Chapter 1: Nightmares

He was running down a dark hallway, gun in hand, desperately searching. He reached the intersection of the corridors and saw her there, outstretched arm in Oberoth’s grip. He slowed. “Elizabeth?”

“Get to the jumper.”

“You’re coming with us.”

“I can’t keep them frozen much longer!”

“We’re not leaving you behind!”

“If you don’t get out of here right now, then none of us will, so go! That’s an order!”

Arms began pulling at him, dragging him away. No, he wouldn’t leave her! “Elizabeth!”

She spun around as the now unfrozen Replicators swarmed around her. “Go!” she shouted. He locked eyes with her and saw goodbye in them. The arms were pulling at him again, stronger this time, he couldn’t resist. ‘No!’’ The arms finally succeeded in forcing him away and he lost sight of her. He tried to get away, to go back, but he couldn’t, no matter how hard he fought. There was a bright light, and the last thing he heard was his own voice screaming, “No! Elizabeth...!”

oOo

John Sheppard woke with a start, breathing heavily and with sweat pouring off him. He pushed himself up in bed and put his head in his hands, trying to calm himself. The nightmare again. It didn’t come to him that often, but when it did... it left him completely shaken for days afterwards.

His breathing finally slowing, he propped up several pillows and laid back against them. He knew he wouldn’t sleep any more that night. He closed his eyes and tried to empty his head, but one image just wouldn’t go away. Her face... that look of immeasurable sadness and the goodbye that had filled her green eyes. Elizabeth... Her voice filled his mind, replaying her last words to him over and over like a broken record. ‘Go!’- the one order he should have never obeyed. The guilt that always accompanied the nightmare came in a rush. He shouldn’t have left her... should have gone back for her... why didn’t he go back for her? Of course, somewhere in the rational part of his mind he knew the answer. Because Atlantis needed him. They had had to have that ZPM in order to save the city. John’s brain knew the answer, but in his heart it didn’t make him hate himself any less.

He sat in the darkness of his quarters and did paperwork until an hour before hs alarm clock was set to go off. He got out of bed, bed, showered, dressed, and headed to the mess hall. The place was nearly empty at this early hour, so John got his breakfast with ease and sat down by himself at a table. Ten minutes later, someone placed a tray at the chair across from him. He looked up in surprise; he had been so lost in thought he hadn’t noticed anyone else come in. Teyla, who he now remembered usually got up before him, sat down.

“I am surprised to see you up so early, John,” she said. He looked at her for a minute. Only three months pregnant she hadn’t begun to show yet, but she already had that glow typical of expectant mothers.

“Yeah,” said John, looking back at his food, “woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep.”

A hesitant pause. “Was it the nightmare again?”

He glanced up at her; she looked concerned now. John picked up his spoon and concentrated on stirring his cereal, not answering.

“John.”

“Yeah. Yeah it was.” There was quiet a few moments, and when Teyla spoke again her voice was layered with concern.

“Perhaps... perhaps you might benefit from speaking to someone about this. I know my mind is often put at ease when I share my dreams with another person.”

“You mean a shrink?” She opened her mouth to speak but he cut her off. “Look, I don’t need to see a doctor about a dream that only happens every couple of weeks. Besides, I know exactly what they’re going to say. Something about how it’s only natural to have nightmares, considering what we’ve all been through. I’ve heard it before, and I’m not going to waste my time just to hear someone else tell me what I already know.”

Teyla sighed. “John,” she began.

“Nope, end of discussion.” He stood up from the table and picked up his tray. “See you later.” Teyla watched him as he disposed of the tray and its contents and left the room. She sighed again, and began to eat her meal in solitude until she was joined by Ronon a short time later.

“Morning,” he said as he sat down with a heaping plate of food. Teyla returned the greeting. “I just passed Sheppard in the hallway,” Ronon rumbled. “He looked pretty bad.”

She nodded. “I am beginning to feel worried for him. It has been almost seven months now and he is still being plagued by the same nightmare.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”

She gave Ronon an inquiring look. “Why do you say that? I realize they were very close, but...”

“Exactly.”

“But it’s been this long...”

He set down his fork. “Have you gotten over what happened?”

She shook her head. “No, not completely. I doubt I ever will.”

“Well Sheppard was closer to Weir than anyone else, so leave him alone.”

Teyla let out a puff of air. “Very well.” Deciding to change the subject, she asked, “What is the next planet the team will be going to?”

“Velidas. Otherwise known as M...”

oOo

“MGX-9811,” heard John as he stepped away from the now inactive stargate. “Virtually uninhabited- only the occasional settlement here and here. Fairly normal plant life, rather unspectacular animal population...”

“McKay, cool it,” interrupted John, “we were at the briefing too you know.”


“Okay, fine,” sniffed the scientist. “Ignore useful information...”

“Just scan for anything unusual will you?” John turned away, leaving Rodney mistrustfully eyeing the yellow plant that grew all over the field they were in. He heard him mumbling unhappily about allergies, causing John to shake his head in exasperation before giving the command to move out.

There were no signs of habitation immediately around the stargate, only rocks and scrub brush. Twenty yards from the gate a dense forest began. They had been walking through the trees for ten minutes when Ronon noticed something

“Sheppard,” he called. “Come look at this.” He gestured to the ground at his feet. John walked over to him and looked down. There was a thin strip of bare earth running through the undergrowth that looked like it had been worn down over time. A trail.

“McKay, how close is the nearest settlement?” questioned John.

“About a mile in that direction.” he pointed off to the right somewhere. “They’re relatively primitive though. There’s no technology showing up on my scans.”

John looked at Ronon and nodded. “Worth a look anyway.” He shifted his P-90 to a more comfortable position on his arm. “Alright, lets go check it out.”

Chapter 2: Ghosts

The settlement was nothing more than a collection of around ten roughly built wooden huts situated in a large field. Clouds of gray smoke billowed up from the numerous fires that were scattered between the dwellings, giving the whole village a hazy appearance. At first John thought the place was empty. If it hadn’t been for the fires he would have assumed it had been deserted for a while.

It was only after the team had passed the first hut that the community’s inhabitants began to make themselves known. They trickled out of their homes slowly: the men first, followed cautiously by the women and even a few children. They were simply dressed in obviously homemade clothing and all showed signs of people who had to work hard for their living. The villagers eyed the newcomers warily. Several of the men carried weapons of a fashion, and out of the corner of his eye John saw Ronon arrange himself so his gun would be within easy reach. Sincerely hoping that wouldn’t be necessary, John cautiously lifted his left hand and held it up. “Hi folks.” There was no response. “We’re explorers. We came through the stargate.” He pointed back the way they had come. “...the Ring of the Ancestors?” Still silence. “Okay then...” Not a word came out of their audience’s mouths, and John was just about to order his team to back off when one of the villagers called out.

“It is alright. They are not of the lomya.”

At that announcement quiet chatter broke out. John looked at his team. They exchanged surprised glances at the settlers sudden change in attitude. Ronon still looked suspicious. The man who had spoken walked up to them. He was redheaded and tall, though still shorter than Ronon, and sported a close trimmed auburn beard. “Welcome,” he said with a bow.

John awkwardly returned the gesture, “Um... thanks.”

Rodney suddenly piped up. “Not meaning to be rude or anything, but what exactly are the lomya?”

“All in good time.” The man held out his arm towards one of the fires. “Please, come and sit,” He sat down on a roughly crafted seat and after a moments hesitation, John and the others followed. They were offered refreshment, which they politely refused. Thankfully not offended, the man simply took a drink for himself and took a sip before he spoke. “I am sorry for the harsh welcome. We do not receive visitors from other worlds very often.” He inclined his head towards them. “My name is Derlin, the leader of this settlement.”

“Nice to meet you, Derlin. I’m Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard; this is Dr. Rodney McKay and Ronon Dex.”

Derlin acknowledged each introduction with a nod. “What brings you here? We have little to trade.”

“We’re explorers,” said Rodney. “We search for knowledge...and one of the things we’d like to know is what are these lomya?”

A female voice joined in the conversation. “They are ghosts.” A dark haired woman walked up to their fire and sat down beside Derlin.

“This is my wife, Shanna,” he said. The team nodded hello.

“What exactly do you mean when you say ghosts?” asked Rodney, a slight note of unease in his voice.

“They are not really spirits of the dead,” said Derlin, “but we call them that because they are not...” He seemed to be searching for a word, “... natural.” Seeing his guests wanted more of an explanation, he continued. “The lomya are... cold. They look like normal humans, but it is as if there is something missing. Their faces are like stone - hard and without feeling.”

“It is like they are not alive,” said Shanna, “yet they walk and speak like the rest of us.” A shiver ran through her at the thought and her husband put his arm around her shoulders.

John looked at Rodney. “Sound familiar?” McKay nodded unhappily.

“What are they doing here?” wondered Ronon.

“I don’t know, but we need to find out,” said John. He turned to Derlin, who was staring at them in shock.

“Wait, you know of the lomya?” he stammered.

“Unfortunately yes,” answered Rodney. “We call them Replicators.”

“And you’re right,” said John, “they’re not human. Can you tell us anything else? What have they been doing?, where are they at?, that sort of thing.”

Shanna shook her head. “We do not know why the lomya are here. They have only come through the village a few times. They last appeared around three weeks ago, and they have not returned since.”

“Any idea where they’re at?”

“Yes,” said Derlin, “ They have built a dwelling several miles from here, in the forest. I can take you there myself, should you wish it.”

“Whether they wish it or not, you are not going to take them,” declared Shanna. “I will.”
“No. Absolutely not. I do not want you going near that place."

John’s eyes went back and forth between the couple. Both looked equally determined that the other should stay put. “Um,” he put in carefully, “ I’m sure we could find our own way there if you just give us some directions.”

Derlin shook his head. “The way to the lomya is twisted and easily confusing to someone who does not know what they are looking for. You would need a guide.”

John glanced over at Ronon, who nodded silently, confirming that he would be able to find the trail. “I think we can manage.”

“Perhaps you could,” said Shanna, “but it is our responsibility to you as visitors to this world. You must accept our help.”

John realized he was backed into a corner. He didn’t want to risk offending these people. He met Shanna and Derlin’s gaze. They both looked very serious about the whole thing. “It could be dangerous,” he warned. “If something happens...”

“It will not be your fault,” assured Shanna. “And I will be very careful...”

“You are not going!”

“Derlin,” she said with a sigh, “you have responsibilities here that need you to stay. I have nothing to do that would prevent me from guiding these men.” He looked about to protest. She put a hand to the side of his face and locked eyes with him. “It will be fine, I promise. If it will make you feel more comfortable I will not go all the way to the camp with them. I promise it will be fine.”

John saw the exact moment when Derlin gave in to his wife. The tension in the man’s muscles released and he sighed in resignation. “Very well.” She kissed him and turned to the team.

“When do you wish to leave?”

“As soon as possible.” Shanna nodded and went to prepare, leaving Derlin by the fire. A few moments later he stood up. “Sheppard,” he said quietly, “please keep her out of trouble. Please.” He met his eyes and an understanding passed between them.

“I will,” promised John. Derlin nodded and followed his wife to one of the huts.

Ronon spoke up when he was out of earshot. “You know this isn’t necessary right? I can get us to that Replicator camp probably just as fast.”

“Yeah, I know. But we don’t have much of a choice if we wanna stay on good terms with these people.”

“Why stay on good terms? They don’t have anything to trade.”

John turned to him. “We don’t turn down allies,” he said sharply, “If nothing else they can give us a place to stay if we need it.” Ronon still didn’t seem convinced, and John was about to try and reason with him again when Rodney stood up.

“Guys, much as I hate to interrupt a nice argument, I think she’s ready.”

Shanna had exchanged her long skirt for a pair of pants and sturdy boots and was standing a few yards away with Derlin by her side. When they looked at her she nodded her readiness. The team stood up and began to head out of the village. Shanna gave her husband a quick kiss and then hurried to take her place at the head of the group.

Derlin watched them until they disappeared into the trees, unable to shake the sense of foreboding that had been with him since the strangers had admitted their knowledge of the lomya. In spite of his wife’s promise, he just knew something bad was going to happen.

Chapter 3: Shadows

Rodney McKay pulled a power bar out of his vest pocket and slowly began to unwrap it. They had been walking through dense forest now for over an hour and he was starving. the trail they were following was practically invisible and so full of twists, turns, and switchbacks that he had stopped trying to keep track of the path within the first twenty minutes. Instead he just followed behind Ronon, attempting to pick up any energy readings on his scanner. So far he hadn’t had any luck, no matter how much he adjusted the sensors. It was baffling to him. If Replicators were on this planet, an energy signature should have been registering...

“I don’t get it,” he said out loud to no one in particular. “Every bit of Replicator technology we’ve come across before has given off some kind of energy. This must be something new... unless, and I highly doubt it, they’ve decided to live as hermits in some miserable leaky hut.” He glanced up at Shanna. “No offense.”

She gave him an odd look. “None taken,” she said, and resumed searching the forest for the trail. She had proven to be a good guide, finding the way quickly and easily. She hadn’t said much, only asking a few questions about where they had come from. The brief descriptions of Atlantis seemed to impress her, and she had expressed a desire to one day see such a marvelous place, but she soon became completely focused on the task at hand.

Rodney finished his snack and stuffed the crumpled wrapper back into his pocket before once again taking up his scanner. “Anything yet Rodney?” asked Sheppard. He replied in the negative and was just about to fiddle with his machine some more when the group suddenly came to a stop. He narrowly avoided running into Ronon’s back and looked up in surprise, wondering what was going on.

Shanna had stopped beside a large oak-like tree and turned around to face the Lanteans. “This is as far as I will go with you,” she said. “The lomya encampment is not a great distance from here, and I promised Derlin. You should be able to discover the rest of the path with ease.”

“Thanks for your help,” said Sheppard.

“You are welcome. It was only my duty,” She took a few steps back down the trail before pausing. “I wish you luck in whatever you plan to do here.” She glanced in the direction of the Replicator dwelling and gave an uneasy smile. “I admit I am glad I promised not to go any farther. The lomya frighten me and I am not sorry to have an excuse to avoid being near them.”

She said goodbye and started the long walk back to the village. When she had vanished among the trees, John turned to Ronon. “You’re up.” Ronon drew his gun and led the way past the large tree and into the deep forest.

Even though it was the middle of the day, the shadows made the place appear permanently bathed in late twilight. John looked up and saw nothing but leaves and branches, not a hint of sky to be seen anywhere. He had grown accustomed to Atlantis’s airy hallways and large sunny windows, and felt a mild sense of claustrophobia coming on, which he quickly shook off. ‘I bet Rodney’s having fun right now,’ he thought, remembering how often the scientist mentioned his fear of enclosed spaces.

As if right on cue, McKay’s voice floated past John. “This place gives me the creeps. All we need is a little fog and a vicious monster and this would be the perfect setting for a horror movie.”

John smirked. “Yeah, and I wonder who would get eaten first?”

“Oh ha ha very amusing. You know...”

“Quiet,” ordered Ronon. He had frozen in place, his eyes scanning the forest surrounding them. “We’re here.” He pointed to a large clump of overgrown bushes sitting at the base of a small hill. Barely visible behind the thick leaves was the frame of a metal doorway.

“Huh,” said Rodney, “I never imagined the Replicators as the type to hide their secret bases with greenery.”

“Something doesn’t feel right,” said John. He had his P-90 at the ready and was slowly turning in a circle, eyeing the trees warily. Everything was quiet. Too quiet. The only sounds were the leaves rustling in a slight breeze and the noise made by the teams’ boots as they crunched through the undergrowth. “Does this feel like a trap to anyone else?”

Ronon strode up to the bushes and pulled them away from the doorway, revealing a seamless sheet of metal. There was no access panel and no way to get in. “Yeah. It does.” He moved to stand beside John and held out his gun in front of him, a small whine announcing the weapon was no longer set to stun.

“It’s not like the Replicators need doors,” said Rodney, a slight note of panic creeping into his voice. “I mean they walk through walls all the time. This could just be a...a... a security precaution.” Neither man answered, too busy concentrating on the trees. Rodney reluctantly prepped his P-90 and joined them.

They waited for a full two minutes with no sign of any activity. John felt his nerves stretching to a breaking point. His whole body was tensed like a coiled spring, awaiting... anything. He wished if they were going to attack they would just do it already.

There was a noise off to John’s right. He slowly pivoted and raised his gun in the direction of the sound. It grew louder as it got closer, and John’s finger inched towards the trigger. He put the sight to his eye and prepared to fire. The undergrowth shook and suddenly... Shanna burst into the clearing, out of breath and disheveled. John brought his gun down immediately.

“What..?” he began. A blue light flashed by him and he saw Rodney fall to the ground on his left. He spun to face the attacker and caught only a glimpse of an unfamiliar face before an intense pain raced through him and darkness closed in.


oOo


John woke up with a groan. He felt like he was nothing but one giant ache. He opened his eyes, but shut them again just as quickly. He was lying on his back and a bright light was shining right in his face. Hoping to get away from it, he turned on his side and with a colossal effort managed to sit up. The light wasn’t as blinding now, and John could actually see where he was.

He was in an empty room. There was nothing in it but him and a heavy table that looked like it hadn’t been moved in a while. The room had a definite Lantean look to it, confirming what John already knew about his captor’s identity. He rubbed the back of his aching neck and started looking for a way out. There was no entry panel on this side of the door. He looked away from it in disgust. It might as well have been a solid wall for all the good it would do him without one. There were no windows to break or handy vents in the ceiling to climb out through. It appeared he was stuck.

As the pain from being stunned slowly receded, John remembered his teammates. He had no clue where they were being held or what was happening to them right now. ‘Not that I could do anything about it if I did,’ he thought ruefully. He mentally relived what had occurred in the forest. Shanna... He didn’t think she was working for the Replicators. She didn’t seem like the type. Had they just chased her then? He would have thought...

The door slid open, and John pulled himself to his feet. In walked the Replicator he had seen in the clearing just before he passed out- the man with curly blondish hair and a thin face. He looked at John, his eyes revealing no trace of any kind of emotion. He came fully into the room and stood directly in front of where the colonel was leaning against the wall.

“Why have you come here?” he asked flatly.

“What, you’re asking questions? I thought you preferred to just stick your hand in people’s heads.”

“At the moment that is not necessary. Why have you come here?”

“Oh, you know, new planet, new places. Just thought we’d see the local sights.”

“We know that you are from Atlantis. There is no point in hiding that fact.”

“Well,” said John casually, “I guess that just makes my job a little easier then.”

The Replicator stared at John, as if considering what his next move should be. He closed his eyes, silently communicating with someone. A minute later his eyes snapped open. “We will know why you have come to this planet. Make no mistake about that.” He turned and walked towards the doorway. “Until that time, perhaps a little reunion...”

John was confused. They hadn’t probed his mind, hadn’t even really questioned him and they were already letting him see Rodney and Ronon? That didn’t make any sense... He put a hand over his face and tried to rub away the headache he felt coming on. The door to his prison opened with a hiss and someone walked in.

“John?” The voice sounded absolutely astonished. That voice... He froze, almost afraid to look. He knew that voice. It was one he had never expected to hear again. Very slowly, he took his hand away from his face and looked up.

Shock closed his throat, forcing him to whisper. “Elizabeth...”

Chapter 4: Tears


“Elizabeth...” He couldn’t believe it. His mind refused to accept what his eyes told him was the truth - that she was here in front of him. Alive. From the look on her face she was just as shocked as he was. She moved away from the door, her eyes never leaving his face for a second.

“What...what are you doing here?” she breathed. Suddenly the look of amazement that had been spread across her features disappeared, replaced by one of realization and deep misery. She faced the Replicator standing next to her. He hadn’t moved a muscle since she had entered the room. “Kedan... please... stop it. I know this isn’t real... just stop it...”

“I cannot stop it, Dr. Weir,” said Kedan. She opened her mouth to plead with him again, but he continued. “I cannot stop, because I am not creating this moment. This is real.”

She didn’t look convinced. In fact, she looked slightly afraid. John had seen the hope that had flared briefly in her eyes at those last words. She looked afraid that that hope would turn out to be false.

She turned her head, long brown curls that were now just past her shoulders falling down along her back. She stared into John’s eyes, searching desperately for the truth. He stared right back, trying to will his thoughts to her. ‘This is real, Elizabeth. Don’t be afraid, this is real.’ He couldn’t help it. He knew perfectly well that this might not be real - that he might be the one with a hand stuck in his forehead right now. He was also painfully aware of the possibility that if this wasn’t a vision, this might not be the real Elizabeth Weir. But he couldn’t help it. Those were her eyes...

The door hissed, announcing that Kedan had left the room. She spared only a brief glance for the place where he had been. “John...” she whispered, her voice breaking slightly. She took a step forward and cautiously reached out a hand to touch his shoulder.

“Solid enough for you?” he joked quietly.

She let out a tearful half-laugh. “You’re really here.” She started to laugh hysterically, tears filling her eyes. “You’re really here.” The laughter died away, and she began to sob quietly, her thin frame shaking with the intensity of her tears. Without thinking, he pulled her into his arms.

“Hey, shh, shh, it’s okay. It’s okay. I’m right here.” She sobbed harder, her tears dampening the shoulder of his jacket. His heart twisted at the sound of so much pain. “It’s alright,” he said softly, his hand not stopping in its soothing up and down motion as he gently stroked her hair. “It’s alright. I’m here.”

oOo

It was a long time before she stopped crying. When she had quieted to the point where there were only occasional dry sobs, John loosened his hold on her shoulders. She looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘This has to be her,’ he thought. That gesture was so... Elizabeth.


