Hi everyone! Well I'm back sooner than I thought with a sequel. I did have two planned, but I've discarded one that was set a few months after 'To Save A Child' because I wasn't happy with it. This one on the other hand I've had great fun writing and I really hope you like it.

This one is set in 2013, so it's been about six years since the events of 'To Save A Child', I really do recommend that you read that one before this one, as everything will make a lot more sense that way. It's a bit of a slow starter; the real action doesn't start until chapter 5/6, but there's plenty of fun until then, which I think you'll enjoy!

What else do I need to say? Oh, there's an element of Sparky in the story of course, and I've written the first twelve chapters, and there are probably another four or five left to go, but I'm not entirely sure. I'm not going to be updating as regualrly as I did last time, maybe only once a week, because the chapters are longer anyway.

Finally, there are minor spoilers for season three, with the exception of the episode Vengence, for that one there are major spoilers, but I think that's airing in the US before too long so hopefully that won't put you off. And the events that I've described as having happened in the six years since 'To Save A Child' are completely my own invention, so there are no plot spoilers for season four, or any other future seasons.

Wow, that's a ramble to start you off, hopefully you're still reading. Last thing is, of course, that none of them are mine, I'm not making any money, etc, etc.

So ::takes a deep breath:: without furthur ado, here's chapter one of 'The Ones You Love'.

Please let me know what you think!

‘Dad?’

John looked up to see Katrin enter his room a half smile on her face.

‘Nope,’ he said before looking back at his magazine and casually flicking through the pages.

‘I haven’t even asked anything yet,’ she whined, stopping in her tracks. The doors slid shut behind her.

‘When you call me Dad, and especially when you say it in that tone,’ he added pointing at her, ‘I know the answer to my question will be no.’

‘I resent that comment,’ she replied in mock indignation before grinning and going to sit on the end of his bed.

‘Resent it all you like Kiddo,’ he smiled.

‘You know; technically you’re wrong anyway; I call you Dad just because you are sometimes. Like when I had to break the news to you that Rodney had broken his leg.’

‘You’re the one who tripped him up,’ John answered, rolling his eyes.

‘That’s not the point,’ she told him, ‘Anyway, don’t you like me calling you Dad?’ At this John sat forward and chucked the magazine on the floor.

‘‘Trin, you know I love it when you call me Dad, but you only do it when you know I’m not going to like what you’ve got to say. That’s emotional blackmail by the way,’ John told her sitting back again.

‘You use emotional blackmail all the time,’ she argued.

‘When?’

‘On Elizabeth.’

‘No I don’t.’

‘You do, you say her name in that soft little way and stare at her really intensely.’

John paused, he couldn’t argue with that, he’d done exactly the same thing this morning when trying to convince her to let him and Rodney take a jumper that hadn’t quite been repaired, through the Star’Gate to test its newly installed hyperspace function.

‘Okay maybe that’s true…but it never works.’

‘I know,’ Katrin laughed, ‘but you can’t deprive me of my emotional blackmail until you’ve given up your own. And speaking of you and Elizabeth.’

‘Katrin,’ John said warningly; over the past few months Katrin had been trying to play matchmaker between the two of them, despite both him and Elizabeth telling her not to. But what made it harder was the fact that everything within him wanted to give in to her matchmaking attempts. But he knew that he couldn’t.

‘Oh come on,’ Katrin said, ‘it’s so obvious, even the staff talk about it.’

‘Katrin,’ John repeated a little more forcefully, but she didn’t listen; he didn’t have to wonder too much about where she got that character trait from.

‘If you and Elizabeth get together, you could both officially adopt me and we could all live happily ever after. You know, at the moment I’m the child of a broken home; do you know what effects that could have on my emotional and psychological development?’ At this John couldn’t help but laugh.

‘Okay, you’ve been spending way too much time with Doctor Heightmeyer.’

‘But-’

‘No Katrin, case closed,’ he finished in a tone that didn’t invite argument. Katrin sighed and shook her head, but replied,

‘Fine, have it your way…for now,’ she added slyly.

‘Good, now what did you want to ask?’

‘You said you’d only say no.’

‘You should still ask the question.’

