Allegiance

Chapter Four New Arrivals

John looked out at the Daedalus nestled onto the South Pier — they’d pretty much given up worrying about the city’s actual orientation, went with the names everyone was used to. If Rodney was here, it would drive him crazy, and John winced, deflecting that thought with what was becoming practiced ease. When they got him back, he told himself, it would give him something to bitch about. He tried not to think about guys he’d seen who’d survived capture, survived the Taliban, made himself look back at Daedalus, her hatches open now to disgorge the latest batch of scientists. This wasn’t its usual spot, but that was taken by the Hammond, still under repair. And that was something that would annoy Colonel Caldwell, and John was still trying to work up a response that would convey just how much he didn’t care…

Except that this was also a distraction, one more way of putting off thinking about what he had to say to Jeannie Miller, and in what order he could say it that would be most reassuring when there wasn’t much reassurance to be had. He could see her now in the open hatch, a bright red hat covering her blonde hair — a red hat with a pompom and matching red mittens, just another Canadian housewife off to rescue her brother from life-sucking aliens — and he bit down hard on his lip, knowing the flippancy was just another form of avoidance.

Caldwell was with her, hand ready at her elbow in case she stumbled on the ice, but Jeannie moved as though she didn’t see him, striding across the pier toward the nearest tower. At his side, Woolsey squared his shoulders, one hand rising briefly as though he wanted to adjust the tie he wasn’t wearing, and John plastered a smile on his own face as the doors slid open. He exchanged salutes with Caldwell, seeing in memory Rodney’s outraged stare when he and Caldwell and Carter had greeted each other formally. Seriously? he’d said, looking from colonel to colonel, and John bit his lip to keep from flinching.

“Mrs. Miller,” Woolsey said. “We are very grateful you are here.”

She was looking tired, John thought, tired and a little pale. That might be the twelve days in hyperspace, or it might be because she knew the chances of finding Rodney alive were dwindling by the hour.

“Is there any news?” she asked, and John saw Woolsey flinch.

Jeannie saw it, too, and her face changed. “Is he dead? You have to tell me — ”

“He’s alive,” John said, quickly, and she looked from him to Woolsey and back.

“What’s the catch?”

“It’s not entirely good news,” Woolsey said. “There have been — developments — since you left Earth.” His look included Caldwell, whose mouth tightened. “I know it’s been a long trip, but I assumed you would want to hear the news immediately.”

Jeannie managed a wry smile. “Mr. Woolsey, I’ve had nothing to do for the last two weeks but sit in a metal box and worry. It’ll be a relief to know what I’m worrying about.”

Caldwell looked momentarily annoyed by the ‘metal box’ comment, but he had more sense than to say anything. “I’m assuming that has something to do with why we don’t have our usual landing spot? And Hammond being under repairs?”

“Yes,” Woolsey said, shortly. “The Hammond was damaged in combat with the Wraith. I’ll have all the details for you — ”

John hung back to be sure that someone had taken charge of Jeannie’s bag, and found himself at her side as they made their way down the corridor. “Thanks for coming,” he said, and she reached out impulsively to squeeze his arm.

“It’s good to see you. I feel like I can finally do something.”

“Radek thinks you can be a big help,” John said.

“God, I hope so,” Jeannie said. “Is it — really bad?”

“We’ll get him back,” John said, and knew he sounded grim.

Woolsey had chosen to hold the meeting in a different room, one with a view of the city’s north side, where they could see the crews working on the Hammond in the thickening light and the soft chains of light that draped the towers. Predictably, Caldwell went to the window to look down at the other ship, assessing the visible damage, and John saw him raise an eyebrow. Probably at the missing shield emitter, he thought, it was the most obvious problem, and carefully didn’t look himself. Instead, he poured himself a cup of coffee — Jeannie shook her head at his offer, found tea instead — and took his place at the big table. Keller and Beckett were both there, and Zelenka, and a moment later the door slid open to admit Sam Carter.

“Sorry,” she said, to the table at large, and seated herself next to Zelenka.

