Part 2
Evan can't sleep. His evening shift is long over, but even though he can't deny he's tired, he won't go to sleep. Eventually, he gets up, dresses and leaves his quarters.
It's a calm night. Barely anyone is still up. Colonel Carter has some important meeting with Sheppard's team, whatever that is about. And maybe they are just having a late dinner in the conference room. Because Lorne really doesn't know of anything especially dangerous going on right now. And as head of security, he should know.
First quite slowly, Evan starts to jog through the empty corridors. He soon quickens, and doesn't look back as he runs towards Atlantis' more unexplored, lower levels. You'd think you'd know your home when you've been living there for four years, Evan thinks, rushing past a few large windows with a great view over the ocean. But Atlantis is huge. Actually it's big enough for someone who isn't familiar with ancient technology, to get lost and to die of starvation, if it wasn't for the life signs detector. That thing has saved quite a few lives already. Not like there aren't enough other ways of dying here.
Loss is something every member of this expedition has to deal with. Whether it's friends, teammates, co-workers or just someone you see in the mess hall every now and then. It is there, a constant companion. One the Major would love to get rid of, but he knows there is no way around it. To be honest, he kind of gets used to it. It's been hard in the beginning, but now he's lost so many he can't really keep track of it.
The first people to die, while under his command, were a couple of Marines, that just had got involved with the Stargate Program and had been sent to backup the Expedition. He hadn't known them.
A few more died after that, and then The-Day-Major-Lorne-Doesn't-Talk-About happened. He lost two of his team members then. The fourth member of his team had soon become a Lieutenant, and ended up having a team of his own. Evan got three new teammates then, two of which were still alive, but it had never been the same. And if anything, he became more cautious, trying not to do the same mistakes again. And he didn't. Which didn't stop people from dying, though.
Some people said – usually when they were drunk, or angry, or both – that the higher ranking officers rather sacrificed several Marines' lives, than to let one of their 'own kind' die. Evan knew that wasn't true. The more important people were good enough to avoid death a bit longer than the other Expedition Members, but in the end they just had to face death like everyone else.
It had been Lieutenant Ford two years ago, and Dr. Beckett and Dr. Weir last year. Sheppard might insist that Aiden was still somewhere out there, but Evan doubted it. From what he had heard, Ford would have let them know if he had survived. After all, the whole Hive-thing had been away to get back to them, hadn't it? He wasn't going to tell that the Colonel though. The man had enough on his mind without someone squashing his hopes of Aiden's return.
Minutes, maybe even hours passed – Lorne wasn't so sure, and he'd forgotten to put his watch back on – as he kept jogging, thinking, and not noticing that he wasn't the only one in the dark corridor until he nearly bumped into them.
Evan came to a sudden halt, when he spotted the two dark figures, just one or two meters away from him. He stared. Saying nothing, they stared back. It didn't take Evan long to figure out they didn't belong to the Expedition. Because even though the clothes they wore seemed like usual earth-clothes, every member of the Expedition was supposed to wear their uniform, or at least the standard gray and blue things they got, at all times. No exceptions, save a trip to the mainland or an undercover mission, maybe.
But this couldn't be true. This couldn't be happening. Because there was simply no way the two of them could have reached the city just like that, especially without the alarm going of. If they were using a space ship it would have been detected. Or maybe it had, but Carter had forgotten to warn him? That happened, at least sometimes.
Automatically, Lorne's hand reaches for his comm, just to realize it isn't there. Of course not. He had left it lying on the nightstand in his quarters. Which leaves him with exactly nothing to defend himself against the two intruders. And surely, they must have realized that by now as well. So why aren't they doing anything?
“Hello there”, one of them says and puts forth his hand. Evan just remains staring at him, so the man pulls his hand back again, a sudden smile on his face that does nothing but confuse the major even more.
“This is Martha Jones”, the man goes on. “And I'm the Doctor.”
