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A cool breeze filtered through the trees and fences to tickle her bare arms and Elizabeth immediately breathed in deep, hoping for the familiar scent of the Lantian ocean and maybe a hint of the military-grade soap, sandalwood-ish aftershave of Athosian origin, a hint of clean sweat, and soft cotton that always came together to make her knees go a little bit liquid whenever John Sheppard was near enough that she could catch his unique scent on the ocean�s breeze. Instead of the gentle salt air and eau du John that she had been hoping for Elizabeth�s nose was greeted with the once-familiar smells that came from living in a smaller city�some trees but not many, whatever the next door neighbours were barbequing, fresh cut grass, the hot tar from where the people in the green house five doors down were repaving their driveway�which was very much not what she had been hoping for.
Even if the scent of where she was wasn�t right what cut at her the most was the fact that the cement step was cold, the kind of cold that chilled her right to the core, the kind of cold that she now associated with the Genii raid on Atlantis and how freezing she had been from the moment Kolya dragged her and Rodney out to the power station until two days later when they were able to shut down the shield and leave the control room. Atlantis itself, though, never felt cold to the touch. Even when it was still raining but the worst of the storm was over and they were able to shut down the shield again the balcony, the special one outside the Control Room that she and John liked to call their own despite it being as good as public property, hadn�t been cold. A little flooded, but nothing a few minutes sweeping water under the railing and off the deck with a broom hadn�t fixed. The metal of the railing hadn�t been chilled by the rain. It didn�t seem that anything could make the metal city cold. Ten thousand years under the ocean hadn�t even put a chill in the air. Dust, for sure, but no chill.
Lantia didn�t have cold seasons, as far as they could tell. Aside from the insane storms that happened with freakish regularity�one massive storm every twenty years, on the dot, with no explanation in the database, at least not that they could find, for why the storm materialized with such regularity�the planet had a comfortably mild weather pattern. The ocean, while not exactly tropical, wasn�t cold, and in the ten months that they had inhabited Atlantis it had only rained a handful of times, not counting the storm, and only once during the day. Atlantis itself regulated the city�s average temperature and even though the city was largely structured out of metal it never felt cool to the touch, which was incredibly strange, but completely normal at the same time.
Atlantis was paradoxical like that.
The sun was setting to the west, and Elizabeth wasn�t dressed for the chilly spring evening, so, rather reluctantly, she got up to go back inside. The garden, what was left of it, at least, was peaceful. The cold cement step wasn�t the balcony outside the Control Room, and Sedge wasn�t John, and the garden certainly wasn�t the ocean, but it was still peaceful, though the sounds of traffic and life going on around the property was definitely different than what she was used to.
It seemed like it only took a moment to get used to life on Atlantis, yet Elizabeth doubted she could ever possibly adjust to life on Earth again. A clich� about not being able to un-ring a bell flitted through her head, but she shook it away. She had never liked clich�s much, anyway.
Simon was sitting right where she had left him, the non-disclosure agreement neatly closed back up, the pen lying on top, the cap carefully snapped back on to avoid any potential ink leakage. Simon had always been annoying obsessive about office supplies.
�You sign?� Elizabeth asked, easing back onto the chair she had vacated earlier. Simon shoved the file over to her and Elizabeth flipped to the back, noting Simon�s near-illegible doctor�s signature, along with what she was fairly sure was the date. It wasn�t that she didn�t trust him, it was just that if she started talking about Atlantis and he hadn�t signed then he could tell whoever he wanted and she could go to prison for treason. �Good,� Elizabeth said, tucking the agreement back into her laptop case before flipping the bug killer back on. �I guess I should start at the beginning, huh?�
�That�d be a good place to start, yeah,� Simon said coolly.
And so Elizabeth started.
She told him about her meeting with then-Vice President Kinsey in the limo, and about the files she had read on the Stargate, and about how President Hayes had basically said that she had the position and that he expected her to be in Colorado Springs ASAP and how she had gone because the President had ordered her to and, even if she never exactly worked for the United States�the UN headquarters were in New York, but the UN itself wasn�t anAmerican entity, despite what some countries believed�she had immediately understood that President Hayes� order wasn�t one