“Very well,” Woolsey said. “As I said earlier, there have been — developments — since Daedalus left Earth. We have positive information that Rodney McKay is still alive. We received intelligence pinpointing his location, and incidentally giving us the chance to ambush Queen Death’s primary hive, and mounted a rescue operation. Our team was successful in surprising Death, and in doing significant damage to her ship, but unfortunately our information was incomplete, and the team was confronted with an unexpected development. Dr. McKay was alive, but uncooperative. He — he had been transformed into a Wraith.”

“What?” Jeannie’s voice rose sharply.

“I’m sorry,” Woolsey said.

“It’s impossible,” Jeannie said. She looked around the table, settled on John. “Isn’t it?”

John shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

“Dr. Keller and Dr. Becket have a possible explanation,” Woolsey said. “If you would, Dr. Keller?”

And that wasn’t fair, either, John thought. It wasn’t fair to make Rodney’s girlfriend explain to Rodney’s sister just what had happened to someone they both loved — it was Beckett’s retrovirus, probably; let him do it.

Keller took a breath. “Yes. I’m afraid it is possible. At least in theory.” She looked down at her notes. “Four years ago, Dr. Beckett developed a retrovirus that was intended to deactivate the Iratus bug DNA that we believe makes the Wraith what they are. It was partially successful, but the transformed patient — we call him Michael because it doesn’t seem as though the Wraith have individual names — escaped and was in contact with a number of different hives before he was killed. We think it’s very possible that some hive could have gotten the idea to try a similar procedure on humans.”

That was a pretty narrow summary, John thought. It left out a whole lot of awkward parts, like some disastrous deals with the Wraith, and Michael trying to create his own new species when the Wraith rejected him as tainted. It left out kidnapping Teyla when she was pregnant with Torren, and the horrible possible future that only Rodney’s stubbornness managed to avert, not to mention the last terrifying attack on Atlantis —

Caldwell said, “You mean the Wraith can actually turn a human being into one of them?”

“It’s not that unlikely,” Keller said. “The Wraith are actually related to humans — their genetic material is a mix of human DNA and DNA from the Iratus bug. And they are very skilled biologists. Essentially, all they would need to do is introduce the Iratus bug DNA into Rodney’s system.” To her credit, her voice didn’t shake at all on the last words.

Beckett cleared his throat. “We’ve already seen the result of Iratus bug DNA on Colonel Sheppard.”

I knew somebody would mention that, John thought. Caldwell gave him a look, and he met the other man’s stare guilelessly. “It turned me blue. And scaly.”

“What would be the point of this experiment on McKay?” Caldwell asked, after a moment.

“We believe that the Wraith want Dr. McKay’s cooperation,” Woolsey said. “Our intelligence suggests that Queen Death wants to claim the Milky Way as her new feeding ground.”

“That’s not exactly new information,” Caldwell said.

“No,” Carter said, “but the method is new. And if McKay does cooperate — he’s very good. And he knows Atlantis’s systems inside and out.”

“Excuse me,” Jeannie said. “What — what exactly do you want me to do here?”

There was a note in her voice that made John wince and bite his lip, but Woolsey regarded her gravely. “I asked for your help finding the places where Dr. McKay has rewritten our codes to give him unauthorized access to our systems here. And to help rewrite our current programs to make sure he cannot gain access in any other way. That has not changed.”

“Dammit!” Jeannie looked like she wanted to throw something. She glared at each of them in turn, fixing finally on John. “And while I’m doing this, is there some kind of plan to find Meredith? To get him back? Do any of you people know whether or not he can be changed back — if he’s even really himself any more? If that’s even what they’ve done? Or will I have some weird alien — monster — instead of a brother? Or are you just planning to kill him the next time you find him?”

“We’ll get him back,” John said.

“How?” Jeannie’s hands were white-knuckled on her mug.

“I don’t know,” John said. “But we don’t leave our people behind.”

“Right.” For a second, Jeannie looked as though she wanted to spit, but then, with an effort, she uncurled her fingers. “All right, then, I’ll do it. But — you’ll keep me informed.”

