Fic: Possibly
Possibly
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst
Warning: Character Death
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: Shweir
Lt. Colonel John Sheppard stood in front of the mirror in the room he was in. He straightened the collar of his Air Force dress blues and sighed. It had been five years since they first arrived and settled on Atlantis and just a week since they destroyed the Wraith. Usually one would be happy, beyond ecstatic, on an occasion like this but he was not. He didn’t see it as an occasion to celebrate and the rest of Atlantis felt the same way. John reached down and took his blue hat to go with his Air Force uniform and set it on his head, hiding his naturally messy hair. With that done, he walked out of the dark room he supposed was his quarters.
As he walked through the dimly lit halls, he passed many people of the Atlantis expedition. They avoided any eye contact with him but he didn’t care. He simply continued to his destination: the control room over looking the Atlantis Stargate.
- One Week Earlier -
They were seated around the debriefing table with Elizabeth at the head of it. Around the table was John, Teyla, Rodney, Ronan, Ford, Zelenka, a couple of different scientists and marines. Elizabeth started the briefing.
“Approximately two weeks ago, we were able to translate a part of the Ancient database and found that they were experimenting on a weapon to eliminate the Wraith. We also found out that they had succeeded on creating a device that could eliminate the Wraith but the scientists working on the device was called back to Atlantis before they could execute the trial test. They left the device on a remote planet and told no one of this because of fear that the weapon would fall into the wrong hands. They did, however, recorded it in the database in an obscure dialect.”
“And only until recently, we discovered that the planet was the Genii home world,” John finished off whilst playing with his pen.
“My men and I have searched the planet in question and confirmed its location,” Ford said as the other people in the room who had taken the enzyme nodded. “From the picture in the database, we located it to be in a museum about five klicks from the Stargate. It is on the outer edge of the town so we shouldn’t draw too much attention.”
Lt. Aiden Ford had been working with them for three years and running. They had come to an agreement that they would help the Atlantis expedition take down the Wraith if they let them stay on Atlantis. The Wraith had become aware of people with stronger abilities, so strong that it could threaten their existence. Since then, the Wraith began to hunt them down in large numbers, forcing them to go into hiding. In return, they had agreed that they’d let Carson wean them off the enzyme when the Wraith was destroyed.
One of Ford’s men spoke up. “They also have no idea that they’re in possession of the only weapon in the known universe that could eliminate the Wraith so they leave the museum relatively unprotected.”
“Our mission is that we break into the museum at night and activate the device.” Elizabeth leaned forward in her chair. “Lt. Ford and his men along with some of the marines will guard the entrance and the Stargate whilst Colonel Sheppard’s team along with Dr. Zelenka and myself will find the device and activate it.” Elizabeth signaled Rodney to take over.
Through the five years that they had been on Atlantis, Elizabeth had eventually learnt how to fire a gun and with Teyla’s help, fight like the rest of them. True, she still didn’t like to resort to violence, but in desperate times, she’d use her gun when needed.
Rodney cleared his throat. “Okay, according to the database, there is a panel over a keypad and the panel is locked with a key. You have to enter the right code in the Ancient dialect the device is in and Elizabeth is the only one who can read and speak the language so that’s why she’s coming, in case any of you didn’t understand. Fortunately, we stumbled upon the key when exploring the southern parts of the city.” Rodney then turned to Elizabeth. “Elizabeth, you will have to translate the writing on the device to find out what the code is.”
Elizabeth nodded and Zelenka took over. “Once the device is activated, it will eliminate a particular DNA strand that only the Wraith carry in their body so no one will be hurt.”
“Right, this mission will go as scheduled, tomorrow at 0800 hours. By then, it should be nightfall on the planet. Dismissed.”
With that, everyone in the cramped room went their separate ways, either to prep for the upcoming mission or relax while they can.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was 0750 on Atlantis and everyone was ready to move out on Elizabeth’s orders. She was talking to one of the gate technicians when John approached her. He still wasn’t sure that she should be going on this mission, or any mission in fact, despite the fact that he knew that she was field trained and knows how to use a gun.
John approached Elizabeth. “Elizabeth? Can I have a word before we leave?”
Elizabeth nodded to the technician before turning to John. “Sure.”
John led her to the balcony where they were bombarded with a burst of wind from outside. Once they were on the balcony, the door shut behind them. Five minutes later, they re-entered the control room. Elizabeth shot John a sideways glance and smiled before making her way to the gate room.
