Hi everyone. This is the next part of Transitions set just after Poisoning the Well. It is rather short, one of the shortest chapters in this story so far, so I'll be adding the next chapter as soon as possible. I've also scrapped the mailbox thing and I'm just replying to reviews as I get them. It seemed a little easier.

Anyway, please enjoy. And don't forget to review!

-----Chapter 13 – Transitions, Part 2 – Poisoning the Well-----

Standing on the balcony overlooking the western most pier of Atlantis, Sierra watched the setting sun cast its shadows across the rippling water. A soft breeze picked up from the north-west and ruffled the slowly lengthening locks of her wavy, dark hair. She'd taken to tying most of it back (at least the bits that were long enough) and flicking her fringe out of her eyes every few minutes. She knew it was driving John up the wall but she'd argued that in another few months it'd be long enough that she'd be able to tuck it behind her ears.

Currently, she flicked her hair out of her eyes and remembered how her mother had done the same. Mary Sheppard's hair had always been meticulously styled in natural fly-away wisps and curls that everyone from Hollywood wanted. But Mary never really cared much. She'd have it cut, then pull it back in a ponytail when she was horse riding or gardening, pushing her bangs out of the way with a dirt covered hand leaving mud on her face. Sierra remembered it used to frustrate her father as well, but she also knew that Patrick loved her all the more for it.

Sierra took a deep breath as the thought of her mother caused her a pain that she had dealt with years and years ago. But recent events had forced those memories back to the surface.

On a planet called Hoff, where John and his team had encountered a race of humans that were at a level of technology similar to Earth in the 1920's, thousands of people were dying because they had voted to use a weapon in the form of a drug to fight back against the Wraith, no matter the cost; the cost being fifty per cent of the population.

If Sierra thought kids sacrificing themselves at twenty-five was bad; this was worse. The sick, the dying, it all seemed so pointless in the grander scale of things. Eventually the Wraith would find out what the Hoffans had created and destroy them all because of the threat they posed. They would cease to exist.

Plus, this had brought back too many memories Sierra had dealt with a long time ago. She had left the planet the second John had told her the result of the vote. Watching one room full of people dying a slow and painful death was bad enough for her – she wasn't about to watch half a planet die. John and Beckett had been half an hour behind her.

Sierra had originally gone on that mission at her own request because her teammates had been bedridden by the Pegasus version of the flu and had to be quarantined, and Sierra was going nuts doing nothing. This had happened while she had been recovering from the stabbing incident last mission. Elizabeth had put one of the Russian captains in charge of her team for one mission and they'd come back feverish. Donning an uncomfortable hazmat suit, Sierra had visited her team and brought them all proper food from the Mess. But that had turned out to be a mistake when they weren't supposed to be eating solids for a very good reason. Carson had kicked her out of the Infirmary and she was supposed to be taking it easy, so she asked John if she could accompany him on his next mission. Now she was really wishing that she hadn't.

Standing out in the fresh air, with the sea, wind and setting sun, it was easy for her to forget everything she'd seen on Hoff. However, it left room for the memories of her mother to surface.

The sound of the door opening behind her, startled her out of her out-of-control reminiscing. She knew it wasn't John (though she couldn't explain how) and turned around to see who it was.

Cole stood near the doorway, reluctant to intrude on her personal space, wrapped in a thick blanket that was trailing on the floor and holding a box of tissues in his hand. His nose was red, his blue eyes a little dull and his hair a complete mess of fluff and pieces sticking out everywhere.

"Should you be up?" Sierra asked. "And are you still contagious?"

Cole shrugged and then sniffled. "Doctor Beckett says I should be right. Apparently this flu is only contagious for the first three days." He stepped up to the railing, standing with a foot between them, tightening the blanket around his shoulders. "Actually, Beckett didn't let me out. I snuck out."

Sierra smiled at him. "I figured that was the case," she said. "The scrubs kinda give you away."

