Author: Lin
Recipient: cgb
Rating: PG
Fandoms: Stargate: Atlantis/Star Trek: Voyager
Summary: "Doctor Weir? Kathryn Janeway." She said, stepping forward and stretching out her hand to Weir. "It's wonderful to meet you."
Kathryn Janeway wakes before dawn as the body curled against her back shifts and rolls over. Too many years sleeping alone and she has lost the ability to sleep through the tossings and turnings of a partner. The truth is, she has always preferred having a bed to herself.
She slides from under the sheets delicately, moving around the room gathering clothing, boots, comm. badge, and slips into the bathroom to dress. Less than five minutes later she opens the door, checks for passers-by, and heads down the hallway towards her guest quarters.
Elizabeth Weir wakes alone, to the sound of the door to her quarters clicking shut. She thinks of following Janeway. Imagines catching up to her in the hallway and demanding they spend the whole night together, if only so Weir can try to convince herself that what they have done is not cheap or meaningless.
She imagines these things until she knows Janeway is too far away to catch up to, then she rolls over to try to go back to sleep.
Janeway was leaning against the railing, gazing down at the water when Weir found her. She raised her head and gave Weir a wan smile.
"You were right about this spot. It is peaceful. Relaxing."
The breeze ruffled Weir's hair as she settled herself on the ground beside Janeway. "Ready to go home tomorrow?"
"I'm closer to home now than I've been in years, just a few centuries too early."
"The offer to stay is still open, Kathryn." Weir laid her hand on Janeway's arm and squeezed lightly until Janeway turned to look her in the eye. "You and your crew would be an asset to Atlantis."
"I appreciate that. We all do. But what are we to do? Spend the rest of our lives here, terrified to do anything that might alter the timeline? Admit that I'll never see my mother or my sister again, and that Naomi Wildman will never meet her father?" Janeway shook her head resolutely. "I won't do that to my crew."
"I understand."
The silence that followed was not uncomfortable. Weir watched as a lock of Janeway's hair slipped into her eyes, and fiought the urge to brush it away. Instead she simply sat back against the railings and enjoyed the view.
Janeway broke the silence with a yawn she tried desperately to stifle. "You need to get some sleep. You look exhausted." Elizabeth said.
"I haven't been sleeping well." Janeway rubbed her eyes, then slid her fingers around to massage her temples. "I guess I'm nervous about tomorrow."
Weir paused a moment, then made a decision and rose, holding out her hand to help Janeway stand up. Janeway took it, and did not release it when she was on her feet.
Weir dropped Janeway's hand and moved to the door, turning and watching for Janeway to follow.
"Come with me."
Janeway sat back in her chair and sipped the Antarian cider she had replicated for the occasion. One glass less and she would have been too proud to even consider the question she found herself about to ask.
"How did you do it, Elizabeth?"
Weir tilted her head curiously. "How did I do what?"
"How did you build the relationships you have with your people without undermining your authority?" Janeway leaned forward, putting down her glass and folding her hands on the table in front of her. "You socialise with of them off-duty. Your entire senior staff calls you by your first name, for crying out loud, and that's even when you're on duty!"
The smile Weir gave her in return was amused, but not unkind. "You want to know how I maintain discipline and allow them to see me as a regular woman at the same time?"
"Believe me, Elizabeth, there is nothing 'regular' about you." Janeway's eyes had grown a shade darker than before, and her gaze was intense. It was important that Weir not misunderstand. "And I can't imagine that anybody who meets you has trouble remembering you're a woman."
Weir's cheeks flushed slightly as she looked down at her plate with great concentration, but when she raised her head a moment later there was a confident smile on her lips. Janeway spent several seconds just looking at her, then continued as if the moment had never existed.
"But yes, that's essentially what I'm asking. When you spend an evening relaxing with your people, don't you worry that they won't -"
"Respect me in the morning?" Weir asked.
"If that's the way you want to put it."
Weir steepled her fingers in front of her on the table. "No."
"Just 'no'? It's as simple as that?" Janeway was incredulous.
