Epilogue

It turned out that Anderson was given his own team only a few days after Anne asked him to consider joining hers, so she reluctantly gave up the idea of an aerial team and set out on her first mission through the gate two weeks later with Vega, Corrigan and a Sgt named McQuarry. He'd come highly recommended as an explosives specialist, but she quickly realized that that talent was burden rather than asset. He wanted to blow everything up.

Seven days after that, the news hit the base that Sheppard (checked out for full duty and bearing only a slight limp) had high-tailed it to the Midway station with McKay and a large strike force. Sheppard engaged a wraith invasion force and then Atlantis lost all contact. The base was on tenterhooks for two weeks while Daedalus raced from Earth to Midway to find out what had happened.

The reports came in before Sheppard and the rest got back. Only four of the original 18 had survived. Midway was destroyed. The Intergalactic bridge was down, probably permanently. A shadow fell over the base that only got worse over the next two months.

Sheppard had made it off Midway, but shortly thereafter, Teyla was kidnapped by the wraith called Michael. Lorne took the loss hard. Anne herself was working flat out just to keep the teams going that were being sent out as security escorts for the medics who were fighting a galactic illness that was sweeping through allied and hostile worlds alike.

Anne had one patch of sunshine in midst of the gloom during those hard days: critical intel came in from the wraith worshipper community and gave Lorne and Sheppard their best lead on Michael's hideout since Teyla had first disappeared. That particular lead had been a direct result of the mission to the frozen wraith outpost. The fact that they found Dr. Beckett instead of Teyla didn't change Anne's pleasure at all.

The hope didn't last. When Sheppard went missing after a routine meeting with an ally, you could have measured morale with a toothpick. Lorne walked the halls like a man lost in a nightmare. He put on a good face for the unit, but Anne could see the haunted expression in his eyes at command briefings. McKay and Ronon ran the investigation into the Colonel's disappearance, but after a wild but ultimately useless mission to yet another of Michael's hideouts, Anne could feel the despair rising to the highest levels of the city. Atlantis was a mess.

Anne's offworld duties got put on hold as the Majors dealt with command issue after issue. There was no such thing as "routine" exploration in any case. She reassigned Vega and McQuarry (and didn't plan to ask him back) and let Corrigan go with Ronon's team as they searched for the Colonel.

The longest day of Anne's life was the day Sheppard leaped home through the stargate to everyone's complete befuddlement. Six hours later, he was hustling another strike force through the gate. Anne watched Lorne and one of Barker's units gear up and march out, led by a wildly energetic Sheppard, still dusty from wherever he'd been for the previous twelve days.

The hopeful high of Sheppard's return and magical intelligence that would lead them to Michael and Teyla crashed like a wounded bird an hour later when Edison stumbled home, covered in blood and dust. Michael's lair had been boobytrapped. The building had come down on the entire team. Radios were out. Anne and Barker mustered a search and rescue force and watched Colonel Carter take yet another batch of Atlantis' finest into the rubble, Vega among them.

As one of only two senior officers left on base, Anne spent the rest of the day in the control room while Barker continued to coordinate resources for the search and rescue. A combat engineer team went through about an hour after Carter. An hour after that, they lost contact with the planet.

Anne chewed through every nail she'd managed to grow past the quick while they waited for trickles of news from the Daedalus. Carter and the other jumpers who had been blocked by Michael's hive on the planet had made it on board. Daedalus was launching a mission to extract Teyla from the hive. And then…nothing, for more than an hour.

You could have cut the tension in the gateroom with a sword, it was so thick. They finally got good news from the Daedalus – Michael's hive was toast! – about ten minutes before the stargate groaned into life and Sheppard's IDC brought a whoop of triumph from Chuck.

"It's Colonel Sheppard! Lowering the shield!" he crowed.

"Tell that medical team to get their asses down here," Anne barked as she turned to race down the steps and watch Sheppard come in personally.

She was at the bottom when the wormhole engaged and Sheppard's team came through. His whole team. Teyla shuffled through first, carrying a whimpering bundle in her arms, held by the elbows in the firm grip of a beaming Ronon. Anne gave a nod of greeting to the happy Satedan. They were followed by a strange man in a long leather coat. Anne stiffened along with the SOs on the deck who drew bead on the stranger who looked a hell of a lot like one of Michael's hybrids.

