Her eyes were starting to water as she fought off the urge to blink while Dr. Beckett took what had to be his third look at her pupils.

"So? Do I get the all clear?" she asked as he lowered the penlight.

He passed an Ancient scanner over her head, read the results and set it on the desk. "Aye," he said with a reluctant nod. "It appears you've fully recovered. You may resume screen usage and regular physical activity –"

Eva opened her mouth to speak, but he continued over her.

"But, don't be going too hard now, you understand?"

She nodded. "I understand."

He leaned slightly toward her and lowered the volume of his voice. "Just because you understand doesn't mean you are going to follow my advice."

"I will try my best," she said with a sly smile.

"Hopeless. Just like your father." Beckett gave her a congenial pat on the arm and headed to the other side of the infirmary to check on his other patients, calling to her over his shoulder. "Consider yourself discharged, lass."

Eva hopped off the exam table and started to leave, but the sound of a nearby heart monitor caught her attention. Gingerly, she walked over to the partitioned area around Janus' bed and poked her head around the curtain.

"Hey," she said in a quiet voice, seeing he was awake.

Turning his gaze from the window, he seemed surprised to see her, but not startled. "Hello," he replied calmly.

"How are you feeling?" She released the curtain and took a few steps toward him.

He gave her a slow tip of the head. "Very well today. Thank you."

"Beckett just gave me my final checkup. Concussion free." She made an absurd gesture of celebration with both of her fists, as if she were shaking a pair of maracas, before quickly shoving her hands into her front pockets upon realizing how silly she looked. She cleared her throat and gestured to the suspended bag of Wraith enzyme. "How much longer do you have to keep getting these treatments?"

"I do not know. Your people do not share much with me. I must say, I feel much more myself, though." A small, but genuine smile peeked through his normally guarded façade.

"Happy to hear it. Well, I'd uh…" She turned to leave, her undeveloped goodbye hanging midair, but Janus continued speaking.

"Then again, they are not really your people, are they?"

She looked over her shoulder. "They're as close as I can get."

"You do not wish to go home?"

A deep ache in her stomach, one she knew was not medical in nature, made her turn the rest of the way around and walk toward him. "Of course, I want to go home. I want to go home more than anything."

"The Cruiser could arrive any day now."

There was a prickling between her shoulder blades and she lowered her voice. "You say that like it's a good thing."

"In a way, it could be. The ship is equipped with the technology to return you to your home."

Eva's eyes flickered from Janus to the bag of enzyme again.

"But, obviously, the Cruiser must be destroyed before it, in turn, destroys the city."

Eva furrowed her brow as she looked at him again. "Obviously…"

"That does not worry you?"

"The potential destruction of the city? That absolutely worries me."

"No. The potential destruction of one of only two ways to go back to your own time and reality. It would effectively cut your chances in half." His eyes had met hers, fixing her gaze to his.

Eva was silent. She hadn't yet realized that.

She regained her composure and conviction. "The Cruiser needs to be destroyed though. There's a whole host of Wraith aboard it. We couldn't let the city fall into their hands."

"Of course not." Janus shook his head. "It is the most prudent course of action. Unfortunately, it leaves you with only one other recourse to go back home."

"M5R-233…" Eva whispered. "Your lab."

Janus raised an eyebrow and nodded.

"Believe me, I've thought of it. Woolsey decided it was too dangerous."

"Another prudent evaluation."

A new realization struck her. "But…now that the Cruiser is on its way here, that means it's no longer in orbit around M5R-233."

"That is fortuitous." He looked nonchalantly at his fingernails.

By this point, she was thinking out loud. "But there's still the issue of Ancient tech not working on the planet."

Janus' mouth turned upward. "That can be disabled, you know."

"It can?"

"Naturally. I designed it as a way to keep others of my kind from tracking me down and finding me. But there were many times where I needed use of my own technology. There's a way to deactivate it."

"How?"

"This reality is similar to my own, which likely means there is a handheld device in my laboratory that is paired with the forcefield. It can increase or decrease the efficacy, expand or decrease the breadth of field."

"Yeah, but if we can't get to the lab in the first place, what good is all of that?"

"You misunderstand me, my dear." He closed his eyes and gave her a terse shake of the head. "The device of which I speak is not in my satellite laboratory on M5R-233; it should be here, in my laboratory in the city. If I can gain access to that device, we can deactivate the forcefield on M5R-233 from orbit or even from the other side of a Stargate."

"Okay…" Eva thought, "so where is your lab?"

"The East pier has several towers. In my reality, it was located on the lowest level of the tallest tower."

She paused as yet another piece of the puzzle fell into place: that was where Sheppard had requested extra security the day before.

"I could try to find the device for you," she offered, opting to keep the information about the increased security a secret for the time being.

