Laura Weir put her head in the door, looking and sounding distracted. “Just one more moment, Elizabeth. I can’t find my pins...” Her voice faded as she disappeared down the hall.

“Couldn’t you have discovered this before you made me get undressed?” Elizabeth called indignantly.

No reply.

She sighed and absently rubbed at her bare arms, wondering why she let her mother talk her into these things. It didn’t take a lot of thought to conclude it was because she was a pushover. Back on Atlantis John had always been able to talk her into things when she should have known better and now that she was back on Earth her mum had taken up the job. Which was why she now found herself standing in her mother’s living room dressed only in her bra and knickers while she waited impatiently for her mum to get her act together. One of these days she really should learn how to put her foot down and say No.

Irked, and not entirely kidding about the cold, Elizabeth paced back and forth in front of the TV, running her hands through her hair and spinning at the sound of a footstep. “Finally! Mom, do you have any idea—”

She froze, her hands still in her hair. It wasn’t her mum who’d come into the room.

It was John.

And here she was, hands in her hair, elbows akimbo, dressed in her underwear.

Then she realised that it was John! She hadn’t seen him in weeks, and no amount of living on Earth again was ever going to reconcile her to such long periods without him. She took the three steps necessary to reach him and threw her arms around him in an enthusiastic hug. He tried to return it, but didn’t know what to do with his hands. Elizabeth pulled back, squinting a little in embarrassment, and was surprised to see a heated look in his eyes as they rested on her. She wasn’t unattractive, she knew, but John, with his looks and his charm, could pick and choose as he pleased so why would he be interested in a scrawny workaholic who tended to forget about food and exercise?

“Sorry about...” She gestured to her lack of attire, which might have been a bad idea because his eyes followed her hand. He swallowed hard and actually blushed, the tips of his ears going pink, which made her grin. Maybe her mum wasn’t so far off after all. “Mom’s supposed to be fitting me for a dress, but she seems to have disappeared to another planet.” She glanced around. “There should be a... Okay, there’s no blanket in here.” She frowned. “That’s strange.” Very little further contemplation, though, was needed to conclude that it was probably part of one of her mum’s master plans. Strange occurrences in this house usually were.

“Here.” John shrugged off his jacket and held it out to her.

“Thank you.” She put it on, finding it just long enough to cover her knickers, but didn’t bother doing the zip up. It wasn’t as though he could get more of an eyeful than he already had. “I didn’t know you were coming. Aren’t you supposed to be...” She made a little gesture to indicate offworld.

He shrugged. “We were, but we had to come back early. Didn’t your mom tell you? I left a message with her saying I was coming down.”

“It must have slipped her mind,” Elizabeth said dryly, leading him over to the couch and sitting next to him. The jacket did an even poorer job of covering her legs when she was seated, but the way John’s eyes flicked over them made her feel exhilarated rather than embarrassed. “Old age is catching up with her, or so she keeps assuring me.” It had to be a setup. Her mum liked John, knew Elizabeth more than liked John, and was convinced John more than liked Elizabeth.

“What’s the dress for?” John asked with studied nonchalance, his eyes resolutely refusing to return to her as he studied a painting on the far wall with spurious interest.

“My cousin’s wedding. I got roped in as a bridesmaid, if you can believe that.”

“A bridesmaid? You close to this cousin?” he asked with some surprise, since she knew she’d never mentioned a cousin to him.

“Actually, we barely know each other. But I have the colouring she’s looking for and apparently I’m not too unattractive, so I’ll match the other bridesmaids and everything will look perfect.”

He gave an incredulous guffaw and she smirked at him in understanding. “And you agreed to this?”

“I didn’t,” she said, folding her arms and not caring that she was pouting childishly.

“Then why...?”

“You have met my mom, right?”

“Ah,” he said, the single, drawn-out syllable conveying a wealth of understanding.

