Chapter 50: They're a part of who you are
"How was it?" I looked up from the report I was reading to see Major Lorne standing just inside the doorway of my lab. Since the whole infirmary friendship scene where Evan had perhaps shown more emotion than he was comfortable with we hadn't had a chance to spent much time together. It had taken time for me to get back to mission strength and circumstances since then had precluded me from going off world. John and I had been back on Atlantis just over a day and I would have eventually sought out my team leader if he hadn't caught up with me first.
"Evan," I replied with a smile, motioning for him to come in. "It was ... interesting," I replied to his first question.
"You met Colonel Sheppard's family?" Evan asked, using the bench as a seat and swinging his legs casually.
"His brother," I agreed, sure John wouldn't mind me telling his 2IC that little detail. "Man you should have seen the stables Evan ... they had horses - beautiful horses. Not that we were there for that ... the family stuff ... it was difficult." I frowned, reminded again of the entire mess of uncertainty I now felt over my own family history.
"You okay?" Evan asked in concern, picking up on some of that.
"I don't know," I admitted. "I ah ... I did some digging about my birth parents while I was there. Ended up with more questions than answers. It's just got me feeling ... unsettled."
"I can understand that," Evan sympathised. "Anything you want to talk about?"
"Thanks," I smiled at the offer before turning serious as I considered how much to tell him. I did want an opinion from someone outside the situation. "I'm not sure there's anything to talk about right now ... I just ... I have a horrible feeling that certain things I've always believed are going to turn out not to be true. If that happens, how will I know myself anymore?"
"You mean how will John know you," Evan corrected, quickly seeing to the heart of my concerns. "I can't speak for him but I can't imagine there's ever be anything about you that would have me seeing you as anything other than yourself. Everyone who knows you would say the same."
"One day you're going to make someone very happy Evan," I smiled at his usual faintly embarrassed blush over receiving a compliment. "Are you sure you don't want me to scope out a nice girl for you?"
"I'm sure," Evan grinned teasingly, "but I'll let you know if I ever change my mind."
"You do that," I returned. Glancing at my watch I raised an eyebrow expectantly. "Lunch time?"
"Why not," Evan jumped down from the bench and waited while I shut down my laptop. "Let's grab Brown and Parker on our way there."
"Good idea," I agreed. "A team lunch is just what I need!"
oOo
A few days later John was scheduled for an offworld mission while I'd scheduled myself some much needed time to do some research ... some historic research. I'd been avoiding the subject since our return and John had been letting me. Neither of us did well being pushed into action or conversation ... something we'd learned very early on in our relationship.
Calling up the personnel files for those known to have lived in the city I began by trying to find records on Ascended Ancients - it was a long shot but maybe some detail would jump out at me - something I could use to verify that I had in fact spoken to an actual Ascended Ancient in the hologram room. If not that, then anything on whether the whole idea of using the hologram room like that was even possible. I quickly became immersed in my work, not expecting any interruptions for hours.
"Hey," I looked up to see John standing in the door way of my lab, smiling in a way that suggested he'd tried to get my attention more than once.
"You're back from M5V-801 already?" I asked in surprise.
"Yeah," John walked inside and glanced down at my screen. "They had a ridiculous list of demands before they'll agree to move their settlement. Not exactly my area of expertise so Colonel Carter's heading back there this afternoon with Jennifer and Rodney. What you working on?"
"Before I go back to the Hologram room I wanted to see if I could find anything more in the main database," I admitted.
"Any luck?" John asked curiously.
"Not really," I replied despondently. "If the whole 'talk with an Ascended being' thing is real then they treated it like a big secret. Apart from that one book I haven't found any other references."
"Well it looks like you could use a break," John commented, putting his hands on my shoulders and massaging them lightly.
"That isn't hurting," I sighed as he increased the pressure enough to have an involuntary groan escaping me.
"You're pretty tense here," John spun me around, frowning down at me in concern.
"Aren't you the least bit concerned about what we discovered back on Earth?" I asked impatiently.
"I know you are," John returned lighly. "Look - you know you're gonna have to just go try the hologram again, right?" he raised an eyebrow when I shrugged dismissively. "But not today obviously. So – coffee?"
"Definitely," I let John pull me up from my seat.
He distracted me with amusing comments about Jennifer and Rodney's one upmanship over who's problems were more pressing. It was a welcome respite but all too soon John had to get back to work. I sat for a time, looking around the Mess as I let my thoughts drift.
"Daydreaming?" Ronon threw himself down into the seat across from me.
"Procrastinating," I admitted.
"Something you're avoiding?" Ronon questioned curiously.
