Goodbye Atlantis

I do not own stargate Atlantis.

Thanks to Rocketlover for being my beta.

Chapter Three

Elizabeth stared at Rodney's resignation for what seemed like the thousandth time. Her first reaction had been to call him to her office, but she'd resisted that urge and thought long and hard about her course of action. The man was obviously feeling a little fragile, and no doubt would be pretty angry too. An angry Rodney is never an easy thing to handle and this needed some pretty fancy handling. No, the best thing to do was to find out exactly what had been going on with her number one scientist. Forewarned is forearmed as they say.

"Some leader I am!" she muttered. "I can't even notice when one of my people is in need of help." With a sigh, she tapped her earpiece and radioed for Colonel Sheppard and Dr Zelenka to join her in her office.

Five minutes later, they were both seated by her desk looking at her expectantly. Elizabeth swivelled her laptop around to face them and let them read Rodney's e-mail. She watched carefully as their faces took stock of what she was showing them. Zelenka simply looked confused and John's mouth tightened into a grimace.

"This is joke, yes?" spluttered Zelenka.

"I'm afraid not," Elizabeth replied with a sad shake of her head.

John folded his arms across his chest and frowned. "There is no way Rodney would leave Atlantis voluntarily. Maybe you should get Carson to check if he's under the control of some alien device or something."

"I agree," said Zelenka. "Atlantis is Rodney's life; there is no way he would give it up. Ego would not allow it for start."

Elizabeth put her hand up to silence the two men.

"Normally I would agree with you, but I'm afraid it's not that simple. I suspect that this," she said waving her hand at the laptop, "is a result of our collective treatment of Rodney since Doranda."

Neither man spoke so she continued. "I don't know about you two but I've not seen him in the mess or at any gatherings. And if I'm to be honest with myself, I have to admit that I haven't tried to see him." Elizabeth felt the shame of her words redden her cheeks and fought the urge to look down at her desk. She made herself look from one man to the other. "I'm guessing that I'm not alone in the way I've behaved towards Rodney?"

John straightened his posture. "Look sure, I was pissed at him. He abused my trust, blew up a third of a solar system and nearly got me killed in the process," John started. "So yeah, we've not hung out together of late. But, c'mon - this? Rodney's tougher than that."

"John you of all people know that is simply not true," Elizabeth admonished. "I've not called you here to play the blame game. I think there's plenty enough of that for everybody?" She looked at each of them with a raised eyebrow. They in turn had the grace to look sheepish.

"What I want to know is how do we fix this? The Daedalus is due to leave at the end of the week and I can't order anyone to remain here no matter how much I may want them to. We need to find a way to make him reconsider."

Suddenly John stood up and made his way towards the door.

Elizabeth rose from her chair and called loudly after him. "Colonel Sheppard where do you think you're going? We haven't finished here!"

John stopped and pivoted on his heel. He took stock of her tight expression and fixed her with his custom boyish smile and raised a hand in an attempt to placate her.

"Calm down Elizabeth. I'm just going to sit the man down and get to the bottom of this. Make him see that it's in his best interest to keep his ass here on Atlantis."

Elizabeth didn't look convinced but she relaxed her posture and tipped her head slightly. "Please go gently with him John. The last thing we need is for you to make matters worse."

John offered her a smile he did not feel and before walking from her office…