Chapter Text
After The Siege
They were alone for the first time in days.
The city hummed softly beneath them, lights beginning to glow as Atlantis welcomed the early evening. The control room was quiet, almost empty; most of the expedition had finally felt safe enough to allow themselves to be herded off to sleep.
Elizabeth had sent John to rest hours ago. Of course, he’d ignored the order and stayed within casual walking distance of her office.
That was how they ended up here: sitting side by side on the balcony outside the conference room, backs against the cool Ancient wall, legs stretched out, watching the waning sun.
“I still can’t believe we pulled that off,” John said, voice low, almost surreptitious. As if they were discussing his latest prank on McKay instead of the fact that Atlantis was still standing.
Elizabeth huffed a quiet laugh. “You and Rodney pulled that off,” she corrected. “I just tried not to have a heart attack while you were doing it.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Doc. You facing the Genii alone was pretty impressive.”
There was a sideways smile in his tone, that teasing warmth he used when he was trying to coax her away from the weight of command.
She turned her head to look at him. There were dark smudges under his eyes, a stubborn scrape along his jaw, hair even more unruly than usual. He looked exhausted. He also looked very, very alive.
“John,” she said softly, gratitude and relief wrapped up in the one word.
He met her gaze, and for a moment the banter dropped away. The easy grin faded into something more open, more raw. “You okay?” he asked, like it was only just dawning on him to check.
A moment from the storm echoed between them, but this time her answer was different.
“I will be,” she answered, and realised she meant it. The bone‑deep terror that had lived in her chest since the Wraith had first appeared on the sensors had finally loosened its grip. “We all will be.”
He nodded, but didn’t look away. The city’s breeze played with a strand of her hair, and without thinking he reached out, brushing it back behind her ear. His fingers lingered a fraction of a second longer than necessary.
Elizabeth’s gentle gasp of surprise was only momentary before warmth pooled through her body.
“Sorry,” he murmured, hand dropping, suddenly self‑conscious. “I just…” He broke off, then gave a small, almost reckless shrug. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”
The air between them shifted. She sensed it, felt it, and if she’d been wiser she would have moved, said something deflecting, stood up and walked away. Instead, she held his gaze.
“John,” she said again, but his name came out different this time. Softer. Less professional.
“There’s, uh…” He cleared his throat, eyes flicking down to her mouth and back up again. “There’s something I should have said before I got on that jumper.”
Her heart kicked hard against her ribs. “You don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t have to.” His voice steadied. “But I want to.” He waited a beat. “Look, I don’t know the right things to say, Elizabeth. That’s not exactly my area of expertise. But this thing between us—whatever I’m feeling, at least—it’s… more.”
He exhaled, shoulders dropping. “More significant than anything I’ve felt in a long time.” He looked almost angry at the admission, like he’d finally lost an argument with himself.
She swallowed. “John, I… there’s protocol…”
“Yeah, you’re right,” he continued, barrelling on. “It’s not like Afghanistan or the nanovirus, it’s not me trying to save a life, or break rules for some noble reason. But it is about what we’re fighting for. It’s about living a life worth fighting for.”
His words landed with an uncomfortable clarity. She’d given speeches on that very phrase; in Geneva, in Washington, at a dozen round tables where men with power and money had smiled politely and gone on funding weapons programs. Hearing it from him was different. Hearing it from someone who’d bled for those decisions, someone who could quote military protocols and still argue for change… that moved something in her.
Her hands were locked together in a vice grip. She hadn’t even realised she was wringing them in her lap until he looked down at them.
“John.” She forced her voice calm. “We have to be careful.”
“Careful,” he repeated, and there was an edge to the way he said it. “Right. Protocol.”
“It exists for a reason.” She took a breath. “You’re the military commander. I’m the civilian leader. Now that we’re back in contact with Earth, you know we’ll have to answer to people who are likely already uncomfortable with how much autonomy we’ve had out here.”
He leaned in, the space between them narrowing. “I have broken protocol before,” he reminded her quietly. “And I’m still here.”
She almost smiled at that—of course he would say that—but shook her head.
“Those were different and you know it,” she countered.
His mouth tightened. “So this doesn’t count as something worth bending the rules for?”
The hurt under the sarcasm made her chest ache.
She should have said something measured and final. Instead, she hesitated. And in that hesitation, he moved.
