A/N: This was supposed to be a paragraph or two at the end of the last chapter, but somehow Chuck and my original character Lucy Nauer sidetracked me. -facepalm- Also? I suck at technobabble and stuff, so just- go with it, 'k? Thanks. :D

An Exercise in Futility Pt 6

'Don't worry about the future-

or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve

an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.

The real troubles in your life are apt to be things

that never crossed your worried mind;

the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday…'

Elizabeth made her rounds of the control room, pausing by each workstation to receive updates from the morning shift, as was her usual routine when she wasn't sorting out discipline problems with members of her senior staff. As she finished addressing one of the technicians, she noticed Chuck in her peripheral vision, craning his neck and gazing intently in her direction before turning to confer with a woman beside him. She dismissed it at first, but then he turned in his chair to follow her progress around the room, obviously believing she was too occupied by the personnel near her to be aware of his scrutiny from a 'safe' distance.

Of course, she realized. Trust Chuck to have noticed her mood earlier that morning. The man she suspected was amongst the city's worst gossips and probably one of the leaders behind the betting pool she officially knew nothing about. By this stage, they most likely had her and John down as having a lovers' quarrel, with bets being laid on how soon they'd kiss and make up. And now he was surreptitiously attempting to gauge her mood and assess how the confrontation with John had gone so he could supplement the rumor mill. She knew scrutiny was only to be expected by people in high-profile positions, and gossip stemming from it was human nature, but it was so ridiculous she had to laugh sometimes.

Straightening up, Elizabeth looked directly at him. "I'll be with you in a moment," she called, inwardly relishing the momentary look of surprised chagrin on Chuck's face, then nodded at the technician and made a note on her palm pilot before heading over to his station. "I noticed you glancing over at me, Chuck" she explained blandly. "Thought I'd save your neck the strain and come see what I could help you with."

"Uh, really, ma'am?" Chuck parried weakly.

"Well?" she raised an eyebrow.

"Well," he repeated blankly, "It seems…um…" he looked at his console, scrambling to think of something, anything, a red herring of some sort that he could use to lead her off the scent but nothing came to mind.

The woman standing next to him, Lieutenant Lucinda Nauer, smirked in obvious amusement at the way Elizabeth was toying with the hapless technician. She faked a cough, using the opportunity to nudge him in the head with her elbow in what was not so much a show of support as mockery of his predicament.

This was a mistake, as it drew Elizabeth's attention to her. "Lucy," she said warmly.

"Morning, ma'am," the lieutenant replied warily. There was a glint in the doctor's eyes that didn't bode well and she kicked herself for sticking around to see the fun rather than melting away to less dangerous surroundings.

"What a nasty cough. I hope you're not coming down with anything?" Elizabeth inquired solicitously.

Nauer shrugged, wondering where she was going with this. "No, I'm fine. Just had a physical with Carson this week," she added hastily, in case their esteemed leader was thinking of setting her up for an appointment with needles.

"Good. Nothing should keep you from accompanying Dr Kavanaugh while he explores some of the new labs, then. It's so reassuring to know you're there to keep him safe." Testament indeed to Elizabeth's diplomatic skills that she was able to make that statement with a straight face. Most people in the city had fond fantasies of feeding Kavanaugh to a Wraith, such was the universal loathing held for the whiny self-important scientist who made McKay look like Mother Teresa.

"Just doing my job," Nauer replied, giving a pained smile. "But uh….we're not scheduled to leave for another half hour, so…" She had in fact planned on being late, in the hopes that this adventure for two would be forgotten, or that Kavanaugh would perhaps go off investigating the mysterious depths of Atlantis on his own and never return to plague her again.

Elizabeth, however, had other plans for her. "Oh, you know how these scientists can be. Brilliant but so easily distracted. Why don't you go round him up, help him get ready for your little excursion? Otherwise he's liable to get sidetracked by some project or other and then he won't surface til next week."

It was Chuck's turn to smirk and nudge her discreetly. Nauer glared at him, then sighed resignedly. "I'll…get right on that, ma'am." The look on her face suggested she was praying for a transporter to break down with her in it to spare her from the misery that Kavanaugh inflicted on those forced into close proximity with him.

Elizabeth waited for a few moments, biting the inside of her mouth to keep from chuckling aloud at the defeated set to the lieutenant's shoulders as she walked away before calling out, "Lucy? On second thoughts…"

Nauer turned eagerly at those words. "Yes, Dr Weir?"

