Author's Note: This story is completely written. I will be uploading one chapter per day. It is potentially slightly AU, but not on purpose. It doesn't matter a great deal, but it is set in season three, prior to "Sunday". I wrote this for my entertainment, and I am publishing it here for yours. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Major Evan Lorne was having a bad day.

Actually, it had started out okay. He and his team weren't scheduled to go off world, which meant he only had to deal with the usual issues on Atlantis while Colonel John Sheppard and his team went out to explore the unknown and try not to die in the process.

With Sheppard gone, Lorne was in charge of security, which today had mostly involved turning down various scientists who wanted security teams to go with them while they investigated some of the sections of Atlantis. The moment they had arrived on Atlantis, there had been a sweep through the city. Since then, Sheppard had instituted regular patrols of the city, just in case something got woken up, teleported onto the base or swam in from the ocean. Stranger things had happened.

In any case, Lorne was not prepared to waste time and manpower on the worries of some scientists, especially ones who were -best he could tell- second rate. Dr. Rodney McKay was insufferable, but at least he usually turned out to be right, or he could at least explain his concerns using logic and sentences instead of babbling incoherently and finally admitting to being scared of the dark.

One scientist even went so far as to admit that Sheppard had already turned down his request to be armed whenever exploring the particular level he was concerned with.

All of that wasn't actually so bad. In fact, Lorne kind of enjoyed turning down requests for ridiculous things. It was peculiarly satisfying to be able to say no to geniuses who were used to being right and getting their own way most of the time. He supposed that in itself might be the only compensation Sheppard needed for having McKay on his team. The unlimited ability to say no to McKay and tell him to stop talking sounded positively delightful.

The bad part of the day started when one of the many doctors decided to go around Lorne. After being told that he would not be granted a full security escort into the lab he'd found, Dr. Hannon went to Dr. Elizabeth Weir with his complaint. The first Lorne heard of it was a request from her via his earwig to come and see her in her office.

"Major," Weir began in her typically patient tone, but she looked annoyed, "Is there some sort of problem that I should know about?"

Lorne quickly reviewed everything he'd seen, heard, said and done since getting up this morning. The weirdest thing he could think of was that he couldn't find his toothpaste, but eventually discovered that was because he'd put it in the wrong drawer of the case he kept it in when he'd used it the day before.

"Not that I'm aware of," he answered, hoping there wasn't a problem he should know about but didn't that had somehow made its way back to Weir when it should have gone through him first.

The mixture of civilians and soldiers on Atlantis was a difficult and complicated thing, especially since the expedition was ultimately commanded by Dr. Weir, who was in no way a soldier and in fact appeared to frown on various military practices. Accommodations were made for both parties, which led to some very odd day to day practices. After all, these weren't just civilians, they were the best and brightest in their various fields, and they knew it. Many of them were egotistical, all of them were eccentric. In fact, things seemed to run at their smoothest during emergency situations when safety protocols that had been proposed, agreed on and instituted went into effect. Daily life was a bit hectic.

"Does the name Dr. Hannon jog your memory?" Weir inquired, crossing her arms.

Now he realized she looked more than annoyed, and it seemed to be with him, but Lorne wasn't sure why. Lorne had a bad habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn't tend to cause trouble, or go to look for it, but it seemed perfectly capable of finding him. Somehow, ever since he'd joined the Stargate program, it seemed like he was always nearby when things went wrong. He supposed that was possibly because things went wrong an awful lot, which had nothing to do with him, but he was beginning to gain an instinct for it. Just now that instinct was saying things were about to go very wrong.

"Dr. Hannon came to me this morning," Dr. Weir said, "Claiming you threatened to strike him."

The temptation had certainly been there. Lorne had found himself required to tolerate a lot of obnoxious personalities in his time, most especially since being sent to Atlantis, which seemed to be home to the greatest concentration of ego-maniacal borderline sociopaths known to man. Frankly, he couldn't see how any of them got any work done, considering that they all seemed to be mini versions of Dr. McKay, who was perhaps the most self-absorbed person Lorne had ever met.

