Nothing Is As Simple As We Hope It Will Be
Chapter Three: Homeward Bound
"Well, with a fully charged ZPM we can stay in space longer than any of our natural lives, unfortunately we don't have enough food to last us more than two months." Rodney said as him and John sat in Rodney's lab.
"Well, that's bad." John said.
"You think so?" Rodney asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm, before he took a deep breath to calm himself. Looking John in the eyes Rodney continued in a much more subdued tone, "If you charge another ZPM we can make it back to Earth."
"I don't think so." John said and was about to continue to protest when Rodney lifted a burnt out ZPM from below the desk.
"Just give it a try." Rodney said as he pushed in across the table at John.
"But..." John trailed off as he looked at the ZPM.
"If you want me to have unwavering faith in your magic story and not have you committed to a mental hospital when we get out of this..." Rodney trailed off not needing to finish his thoughts.
John eyes wavered between Rodney's serious eyes and the ZPM that was sitting on the table. Not saying a word he reached out both hands and took hold of it. His brow furrowed in concentration and he slowly began to feel his magic flow through his arms, the ZPM glowed as he feed it his magic. Rodney's face was slightly awed as he watched John restore the ZPM. It took a full minute of strenuous concentration but when it was over John was holding a second fully charged ZPM in his hands. "I did it!" he said in a sort of awe as he sat back down on his chair.
Rodney looked at him a smirk fully in place. "Told you."
John just grinned back. "Don't let it go to your head."John said as he set the ZPM on the table.
Rodney had already set the course for earth and made the jump to hyperspace before John made his announcement to the crew that was still on board. "I am pleased to say that we have enough power left in the ZPM that we will be able to get back to the milky-way, quite possibly even back to Earth." John said as he leaned on one of the railing while speaking to the rest of the crew. "McKay, estimates a week with the ancient hyper-drive. So I suggest everyone get some rest and get ready to be home again." And with that John turned away from the people who had gathered before him with a sort of grim smile in place as he walked over to Rodney. "Well, there you have it."
Rodney just hummed in reply as he looked at the semi-skeptical faces of the rest of the crew that was beginning to disperse. "I am not sure they believed you." Rodney whispered back to John.
"Well too bad." John ground out as he sat down in one of the chairs and began messaging his forehead.
"You okay?" Rodney asked as he noticed how pale John looked.
"I'll be fine. I just didn't get a very good night's sleep." John muttered as he leaned back in the chair letting his head fall backward until he was staring at the ceiling. He sat there silently for a little while before he finally looked back over at Rodney. "You know, I used to have a wife?"
"I think you mentioned it one or twice before." Rodney replied slowly, wondering where this was going.
"I dreamed about her last night." John replied as he looked back up at the ceiling. "First time I had really thought about her in months." John sighed. "Who knows what is going to happen when we get back. Maybe I will see her."
"Maybe..." Rodney said as he looked over to see Zelenka approaching them. "Zelenka." Rodney greeted.
"Rodney, John." Zelenka responded as he sat down in one of the empty chairs. He stared into Rodney's eyes as he sat there for a few more moments. "I thought you would be interested to know that I went to the power room to check the amount of power that we actually have."
Both John and Rodney were looking at Zelenka wearily. Zelenka continued. "There were two ZPMs."
"Umm...yes." Rodney said as he glanced over at John for support.
"Radek," John began slowly, "you can't tell anyone what you saw."
"Where did the second ZPM come from? They were both fully charged." Zelenka asked accusingly as he looked between Rodney and John.
"Look, Radek, this might not be the best place to be talking about this." John said nervously as he watched some of the passer-byers look at the trio with more interest than he was comfortable with.
"Then find somewhere that is." Radek said as he stood up and waited for John and Rodney to lead the way.
"We can go to one of the labs." Rodney said quickly as he lead the way for the other two. They walked in silence, Radek walking behind the other two. No one spoke until the doors to the nearest empty lab had shut all the way. Rodney and John were standing on one side of one of the lab tables, Radek standing on the other side.
"What are we going to tell him?" Rodney whispered to John as he looked back at the glowering Zelenka.