"I left Colonel Sheppard diligently working away on a few reports for me. He's still got his radio switched off, so do you suppose you could do me a favor and stop by his office to see if he has anything ready for me yet? I need to assemble the files for the next Earth transmission, and that military requisition is urgently required."

Her expression shifted from dismal to elated in a heartbeat. "Of course, ma'am," she agreed fervently. "I can most definitely do that for you." She hurried away, a great deal more energetic in her response to Elizabeth's command this time round.

"Back to you," Elizabeth regarded Chuck once more.

During that little exchange, his sense of apprehension had faded. "It was nothing really," he said easily, relieved to note that his boss was in a much happier frame of mind than when she'd departed in a huff earlier. Playful, even, judging by what he'd just witnessed. Odds were good that Mom and Dad had patched things up.

He smiled at her. "If I may say so, it seems that…everything's all right now."

She aimed a level gaze at him, just long enough to make him squirm and wonder if he'd misjudged her, before she softened. "Yes, you could say that," Elizabeth agreed with a rueful smile. "Although no guarantees as to how long that happy state will last…"

"Probably the moment you see your desk."

She narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

"Doctors Carrington and Prasad came around a little earlier," he said delicately.

"At the same time?" Chuck nodded. "How bad was it?" she asked, dreading the answer. It was a shame that scientists often had such volatile dispositions. These two individuals were incredibly intelligent, slavishly devoted to their work and she couldn't ask for more passion and dedication and commitment than they provided. Unfortunately, they also were liable to explode into fierce arguments in defense of their work, and for some reason, the research of one frequently contradicted the findings of the other. Which was when they stormed over to her office- as Rodney was only too pleased to delegate the responsibility of keeping them from tearing out each other's throats to her- and continued their argument at full volume with Elizabeth caught in the middle.

"Actually, Dr Weir, they ran into each other depositing reports on your desk and managed to avoid speaking a single non-civil word to each other," said Chuck. "Whatever you're doing? It's working wonders."

"Thank you," Elizabeth answered, letting out a long sigh as she absorbed his words, and a deeply satisfied smile spread across her face. It was gratifying to see her efforts paying off. The war was not yet won; her few sessions with the doctors had been enough to instill some self-control in them, enough not to engage in public spats, but there was still work to be done on getting them to properly co-operate with each other.

Still…she felt really good right now. Not even the threat of a desk-load of reports could deter her from basking in her triumph at this moment. "I'll be in my office. I suppose I better see what their latest conflict of professional opinions is about. Hold all non-critical traffic for me, would you?"

Chuck loved watchdog duty. It gave him a sense of authority, being able to question those headed to her office and granting or denying access, depending on how they justified their need. "Of course, Dr Weir," he said graciously. "Have fun."

She slanted a half-smile his way, then headed for the bridge that led to her office. Settling into her chair, she began plowing through the stack of reports that Carrington and Prasad had left her. From the scientific jargon she could decipher, it seemed they had been studying some Ancient technology that had specialized Wraith-freezing capabilities. It was set to identify Wraith physiology and literally freeze them in place. That didn't seem too impressive, considering that shooting a ton of bullets into them was a more permanent way to eliminate the threat, but the really exciting application of this technology was that if operated properly, it could send wide dispersal beams throughout the city- perhaps the entire city, depending on how much power was available- and stop any invaders dead in their tracks. Remembering the siege they had withstood after their first year in the Pegasus Galaxy, and the number of casualties sustained in defending their city, she sure wished a device like this had been operational back then. It sounded marvelous, almost too good to be true.

Funnily enough, Elizabeth remembered translating the Ancient passages relating to that device- her notes were referred to frequently in the scientists' dissertations- but her translations hadn't indicated anything like this, to her non-scientific mind anyway. She had read through these specific Ancient entries, even if the way the words were strung together made little sense at the time, and known it was something to do with the Wraith- which was the keyword she searched for in all the texts, alternately abandoning or lingering on them based on whether it concerned the Wraith- but the reports her people had compiled, that examined the implications of the various passages and extrapolated them in a new, sophisticated and highly technical context…it was incredible. It far eclipsed her ability to follow their reasoning, but to know that she had been involved in the process, even to a small extent, made her feel proud, eased the headache of trying to work out exactly what all the fuss was about.