The kiss was tentative at first. A question, not a demand. His lips brushed hers softly, as if he half‑expected her to pull back or push him away.
She didn’t.
The rush of relief, of want, hit her so hard she could barely breathe. She parted her lips, deepening the kiss before she could stop herself. His hand slid into her hair, the other bracing against the floor, anchoring them both. She shifted without thinking, turning toward him until her knees were on either side of his hips and she was straddling him. It was ridiculous and unwise and utterly unlike her. It was also… incredible.
Her hands reached up to cradle his face, drawing him closer, while Atlantis’s ever‑present breeze faded into the background. There was only him, the taste of him, the impossible reality of this.
His hands splayed across her back, pressing her into him, but it was that same firm pressure that jolted her out of their haze. She pulled away abruptly, breath coming fast. The sound of the ocean rushed back in, the city’s lights too bright, the line they’d just crossed glowing neon in her mind.
“Elizabeth?” he asked, voice rough, hands loosening immediately, giving her space.
“I can’t,” she whispered, the words scraping out of her. She slid off his lap, standing, putting physical distance where emotional distance had just failed her. “We can’t.”
His expression shuttered. “Right. Protocol.”
“It’s not that I’m not flattered,” she said quickly, because the wounded look in his eyes was unbearable. “It’s not that it wasn’t… enjoyable.” She forced herself to meet his gaze. “But it’s against protocol. Against every boundary I’ve upheld my entire life. I can’t just…” She gestured helplessly between them.
He watched her in silence, jaw clenched, something wounded, disappointed flashing across his face before he could bury it.
“There’s more,” she said quietly, hating herself for piling on. “I have someone back on Earth.” Her voice went brittle. “Simon. And this… this isn’t me, John. This is wrong.”
He exhaled, long and slow, as if he’d expected a hit and still managed to be surprised by the force of it. “Okay,” he said eventually, carefully neutral. “Message received.”
She wanted to explain, to untangle the mess of ethics and loyalty and fear, but the words tangled. In the end, what she gave him was more distance.
He accepted it with a crooked, not‑quite smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Back to work, then,” he said, pushing himself to his feet.
She watched him go, the shape of his retreating back etched into her memory, and knew she’d just lied to them both.
It wasn’t wrong because she didn’t want him.
It was wrong because she did.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Intruder
The coffee on the Daedalus wasn’t as good as she’d indulged in on Earth. Elizabeth suspected it never would be. Tonight, though, it gave her something to do with her hands.
The mess was empty, her only company the blue glow of hyperspace rushing past the window. Earth already felt like a strange dream – clean clothes, fine food, too many opinions. Atlantis was what called to her.
The sound of footsteps made her still and turn, but she relaxed the moment she saw it was John.
“Hey,” she said, watching him cross to the coffee jug on the table behind her. “What are you doing up so late?” Pouring himself a cup, he was nonchalant as he answered the question. “Couldn't sleep. Must be the burden of command.”
He dropped into the seat opposite her with a familiarity that had grown over the last year. “You know, ever since I was promoted to lieutenant colonel?”
Leaning forward as he attempted to feign innocence, she jokingly chastised, “All right, John, it's been almost a month. When are you going to stop trying to find a way to bring that up in every single conversation?”
“You've got to understand,” he said earnestly. “There's a lot of people in the Air Force who never thought I'd make it past captain.”
“Well, obviously the people whose opinions matter the most thought otherwise,” she smirked, leaning back in her chair with an expression that, if he didn’t know better, he might almost have characterised as flirtatious.
Looking away, stamping those feelings back down, he moved to safer ground. “What about you? What are you still doing up?”
“I think I got used to falling asleep to the sound of the ocean,” she said wistfully.
“Well, McKay says we're already at the edge of the Pegasus galaxy. You'll be fine once we get back to Atlantis. You know, it's funny. I spent the past year wondering if I'd ever see Earth again, and as soon as I got there…” he trailed off.
“I know how you feel,” she continued for him. “God, it was extremely convenient to be able to step through the gate and be at Stargate Command in an instant, and now this… It feels extremely inconvenient having to spend eighteen days cooped up on this ship to get back.”
“Until we find another ZPM to power the Earth gate, that's just the way it's going to have to be.”
