Allegiance

Chapter Fifteen Waiting By The Phone

Jeannie was on her way back to her room, sandwich in hand, when she heard what sounded for all the world like a cat meowing. She was pretty sure that there weren’t cats allowed in a military base in another galaxy, and yet it really sounded like a cat. She stopped before rounding the corner, hesitating. There were probably no dangerous aliens who sounded like cats, and yet she’d learned not to underestimate the weirdness of Meredith’s work environment.

“Is anyone there?” she said. Not that it was probably the smartest move, because if there were meowing alien creatures around the corner who intended to have her for dinner, they probably weren’t going to answer. She jumped as someone came around the corner, and then relaxed as she saw it was Ronon.

“Can you do something with this?” he said, holding out what in fact appeared to be a half-grown Siamese cat. It was hissing, its ears laid back, probably at the fact that it was being held at arm’s length as if it might explode.

“Like what?” Jeannie said, reaching gingerly for the kitten. It yowled and writhed in alarm, but she managed to tuck it into a slightly less unhappy ball in her arms, and thankfully it didn’t seem inclined to bite.

“It’s McKay’s,” Ronon said. “Only it keeps getting out and attacking people.”

“Attacking,” Jeannie said.

“Lying in wait and then trying to bite people’s ankles.”

“Bite their ankles.” She was trying really hard not to smile.

“Not very hard,” he granted. “But it’s annoying.”

“Why don’t I take the kitten back to Dr. Keller?” Jeannie suggested.

“That would be good,” Ronon said, and left her trying to balance kitten and sandwich.

She managed by tucking the sandwich under her arm, and hoped she remembered where Jennifer had mentioned that her quarters were. The last thing she wanted at the end of a long day was to knock on some perfect stranger’s door brandishing an angry kitten at them.

She pressed the door signal with her elbow and crossed her fingers as well as was possible under the circumstances. The door slid open to reveal Jennifer, who looked dismayed at the kitten.

“I’m sorry,” she said, reaching for the kitten, who yowled at her plaintively and dug its claws into her sleeve. “Was he bothering you?”

“I think he scared Ronon,” Jeannie said.

“Ah,” Jennifer said. “Maybe not scared, but I don’t think Ronon’s a cat person.” Jeannie stepped in to let the door close, and Jennifer detached the kitten with some difficulty and set it down on the floor. It leapt for the back of the sofa and perched there indignantly.

“Well, I can see that in a place like this, having anything jumping out at you might be a little spooky,” Jeannie said.

“I can’t seem to keep him in here,” Jennifer said. “There’s got to be some hole or crack or something that he’s getting out through, but I can’t find it. I think he wants to go hunt the pigeons.”

“Pigeons?” Jeannie said.

“We picked up some accidental passengers back on Earth,” Jennifer said. “They’re probably going to wreak havoc with this planet’s ecosystem, assuming any of them survive, but we haven’t really had time to worry about that very much.”

“It’s been a little busy,” Jeannie said.

Jennifer nodded. “How’s the security stuff coming?”

“Well, it’s a process,” Jeannie said. “I’ve found some things that Zelenka didn’t think to look for, so that’s a good thing. I’m just afraid we’re only scratching the surface of how many things Meredith did to the computers here without telling anybody.”

“He wasn’t always really forthcoming about that kind of thing,” Jennifer said.

“Isn’t,” Jeannie said pointedly.

“What?”

“Isn’t always really forthcoming.”

“Oh,” Jennifer said, a hint of color coming into her cheeks. “Right, no, I just meant that when he was working on the computers before, he didn’t tell anybody what he was doing, not that he won’t — ”

“Okay,” Jeannie said.

“I mean, I know Ronon and Teyla are doing everything they can to find him. And Colonel Sheppard, although right now he can’t exactly run around looking himself.”

“And Dr. Zelenka,” Jeannie pointed out.

