Title: No Such Thing, part 5
Summary: Nancy Sheppard arrives in Atlantis to review Mr Woolsey's good work.
Characters: Bit of everyone.
Pairing: Nancy/Sheppard, Sheppard/Teyla, Teyla/Kanaan
Rating: T

"You understand, Richard, I'm sure."

Woolsey grudgingly nodded. He'd been in Nancy's position many times before – he'd been the bad guy to people like himself too often for him to not understand. Only now did he fully understand why people disliked him so much. He hated Nancy's position and, if she was anything like he had been back then, he knew she hated doing what she was doing.

In his office – where he'd retired to after watching Sheppard's Jumper slip through the Bay doors seamlessly – she sat quietly in the corner with a handheld tablet, tapping buttons silently, every now and again glancing in his direction when his palm landed flat and loud on the surface of his table with a slap. He couldn't believe it; the City had been quiet for weeks and if he didn't know any better he'd assume that whoever was in the ship floating off in space had a device in Atlantis that let them know Nancy was here reviewing Woolsey.

He had gotten used to life in Atlantis, he admitted. He'd realised soon enough that the detachment from Earth wasn't the god forsaken end of all things that the IOA had thought; it was, in fact, a blessing to those leading the expedition. It offered them leniency that Woolsey had once upon a time frowned upon. Now, he couldn't imagine having the IOA breathing down his neck every two minutes, questioning his judgement – making him question his own judgement – at moments of pressure.

He was suddenly very glad that the people he'd surrounded himself with – or, more accurately, been surrounded by – were so damn good at their job. Without them, he would have been flailing blindly in the sea off the East Pier within his first week. He'd been talked off the edge – figuratively speaking, of course – too many times to count by Sheppard and Lorne, even Teyla and Doctor Beckett and if it hadn't been for them in his first few months, he's sure he'd be back on Earth pushing papers around telling whoever was unfortunate enough to have the Atlantis position how to do their job.

"I do," he said eventually with a half smile to Nancy. "It's just a very different feeling from this side of the firing range."

Nancy smiled sympathetically and Woolsey looked away. Through the glass walls of his office, he could see a flurry of activity in the control room and heard the radio burst to life as Kostokov's team radioed for clearance. These sounds that had once seemed so foreign to him were a blessing, instilling him with a sense of home so profound that he wondered why anyone would ever want to leave. He'd had conversations with a couple of personnel about their gene and, while he didn't have that same symbiotic relationship with the City, he couldn't help but sense that the city had formed a bond with him. It was ridiculous, he knew, and if anyone caught wind of it he knew a white padded cell wouldn't be far off but – well, he thought with a laugh, he was in another galaxy, leading the good fight against life-sucking aliens and robot machines and human-alien hybrids.

"I'm not taking shots at you, Richard," Nancy said quietly as she moved from her seat in the corner to the one in front of his desk. She leaned forward, her arms on the table and Woolsey watched as the light caught the ring on the chain around her neck. The gold glinted brightly as it swung but he looked away, up to her eyes and nodded. "From what I've seen so far, you're doing a good job." She shrugged. "No one can negate that."

Woolsey raised his eyebrow and pursed his lips, sensing the 'but' that she didn't voice. He didn't push for her to voice it either.

"Mr Woolsey?"

Woolsey looked up to Chuck as he hovered in the doorway, the young man's eyes making a cursory glance of Nancy Sheppard before settling back on Woolsey.

"Yes, Chuck?" It had taken him many weeks to get the poor boy's name correct and now that he knew it, he took great pains to use it as often as possible.

"Captain Kostokov's team found something interesting on M46, sir." Woolsey eyebrows rose at that and he glanced to Nancy to see that her interest was piqued as well. "He thinks you might like to hear about it soon."

Woolsey nodded and stood, pushing paper around on his desk for show. Even now, he still didn't like to be seen idle.

"Ready the briefing room, I'll be there in five minutes."

Chuck nodded once, nodded to Nancy and left, descending the stairs with rapid pace. Woolsey sank back into his chair and took his glasses off, pinching the bridge of his nose. This was all he needed. Another disaster to add to the ever growing pile of things he suddenly couldn't cope with. He needed a coffee – or a glass of wine, whichever was closest. He opened his eyes and saw Nancy gathering her things from the chair she'd recently vacated and he sighed. Such niceties would need to wait.

