Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original creators characters or ideas, etc (thought I should place this in at least one chapter)
Author's note: These chapters are potentially going to become longer from here on out and will follow at least the rough outline of season 3 of Stargate Atlantis. There will of course be time skips, and I am hoping that you will all be understanding in terms of estimating those time skips. I know that in the show it has been a year in between the first time we are introduced to the wraith Todd, and the second. I will try to stick to this but you must realise that means there will be chapters in which he does not feature. That being said, I hope you enjoy the story JPlease review and feel welcome to offer any advice, ideas or constructive criticisms. Meg
The room before G was foreign, it was an open planned multi level hallway of futuristic design which lead into corridors and up stairs to what she guessed were Gate and city control rooms. There was a huge stained glass window looking out into what G assumed was an open expanse of sky. Her wonderment of course, was slightly diminished by the number of men who were now pointing guns at her. She rolled her eyes and huffed a piece of hair out of her face.
"Dr. Weir reporting for duty. I am here to assist in improving Dr. Weir's current condition." She said in a calm and sure voice, walking out from around her cart full of belongings to stand at attention before the soldiers. They began to lower their weapons as two familiar faces entered the room and rushed towards her.
"G, thank God ye here," spoke Dr. Carson Beckett, coming forward to lay a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry ye've come under these circumstances lass."
"Yes, well, Dr. Weir you're needed in the infirmary. Not that I need your help, but we were hoping you would be able to speed up the process of breaking through the nanite's control of Dr. Weir's body." Dr. Rodney McKay, rushing forward to her with a tablet in hand, thrusting it towards her as he went. G skimmed the screen, her heart and lungs seemed to shrink in the few seconds it took her eyes to digest the information before her. Looking from what she now understood was a form of Atlantean medical scanner, she fixed McKay with a steely look.
"Take me to my sister."
The Infirmary was rather large, consistent with the rest of the city she had seen on her way here. Her sister was laying on a medical cot in the centre of the room, sealed off into an isolation unit formed by clear plastic walls. The more G took in her surroundings the more her heart ached. Her sister was surrounded by machinery, scanners and assorted equipment. Thin chords attached needles and IVs to her, which seemed so surround her in tendrils of colour. She was so very pale. G had never seen her elder sister look so weak and so fragile. Dr. Beckett approached her in order to stand beside her as she observed the men in HAZMAT suits attempting to garner readings from her sister's immobile form.
"Carson," G spoke quietly. Dr. Beckett was one of the few people on this expedition that she had met previously, and he had in the past two years managed to gain her trust, respect and affection. At this moment he was the only friend she could look upon for support. "What happened?"
Beckett looked at her and sighed, wishing that she had been brought to the city under better circumstances. He realised that she would be an asset to the team, but to be called off world for this… It didn't seem fair. "We found a planet through the gate tha' seemed to belong to some of the Ancients, bu' we were wrong lass. They were replicators, an' when they found out where we came from they went to destroy the city. One o' them, called Niam, tried to help us, but they reset him and he attacked your sister when we were near' home. She got infected by the nanites an' they've been replicating ever since. We've tried to shut them down bu'…"
"Let me in there." G said sternly. She could see Beckett beginning to form an argument but she turned to him with determination and held up her hand. "Carson, you know you need me to do this. If I can find out what they're doing to her, what their goal is and how they're attacking, we might be able to help her better. We need to be informed before we can proceed, you know that."
"You sure you know wha' you're doin' lass?" he asked with genuine concern. G smiled at him and nodded once, she knew what she had to do, and it wouldn't be the first time she had come into contact with the microscopic machines.
Stepping cautiously around the plastic barrier isolating her sister, she approached her bed. Feeling an intense surge of protectiveness and a sense of responsibility it was hard for G to look upon her sister in her current state, knowing that the cause of her pain. Her face seemed gaunt and there were deep purple rings under her eyes. G could tell from the medical scanners that her body temperature was running rather hot and that her vitals were weak. She looked so frail and her skin was so grey, she looked like some sort of ghost fighting a virulent infection.
"Come on sis. You've got to pull through this for us. You've got to be strong and fight them, I know you can do that." She whispered to her sister as she stretched out her arm and hand so that it hovered just inches from her sisters face.
