Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 68

Chapter 68 - Responsibilities

Standing in front of brig's metal bars and staring at the fidgeting elf inside, Eventus tried to think of something to say that wouldn't make him sound like an angry dad.

“How?” He finally got out, the sheer confusion in his voice likely not doing his wise Lantean reputation any good.

“We caught her on level eighteen.” General Landry admitted with a bemused shake of his head. “Given the uniform, we think she snuck through the gate during the rush.”

Okay, Eventus could see how she might have been able to slip through the gate given it was unlikely either side had someone counting soldiers, however one problem with that stood out.

“And nobody noticed the ears?” 

“She wore a hat.” Landry answered, sounding oddly amused at the fact.

“It was a beret.” Rayla tried to correct, causing a rare feeling of mortification to descend on Eventus.

“That's a type of hat, Rayla.” He corrected, letting out a tired sigh as the realization settled in that this was probably the universe's revenge on him for carelessly playing god after spending hundreds of years criticizing others for doing similar.

He turned to Landry and offered the General an apologetic smile. “I'm really sorry, I have absolutely no idea what made her decide to do this.”

“I overheard Doctor Kavanagh talking about how you were going off to fight a bunch of evil space wizards.” Rayla offered helpfully, and Eventus felt his eyebrow begin to twitch in annoyance as he'd heard the man complaining about the exact same thing more than once the past couple of days of everybody in the city rushing around to help get ready for the trip to Earth.

“But you promised you'd show me how to safely use my space magic.” Rayla continued oblivious to cringe on Eventus's face at the label. “And I didn't want you running off and dying since evil space wizards are a lot more dangerous than the evil space vampires you normally fight.”

General Landry looked like he was trying not to laugh, an emotion Eventus likely would have shared if this had been happening to anyone else but him.

“I don't suppose you can just send her back to Atlantis as a favor for me?” Eventus asked the General hopefully.

Landry shook his head. “I've been ordered to minimize ZPM usage, and opening an intergalactic wormhole to send a single person back to Atlantis would be pretty much the opposite of that.”

Eventus really wished he could argue that point, but with the Ori coming every little bit of energy in that ZPM had the potential to be important someday. Unfortunately that left him with the question of what to do with Rayla since he couldn't exactly drag her around with him.

And of course even if he could, there was the problem that doing so would basically be rewarding her for sneaking through the stargate, which everything he knew about reward structures suggested would be a generally bad idea.

Turning back to Rayla, Eventus stared disappointedly at the Elf for a moment before letting out a tired sigh. “Where did you get the uniform and hat from?”

“I borrowed them from Lieutenant Cadman’s room.” Rayla confessed. “We’re the same size…” She trailed off, looking down at her chest for a moment before grimacing slightly and correcting herself. “Mostly the same size.”

Having run into the petit Lieutenant in question on more than a few occasions,  Eventus felt a brief moment of sympathy for the Elf who was likely being pinched in several uncomfortable places right now.

“The question we’d like to know the answer to is what she was planning to do in Doctor Jackson's lab.” Landry put forward as he turned a moderately impressive glare on Rayla that had the Elf suddenly looking anywhere but at the man in a clear attempt to figure out some way to avoid answering the question.

“Well?” Eventus prodded after a moment, confused at how that of all things might involve something she didn’t want to admit too.

“He was the only person whose name I knew.” She finally muttered.

“And?” Eventus said, getting the distinct sense from the Elf’s semi-evasive tone that there was more to her reasoning than just that.

Pouting slightly at being caught, Rayla locked eyes with Eventus for a moment before letting out a defeated sigh. “I wanted to see all the ancient treasures he’s unearthed.” 

“We keep most of those at area fifty one.” Landry said drolly before turning back to Eventus. “So, what do you want us to do with her?”

It was nice that they weren't going full military authority on the issue and actually asking, but that also left him to be the bad guy in this given he couldn’t just wave it off without creating the impression that it was all right to do things like this.

“Can you hold her here overnight?” 

“Hey!” Rayla protested, jumping off the bench to glare at him. “That’s not fair!”

Eventus turned a glare to the Elf till she lowered herself back down. “You stole one of Lieutenant Cadman’s uniforms and used it to infiltrate a secure military facility on a world whose laws you didn’t have the slightest clue about. There are so many ways that could have gone badly for you that if I stopped to list them all I’d be here all night.”

Honestly given how much the soldiers of Stargate Command had been through she was lucky someone hadn’t shot her.

Rayla crossed her arms and slumped down. “None of the humans on Atlantis have a problem when I go places.” 

“They don’t let you go through the gate, do they?” Eventus pointed out in annoyance.

“No.” Rayla admitted sulkily. “But that’s because they go to planets where the Wraith might show up.”

That wasn’t even a moderately convincing argument given the tricky bit of infiltration Reyla had pulled off to get through the gate, which all but directly told Eventus that the Elf was reaching for excuses and probably just hadn’t stopped to consider what other people might think of her doing so outside of the obvious fact they would have said no.

“I’ll save you from digging the hole you’re in any deeper and just directly tell you I’m not changing my mind.” Eventus said. “So consider this a learning moment on the importance of having patience and doing your research.”

He paused as the realization hit of just what that might have sounded like to her before scowling slightly. “And no, that isn’t me telling you to get better at sneaking so next time you don’t get caught.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author’s Notes: Yeah… That’s probably not going to work… But hey, at least he tried. And as everyone knows, with teenagers trying is what matters.