"Of course it's as simple as that. I trust my team, and I know that they repect my authority. I don't spend time worrying about it. You shouldn't either."
Janeway narrowed her eyes. "And this you've gathered from four days in our presence?"
"No, I figured it out after about five minutes in your presence. It just took four days for you to ask me the right question." Weir raised her glass and sipped, watching Janeway over the rim. "You're not the leader because you're the one with the highest rank, Kathryn. You're the leader because your crew respect and trust you. Perhaps you should give them the opportunity to prove it to you."
"But there's no turning back from it." Janeway's discomfort with the idea was plain on her face. "I can't dabble in personal relationships like some kind of anthropological experiment, and then go back to how things were before when it doesn't work out."
Weir raised an eyebrow. "So don't go into it with the escape hatch open. You're a strong, compelling woman, Kathryn. Make the decision, and then make it work."
The two looked across the table at each other with serious expressions for a long moment. Weir was the first to dissolve into giggles and Janeway's relief was clear as she joined in the laughter.
"Was that a demonstration of your command style?" Janeway asked. "Because that was pretty impressive. I have to admit, I almost wanted to salute you."
"I didn't sound stupid?" Weir grinned triumphantly as Janeway shook her head. "I'm trying to be more dominant."
Janeway's smile in response was predatory. "I can help you work on that."
Several meters from the wooden platform, Weir rolled onto her back and began to float. Janeway maintained her lazy breaststroke and pulled herself up to sit on the platform and watch Weir drift towards her.
"Oceans on the holodeck feel real when you're in them, but they really do pale in comparison to the real thing."
Weir took hold of the platform with one hand as she floated, and smiled at Janeway above her. "I really wouldn't know."
"I don't suppose you would," Janeway said. "I would offer to show you one of my holodeck programs, but the fact that I've even told you they exist is probably a sufficient violation of the Prime Directive for one day."
Weir shaded her eyes and said nothing. Her urge to know everything Janeway had to tell about the future was too strong to talk around. Weir almost had to physically bite her tongue to stop herself from asking yet again how Janeway knew who she was before they were introduced, and so instead she changed the subject entirely.
"Your crew seem to be enjoying the sun." Weir pointed across the water to another platform, where Tom Paris and Harry Kim could be seen diving and swimming with Ford and Sheppard.
"They would be just as happy if it was raining, I imagine." Janeway said, shrugging lightly, and then lying back on the wooden boards. "It's a wonderful change of pace just to have weather. I've missed the sun."
She stretched luxuriantly, and propped herself up on her elbow to watch as John Sheppard called a greeting from the far platform and Weir grinned and waved back. "Go and swim with them if you like, Elizabeth. Don't feel like you have to babysit me."
"Wouldn't you like to come?" Weir asked. Janeway looks as though she was seriously considering it for a moment, but then her eyes shuttered and she shook her head.
"I'll stay here, and soak up the sun. You enjoy yourself with your crew." Janeway's tone commanded no argument, and Weir pictured junior officers cowering in fear.
"Okay." Weir turned and begins to swim away from the platform, but at the last minute stopped and treaded water, calling backwards. "Kathryn! Join me for dinner later?"
Janeway nodded silently, and Weir swam away.
The room was already in uproar when Weir arrived. Rodney McKay was standing toe to toe with Voyager's Chief Engineer, B'Elanna Torres, who was clenching and unclenching her fists rhythmically. Weir could only assume Torres was reining in the desire to punch McKay in the face. She's familiar with the feeling.
"Alright! Let's have some kind of order to this meeting, shall we?" Weir shouted. It gained her the attention of Sheppard, Janeway, and virtually nobody else. She looked at Sheppard, and he turned to the rest of the room.
"Okay everybody! SHUT UP!"
"That's better," Weir said. "Thank you, John. Now, why don't we try this with only two or three of us speaking at once?"
Unsurprisingly, McKay was the first to offer his opinion. "Elizabeth, their plan is absurd! They want me to create a wormhole that isn't attached to the Stargate."
"Actually," Torres jumped in. "We want to create a wormhole. I don't remember asking for your help."
"B'Elanna..." Janeway warned.
