Chapter Text
The sun was starting to set when John woke up, eyes gritty, head pounding, and in sore need of a shower. He found himself in a tangled-up pile with Ronon and Rodney, hardly able to extricate himself enough to sit up. He promptly wished he hadn't because, wow, his head really hurt, and there was a taste in his mouth he preferred not to analyse too closely. He ran a hand through his hair, and, ewww, sticky. Yes, he really needed a shower. And a piss.
He stumbled to his feet, swayed for a moment, and then limped around to collect his clothes. What the hell had he done to himself last night? The details were very, very vague, but he remembered sex with Rodney. And going down on Ronon. He was reasonably sure there had been more sex after that, but he couldn't, for the life of him, recall the details. Oh well. It was hardly the first time that happened, and it probably wouldn't be the last.
He dragged his pants over his hips and winced, then blinked with consternation at the dark, distinctly finger-shaped bruises over his hipbones. Apparently, they'd gotten a little carried away? He gave a mental shrug and didn't tug the leather cords quite as tight as usual. The gun belts, unfortunately, ran right over the bruises and he resigned himself to some discomfort with a sigh. He tugged a shirt over his head, then realized he'd gotten Rodney's when the shoulders came down over his upper arms and the hem barely reached his trousers. He went poking around for his own shirt and finally found it tangled up under Rodney's legs. Rodney grumbled in his sleep when he removed it, but turned around and continued to snore after a moment.
He didn't bother to do up the laces on his shirt, but, dressed and armed, he felt much better equipped to deal with the necessary clean-up. Other people were starting to stir, most not in much better condition than John. The party had gone on until well after sunrise, if John remembered correctly. Earth's nights were just so much shorter than they were all used to. And instead of a couple of days downtime, maybe some surfing on the mainland, or just hanging out with the Athosians for a bit, as they would at home after a victory like this, it was right back to work. John was about to run his hand through his hair again, then remembered its less than sanitary condition and stopped. Instead, he went to kick Rodney and Ronon awake, and to start loading their stuff and people into the jumpers, to head back up to the Cyrinius, and at least catch a couple of hours of post-party relaxation, with showers and food and tea against the headache, and sleep in an actual, warm, soft bed.
***
Jeannie sat in front of the TV with Kaleb and her daughter, and listened to the President of the United States give a speech about aliens. She vaguely realized they were witness to something momentous, something of more historical significance than anything since... oh, she didn't know since when. There was a head of government on TV talking about aliens...! As she listened, she could see the story being spun, see history be written, the references to the heroic sacrifices good Americans (of course) had been making for their nation and their planet for almost twenty years. The speech was good, subtly reassuring, steering attention away from the fact that the world's major governments had been keeping one hell of a big secret from their citizens for a scandalously long time. Jeannie suspected that that speech had been lying in a drawer for a long time. The President also announced that there would be a documentary aired later that night, which would also be made available free of charge to any other government that wished to show it. Yes, there was preparation here. Well, that wasn't entirely surprising, the people in charge had to have been aware that this secret would eventually come to light, but still... Jeannie was vaguely upset that this, this thing, which made every conspiracy theory on the internet look like child's play, had been kept a secret, by more than one government from the allusions the U.S. President made. And considering her own brother's involvement in this secret, she suspected her government had been one of those in the know. People she had elected, she had helped vote into office, had lied to their people. She wondered what the fall-out would be, whether this would blow up out of all proportion, whether she would look back on this day as the day the world as she knew it ended, would wish that the secret had been kept for longer, or whether this would be the day Earth made a large step forward, or whether things would just go back to normal, people docile and content to stay that way. She didn't know. She really didn't.
They watched the documentary in the evening, and it was heart-breaking, and scary. God, how had her brother ever gotten involved with something like this? There were interviews, normal programs rescheduled so they could air, interviews with one General O'Neill, from the U.S. Airforce, dressed sharply in a blue uniform loaded down with the mysterious decorations of his rank, still handsome, eyes still sharp, despite the silver in his hair. He had apparently been a part of the “Stargate Programme”, as they referred to it, since the beginning. He was also in the documentary, had headed up what they called a “gate team” for years, and, from the way they made it sound, single-handedly saved Earth from alien invasions dozens of times. Jeannie wasn't sure how much to believe, wasn't sure how much to trust these people, who had worked in secret for so long. O'Neill's face was stony throughout the interview, nothing there she could identify with. There were promises of more interviews, of a history of the programme, of this and that, tomorrow or in the next couple of days, and Jeannie asked herself, when she lay awake in bed that night, mind whirling, how much they would be told and how much would be swept under the carpet. She really wanted to speak to Mer. At least she knew him, and he couldn't lie to save his life. There had been no mention of him, or the people he had been with, no mention of Atlantis or the Pegasus galaxy in the news today. She wondered what that meant.
