CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Simon lived in Elizabeth's house (he had forgotten to attend the meeting with the lawyer to make it their house) in the Stratmoor Hills-Quail Lake Park area on Witches Willow Lane which, in ideal conditions, wasn't more than twenty minutes away from Cheyenne Mountain. Traffic wasn't too heavy, though Elizabeth found that her patience for other drivers in general, while usually fairly quite high, was practically non-existent. No cars and no traffic was another thing that she mentally added to the ever-growing list of reasons she couldn't wait to get back to Atlantis.

At a red light that she knew from experience was annoyingly long—if you were unlucky enough to miss it you could wait for upwards of ten minutes before cars in your lane even got the opportunity to move again—Elizabeth hooked up her trusty hands-free cell phone headset and dialled the number that she had found herself calling more often than she was entirely comfortable with the pencil-pushers that would receive the cell bill knowing about.

"Sheppard," the familiar and comforting voice of her second in command answered.

"Hey," Elizabeth said, suddenly hoping she hadn't interrupted anything. She knew that John was at Area 51 for a reason, that he was there to master X-302's, but the idea of him not always being just a radio call away, was hard for Elizabeth to wrap her head around. The only time he was ever out of contact was when he was in trouble, which she supposed was a contributing factor to her ever-present concern for her second in command. "Sorry, is this a bad time?"

"Nah. There's this weird laissez-faire attitude to my supposed training that is, quite frankly, far from reassuring," John replied. "I've spent most of the day going over potential additions to the military contingent."

"Well, at least you're getting some work done," Elizabeth said, not entirely comfortable with how nervous she felt.

"There is that," John agreed. "So what's up? I mean, not that I mind the spur-of-the-moment calls 'cause they're great for breaking up the day and it's heartening to know that you haven't been eaten alive by the politics that I, thankfully, get to avoid for the most part, but you usually have a reason for calling me."

"Uh, yeah, actually. I'm on my way to the base. Apparently Teyla called earlier and she's going to call again in, like, half an hour, so I'm trying to get back to the Mountain in time to pass some messages along to people back home."

"I thought they weren't going to call until next week," John said. Elizabeth could hear the frown in his voice and she could easily imagine his brow furrowing.

With a sigh she nodded. "Me too. Landry says that he'll get Colonel Carter to tell me why Teyla called early when there's time. Probably some time-change thing that we haven't had to deal with yet."

"Probably," John agreed. "Uh… I can't think of anything that is pressing. Just say hi to everyone and… oh, can you make sure Zelenka checks out Jumper Six? It was doing this weird pulling-to-the-right thing that I'd really like fixed before we get back and I have to start training new people to fly them."

"Jumper Six is pulling to the right. Got it," Elizabeth said, making a mental note of John's request. "So training isn't going so well?" she asked sympathetically.

John let out a bitter chuckle. "Understatement. After I went over the paper crap—which Samantha gave me the lowdown on before I left the base—I got about two minutes in the hanger bay with one of the techs but he got called away and I got sent back to my room. I've gone through about two dozen files since I got back here."

"Anyone good?"

"A few of them show promise for what we deal with, but I'm not wild about judging people by what's in their file. Glass houses and all that," John said and Elizabeth nodded even though she knew John couldn't see the motion. She had always known that what was written down was hardly ever the full story, especially when it came to something as unclassifiable as people. It was why she hadn't cared about the fact that John's record before Atlantis was a mixture of 'amazing pilot'-type comments and 'disciplinary pain in the ass' variations and, of course, the infamous black mark from Afghanistan. Hell, half of the military personnel she had under her command had some kind of negative mark on their record that was stopping them from moving their careers forward on Earth—it was part of why they had agreed to leave the Milky Way in the first place. "What's that noise? You're not driving are you?" John asked.

"How else was I supposed to get to the SGC?" Elizabeth frowned.

"You really shouldn't use your phone while you're driving," John said sternly.

"Yes, dad," Elizabeth said, rolling her eyes. John uttered a semi-intelligible grunt of disapproval in response. "This really bugs you, huh?" Elizabeth asked seriously.

"Very much," John replied honestly.