"Kind of," I replied. "Have you ever had a situation where you could find out something but you didn't want to because you knew you wouldn't like the answer?"
"Not really," Ronon admitted. "It's not the Satedan way to avoid anything. What don't you want to find out?"
"Just stuff about my parents," I said vaguely.
"They're a part of who you are," Ronon offered. "Good or bad, you can't change that, whether you know the details or not."
"You're right," I nodded at the truth of that.
"So go do it," Ronon waved a hand, being just as vague as I'd been.
"I will," I said firmly, getting up with a smile. "Thanks Ronon."
Tapping my radio as I walked away I made contact with John.
"Hey, just wanted to let you know I changed my mind," I said quickly. "I'm heading to the Hologram Room now."
"Check in with me in half an hour," John ordered.
"Okay," I appreciated that precaution, just in case things when south and I needed help.
My footsteps slowed as I got close but I pushed on anyway. The Hologram room was silent and unassuming and yet I imagined I could sense a less than benevolent presence. Stepping up to the dais I put my hands on the console and said the words.
"Ego quaeso regimen ex preteritus."
"You have returned," the voice echoed through the room strongly. This time a shimmering ball appeared in the centre of the room where the familiar hologram image should have been. It swirled and shifted before coalescing into someone I'd never seen before. She was tall and slender with a long flowing river of dark hair. Her face, her entire bearing was regal and composed as she looked at me with bright blue eyes. She wore the standard dress of the Lanteans, although in her case there were decorative touches at collar and sleeve edges that gave the outfit an air of importance.
"I suppose," I agreed uncertainly. "I still have questions, starting with who are you?"
"Diamantia," she intoned simply.
"And you're Ascended?" I continued. "You're not just another form of hologram?"
"I am here," Diamantia replied. "Ask your questions."
"Back on Earth I found evidence that suggests my parents were Lanteans," I began. "I wanted to know how that could be."
"Are you truly ready to hear the answers?" Diamantia asked forebodingly. "Once I begin there is no turning back. You must agree to do what I ask so that you may fulfil the purpose for which you were created."
"I'm not going to agree to something before I know all the details," I retorted. "If you won't tell me what I need to know I'll just find another way."
"There is no other way," Diamantia countered. "You will not find the answers you seek without me, and I will not give them to you without your agreement."
"Fine, then I guess this conversation is over," I announced grimly, taking my hands off the console and heading for the door. "If you change my mind you know where to find me."
"Stop!" Diamantia ordered. "I cannot let you leave now ... the opportunity to converse in this direct manner may not come again. You must listen to me!"
"I don't have to do any such thing," I returned, swiping my hand over the door control decisively. When it didn't open I raised an eyebrow at her mockingly. "A bit childish don't you think?"
"You force me to it with your equally childish behaviour," Diamantia said blandly. "Will you listen?"
"No," I tapped my earpiece defiantly. "John, do you read?" There was nothing, not even static. "John, come in?"
"He cannot hear you," Diamantia said in amusement. "No one will hear you until you do as I have requested."
"If it was a request then I might have considered it," I pointed out. "Instead you manipulate and mislead ... and take delight in keeping us humans in the dark."
"It is the way it must be," Diamantia said complacently.
"Not in my world," I retorted angrily. "Now let me out!" I beat at the door with my fists in frustration.
"Not like this," Diamantia replied firmly.
"John!" I tapped the earpiece again even though it hadn't worked last time. Trying a different tack I turned back to the console and accessed communications the old Ancient way, quickly searching for John. There! "John, I need help up here," I thought at him strongly. "The hologram room won't let me out."
John's reply was faint but I got it. "We're on our way."
"Impressive," Diamantia commented admiringly. "I suspect the city has not seen gene powers as strong as yours in close to ten thousand years."
"John's are just as strong," I countered.
"Perhaps on the surface," Diamantia agreed, "but that has more to do with what you are willing to embrace about yourself than it does inherent skills you each possess."
"Look, I'm tired of all the cryptic crap," I said hotly. "If you have something to tell me for god's sake just spit it out!"
"Very well," Diamantia gave in suddenly. "Your gene skills are more consistent with the Lanteans who left here ten thousand years ago," she began. "You have antibodies to a virus that hasn't been seen in that format for the same amount of time. And there is no record of your birth or your very existence on Earth before you magically appeared at the hospital where Gwen Scott worked. What picture does that paint for you?"
"You're saying I'm the person that I am because I have some kind of direct link back to ten thousand year old Lanteans?" I asked incredulously.
"I'm saying that you are one of those ten thousand year old Lanteans," Diamantia countered.