They lapsed into a quiet, companionable silence, sipping bad coffee and not talking about everything else that had changed since the siege. He’d been debriefed. She’d fought for his promotion. The IOA had smiled a little too coldly despite what she’d told the Airforce. General O’Neill had warned them both, in different offices, with different words, that the spotlight on Atlantis was bright.
“So,” John said eventually, like it was an afterthought. “How’s Simon?”
The question landed like a stone in her stomach. She stared at the dark liquid in her mug, watched it ripple slightly with the ship’s subtle movements.
“Simon and I… broke up,” she said, keeping her tone as neutral as possible.
He froze. “Oh.”
He barely had time to process the surge of hopeful anticipation before she pushed her chair back and stood. “I’m going to get more coffee,” she said, voice too controlled. “Do you want—”
“I can get it,” he offered, already half‑rising.
“No, I—” She turned away, but he noticed her hand shaking before she did; years of reading other soldiers’ tells kicked in.
“Elizabeth,” he said, moving to her side. “You don’t have to—”
“I’m fine,” she cut in, the automatic response fraying at the edges.
He reached for the jug, fingers brushing hers. “Sit down,” he said gently, taking it out of her grip before she could spill it. “I’ll make you another cup.”
She turned, intending to retreat back to her chair, but he was closer than she’d registered. Close enough that she had to tilt her head back slightly to look up at him. Close enough that the space between them felt suddenly, painfully small.
Her eyes snapped up to his, and he saw it there—want, grief, something unravelling.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth for the briefest second, to the lips she’d already learned the taste of and spent weeks pretending she hadn’t.
She shouldn’t.
But she did.
She kissed him.
There was no tentative brushing this time, no careful testing of boundaries. The kiss was fierce, messy, charged with over a year’s worth of restraint, her fresh heartbreak, his long‑quiet longing. For one perfect, blazing moment, everything made sense. Of course. This. This was what kept simmering between them.
He responded almost instantly, one hand coming up to cradle the back of her head, the other skimming down the line of her spine. He walked her back without thinking, just needing her close, until the wall stopped them. Good. He needed something solid.
The small impact of her shoulders against the bulkhead was enough to create a crack for reality to push through. He deepened the kiss, and for one fluid, dangerous moment, she let herself fall into it completely. Into him.
Then she broke away, breathing hard, palms flat against his chest to hold him at a distance that did nothing to tame the wanting.
“We need to stop,” she said, hating the words, hating herself for meaning them.
He blinked, dazed. “What?” His voice was rough, confused. “Elizabeth—”
“Our positions,” she said, the familiar arguments scrambling to be heard over the pounding of her pulse. “Your promotion. The military is going to be looking for any reason—any excuse—to legitimately remove you from command. We can’t hand them one.”
He knew the words. He’d lived under the weight of “any reason” his entire career. He also knew what it felt like to decide something, or someone, was worth taking the hit for.
“You’re worth the risk,” he said simply.
She closed her eyes for a heartbeat. It was exactly the wrong thing to say. It was also the one thing that could have broken her resolve entirely if she let it.
“You’re not thinking clearly,” she managed.
“I think I am,” he said, words tumbling faster now that he’d started. “I’ve spent weeks convincing myself this wasn’t possible because you had someone. But now you don’t, and that changes things.”
“It doesn’t,” she said, forcing herself to step sideways, putting space between them. “Protocol has always been part of this equation, John. It didn’t magically appear when my personal life changed.”
He almost laughed. “Protocol,” he repeated bitterly, as if testing the word for cracks. “You know, for two people who make a habit of bending the rules out there, it’s kind of funny where we’ve decided to draw the line.”
She folded her arms, defensive without meaning to be. “We both value protocol,” she said quietly. “We both know there are circumstances where it has to be flexible. When lives are at stake, when something unjust needs to be challenged—”
“And this doesn’t count,” he finished flatly.
“It’s not about you not counting,” she said quickly.
He heard what she said; he just couldn’t make himself believe it. A lifetime of being just shy of enough—enough for his father, enough for his marriage, enough for the Air Force—rose up like muscle memory.
“Isn’t it?” he pushed. He shouldn’t, but he was already standing in the blast radius. “You’re saying the rules are worth bending for everyone else but us. So forgive me if it sounds a lot like I’m just not worth breaking them for.”
She flinched, and some softer part of him hated himself for putting that look on her face. But the louder part was bone tired.
