Chapter 6, part 2.

Alice shut the door and watched the black cab drive off along the quiet and empty street. The row of townhouses seemed asleep, the windows closed and dark. Alice wondered if people were still at work—it was almost seven in the evening, but perhaps the Londoners usually worked late. Or perhaps they were still stuck in traffic.

She turned towards the entrance to one of the houses, walked closer and stood by the door, hand half-raised to knock, frozen in indecision. She was fighting the mounting fear and shame that seemed to have sprung from nowhere. Five minutes ago she was so determined—where did it go? As seconds ticked off, she was losing all confidence. Coming here was a mistake. She didn't even know if anyone was home—and even if yes, what was she supposed to say? It's not like she had any right to be here. Her awkward presence couldn't make anything better, it could only bring more pain. She sighed deeply and turned around, slowly walking away.

She continued on, without looking where she was going, turning this way and that, her thoughts getting progressively darker, until she got to a small park—part of a church grounds. There were a few benches and she sat down and watched the shadows grow longer and the sky getting grayer. As the lamps around her lit up, she finally got up and meandered down the road for a while longer, until she found herself looking through a glass into a brightly lit pub. Without any conscious decision, she entered and walked straight towards the bar, picking her way among the crowd. It was loud, people were standing around with pints of beet in hand, a big TV over the front window was on and showing some kind of a sporting even, though Alice couldn't say what it was. She finally got to the counter and climbed one of the high chairs, just vacated moments ago.

"Hi there. What can I get you?" The bartender asked, sliding towards her from the other end of the bar.

She hesitated. "Vodka martini," she replied with a tad of rebellion. She usually ordered a simple martini, which was half as potent as its vodka-enhanced cousin. She felt like tonight she needed something stronger, though. Reliving everything once again, the thing the PM had said about her involvement in Karim's death, and now the utter cowardice she'd just shown—it all made her spiral into a very dark place, where she could feel little else but loathing and contempt for herself. It seemed like there was a huge black hole in her heart, and everything that used to fill it—love, confidence, happiness, trust in what the future could bring—it was all gone, replaced with fear, shame, grief, bitterness, self-doubt and rage that seemed to always bubble under her skin nowadays, ready to erupt. She didn't know how to fix that—in fact she wasn't even sure if she wanted to. She didn't think she deserved any better.

The bartender put the glass in front of her and she downed it in three large swallows.

"One more, please," she told him, handing him her credit card.

"Coming right up," he confirmed, throwing her a pitying look that made her feel even worse. Perfect. Now she was also pathetic.

A person sitting next to her slid off the barstool and walked off; the seat was unoccupied only for a few seconds, though, before a blonde guy in a jersey shirt sat down, his whole body turned towards Alice, and put his half-drunk pint on the counter.

"Hey there." He smiled to her pleasantly. "I'm Jake. How are you doing?"

She started a little, hearing the name, and had to smile, despite the (metaphorical) black cloud hanging above her head. "Fine." She nodded thanks to the bartender and picked up the glass he'd just placed in front of her. "I like your name. My brother's name is Jake, too."

"Oh, wicked!" He grinned and grabbed his beer. "Cheers!"

Alice raised her glass a little, too, but didn't reply.

"So, interesting accent. You're American, aren't you?" He asked after taking a big gulp of his drink.

"Yeah, born and raised in California." She nodded, unsure why she was even responding to him; maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe just because it was a distraction from the darkness.

"Wow, the Sunshine State!" He exclaimed with delight.

"That's Florida," she corrected him. "California's called the Golden State. Though we do have a lot of sunshine, too," she conceded.

"You don't look like you're getting a lot of that," he remarked, giving her a once-over.

"Yeah, I don't really tan, I burn right away and once the skin's peeled off, I get right back to pale as a sheet," she agreed. "Must be the Irish blood."

"Oh, Irish, huh? I guess that explains the hair." He chuckled. "You in town for the games?"

