SUMMARY: In which our heroine clicks her heels together three times and says the magic words...
Lizzie Love - Part Five
"You look the same."
Ronon had followed her out of the gym, apparently intrigued by what she told him. Elizabeth wasn't sure he understood her rather frantic explanation, but he seemed willing to accept that she did and trust in that. He probably had to get used to that while working with Rodney.
"I think I'd have noticed if all this had been happening around me before."
"You don't lust after Sheppard?"
Reasonably safe in the knowledge that this wasn't her universe, Elizabeth tossed out a provocative answer. "I lust after you, sometimes."
The footsteps just behind her stopped. "Really?"
She glanced back at him, smiling. "You're an attractive man, Ronon." As are most of the men in the city. The observation about the men in Atlantis was Teyla's, given during a conversation between her and Elizabeth about romantic entanglements among the expedition personnel.
After the first surprise, he seemed more amused than anything else, continuing to follow her. "I don't see you crawling into my bed at night."
"The only bed I want to crawl into at night is my own," Elizabeth admitted.
After a long day of dealing with the people in the city, she didn't always have the energy to deal with a lover.
That had been one reason why she and Simon had been so well-suited. He hadn't pressed her, hadn't demanded more of her than she had to give at the end of a long and difficult tour, and when she was ready to be more affectionate than an arm around the waist and a few light kisses, he didn't mind too much when they forgot to turn off the stove and the dinner burned.
As they passed through one of the connecting corridors between wings, Elizabth reflected that it was odd she could joke about this with Ronon. She couldn't imagine having this conversation with any other man on the expedition - certainly not with such a teasing tenor. Even her conversation with John after Phoebus and Thalen had taken over their bodies had been careful and stilted, held in hushed voices in her office.
They'd agreed to ignore the episode and forget it - for the good of the expedition and their friendship. Attraction wasn't romance, and romance wasn't love - they were both mature adults, and there were other factors at play, too.
It wasn't all about them.
She and Ronon climbed the final set of stairs to the level where the room was situated, squashed in behind what had apparently been the storage space off a larger area - possibly another lab or workroom.
The doors hissed back at her touch, and she entered cautiously.
The automatic lighting came on, but the designs stayed dark.
Ronon remained at the door as Elizabeth moved to where she'd been standing before John entered. "They like writing all over their living spaces, don't they?"
"Satedan decoration wasn't this extensive?"
"Simpler. Much simpler." He eyed the symbols. "Don't they have a word for this on your world? Graffy? Graphics-tee?"
Elizabeth smiled as she scanned the text, trying to remember what she'd been reading before she fainted. "Graffiti. It's usually used more in terms of writing on the walls that shouldn't be there. But the original meaning of 'writing on a wall' fits."
She wasn't so fluent in Ancient as to be able to translate it on sight, but she remembered this section of the wall. "Doors of journeys...otherplaces...gone..."
"Cryptic."
A glance at him showed him leaning against the door, his arms folded across his chest as he studied the ceiling.
"The Ancients don't seem to have been the type for plain-speaking," Elizabeth said, turning back to scan the wall again. "But 'doors' and 'journeys' might apply here - 'otherplaces' certainly does..."
"Do you have to go back?"
Surprised at the question, she turned completely. Ronon was watching her with a hint of something like...affection? "I..." Her tongue wasn't working. "This isn't my universe."
He shrugged and looked back at the walls of the room, and something in his pose made it seem like he was embarrassed at what he'd suggested. "You're better company than she is."
"Really?"
"It's not hard. She's...different." There were probably a lot of adjectives Ronon could have used instead of 'different'.
"Maybe she just..." Elizabeth had been about to say 'Maybe she just needs someone who doesn't 'adore' her?' Unbidden, Grandpa Joe's words from 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' came to mind: 'She wants a good kick in the pants!'
Given how her counterpart was behaving, Elizabeth wasn't sure she could disagree.
"I'm sorry," she managed at last. "I want to go home."
His next words shook her. "So do I." Except that Sateda was a dead world, razed by the Wraith. Then he shook his head. "Never mind."
"Ronon." He glanced up, furtive, like a hunted creature caught. Odd to think of him as a lonely, wild creature tamed to the hand - but that was what came to mind. "Thank you."
A graceful shrug, an exhalation that might have been a sigh before he pointed at the floor. "You're standing in the middle of a design, you know."
Elizabeth looked down. These designs weren't the same as the Ancient writing on the walls. Instead of the letters, an oddly sinuous thread of signs and sigils wended its way into a circle just where she was standing. The circle was the only clear patch of floor in the room. "I think I might have been standing here when everything changed..."
Ronon watched her as she set her feet in the circle.
Nothing. Not a glimmer, not a twinkle, not a sparkle, not a flash.
"Maybe something's missing," he suggested.