Teyla and Ronon saw this from the gate room as smirked to each other. They had new something was up between them and that little glance made them more suspicious of them than before. They observed Elizabeth make her way down the stairs leading to the gate room with John before they were called to attention.
“I know everyone here is nervous of the outcome of this mission, so I’ll make this short so we can get it over and done with. Every one of you people here are very brave and if any lives are lost today, you will always be remembered throughout time. Always.” Elizabeth nodded to the gate technician and he started to dial the Stargate.
Once the seventh chevron was locked in and the wormhole was established, the marines positioned their gun in front of them and entered the wormhole with Atlantis-One, Ford and his men, Zelenka and Elizabeth following shortly after them.
They reappeared on the other side of the Stargate to be greeted with darkness of the night and the silence of the trees. The marines panned out and secured the Stargate whilst everyone crouched behind something, incase the Genii were expecting them. Once it was confirmed that they were alone, Atlantis-One plus Ford, Elizabeth, Zelenka and some of Ford’s men stood up and started making their way to the museum, leaving behind the marines to guard the Stargate in case something unexpected happened.
It took them just under an hour before they reached the dark facility. Outside the entrance, three guards stood there talking to each other. Each held a gun. John held up his fist, signaling them to drop low in the bushes. He then nodded to Elizabeth who stood up with Zelenka and three of Ford’s men. They all swung pale piece of cloth to cover their weapons and Atlantis uniform, and tied a bandanna over their head. They moved forward towards the guards, with Elizabeth and Zelenka taking lead.
When the guards heard a stick snap, they swung their weapons at the sound of the source but lowered their guns when they mistook them for Genii people. One of the guards sighed, clearly annoyed.
“What are you doing here?”
“Um, we were just wondering if the museum was open.” Elizabeth was speaking with Zelenka next to her.
The guards looked at them as if they were stupid and the only reply they got was, “What?”
Zelenka spoke up, hoping that his accent didn’t give him away. “The museum, is it still open?”
The guards obviously didn’t know how to respond to such a question, since it was nighttime, so Ford’s men took advantage of the situation. They stepped forward and knocked the guards unconscious in five seconds flat. Elizabeth and Zelenka pulled off the cloth and rushed inside to the device in the middle of the room. Elizabeth started translating the language on the device while Zelenka opened the panel with the key. Moments later, John and the others came in leaving the Wraith enzyme induced men outside to guard the entrance.
Rodney pushed John aside and plugged in three laptops into the device using Atlantean conductors. Two of the three laptops were used to access the device, searching for the password through machine code. Rodney and Zelenka were on those laptops while Elizabeth was on the last, translating the text and manually finding the password.
While they got on with their job, John walked over to Ford who was looking at the device. Ford sighed.
“Hopefully by the time this day is over, the Wraith will be gone, for good,” Ford said as he and John stared at the device. It was a plain statue of a male, one in which they assumed was the Ancient that built the device, holding a staff over his head. On top of the staff was a light blue jewel and the keypad with all the laptops connected to it was near the bottom of the statue.
“Yeah, ‘cause I hated lying to your family.” Ford chuckled as Teyla clicked over the radio.
“Colonel, something does not feel right.” Teyla was outside on watch with Ford’s men.
“Teyla’s right. It’s too quiet here.” Ronon was with her.
John shot a glance to Ford before he clicked on his radio. “ Okay, I’ll come out and see the problem.” He turned to Elizabeth who was typing away on her laptop. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going to take some time. I’m literally looking for a needle in a haystack.” She didn’t look up from her work.
“And she’s not exaggerating about that too. The information here is extensive. If it was in English, it probably would be easier but…” Zelenka trailed off and Rodney took it upon himself to finish his sentence.
“But since it’s in Ancient, and we can’t read Ancient, we’re stuck here sorting through machine code.”
John nodded. “Okay, Teyla and Ronon has reported something odd and I’m going to check it out. You guys will be fine while I’m gone right?”
“I’m field trained, Colonel.” Elizabeth didn’t sound too happy.
“Yes Elizabeth, I know but just in case…” Elizabeth sighed and shook her head but she had a small smile dancing on her lips. John worried about her too much and that was one of the things that she loved about him.
Rodney jumped in. “Besides, we have Super Ford here!”
Ford came towards them at the sound of his name. “That’s right Sheppard! I’m here!” He patted Rodney on the shoulder roughly who coughed in reply.