As she changed lanes in preparation for exiting onto the road that would take her right up to NORAD and the SGC Elizabeth sighed softly. "Okay. I'll hang up then. Talk to you later?"

"Definitely. And check your e-mail. I sent you the names of a few people I think would be able to hack it in our neck of the woods," John said. "Remember about Jumper Six," he added.

"It's burned into my brain," Elizabeth promised. "Stay safe," she added before hanging up, only a moment before John echoed the sentiment so many miles away.

Using the new calculating system to determine the time and date differences between Lantia and Earth that Colonel Carter had sent through the last time Teyla had dialled the Tau'ri home world Teyla and Radek determined the exact time that they should dial Earth again. It was the middle of the night, Atlantis time, but everyone was so accustomed to the bizarre hours and days on end without rest that staying up a little late when things were calm wasn't exactly a hardship for Teyla and Zelenka, the two who were sharing the roles that Elizabeth, John, and Rodney usually filled—Doctor Biro was running the Infirmary with the help of a few doctors that the Daedalus had brought from Earth when the arrived to help defend the Lost City.

The Wraith still thought Atlantis was gone, destroyed by its current inhabitants as a way of keeping both the knowledge of the Ancients and the access to Earth and the new feeding ground it represented from the enemy, and most off-world travel was on hold in an attempt to maintain the ruse. Several Athosian teams had been sent to other worlds where Atlantis and the Athosians had trade partners, all visits conducted via the Alpha Site to prevent being traced, and the rumour that the great city of the Ancients had been destroyed was spread carefully enough that it didn't come off false but insistently enough that word spread across the galaxy with little effort.

A few AR team members had gone off-world to collect raw materials for repairing the city and things like that, but they always went in disguise, usually as Athosians, sometimes in the dress of whatever culture they were planning on trading with or taking from, and, though they were always armed, they used weapons that weren't traceable to the people of Earth, mostly weapons collected from the Genii after their attempted raid of Atlantis and some weaponry that a few of the military and science types had gotten together to create from scratch. Teyla, herself, hadn't stepped through the Stargate, spending most of her days either in Elizabeth's office or working with the military faction of the city to maintain John's usual routine since neither John, nor Ford, not the annoying but ultimately decent Sergeant Bates was there to head up the military. Zelenka, of course, had only been through the Stargate once, when he came to Atlantis, and he was more than happy keeping it that way, spending most of his time working with the team that was studying the ZPM that had saved their collective asses several weeks earlier.

The Control Room was eerily quiet and annoyingly empty as Teyla and Radek waited for the time to come for their scheduled check in. They had dialled in earlier in the day, early that morning, in fact, for the first of two scheduled check ins that were to take place over the time that the leaders of Atlantis' four main areas were back on Earth, only to be told by General Landry that they were a week early. Colonel Carter, who Teyla only knew from stories that McKay told but who Zelenka knew quite well from back on Earth, posited that days were shorter on Atlantis which made time seem to go faster and the culmination of extra hours became days that passed ahead of Earth which was why they had dialled in a week earlier than those in the Milky Way expected. Zelenka and Carter had started talking rather quickly in what Teyla knew was English, though she recognized few of the words, and she had tuned them out for the most part, only listening when Zelenka said something about making sure a special clock was made to prevent such a mistake from happening again. Once that was out of the way Teyla asked to speak with Doctor Weir or Major Sheppard, preferably both—Radek had everything that McKay needed to know uploaded onto the compression matrix that McKay had developed when they all thought it would be their last chance to share thoughts and words with loved ones, and had sent it through to Colonel Carter who promised to pass it along the moment she saw him next.

General Landry had apologized, saying that Major Sheppard was in Nevada at Area 51 for flight training and wouldn't be back for several days at best. Teyla didn't know what or where Nevada was, nor what Area 51 meant—though she made a mental note to find out as soon as she could find a free moment—but she knew what flight training was as John had often spoken of his initial days in flight training in the Academy, usually with great fondness. The General went on to say that Doctor Weir was back from Washington (another place that Teyla had no concept of and made a mental note to ask about when she inquired about Nevada and Area 51) but that she was currently off the base taking a bit of personal time. It was then, with some encouragement from Colonel Carter, that General Landry agreed to call Doctor Weir in as long as Teyla dialled in again in one hour, earth time.