"Even if I told you the exact location of the lab and how to gain entrance, I doubt you would be able to find the device on your own amidst the rest of my research."

"You could draw me a picture," Eva said dryly. "Maybe a map?"

Janus managed a laugh at that suggestion. "If only there were a way I could accompany you." He shook his head. "I would raise too much suspicion." He glanced down and rubbed at his wrist, no longer cuffed and buckled in leather like the other day. "I may not be tethered anymore," he glanced at the bag of enzyme and followed the long clear tube to the IV in his arm, "well," his voice dropped and he shrugged, "not the way I was, but I still get the impression I'm not fully trusted here."

"Can you blame them?"

He hummed. "I suppose not. Still, I mean no one any harm. I never have."

Eva chewed the inside of her cheek as she regarded him with interest. "I know."

"You managed to return me to my home; I only wish I could return the favor for you."

Eva did miss her home, her parents, her friends, her real life. There was no future for her here; there couldn't be, not in the past. She missed her room, her bed…

A thought occurred to her and she looked up at Janus. "Wait right here."

His eyebrows raised. "I hadn't intended on going anywhere."


On Talus, Eva had been the last one in possession of the invisibility device. In the chaos of their return, no one had asked her for it – perhaps they had assumed it had gotten lost – but she had undressed by herself in the infirmary in order to change into a hospital gown, and had left the device tucked into the pocket of the pants she had worn on the mission. A few hours later, someone had come by to collect her TAC vest and weapons, but not her personal clothes.

She had already grabbed the device from under her mattress and was on her way back to the infirmary before she began to question the risks and benefits of tangling with Janus like this. Pausing in the middle of the hallway, she took a moment to think. Perhaps granting Janus access to his old research wasn't the best of ideas. He had been sanctioned by the Ancient council millennia ago for a reason, whether Janus agreed with it or not. The team here – Colonel Sheppard, in particular – was suspicious of him, too.

Then again, what was the worst that could happen if he did gain access to it? If he actually helped her, she would hopefully already be back in her own time and reality, safe and away from any potential repercussions. That is…if he did help her at all. Maybe this was all a trick and he had no intention of helping her whatsoever. Wouldn't that put her back to where she already was, though – alone, with no one willing to actually help her in any meaningful way? The decision had been made for her long ago. If she thought this was the turning point of getting involved with Janus, then she had conveniently forgotten that he was the one who had involved her in his own mess a few months back.

She checked her surroundings and continued on her way to the infirmary.


"Eva!"

The automatic impulse to duck out of sight and hide away gripped her, but instead she turned to see Ronon jogging to catch up. She waited, resisting the urge to check how obvious the outline of the invisibility device was in her front pocket.

"What's up?" she asked, hoping for an air of casualness.

"What are you doing on Tuesday?"

"Tuesday?" she echoed, holding up her wrist and contemplating an imaginary watch. "Mmhmm, yeah, looks like a whole load of nothing."

"I want you to help me run a hand-to-hand refresher for non-military."

She shrugged. "I guess I could help with that… Why are you doing it?"

"Not my idea. Woolsey ordered it."

"'Cause of the whole impending Wraith attack thing?"

"Yeah. 'Cause of that." He took a breath. "A lot of our non-military people are women. Figure they'd probably feel more comfortable with a female instructor there."

Eva nodded, giving it some thought. "What about Teyla?"

"She's running her own course, different level, same time."

"Yeah, I can help."

"Thanks." He turned to go, but she called out to him.

"Hey, how's M – Emma?"

He looked at her over his shoulder. "What do you mean?"

"She was sick…or something? Is she okay? She never stopped by the infirmary."

An odd look she couldn't interpret flitted across his face and he shrugged. "She's back at work today."

"Was it her asthma again?"

"Don't know," he replied tersely.

She drew her eyebrows tight together. "Okay. Well…good."

He turned to go again.

"Listen –"

A small smirk spread across his lips and this time he turned all the way around to face her. He put his hands in his pockets. "What?"

"I'm sorry again for hitting you and breaking your nose. I…I don't really remember doing it."

A gentle look of compassion passed over his eyes. "I know, kid."

"See you Tuesday?" she asked.

"Monday," he said. "I'll go over what we're supposed to teach ahead of time with you."

With that, he left, but Eva hesitated before resuming her walk to the infirmary. What would happen to these people in this reality – to this version of her parents – if she was wrong about Janus?


A/N: In one of the chapters where they are on Talus, the invisibility device is lost/isn't accounted for. I decided to change that for *plot reasons.* On AO3, I edited it out before posting this chapter. Editing chapters on FFN is a pain in the patoot so just pretend I didn't mention the invisibility device's status until this chapter! Maybe one of these days I'll fix it. But today is not that day.

Thanks for reading and/or reviewing!