“Yes well, don’t get too cocky. Remember what happened when you did? I almost got killed for that.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you didn’t!” John rolled his eyes and made his way to the entrance.
Teyla looked into the museum when she heard footsteps and John had finally made his appearance. Ronon stepped out from behind her.
“What took you? It can’t take that long to walk a couple of meters.”
“I had to double check on something with Elizabeth.” Teyla and Ronon looked at each other. “What?” They looked up at him, both with a raised brow. “Oh no, it’s nothing like that. Our relationship is strictly professional.” He held up his hands in defense.
“That was not we were implying.” Teyla smirked an identical smirk to Ronon’s.
John coughed. “So, what’s happening out here?”
“Like I said before, it’s too quiet. There’s no birds and I can’t see any movement in the city from here,” Ronon said.
Suddenly, they heard the familiar buzz above their heads as everyone ran for cover in the bushes and trees. Above them and the whole city was hundreds of Wraith darts flying over them.
One of the marines guarding the Stargate reported. “Colonel!! They’re coming through the Stargate and aerial. I think there may be a Hive Ship in orbit of this planet!”
“Okay, take cover but still be in the vicinity of the Stargate, do you understand?” John had to yell over the noise of the darts to get them to hear.
“Yes sir!!”
John then changed his frequencies of his radio and contacted Elizabeth.
Elizabeth heard the dreaded buzzing of Wraith darts and typed faster. Just as she narrowed down the code, her radio crackled. “Elizabeth, have you got the code yet? The Wraith has started culling this world!”
“Not yet! Almost done though…just give…me…five minutes! Ten the most!!” Elizabeth bit her lip as she scanned through the alien text. At hearing this, Zelenka and Rodney stopped their work and started wiring up the naquadah reactor to the device. It was one thing to have to codes to operate the device, but another to actually fire the device, and for that they needed to get into the system before connecting the naquadah reactor, enabling them to actually power up enough power to fire a shot.
John looked out at the city to see it being culled by the Wraith. He heard screams of the people and saw them running. Unfortunately, some ran towards them and the darts got close enough to see him and the others. The Wraith picked up the Genii people and beamed down five Wraiths. Another dart swept by and beamed down an extra five. The Wraith started shooting at everyone while John, Teyla and Ronon opened fire. They killed three before Ford’s men jumped forward with their knives and started slitting and stabbing the Wraiths. More darts flew by; one dropped more Wraiths while others started firing at them.
“Elizabeth!! Are you done yet?” Elizabeth paused in her typing when she heard John scream into the radio. Despite the fact that he was screaming his lungs out, she barely heard him over the gunfire.
“Almost!” She licked her lips nervously as she hit enter on the keyboard. The whole screen went blank before a single Ancient word blinked across the screen. She reached over her laptop and carefully typed in the password on the ten thousand year old keypad. When she heard a beep of confirmation that they were in, Zelenka hooked up the naquadah reactor while Rodney matched the power frequency with theirs. “John! It’s done! We’ll activate the device soon, just hang tight!”
When John heard this, he was so relieved and yelled over the noise of battle to the others. “Word just got in! Elizabeth got the device up and running. It won’t be too long until this fight is over!”
“Great ‘cos these Wraith is getting to me!” Ronon gritted his teeth as he shot blasts at the Wraith but more just seemed to be coming. By now, Ford had come out and helped in the fight.
“Aren’t you meant to be protected them?” John squinted through the dust.
“Yeah, but I figured that I’d be more useful out here!!”
Elizabeth was configuring the right settings when this was happening. Since Zelenka and Rodney’s job was done, they were just pacing around the small room. “Erm, Elizabeth? Do you need help or anything?”
“No, Rodney, I’ll be fine.” Rodney nodded and went back to pacing with Zelenka. Just as she was about to enter the command of the device, a notice flashed on the screen. She quickly read and translated it and was horrified to find what was there. Unfortunately Rodney saw this.
“What? Elizabeth, what’s wrong?” His voice was squeaky.
“It says we need to enter something but there shouldn’t be anything else!!” Just as she said that, a new box opened up on the screen, which was basically three numbers. “Now there’s numbers on the screen.”
“Wait, let me look at that.” Zelenka and Rodney leant over and looked at the screen. “This looks like a code.”
“Can you translate it?”
“This looks familiar but I can’t place my finger on it…” Zelenka trailed off and Rodney snapped his figures.
