No, I am not dead! I live and this chapter is here to prove it! I (once again) apologize for the very long time in the updates! A lot of things have changed over the past year, and I've only just had time to work on anything at all! In any case, I hope you enjoy this chapter, excuse the vague promiscuous references, and review! I have already started the next chapter, so you'll have it just after New Years!

Disclaimer: My name is Captain Cally Everet, and I have crossed universes to inform you all that Time's Whisper does not actually own the worlds and the characters used in this story. They are borrowed lovingly and no profit is made from them. That being said, could someone please tell her to stop trying to break the barrier between universes? Thanks. -CCE

Miss Me Yet?

Chapter 23: All Things Real and Beautiful

Cally was skeptical of the Doctor's intentions when he'd first suggested they go to Atlantis, seeing as breaking into the SGC was more than a little frowned upon. It wasn't that she didn't want to go. Seeing the city after almost a year would be like going home, even if it was just for a short time.

The idea that the Doctor had a ship was even more interesting to her; the first reason was because it solved the problem of getting to the Stargate. Taking everyone through the SGC would have been a whole lot of trouble. They would have had to hold hands as they walked through or something, which would have been more than a little awkward. The second reason the Doctor's ship intrigued her was that it apparently could hide in plain sight, something that ships like the Puddlejumpers could definitely not do.

The fact that the Doctor lead them back to the Museum explaining that it was where he'd parked his ship, for some reason wasn't a surprise to her. It seemed like London was crawling with aliens, and she had met the Doctor and Martha in the Museum in the first place. It wasn't until the Doctor led them up to the giant telephone box in the atrium– an object the museum staff had been sure was an art piece – that Cally came to the conclusion that the spaceman was playing her for a fool.

Cally stood, arms crossed, gazing inscrutably at the blue box in front of her and then shared an inscrutable look with Matthew, then looked back at the phone box. "You've got to be kidding me." She said after the two minutes when she hadn't been able to speak out of sheer despondency, and then glanced disbelievingly at the Doctor. "This is your spaceship?"

The Doctor was grinning, and disturbingly, so were Martha and Jack. Widely, like cats with a cage full of canaries. "Yup."

Cally looked back at the police box and shrugged. "I'm pretty fairly sure I've seen weirder." She saw Matthew splutter out of the corner of her eye, and felt rather than saw that Katie and Myles were gaping at her. The employees of Torchwood groaned. The gauntlet had been thrown.

The smiles on The Doctor, Jack and Martha's faces grew brighter, which didn't assuage Cally's fears in the least. The Doctor walked to the door and pulled a key out of one of his seemingly bottomless pockets, then turned it in the lock.

To Cally's surprise, the door creaked open, and there was light coming through it. Cally raised an eyebrow at the grinning Time Lord, but only walked inside after the Doctor had bowed and gestured towards the telephone box. "After you, Miss Captain Everet."

The Doctor glanced with a twinkle in his eyes at Jack and Martha, who were bouncing on their heels; they were so sure that they knew what was coming. They looked at Torchwood and the rest of the Museum staff. They looked spooked.

What normally would happen would be that the person that the Doctor had designated to travel with him would step out of the TARDIS, mouth open wide, circle the ship for confirmation of the fact that the TARDIS was a wooden box, and then declare the impossibility of it all. In fact, the time honored words that were uttered were usually "it's bigger on the inside!" They were words that stated the obvious, and the Doctor never tired of hearing it.

Three minutes later, Cally stumbled out of the TARDIS. She gaped once at the Doctor's smiling face, snapped her jaw shut, and with the look of someone completely amazed, practically threw herself back in. Jack and Martha looked at each other, dumbfounded, then at the Doctor, whose lips curled in amusement. "I think that's the longest anyone's been in there before coming back out." He said, sounding a little surprised.

"She didn't even take the customary walk around it." Jack pointed out, sounding just a little impressed, and a little disappointed.

Cally stepped out of the time ship backwards, tapped the wooden door for verification and started at the Doctor. "It's bigger-"

"On the inside!" Jack, Martha and the Doctor chorused along with her.

"And that's what I was waiting to hear!" The Doctor laughed when Cally glared at them.

Cally proceeded to ignore the threesome and pointed to the inside of the ship, looking at Victoria, the Museum staff and Torchwood. "That is seriously, seriously, awesome." Cally looked back at the Doctor, the excitement shining in her eyes, making her blue irises twinkle. "I take back the having seen weirder things comment. Your ship isn't weird, it's just downright cool." She grinned when the Doctor accepted the compliment. "What kind of ship is it?"

"The TARDIS." The Doctor said, patting the worn blue sides of the Victorian police box lovingly. "It stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space, and I've had her for a very, very long time."

"Can we see?" Matthew asked hesitantly.

