Disclaimer: I don't own 'Stargate Atlantis' or any related concepts or characters; you know the drill by now. Also, the basic details of the plot were inspired by 'The Phantom of the Opera', although I have naturally put my own spin on things; hope it meets with your approval
Feedback: Always appreciated, trust me
AN: Usual rules still apply to this kind of chapter; whatever you don't see here, such as Chaya's brief conversation with Doctor Beckett in the infirmary, or Elizabeth's meeting with Chaya to discuss the possible treaty for Proculus, happened pretty much exactly the same way as it did in the series (Barring the obvious exceptions that you'll doubtless realise when you read this)
The Phantom of Atlantis
"Where are we at?" Elizabeth asked as she looked inquiringly at her chief scientist as she walked out of her office- she always liked to get a little exercise when she was talking with some of her staff about something that didn't need to remain confidential or private; it was the only real way to get any kind of exercise in Atlantis-, McKay close behind her, his recent report on the events that had taken place on Chaya's planet still fresh in her mind.
She had to admit, she could see how Sumner had been convinced to change his usual policy on bringing visitors to Atlantis; if they could convince Chaya to provide some of the more primitive peoples of the Pegasus galaxy with sanctuary, even without the obvious benefit of having a planet on which to establish an Alpha Site, they would have simultaneously succeeding in saving lives and depriving the Wraith of a potential food source. Transport would have been difficult, of course, but the puddle jumpers could hold a surprising amount of people, and there was always the possibility of finding a crashed dart or something that they could use to 'scoop' some natives to transport them there in less time…
"Either she knows where the weapon is and she's playing us," McKay said as the two of them walked out of her office into the control room, drawing her attention back to the matter at hand, "or she has no idea, in which case we are wasting our time."
"So… what do you suggest?" Elizabeth asked, as she looked uncertainly at McKay while trying to determine what he was going to say next.
"Take another team back in the jumper and scan the planet for energy signatures," McKay replied, as the two of them walked down the stairs towards the main gateroom. "Chaya's people won't have a clue what we're doing from orbit unless they are a technically advanced race which are pretending not to be…"
His voice trailed off, evidently recalling their previous encounter with that very same situation during their first encounter with the Genii.
"Which has happened before…" he admitted, looking uncomfortably over at Elizabeth; the obvious occasion of their prior encounter with the Genii still weighted heavily on Elizabeth's mind, particularly given how close she herself had come to being shot or abducted if it hadn't been for the Phantom's intervention at the last minute.
"Did you find anything abnormal?" Elizabeth asked at last; after she'd spent so much time making sure Sumner remembered that he couldn't accuse the Phantom of anything without evidence, she wasn't going to allow any other members of the team to get away with the same thing in a different situation. "I mean, something that would suggest they are more advanced than they claim to be?"
"No," McKay said, shaking his head promptly. "They're either, uh, pathetically pre-technological or brilliantly post-technological."
"And there's no way this can be a natural phenomenon?" Elizabeth asked, looking inquiringly at the Canadian.
"A perfectly timed, directed energy burst that only affected the Wraith ships?" McKay replied pointedly.
"That's a no?" Elizabeth said; she was fairly certain McKay was saying that was the case, but with his usual sarcastic manner there was no way to be entirely certain.
"That's a no," McKay confirmed with a brief nod.
Elizabeth sighed slightly in frustration as she looked at the ceiling.
What was it about the Pegasus Galaxy that prevented her from encountering the simple situations? Not only did she have to deal with an at-least-slight interest in a figure who may or may not have an ulterior agenda while simultaneously possessing a clearly extensive knowledge of the city and how everything within it worked- as well as being able to control it to a greater degree than anyone on her team had displayed the ability to accomplish-, but now, when they finally discovered a potentially valuable ally, they had to deal with the fact that the society in question might be keeping something from them about how they came to be in that position in the first place…
"Doctor Weir," Carson's voice suddenly said over the radio, breaking into her train of thought. "I have those results."