"Obviously not the truth." John muttered back before turning his attention to Radek. "Now I know this is going to be hard for you to accept," John began, "but I need you to promise me that you will not bring up the extra ZPMs until we reach earth. Then you can write any mission report you want. But for the moment this has to stay under wraps.
All of the main non-essential monitors have been ordered off so that we can conserve power, so no one else is going to be going snooping around about McKay's ability to get maximum energy out of the ZPM or see what the ZPM power levels really look like. Everyone will continue thinking that it was just our good luck that we will be able to get home.
Until we get home, we don't want everyone trying to figure out just exactly what happened and getting all riled up." John paused to see how Radek was taking it.
"Where did you get the ZPMs" Radek said again, not responding to anything that John had just said.
"We can't tell you." John replied evenly.
"When we get back to earth I -am- filing a report with both of you in it." Zelenka said threateningly.
"I expect you to." John said.
"Um, John..." Rodney said slowly. "I like my job here at Stargate."
"I know you do, Rodney." John said as he continued to stare at Zelenka.
"Well... Zelenka's report. Wouldn't that, um, quite possibly get us in trouble?"
"Yes, Rodney, it would."
"Then why the hell are you telling Zelenka that he should go ahead and publish that report?!" Rodney asked in dismay.
"Because I plan on publishing one myself." John said.
"Really?" Rodney asked in surprise.
"Yes, McKay." John said annoyed.
"You are going to tell the SGC about the ZPMs?" Zelenka asked.
"In the report." John confirmed.
"The truth?" Zelenka continued.
"Yes." John replied looking slightly annoyed.
"I am still suspicious."
"I am sure you are. But I promise that we did not steal the ZPMs and we got them quite legally."
"Then why did no one else know about them!"
"They were a secret." John replied exasperated. "The less people that know about it the better. Keep quiet about this, Radek" John said as he stood back from the table. "I obviously have a mission report to get started. Rodney, keep Zelenka company."
"What?" Rodney asked confused as he watched John begin to walk towards the door.
"Make sure he doesn't blabber!" John explained as he opened the door and left.
"Oh." Rodney said as he looked back over at Zelenka. "Well, that went well." Rodney said exasperated as he sat down in a chair.
"Will you tell me where you got them now that Shepherd is not here?" Radek asked.
Rodney just groaned in response.
John sat down at the desk in his room a blank piece of paper sitting in front of him that his mission report was suppose to be going on. The only problem was that he was not sure if he really wanted to tell the truth like he had told Radek that he was.
The truth, John was sure, would look nothing like the truth to the United States government. In fact, John was pretty sure it would look like either treason or spying. John sighed as he continued to stare at the blank piece of paper.
Ever since last night when he had reached down into his magical core to charge the ZPMs he had known it was time. Time to go back to the wizarding world, at least partially. John just wasn't sure how he was going to do it. He could fell his magic stirring inside of him, waking up after being asleep for so long. Last night had almost felt exactly like when he had first held his wand in Olivanders. The feeling was over powering.
John felt his lips curl upward slightly as he thought about it.
His paper however was still blank.
He might as well start at the beginning.
John started writing. First he wrote how he had purposefully left out key information about himself when he had originally joined the air force. He had left out the small foot note that he was a wizard. Not only was he a wizard, but there were whole communities of wizards living all over the world living in secret. In great detail John wrote about the wizarding worlds decision to remove itself from the non-magical world after being persecuted by the non-magical.
John looked down at his paper and groaned. How was the SGC ever going to believe this. A small voice in the back of John's head said that they had believed stranger things before, and this would just be one in a long line of many crazy reports. Picking up his pen, John continued.
He wrote about how he had decided that after having grown up in the non-magical world and being educated in the wizarding world he had in the end decided that he would continue to live and work in the non-magical. John selectively left out all of the other more important reasons for leaving the wizarding world.
John continued to write about how he had not used magic for years, believing that he and the SGC could work without it and that only in the desperate situation of needing to power the ZPM did he allow himself to use it again.
And even though in John's heart he knew it was time to go back to the wizarding world, he concluded that he had no intentions on continuing to use magic now that the danger had passed. Looking down at the finished report John nodded to himself and sat down at a laptop and began to type.
