Chapter 31: What do you think it means?
"Davos gave me a vision," I spoke softly into the darkness. John and I had retired to bed after a troubling afternoon. We'd confirmed that the Wraith had been telling the truth and that it was bad. Three planets and one hundred and fifty thousand dead bad. It had been a no brainer for Colonel Carter to decide we had to find a way to switch off the attack command. That we were considering trusting John's Wraith friend to help us do that was something I didn't even want to contemplate.
"When was that?" John's voice settled into the quiet room, curious but not concerned that I hadn't mentioned it straight away.
"This afternoon," I replied. "I've been thinking about it since but most of it didn't make any sense to me. The first part looked like Atlantis except for the Lanteans running all over the place. I don't know why but it felt like the city before the Wraith were a real threat – not that I've ever seen that for myself."
"And the second bit?" John asked without commenting.
"Even stranger," I admitted. "I was on Earth in some kind of office, looking at my own adoption file."
"What was in it?" John propped himself up on one elbow and thought the lights on low so he could see my expression.
"I don't know - I only got enough to know it was about adoption," I replied, "nothing more detailed."
"Did Davos explain it?" John asked, still not commenting on what he thought.
"He said it was up to me to interpret it," I grimaced before adding "I've been trying all afternoon but I can't make heads or tails of it."
"I'm surprised you even let him show you that," John said mildly.
"Yeah well if he wasn't sick and in pain I wouldn't have," I said irritably. "I only did it because he'd already told Jennifer and me that suppressing the visions had never worked for him in the past."
"And you were worried about what would happen if you didn't let him share this one," John concluded, smiling down at me fondly.
"He's old," I excused my apparent soft heartedness. "What do you think it means?"
"No idea about the first part," John admitted. "The second bit seems pretty obvious given you were thinking about using the information Rodney gave you to find your biological parents. As for the rest, if what Davos says is true, if all his visions come to pass in some format then we're gonna find out eventually."
"That's what worries me," I muttered.
"Why?" John frowned down at me. "It's not like you saw things exploding or people shooting at us or someone dying." I couldn't stop my eyes from shifting away, something he jumped on immediately. "Or did you?"
"The vision shifted to something else at the end," I said the last bit reluctantly, having warred with myself all afternoon over whether I should tell him what I'd seen.
"To something worse?" John once again seemed to tune in on my emotions – he knew I'd seen something I didn't like ... and that it was about him.
"There was nothing in there to tell me when," I deliberately didn't admit to the specifics, knowing he'd already filled in the blanks himself. "Apart from the fact that I wasn't old and grey."
"You saw me dead," John stated quietly.
I nodded wordlessly, lips quivering as I tried to hold back the sudden urge to burst into tears.
"Sabina," John began but I put a hand over his mouth, shaking my head emphatically.
"I can't talk about this ... besides, if I have anything to say about it, it's not going to happen!" I spoke firmly, my expression telling him not to push it. Changing the subject just reinforced that I didn't want to go there. "What was it like seeing that Wraith again?"
"Very strange," John let me off the hook easily. "You know how it is, after a while it almost seems like the bad things happened to somebody else. Seeing him threw that tactic out the door."
"But you're okay?" I shifted to look at him more closely.
"I'm fine," John reassured me. "A little disturbed that I've become the 'expert' on the Wraith so everyone expects me to know whether we can believe this one or not. Carter's still considering whether we should play along ... I'm thinking his offer is genuine only because they need to turn off that directive just as much as we do."
"A hundred and fifty thousand dead," I recited sadly. "I can hardly contemplate such large numbers in any real sense. We shouldn't have turned the attack command back on – we trusted the Replicators to act as we would but they're machines, they don't care about ethics or compassion."
"Rodney was trying to blame himself as well," John drew me into his side and whispered a kiss into my hair. "I'll tell you what I told him. It was my call and at the time I believed it was the right one. We had a once only opportunity to make a serious dent in the Wraith as a threat to everyone – we had to take it. The important thing now is for us to fix it before any more worlds get destroyed by the Replicators."
"Agreed," I nestled my head against his chest with a sigh. "Just once it would be nice if the side effect was something in our favour, instead of something that just makes everything worse."
"That would be nice," John agreed, running a hand absently through my hair. "There's nothing we can do right now ... except sleep."
"I guess," I agreed with another sigh, pushing my worries, my fears and my guilt to the back of my mind so that they were a dull buzz instead of an insistent roar. "'Night John."
"'Night Sabina."
oOo
John was called away very early the next morning to meet again with Colonel Carter and Richard Woolsey. I decided to check on our Vedeenan visitors before catching up with Rodney. It was strange ... part of me was angry with Davos for showing me what he had but the rest was actually concerned for him. I liked him ... despite what he did for a living! Getting bad news in a vision didn't seem to make a difference to that.