Once Zelenka promised he knew how long that meant for them, Teyla agreed and they cut power to the wormhole.

Ever since then they had been going about their work, and, of course, waiting. There was a lot of waiting going on. More than even the eternally patient Teyla Emmagen could handle. Thankfully Sergeant Tucker was always up for a stick-fight. He had taken to the practise better than anyone else, and, though his movements were still less than graceful, he was more than proficient with the Bantos rods. She enjoyed sparring with him. And it didn't hurt that he was cute, Teyla admitted, though she realized that Earth had a plethora of social taboos, especially when it came to romance in the workplace. Her people never had that problem. She didn't know of any culture in Pegasus that did, to be honest. Romance usually led to sex which often led to children which meant there was another generation to keep your people alive. Teyla guessed, though, that since Earth had been almost completely isolated from alien interference until the Stargate Program had begun several years earlier, that keeping the population up was not much of a concern. A friend of hers had even told her that some parts of Earth had too many people and that families were forced to have only one child at most because of overpopulation. The entire concept was mind-boggling to Teyla. A lot of things about Earth were mind-boggling to Teyla.

"Please explain to me again how we have lost seven days," Teyla requested of Radek who was tapping away at his laptop in the Control Room at the station next to where the Athosian leader had taken up residence. "I still do not understand how it is possible," she added, only somewhat meekly. Since Rodney and Elizabeth and John and Carson had left Atlantis and Teyla and Radek had been in charge she had gotten to know the quirky scientist quite well, and was no longer afraid to admit that she didn't understand a concept in front of him. It was a level of trust she had yet to achieve with many other people, including her team mates, though she trusted them deeply on many other levels.

Pushing up his glasses with one hand while saving his work with the other Radek turned his chair so that he was facing Teyla. That was something that Teyla appreciated about Radek. He didn't multi-task, as Rodney put it, unless he absolutely had to. He was willing to pause in his work to speak to someone, not just continue working and look up when something caught his interest like Rodney did.

"A day is measured by one full rotation of the planet."

"Around the sun," Teyla nodded.

"No," Radek said, shaking his head. He was stammering and stuttering a lot less without the constant pressures—situational or related to a certain Canadian astrophysicist with a big mouth and an even bigger ego—bearing down on him. "That is a year. A day is one full rotation of the planet around its axis."

"Axis… that's the invisible line that runs through the planet that it spins around, correct?" Teyla said, hoping she was right.

Along with her duties as temporary co-leader of Atlantis Teyla had been trying to learn more of the basic sciences of Earth. Chemistry was easy enough as it was much like following recipes. She wasn't a very good cook, Teyla knew, but the few experiments she had done in the Chemistry lab with her tutor had gone quite well… at least that was what she was told. Biology was less of a success, though Doctor Biro had made sure that her field medical training was up to date and that she knew how to administer a dose of epinephrine should Rodney ingest citrus on one of their missions. The other sciences like Botany and Marine Sciences and the more specific subsets of what she were told the three main branches of science—chemistry, biology, and physics—she hadn't exactly gotten around to, though she had borrowed a few books from several departments to read in her resting hours.

"Correct," Zelenka nodded and Teyla smiled, pleased that she had been correct and that no one was around to shrug her personal accomplishment off. "Earth's day-long rotation takes approximately twenty-four hours. Lantia's day-long rotation takes approximately thirty-two hours. However, we have used a system of one-point-three-three-bar hours here being equivalent to one hour on Earth which makes an hour on Atlantis eighty minutes long instead of sixty."

Teyla frowned. "This is where I get confused. My people have always risen with the sun, slumbered not long after dark, and worked during the daylight hours, stopping halfway through the day for a meal."

Zelenka nodded. "It is difficult to grasp," he agreed sympathetically.

"Can you take me through it? Step by step?" Teyla requested. "That might help," she added.

Since they still had another forty minutes before the hour was up—they had been waiting for forty minutes already—Radek didn't see the harm in explaining the time problem to Teyla.

"Alright. One day on Earth is twenty-four hours long."

"I know that," Teyla nodded.

"When we arrived here from Earth we noticed that the days and nights were longer."

