Chapter 18 – Preparations
Doctor Weir was on her way to the cell of the Wraith to search for Doctor Beckett in order to ask him if Claire had succeeded in retrieving data of any vulnerable part in the system of the super-hive. She was crossing the halls where the private quarters were located, when she noticed something strange. She came to a halt as she realized that the door leading to her private dwelling quarters was wide open. She took a few watchful steps and peeped in. She saw a young cadet wearing the uniform of the crew of the Daedalus standing next to her drawers and stuffing some of her clothes into a suitcase.
"What are you doing here?" she asked surprised.
The soldier looked up from his work. "Colonel Caldwell gave me the order to pack a few necessary things for everyone who will escape on the Daedalus," he informed her.
"I still don't get why you are here," she answered with sober immobility. "As far as I know I didn't apply for a place aboard the ship."
"The colonel added you to the list of persons who will come with us," the cadet gave the explanation.
Her eyelashes fluttered slightly, which was the only sign of her emotional reaction.
"Oh, please, put that down." She stepped to the soldier and pulled her jacket out of his grip, "And give me that list."
The cadet obediently slipped his fingers into his pocket and handed a piece of paper to her. Elizabeth picked up a pen from her night-table, and she lined her own name through on the top of the list.
"Find someone else for my place," she said to him quietly. The soldier stood in front of her agape, dumbfounded from her order.
"What are you waiting for?" she asked impatiently, pressing the list back into his palm. "Don't you have a task to complete? Pack the things for the group of the survivors as the colonel told you. You can leave my room now."
"Colonel Caldwell forbade me to change the list..." the cadet muttered.
"It wasn't you, it was me. I have the right to decide if I want to stay here or leave."
"Er, yes, Ma'am, as you wish." The cadet pushed the list back into his pocket, and he walked out of the room with marvel on his face. As he reached an empty corridor, he quickly added one of his Atlantisian pals' name to the list to replace her.
Rodney paced up and down in front of the screen with the counter showing how much time they still had until the protecting system would collapse. The huge, red numbers formed 02:45:03.
"Have you successfully installed the counter?" John stepped into the room with the question.
"Yes," McKay responded, "We have less than three hours."
"It's sad that we can't even try a thing to save the city," John wondered, walking next to the scientist. "Are you sure you don't have something up in your sleeve?"
"I'm sure," Rodney grunted huffily, but then he saw that Sheppard did not really mean what he said, he was just trying to cover up his disappointment over the loss of their beloved city with jokes. "Have you ever wondered what you would do if we returned to Earth?" the scientist inquired in much friendlier manner.
"Of course I thought of it sometimes, but I didn't imagine I'd have to return because of something like this," John replied quietly.
Rodney had never seen him this melancholy before, and he felt a sudden desire to hug him, but he quickly forced himself to overcome this stupid thought. He was still a bit angry because of the night when John was unwilling to share the reason for his former weird behavior, and he still had doubts if Sheppard really considered him as a friend, but at a moment like this, he could not think of anything else but consoling him somehow.
"That's an unhealthy circumstance," he thought to himself, reprimanding himself for feeling this way. "It's definitely unhealthy to care about the feelings of anyone else except me, myself! You're better off without this newfound, silly desire for sociability, it just makes everything so complicated and... fishy."
He patted John's shoulder, trying to perform it as a most natural gesture, but it turned out to be a miserable motion instead, since after finishing the quick tap, he pulled back his hand with such awkwardness that he hit Sheppard's neck with it.
"Oops, sorry, sorry," he said quickly.
John smiled at him, and it made the situation even more uncomfortable for Rodney. He was not sure if that smile was a scornful or a friendly one.
"We shouldn't stand here and talk about Earth," the scientist tried to switch back his thoughts to their former topic. "We'll have the occasion to do so aboard the Daedalus. I need to check the protective system once more; maybe I can find a way to postpone the time of the crash."
"Okay, I'll let you do your job," John said, but he stayed there next to McKay, and oddly it made the scientist's heartbeat race.
"Don't you have something to do?" Rodney asked; his voice was higher than usual. He wished the question made Sheppard go away.
"Not really," the soldier replied instantly. McKay realized that the distance between the two of them somehow diminished to only a few inches.
"I want you to go away, otherwise I can't fully concentrate on my job," Rodney admitted. He saw that his sentence hurt the other man. John turned away, and he left the room without a word.
"Oh, no," the scientist buried his face into his palms. "I'll need to go after him with apologies again..."
After she had the brief conversation with the cadet from the Daedalus in her private quarters, Doctor Weir felt lonely and exhausted. She found herself in a blank, hopeless state of mind, for she was sure that if Claire had had a plan to stop the hive, Carson would have already informed her, so she changed her mind and did not go to the cell of the Wraith, she went back to her office instead. She only wanted to stay alone for a few minutes, but she could not enjoy the silence of the room lost in her thoughts because Colonel Caldwell entered her office in an indignant hurry. He rushed into the room at such speed that it made Elizabeth jump. He threw in front of her the list on which she had previously crossed her name off.
"What's this?" he asked furiously. She wondered if she had ever seen him showing his anger this plainly before.
She picked up the paper from her desk, and she gave a calm look at it. "It's the list of the people who will escape aboard the Daedalus," she answered readily.
"I know that," he growled, "But why the hell have you lined your own name through?"
"Because I'll stay here."
"What?"
"You see, I belong here, to the city," she explained with a joyless smile. "I can't really imagine my life without Atlantis anymore. It's better for me to stay here until the end."
