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Elizabeth pulled a thick book out of her bag and put it down between them. �Before I can say anything else I need you to read and sign this. What you know so far is� just the tip of the iceberg, Simon, and you can�t know about it until you sign this non-disclosure package saying that you understand the penalties for uttering even a syllable about what I�m about to tell you to anyone else.� She pushed the book toward Simon, dropping a pen on top. �I�m going to turn this thing off while you read�as long as you promise to just read and sign where indicated by the flags and not comment aloud about any of this.�
�Okay, I promise,� Simon pledged, shovelling a nearly grotesque forkful of food into his mouth before pushing his plate aside and beginning to read the non-disclosure agreement. Elizabeth turned off the jammer, because she knew that once she started telling Simon about the new path her life had taken�from annoying politicians and poly-sci majors to life-sucking aliens and� well the annoying politicians were still there, but, fortunately, also a galaxy away�the conversation would be a long one. Lots of details.
Simon liked details. He was never satisfied with an overview, always needed to know the whole story. He attributed it to being a doctor, needing a patient�s full history before doing anything. She attributed it to Simon being an anal-retentive man who knew that information equalled power and who never felt like he had enough power of his own� though that was an opinion she had kept to herself, except for at the one girl�s poker night she had attended where the Athosian ale had been flowing more freely than usual and the topic of conversation had drifted to men, as it often did at the bi-weekly gatherings where rank was left at the door.
Elizabeth went back to her meal, though she wasn�t as hungry as she had been in the car, while Simon read through the non-disclosure agreement. Sedge approached her, begging for scraps�another bad habit she had learned from Simon, Elizabeth noted. No wonder her dog had gained weight, if she was getting fed from the table. Simon had always been bad about that, though. Dropping food while cooking and whistling for Sedge to come clean it up instead of bending down and cleaning up the mess himself, giving Sedge the bottom inch of milk in his cereal in the morning despite the sugar content in the cereals he ate, chopping leftovers up to mix with Sedge�s dry food. Elizabeth shuddered to think how close to stroking out her beloved Sedgewick was after a year living solo with Simon Wallace.
After fifteen minutes Elizabeth gave up on the pretence of eating, getting up and clearing her plate into the garbage�at least that was still where it had been when she left�and then she started putting the containers away in the fridge, most of them not having even been touched. She made a mental note to grab them before heading back to the Mountain later; Jack had managed to get them all VIP quarters, meaning mini-fridges, two per �suite�, and she had missed leftover take-out while on Atlantis. Simon was still reading, but he was nearly finished, and he had started fiddling with a pen, uncapping it and recapping it again with one hand while the other fingered the corner of the page he was reading. The clicking of the pen was driving Elizabeth a little bit crazy, especially after a year of largely non-paper-based paperwork, so she mumbled something about taking Sedge outside and exited with her dog to the backyard where absolutely nothing looked like it had when she left.
Where rose bushes once bloomed�not by her hand, they were remnants of the previous owners, but she had managed to not kill them the entire time she lived in the house, which was something she was proud of�a hideous brick barbeque stood. Where rhododendrons once blossomed a wooden picnic table, the bright green paint chipping away at it�how was that even possible, after so few months away, anyway?�sat on a cement platform. Where her glass and wrought-iron patio table and chairs once resided, overlooking the lower tier of the large garden, a coi pond gurgled� which wasn�t a terrible addition, she had to admit, though she wouldn�t have put the pond in the middle of the yard like that. The grass was looking kind of scraggly, long in places, brown in others; it was obvious that Simon didn�t have the Sawyer kid coming over to mow the lawn every Saturday like Elizabeth had�Jaden Sawyer had made a small fortune doing odd jobs for Elizabeth around the house shortly after she moved in, and he had proved to be particularly adept at taming the two-tiered lawn that surrounded the flower beds.
Sinking down to sit on the cement steps that separated the upper and lower tiers of the lawn, Elizabeth sighed. Sedge came over and sat on the step beside Elizabeth, nudging her owner�s hand until she got Elizabeth to scratch behind her ears. �I guess you really can�t go home again,� Elizabeth said softly.
While Sedge was usually a fairly good listener, Elizabeth just didn�t feel up to going through the events of the past ten months twice in one day, and, while she would much rather talk to Sedge than Simon at that moment, she knew that Simon was the one she owed the explanation to. Sedge� well, Sedge was mostly just happy to see her again; happy in the kind of way that only dogs could truly be, it seemed, the kind of happy that her beloved puppy�whohadn�t been a puppy by definition for a few years but