"Yes, I remember. Several people were going to their quarters at odd hours for rest in the initial weeks that we were here," Teyla agreed. She had had no such problem, rising with the sun every morning and going to bed not long after the sun went down again at night, just as she had since she was a little girl.

Radek nodded. "We could not find any indication of how long a day and night on this planet lasted, and no test we attempted worked the way we wished it to, so it was decided that we would maintain the use of Earth's twenty-four hour clock."

"Yes, though the concept of telling time for twenty-four hours on a clock that only goes to twelve has never made sense to me."

"Which is why many use what people on Earth call 'military time', meaning instead of one in the afternoon it's thirteen-hundred hours. Still, though, no less confusing, I assume."

"John had attempted to explain it to me many times. When I failed to grasp the concept he had Rodney make my watch vibrate fifteen minutes before and at the exact time that we agree to meet up again if we split up off-world. It causes a very strange sensation against my wrist, but I have yet to return late because I… what is it that your people say? Got lost in the track of time?"

"Lost track of time," Chuck corrected from a few feet away where he was dusting the control console. Ever since Grodin was killed and Chuck was promoted to head guy in charge of the Control Room he had been cleaning the room almost obsessively. It was rather unnerving.

"Yes, that is the idiom," Teyla nodded. "So… because Lantia has longer days… the twenty-four hour clock that we have used since establishing the base… doesn't work?"

Radek nodded. "Exactly. Colonel Carter was reading some of the Archival files that we sent back and she discovered that days on Lantia average at thirty-six hours."

"So… the extra twelve hours… somehow made us a week early for the check-in?" Teyla asked, not feeling much less confused than she had before Zelenka started explaining everything to her again.

"The extra hours here compounded over the last three weeks—on Earth—until we had, using the twenty-four hour clock, lost seven days," Zelenka said, nodding.

Teyla let out a heavy sigh. "I still do not see how such a thing is possible, but as we have a way to correct this now I believe I will cease to worry about it," she decided.

That decision made Teyla picked up the tablet she had been clutching for most of the day and tapped in a few commands until she found the file she was looking for; a file she had prepared on her own people for someone she had never met and didn't know or trust, though she had heard about him over the past ten months from time to time. Elizabeth had told her that Doctor Daniel Jackson loved studying other cultures, that languages were his passion, and that he was the reason that the people of Earth had been able to come to Pegasus both ten months earlier and only a few weeks ago; for that, alone, Teyla was willing to give him a bit of a break, though she still wasn't sure she was entirely comfortable with a total stranger from another galaxy knowing details about her people and their history. Still, Elizabeth had promised that his intentions were nothing but honourable and Teyla trusted Elizabeth implicitly.

A minute and two paragraphs later—she was re-editing for the fifth time that day—Teyla turned to Zelenka again. "So an hour is now no longer sixty minutes long but eighty instead?" she said with a frown that furrowed her brow slightly.

Feeling a little self conscious in jeans with gaping holes in the knees—her most comfortable pair, all soft and wash-worn, faded just the right amount in just the right places—and a tee shirt she'd bought at a concert back in her senior year of high school, Elizabeth tapped her tennis-shod foot while the second of two elevators descended deep into the mountain. She hadn't planned on coming back to the SGC that day, intending on spending her twenty-four hours without official work off-base. With Simon, she mentally reiterated, though the thought of checking into a hotel or hitting the mall had also been considered when she initially left the SGC after her marathon meeting with Landry that morning. Her clothing choices were more than appropriate for any of the tentatively planned options; casual enough for the mall and comfortable enough for the conversation with Simon with the added bonus of thick strings of cotton fibres to pick at if she needed something to distract herself with when—and she knew it would be when—things got too heavy or tense. She had changed out of her conservative pantsuit, purchased in DC, in one of the bathrooms by the parking lot and had stashed her suit in the back of the SUV she'd been given and, when Landry called and told her to get back to the Mountain if she wanted to talk to Atlantis, she had planned on quickly changing again before going to the Control Room to wait for Atlantis to dial in. Unfortunately she had taken longer getting to the SGC than she would have liked and, knowing that she had at least fifteen minutes of security checks ahead of her when she parked the car, she simply grabbed all the ID she knew she would need and rushed for the elevator. If anyone thought any less of her for wearing jeans a little past their prime and a concert tee where the band name and tour info was cracked and faded then so be it, she had decided as she signed in with the guard after stepping off the first elevator. She was comfortable, she had been pulled in on her off hours after not having off hours for the past year or so, and once she had checked in with Teyla she was going to leave again and experience what she knew was going to be a thoroughly uncomfortable conversation with a man she had left, physically, a year earlier, emotionally only about six months ago.