By the time the Doctor had locked the TARDIS door, with everyone firmly inside, half an hour had gone past. In which the rest of Torchwood and the Museum staff had each completed their own – customary -gaping walks around the ship, and spouting the requisite "It's bigger on the inside" speech. Cally had been forced to laugh when Jack asked her if she wanted to do the same, and practically led her in a circle around the TARDIS, whether she wanted to or not.

Myles in particular, was still having a little bit of difficulty with the concept of the TARDIS. He'd actually taken two trips in and out of the TARDIS. The poor elderly archeologist was sitting on one of the cots in the control room, having been lead there by his wife. Victoria was holding him, trying to calm him down. He was trying to be quiet, so not to draw any attention to himself. He had been horrified by the attack on the Museum, but for some reason, this was horrifying in a new and uncomfortable way. He'd thought, until Cally had explained it, that the Goa'uld were impossible, but a ship that defied the known (at least to humans) laws of physics? This was truly impossible. He felt a pair of calloused hands clasp one of his hands. Myles opened his eyes to see Cally kneeling next to him, an expression of concern covering her features.

"You ok?" She asked.

Myles shuddered again, taking Cally's hand and squeezing it lightly, trying to be reassuring. "I'm alright." He glanced over his shoulder at Victoria, and smiled bravely. "I mean it."

Cally and Victoria briefly shared a look that clearly said "He's not ok at all, and we'd better keep an eye on him."

Myles caught the look. "I am fine! I just need to… think things over."

They gave him a look – between a glare and a sneer – that told him that until he was really ok, they would be monitoring him. They had him pegged. Myles huffed, though he felt a little better.

Meanwhile, the Doctor had walked over to the TARDIS console where Martha and Jack were leaning comfortably and chatting, quite at home in the alien surroundings. He was giving everyone time to get used to the ship before the real fun began. The Torchwood employees and the Museum staff, aside from Myles and Victoria, were more or less huddled together in one corner near the other side of the console. The Torchwood staff was a little more relaxed than the Museum personnel because they dealt with alien things all the time, but not much more relaxed. Cally, after leaving Myles and Victoria, started roaming around and trying to peak into other areas of the TARDIS, without much avail as the sentient ship kept closing the doors on her. Martha and Jack eventually started trying to hide their sniggers as Cally started pleading with the ship, making rash promises.

"Please can I see what's behind this one?" Cally begged. "I promise not to coat anything in honey, or trash anything. I'll even tidy up if you want me to!"

"Oi! That's my job!" The Doctor protested, ignoring the little buzz in his head that was the TARDIS informing him that, even if it was his job, he hadn't been performing it for several centuries. "Is everyone ready to go?"

He didn't wait for a reply from Cally, just strolled the short distance from where he'd been talking to Jack and Martha over to the TARDIS console and started thwacking things with – Cally snorted because it looked cartoonish - a mallet. Jack and Martha however, took more immediate action. Jack snatched Cally by the back of her collar and dragged her over to the railings where Martha was now gripping the cold metal. Myles and Victoria quickly joined them.

Martha waved the other travelers over. "You're going to want to hold onto something, trust me."

Automatically, eight sets of hands were grasping the metal rail. They were learning to take warnings very seriously.

Jack, however, had something very different in mind. He in turn, yanked Ianto by the collar and positioned his lover in front of him, so that his back was against Jack's chest, tucked under the former con-man's left arm. Cally, who was still being held by her collar with protest, he tucked under his right and smiled down at them, not offering them a chance of movement.

Cally glowered and rubbed the back of her neck. "I can stand on my own, you know."

Jack pouted prettily. "But that's not as much fun, right Yan?"

Ianto was trying to hide a smile as he leaned back into Jack. "Not as much fun at all." He said pointedly, looking at Cally.

Cally felt herself go red and quickly turned around to grab the rail in front of her. Just in time, because the Doctor, full of the odd energy he seemed to always have, had finally finished hitting things and twirled to face them with much aplomb. With the mallet over one shoulder he smiled at them. "On your marks, get set…." He pulled a lever down. "Go!"

The time rotor began to wheeze, and within seconds, the TARDIS violently lurched to one side. Everyone but Martha, Jack and the Doctor lost their footing. Jack looked immensely smug as he held onto his two 'charges'. The Doctor ended up face to face with Cally and beamed at her shaken demeanor.

"Is this supposed to happen?" Cally yelled over the noise as the TARDIS bucked again and went sideways in the time stream, looking frantic. This was not how most ships travelled. Puddlejumpers were luxury liners compared to this.

"This?" The Doctor yelled back, appearing to be shocked at the suggestion, except that he was holding the railing with one hand and seemed to be bouncing about happily with the TARDIS' movements. "This is calm! Barely a ripple! Not even a slight bout of turbulence! Nothing to complain about!"