Even so, Lorne was a good soldier. He might make quips about such things, but he was not one to make threats he didn't intend to carry out, and he of course would not be a very good second to Sheppard if he went around beating up the scientists he was supposed to be protecting.

"Did you threaten to strike Dr. Hannon?" Weir inquired when Lorne failed to immediately respond.

"No, Ma'am," Lorne replied, "I did not. Dr. Hannon came to me this morning with a ridiculous request-"

"Ridiculous how?" Weir interrupted.

Lorne broke off his report to explain to her about the security team, then resumed, "I denied his request. He threw a bit of a fit and refused to leave for awhile. But he eventually gave up. Or that's what I thought. Anyway, at no point during or after that conversation did I threaten to strike him."

Inside, he was burning with anger, but he didn't let that show. Damn that Hannon, going over his head to Weir, telling lies about Lorne to try and get his own way. The whole point of the system was to keep Weir from being bothered by minor issues. That was part of the job of the chief of security. It was procedure for people to bring their security complaints, questions and requests to the chief of security. Had Dr. Hannon been in the military, Lorne would have set him straight the moment Weir let him go. But Dr. Hannon was a civilian, and Weir had made it quite clear that she had an open door policy. Moreover, this was actually Sheppard's job and Lorne was only filling in while the colonel was out. That left Lorne with no real authority to rebuke Hannon.

"Do you have the manpower to accede to this request?" Dr. Weir asked.

"Yes, but, Dr. Weir, I've been turning down requests all day. If I granted every one of them-"

"I'm not asking you to grant them all. Just the one," Dr. Weir told him.

Inside, Lorne railed against this. If he granted one request, he would be bombarded with queries as to why he had not granted all of the others, each of which was more absurd than the last. He was about to have a lot of very pissed off scientists beating down his door.

But all he said was, "Yes, Ma'am."

Weir didn't formally dismiss him so much as give him a look suggesting he should go away before she sat down and started going through a pile of papers on her desk. Lorne took that as his cue to leave. It seemed to him that something had been bothering the good doctor lately.

Historically, she had been very perceptive, and good at managing diplomatic relations not just with other worlds, but with the various factions within Atlantis itself. But ever since her most recent trip to Earth and the subsequent visit of Richard Woolsey, Dr. Weir had seemed preoccupied, distracted, and at times short tempered. It wasn't like her. Something was bothering her, and it wasn't difficult to guess that it had something to do with that. Lorne guessed her position as leader of the Atlantis expedition was being threatened, or at least it had been threatened once and now she was worried about how easily all of this could be taken away from her. Lorne couldn't blame her for that.

Though he didn't want a position shouldering that much responsibility all the time, Lorne could see that Dr. Weir loved Atlantis, loved its people, and loved doing her job. It was agreed throughout the city, even amongst its military members, that she was the best person for the job that anyone knew of.

Because of this, he was willing to cut her some slack and suffer the minor inconvenience of being all but bludgeoned with nonsense requests from civilians without complaint. Besides, for Lorne, it was only until Sheppard got back. After that it would be Sheppard's problem.

After considering who had been annoying him the most lately, Lorne contacted Lt. Edison and told him to get some guys together to go and act as body guards for Dr. Hannon. Edison had recently made a wise ass remark about painting being 'unmanly'. Edison had no way of knowing that Lorne enjoyed painting in his free time, and so had no reason to suspect that Lorne was now irritated with him, but Lorne enjoyed his revenge anyway, knowing that Edison would have a miserable time with Dr. Hannon. Chances were that Edison would select some men he'd been irritated by recently to suffer with him. Lorne was just happy that being in charge of security exempted him from trivial pursuits such as that, otherwise he would have had to go in order to set a good example.

About an hour later, Lorne would have given just about anything to trade places with Edison. The parade of complaints was endless. All of them had to do with objections to Lorne granting Hannon's request but not anyone else's. Lorne knew that they would be going to Weir after him, because that was what had gotten Dr. Hannon his way, and everyone knew it. But if they were going to Weir, he wasn't hearing about it. He hoped that was because Dr. Weir was telling them that there simply were not enough men to provide security escorts for every single scientist in Atlantis, especially not since some of them were needed to make trips off world.