“You are worth it,” she said. “That’s the problem.”
He heard the words but his brain, stubborn traitor that it was, filed them under platitudes people used when they were turning you down. You’re great, it’s just not the right time. You’re wonderful, it’s me, not you.
She went on, and this time he barely processed anything beyond fragments: “terrified… how easily I could fall in love with you… everything you represent… I used to argue against men like you… reevaluating my beliefs…”
It sounded like a confession and a rejection all at once.
When she finally paused, waiting for something from him, all he could manage was, “So. Protocol. We’ll stick with protocol, then.”
He saw the flicker of pain on her face, the way her mouth parted to argue, to clarify, to fix it—but there was only silence. He also saw the future: endless versions of this conversation, him reaching, her pulling away, both of them hurting.
He took the quiet between them as confirmation.
“Right,” he said. “Thanks for the clarification.”
“John, no—” she started, reaching out, but stopped abruptly as the voice of a panicked airman called out to them both.
“Doctor Weir, Colonel Sheppard – there’s been an accident.”
John flinched at the interruption, then gave a short, humourless huff. “Saved by the bell,” he muttered.
“John,” she tried again.
“Don’t worry about it, Elizabeth.” The mask slid fully back into place: easy, deferential, professional.
He turned to follow the airman and she walked beside him, thinking they’d reached some fragile understanding.
He walked beside her, certain he’d just confirmed what he’d always suspected: when it really counted, he was never going to be enough.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Conversion
She stepped through the side door of her office, still skimming the report in her hands. Halfway to her desk she saw movement in the corner of her eye, John moving towards her across the command centre walkway, a marine a few paces behind him.
“Look,” he said, nodding back toward the marine with a crooked half‑smile. “I made a new friend.”
The joke scraped across nerves that were already raw. Her gaze flicked from John to the silent shadow at his back, to the fact that he hadn’t been allowed to come up here alone.
“It’s only protocol.”
The word hit harder than it should have. Protocol. Again. He’d heard it on the Daedalus, heard it on that balcony after the Wraith were gone, heard it every time he’d tried to push past the neat, safe lines she drew between them. Maybe if he were thinking straight, he could have let it slide. The inhibitor fuzzed everything at the edges, but it did nothing to dull the spike of anger that came with hearing it now, when he walked in with a babysitter at his back.
“That’s your answer for everything,” he said. A part of him knew he was picking a fight, but anger was easier to hold onto than the fear that she might be right.
It could have been a throwaway line on another day. It didn’t feel like one. It felt like he’d taken the shield she’d been hiding behind and turned it so she could see every crack.
That’s your answer for everything.
He wasn’t wrong. Protocol had been her excuse, her justification, her lifeline. IOA briefings, negotiations, that balcony, the Daedalus—every time she’d told herself no in the dark. Every time she’d chosen it over him, she’d claimed it was about the expedition, about ethics, about safety.
From his mouth, it sounded like cowardice.
It took all of her control to keep her shoulders from tightening, her voice from shaking. Anything else she might have said lodged behind her teeth.
“You look well,” she managed.
It was the safest thing she could find, and it tasted wrong. She did mean it—he looked better than he had, less panicked, eyes clearer—but that wasn’t what she wanted to tell him. She wanted to say she’d barely slept, that every time she closed her eyes she felt his mouth on hers, and that she was terrified she was about to lose him.
Then she saw his right hand.
The skin was darkening, twisting into something not human. Her breath hitched. He shoved the hand into his pocket as soon as he noticed her looking, shame flickering across his face before he shut it down.
“Should you be out of bed?”
Professional concern. Neutral. She clung to it like a script.
“I was going a little crazy down there, so they said I could walk around for a bit.”
“That’s good.”
It wasn’t enough. None of this was enough: not her words, not the inhibitor, not the distance she kept pretending would keep them both safe.
“Yeah.” His gaze flicked around her office, then back to her. “Look, I’m trying to say I want to go on this mission.”
Of course he did. Standing still had never been his way of dealing with anything.
“Hey, you said yourself, you are not fit for any off‑world activity.”
She could almost see the counter‑argument forming before he opened his mouth. Usefulness. Obligation. Refusal to let his team face danger without him. The same stubborn streak that had got him promoted and nearly killed in equal measure.
