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Nobody moved. Every single gaze was fixed on the screen in front of them, Ba'al's smug smile chilling Evan to the core.

"You will have noticed that you have no more power."

Evan's eyes followed Ronon who leaned low over the console, nearly pushing the officer sitting behind it off her chair.

"You will also have realized that you are now unable to manoeuvre your ship."

"What do you want, Ba'al?" Carter snapped, skipping any unnecessary demands Ba'al would not comply with anyway.

"You and General Lorne to come to the negotiations."

"General Lorne will not accompany me," Carter said. "You want to talk, let's talk."

"You are misinterpreting my orders as a request. For as long as the negotiations are underway, this ship will remain on minimal life support as per my orders. Bring any weapons with you and said life support will be cut off."

Ronon looked up at Evan, his brows furrowed. "I'm coming too," he said forcefully and stood next to Carter's chair. "These two will not decide on anything in this galaxy."

Ba'al's face remained impassive as he considered the three of them for a moment. "Be prepared to be beamed to my headquarters."

The transmission was cut off, leaving them in darkness with only the barest trace of emergency lighting illuminating the bridge.

Carter let out a long breath. "Fine," she muttered, getting to her feet. "Major Fisherman, I'm transferring command to you." She looked briefly up at Ronon and Evan before she came to her feet. She didn't need to say anything else. They all knew what was at stake. They also knew there was a very good chance that neither one of them would make it back here.


"I'm done."

Evan looked up when Alex entered his office. It wasn't unusual that she turned up here, but never at this time of day. "Done with what? Work?" He smiled, trying to ignore the frown on her face as she threw herself into the chair in front of his desk. She looked tired. Desperately so.

"With the translations… I'm giving up. I'm putting that stuff away and I swear I won't look at it again in the next few years, or maybe not ever again. I can't make sense of it, and Daniel and Jonas don't have the time to help me. I can't do this on my own." She passed a hand over her face.

Nodding, Evan closed his laptop and leaned in. "McKay's decryption software isn't helping either?"

Alex snorted. "No." She closed her eyes and leaned back. "It's not going anywhere, because those scraps of paper and the few storage crystals only barely scratch the surface of what we found. We found some stuff, yes, but there's no way we'll be able to puzzle together everything."

The chair's legs scraped over the linoleum floor when he got up and moved around the table. She still wasn't looking at him. "And the Nox's information don't help that much either I expect." He felt sorry for her. This knowledge lay buried beneath the rubble now, never to be recovered. He knelt down in front of her, hands on her legs.

"What little information they gave me…" Alex sighed and shook her head. She took his hands into hers and smiled down at him. "It doesn't matter. I'm not getting anywhere and I want to start on working something new. There's so much this galaxy has to offer."

Evan smiled and nodded. The war was over. For now they could roam the free worlds and pursue what knowledge they could. "It happens sometimes, doesn't it? Not being able to complete your research because you hit a dead-end… but at least you discovered bits and pieces. Really, in all your work life, you have found out more than most other archaeologists on this planet."

She leaned even closer then, cupping his face and looking into his eyes. "Thank you for saying that," she said and kissed his forehead. "When do you get off?"

"I have an appointment with Mitchell in half an hour. But I can leave right after."

"Okay… I'm going to bother Oliver a bit."

He nodded and squeezed her hands. "You do that." He smiled up at her. To think that only a few weeks ago he had been terrified of losing her forever and already he still didn't resent her for wanting to go off-world again. Only from now on she wouldn't go alone anymore. Never again.

He kissed her hand and nodded.


The room they found themselves in was almost round, a circular stone table in the centre with a familiar looking pedestal built around it.

Evan didn't need to look twice to know what it was. It looked too much like the terminal in that castle Ba'al had occupied to be anything else. The shape of the few corners the room provided only underlined this. But that console had been destroyed, hadn't it? At least it was damaged. They'd hoped to find something in the ruins, but the destroyed pedestal had been obvious in the pictures they'd sen.

A concealed door to his left slid open and Evan narrowed his eyes at the two people entering now. His heart contracted painfully when he saw who was right behind the slightly smaller man. Caleb. Swallowing hard, he kept his eyes fixed on his son. He seemed okay. That was something, but the smugness on Ba'al's face as he walked in front made Evan want to punch him again. He recalled the satisfying sound his skull had made when he'd shot him. Such a long time ago. He could do it all over again.

"General Lorne," Ba'al said with that cool smile of his which didn't even reach his eyes. It never had.

Evan's gaze fluttered back to Caleb immediately.

"Colonel Carter… and you must be the infamous Ronon Dex. I have heard about you, of course."