A concerned pair of doctors watched from the other side of the isolation chamber as their friend began the process of evaluating the nanites within her sister. She placed her hand above Elizabeth Weir's head and closed her eyes. A faint glow began to radiate between G's hand and her sister's forehead as information was exchanged between the two.
"Do you think she'll be able to fix it like that?" McKay whispered to his colleague in his usual rushed and indignant way. Beckett rolled his eyes and looked at him exasperatedly.
"I don't know Rodney, but right now she's our best bet at finding out exactly what's going on in there," he replied, looking on with increasing anxiety at the concentrated and strained look on the subject of their discussion's face. Suddenly as they were speaking G's eyes shot open, the same glow emanating from their depths.
"I can see her," she said, her voice coming out with a metallic undertone. "They have her in some kind of false reality, they're trying to stop her from fighting them by making her believe that there is no threat… If I could just get to her…"
"Elizabeth? Eli, can you hear me?" I'm here Eli, you've got to fight them, this isn't real!" A confused looking Elizabeth Weir turned to face her sister, how did she get here? She backed away slowly, not sure what was real and what was illusion. G took note of her clothing; it appeared as though they were trying to make her believe that she was mentally unstable as she wore garb typical of an institution for the mentally compromised.
"G? How are you here? How did you-? You can't be here! Why?" Elizabeth dropped to her knees and G rushed towards her, crouching down and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
"Eli you're going to have to be strong and fight them, is there something here you can hold onto? Something that feels real? That makes you question them?" Her body began to flicker as if a glitch was trying to cut her access to her sister's mind. "Eli quick I need to know what I can do to help?"
"There's a man that keeps appearing, he's tall and all in black. I know him. He keeps trying to lead me away from here-"
"Eli listen to me," G cringed as the Asuran Nanites began to sever her connection, forcing her out lest she be infected by their viral influence. "Eli you need to find that man, hold onto his image and follow him out. I'll help as much as I can but you need to find him-"
A violent convulsion shook G's body and she appeared to be thrown to the floor, effectively ending the conversation between the two doctors. Beckett rushed to pull on a HAZMAT suit and get to her now unconscious form. Just as he reached inside she began to stir and sit up. "Woah, woah, easy there lass," the doctor warned, placing his had against the woman's back to stabilise her as she sat up. Her eyes seemed dull and tired as she opened them.
"Carson, who's John? She can see him, his presence here may prove very useful." With that she passed out.
As she sat up she realised that she had been placed on a bed in the infirmary, away from the bustle around her sister. She could hear the doctors arguing about what their next course of action should be and so she struggled to get to her feet. Obviously, she was less than stealthy or coordinated as her legs buckled and she fell with a clatter as soon as she left the support of the bed.
"Dr. Weir what are you doing?" McKay spoke as though her distraction was thoroughly unhelpful. She gave him a wistful smile.
"Clearly, Dr. McKay I am trying to prevent you from assisting my sister by falling out of this bed." Beckett gave Rodney a look as he rushed to assist the young woman, pulling her to her feet. "Carson, I may have useful information. I apologise for that," she said in a tired voice, gesturing towards the bed. "I have never encountered machines to this calibre. I think they're trying to merge into her organic tissue which could mean tha-"
"That if we can disrupt their connection we might be able to weaken them!" McKay interrupted before turning to speak with a scientist that G had not met before. A quiet and modest man with an equal intelligence to McKay (even if he did not have the willpower to convince McKay of this fact) by the name of Zelenka. Beckett gave her an apologetic look and helped her back onto the bed.
"Carson, is John here?" he nodded and gestured towards a tall man wearing dark military clothes who was standing close to plastic barrier and appeared to be talking to her sister with a passionate conviction. It was obvious that the people here, at least from what she had seen, cared about each other deeply. She smiled as Beckett as he left her to discuss their new plan, which from what she could gather involved using the DNA of something called a Wraith to disrupt their organic link and leave them susceptible to an electromagnetic pulse. G watched on with equal amounts of curiosity and concern. New members of the Atlantis team had appeared during her time spent unconscious and she was wary about approaching them, never sure how people would take her strange appearance and unique skill set. She brushed a piece of silvery violet hair out of her face and back towards the pony tail before deciding to involve herself in their current discussion.