“The inhibitor that Beckett’s got me on, the one that’s keeping me lucid, they keep having to up the dose.”
“I know. They told me.”
And she hated that she knew. Hated that each update made her more afraid for him and less certain of her own objectivity. The IOA had been right about one thing: attachment complicated judgement.
But she was attached anyway.
“I don’t know how much more time I have, but the last thing I want to do is sit on my… mutating hands, while my team puts their lives on the line trying to find me a cure! I should be with them.”
The words came out sharper than he intended, volume climbing with every sentence. He could feel the thing inside him pushing, urging movement, action, anything but standing still in this glass box while everyone else decided his fate. Holding still took effort; keeping his voice on the right side of shouting took more.
“No. I’m sorry.”
Another no. Another door slammed, even if she meant it as protection.
“What’s the worst that can happen? I die?”
“You could compromise the mission. They have enough things to worry about—”
“So, what? What? Suddenly, I’m a liability?”
The word cut. Liability. It was what the IOA would write in their report if she let him go and something went wrong: a compromised commander, a leader who failed to rein him in, a relationship that had made Atlantis vulnerable.
She was terrified they’d be right.
“Your condition can change rapidly—”
“I know, and I know I can do this.”
He probably could. That was the worst part. Even half‑changed he would find a way to drag his team back in one piece. He always did.
“I’m glad you feel that way, but it would be irresponsible of—”
“This is my life we’re talking about.” And under that, what he didn’t say: and you’re the one who keeps telling me no.
“I know that.”
His life. Her command. The hypothetical future she’d been too afraid to let herself imagine in any detail. All of it pressed against her ribs, stealing space from her lungs.
“I’m going on that mission.”
For a moment he thought she might bend. She was looking at him like she wanted to. Then:
“No, John, you're not.”
The inhibitor dug cold fingers into his veins. The itch flared into a burn. Another no. Another line he wasn’t allowed to cross. It felt exactly like the Daedalus all over again—him reaching, her shutting the door with the same calm voice and the same damn words: irresponsible, protocol, no.
“Damn it!”
The curse tore out of him on the same impulse that drove his fist forward. He didn’t plan to hit the glass; he barely registered it was there until it gave way under his hand with a satisfying, splintering crack. The pain was distant, a bright jolt that didn’t quite reach through the haze of fury.
The smash of impact shattered the thin calm in the room. Glass spider‑webbed and fell. The marine’s gun came up instantly, barrel swinging toward him. Elizabeth’s heart lurched, not at the damage but at the sight of anyone aiming a weapon at John.
“It’s okay! Put it down.”
Her voice was sharper than she meant, cutting across training and reflex. The marine hesitated, then lowered the gun. Shards glittered on the floor between them.
John looked from the broken glass back to her, something bleak in his eyes.
“I’m betting that didn’t sell you.”
“No. No, not really.”
Understatement felt safer than admitting she’d been scared, not of him exactly, but of how quickly everything could slip.
“I should go back to the infirmary.”
“Yes.”
He turned and walked out with the marine shadowing him, shoulders rigid, right hand tucked away like something shameful.
The quiet that followed wasn’t relief. It was the echo of his accusation still hanging in the air.
That’s your answer for everything.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The training room smelled like sweat and wood polish. The familiar sting of Teyla’s bantos rods against his forearms was a welcome distraction.
“Again,” she said calmly.
He attacked. She blocked. The rhythm was almost meditative—strike, parry, pivot—until his mind betrayed him and drifted back to the feel of his hands around Elizabeth’s throat and the revulsion that followed in its wake.
He missed a step. Teyla disarmed him in a fluid motion and stepped back, eyes narrowing.
“You are distracted,” she observed.
“Just out of practise,” he lied, reaching for the fallen rod. His palm stung. Good. Pain was simple.
Teyla did not move to resume. “You asked me to train with you,” she said. “Yet your mind is elsewhere. If you wish to continue talking instead, I am willing to listen.”
“I don’t—” He stopped. He did. God help him, he did. “I… wanted to apologise again,” he said, defaulting to the safer guilt. “Specifically, for kissing you. When I was—whatever the hell I was.”
She inclined her head. “You were not yourself. There is no apology necessary.”
“There is,” he insisted. “I crossed a line. Several lines.”
Teyla’s expression softened. “Think nothing further of it as it relates to me,” she said. “I know I was not your intended target.”