"Nah, for work." She shook her head and signaled the barkeep to get her another drink. "Going back home tomorrow."

"Bummer." He looked genuinely disappointed and for a moment Alice thought he'd give it up and walk away, but he stayed put. "Though it's not like I'm gonna see the Olympics anywhere but on my 40-inch," he quipped and Alice gave him a ghost of a smile for the effort. "So, what do you do for work?"

"I'm an engineer," she replied; technically, it wasn't even a lie. "I spend most of my time tinkering with machines."

"Blimey! You look more like a businesswoman, that suit and all!"

Alice nodded. "I had a meeting which called for a smarter outfit but I'm more comfortable in a more casual uniform." She snickered at her own secret pun.

"I feel that," he concurred. "I don't like the monkey suit either. I actually preferred a dress uniform to a civilian suit, if you can believe it."

This piqued her interest. "You were in the military?"

"Yeah, I was a Chinook loadmaster." He shook his head. "That means I was in the Royal Air Force, I was part of a crew on a helicopter."

Alice smirked. "Yeah, I know what a Chinook is, though I've never flown in one myself. Got a few rides on a Huey and once on a Sikorsky, though."

He blinked quickly, looking at her with new interest. "You know helicopters?"

"Not well," she admitted. "I'm more familiar with fixed-wing aircraft."

"Let me guess, the machines you tinker with as an engineer are planes?" He asked, his eyebrows raised high.

The bartender put another drink in front of her, without asking. She nodded thanks. Her head was seriously swimming now and she was starting to feel queasy, but the alcohol, coupled with the conversation with the stranger, purged the intrusive thoughts from her head for now.

"Nah, I used to fly 'em," she answered, a voice at the back of her mind cautioning her to be careful despite the lightheadedness. "F-16s, before this new gig."

He looked at her with his mouth open, agape. "You're taking the piss!" He exclaimed.

Alice felt very confused. "What?"

"I mean that you must be joking," he explained, laughing. "I can't believe I actually sat next to a fellow Air Force member, and such a lovely one at that!" He gave her another measuring glance.

Alice rolled her eyes. "You can quit trying, there's no scenario in which I'm gonna go home with you tonight, you know."

His face fell a little, she thought, but he recovered quickly. "Who says that's what I'm after? We're just chatting. I'm fascinated by you. You haven't told me your name yet, though."

She put down the glass. It was empty again, and she felt as if the world around her was wobbly. Her vision was getting blurry. "It's Alice. I'm Alice."

"Brilliant name, Alice," he replied. "Whoa, where are you going?"

She got up to her feet, teetered, and he put his hand on her arm, steadying her.

"Need a restroom," she mumbled.

"I'll show you the way," he offered and escorted her to the door to the ladies room. There was someone inside, so she had to wait, and then got in, looked at herself in the mirror—her cheeks were flushed, she noted, but she couldn't quite focus enough on her reflection to see much more. And then she felt a bout of nausea and just managed to get to the toilet bowl in time.

She woke up with a splitting headache, parched throat and a general feeling of malaise, to which a big contributing factor was the confusion at finding herself in unfamiliar surroundings. She was lying on a bed, fully clothed except for shoes, in a room she had never seen before. The blinds were closed on the window, and there was a tall glass of water on the nightstand, next to a bottle of aspirin, however, so whoever had taken her here was thoughtful enough to anticipate the state in which she would wake up. She got up and felt a little dizzy, so she leaned on the nightstand for balance. Then she decided actually taking an aspirin wasn't a half-bad idea, so she popped two tablets and downed the entire sixteen ounces of water. The liquid seemed like a balm for her dry lips and throat, and she immediately felt a little better. She put on her shoes, noticed her purse on a nearby chair, then noted a man's shirt hanging from the backrest, and wondered again where the hell she was.