***
When Sheppard and McKay trudged into the Conference Room on Friday morning, three and a half weeks after they first dropped out of Hyperspace above the planet, they didn't look all that much better than the last time he'd seen them, Cam thought. There were still shadows under their eyes, they were still smoking their alien cigarettes with fervour, and they didn't look particularly happy to see anyone.
Landry chose to ignore this, and greeted them cordially enough, but the air was already heavy with restlessness, with tension.
“I'm not sure whether you've been informed,” he started after greetings and enough small-talk had been exchanged to satisfy courtesy, “but as of 1800 hours yesterday, the Stargate Programme has been officially declassified. Steps to inform the general population are under way. The President has already made an announcement, and the heads of state of Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom and France are supposed to follow him before noon today. The other contributing countries are expected to follow suit in the next few days.” He looked between Sheppard, McKay and Dex, then returned his glance to Sheppard, his bushy eyebrows straight and serious. “This raises the question, gentlemen, of what to do with you. Obviously, due to the unfortunate circumstances, all members of the expedition have been declared dead years ago and the families notified. But now that we can explain how exactly you got lost, there is nothing preventing us from revoking that. Of course, there are monetary matters to be sorted out, pensions paid out and back-pay owed and such, but I'm sure that can be managed to the satisfaction of all involved. I'm happy to say that nothing stands in the way of your rejoining your respective countries, since the entire conception of the Atlantis expedition will have to be re-evaluated in light of the information about the Wraith and other threats you have brought back.”
Sheppard went from vaguely grumpy to stony-faced in the blink of an eye.
Cam wanted to wince. Personally, he'd thought they should probably let the Atlantians set the tone of the meeting, test the waters a bit first, but his suggestions had fallen on deaf ears. He knew the President wasn't too happy about another alien threat now that the Goa'uld and the Ori were gone, and probably couldn't conceive of an Atlantis expedition that might not want to return home after all this time. Cam found it hard enough to understand, and he'd seen how the expedition members acted, had heard how they spoke of Atlantis and the Pegasus galaxy. He'd been to foreign planets, had met cultures uninfluenced by the last couple of centuries of Earth history, knew just how much points of view could differ, how many things that seemed completely natural to him and anyone else on Earth might not at all seem natural to someone from a different planet... or someone who'd spent enough time on one. General Landry and, even more so, O'Neill understood these things, so Cam suspected it was pressure from above that made them so... undiplomatic.
“Are you saying the expedition will be recalled?” Sheppard asked, tone careful.
“At the moment, it seems likely, at least until we have re-evaluated our degree of involvement in the Pegasus galaxy,” Landry answered, with a good show of being unruffled, but Cam could see the tension in O'Neill's shoulders, the wariness under his placid expression.
While Sheppard's face was a blank mask to match the generals at the table, McKay was much easier to read. He looked consternated, surprised, as if a development like this had never occurred to him. He opened his mouth to speak, shot a look at Sheppard next to him, and seemed to think better of it.
“I'm afraid a recall is unacceptable,” Sheppard said, more measured and calm than Cam would have expected.
“That's not your call to make, Major Sheppard,” Caldwell sneered.
Sheppard didn't blink, didn't shift from where he was slouched back in his chair. “The Confederation is the best chance there ever was to defeat the Wraith for good, and Lantis plays a fundamental role in the Confederation. As Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Confederation, I have responsibilities, and one of them is informing you that a withdrawal of all Earth-born personnel, a withdrawal from Atlantis, is not an option.”
“Be that as it may, General Caldwell is still quite correct,” Landry answered. “It's not your call to make. The President and the Joint Chiefs haven't given out a definite order yet, but a recall, at least a temporary one, is the favoured option at the moment. It has been strongly suggested to us to prepare the ground as it were for a recall.”
“And how would you effect such a recall?” Sheppard still sounded frighteningly calm, only mildly sceptical.
“Well, now that we have Dr. McKay's recharge unit for the ZPM, we can use the gate to retrieve people and belongings. The necessary administrative staff can take a second charged ZPM through with them.”
There was a moment of stunned silence, as it seemed to register with the Atlantians, and Cam for that matter, for the first time that the only thing that had ever stood between them and Atlantis had been a missing ZPM. Now that they could recharge them practically at will... it was simply a matter of dialling the Stargate.
It was McKay who broke the silence with an incredulous splutter.
“Oh, for...! You have got to be joking! First of all, what's with the 'we'? That technology's ours, not yours! Secondly, it's not finished! Testing, people, testing! It's not safe! And thirdly, who do you think you are?? You can't just order us home like, like, like misbehaving children after ten fucking years!! Do you think we're stupid? Do you think we don't know that you've long since given up on us?? Do you think we're the same people who left here a decade ago? Well, let me tell you, if you think we'll just abandon the people who've stood with us for the last ten years, that we'll just up and leave and let the Wraith have them, that we'll crawl back and pretend the last ten years never happened, you've got another thing coming!”