He knew he should be questioning the reality of the situation right now. After all, the Replicators had once made him believe that Atlantis was under attack and he had sacrificed himself to save everyone. That had felt real too, until it was over.


She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, trying to compose herself. Every move she made screamed that she was real. ‘Come on, Sheppard, pull yourself together. They’re just using your subconscious against you, letting you see what you want to see.’ She took a deep, shuddering breath. He took this as a signal that she was alright for now, and let his arms fall to his side. There was silence for a moment, and then she spoke first, her voice still a little shaky.

“John... what are you doing here? I never thought I was going to see...” He looked at her sadly, his suspicions confirmed. She trailed off, a confused look on her pale face. Then, in a flash of understanding, “Oh.” She locked eyes with him again and he found he couldn’t look away. “This is not a vision,” she said, green eyes boring into his. “They aren’t creating this. I’m really standing here. Believe me, John, I thought the same thing you did when I walked in here. But this is real. I know that now.” Oh, he wanted to believe her! But...

“Elizabeth,” he began, but she cut him off.

“I understand,” she said. “You have no way of knowing whether I’m telling the truth or not.” She nodded and glanced at the floor. She may have said she understood, but she couldn’t hide her hurt expression - not from him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Real or not he didn’t like causing her pain.

She dipped her head once. “It’s alright.”

“Have... do you know where they’re keeping the rest of my team?” he asked. It was worth a shot.

“The rest of your team...?” A sick look flashed across her face. “Oh no... you were captured, how else would you have gotten here... I didn’t even...” She continued to think out loud for several minutes, berating herself for her own stupidity and selfishness.

“Okay, calm down, Elizabeth,” he ordered.

She looked over at him apologetically. “I’m so sorry, John. They didn’t tell me that you were here. I didn’t know to look for them and then I was so surprised to see you...” Seeing his inquiring glance, she elaborated further. “They can block me out of the collective if they want to, hide information from me.”

With a jolt he remembered the nanites running through her system. “Are you still blocked now?”

She closed her eyes and stood perfectly still for several minutes. John fought with his impatience, telling himself that he couldn’t act on the information anyway, not when he was stuck in this room. He was seriously considering pacing when she opened her eyes. “Well?”

She nodded. “They’re being held in individual cells two corridors over. Rodney, Ronon, and a woman I don’t recognize, but that was all I saw.” Worry filled her voice. “John, I couldn’t find Teyla.”

“And you won’t. Teyla isn’t here, she’s back home in Atlantis.” He saw the question in her eyes and decided it couldn’t do any harm to tell her. “She’s pregnant.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Pregnant?” She took a moment to take it in. “Boy or girl?

“Boy.”

She glanced at him, as if debating whether or not to ask the obvious next question. “And the father?”

“Kanaan, that Athosian she’s been seeing that she never told us about.”

Was that a flicker of relief in her eyes? She gave a sad smile. “Wow, I really have missed a lot, haven’t I?”

“Too much,” was his soft reply. He just couldn’t help but treat her like the real Elizabeth, no matter what he told himself in his head.

He decided he wanted to make her smile. “Let’s see, what else is there?” he said lightly. “Oh, Rodney and that doctor Katie Brown broke up.”

“Really? What a shame.” There was a ghost of a smile there. She knew what he was up to.

“Yeah, um...he about broke Zelenka’s nose the other day in the lab when he couldn’t find his coffee mug.”

She was genuinely smiling now. “Yep, that sounds like our Rodney for you.”

“Colonel Carter really chewed him out for it. Told him they were never going to get any work done if he kept punching his staff.”

“Colonel Samantha Carter? Of SG-1? What was she doing there?”

He realized he probably should have mentioned that before. “Yeah, that’s the one. She’s... she’s in charge of Atlantis now.”

She took the news surprisingly well. She smiled that achingly familiar teasing smile at him. “So you didn’t take the job yourself, huh?”

“No way. I saw you go through enough sleepless nights doing paperwork to realize that that is the last job I would want.”

She looked at him, a considering tone to her glance. “You could do it though. And do it well. I know you could.”

“I don’t think so. You left some pretty big shoes to fill, you know.”

“Hmph, thanks.” She glanced at her hands.

There was quiet for a few moments, and then it burst out of him. “We all miss you.”

She smiled unhappily. “I’ve missed all of you too,” she said in a barely audible voice. Her gaze became clouded by memories of unknown sufferings. So much misery... It shadowed her entire being, nearly overwhelming her with the sudden inflow of temporarily forgotten pain. Guilt flooded through him. This was his fault. He had abandoned her on that planet, and left her to endure this all alone.

In that moment her realized that she had been telling the truth. This was in fact real. He couldn’t see how any machine created vision could possibly contain as much raw emotion as was displayed in her face right now. And they couldn’t have taken this out of his head either. Never in the deepest darkest parts of his mind would he have ever put her through anything that would cause that look.

He took a step forward, closing the gap that had formed between them, and carefully gripped her shoulders, causing her to look up in surprise. “I am so sorry, Elizabeth,” he said desperately. “So sorry...”

“Sorry for what? John, you have nothing to apologize for.”

“Yes I do. We never leave people behind, but I broke that rule when I left you on Asuras. It’s because of me that you went through all this...”

She stared him in the eyes and said forcefully, “Whatever I’ve gone through, it has in no way been your fault. I ordered you to leave me behind, remember?” He opened his mouth to say more. “No, you can’t tear yourself up over this. That’s an order too.” He sighed and let go of her shoulders. A look of comprehension appeared in her eyes. “You’ve realized this is real haven’t you?” Before she could say more, something distracted her and her eyes unfocused for a second. “Kedan’s coming.”

The door hissed open a minute later and the blond Replicator walked in. “I trust you have had an enjoyable reunion,” he said smoothly. “But now I am afraid it must come to an end. Doctor Weir, if you will follow me. There is work to be done.”

Elizabeth reluctantly walked into the hallway, glancing back as she passed her jailer, her eyes promising that she would come back. Kedan said nothing after she had disappeared around the doorframe. He stared distantly at John for several seconds with cold eyes before he turned around and left, the door sliding shut with a thud behind him.

Chapter 5: Memories



John didn’t know how much time had elapsed since he had been left alone in the empty room. He only knew it had been a while. He passed the time by sitting on the hard floor and staring at the dull gray of the walls, waiting for something to happen. The Replicators were going to come back eventually and try and question him again, it was only a matter of when they decided to do so. And this time, he guessed, they weren’t going to be so patient with his lack of cooperation.



He wondered again what they were doing on this planet, and what role Elizabeth was playing in all of this. Apparently she was able to function as a member of their community to some extent, though what she did he had no idea. All he knew was that she had been put under torture, that much was clear from her face. He felt fury stir within him, imagining the anguish, both physical and mental, that these Replicators had inflicted on her. Whatever he did, he swore, he was going to make them pay for that.

The room’s walls became as good as a theater screen as John occupied himself with his thoughts. He imagined crushing every single Replicator in the galaxy to pieces, and then dumping all the left over dust in the middle of a sun somewhere, effectively wiping them out of existence forever and permanently dissolving that particular thorn in the expedition’s side. Occasionally he would plan an escape attempt, but quickly discarded each one as being full of too many flaws, too many things that could go wrong.

He thought about all of these things, but mostly, he remembered. Seeing Elizabeth again after all of that time had really thrown him for a loop. Memories that he had tried to ignore after she disappeared were forced into his mind. They were memories of just her presence - of being able to look up any time and see her sitting in her office or standing on the balcony outside of the control room. There was the glint in her eyes when some new discovery had been made, and the way the excitement showed in her voice, and... the smile that he noticed she saved just for him...

An indeterminate amount of time later, the door panel opened and two large Replicators walked in. “Come with us,” they said. John hoisted himself to his feet before they could seize him.

“Okay, no need to get grabby, I’m coming.” One of them pulled out a stun weapon and gestured to the door with it before pointing it at him. The other did the same. John obediently left the room, getting his first glimpse of the complex outside his cell. There was nothing around that told him much about their plans here. Gray doors lined a nondescript white hallway, their access panels glowing an eerie blue, even in the plentiful light. His escorts prodded him in the back with their guns, marching him down the corridor. Other Replicators walked past, ignoring the prisoner, their faces unnaturally emotionless.

His guards took him along the next passage, opening a door and shoving him inside the chamber. “Sheppard!” was the first thing he heard. McKay and Ronon hurried over to him from where they had been sitting across the room. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. You?”

“Well, aside from this really large bruise on my arm...”

“We’re fine,” interrupted Ronon with a glare in McKay’s direction. He looked at John. “What’s the plan?”

“At the moment... I haven’t got one.” He glanced back and forth at his two teammates. Neither one seemed in a state of shock at the moment, so he assumed that they hadn’t seen Elizabeth. Not quite sure how to tell them just yet, he asked another question. “Either of you find out anything about what’s going on here?”

“Nothing. We’ve been locked up in separate rooms the whole time, and haven’t....” Rodney trailed off, staring at something behind John, his mouth hanging open in bewilderment. Ronon took a step back. John hadn’t heard the door open, but he could guess what, or who, they were seeing.

He turned around. Kedan had walked in, an unknown Replicator at his side, with Elizabeth following behind them.

McKay stammered her name in disbelief.

“Hi, Rodney,” she said with a small smile. “Ronon. It’s good to see you.”

“Yeah,” said Rodney, “How... wait. Wait just a minute.” Irritation replaced the awe in his voice. “This is all fake isn’t it? I’ve got a hand stuck in my forehead right now haven’t I?”

“No, Rodney, you don’t,” said John. “It’s all real. Elizabeth is real.”

He looked at him. “Really? Because you could be fake too.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“And I’m just supposed to take your word on that?”

“Enough,” ordered Kedan, stepping forward. “You will stop this now. We are not inside your head at the moment, Dr. McKay. And now we are the ones who will be asking questions. You will be given one last chance to tell us - why are you here?”

“Actually, I can think of a better question,” said John. “Why are you on this planet?”

“Very well.” Kedan’s eyes unfocused for a second, and the door opened. Two Replicators entered, dragging Shanna between them. The woman looked absolutely terrified as they pushed her to her knees before Kedan. “Please...” she whispered. He extended his hand and plunged it into her forehead.

“Stop it! She doesn’t know anything!” John yelled. He fought the urge to go pull her away from him, knowing it would only get him shot. “Let her go!”

His pleas were ignored. A few minutes later Kedan slid his hand out of her head. She let out a cry of pain and collapsed to the ground, sobbing. John felt anger fill him. He had to get everyone out of here. He had made a promise and he intended to keep it.

Kedan stepped back. “She knows nothing,” he said to the other Replicators. Elizabeth glared at him and moved to kneel beside her.

“They told you that, it wasn’t necessary to search her mind!” She helped Shanna sit up and began to put an arm around her shoulders, but the sobbing woman shrank away from her touch. Hurt flashed across Elizabeth’s face for a moment and she stood up again. John could only imagine how she felt. She was one of the most caring people he knew, and being feared couldn’t have been easy for her.

Kedan motioned for his companions to move forward, lining up in front of the team. The two who had escorted John walked behind them, forcing each one to their knees. Ronon struggled uselessly against their iron grip as he was shoved to the floor beside Rodney. At some invisible signal, the Asurans simultaneously sank their fingers into the foreheads of each prisoner. Except John.

“I think, Colonel Sheppard, that for your interrogation, something special is required,” said Kedan. He turned to Elizabeth, who was watching the proceedings with a sick, angry look on her face. “Doctor Weir.”

She looked at him, horrorstruck. “What...? No,” she breathed, backing away. “I won’t. I won’t do it.”

Kedan grabbed her wrist and yanked her forward. “Yes, Dr. Weir, you will.” He began to guide her hand towards John. She resisted, but her struggles had no effect, no matter how hard she tried. It was like she was no longer in control of her own body. “Please...” she begged, her voice breaking.

John recoiled from the pale hand coming towards him, revulsion his automatic response. He mentally cursed the thing that forced Elizabeth to do this. He could barely move, and couldn’t help the gasp of pain as fingertips dissolved into his head.


oOo



Everything went black for a moment, and then John found himself standing on the balcony overlooking Atlantis’s gate room. The lights were off and everything was bathed in a blueish glow that came from nowhere. He looked around. The place was deserted. “Hello?” he called. “Anybody home?”


Well, he hadn’t really expected an answer anyway. He turned away and was about to start searching the rest of the control room when he heard the familiar sound of a stargate being dialed. He resumed his previous position and watched as the gate’s event horizon bloomed into life beneath him. The kawoosh snapped back into place and was still for a moment, the chevrons glowing their bright blue. And then people began to step through. Very familiar people. A group of Marines carrying P-90’s mounted with flashlights swept into the room, immediately securing the area. Within a minute, another figure, this one a woman, emerged from the shimmering blue puddle. She looked around her in awe, taking everything in. The leader of the Marines spoke into his radio, giving the all clear, and soon other people began to pour from the gate, filling the room with their gear, one in particular catching John’s attention- a man with dark hair that stuck up at impossible angles and a wondering look on his face.


Lights flickered on as the man walked up a set of steps. “Who’s doing that?” asked the brunette woman who had come through first. John watched her as she explored the control room, excitement making her green eyes glitter. She got a call on her radio, calling her to a place three levels down. “Right away,” she replied.


Suddenly everything shifted. John found himself standing behind a small group of people clustered in front of a window. “We’re underwater,” the woman said in astonishment, looking out at a city covered with several hundred feet of blue-green ocean.


The scene changed again. He was back in the gate room, but this time it was in chaos, expedition members rushing to evacuate, a scared looking group of locals huddled around the gate. The woman and the dark-haired man were standing in the middle of it all, shouting at each other. “... shield is about to fail, and the ocean is about to come crashing down on us. Do you have any better place for us to go?” she demanded. He grabbed a boy by the arm and led him towards the stairs. “The shield is collapsing!” yelled a voice. The room began to shake violently, knocking some people to the floor... “We’re moving!” As the city broke the surface, the green water fell away from the windows, letting sunlight pour in. As everything settled, they rushed to a window, relief and amazement at their sudden reprieve visibly filling all of them. The woman and the man looked at each other and smiled.


A shift again. He was inside his quarters on Atlantis. He looked around and saw himself laying on his bed, an enormously large book in his hands. The door chimed. “Come in,” he - the one on the bed - called. The door opened, revealing an Elizabeth with much shorter hair.


“Hi, do you have a moment?” she asked.


“Yeah, sure,” he said, sitting up.


“War and Peace? Hm... that’s some heavy reading.”


“Well, back on Earth, when I was getting ready for this mission, I realized there was a good chance that I might be here for a while. So I figured, why not bring along a book that takes a long time to read?”


She glanced at the book. “Page seventeen,” she said, an amused look on her face.


“I’m right on schedule.”


“Have you finished that thing yet?” wondered a voice behind him. John turned around and found his Elizabeth standing there.


“No, not yet. I figure I’ve still got a couple of months to go.” She smiled. “My memories, huh?” She nodded apologetically. “Right,” he said, nodding as well. They both watched as the other versions of themselves finished their conversation.


“Regardless, I’m staying,” said Elizabeth.


“Good.” He smiled. “It wouldn’t be the same without you.”


The room faded, and he turned to face Elizabeth. “I was right,” he said. “It isn’t the same.” She looked at him sadly, and then they were standing in the gate room. It was dark. Lightning flashed outside the windows, and wind and rain beat mercilessly against the tower. John stuck his hands in his pockets and slowly pivoted in time to see Commander Kolya of the Genii grab a soaking wet Elizabeth and use her as a human shield. He saw himself run forwards, his P-90 aimed and ready. “I will shoot you if you don’t let her go,” he heard himself say, menace dripping from every word.


Even now, years later, seeing that moment made him clench his fists in anger. He walked up to the figures living out his memories. The look of absolute hatred on his face startled even him with its intensity. He watched as Kolya dragged Elizabeth backwards towards the stargate, fear enveloping her face, never taking her eyes off of the man in front of her. “And risk hurting Dr. Weir?” taunted Kolya. John wanted to grab the gun out of his own hands and shoot him again right then and there. “I’m not aiming at her,” his past self said fiercely, and fired a bullet into Kolya’s shoulder, knocking him through the stargate. Past John ran up to his Elizabeth, who had fallen to the floor, shouting an order to Ford. He held out his hand to her. “Sorry about that. I had to... you okay?” He helped her to her feet. “No,” she said honestly, still clearly shaken. He nodded. “You will be,” he said. “Come on.” He took her hand and ran with her up the stairs.


John watched them go, then glanced over at Elizabeth, who was doing the same thing. “That was one of the most terrifying moments of my life,” she admitted, watching the team as they rushed to raise the shield and save the city.


“It wasn’t exactly a picnic for me either. That made it twice, no, three times in one day I thought I... we, were going to lose you.” She took her eyes away from the scene playing out up in the control room and looked at him. He hadn’t noticed it before, but she was no longer wearing the white, Asuran style clothes she had been, but instead had on a long-sleeved, wine colored v-necked shirt and black pants.


He blinked, and they were outside, perfectly dry, in the rain. Specifically, on one of the grounding stations. Past John stood there, getting completely drenched, yelling into a Genii communicator. “This city has a self destruct button. You hurt her I’ll activate it, nobody’ll get Atlantis!”


Kolya’s voice came over the radio. “Even if it exists, Major, you’ll need at least two senior personnel to activate it. And I’m about to take one of them out of the equation.”


“Kolya?!! Kolya! I’ll give you a ship! I’ll fly it out of here for you myself!” Desperation filled his voice. “Kolya!! Don’t do this!!”


John wanted to turn away. It was difficult for him to watch this, even more difficult with Elizabeth there. She walked over to his past self and looked at him, her arms folded across her chest. The radio came to life again. “Major Sheppard, how’s this for credibility? Weir is dead.”


Fury twisted the major’s face. “I- am going- to kill you,” he choked out, before putting the radio down, turning around and running back into the city. Elizabeth walked back towards John, a newly sympathetic look on her face.


“It was bad enough just hearing you over the radio. Actually seeing you...” She shook her head, unable to find the words.


“Well...” said John awkwardly. She laid a hand on his arm and met his eyes, silently thanking him. He nodded in acceptance.


In a flash, they were on the balcony. It was a clear, sunny day, a soft breeze blowing and the water far below sparkling. They were alone this time, no memories to watch. John looked out and noticed that this was the horizon from Atlantis’s new home-world, not Lantea. One of the moons hovered above them, barely visible in the daylight. Elizabeth leaned against the railing and eyed the view, just like she had countless times before, on a different world. And, just like he had done countless times before, he moved to stand beside her at the railing, the act as natural and as thoughtless as breathing.


“John,” she began hesitantly a few moments later, “why... why are you letting me do this?”


He knew perfectly well what she was talking about, but decided to play dumb. “Do what?”


“I’m... I’m inside your head. I’m controlling your memories. You should be fighting me every second, but you’re not. You’re not even trying to hide anything from me!”


He twisted his head to look over at her. She was staring at him in disbelief, waiting for an answer. He sighed. He sighed because he knew she was right - he should be resisting this. The very idea of it should have made him cringe - she was inside his head like a Replicator. But... it didn’t. “I... I don’t know why,” was all he could think of to say. “But there are worse things, Elizabeth, than having you in my head.”


“John...” she sighed in exasperation. “How can you be okay with this? It’s...”


“It’s you,” he interrupted. “Not Kedan, not Oberoth, you, and you’re acting like I should be afraid of you!”


She turned away and stared at her hands as they hung over the railing. “Well, maybe you should be,” she said quietly. A minute later, she spoke again. “I’m sorry for this. So very sorry.”


“It’s not your fault, he made you do it.”


She nodded. “They want me to search your mind, find out why you’re here. I just want you to know that I can’t do that. I won’t.”


“What are they going to do when you don’t give them anything?” he asked worriedly.


She shrugged and wouldn’t answer. “It doesn’t matter.”


“Yes, it does.” She wouldn’t look at him. He sighed. “Actually, this was just supposed to be a routine mission - search the planet, meet the locals... you know, the usual.”


“John, stop it,” she ordered. He ignored her.


“When I set foot on this planet, I had no idea what I would find. But I definitely didn’t expect this. We heard about the Replicators from the people in the village, and came to find out what they were doing here. That’s all, and it’s the truth. Now let them have that and see if it will do them any good.”


She actually looked near tears. He gave her a moment to pull herself together. She suddenly looked up at him, her face concerned. “You’ve been having nightmares.” He was surprised at the sudden change of subject, but she had been right. He hadn’t been hiding anything from her; she must have picked up on a random memory floating around somewhere. “Nightmares about me... oh, John...”


He waved away her concern. “It’s nothing. Who doesn’t have bad dreams every once in a while?”


“Well, I’m sorry for those too,” she said earnestly, disregarding his comment. The breeze blew her hair out behind her, and she sighed, closing her eyes. “You wanted to know what the Replicators are doing on this planet.” She opened her eyes and met his. “I think I can help with that.”

Chapter 6: Torments



Everything shifted again. The balcony disappeared, replaced by a dimly lit Ancient style laboratory. The place was swarming with Replicators, busily working on some unknown project. Technical specs covered the computer screens, accompanied by writing in Ancient that scrolled by at lightning speed. John walked to the center of the room, where an intricate set of holographic blueprints hovered over a worktable.


“What is all this?” he asked Elizabeth. She walked forward and stood beside him.


“This is what they’re working on. What they have been working on for the past several months now.” She reached out to the hologram and began manipulating it, showing the different projects being worked on, all machines of such complexity that John couldn’t even begin to guess what they were for, but he figured it probably couldn’t be anything good.


