A/N: I've stayed up past my bedtime to get this next chapter posted. Because it's a bit on the later side for me, I haven't edited this chapter as closely as I do some others so I apologize for any errors. I just really wanted to make another post!
Hope you enjoy! Thank you again for all of your support!
"Have I arrived late?" Teyla asked as she entered the already populated briefing room, Torren asleep in her arms.
"You're not late till the boss man gets here," Sheppard replied before swiveling in his seat to look at her. "Decided to bring the baby, huh?"
"Kanaan was unexpectedly called back to Athos this afternoon. I had no choice but to bring Torren along. He is already down for the night but I could not leave him unattended. I assure you he will not make a sound and if he does –"
"Whoa," Sheppard interjected, palms outstretched in an offering of peace. "I'm not criticizing. I get it. If you can't find a babysitter, then you gotta bring the baby. I don't have a problem with that," he reassured her. "Though I am starting to feel a little left out. You've got your kid, Ronon and Rogers have theirs…"
Ronon lifted the side of his mouth in mischief. "What are you talking about?" He gestured with his chin toward McKay and Rogers across the table. They were comparing notes before presenting their report on Janus's lab to the rest of the team. "You've got McKay."
Sheppard glared at him. "Thanks," he said dryly, "I feel a lot better."
Teyla licked her lips, tried to hide her smile, and looked down at her son in her grasp.
Less than a minute passed before Eva arrived and her guards stationed themselves at the edge of the door.
"Whoa!" she exclaimed, jumping backwards as soon as she laid eyes on Teyla.
"There a problem?" Sheppard asked.
She pointed at the sleeping infant. "Is…is that…is that Torren?" She took a tentative step toward mother and child.
Teyla nodded. "Yes. Of course."
Eva shook her hands out and released a shiver. "Oh, I don't like that. That is super weird."
Teyla's eyes narrowed like a hawk's. "Excuse me?" she retorted.
McKay and Rogers, disrupted by the commotion, looked up from their work to watch the drama unfold.
"Oh, no," Eva quickly backpedaled once she realized she had offended Teyla. "I don't mean it like that. It's not that I don't like Torren – I really like Torren, well, I like him, I mean, I think he's fine –"
Teyla raised her eyebrows in amusement while Sheppard and Ronon shared a loaded look with one another. Flustered was an emotion they had yet to witness the usually fearless and recalcitrant Eva display.
She took a steadying breath. "What I mean is, the Torren I know is almost twenty-two," she explained, "and…and…"
"Dreamy?" Sheppard supplied with a grin.
"Shut up," she snapped, rounding on him.
Teyla extended her arms toward the girl. "Would you care to hold him?" she offered.
"No," she immediately replied, stepping backward. "Definitely not." She made her way as far from Teyla and Torren as possible, took a seat, and let out another shudder. "So creepy," she quietly whispered.
Ronon caught Rogers's eye from across the table; she gave him a small, bemused smirk before returning to her private conversation with McKay. For that second, they shared in something only the two of them could understand.
Woolsey waltzed into the conference room and took his seat. "Good evening, everyone. Well, Doctors, what have you found?" he asked as the doors closed behind him.
McKay and Rogers exchanged a brief glance, both a bit caught off guard by Woolsey's haste.
"Well, it's actually what we haven't found," McKay replied. "As you know, Dr. Rogers and I have spent the past week scouring Janus's secret lab for information that could help us send Eva back to her own time. There's a ton of fascinating inventions and research down there: personal cloaking technology, long-range communication devices, research into the Iratus bug, and a bunch of other stuff we haven't quite figured out. Cataloguing the whole place could take a year, maybe more."
"Your point, Doctor?" Woolsey prompted.
"I'm getting there," he said. "Now, Janus obviously had his irons in several fires, but we know from what Dr. Weir told us and from the Time Jumper we discovered back on Earth that his main passion was the study of time and time manipulation. Granted, we haven't gone through everything, but given his level of interest in time and the likelihood that the bulk of his research would have been dedicated to the study of it, we thought it was suspicious that we haven't yet found a single bit of research pertaining to time travel."
"According to some Ancient disciplinary files I translated, Janus was punished by the Lantean Council for experimenting with time travel, which we assumed is what prompted him to move all of his research to the secret lab," Dr. Rogers explained. "Nevertheless, the lab is within the city, meaning there was still a slight possibility he would be discovered. We came across it by accident after all, so it stands to reason the Ancients could have, too."
"All this leads us to believe he performed some of his more illicit research in an off-world lab in order to decrease his chances of being discovered," McKay finished.
"And how do you suggest we locate this off-world lab?" Woolsey asked, doubtful.
Rogers took a breath and held it in, then glanced over to McKay. "We have a theory."
"You. You have a theory," McKay muttered.