‘I was just wondering if I would be allowed to go off world with Aylia and her family tomorrow; they’re going to a market and it would only be for an hour or so.’ But John was already shaking his head, Katrin scowled, ‘You never let me go off base on my own.’

‘Well ‘Trin, you don’t have the greatest track record,’ John replied apologetically. She really did seem to attract trouble, more so than he did. There had of course been the incident on Calos, but since then she had managed to break her arm on a day off with John, lock herself in an Ancient cave system when on a dig with Rodney and on the last planet she’d gone to had got herself banned from entering the village because she’d fallen into one of their sacred shines; well technically John had given her a shove not realising she was off balance, but no amount of explaining that to the villagers had deterred them from punishing Katrin. He had been in a lot of trouble with Elizabeth after that incident and Katrin had refused to talk to him for a week.

‘None of those were my fault,’ she retorted.

‘We just want to keep you safe,’ he told her.

‘John-’

‘See, you’ve switched back to John,’ he interrupted. She glared at him.

‘Dad,’ she said sarcastically, ‘I’m thirteen years old; I should be allowed to do these things.’

‘I’m forty two and I’m not allowed to go off world unless Elizabeth says,’ he answered with a grin, trying to get her to smile; it didn’t work.

‘At least you can go off world, and besides that’s not true; you’re Military Commander, you pretty much decide when you go off world,’ she argued. ‘What if Elizabeth says yes?’ Katrin asked suddenly, her voice softening.

‘She won’t,’ John replied.

‘What if she does?’ John shrugged. Katrin sighed in frustration, ‘I’m going to go and talk to her.’

‘Okay,’ John told her, ‘You can give it a go.’

‘I will,’ she replied, getting up and heading towards the door. John shook his head and watched her go, he felt that she was definitely arriving at her troublesome teenage years and he wasn’t sure he was looking forward to arguing with her everyday. The door was just sliding shut, when he called to her,

‘‘Trin, I’ll come and grab you for tea in an hour or so.’

‘I’m having dinner with Torlin,’ she shouted back, not bothering to walk back to the door. John stopped in shock at the news. Torlin was one of the refuges that had come from the sparsely populated planet of Eldorn. He had been living on Atlantis for the past four months, but Katrin helped out in one of the classes set up for the refugee children and had always spoken about Torlin with the utmost contempt.

He would have to talk to Elizabeth about it; Katrin was only thirteen after all. He leant over to retrieve his magazine, but barely read the words when he opened it; why was Katrin going to dinner with that boy? John shook his head and tried to ignore the question; Elizabeth would sort it out.

‘Hey Sweetheart, you all set for your date?’

‘It’s not a date,’ Katrin retorted.

‘If you say so.’

‘I do, I don’t even like him; he drives me mad.’

‘Then why are you having dinner with him?’

‘I’m giving him extra lessons.’

‘Over a romantic meal,’ Elizabeth teased.

‘It’s the mess hall,’ Katrin said disdainfully. ‘You think the mess hall is romantic?’

‘Of course,’ she answered with a smile, knowing that she’d have to stop teasing Katrin before too long, but the fact of the matter was that Katrin had mentioned the meal every time she’d seen Elizabeth for the last week; it was kind of sweet really, although she wasn’t sure what John would make of it.

‘Well I suppose that would explain it…’ Katrin said, tailing off with a conspiratorial smile on her face. Elizabeth raised her eyebrows.

‘What would that explain?’

‘Well you think the mess hall is romantic and who do you eat meals with nearly everyday…’

‘Katrin, we’ve talked about this before,’ Elizabeth said, suppressing a sigh.

‘Hey, you’re teasing me, why can’t I do the same?’

‘Fair enough, I’ll stop, but I mean it Katrin, no more comments about John and I,’ Elizabeth told her sternly. Katrin looked sheepish, but muttered an apology before smiling back up at her.

‘Well if that topic’s been disallowed I can think of another and it involves Aylia’s family’s trip off world tomorrow,’ Katrin said in a rush, a hopeful smile on her face. Elizabeth looked at her sympathetically; Katrin went through phases when she desperately wanted to get off Atlantis, but Elizabeth was always reluctant to give her permission, a reluctance that was only increased because John felt the same way.

