A/N:

I had such trouble knowing where to end this update. Y'all have no idea how much my little cliffhanger loving heart was screaming at me the entire time I was deciding where to break this post and the next one. If the devilish side of me had any say I would have turned this 1 post into 4. So be happy and buy me a drink. I need it. The devilish side put up a fight. Whew.

I did appease her somewhat but you'll find out later. Not today. Anyway. I start on a new "Kick-my-own-rear" regime tomorrow (half started already but the scheduling bit starts tomorrow) so today is my last chill day... *le sigh* I'm exhausted already.

Thank you all for the encouragement so far. Love you much. Like, follow, favorite, subscribe and review, and all that jazz. You know the drill.

J.R.

Ps. I love the dads (grandfather and great grandfather) reaction to everything. So far they are just the most chill men in existence. Love them so much. Now the question may come up of why Sophie has so much family? And so much family on Atlantis? Guess what? There's a reason and you don't get to know it yet. Mwahahah! I am MELON LORD! Oh wait... Wrong fandom... Oops.

Recap:

Five seconds, she thought. I'll allow myself to feel the pain, the fear, the desperation for five seconds. Then I have to get out of here.

One. She breathed in.

Two. She breathed out.

Three. And in again, slowing her breath.

Four. Sophie stood and looked at the door. She would never get it open with a broken arm.

Five. She let her head loll back to look at the ceiling.

There.

Panic over.

Time to get to work.

Medical.

"Where's Sophie?" Gunnr asked while Lief looked down at the clear band on his arm. "You transported her with us right? From the big gym beneath the simulation and training rooms? Where did you send her? To Luka, maybe?"

Shaking her head, she glanced up at them confused. "No. I saw your life sign signatures with her and the wraiths. I transported everyone I thought. I certainly didn't leave her there on purpose. And the transporter is a medical transport. It only goes here."

Glancing away from the band and the tiny little hologram screen that projected up from it, Lief took her shoulders gently in hand. "We need to see the program logs of what you were doing. Maybe they show an error log and sent her somewhere else." When he saw her hesitate, he didn't hesitate. "She was in rough shape Doc. Broken arm, cheekbone, and displaced ribs. She needs medical treatment."

Episode 10 The Wave Part 3

Somewhere in the access tunnels of Atlantis

"Jump the ship," Sophie chanted past teeth that were clenched together as she pulled herself along. "Jump the ship." Her arm was screaming in pain but she didn't dare stop. "Jump the ship." Whoever was flying the ship needed to jump them out of the local system and didn't have much time. "Jump the damn ship."

Opening the access panel that led into the shaft with one arm had been hell. Kicking it closed behind her had nearly made her pass out in pain from the jarring motion. And it may have for a moment, she really didn't know. Especially when the blasted wave shook her tiny metal prison.

When the wave went through, she had tried the comms only to find it dead. "I just can't catch a break," she had muttered, stuffing the tiny thing into one of her cargo pants pockets. It was bad enough that she had slid back down the grade in the tunnel that she had just nearly killed herself to get up because the Lantean builders didn't think to add rungs in non-vertical shafts. Something else she would have to fix, she made a mental note.

Sliding down the tunnel with a tool kit that weighed nearly forty pounds at times would be an inconvenience at the best of times, and dangerous at the worst.

"Jump the ship." She growled turning a corner. And then, seeing a straight vertical shaft, Sophie sighed. "But give me a minute before you do please?"

Medbay

"Her life sign isn't showing up on the city sensors," Jennifer said, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion.

Gunnr frowned, pulling up the display on his wrist band discreetly. "She's alive and on the move though." Spreading the little projected display with his thumb and forefinger, he zoomed in and looked from the display to her screen and back before tapping a section. "She's in this area."

"There's nothing there though." Keller protested. "No hallways, no offices, nothing."

"There are tunnels." Lief realized looking at the display his brother held. "She's in a maintenance tunnel in the wall. How long would it take to get to her?"

Gunnr spun the image around, searching for the quickest route to his sister. Zooming back out, he snarled. She was inside a section of solid piping that bridged our pier to another. But it wasn't inside a walkway. It was all by itself, designed to be dismantled if need be. "We don't."

