The inspection began with, naturally enough, the paperwork. Although technically Skoglund wasn't qualified to make a determination, he began with the military reports. Huang requested, or rather demanded although it was worded as a request, access to the scientific mission reports, papers the scientists had written, (those would eventually be sorted through and classified to certain levels of access for Earth's scientists), and the reports on the Atlantis database project. Woolsey buried himself in the minutia of the administrative reports, including the repairs Atlantis had needed, the cause of each malfunction, and time required for each repair. They were also given reports on the events of the last three weeks.

They had taken over the conference room, and Elizabeth was happy to remain and do her work from there once her guards indicated that they were staying. Technically the McManus cousins might have been ceremonial bodyguards, but in reality they were there to guard her and Atlantis from those who were their targets. The guards rarely did anything but follow her around, so if they were staying regardless of whether she did, that meant that at least one of the IOA representatives was a legitimate target. If she had a choice, Elizabeth knew she wanted it to be Skoglund. Huang she could work with, but Skoglund with his xenophobic and manifest destiny reactions would be next to impossible.

"Doctor Weir, who wrote the final reports for the science team incidents? The person is using acronyms that I am not familiar with," Huang said. "It also does not read as though Doctor McKay wrote it." The disapproval and suspicion were clear in her voice.

"Doctor McKay dictates his reports to his assistant Doctor Dex, often while he is working on another project," Elizabeth replied. "I'm aware that she cleans up a lot of his more colorful speech patterns for the incident reports. As for the acronyms, there are several that we commonly use. Which ones do you need the full term for?"

"I thought that Doctor Kusanagi was Doctor McKay's assistant," Woolsey said. He wondered if the poor woman had been demoted or killed. Doctor Weir had threatened to throw her out of Atlantis after all.

"She is, Dex is her married name," Elizabeth explained. "That information is in her personnel file, along with the other details of her marriage to Specialist Ronon Dex."

"But he's an alien!" Skoglund exclaimed. From the dirty looks that Woolsey and Huang shot him, they did not agree with his feelings on the subject.

Huang put her question forward so that discussion could be avoided. She did not want to hear Skoglund go on and on about aliens and his personal theories once more. "What is AWAT? It is the most frequently occurring acronym."

"Accident with Ancient technology, the most frequent of which are electrical burns. The more unusual accidents only happen about once a month, such as Lieutenant Cadman's experience of her mind being rematerialized inside Doctor McKay's brain, although that was Wraith technology rather than Ancient." Elizabeth was so calm as she said this that the IOA people didn't realize the implications for a moment.

"What is AAAT?" Skoglund asked while the other two were silent.

"Accidental activation of Ancient tech," Elizabeth said. "We have at least one high percentage ATA gene carrier on each recon team, and more than one if we can. It's quite easy for them to find themselves accidentally turning things on when exploring Ancient ruins around Pegasus."

"And you don't think that either of these situations are a matter of concern, especially considering the frequency and inherent dangers involved?" Woolsey asked, actually disappointed in her behavior.

Elizabeth leaned forward. "Mr. Woolsey, that's what we're here for, exploring this galaxy and learning Ancient tech; how it works, what each item is supposed to do, how they thought about life, the universe and everything to mangle the quote. We can't do that by sitting on our hands. We have to get out there and explore. Handling these items and yes, turning them on and finding out sometimes that it doesn't do what we thought it did, is a huge part of that.

"I am not downplaying the danger, but we do have protocols to help minimize that danger and we take precautions to insure that civilians, either here in Atlantis or off world, are exposed to that danger as little as possible. Here in Atlantis, all new tech is taken directly to the labs, regardless of what it looks like it might do. Those labs are completely off limits to everyone who does not have the proper security clearance to avoid injuries. No one who does have the proper clearance is going to be careless with safety issues.

"For instance, recently we had an Ancient toy being examined in the labs. It was fairly obvious that it had been the Ancient equivalent of a G.I. Joe but it was taken down to the labs to be examined anyway. Unfortunately someone triggered some of its programming without being aware of what that programming was and it started shooting at the scientists in the lab. Two of our ATA positive personnel went down to the labs to shut it down. No one was hurt. It was taken care of within ten minutes and was a minor incident. That is what our safety procedures and protocols are designed to do." Satisfied that she'd shut them up for a moment about how careless she was with her people, she went back to work.

Several hours later Murphy stuck his head in the doorway to the conference room. "Hey Doctor Weir, it's time for dinner. You gonna eat with us or do you need someone on duty?" he asked. A small, dark haired head peered around Murphy's.

'This has to be Jacob, his and Conner's older son,' Elizabeth realized. "I'm sure that dinner in the little tower's gardens would be a good place to start the physical inspection. Let me just put this up," she said as she gathered her work. Here in Atlantis there wasn't much paper. All of the 'paper work' was done on laptops so that the forms could be compressed and sent to the SGC through the databursts. That meant that it didn't take long for her and for the other five people in the room to get ready.