‘Katrin-’

‘I know you don’t like it when I go off world, but I haven’t been for ages and it’s a trip to a market.’

‘Katrin, the last few times have been disastrous,’ Elizabeth told her gently.

‘I know, but think about it, it’s gone wrong so many times before that the odds are this time it will go smoothly,’ Katrin pleaded.

‘I’m sorry Sweetheart,’ Elizabeth said shaking her head.

‘Elizabeth, please, it’s a safe planet; Rodney checked it for me, and it’s only for a few hours in the afternoon and it’s a school rest day. Everybody else is busy anyway; you and Teyla have got that big meeting and John’s team are going off world and I’ve done all my work, I’ve even done next week’s work for Rodney.’ Elizabeth gave her a confused frown, ‘I can hack into his files,’ she explained.

‘Katrin, you shouldn’t-’ Elizabeth began.

‘He taught me to do it in the first place; it’s his fault for underestimating my hacking skills when it came to his computer. Anyway, the point is I’ve got nothing to do and me and Aylia are getting on so well at the moment.’

‘Is this the Aylia, who convinced you it would be funny to trigger a lockdown in the living quarters?’ Elizabeth asked.

‘That was ages ago,’ Katrin argued.

‘Still, I’m not entirely sure that she brings out the best in you.’

‘I promised you and John that I wouldn’t do anything like that again and Aylia was really sorry, besides, her dad was so angry that I don’t think she’ll do anything that would make him mad anymore.’ She paused and looked up at Elizabeth, ‘Please Elizabeth, I know you get worried, but I’ll be fine and it’s only a short trip, I’ll be back before your meeting finishes. I would really love to go.’

Elizabeth looked at her and gave a sigh; she always worried about Katrin if she went off world, but a part of her knew that she was being over protective and she didn’t want to be that sort of parent. It was just that letting Katrin go off world was not the same as letting your daughter go to the park back on Earth; for one thing the Wraith or any assortment of Michael’s Superbugs, as John had so fondly named them, weren’t likely to turn up and try and kill everyone in a park. She looked again at Katrin’s pleading face and nodded her head.

‘I’ll speak to John,’ she said after a moment.

‘Yes!’ Katrin said, giving her a hug, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’

‘That’s not a yes,’ Elizabeth told her seriously.

‘I know,’ Katrin assured her, but the grin remained plastered on her face. She gave Elizabeth another hug and then headed for the office door. ‘I’m going to go and get ready for tea.’

‘Ah yes,’ Elizabeth said with a smile, ‘Enjoy your date.’

‘It’s not a date,’ she called back, but she was still smiling. ‘And if it is, that makes yours and John’s meal a date as well,’ she added turning round, before disappearing without giving Elizabeth chance to respond. Elizabeth shook her head and smiled to herself; what was she going to do with that girl? But the truth of the matter was she wouldn’t be without her.

Half an hour later Elizabeth filed all her papers away and headed for John’s quarters. Normally the three of them had tea together; she and John had decided early on that they wanted to spend time with her on their own each day where possible, but if Katrin was eating with Torlin, then it would just be her and John and while Elizabeth suspected that she should probably cancel, a part of her, as always, would not let that happen. Rumours about her and John had increased recently and while they had done nothing to start them, she didn’t want to encourage them by sharing a ‘romantic’ meal in the mess hall with him. Still five minutes later she found herself at his door.

‘Yep,’ he called as she knocked. She swiped open the door and was greeted by John’s grinning face. ‘Elizabeth; just the person I was waiting for.’

‘You’re hungry already?’

‘Nope, just bored. Did you know Katrin’s having tea with that Torlin kid tonight?’ he asked, with an unimpressed expression on his face.

‘Yes,’ Elizabeth replied with a smile. John looked at her in shock.

‘And you said she could? Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘She’s just giving him extra lessons. You should be pleased John, she’s so clever, even Rodney’s impressed,’ Elizabeth told him gently and it was true. Katrin had excelled in all her lessons, particularly in science and maths; in fact Elizabeth was beginning to think that she had the makings of a genius. The problem was that the teachers they had in the city weren’t really qualified to teach at higher academic levels. Since Atlantis had begun taking on refugees they had brought teachers from earth to teach the children the basics, but many of the parents had been so pleased and the children enjoyed it so much that a complete schooling system had been introduced six months earlier.