"Cut the crap." Carter's voice barely reached him. Caleb was holding his gaze, his eyes so much like his mother's as he bit his lip and looked down at his feet. "You haven't blown us out of the sky yet, you clearly did everything you could to lure us here, now what do you want?"

And why had he brought Caleb? Evan's hands were shaking, aching for his gun. Anything to wipe that smile off Ba'al's face.

Caleb frowned at his shoes. Evan knew that look. Knew it far too well. He'd seen it often enough when Caleb was in his teens. Like he had done something wrong and didn't want to admit it.

"Let us sit. This might take a while."

Evan hesitated, trying to ignore the painful knot that was his stomach. Caleb was here. Where was Grace? Where were the other kids? He stared at Caleb, who still wouldn't meet his eyes. Swallowing hard, he watched as Caleb took the seat which Ba'al was pointing at for him. What was this? Since when was Caleb this subservient?

Balling his hands into fists, Evan took a step towards Ba'al and only Ronon's heavy hand on his shoulder held him back.

"You too, General," Ba'al said.

Their eyes met and Evan shrugged off Ronon's hand with a jerk before he sat down.

"Doctor Lorne?" Ba'al's eyes shifted to Caleb who stared at the pedestal in front of him. "Would you care to start?"

What was this? What kind of sick game was Ba'al playing here?

And why was Caleb cooperating? What the devil was going on?!

Caleb frowned and didn't look at his captor. Folding his hands on top of the table and sitting up a bit straighter, he looked like Alex. The same mannerisms she had shown in the early days at the SGC when she was nervous about presenting some new findings. "Ba'al wants access to our databanks on Earth," he said, his voice carefully controlled as he looked at Carter. Carter. Not him.

Evan could see the thumb lying on top of his folded hands tremble.

"Why?" Carter said abruptly, looking at Ba'al, not at Caleb and Evan wished he could reach up to touch his son's shoulder. To pull him into his arms and never let him go. Never before had Caleb seemed so grown-up to him. And yet, at the same time, he had never looked this fragile.

Caleb's Adam's apple bobbed up and down when Ba'al leaned back in his chair, not saying a word and clearly waiting for Caleb to speak. What a sick game. What a sick display of power. Clearly this was aimed at him. At unsettling him most of all.

And Carter continued, ignoring the puppet Ba'al was trying to put in front of himself. "You've proven time and again that you have access to the SGC, haven't you? Did you have Colonel Mitchell killed too? Because you didn't want us to come here and find out about this new pretty little empire of yours."

"Yes," Caleb said quietly instead of Ba'al and he finally met Carter's gaze. "He wants to renegotiate the terms of the previous agreement."

"What previous agreement?" Carter turned her head ever so slightly to look at Caleb again who shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"The peace treaty with the Furlings," he said and Evan sensed that he'd been on the verge of lowering his voice, but when he looked at Evan then, he seemed to be able to steady himself. He looked tired. So very tired. "He wants to openly secure the territories the Furlings have conquered for him and cooperate with the free people of the Milky Way and the Pegasus galaxy."

Evan didn't allow himself to show surprise. He didn't have the time. He couldn't dive into this new revelation. "In exchange for what?" he asked instead of Carter, knowing full well what Carter had told him. She was in charge.

"I-"

"A treaty has two sides," Carter said. "If you are actually the ruler of these territories already, which I doubt, what do you have to gain from our database?"

Ba'al still wouldn't speak. He merely eyed Caleb and put a hand on his forearm, making him flinch. Evan was on the verge of jumping to his feet when he saw the flicker of fear in Caleb's eyes. Like prey cornered with no way of escape. "His base of operations here in Pegasus was destroyed." He took a deep breath and looked at Evan again, and only when Evan forced himself to sit back, did Ba'al let go of his son's arm. "Not all files were lost, since the Ancients and the other races managed to preserve their knowledge in a way that didn't need direct access to the panel. We actually found some traces of that databank when we were attacked." Swallowing hard, he removed his hands from the table, inching slightly to the right, away from Ba'al. He was so young… far too young to be doing this. Far too vulnerable.

Why the heck did Evan insist on coming? His mere presence here was only making it worse.

"So, you want to get more access… why? I would think you have all the tech you need. What else could you possibly want?"

Caleb was silent then, swallowing hard as he threw a side-eyed look at Ba'al. "He offers you Atlantis in exchange for that information and a new peace treaty that favours him."


A/N: Again, I'm sorry this took so long! Do you know the feeling when you get stuck? Well, this scene was hard, but we'll get there in the end. My plan is to (hopefully) finish writing this story by the end of March at the latest. I'm also currently working on a couple of Star Wars stories over on AO3, besides teaching kids from my home desk.

I hope you guys are alright and doing well 😊 Take care!