Disclaimer: I own nothing. At all

Rodney McKay was working late again. The team had brought back a small thin alien tool that, due to the structure, (and the fact that it had not activated and caused a catastrophe the second Colonel Sheppard had neared it), Rodney doubted was of ancient construction.

Naturally, despite the fact that Rodney himself had been on the mission that recovered this strange thing, it was only him that had to stay up at all hours of the morning to study it while the others slept soundly in their beds. Unfortunately, despite all the work, he had still only managed to ascertain that it emitted sonic impulses.

Sometimes he thought that they might get more done if he were the only man on base, though he had to admit that it would be considerably less satisfying to have no-one to whom he could prove exactly just how clever he was.

He was just deciding that it was way too late and that he could carry on in the morning when a faint grating sound reached his ears. It was unlike anything he had ever heard before; it had an unearthly quality, but then again that was nothing new considering where they were.

It got steadily louder, and McKay began to realise that he was alone, and he had no idea what was coming.

"Sheppard?" he whispered into the radio he still had on. He knew it was a futile gesture, not many people kept their radios on while sleeping.

"McKay?" an incredulous Sheppard asked, "what are you still doing up?"

"Well, I was studying that thing we found on... oh it doesn't matter, get down to the lab now!"

"Why, McKay what's going on?" Sheppard was almost shouting as he sprinted down the corridors towards Rodney's position.

"Shh, gotta go, it's almost here." McKay whispered fearfully, as he slowly crouched behind the desk and pulled his gun out.

During the short exchange, the strange noise had reached its height and ceased, leaving only the sound of footsteps making their way in the direction of the lab.

Colonel Sheppard moved silently towards the shadowy figure slightly down the corridor. It was lucky that he had been taking a late night run near the area, and it had not taken him long to cover the distance. He crept forward gun out, the figure was at the door to Rodney's lab, and shouted;

"Stop and raise your hands or I'll shoot."

The intruder slowly raised his hands and turned round in response.

The only thing that Sheppard could think was that the intruder didn't really look very... 'intruderish.' It was a tall, slim man, wearing a pinstriped suit, with messy brown hair. As far as the Colonel was able to tell, the man was unarmed.

"McKay?" Sheppard called into the lab, and only turned his attention to the prisoner when the scientist had cautiously emerged from his hiding place. He could not help thinking that had this man entered the lab, Rodney would not have remained out of sight for long.

"Who are you and why are you here?" he demanded, conscious that the night staff at the gate would have alerted him if the sensors had picked up anything out of the ordinary.

"I'm the Doctor," the man announced confidently as if this was supposed to mean something, "and I'm here to get my sonic screwdriver back."

This momentarily put Sheppard off, what on earth was a sonic screwdriver?

"And what's that?" he asked guardedly, the man may not look like a threat but if he had managed to evade the sensors then he was obviously not as harmless as he looked.

"Ah, would that be the stick thingy that releases sonic impulses?" Rodney interrupted and at John's questioning look he elaborated; "that thing we found on M9R-448."

The Doctor, however, appeared to recognise the description and his eyes lit up.

"Yeah, that's it!" he grinned enthusiastically.

McKay motioned for the Doctor to follow him into the lab, his fright obviously forgotten in his eagerness to learn more about the purpose of the device that had, thus far, eluded him. Sheppard was not so trusting;

"We may have accidently picked up something belonging to you, but we also caught you sneaking around the city, having not set off any of our security systems. I'm afraid you're gonna have to follow me." He was using his best authoritative voice, the one that allowed for no argument.

The Doctor studied him intently, as if searching for a weakness, but eventually conceded with a shrug. He knew that expression; he had seen it on many of the military men he had met on his travels. There would be no discussion, and that didn't really bode very well for him, especially considering that he usually relied on his quick wit and charisma to talk himself out of these situations.

He resolved to just let the situation play itself out; after all, there was something about the city's construction that intrigued him. So he just followed the Lt. Colonel down the corridor, the scientist trailing in their wake.