"Thank you, Carson," Elizabeth replied, as she and McKay stood up. "We're on our way."
As the two of them walked out of her office, Elizabeth could only hope that this part of the meeting would answer at least some of their questions about Chaya's planet; if she was going to meet Chaya to discuss anything about an alliance, she would prefer to have more information than what they had currently available to her if she was going to think of something they could offer Chaya in exchange for her providing them with sanctuary.
A few hours later, as Chaya sat in the room that had been allocated to her, Teyla currently sitting outside the room with a guard- Elizabeth had made it clear that it was only policy to keep an eye on visitors, and Chaya understood that it was not intended as a personal criticism-, studying the information provided for her by Earth's databases, she couldn't help but wish that things could be different.
She disliked lying to Doctor Weir, of course, but she had no choice if she wished to keep her true identity secret from these people; her exile to her world was difficult enough as it was.
If only she had been strong enough to reject Teyla's last attempt to plead the expedition's case…
But, when the Athosian woman had mentioned that the Phantom dwelled in Atlantis- even if his location in the city was not public knowledge-, Chaya had known that she had to return to the city, if for no other reason than to try and meet the man whose very name struck fear into the hearts of the Wraith whose minds she had read when they attempted to come to her world in the past.
He had revived the legacy of her people, using their technology against the enemy that had defeated even them, waging a one-man-war against the entire Wraith species for apparently no other reason than that he had the ability to do something and had chosen to do it…
It was… gratifying, was the best term that she could think of… to see someone willing to use her peoples' technology in the manner that her people themselves refused to use the powers they had acquired after Ascending; even when faced with people they knew dying, so many of her kind had simply 'sat' back and watched after they had Ascended, refusing to interfere with the affairs on the universe even when they had once walked among them.
When faced with the possibility of meeting a man who used their technology to take actual action…
She was only slightly ashamed to admit that she'd been too weak to resist the temptation; after she herself had been unable to do more to the Wraith than annoy them by keeping a single world out of their hands- no matter how dear that world was to her personally-, the possibility of meeting someone who had done enough damage to them to inspire the fear she had sensed as she banished them from her planet…
"Interesting reading, isn't it?" a voice said from behind her.
Jumping up in surprise at the interruption- she had 'turned off' her 'awareness' of her surroundings while reading so that she would avoid attracting further suspicion if someone visited her while reading and wondered why she showed little surprise at their presence; the less people knew about her the better-, Chaya turned around to look in the direction that the voice had come from, only for her eyes to widen as she saw who was standing in one corner of the room.
She had little idea how he could have gained access to the room- it had been many years since she had lived in Atlantis, and she had never been one to be particularly concerned about the city's architecture-, but even as he stood in the shadowed corner of the room, his silver mask made his identity obvious.
"You are the one whom Teyla called… the Phantom, I assume?" Chaya asked, raising a curious eyebrow as she stepped forward slightly to look at the man before her better.
"I am," the Phantom replied, inclining his head slightly in response as he looked back at her. "And you are Chaya Sar, officially here as the High Priestess of Athar on the planet Proculus, correct?"
"Correct," Chaya replied, before she registered what he had just said to her. "What do you mean, 'officially here'?"
"Come now, I think we are both aware that you're not exactly a normal priestess," the Phantom replied, smiling slightly under his mask as he looked at her. "I may have never visited your planet myself, but I have had a great deal of opportunities to study the Ancient database; your world is officially listed as being 'protected' by one of the 'Higher Ones'- the term they used to refer to those who mastered Ascension ahead of the rest of your people-, you feel comfortable enough to make decisions that can affect the future of your entire planet, you possess the Ancient gene at a level that surpasses any of the expedition, and you display little surprise at my presence and appearance despite the fact that you could not possibly have heard of me before Colonel Sumner's team arrived… unless, that is, you are an Ancient who has read the minds of the Wraith who have come to your world in the past to learn about the state of their occupation of this galaxy before you send them packing. Am I correct in my deductions, or am I not?"
