CHAPTER 7

Though all she wanted was to find her hotel room and collapse into bed, to sleep for a solid twelve hours without waking every time one of the expedition members made a universal call over the headsets instead of contacting only the person they wanted to speak to—it happened more often than anyone was comfortable with, but it was difficult to control the actions of sleep-deprived, caffeine-overdosing, overworked people—Elizabeth barely had time for a quick shower before she headed for the White House for the first of many Oval Office meetings. If it was just a random politician she would have at least contemplated making some excuse, but Elizabeth wasn't going to entertain thoughts of skipping out on the President of the United States. Not to mention the IOA delegates (though much lower echelon, so as not to attract unwanted attention) from Britain, China, Russia, Germany, and France; the major powers involved in the Atlantis expedition. Meetings involving all of the other countries in the alliance would come later, of course, but the continued support of the nuclear powers was Elizabeth's main concern.

Normally Stargate-related meetings were held in ultimate secrecy, but, since Elizabeth had had meetings in the Oval Office with three different presidents over varying matters, no one would think twice about seeing her name in the minute-by-minute log of the President's day. And, considering the other parties that would be attending the meeting, it could easily be explained away by the fact that she had brokered hundreds of treaties between the world powers over the course of her career and she was simply continuing after a year's sabbatical.

After taking a quick shower and changing into a suit left over from her diplomat days—her suits from her days as a professor at Georgetown were slightly less strict, less professional, and, as she often had when she was a diplomat, she wanted the armour that was provided by her diplomat suits—Elizabeth went down to the café in the lobby of the hotel, her sight set on coffee, strong and sweet, hoping that it would keep her awake long enough to not offend anyone important. She just hoped that she had enough time to get at least two cups of coffee into her system before Jack arrived to take her to the White House.

The coffee at the café was pretty terrible, but Elizabeth sucked down two cups and was adding sugar to her third when Jack showed up, casually taking the seat across the table from her. "You look uncomfortable," Elizabeth commented idly while stirring the sweetener into her coffee, hoping to make it taste better.

"It's the uniform," Jack replied, frowning down at his Class A uniform. "Worst part of the job."

Elizabeth had to admit that she was feeling something similar with regards to her staid black suit—BDU pants and a tee shirt made for much more comfortable work attire, especially now that she was used to going from her casual work uniform to her pyjamas and back; a few annoyingly memorable off-world negotiations and rituals notwithstanding, of course. (She still didn't fully understand why she had had to wear the itchy burlap-like mini-shift of a dress on M2L-492 or why every inch of her skin, even the skin covered by her clothes, had to be covered with the tree sap and mud mixture—that made her break out in a horrible case of hives, thank you very much—on P8Z-119) And, while she had been comfortable in her usually (but not always, and certainly not exclusively) sensible heels, in just the few minutes that her feet had been in what had once been her favourite pair of low-heeled black pumps she had already slipped the shoes off twice, her feet begging for the familiarity of the hiking boots that she usually wore in lieu of the combat boots that most of her expedition favoured.

"So… who are we trying to wow today?" Jack asked. Though Elizabeth knew that Jack had been told who they were meeting with, she knew that he hadn't exactly been focused on the conversation at the time (there had been some kind of accident with the X-302 manufacturing process that, apparently put them behind schedule, and that had take up most of his attention until he had figured out a way to resolve the problem… which, as far as Elizabeth could tell, was simply to just keep cranking the fighters out as fast as possible and the deliveries would be in two parts instead of all at once. She understood the problems that came with being in charge—often times she spent hours, even days, having the same conversation with someone over and over again because her mind had wandered to other crises (concern for off-world teams, mental reminders to check on injured personnel) for a second and she had missed critical information that she needed to be made aware of.

"Representatives from the nuclear powers of the Alliance countries," Elizabeth replied. "And I doubt we'll be doing much 'wowing', Jack, at least not for the next few days."

"Oh, I don't know 'bout that. Just make sure that you give a good story of someone from their country saving the lives of ten or more people and there will definitely be… wow… type stuff… going on," Jack said. "You've got good stories on quite a few, don't you? Like, their people saved the world or something, right?"

Elizabeth arched an eyebrow at the General. "You're saying I should, what? Accentuate the heroic actions of their people to convince them to give us more support?"