"Okay, I'm sorry." Torres conceded. "But he's wrong. It's not absurd. We created the wormhole that brought us here, remember?"
"And where - or should I say when - was it you were trying to go, again?" McKay sneered, until he caught a glimpse of the look on Weir's face and softened his tone. "You can't direct a wormhole's course without dialing a Stargate. It isn't going to work."
"All we need to do is refine the calculations. We went wrong somewhere, but we can fix it. Dr McKay, we're simply asking for your expert help." Janeway was calm, confident, and expertly manipulative. "If you don't feel up to the task, obviously we'll understand. Our technology is centuries more advanced than yours, after all."
"How dare you suggest -" Weir interrupted before McKay could lauch into full-throated outrage.
"So that's settled then. Rodney, you'll work with Lieutenant Torres and the team from Voyager and report to me when you have a plan. Anything else to discuss?"
"Nothing pressing," Janeway replied. "Let's get to work on getting us back on course."
"There's something I don't understand about you, Dr Weir."
"Elizabeth, please." Weir interrupted, reaching to refill Janeway's coffee cup on the desk between them. "Most of my senior staff don't even call me 'Doctor', a guest certainly needn't bother with formality."
Janeway smiled. "Make that two things I don't understand." She drew the cup towards her, savouring the smell rising with the steam.
"I'm an enigma," Weir said, playfully. "Shall we start with the first thing, Captain, and move on from there?"
Janeway hesitated for a moment. "I suppose you had better call me Kathryn, if I'm going to call you Elizabeth."
"You don't sound very sure about that, Kathryn." Weir said, observing Janeway's discomfort.
"I don't go by my first name much on Voyager, I tend to stick to 'Captain'." Janeway picked up her cup and sipped, then placed it back on the table and fidgeted with the handle. "Let's leave it at that, shall we?"
"Of course."
Weir was in her office when news of the senor readings first made its way to her. An anomaly, McKay explained, roughly a light year away. It looked like it might be a wormhole, but it wasn't connected to a Stargate.
"A naturally occurring wormhole?" Weir stood and moved around her desk to look over McKay's shoulder at the data on his PDA. "Can you tell me where it's coming from?"
McKay shook his head impatiently and opened his mouth to reply. Weir raised her hand to cut him off before he could wade hip-deep into his explanation. "The short version, Rodney."
McKay sighed. "No. I can't tell you where it originates. At least not through any scientific method of investigation."
"Our other option being...?"
"I was thinking about asking the people on the ship that just flew out of it."
"Rodney!" Weir's raised her voice in exasperation. "I thought we'd discussed keeping the important information until last, and how you weren't going to do that anymore."
"But I so enjoy the drama of a climactic revelation." McKay replied.
"We'll discuss this later, Rodney. Where's the ship?"
A lieutenant at a nearby workstation replied before McKay could. "We're receiving a communication, Dr Weir. I think it's coming from the ship."
"Put it on loudspeaker, Lieutenant."
The speakers crackled for a moment before a voice become clear. "This is Captain Kathryn Janeway, of the Federation Starship Voyager, hailing the city below."
Weir moved to the station and replied. "Captain Janeway, this is Dr Weir, of Atlantis. What can we do for you?"
Elizabeth noticed a slight hesitation before Janeway's reply, and when she did speak her voice gave away her surprise. "Dr Elizabeth Weir? From the Stargate Project?"
"That's right. What do you know about the Stargate Project?"
"I'd like to visit your city and talk with you in person, Doctor. If you'll allow us, we can beam there directly."
"We?"
"Myself and a small security team."
Elizabeth gestured to the marines scattered around the room to ready their weapons. "Very well, Captain. Go ahead."
Several minutes later the air in the center of the room began to shimmer, not unlike the effect of an Asgard transport beam, and four figures began to appear. At the center of them was a petite woman with striking blue eyes and auburn hair, dressed in a red and black uniform. She immediately strode across the room to where Weir and McKay stood.
"Doctor Weir? Kathryn Janeway." She said, stepping forward and stretching out her hand to Weir. "It's wonderful to meet you."