“You could dye it.”
“I’m thinking about that.” Ronon was headed in the same direction as Teyla’s quarters, so Rodney hurried his own steps to keep up with him. “I think Elizabeth was the one who saved me from the puddle-jumper,” he said, because Ronon already thought he was strange, and at least he wasn’t likely to try amateur psychotherapy. “I think she Ascended.”
“Could be,” Ronon said.
Rodney stopped, and then had to trot to keep up with him. “You don’t think I’m crazy?”
Ronon shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”
“So you think she could be out there somewhere?”
“I don’t know. I’m not really the person to ask.”
“Yes, I know Dr. Jackson is still here, but the two of us haven’t exactly worked smoothly together in the past, and I’m not sure I really need his help with this.”
“I was thinking more like some kind of priest. Your people have those, right? Or maybe you should talk to Teyla. She knows more about that spiritual stuff. She meditates, and everything.”
“I was actually looking for Teyla.”
“Good plan,” Ronon said.
Teyla poured him a cup of tea. Rodney would have preferred coffee, but it didn’t seem like the moment to insist.
“I dreamed about Elizabeth,” he said. “When I was a Wraith, when I couldn’t even remember that I was human, let alone remember my own name, she helped me. And then she appeared in the puddle-jumper. That wasn’t a hallucination. It was the real Elizabeth, and she had Ascended.” He spread his hands defensively. “All right, let’s get the part where you tell me I’m crazy out of the way.”
“Why would I say that?”
“Everyone else thinks so. Except maybe Ronon, but who knows what he really thinks.”
“I have dreamed of Elizabeth too,” Teyla said seriously.
“You have?”
Teyla nodded. “I dreamed that she spoke to me and showed me things that helped me. I believe that she has become a guardian for her people here in Atlantis, that she watches over us as one of the Ancestors and protects us. Perhaps she Ascended, or perhaps that is part of what happens beyond death. But I believe that she helped you.”
“All right, good, someone believes me. Now all we have to do is figure out how to find her,” Rodney said.
Teyla put her head to one side. “Find her?”
“Ascended beings aren’t supposed to interfere. She even told me that she knew she’d get in trouble for it. If they’ve sent her back as a human, she’s out there somewhere. She wouldn’t know Atlantis’s current gate address even if she was trying to come home. I’ve asked Woolsey to authorize a search, but he’s dragging his feet about it.”
Teyla poured herself another cup of tea before she answered. “I believe Elizabeth is trying to tell you something, but you may need to look deeper to understand her message.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you feel the need to look for Elizabeth, perhaps you should try looking within. If you meditate, and open yourself to hearing the voices of your ancestors and guardians, you may find her there.”
“I am not talking about a spiritual experience,” Rodney said. “I’m talking about contact with someone on another plane of existence.” Teyla looked at him as if that didn’t make perfect sense. “She was there,” Rodney said. “Not as a voice or a guardian spirit or anything mystical. She was right there in the jumper with me, just like we’re sitting here right now, and she saved my life.”
“I am sure that you saw her there,” Teyla said patiently. “And I believe she did save your life, by helping you find a way to save yourself.”
“I didn’t transport myself off the jumper,” Rodney said. “There is no possible way I could have done that.”
“You have said yourself that the Ancestors knew far more about their technology than we do,” Teyla said. “Elizabeth may have learned things about it that we still have not discovered.”
“There is nothing you can do with a puddle-jumper’s systems that we haven’t figured out by now. And if there is, the Hammond would have detected the transport. I wouldn’t have just appeared.”
“There is another possibility,” Teyla said. “You came very close to Ascending yourself once.”
“Only because an Ancient device had given me superpowers and I thought was going to die if I didn’t,” Rodney said.
Teyla nodded encouragingly. “Is it not possible that under great duress, you rediscovered within yourself some of the same abilities—”
“So why this time, and not during any of the other terrifying near-death experiences I have on an all-too-regular basis?”
“Perhaps because this time Elizabeth was there to guide you.”
“If you believe that, why don’t you believe she’s out there for us to find?”
“I believe that people we loved may watch over us and guide us,” Teyla said. “But the dead are still dead. They do not simply … come back.”
“Daniel Jackson did.”
“Then perhaps you should ask him what he experienced.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Rodney said.
Daniel cleared a chair of books, which made it possible for Rodney to actually sit down. “Sorry about the mess,” he said. He waved a hand at his tablet, which was lying on the coffee table still scrolling lines of Ancient text. “I’m reading up on everything we know about early Ancient settlement in the Pegasus Galaxy. I appreciate your team helping me investigate some of the settlement sites.”
“Woolsey ordered us to,” Rodney said.
Daniel’s voice grew dryer. “Yes, I knew that, but I thought we were being polite.”
“Let me start over,” Rodney said. “What do you know about Ascension?”
Daniel leaned back in his chair and considered him. “More than most people. Why do you ask?”
“I think Dr. Weir may have Ascended,” Rodney said. “When I was a Wraith, she appeared to me and spoke to me. And then when I was going to die, she appeared and saved my life. But she seemed to think she was going to be in big trouble for that. Like the kind of trouble where you get kicked out of a higher plane of existence.”
“It’s possible,” Daniel said. “I’m told that while I was Ascended — the first time — I appeared to some of my friends when they were in bad situations. And then when I tried to interfere more directly, I got kicked out. But I don’t remember much about what that was actually like.”
“You just appeared somewhere, right?”
“Yes, and that’s something that you could ask your allies if they’ve heard anything about. Naked amnesiacs don’t show up in the middle of somebody’s field every day.”
“How serious amnesia are we talking about?”
“I had no idea who I was or where I came from,” Daniel said. “I could talk, and I remembered some skills, but most of it was just … flashes, images. Nothing that made sense. Even after SG-1 found me, it took some time for everything to come back. Of course, it may not have helped that I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted everything to come back. In some ways it was restful having a break from remembering everything that had ever happened to me.”
“She may not even remember that she’s looking for Atlantis. We’ve got to find her.”
“All right. How?”
“I was hoping you’d have some ideas about that,” Rodney said, as humbly as possible.
Daniel drummed his fingers on the table for a minute. “When Oma sent me back, I think she wasn’t supposed to send me home. I was supposed to start a new life that didn’t involve causing any more trouble. But she put me somewhere that SG-1 was going to come sooner or later, because it was a possible site of Atlantis, which we were still looking for at the time.”
“She cheated?”