McKay was annoyed at the missed opportunity. There would be no chance to talk to the man about his device at least until tomorrow. Then again maybe that was not such a bad thing, he thought, yawning. Sleep would be better first. With this thought, Rodney took himself off to his quarters, leaving Sheppard to escort the Doctor to a room doubtlessly guarded by armed marines.

Morning dawned bright and early, but the Doctor was already out on the balcony. He was examining the architecture of the great city he had materialised in. To his surprise, the style was unfamiliar; the fact that he was over 900 years old and still finding new things always surprised him.

His musings were interrupted by the doors the room that he had been placed in sliding open, revealing three marines. The Doctor didn't recognise them.

"So, who are you then?" he asked brightly

"Major Evan Lorne." The one in the centre said appraising him, "Doctor Weir wishes to speak with you. You must be important, she's got the rest of the senior staff sitting in on the meeting as well."

"Well then, take me to your leader!"

Elizabeth Weir looked around the table at her senior staff of Atlantis. Apart from her, there was Rodney, John, Carson, Caldwell, and of course Teyla and Ronon. They might not be her staff, but they were just as important all the same.

To her understanding, John and Rodney had already encountered the man that they were now all sitting and waiting for. Apparently he had some means of bypassing the defences and it was vital that they find out how, hence everyone's presence.

She glanced at Caldwell out of the corner of her eye, if the man was unwilling to co-operate, she knew exactly what he would suggest. She was definitely not prepared to resort to setting Ronan on the man no matter what though, not after what happened with Kavanaugh.

The door slid open, and Evan escorted the man into the room, before leaving at the nod from Sheppard.

Elizabeth gestured for the man to take a seat opposite the staff before beginning what she hoped would sound more like a civil conversation than an interrogation.

"So, why don't you start by telling us your name?"

"The Doctor, and you are?" his voice was polite, but the tension and barely veiled hostility in the room was beginning to bore him.

"I'm Doctor Elizabeth weir, and these are my senior staff." She introduced each of them individually.

Before she could continue asking questions, the Doctor quickly began speaking.

"Right, from what I hear you're all wondering how I got in without your sensors... well, sensing me. My ship operates in a different way to conventional ones and dematerialises into the space time vortex before re-materialising at my destination. I won't go into the very complex details as I'm sure your brains would be unable to comprehend it."

At that point, the scientist he had met the night before interrupted heatedly;

"I'll have you know that I am the smartest man in two galaxies, I have never met another capable of fully understanding the intricacies of science to my level and I seriously doubt that you're any different to the other morons on this base that seem to think otherwise!"

Having run out of fuel for his impromptu tirade, McKay sat back down slowly; he hated any slight on his vast intelligence. He began to feel slightly self conscious, a strange feeling for him, as the Doctor's gaze regarded him closely. Eventually, he addressed the scientist's first statement.

"Not any more, you're not." He said simply.

Dr Weir quickly apologised for Rodney, before he could protest and continued their discussion.

"Why are you in Atlantis, Doctor?"

"To recover my sonic... whoa hang on, did you just say Atlantis, as in Atlantis, the lost city of Atlantis?"

"Wow, you really are clever aren't you?" McKay rolled his eyes, and the Doctor ignored him, continuing to rant.

"Nine hundred years! Nine hundred years and I never managed to find out where Atlantis was! So much for being destroyed! And now I find out that a bunch of humans have done it, I mean humans!"

The Doctor appeared to be speechless, and Sheppard couldn't help noticing that McKay looked rather smug!

The meeting eventually continued, during which time the Doctor learned a lot about the expedition. McKay almost threw a tantrum when he found out the sonic screwdriver didn't actually do anything else, and the doctor was rather hurt, he loved his sonic screwdriver. He and McKay were still arguing over it when they were interrupted by the gate technicians, the scanners had picked up hive ships!