New Home (Stargate Atlantis fanfiction)

3 The best place to be left to die

"What is wrong?" Asked John when they were finally left alone in the garden. "Just tell me."

"It's not simple" said Daniel shyly. "I know it would sound stupid, but I can assure you, I had to convince Sam and McKay, so just listen to me."

"But..."

"Noone is hurt, Colonel!" Assured dr Jackson. "At least not yet. But it can change very soon." He waited till Sheppards expression became more calm. "I had this weird dream for a few nights in a row now that I speak with ascended Ancient. He told me that there was someone ascended with his help, who defied the rules to help Atlantis. Wait!" He put his hand up to stop any complaints before Sheppard had time to voice them. "The really important part is that this kind of intervention is highly punished by other ascended beings. The thing is, by having helped Atlantis to get to the Milky Way and fight off the Wraith Hive ship, not to mention helping with entry and landing is much too much but this ascended managed to help throughout it all and was descended forcefully somewhere inside the city to die."

"You've got very vivid dreams, I see, Jackson!" John was seriously annoyed. "What do you want me to do, tuck covers around you every evening?" he snapped.

"I want you to go back to the City and search for this person before it's too late!"

"Oh, for cryin' out loud!" shouted John. "I have one decent family vacation, four days or so, in the five years of such service and you're telling me to cancel it to search for somebody who is probably figment of your vivid imagination?!"

"Be calm, remember how you used to stay calm with Jack..." whispered Daniel to himself looking away for a moment. "Look, I had my fair share of explaining. Do you think Carter and McKay could be persuaded if it was not possible?"

"Ok, let's assume you're right." John calmed a little. He was not shouting anymore. He was just annoyed. "Lorne is there already, he can handle it very well."

"Noone knows this City like you do. We have less than couple of days and then we can be certain our guy is dead." Reasoned Daniel. "You know where to look. This is really a matter of life and death. If this ascended helped you, then he is a part of your team, right? We do not leave people behind to die!"

This was it. John gave up. This statement could not be discussed, never overthrown, always to be obeyed. He did it once leaving Elisabeth and he could not do this again. "When do we leave to San Francisco?"

"That's the Sheppard I heard stories about." Daniel exclaimed with joy. "Tomorrow, I reserved tickets for the first flight in the morning."

"Jackson?"

"What?"

"Would you like to participate in chopper flight with me and my niece and nephew today?"

***

They arrived in the City in early hours of evening. Sheppard did not waste time and changed to his old city clothes and went to the control room just to find all the senior staff there.

"Colonel Sheppard, nice to see you back." Said Woolsey leaning over Rodney, who apparently tried to track Lorne's and his team. "We were just..." He didn't manage to finish, because scientist cut in midsentence.

"There is probably nothing there. Lorne, "he activated his radio "move to the next sector. We do have sensor readings where you are and there are no life signs there." He shut his earpiece down and continued checking the sensors.

"Hey, Meredith." John joked making McKay to look at him finally. "How did they managed to sell you?" He didn't get an answer. "McKay!"

"Ok, ok, look at the power usage logs for the ZPM, will you do it without my help, huh?!" He pointed to a laptop standing nearby.

"But, you must be wrong." Said John incrediously mere moments after first looking at the screen. "It says city didn't use any power from the ZPM itself from the moment of starting wormhole drive to the last seconds of landing procedure. And ZPM was somehow recharged to full just after that..."

"Who... Whatever did that it is unusually interesting." And proving his point Rodney looked back to his screen.

"Here" said John stepping closer to the big, ancient screen with city schematics. He pointed to one of the remote areas of the south pier. "This part of the city."

"What about it?" Asked Woolsey.

"Jackson, you told me ancients descended our benefactor somewhere to die, right?" When Daniel nodded John continued. "Sensors were never really working in that part of the city. The shield collapsed there long before we arrived and it must have some structural damage, cause it was flooded even with slightly higher waves. Elisabeth made sure no one went there. It was too dangerous. What better place to end someone's life?"

Daniel looked at John with amazement. "See, that's why we need you to be here."

"Gear up, Jackson. Five minutes. Remember about some blanket – if I understood correctly this descended is not goin' to be fully clothed."

"What? You mean...?"

"You're coming with me. "

They were ready in three minutes. Rodney gave them handy life signs detector and they headed to the transporter. Once there they established radio contact with the control room through their earpieces and started to move.

"John, I lost you, sensors are out from this place on. You sure you did the right thing not bringing any weapon with you?" It was very familiar voice of Beckett.

"Yeah, doc, it's just unconscious guy, not really a threat."

They were roaming those corridors for over an hour and Jackson was really lost, although Sheppard seemed to know perfectly well where he was. Life detectors had small range. Annoyingly small at that particular moment. Suddenly it started giving a third beep. John rushed forward and somehow managed to open the door with broken crystals. Second set of doors seemed to be the last to get to their destination.

"Rodney, I need you."

"Yup, what's up?

"There is this lock I can't really overwrite from here. I'm in section H20, level 4. The door will not unlock, but I'm sure you will be able to do it from control panels."

"It's strange. It requires another code."

"It is working, what did you do?" asked Daniel.

"Weirs code John gave me last time we had problems."

John run into the room as soon as he saw it was partially flooded. The water started to appear much faster once they opened the door. They saw a body laying half in the water, its back to them. It was under the set of rubble.

"You'd better get that blanket and radio Beckett to be ready, Jackson!" whispered John and started to remove metal to get to the person to get him out before water could rise enough to drown him.

"Dr Beckett," said Daniel activating his earpiece "you should be ready to receive our guest quite soon. Sheppard is getting to him." He could hear the move in the gate room. "Colonel should get him to you in something about half an hour."

"Jackson!" shouted John getting up with a woman in his arms.

"Beckett, you should better make it ten minutes, Sheppard will be running to you as fast as he can."

Jackson did not tell who they were expecting, but his call seemed very urgent. Beckett and Keller managed to prepare everything they could think of in the isolation room. The balcony overlooking it was unusually crowded. Lorne came just a few minutes after the news came, being recalled immediately, whole senior staff waiting to see the face of one that probably saved them.

When John finally entered the room with a still, soaked, blanket wrapped form in his arms everyone hold their breath. Carson and Jennifer were barely moving at first. It was Beckett who regained his posture first and started to asses female before him. Keller was up to her tasks second after.

Everyone stared in disbelief as both doctors took care of female looking exactly like one Elisabeth Weir.