Disclaimer: see chapter one

During the time Hex had spent remembering how love had found her, the device had finished healing Rean's wounds. By now, Jet was stood behind her, and to the left. As Jet looked around the room, he could feel the weight upon his shoulders lift a little, and the grimace on his face lessen, as he recognised it from several pictures that had been in his parents possession before they had been blown up.

He was back in Atlantis. It had been years. Literally.

He waited patiently until Hex had made sure all the wounds Rean had suffered had been healed and Rean had left before asking her, "Why are we back in Atlantis? Weren't we headed to the Delta Base? And who fixed it all?"

He could feel her tense up slightly, telling him from experience that she was either a) going to be giving him some bad news, or b) was hiding something very important.

Hex told Jet, "The Doc told me before Uncle Rodney was killed, he had given orders that on this date, at a specific time, we were to open the gate, 'come rain or shine'. I didn't manage to see what co-ordinates Doc put in. Before he finished informing me where we were going, he was hit by falling rubble. The last words he spoke to me were 'homeward bound'. Do you know what he meant?"

Jet's grin had faded slightly, but it was still there.

"It's kinda obvious, he meant we were going home," Jet managed to say. He could sense her confusion at that sentence, since nearly all of them remembered growing up in Atlantis, so that was their home, right? What he didn't get was why everything appeared to be in such pristine condition.

The last time he'd seen Atlantis; the walls had been crumbling down around him, and the dead bodies of both Wraith and human, though many more human corpses than Wraith, had lain strewn all over the debarkation area.

Any of the walls still standing had been scorched black from energy burns with slashes gouged deep into the walls, had bullet holes every few inches, been sliced apart by shrapnel or coated in blood patterns of various shapes and sizes.

He'd only been a Lieutenant then, but it seemed like a life-time ago, and he knew that any of them who seen that disaster, who had lost loved ones, would never forget that horrific sight.

Shaking his head slightly, as though to shake the very memory from his head, he started to inform Hex of his casualty report. It wasn't that she was of a higher rank than him, in fact she was of a rank below him, but one of the casualties was particularly close to her. "We lost Nessie and Tony, they barely managed to give me enough time to boost the force-shield for a few minutes to get everyone we could out, but by the time I'd gotten to the control room, both of their teams were dead, and the Wraith were storming the lower levels. The gate was set for voice deactivation. So I left."

Hex could feel the pain at having to abandon his big brother and his brother's fiancé, her older sister, just when the chance for salvation had arrived. She knew he would be placing their deaths on his hands, and the 'what ifs' would now be filling his head. 'What if I'd run faster?' or 'What if the shield had been at full strength?' She knew that for him, the possibilities would be endless.

She tried to send peaceful thoughts down the link she had towards him, but he was shielded more tightly that the food stores at the Beta Base were from a McKay.

She spoke aloud now. "I don't think any of the children are missing. We know Cas was shot, but Wraith stunners hit Micky and Z before they reached the gate. Unlucky family, hey? Some of the others managed to get them though. Quite a few of the kids got hit by shrapnel, and have suffered minor wounds. A few of us Dragons are treating them, but Rean was the worst off. Jet," she paused briefly, looking to the floor before looking up directly at his eyes, " you're the oldest of us all now. We need you."

Her anger at everything, the Wraith, and Jet blocking her when he never had before suddenly overwhelmed her, and in a burst of rage, she hugged him tightly, shaking him slightly, and harshly whispered, so no-one else would hear, "We shouldn't have been involved in this war! None of us should have been!" It was the only thing she could think of to say.

He turned his head towards her neck, and softly mumbled, "You're right."

A few moments respite, where all that existed was the two of them. Then suddenly, Jet could hear harsh and relatively loud whispers above him, and looking up, he could see a woman with red hair walk out onto the balcony. He knew that he knew her, but didn't know from where.

His hand moved to his front, reaching for his P90, swinging it up to eye level, and moved back from Hex so that if he had to fire, she wouldn't get hit. He asked Hex, whilst jerking his head up towards the balcony, who she was.

He quirked his eyebrow though, and gained a slightly puzzled look upon his face, similar to his father's, he had once been told, he vaguely recalled, when Hex calmly informed him, after she had turned around and performed a cursory inspection of the balcony, that there was no-one there.