The TARDIS dipped sideways.

When the time ship righted itself again, the Doctor was still beaming like a kid on Christmas, Myles looked like he was about to be sick, and Martha had been pulled into Jack's hug. Matthew and Katie didn't seem to be ruffled in the least, but both had started to treat the whole thing like a rollercoaster, and were mirroring the Doctor's maniac glee. Cally thought that this boded badly.

Just as rapidly as the trip had seemed to start, the TARDIS slammed to a sudden halt, throwing everyone but the Doctor to the floor. He stood amidst the groaning travelers with a satisfaction that bordered on the criminal. "Now, I think we've arrived! Just above the city of Atlantis, in the Pegasus Galaxy, at what I think is cruising altitude."

Cally lifted her head up from where she'd landed, on Owen's chest. "Cruising altitude?" She asked in confusion. Why would they be at cruising altitude?

"Well, we couldn't just land. Imagine what would happen if you wandered away from the TARDIS? We'd probably get attacked by your people, guns and everything." He paused, musing. "You know, that happens quite a lot."

Both Jack and Martha snorted. "Yes, it really does," they chorused. Everyone but Myles, who looked close to throwing up, rolled their eyes. They were done trying to understand the inside jokes.

There was an unusual silence in the TARDIS, from the moment the Doctor had opened the doors onto the open air above the Ancient city of Atlantis. Cally stood the farthest out the TARDIS, leaning against the doorpost, and the Doctor subtly tweaked the force field so that she would not fall an extremely long distance into the Lantean Ocean. She stood there, watching the city that she'd left behind glitter gloriously in the sunlight. Her hair whipped around her face, and the light she watched reflected off the city and into her eyes. The Doctor observed Cally as a small but happy smile drifted across the former air force officer's face and stayed there.

"It's beautiful." Tosh said quietly, from the midst of the group behind Cally who were staring at the city below, breaking the silence.

"That it is." Cally said gently back, smiling at her city. "You should see it when the sun comes up and light hits the city and you're near a balcony during the morning shift…" Her voice trailed off as she looked over her shoulder, embarrassed. "Err; I think you have to be there to actually appreciate it."

"What are those?" Matthew asked pointing to two little squares that were rising from the tallest of the city's towers.

Cally straightened and grinned. "Puddlejumpers!" She cried, completely overjoyed, and it could be heard in her voice.

"What?" Owen asked. It sounded like a different name for Wellington boots.

"They're ships! They're our version of airplanes, but they can fly in space." Cally was practically bouncing the way the Doctor had been a little while earlier. "Just the most amazing ships to fly in existence!" She glanced at the Doctor. "Other than this one." She said apologetically.

The Doctor looked mollified, though Cally was a little disturbed that he was stroking the TARDIS, as if soothing it. To avoid the off chance of being hit by a stray Puddlejumper, he pressed a few levers and they dropped closer to the city, so that even the faces of personnel outside were visible.

Suddenly Cally's face lit up. "Hey! I know them!" She pointed excitedly down towards what she knew to be the west pier of the city, down by the water. Gwen had to grab Cally up the waist because Cally was too busy leaning out of the TARDIS to notice that she'd practically fallen out of the ship in her joy.

"That's Doctor Weir! She's the leader of the expedition! Ooh! And Doctor McKay is there too, see?"

"Isn't Doctor McKay that one who put the device on your arm?" Owen asked, sounding indifferent, but when Cally looked at him, he was glaring down at the smaller of the two figures below.

Cally blinked at him, a little surprised at the ferocity, and then shrugged, also surveying the generally cranky scientist. "It wasn't his fault." She could feel their eyes snap to her form, but didn't look at them. "No one knows what those devices do sometimes. It's dangerous work, especially for us guinea pigs." She shook her head. "But that's what we signed up for. We knew, that first trip through the gate to Atlantis might be a one way trip." She finally looked at them, blue eyes hard. "I volunteered to go. I wanted to go somewhere no one had ever been before." An amused look passed her lips and she smirked. "Sort of like Star Trek, I guess. But it wasn't McKay's fault."

She knew they wouldn't believe her, but her melancholy diminished a few seconds later when another group of people came onto the pier, carrying lunch trays. "Hey!" She yelled, and Gwen had to grab her again. "It's my team!" She indulged the illogical need to wave frantically at them for a moment, before realizing that it was futile and put her arm down. She glared momentarily at a limb that was visible to her, but invisible to those who mattered, and then looked back down at the little group on the pier.

She pointed to them individually. "The blonde is Major David Morrison, our team leader, the brunette beside him is Mike Elbert, the second in command. Eiichi Takarei is our scientist. He's a biologist." Cally frowned slightly, and looked a little wistful. By rights, she should have been down there, eating whatever mystery meat was served in the Atlantis mess that week.