“Exactly. So why did you come back early?” Since they were both still working for the SGC, even if under different branches, she had clearance to know about what he was doing. In fact, a copy of his report would probably be waiting on her desk when she next got back to her office in the Homeworld Security section of the Pentagon.

“Peterson fell in a hole. Bistro fell in after him. Adams and I had to carry them back to the ‘gate.” His grumpy recitation made it sound like a bad comedy and she laughed, making him smile despite himself. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually miss Rodney. Sure, he always got us into trouble, but at least he got us out of it again as well.”

She rubbed his arm sympathetically and they stayed silent a moment because Rodney wasn’t the only one they missed and the wound of Atlantis’s loss still hadn’t healed even after months on Earth.

“Oh, John, you found her. Good.” Laura peered into the room, looking disappointed that she hadn’t found them working on providing her with additional grandkids. Elizabeth rolled her eyes as her mum came through the door, her arms overflowing with material. Honestly, her mum was incorrigible. “Sorry about that. I couldn’t find my pins.”

Sure. And Elizabeth was a Wraith. Of course it was a coincidence that Elizabeth had been left half naked just when John was expected to arrive. She stood up, shooting her mum a we-are-not­-amused look. “Where’d you leave them, the Pegasus Galaxy?”

John choked slightly behind her and Laura gave her a patient look, pushing the dress into her hands – carefully, because the thing was full of pins. “No. Now put this on and hop up on the chair.”

John jumped to his feet. “Uh, I’ll just—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, John,” Laura said firmly. “I’ll need another opinion. Now, Elizabeth, if you please.”

Deciding it would be easier just to let her mum have her evil way, especially when it was mostly aimed at someone else, Elizabeth relaxed and smirked as John shuffled his feet uncertainly. “I told you she was a menace, John. Now do you believe me?”

“What a thing to say about your mother, Elizabeth,” Laura said absently, searching through her sewing kit.

“It’s true,” she retorted and slipped unselfconsciously out of John’s jacket as he glanced at her, catching him by surprise. She held it out to him and he blushed, took it, and hastily looked away.

Laura offered her a sly smile and Elizabeth pulled a face at her – what had she done to deserve such a mother? – before attempting to put the dress on. Her mum quickly came over to help, pinning up a few more places so it wouldn’t fall off, before shoving her towards the kitchen chair that had been brought in to be used as a modelling pedestal. “Up you get, chop chop!”

“I see where you get it from,” John said with amusement, still not looking her way.

“Are you trying to imply something?” Elizabeth demanded, biting back a smile. “And it’s safe to look, John.”

He glanced at her warily, clearly not trusting her not to play a trick on him, then did a double take. “Wow! I mean, Elizabeth... wow.”

It was her turn to blush.

-

John had known for a long time that Elizabeth had an evil streak she hid behind her professionalism, but not until he’d met Laura did he discover that it was a) inherited and b) really very evil. Especially when she was around Laura, because Laura had no professionalism to bother hiding behind.

The sight of Elizabeth standing there in the middle of the room when he first walked in was going to provide him with very happy dreams for the rest of his life, along with the sight of her long legs stretching out from under his jacket. If he’d known she was hiding that body under her uniform it would have made it even harder to keep his hands off her all this time. Not that he loved her just for her looks or anything, but damn. He didn’t dare put his jacket back on, not while it still retained her body heat – not while he still remembered watching her take it off.

And now she was standing there in a half-made evening gown, her cheeks flushed with red and a smile in her eyes... And John fell in love all over again.

“See,” Laura said with satisfaction, stepping back to stand beside John for a better look. “I told you it looked good on you.”

“It’s not even finished,” Elizabeth protested.

Which was part of its charm, John had to admit. It fluttered as she moved, allowing glimpses of her skin through unsewn seams that made his mouth go dry. The bodice was rose pink, with a sky blue skirt made of long panels which hadn’t been sewn together yet.

