Chapter 7 – Dilemma
Elizabeth Weir's office bathed in the morning light. The bluish metal color of the plain, glinting surface of her desk was broken by small groups of souvenirs standing around her palmtop. Little wooden statuettes, a special orchid McKay brought back from one of his missions, a tiny model of the Parisian Triumphal Arch and piles of documents were placed on the right and left sides of the desk, surrounding the woman, who was sitting with careworn melancholy in her eyes.
John Sheppard left her office a minute ago, and Elizabeth leaned back in her chair, intending to think through the whole situation of the injured Wraith, but she heard a firm knock at the door-case of her office and Colonel Caldwell stepped in. After the incident when she accused him of possibly having something Goa'uldish in his personality, her relationship with Caldwell was not more pleasant than falling into an icy lake in a chilly winter-night, so she was not particularly looking forward to having a talk with him.
Doctor Weir tried to fake a smile as an attempt to cover up her dejection, and she signed cordially for Caldwell to come in.
"I hear that Sheppard's team brought back an injured Wraith from their mission," the colonel started speaking.
"Yes, it's true. I decided to order Doctor Beckett to cure her," Elizabeth gave her response calmly. She knew beforehand what Caldwell's opinion would be on the topic, but she did not feel like beating about the bush, so she spoke out, deciding to finish up with this conversation as fast as she could.
"What have you just said?" Caldwell raised his eyebrows surprised. "The problem is big enough a Wraith got into the city and it may see Atlantis standing unharmed, and you want to spare its life?"
Weir got up from her desk. "I suppose she has information about the super-hive. That would be useful to..."
"Oh, no, Doctor Weir, you can't really believe a Wraith would share true information with us!" His mouth curved into a sarcastic, bitter smile. "The only thing we can achieve by keeping that monster alive is that it will do harm to the city or kill someone or contact its folk or..."
"Enough, Colonel," Elizabeth cut in, and she stepped forward. Her face was serious. "If you don't like my decision, that's your personal problem. If you hate it so much, you can write a report to the Stargate Command, and ask for my replacement. That's all there is."
Caldwell looked her up and down with angry sparks in his eyes. He mused over something for a minute, and finally he said, "You want to save that Wraith because it was John Sheppard who brought it here."
"What do you mean?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. This turn of the discourse surprised her extremely.
"I've already seen many times how partial you are when things come to Sheppard."
She rolled her eyes. "So that's the point - you are still jealous of him getting the job you desired."
"You know this case has nothing to do with jealousy," Caldwell retorted indignantly. "It's about your narrow-mindedness. When Sheppard makes a decision, it doesn't matter if it's dangerous or harmful or anything like that, you must instantly stand by him."
She was certain that at least half of his coldness came from jealousy. She nearly felt the phrase leaving her lips: "you touchy, narcissistic careerist", but, being a professional diplomat, she could stop herself in time from uttering those words.
"Look, Colonel," she replied calmly instead. "We don't need to get too personal in this matter. It's neither about John Sheppard, nor about me. There is an injured Wraith, who asked for our help."
"Your teams kill hundreds of these bastards on the missions you send them out. Why should we care about one single Wraith if it lives or dies?"
"Well, it's not as simple as you make it seem," Weir replied coolly. "The U.S. Army is at war against terrorists, so if you were sent to hunt down some of them, of course you would kill them. But what if a woman from a fanatic group gets heavily injured and she comes to your home, and asks for your aid to protect her from dying alone in great torments? Wouldn't you help her?"
"This situation is different. It's not a human, it's a Wraith!"
"She is a living creature with her senses and her consciousness. She asked for our help. Do you really think that we should let her die when we can easily save her? Doctor Beckett told me he had the proper tools to heal her, and he would gladly give it a try..."
"You and that Beckett would make a wonderful couple," Caldwell said mockingly. "You are both so naive."
"It's not naivety!" She crossed her arms, and threw a venomous glance at him. "I don't feel like arguing about that right now. As long as I'm in charge here, we won't let anyone die for anything, if we can help them."
"It's not a person, it's just a Wraith," Caldwell repeated his former statement with plain loathing on his face.
