A/N: This one's a bit on the shorter side, but I hope you still like it! Thanks for reading! :)

By the time Ronon and Teyla entered the conference room, Sheppard and McKay were already seated, casually chatting with Dr. Beckett about some of the new medical staff who had gated in a couple weeks ago as part of the group of new recruits. Teyla left Ronon's side and immediately resumed feeding Torren his breakfast, which the boy wolfed down with alacrity. Ronon took an empty spot next to Sheppard, rolling his eyes at the subject of their conversation.

"The big man over here is actually quite familiar with most of them already," Beckett said.

"Is he now?" Sheppard pinned him with a look that somehow appeared both accusatory and impressed.

Ronon opened his mouth to defend himself, but Beckett got there first. "Och, not like that. He's always needing to be patched up for something or another."

"I need to get injured more frequently…" Sheppard muttered.

"That could be arranged," Ronon said with leer.

"And what is their projected ETA, should they stay on course?" The voice coming from the corridor was distant, but there was no mistaking that it was Woolsey's.

"At its current rate? I'd say between ten and fourteen days, sir."

"I see."

"Whose projected ETA?" McKay asked, jumping in on the end of the conversation between Woolsey and the telemetry technician.

Woolsey took a deep breath, the kind he always took before delivering bad news. "I'm afraid that our long-range scanners have detected a Wraith Cruiser heading toward this corner of the galaxy."

"A Cruiser? Not a Hive?" Sheppard asked.

"Correct. And it appears to be moving through hyperspace faster than any Cruiser – or Hive, for that matter – that we've ever encountered."

"Just one?" Sheppard confirmed. "A lone Cruiser?"

"Yes, Colonel."

Sheppard looked round the table at his audience. "Well, we can take down one Cruiser, no problem. Put me in the chair and we're good to go."

"We have reason to believe this is no ordinary Cruiser." Woolsey took his seat and planted his hands on the table. "I think this particular Cruiser belongs to the Wraith that took Eva as a runner and from whom we liberated Janus."

"What makes you say that?" Ronon asked.

"In addition to its possession of an enhanced hyperdrive, it seems to be coming from the same area of the galaxy as M5R-233, which – I don't need to remind you – was its last known location."

"Isn't this all a bit of a hunch?" McKay asked. "We detect Wraith ships on our long-range scanners all the time. I mean, space is big…

"Really big," Sheppard said.

"Theoretically, they shouldn't even know where we are. How do we know they're headed directly our way?"

"We don't, but the timing and trajectory seem likely and I'm not willing to take any risks. Based on both your account and Eva's of this particular Cruiser, I am unsure if we could defend our city against it."

"It could see straight through the cloak of the Puddle Jumper," Teyla reminded them.

"Exactly. Doctor Beckett." Woolsey turned his attention to him.

The doctor raised his eyebrows, caught off guard at being so suddenly addressed. "Yes?"

"What is the Ancient's status?"

"Currently in the medically induced coma. He still has dangerously high levels of the Wraith enzyme in his system, though the levels are decreasing, nominally, every day."

"Can you pull him out of it?"

He shook his head. "It would be unwise. Essentially, we're treating his condition like a massive drug overdose. His body has been reliant on the Wraith enzyme for so long that his body cannot function without it. Removing it as suddenly as we did caused a whole host of life-threatening issues for the poor man."

"So, he's going cold turkey?" Sheppard asked.

With an unsettling chill that raced up his spine, Ronon recalled his own battle against the enzyme. He wouldn't wish that pain or humiliation on anyone other than those who had inflicted it upon him.

"Aye. Unfortunately. I'm afraid Lieutenant Ford cleaned out my entire supply of the enzyme a couple years ago. We've been pumping a cocktail of other narcotics into his blood in an attempt to replace or replicate it, but they're not as effective as we'd hoped."

"Wraith methadone?" Sheppard joked.

"Something like that, aye."

"And what are the risks of pulling him out of the coma?" Woolsey asked.

"Well, death… to start with," Beckett bluntly said. "We placed him into the coma not only to prevent him from feeling any pain, but also to protect his brain from any damage that heavy withdrawal might cause. While in the coma, his brain operates at such a low level of activity that the risk of damage to it is low. But if we were to wake him, the sudden increase in brain activity combined with the shock from the lack of the enzyme could cause an aneurysm." His eyes flicked toward Ronon's for the briefest of seconds. "And that's not even taking the extreme pain or seizures into consideration. It would be inhumane, sir, to pull him out of it at this point in time."

Woolsey sat silent for a moment, thinking.

"If we were able to harvest more enzyme and you could administer it as part of a gradually-reducing regimen, could you safely take him out of the coma within the next ten days?"

Beckett looked into the distance and shrugged a shoulder. "Aye, I suppose it's a possibility. But like I said, we don't have any on hand."