"Don't be ridiculous," I laughed at the idea. "How'd I get there then? I thought it was impossible to travel to the future."
"What was your future is my past," Diamantia replied. "I brought you here because the entire galaxy needs you to be exactly what you are, right now in this place and time. None of that would have survived if I'd left it to genetic chance as you have always believed."
"Wouldn't that break the basic code of the Ascended?" I mocked. "You're not exactly big on action – or as you call it interfering."
"The space of both time and distance were sufficient to ensure my interference was not noted," Diamantia explained.
"What, so you just walked into the city and stole a baby?" I asked incredulously.
"There was an outbreak of Kirsan fever, worse than they had ever seen before," Diamantia said serenely. "So bad that it affected some of the adults and most of the children including a few of the babies ... one of them being you. You were one of several children with the mix of genes I required but the only one sick enough to be in the infirmary and therefore vulnerable. Everyone was tired, distressed, confused ... I used that confusion to take you and bring you forward to this time. I chose the hospital to take care of you, lingered to give you the fever treatment while they believed it was their care that was helping you. And I chose Gwen for you ... I watched her during the weeks you were in the hospital, spoke to her in the guise of a social worker – I knew she was the one to take you in."
"Did you know she and Roger were going to be killed ten years later?" I demanded bitterly.
"There were many events required to bring you to Atlantis," Diamantia said evasively. "I arranged for the placement most likely to result in the required outcome because I could not stay to shape your future."
"You're saying I needed to have adoptive parents who died when I was ten in order to end up on Atlantis?" I scoffed in disbelief. "Because if you are I have to say that is seriously disturbing!"
"I gave them something they would not have experienced otherwise," Diamantia pointed out.
"And it ended up killing them," I returned grimly. "I'm not sure they would have thought I was worth it!"
"Their fate was sealed regardless of your presence," Diamantia told me firmly. "Even your friend Doctor McKay perceived the truth of that when he attempted to extract details about your origins while close to Ascension. It would not have mattered if your parents had never adopted you ... except those ten years would not have been as rewarding for them."
"I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have been picking up a birthday cake that day if not for me," I insisted on keeping that portion of blame I'd always held inside.
"Believe what you will," Diamantia intoned, "but know that what was done was necessary. Your task is still before you and you must be ready to act."
"What task?" I asked. "And how come you can be here now telling me all this? Aren't you worried the others will come and punish you?"
"The space of years still protects me," Diamantia excused my question lightly.
"This isn't your present either?" I asked with a sinking feeling. "You're from somewhere still in our future?"
"I am," Diamantia agreed. "In my future you lived your life in the Atlantis of the past ... you were never here in this time, never a part of the expedition from Earth. I have altered that timeline and brought you here solely for the purpose I spoke of."
The banging on the door was an abrupt distraction. John had arrived!
Frowning impatiently, Diamantia turned back to me. "My time here is short and I will not be able to return before ... you must be there!"
"Where?" I demanded.
"One of your companions will be taken by the Wraith," Diamantia predicted. "You must be with them when it happens or every human in this galaxy will suffer. It was just a small change ... to put the solution inside of you. When the time comes, do not hide yourself!"
Her form shimmered even as John forced the door open a few inches.
"Tell no one!" her voice echoed again.
"Wait!" I called out but Diamantia was gone.
"Sabina!" John called from the doorway. Rushing over I swiped a hand at the controls, not surprised to find that this time they opened easily. "What happened – are you okay?"
"I'm fine," I glanced at the marines he'd brought with him before smiling casually. "The door controls were jammed – you must have fixed them when you forced that section open."
"Okay," John frowned but let me get away with the public lie.
"It was all a bit tiring though," I told him meaningfully.
"You should probably lie down then," John got the message, turning to his marines with a shrug. "Return to your posts. I'll escort my wife to our quarters."
"Yes Sir," they turned as one and strode back down the corridor.
"What was that all about?" John asked as I rushed us in the opposite direction, keeping a brisk pace until we were safely inside our room.
"Oh, just an Ascended Ancient from some time in our future who says she stole me from Atlantis ten thousand years ago because apparently I have to be here right now to stop all the humans in the entire galaxy from suffering!" I got the whole thing out in one breath.
"An Ascended Ancient kidnapped you from Atlantis?" John questioned uncertainly.
"It makes a sick kind of sense," I paced back and forth in agitation. "She said it was a Kirsan fever outbreak, a bad one. She used that to sneak in, grab me, and then sneak out again. It would explain the antibodies plus how I appeared in a locked room inside a hospital without someone leaving any trace of evidence."
"We could confirm it," John suggested hesitantly.
"I could look myself up on the database," I acknowledged that I'd already thought of that. "She didn't give me a name."