After a moment's silence, Chaya smiled slightly at the man before her.
"Your reasoning is correct, Phantom," she said, before she tilted her head to one side as she smiled a little at him. "Or would you prefer it if I referred to you as 'John'?"
"Either is fine with me, really; I've gone by 'the Phantom' for so long I sometimes forget that I ever had a name before it," the man before her replied, smiling slightly at her once again before he assumed a more serious expression. "Of course, if you have some objection to my chosen alias, you may call me whatever you wish; I simply assumed it because-"
"It is… fine," Chaya replied, raising her hand to halt him mid-sentence, smiling reassuringly at him. "You are not one of my people, true, but you have done their legacy great honour in your actions against the Wraith. I have sensed the thoughts of the Wraith who have come to my world since you came to this galaxy, and always they have made it clear that they fear you, in many ways more than they even feared my people."
"Hold on; the Wraith fear me more than they feared the Ancients?" the Phantom- for some reason Chaya 'sensed' he preferred her referring to him by that name rather than 'John'- said, a slightly proud-yet-embarrassed smile on his face. "Uh… glad I've made that kind of impression, but how did I get them that scared?"
"Why should you not?" Chaya replied, a slight smile on her face as she walked closer to him. "You leave little to no clue of your history even among the people you help, you come out of nowhere years after my people left this galaxy, and you rely on significantly different tactics to what we attempted in the past; you combine what the Wraith know and understand about my people with tactics and strategies that they do not. The Wraith do not know what to make of you; after fighting us for so many years while remaining aware of what we were capable of and how we thought, that makes them fear you more than any physical weapon you might possess."
"Ah," the Phantom said, smiling slightly back at her. "Well, it's always good to feel appreciated."
"Yes…" Chaya replied, a slightly wistful tone in her voice, prompting a concerned look from the Phantom.
"Problem?" he asked, looking curiously at her. "I mean, you don't exactly look like you're having the time of your life…"
"It is…" Chaya began, sighing slightly as she turned away briefly before she looked back at him. "I suppose it is simply… refreshing… to have met someone who knows how it feels to feel alone."
"Alone?" the Phantom said, stepping forward slightly as he looked at her in surprise. "What are you talking about; you live among your people-"
"None of whom are aware of the true extent of my powers and status," Chaya clarified, looking at him with a slightly saddened expression on her face. "You have lived alone since you came to this galaxy, but I have lived more than alone; I have lived what is essentially a lie for the last several thousand years, simply so that I might remind myself of the reasons I chose this course of action, and I am still forever isolated from the people I have dedicated my existence to protect…"
She sighed slightly as she looked back at him. "You might live alone, but you have at least been able to be true to who you are; your only lie is to not correct an assumption, which is a minor deception in the grand scheme of things."
The Phantom smiled slightly at her.
"Thank you," he said simply.
"You are welcome," Chaya replied.
Then, before the Phantom could react to her last statement, Chaya leaned forward and kissed him, her lips neatly avoiding the edges of his mask as they met his. She noted a slight twist around the right corner of his mouth, as though he was smiling slightly, but shook that impression off; it seemed more like a natural part of his appearance from what she could feel of it…
Elizabeth wasn't sure which one was more frustrating any more; Chaya's refusal to even consider most of the more obvious things that the expedition had to offer- religious knowledge was promising, but she still wished she could offer Chaya something more substantial than that-, or McKay's continued insistence in finding something suspicious about her.
"You want to send her back?" she asked, shaking her head slightly as she walked towards the stairs leading to the control room. Why was it that at least half her senior staff seemed to have become conspiracy theorists since they'd arrived in the city? She'd just spent a few moments checking on the Athosians' current status with Teyla- so far they were settling in and rebuilding fairly well in the aftermath of the recent storm-, only to run into McKay as she began to walk back towards her office as he demanded for Chaya to be sent away from Atlantis.
