A/N: Sorry for the wait. Do you know how much it sucks to be sick and to have computer problems in the same week? It wasn't pretty. But I put up 2 chapters to make up for the wait.

Chapter 12: Meanwhile yet again…

A transporter trip and fifteen minutes worth of jogging later, Zelenka, Elizabeth, the Russian physicist, and the sergeant arrived in the laboratory where the three now-depleted ZPMs were. Weir looked around. Not even a week ago, she'd found out that in a different universe, she'd gone back in time and rotated the ZPMs in order to conserve power so the shields would hold and save the expedition in this timeline. It was somewhat bizarre to think that an alternate reality version of herself was the only reason they were all alive today. She cleared her thoughts and focused back on the problem at hand. Time travel gave her a headache anyway.

"So what is it we need to see so badly?" she asked, trying not to sound

"This," the physicist said, pointing to something on the floor. A messy, hastily-drawn graph was scrawled there in what looked like very faded permanent marker.

"It looks like it just appeared there," offered the sergeant.

"It definitely wasn't here before," she agreed. The graph was in the middle of the ground, pretty hard to miss.

Radek leaned over, and then squatted down next to it. "That can't be-" he began.

"McKay's handwriting?" she queried.

"Yes!" Zelenka said, shrugging in confusion. "I'd recognize it anywhere." It wasn't so much handwriting as it was scribbles that somewhat resembled letters. Quite distinctive.

"So, what does it say?" she asked. Elizabeth had barely been able to decipher Rodney's scrawl on a good day, never mind when he was in a rush. The fact that the writing was faded didn't help at all either.

Radek bent over the graph and lifted his glasses to his forehead. "Well, that is a little difficult to say," he admitted, leaning a little closer. Letting his glasses slip back down onto his nose, he turned to the Russian. "Did you have this analyzed? How old is it?"

"How old is it?" Elizabeth though, thoroughly confused. What a strange question…

The other scientist nodded. "I triple checked the results." He paused, as if what he was about to say would completely qualify him for an admission to a mental hospital. "It appears to be several thousand years old."

"What? How is that possible?" Weir asked, completely flabbergasted.

"I don't know. Yet," Radek replied cryptically. Once again he turned to the physicist, asking, "That device Kavanaugh found earlier yesterday, did it come with any text?"

The Russian nodded. "The translation isn't finished, but-"

"Doesn't matter; get it for me." When no one moved, he ordered sharply, "Now, please!" The other scientist skittered out of the room, leaving Zelenka muttering "Jezisi!"

"What's going on?" she forcefully demanded. Someone had better give me a straight explanation… she though grimly.

"I'm not entirely sure, but it appears Rodney and the major may have…gone back in time," he finished, sounding amazed.

However, there was no way his amazement could match Elizabeth Weir's. "Back in time?" Not exactly the straight explanation she had been looking for. "How?"

"Like I said, I'm not quite sure, but as soon as I can read that text that came with Kavanaugh's machine…" He trailed off and began examining the graph once again. Weir frowned. Apparently, she was going to be left in a complete fog until Zelenka decided to enlighten her.

Even running at full tilt, the poor Russian took almost half an hour to go to Kavanaugh's lab and back. During that time, Zelenka had grown increasingly irritated. When the physicist returned, holding the computer before him like a Holy Grail, Radek was about ready to explode. He snapped his fingers impatiently, not at all unlike a certain Canadian Chief of Staff, Science Division. For fear of having his head bitten off, the physicist practically threw the laptop to Radek. He began quickly scanning the writing on the computer and mumbling under his breath. "Ah!" he finally exclaimed.

"What is it?"

"According to this, the device creates an unstable rent in the fabric of space-time!" Radek triumphantly proclaimed.

Elizabeth sighed. "Let's assume for a second that I didn't understand what you just said." What was the use in Zelenka learning to speak perfect English if he was just going to confuse the hell out of everyone? Well, confuse the hell out of her at any rate. The Russian seemed to understand perfectly, if the gasp of comprehension was any indication.

Fortunately, Zelenka was much more patient with explanations than many other scientists (a certain Rodney McKay, for example). He gave Elizabeth a crash course in time travel theory. When he finished a few minutes later, Weir's head was buzzing. A little more than a year ago she had believed that time travel was a thing of Hollywood and now her commanding military officer and chief science officer were trapped in the past.

"Why anyone would invent such a thing is beyond me," he continued, switching into 'ramble-mode' "It must have been a failed experiment with time travel that was abandoned when the Ancients realized it could not fix and hold a stable wormhole back in time."

Elizabeth rubbed her temples. "So how did it turn on?"

"Kavanaugh thought it was another portable holograph projector, so he left it in his lab out in the open. If someone with the ATA gene came in and touched it inadvertently, then it would have activated and…" Zelenka made a whirling motion with his hand, as if to say, "You know the rest."

He handed her the laptop. It looked rather unassuming for something so dangerous. Yeah, yeah, appearances can be deceiving and all that. It was a small, spherical object that looked like it could have fit in the palm of her hand. The typical Ancient pattern of blue lights was interlaced all around the bottom half. The top hemisphere was blackened. She could sort of see how it might be confused as a hologram projector…then again, this was Kavanaugh they were talking about here.

"See, if I'm right, McKay was figuring out how fast they were traveling back in time using the depletion rate of the ZPMs," he continued, gesturing to the graph.

"Eventually they'll arrive back in this time?" she asked.

Zelenka nodded. "Well, provided they don't change the past too drastically. But if McKay figured out what was happening, he'd hopefully have enough common sense to focus on damage control and laying low.

"And there's nothing we can do," Elizabeth concluded.

"No," Radek replied after a short pause.

Weir sighed. At this point in the expedition, the situation really shouldn't be fazing her. She supposed she was going to have to get used to this sort of thing if it was going to happen frequently. Oh, wait, it already did.

Yep, time travel really gave her a headache.

Translation:

Jezisi- Oh my God.