"What?" Pulling his hand with the display already showing around, Lief saw what his brother did. "There has to be some way."

Pointing to the multiple closed bulkheads that blocked their way, Gunnr ground his teeth. "She's taking the only way out and we're too big to fit in those damn tunnels. Ancients are apparently tiny people."

"You two are just giants." Keller contradicted, looking at the projected holo screen from the backside. "Someone normal-sized may fit but there's still the problem of the bulkheads if the emergency transport system isn't able to see her, let alone lock on. I can ask Rodney to figure out why but that may take time that we don't have."

"She's on her own for now."

Sophie's Quarters

In the middle of her living area space, where once a low table had been, a small circle of candles was placed now. Three in the very center. Around them, enough space for three people to sit cross-legged on the floor, around them a ring of candles nearly a foot wide that spread out like a starburst. They hadn't turned on the lights at all. There was no point to them, it was bright enough without the overheads.

Both women sat still and quiet. There was no chanting, no wailing. No focusing on the lit flames around them. Eyes closed and breathing, mother and daughter had one hand joined, the other extended to the empty place that was left. When their breathing became one and they relaxed they both felt someone take their empty hands, anchoring their energy in the calm pool of the combined energy of the pair.

"Child." The joining female breathed in greeting. "Grandchild." Both nodded to the elder female. She wasn't quite what the earthlings knew of as ascended, but that was what was easiest for them to understand and even then it was a stretch. "How are you?" She asked, squeezing their hands. "Why have you reached out for me? What has happened?"

Rota, returning the squeeze, opened her eyes to see her mother. No matter how many times they saw her mother since her "death" or "ascension" or whatever it was called, she still found it weird. Her mother didn't glow like an ancient, she didn't look misty or threatening the way a ghost should. She just looked like she was there, as solid as anyone else, but somewhere in her twenties, not the hundred and twenty-four that she had been at her passing.

"You've seen Ronon Dex?" She asked her mother.

Her mother only nodded.

"You know he is Satedan?"

Naomi smiled. "Yes."

"Don't be an Ancient, Gran." Kara sighed. "Just tell us what you know."

"Always so impatient." Naomi chuckled, squeezing her grandchild's hand affectionately again. "Yes, I had heard he was Satedan. And after hearing Lief's theory I believe it matches when I observed in the three hundred and the ruins of his planet." She turned to her daughter again. "Did you get the results from the blood smear yet?"

"How did you hear the theory?" Kara snapped, good-naturedly. "I only just heard it myself. And when did you have time to go check out the three hundred or Sateda?"

Naomi snorted. "I went the second I saw his interest in Sophie."Shrugging, she explained. "His thoughts said it wasn't fleeting. Now, what does the smear say?" She insisted, shaking her daughter's hand. "You're face says that they came back so what did they say?"

Rota bit her lip and lifted her wrist. Breaking the connection with Kara for a moment, she pulled the results up and held out the projected screen before once more taking her hand.

"Ninety-two percent?" Naomi whistled. "With blood results like that, the females of his like probably would have been priestess' if they followed the old ways."

"Did they?"

Turning to answer her granddaughter's question, Naomi bit her lips. "To a certain extent, they seemed to according to the ruins I found. But they had become very industrial in the last thousand or so years and you know what that tends to do to faith and the old ways. Which is probably why they were targeted and culled."

"Enough power would have taken out a hive from orbit?" Rota guessed.

"Most likely from what I observed on a hive ship." Naomi shuddered. "And I warn you both, never get captured. There is nothing but a life-sucking death onboard the ships, and I'm not talking about the Wraith themselves. Whatever hive got Sateda may have thought they were less of a threat having forgotten the old ways but our family has not. If they learn what we are, all of us, even in my realm will be targeted. They will either used us like batteries or kill us outright. Tell the others. I'm amazed Ronon got away, even as a runner."

"And Luka?" Kara asked, already fearing the answer.

"Is never to be alone." Her grandmother ordered.

"There is a Wraith in the city now," Rota warned.

In a flash of light that faded until only two blazing eyes were left then quickly vanished as well, Naomi was gone, her last words resounding like gongs in the ears of the two women she left behind.

"Not for long."