“So what exactly...?” he began.


“They’re weapons, of course. At least, most of them are. New weapons, for a new battle.” She turned to him, dropping her hand from the projection. “This particular faction of Replicators officially broke off from the others about a year ago. Apparently there was some sort of disagreement between Kedan and Oberoth that couldn’t be resolved. He left Asuras and started his own group on another planet, leaving some supporters behind to be his spies. All the while, he began developing this technology that would eventually allow him to take control over the entire Replicator population.”


“Ah, and let me guess... next the entire galaxy,” said John.


“Exactly,” she sighed. “I’m sure Rodney noticed on the way here that there were no energy readings being picked up by his scans.”


“Yeah, he did. Spent the entire walk messing with his computer trying to find out why. Heard him talking to himself - he probably adjusted the thing about a dozen times.”


“He could have adjusted the settings until it broke, and he still wouldn’t have found anything. That’s the main focus of the research here - completely undetectable power sources, invisible to scanners of any kind.”


“That’s some advantage. They could cause all kinds of trouble with tech like that.” She nodded. He leaned against the table, eyeing the glowing blue hologram in front of him. Then he turned to her. “There’s one thing I don’t get. How did you get here?”


“I was kidnapped a month after you got away. Oberoth was interested in how I was able to hold them all frozen for that long. He had been keeping me alive for study.” There was a tremor in her voice as she said the last word. John laid his hand over one of hers, which were clenched tightly around the edge of the table, and gave a gentle squeeze. She gave him a grateful look and continued. “One of Kedan’s spies eventually found me in my cell. It turned out she was curious about ascension. She had heard about it from some of the others, and decided it might be worth while to ask me about it, since I’m still partly human.


“After talking to me, she abducted me and managed to smuggle me off of the planet. She brought me here, hoping to convince Kedan that ascension was the way to ultimate power over Oberoth, and that I could help him achieve it.”


“He didn’t buy it,” guessed John.


“No. He didn’t. Kedan has no interest in ascension. And, therefore, he had no interest in me, other than as a source of information. Apparently he thought that I was some sort of...” she spat out the word disgustedly, “pet of Oberoth’s, and by torturing me he could show his defiance against him.”


She turned her face away, unable to continue. John’s hands tightened, and he felt the familiar stir of anger that threats to Elizabeth had always caused in him. At that moment, he wished that Kedan was human so he could kill him very slowly and very painfully. The earlier vision of destroying the Replicators once again played in his mind. ‘That would work too’, he thought threateningly.


Elizabeth looked up at him, astonishment, and a little bit of fear, covering her face. “That anger... I couldn’t help but pick up on it... it completely filled your mind just now... ”


‘Oh.’ He had actually forgotten about her current connection to his mind. John glanced at his hands and saw they were still gripping the table. He quickly released them, and turned his attention to the display in front of him, staring at the glowing diagrams for several moments before responding. “I... I get... easily upset when someone threatens or hurts the people that I care about. But, then again, you know that already.”


“Yeah. I do,” she said, her eyes soft. Seeing that he didn’t really want to talk about it, she tactfully continued her story. “Kedan altered the nanites in my system, made them easier for him to control; that’s what he did when he forced me to do this to you. With the controls in place, he eventually decided that I could be of some use, and put me to work with the others in the lab.”


John straightened up and turned to her, a question popping into his mind. “Did you ever try and escape?” he asked. The haunted look entered her eyes again, and she stepped away from the table, head bowed, examining the way her fingers laced her hands together. As she walked, their surroundings changed. The laboratory faded away, and they were back on Atlantis, strolling down a sunshine filled, window lined corridor that possessed a fantastic view of the city stretching out below them. Once again they were alone.


“I did try to escape,” she said slowly, lifting her head. “Many times.” She took a breath. “On the first two attempts, I didn’t even make it out of the complex. The third and fourth times, I actually got within sight of the stargate before Kedan ended the vision.”


“I was stupid, I guess,” she continued. “I should have realized what was going on, but... it was absolutely seamless, there wasn’t any break or pause in time that showed when reality ended and the vision began... and I wanted so badly...” She trailed off.


“Every time... it was fake every time?” he said, sad disbelief in his voice.


“Every time but the last,” she said quietly. Her right hand drifted to her left forearm, reminding him of the way he had seen soldiers behave when remembering old, long healed wounds. He glanced at her. Her face was closed off, blocking any further discussion about that particular incident. “But the fake escapes weren’t the worst experiences they created,” she added. “There were worse things.” She looked at him briefly, sorrow hidden behind her eyes. “Much worse things.”


They walked in silence for some time. John didn’t press her to say anything else about her captivity, and she didn’t offer any more information about it. In a way, he was glad. Hearing about what she had been through... he wasn’t sure which he wanted most - to either hurt someone very badly or just hold her in his arms until every bad memory was erased from her mind. He quickly shook off the jolt of surprise caused by the last half of that thought.


“How much longer do you have?” he asked a few minutes later. “He’s bound to get suspicious of it taking this long.”


“I have a little time left. It’s really only been about ten minutes, although it seems longer in here. Kedan won’t interfere for another five.” They stopped walking, pausing in front of a large window overlooking the south pier. “We need to figure out how you and your team are going to get out of here, John. We may not have another opportunity like this to actually plan something. I’ll do whatever I can to help, but I don’t know how...”


“You’re coming with us,” he interrupted quickly.


She nodded, surprised. “Of course.”


“Good, because for a minute there it sounded like you were planning on staying behind.”


“Not if I can possibly help it,” she said seriously. Their eyes met for a moment in the soundless communication that had always been so easy between them.


“And not if I can help it either,” he said, simultaneously making a silent vow to himself that he would do everything in his power to make that a true statement. He looked into the clear, penetrating green of her eyes. Absolutely everything.


“Alright,” he sighed a second later, “what can you tell me about the layout of this place?”



oOo



Rodney shut his eyes. “Stop it, stop it, stop it,” he whispered, trying to block out the sound of the alarms blaring in his ear. They had started ten minutes ago when the ship had taken its first hit and they had lost all power to the hyperdrive. Since then it had been one disaster after another - one of the hangar bays had caught fire, effectively sealing off that entire part of the ship, they were operating on minimal sub-light engines, every scrap of food left seemed to be citrus flavored, and now level two was venting atmosphere out into space. And to make the situation even more critical - Rodney’s family was on board.


“Mer. Mer. Rodney!” He opened his eyes to see his sister Jeanie standing in front of him, holding a frightened and tearstained Maddie in her arms. “Mer, you have to snap out of it. We need you to focus.” A shower of sparks flew from one of the computer consoles as another burst of fire shook the ship. Maddie gave a small cry and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. “Shh, it’s okay, sweetie,” Jeanie soothed. “Uncle Mer is going to fix everything.” She turned back to him. “Look, you’re the one who knows this technology, not me. Just tell me what to do.”


Rodney looked at his sister. She was counting on him to save her daughter’s life. He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Right, okay... um... first we need to...” He went into full technical mode, giving instructions so fast even he could hardly keep up with what he was saying. But nevertheless, she followed them exactly, Maddie clinging to her leg the entire time.


The ship continued to be bombarded by enemy fire. Over the comm they could hear the shouting from the bridge as the captain and his remaining crew tried their best to push back the onslaught of fighters swarming around the ship, as well as take out the guns on the enemy vessel. But their weapons were severely diminished, the shield was nonexistent, and Rodney knew, even with both Sam and Sheppard out there flying, they weren’t going to be able to keep this up for much longer.


Something flashed on his computer monitor. There was a small amount of power registering. “Yes! Yes! It’s working! Haha!” he shouted in triumph.


His mental victory dance was interrupted by a shout over the comm. “Colonel Sheppard, do you hear me?” barked the captain. “Colonel Sheppard, respond!” There was no answer. “Colonel Carter, I can’t reach Colonel Sheppard, is everything alright?”


“No,” Sam yelled through her radio, “I saw him take a hit. He’s... Ahhh!”


“Colonel Carter! Colonel Carter!” She didn’t respond. “Dammit! Jacobs increase firepower on that ship...”


Rodney didn’t hear the rest. There was a buzzing sound in his ears, and a sick, horrible feeling in his stomach. Sam... Sheppard... They were both... gone. Just like that. He couldn’t believe it...


“Mer, we’re losing power again!” Jeanie’s voice broke through the haze that had settled around his mind. He pushed his grief away to be dealt with later. He had people to save.

He looked at his console and swore. “We’re losing hull integrity too. This ship’s falling apart.” Another blast rocked the ship. There was a crash behind him as something on the ceiling snapped off and fell.


A child’s voice let out a piercing shriek. “Mommy!” Rodney spun around, terror filling his heart.


“No!” he cried, throwing himself to the floor. Jeanie was lying there, covered in a dusting of rubble from the ceiling, her head bleeding, a heavy metal coolant pipe not two feet away from her. She wasn’t breathing. “No, no, no, no, no...” he sobbed, unable to stop the tears pouring down his face. “Please,” he whispered, burying his face in his hands. “Please...” More sparks flared and everything shook. There was so much noise... “Make it stop...” he begged. “Please...” A high-pitched whistling sound began that canceled out all the noise around him, and it grew steadily brighter until everything whited out and disappeared.


Rodney gasped in pain as the Replicator withdrew his hand from his forehead. He crumpled to the ground, breathing heavily and sweating, and glared at the blank face of the machine standing in front of him. No trace of emotion whatsoever. He looked away, still feeling sick with the toll that experience had taken out on him. He closed his eyes for a second, and could still see her lying there. It had been so real.


He looked over at Ronon, still trapped in whatever torture they had created for him. Rodney didn’t know many specifics, but he knew that there were some dark things in the former Runner’s past, and he hated to imagine what he was being put through right now. He turned his gaze to the right to see about Sheppard. He was still being interrogated as well. Wait... was that Elizabeth who was doing it? It was her alright. Her hand was immersed in Sheppard’s forehead, an intense look of concentration on her face. Well, he supposed, as far as he knew she was still only part Replicator, so it made sense she would have to work harder at it. Assuming it was really her. In spite of what the Replicator leader had said, he still didn’t quite fully believe it. And what she was doing right now definitely didn’t do anything to eliminate that doubt. The Elizabeth Weir he knew would never forcibly take over someone’s mind like that.


Sheppard suddenly fell backwards as he was released from the mind connection. He grunted in discomfort, his chest heaving as he drew in deep lungfuls of air. Elizabeth took an instinctive step towards him, concern for him written all over her face. It was an expression Rodney had seen many times over the three years they had been on Atlantis together. She had worried about everyone in the city, it was her job and she was that kind of person, but Rodney had noticed that there had always been another level to that worry where John Sheppard was involved, even though she tried to hide the extent of it. It was interesting that this Elizabeth retained that particular trait.


“I’m okay,” Sheppard said to her with a nod, their eyes meeting for a long moment. She nodded as well, and he sat up, his breathing only just calming to a normal rate. He ran a hand through his hair, looked over, and saw Rodney. “Hey. You okay?”


“Close enough. You?”


“I’m fine,” he replied. Sheppard did look remarkably calm about the whole thing in Rodney’s opinion.


There was a cry of pain from their left as the last Replicator pulled his hand out of Ronon’s head. He slumped forward, panting. Three seconds later, without warning, he lunged forward, knocking the Replicator to the ground, and started pummeling him, wordless snarling coming from his mouth. The two guards rushed at him and pulled him off, not without some difficulty. He continued to thrash and struggle, cursing them and the one on the floor all the while.


“Ronon! Calm down!” ordered John. “Ronon!”



The Satedan looked at him. “Whatever it was, whatever you saw, it’s over,” he said calmly and forcibly. “It’s over.” He locked eyes with him. Ronon gave a reluctant nod, stopped his struggling and allowed himself to be pushed to the floor, but his face was still twisted with a wild and unbridled hatred that he didn’t bother to try and contain.


Kedan stepped forward. “You have been most difficult prisoners to interrogate. Even with the added stress we put on your minds, you have all shown considerable resistance to our methods of gathering information. Even though Dr. Weir seems reluctant to reveal her findings to us.” The Replicator glanced at her. She looked him straight in the eye, her face completely blank. Like one of them.


Kedan closed his eyes for a second. “Very well,” he said to her. “We found a similar explanation in the others. But do not fool yourself, Dr. Weir. We will know everything soon enough.” He turned away and signaled to the others, who began silently filing out of the room.


“So,” John said conversationally, “what happens now? I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’re going to let us go home?”


“A correct assumption, Colonel Sheppard. You will stay here until we have finished with you.”


“And when you’re finished with us?” asked Rodney, nervousness and anger mixing in his voice.


“I think we already know the answer to that one,” said John, eyeing Kedan. If he hadn’t known it was impossible, he would have sworn there was the ghost of a smirk on the Replicator’s face.


Kedan, as usual, didn’t say anything. John hated bad guys who were the silent type. It made foiling their plans so much more difficult.


Kedan moved towards the doorway, and John was reminded strongly of their previous encounter in his cell. “Dr. Weir,” Kedan summoned. She didn’t move from where she was standing. He said her name again. Nothing. He stepped towards her, grabbed her arm, and began pushing her out the door. John’s protective instincts had made him instinctively jump to his feet the minute Kedan touched her, but, as much as he hated too, he stayed where he was, watching as Elizabeth was forced from the room.


The door slid shut. “Well,” said Rodney hopelessly, getting to his feet, “what are we going to do?”


“You’re the genius, figure something out,” growled Ronon.


Rodney opened his mouth, doubtless to make some snappy remark, but nothing came out. His brow creased and his shoulders slumped. “I honestly have no idea how we’re going to get out of here,” he admitted.


“Well,” said John brightly. “I guess it’s a good thing I have a plan then.”

Chapter 7: Doubts



“You do?” Rodney sounded shocked.


“It’s not unheard of you know,” said John. “I have actually come up with a plan before.”


“Yeah, but...”


“So what is this plan of yours?” interrupted Ronon, completely ignoring the fact that Rodney was still talking.


“This plan of ours - mine and Elizabeth’s.”


“Wait just a minute,” said Rodney hurriedly. “Yours and Elizabeth’s? You’re actually trusting her? I don’t know about you, but that sounds like an extremely bad idea to me.”


“McKay, it’s Elizabeth...”


“You don’t know that for sure,” he cut in. “There’s no way you could possibly know that. Sheppard, we are in the middle of a Replicator base in case you’ve forgotten. We can’t believe anything we see here. That woman that looks like Elizabeth Weir - she’s probably just some machine created so we’ll tell them everything they want to know!”


“Well she’s not!”


“She stuck her hand in your forehead. Are we not seeing the evil Replicator connection here? You and I both know the Elizabeth we knew would never do that.”


“Kedan forced her, she didn’t have any choice!”


“Of course she told you that! If she’s a spy do you think she’d tell you the truth?” He stared at the ceiling in exasperation. “‘Hi, John,’” he mimicked. “‘Oh, by the way, I’m working for the Replicators, now tell me all your secrets.’ Yeah, that’s bound to inspire prisoners to talk.”


“McKay...” began John dangerously. Rodney looked at him incredulously.


“Oh, tell me you didn’t tell her anything! Are you completely out of your mind? You realize they were probably monitoring every single minute she was in your head. Whatever plan you two came up with? Yeah, every single Replicator here now knows about it.”


“Shut up, McKay! You have no idea what you’re talking about.”


“Oh, I don’t do I?”


“No, you don’t. Them making her do that - that was just another way for them to torment her. The very fact that Elizabeth would never probe somebody’s mind like that is the reason they made her do it!”


Rodney was staring at him in disbelief. “You actually believe all that,” he said quietly. He looked at the floor and shook his head. “John, look,” he sighed. “I know you want Elizabeth back. I do too.” He raised his head. “But we can’t know for sure that this is really her.”


“He’s right, Sheppard,” put in Ronon. “We can’t trust her.”


John looked at both of them, frustrated by their skepticism. “This is our Elizabeth, I know it is. I can feel it. You... you just have to trust me on this.”


Rodney looked at him, determination, and a little sadness in his eyes. “Sorry. I can’t do that. You... you could have been compromised... or brainwashed... they’re too powerful, they could have planted that thought in your head...”


“Rodney,” John sighed, “you have to believe me. All you have to do is look into her eyes and you’ll know it’s her. There’s something there, it’s... it’s unmistakable.”


“Well she’s not here right now, is she? Look, I am sorry, but...”


“All I’m asking... is for you to have a little faith,” said John, “and believe me when I say that Elizabeth is alive, here, and ready to help us. Trust me. She - is - real. I wouldn’t ask this of you unless I was absolutely sure, you know that.”


He fell silent and looked at each of his teammates in turn, waiting for a response. He could see the indecision in their faces as they considered what he had said. He knew he was asking a lot of them. Trusting her would go against everything that their previous experiences had taught them about situations like this. But he had seen the pain and utter humanity that had shadowed her features, and he knew, with every ounce of conviction he had, that he was right about her - that she was their Elizabeth.


McKay looked up from the patch of floor he had been staring at and met John’s eyes. “Okay,” he said. “What’s the plan?”


John looked over at Ronon. The warrior stepped closer and nodded. “I guess I don’t really have that much of a choice.”


John nodded at them. “Good.” He glanced around the room; he hadn’t really paid much attention to it before. It was a fairly decent sized room, at least, bigger than the one he had been thrown in at first. Like the other chamber, this one was practically devoid of any kind of furniture, but had horizontal panels of some dark metallic substance lining the walls for decoration. Another difference was the presence of a door control panel - evidently this room hadn’t been designed to hold prisoners.


He turned back to the others, about to elaborate further on the plan, when he noticed something, or someone, was missing. “Where’s Shanna?”


Rodney and Ronon both spun around to look for her, their reactions making it obvious that they had forgotten about her as well. “They must have taken her out while they were searching our minds,” said McKay.


Ronon turned to John. “I’m guessing this just made things more complicated.”


“A little,” he admitted. Having to hunt the native woman down and then rescue her hadn’t exactly been part of the original plan. “We’re just going to have to make an extra stop.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, here’s the plan. Our gear is being held in a room on the next hallway. We get our weapons and a life signs detector and find Shanna that way. Then we head to a lab on the floor above us where Elizabeth will be waiting. We place some C- 4, and then we all get out.”


“Sounds like a piece of cake,” said Rodney sarcastically. “Easy as pie.”


“Yeah, I know it’s not going to be as easy as it sounds. And quit it with the food analogies will ya?”


“Oh, someone else is hungry too are they?” A glare was the only response. “Fine, but we have a few small problems. We all know P-90 fire isn’t going to do any good against the Replicators...”


“They’ll buy us enough time to get to the lab. There we can create an energy field like we did before, and maybe make ourselves a couple of ARGs while we’re at it.”


“Oh, and how are we going to do that? We don’t have the anywhere near the right kind of equipment...”


“I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”


“Great,” Rodney muttered. “Once again...”


“McKay,” interrupted Ronon with a growl. “We don’t have time for complaining right now.”

Rodney sent him a glare. “Fine,” he snapped. He walked over to the door panel and pried off the casing. “And of course,” he said as he examined the interior of the panel, “the Replicators aren’t stupid enough to leave the control crystals inside where we can find them.” A few more minutes inspection. “This circuitry is set up completely different from the ones on Atlantis.” He straightened up and faced John and Ronon. “Without any equipment I’m not going to be able to get this door open.”


Ronon frowned at the news, and John looked at his watch. “You won’t have to. In about twenty minutes, a guard is going to come and bring us some food. He’ll open the door...”


“And all we have to do is take him out,” finished Ronon, a slight smile spreading across his face.


McKay was looking at John in disbelief. “How do you know...?” he began. The answer hit him a second later and he sighed. “Oh. Never mind.”



oOo



Twenty minutes later, exactly on schedule, the door to their prison slid open, revealing a brown haired man carrying a tray. John and Ronon stood casually on either side of the door, and the Replicator entered the room unaccosted. For the moment. As he bent to sit the tray on the floor, they slowly moved up behind him. In a lightning quick movement, Ronon grabbed both sides of his head and twisted sharply, causing the Replicator to fall to the ground motionless.


“That actually worked?” said a shocked Rodney.


“Not for long,” said John hurriedly. “I have a feeling he’s going to put himself back together any minute. We have to go. Now.”


He stuck his head out the door. Finding everything clear, he stepped into the hallway and moved to the side. McKay and Ronon rushed by him, and he swiped his hand over the control panel adjacent to the door, sealing the incapacitated Replicator inside. “Alright, follow me,” he said, and set off at a jog down the corridor, Elizabeth’s directions running through his head.


They stopped when they reached the intersection of the hallways, John taking a quick look around the corner. The fifth door down was the one they wanted. He cursed under his breath. Of course, it was the one with the guard in front of it. He pulled back and looked at his team. “Any suggestions?”


“How about this?” Ronon took a glance at their target and reached for his hair, magically producing a small knife out of the knot dreadlocks. He steadied himself against the wall, took aim, and threw the blade down the hallway, then hastily took cover behind the wall. Ten seconds later, as the Replicator guard began to turn the corner, Ronon snatched out did a repeat of the events in the cell. Once again, the Replicator collapsed to the floor and was still.



“Honestly,” said McKay, “Why does that neck snapping thing keep working? It shouldn’t have any effect...”


Ronon bent down next to the inert form on the floor and retrieved his knife from where it was sticking out of the Replicator’s forehead. “Would you rather it didn’t work, McKay?”


“I didn’t say that...”