Cole looked down at himself. He was still wearing the style-less red scrubs under the blanket. "Well, shoot," he said. Then he shrugged. "Oh well, as long as you don't turn me in I should be fine then." He looked hopefully at her and she laughed, looking back over the city.

"In truth," Cole continued, "I came to see how you were. I heard about Hoff. Beckett told me. He said that you took it all pretty hard." Sierra didn't say anything. She was suddenly reminded of the time her ex-CO was asking all the questions about her brother and her personal life, and she didn't want to think about that night at all – it was far too painful.

She felt Cole's eyes on her for a while before he looked back over the water. She really didn't want to talk about it, and thankfully Cole wasn't pushing. The sun had gone down by now and the stars had come out. The dusty, glowing arm of the spiral galaxy glistened off the water and cast its light on the city as the lights began to come on in the various piers.

Stars twinkled, Cole sniffled, the waves lapped against the city and Sierra felt Atlantis thrumming around her. The gentle breeze blew again and Sierra pulled the elastic from her hair and let the wind toss it about. Beside her, Cole cleared his throat of phlegm, spitting it over the railing.

"That's disgusting," Sierra said, wrinkling her nose.

Cole smiled slyly at her. "Better out than in," he said. There was more silence for a few more moments. Sierra sighed, absently flicking the elastic tie against her wrist.

"My mom died when I was twelve," she said quietly. She wasn't sure why she was telling Cole any of this; they were teammates but she still didn't know him very well. "A rare form of breast cancer. She got sick when I was ten and had been battling the disease for two years." The cool wind blew and Sierra shivered a little, pulling her jacket tighter around her. "She was so frail and weak by the end of it, but she refused to give up. She wanted to keep fighting, keep going, giving us hope that she would make it through.

"Eventually, Dad managed to convince her to let go," she continued. "I think it was killing him, too, seeing her like that. I hated going to the hospital but John refused to go without me, so I had to. Not that I didn't want to see Mom, but I hated seeing her sick. It was the most depressing place, the Oncology Ward. So many people in various stages of deterioration. Hoff just reminded me of that, is all."

Cole nodded absently as he absorbed her story. "My grandfather died the same way," he said. Sierra glanced over at him. He was huddled in the blanket, gazing out at the ocean the same way she had. "I was very close to my Grandfather. He raised me when my mother died. I was eighteen when he passed on from Pancreatic Cancer. And I can sympathize with you on that; watching him die was the hardest thing in my life." He looked over at Sierra and their eyes locked. She could see that it had been just as painful for him to watch his grandfather die as it had been for her to watch her mother weaken before her eyes.

She gave him a small smile and touched her hand to his shoulder through the blanket. "I'm sorry, Harrison," she said.

Cole's returning smile was sad. "Grandpapa used to call me 'Harry'."

Sierra nodded. "Harry it is, then." She then smiled wider at him. Turning back to face the ocean again she stepped closer to Cole so that their shoulder's were touching. They stood in silence for another half hour, until Sierra felt Cole shiver beneath the blanket. She steered him back inside and they walked together back to the Infirmary where Carson was waiting with a scowl and a couple of needles. Sierra accepted responsibility for Cole's escape and promised that it wouldn't happen again. Cole nodded at her from behind the Scot's back, smiling gratefully. Beckett then promptly banished her from the Infirmary and sent her on her way.

With nothing else to do, Sierra found herself wandering the dark halls of the city until late into the night, inadvertently ending up in front of John's quarters at around 22:00. Heaving a great sigh, she knocked on the door, having it open a second later. John looked about ready to go to bed, and his lights were out, but he let her in anyway. They sat together on the couch, talking about Mom for hours, before John insisted she stay the night and offered her the bed. She refused and curled up next to him on the couch. With her legs stretched across his lap, she listened to him reminiscing and telling her about all the things he'd loved about their mother. She fell asleep with a slight smile on her lips.

-----XXX-----

A/N: next chapter coming real soon.