Davos was sitting up in his bed talking with his daughter when I arrived. I approached hesitantly, looking for any signs that he wasn't keen on visitors.
"Sabina," Davos caught sight of me and smiled a friendly welcome. Smiling in return I walked the rest of the way over to them.
"How are you feeling today?" I asked in concern.
"No worse than yesterday," Davos replied complacently. "How are you?" He looked at me closely, really asking me how I was coping with the vision revelations.
"Still firmly determined this is gonna be your first incorrect vision," I said firmly.
"It is not the first time I have also hoped to be wrong," Davos offered. I nodded, appreciating how hard it must have been to show people things worse than they'd been hoping for. "I would like to see more of your wonderful city than just this room," Davos said wistfully. "Linara is worried the exercise will exhaust me."
"I'll check with Doctor Keller," I offered, glancing at Linara with a smile. "If she says okay then you can be sure it won't do any harm. She always keeps us here long after we're ready to get out."
"Thank you Sabina," Linara said gratefully. "If you hadn't turned up I believe my father would have insisted on leaving the infirmary even without permission."
"I'll be right back," I promised, turning and heading towards Jennifer's office. A few minutes later Davos had his freedom, but only to visit a nearby balcony. Linara pleaded for me to accompany him there, promising she'd go and get something to eat if she was sure he was settled.
"You know, I see more than just the glimpses of the future I have shown you," Davos offered as I walked slowly with a supporting hand under his elbow.
"That was pretty obvious too," I smiled easily, guiding him through the doors to the balcony. "You seem to have most of us pegged pretty accurately."
"You find it difficult at times, feeling you've been given your position here for reasons other than your skills," Davos said, putting his hands on the balcony railing and gazing out over the city.
"I'm just ... aware that it's unique within the expedition for a husband and wife to be posted here together," I explained. "Sometimes I feel like I need to do something to show everyone how much I appreciate that."
"Your relationship with Colonel Sheppard is very strong," Davos looked over at me with an intent expression. "Do not let the barriers you imagine get in the way of taking that wherever you want it to go."
"I, I ah ...," I couldn't believe he actually had me almost stuttering in surprise. "I'm not sure I know what you're talking about," I tried to deny he had seen so clearly things I'd hardly acknowledged to myself I was even thinking.
"I speak of children, as you well know," Davos said with an amused look.
"We're a long way from home," I pointed out, "and to be honest I don't know how John would feel about me staying here if I were to get pregnant right now. I can't deny the thought has occurred to me lately, but there's so much going on with the Wraith and the Replicators ... besides I don't know if I'm even ready yet."
"There will always be dangers," Davos said sadly, "and I don't believe any expectant parent can ever truly be ready for parenthood. I would remind you now of the vision I showed you, painful as it was ... and tell you not to leave it too long. Opportunity is there ... but perhaps the window is smaller than you believe it to be."
"It's good advice for anyone, but to be honest I don't know whether to say thank you or be angry," I put a hand over his on the railing to take the sting out of that. "At the very least you've given me things to think about and I'm grateful for that."
"What has always been murky for you will become clear in time," Davos said.
"I hope so," I said with a faint laugh. "I'm sure you'd appreciate a few minutes of quiet time before Linara comes to find you, if you feel up to it?"
Nodding gratefully, Davos turned back to the view, appearing to enjoy the fresh air as well as Atlantis stretched out before him.
I had other questions I could have asked but it didn't seem the time for them. Nodding to the guard standing at the balcony door I went on to look for Rodney.
oOo
"Hi Rodney," I strolled into his lab a few minutes later. He of course was busily tapping away at his laptop as usual. "What're you working on?"
"The Replicator attack command," Rodney replied impatiently.
"We're gonna work with that Wraith?" I asked with a raised brow.
"You haven't spoken to John this morning?" Rodney commented in surprise. "Turns out the Wraith had a subspace tracking device implanted – he activated it the moment we put him in that cell. Sheppard just radioed down here to tell me a Hive ship's been detected on long range sensors." Before I could comment on that Rodney continued. "Oh it gets worse than that. Sam had a vision last night courtesy of Davos. Saw Atlantis being destroyed from space."
"Oh my God," I said involuntarily, feeling the chill sweeping over my body. Davos hadn't mentioned Sam when I'd spoken to him ... his version of patient confidentiality perhaps? In any case, the assurances of Linara, the confidence of Davos himself as he insisted that every vision he'd ever had came true in some format began to echo in my head. Some of what he'd said about windows took on a different meaning again in the face of that. "This is ... what ... is there a plan?"
"They're still talking about it," Rodney replied. "Since we found out about the Replicators wiping out human worlds I've been working on the Replicator code, trying to find a way to turn off that directive."
