Jennifer shook her head in wonder. "I never would have thought that you and Colonel Sheppard knew each other."

"We were practically siblings," Kathy said. "I saw him as the brother I didn't have." In a softer voice, she added, "To me, he was my only real friend."

Jennifer nodded. She had heard about Kathy's long estrangement from her parents. Thank God that they had reconciled before she had left for Atlantis. Somehow, Kathy didn't seem like the sort who easily forgave people who hurt her.

"So this why you wanted to cancel our coffee date?" she asked.

"That, and John – Colonel Sheppard – was in there."

"Oh."

"The thing is I figured that you've worked with him, since you've sort of been promoted."

"Yes, I've worked with the Colonel a few times," Jennifer nodded. "Why do you ask?"

"Ehhh…" Kathy shrugged awkwardly. "I'm meeting up with John – Colonel Sheppard – for lunch; we're gonna catch up then. But… well, I don't really know him anymore."

Kathy walked over to her window and looked out over the City, searching for words.

"The John Sheppard I remember never would have become the killer that this new John Sheppard is," she said worriedly. "The John Sheppard I remember never would have shot his fellow man, much less his leader, even if it was necessary. Sure, he'd get into a fistfight at a moment's notice, just like any boy, but he'd never have become what he is now."

Kathy looked over at Jennifer, her gaze confused and troubled. "I feel like a little sister who's just had every good and true thing she knew about her big brother shattered to pieces. How can I know what to expect from him? He's a stranger to me, Jennifer, he's done horrible and bloody things that go against every moral I believe in."

Jennifer nodded slowly. "True," she said, "but that's what he has to do. He's a soldier; he fights. We're doctors; we heal."

"I know that. It's just… John… Colonel Sheppard… he's changed so much from that boy I thought of as my brother twenty-five years ago. I don't know that we can be friends anymore."

"Kathy, you can make friends with almost anyone you decide to. Your attitude attracts people, and in some cases it's even contagious."

"Maybe so, but Sheppard strikes me as the type who just might be immune."

Jennifer felt surprised by her friend's attitude. Kathy wasn't usually this pessimistic. This situation was really bothering her.

"Well, I can't promise that it will work," she said truthfully. "But Colonel Sheppard isn't a bad guy. Sure, I've had him shout at me once …"

"Shout at you?"

"When Dr. McKay and I used nanites to heal Dr. Weir behind his back, and against his orders."

"Oh. I can see why that would tick him off. He doesn't like surprises, does he?"

"Well, I guess if a person has enough nasty ones…" Jennifer shrugged awkwardly.

Kathy grimaced.

"Oh boy, I can't wait," she said dryly. "Remind me to have any sprinkler system we might have to be on standby in case the fireworks get out of control."

"Oh, it can't be anything that bad," said Jennifer.

"Don't be so sure about that," Kathy said, looking at Jennifer warningly. "Like I said, John would get into a fight on a dime. He was a very… explosive kid. He got it times five over from his very non-businesswoman mother." She paused and added, "Though, it looks like more influences came in."

"Is that necessarily a bad thing?" Jennifer asked.

"Bit of yes, bit of no, I guess," Kathy said. "I'm not sure. As I told you, I don't really know him anymore." She looked over at her clock and sighed. "But it looks like I'm going to be starting in less than six hours."

"And what are you going to be doing in the meantime?" Jennifer asked.

"Rehearsing?" Kathy suggested. "That is, unless you need me."

"Don't overstress this, Kathy," Jennifer told her. "Who knows? Colonel Sheppard may not have changed as much as you think."

"Colonel Sheppard?" Kathy repeated pointedly. "Jennifer, he's supposed to be a doctor, a historian or something like that."

"Well, he isn't."

"I noticed. I guess I'll just have to prepare best as I can."

"With your rehearsing?"

"No." Kathy tapped a laptop on top of her desk. She grinned sheepishly as she explained, "I've been thinking of reading his file, what little I'm authorized to, anyway."

Jennifer looked surprised, and slightly disturbed, by what Kathy was suggesting.

"I thought you said reading someone's personnel file was an extreme invasion of their privacy when you can just get to know them anyway?"

"Yeah, I know this goes against the Code of Kathy, but this is an emergency."

"Is it?"

"He's not gonna tell me zip about what's happened in the last twenty-five years," Kathy said. "So I'll have to learn this way. I don't like it," she admitted, "but I really don't want to run up and ask him how many people he's killed, or some horrible question like that to launch him back into very bad points in his past."

"I guess that makes sense." Jennifer still wasn't comfortable with Kathy's choice of action. "I assume we won't be seeing you in the infirmary until later?"

"Not 'til after lunch, but if anyone needs me don't hesitate to call," Kathy said. "I'll be listening."

Jennifer nodded. "I have to go," she said. "Coffee tomorrow, then?"

"No, I have plans, sorry. I really did want to have a chance to talk, Jennifer, but it's just not going to work out right now. Next Sunday, maybe?"

"We'll see," Jennifer said. She turned to leave, pausing by the door and wishing Kathy luck with her re-acquaintance with Sheppard.