She went through the purse and determined that nothing was amiss; her passport, CAC, wallet, and phone were all still there. Her phone told her it was twenty-sixth of July, seven thirty-five in the morning, local time. She slept through the entire night—or at least she hoped she had, the alternative being that she'd done things she wasn't remembering now, which would be far worse.

She walked out of the bedroom gingerly, trying to make as little noise as possible. After a few moments of confusion, she found a bathroom. Before she left it, she took a long look in the mirror: her skin looked red and puffy, there were dark circles under her eyes and it seemed like every single strand of hair on her head was pointed in a different direction. She tried to smooth it a bit with wet hands, but it only made it look greasy instead, so she gave up.

She walked out of the bathroom, trying again to be quiet, and was startled by a sound of the voice at the other end of the corridor.

"Hey, good morning."

She turned around and saw a tall blonde man, wearing sweats and thick wool socks. It took her a second to place him—it was Jake, the guy she had talked to at the pub.

"Hi," she replied nervously, feeling her cheeks flush with embarrassment.

"How are you feeling?" He asked good-naturedly, but his smile was a little condescending. She figured, in the situation they were in, he had every right to be, though.

"Mortified." She tried to smile but it came out rather weak. "I'm so sorry, I… I have no words."

"Oh, don't worry about it." He waved his hand dismissively. "It's not often that I get to bring such a beautiful girl home."

"Oh god, did we…?" Alice asked in alarm.

"No, no," he rushed to deny. "By the time we got here you were pretty much completely out of it. I am many things, but necrophiliac isn't one of them."

Alice exhaled with relief. "I guess I have more luck than sense. Thanks for"—she made an indeterminate gesture—"all this, you know. Taking care of me. That was some real knight in a shining armor stuff."

He grinned. "At your service, m'lady." And he bowed low. "Fancy some breakfast?"

"I don't think I can eat right now, but I'd kill for a cup of coffee."

He waved her to follow him and they both went into the kitchen.

"You shouldn't drink coffee on an empty stomach after all this excess," he cautioned. "Have you ever tried a traditional English breakfast?"

"Not really." She took a seat at the table, as there was no island.

"Then let me introduce you to the best damn thing England has to offer," he said with a smile, and then added more seriously: "You really should eat something, it'll help with the hangover."

She sighed. "Maybe you're right. How will I ever repay you, though?"

He waved his hand dismissively again, and busied himself with the preparation.

Alice kept quiet for a few moments, before finally speaking up. "Can I ask you something?"

He looked at her from over his shoulder. "Sure."

"My memory of last night is… fuzzy," she admitted. "What happened? What did I do?"

He chuckled. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"I was downing drinks at the bar." She rolled her eyes at herself. "We were talking. I think I went to the bathroom? Yes, I remember getting sick all over the toilet…" She shook her head in disgust. "But not much after that."

"Yeah, you seemed pretty lucid up until that point." He put another glass of water in front of her. "Drink this, you'll get your coffee after breakfast."

She sighed and obediently started sipping at it.

"Good girl," he praised with a smirk. "Anyway, it seemed like at some point you just hit a line and it sent you over the edge. You spent quite some time in the loo, I was already considering getting the bartender to come help me force-open it or something. But then you got out and you insisted on getting another drink. You only got halfway through it and then literally slid down from the barstool."

Alice hid her face in her hands; mortified couldn't even begin to describe how she felt. Humiliated came closer, except she knew she did that to herself, and that made it even worse.

"That's when I decided you've had enough. I tried to get you to tell me where you were staying, but you couldn't remember, so I got your credit card from the barkeep and led you back to my place. So, see—nothing too bad. God knows I've done much, much worse things while totally pissed."

"Yeah, well, it's new for me," she confessed, her face still hidden in her hands. "I'm so, so sorry for behaving like this. I feel like such a giant tool."

"Oh, come on, don't beat yourself up. We've all been there before, especially those of us who'd lost mates to the service." He must have heard her sharp intake of breath, because he stopped what he was doing and turned his whole body towards her. "You told me yesterday that you lost a man, you thought that it was your fault somehow. After that revelation I understood the need to get pissed on a Wednesday."