"Can I help?" I asked. "I mean, I don't exactly remember everything about being connected to their mainframe but something might jump out at me."
"Can't hurt," Rodney agreed, turning his laptop towards me. "You look at this one ... I'll just continue with the database."
It probably hadn't been longer than an hour before our work was interrupted by the arrival of John and Colonel Carter.
"Rodney," Sam's manner was brisk and purposeful. "We need to know if you can shut down the Replicator attack code on your own."
"I've been looking into that, and it's not very promising," Rodney reported reluctantly.
"You're the one who activated it in the first place!" John said irritably. I wanted to keep silent, knowing just from his manner that the morning had been difficult, but I couldn't let the inaccuracy of that statement go.
"Ah, actually I was the one who activated it," I said weakly. "Rodney located it within the Replicator base code and gave me cues for finding it once I was linked into their core but everything to do with turning it back on came directly from me."
"If you could find the command to switch it on then you should be able to find the one to turn it off," John insisted.
"Well, that was easy ... well, actually it was spectacularly difficult, but then everything's relative," Rodney explained with typical McKay 'my genius is never understood because no one is smart enough to appreciate it' disappointment.
"Rodney," Colonel Carter admonished.
"Look, the Replicators were originally designed and programmed to do exactly what they're doing," Rodney explained heatedly. "I mean, they were built for this. It's much harder for the Wraith to get them to stop than it was for us to get them to start again."
"But with this Wraith's help, you think you could do it?" Sam questioned.
"If he really has the original shut-down virus, yeah, I think we can," Rodney confirmed. Sam looked at John, wordlessly seeking his opinion.
"He claims he ordered the Hive ship not to give away our position unless they're attacked," John offered, which wasn't really an opinion.
"Do you believe him?" Colonel Carter persisted.
"Well, are there any other ships headed this way?" John asked expectantly.
"No," Sam replied.
"That's it. For the moment, he's telling the truth," John concluded, getting nods from Sam and Rodney because that did make sense. I could see his logic - for the time being there was nothing else we could conclude although John's expression said he was making even that minor leap of faith under sufferance.
"We should –" Colonel Carter broke off, holding a hand to her earpiece. "Of course Teyla, I'll be there in a few minutes." Turning back to us with a frown she explained. "Teyla had a vision from Davos – something about Atlantis being under attack. I'll get everyone gathered in the conference room."
I stayed where I was as Rodney jumped up and followed the Colonel. John hesitated at the door, looking back at me. "No one would mind if you joined us," he said simply.
"Is Major Lorne going to be there?" John shook his head with a frown. "Then it's definitely not my place either – unless you're after something specific to my work," I reminded him easily. "I don't mind ... as long as you don't mind filling me in later."
"I don't mind," John agreed. "Although I don't think you'd be out of place in this particular meeting – as you just pointed out, you helped reactivate the attack command."
"Call me if you need me because of that," I offered. "I'm not being stubborn here. I just ... I don't want Woolsey putting in his reports that I attend high level meetings beyond my position. Don't protest – we both know he'd do exactly that if I tag along for this meeting."
"Probably," John agreed reluctantly. "Fine – I'll fill you in later on what happens in the meeting."
"And on what happened this morning," I added before he could escape. "And don't say nothing happened because I could tell from your mood that something did happen."
"It was nothing," John insisted. "I was just a tad ... angry that our supposed Wraith friend double crossed us by calling in his Hive ship."
"What'd you do?" my tone was probably similar to that of a mother called to the school because her child had gotten into trouble again.
"I ah ... I may have gone down to the brig to have a little chat with him," John admitted. "I didn't do anything though ... he said he needed the Hive ship to help us. The original virus is on board."
"I guess that makes sense," I mused, glancing at the computer clock I realised it had already been a few minutes since the others had left. "I'm keeping you from the meeting – you should go."
"Yeah," John looked like he wanted to say more but in the end he shrugged slightly, threw me a half hearted wave and disappeared out the door.
I didn't have anything more pressing to do so I settled down with Rodney's laptop and continued to search through the Replicator code.
Authors Note:
The timeline on this episode is very difficult to place so I made a decision to split events over a couple of days as that seemed to make more sense. Otherwise it's an incredibly long and eventful day! So everything up to Sam getting her vision from Davos is day 1 and the rest is day 2 ... I didn't think she'd necessarily run straight to Woolsey and John to tell them what she saw. Also there are a few scenes in this one between two people that Sabina obviously wouldn't be a part of – some of them wouldn't play out exactly as in the episode because of other changes I've made to put Sabina into the story. I trust anyone who remembers all the details will be able to adjust their thinking to account for that.
Next Up? Fortunate Journey Season 4 Chapter 32