Kathy sat on her bed and pulled the laptop onto her lap. She lifted the top and pressed the power button. Hesitantly she accessed the database and went to the personnel files. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard uncertainly.

She set the laptop aside with a sigh and curled her fingers around a fist as she wondered. Her gaze drifted to an old teddy bear perched atop a small dresser. Kathy smiled lightly at the toy. It – in her mind, he – brought fonder memories of home to mind.

She stood up and walked over to the stuffed bear. He was a rather large one, in his current sitting position nearly a foot high. Her fingers fondled a round, deliciously soft ear. Master Frederick was his name. He had first been given to Kathy's great-grandmother when she was nine. The bear had become a cherished and gently treated treasure of the family since then. When her grandmother had her first child, Master Frederick had been passed onto her. When Kathy had been born, the bear had been given to her mother.

Most of the time, Master Frederick had sat in the shadows on a high shelf in her mother's closet. In times of need, such as Kathy's first injury (she had fallen down the stairs, getting a collection of large bruises, scraped palms, elbows, and knees, and a massive goose egg, quite an impressive accomplishment for an eight-year-old), and whenever someone in the family was particularly unhappy or hurt.

The tradition was to give the bear to a daughter when she had her first child, but for Kathy, Mrs. Sanders had broken that tradition. None of her family had known where she was going (except for maybe her brothers, but Kathy wasn't sure), but Kathy had hinted that there was a possibility it would be a one-way trip.

Mrs. Sanders had promptly gone upstairs. Kathy thought that she was angry with her, which wasn't new, since their personalities often clashed. She was thoroughly shocked when her mother had come back down five minutes later with a sturdy, travel-proof box, which contained the beloved Master Frederick. Kathy had protested, but her mother had been adamant.

In the end, Master Frederick had traveled across the stars to a strange galaxy named after a flying horse, and, coincidently, came to live in a flying city. Quite an adventure for an almost antique teddy bear.

Kathy was glad for her mother's stubbornness as her fingers compulsively ruffled and smoothed the bear's fake pelt, a calming habit she had formed over the years.

"What do you think, Master Frederick?" Kathy asked, not thinking in the slightest that it was peculiar for her to be talking to a stuffed bear. "Should I read the file, or should I just try to get to know Lt. Colonel John Sheppard all over again?"

Master Frederick said nothing, but then, he never did. Sometimes that made things easier, sometimes harder. In this case, both, for now Kathy had more time to think and worry.

She smoothed over the last bit of fur she had ruffled and looked over at the laptop, which was humming quietly. Kathy made a hum of her own, less quiet and more thoughtful.

"I think," she said after a while, "We should give our friend a chance."

She strode across the room and closed the laptop with a sharp click, and placed it back into a dresser drawer. With a murmured, "Thanks," to Master Frederick, she left her quarters and headed for the stairs. She walked along for a ways, eventually making her way to the top of the East Pier.

The wind was stronger than normal today, and Kathy shivered. She hated the cold, being an Arizona native, but she loved the smell of salt air. It was refreshing, even though she was quickly beginning to feel that her nose might fall off from the cold.

She walked out to the far edge of the Pier, ice-blue eyes watching the not so frozen waters surrounding Atlantis.

Atlantis. Gosh, sometimes even after all this time she found herself getting caught up in that brand-new wonder at the fantastic place she had come to call her second home. It was incredible how many fairy tales were true.

She reached the end of the Pier and sat down on the edge, legs dangling over the beginning of a distant plummet to certain death. She sat out there for a long time, thinking of absolutely nothing, just watching the waves and feeling the wind, part of her missing the cry of gulls she had heard so much during her visits to Washington with Seth.

After a moment, she realized that the sun was getting pretty high, and she should check the time. She glanced down at her watch. 9:12 AM. She would be meeting with John in about three hours.

With a grunt, she hauled herself to her feet and slowly headed back to her quarters. Now that her period of thinking was over, she was finally starting.

Judging from his rank, John must have run off and joined the Air Force shortly after graduating from high school or college. It was strange to think that while she was studying for a doctorate in epidemiology, he was off in training camp learning the one thousand and one different ways to kill people.

Heck, that wasn't just strange: it was flat-out scary!

…

Whack! John didn't duck in time, and thus received a ringing blow to his head, courtesy one of the sticks Teyla Emmagan was using to kick his butt. John managed to counter her next blow, and tried an attack of his own, which, unsurprisingly, ended up with him on the floor blinking up at the woman who had successfully been beating the snot out of him for four years.

Good thing she was his friend…

Teyla stepped back, signaling the end of the fight. Instead of inquiring about his state of health, she made a sharp observation. "You are not focusing."

John accepted the hand she offered and allowed her to pull him to his feet, ignoring his whimpering ego. It needed a beating now and then.

"I wasn't aware that it made a difference," he joked. "You kick my butt whether I'm thinking of fighting or not."

Teyla smiled lightly, and her head tilted in an expression of curiosity. "What is it that is bothering you?" she asked.

John shrugged. "Oh, it's nothing," he said.

"If it were nothing, it would not be bothering you," Teyla pointed out.