“Rodney...”
McKay turned to Sheppard, completely ignoring, or perhaps not noticing, the warning in his voice.
“What? What?! You can't seriously consider letting them do this? Not now! Not when we have a fighting chance for the first time ever, not now that we have the Confederation, and enough food for everyone, and now that we don't have to run and hide at the smallest sign of trouble! Not now that we can finally give as good as we get! God, I knew it was a mistake to trust them with the ZPM! We should never have shared our tech! It's like the Genii all over again, first you offer them a bit of C4 to blow up a couple of stumps, and the next thing you know, a deranged psychopath is holding a gun to your head and threatening to nuke your city!”
He turned back to the rest of the table without allowing anyone to get a word in edgewise. “You can't just take our tech! We've sweated for it, we've bled for it, hell, we've died for it, and you can't expect us to just hand it over with nothing in return!”
“Rodney.” This time, Sheppard's tone was friendly, jovial. There was even a smile on his lips, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. McKay turned back to him, annoyed frown on his face and mouth open to continue his diatribe. Then he caught sight of Sheppard's expression. His eyes opened wide, his mouth snapped shut, and he backed away as far as his chair would allow, hands up. Cam thought he might even have gone a shade paler.
Cam felt his eyebrows go up. McKay looked downright scared.
Sheppard held eye contact with him for another second, then turned back to the table. He leaned forward on his elbows and looked at them earnestly.
“Now, let's be honest here and not beat around the bush. We don't want to hurt each other. We're not enemies, and I'm sure none of us want to be. I know I don't, and neither does my crew. We've grown up here. Some of us still have family here. We're all well aware of that, I'm sure. However,” he continued with heavy emphasis, “McKay's also got a point. We can't just up and leave Pegasus. We have connections there, lives. We have people there, some of whom we've been friends with for the entirety of the past ten years. It would be a betrayal beyond imagination to leave them, to withdraw from the Confederation, to sit here in safety while they fight for their lives, their cultures, their children, every day.”
Cam wanted to groan in despair. Sheppard looked so serious, so imploring, with the big eyes and the messy hair... and so very, very young. And Cam could tell that it wasn't working, could see from the tilt of Landry's bushy eyebrows and the set of Caldwell's mouth, that they weren't hearing him, that they saw the unlined features, the begging eyes, and stamped the man a young idealist, the rational knowledge that he wasn't actually that young lost under superficialities. He could tell they saw the young pilot who'd disobeyed orders to fly a harebrained rescue mission, the young man who meant well, but didn't quite fit in. And Cam couldn't help but suspect that that was a very, very big mistake.
He shot a look at O'Neill. The general had his arms crossed, a vaguely interested expression on his face that gave nothing whatsoever away. Cam now saw a new significance in Daniel's absence. He'd just assumed the other man was busy, or not interested in this kind of politicking military business, but maybe... maybe he hadn't been invited, for good reason.
“Of course I understand your situation,” Landry answered in measured tones. “But you also have to understand our position. This last engagement showed clearly that we'll have to take steps to protect Earth from these Wraith now. If one group could make it here, so can another. We have to concentrate our resources on Earth and solidify our own position and then we can re-evaluate how best to extend our help again.”
“I consider it highly unlikely that this group of Wraith shared their intergalactic hyperdrive technology with other groups,” Sheppard argued. “They're not really all that much for cooperation, especially where feeding grounds are concerned. It can well take another decade or two before the next threat of this magnitude develops. And if we stop them in Pegasus, if we keep fighting them like we have, it may never come this close again.”
“May,” Landry emphasized. “We have to plan for the eventuality that another fleet could arrive here in mere months. And as things stand, Earth will not be ready to defend itself against such an attack. We all know that you and your ship were the deciding factor in this battle.”
Sheppard blinked, and Cam could practically see the friendly, cooperative expression slide off his face as his eyes widened, then narrowed, the corners of his mouth turned down.
“You want the Cyrinius.” It was a statement, flat and incredulous.
Cam thought O'Neill looked vaguely guilty, but Landry and Caldwell looked simply resolved while Cam shifted in his seat. He really didn't like where this was going. A recall of the expedition... sure, that was the military's prerogative if they considered the expedition still under their jurisdiction. But... that ship? Sure, it would be awesome to have it around to defend Earth, to study it's technology, but it wasn't theirs to keep.
“You have the outpost. You now know how to make drones to restock it, and you've got a 50%-charged ZPM to power it with. Isn't that enough?” Yes, Sheppard's earlier diplomacy was definitely gone.
“As I said,” Landry answered, not sounding too happy himself, though probably at Sheppard's attitude more than the topic, “the battle three days ago proved that it wouldn't be enough. We need that ship of yours.”