Alice chuckled mirthlessly. "As if I even needed a reason."

"You know it's not your fault, though, right?" He asked, and there was something in his voice that made Alice peel her fingers away from her face and look up at him. "Whatever happened, he was there because he chose it. Blaming yourself isn't gonna change anything, and the fact is, he was doing his job. You think of it any other way, you diminish him."

Alice blinked very quickly, unsure if she was trying to prevent tears coming on, or if she was just surprised. Then she shook her head very slowly. "It's not that easy."

"It may not be, but at the core, that's really all there is to it: we sign up for the job, knowing full well what the odds are. The moment we enlist, we've already made peace with death." He turned back to the counter and picked up the preparations.

Alice didn't reply. For a long moment there was silence between them, only interrupted by the clattering of pots and pans, and the sizzle of food on the stove. Then Jake finally finished, put the plates on the table, added a pitcher of orange juice and, finally, a coffee pot, and invited Alice to eat.

"Can I ask you a question?" He eventually broke the silence.

"Sure."

"What is it that you actually do?" He saw Alice's raised eyebrows, and added as a way of explanation: "Yesterday you told me you were an engineer, but then you said you used to be an F-16 pilot, and I also saw you military ID card in your purse when I was putting your credit card back in there, which tells me you're still active duty—and you said you were in London for a business meeting, so I'm confused…"

Alice sighed. "I guess I do owe you a bit of an explanation," she admitted reluctantly. "I am active duty. I used to fly an F-16 at the very beginning of my career, but it's been a while. I am also an engineer, I have a PhD in Computer Engineering, so when I'm not otherwise occupied, I work with machines and suchlike." She shrugged. "I came to London to deliver a briefing to a British government official, our militaries cooperate often and we share intel."

"Okay, but you didn't tell me what you do when you're not working with machines, though."

Alice sent him a ghost of a smile and brought her coffee cup up to her mouth. "How about that," she said and took a sip.

He snorted. "Okay, okay, message received."

"What else did I tell you yesterday?" She inquired tentatively. Half of her didn't really want to know, but the other half needed to ascertain just how much damage control was required. She was feeling pretty hypocritical now, after the entire affair with reporting Alden Stack for blabbering while intoxicated.

"Not much that I could understand. Did you know your accent is all over the place when you're drunk?" He chuckled. "You talked about your brother a little. The name coincidence seemed mightily funny to you. You told me he was a Marine and that he was deployed somewhere dangerous, that you were worrying about him. You mentioned something about a big secret, made a huge deal of not telling me what it was, that was kinda mean." He smirked.

Alice sighed with relief. It seemed like her drunk brain retained enough reason to keep her mouth shut; nevertheless, she vowed never to do that again. It wasn't worth the headache.

"Sorry not sorry." She smiled and then put down the empty cup and rose to her feet. "It's high time for me to go. I gotta get to my hotel, take a shower and change before I leave for the airport."

He got up, too, and walked her to the hall. "Sorry you gotta go. I'd like to hang out a little more. It's been fun."

"Yeah, I'm sure it was," she said with heavy irony. "Dragging my drunk ass all the way here from the pub and then watching me sleep the alcohol away, indeed, what a hoot."

He laughed. "I meant the conversation. You're an interesting gal."

She shook her head. "I'm just really grateful for your chivalry. I could've ended up anywhere… I mean, a lot of other guys might've taken advantage of the situation… And you not only didn't, but you took care of me, even fed me. I owe you."

"Call it karma. I'm just paying it forward." He shrugged. "And you owe me nothing. I didn't do it for a favour, it was just the right thing to do."

Alice nodded and smiled. "Either way, if you ever find yourself in Colorado… give me a call."

He cocked his head to the side. "I thought you said you were from California."