The elevator car finally stopped and the doors opened up onto Level 28. When she had been in charge of the SGC she had figured out the fastest routes from any point to the Control Room. From the surface it was faster to go to the level below the Control Room, cut through the Gateroom, and go up the stairs just outside Corridor C. It was nearly a minute faster than going through the Briefing Room and down the spiral staircase, and it was almost two minutes faster than taking the rather circuitous route through the halls.

When she entered the Gateroom the first thing she did was flick her eyes to the Stargate. She could see right through the large stone ring—it was strange, the chevrons being red instead of blue, the inner ring made to turn instead of the constellations just lighting up in turn, the metal ramp leading up to the 'Gate instead of the 'Gate being set into the floor of the Atlantis Gateroom's raised platform—to the industrial walls and pipes and conduits behind, no shimmering event horizon in sight. Elizabeth breathed an internal sigh of relief—Landry would have called her, or Walter Harriman would have, if Atlantis had already made contact again—and padded across the room, walking with purpose and ignoring the looks she was getting from the SF's in the cavernous room.

The Control Room was fairly devoid of life, another thing that was annoyingly different from Atlantis. The Control Room she was used to was always bustling, always full of people reading off of the temperamental Ancient screens or futzing with interfaces or accessing the Ancient Database since the strongest link outside of the Holo-room was in the Control Room. The Control Room on Earth, however, was a narrow space with hulking supercomputers lining the walls and three chairs, all in front of vital consoles and therefore not places to just sit unless you were using said vital consoles, and the only person who was constantly there was the ranking 'Gate technician, most often newly-promoted Chief Master Sergeant Walter Harriman. The short technician was in his usual seat, reading a book that had obviously been through several readings as it was in a rather sad condition, and he looked up from his reading and nodded at Elizabeth as she headed for the stairs that would lead her up to Landry's office. She figured she might as well check in with the General since there weren't a lot of places in the SGC where one could simply wait around for something to happen. At least, there weren't when you didn't have an office or lab of your own to hole up in. And, as Elizabeth was very much aware of, her office wasn't even in the same galaxy as the subterranean structure she was in.

"You look… different," Landry observed by way of a greeting when Elizabeth appeared in the doorway to his office.

"Well I'm wearing flats," Elizabeth replied dryly. "How long until Atlantis dials back in?"

Landry checked his watch. "Any minute now, Doctor," he answered.

"Good," Elizabeth said, not leaving her position in the doorway. She had seen the office Landry now occupied go through many leaders. General Hammond, whose belongings she had worked around for several days, uncomfortable being in the office that so obviously did not belong to her. Then herself, though she was hardly at the SGC long enough to establish any kind of decoration in the small room, mostly filling shelves with books and enough photographs to convince herself that she wasn't in a dungeon twenty-six floors below the surface. Then General O'Neill, whose decoration style was much like General Hammond's, though with some flairs that were so very Jack that the difference in the offices was as glaring as the difference in the men. And now General Landry, who hadn't quite gotten around to moving in yet, though there was a small basketball net set up against one wall that added a curious new angle to the man seated before her.

"My daughter was grounded for a month after sneaking out to see the Bangles," Landry commented, the random sentence breaking into Elizabeth's office-musings.

Elizabeth frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Your shirt. When Carolyn was fourteen she snuck out of the house with a bunch of her girlfriends and hitchhiked their way to a Bangles concert. I was actually home at the time, something that didn't happen when Carolyn was growing up. Her mother decided it would be good for me to be in charge of punishing her. That was the first time Carolyn ever told me she hated me," Landry said. He shook his head, chuckling. "Its strange, the things you think about sometimes."