"All I know is she's not who she's pretending to be," McKay replied, keeping pace with her as she walked up the stairs.
"You know this because?" Elizabeth countered, not even looking behind herself as she continued to walk; if McKay had genuine reasons a brisk attitude wouldn't stop him revealing them, but if he was just being paranoid she was giving him as good a reason as any to stay silent.
"What?" McKay asked, sounding offended at the question. "I'm not allowed to have intuition?"
"You?" Elizabeth asked, as she briefly turned to shoot him a sharp look even as she continued to walk. "No."
"Oh," McKay said simply.
"I asked Teyla to keep an eye on her while Chaya's conducting her research into our religious history," she added as she continued walking; she could only hope that the last statement would be enough to convince McKay to stop trying to look for a threat where none existed.
"Look," McKay countered, as he continued to walk after her, "no offence, but Teyla's still new to this whole thing; she wouldn't know what to really look for."
"Do you mind explaining what Teyla's expected to be 'looking' for?" Elizabeth asked, continuing to walk despite her own inner curiosity; so far McKay hadn't given her any information that could actually justify his own apparent paranoia where Chaya was concerned.
"Look, the biometric differential rate between her and us is not insignificant Elizabeth!" McKay insisted. After a few seconds of silence- evidently he had been waiting for Elizabeth to say something before realising that she wasn't going to-, he spoke again. "What I'm saying is, the woman set off an alien alarm!"
"Come on," Elizabeth sighed, as she finally turned to look directly at her chief scientist, "you don't know that for certain. Besides, Grodin told me that you are nowhere close to understanding what the nature of that device is-"
"There are too many unknown variables," McKay countered, one hand jabbing slightly forward as though he was trying to better emphasise his point. "There's the energy weapon we saw in action, the fact that they claim never to have seen the Wraith… what about the fact that she's essentially a textbook case of healthy?"
"All very mysterious, yes," Elizabeth sighed, as she turned around to walk into her office, checking over the paperwork that had accumulated there since she had left for her brief walk. "But what does it prove?"
"That we should give her a one way ticket back home," McKay replied simply, his tone suggesting that, as far as he was concerned, it would be for the best if they never saw Chaya again.
Elizabeth couldn't believe it; had she been that accurate in her assessment of Atlantis having turned her senior staff into conspiracy theorists?
"There is obviously something very… different about her, yes," she admitted, as she walked out of her office, her electronic notepad in her hand as she looked at the scientist. "But that doesn't necessarily make her a threat-"
"It doesn't rule it out, either," McKay countered, his expression giving Elizabeth the impression that even her brief admittance of the differences between Chaya and them were all that he had been looking for.
"Until we know otherwise," Elizabeth continued, returning her attention to the notepad as she walked past McKay, "for the moment, I think what we can gain by securing a treaty is worth the risk of her being here."
With that, she turned around and walked into her office, leaving Mckay staring silently after her as she closed the door behind her.
At least that's been dealt with, she reflected to herself as she sat down behind her desk, pulling out the next batch of reports as she began to study them. Now maybe I can get these files out of the way…
She just wished that she could escape this nagging doubt that there was something about Chaya that she should be concerned about, regardless of how much effort she'd put into arguing that Sumner and McKay allow her to remain.
She didn't agree with McKay's apparent belief that she was a threat just because she wasn't entirely human- the SGC had encountered too many fundamentally benevolent alien races for her to believe that something would automatically attempt to attack them just because they weren't the same species-, but that still didn't account for her feeling that their new visitor was not quite the peaceful, religiously-inclined ambassador that she appeared to be.
Plus, there was that frustrating feeling in the back of her mind that she should be… jealous of the woman for some reason that she couldn't quite put her finger on…