"Janus liked riddles and clever methods of concealment, right? So, I gave it some thought. Gate addresses are six symbols plus the point of origin. Well, it just so happens the Ancient word for time is six letters. Tempus."
"You believe the letters correspond to the six symbols in the gate address?" Teyla asked.
Emma nodded. "See, I didn't realize this until I was talking to Eva the other night, but the gate symbols all have names. If we take the first letter of each constellation and assign it to the letters in tempus, then –"
"Then we have a gate address," Sheppard interjected.
"No, then we have eight gate addresses," McKay corrected.
"Eight? How do you figure?" Woolsey asked.
"Well, if we first account for the change from our Latin alphabet to the Ancient character system, there's one constellation that matches up with the T, M, P, and U characters. But there are two possibilities for the E – Elenami and Ecrumig, and then five possibilities for the S – we can throw out Subido, which is our point of origin, but we're still left with Sibbron, Sandovi, Setas, and um…" she looked down and to the right as she tried to recall the last one, "uh…"
"Salma," Ronon finished for her.
She glanced back up and, for the second time that evening, smiled at him. "Yes. Salma," she nodded. "Thank you. That gives us a total of eight possible addresses."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, Doctor, but isn't Ancient an inflected language, like Latin? How do we know we should be using this spelling and not some form in another case?"
Emma smiled and nodded. "You know your Latin, Mr. Woolsey," she complimented. "But I already thought of that. Tempus is both the nominative and the accusative singular form of the word. Just like in Latin it is considered neuter in gender and belongs to the third declension so when declined into any other case or number, it becomes longer than six characters and therefore cannot be a gate address."
Ronon had no idea what she was talking about, but was without a doubt impressed. He had occasionally wondered how someone as young as her had already become the base's senior linguist; now, he was beginning to understand.
"I would like to reiterate that this is all a huge stretch," McKay argued.
"But it's a start," Woolsey countered. "Colonel Sheppard, starting tomorrow we'll send your team and any other available teams to any viable addresses to see what we can find."
"Copy that, sir," Sheppard responded.
"Dr. Rogers, I'm temporarily assigning you to Sheppard's team in case anything needs to be translated."
She nodded once in acquiescence.
Woolsey then addressed Eva. "Miss Dex."
She looked up at him, perplexed.
"You've been here nearly two weeks now. I think we can safely say you're not in league with the Wraith nor any longer a security threat. What are your thoughts on finally being left to your own devices?"
"You mean, get rid of the guards?" she asked.
Woolsey nodded.
"Please," she begged, eyes wide. "Please, please, please."
"Consider them gone. But I expect you to be on your best behavior in return. Any missteps, insubordination…" he narrowed his eyes from behind the lenses of his glasses, "or mysteriously broken windows, and you're right back under guard," he warned.
"I promise," she said eagerly. "Cross my heart."
"Very well. We'll start dialing these addresses tonight and send MALPs to any we can get a lock on. SGA-1, be ready to embark at oh-eight-hundred hours tomorrow." He nodded to the group. "Dismissed."
Eva leapt out of her seat and rushed toward the door. She paused in front of her guards and bowed her head to each of them. "Timon…Pumbaa, it's been real." She thumped one of them across the arm and disappeared into the city.
Teyla went off in the direction of her quarters, no doubt to put her son to bed for real, while the rest of the team slowly shuffled out toward the mess hall for a late dinner. Ronon glanced back into the room and noticed Rogers had hung back to speak individually with Woolsey.
"I'd like to make a request, sir," he heard her say.
Curious about what that request might entail, he angled his ear to listen in on their conversation.
"Hanson," Sheppard announced with surprise.
Drawn from his eavesdropping by Sheppard's comment, he turned his attention to the corporal standing right outside the conference room. Ronon recognized most people on base, but there was something about this particular young marine that, for whatever reason, stuck out in his memory.
"Sir," Hanson replied with a curt nod.
"Bit of an odd place to be hanging out this time of night," Sheppard observed.
"Sorry, sir," he smiled. "I was just uh…" he scratched at his chin, "just waiting for Emma."
"For Rogers?" Sheppard confirmed.
"Yes sir," he nodded. "We were gonna grab a bite to eat."
"With Dr. Rogers?" Sheppard repeated.
"Yes sir." The corporal regarded Sheppard as though he were concerned for his mental state. "She is in there, isn't she?"
"Huh," Sheppard mused before continuing on his way, his lack of response leaving the younger man a bit bewildered.
Though his curiosity about the linguist's private conversation with Woolsey had initially been piqued, Ronon no longer cared to stay and listen to the rest. He imagined she, like most base scientists, probably had some issue being assigned to an active team. Fine by him; one less liability to worry about. He followed Sheppard on his way to the commissary, suddenly and inexplicably feeling the need to hit something.
A/N: Thanks again! Let me know what you think. :)