"You have their names," John reminded me. "That and the Kirsan fever thing should be enough."
"I'll go look it up now," I agreed. I'd taken a couple of steps before the urge to say something overcame my good sense. "You'll still love me right? If it turns out I'm an alien instead of being human like you?"
"What?" John laughed before he realised I was deadly serious. Moving over to me he cupped my face in his hands and kissed me firmly. "I will love you because no matter what happened in the past you're still you and you're still mine." Moving his hands from my face he put them in the small of my back and pulled me in sharply. "Not to mention the fact that you're still hot – and everyone knows that making it with the hot alien chick is seriously cool!" He kissed me again quickly before I pushed him away with a laugh.
"Can you take this seriously for just a minute?" I said with impatient amusement.
"I'm taking it as seriously as it needs to be," John insisted. "You're you – no matter who your parents were, where you were born, or when. Find out the rest and then we can put this away where it belongs."
"Okay," I agreed meekly, standing there just looking at him instead of moving like he expected.
"What?" he demanded when I said nothing.
"You really are one in a million John Sheppard," I said softly, pulling his head down to instigate a kiss of my own. "I can see now just how much luck was involved in my being here with you ... if I had the choice I'd go twice that far for the privilege." Leaving John standing there bemused I turned and headed back to my lab, smiling when he caught up to me a few moments later.
oOo
"It's all true," I turned away from the computer screen and looked at John with a blank expression. "Cato and Levana lived here in the city at the beginning of the Wraith war. They had a daughter, Carus, who mysteriously vanished from the infirmary during a severe outbreak of Kirsan fever. She was never found."
"That's you – Carus?" John asked gently.
"I guess so," I agreed, my voice thick with emotion. "It's one of the words they used for beloved."
"It's nice," John drew me to him and held me while I cried ... for the parents who'd lost a child and never known what had happened to her, and for the child who'd always believed her parents had abandoned her because she wasn't worthy of their love.
We sat like that for a time until other emotions began to override my grief.
"How could she have done this?" I asked John, wiping at my tears impatiently. "How could Diamantia have justified doing something so extreme?"
"She must believe it's necessary," John replied.
"You've suddenly got a lot of faith in the motives of an Ascended," I commented grimly.
"I'd thank her if I could speak to her," John admitted without remorse. "She brought you here ... to me ... for whatever reason nothing can change that. It's out of her hands now ... it's for us to decide whether we play along or not."
"You're right," I realised. "She can talk about her motives until the cows come home but it's just that – talk. She can't make me do whatever it is she set me up to do."
"I'd say not otherwise she wouldn't have been so keen for your willing agreement," John pointed out.
"Do we have to tell the others?" I asked despondently. "On the one hand it's almost a relief to know that all those things we thought were so unique about me can be explained by knowing I was born on Atlantis thousands of years ago. But on the other hand having everyone know I'm not human is just a freak out I'd like to avoid for as long as possible."
"We can wait until you've had a chance to get used to this," John agreed, "but eventually we'll have to let Colonel Carter know."
"Great," I muttered snidely. "The SGC will inform the IOA and the next thing you know I'll be the subject of experiments at Area 51!"
"That won't happen," John insisted with conviction.
"Do you promise?" I asked worriedly.
"I promise," John replied, squeezing my hands firmly as he made that commitment.
"Okay, then let's just forget about the whole thing for now," I suggested. "I never asked you how things went for Rodney and the others on M5V-801."
"Colonel Carter has a broken leg," John offered. "Apparently she, Jennifer and Rodney fell down a big hole and she broke it trying to climb out."
"Are they all okay?" I asked in concern.
"Rodney cut his hands up pretty bad," John admitted. "He's fine though – so's Jennifer. Sam will be getting around on crutches for a few weeks but she's fine too."
"Wow, Rodney and the woman of his obsessions almost alone in the dark," I said in amusement. "I bet that was a conversation worth listening in on."
"I don't know about that but he and Jennifer were seen having drinks just after they got out of the infirmary," John added fuel to my speculations.
"Really?" I smiled, knowing John was just trying to distract me with the latest gossip. Call me shallow but ... it was working. I was happy to occupy my brain with thoughts about how best to begin teasing Rodney over his latest 'love' interest!
Authors Note:
Diamantia from the Latin word Diamanta which means 'Adamant, like a diamond', from babynamenetwork dot net.
Apologies for not getting to review replies before posting ... I thought you'd all rather a new chapter but I will be replying as soon as I can get to it and in the mean time I'll say thank you to those who reviewed the last chapter.
Next Up? Fortunate Journey Season 4 Chapter 51