He winced. “Didn’t realise I was that obvious.”
“You were not,” she said gently. “Not at first. But I am a leader of my people. I have had much practise in observing others. I have seen Elizabeth struggle to separate her feelings for you from her duties. She tries very hard not to treat you differently from others.”
He snorted, the laugh coming out bitter. “And?”
“Sometimes,” Teyla went on, “she does not entirely succeed.”
He looked away, focusing on the scuff marks on the floor. “She feels something,” he admitted quietly. “But it won’t work. What she feels isn’t enough.”
“You cannot know that,” Teyla said.
“She told me,” he said, jaw tightening. “We talked. On the Daedalus. After Earth.” The words came out clipped, each one tasting like old humiliation. “She picked protocol. She always picks protocol. And I got the message.”
Teyla considered that. “I did not realize you had actually spoken of what lies between you,” she said.
“Yeah.” He swallowed. “We did.”
“And you believe her choice means you are… not enough,” she said, choosing the words carefully.
His grip tightened on the rod. “That about sums it up.”
For a moment she said nothing, just studied him with that quiet, steady gaze that always made him feel more transparent than he liked.
“Most often,” she said at last, “the actions that hurt others are more about the one who takes them than the one who is hurt.”
He frowned. “Meaning?”
“Meaning,” Teyla said, “that Elizabeth’s decisions say more about her fears than your worth. She has carried a great deal of responsibility for a long time. She has also built her life around certain beliefs. Atlantis has forced her to question many of them. That is… unsettling.”
He thought of Elizabeth on the Daedalus, talking about reevaluating everything she’d believed. He’d heard the words; he’d just filed them under excuses.
“So protocol’s about her, not me,” he said slowly, trying the idea on for size. His chest felt tight.
“It is about both of you,” Teyla said. “But I do not think it is the measure of your value you believe it to be.”
He wanted to argue. The part of him that kept score of every disappointment, every time he’d come second, wanted to cling to the familiar narrative: not enough, too much trouble, better off at arm’s length.
Instead, he nodded once, gruff. “I’ll… think about it.”
Teyla smiled slightly, then raised her rods again. “Good. Now. Again.”
He fell back into the pattern, wood cracking against wood, the rhythm now accompanied by an unwelcome new thought: if protocol wasn’t really about his worth, then the question he’d been avoiding remained.
What was he going to do about Elizabeth Weir?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
He stood outside her office for a full thirty seconds before pressing the chime. When the doors opened, Elizabeth looked up from her tablet and smiled, quiet delight flickering across her features.
“Colonel. Come in.”
He did, but stopped just inside, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders a little too tight.
“How are you feeling?” she asked, standing. “And why on earth did you ring the door? You’ve never bothered before.” The teasing was gentle, habitual.
He didn’t answer. His gaze had fixed on her throat.
“Oh.” Self‑conscious now, and suddenly remembering the bruises blooming along her neck and collarbone, she reached for the scarf draped over the back of her chair and wrapped it carefully around her neck. “I got too warm,” she said lightly, as if that could erase the fingerprints painted in purple and yellow.
“I’m so sorry,” John said, the words tearing out of him. “Elizabeth, I—”
“It wasn’t you, John.” She stepped around the desk, one hand instinctively reaching out to touch his arm. “You weren’t in control.”
He flinched, the contact sparking something vulnerable and uncomfortable within him. Shame, self‑loathing, that familiar whisper of not good enough, can’t be trusted, too dangerous. Old wounds, new evidence.
“I don’t need your comfort,” he said abruptly, stepping back. “Or your absolution. I wanted to apologise, again, for my actions.”
She studied his face, reading the tightness around his eyes, the way his jaw worked.
“That’s not what you came here to say,” she said quietly.
He swallowed, the truth of that flickering across his features.
“No,” he admitted. The truth rose, hot and ugly: I’m in love with you, you still don’t want me, and now I’ve proved I’m dangerous to you on top of everything else. His throat closed around it. “It’s not.”
He held her gaze for a heartbeat longer. There it was again, something unspoken, thick in the air between them—months, conversations, protocol, desire, regret—but then she started shaking her head, stepping back to increase the space between them.
He turned on his heel and left before she could find the words to reject him once again.
The doors closed. The silence that followed rang louder than any alarm.