Of course Katrin had been taught for six years now and so beat the other children hands down, in a way it made perfect sense that she would offer to tutor some of the children outside of classes.

‘I don’t like him though, and he doesn’t strike me as the type who’d want to be learning for longer than he needs to be.’

‘You don’t even know him,’ Elizabeth replied. John shrugged and pulled his shoes on before standing up. They walked down to the hall in comfortable silence and Elizabeth decided she would broach the subject of Katrin’s off world trip.

‘Katrin came to see me earlier,’ she started.

‘About going with Aylia’s family tomorrow? I told her you’d say no, but she insisted on giving it a go.’ Elizabeth didn’t reply and gave a half smile to John when he turned to look at her. ‘Oh no, please tell me you didn’t say yes.’

‘No, I didn’t. I said I’d talk to you.’

‘You want to let her go?’ he asked incredulously

‘Not really, but she’s been stuck on base for months now John and she’s getting bored.’

‘Elizabeth, she gets into more trouble off world than I do and there won’t be any teams with them tomorrow to haul her out again.’

‘I know, but all the other children get to go off world and we can be a bit too cautious sometimes.’

‘You’re telling me to be less cautious?’ John asked her teasingly. She shrugged.

‘I just think she needs time to be herself, on her own,’ Elizabeth answered looking over at him. John sighed,

‘I agree, I do, but I just worry about what trouble she’ll get herself into every time she steps through the ‘‘Gate,’ John replied gently.

‘I know, I do to, but I think maybe we should give her a bit more freedom.’ She stopped and looked at him as they reached the mess hall waiting for his answer, if he decided against it then she wouldn’t let Katrin go, that was how they had always dealt with bringing her up; they had to agree, and while part of her wished that he would disallow it, the bigger part knew that Katrin had to be allowed to do things on her own. She was, for the most part, quite sensible and mature and she needed to be treated as such. John gave a sigh.

‘Okay, but if I get back and she’s in the infirmary, she’s not allowed off base for a year.’ Elizabeth opened her mouth to argue, but John shook his head, ‘A year,’ he repeated. Elizabeth laughed and nodded and they walked into the mess hall. She grabbed a tray and picked up a meal and a drink, before following John to an empty table; it was still quite early and Elizabeth suspected the hall would fill up quite rapidly before long. Of course now there were five halls spread throughout the city, but this one was the closest to the control room and science labs and so was usually the busiest. It was also the only one that remained open all the time, the others being open solely at meal times.

They ate their food and talked happily about Atlantis, remembering what the city had been like when they first arrived. So much had changed it had been restored to its former glory in Elizabeth’s opinion. All of the city had been excavated and opened now and not only were her expedition team living here, an expedition team that was much larger than it had been nine years ago, but now there were also over fifteen hundred refugees living there too.

She couldn’t pin point when everything had started changing, of course the fact that they had procured, or technically stolen, a number of ZPMs from the Asurans had helped and the fact that the Asurans themselves had been destroyed, but it was more than that.

Their war against the Wraith and Michael’s Superbug soldiers had intensified and as such so had their fame in the Pegasus galaxy. Now people looked to them as the beacon of hope, and Elizabeth only hoped they could live up to those expectations.

Of course it hadn’t been easy; they had lost huge numbers of friends and worthy soldiers; in fact of the military very few of the original team were still alive. When the Wraith had made their desperate attempt to attack earth five and a half years ago Atlantis had lost huge numbers of men, as the Daedalus and the Odessey attempted to intercept the hives, and the 302s were sent out on what could only be described as suicide missions. But they had stopped them, they had managed to destroy fifteen hives, but they had lost the Daedalus and all its crew, Caldwell and Zelenka, who had been helping with repairs, included, and only a handful of 302s out of the hundred or so they had sent managed to make it back to the Odessey; it had been horrific and to this day John, apart from his official report, hadn’t said a word about it to her, to anyone, and that was testament to just how awful it had been.