John smiled wryly. After the aforementioned four years, it had become impossible to slip anything under Teyla's radar.

"I just bumped into someone unexpected, that's all," he said. He assumed a fighting stance, trying to steer the conversation somewhere else.

Teyla took up the stance as well. "That is interesting," she said.

John made the first move, and Teyla moved as gracefully as ever, batting away each of his attacks and responding with a powerful counterattack of her own.

John struggled to defend himself, trying to anticipate Teyla's next action while attempting to strike out as well.

After a swift exchange of blows, most on wood, some on flesh, Teyla and John parted, sizing each other up as they considered their next actions.

"Who was it?" Teyla asked.

Oh yeah, she wasn't going to let this subject go. Well, she was going to find out no matter what John did. Besides, what did it matter, and why did he even care? Of course, it could have something to do with the fact that even thinking about it made John's mind start to reel at the unforeseen blast from the past…

Teyla darted forward and reengaged the fight, and once again, John was scrambling to defend himself. How the woman kept doing it was beyond him, but John had long since determined that he was never going to best a warrior like Teyla at her own game.

Teyla knocked one of John's sticks out of his hand. Now he only had one stick to fend off her two. After a sharp blow to his empty arm, Teyla stepped back again, allowing him to retrieve his stick. He watched her warily as he picked up the wooden pole. Sometimes she'd whack him when he wasn't looking.

John realized that Teyla was looking at him expectantly, and he hadn't answered her question. "Oh," he said. "She's a doctor, one of Keller's people."

Teyla's eyebrows rose at the 'she.' "Has she been here long?" she asked.

"Yeah, ever since the beginning, actually," John replied. "Funny thing is; we never saw each other before this morning."

He straightened up with each stick firmly in hand and resumed the fighting position. Teyla nodded, and they resumed their skirmish, conversation spattering between blows.

"You have met her before?" Teyla asked, striking his left-hand stick with a force that shot all the way up his arm and kicking him in the stomach with much less force.

John stumbled back and blocked Teyla's next series of blows. "Yeah, we were childhood buddies," he said.

Teyla nodded, and John quickly moved onto the offensive while she was distracted. He got in a hit, but Teyla recovered very quickly and gave him three.

"And you have not seen each other since then?" she asked.

John blocked a swipe for his ribs and backed away from Teyla a short distance. "No, it's been over twenty years," he admitted.

Teyla looked surprised by that. "That is a very long time to be apart," she said.

"Yeah, well, life does that," John said in as nonchalant a tone he could manage. "Technically, she shouldn't even be here."

Teyla looked at him with a puzzled frown. "I do not understand what you mean."

"Well, the thing is," John started, making a half-hearted jab at one of Teyla's sticks and receiving a stinging blow to his right hand that made him drop his stick, "last we saw each other, she wanted to be a painter or a pianist."

"Pianist?" Teyla didn't recognize the term, not surprising since there weren't many musical people on Atlantis.

"A musician who plays this particular instrument, the piano," John explained. "It's a pretty popular instrument."

"I see," Teyla nodded slowly. "When you last saw this woman, she was going to be an artist or a player of music. Now she is a doctor of medicine."

"Funny thing is she was the sort of girl who'd punch someone without hesitation," John said. "Heck, she gave a guy a concussion once!"

Teyla looked alarmed. "And how old was she?" she asked.

"Seven or eight, I think."

Teyla winced. "She must have had a very strong personality," she said carefully.

"Oh, she did," John said with an emphatic nod.

"What is her name?" Teyla asked.

"Kathy, Kathy Sanders. Dr. Katherine Sanders now, but it seems that she still goes by Kathy."

Teyla's face lit up with recognition, and John realized that she knew who he was talking about. Why did that make him feel irritated?

"Yes, I believe I know the woman of whom you speak," she said. "I have not met her personally, but…" She stopped suddenly, then added in a quieter voice, "Aiden Ford spoke of her frequently."

"Ford?" John felt an oh-so-familiar pang of regret. Lieutenant Aiden Ford had been a great kid, a Marine who had been full of potential.

But the Wraith had taken all that away and turned him into a madman. And now he was probably dead somewhere, floating out in empty space.

John forced a smile at Teyla's concerned expression. He knew that she knew he blamed himself for everything, she probably even knew about the nightmares he'd had, but he had to put on the charade, had to be fine, or everything would fall apart.

"Ford, huh?" he emitted a weak chuckle. "So that's why he kept hanging around the infirmary. He and Kathy were in cahoots." He paused then and shook his head. "Nah, Kathy was probably just a friend. She wouldn't go for a military guy."

He gave Teyla an empty smile and added, "I guess that means I'm safe, eh?"

Teyla smiled back, and relaxed a little, but the concern was still in her eyes. Suddenly John realized that he was sore, very sore, and Teyla must have put bruises on top of the bruises that were already all over his body.

Teyla must have seen his expression, for she smiled again and returned her sticks to their place. "I think that we have had enough exercise for now," she said.

John smiled back and shrugged, putting his sticks away next to hers. They left the gym without further conversation, accompanied by the pungent aroma of a long workout.