"Something along those lines," Jack said. Elizabeth frowned and Jack nodded reluctantly. "I realize that flattery doesn't get you everywhere, especially in international politics. But it certainly can't hurt, right? And, who knows. Maybe it'll grease the wheels a little, to utilize another cliché."

"Yeah, maybe," Elizabeth admitted. She finished her coffee in one long sip, still not loving the taste but feeling much more energized than she had when she arrived at the hotel. "We should go," she said, knowing that they had a fair length drive ahead of them and a lot of traffic to get through. From where she sat she could see that the cherry blossoms were in bloom in the Capitol and, therefore, the influx of tourists would be massive, especially around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Jack nodded. "We should," he agreed as he got to his feet. He looked at Elizabeth carefully. "You okay? We can probably push this thing back until morning. I'm sure everyone'll understand."

"I'm fine, Jack," Elizabeth said.

"The dark circles under your eyes say differently," Jack pointed out as he dropped a few bills on the table to cover Elizabeth's coffees.

"With charm like that it's almost hard to believe that you're not in a relationship," Elizabeth said dryly.

"I know," Jack agreed good-naturedly. "One of the great mysteries of the universe."

"So, how long are you back for?" Sam asked.

"Assuming the Powers That Be don't pull me off the expedition, the Daedalus should be back here in a little under two weeks. Caldwell's people get a few days leave, then we're heading back to Pegasus," John said.

She had heard everything John had said, but her mind was stuck on the first point. "They want to pull you?" Sam asked, frowning.

"I'm just remaining realistic about the whole thing. I don't want to leave Atlantis, but I realize that it is beyond my control." John shrugged. "I don't know for sure, but I do know that I only got to go in the first place because Elizabeth played General O'Neill," he said.

Sam shook her head, chuckling. "If General O'Neill didn't want you to go you would not have stepped through the 'Gate," she said. "Whatever protests he may have put up were token at best."

"What do you mean? He had to have had problems with my file," John said.

"I'm sure he did," Sam said. "I read your file last night," she added with a disapproving frown. "What were you thinking in Afghanistan?"

Exhaling sharply, John rolled his eyes. "My guys were in trouble. I did what I had to do to get them home safely. The Brass had some trouble with my actions, but other than putting that damn black mark on my file, they couldn't do anything. Even when I was doing it I walked the line enough that they couldn't Court Marshall me. It wasn't exactly my intention at the time, and I would have gone as far as I had to if it meant getting my people back, but I got lucky and I didn't have to actually break any of the rules or laws, just bend them a little." He looked at Sam, his hazel eyes piercing hers. "Don't even pretend that you wouldn't have done exactly the same thing if you were in my position."

"Probably not exactly the same thing, but, yeah, sure, I would do anything to get my people home," Sam admitted.

"Thank you!" John said, relieved. "Why does no one want to admit that they would do the same thing when any leader worth anything would do what it takes to make sure that no one gets left behind."

Sam nodded. "And that attitude, right there, is why General O'Neill signed off on you going to Atlantis," she said. "He lives by a code, and the number one rule is simple. No one gets left behind." Sam smiled softly at John. "If SG-1 wasn't about to scatter to several points in the universe I'd say, if you are pulled, you're welcome here… but this is one of our last missions before we split up."

"You're… scattering?" John asked. From all he'd heard SG-1 was the team that stayed together no matter what.

"Yeah," Sam nodded. "Teal is going to work on creating a unified Jaffa government for the freed Jaffa. Daniel finally convinced enough people that he's needed in Atlantis, so he's going to join you on the Daedalus when you guys head back to Pegasus—apparently your head of archaeology is woefully out of his depth when it comes to Ancient artefacts and Doctor Weir hopes that Daniel will be able to at least help figure out some of the things that have big question marks hanging over them. And I am about to leave for Area 51. I'll be heading up R-and-D. I don't know what General Landry is going to do about the team—I don't think he even knows at the moment. After this mission we're just going to go to a few planets where we have close relationships with the people or beings, then SG-1 as we know it is no more."

John stopped walking. "You're giving up field work?"

"Not all field work, just… just daily 'Gate travel," Sam said. She frowned. "Why does it seem like that bothers you?"

"You mean besides the fact that we are in serious need of capable warriors who can understand what McKay and his minions say?" John asked. "I've come to agree with General O'Neill on the subject."

Sam frowned. "What subject?"