“And Dr. Zelenka,” Jennifer acknowledged, but she didn’t sound like she found that particularly reassuring. “And we’re still working on the retrovirus.”

“And that’s coming along well?”

“It’s, you know, it’s coming. Maybe not well. But we’ll get there.”

“Good,” Jeannie said firmly.

“Actually, I was meaning to ask you a really big favor,” Jennifer said.

Jeannie nodded encouragingly when Jennifer didn’t immediately go on. It was probably just as well to try to get back onto the right foot with her future sister-in-law, or at least her future sister-in-law if Meredith managed to get up the nerve to propose and didn’t screw it up again.

She wondered if she needed to point out to him that he should really get a new ring this time. Using a ring you bought to propose to your last girlfriend when you propose to your next girlfriend pretty much defined tacky.

“I don’t know how long you’re staying.”

“Well, hopefully they’ll find Meredith and I won’t have to finish this incredibly irritating job, but if that doesn’t happen first, I think we’re going to have done everything we can think of to do in — I don’t know, a few weeks? I mean, after a certain point, I’ve scraped the bottom of the barrel in terms of what I know about the way Meredith thinks.”

“I was wondering if maybe you would be willing to take Newton back to Earth with you?” Jeannie must have looked blank, because Jennifer added, “The cat. His name is Newton. Or possibly Schrödinger, but I think we had more or less settled on Newton.”

“He can’t be that much trouble,” Jeannie said.

“No, it’s just… he’s really more Rodney’s cat, and I’m in the infirmary all day, when I’m not offworld, and right now with all the problems we’ve been having it’s so dangerous here for a cat, and I feel like I can’t take care of him the way that Rodney would have — ”

“The way that Rodney would have wanted?”

Jennifer met her angry look without flinching. “The way that Rodney would have if he had been here when the Wraith invaded,” she said. “It’s not like I could take the kitten to the infirmary with me.”

“If he’d been here, the Wraith wouldn’t have invaded.”

“That’s my point,” Jennifer said. “We had this idea that we could have a little more of a normal life out here, but it’s just not working out that way.”

“You don’t think he’s coming back,” Jeannie said. There was a little curl of doubt in the pit of her own stomach, but she forced it ruthlessly back. Her brother was going to come back, and he was going to be all right, except that she was going to kill him for making her worry like this. “Or you think he’s going to be, what? Stuck as some kind of monster forever?”

“That’s not going to happen,” Jennifer said, but her tone was too professional, the voice doctors used with dying patients. Her reassuring smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“Is that what you really think, or what you think you’re supposed to say?”

She thought the mask cracked just a little at that, frustration showing through. “What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say you won’t give up on my brother, no matter what,” Jeannie said. “I want you to say that they’re going to find him, and then you’re going to fix him, and then he can take care of his own stupid cat.”

“We will,” Jennifer said. “I just don’t know how long that’s going to take. I can’t keep saying ‘oh, it’s probably going to be tomorrow’ when it’s probably not going to be. Just for right now, we have to live with the situation the way it is, and I’m just not sure I’m cut out to be a single cat owner in Atlantis.”

Jeannie let out a frustrated breath. “If we haven’t found Meredith by the time I leave, we can talk about it, all right?”

“We’ll probably have found him by then anyway,” Jennifer said, but she didn’t sound to Jeannie like she believed it.

Dick leaned back in the uncomfortable hotel room chair, phone to his ear, wondering if General O’Neill was going to answer his phone. Dick could have called his office, of course, and gotten a polite assistant who would tell him that the general was out and take a message. At least this way he’d get to leave voice mail.

“O’Neill,” he heard finally, with a tone of resignation.

“General,” Dick said, and tried not to sound relieved.

“Don’t tell me they’ve decided something already,” O’Neill said.

“They haven’t,” Dick said. “They’re still scheduling the full set of hearings, and they’ve requested additional information. Right now I’m preparing a briefing on our process for documenting procedures.”

“I’m impressed by how far removed that sounds from actually doing anything,” O’Neill said.