Lorne was right in the middle of not listening to a botanist explain -in exhaustive detail- why there should be a security contingent posted outside the plant nursery at all times. The man wasn't even the head of his department, and had no authority or particular reason to be here. In fact, the head of his department was firmly opposed to more military involvement and structuring on Atlantis than already existed. If Lorne saw fit to grant this man's stupid request, then he'd have another botanist in here complaining about the military presence. It was at this point that Dr. Weir called him on his earwig.

He held up a hand to silence the botanist, who gleefully pretended not to notice.

"Shut up!" Lorne finally shouted in exasperation before activating his earwig, "Yes, Dr. Weir?"

"Major Sheppard's team is overdue. We tried contacting them on the radio, but received no response. I'd like you to get a team together to go and check on them. Take someone as backup. It may be nothing, Dr. McKay seemed to think that radio reception might be a little sketchy on the planet."

"Understood," Lorne said, deactivating the transmitter on his earwig before exclaiming, "Thank God!"

He got up from behind the desk and edged around the botanist, who had resumed complaining the moment the exchange between Lorne and Weir appeared to be concluded.

"Where are you going!?" the botanist demanded, "I'm not through with you!"

"Well I'm through with you," Lorne said, "Somebody else will be in here to take over shortly. You can try complaining to him, but I'll tell you now he probably won't be as friendly as me."

And with that, he left the spluttering botanist behind and went to gear up before making his way to the 'Gate Room. On the way, he contacted the members of his team and Major Dorsey via the earwig, telling them to gear up and meet him there.

Once on the planet, Lorne reported no sign of enemy activity, and no sign of Col. Sheppard's team either. Dr. Weir admonished him to be careful, and then the Stargate deactivated. Lorne's and Dorsey's teams had spread out immediately on arrival, covering every angle, looking for signs of life, whether native, invading or the people from Atlantis.

"Major," this came from Lt. Reed, and Lorne hurried over to see what he'd found.

Lt. Reed was, at least in comparison to Lorne, a bit of a hulking giant. Lorne had initially found him intimidating, but it had quickly become quite apparent to him that the man was really a pussycat. Reed seemed even less intimidating after Lorne met Ronon Dex, who was just as tall but at least three times as mean. These days, Lorne didn't even really notice that the top of his head barely came to Reed's shoulder. When he thought about it (which was rarely) he supposed tilting his head back so he could look at Reed when they were talking was just something he'd gotten used to after awhile.

"Looks like they headed off this way," Reed said, nodding towards some tracks he'd found.

The dark soil was soft, probably from a recent rain, and the prints of Sheppard's team showed so clearly that Lorne could easily pick out individuals by the tracks they'd left. From the looks of things, they'd wandered off in a random direction, but Lorne somehow doubted that was the case. Something must have convinced the team to head off into the forest. It seemed safe to assume that it was probably an energy reading since McKay picking up an energy reading was what the team had come to investigate in the first place.

"Dorsey, you and your team stay here and keep an eye on the 'Gate," Lorne said.

"Yes sir," Dorsey responded.

Technically, Lorne and Dorsey shared the same rank, but the military had a convenient way of dealing with what would otherwise lead to conflict. There was the factor of seniority to consider. Lorne had not only been a major longer than Dorsey, he'd been involved both with the Stargate Program as a whole and the Atlantis expedition specifically longer than Dorsey. But more importantly, Col. Sheppard had named Lorne as his second in command. And then of course there was even the additional factor that Dr. Weir had given this particular mission (that of finding out what had happened to Sheppard's team and providing assistance if needed) to Major Lorne, making it his responsibility.

"Alright," Lorne said, addressing his own team, "Let's move out. But be careful, we don't know what happened to Colonel Sheppard and his team or why they're not answering."

Reed took the point position as they headed out. Lorne followed a few feet behind him, and the rest of the team strung out after them. Lorne had a bad habit of forgetting that -as team leader- he was never supposed to be in the point position, but Reed was good at reminding him without being overt about it.

There was a definite path carved from the forest, and the team was able to move freely. As a result, it wasn't long before the Stargate was completely lost from view.