--

The silence in the Jumper was unsettling but Sheppard could do little to alleviate it. Ronon sat behind him, sulking silently and both Sheppard and Teyla had tried to draw him out with little success; they received a few grunts here and there when they exchanged vocabulary but little else. Sheppard suddenly realised how much time Rodney spent talking, how much time he and Rodney spent bickering, especially lately.

Beside him, Teyla tapped on a laptop at which Sheppard was silently surprised. She'd drawn up schematics that McKay would have and had transferred them onto the HUD; so used to having McKay do a lot of the leg work himself, Sheppard hadn't really thought about trying to hone their life signs detectors until Teyla's taps ignited the urge in the Jumper to do just that. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye, watching as she silently worked, her head lifting every few moments to glance out at the black expanse beyond. He wondered if she, like him, was still fascinated by the emptiness of space. With the Stargates, the universe felt small but when witnessed from within a tiny machine like the Jumper, the expanse was vast and unthinkable.

It reminded Sheppard of how insignificant they really were.

"Do you think Woolsey will pass his review?" Teyla asked quietly, drawing Sheppard from his musings.

He turned to her slightly and shrugged his eyes flickering over the display on her laptop for a moment before the image appeared in his mind. He caught her eye and smiled, sending her a silent nod as he adjusted their heading slightly. It would still be at least half an hour before they reached the ship but Sheppard didn't want any unexpected surprises.

"I don't see why not," he replied moments later, glancing back to Ronon when he grunted. "Nancy's fair; there's many in the IOA that would give him a bad report just so they could get his job."

"And Nancy doesn't?" He turned to her then, meeting her gaze for a moment before she dipped her head. From behind him, he thought he could hear Ronon snicker but he chose to ignore it. "It is a job much coveted by the people of your world."

Sheppard snorted at that, fiddling with the control console for lack of anything else to do.

"Not as much as you might think." Teyla turned to him and raised her eyebrow. "It's... very political, you know?" He shrugged nonchalantly, looking away from her. "They appointed Woolsey because he's a by the book kind of guy and now that he's starting to play things the Pegasus way, they're going to piss all over him until he either quits, or goes back to the way he was. Either way, it's not good for us; Nancy only found out about the Stargate Program so she could come out to Pegasus and review Woolsey so that the results wouldn't be biased."

This time, Ronon did snicker and John turned to him and glared.

"What?" Ronon asked innocently and looked away, a coy grin teasing the edges of his lips.

"Why don't we concentrate on the mission, huh?" Ronon snorted and John frowned. He hated when Ronon got into these moods. He shook his head and turned back to the HUD as it beeped, the tension returning to his shoulders. "What the hell...?" He wondered quietly as he leaned forward to peer at the information blinking before him on the screen. "It's definitely Todd's ship, I'm picking up his transmitter but..." he trailed off as he touched a few buttons, mirroring Teyla as she did the same to the laptop. He could feel Ronon's breath on his neck, the extra weight on the back of his chair and he knew the Satedan was interested as well.

"There are no life signs," Teyla murmured quietly and Sheppard turned to her, watching as she too gazed out at the approaching bulk. In the expanse of space, it was clearly visible and Sheppard felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as they stood on end.

"I say we just leave it," Ronon said casually as he leaned back in his seat again and Sheppard shook his head, his face contorting with confusion.

"We don't even know if they're on it."

"Could be a booby trap."

"It could be a call for aid, like the transmission stated."

"Teyla, can you sense anything?"

She shook her head. The three looked at one another, the glint in one's eye resembling that in the others'. They loved the challenge of the puzzle. Sheppard weighed up his options as the Jumper continued to close in on the Hive.

"We going in?" He met their eyes and their silence of approval. He nodded once and indicated to Teyla. "Contact Woolsey, let him know the situation." She nodded and John turned to Ronon. "What do you think?"

Ronon shrugged.

"Got what was coming to 'em."

John rolled his eyes and slowed the Jumpers' approach as they waited on Woolsey's response.

"He's in a meeting, sir," Banks replied over the radio and Sheppard rolled his eyes.

"Tell him it's important."

He was sure he heard Banks' sigh of disapproval.

"So is his meeting." There was a pause and Sheppard caught Teyla's eye, saw the way her back went rigid at the inflection of Banks' words. "It's about Michael."

He watched Teyla's face, felt Ronon lean forward and he turned back to imposing Hive before him. He realised now that maybe this was too good to be true.