“Shut up and let’s go,” ordered John brusquely. He checked to make sure the area was still clear before moving into the next corridor, and sprinted to the fifth door down. He waved his hand in front of the door panel and they ran inside, John sealing the door behind them.


John scanned the room, looking for their stolen gear. A few seconds search found their packs piled in a corner, their contents removed and spread out on a large metal table, along with their guns. “Alright, minimal gear. Just your weapon and some ammo.” He grabbed his tac vest and began to briskly gear up, stuffing extra ammunition in his vest pockets and checking his P-90 to make sure it was still in working order. Ronon had recovered his gun, spinning it around and flicking the settings switch to kill, and McKay had his tac vest on and was in the process of examining his life signs detector, his P-90 laying ready on the table in front of him.


John checked the safety on his sidearm and stuck it in the waistband of his pants. “Okay, the lab is a floor up. There’s a transporter not far from here, but I’m guessing the stairs are our best bet. We leave this room and head right, then right again. Stairs are on a connecting hallway to the left. Got it?”


“Got it.”


“Rodney, did you find her?”


“Yeah,” he said, not looking up from the tiny screen, “It so happens that the only other life sign I’m getting is in a room just down from that connecting hallway you were talking about. It’s gotta be her.”


“Right, let’s go. They’re bound to know we’re out by now, so be ready.” He faced the door, took a deep breath, and opened it.


The immediate area was suspiciously empty of Replicators. John cautiously led the others to the right and along the hall, gun at the ready, passing one gray door after another. They reached the next corner without incident and silently surveyed the adjoining corridor. There was one walking away from them in the opposite direction from the one they wanted to go in, but otherwise it was deserted. They waited until the lone Replicator was out of sight, then dashed to the right, past the stairs and down the hall until McKay came to a dead stop.


“This is the one,” he said, pointing at a door. John waved his hand in front of the control panel while Rodney and Ronon stood guard. Nothing happened. He did it again. The lights in the panel flashed a brighter shade of blue, but the door remained shut. “McKay, the door won’t open.”


Rodney pushed him out of the way and levered the panel’s casing off. While he fiddled with the crystals, John took his place watching the hallway. As the seconds ticked by and the door still stayed closed, he felt himself grow more and more tense, expecting fifty Replicators to come descending on them at any moment. “Come on McKay!” he ordered impatiently.


“I’m going, I’m going. Got it!”


The door slid open and John strode into the dim room. At first he didn’t see anything at all, but as his eyes adjusted to the low lighting, he realized that what he had taken to be a clump of shadows was actually a person huddled in a corner. He hurried over to the figure and knelt down beside it. “Shanna?” There was a stir of movement, a head lifted, and a pair of frightened and confused eyes peered out at him from beneath tousled hair. “It’s okay,” he said. Recognition entered her eyes.


“C...Colonel Sheppard?” she whispered in surprise, as if she didn’t believe what she was seeing.


“Yeah, that’s me.” He took her arm and lifted her to her feet. “Come on, we need to get out of here. I promised your husband I would make sure nothing happened to you, and I intend to keep that promise.” He kept a hold of her arm and gently pulled her to the door. “Let’s move,” he said to his team. Rodney took charge of Shanna, allowing John to take point as they backtracked towards the stairway. They managed to reach the connecting hallway before the first blast of laser fire hit them.


A second after the blast hit the wall next to their heads, John went into action. He spun around, grabbed Shanna and pushed her into the safety of the stairwell before letting loose a burst of P-90 fire at the oncoming Replicators. He shouted at McKay to take Shanna and head up the stairs. As Rodney complied with the order, John and Ronon took cover in the doorway and held them off until the other two had a decent head start. After a half a minute of constant firing from both men, John slapped Ronon on the shoulder. “Time to go!” he yelled over the noise, and began running up the stairs, taking them two at a time, his Satedan friend right on his heels.


McKay and Shanna were waiting on the next floor’s landing. As soon as Rodney saw them, he opened the door and dashed through it, dragging the poor woman behind him, and sealed it shut again the minute they were all through. They were in a small connecting hallway that closely mirrored the floor below in appearance. It was quiet for the moment, but they all knew it wasn’t going to stay like that for long.


John took a few precious seconds to catch his breath. “Okay. Lab’s that way,” he pointed, “around the corner. Elizabeth’ll be waiting for us inside. I don’t have to tell you to shoot at anything that moves on the way there.”


“I know now’s not the time,” said Rodney, “but this was one of the other things wrong with your plan. What if she’s not there? They probably have her locked up somewhere, not letting her roam around...”


“She’ll be there,” said John firmly. He adjusted his P-90 and took up position on the corner. “Ready?” he asked, glancing back at them. McKay and Ronon nodded, and he returned the gesture before bringing up his gun and preparing himself for the mad dash to the relative safety of the lab. He took a deep breath and wheeled around the corner, just in time to see an outstretched hand headed straight for his forehead.


He blinked and ducked, backing out into the hallway and letting off a short burst of bullets into the Replicator’s stomach. The Replicator wavered but didn’t fall, and continued his advance on John. Both Rodney and Ronon ran into the hall and added their firepower to the assault, but to no effect. Three other Replicators came out of nowhere and began closing in, walking towards them through the hail of gunfire as if it was nothing harsher than rain, forcing them to retreat down the passageway. Shanna gave a panicked cry and darted out from where she had been concealing herself to join them.


Alternate plans began racing through John’s head as he backed even farther away from their destination, all the while emptying his P-90 of ammo. If he remembered this floor’s layout correctly, this hall eventually curved back on itself. They could make a run for it and ultimately get to the lab that way. He just hoped Elizabeth had barricaded herself in there well when she heard the gunshots. He opened his mouth to shout the plan to the others, but was interrupted by a jarring blow to his shoulder from behind that caused his P-90 to fly out of his hand and skid across the floor. John staggered and spun around to face the fourth Replicator that had appeared, blocking his next blow with his forearm.


There were a few seconds of intense fighting before John managed to reach out in a blur of motion and snap the Replicator’s neck. He turned. In those few seconds distraction, the other three had moved too close for weapons fire and Ronon was heavily engaged in fighting two of them. John rushed to help, taking out the third in less than a minute using their newly proven method. Two more bodies hit the floor at Ronon’s feet. That was all of them for now. John looked over at him as he righted himself. The only indication that the former Runner had exerted himself was the slightly more rapid than usual pace of his breathing. “Everybody okay?”


They all nodded, even though Shanna, standing next to Rodney, looked near tears. John walked past them over to where his P-90 had landed and bent to retrieve it. As he picked up the weapon and settled it’s familiar weight on his right arm, he saw a blur of movement to his right out of the corner of his eye. Knowing his team was behind him, in a split second he brought up the gun and let loose a burst of ammo into the figure before he even saw it clearly. The figure froze where it stood at the corner of the lab hallway. “John?” it whispered in astonishment. His vision focused on the silhouette before him and his mind went blank with absolute horror. “Oh God,” he choked out, feeling sick. He ran and caught her in his arms as she collapsed to the floor. “Oh God... Elizabeth...”


She looked up at him, her eyes already half closed. “Come on, don’t do this,” he begged. Green eyes focused on his face, and the ghost of a smile flickered around her mouth. “Come on...” Her eyes slowly slid shut and she was still. “Elizabeth...” He shook her gently, but there was no response. “Elizabeth! Oh God...” He felt tears welling up in his eyes that he refused to let out. He reached up and brushed a stray curl away from her face. “Elizabeth...” he whispered, his voice breaking.


He looked up at his team and Shanna, who had gathered around. Rodney was looking at him and the woman lying dead in his arms with terror and disbelief. Ronon just looked shocked, and pity covered Shanna’s face. John looked down at Elizabeth. How could he have done this?


“Sheppard. We have to go,” said Ronon quietly a minute later. John nodded and reluctantly released his hold on her body, lowering it gently to the floor. He stood up, feeling shaky and ill, and silently moved away. As they headed towards the lab, he looked back once. And saw the still form lying on the floor disappear. In an instant, John’s world erupted in a blaze of pain and torment. His vision flashed black and red and he screamed.

Chapter 8: Conflicts



The pain was unimaginable. It was like a thousand knives were stabbing him over and over again, relentless in their mission to inflict as much torture as possible. Bright red lights flashed all around him, blinding him one minute and plunging him into utter darkness the next. There was nothing else but the pain. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think. All he could do was scream and wish for it all to be over. Images began to burn themselves into his mind. He saw Elizabeth dead. Over and over again. Rodney, Teyla, Ronon, even himself - dead. Atlantis burning. The images were almost worse than the knives.

He couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t. The pain was too much. He felt his mind stretch to its breaking point, felt his sanity starting to slip away in shreds... and then it was over. He opened his eyes, gasping for breath, confusion immediately taking hold. He was back on the floor where the lab was, standing just beyond the start of the short hallway that held the staircase. He felt a hand gripping his left arm, and then suddenly realized that someone was talking. “...hey, John... are you alright?”


He turned to his left to glance at the source of the voice and found a concerned looking Rodney staring at him, waiting for his question to be answered. “No, not really,” said John, still trying to catch his breath. “What the hell happened?”


“It was a Replicator,” said another voice behind him. John felt a sudden dizzying flood of relief just hearing it. “One of the guards on this floor. Rodney says he surprised you when you turned the corner.” John turned around to look at Elizabeth. “I got out here in time to see Ronon pull him off of you.” She gestured to the still body laying at his feet and gave a tiny smile. “That neck snapping thing is an interesting trick. I’m surprised it works.” She smiled again, hesitantly, the expression not managing to hide the familiar look of worry that covered her features.


“See, I told you it shouldn’t work,” John heard Rodney mutter under his breath. He ignored him and ran a hand through his already messy hair.


“So,” he said to no one in particular, trying to straighten out the whole mess for himself, “everything after I turned that corner... from that minute on everything was fake?”


“Yes,” confirmed Elizabeth.


“Right,” he said with a sigh of relief, catching her eye for a brief moment. Elizabeth gave him a strange look, but didn’t say anything. “How long did that thing have its hand in my head?”


“The amount of time it took for the Flash here to realize what was going on, get around you, grab his hand and pull it out,” answered Rodney, jerking his head in Ronon’s direction. “Around ten seconds.”


“Ten seconds?” John shook his head, trying to let sense return to his still somewhat dazed mind. “I really hate Replicators.”


“Believe me I know the feeling,” said Elizabeth fervently, meeting his eyes. “Now come on, we need to get out of the hallway.” She started walking towards the lab. John began to follow her, but Ronon stopped him.


“Here,” he said, and held out John’s P-90 to him. “You dropped this.” John stared at the weapon as if he was seeing a ghost. A split-second later he recovered, nodded and took it out of Ronon’s hands silently, then moved towards the lab. He looked ahead at where Elizabeth was just entering the room, then down at the gleaming black metal of the gun resting on his arm. The Replicator’s illusion flashed unbidden through his memory, and he shuddered involuntarily.



oOo



After everyone had entered the dim lab, Elizabeth sealed the door behind them and moved over to one of the computer consoles. Out of the corner of his eye John saw Rodney glance the closed door warily and share a slightly concerned look with Ronon. John sighed inwardly. So they still hadn’t gotten past their mistrust of her. He didn’t know what else he could say that would convince them. They would just have to see for themselves that he was right.


Ronon steered Shanna into a vacant corner, told her rather sharply to stay put, and positioned himself by the door. Elizabeth turned to look at McKay. “We don’t have much time,” she said. “I know they have the equipment we need, but I don’t know enough to operate all of it myself. I can help, but...”


“But it’s going to fall on me to do most of the work,” Rodney interrupted. “What else is new?”


For a moment she looked like she wanted to be amused at this typical Rodney McKay statement, as she would have been in the past, but his cold tone and distant expression prevented her from responding as she normally would have. Instead, one side of her mouth gave a brief, sad little twitch and she turned back to the console, not looking at him as she spoke. She quickly clued him in on what they had to work with and exactly what the plan called for, pulling up several schematics for him to look at. When that was done, she let Rodney take over that computer and silently moved across the room to another workstation, her face carefully controlled and blank. But John knew her better than that.


As quietly as she had, he walked to the other side of the room and stood beside her at the console. She didn’t look at him, just continued to stare at the screen in front of her, the blue glow casting shadows along her face in the low light, throwing her features into sharp contrast. A few seconds ticked by as she worked. He waited. Finally, “They still don’t trust me, do they?” she said in a low voice. It wasn’t a question.


He answered anyway. “No,” he said quietly. “No they don’t.”


“But you do.” She turned her head slightly to glance at him. He sent her a small, hopefully reassuring smile. It didn’t seem to have the desired effect. Her eyes were fraught with sympathy and sadness as she continued. “And by trusting me, you compromise the trust your team has in you. I’m sorry. I know that must be hard.”


“Yeah, well, they’ll come around.”


She flashed him a quick melancholy smile and nodded. “Let’s hope so.” She turned back to the computer and continued to work for half a minute or so in silence. John waited again; he could see that she still had more to say. Sure enough, she soon turned to look at him again, this time hesitating before speaking, as if unsure she should verbalize what was on her mind. “John, what... what did you see, in the hallway? What did the guard show you? I... I understand if you don’t want to tell me, but...”


He saw only concern on her face as she regarded him. But he couldn’t tell her... How could he tell her that in that illusion he had killed her? Watched her die? He couldn’t... But yet he suddenly found himself talking. “It was completely flawless like you said, like it was the first time on Asuras. We were in the hall, surrounded, and had to fight our way into the main corridor. We had taken them all out, I picked up my gun, and... and you came around the corner.” He stared at her, misery in his voice and an apology in his eyes. “I couldn’t see who it was... didn’t think...”



Elizabeth closed her eyes and bowed her head, swallowing deeply as the realization of what must have happened next dawned on her. John wanted to look away, to lose himself in the shadows that clung to every corner in the room, but he kept watching her face, searching for some reaction, some sign that she forgave him for what he had done. It was an irrational need, that wish for her forgiveness, considering the event had never happened, but he felt it anyway.


She opened her eyes, her gaze filled with pity and understanding. He could hardly believe it. He had killed her, and she was feeling sorry for him. Again. As if she didn’t have more than enough sorrow of her own to deal with. He wished she would stop it.


She opened her mouth to say something, but whatever it was was halted by Rodney’s exclamation from across the room. “Okay, I think I have basically what I need to do this. It won’t be quite as smooth as last time though. Before I was able to use the cloaking field on the jumper to create the ARG field we used to get into the city, and since we don’t happen to have one of those handy, I had to use what was already here. Fortunately for us, these Replicators have some seriously advanced technology at their disposal.” He pressed a series of buttons on the console in front of him and a small force shield appeared around the empty table it was connected to. The lights set into the table’s surface glowed orange and in a matter of seconds Replicator blocks began to form from thin air, merging into a complex looking Ancient device like John had never seen before. When the device was complete, the lights dimmed and the force shield dissipated into nothing, leaving Rodney’s creation sitting unassumingly on the now dull surface. Rodney beamed proudly. “See. Our very own field generator.”


“That’s great, Rodney,” said John impatiently, “now how about powering it up? We’re going to have Replicators beating down the door any minute now.”


“They should have shown up already,” said Ronon from the door. “There’s no way it should have taken this long for them to find us and get here. It doesn’t take ten minutes to walk up a flight of stairs.”


“They’re regrouping,” said Elizabeth. “It took them a few moments for all of them to recognize what was going on.” Her eyes unfocused for a second. “They’re almost here now. In about thirty seconds they’re going to enter this hallway. Rodney...!”


He pressed a button on the device. “It’s on, it’s on!” Several lights around the rim of the device began to glow. The lab’s walls shimmered blue for a second and then returned to normal.


“Did it work?” demanded John. No one answered. The rest of the promised thirty seconds flew by.


“Yes,” confirmed Elizabeth and Rodney simultaneously. Rodney looked up from the computer screen where he had been watching the sensors, appearing slightly miffed that he hadn’t been the only one to deliver the news. Elizabeth just looked relieved. “The field’s working,” she said. “They’re disintegrating the instant they walk through it.”


John relaxed, tense muscles loosening now that they had time to work with. “That’s great. But...”


“They’re going to figure out how to get through it sooner or later. Probably sooner,” finished Rodney. “Yes, we all know about the Replicator’s irritating tendency to adapt to whatever we throw at them. I suppose this is where the rest of that plan of yours comes in.”


“It’s not that bad of a plan, Rodney,” said John. “I’m a little insulted that you...”


“Oh wait, that’s right. This plan of yours and hers.” He nodded his head in Elizabeth’s direction, not bothering to conceal the suspicion in his voice. Hurt flashed across her face.


“I thought you said you were going to trust me on this, McKay,” said John, a warning running behind his careful words.


Rodney set his jaw and straightened up. He had gotten the message. And he was going to ignore it. “Yeah, well I’m finding it harder to do that.”


“What’s the matter with you?” John snapped angrily. “Everything’s worked so far hasn’t it? Why start now?”


“John,” said Elizabeth quietly, stepping up to stand beside him. “It’s okay. This was going to have to happen eventually. He has every right to be suspicious.”


“We don’t have time...”


“John,” she repeated, putting the slight forcefulness in her tone that she had used as leader of the expedition- the tone that had made even the most stubborn Marine or upset scientist listen to her. “Let him say what he needs to say.”


Rodney was struck dumb for a moment. He obviously hadn’t expected that. He actually seemed slightly shamed by her reasonableness, and when he spoke again he sounded almost contrite. “Look, I want to believe you, I really do. But it’s just... this is all so...” He trailed off, his previous arguments apparently having flown out the window. Then he recovered. “Why weren’t you locked up, huh? Do they just let you roam around wherever you want? If you were really a prisoner here, we should have had to bust you out or something...”


“I’m not a threat to them, Rodney. They know I’m not in any position to do anything to stop them. They’ve made sure of that.”


“Oh, and what do you call what you’re doing now? ‘Cause I think helping us escape definitely qualifies for the ‘stopping them’ category. They would have taken control of your nanites and assimilated you as soon as possible, making you part of their collective. And that means that the only way you could actually be here was if they put you here as a spy! That would be the case even if you’re actually Elizabeth Weir and not just some copy they made to fool us. You’ve admitted that you can tell what they’re doing, what they’re planning. Well I’m guessing that that works both ways!”


Elizabeth sighed heavily. “They’ve been... distracted since you were captured, Kedan in particular, and he’s the one who holds the most control. I’ve been able to hide things from them on a greater level than I’ve ever been able to before, taking advantage of how truly inconsequential I seem to them. Even with you all here, when I would have thought that they would be keeping a closer eye on me, they didn’t even bother.”

Rodney still looked like he didn’t buy it. She nodded and looked at the floor for a few seconds before meeting his gaze. “I am the person I say I am, Rodney. I am Elizabeth Weir. I’m not a copy.” He began to say something, but she held up her hand to stop him. “And I know that, whatever your issues are with me right now, nothing I tell you is going to be able to fully eliminate the doubt in your mind. I know it’s all going to sound like a lie to you, and I don’t know what else I can say that will make you believe me. But, Rodney, in the past you’ve accepted things and trusted people in much more difficult situations to believe than the one we’re in now. Not all of that trust turned out to be misplaced. What is it that’s stopping you this time?” Her voice had been perfectly calm throughout her entire speech, but there was an ever so slight note of pleading in the last question.


Rodney looked away from her, clenching his jaw and swallowing, and was quiet for a moment. Then, “Look, I don’t want to get my hopes up, okay? I don’t want to believe you and then turn around and find out that it was all some big lie and you’re still out there missing somewhere. It’s... it’s easier if I don’t trust you.”


“You’re going to have to if we want to get out of here.” He met her eyes, looking almost... afraid. “Please, Rodney,” she urged, “We don’t have a lot of time.”


He opened his mouth, hesitating for several seconds. “Alright. Okay,” he sighed, “I’ll... I’ll do it.”


Elizabeth smiled. “Thank you,” she said quietly.


He nodded briskly and awkwardly, then turned back to the computer screen and began talking very rapidly. “The Replicators still haven’t gotten through the shield yet. It’ll take them a while, I made the program especially complicated just for them. But...” he lifted one hand from the controls and shook a finger in the air, “they will get through it eventually. So... we’ll have to make another generator, on a different frequency, and take it with us for maximum effect. If I try to extend the field from here we won’t have enough time to actually get out before they just figure that one out too.”


John already knew all this. This was the plan that he and Elizabeth had come up with in his head, but he let Rodney talk, simply relieved that he seemed to be finally past his severe mistrust of Elizabeth’s motives. Or at least enough to ignore them for now and concentrate on getting them all out of this damn place.


“... problem will be coming up with one small enough to carry. Like an ARG, but constant...”


“Speaking of ARGs...” interrupted John.


“Yeah, yeah, I know.” McKay didn’t even look up from the screen or stop typing. “Make you a couple of those too while I’m at it.”


“I could do that,” offered Elizabeth. Rodney looked up, surprised.


“You could?”


“I’ve been working with them in their labs for months now.” She seemed lightly amused by his reaction and smiled. “I couldn’t help but pick up a few things. I just need to use the program you came up with...”


“Oh. S...sure.” He pressed a button and pointed to another console, still appearing a little shellshocked. “I sent a copy of it over there. You should have everything you need.”


Elizabeth nodded, went over to the assigned computer, and immediately began to work on creating the anti-Replicator guns. The speed at which she worked surprised John. Within minutes, the basic shape of the weapon had begun to form inside a forcefield like the one McKay had used earlier. He wondered just how much of an advantage the nanites inside her gave in regards to using this technology. In the past she had been able to exercise some amount of control over them. Maybe she was still able to do so, even with the alterations made by Kedan.