It was evident from the tracks that McKay had started to flag. Even though it was his interest in the energy reading that had likely brought the team out this far, he'd clearly stopped several times. Lorne could just imagine him asking for a break, and putting forth myriad complaints when Sheppard ignored him. It was always a puzzle to Lorne how exhausted geeks who could barely breathe without wheezing somehow still found the energy within themselves to complain vociferously.

"Major..." Reed sounded uncertain, and Lorne realized the lieutenant had stopped just at the crest of the uphill trail they'd been climbing for the last half hour.

He jogged to catch up with Reed and then stopped.

The trail sloped sharply downward from their position, and the forest opened out into a clearing, or what had probably been one a long time ago. Now it was overgrown, and it took a moment to pick out the portions of ruined Ancient architecture from among the brush and vines and saplings that had broken through the floor of what looked to have once been several structures.

After waiting for the rest of the team to catch up, and seeing no sign of life or danger of any kind, Lorne led the way down towards the ruins. The rest of his team followed cautiously. It seemed obvious that this had to have been the destination of Sheppard's team. The question was, why weren't they here now? It was Coughlin who found the answer to that question after Lorne's team had spread out to investigate the ruins.

"Major Lorne!"

Lorne left his area of investigation in favor of jogging to the area he'd given Coughlin to explore. Coughlin had found an area where the floor had remained intact, and about half the walls were still standing. There was even a portion of roof left from the room that had been here once. But what had caused Coughlin to yell was the presence of Sheppard's team, all four of them, lying prone in various positions around a device located in the center of the room.

Lorne couldn't be sure of course, because it wasn't his field, but the device looked to be inert. It wasn't glowing anywhere, and no sound was issuing from it. But McKay had clearly plugged his tablet into it, and been messing around with it for some reason. Possibly that had backfired.

"Stay here," Lorne instructed Coughlin, then he cautiously approached the nearest body, that of Teyla Emmagan, keeping a wary eye on the Ancient device and hoping it didn't activate because of his proximity or something.

Gingerly, he knelt down and checked Teyla's pulse on her neck. He found it to be strong and steady, suggesting she was unconscious but unhurt. He moved on to check Ronon, then Sheppard, and finally McKay. They all seemed to be fine, though McKay's pulse was a trifle faster than the rest.

"They're unconscious," Lorne reported, straightening up after checking McKay's pulse.

"Stunned?" Reed, who had arrived a moment before, inquired.

"I don't know," Lorne said, "But I don't think so. Let's get them away from this device, just in case."

They all knew it was possible that the device could have gone off and rendered the team unconscious. If that had happened once, it could happen again. That was why Lorne had approached it alone.

Gently, and with great care, Lorne and his team moved Sheppard and the others to the far side of the ruins. They knew it was possible that the team could be injured in ways they couldn't see and moving them might actually do more harm to them, but it was Lorne's opinion that leaving them near the device was a risk they shouldn't take. However, they left McKay's tablet plugged in, none of them daring to fool around with unknown technology.

With the four of them, it had taken two trips to get everybody, and Lorne with Coughlin had taken Sheppard last. Still crouching next to Sheppard after putting him down, Lorne put in a call to Dorsey, informing him that the team had been found unconscious but seemingly unharmed otherwise and also about the device, detailing the fact that he and his team had moved Sheppard and the others some distance from it and telling Dorsey to relay that message to Atlantis.

After that, Lorne started to turn and examine Sheppard more thoroughly, while the rest of his team did the same for the others. He'd detected no obvious signs of punctures or breaks, but his initial inspection had been rather hurried. Before they moved the team further, they needed to be more sure of what kind of injuries they might be dealing with. Also, they needed to put litters together to carry them more safely. None of them were doctors, of course, but they were more qualified for first aid than the average rabbit, because the military had taken into account the reality that a doctor might not always be handy when you needed one and you might have to take care of yourself or your team without outside help and had prepared its members accordingly.

What Lorne was not prepared for was Sheppard opening his eyes, taking one look at him and making a lunge for him. Unprepared for the assault, Lorne fell over and Sheppard landed on top of him, going immediately for his throat before Lorne knew what was happening.