“It’s not what I’d call our central mission,” Dick admitted.

“You didn’t call me to ask about my process for documenting procedures. Which, if you’re interested, consists of telling someone else they can do that crap. There are some advantages to the little stars on my uniform.”

“Atlantis missed their scheduled weekly check-in,” Dick said.

There was a momentary pause. “Maybe they overslept,” O’Neill said.

“It’s possible,” Dick said. It was possible that there was some perfectly ordinary reason for the delay, but he didn’t believe it, and he thought neither did O’Neill.

“What does Landry say?”

“General Landry says we should wait until they’re twenty-four hours overdue before we start worrying.”

“Whereas I like to worry early and avoid the rush,” O’Neill said. “But I don’t actually think we have a situation here yet. They’ve missed check-in times before.”

“I know,” Dick said. “It’s probably some kind of technical problem on their end. Something involving the communications equipment, or a power failure.”

“Probably.”

“Of course, the last time we had a power failure in the main tower, it was because Michael and his hybrids were invading the city.”

O’Neill sighed. “You understand there’s not actually anything I can do about this, right?”

“I don’t suppose you could arrange for us to be able to dial Atlantis?”

“Not a chance,” O’Neill said. “Before I even think about recalling Odyssey and pulling her ZPM so that we can dial Pegasus, I’m going to need more than Atlantis being a few hours late checking in.”

“I thought you’d say that,” Dick said.

“Get some dinner,” O’Neill said. “Try not to worry about Atlantis. Sheppard and Carter can handle things.”

“I’m sure they’re fine.” He stared unhappily at the pattern the sunlight made on the hotel bedspread. “Still, I can’t help thinking…”

“There’s your problem.”

“You think they’re fine.”

“I think that the best thing that you can do for your people is trust them to do their jobs, and let them trust that you’re doing yours.”

“Dealing with the IOA,” Dick said.

“At least they’re not actually going to suck the life from your body. Although it may feel like it.”

“Believe me, it’s not that I’m eager to have my life sucked, but… right now I’d rather be back there no matter what’s going on than be sitting here a galaxy away waiting to see if they pick up the phone.”

“Tell me about it,” O’Neill said. “I’ve got to go. I’ll be in touch.”

The phone went quiet, and Dick slipped it back into his pocket. He went to the window, opening the curtains. The view of parking lot and mountains seemed alien, less familiar than silver towers rising against blue sea toward the sky.

He was staying in a hotel rather than SGC guest quarters because he’d wanted to be able to get away from the hearings and the round-the-clock activity that seemed to be normal operating procedure at Cheyenne Mountain. He’d had some idea of making the best of his enforced stay, eating in good restaurants and enjoying some of the things he hadn’t had time to do when Atlantis was on Earth.

Instead, here he was sitting in his hotel room, thinking that he’d give anything to be back in Atlantis in his cold office eating something that came out of a plastic tray while Doctor McKay explained the latest incomprehensible technical problem that could potentially doom them all.

He’d worked with military personnel who felt that way for years, but he’d always thought he was immune to the appeal of facing constant danger in uncomfortable working conditions. Apparently not. He gazed down at the parking lot where his rental car was sitting.

After a moment, he pulled out his phone and dialed General Landry’s number.

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything,” he said when Landry picked up.

“Not since the last time you called,” Landry said. “I promise we’ll let you know just as soon as we hear from your people.”

Your people, Dick thought as he hung up. He was used to hearing it sound like a curse in the mouths of SGC personnel. For so many years, your people had meant the NID, and then the IOA, and he’d been perfectly aware that the men and women in uniform who he was overseeing viewed him as their enemy.

That wasn’t what Landry and O’Neill meant now, though. The Atlantis expedition members were his people, and he was responsible for them, at least for the moment. At least for a little while longer.

“Come on, Colonel Sheppard. Pick up the phone,” he said, but his own phone stayed stubbornly silent.