He's lying very still on the hospital bed. So still that, if not for the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, she might think he was dead. Because, in her experience, Major Sheppard is never still.

She wouldn't have thought a skull fracture would even slow him down, but it certainly seems to have done the trick.

Idiot. Her, that is. She should have made him go to medical. Maybe catching it earlier would have helped. Maybe the doctor wouldn't have that pinched look on his face from trying not to remind himself that over half of all skull fractures are fatal.

Maybe she should stop trying to forget that she knows better; that half an hour sooner wouldn't have made any difference at all.

She folds her arms on railing of the gurney.

"I don't want you to die, Major. It might not show - I hope it doesn't show - but I'm actually starting to like you." A lot, she thinks. But she doesn't tell him that, even if he can't hear her.

"I will get along without you," she informs him. "I was doing just fine for a long time before I met you. But your people I am not so sure about. Dr. Weir will be crippled, if not lost, without your council. I've known her for about four hours and I know that."

No reaction. He might as well be dead already. The thought angers her, but she doesn't know why.

"What will your men do? Will you leave Lieutenant Ford in charge of the entire military force for this city? He's twenty-five years old, Major. Will you leave me in charge?"

She watches him as another long minute ticks by. She can't get over how still he is. Usually he's bouncing around, somehow managing to do his job while still pestering her with questions. She thinks of his questions, and sighs.

She takes her sunglasses off, props her elbows on the railing, and rests her chin on her hands.

"My name is Veronique, Major. Veronique Lalena Ezrikos. And if you ever call me that in public, your men will never find your body."

Nothing. She laces her fingers together and brings her forehead down to rest against her hands. She was raised to believe in the gods of her father's people, but she hasn't prayed in years.

She prays now.

And when she's finished praying, she slips one hand into his, and stares blankly at the wall to keep herself from crying.

Three hours after he collapsed against her on a balcony, Major John Sheppard's hand tightens around hers.

"Veronique is a pretty name." His voice is shaky and rough.

She looks at him sharply. "You heard that?"

He manages a nod, barely. "Yeah. You know, if you kill me for calling you that you'll be right back where you started. Which I find interesting considering you've already admitted you don't want me to die."

She frowns at him. "I'm being serious, Major."

"John," he says.

"What?"

"If you're going to be serious, you have to call me John."

She looks at him for a long moment, hesitating.

"I'm being serious, John." Her voice is softer than he's ever heard it. "I don't want you to die."

He grins at her. "Does this mean you've finally surrendered to my irresistible charm?

The intercom cuts off her reply. "Captain Ezrikos, to the control room. Captain Ezrikos, to control, please."

He raises his eyebrows, unwilling to let her leave without answering.

She slides her sunglasses back on.

"Don't get your hopes up, hot shot."


When she finally finds the control center, Dr. Weir is waiting for her.

"I was wondering," she says, "if you and a few of your people might like to take a look around."

Part of Ezrikos wants to say, " Keep me as far from the edge of this city as possible and I'll do anything you want." Another part is thinking about the intelligence that could be gathered indirectly on such an expedition.

The rest of her, as always, looks for an ulterior motive.

"You need a military force to go with your people while they explore?"

Weir looks surprised, then slightly embarrassed. "Well, I wouldn't turn one down, but how did you know we were still exploring? Major Sheppard?"

Ezrikos smiles at her, amused. "No. Deduction. From the looks of things you've only been here a few months at the most, and this city is huge. You can't have explored and secured all of it."

Dr. Weir laughs and says, " Very astute, Captain. So, interested?"

Ezrikos has a brief thought about the ocean they're surrounded by…wait.

There is no way this city is an island. Tidal effect alone would swamp it…Dear gods.

They're on the ocean. This whole city is floating on the ocean!

Focus.

She forces herself to smile at Dr. Weir. "I'd be very interested," she says. "Let me go see if anyone else would."

Let me go get a grip on myself.


Despite her almost pathological desire to run back to the control room and beg the first person she sees to get her on dry land, Ezrikos is actually enjoying the little "tour".