“It’s in computer code, but one where the alphabet operates on. Remember how we found that place a couple of years ago with all those numbers all over it and we figured out that each one of those numbers here represented a letter of the alphabet? Well, since that place was made by the Ancients, why wouldn’t they use it here?”
“Assuming Rodney is correct-” Rodney cut in.
“I am.” Zelenka merely continued.
“It should say kei.” They stared blankly at the screen. “That doesn’t sound like English to me…”
“Sounds like Japanese to me.” Zelenka raised a brow at Rodney. “What?”
“Old English.” They looked at Elizabeth in confusion. “In old English, it means key.” She looked for a keyhole near the keypad but found none. “This doesn’t make sense.”
Teyla’s P-90 ran out of ammo and so she reloaded her gun. Just as she hit the edge of her palm onto the ammo to secure the bullets in place, a stun blast caught her in the chest.
“Teyla!!” Ronon slowly made his way towards her, not once pausing from shooting the target. He continued to shoot as he crouched beside her and started to shake her lightly. She groaned softly and sat up, holding onto her P-90. “You okay?”
Teyla nodded before positioning her gun towards Ronon. His brows furrowed in confusion for a millisecond before she pulled the trigger and her gun shot the bullets. He spun around and saw a Wraith behind him, drop dead before he turned back to her and helped her up from the ground. “Thanks.” Teyla nodded and they continued to shoot at the enemy.
“Well maybe we can just get the key to touch every surface of this keypad!” Rodney was clearly frustrated and yanked the key out of the keyhole on the panel. The screen started to beep continuously whilst the jewel on the top of the staff glowed before a burst of energy was emitted.
Wraith was closing in around them. By now, there were at least twenty Wraith around them, all shooting their stunners at them. Some of Ford’s men were knocked out unconscious while the others were still shooting blindly in any direction, hoping that any bullet that they fire will hit a Wraith eventually.
John didn’t even lift his finger from the trigger of his gun and continued to shoot madly at the Wraith. Suddenly, no more bullets shot out of his gun indicating that he had no more bullets left in the gun to shoot. He felt his thigh pocket to see is he had another magazine left. When he felt nothing in his pocket, he dropped his P-90 on the ground and quickly grabbed his 9mil from his gun suspender. He shot a couple of rounds before he came up with an empty click. He looked at the gun in disdain and went to his vest pocket for a spare clip.
He was forced down to his feet when a stun blast caught him on his right leg. He groaned and looked up to see the Wraith coming closer to him. The Wraith paused in front of him before it raised its stun gun, getting ready to strike him with it.
He looked away but looked up again when he felt no impact. The Wraith above him was standing there, shaking as if it got stun with one of their tazers. John looked all around him and saw that all of the Wraiths were acting that way. Only a second or two had passed before they collapsed on the dirt ground, unmoving, and the Wraith darts started flying out of control and crashing towards the ground. John took a couple of breaths before he clicked his radio.
“Elizabeth, did you activate the device?”
There was a moment’s pause before Elizabeth reported. “Yeah, we did. Did it work?”
“Yep, the Wraith are dead here and the darts are crashing from the sky. We did it.”
There was a brief struggle heard over the radio before he heard a reply. “Ah, if you haven’t noticed, Colonel, Zelenka and I did help you know!” John chuckled at Rodney’s remark.
John then heard Zelenka talking in the background. “Why thank you Rodney, for including my for the credit!”
“Okay kids, come out so we can go home. I’ll get what’s left of Ford’s men and Ford to bring it with us to Atlantis for further study,” John said.
“Aye, aye Colonel!”
However, once the three doctors exited the building, there was an explosion, which knocked everyone off their feet. Once the fire had calmed down a bit, Elizabeth got up from the ground and looked behind her. In the middle of the room that she could see, the bottom of the statue was charred but the top part was no longer there.
Zelenka groaned beside her while Rodney coughed and rolled over onto his back. “There must have been sensors to destroy the device after it was activated.”
“I guess they didn’t want anyone who had enough knowledge to activate the device to use it against humans,” Elizabeth said breathlessly.
John ran towards them. “You guys alright?” They nodded and slowly stood up. “We should get back to Atlantis. We don’t want the Genii to find out that we were here.”
Everyone in the vicinity that was from Atlantis stood up and made their way to the direction of the Stargate as quickly as possible, aware of their surroundings. It had taken them just over an hour to get back to the Stargate because they were carrying any casualties that were knocked unconscious during the firefight.