Knowing he couldn’t do anything to help her at the moment, he turned back to McKay, standing with the console between them. “How’s it coming, Rodney?”


The scientist glanced up at him, annoyed, then focused on his work. “It’s coming,” he said, “although it would be going a little faster if I wasn’t interrupted every five seconds.” He paused expectantly. John didn’t say anything. “And this is very complicated work,” he continued, looking slightly put out at the lack of response, “especially since it has to last long enough for us to get to the main power core too.” He said the last sentence almost accusingly, as if provoking him to argue.


“We can’t leave this place intact, McKay. You know what kind of damage these Replicators could do with the tech they’re developing here. We can’t let them get the chance to use it.”


“And coming back isn’t an option either,” interjected Elizabeth, coming over to them and laying a completed ARG on the table. She faced the physicist. “They’d be long gone by the time we would be able to put anything together. It has to be done now.” A wry smile crossed her face. “We’re not going to get this kind of chance again,” she said, echoing Rodney’s statement of long ago, in the puddle jumper on Asuras. John felt a slight chill at her words. The last time they had had a conversation like this it hadn’t ended well.


“And I know you know all this Rodney.” She smiled knowingly at him, for a moment seeming almost like her old self. “Stop arguing for the sake of it.” She turned to John. “I’ve got the computer creating three more of those,” she said, gesturing to the gun resting on the table between them. “I’m hoping that will be enough.”


“It should be,” said Rodney. A triumphant grin spread across his face. “After all, the ARGs aren’t going to be doing much of the work. This is.” The table’s forcefield snapped off, allowing them to clearly see the second device that Rodney had created, one much smaller than the generator that was currently protecting the lab. It was circular, made of a dull gray colored metal with blue and orange lights set into the smooth surface. “It’s ready.”


“Alright,” said Ronon, straightening up from where he had been leaning against the door. He had been silent for so long, it was startling hearing him speak so suddenly. There was a grin on his face. “Let’s go blow up some Replicators.”

Chapter 9: Promises



John gave a slight, dark grin at Ronon’s words. That was exactly what he had been wanting to do for a while now. “You sure this is going to work, Rodney?” he asked.

McKay glared at him. “Of course I’m sure.”

“Good. Because we wouldn’t want to be stuck in the middle of a hallway and this thing quits working on us.”

“I’m sure it won’t,” said Elizabeth, her keen diplomat’s sense apparently anticipating the beginning of an argument. She tapped her finger on the ARG. “But that’s why we have these.” Her eyes suddenly took on the now familiar unfocused look, and when she returned to normal they held another layer of concern. “The field’s getting weaker. We don’t have much time left. We need to leave. *Right now*.”

John nodded. “Alright. Let’s go.” Elizabeth quickly walked across the room to retrieve the completed ARGs from her workstation. John grabbed the one she had lain on the table, stuffing it down the front of his tac vest where it would be within easy reach. Rodney picked up his creation and slid it into the empty pack they had brought from the store room, while Ronon marched over to the corner where Shanna had obediently crouched down, took her by the arm and lifted her to her feet.

“What...?” she asked, fear and confusion mixed equally in her voice. Up until now she had been mercifully and understandably quiet, doubtless overwhelmed by the situation she had found herself in. But now the strong personality John had first seen in the village was slowly beginning to creep back again. “Please, I may not have fully understood all that you have been talking about, but we can’t... we can’t go out there!” She looked frantically back and forth among the team, searching for support and not finding any.

Elizabeth walked up, a handful of ARGs in her arms. “But neither can we stay here,” she said gently. She handed Ronon and Rodney the completed weapons and moved to stand beside John, careful to keep her distance from the woman, clearly remembering the fearful reaction she had received from her before. Shanna’s eyes grew slightly bigger as Elizabeth spoke to her, and she quickly turned an alarmed glance in John’s direction.

“It’s okay,” he said calmly, suppressing his irritation at her fear of Elizabeth and forcing himself to ignore the ticking clock pounding away increasingly faster inside his head. *They needed to leave, they needed to leave...*

He locked eyes with Shanna and took a step closer to her. She looked at him, frightened, distressed, and yet trusting all at the same time. John felt a twinge. What had he done to deserve that? “Do you remember what I said to you before? About that promise I made to your husband? The one where I said I was going to make sure nothing happened to you?” She nodded. “Well I’m still going to do everything I can to keep that promise.”

Shanna looked at him searchingly for a moment, then nodded again, bending her head to stare at the floor. John took a deep breath and out of habit glanced at Elizabeth. She gave him a barely perceptible twitch of a smile, approval in her eyes, as well as an urgent reminder of their current predicament. Well, he didn’t need to be told again. “Everybody ready?” Receiving confirmation from the rest of his team, he moved to the door. “Rodney, get set to turn that thing on when we need it,” he ordered, and swiped his hand over the control panel.

The door slid open with a quiet hiss and John bolted into the hallway, stepping to the side to allow everyone else to exit the room. Ronon was out next, followed by Rodney, then Shanna, who took three steps into the corridor and froze. She gaped at the glowing blue forcefield that blocked the passage, staring in horror and taking a terrified step backwards as an oncoming Replicator dissolved into a shower of tiny silver pieces right in front of her.
Rodney went back to her and took her by the arm. “Look, we don’t have time to sightsee, let’s go!”

Still staring, she nodded weakly and allowed herself to be led down the hall. The way now clear, Elizabeth emerged from the lab and paused next to John. “Is she going to be alright?”

“She’ll have to be.” John laid his hand against her upper arm and gently ushered her forward. “Come on.”

Ronon stopped at the barrier beyond the right side of the door and looked over his shoulder back at John. The Replicators had followed the curve of the hallway around to this side of the forcefield as well, though they weren’t as thickly clustered here. John prepped his P-90 - he wasn’t going to use the ARG until it was absolutely necessary - and looked at Rodney and Ronon in turn.

“Okay, when we turn that thing on we’re going to have to make a run for it. Ronon, you clear on where to go?”

“Yes, John,” answered Rodney exasperatedly. “We know what to do.” John ignored him, waiting instead for Ronon to respond.

The Satedan nodded, his weapon at the ready. “Got it, Sheppard.”

“Alright.” He looked for a moment at the dozens of Asuran machines assembled beyond the forcefield, their human looking faces completely blank as they marched efficiently forward to their deaths. John allowed himself a half second of satisfaction. They deserved what they were getting. He adjusted his P-90 one last time and prepared himself to run.

Just as he opened his mouth to give the order, there was a surge in the air as the Replicators finally found their way around the shield. “Rodney, go!” cried Elizabeth and John simultaneously as the first successful Asuran rushed towards the group, unfortunately a completely solid, non-disintegrated threat. Ronon sprang forward, swinging his arm and knocking it over with a well placed punch. It hit the floor in a burst of pale metallic fragments as an electric blue pulse swept from the bag in Rodney’s arms.

Ronon looked over at him. “About time, let’s go!” he said, already beginning to run. Rodney carefully slung the now extremely important pack over his shoulders, and they immediately followed Ronon’s lead, taking care not to slip on the thick layer of Replicator cells that now covered almost every inch of the floor. They sped down the hallway, John continuing to take up the rear of the group, with Elizabeth staying close in front of him.

Rodney’s device worked as well as he said it would. The energy field extended outward from the machine in a twenty foot radius that surrounded them in a kind of protective bubble against any physical Replicator influence. John hoped that the range would be enough to prevent any guards with long distance stun weapons from becoming an issue. Doors opened further along the corridor as they ran, the full alarm having been raised by now. Apparently the Replicators had finally decided that they were enough of a problem to warrant it. They closed in, and the only thing that left those rooms were more piles of diamond colored metal ashes.

They turned off of the curved hallway onto a shorter passage that ended in a staircase mirroring the one on the opposite side of the level. Without hesitating for a second, Ronon leapt onto the stairs and began taking them two at a time. Halfway to the first landing, Shanna, still following on Rodney’s heels, tripped on the edge of a step and pitched forward as she tried to keep up, nearly taking him with her. Rodney staggered with a curse, throwing out his arms to catch himself against the wall. He looked angrily over his shoulder to see what had caused the near accident. His features softened somewhat when he realized what had happened, and he turned to help her up, but Elizabeth stopped him.

“I’ve got her, keep going,” she said as she assisted Shanna to her feet. There was a brief, instinctive flash of apprehension in the woman’s eyes, but nonetheless she quickly gripped Elizabeth’s arm and pulled herself upright. John even saw her give her a grateful look as she breathed a quick ‘thank you’ and hurried on up the stairs. ‘Good,’ he thought, ‘she’s finally coming to her senses.’ Elizabeth looked down at him and waited for him to jog up the four steps till he was even with her.

“Looks like we’re finally making progress with the locals,” he said, meeting her eyes.

She gave a slight smile. “Finally.” There wasn’t time for her to say more, but he could see the relief she felt at no longer being openly feared. One small weight, at least, that had been lifted from her shoulders. “Come on,” she said, resuming her move up the stairs. “Let’s not get left behind.”



oOo



They were now two levels above the holding cells they had been thrown in on their arrival. The core room and the main labs where the most important work was done were on this floor. This was where Kedan’s faction of Asurans were concentrating their efforts on creating undetectable power sources for their technology, and this was what they were going to have to destroy before they could get out. According to Elizabeth, the most volatile points to place the C-4 were around the central column in the core room and in the three surrounding laboratories that were directly connected to the flow of power from the generator.

Ronon paused briefly at the head of the stairs to get his bearings and give them an opportunity to catch their breath. “Alright, let’s...”

He suddenly broke off in mid-sentence and brought his gun up to fire in a flash of movement, aiming at the Replicator that had just appeared and walked straight past the field.

“Kedan,” said Elizabeth darkly, only the faintest traces of alarm in her voice. Ronon took his shot, but the blast traveled directly through the blond machine as if he wasn’t even there. Kedan looked at him for a moment, amusement written on his pale features, but then he turned away, as if such a rough creature was beneath his notice.

“Dr. Weir.” His voice was smooth like ice and just as frigid. “I am impressed. You and your band of friends have managed to avoid capture for far longer than I would have anticipated.”

“We’re a crafty bunch, what can we say?” retorted John, the cold hatred in his green eyes not matching the strained lightness of his tone. His fingers slowly slid towards the trigger of his P-90. “Now if you excuse us we have somewhere we need to be.”

He fired half a round at Kedan’s chest, enough ammo that would have made him at least stagger... if it hadn’t passed right through him. The hall rang with the sound of gunfire, the wall opposite now riddled with bullet holes. Ronon charged him, reaching for his neck to snap it. His hands slipped through the Replicator leader just as the bullets had. Kedan laughed.

“What the hell...?”

“He’s a hologram,” McKay realized, equal parts shock and puzzlement mixed on his face. “But Replicators have...”

“Never needed it?” Kedan finished, actually looking entertained by their mystification.

“We all know they don’t require extra machines to make people see things,” Elizabeth said, an edge to her voice that John was becoming very familiar with, one she had adopted only recently. Rodney looked at her and she shook her head. “No, I don’t know why they have it now, or what purpose it could serve.”

There was more frosty laughter. “Come now! Surely you cannot fail to see the advantages of this sort of technology! Admittedly in comparison it is only a simple piece of machinery, one which had already been mastered by our creators, but it has its uses. Just one of many of our projects here.”

John lowered his gun, the impatience that had been a constant undercurrent since they left the lab rising to the surface once again now that he had determined that the apparition wasn’t an immediate threat. “Enough with the chatter, let’s go.” He started down the left side of the hallway, the rest of the group following behind. Except one.

“Waitwaitwait,” jabbered Rodney. “What kind of projects?”

“McKay!”

Kedan turned his attention to the scientist. “Oh, many kinds. Some that would be of great interest to your people I am su...”

Elizabeth left John’s side and marched back down the hall, taking Rodney by the arm and pulling him away. “Don’t listen to him, he’s just trying to stall us.”

“And of especially great interest to you, Dr. Weir,” the hologram called after them as they walked further away. “Technologies that could return to you what you so unfathomably persist in wishing for.” Elizabeth ignored him and they kept going. “That could give you back your humanity.”

Elizabeth stopped dead in her tracks. John wheeled around and saw the uncertainty and confusion that entered her face as she fixed her gaze on the dark floor. Uncertainty, confusion, deep seated pain, mistrust, and, so quick he wouldn’t have noticed it if he didn’t know her so well, a small flicker of impossible hope.

“You could be restored to what you once were,” the false Kedan continued, “a pathetic, weak, and average human.”

John watched her very carefully. Her eyes still swam with conflicting desires. She hadn’t told him many of the details about what it was like for her, being only half human now, and if he were honest with himself he hadn’t thought about that aspect of the situation all that much since he had found her here. But now he suddenly realized how much pain the knowledge of her own existence caused her. The Elizabeth of seven months ago would never have given a moments consideration to such an obvious delaying tactic as Kedan’s promises, but now a small traitorous part of him feared that for the woman who stood before him, driven by desperation for her former life, they would be too much to resist.

He quickly squashed the sneaking voice that whispered such suspicions to him, ashamed of himself for doubting her for even that long. This was *Elizabeth*. And she had too much of that to handle already. And he knew her, better than anyone except maybe himself. He knew how strong she was.

“Elizabeth,” he said softly, calling her back to him. She looked up, her green eyes meeting and holding his. Instantly the indecision vanished and she nodded, resuming her walk forward, his Elizabeth once more. As she regained her place at his side, she once again caught his gaze, silently apologizing to him for her moment of weakness.

Kedan spoke again, but this time it wasn’t to deliver enticements. His voice betrayed no emotion, no anger or resentment. “You will not leave here alive, Dr. Weir.” It was almost more a statement of fact then a threat.

Elizabeth didn’t look back as she replied. “Well then, at least I’ll finally be out!”

“So be it.” Something in his voice made them turn around, just in time to see the hologram shimmer and disappear. Everything was still for few moments, and then the ceiling began to vibrate ever so slightly, filling their ears with a dull humming sound.

“Rodney, what’s that noise mean?” demanded John as he stared at the dark gray tile work in the ceiling.

“I don’t know, but probably nothing good for us,” he answered, gaping at the panels above him. The vibrating grew louder, and then...

“Look out!” screamed Shanna. Plunging lightning fast from the ceiling was a two foot thick sheet of metal the same color as the ceiling tiles. John had just enough time to grab Elizabeth around the shoulders and pull her out of the way towards him, backing up himself and screwing his eyes shut, before it slammed down onto the floor with a deafening clang and a cloud of dust.

A second later he opened his eyes. The brand new wall filled his vision, smooth, dark gray, and completely solid. Elizabeth lifted her head up from where she had hid it against his shoulder to look at it as well, and he slowly dropped his arms from their protective hold around her. He glanced around. The two of them were the only ones on this side. He walked up to the wall and began banging furiously on the metal with his fist, shouting. “Hey! Can you hear me? Is everybody okay?”

“Yeah!” a muffled voice yelled back. Ronon. “We’re all fine!”

Relief swept through him. He was about to shout a reply when Ronon’s voice came through again. “Sheppard! This thing goes straight through the floor! There’s no way to move it!”

John sighed. He had noticed that. “Yeah! Looks like we’re going to have to split up to do this! You guys take the two labs on your side, we’ll take the other one and the core room! Meet at the exit!”

Now Rodney’s voice joined in, sounding somewhat panicked. “But you won’t have the field generator...!” There was more, but it was too fast and too faint to make out. But knowing who was speaking, he got the general idea of what was being said though.

“I realize that Rodney!” he shouted in annoyance. “But we’re just gonna have to do the best we can! Got it?”

Ronon acknowledged the plan with a short ‘Got it!’, then there was silence on the other side of the barricade. John turned around to face Elizabeth.

“Is it just me,” he asked tiredly, “or does this Kedan guy seem like more of a vindictive bastard than your average Replicator?”

She closed her eyes momentarily and let out a small laugh that sounded equally exhausted. “Not arguing with you on that. I’ve thought for a while now that there must be something faulty in his programming. I think he got an extra dose of aggression when Oberoth created him. That’s what made him so independent and...”

“Evil?”

She smiled, a downplayed version of that fond, amused-in-spite-of-herself smile that his frequent attempts at humor had so often been met with in the past. “I was going to go for calculating.” The smile grew wider. “But evil works too.”

He smirked and they started walking briskly down the darkened corridor. “Yeah. That it does.” John held his P-90 at the ready, eyes constantly scanning their surroundings, the brief moment of lightness already vanishing from his face. As he shone the beam of his gun’s flashlight into the pools of shadows that filled every corner, he felt himself growing tense, like he had in the forest clearing when he had first suspected that there was a trap. His nerves grew more on edge with every step farther they went with no Replicators appearing to attack them. He didn’t expect their luck to hold out very long.

Suddenly Elizabeth grabbed the back of his tac vest and pulled him off into the shadows of an adjoining hallway, flattening herself against the wall. John copied her movements without hesitation, the smooth surface cold against the exposed skin at the back of his neck. Several seconds passed by, and just as he was beginning to wonder what exactly it was that had prompted Elizabeth’s behavior, a Replicator patrol passed by; four of them, armed to the teeth with stun pistols and energy rifles. They were headed in the opposite direction. If Elizabeth hadn’t sensed the group coming, the two of them would have met them head on. As it was, the guards simply marched past, leaving their makeshift hiding place unnoticed.

John glanced over at Elizabeth. She nodded, and they stepped away from the wall. “Nice job there.”

“Thanks,” she said, “I didn’t think you were interested in getting into another firefight just yet.”

He nodded in appreciation. “Yeah. Just... how about a little warning next time?”

She grimaced apologetically. “Sorry.”

She gave the all clear and they moved back into the larger hall, moving as quickly as their sense of caution would allow. The pair met with nearly half a dozen other patrols, but Elizabeth guided them around each one, leading John through a veritable maze of dimly lit side passages and minor hallways. Even he began to get turned around after a little while, but Elizabeth hardly ever paused or stopped to consider which way to go; every turn was made with complete certainty. John quickly recognized that without her he would have been hopelessly lost by now, or, a more likely scenario, long since captured once the ARG’s effectiveness had worn off.

John swiped at a glowing blue door panel and they stepped out into a short corridor, following it along its length until Elizabeth came to a halt at the end of it. Three other passageways converged on a small open space, the small blue lights that lined the bottom of their walls only visible for the first couple of feet into them before they were swallowed by the more dominant shadows that obscured the hallways and disguised their length.

John looked at her, his eyebrows knitting together in a concerned expression. The previous burning tension had faded somewhat since they had actually encountered Replicators- at least he knew they weren’t all lying in wait for them around a corner somewhere- but he was still keeping a very short distance between his finger and the trigger of his P-90.

“What is it?” he asked. “We’re not there yet.” Lost though he was, he still clearly remembered from the pictures Elizabeth had shown him in her mind that this wasn’t around the entrance to the first lab. And with her earlier confidence as far as direction went, what made her stop made him worry.

Ever since their first Replicator run-in her eyes had worn the same look- unseeing, focused not on what was in front of her but on something inward, something playing out inside her head. Now her gaze cleared, and she looked up at John with an expression of anxiety that was nearly identical to his own. “Three patrols,” she said rapidly, “coming up behind us and down two of the other hallways. There’s no way to go around them this time.”

Very faintly they could just hear the sound of marching boots coming closer. “Then we’re going to have to outrun them. Which way to the lab?” he demanded.

“This way.” She began running towards the passage opposite, John right on her heels. “It’s the only one that’s clear.” There was a shout from behind them and the marching grew louder. They sped down the hall, feet pounding against the hard floor, passing by door after door after door. As they neared a split in the hall, Elizabeth, her breath becoming slightly labored, glanced over at John. “Do you get the feeling we’re being... herded?”

“Like sheep. But we don’t really have any other options.” The noise had been inching ever closer, even as they ran as hard as they could. John could feel the first fringes of tiredness creeping up on him. He hadn’t really rested since his stint in solitary confinement at the beginning of his capture, and the near constant heightened state of alertness and stress that had followed was just starting to take its toll on his system.

A blast of electricity from an energy weapon hit the wall just above his head as they made the turn. John cursed and felt a new burst of adrenaline revive him, making him pick up his pace. As she ran, Elizabeth’s eyes were busily scanning the doorways lining the hall. Suddenly she pointed to one of them. “There!”

They dashed into the room, sealing the door behind them. “Woah!” The lab wasn’t empty. Instantaneously, John fired a round into the Replicator scientist that was the room’s sole occupant, then, in a seamless motion, let one hand go from the machine gun and grabbed his ARG from where he had stowed it beneath his tac vest, shooting a beam of electric blue energy at the approaching Asuran. Even before the last fragments of silver Replicator cells had hit the floor, Elizabeth was already moving. She hurried to the computer console in the center of the room, kneeling down beside it and wrenching off the casing with a small grunt of expended effort, revealing an intricate system of glowing power crystals.

John was already at her side and handing her the C-4 before she even opened her mouth to ask for it. She began rapidly placing the explosive around the major power conducting crystals as he impatiently watched the door. Five seconds later she pounded the detonator into the gray putty-like substance and stood up. “Done.”

“Good.” He looked over his shoulder at the entrance they had used, beyond which there were at least three known patrols searching for them, likely on the verge of discovering them at any minute. Well, at least he knew where he was now. “Other door.” John sprinted across the lab to the alternate exit, pausing with his hand hovering above the door’s control panel, and glanced questioningly at Elizabeth.

“It’s clear, go.” He opened the door into yet more familiar surroundings. He had to admit having directions directly uploaded into his head was extremely convenient.