Doctor Weir decided to try to change the aspect of the problem they were discussing. "Two cadets are ordered to keep guard at her room, and they will stay there for the whole time of her recovery. She can't do any harm."
"You were already deceived by the machination of the Wraiths once. Do you want to make the same mistake again?"
Weir bit her lower lip. "You don't have to remind me."
"Okay, then please use your mind, and throw that damned Wraith out of the base to die!"
"You are speaking like a heartless monster."
"No, I'm speaking about a heartless monster."
Elizabeth crossed her arms even tighter. "Don't you understand that this might be our only chance to get information about the super-hive?"
"If you think that following a Wraith's advice might be a reasonable way to solve our problems, you must be completely insane!"
They stared at each other with anger. They both felt that they could not persuade each other, the pointless contest just took their strength away. At the very moment Doctor Weir opened her mouth to start the meaningless argument again, they heard an amused giggle, and they caught sight of Doctor Beckett standing in the door.
"You two remind me of my early childhood: you look exactly like my father and my mother as they were fighting about money," he noted with a smile.
His gleeful banter surprised the two leaders. Caldwell and Weir both flushed red, and seemed to lose their previous cold self-confidence. The colonel cleared his throat, it was obvious that he wanted to come up with a huffy retort, but then he did not manage, he just stood there speechless. Elizabeth stared at the doctor with angry glints in her eyes too, though she was struggling for words as well. Finally, it was she who gave response.
"There's nothing funny about you having a horrible childhood, Carson," Doctor Weir mumbled feeling ill at ease. She adjusted her curly, maroon locks of hair nervously. Doctor Beckett wanted to answer something with a catchy, shrewd smile, but she went on quickly, preceding his reply, "We were... erm... talking about our guest. How is she?"
"I gave her a high dose of painkillers," the doctor said, "but I should start the operation immediately, if we want to save her. What is your decision?"
Elizabeth sighed. She felt unable to look at Caldwell.
"Bring it on," she replied. "Save her life, if you can."
Doctor Beckett smiled at her. "I guess we are doing the right thing," he encouraged her, leaving the place to organize the preparations for the Wraith's surgery. He turned back once from the doorway. "Anyway, I did not have a horrible childhood at all," he told Doctor Weir, whose cheeks turned into a shade of red at instant. "My parents were really sweet, just when it came to financial matters... Anyhow, they loved each other, even if..."
"Thank you, Carson, you can leave now," she snapped, turning away from him. The doctor shook his head still smiling, and then he departed to start the operation.
Elizabeth wished there was an Asgardian beam-flash that could teleport her out of the room right at the moment, she did not feel like facing Caldwell after her decision.
He gnashed his teeth. "You are a real fool to save that goddamn Wraith!"
She had enough of this conversation, and his brusque words made her even more tired of the situation.
"I don't want to hear about it again," she stopped him. "I made my decision, and I'm holding on to it. Goodbye, colonel." She gestured in the direction of the door with a stand-offish, determined look on her face.
"You should listen to me instead of John Sheppard - at least once in your life!" Caldwell snarled, clenching his fists furiously. He turned away, and marched out of Weir's office.
The automatic door slid into the walls with a silent burr, then it closed behind him, throwing golden sparkles of sunbeams into the air as the metal leaf mirrored the morning light. Elizabeth felt sure that if there had still been a slight glimpse of friendliness in their relationship with Caldwell, now it disappeared completely. She had to fight hard to suppress the urge that inspired her to run after him and to say something nice to him. Something like that she understood his point of view, that she appreciated his frankness, that she really saw how dilemmatic this case was, that his opinion could easily prove to be the right one, and so on.
"Oh, well, I could do it, if I were in private here, but I'm not. I'm a leader, I have to make immovable resolutions. I can't show any sign of weakness in front of the kind of person who wonts to question my decisions!" She tried to assure herself. "If I go after him now, he will see my doubts, and next time I won't be able to get rid of him with his constant niggling. Anyway, he called me a fool! I won't apologize to him after that."
She closed her eyes, and tried not to recall Caldwell's cold, derisive words, but she was unable to sweep them out of her mind, they were swirling in her head mercilessly.