"Ok, we think we've found a way to uncouple the nanite cells from Elizabeth's," McKay began.
"We?" Beckett interrupted with an incredulous look at having been included in one of Rodney's breakthroughs, sure that he had heard wrong. A petite woman with tanned skin and a warriors stance had joined the conversation along with a tall man who looked equally intimidating, his hair in long dreadlocks and a dangerous looking gun hanging from his waist.
"How?" the girl asked. G would find that this woman was stronger than she looked with a loyalty and sense of duty that surpassed many she had met. Her name was Teyla Emmagen, the leader of a group of villagers that the Atlantis team had saved from their home world due to the creatures called 'Wraith'. McKay and Beckett looked at each other before beginning to speak almost simultaneously.
"We create a distraction." They said together.
"What were the nanites originally designed to do?" McKay continued, rounding on the warrior, a survivor named Ronan Dex.
"Fight the Wraith?" he replied with a shrug. McKay nodded enthusiastically as he often did when divulging a new or important breakthrough.
"Exactly, so, that's what we'll get them to do now."
"We think tha' by implanting a small amount of Wraith tissue into Dr. Weir's body…" Beckett started by ways of an explanation.
"It's like a tumour." McKay interrupted, too excited to allow someone else to have his limelight.
"Aye, a small tumour, yes. The nanites cells will essentially…"
"Will attack it. They have to. It's what they are programmed to do. Which will draw them away from Elizabeth's cells, effectively unbinding them." Rodney finished rather triumphantly.
"You do realise that this will only afford you a matter of seconds?" G said, garnering everyone's attention and nodding at them each in greeting.
"But that's all we need," reassured McKay, gesturing his hands emphatically. "Momentary distraction to draw them away from her so we can zap them with an electromagnetic pulse."
The one named John nodded, his eyes conveying his determination to save the woman before him. "Ok, let's do it."
G watched on as her sister was injected with the strange genetic material and the doctors got ready to set off the EMP. G braced herself. Not only was her sister in trouble, but she knew the EMP would adversely affect her for at least a few moments.
"You ok?" The man named John asked her, standing beside her and watching her sister with equal focus. "Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, so I hear you're Elizabeth's sister?"
"I know who you are, and yes, I am. She asked for you, you know? You must have a pretty strong bond. You respect each other a lot, huh?" She replied, looking at him with a sideways glance. "Don't give up on her ok?" he looked slightly shocked at her observations, and continued to watch her sister as she went to sit down nearby, preparing herself for the EMP.
When it hit, G felt herself lose a part of her consciousness and her mind became almost too fogged to focus or see, she felt as though her world was spinning so fast that she felt as though she might retch. A voice broke through the fog and she became vaguely aware that the EMP hadn't entirely worked and that in the confusion Sheppard had broken through the isolation parameter to speak to and comfort her sister.
"You know," he spoke, his voice full of concern, but also hope and admiration for the person he spoke to. "If Carson's right, and you can hear me, I suppose I should say something profound… Ok, I'm not so good at profound, but you should know, we're doing everything we can to get you through this. These…. These nanites, I don't know what they're putting you through. I don't know what they're doing to you, but don't let them get to you. We're doing everything we can to bring you back, but you've got to do your part. You've gotta fight this. You're sister's here, and we're not giving up on you, so don't you give up on us."
As G began to let go of consciousness her last thought was that she might enjoy working with the Lieutenant Colonel and the others she had met so far. Even if she did consistently fight the urge to strangle Rodney McKay.
"Wake up sleepy head," a familiar voice broke through the fog and G was roused from her EMP induced sleep to find that once again she was in a bed in the Atlantis Infirmary. Turning her head to find the source of the voice she felt tears immediately sting her eyes and a wide smile expressing her sheer relief and joy at realising that the person speaking to her was none other than her sister.
"Elizabeth," G said in greeting, tiredly reaching out her arm and hand towards her sister, who reached out with one of her own. Their hands grasped gently, relief and affection passed from one sister to the other without the need for words.
"Welcome to Atlantis, G."