Another jumper was already parked in the square, with a small crowd gathered around it.
“Major Lorne is here with a team to trade,” Teyla said, remembering the fact only as she spoke.
“I knew that,” Ronon said.
She gave him a sideways look. “We could have radioed and asked them to find out if anyone has seen Elizabeth.”
“We were already on our way,” Ronon said. “Or are you saying you wouldn’t have come just because someone else was here?”
“No, I would have come anyway,” Teyla said. It was not the way of the military on Earth, with their belief that one team should be interchangeable with another. She understood their reasoning, and still did not always agree with it. Elizabeth was her friend, and she and Rodney and Ronon could not sit by letting someone else search for her if there was a chance she could be found.
The jumper’s subspace radio crackled to life. “Teyla, report,” John said. “Where are you?”
“We have just landed on Sateda,” Teyla said, as Rodney brought the jumper down to a landing in the square. “Pursuing a lead.”
“Lorne just radioed in,” John said. She could hear the tightness in his voice, and her own breath caught. “He says they’ve found Elizabeth.”
The jumper was barely on the ground before Ronon was heading out the door, followed at a brisk pace by the rest of the team. Teyla could see the people gathered near the other jumper as she jogged across the square, Major Lorne and Dr. Zelenka standing in the center of the crowd talking to a dark-haired woman who turned toward them in disbelief as they approached.
Teyla found herself face to face with Elizabeth Weir, looking just as Teyla remembered her, though wearing clothes she must have acquired on one of the planets she had visited. “Rodney. Teyla. Ronon?” She spoke their names tentatively, as if not sure whether her memory for them was to be trusted.
“Yes,” Teyla said, and felt her heart lift, even though she knew that they had not yet proven that this was truly Elizabeth. “You remember us.”
“I remember some things,” Elizabeth said. “It’s coming back slowly. For a while I had no idea where I was from. I couldn’t remember Earth, or the Atlantis expedition, or… ” Elizabeth’s expression grew abruptly troubled. “Where is Colonel Sheppard?”
“Back in Atlantis,” Teyla reassured her. Of course she must expect John to be in charge of the team, and guess that something terrible had befallen him if he were not. “He is currently in charge of the city.”
Elizabeth’s eyebrows went up. “Colonel Sheppard? Not that I’m complaining, but I’m surprised that the IOA went for that.” She shook her head. “That was the first thing that came to mind, and now I can’t remember what the IOA is.”
“It takes some time,” Daniel said. Elizabeth turned to look at him, noticing him for the first time, as Zelenka began herding away the curious Satedan onlookers to give them a little more privacy to talk.
“I know you,” she said. “But I can’t remember your name.”
“Daniel Jackson,” he said. “I’m with the SGC on Earth. I’m just here in Atlantis temporarily.”
“That’s what they all say,” Elizabeth said. It sounded like her, that dry sense of humor. Could a Replicator, or some other creature inhabiting Elizabeth’s shape, seem so much like her? And yet if her blood were filled with nanites, she might be a time bomb completely unawares. “I remember you, though. We dealt with… dangerous parasites?”
“That could be either the Goa’uld or Senator Kinsey,” Daniel said. “But, yes. You were briefly in charge of the SGC. It was an interesting experience.”
“You’d think it would be memorable,” Elizabeth said.
“You’re probably going to have partial amnesia for a while,” Daniel said. “I did, after I came back from being Ascended.”
Elizabeth looked a little skeptical. “Ascended? Is that what happened to me?”
Rodney shook his head at her. “You don’t remember?”
“No. I remember waking up in a field, but I don’t remember anything about how I got there or where I came from. And before that… ” She shook her head. “Something about an attack by the Asurans?”
“That is right,” Teyla said. “That was when you… ” She hesitated, unsure how best to complete the sentence.
“Died,” Rodney said bluntly. “At least, we thought you were dead.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Apparently not.”
“I’ll go report to Colonel Sheppard,” Lorne said, and Teyla nodded as he stepped inside his jumper to do it. They would have to decide what to do about Elizabeth now, and that was not a conversation Lorne would want to have in front of Elizabeth herself.
Elizabeth was frowning at Rodney. “What happened to your hair?”
“There was this thing with the Wraith,” he said. At her stricken expression, he hurried on, “They didn’t suck years of my life out of me. It was actually a lot more disturbing than that. I’m fine, now, though. I mean, except for some traumatic… anyway, the hair is just one of those quirky things that happens in Pegasus, right?”
“Quirky,” Elizabeth said. “That’s one way of putting it.” She looked up at Ronon. “It’s good to see all of you.”
Ronon looked at her for a long moment, seeming to have run out of words abruptly, and then threw his arms around her and hugged her, lifting her entirely off the ground in the process. Elizabeth hung onto his hands when he finally released her, as if touching him made him seem more real.
It was as if a glass barrier between them had been broken. Teyla stretched out her hands, and Elizabeth took them, leaning in to touch her forehead to Teyla’s. Her hands were warm, and felt as they should in Teyla’s own. Her smell seemed wrong for a moment, and then Teyla decided that what was missing was the familiar scent of perfumed toiletries mingled with Air Force issue laundry detergent and the ever-required coffee.
Elizabeth hugged Rodney, who returned the embrace more awkwardly. “I like the hair,” she said.
“Really?” he asked, drawing himself up a little bit. “I’ve been wondering if I should dye it.”
“Leave it,” Elizabeth said.
Lorne emerged from the jumper. “Sheppard’s on his way,” he said.
Teyla shook her head. “And who is he leaving in charge in Atlantis?”
“Me, as soon as I can get back there,” Lorne said. He shrugged. “You didn’t really think he was going to sit this one out, did you?”
“I did not,” Teyla admitted.
“Dr. Zelenka, Dr. Lynn, you’re coming back to Atlantis with me,” Lorne said. “Colonel Sheppard is calling off the trade mission until we get this sorted out.”
Lorne dialed the gate and headed through with the two scientists. It was not long before there was the sound of the gate activating again, and then the boiling blue of the wormhole forming. “Colonel Sheppard, I presume,” Elizabeth said, and turned to watch as John strode through.
Lorne had barely set foot in the control room when Sgt. Anthony called in from the alpha site. “Sir, we’ve got problems,” Anthony said.
“What now?” Lorne asked, sliding into the seat beside Airman Salawi, who returned her attention to her computer screen. “We need that alpha site.”
“The new equipment we brought out is falling apart, too. The tents are just coming apart in pieces. The water cans look like somebody set them on a hot stove.”
Lorne waved a hand at Radek, who had been on his way out of the control room. Radek came back up the stairs reluctantly, probably wondering why he was being deprived of ten minutes to grab a cup of coffee before anyone piled new technical problems on his head.