The core room wasn’t far from there. Only two more corridors separated them from their destination, but as they got closer to the main power source, it grew increasingly more difficult to find a path that was free of Replicators. “I’m starting to wish that I had told Rodney and Ronon to take out the core,” muttered John as he and Elizabeth crouched down in an alcove they had ducked into to avoid yet another patrol.

“Yeah. That shield generator would be extremely helpful about now,” commented Elizabeth, shrinking farther back into the concealing darkness of the recess as the patrol’s shadows flashed across the patch of light spilling in from the other hall.

“Well,” said John jokingly, keeping his voice low, “if I have to be stuck in a cramped, dark, hole in the wall with somebody...” He caught her eye, and although his tone was still light, there was a seriousness in his eyes. “...I’m glad it’s you.”

She smiled and regarded him, an unreadable look in her eyes, then looked as if she were about to say something, but her attention was drawn elsewhere. “They’re gone.” They straightened up and left their hiding place. “It’s not far now.”

Elizabeth led the way, keeping close to the walls as they darted along the passageway, and opened a door into an unoccupied lab which they used to cut through to the next corridor. They stopped to look around a corner. John recognized the entrance to the core room the minute he saw it, the set of heavy double doors carved with geometric designs and the substantial security detail surrounding them exactly as he had been shown. He sighed inwardly. The security detail. He had been hoping that just maybe, just maybe, they might get lucky and that little particular might not be so accurate as all Elizabeth’s other facts had proved to be. Oh well. It had been a very small hope anyway. Once again he really wished McKay was here with that shield.

He ducked back around the corner, the wheels in his head spinning rapidly as he tried to think up a plan that would allow him to take out five Replicators at once with only a P-90 that did little good and made a lot of noise, and an ARG that might cease to be effective by the time he got through with them all. These were not the best odds in the world. As much as he respected and admired Elizabeth’s many skills, he knew combat and gun fighting had never been among them, even though she had taken the required basic training courses. Reluctant as she had been, he had made sure of that. But now they would just have to do the best they could.

He turned to Elizabeth to tell her what to do, and found her hastily fiddling with the ARG in her hands, the one she had kept back for herself. “What are you doing?” he mumbled anxiously.

“Fixing this.” She stopped fiddling and held the weapon still in her hands, closing her eyes. A look of intense concentration passed over her face for several seconds, then she looked up and handed him the weapon. “There. I expanded the range of fire. You should be able to get them all in one shot.”

He looked at her in astonishment. “How did you...?”

“Those are made with Replicator technology. It’s all connected.” The nanites again. John leaned around the corner again, took aim, and fired. A blue bolt of energy twice the size of a normal ARG discharge burst from the gun, and he swiftly hid himself behind the safety of the wall. There was a sound like sand falling through an hourglass, signaling that the security detail had been taken care of. He peeked around the corner. All of them.

“Perfect.” He couldn’t help a slight grin as he gave Elizabeth his own unmodified anti-Replicator gun to use.

She smiled back and took it. “Thanks.”

The way to the core now clear, they bolted down the hall, John’s boots crunching against the dormant Replicator cells strewn across the ground as they reached the door. He tightened his grip on the handle of his newly altered weapon and took a deep breath. This was the most important room in the entire complex. He guessed the chances of it being empty were zero to none. “How many?” he asked.

She shook her head in confusion. “I can’t tell for sure. The generator core is interfering; it’s masking everything in the room. I’m sorry. At best guess I’d say about a dozen.”

He took another breath. “Alright. Here goes nothing.” He nodded and Elizabeth placed her palm against the illuminated orange surface of the hand reader on the access panel. The doors opened with a hiss of escaping air and John ran in, taking out four rebel Asurans before they had even had time to look up from their stations. Every head turned in John’s direction, fixing their unfeeling eyes on the intruder in their midst. He didn’t waste any time. He disintegrated three scientists who were clustered at the same computer terminal. The group of seven that charged him seconds later met the same fate. Okay, so there were a little more than a dozen. He took cover behind a sizable worktable, its touch screen surface projecting a series of softly glowing holographic diagrams into the air. A blast from an energy weapon hit the other side of the table, the power surge making the diagrams momentarily flicker and short out. John could hear footsteps coming towards him. When he judged they were close enough he jumped up and sent the last two Replicators packing with a sweeping pulse of energy from the ARG. Yeah, definitely more than a dozen.

Slowly, he stepped out from behind the table and called the all clear to Elizabeth. He stuck his ARG back in its former place beneath his tac vest and moved towards the middle of the spacious circular room. The ceiling of the core chamber was twice if not three times as high as those in the hallways, spaced out accent pillars built into the muted aqua walls reaching up and meeting to form a point at its apex. Between each of the pillars were Ancient style computer consoles, and evenly dispersed around the room were worktables like the one John had used for cover, bright green and blue holograms hovering above each one of them. But the dominant feature of the room was the core itself, a massive column of dull gray metal that touched the ceiling, twice the diameter of a stargate, banded with alternate rows of glittering power crystals of countless different colors and clear conduit tubes that shimmered with a glowing amber tinted substance that flowed like liquid.

John walked over to the core and knelt down next to the base, pulling a block of C-4 out of one of his vest pockets. He was about to begin to attach it to the side of one of the transfer pipes that ran into the floor when footsteps came up behind him. Footsteps too heavy to belong to Elizabeth. His muscles tightened, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up and he stopped what he was doing, slowly reaching for the grip of the gun sticking out of the top of his tac vest. Then, lightning fast, he pivoted, stood up, there was a whining noise, and... a shower of silver fell at his feet.

He stared at the tiny fragments littering the floor, eyes wide, breathing fast, gun held loosely in his right hand. He looked up and saw Elizabeth standing just inside the closed doorway, one arm outstretched and holding the ARG he had swapped her. She lowered her arm and walked towards him, laying the weapon down on top of one of the worktables. He met her eyes, still looking slightly stunned. “Thanks.”

She gave a small smile, “You’re welcome,” and pulled the forgotten block of C-4 out of his left hand, going around to the other side of the structure to place it. John shook his head to clear it and fished another pack of the plastic explosive out of his pocket, bending down and resuming the task that the Replicator had interrupted. Five seconds later he got up and followed the side of the column to the second of the four pipes that lined the core, repeating the same process as before. After smacking the detonator in place, he circled around and came face to face with Elizabeth, who was just reaching her final pipe. He tossed her the last of the C-4, which she caught and placed, slamming the putty against the storm cloud gray pipe with more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary to get the job done.

Without wasting any time, she leapt up and flew towards another section along the base of the core. She got to her knees and ran the tips of her fingers over the smooth, seamless metal as if searching for something, which she found moments later. It had been practically invisible before, but now John could see the thin seam that ran across the rim of the base and down the sides, forming a rectangle. Elizabeth pried open the panel with her fingernails, yanking it out of place and heaving it off to the side, where it met the floor with a loud clang. She didn’t even glance at it, giving her full attention to the power crystals that it had concealed, considering them a moment before bending down and beginning to snatch the crystals out of their own slots and swap them out with the others in a seemingly random and completely haphazard order.

“There,” she said in satisfaction, unfolding herself from her crouched position and admiring her handiwork.

“What’s that going to do?” John questioned, offering her a hand.

She took it and pulled herself to her feet. “It scrambled the flow of power. There’s enough unchanneled energy running through the core now to give the C-4 a significant boost.”

“Very nice. I didn’t know you’d developed a taste for big explosions.”

She gave a slight smile. “Yeah, well...”

Their eyes met and he smiled back. “I get it. Come on. Let’s get out of here.” Her eyes brightened and she nodded eagerly. Without thinking about it he adjusted his grip on her hand, which he hadn’t even realized he was still holding. She gave his a small squeeze and side by side they began to run towards the exit.

They were passing the hologram tables when Elizabeth suddenly froze. John, still running, felt her hand slip out of his grasp. He instantly stopped and spun around, a question already forming on his lips. She stood next to the table, eyes fixed on the floor, her vision out of focus, fear and bewilderment flooding her features.

“What is it?” he demanded, worry filling his voice.

“I... I don’t know,” she said shakily, not looking at him. “Something’s not right. I...” Suddenly she cried out, her face twisting in pain.

Panic flooded his heart at the sound. “What?! What’s wrong?!”

“I don’t know!” she cried, bending double, raking fingers through her hair and pulling on it to try and alleviate the pain. His mind raced, frantically searching for something he could do, something to help her, he had to help her... And then as quickly as it had come it was over. She hesitantly straightened up, her face still bearing traces of the agony and her breathing heavy. She didn’t move, only stood there, still holding the sides of her head with her hands.

John took a step closer. “Elizabeth...” She looked up at him, confusion and dread written all over her face.

“John...” she whispered.

“What is it?”

“I can’t move my legs.”

“What?”

“I can’t move my legs!” She tried to walk, but her lower limbs were unresponsive and she pitched forwards, having to grab the edge of the table to keep from hitting the floor. Her gaze turned inward for a moment and sudden understanding and horror flashed into her eyes. “It’s the nanites... my nanites... I’m not... Kedan figured out a way to take control remotely...”

“You said he couldn’t do that!”

“I didn’t know he could! He’s always had to be in direct physical contact for it to work before. He shouldn’t be able to do it, but he did!” She met his eyes. “John...”

He knew that look. He had seen it before. “No. Don’t you dare say another word.” He marched the few steps back to her. “I’ll carry you if I have to.” He reached out for her. Elizabeth’s face suddenly twisted again.

“No! Don’t touch me!” she screamed at him, making him pause, the order irrationally making him feel like he had been slapped in the face. For a moment her eyes flew back and forth, as if she were reading an invisible text floating in the air in front of her, then she looked back at him. “The nanites are fully active, I can feel them. I’m not in control anymore! They’ll spread to you too!”

“I don’t care, it doesn’t matter!”

“*Yes*, it *does*!” She looked at him, anguished, and it seemed to take a colossal amount of effort for her to say the next sentence that left her mouth, like she had to force herself to say it. “You’re... You’re going to have to go without me. There’s no time...”

“Absolutely not. We can figure something out... get Rodney in here, he can fix it...”

“There’s not enough time!” she repeated. “This place is going to be swarming with patrols any minute!”

“We’re not leaving you!”

“You have to!”

“I made a promise to myself that I was going to get you out of here, and that’s...”

“You don’t have any other choice!”

“Dammit, Elizabeth!” His anger boiled inside him and he clenched his fists. Couldn’t she see that that wasn’t an option for him? That that had never been an option? “You can’t...” He broke off and looked at the floor, unable to continue. He took a deep breath and turned his head back up to her, his voice nearly shaking with rage and pain. “You *can’t* ask me leave you behind again. I can’t do it. Don’t... don’t ask me that.”

“John...”

He was near to shouting now, his emotions running high as the thought of what she was asking of him swept through him. Every fiber of his being repelled the idea. It was impossible! His nightmares flashed through his memory. “I can’t lose you a second time!”

“And I can’t watch you die again!” she shouted back with equal vehemence, every word aching with the force of her suffering. She was near tears.

Again? He was momentarily stunned into silence. “What... what are you talking about, again? I haven’t...”

“Do you remember... when I was inside your mind... do you remember what I told you, about the visions of me escaping?”

“Of course, but...”

“Do you remember when I told you that they weren’t the worst things they created for me? That there were much worse things?” He nodded. She looked at him, her voice beginning to shake with the effort of holding back the tears that were welling up in her eyes. “My worst fears made real. John, they showed me you. They showed me your death. Hundreds of times. Hundreds of ways. And...” The tears began to flow now, the drops streaming down her cheeks, but it was almost as if she didn’t even notice, trapped by the remembrances of her torture. “And each time there was nothing I could do to stop it. I had to watch as you died right in front of me. Over... and over... and over again. It was horrible... unbearable... and each time I saw it I hurt as much as the last. Please...” she begged, “I can’t be the reason that you die for real.”

Her face was wracked with pain, and damp from the tears, which she didn’t brush away. He now noticed how rigid her arms looked as she stood there, one hanging by her side and the other still grasping the table top. The paralysis was spreading. She *couldn’t* brush them off. He felt himself longing to walk up to her and wipe them away himself, but in a rush of helpless certainty he knew he couldn’t, no matter how much it tore at him. She wouldn’t let him. She was so close... *so* close... and yet she was completely out of his reach.

He stared at her, the pain in her eyes making his own heart give a sharp twist. She continued, her voice breaking as she spoke. “There are people who are depending on you, people who still have a chance, that need you...”

“Stop it! We need *you*.” Elizabeth’s eyes were still awash with tears and anguish, but he could tell she didn’t believe him. Damn it all, he couldn’t take this. “*I* need you.” He took another step closer. “Elizabeth, I can’t lose you again.”

She closed her eyes and bit her lip, as if absorbing all of the pain and torment that filled that one sentence. “You’re going to have to,” she whispered.

There was suddenly a loud crash- the sound of an explosion on the other side of the floor. They looked around frantically. The entire room shook, causing a shower of fine dust to rain down from the ceiling. Ronon and Rodney had set off their C-4. The lights briefly flickered, then grew steady again. For the moment.

Elizabeth turned back to him. “John, you have to go,” she urged.

“Not without you.”

“Yes, without...” She broke off, her eyes glazing over, and when she snapped out of it fear joined the myriad of other emotions that were flashing across her eyes. “Kedan’s coming himself. He’s coming here. You have to go, you have to go now!”

“Let me carry you...”

“No! The nanites...”

“Damn the nanites! You can fight them, you’ve done it before!”

“It’s different now!” He opened his mouth to argue with her some more, but she cut him off. “Listen to me,” she pleaded, “Listen... You have a responsibility to your team, to that woman that was captured with you, Shanna... you have to get her home to her husband. You promised her that you would.”

Another explosion, this one closer, that rocked the whole room. The lights stayed off this time, the bright glow of the core the only source of illumination until the dim emergency lighting blinked into life. Alarms began to blare. It might as well have been happening on another planet for all the attention John paid it. All he could see were Elizabeth’s brilliant green eyes, so full of agony and sorrow and regret, shining with unshed tears, begging him... begging him to leave her.

“You can’t give up like this,” he said. “You can’t let that bastard win!”

“Fine, I won’t give up,” she said, her voice trembling. “I’ll try to fight it, but you have to go! If I let you carry me, even if by some *miracle* you weren’t infected, we could both die because I was slowing you down. John, you *have* to get out.” The chamber shook again. “You told her you would bring her home.”

John saw Shanna’s frightened face as she huddled in the dark corner, saw her collapsing to the floor after being mind probed by Kedan. Then he saw the anxious face of her husband, Derlin, sitting on the opposite side of a fire, quietly asking him to keep his wife out of trouble. And he saw himself- nodding, accepting the responsibility for the woman’s safety. Elizabeth was right. He owed it to these people to make sure that she was returned home safely.

He took a step backwards, but his eyes remained glued to Elizabeth’s face. The two promises that he had made fought each other in his head. He knew his duty, but there was nothing on Earth, or any other planet he had been to, that could make him abandon her again. There was another tremor, the shrill alarms suddenly accompanied by a loud unholy screeching sound as the end of one of the metal pillars snapped off, tore itself loose from the ceiling and fell to the floor, crushing the computer console beneath it. Once again the air grew cloudy with dust.

Elizabeth turned her head back to John, shouting to make herself heard above the din. “You know which promise you have to keep, now GO!”

And he did know. With one last look at Elizabeth he turned and ran out of the core room. The hallway was near chaos. Steam spurted from splintered pipes, formerly carefully disguised, that ran along the ceiling; the only light source was the small, indomitable blue lights that lined the baseboards, and the flashing orange glare of the alarms. John wasn’t the only one running. Dozens of Replicators were dashing along the hallways, yet their faces remained as impassive as usual, even as their complex collapsed around their ears. John got out his ARG and took out any that made the mistake of getting in his way.

As he neared the designated rendezvous point, he began yelling for his team, disregarding stealth as useless at that point. The stairway that he had told everyone to meet in front of was just a turn away when Ronon and Rodney, with Shanna in tow, burst around the corner, running towards him in response to his shouts. “Sheppard!” shouted Ronon. They skidded to a stop in front of each other. “You okay?”

Before John could answer Rodney realized that something was wrong. “Where’s Elizabeth?”

John looked at each of his teammates in turn. “Oh no... not again,” breathed Rodney sorrowfully.

“No. Not again,” he said firmly. John locked eyes with Ronon. “Don’t wait for me. You know the way out. Up the stairs and down that hall till you get to the exit.” He glanced over Ronon’s shoulders at the dark haired woman standing behind them, then back at his Satedan friend. “Make sure she gets home.”

Ronon simply nodded, already realizing what he was planning to do and accepting it. He understood without needing to say anything that this was something he had to do.

“Wait, what’s going on?” Rodney looked back and forth between the two men. “Because it sounds like you’re about to...”

“I’m going back for her Rodney.” He caught the scientist’s eyes. “I’m not leaving her behind again.”

“And that’s all very well and noble, but, but... let us go with you! We’ve got the shield... at least take it with you!”

“No. You and Ronon have to get Shanna out of here, and I don’t need the extra weight.”

Farther down the hall another pipe burst, shooting steam out with a noisy hiss. “Good luck,” said Ronon. John nodded to both of them, then wheeled around and began to run back the way he had come. He hadn’t gotten very far when suddenly in the distance there was a deafening roar so loud that it rocked the entire complex. John staggered, bracing himself against a wall as the place shook. A crushing fear flooded through him. An explosion that big could only have been caused by...

“The core...” he gasped out. “No... Elizabeth!” With a surge of panic driven energy he pushed himself off of the wall and sprinted desperately towards the core room, not able to make his feet pound against the still shaking floor hard enough or fast enough to suit him. He was so focused that he didn’t hear the cracking, ripping noise that filled the air, and didn’t notice the extent of the structure’s instability until the ceiling gave in and collapsed only feet away from him in a riot of screeching tons of metal, crumbling tiles, and clouds of debris and dust... completely sealing off the rest of the passageway.

Chapter 10: Requests


“You know which promise you have to keep, now GO!” she shouted above the din of the explosion.

For a few seconds Elizabeth thought he was still going to ignore the order. But only for a few seconds. Then the doubt that had been flashing through his eyes as they stayed locked with hers vanished, replaced with unwavering certainty. He held her gaze for another instant, and then she watched as John turned and ran out of the room. At that moment all she wanted to do, more than anything in the universe, was to run after him and shout that she was coming too, but the mental screams that commanded her muscles to move went unheeded. And then he was gone, disappearing into the darkness.

As the door hissed shut behind him, Elizabeth closed her eyes and took a deep shuddering breath that was almost a sob, making a fresh stream of tears pour from her eyes. He had left; he was going to be safe. He was going to live. She clung to that thought as her chest began to heave with sobs that refused to be suppressed any longer. He was going to live. He had done as she asked. But even as she grasped at that thought, the relief that that knowledge gave her couldn’t completely overwhelm the rush of all too familiar pain and loneliness that came as the last minute played in her head and she again saw him turn away and leave her. She was alone again.

It was like some cruel cosmic joke, where she was doomed to live through the same experience over and over again, to have life dangled in front of her and then have it snatched away. To repeatedly be separated from all of the people that she loved.

Elizabeth struggled to get herself under control, even though the instinctive panic that filled her at not being able to move, of being trapped inside her own body, was difficult to ignore. She had told John she wouldn’t give up. But then she would have said anything if it meant getting him to leave. There was no way that they both would have made it out alive. The nanites running through her body were occupied keeping her limbs paralyzed, but that likely wouldn’t have been enough to stop them from spreading to him too. She couldn’t take that risk. He meant too much to her. They all did.

The common sense voice inside her head whispered the belief that she had kept from John, the one this last play by Kedan had forced her to acknowledge. That even if they had made it out, even if they had made it back to Atlantis, things would never have been the same anyway. She was half Replicator. She would always be a potential threat, a liability. She wasn’t in control of herself anymore, and, no matter how much she wanted to go home, she would be putting everyone in danger. She refused to do that to her city.

So she was going to stay. Kedan was getting closer. He would be here in a matter of moments. Elizabeth took another deep breath, suppressing the last of her tears, and once again locked away her pain. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction in his last moments of seeing it.

Another shower of amber colored dust rained from the ceiling, the light from the core giving it its orangish cast. She was going to stay because she couldn’t go. What that meant she tried not to think about, even as everything shook around her. Fear and loneliness again threatened to overwhelm her, but she fought it back and pinned every last hope she had on one comforting thought. ‘John’s going to be alright.’


oOo


John staggered back as the ceiling came crashing down in front of him, debris and dust flying everywhere. The noise was deafening. He threw his arms up to protect his face a moment too late as something sharp, a stray bit of tile probably, cut a burning streak of fire across his cheek. He gasped at the pain and retreated even further, once again seeking the wall for support. The thick clouds of dust that billowed through the ruined hallway made his eyes sting, and he coughed as he accidentally inhaled a lungful.

Even as the air began to clear around him, in the distance, loud enough to avoid being drowned out by the still blaring alarms, he could hear more rumbling sounds, signaling that the rest of the compound was suffering a similar fate to this hallway. The entire place was coming down, exactly as they had planned.

John coughed again and blinked fiercely, trying to see through the haze that hung in the air. The surprisingly still operational emergency lights fought the dust to throw their weak orange glow over the wreckage that now choked the passage from wall to wall. John lurched forward and began frantically poring over the rubble, trying to find a way through, all the time a single word echoing over and over again in his mind. ‘no, no, no, no, no...’ He had to get through! He had to find Elizabeth! He couldn’t leave her again!

