.

"Just let us go," My eyes followed the men who had come in from the cold. Two of them stopped to pick up Leeman, dragging his unconscious body from the temple with little ceremony. "We don't mean any harm and we won't return." The man who appeared to be their leader smirked.

"You should not have trespassed," He stepped forward, two other men on his heels, swords clasped to their sides, boots pounding on the stone floor. "You will be brought to our village and your fate decided by the Gods." Great. Gods doling out punishment was never a good thing in my experience. Monroe whimpered as one of the men gripped her arm tightly, dragging her from her place next to me. She didn't fight but I could tell she was having a hard time keeping up with the man's quick pace.

The leader turned to me, eyes shining in amusement when I took a step back towards the wall at his approach. He thought I was going to be weak like Monroe. That I wouldn't fight. I knew what awaited women with men like these and it wasn't good. None of what they had planned would be good.

Sure, it was probably stupid of me to try and fight. The logical side of my brain knew that there was no way for me to win against a man his size, but that didn't mean I was going to make it easy for him. As soon as his hand touches my arm, I twisted it over quickly, throwing him off balance. Spinning around, I swept his legs out from under him and he landed hard on his back, the wind knocking out of his lungs painfully. He recovered quickly, snarling at me, eyes hard as he took a moment to assess me. I had surprised him.

Good.

"Stop fighting and we will not hurt you." One of the younger men spoke up as he circled around to try and get behind me.

"Why don't I believe you." I scoffed. The younger one lunged forward, his muscular arms wrapping around my waist in an attempt to tackle me to the ground. Sure, he was bigger and stronger than me, but O'Neill had taught me well. Using his momentum against him, I wrapped my arms around his upper chest and rocked backward even faster as I let us fall to the ground. I bucked my hips when we landed, sending him careening over my head in a heap.

Jumping up, I failed to see a third man approach from the rear. Sharp pain in the back of my head had me gasping as dark spots danced across my vision as I stumbled forward into the leader's arms. A soft groan left my lips as he picked me up in his arms as if I weighed nothing, his steely eyes roaming over my face concerned.

"You should not have fought, fiery one," His voice was soft and I could swear that the hand on my back was rubbing soothing circles, but I didn't have much time to contemplate this before darkness took over and nothing was left.

A/N: EDITED***