“It looks a bit like one of Teyla’s outfits,” he said and Elizabeth smiled at him in understanding. “But if I was your cousin I wouldn’t want you at the wedding,” he added, deciding it was about time he made a stand against these Weir women.

“Oh?” she asked, her eyes twinkling in anticipation of some dreadful teasing.

“Well, with you wearing that, no one’s gonna be looking at the bride.”

Laura uttered a crow of delight and gave him a spontaneous one-armed hug while Elizabeth blushed so vividly she clashed with her dress. “I knew I liked you,” Laura declared. “Look at that colour! I haven’t seen her blush so much since that time when—”

“Mom!” Elizabeth shouted in horror, her colour fading not one iota.

Laura smiled widely and patted John on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you about it when she’s not around.”

He smirked back as Elizabeth groaned. The best thing about Laura Weir’s evilness was that he wasn’t the only one on the receiving end.

Then he watched on in bemusement as Laura did arcane things with pins, shifting pieces of fabric around so that they wound up in – for all John could tell – exactly the same place. The look of long-suffering on Elizabeth’s face made him vow silently that he would never ever allow anyone to trick him into getting anything tailor-made.

“So, when’s the wedding?” he asked. “And do I get to come?” A chance to see Elizabeth in that dress for real, maybe even dance with her, was not to be passed up.

Laura’s head came up at that. “You can be Elizabeth’s date!” she decided.

Rather less sure than Laura that Elizabeth would like the idea, he looked to his friend. Normally when it came to women John had the self-confidence of—Well, okay, not quite as much as Rodney, who was pretty hard to beat when it came to self-confidence. But generally he had a ton of confidence. Only this wasn’t just any woman, this was Elizabeth. “Actually,” she admitted, “if you’re serious about coming, that would be nice.”

“It would?” he asked in surprise, unable to help smiling.

“It’s going to be a huge event... and I’ve kind of gotten used to having you around to watch my back.”

He managed not to blurt out that he’d be happy to watch any part of her any day and just beamed widely. A date with Elizabeth? Fantastic. “Just tell me where and when and I’ll be there if I have to knock out a general or two to arrange it.”

She laughed, then sighed as Laura set to work on rearranging a new seam. “This is a ridiculous amount of fuss for just one day. I know Georgia’s fiancé’s rich, but this is going to cost a fortune!”

“It’s her wedding day,” Laura pointed out. “She wants everything to be perfect, which is completely understandable. It’s a celebration of love. Isn’t that worth spending a little money on?”

Elizabeth had a mulish look on her face. “Shouldn’t their life together be the celebration?”

“You’re a hopeless romantic, Elizabeth,” John teased and she pulled a face at him.

“Are you trying to tell me you wouldn’t want a big wedding with lots of people crying in happiness?” Laura asked. John cringed at the thought; what was it with women and weddings?

“No!” Elizabeth said, sounding appalled. She caught herself and said more calmly, “I’d hate that.”

“Then what kind of wedding would you want?” her mum asked, looking up at her expectantly.

John looked expectantly at her too. Not that this was the kind of conversation he’d normally touch with a ten foot pole, but... he wanted to know. What would Elizabeth want?

She hesitated, meeting John’s eyes a moment before looking down at Laura. “The most perfect wedding I’ve ever been to was one I went to last year.”

“Last year?” Laura asked in surprise. “Out in your far-distant, too-classified-to-name country?”

“Yes.”

Laura raised an eyebrow – so where Elizabeth learned that trick from – and went back to her pinning. “All right, then, tell me about this perfect wedding.”

Elizabeth paused a moment, as if suddenly shy, then looked up at the ceiling and nodded to someone or something unseen. “It took place at night, in a clearing in a forest near where they lived.”

“At night?” Laura asked in surprise as John, with equal surprise, remembered the Athosian celebration several of the Atlanteans had been invited to witness.