She was about to give the command to take the man to the ground when Sheppard and McKay walked through. Sheppard waved the SOs back. "It's OK. He's with us. Take him into custody and put him down in the holding cells but…be nice. He helped us get out."

Anne hurried the process along and had the stranger off the deck as fast as she could without being…not nice. By that time, the medics had arrived and were helping Teyla onto a gurney, still cradling the baby. (Anne had finally puzzled out the bundle's strange sounds.) She turned to welcome Sheppard home, then felt the greeting stick in her throat.

McKay stood to one side, holding onto the Colonel's elbow and looking a little panicky. Sheppard was leaning hard on the scientist, his right hand plastered firmly against his side and…crap…that look of endurance plastered firmly on his face.

"Medic!" she called and hustled one of them over to the Colonel. The look McKay threw her as the medics surrounded Sheppard was pure relief. McKay and Ronon helped the Colonel up on a second gurney and Anne was shocked to see how pale his face had gone in just the few minutes he'd been on his feet this side of the gate.

"Welcome home, sir," she said before he, too, and again, was whisked off the deck to the infirmary.

"Thanks," he whispered after a deep breath and a hitch. Definitely hurting. She watched him go, shaking her head. She was dying to hear the story on this one, she thought. She stayed on duty until the Daedalus returned several hours later.

After that, life kind of – finally – got normal again. Anne was disappointed as hell when Carter was reassigned off Atlantis. She'd come to admire the woman even more during her short command. But as much as she enjoyed working with the Colonel, Anne would never consider leaving Atlantis that had become the most challenging and rewarding post of her career.

When Sheppard got back on his feet and routine exploration got underway again, Anne dove back into the database to staff her team. Vega eagerly joined back up, but Anne needed someone to replace powderkeg McQuarry. And while she'd gotten along fine with Corrigan, she was still looking for a science member more on the technology side than social sciences.

Dr. Alison Porter's name, a scientist fresh off the Daedalus, practically leaped out of the monitor at her. Anne knocked on Porter's door before the woman had even finished unpacking. Porter agreed to a couple of trial runs. Anne picked Sgt. Mark Axel, a promising SO who had been training for offworld duty in the fourth spot, and earned herself a very grateful, enthusiastic teammate in return.

Unfortunately, the man's enthusiasm got him laid up in rehab for two months after an overzealous sparring session with Ronon Dex, and Anne was back to square one before she'd left it.

She met Dusty Mehra in the commissary. The sergeant was arm wrestling Cpt. Anderson and inciting a full scale betting match on the outcome. Anne intervened when the crowd got rowdy and teams were lining up along branch loyalty. Anne planted herself directly in front of Mehra, behind the sweating Anderson's back, and threw her best "get the hint, kid," look.

Mehra grinned the wickedest grin Anne had ever seen on someone so young and "lost" the match. Anne asked her to join the team on the spot.

"Hey! We're all girls!" Mehra exclaimed on the platform as they waited for Chuck to dial them out for their first mission a week later.

"You just figured that out?" Vega quipped and Porter flashed her soon-to-be-trademarked sweet smile.

"Hadn't really thought about it,"Anne replied. And to be honest, she hadn't. She hadn't gone looking for "girls", specifically. But as she looked down her line and reminded herself as to why each had been chosen, she was quite certain she had the best team on Atlantis.

When the gate kawooshed and they readied themselves to step through, Anne felt a selfish moment of regret that Sheppard was on leave that day. With McKay so ill and rumored unlikely to recover, she certainly didn't begrudge the man and his team for taking time to spend with their friend. But Anne wanted to show her team off. Hopefully, she'd get the chance, soon.

"Move out!" Anne ordered and they stepped forward.

"To infinity, and beyond!" yelled Mehra and dove into the puddle, muzzle first. Vega busted up and jumped in after her.

"Oh, boy," Porter muttered under her breath, but she was grinning.

Anne walked through last, her own grin a mile wide. Yep, she thought. Best team ever.