"I was born and raised in Los Angeles, but I live and work in Colorado Springs nowadays," she replied. "Though I still think of L.A. as home—my mom lives there, so if you're ever in SoCal, chances are I'll be able to come down, too."

"I don't have your number," he noted.

Alice reached out to him with her hand and twirled her fingers. "Give me your phone."

He did and she entered her number into his contact list. She returned the cell back to him and he snorted, seeing the name which she used for herself: Drunk-Ass Alice.

"Again, thank you." She extended her arm again and he shook it. "I'll get out of your hair, now."

"I wish you didn't," he replied, and then added quickly, before she had a chance to react: "Have a safe flight home."

Alice smiled, nodded and a minute later was out the door.

The flight back was much less pleasant—this time, Alice had to contend with her regular seat in the Economy class, and flying while hungover was never a good idea. The route was also much longer—almost nine hours from Heathrow to O'Hare, two hours of layover, and another three to get to Denver, where her car was waiting for her in the parking lot, so she then had to drive back to Colorado Springs. Finally after over sixteen hours of travel, she made it home, said hi to Deanna, collapsed into her bed without even taking a shower before, and for the first time in a long time actually slept through the entire night.

The next morning she made her way to the SGC and, having changed into her uniform, she went straight to Carter's office—but the general wasn't there, and Harriman explained she wouldn't be in until the afternoon. Alice told him to let her know when Carter would be back and then went up to the Level 25. There was a shared working area there, where all the SG team members, with the exception of each team's leader and a few other people such as Doctor Jackson, had a desk assigned. It was usually pretty empty—when not offworld, the SG team members had better things to do than sitting at their desks, so they usually only ended up here when they had a report to write. Still, even so early in the morning, a handful of people were already there, and Alice approached one of them.

"Hello, Lieutenant," she greeted the young man and he looked up at her and jumped to his feet. She waved him down and stood next to his desk, leaning against it. "How are you doing?"

"Very well, thank you, ma'am," he replied with a cautious smile. He came back to work after a convalescent leave at the beginning of the week, so they didn't really have much time to catch up yet, and while Alice was already familiar with Watson and Morgan, Rodriguez was still a bit of a mystery to her.

"How's the arm?"

He flexed it instinctively. "Much better. The doc says another three-four weeks and I can get back to offworld missions."

Alice nodded and smiled. "Good. We can certainly use you out there. And how goes your research?" She looked at the stack of papers on his desk. It was amazing to her how much the SGC still relied on paper documents—in Atlantis, everything was digital since the day she'd arrived.

"I'm afraid I haven't found anything useful so far," he admitted, pulling out a notepad and handing it to Alice. "This is as much as I could gather—nothing new, as you can see, just leads you've already run down."

Alice read down the page, noting Rodriguez's elegant handwriting. "That's okay. The purpose of this exercise is to make sure that we haven't missed anything. We're kinda grasping at straws here," she conceded. "Since the day the SG-12 took that one photo, we haven't seen Jareth, or Wraith in general, in this galaxy at all. He's out there, though, and we will find him."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Watson and Morgan are at the training center today?" Alice stood straighter, getting ready to leave.

"Yeah, they're running down a hostage scenario today, I believe." He nodded, looking a little disappointed.

Alice smirked. "You'll join them soon enough, Lieutenant. And in the meantime, have you talked to Doctor Rennel yet?"

"Yeah, he gave me a clean bill of health." He shrugged. "Wish it was so easy with Doctor Lam…"

Alice rolled her eyes. "Just make sure that you submit the eval in the system, will you?"

"Already done, ma'am, waiting for your sign-off."

"Alright, then, carry on. I'll be in my lab."

"Yes, ma'am."

Alice turned around and walked away, smirking again at the young lieutenant's eagerness. It wasn't that long ago that she was the keen young officer, trying to prove herself to her superiors at every turn. And now she was the leader that was being looked up to—if only Rodriguez knew how little she deserved his earnest consideration!