Then less than a year after that they had delivered another devastating blow to the Wraith, perfecting a biological weapon that killed thousands of them when released on their ships; it had taken the Wraith three months to develop a vaccine by which time huge numbers had been killed. Nobody knew exactly how many, but Rodney’s estimates were about a quarter of the population and for a while the effects had been easily perceived. There were less cullings and more people willing to join the Atlantis team in their fight against the Wraith. And then had come Michael’s Superbugs.

They had been too preoccupied with the Wraith to give enough attention to Michael and he had taken advantage of the distraction. Elizabeth could still remember when John had given her the news. His team had just got back from an off world mission, coming in under fire and injured, but John had pushed past the medical teams that were waiting and walked straight up to her as she was coming out of her office. She had known from the look on his face that whatever news he had would be terrible, but she still hadn’t expected it. They had discovered one of Michael’s many bases and initial statistics had shown that there were at least twenty thousand Superbugs waiting throughout the galaxy. Michael had gained a group of followers and they had worked to create an army. The news had sent shock waves through her leadership team and preparations for a battle that they were sure would ensue had been hastily made. Troops were sent through from earth, while Rodney and his team brought all the weapons that Atlantis had online, spending hours of everyday under control panels, while John trained up a hundred men to control the city guns.

It had been an awful time and Elizabeth had been convinced, more than once that they would never make it and then before she knew it information was coming in about an army amassing at the other end of the solar system, the soldiers who reported it only just managing to get the information through before being captured and killed.

John had wasted no time in organising a pre-emptive strike that had surprised Michael’s army, and managed to deplete it somewhat, before they were forced to retreat. And then the siege; Elizabeth had never known anything like it. She and John had wanted to send Katrin through the Star’Gate, back to Earth, just while the siege lasted, but somehow all ‘‘Gate activity had been shut down when the army arrived in orbit around the planet early; they still didn’t know how Michael had managed to render their Star’Gate useless or even whether it had just been some terrible coincidence, but whatever the reason, the ‘Gate would not dial to allow Katrin to be sent back to Earth while Atlantis came under attack.

It had been terrifying. Hundreds of Michael’s Superbug ships had descended on Atlantis, and reinforcements seemed to arrive from nowhere, swarming around Atlantis in droves. The shield held for the most part, but in one section of the city it had failed momentarily; this had provided enough time for at least fifty ships, each carrying twenty Superbugs, to land on one of the piers. Elizabeth still had nightmares about it now. She remembered ordering all none military personnel to retreat to the other side of the city, but many had not made it in time. John one the other hand, along with all his troops had rushed to defend the city, but the Superbugs had spread out quickly and tracking them down became a death trap.

Katrin had been with her; she had only been nine at the time and she would not leave Elizabeth to go with anyone else and then three of the Superbugs had broken through to the control room. Elizabeth still couldn’t bear to remember how close she had come to losing Katrin at that point. Two of the bugs were brought down by the soldiers guarding the ‘Gate, but the third had jumped up to the control room, flung Elizabeth to one side and attacked Katrin, who had been frozen with fear. It hadn’t taken long for soldiers to take the bug out, but by that time its claws had dug deep into Katrin’s body; there had been blood everywhere and Elizabeth had rushed over to her in terror, thinking for a moment that she had been killed.

But she hadn’t been and one of the soldiers had rushed her to an already full infirmary; Katrin still had the scars from that encounter. Elizabeth, meanwhile, had tried to find out what was going on everywhere else in the city. Hundreds of John’s men were dead, but many more of the bugs had been killed, and within two days all of them had been tracked down and destroyed while the attack outside the city continued. It was only with the arrival of the Icarus, Atlantis’ replacement for the Daedalus, that they managed to gain the upper hand and after a week of bloodshed and fighting, the final few ships retreated, only to be pursued and shot down by the Icarus.

It had been their worst experience and battle on Atlantis yet, and the number of lives lost was horrific. John had been injured and was in the infirmary for a month, while Teyla’s injuries had been grave. Her right leg had been almost completely destroyed and only through the skills of the medical team had they managed to reconstruct it sufficiently, but it hadn’t completely healed and Teyla had never been on active duty since. She had struggled with that immensely at first and only through the support of John and his team had she managed to come to terms with it. Now she was in charge of organising and co-ordinating all the refugees who had taken up permanent residence in Atlantis.