"You miss them." Jack observed.

Cally snorted. "How can I not? They're practically my family. We spent holidays together, birthdays, and everything." She smiled. "Your team becomes your family. That's practically the first thing you learn at the SGC. Not just through word of mouth, but also through what happens when you have to protect each other off-world. You must experience that at Torchwood, right?"

The smiles of those who were a part of Torchwood became a little strained.

Cally was incredibly subdued when they exited the TARDIS, back on Earth and in the Museum. The Doctor had timed it so that they landed a few minutes after they had taken off, so that no one would be too unnerved as they would have been if no time had passed over their journey at all.

Matthew came over and slung and arm over her shoulders. "Don't look so much like the world has ended. You stopped that, remember?"

Cally flashed a small smile at the younger man. "This time." She said. "Do you know how often that happens? That the world almost comes to an end? Practically monthly."

Myles looked a little green, as did Victoria. "I'm not sure you should have told us that." Victoria gulped. "In fact, I'm going to do my best and pretend you didn't mean that."

Behind them, the Doctor shook his head at the folly. "You humans, so panicky." He murmured, though Jack had heard him. In all honesty, it was hard for the Doctor, even after all this time, to acknowledge that for humans, some knowledge was much too upsetting, and could destabilize their very societies.

Cally shrugged, knowing that she couldn't argue sense into Victoria. The government's own stance on the matter was not to tell the general public, and she'd lived by that rule a long time. Breaking it now was a special circumstance. From the moment Menthu had entered the lives of the Museum staff, they were an exception to the rule.

Matthew and Katie looked a little more pensive at Cally's statement, mulling it over. The Torchwood staff had known the reality of Cally's words for a long time, and had no reason to refute it. Finally Katie responded. "I hate to accept it." She said quietly. "But I can't ignore that a few days ago; I was hurt by something from another planet. If there is one threat like Menthu, why shouldn't there be others?" Katie looked to Matthew. "Right?"

Matthew nodded, his arm still slung over Cally's shoulders. "Right. Nothing us little Museum interns can do about it."

Cally voted not to respond to that. It sounded too much like Matthew was asking if there was anything he could do to stop it, and she wasn't sure she wanted him or Katie in the line of fire again. Inventing a system for museums to identify what was alien and what wasn't seemed to be a possibility, but she had no idea how to start such a program, and didn't know if Matthew would want to be involved. Instead she turned around to face Jack and the Doctor. They were the nearest authority figures she could think of, and she counted the Doctor because he seemed to be an authority on human matters, no matter that he wasn't human. "So what happens to me now?" She asked. "I would love to remain at the Museum, but…" She wasn't sure if that was viable now.

There was a flicker of something in Jack's eyes that Cally couldn't identify, but she was then distracted by the Doctor's shrug. "Russell Chapman mentioned that you should go to see him once you've explained the situation to us. Apparently he has some idea of what to do."

The flare in Jack's eyes appeared again, and he seemed to be ready to say something, which the Doctor interrupted, as if sensing Jack's sudden determination. "But I think that can wait until tomorrow." He beamed. "Let's get everyone home – relatively speaking."

When the rest of the group moved off, Jack and the Doctor stayed behind a few moments. When even the Torchwood team was out of earshot, Jack whipped to face the Doctor and started to hiss furiously. "Why did you stop me? I was going to-" His demand was abruptly cut off when the Doctor interrupted him again.

"You were going to ask Cally to join Torchwood." The Doctor stated simply, his face having gone blank.

"Yes!" Jack hissed loudly, furious.

"Take it up with Chapman." The Doctor advised him. "Cally's more apt to actually listen to him because she's under his command, and I think, based on Cally's case, that Chapman may need to give Cally wiggle room. Offering Chapman an opening for Cally in Torchwood might help his plans for her."

As much as Jack wanted to disagree, the Doctor was right. Cally would never have accepted Torchwood on her own. She needed to be back in the field, but she might not be sure that Torchwood was the right place for her to be. Jack was sure that she was, and besides that, he knew that having another member on the team who had more exposure to aliens that even Ianto would be ultimately beneficial. Jack finally nodded. He would go talk to Chapman first thing in the morning.

The Doctor now smiled and pointed towards the rapidly disappearing travelers. "I think we need to go join them now." Martha was looking at them from a distance, quizzically.

Jack let the Doctor walk ahead of him as he mulled over what the Doctor had said. He also had a nagging suspicion that the Doctor knew something about Cally Everet, specifically why Chapman's plans for the former resident of Atlantis were so important, and the Doctor wasn't telling. Jack shook his head. He was getting paranoid.

The Doctor hummed absentmindedly ahead of him. It sounded like the theme to "Mission Impossible".

Thanks to everyone who kindly reviews!

-TS