After she got to her lab, she decided to prioritize finding the leak that led to the incident with the British—after all, she was ordered to get to the bottom of it by the Commander-In-Chief. She sat down at her computer and allowed herself to be engulfed by work.

"Are you absolutely sure about this?" Carter asked. She was leaning back in her chair, one elbow on the armrest, hand supporting her head. A deep crease had formed in the middle of her forehead and didn't seem to be going away anytime soon.

"Yes." Alice sighed. She was sitting opposite the general, her position and expression mirroring Carter's. "There is no other way it could've been done, I've triple-checked."

"This is bad." Carter looked up at the ceiling. "I thought learning about your adventure in the future and all its implications would be the biggest news for me this week, but I'm not sure if this doesn't top it." She looked back down at Alice and breathed deeply. "Did you document your findings?"

Alice nodded. "It's secured on the server."

"I was sure this was going to be a case of an external hack. This is not going to be good for the morale."

"Especially in Atlantis," Alice agreed.

They fell silent for a long moment. It was Carter who spoke first.

"You're gonna have to testify at the court-martial, you know."

Alice nodded. "Not looking forward to this at all."

"Alright, then, let's do this. No point in dilly-dallying." The general reached out to the phone on her desk and pushed a couple buttons. It rang only once before someone picked up.

"General O'Neill's office." The speakerphone was on, so Alice could hear everything.

"This is Carter, I need to speak with O'Neill urgently."

"One moment, ma'am." There was a click and a bit of static.

"O'Neill," the familiar voice said.

"General, this is Carter, I have Major Boyd with me in the room. She's completed her preliminary investigation regarding the source of the leak."

"Oh, already? That was fast." O'Neill paused, but since neither of the women spoke, he added: "So? Who did that?"

Carter gestured at Alice.

"Sir, after thorough research, I've tracked the source of the leak to Captain Gloria Martinez," she said assertively.

"Who?" O'Neill didn't seem fazed.

"She's General Cox's XO, sir, he brought her in to Atlantis when he took over from Mr. Woolsey as the expedition leader," Alice explained. "As you know, all mail sent from Atlantis is monitored, even private one. Captain Martinez tried to bypass that by encoding the message in a JPG file, but I managed to decrypt it. It contains more information than what the British had, but it stands to reason that there was some sort of intermediary. The recipient of the message is as of yet unknown, so the investigation will need to be expanded, but I think that's quite enough evidence to implicate the captain."

There was a moment of silence. "And how did she know? Cox told her?"

Alice took a quivering breath. "Yes, sir. It's my belief that, er, General Cox and Captain Martinez are, well, involved."

"You mean that he's… they're…" O'Neill halted, flustered.

"Yes, sir." Alice swallowed hard. She couldn't help but feel incredibly self-conscious at this moment; her own record in the matter of fraternization was really not good and she thought she was being hypocritical. On the other hand, she'd never leaked classified information to anyone—the pillow talk between her and Karim didn't need to be restrained as they both had access to the same reports. "Captain Martinez took a leave of absence a couple months ago, and the correspondence between her and General Cox from that time suggests an existence of an inappropriate bond. I'm…" She hesitated. "It's by no means a certainty, and I'm not saying that it necessarily contributed to his decision to share the classified information with her… but she does not have the required clearance, nor does she have a need to know, and I don't believe General Cox would overlook that if she were only an XO and nothing more."

O'Neill didn't reply right away, but when he spoke, his voice sounded calm, almost nonchalant. It puzzled Alice. "It could be, but let's give them the chance to explain. Sam, contact Atlantis, tell them both to come home immediately. Let's have SFs meet them at the Gate and confine them in their quarters on the base. Boyd, send over that evidence you've gathered. I'll talk to the President."

"Yes, sir," Alice replied.

"Talk to you later," Carter added.

"Ya sure ya betcha," O'Neill responded and hung up the phone.

Carter sighed. "This is gonna suck."

Alice smiled with sympathy and they both got up to go fulfill their orders