"I'm sure the fact that your new CMO just happens to be said daughter had nothing to do with that errant thought," Elizabeth teased lightly. She didn't have the heart to point out to Landry that 'Vacation' was the Go-Go's, not the Bangles.

Landry shrugged. "Maybe. I could kill Jack for not telling me about that little fact before I took over here, you know?"

"General O'Neill is… full of surprises," Elizabeth said diplomatically.

The once-familiar sound of stone scraping over stone made Elizabeth jump ever so slightly, though she was able to cover the fact that she had been startled by turning to peer through the large window in the briefing room that overlooked the Stargate. Holding her breath, Elizabeth counted the Chevrons as they locked.

One…

Two…

Three…

Four…

Five…

Six…

Seven…

Then came what felt like the longest dramatic pause of her life…

And eight.

The 'kawoosh' was the most welcome sight Elizabeth had been lucky enough to bear witness to and when she heard Walter's PA-enhanced voice announce that it was Atlantis' IDC it took all of the self control she possessed to refrain from running down the stairs like an overeager prom date.

When she got back down to the Control Room she immediately headed for the two-way view screen that Walter was pointing to. "The feed is up, ma'am," Walter said, though it was unnecessary as Elizabeth could clearly see the Control Room on Atlantis, Chuck sitting off to one side behind the DHD console, Teyla hurrying gracefully across the bridge that led to Elizabeth's office, Zelenka's body moving into frame as he slid his rolling chair in front of the view screen that matched the one Elizabeth was standing in front of.

"Radek, Teyla, how's my city?" Elizabeth asked, a smile spreading across her face, both at the sight of her friends and at the visual assurance that, not only did Atlantis exist outside of her memories, but that it was still standing.

"Atlantis is well, Elizabeth," Teyla said with a smile.

"Repairs to the damaged sections are ahead of schedule," Zelenka put in.

"My people have been assisting Doctor Zelenka and his team as much as possible in the City," Teyla said.

Elizabeth smiled. She knew that Teyla often worried that the Athosians would grow weary of living on the Mainland having any battles fought for them and doing little more than grow some fruits and vegetables in return, so Elizabeth was glad that Teyla's people had found something they could help with. "That's great," Elizabeth said. "Any Wraith activity?"

"None," Teyla assured Elizabeth. "My people have also been assisting in perpetuating the belief that Atlantis was destroyed. Word is already spreading beyond our trading partners to other planets, ones we have never been to."

"Never thought I'd be glad people are perpetuating that belief," Elizabeth said. Teyla offered a sympathetic look in response.

"I am sending a more detailed account of the past few weeks," Teyla said as she tapped some commands into the tablet she was clutching.

Elizabeth glanced over at Walter who was staring intently at the screen in front of him. "Got it," Walter confirmed.

"We've got it," Elizabeth said turning back to face her Athosian and Czech friends. "It's good to see you guys," she said, feeling the tsunami of homesickness crash over her.

TBC...

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A/N: I was going to go right into the Simon talk, mostly to get it over with because, well, I can't stand the character, but my beta asked me to write this to check in on how Atlantis was doing without its leaders. So... I tried. And... it turns out that I absolutely suck at writing Teyla and my Zelenka really doesn't feel right so... sorry.

A/N/2: While, technically, I'm a child of the '90's (I was too young in the '80's to have many memories beyond vague recollections from the four and a half years that I was alive for) I am very much into the music of the '80's, especially the strong girl groups. The Bangles and the Go-Go's are two of my favourites.

A/N/3: In the last chapter I had Elizabeth say to Landry over the phone that Teyla wasn't supposed to dial Earth until the next day. That was a typo. I did, in the beginning, intend on Teyla being a week early. I have no idea if my math or my logic is even anywhere near sound, but... well, there's a reason I write fiction and not science and math texts.

Thanks for reading. Please let me know what you think about what I've done so far and what you would like to see in the near future.

THE TALK will be in the next chapter... actually, it will probably be most of the next chapter.

Manic Penguin

PS: the details (street names and distances from NORAD, which is on top of the SGC) aboutColorado Springs are real, according to the map site I went to, but I haven't been to Colorado since I was eight and I don't think we even stopped in CS.