Hermiod once again proved his genius, and he and Atlantis' science team were able to remove the Goa'uld from Colonel Caldwell. SGC wanted him back on Earth ASAP, so the Daedalus was getting ready to head home. However, there was one final thing that Caldwell wanted to do before leaving Atlantis for possibly the last time.

Elizabeth looked up from her tablet PC at the sound of a knock on the doorframe to her office. "Are you busy?" Caldwell asked her.

"Not very. Concentrating has been a little difficult lately. What can I do for you, Colonel?"

"I just wanted to give you this before I left." He handed her a file. "I'm not sure how much weight my signature carries anymore, but…"

Elizabeth quickly read over the paper. Sheppard had shared his plans for Kavanagh with her before his team had gone to M7G-677, and she had signed off on paperwork authorizing his delayed return to Earth. Caldwell had now come up with his own forms declaring that Kavanagh's tour should be extended due to an important mission with allies of the city that required his expertise. Elizabeth smiled as she realized who the second signature on the bottom of the page belonged to.

"Is this forged?" she asked, pointing to Kavanagh's signature.

"Of course not," Caldwell said, his lips curving into a smile. "Certain members of our two crews can be…extremely persuasive when they need to be."

Elizabeth smiled. "Thank you, Colonel."

"It's the least that I could do."

Weir stood and offered her hand. "I hope you will be making the return trip with the Daedalus in three weeks," she said.

"It might not be the first return trip," Caldwell replied as he shook her hand, "But I'll be back. You still owe me a rematch in chess." He turned and left the office. Elizabeth sighed as she sat back down. Everything was starting to settle down, but she still felt very out of sync.

"Colonel Sheppard!" John stopped short in the middle of one of Atlantis' hallways at the sound of Rodney's voice, letting the scientist catch up with him. "The Daedalus just took off. They're probably entering hyperspace by now," McKay informed him.

John nodded. "Kavanagh got handed over to the kiddies about an hour ago. I think this is going to be highly entertaining." He held up what appeared to be a braid of hair.

"Oh my God," Rodney said. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Yep. He wouldn't let Casta unbraid it so the kids could play with his hair, so one of them just cut it off. And if you didn't know it already, I can definitely tell you that those kids aren't professional barbers."

"That should get hung somewhere in the city as a monument once he's finally gone back to Earth."

John handed it to him. "I'll let you be in charge of that. You hungry?" Rodney shot him a Look. "Right, what was I thinking? Dinner in the mess?"

"Sure."

Elizabeth had also eventually intended upon going down to the mess hall to get something to eat, but instead she found herself down at one of the training rooms. Teyla was working with a couple of her students from the city, but stopped and bowed heads with them when she noticed her visitor.

"Is something wrong, Dr. Weir?" she asked.

"No…I'm not sure. I'm sorry, I was just walking around the city and wound up here."

Teyla smiled, sitting by the window. "Would you like to talk?"

"I don't think I'd know what to say."

"It has been quite an eventful week," Teyla observed, and patiently waited for the next move to be made. Elizabeth was quiet for a long moment, but finally joined her by the window.

"For the past few days since this mess ended, I've felt like I was underwater. Everything's just slowly swimming by in front of me and I'm not really connected to any of it. There's a line that we all keep flirting with, and sometimes cross…On Earth, it was a lot easier to tell who the enemy was: a government, a dictator, a military commander. I could see things as black and white. And then I got thrown into all of this, this universe beyond Earth that I never knew existed…the thing I'm fighting against could be another race, or a person in the city, or even myself. Things aren't so simple anymore."

"Absolutes are safe," Teyla agreed. "Anything else is frightening to us."

"Can I actually lead this expedition and keep everyone safe if I'm going to hesitate in doing things that have to be done?"

"Your hesitation is what makes you different from the new enemies that you speak of. My father used to say that truly good leaders cannot be made, they are born. I have confidence that you will continue to lead us on the right path because fear is what keeps us from taking foolish chances."

Elizabeth slowly nodded. "Thank you," she said before leaving the room.

TBC...