Rota's quarters.

Luka was not a happy little boy. He had felt the tremors. He had heard the announcement that Doctor McKay made and what all of the other adults said moments later. But he had never heard his mother. He could only assume that the big gym didn't have assess to the city-wide comms, or at least the ability to speak on them. But that didn't make sense. His mother wouldn't have simply forgotten a system to repair before opening the rooms. So something must have happened to it. Alarming.

It didn't matter that the fathers were calm, or tried to keep him calm. It didn't even matter that Ronon was there and that normally would have helped. It didn't matter that they tried to keep him distracted. It didn't matter that Ronon was nervous for some reason, actually, that made it worse. His knee kept bouncing just Luka had calmed slightly, and for some reason right now that was just… Too much. It made Luka want to yell and scream, cry even. To kick something, someone. Anything. The fear and the worry were just too much.

He had seen the transporting all over the city. Either people were protected in their rooms, or had been transported to the shields that surrounded medical. He had even seen his uncles get transported. But his mother's life sign? It stayed stubbornly where it was. Minutes later he saw it beginning to move. Without knowing it, he saw the same things his uncles had. That there was no way for them to get to her, not quickly enough.

Excusing himself quietly, Luka retreated to the bathroom, scrubbing at the stubborn tears that kept filling his eyes.

Leaning against the wall as soon as the door closed behind him, Luka slid to the floor hugging his knees to his chest and let them fall. Angrily, he brushed at them and his quickly running nose but he didn't try to stop them. He folded his arms over his knees and buried his face in them, weeping.

He didn't know how much later it was that the door slid open, but he didn't move. And whoever opened the door didn't speak.

They only gathered him up in their arms. He kicked and flailed, screaming his fear into their chest. But whoever it was just held on. They didn't try to stop him. They never said a word. One big hand came up to cradle Luka's head to the owner's shoulder as he rocked the little boy back and forth.

Outside the bathroom, the fathers shared a look. They smiled, and with a shrug, turned back to the designs that they were looking at.

"She'll be okay, Luka," Ronon whispered, still rocking as the door slid shut again. "It'll be okay."

"Everyone got transported to medical if they were in vulnerable parts of the city." Luka wailed into Ronon's chest. "Momma wasn't." The hands around him tightened. "Someone had to target the city sensors to ignore her life sign."

"All of the sensors?" Luka pulled his head back in confusion and looked at him. "You and your mother have said that one of the things slowing the repairs down in syncing the sensor data to the city mainframe."

Luka blinked going rigid. The problem had been the water and battle damage. The sensors still worked but they weren't communicating the way they should be with the city's database. It had caused his mom endless headaches because her team was having to go section by section and calibrate each to the pier sensors then calibrate the pier sensors with the main city mainframe readings of those sensors. It was like they had forgotten how to translate and talk to each other Sophie had said.

If that had been the hole that allowed her to slip through the cracks, or be ignored, then her moving to another section would do the trick. But the medical team would have to know to try the transport again as soon as she was in another section.

"We need to contact medical." Luka insisted.

"Comms are out." Ronon reminded gently, shifting the little boy to his hip. "And private quarters don't have outgoing city-wide comms unless they are in one of the quarters of someone in charge."

A tiny smile grew across Luka's face. "If the mountain won't come to us…" He wiggled, trying to get free, and then raced out the door when he was set down. "Dads I need your tools."

"What are you gonna do, little man?" Sigrun asked, already heading for his tool kit.

"Anything your mother would object to?" Erik questioned, doing the same. "Or that will have Mr. Woolsey's shorts in a bunch?"

"I'm gonna hack the city."

"That's my grandson." Erik laughed, handing his roll of tools over to the little boy as he knelt at the wall beneath the door sensor panel of the suite. "Just don't get electrocuted, fry the city, or get anyone killed."

"And if possible," Sigrun added, placing his on the floor within reach. "Don't get caught by anyone but us."

"What's he doing?" Ronon asked, a little worried about how easily they were taking Luka's announcement.

Both men shrugged. "Probably committing treason."

"But he wouldn't do it if it wasn't necessary." The other assured with a wave before heading to the panel that led to the food stasis unit that each room had. "Want a beer?"