Sheppard leaned toward Woolsey in his seat. "Sir, are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"

"Atlantis is currently harboring two individuals this Wraith clearly wants back under his control: Janus and Eva. It's no surprise that he's on his way to take back what he believes we stole. And if we plan on holding them off or defeating them, I would rather have the Ancient on our side than unconscious in a hospital bed. God knows how much time he spent on that Cruiser; he's bound to know all about not only its capabilities, but its weaknesses, as well. We need his help, which means we need him out of that coma."

"Couple of days ago, you said we just had to be patient and wait for him to wake up," Ronon reminded him.

"The situation was different," Woolsey said in a clipped tone. "We had the luxury of time. Now we do not." He turned to the technician. "Compile a list of planets with known or suspected Wraith outposts. I'll need it on my desk within the next two hours."

The technician nodded obediently and left the room.

"Dr. Beckett, how much of the enzyme would you need to safely wean Janus off of it?"

He let out small laugh. "How much can you get?" He shrugged his shoulders. "At least 500 CCs. The average Wraith enzyme gland contains about twenty-five."

"Colonel, I'd like you to assemble a strike force," Woolsey said. "Once we decide where you're going, it will be your mission to collect as much Wraith enzyme as you can."

"You've gotta be kidding me!" McKay interjected. "Just yesterday, you refused Rogers's and my request to mount a second mission back to M5R-233 due to the risks. Now we're planning to just waltz into Wraith-controlled territory, kill 20 of them, and come back with beakers full of enzyme? That's insanity."

"No one said you had to be part of the strike team, Rodney," Sheppard said in a low voice.

"The difference between the two, Dr. McKay, is that we had reason to suspect the Wraith would be expecting you back on M5R-233. And based on how long they waited before turning their course toward us, I think it's safe to say they were, in fact, doing exactly that." Woolsey picked up his pen and stared at it as he spoke. "With this plan, we can count on the element of surprise. Not to mention, there won't be anything to interfere with our Puddle Jumpers or other Ancient technology. Speaking of which, McKay – I suggest you bring that personal cloak along with you. It may prove useful. We'll meet again at 13:00 hours."

Woolsey got up and left, leaving the rest of the team to contend with the new and radical plan.

"All right," Sheppard sighed, flipping a folder over and putting his pen to the back of it. "What do you think, Chewie? You, me, Teyla…"

Ronon nodded in agreement, not needing Sheppard to explain what he was already doing. He glanced over to Teyla who held a now sleeping Torren tight to her chest, softly brushing little tufts of hair out of his face.

"Teyla, you're in, right?" Sheppard asked.

"Yes," she replied softly, so as not to wake her child. She kissed him softly atop his head. "Of course."

How did she do it, Ronon wondered? Willingly put herself into insanely dangerous situations, all the while knowing how much her son depended on her?

"Rodney, you sounded pretty reluctant about the mission. You want to sit this one out?"

"Believe me when I say I would enjoy nothing more. But…you may run into Wraith technology or need help with the personal cloak or –"

"Great! You're in." He scribbled McKay's name onto the folder. "Who else you think?" Sheppard directed his attention back to Ronon. "Lorne's team?"

He agreed. "But Rivers is on leave; you'd need someone to fill in for him."

Nodding slowly, Sheppard clicked his pen as he thought. "What about Hanson? Could be a good idea to have a marine with us."

Ronon felt a small snap in his chest, as though a mousetrap had been set off. "No."

Sheppard raised his eyebrows at the strength of Ronon's disagreement. "He's a big guy. Well-trained in hand-to-hand. Good shot, good with a knife."

Ronon shook his head. "He's base security. Doesn't have the field experience."

"He did two tours in Iraq –"

"He doesn't have enough experience against the Wraith."

Sheppard shrugged. "Fair enough. I guess if the city's defenses need bolstering, he should be here to oversee the preparations anyway." He sat there for a moment, fiddling with the pen in his fingers before fixing Ronon with a long stare. "What about…"

"What about who?" he asked, suddenly suspicious.

"What about the kid?"

Whatever Ronon had been expecting Sheppard to say, it wasn't that. "Eva?"

Sheppard raised a shoulder. "After you, she's probably got a higher Wraith kill count than any of us."

"She's just a kid."

"She's a Runner, Ronon."

He bit down on the nail of his thumb as he considered it. Logically, he knew Sheppard was right. With his own eyes, he had seen how, despite starvation and utter exhaustion, she had managed to bring down a seasoned Wraith hunter with only a dagger in hand. He had seen her successfully handle a semi-automatic in the heat of battle. He had seen the fire in her eyes, wild like a forest blaze fueled by the wind when they sparred.

But he had also remembered how small and frail she had looked on the floor of the Puddle Jumper as they deactivated her scanner, how little she weighed when he lifted and placed her onto the hospital bed after they sedated her, how she sometimes wore her hair in two long plaits like a school girl.

Before he realized it, his eyes had found their way back to Torren. With a tiny sound that came from the back of his throat, the boy yawned in his sleep and burrowed himself further into his mother's chest.

Ronon eventually gave Sheppard a non-committal shrug. "You're in charge. You make the call."

Sheppard tapped the folder a few times on the table. "See, I would…but you're the one who needs to sign the permission slip for this little field trip."