He reached for the end of a promising looking pipe that stuck out from under a layer of cracked and broken ceiling, giving the splintered tube a sharp yank and pulling it free. His efforts were rewarded with another growl from the battered structure and a miniature landslide as even more debris slid down from the gaping black hole above him. He jumped back with a curse and wildly swatted at the air in front of his face, partially clearing away the second round of dust that refused to go away completely.

As he saw the results of his efforts, the desperate frenzy that had been running rampant in the back of his mind burst to the forefront. ‘No!’ Impossibly, the mess before him was packed even tighter than before. There would be no getting through this way. Once again the familiar ticking clock started counting down inside his head, only this time it was louder, more urgent, each second screaming at him as it passed. ‘find her, find her!’ With each second he felt her slipping farther and farther away from him. Again.

He gave a cry of rage, and with a forceful swing threw the fragment of pipe still clutched in his hand at the wall of rubble, where it collided with a resounding clang. Urgently, he recalled his memories of the schematics of the base that Elizabeth had given him, desperately scanning the maps for alternate routes to the core room, but they were incomplete, pertaining only to the sections that had been necessary for their mission and subsequent escape. Neither one of them had expected him to need anything else. If anything happened that required a change of plans, Elizabeth would be there to guide them, just as she had on the way. Turned out they had both been wrong.

A rush of frantic energy coursed through him, setting his nerves on fire and making each muscle practically hum with impatience and the need to be moving. A pile of junk was not going to keep him from saving Elizabeth.

Turning on his heel and breaking into a dead run, he left the barricade behind him and doubled back towards the rendezvous point, not stopping when he got there, but speeding around the corner and following the hall in the direction that Ronon and the others had come from. There had to be a connection to the core room somewhere, even if it only led him around to the other side of the blockade.

He took the first right turn that he came to, the hallway that he found himself in just as dark and chaotic as the others. There was so much noise... his heart was pounding in his chest and his breathing was growing heavier; sounds of the continuing collapse of the structure roared in the distance, and the shrill pealing of the alarms grated against his eardrums. Damn they were annoying. The small part of his mind not concentrating on running as fast as he possibly could desperately wondered how the series of explosions hadn’t taken out whatever computer system controlled those things.

The hallway ended in a fork. John paused a moment, the orange emergency lighting pooling around his feet and throwing his shadow far out across the floor in front of him. Sweat poured down his neck and dampened his debris-powdered hair, and he realized for the first time just how warm it was getting. The vents must have quit working after the first of the C-4 had been set off, and now there was almost no air circulating through the dust-choked complex. ‘Because things weren’t nearly fun enough already,’ thought John as he made his choice and sped down the right branch of the intersection. The first chance he got he took another right, then another, then a left, then a right... it was with a violent burst of mental cursing that he realized he had no idea where he was going. He was wandering around without a clue, ‘Idiot! Wasting time, wasting time, wasting time...’ but he didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Time was something Elizabeth was running out of.

The maze of darkened corridors had been empty of Replicators so far, odd compared with the swarm of them that had been rushing around before. He assumed they were all busy elsewhere, trying to repair the damage to the key parts of their facility. Normally he would have welcomed the lack of bad guys trying to kill him, but now... now all he wanted was to get his hands on one.

On he ran, going in the general direction that he believed the core room lay in. Each second felt like an hour, and once again he found it impossible to make his feet fly as fast as he needed them to. Door after door blew by, nothing more than indistinct black rectangles in the poor lighting. Elizabeth’s face flashed repeatedly in his mind, urging him on. In some places the increasingly widespread destruction made navigation difficult, and he had to leap over small piles of rubble, ignoring the sharp twinge his ankle gave as he landed slightly wrong on the last jump. Twice he came across dead ends, hallways whose ceilings had also collapsed, and he had to back track, his feverish impatience growing ever stronger.

As he wheeled away from the second barricaded corridor, at the edge of his vision he caught a glimpse of a light colored blur flitting around a nearby corner. There was only one thing here that could be. Clothing. The sight gave him a surge of new strength, and he dashed after the blur, his ARG automatically finding its way into his hand. In the span of less than half a minute he had caught up, and without considering the wisdom of his actions, or the fact that these things could send him hurtling across the room with a flick of their little finger, he grabbed the unsuspecting Replicator by the shoulder, kicking a fallen decorative panel out of the way as he did so. Normally his tactics would never have worked, but surprise was on his side, and, throwing the full force of his weight into the charge, John set his left forearm in a bar across the Replicator’s upper chest and pinned the human-form machine against the wall, shoving the barrel of the ARG into the hollow of his throat.

“How do you get to the core room from here?!” he barked. “Which way?!”

The dark haired Replicator just looked at him impassively. By his clothes he was a scientist and not a guard, which probably explained the lack of struggle. “This is most intriguing,” he said calmly, dispassionate scientific interest providing the only variance in his otherwise bland tone. It was as if he were doing research in a laboratory and not standing in a dark hallway with a gun jammed into his neck. “You must be aware that we Asurans lack your human sense of self preservation, and yet you resort to threats against my life to obtain your goals.”

John increased the pressure. “Which. Way?” he snarled dangerously.

The Asuran scientist angled his head to one side and looked at him curiously. “And it is odd that you ignore your own survival instincts and are instead eager to rush into almost certain death. Even the blind could see that this complex has reached its downfall. It is only a matter of moments before it will be destroyed completely.”

“Just tell me,” John bit out. “If our deaths are so inevitable, then it won’t make much difference, now will it?”

“No. It will not.”

John realized what was coming a fraction of a second before it happened. He released his hold on the Replicator just in time to avoid the arm that reached out to push him away in a thrust that likely would have thrown him at least ten feet in the air had it connected. John quickly backed away and ducked as an arm swung out of the darkness towards his head, missing him by at least a foot. There was a loud crunching sound, and, looking up, he saw that his opponent had over swung and smashed through the wall instead. He winced as he imagined that fist making contact with his skull. There was no way he could fight this guy. With that unnatural strength there wasn’t much he could...

Suddenly his vision was filled with a familiar curtain of shimmering white light, and then to his utter shock, he found that the dim, shadowed paneling around him had vanished, replaced by well lit, clean, gray walls that were as familiar as the light had been. He stood there, still out of breath from his exertions, and noticed that the sounds of alarms had been switched for a quietly efficient humming noise in the background. Engines. He had been beamed aboard a ship, and, since it was the only one in the Pegasus Galaxy at the moment, it had to be the Daedalus. He had no idea exactly how long his team was overdue to check in - he had lost track of time inside the Replicator base - but he guessed it had been at least ten hours, enough to warrant Colonel Carter sending the ship to engage in a rescue mission.
“Welcome back, Colonel Sheppard,” said a female voice he didn’t recognize. He spun around to find a cheerful looking young lieutenant standing behind a computer console. “The rest of your team have already been beamed aboard, and Colonel Caldwell has...”

John didn’t wait to hear the rest. He spun around and left the room, forcing his weary muscles to break into a run as he reached the corridor. ‘Go, go, go...’ ran his thoughts, a heightened feeling of dread engulfing him. ‘They don’t know!’ His mad dash along the ship’s hallways elicited strange looks from everyone he passed, but they didn’t even register with him. Only one person was occupying his thoughts.

“Colonel Sheppard!” Colonel Steven Caldwell sprang up from his command chair as John burst onto the bridge. “What are you doing here? You should be in the infirmary getting yourself checked out along with the rest of your team.”

“You have to scan the surface,” John directed the technician nearest him, ignoring the colonel’s question. “Look for life-signs near the same coordinates you picked me up from.”

“Sheppard, what is the meaning of this?” demanded Caldwell.

“I haven’t got time to explain.” The technician, Major Marks, looked back and forth between the two officers, unsure of what to do. John caught him looking and felt a surge of irritation at the man for the time he was wasting. “Scan for life-signs and beam up the one that you find!” he ordered angrily.

“Colonel Sheppard I cannot authorize...” Caldwell began.

“Look, you don’t understand! Dr. Weir is down there and the place is about to explode. We have to...”

“Wait... Dr. Weir? Calm...”

“There isn’t time for me to calm down!”

“Sir, I’m not picking up any life signs from anywhere in the underground bunker,” said the major.

John felt a wild stab of fear, but then he remembered. “She’s in the core room. It’s the generator, it causes interference. Adjust the sensors, try again!”

“Do you even know that it’s really her?” questioned Caldwell. “You know better than most how easily deceptive the Replicators really are. If that’s...”

“It’s her!”

“I can’t be sure of that.”

“It is!”

“There’s too much interference,” said Marks. “I’m sorry sir, I’ve adjusted the range as much as I can, but I can’t find anything to lock on.”

“Then beam me back down.” This was not Asuras. He was not going to take that for an answer again.

“What?! Sheppard have you gone completely insane?”

“Beam me back down!” Maybe he was insane, but he didn’t care. He had to get back down there! In his mind he saw Elizabeth, fixed in place by the nanite induced paralysis. She couldn’t move, she needed him! Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ronon and Rodney enter the room, casting confused eyes on the situation, but he didn’t pay any attention to them. He had to get to her!

“Request denied! You said yourself the place was about to blow sky high. I am not about to let you endanger yourself in such a reckless and...”

“There isn’t time for this! That is Elizabeth Weir down there! Are you going to just let her die?! ”

The two men glared at each other and Caldwell began to argue some more. “Sheppard...”

“Let me go!!”

The words hadn’t been out of his mouth for three seconds before there was a beep from one of the consoles. “Sir!” cried a female officer, “Sensors are picking up a large explosion coming from beneath the planet’s surface!”

John froze, and for a moment his heart stopped beating. No...

Twenty seconds later, “Reporting that the underground complex has been completely destroyed,” said the same voice.

It felt like the floor had suddenly opened up beneath his feet and he was falling into nothing. His eyes no longer saw what was in front of him, and his ears no longer heard what was being said around him, only a dull distant roaring sound. A coldness began to spread through his limbs. ‘...complex has been completely destroyed... completely destroyed...’

Even as the words echoed loudly through his mind, he quickly pulled himself together, although a deadened feeling remained. This wasn’t quite over yet. The responses that came from years of being a soldier kicked in, forcing his mouth to work. “Shoot an AR pulse at the base.” He turned away from the crew of the Daedalus and stepped over to the large window that spanned the entire length of the bridge. “Make sure they can’t start replicating again.” He stared down at the softly shining turquoise and emerald planet spinning away far below them. It looked so ordinary... so peaceful. It had no idea who it had been holding within it. Had no idea of what it had just taken from him...

He couldn’t be here right now. Very slowly, he turned around and faced Caldwell again. John’s face was empty, as if it had been drained of all its life. “Sir, request... request permission to beam down to the planet’s surface.”

Caldwell looked at him, not knowing what to say, obviously startled by the change in his demeanor, from the raging madman of a minute ago to this stone statue. Ronon and McKay walked farther into the room and stood next to each other a little distance away from John. Caldwell cast them a questioning glance.

“Let him go,” said Ronon simply, his arms folded across his chest. Rodney didn’t say anything. He appeared to be in a mild state of shock.

The colonel considered a moment and then nodded, looking back at John with a surprising amount of sympathy in his eyes. “Permission granted,” he said quietly. “We’ll set you down at the same coordinates we picked up Dr. McKay and Ronon. They were just outside one of the entrances to the bunker. We’ll send that woman that was with them through the infirmary and then you can all escort her back to her village.”

“Yes sir,” he replied mechanically, partially turning to look out the window again.

Caldwell nodded to Marks to initiate the beaming process. “Ready sir,” said the major a few button presses later. “It’s starting to rain on the surface, are you sure...?”

Caldwell glanced at John again. “He’s sure.” He paused a moment before calling to him. “Sheppard.” John glanced at him over his shoulder. “I’m sorry.” There was earnest compassion in the older man’s face as he spoke. John nodded in acknowledgement, too numb to feel any surprise at the sentiment.

Then the bridge of the Daedalus disappeared. For a moment his entire existence was made up of swirling, pulsating white light, and then he was alone on the planet, in a clearing ringed by trees. It was cloudy, giving the place the same level of light that would usually be expected around twilight, even though it was nearing midday. As predicted, there was a fine drizzle of rain falling, softly pattering against the leaves of the trees and coating the ground with a thin layer of moisture. However, John hardly saw or felt all that. His attention was drawn to the doorway that stood across the clearing from him, built into the side of a hill and flanked by tall leafy trees on either side that normally would have provided a decent amount of concealment. But not now.

The branches that used to screen the entrance to the underground bunker had been blasted away - now nothing more than broken twigs scattered across the dirt -and the door, or what was left of it, was now in full view. The dull bronze colored entryway was bent outward nearly in half, the top torn from its place in the doorframe, revealing the shadow filled depths of the hallway beyond. Scorch marks streaked the exposed metal. The place was totally demolished.

It had worked. Everything had gone according to plan. Except for the one part, the most important part of all, that had gone mind-numbingly, horribly wrong. Elizabeth wasn’t there.

John stood in the middle of the clearing, not moving, staring at the door. The light shower of rain misted down, the water running in small trickling streams down his head and neck, washing away streaks of the dust and grime that had accumulated courtesy of the collapsing compound. But then the mental barriers that he had put in place started to crumble, the numbness began to fade, and the rain ceased to exist as it all sank fully into his consciousness. She wasn’t here. He had left her behind.

He screwed his eyes shut, trying to keep the rush of memories and emotions at bay. It didn’t work. ‘No...’ He had already done this! He had already had to watch as she sacrificed herself, already had to experience what it was like to lose her. It was like the worst possible case of déjà-vu imaginable, and he wished with everything in him that that was all it was, even though he knew... he knew such a wish was hopeless.

He was inside his nightmares, re-living them all, the ones that had plagued him ever since that awful mission gone wrong seven months ago, the ones filled with darkness and shadows and her face, fearful and alone as he abandoned her. And infinitely worse, it was like the Replicator’s illusion all over again, that same sick, horrible feeling that had coursed through every part of him after he had shot her, the same sensation he had felt as he had held her dying body in his arms. The knowledge that she was gone. That it was his fault that she was gone. For good. This time there wasn’t a chance that one day he would find her out there somewhere and bring her home. There was nothing. Not a single spark of light to brighten the darkness he was drowning in.

Suddenly he was back in the core room and his palm tingled as he felt her hand slip out of his grasp. He saw her eyes staring back at him as he had last seen them, their emerald green depths glittering with tears. Elizabeth... other memories burst into life before his eyes - fragments of memories, one after the other, flashing by at a lightning fast speed. Green eyes, red shirts, a curl of brown hair, a laugh, a smile, a hug, a look... Oh God, she was really gone this time... she was... she was really...

Every last inch of self composure and restraint vanished. His chest began to rise and fall rapidly as he sucked in deep lungfuls of air, his breath becoming ragged and his eyes stinging, too dry for tears. Dead. She was dead. A crazed expression entered his eyes as fury rose within him, boiling and building like an active volcano. ‘no, no, no, NO!!!!’ Lightning fast, he snatched up the now superfluous ARG from inside his tac vest and hurled it with all his might at the ruined entrance to the compound, where it collided with the battered door, a wordless, inhuman roar of all consuming rage and pain issuing from his mouth. He stumbled towards the entryway and, still possessed by a storm of frenzied grief, fell to his knees and grabbed the abused weapon from where it had fallen, gripping it by the barrel and beating the butt of it repeatedly as hard as he could against the solid foundation at the base of the door. Each blow was mindless, furious, his thoughts nothing but a swirling mess of anger, guilt, and wretchedness, his only desire that it was that bastard Kedan’s face he were smashing in right now. He was the one who had taken Elizabeth from him. His mind fell into the rhythm of each strike. It... Was... His.... Fault!

Another jarring impact and the gun cracked and broke, the grip splitting into useless shards. John took a shuddering breath and slammed it one last time against the ground, hunching over as his now sore fingers unwrapped themselves from around the angled ridges of the barrel. He propped his elbows on the dirt in front of him and bowed his head so it rested in the palms of his hands, the ends of his black hair nearly brushing the earth beneath him. He didn’t care. The violent haze that had clouded his mind was now gone, and as the horrible clarity came back to him he almost wished that it had stayed.

Why? Why did he keep having to lose her? Why couldn’t he save her? Elizabeth had given him everything. A second chance, a home, a family... She had given him his life, and yet he couldn’t even give her back hers. He had failed her. And now she was gone.

John slowly straightened up from his bent position and dragged himself the few feet over to the tree that stood just beside the doorway, sitting down normally and wearily leaning back on the trunk. He felt hollow inside, like he was missing a part of himself that he hadn’t even known existed until it was gone. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the tree, tilting his face up towards the sky. Elizabeth’s voice echoed in his mind. The bark that served as his pillow was uncomfortably hard and rough and scraped against his neck. A fresh wave of drizzling rain fell from the steely gray clouds above, plastering his hair to his head and running down the back of his uniform. It was miserable, but for the moment he didn’t care.

He didn’t care.


oOo


Five minutes later, shortly after the rain had stopped, the clearing was lit momentarily by a flare of pure diamond light, and then Rodney McKay and Ronon Dex appeared. Their backs were to John and they didn’t see him at first. Rodney immediately began looking around, but stopped when he turned and laid eyes on John sitting beneath the tree. The scientist tapped Ronon on the back of his arm to get his attention, then stepped forwards, his face solemn. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

For once Rodney seemed to be at a loss for words and he glanced away, his eyes growing larger when he beheld the blasted remains of the entryway. “Woah.”

“Yeah. We did a pretty impressive job, didn’t we?” John couldn’t quite keep the twinge of bitterness out of his voice, although he hid it well. “Did they send the pulse?”

“Yeah,” said Ronon, “If there were any Replicators left alive down there we got ‘em all.”

“Good.” There was silence for a minute or so before anyone spoke again.

“John...” began Rodney hesitantly, “what... what happened?” He sounded almost nervous, and the words began to pour rapidly out of his mouth in typical McKay style. “I mean, you come running up and tell us that you’re going back, and then next thing we know you’re on the bridge and you’re shouting at Caldwell, and Elizabeth’s...”

John sighed inwardly. He had half-heartedly hoped that they wouldn’t ask right away. But he couldn’t ask them to wait. They had as much right to know as he did. “It was the nanites,” he said flatly, keeping any trace of emotion out of his voice. “Kedan took them over remotely and paralyzed her. She wouldn’t let me stay or try to help her. She said it was too dangerous. And then when I went back the ceiling collapsed and I... I got lost. The Daedalus beamed me up before I could get to her.”

Rodney swallowed deeply and nodded, again unable to speak.

“We told Caldwell the simple version of what happened before that,” said Ronon. “He wanted to order you to the infirmary before we head to the village, but we talked him out of it.”

Small blessings. “Thanks,” John murmured. “Are you guys alright?”

“We’re fine.” Ronon knew him well enough that he didn’t bother to ask him how he was in return, and he felt a deep sense of gratitude towards his Satedan friend.

“Come on,” said Ronon quietly a minute later. “We should get going.”

Rodney stirred as if waking up from a long sleep, his voice slightly unsteady. “Yeah, we should. Shanna’s finished getting checked out by the doctor and she really wants to go home.”

John merely nodded and began to lift himself off of the ground, his tired muscles stiff from resting after so much activity. Ronon reached down and clasped his arm, helping him to his feet. John muttered a thank you and received a dip of the head in return. “Let’s go.”

Rodney contacted the Daedalus with the radio that he had been given, and then, one shimmer of light later, a hushed silence reclaimed the now empty clearing, the only witnesses to the destruction the ring of trees that stood guard around the entrance, their damp leaves waving softly in the breeze.


oOo


Their second visit to the ship in orbit was a short one. They were beamed into the hallway outside the infirmary, went inside and collected Shanna, who was sitting anxiously on the edge of one of the beds waiting for them. Her clothes were as dirty as the rest of the team’s, bedraggled strands of her dark brown hair had come loose and hung limply from their bun, and a white strip of gauze was taped in place over a cut on her hand, but otherwise she seemed none too much the worse for wear. The anxiety was replaced by eagerness when they told her it was time for her to go home, and she underwent the beaming process much more calmly than John would have expected from someone for whom this was only their second experience with it, and whose only exposure to such advanced technology, with the exception of the stargate, had come within the space of the past twelve hours. When they arrived on the surface of the planet, instead of awe and fright, there was only an expression of uneasiness on her face at the new mode of transportation.

The Daedalus had set them down in the woods about half a mile away from Shanna’s village to avoid the commotion that might take place if they suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Shanna quickly recognized where they were, and in no time at all they were walking back down the same path that had led them into the forest at the start of the whole thing. As they walked Rodney briefed her on how to use the radio that she had been given to use in case her people ever needed to contact them. The clouds had begun to clear, and bright shafts of sunlight broke through the canopy of leaves above their heads. After being in the darkness of the Replicator compound for so long, it was nearly blinding when John stepped out of the last fringe of trees and emerged in the large field that held the village.

A great shout went up when they neared the collection of small huts, and by the time they had passed the first dwelling, the entire population had gathered to greet them. The loudest shout of all came from the tall redheaded man who ran up to the group and gathered Shanna into his arms. Derlin was near tears as he embraced his wife, as was she. “I thought I had lost you,” he whispered to her.

‘There,’ thought John as he watched the couple’s joyful reunion. ‘That’s one promise I kept. At least... at least I was able to bring someone home.’

Derlin, his arms still wrapped tightly around Shanna, looked up and over her shoulder at the men from Atlantis. “Thank you, Colonel Sheppard,” he said sincerely, deep and never-ending gratitude in his eyes and voice. “Thank you for bringing her back to me.” The two men exchanged a look, much as they had by the fire the day before - it felt like a lifetime ago - and John simply gave a slow nod in return.