"I can't accept that," Caldwell replied in a stiltedly official tone. "I need to keep the interests of the Stargate Command in mind and you are an important person for them, so you must come back with us to Earth."
Weir started rolling the list between her fingers absent-mindedly.
"So all this is just about the interests of the Stargate Command?" she asked silently.
Caldwell scowled. "What do you want to hear? Shall I talk about my private opinion?"
"Oh, no, no, you don't need to," she said quickly, though it was obvious that her former question had meant it, but now she felt unable to cope with his probable answer. She was afraid that he would tell her that he only wanted her to escape the city for official reasons, otherwise it would be quite alright for him if she died here, and she did not want to hear this. It was still better only suspecting it than knowing it for sure. "Actually, you cannot say anything in the whole universe that could change my mind," she attempted to stop the conversation. She hoped that it would make him leave, but it did not.
Caldwell took a slow breath to regain his self-possession. "I have no idea why you believe that it's your privilege to decide if you stay here or come with us."
"It's my life. I have the right to do so."
"I see that I need to warn you that I don't care about your weak reasons like your pathological affection for the city; I only take rational arguments into consideration, so you have to come with us, because the Stargate Command needs your talents."
"You can't really mean that I'm obliged to escape the city though I don't want to, just because once I was an important diplomat on Earth!" Doctor Weir let the paper-list fall from her hands down on her desk. "In point of fact, there are not many people waiting for me there. It's better if you save someone who has plenty of relatives on Earth..."
"I've told you that I was not interested in these kinds of personal reasons. Pack your things up and get ready for the journey."
Elizabeth stood up from her chair and leaned her hands against the side of her desk, bending forward. "You can choose between two options. You either leave my office right now or I call soldiers to get you out of here with brute force!"
Caldwell stared in her face surprised from her blunt, undiplomatic reaction, but he did not turn to leave. Weir was dumbfounded by the fact that he still did not retreat, though he usually gave in when he saw that she was too determined to convince.
"I won't change my mind," she added.
"Me neither," he replied firmly. "If it's necessary, I'll order Hermiod to teleport you aboard the Daedalus with the help of the Asgardian beam-technology against your will!"
She started to thrum with the tip of her fingers on the cold surface of her desk, and she wondered if she should truly call soldiers to escort the colonel out, but she realized the truth in his words, and she saw that he would end up by abducting her, if she was unable to persuade him about her decision, so she went on. "It's about my life," she tried to reason again. "I have the ability to deliberate upon the circumstances and to make the proper..."
She got stuck in the middle of her sentence because the door behind Caldwell opened, and Doctor Beckett marched in with bright hope on his face. "Elizabeth, Claire made up a plan for us to destroy the super-hive," the doctor announced gleefully. "She explained it to me, and it sounded really promising!"
Teyla was on her hunkers in the corner of her cell, and she was listening to the monotonous bubbling of the liquid in the cauldrons in her bathroom. She began to hate that sound more and more as she spent the greatest part of her days sitting and hearing it. Her head got filled with the invariable gurgle and the meat-colored redness of the walls. She tried a million ways to escape, but all proved to be inefficient. Michael rarely gave her food lately, and he started to pay less and less attention to her. Whether he spent his time brewing mischief or he was occupied with Wraith obligations, she was not sure; the only thing she knew was that she wanted to leave the damned cell and to protect her friends from Michael's maniac revenge.
A soft sound made her aware of her surroundings. She lifted her head up from her knees, and she saw the half-Wraith standing out in the corridor. Michael stepped to the entrance of her cell, but he did not walk in.
"I have wonderful news for you," he whispered with an evil smile on his face.
"Oh, no..." She felt her heart skip a beat. "What have you done?"
"Me? Nothing," he answered with an ironic shrug. "I did nothing."
"Why are you so happy, then?" she asked anxiously.
"My plan works wonderfully!" He squared his shoulders as he went on, "Everything goes the way I want it. Everything. My plan is perfect. You'll get the head of your friends soon..."
"What?" she turned to him taken aback. "No, no, Michael, please... You don't really mean it..."
"Yes, I do. And she helps me a lot to achieve it..."
"She?" Teyla raised her eyebrows. "Who are you talking about?"
Michael clapped his hands with insane enthusiasm. "She is a Wraith... inside your beloved Atlantis!"
Teyla felt the blood freeze in her veins. "No. That's impossible."
"Your poor, silly friends were so desperate to find you that they even took a Wraith into the core of their city, and she happens to be one of my servants... I sent her to hunt some of your friends down, but she failed. I was angry and disappointed, but now I see the great chance in the turn of the occurrences. She helps me more by being their captive!"
"Michael, please, stop this," Teyla crawled to the rails on her knees. "I'll do anything, anything you want, but leave my friends in peace. Please, don't hurt them. Please, stop it. Please..."
"It's really entertaining to see you begging," he remarked scornfully, "But I have to prepare everything for your friends, so I'm leaving now..."
"No!" she hit the rails. "Stay with me, leave my friends alone. I promise you I'll do anything you want."
"It's too late." He took a step backwards, increasing the distance between the cell and himself.
"Michael, please, please! I know you have goodness in the most secret corner of your heart, I know that you are not a cruel monster, I know that you are better than what you show... I know it..."
The Wraith lifted up his hand, touching his lower lip with his forefinger to mime pensiveness tauntingly, and then he replied with a wintry smile, "There you are mistaken."