Starting their slow patrol of the ruins again, John said, "After Elizabeth asked me to go with them, the General tried to talk me into it. I was… well, reluctant."

"Understandably so," Sam nodded.

"I thought so," John agreed. "He asked me why I became a pilot. I told him—because I think that people who don't want to fly are crazy. He smiled and told me that he thought that people who didn't want to go through the 'Gate were—and this is a direct quote—equally as whacked."

Sam smiled. "That sounds about right."

As expected day one of their White House meeting extravaganza had been, by and large, focused on fleshing out the flash data message that they had sent from Atlantis a few weeks earlier. Elizabeth had been somewhat put off by the fact that they hadn't actually met with President Hayes, especially after she had been told that he was who she would be meeting with and she had prepared herself accordingly, but she had been diplomatic as ever, making sure that the liaison for the United States didn't know how she felt when he showed up in the basement meeting room that she and Jack had gone into, Jack leading the way without a word once they cleared security.

Still, despite the fact that they hadn't covered any material that she hadn't already gone over with the SGC, and ignoring the fact that instead of meeting in the Oval with the President she had been shunted down to the basement of the White House with the American attaché to the Pegasus Project—an uninventive codename that Elizabeth was hardly impressed with, though, again, she kept that to herself—the meeting went well, certainly better than the original meeting with representatives of the major world powers had gone back when General Hammond and Major Davis had disclosed the secrets of the Stargate while fighting with then-Senator Kinsey. Of course, Earth had come a long way since then, and the shock of the secret and the truth of the power of the Stargate had, for the most part, worn off. There was still some grumpiness from the Chinese ambassador, a touch of disbelief from both the British and the French ambassadors, and gentle amusement with the whole situation from Colonel Chekov from Russia, but, for the most part, the meeting had been very cordial, even when the death toll of the siege was brought up.

Which, really, was information that Elizabeth had been incredibly worried about relaying. It was, after all, the only new information that was being given, the only new information, really, and, despite the fact that they had snuck by with a tentative and fragile win against the Wraith, the numbers were hardly something to brag about.

Still, even though her report was hardly sharing the boon to intergalactic progress that the Atlantis mission had started out as, Elizabeth felt that, on the whole, the meeting had gone well. No arguments had broken out, no one had threatened to pull out of the alliance, and, for a room full of politicians, there was very little posturing going on. Which was amazing.

Even so, Elizabeth knew that they hadn't gotten to the hard part yet.

"That went well," Jack said as they got into the car.

"It didn't go well, it just didn't go badly," Elizabeth corrected as the car lurched forward, working it way out of the White House compound.

Jack frowned at Elizabeth. "You get pessimistic when you're tired."

"I passed 'tired' about a year ago, Jack," Elizabeth said dryly.

"I've got about a decade on you, Elizabeth, but I know how you feel," Jack said. "Look, while you're in DC just pretend that you're not the leader of this expedition or the commander of the city. While you're here just imagine that you're just taking these meetings as a representative of the Stargate Program trying to get the support we need."

Shaking her head, Elizabeth shifted in her seat. "If I think like that I'll start panicking that I'm being replaced or something. No, I think I'll stick with my realistic viewpoint on the matter at hand, thank you very much," Elizabeth replied.

"You have no imagination, Doc," Jack said, shaking his head in disapproval.

"I haven't been accused of that since grade school, Jack, and that was a very unpleasant unpublished writer who I had the misfortune of having as a teacher for my creative writing class."

"Didn't think you had creative talent?" John asked.

"Didn't think anyone who hadn't published eighteen novels that landed on the best-seller list had talent," Elizabeth said. "Of course, the crotchety old coot had to go and die before I had my books hit the best-seller list."

"Yeah, but A Modern Treaty on the Struggle Against Arms Proliferation isn't exactly on many people's Christmas list, though," Jack pointed out.

Elizabeth eyed Jack sceptically. "Don't tell me you've actually read my books."

"A few months after we started going through the 'Gate Daniel decided I needed to brush up on my… diplomacy skills… which, I admit, are somewhat lacking," Jack said awkwardly. "He gave me a bunch of books, yours included." He shrugged. "There are only so many games of chess you can play against yourself while recovering for assorted alien maladies."

"Remind me to introduce you to the world of computer solitaire," Elizabeth said, shaking her head in amusement.

TBC...

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