Elizabeth wasn't a fool. She saw the looks that passed between the three McManus cousins and the way that Murphy was careful to keep on the far side of Woolsey. This had the effect of keeping Jacob, who was riding on Murphy's shoulders, well away from Huang and Skoglund. All that did was confirm her opinions on their characters.

"Why in God's name would you bring a child out here?" Skoglund wanted to know.

Murphy smirked. "Because God said we were on permanent assignment here. I doubt we'll ever go back to Earth. My brother and I want to raise our sons and spend the rest of our lives with our family, not spend the rest of our lives separated from them like what happened to our Da."

"God told you," Huang snorted in disbelief.

Murphy shrugged. "Believe what you will, but things around here tend to have your beliefs turned ass over teakettle. I knew that my family had been doing the Lord's work for a long time, but I'd never thought it'd been over 10,000 years."

"You do the Lord's work?" Woolsey asked. He'd thought that this man was one of the vigilante twins.

"Evbil man, dead man!" Jacob crowed.

Murphy laughed, while the three IOA reps stared in horror. "That's right Jacob. Evil man, dead man."

"How comes you know who's ebil Da?" Jacob asked.

Murphy swung him down off of his shoulders and into his arms. "Jacob," he said seriously. "First you have to be called. God is the one who shows his shepherds who is evil and who isn't, and even then there are lesser forms of filth that the Lord still gives chances to. Do you remember the story of Jonah? God told him to go to a city of people who were doing evil and tell them not to do it anymore."

"Uh huh and he's was scared and gots swallodes up by a whale and the whale spits him out and he goes and tells eberbody and they's sorry they were ebil and they's no do it anymores." Jacob was bouncing as he recited what he remembered of the story.

"That's right, because God gives us lots of chances to be good. But sometimes people chose not to be good even when God gives them their chances. That's when he sends his shepherds to protect the people who are good from those who choose evil. He shows the shepherds who doesn't have chances anymore and who still does have chances." Murphy looked over Woolsey's head at Huang and Skoglund. "That's something you might want to take into consideration."

By now they had reached the gardens that surrounded the little tower. The garden beds were filled with Earth plants, both edible and not, and they made a very pleasant surroundings for the large number of picnic tables, single chairs, small tables, wooden kegs, and makeshift barbeque grills, all of which were in use by a large number of people. It looked like a party was in progress, complete with children running all over the place. Murphy put Jacob down. "Go and find your Granma, Jacob. I think those cookies she was making might be done by now."

"YAHH!" Jacob ran off into the crowd.

"Well, it looks like they're settling in nicely," Elizabeth said.

"Aye," Murphy said as his twin joined them.

"Grab a plate and some food," Conner said. "There's plenty for everyone. Half of Atlantis eats out here now that we've got the place fixed up a bit." He was giving the IOA reps a long look, one that Elizabeth had learned meant that he was looking at the 'marks' that told him what a person had done in their life, and whether or not as Murphy had put it, God was still giving them a chance. "Interesting group they've sent us. Are you sure?" he suddenly asked Elizabeth.

"Yes," she said firmly. She'd made him and his twin promise not to kill anyone the IOA sent, as long as certain conditions were met, mainly that whoever was sent was not actively doing something that made them a target. She hadn't wanted to make that report to the IOA, at least not unless she could honestly say that the rep had brought his death upon himself. Now she was almost wishing that she hadn't made the twins make that promise. Well, there was always the hope that Skoglund would do something stupid in front of a member of the McManus family.

"Fuck," they muttered in perfect unison. Elizabeth turned to hide the smirk she couldn't fully suppress and caught Huang making notes with a vindictive look on her face. It wasn't a good sign. She'd have to find something to get her on their side.

Elizabeth was fortunate enough to find herself a seat near the twins and their family. She wouldn't have missed Jacob's greeting for anything in the galaxy. "Hi Mr. Wussey!" the little boy called across the table as he waved as hard as he could.

"Hello Jacob. How do you like Atlantis so far?" Woolsey asked. The two settled in to have a nice conversation, with Jacob mostly babbling about how nice the city was, how good it was to see his fathers and how he'd gotten to help take care of the animals when his crèche class had gone to visit the barn that had been set up for the Earth animals. Jacob was really excited about going to school for the first time.

"You just remember to listen to the teachers, Jacob. They all know different languages and if you ask nicely they'll probably help you to say them right," Conner told his son.

"Aye," Murphy leaned across his ma, who slapped him gently in the head. "Doctor Zelenka's teaching us Czech and Doctor Dex is teaching us Japanese." He leaned back, but not without exchanging a worried look with his brother. Their ma should have hit him a lot harder than that, and she'd even refused a drink from the newest batch of alcohol. At least they knew now what was wrong with her.

It wasn't the exhaustion that Doctor Beckett had warned them she was probably experiencing. Their mother was breaking down from grief. She might have spent the majority of her life away from her husband, but she'd always known where he was. That was all she had needed; the knowledge that her man was alive and well. Now their father was gone, and so was the anchor she had clung to for years.