Sheppard leaned back, crossing his arms. “No. Absolutely not.”
“And why would that be?” Caldwell asked snidely.
“She's not mine to give, even if I wanted to,” Sheppard retorted. “The Cyrinius is Confederation property, not just Lantian. She belongs to Pegasus.”
“What do you mean, the ship's not yours? Yet you fly her here to save your home planet?”
Wow. Cam had to admit he was sort of impressed that Caldwell had managed to insinuate an insult into a sentence like that. Sheppard's upper lip curled in the beginnings of a sneer before he smoothed his features out again. Cam was pretty sure the man was starting to lose patience with this farce- because to Cam at least it was blindingly obvious that this wasn't going to work out the way the President and his advisors wanted it to. The more they kept pushing at the Atlantians, the less cooperative they became.
“She is my ship. My ship as Supreme Commander of the Confederation. If I'm no longer a member of the Confederation, I don't have a claim on her. And all sentimentalism aside, it was a reasonable tactical decision to deny the Wraith this feeding ground. Their starvation and the resulting rivalries are one of the few things in our favour in this war.”
Ouch. 'Sentimentalism', now if that wasn't as clear a 'fuck off' as Cam had ever heard he didn't know what would be. Even O'Neill raised an eyebrow at that.
“Besides,” Sheppard continued, “what do you plan to do with the several dozen crew members who aren't Earth-born who staff the ship? Keep them here in forced exile? Stuff them in a lab for study?”
Landry shot him an affronted look at that. “Of course not! They are perfectly welcome to return to any world they wish through our gate, of course.”
“Oh, how generous of you. The answer, gentlemen, is no. With or without me, the Cyrinius will return home to Pegasus.”
“I understand you have extensive repairs to perform before the ship can undertake such a journey,” Landry countered with a frown.
“Oh, it'll take a couple days until she's fit for intergalactic travel,” Sheppard drawled, slouching back in his chair, arms still crossed. Apparently, he had decided to cease all pretences of respect that were left. “However, she's in no way dependant on Earth for those repairs. They can be done just as well in any other solar system. Sure, it'd be convenient to have a friendly planet nearby to give the crew who're not needed for the repair work some leave planet-side and get them out of the way, but that's entirely optional.”
Cam almost winced. It seemed even Earth's status as a 'friendly planet' was now in question. Dammit, they needed to stop pushing him. Sheppard was obviously more than happy to push back. He considered saying something, but he really had no idea what he could say at this point. He'd made his position clear in their earlier meeting, and he'd been told, politely, to keep his mouth shut. And he knew he was liked and respected by the people here, but they outranked him severely, and they would not take kindly to his showing the Lantians that there was division among their apparently united stand. If O'Neill or Landry gave him the slightest hint, the slightest opening... but they hadn't, so far.
Caldwell leaned forward aggressively.
“So, what are you planning to do? When your President orders you to hand over the ship and to return to your proper place, what are you going to do? Disobey orders? I understand you've got practise with that. So, what's this? A mutiny? Or is Atlantis going to declare its independence?” His tone was mocking, but Cam saw with alarm that Sheppard's expression turned calm and considering again.
“As you're so fond of saying, Caldwell, that's not my call to make.”
“What do you mean?” Caldwell snapped back, from his expression only realizing the lack of rank afterwards.
“I'm Supreme Commander of the Confederation. That means my word is law in all matters military. Independence for Lantis is neither a military nor strictly a Confederation matter. I'm not authorized to decide that.”
“Then what are you authorized to do?” Landry asked before Caldwell could find a retort.
“I've been authorized to share information pertinent to the Wraith-threat with you and to establish trade relations with Earth and negotiate deals on behalf of Lantis. What I promise you, Lantis is bound to deliver.” His voice had turned oddly formal, and Cam was under the impression that this wasn't the first time Sheppard had said something to this effect.
“Trade agreements?” Landry asked sharply. “That rather presupposes Atlantis' independence, don't you think?”
Sheppard cocked his head. “I guess you might look at it that way. But as I said, I'm not authorized to make an official declaration of independence.”
“Then who is?” Landry wanted to know.
Sheppard raised an eyebrow. “Why, the leader of Atlantis of course. Only Elizabeth can make that decision.”
“But she's in Atlantis,” Caldwell snapped.
Sheppard nodded. “So she is. Which means, gentlemen, I think we'll need to postpone these negotiations until the status of Lantis is clear.”
“Why don't we just call her?” O'Neill drawled, speaking up for the first time in a while. Everyone looked at him. He made a vague, circular hand-gesture.
“Have the Daedalus beam the ZPM over from Antarctica, dial the gate and give her a call.” He spread his hands. “Problem solved.”
It took Sheppard only a blink to rally in the silence that spread through the meeting room. “I think that's a great idea, General. Why don't we do that?”
***