“At night,” Elizabeth confirmed. “With only the stars and a small brazier in the centre of the clearing to provide any light. It was beautiful, Mom, absolutely beautiful. There weren’t any bridesmaids’ dresses or anything like that. Everybody wore their ordinary, everyday clothes because they think love is an ordinary, everyday thing, not something to be packaged up in a fairy tale but something to live with every day of your life because it’s too beautiful and precious to pack away. We all stood in a circle around the edge of the clearing, barefoot so we could feel the earth under our feet, the connection to the world around us.”

John remembered, remembered the scent of the soil and the pines around them, the nightbirds calling in the distance, the stars glittering down on them with benevolent affection. Remembered how Elizabeth had stood beside him, her eyes wide and wondering in the starlight as she watched the proceedings with awe.

“The woman who presided over the marriage, I suppose you could call her a priestess, stood at the centre of the clearing by the brazier, the rest of us all around the edges, and then the two who were to be married came forward out of the crowd, approaching the brazier from opposite sides. And as they walked Teyla – the priestess – sang...”

And to John’s shock and delight, Elizabeth started to sing in a husky alto that sent a jolt through his stomach:

We summon, we come
We come, we summon
As the seed becomes the tree
As the boy becomes the man
As the rain becomes the sea
As the spark becomes the flame
So we summon, so we come
To see the two becoming one

Laura stopped pinning as Elizabeth sang, staring up at her. John stared too. He’d only ever heard the words in Athosian Ancient; he hadn’t realised that Elizabeth could translate them into English so that they lost none of their meaning or their poetry. She wasn’t looking at either of them as she sang on; she had her eyes closed, her face lifted in a quiet ecstasy, and John wondered when she’d, why she’d taken the time to learn and translate the song.

She reached the end of the final verse and there was silence for a long, lingering moment as the sound of her voice slowly faded out of the air.

“That is beautiful,” Laura said quietly.

Elizabeth opened her eyes and smiled down at her. “Yes. Although Teyla sings it much better than I do.” She continued before John could protest this. “By the time the song was finished, the bride and groom had reached the brazier. It was up on a little pedestal, so the flames were at face height and they stood on opposite sides, reaching out to hold hands around it so that they made a circle around the fire, looking at each other through the flames as the light flickered over their faces. It was so surreal, so beautiful. You could see that they loved each other, that they wanted nothing more than to stay together for the rest of their lives.

“And then came the words of binding. Teyla would sing a line and then they would answer together, speaking as if they had only one voice between them.”

“What did she say?” Laura asked.

Elizabeth paused a moment, gathering herself. “Your love is like this flame,” she chanted, “this flame burning bright. Will you let the rain quench your flame?”

“No,” John answered with her, not meaning to but unable to stop himself.

“Will you let the dark quench your flame?”

“No,” he said with her again, and Laura looked at him but he was looking at Elizabeth.

“Will you let the Wraith quench your flame?”

“No.” This time she realised he was answering with her and her eyes met his and didn’t look away.

“Will you allow death to quench your flame?”

“No.”

“Will you smile as long as love remains?”

“Yes.”

“Will you laugh as long as love remains?”

“Yes.”

“Will you strive as long as love remains?”

“Yes.”

“Will you love as long as love remains?”

“Yes.”

“How long can love remain?”

“Forever.”

“How long will your love remain?”

“Forever.”

“How long will you love one another?”

They both paused, staring at each other, then said in quiet unison, “Forever.”

-

Laura grinned as her daughter and her friend stared at each other as if they’d really just gone through Elizabeth’s wedding ceremony together. It was a beautiful ceremony, but what was happening here was even more beautiful.

Laura had liked John since before she’d even met him, based on the letters Elizabeth had sent her in which he was not only always mentioned, but always mentioned most frequently. “John says” and “John did” had become so much a part of Laura’s connection to Elizabeth that she had to either like him out of all proportion or resent him completely. Then she’d met him and adored him instantly – both for himself and because he was as smitten with Elizabeth as Elizabeth was with him (not, mind, that she could get either of them to admit it).

