A/N: I own nothing, I will put them all back when I'm done, I promise...

Just to clear a few thing up, the first chapter is a prologue, so pretend the opening credits start to roll. And I'm hoping this chapter clears up a few questions, and raises a whole lot more. Angst and Intrigue are my current helpers... I hope you have as much fin reading this chapter as I did writing it, and I love Sparky cookies!!

To my dearest friend and muse, as always.

Weir was back in her office and reading through one of the mission reports when John walked in. He didn't expect her to look up, and she didn't, but he had expected some acknowledgement of his presence. She didn't move.

'Elizabeth?' he said after the silence began to worry him.

'Mmmm?' she replied without lifting her gaze from the report. It was clear that she was reading it, but he couldn't remember a time when she hadn't at least looked at him.

'I just thought I'd drop by and-'

'I'm fine.' Her voice was even, calm, but still he leant back on his heels a little. And he knew that she had never sounded so… not fine, in all his time on Atlantis. Well, maybe that time with the storm, and the time he'd taken a 'jumper and a nuke… Okay, he admitted, she'd sound not fine a lot, but never the way she did at that moment.

'Right,' he said, nodding, 'good, then I'll go see what Rodney's doing.' He turned on his heel.

'Dr McKay is working on some very important experiments and I'd prefer you didn't interrupt him.' Still, she didn't look at him.

'Okay,' John said, 'I'll go find Teyla and Ronon.'

'Teyla is on the mainland getting a trade consignment ready and Ronon is running through some drills with the marines.'

John turned and faced her, eyes alight with confused frustration. 'Why wasn't I told about this?'

'Because you were off visiting some of our allies when the meeting was held.' The emphasis on the word made it clear whom she was referring to. John winced. He remembered that conversation over the radio. Considering he'd already started the dialing sequence and Elizabeth wouldn't have raised the shield on him, he hadn't really thought about the meeting any further. Obviously, she had.

'And what was decided in the meeting?' His voice held the edge of his frustration. Finally, Weir raised her eyes to his and the coldness in them shocked him. She didn't smile as she spoke.

'The temporary reassignment of Dr Rodney McKay and Specialists Teyla Emmagon and Ronon Dex, which you would have known if you had read the memo I sent you.'

John opened his mouth to say her name and then looked at her, really looked at her. What he saw was enough to silence his instinctive arguments. This woman sitting behind Dr Elizabeth Weir's desk was not the same woman who had accompanied him on the mission they'd returned from three days earlier.

'And my new assignment?' The words almost stuck in his throat, but he had to ask.

'As you are the military leader of this expedition, I believe it would be best if we discussed a change in duties. Unfortunately, during my absence, the necessary work to run the civilian part of the expedition seems to have been overlooked. You have downtime until what counts as next week.' Her gaze didn't waver, her voice didn't tremble, she was as calm as she had been at the beginning of the conversation and it was John who lost his composure. He walked out, mentally cursing every god he had ever heard about. Something was wrong, something was really wrong and he needed to find out what. With that in mind, he stalked through the corridors, keeping the words of Weir, he couldn't think of her as Elizabeth, in mind. That left him one real option, and he headed straight for Atlantis' version of hell.

0o0

In her office, Weir continued to pretend to read the report, her eyes merely scanning the words before her. She'd read it already, over and over again. Still, there were no clues in the document and she put it down with a sigh. What had she been hoping for, some detail to trigger a memory clouded with strangers' faces and strange smells and a pain she couldn't bear because she somehow knew what it meant? Just like she'd known that Carson wouldn't be able to give her good news, she knew she would be best to move on. It was a small thing really, and considering she was the leader of a people who lived each day in apprehension if not fear, it was a small thing. But still, its weight was a heavier burden than she had faced thus far. She ran a hand down her arm thoughtlessly. Taking a deep breath, she picked up one of Lorne's reports and began to read.