Elizabeth looked at him. It needed John last time. She didn't really want to see him again - not this John - but it seemed he'd been the catalyst that got her here yesterday.
If you're wrong, then you're just going to have to endure him until you work it out.
Still, looking at Ronon, she tapped her earpiece on. "John?"
"Liz! Where are you? We were so worried when you walked out--"
"John, would you come up to the room where I was doing the translations yesterday? There's...there's something I want you to see."
"Something good?" Even Ronon grimaced slightly at the leer in John's voice. Elizabeth took a deep breath.
"Something...interesting. And bring Carson."
"Carson?"
"Bring Carson." She switched off the earpiece before he could protest any more. If it was going to be like last time, then she - and her counterpart - were probably going to faint again. And if the reactions of the people here were any indication, Elizabeth-the-other was going to expect people to fuss over her - as much as Elizabeth had been dismayed by it.
Ronon smiled faintly. "Going home?"
She nodded. "Have they ever shown you 'The Wizard of Oz'? 'Lions and tigers and bears, oh my'?" One eyebrow rose in query, and she sighed. 'The Wizard of Oz' was one of the 'classics' John insisted his team watch as a 'team bonding exercise.' "Ask John to show it to you sometime."
There was the sound of footsteps running out in the corridor, and Ronon moved so he was just inside and to the side of the door, and not actually in the way of the new arrivals. One large hand tilted a somewhat jaunty salute at her, and she regretted his isolation - and Teyla's - in this place.
John almost skidded in the door, he was running so fast. And as he entered, the room responded to the gene in his blood. Blue-white spilled from the designs on the walls, brighter than the sun, piercing through her eyelids...
Whatever she was lying on wasn't cold, but it was rather hard. Elizabeth was just grateful it was flat.
"I think she's awake," came Carson's voice from above her.
Cautiously, she opened her eyes. Carson was kneeling next to her, watching her. "Elizabeth?"
"Carson?" Judging by his position, she guessed she was lying on the floor. And nobody was treating her like she was spun glass. That was a good sign.
She sat up, groaning a little and took inventory of the room. John, Rodney, and - yes! - Teyla were watching her. Rodney was muttering something to Dr. Mettyn, and John was standing very close to Teyla - almost as if he was hiding behind her.
And they were all looking at her with caution, like they were wondering what she was going to do next.
Elizabeth smiled as a wave of relief washed through her. "I'm home!" God, that was such a good feeling!
"I'd just like to say that if you're going to hug, kiss, or squeal in anyone's ear," said Rodney, turning away from Dr. Mettyn, "then you're definitely not home."
"Kiss in someone's ear?" Carson asked Rodney.
"Or whatever it was she did. Does. Did do. Or didn't." Rodney waved a hand in the air. "The other her, not her."
"I think you should quit while you're ahead, Rodney."
"Or even behind," Teyla added with spurious decorum.
Rodney scowled at his team-mates, and Elizabeth grinned. "Our language wasn't really structured to allow for the existance of parallel universes, was it?"
Something like a sigh of relief ran through the room. "I think she's okay," Carson said, smiling. "It's good to have you back, Elizabeth."
"It's good to be back," she said, climbing to her feet and dusting herself off. "Uh...was there much trouble with my...uh...counterpart?"
From the looks exchanged, she gathered there had. Still, they were tactful enough not to say exactly what in blunt terms.
"There were more than enough conflicts to keep us all occupied during her stay," Teyla said with what was probably admirable restraint.
"She didn't like Teyla much," Carson offered with an apologetic glance at Teyla.
"Or, 'at all,'" John said. "It was...noisy." The brief, tense smile he gave indicated that he'd suffered interaction with the other Elizabeth the same way she'd suffered interaction with the other John.
It would be a while before they were comfortable with each other again.
"So," Elizabeth said, "how long was I gone?"
"About a day," said Rodney. "One day too long. We were worried."
"About you," John added with a glare. "Once we realised she wasn't you. Not that it was hard."
Carson grimaced. "To tell you the truth, it was like having a teenager running around the place trying to control everything. I haven't had this much of a headache since Rodney was on the enzyme."
"Oh, ha-ha."
The stories would have to be saved for the debriefing. God only knew what the woman had done to Atlantis while Elizabeth was gone. She guessed that there would be some initial discomfort between her and John, and her and Teyla before they resumed their usual interactions.
This, too, shall pass.
She exhaled. First, deal with the issue at hand.
"I want this room closed and sealed off. It's to be studied only by people without the Ancient gene - either natural or artificial." Dr. Mettyn made a sound of protest, "I'm sorry, doctor," she said, "but if you get one of your assistants to videotape the walls, you can do a translation. I just don't want to risk anyone else. And would you put up a sign warning people not to stand in that circle while they're studying the room. What?"
The others were grinning, even Teyla.
"Yep," said John with evident satisfaction. "She's back."
- TBC -
