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As the glint in Daniel's eye and little-boy-with-a-secret glee began to register, Elizabeth felt a tiny, fragile bubble of something she was afraid to name press out against the inside of her chest. He was saying they had the right address, but incomplete, that the address was in another galaxy, they had simply never considered the possibility, but now they had, and they had it, and...
The bubble in her chest was hope, she realised, and she couldn't stop grinning like a giddy teenager, because what Daniel meant was that Atlantis, Atlantis, was within their reach. Daniel was grinning with the same idiotic glee as her, and behind Rodney's studied façade of cynicism she knew he felt as strongly.
"We need to call General O'Neill," she said almost breathlessly. "He'll have to approve the use of the ZPM."
Daniel nodded, still grinning like a fool. "I'll go call him," he said, and left at a run.
~*~
She was still resonating to the aftermath of Carson's near-disaster with the drone when the General arrived. The incident made her wish with renewed fervour that there was an easy and unobtrusive way to test for the Ancient gene, or useful instructions on how to use the equipment the Ancients had left behind. But genetic testing was far from unobtrusive, and the Ancients seemed to have had a fetish for ambiguity. They were still running on trial and error and what Rodney could make interface with their own technology. It was a worry, for when they got to Atlantis.
Elizabeth realised suddenly, shaking General O'Neill's hand, her own still trembling, that she was already thinking of the expedition in terms of when and not if, and half of the tremor in her body was the fear that the little bubble of hope would be crushed. She could wish that the General's trip had been less eventful – near-death experiences were not the best footing on which to open negotiations.
When General O'Neill refused them the ZPM, turned them down, she felt like throwing up. For a moment she couldn't even marshal her arguments, swallowing past a suddenly dry throat and trying to order her thoughts as she would have for a nuclear disarmament treaty, so she didn't sound like a little girl crying at a denied treat.
Daniel Jackson had no such compunctions. For a moment she was horrified, almost angry at the interference of an unskilled negotiator, but as she watched O'Neill's nearly impassive face she began to relax. Daniel apparently did really know his former teammate. She watched the waver in General O'Neill's face and the little bubble of hope started to push on her heart again. They were going to go. They were. They were going to go to Atlantis.
All the hypothetical plans began crashing through her mind as she fought to keep her voice measured and her face only hopeful, though as a negotiator she already knew they'd won their argument. It was bad technique to gloat too early. The people she had pre-picked, the ones who had passed the checks, the ones who'd signed the 24-month undisclosed commitment, the many options in terms of expedition size and makeup...how much military presence, how many archaeologists versus engineers versus physicists...what kind of medical team, what supplies…
General O'Neill was capitulating out loud, she realised, and already forbidding a jubilant Daniel from taking part (a shame, but she'd known from the start she wouldn't get to keep him). She began to say something full of genuine gratitude, but Carson came around the corner at a dead run, calling her name and babbling something about a pilot and the Chair and then running back the way he'd come. They were all up and after him in a split second and all she could think was please, no, not this close –
But there was no disaster when she came in, just an unfamiliar man in an Air Force flight suit, sitting very, very still and looking extremely apprehensive...on the Chair. The fully activated Chair, which none of their gene-carriers had ever managed.
"Who is this?" she asked the room in general, stepping forward. The man (a Major, if her officer-identification skills were working right) shot a look at her from very blue eyes.
"I said don't touch anything," General O'Neill scowled at the Major, looking annoyed.
"I – I just sat down," he protested, and there was a wild undertone to his voice Elizabeth sympathized with. From all she'd been told by those who could operate Ancient technology, the first time feeling some machine push and pull at your mind was singularly disturbing. They started most people on the smaller sensor array, to get them used to it. The Chair could be...overwhelming.
Rodney, naturally, was more to the point. "Major, think about where we are in the solar system."
The Major – his nametag read "Sheppard" – frowned for a moment, and then the room lit up with three-dimensional overlays and orbital diagrams. Rodney immediately dived for his laptop, followed by Daniel, and they began muttering excitedly.
"Did I do that?" Major Sheppard murmured, and Elizabeth found herself staring at the guarded wonder in his eyes with something clicking into place in the back of her mind. This was what would make their expedition work, she thought as Rodney asked him to think about where they were in the galaxy and the images panned effortlessly to a wider schematic. This Major Sheppard was the way to ensure they could survive if they found Atlantis empty, the way to get the most out of the Ancient equipment they already had. She needed this man.
"Major, I didn't specify what part of you not to touch things with, now did I?" O'Neill shot at him. Elizabeth winced. Jack O'Neill's sarcasm could strip paint.
"Well, sir, you didn't specify anything about telepathic chairs either," Sheppard cut back, adding a belated, "Sir."
Elizabeth hid a grin as General O'Neill raised his eyebrows. "Well, now you're stuck being a guinea pig for these two," the General said after a moment. "I'm sure you'll consider it punishment enough in a few short minutes."
"Excuse me," Rodney snapped. "Could we stop distracting the man sitting on the Chair that controls the most powerful weapons we've ever seen, please? I'm sure we don't want any more accidents."
Well, Elizabeth thought ruefully, O'Neill's if sarcasm was uncomfortable, Rodney's sarcasm was like a dentist's drill.
"Have fun," O'Neill waved to the Major, who was looking at Rodney with a slightly incredulous grimace on his face. "Dr Weir?" he waved his hand back in the direction of the briefing room.
"Yes," she said, pulling herself away from the compelling drama of the active Chair. "I suppose we have a lot to go over."
"To say the least," General O'Neill agreed, and followed her away as Rodney's sharp tones rose and then abruptly modulated. Elizabeth fought to keep her foolish smile from re-emerging.
They were going to go. They were really going to go.