The battle with the Superbugs changed everything on Atlantis and Elizabeth had been unsure as to whether they could make it through and they probably wouldn’t have had it not been for a mistake Michael made a few months later.

It seemed that simple Wraith arrogance had been his downfall. He had made the mistake of taking on, with his own army, a group of Wraith hives, who had control of a planet that was full of resources he needed for his own Superbug creations. He had won the battle but the rest of the Wraith, fearful at the power Michael was gaining, had banded together, and so instead of attacking Atlantis, the two armies attacked each other and the battle had been raging, on and off, for the last two and a half years. At the moment reports said it had died down, but the chances were it would flare back up in a month or so, just as it had done ever since it started.

If it hadn’t been for that, if Michael had regrouped his army and attacked Atlantis or if the Wraith had decided to do the same, there was not a doubt in Elizabeth’s mind that the city and all its inhabitants would have been destroyed. As it was they had had time to repair and recover and were now more ready than ever for attack, while the Wraith and the Superbugs slowly destroyed each other.

The lull in attack had also given them the opportunity to find safe planets and set up farms and industry which provided them with enough food to feed the city and once they had managed to set up at least partial self sufficiency they had begun to accept refugees. That had been a year ago and had taken a lot of setting up, but with Teyla running that side of things and with everybody being assigned different jobs the city seemed to work cohesively for the most part. From the initial one hundred or so expedition team members the numbers in the city had grown to just under three thousand and Elizabeth still couldn’t quite believe it.

‘Elizabeth?’ She looked up to see John staring at her in concern. ‘You okay?’

‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘just thinking.’

‘You shouldn’t think so much, what’s done is done, for now everything’s going well,’ he told her, she smiled; he always knew what she was thinking, just as she always knew what he was thinking.

‘Just take it a day at a time?’ she asked him gently.

‘Well you can only live one day at a time,’ he pointed out, finishing off his drink. Elizabeth nodded and began to say something else, but John’s eyes had fixed to a point on the other side of the door. Elizabeth followed his gaze and saw Katrin walking in with Torlin, study books under both their arms. Torlin was about the same height as Katrin and had light coloured hair; his clothes were the traditional ones from his home planet; all the refugees were offered clothing when they arrived, but most refused them at first, however before long they had to accept the supplies that Earth offered, even Torlin’s clothes were beginning to look slightly worn. It was, however, easy to see that Katrin had made some effort with what she was wearing; her hair was half tied back, while the rest ringletted down and, much to Elizabeth’s surprise, she was wearing a skirt and top.

John looked back at Elizabeth, clearly unimpressed.

‘A skirt?’ he said in disbelief.

‘Well she’s a girl,’ Elizabeth pointed out.

‘She never wears skirts.’

‘Yes she does, Teyla and Sam bring her back clothes from Earth all the time and she asked for skirts last time.’ Colonel Carter had been on Atlantis for the past six years, in fact she had arrived only nine or ten months after Katrin had, and the two of them had always gotten on well, partly because of their mutual love of winding Rodney up, but also because Sam was someone who understood what Katrin had gone through because of the connections she had had to Cassandra Fraiser all those years ago.

‘Maybe I should go over there,’ John suggested after a moment, as Katrin and Torlin sat down at a table on the other side of the room. Katrin still hadn’t seen them and Elizabeth had a feeling that it was because her focus was on Torlin.

‘No, John,’ Elizabeth told him firmly, ‘leave her alone, she’s fine.’

‘She’s thirteen.’

‘So is Torlin,’ Elizabeth argued, ‘Let her enjoy her meal.’ But John was already on his feet.

‘I’ll just go and tell her that she can go with Aylia tomorrow.’

‘You can tell her that later,’ Elizabeth protested, but John was already heading over to the table. Elizabeth rolled her eyes and watched him walk over to the two of them. There was no doubt that John played the part of over-protective father when he wanted to; Katrin was not going to be impressed.