That was directed at Keller, who nodded. “Of course.”

Woolsey cleared his throat. “Thank you. Colonel Caldwell, I assume you have seen the damage to the General Hammond, and I’m sure Colonel Carter will want to fill you in on the details.”

Carter nodded helpfully, though John suspected that was the last thing she actually wanted to do.

“Dr. Zelenka, did you have anything you wanted to add?” Woolsey went on.

“Nothing that cannot wait until Mrs. Miller is settled,” Zelenka said. “Except to say that I am sorry to have you here under these circumstances.”

“Thank you,” Jeannie said, in a muffled voice.

“I’m sure we all share those sentiments,” Woolsey said. He tapped his papers together. “You all have copies of the detailed reports on the attempted rescue, and we will meet later to go over any questions. But for now, I believe we should concentrate on getting Mrs. Miller and the rest of our new personnel squared away.”

That was as abrupt as dismissal as John had ever heard from Woolsey, but he doubted the little bureaucrat was any more eager than the rest of them to sit around and go over the details of precisely how they had failed. He stood aside to let Woolsey escort Jeannie out, followed by Carter and Zelenka, and then by the doctors, Keller looking even less pleased than before. He started to follow them, but Caldwell said, “Sheppard.”

“Sir?” John paused in the doorway, trying to look respectful.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Caldwell said. “She deserves better than that.”

“We’ll get him back,” John said, and there was something in his voice that made Caldwell look away.

“So, you and Meredith,” Jeannie said. Jennifer wished she had some idea whether that was welcome to the family or what are your intentions toward my brother and wasn’t sure what to do with either one.

They’d wound up the last people at the dinner table, after Teyla, Ronon, and Sheppard had all exchanged awkwardly obvious let’s let them talk looks and taken themselves off — Teyla to put Torren to bed, Sheppard apparently to help, and Ronon to do whatever it was Ronon did with his evenings. Find someone to inflict bodily harm on in the gym, probably.

She was sure they meant well, but she’d been strongly tempted to make her own excuses at the same time. Only the fact that she would have felt guilty leaving Jeannie alone at the table under the circumstances kept her in her seat, poking at the remains of her salad. The mess hall was getting quiet, the cooks starting to close down the serving line to leave packaged sandwiches and fruit the only options for late-comers.

“We’ve been dating,” Jennifer said.

“He told me,” Jeannie said. “I’m lucky I knew that much, he’s not much with the personal news. It was months before I figured out that he’d stopped dating, what was her name, Katie?”

“Katie Brown,” Jennifer said. “They just didn’t… I mean, she was a perfectly nice person, it just wasn’t working out.”

“Believe me, I’m not surprised,” Jeannie said. “Meredith can be a little hard to take.”

“I don’t find him — we’ve always gotten along surprisingly well, considering that Rodney is… a little intense.”

“Intense,” Jeannie said, shaking her head and smiling. “That would be my brother.” Her eyes were sharp, and it dawned on Jennifer that her smile was not necessarily a friendly one. “I wish you’d told me that you were seeing each other when I was here before.”

“We weren’t,” Jennifer said. “We were just friends. It was after that that we…” She hesitated, not finding the words to describe hearing Rodney tell her how he felt at the same time that she was watching his painful decline, wondering what it meant that he was saying it now. Probably that he wasn’t worried about the suspense of wondering what her reaction would be, because it hadn’t seemed like it was going to matter. She wasn’t sure he even remembered what he’d said the next day.

“Oh,” Jeannie said. “So when you were being all… that was just being friends.”

“He was my patient,” Jennifer said.

“And he’s my brother,” Jeannie said. “But it seemed like you would have been happier if I hadn’t been around to have opinions.”

“I really didn’t mean it to seem that way,” Jennifer said. “I was… pretty upset at the time.”

Jeannie seemed to be considering her for a while, and then her smile softened. “I can see that you would be. I don’t think I could deal with your job. Be a doctor and have to treat all my friends when they got hurt, or taken over by little alien robots, or infected by weird brain parasites.”