They're exploring a section that seems to be mostly storage rooms. Many of them are empty, but some yield strange looking doodads that the senior scientist with them exclaims over like a child with a dangerous toy.

Or at least, she thinks that's what he's doing. He doesn't speak the same as most of the rest of the people in Atlantis, and occasionally he lapses into another language entirely. For all she knows he's cursing at the things.

When they wander into a storage room completely filled with…things, she changes that estimate. Nobody curses with that look of utter joy on their face.

"Captain," he calls to her happily, bending over something on a table, "Please! Come look!"

Ezrikos sighs a little apprehensively (the last time he asked her to "please come look" at something it very nearly blew up in their faces) and walks over to him, mentally scanning for his name. Zelemka? No, that's not it. Zeleka? Zelanka?

'Zelenka!' She thinks triumphantly, and then promptly forgets it as she comes close enough to see what he's looking at curiously.

She was lost when he pointed out the other little things they've come across so far, flux capacitors and self-adjusting sprockets and so on, but this, this is her specialty.

Lying on the table are a bunch of awkward looking black pieces.

Dr. Zelenka leans over it. "I am thinking," he says excitedly, "is some kind of disassembled diagnostic device. Yes?"

It's clear from his tone that he's only asking for her opinion to include her, but she says, "I don't think so, Doctor."

She reaches out and picks up one of the pieces, ignoring Zelenka's panicked glance.

Oh yeah. This she can handle.

Oblivious to the curious stares she's garnering from the Atlantians (her people know her well enough not to be surprised in the slightest) Ezrikos picks up various pieces one after another, snapping them into place.

Holding the thing away from her body and off the table, she slides the last piece into place, and jerks on the slide. There's a sharp "shk-chk" sound, and she puts the fully assembled device to her shoulder, and looks at Zelenka who says simply, "Oh. I see."

It's a sniper rifle.

As a probable side effect of having learned to shoot at eight years old, Ezrikos is hands down the best shot in Strike Force One, probably in the entire Space Force. She's been the designated sniper in every team she's ever been on, but the rifle she brought through the 'gate is nothing like this one.

One of the more curious Atlantian soldiers wanders over and raises his eyebrows in silent request. She hands it to him and watches as he looks it over much the way she had been.

"Should we try it out?" he asks.

Ezrikos looks at Zelenka, who appears very nervous, but shrugs.

"Why not?" she tells the other soldier, and they all troop out to the nearest balcony where he takes careful aim over the ocean – which Ezrikos is carefully not looking at – and squeezes the trigger.

And nothing happens.

"Huh," he says, "that's funny."

"Maybe it's not loaded," calls another soldier.

The first man hands the rifle back to Ezrikos, who pops the magazine. It certainly looks loaded to her.

Not a trusting person by nature, she puts the rifle to her own shoulder and examines it down the barrel.

"Perhaps it requires the ATA gene," Zelenka says behind her.

"Gene?" she asks, half-listening.

"Yes," he replies, sounding pleased. All scientist love to explain things. "Much of the technology in Atlantis requires that its user possess a specific gene sequence inherited from the Ancients. Private Jameson doesn't have it. And," he adds as she takes aim at a floating buoy in the water – unavoidable, really, there's nowhere else to aim – and prepares to test it again, "It's highly unlikely that your people have it, being as far from Atlantis as your system is…"

He trails off as Ezrikos sets her feet and squeezes the trigger, not really expecting much but bracing herself just in case.

There's a soft "pfft" sound, and the buoy jumps about two meters in the air…and then sinks.

She looks around at the scientist.

"Highly unlikely?"


A/N: Like you didn't see that one coming. Thanks: littlefoot22 for her help with this chapter and with chapter 5 (sorry, forgot to credit you for that one). Oh: Important: I totally made up that statistic about skull fractures. Complete BS. Seriously, I know nothing about skull fractures. New stolen things: Flux Capacitors from Koschka.