The fly in the ointment was that the super fantastic amazing Wraith weapon of immense power and potential was jammed. Some rubble had damaged the machine, probably when the Asurans had seized control of the city and John had been trying to evade the drones sent after them, outsmarting them with his superior flying skills and sending them crashing into buildings instead. Now something in the circuitry was malfunctioning and wouldn't let the power flow through it properly. They could either cart the whole thing off to the standard science labs and tinker with it there, or pull it apart and attempt repairs in its current location. The problem with the first options was that the device was inherently unstable and removing it from its cradle could result in a chain-reaction of blown circuitry with catastrophic results. The problem with the second was that due to its unstable nature, power would need to be re-routed around that section to prevent from accidentally overloading the device before they could figure out how to run it, but this wasn't the most practical idea since they would be forced to cut power to the nearby infirmary as well.

Elizabeth hated to see a good idea go down the drain, but it was going to take some time to determine which of the options were more viable, if either. There was no point destroying the city in an attempt to safeguard it, after all. The memory of Rodney's infamous destruction of nearly an entire galaxy cautioned her against hastily accepting Prasad's assurances that the risk to Atlantis was minimal and grossly exaggerated by his hysterical colleague, however, Carrington's safety precautions concerned her. To her knowledge, no one was seriously injured and on life-support in the infirmary, but experience taught her that could change in an instant. There was no way she could guarantee none of her people would require life-saving treatment during the shutdown period, even if she grounded every team on Atlantis. There were more than enough ways they could injure themselves on home ground, that she knew well enough.

If they set up a secondary medical center in another part of the city, shifted operations there for the duration of the device-testing, she could justify the experiment but it would take time for that measure to be implemented, and it would be a drain on personnel allocation and resources…the pros and cons were endless. And this was only a preliminary analysis!

Elizabeth stood and walked over to the large monitor built into her office wall, calling up a schematic of Atlantis on the display. She needed to have all the facts on recent power stats and the configuration of the grid that ran through the city, the way it branched off and which areas would be affected; the location of the new possible infirmary and accessibility from the gate, which was where many of their casualties originated from; the site of other ongoing experiments that could make it unwise to pursue this new proposal…

Caught up as she was in examining the issues from every conceivable angle, determined to avoid courting trouble and to have prepared for every eventuality, Elizabeth barely noticed Nauer enter her office bearing a hard-won report from John. The lieutenant repeated his words of appreciation for her concern and the promise that he'd be down later with the rest of the paperwork. And that if he failed to materialize, then to search for his body at the base of the highest tower, such was his misery in enduring this wretched task.

Elizabeth absent-mindedly told her to tell him that it was his own fault for leaving things til the last minute, and Nauer delightedly took this as an official communication to be passed on back to the city's ranking military officer, who'd hinted a turkey sandwich would be appreciated if she happened to pass by his way again. Avoiding Kavanaugh was so much more effective when she had the excuse of running errands for the expedition leader and her commanding officer.

It was the sound of the corner door hissing open that finally drew Elizabeth out of her musings. This entrance was rarely used; she preferred to come through the control room, mingle with her people, find out the status of various operations, address any concerns they had…she wasn't the type to make people come to her, she wanted to make herself available to them, well-aware it could be more intimidating to approach her in her office, knowing that sometimes they wanted to broach minor issues that they would never book an appointment to discuss.

Rodney sometimes used the second door, when he was caught up in intellectual fervor over a new brilliant idea and couldn't be bothered maneuvering through the obstacle course of the control room, especially when she'd reprimanded him for shoving people's chairs out of his way when there were still people occupying them. And sometimes Teyla dragged her out to lunch through that door, wary of Elizabeth being side-tracked by personnel offering updates or reports or requiring her signature on various documents if they ventured out through the main exit.

But looking over, she saw it was none of the usual suspects. "Major Lorne?" she said in surprise. "What can I-" An energy blast from a stunner cut her off before she could finish the sentence, before she could even wonder why Lorne would be aiming a weapon at her.

He efficiently holstered the stunner and took a few steps forward, catching the unconscious woman as she fell. Dragging her body through the side door and setting her on the floor, he quickly glanced back through the glass walls to the control room to ensure that no one had noticed what was going on. The chatter of voices continued unabated, and everyone was facing away from Elizabeth's office, unsuspecting of the drama being played out within. The entire process had only taken seconds, and attracted nobody's attention.

Satisfied, he returned to her side and picked up her body before hastening away.

--

A/N: I've tried as best I can to figure out the layout of Elizabeth's office, but they keep switching it around on me! That door exists in one ep and disappears in another…to paraphrase a BSG icon re: Adama's quarters, 'if you pay careful attention, Elizabeth Weir's office makes no frakking sense!'