She stood alone in her office, fingers ghosting over the scarf at her throat, and realised that “protocol” had become less a shield and more a wall she’d built between herself and the one person she trusted most.
On the other side of that wall, John Sheppard was finally starting to wonder if the problem wasn’t entirely his worth, but also her fear.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Epiphany
“Next time,” Rodney groused, trudging up the narrow path, “we park closer to the energy readings. I’m a scientist, not a sherpa.”
John ignored the moaning and instead adjusted his P‑90 as he led the way, mindful of Elizabeth’s careful steps behind him.
The cliff face loomed above them, streaked with age and lichen. Thick forest had obscured any easy path to whatever it was McKay was so eager to find.
“No, but seriously,” Rodney’s diatribe began again. “Why do you have to park so far away?”
Behind them Ronon grunted, the sound somewhere between amusement and agreement. Teyla walked with her usual steady grace. Elizabeth, a step ahead of Rodney, kept her eyes on the dirt underfoot, careful on the uneven path.
Turning back to address his team, sharing a wry smile with Elizabeth, John said, “This ridge was a little further away than it looked. You can't just land a Jumper anywhere, Rodney.”
He knew she was still getting used to hiking in field boots and a tactical vest, but hadn’t voiced a single hint of displeasure—maybe McKay had been vocal enough for all of them.
“Elizabeth has far less field experience than you,” John added, almost proudly, “and I don’t hear her complaining.”
He heard Rodney huff.
“For the record, all we know from the Ancient database is that this planet was some kind of… experiment,” Rodney said. “Everything about it is in a coded, older dialect that only her and Daniel Jackson can read. Which, by the way, I find deeply unfair.”
Elizabeth glanced back at Rodney with a faint smile. “I’m sure Dr. Jackson would be flattered.”
“I’m sure Dr. Jackson would have been beamed to where he wanted,” Rodney muttered.
John hid a smile. “So we needed the only person in Pegasus who can read the signage,” he said, nodding toward Elizabeth. “Seemed worth dragging her away from her tower.”
“You said it was a ‘minor diversion,’” she reminded John. “I’m holding you to that.”
“Hey, it’s me,” he said. “When have I ever—”
“Shall we begin a list?” Teyla asked dryly, moving forward to take point and allowing John to shadow Elizabeth instead.
The woodland thinned as they followed the trail downhill, trees giving way to a narrow, fern‑choked gully. Moss‑covered stone rose up on either side, forming a shallow ravine roofed in places by jutting rock and tangled vines.
“I think we’re almost there,” Rodney said, eyes glued to his laptop.
A few more steps brought them into a sheltered hollow where the natural rock had been cut and shaped. Ancient symbols climbed the curved stone archways, worn but still legible to someone who knew what to look for.
And there, at the far end of the overhang, was the shimmer: a vertical plane of silver‑blue light set back in a recessed doorway, anchored in the stone like water caught standing in mid‑air.
Elizabeth’s gaze went to the writing carved into the rock. Old style, older than most of Atlantis’s city markings, similar to some of the notations they’d found in Antarctica.
“Hold up,” John said, lifting a hand as Rodney instinctively angled toward the glowing barrier. “Nobody touch anything until we know what it is.”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Yes, thank you, Captain Safety. I have no intention of walking through unknown Ancient tech without at least three scans and a healthy respect for my own survival.” He paused. “Unless there’s immediate danger. Or we’re out of options. Or—”
“Rodney,” Elizabeth cut in, stepping closer to the symbols. “You said the database was heavily encoded.”
“Yes, and very annoyingly so,” he said, glancing at his tablet. “And before you ask, the readings don’t match a Stargate event horizon. Similar, but not identical.”
Elizabeth tuned them out, focusing on the markings. Ancient script had been carved in tight, vertical lines across a dark stone panel, the characters shallow but precise, half‑hidden under age‑whitened pitting. She let her gaze track each column, line by line, translating as the familiar shapes resolved into meaning.
“‘Sanctuary’,” she murmured. “‘A place outside the reach of the Wraith.’” That tracked with the database’s hints.
“See?” Rodney said. “Nothing to worry about. Unless you’re a Wraith.”
Her brow furrowed as she read further. “‘Within this threshold, the…’” She squinted. “‘The burden of years is… altered.’” She shifted to the line below. “‘Only those who accept the… trial? No, that’s not quite right. ‘The path’. Only those who accept the path may enter.’”