Then the rest of the villagers descended on Shanna and her saviors. They were very vocal and enthusiastic in their thanksgiving, almost the complete opposite of the wary, nearly hostile people that they had met with when they first set foot on this planet. John saw an old woman hug Rodney out of the corner of his eye, making the Canadian squirm and awkwardly pat her on the back, and two young boys with dirty faces were standing in front of Ronon, staring up at him in awe while he crossed his arms and stared unflinchingly back. It was getting noisy as well. People were talking and laughing loudly, and a few had dragged out home-made musical instruments and begun to play those. Eventually John saw a chance to escape unnoticed and he took it, retreating back past the houses and towards the field in search of somewhere quiet and isolated. Celebrating was the last thing he wanted to do right now.

But it wasn’t a completely clean get away. Shanna caught him leaving and slipped away from her husband’s side, following him to the edge of the village. “Colonel Sheppard,” she called. He sighed, stopped a few yards into the golden grass of the field, and turned to her. She looked at him, her brown eyes serious yet full of sympathy. “When we were on your ship I learned from Dr. McKay that the lomya” - It took John a second to remember that that was what these people called the Replicators. - “the lomya woman that helped us was one of your people who had been captured, and that she was killed in the explosion. I... I wish to apologize for my behavior towards her, and I would like you to know how sorry I am for the loss you and your friends have suffered. I know it must be hard for you in particular.”

John started at his being singled out like that and tried to shrug off the condolence, but she wouldn’t let him. She gave him a sharp look. “Colonel, I was more afraid in that place than I have ever been in my life, but I was not blind.” Her tone softened. “I could see how deeply you cared for her.”

John looked at the woman for a moment and then nodded reluctantly in acceptance. “Thank you,” he whispered roughly. Shanna stepped towards him and laid a hand on his arm for a brief moment.

“May your stay in the darkness be a short one,” she said gently, “and may the light soon guide you home.” Startled by how her words echoed his earlier thoughts in the clearing, he shot her a questioning look and she explained. “It is a traditional blessing we say in times of grief.” She paused before continuing, with the same level of earnestness Derlin had exhibited. “Thank you for keeping your promise, Colonel Sheppard. You and your team have earned our eternal gratitude, both for that and for ridding us of the lomya. We are in your debt.” With that she gave him one last look, and then turned and walked back into the village to join her people.


oOo


Three Days Later


The sun shone brightly through the stained glass windows that lined that particular corridor, lighting up the the colorful geometric designs, and the sweep of Atlantis’s towering skyline visible through the clear panes of glass gleamed magnificently in the light of early afternoon. But Ronon didn’t pay much attention to the view. He was bored, and since no one could be found to spar with him, he was headed to the firing range, thinking that maybe blasting a few holes in things would make him feel better, and help him shake off the gloom that had settled over him since returning to Atlantis from that mess of a last mission. Ronon blamed most of the feeling on Sheppard. It was contagious. Although losing Dr. Weir again hadn’t been easy for him, or anyone else once they heard the news, Sheppard was taking it hardest of all. The man had been walking around like a faded copy of himself ever since they had gotten back. As soon as Keller had released him from the infirmary he had thrown himself into his work, performing his duties just as well as ever, but lacking the spirit and vitality that he had always possessed before, and his usually easy going and well controlled temper ran on a shorter fuse than Ronon had ever seen it. Sheppard had taken to preferring solitude over most anything else, and spent a large amount of his time standing alone on the balcony outside of the control room. None of the expedition personnel had dared to disturb him when he was standing there, out of respect and fear for their lives if they had dared.

Ronon turned off of the sunshine filled hallway and descended a flight of stairs. The sound of faint gunfire drifted up the steps towards him. He felt mildly surprised. He had expected the place to be empty so close to the lunch hour, but obviously he was wrong. And he could guess who it was that was skipping meals to be there.

He soon arrived at the makeshift firing range that had been set up by the expedition early on in their time in the Pegasus Galaxy. The green paneled room was large, with racks full of shining black weapons standing against the walls, ranging from P-90s and MP5s to 9mm handguns, and several folding tables were set up end to end in a line on the opposite side of the room from the hanging targets, one of which floated gracefully to the floor as Ronon walked in, the paper riddled with bullet holes. He looked over at the source of the furious marksmanship, and his hunch was proved correct.

John Sheppard stood behind the row of tables, a P-90 tucked firmly in his arms, aiming at the remaining target. A pair of hearing protectors covered his ears, preventing him from hearing Ronon enter, and he was too focused on the target in front of him to see him either. John fired another burst of ammo down the range, his face clenched in a mask of anger and hatred. Whether that hatred was directed at the imaginary Replicators Ronon guessed he was shooting at, or at himself he didn’t know.

John emptied the clip and set the gun down on the table in front of him, staring through its surface at something only he could see. Ronon took advantage of the lull to walk farther into the room. Raising his head John finally saw him, and he lifted the hearing protectors off of his ears, setting them down next to the empty sub-machine gun. “Hey.”

“Hey. It’s lunch. You eaten anything lately?”

“Got a sandwich before I came down here.”

Ronon could tell he was lying, but he didn’t call him on it. If he didn’t want to eat that was his business. He hadn’t come here to rag on his friend. He walked around the tables and hung a fresh set of targets from the ceiling, on his way back picking up the two that John had almost made into confetti and laying them on the table on top of the P-90. Ronon freed his gun from the ever present holster at his side and took a couple of shots, the whining sound from the blasts filling the room. Out of the corner of his eye he saw John pick up the topmost target covering the table. When the new ones had both been reduced to nothing more than a scrap of paper hanging from the clip, he looked at John and saw him holding his handiwork up to the light.

John glanced over and caught his eye. “Anger management therapy,” he said wryly.

“Is it working?”

John laid the heavily perforated target back down. “No. Not really.” He crumpled up the two targets and threw them in the trash, then removed the empty magazine from the P-90. “Not when I’m angry at myself.” He began cleaning the gun, and didn’t say anymore. A minute passed in silence.

“Sheppard, what happened to Weir wasn’t your fault.”

“Yeah. That’s what they tell me.” He continued to clean the weapon in his hands. Another stretch of silence, and then, “But I don’t buy it. If I had just been faster... if I had hadn’t left her in the first place...”

A squawk from a radio interrupted. John sighed and fished his headset out of his pocket, hooking it in place around his ear and activating it. “This is Sheppard, go ahead.”

“Colonel,” Samantha Carter’s voice issued from the earpiece. “We just received a message from MGX-9811, the planet you just got back from.”

John and Ronon both frowned. “What’s the problem?”

“That’s the thing, there doesn’t seem to be one. I asked, but the woman I spoke with only said nothing was wrong and requested that you and your team return to the planet as soon as possible. Any idea why?”

“What was her name?”

“It was Shanna, the woman you rescued. Colonel, why would she be contacting us if there’s no emergency?”

“I have no idea.” John paused and thought a moment.

“It must be important though if they had to call us about it,” said Ronon, folding his arms across his chest.

John nodded. “I don’t know what they want,” he said into the radio, “but I think we should go check it out.”

Sam’s sigh was audible even over the headset. “Okay, John. Tell your team to gear up. You leave in two hours.”


oOo



Shanna was waiting for them when John, Ronon, and Rodney stepped out of the gate. She smiled and walked towards them, the yellow, ankle high flowering plant that covered the open field, a cross between an iris and a goldenrod, brushing against her long skirt as she moved. “Welcome! I am glad you chose to come so soon.”

“Hello Shanna,” greeted John. Before he could open his mouth any further to ask any questions, she was already continuing.

“Come,” she said, gesturing in the direction of the village. “You must be wondering why I asked you to return here so soon after leaving us.” She started walking in the direction she had pointed, leaving them nothing to do but follow her.

“Yeah, we were,” said Rodney as he trudged through the flowers. “What exactly is going on?”

“Is something wrong?” asked John.

Shanna smiled again and shook her head. “No, it is as I told your commander. There is nothing wrong. In fact, things are better than they have been for quite some time, thanks to the efforts of the three of you.”

“I don’t mean to be rude or anything,” began Rodney, “but if you’re not in trouble then why are we here?”

Shanna hesitated for a moment. “It will be better if I show you,” she said, a gleam in her eyes, and continued to lead the way into the forest. John and the others exchanged a suspicious glance, but didn’t say anything else. A short time later they stepped out into the field that housed the village, but they didn’t head towards the rough dwellings. Instead, Shanna led them along the edge of the woods, eventually reentering the trees when they had reached a certain point and following another well worn trail. “There is a lake not far from here along this path,” she said. “with a small house on it that fisherman use. That is where I am taking you.”

“Why?” rumbled Ronon.

She smiled broadly. “I felt that you might wish to have a private reunion.”

John stopped dead in his tracks. Reunion...? “Wait, what?”

Shanna grinned. “A day after you left us a group of my people undertook a search of the forest around the lomya encampment. They were curious, after fearing to go near the place for so long. They found one of the lomya laying on the ground and brought her to the village. She was alive, and I recognized her.” No, it couldn’t be... “When she woke I contacted you and brought her here to the lake.”

“Wait,” said Rodney, “are you saying...?”

But John was already gone. Without even realizing it, he had broken into a run and was speeding down the path, soon leaving the others far behind, his thoughts spinning at a mile a minute, repeating the same thing over and over again. ‘It couldn’t be...’ But hope flared into roaring life within him anyway. If it was really her... if she was really alive... His pulse pounded in his ears, the trees flying by. The end of the path came into sight, a bright patch of light at the end of the tunnel of trees, spurring him on even faster. ‘brought her to the village... she was alive...’

Unable to contain himself, he shouted her name as he burst out of the woods and skidded to a stop. “ ‘Lizabeth?!” He frantically whipped his head back and forth as he searched for her. He found himself standing a short distance from the edge of a medium sized lake, a wide strip of grass between him and the narrow, almost nonexistent ribbon of rocky beach that ringed the shimmering blue water. Where was she? “ ‘Lizab...?!” There was a creaking sound from behind him to his right. He wheeled around so fast he almost hurt himself, and the cry died in his throat. Set back under the sheltering eaves of the forest was a small hut, just as Shanna had said would be there. It was only a one room affair made of neatly piled stones mortared together, with a low thatch roof and two small unglazed windows. But that wasn’t what made John suddenly speechless. Standing at the entrance, staring at him, her hand still gripped around the side of the rough wooden door that she had just opened, stood Elizabeth Weir. Very much alive.

Her hand dropped to her side and she stepped out from under the overhang of the roof. Her white Asuran style clothes had been replaced with a pale blue tunic and long reddish brown skirt, doubtless borrowed from Shanna, and her chestnut curls had been half pulled back, away from her face. “John.” She took a step closer, her eyes never leaving his face for a second. He couldn’t take his eyes off her either. They both stood there for a moment, staring at each other breathlessly.

"I thought you were dead..." he breathed. "How...?"

"I told you I wasn't going to stay behind if I could help it," she said quietly, her voice filled with emotion as she echoed their earlier conversation inside his head. And then he was running again, and so was she, and then suddenly she was wrapped in his arms, and he in hers. She was alive...

As he held her, he suddenly he felt so light, so whole and complete that he hardly felt like the same man who had woken up that morning. She was the part of himself that he had been missing; it was like the other half of his soul had suddenly been returned to him. When had she become so important? So necessary? So tangled up in the very fabric of who he was that without her he could barely recognize himself?

“I’m so sorry Elizabeth,” he whispered shakily. “So sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she whispered back, her own voice unsteady as she clung to him.

“No. I should never have left you..."

"You did the right thing."

"I was coming back, but I..."

She pulled away from him in surprise. "Coming back? What...?" She fixed her eyes on his in an oh so familiar glare; equally familiar was the exasperated and admonishing sigh that escaped her lips. "John I told you..."

"Elizabeth, I couldn't just..." He broke off and glanced away, his lips drawing into a thin line. Then he looked back, his eyes boring into hers. "I couldn't stand the thought of losing you again." Her expression softened. He reached out and brought his right hand up to tenderly cradle the side of her face, drinking in the look in her shining green eyes. "I love you."

Astonishment flared in her eyes. He felt a brief moment of panic as he wondered what she would think. But it only lasted a moment. It was true. He loved her, and losing her this second time had finally made him see what had been right in front of him all along, and how vital it was. Too much time had been lost already in hesitating. He wasn't going to lose any more.

She stared at him searchingly, and when she seemed to find what she was looking for she cast her gaze to the grass beneath their feet. "If this whole experience has taught me anything," she said quietly, "it's not to waste a second chance when I get one." She looked up at him, emotions flashing through her eyes so fast that he couldn’t read them. "I love you too." Their eyes locked, green on green, and more passed between them in that one look then could ever have been said with words.

He took a step forwards and gently took her face in his hands, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Well it’s a good thing I know all about second chances then,” he said softly. Then he was kissing her. The kiss was cautious at first, but then became slow, and gentle, and soft. It felt so right. This was what he had come so close to missing out on... As the kiss ended, their faces only an inch apart, he felt more fortunate than he had ever felt in his life. Elizabeth loved him...

He pulled her into another embrace. “You realize that I’m probably never going to let you out of my sight again, right?”

She laughed, a sound he felt like he could never get enough of as long as he lived. "I plan on holding you to that."

He grinned and kissed her again. "Carter'll be happy to save on the cost of security.”

A knowing look entered her eyes, making them sparkle, and her smile grew.

"What?" he laughed.

“We’re not going to have to worry about that,” she beamed, freeing herself from his arms and running inside the hut. She came back out a minute later with something in her hands. A data crystal. “Not since I have this.”


oOo

Three Days Previous

The entire core room shook again, and Elizabeth blinked fiercely to try and keep the dust out of her eyes, one of the few ranges of motion left available to her. From behind her a door slid open and she heard Kedan enter the room. He walked past her and stood directly in front of her so she could see him. “You have caused me a great deal of trouble, Dr. Weir.”

“I tried my best.”

“I am sure you have, but now, in the end, your best appears to have done you little good. Yes, you may have succeeded in ensuring the destruction of this complex, but it is of little matter. We will simply move on to begin again in a new location. You will not. I told you before that you would not leave this place alive.”

She didn’t respond, only glared at him, hatred for the Replicator swarming through every part of her mind. “They will. And that’s all that matters.”

“Ah... I see. You believe that the lives of your human friends are worth the sacrifice.” He tilted his head at her. “One life especially so.” Kedan took a step towards her. Instinctively she wanted to shrink back, but she couldn’t. “I have always found your attachment to your former life to be extremely fascinating. You are no longer one of them, and yet you cling desperately to the idea of a home that has ceased to exist for you. You, Dr. Weir, have become more. Stronger, higher than any human, and yet your deepest wish is still to be one of them, fragile and weak.” He reached into the pocket of his shirt and pulled out an orange data crystal, holding it up so it was easily visible. “Your deepest wish, and you turned it down merely to help the humans. That is counter productive.”

Elizabeth took a sharp intake of breath. “You were telling the truth.”

“I have no need to lie, Dr. Weir, as you should be well aware of by now. This crystal contains all the data necessary to program the nanites in your body to create human cells.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Elizabeth demanded, trying to think past the swirl of hope and longing that had entered her heart and made her throat catch. She wouldn’t have to depend on the nanites to keep her alive anymore. She would be fully human again. She could go home... if only she could move! She began to struggle with the nanites inside of her for control.

“One last bit of research before my departure,” answered Kedan. There was a flash of color from the holographic display table next to her, that one hand was still resting on. Her eyes reflexively darted to the gently floating hologram, and then she noticed the forgotten ARG that she had lain down on the table when she had first entered the room. Kedan hadn’t noticed it. If she could get to it... if she could get to it she would be free. Home. She threw everything she had into the internal battle raging inside her mind, drawing strength from memories of her city that was waiting for her, and of a handsome man with unruly black hair who always seemed to understand her. Who always knew what she needed, sometimes even before she knew what it was herself. Whose life, she had realized, was more important to her than her own. She had to get back to them. She had to go home!

“Goodbye, Dr, Weir. I believe humans would consider this ironic that you are going to die as a result of your own plans to escape. However, I would not know.”

With those words he turned and began to walk towards the doorway. No! He was getting away! She retreated deep within herself and gathered every last shred of willpower she had for one final assault. This was her body, and she was going to take it back!

And then she had it. Kedan wheeled around, sensing that he was no longer in control of her nanites, and stalked towards her with frightening speed. Elizabeth lunged forwards, nearly collapsing as her muscles reacted to being released so suddenly, and threw herself over the top of the table, wildly seizing the ARG she had abandoned earlier. Just as he reached out for her, she swung her arm out and fired a blast of electric blue energy at his head. Then he was gone, the source of all her torment of the past six months, the one who had made her very existence a living hell, now nothing more than a scattering of dull metal bits on the floor.

Panting, Elizabeth levered herself off of the table and got to her feet, suddenly aware of something hard digging into her side. She reached into her pocket and pulled the object out. Of course. The detonator for the C-4. John had given it to her before they had left the lab.

The air in the core room was filled with a thick cloud of dust that refused to lift. Another explosion sounded in the background. She didn’t have much time. Hurriedly, she knelt to the ground and sifted through the layer of Replicator cells that had formerly been Kedan, shoving the precious data crystal deep within her pocket, and then running out the door.

She bolted down the hallway, her mental map of the compound guiding her to the nearest transport station. They were always heavily guarded, one reason why she and the team hadn’t used them to escape earlier. If she had her way she wouldn’t be using one now, but there just wasn’t enough time... There was one guard posted in front of the transporter when she got there. Before he even had time to reach for his own weapon Elizabeth had already shot him with the ARG. She stepped into the transporter and sank her hand into the smooth metal panel on the wall, allowing her nanites to communicate with the system. There were no other controls; the operations system was strictly Replicators only. That was the second reason for avoiding the transporters earlier.

It activated and, very similarly to the transporters on Atlantis, whisked her to her destination an instant later. Elizabeth removed her hand from the wall and stepped out. She was on the outer edge of the complex now, and she judged the distance to be enough to be safe. Flipping the switch on the detonator, she held her thumb over the button. “Fire in the hole,” she muttered automatically a phrase she was sure she had probably picked up from John. Then she pressed the button. There was a tremendous booming sound in the distance as the C-4 went off, the massive force of the explosion enough to shake the entire structure. Elizabeth began to run for the exit.

Just as the door was in sight some piece of debris flew out of the darkness and struck her hard on the back of the head. She staggered and nearly fell, black and white spots flashing before her eyes and pain shooting from the base of her skull. She struggled to stay conscious as she swiped her hand over the door panel and rushed outside into a dimly lit, heavily forested area, but she didn’t get more than twenty yards away before she fell to the hard ground and darkness claimed her.


oOo


"I missed seeing the stars," Elizabeth said as she gazed up at the sky, leaning in closer against John's side and resting her head on his shoulder. "I missed being outside period." They were sitting side by side on the ground beneath the spreading branches of a tree on the shore of the lake. A glittering expanse of stars shone above them. Two moons hung in the sky, one a pale violet color that reflected its light down on the inky black water of the lake.

John laid his head against hers and joined her in looking at all the celestial splendor. “Yeah. I was getting a little claustrophobic just after being in there for twelve hours.”

She chuckled softly. “No you weren’t!”

“Yes, I was!” he laughed as he defended himself. “Really! Thought I was turning into Rodney for a while there.”

Elizabeth just laughed some more and turned her face into his shoulder. John grinned and angled his head so he could lay a kiss on the soft brown curls. It surprised him how quickly and naturally those small gestures of affection had come to him. When he had dragged himself out of bed that morning he had been lost, drifting, and empty. Never would he have imagined that in the space of less than twenty-four hours his entire world would have turned upside down in such a perfect way, that he would be sitting next to Elizabeth Weir, holding her, and they would have admitted that they loved each other.

“Do you think he’s ever going to get over it?” she wondered.

“Who?”

“Rodney. He seemed so floored.”

“You rose from the dead for the second time in less than a day. Who could blame the guy? And I think he still feels guilty about reactivating your nanites in the first place.”

“Are you still angry at him for doing it?”

“No. Not if him not doing it would have meant that I would be missing this.”

She lifted her head up, their eyes meeting. She thought for a minute, her face serious. “Me too.” John was moved. He had seen how much pain she had been through at the hands of the nanites, how much it had all cost her. And for her to say that this, what they had, was worth all of that… She inched closer and tenderly kissed him, their foreheads touching after they broke apart. Her eyes still closed, she gave a small smile. “I still haven’t gotten used to being able to do that.”

He smirked softly. “Me neither.”

There was a lull of contented silence. “We should go home soon shouldn’t we?” asked Elizabeth.

John sighed. “Probably. Not that I really want to move right now.”

“Rodney’ll be upset if we make him walk down here to get us,” she said teasingly.

He rolled his eyes. “Well, we wouldn’t want that now, would we?” She laughed. “Okay, fine!” Reluctantly, he pulled himself to his feet, offering her a hand to help her up. She took it and they began walking hand in hand towards the path to the village where the rest of the team were waiting. A mild breeze blew through the air, and the stars glimmered overhead, the gentle murmur of the water lapping the rocky shore lending a faint rhythm to the scene.

John glanced over at Elizabeth as they strolled along and caught her already looking at him, the soft purple moonlight lending her features a diffuse radiance. Some strange impulse to speak struck him. “Nothing’s ever going to be quite the same you know.”

“No it won’t,” she said, smiling serenely at him. “It’s going to be better.”