“It’s not always like that,” Jennifer said. “Sometimes it’s just headaches and sprained ankles all day. It does get stressful, though. We lose a lot of people.”

She could see Jeannie’s expression change at the words, her eyes shadowing in a way that was all too familiar to Jennifer, and she wished she’d thought before she spoke them.

“So,” Jeannie said in the tone of someone determined to change the subject. “You and Meredith. Is this serious, or what? Because I really think Meredith needs to be thinking about moving toward… I’m not saying you need to get married right away, but I think it would be good for him at this point in his life to get that settled.”

“Umm. Wow.” Jennifer glanced around the mess hall as if it were likely that she’d spot a medical emergency that required her immediate attention. “I think we’re, you know, taking steps that lead in a certain direction.”

“Are you living together? I’m not trying to be a prude or anything. I’m just wondering if you’ve survived living in close quarters with Meredith for long enough to know what it’s like.”

“We were, on Earth,” Jennifer said. “And we’ve been sharing quarters here, although that’s more… you know, it’s kind of more like being roommates in a dorm than anything else. It’s not like you can really spend a lot of time alone together, unless you want to eat all your meals out of the microwave and never leave your quarters.”

“It is kind of like that,” Jeannie said. “I think Meredith’s achieved his dream of going back to grad school and staying there.”

“You think that’s his dream?”

“I really don’t know,” Jeannie said. “He didn’t speak to me for several years, so maybe I’m not the best authority here. I know he liked college and hated living at home. And I don’t just mean high school. I mean, okay, who doesn’t hate high school, but if you could move away from home when you were ten years old, Meredith would have.”

“It doesn’t seem like he was a very happy kid.”

Jeannie breathed a laugh. “I think that’s the understatement of the century. Mom and Dad were kind of seriously dysfunctional, and Meredith always took that very hard. He’s a lot more sensitive than you’d think.”

“I’m not sure sensitive is the word I’d apply to Rodney.”

“I mean, not in the sense that he knows what to say to people, or that he notices how they feel unless they’re right up in his face. But he cares about things more than he likes people to think.”

“I know that,” Jennifer said.

“Good,” Jeannie said. “Because I know how hard it is for him to actually try dating someone. He apparently thinks the idea of winding up in a house in the suburbs and coming home every evening to a wife and kids is some kind of horrible fate. You should have heard him on how I was wasting my life and was going to end up drinking all day and leave Madison with permanent emotional scars because of my resentment of her. Which is really not about me, needless to say.”

“We were more at the getting an apartment stage,” Jennifer said. “Although I wouldn’t rule out a house in the suburbs.” Not the way she’d had to rule out small towns, unless you counted a military base, which she didn’t. But teaching hospitals and secret military research facilities both required living somewhere convenient, and ignoring the little part of her that said she’d like to live somewhere where the sky wasn’t broken up with buildings and where the neighbors all knew her parents’ names.

“The suburbs might be good for him. You know, taking part in normal life more. But it’s good that if he never actually gets that far, that he’s got someplace like this that makes him happy.”

“It’s an interesting place to live,” Jennifer said. “I don’t regret coming out here. But it is sort of like being in college forever. In kind of unfortunate ways, sometimes.”

“It’s a nice place to visit,” Jeannie said. “It would also be nice to see Meredith when something isn’t horribly wrong.”

“We were going to come to see you when we were on Earth,” Jennifer said. “It’s just we got caught up in moving, and everything was in boxes — ”

“I know. He told me. I figure at least I got to talk to him on the phone.” She looked dangerously like she was going to cry.

“It’s going to be all right,” Jennifer said quickly.

Jeannie looked at her like she saw through her. “Do you really believe that?”

“I know his team would do anything to get him back. They kind of define stubborn.”

Jeannie smiled ruefully. “It’s good that you’re an optimist. Meredith is enough of a pessimist for any two people.”

“He is,” Jennifer said, wishing she felt more like she was holding up her end of that bargain right now.