“Sounds like a puzzle,” John said.
“Sounds like more reason not to stick our heads in until we know what it does,” Rodney countered.
Elizabeth kept going, piecing it together. The structure was convoluted, the kind of philosophically loaded phrasing the Ancients loved when they were designing something half technology, half moral lesson. “‘The flow of time shall… diverge.’ ‘A day as a lifetime, a lifetime as a day.’” She frowned. “I’d need more time to get the nuance right.”
“Please tell me that doesn’t say ‘instant death on contact’ somewhere in there,” John said.
“If it does, they’re being very poetic about it,” she replied.
Rodney sighed dramatically and dropped down near the edge of the doorway, cross‑legged, computer balanced on his knee. “Fine. Translate. Take your time. It’s not like I had anything else to do today but dismantle a potentially revolutionary piece of technology.”
John paced a slow line a few feet back, eyes flicking between the barrier and the cave entrance. Ronon and Teyla took up easy watch positions, used to this dynamic by now: Rodney tinkering and John pretending he wasn’t impatient.
Minutes passed. Elizabeth’s stylus moved over her pad, occasionally pausing as she cross‑checked an interpretation. The patterns were fascinating, the layers of meaning unfolding the more she stared.
Behind her, Rodney shifted, bored energy crackling. “You know,” he said, “we could speed this up.”
“Rodney,” John warned.
“No, hear me out.” Rodney got to his feet, gesturing toward the shimmering plane. “We put a camera on a stick, poke it through, see what happens. Data. Empirical observation. The cornerstones of science.”
“We are not ‘poking’ unknown Ancient tech,” John said.
“This is a controlled poke,” Rodney protested, already rummaging in his pack. “Besides, if it was dangerous, the Ancients would have put up a big skull‑and‑crossbones equivalent.”
He pulled out a compact field camera and some tape, scanning the cave for a suitable pole. “Ronon, give me a hand—”
“No,” Ronon said flatly.
“Fine, I’ll find my own stick,” Rodney grumbled, eyeing a long piece of fallen support strut near the wall. He grabbed it, started taping the camera to one end with the kind of single‑minded focus that made John nervous.
“McKay,” John said, stepping closer. “We wait until Elizabeth’s finished.”
“And what, hope the Wraith don’t drop by before then?” Rodney shot back, not looking up. “We’re wasting time.”
Elizabeth barely registered their bickering, absorbed in a particularly knotty phrase. “‘Those who enter must be prepared to… relinquish their ties to the… outside?’” she murmured. “That’s ominous.”
Rodney finished taping, straightened, and moved toward the barrier, stick in hand. “All I’m doing is extending our observational capability,” he insisted. “You like recon, Sheppard. This is recon.”
John moved to intercept him. “Just be patient for once in your life,” he said, stepping into Rodney’s path.
Rodney turned, exasperated, one hand gesturing as he started to argue, the long pole angling slightly with the motion. “I am being patient. This is me being patient. I’m just also being efficient, which, by the way, is the only reason any of you are still—”
He didn’t see Elizabeth behind him until the edge of the pole clipped her shoulder.
She stumbled, boots skidding on loose stone. Instinctively, she threw one hand out to catch herself against the carved doorway. Her other hand, the one still holding her tablet, swung forward—and the corner of it brushed the shimmering surface.
For an instant, nothing happened.
Then the barrier grabbed her.
“Elizabeth!” John shouted as her arm sank deeper into the light, skin and fabric distorting like they were being pulled through thick liquid. She gasped, eyes wide.
“I can’t—” Her voice pitched up, panic raw. “I can’t move it! It’s pulling me in—”
“Don’t touch the barrier!” Rodney yelled, but John was already moving.
There wasn’t any thought involved. There never was, with her.
He lunged forward, reaching for her trapped arm. The surface of the field was cool and electric against his skin as his hand broke through, fingers closing around her wrist.
For a single, suspended heartbeat, he thought he might be able to haul her back.
Then the field surged.
The force yanked them both forward, momentum tearing his boots off the cave floor. Somewhere behind him, he heard Rodney shout his name, Teyla call out, Ronon swear.
The light swallowed Elizabeth first, then him, and then there was nothing but white.