Even after their return to America he was still a huge part of Elizabeth’s life because the two of them were always talking on the phone and Elizabeth was constantly flying up to Colorado for a week or so, either for work or because she had time off, and she always came back with new stories of “John said” and “John did”. John was the only one of Elizabeth’s new ‘family’ that Laura had actually met, because he was the only one who was willing to use up his leave to come flying all the way to DC just to see her. And if that wasn’t love, Laura didn’t know what was.

“And then what happened?” she prompted finally when it became obvious that the staring contest wasn’t about to stop of its own accord.

Elizabeth flushed and looked away from John, and Laura bent over her pinning to hide a satisfied smirk. “Um...”

Laura darted a glance back at John and saw him looking at Elizabeth as if he’d finally worked out that his smittenness wasn’t at all one-sided. Her smirk widened.

“Then... then Teyla said,” Elizabeth continued, her voice a little unsteady: “’Your love is strong, not like this flame.’ And she put a cover over the flame so that it snuffed out the fire and all we had left was starlight. Then she said...” She paused, trying to remember.

“This flame is weak and easily killed,” John said quietly. “But you’re not weak and easily killed. You’re strong and will only grow stronger.”

“Grow together,” Elizabeth picked up. “Grow in strength, grow in love.”

“You were two,” they said in unison, “now you are one.”

Honestly, any more sweetness in this room and Laura’s teeth were going to fall out.

“And then,” Elizabeth added, “she lifted up the cover and dropped something into the brazier so that it suddenly burst into flame again. And then they were married and everyone came forward to congratulate them.”

“And that’s your idea of a perfect wedding?” Laura asked, keeping her voice level. “Darkness and chanting and no wedding gown?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said defiantly.

“Dad always did say you were your mom’s daughter.” She smiled up at Elizabeth, fiercely proud of this woman who had grown and blossomed and become more than a mother could ever hope for. Then she looked down into her sewing kit and frowned, kneeling down to search its contents. “Honestly, how do my scissors always manage to walk off just when I need them?” She got to her feet, wincing a little at the stiffness in her knee, and said, “I’ll be back in a minute.” As she passed John, she elbowed him covertly and hissed, “Now tell her, you wuss!”

-

Truth be told, John hadn’t needed Laura’s encouragement. He’d seen the look in Elizabeth’s eyes as she sang the wedding lines and he answered with her... and he’d started to wonder as he’d never dared before if maybe she wasn’t as indifferent to him as he’d convinced himself she had to be. Maybe she treated him as her best friend not because he was her friend and co-leader (ex-co-leader) but because she really did want him in her life. Maybe she could feel more for him than just friendship. So John did what he did best: he acted.

He stepped forward and gave Elizabeth a hand to step down off the chair, but didn't release her when she was on the ground and went to take her hand back. Surprised, she lifted her eyes to his – and he kissed her. He had to be careful of the dress and its millions of dangerous pins... but she was kissing him back, her lips parting under his. There was no maybe about this.

Neither of them noticed Laura peeping into the room, her face lighting up in a massive grin before she crept away again, perfectly satisfied.

“Elizabeth,” he said eventually, “when we get married, can we do it Athosian style?”

“When?” she asked teasingly, her eyes sparkling and her face flushed with happiness. “Not if?”

“If you don’t say yes the first time,” he told her, “then I’ll just follow you around for the rest of your life or until you do.” He paused. “Come to think of it, even if you do say yes I’ll still follow you around for the rest of your life. But if you haven’t said yes there’ll be a lot of begging going on and you don’t want to see that, Elizabeth. Seeing a grown man on his knees—well, it’s just not a pretty sight. There may even be tears involved.”

She laughed and he kissed her again because it was impossible not to. When they finally came up for air, she said, “Yes, John, when we get married we can—John!”

Pins or no pins, he spun her around, grinning madly.

He might have lost Atlantis, he might have a useless team – but his life was perfect.

fin