Rodney looked down at his bowl of froot loops with distaste. It was just another day until they reached earth and the last week had been the most stressful week Rodney had ever been through. Rodney was not a good liar. Now he found himself practicing it at least once an hour. People asking him about how he had managed to boost the powers of the ZPM. Asking why he had not thought of it earlier. And Radek's piercing stare everywhere he went.
Rodney could not remember a time when Zelenka had ever been such a large pain. Where ever he went, Zelenka would ask subtle questions about the ZPM. He couldn't get away from the pestering! It was driving him absolutely crazy. He would be so glad when they got back to earth and John would publish his report.
Stirring his froot loops around the bowl, Rodney willed himself to relax. This misery was almost over, just another day and he would be home in his apartment with his cat. Rodney sighed contently. Almost there.
Back at SGC
Walter looked at the printout that one of the other technicians had placed in his hands. "Oh no." He muttered to himself as he scanned the pages quickly. "Put the station on alert. I will go tell General Landry." Walter said as he quickly walked over to one of the telephones. Dialing quickly he waited a moment for the General to answer. "Sir, I think you want to get down here right away." He paused. "We have an unidentified ship that appears to be preparing to go into orbit around the earth." There was a longer pause. "Of course, sir. Already done." He hung up the phone and took a deep breath.
Walter looked over at one of the other technicians. "Begin to prepare for radio contact with the ship." Walter instructed quickly as he sat down at his own console and began locking Stargate operations until they knew exactly what was going on.
It only took a minute before the General himself had appeared at the control room. "Have we made any contact yet?"
"No sir." Walter replied. "We have been hailing them but we have not gotten any responses."
"Visual conformation?" Landry asked.
"Our satellite should have a visual any minute, Sir."
"Are we sure it is not one of our own?"
"The Apollo is in orbit on the other side of the planet and is also making to get visual conformation as quickly as they can." Walter explained as he examined his console. "We have visual from the satellite." He said quickly as he typed quickly and brought the image up.
"Isn't that Atlantis?" The general asked skeptically as he examined the screens in front of him.
"It's that or a replicator ship that the recent reports from Atlantis mention."
"Patch me through to them." General Landry ordered.
"Go ahead, sir."
"This is General Landry of Star Gate Command of Earth. Identify yourselves or discontinue your approach. If you do not, we will be forced to take defensive actions."
"McKay!" John nearly yelled as he watched in horror as one of the consoles on the bridge burst into flame.
"I'm sorry but the communication's console was already so far gone! I warned you this might happen!" McKay burst out as he searched franticly for a fire extinguisher. Finding one he began spraying the fire.
"Now how are we going to tell them who we are?"
"I don't" McKay never finished his sentence as he felt the ship shake. "Was that something hitting us?" He asked in disbelief.
"They are firing at us." John growled out as he ran off the bay towards the hanger.
"What are you doing?!"
"I am going to use a short range communication from one of the jumpers." John yelled over his shoulder as he continued to run and felt a second impact.
Making it into a jumper he quickly turned on the console and began his message. "This is John Shepherd of the Atlantis Crew. Please desist fire. Our ship has already endured significant damage." John watched as the screen in front of him flickered on and he saw General Landry's face.
"Major." Landry greeted.
"General, sir. Good to see you." John replied, a relieved look passing over his face as he relaxed in his chair. "Sorry, for not informing you that it was us. Our communications on the main bridge are only recently in such a state that they could not be repaired." John said thinking of the fire.
"Quite alright, though I hope we did no more further damage."
"I think we will be all right. I would like to request permission to begin sending people down through the gate though."
"Permission granted. Briefing can wait until you all get down to SGC."
"Thank you, sir. See you soon." John said as he closed down his terminal. They had done it. They were home again.
A/N: Well there you go. I think this must be about the fifth time that I have tried to write this chapter. It went anywhere from them actually going down to the planet they found and getting attacked by huge bugs, to everyone finding out about the ZPMs. I hope that this chapter works out well though. I had a really hard time deciding if I wanted them to come home right away or not. With any luck with will work out in favor of the plot line I have in my head.
R&R