Once the marines saw that they were alive, they started to dial Atlantis and entered the code. Ford’s men along with the unconscious and wounded went through the gate first, shortly followed by the rest. Ford and some of the marines stayed behind to guard the Stargate incase any unwanted people showed up before stepping through the Stargate.
John and Elizabeth stood at the stairs leading to the event horizon and stared at each other. They smiled before they kissed each other passionately, arms around each other. A smile played across Elizabeth’s lips as John swung her around in a circle. She laughed as he set her back on the ground.
“They’re gone, Elizabeth, we’re free.” They stood there, hugging, with John kissing her forehead now and again.
Ford smiled at the affection he saw between the two leaders. He had known about the secret relationship between the two people when he accidentally stumbled upon them having a picnic together in the northern pier. Thankfully, they were too busy making out to notice he was there. Ford slipped back inside before they noticed him. Of course, he wasn’t stupid enough to risk their happiness so he kept his mouth closed.
Just as he was about to tell them to break it up and step through the Stargate, a bullet zipped passed him and hit Elizabeth. Ford swung around and saw a Genii soldier with more closing in on them about a klick behind.
When John felt a weight in his arms, he looked down to see Elizabeth; eyes wide open, also looking down at the blood tickling down her vest. She looked up at John, on the verge of tears and blood sliding down her chin, and sniffed before falling onto the leaves that covered the ground. John grabbed hold of her but she fell anyways and what was in his hand was a silver necklace with a gem on the silver encrusted key pendant.
- Present Day -
What happened afterwards, John didn’t remember clearly, just flashes of scattered memories. He was told by Ford that John had picked up a P-90 and shot the Genii soldier before cradling the body of the person he loved. He was told that they had to force him to pick up Elizabeth’s body and go through the Stargate before they too were shot.
John blinked away the tears at the memory and stood at the top of the stairs leading down to the gate room. One of the marines blew the trumpet horn from the control room and John put his hands on the podium that was in front of him. Before him was the entire population of Atlantis and Athosians, all with their heads down. As soon as the trumpet was sound, the funeral began.
“Dr. Elizabeth Weir was a leader, a strong one at best. When we first came to Atlantis and when the marines found out that they’d have a civilian as the commander, I bet you guys, marines, felt that whoever was in command, wouldn’t think they’d be able to control this population and Atlantis. I know that the first year into our stay here, you all found that that thought had disappeared. She was the best leader anyone could have asked for, and for that, we were glad that she was our leader for the time she was with us.” John looked down at the dark silver podium in front of him before looking up at the people of Atlantis.
“Some of you may think how are we going to get through this? How are we going to get over this? All I can say is that we will. Now some of you are probably thinking that I’m talking stupid and gibberish, but I am the one person here that has lost the most from her death.” He bit his lip before continuing. “Today was our fourth year anniversary and I was going to propose to her at the end of this day, if all went well. She didn’t want anyone to live by the rules once the Wraith were destroyed so, officially, today, she was going to, basically, throw the rule book out of the window. Even though she couldn’t make that announcement herself, doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. Be happy while you can and make it so that she did not die in vain.”
John stood there and recalled the memory of what they discussed about earlier the day of the mission.
He had led her to the balcony connecting to the control room, their balcony. They leaned over and looked at the city below them, enjoying the early morning breeze. He told her that he had to say something and took out a small box. Elizabeth looked up at him with a small smile before taking the box and opening it.
Inside was a silver necklace with a sapphire on a silver encrusted key pendant: her birthstone. Elizabeth looked at the necklace in awe and ran her thumb down the gem and the side of the key.
“Where did you get this?”
“Last time we were on Earth, I stopped by one of the jewellers. You have no idea how hard it was to pick out that necklace.” Elizabeth chuckled as John lifted the necklace and closed that clasp around her neck. “Happy fourth year anniversary,” John said and he kissed her softly on the lips.
John was pulled out of the memory at the sound of the farewell sounding of the trumpet. As the trumpet played, he placed his hand in his pocket and held the box in his pocket, the box that contained a white gold ring with a single diamond on it.
Very angst, I know, but I hoped you enjoyed it!
Please comment! =)
Also posted at Fanfiction.net
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst
Warning: Character Death
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: Shweir
Lt. Colonel John Sheppard stood in front of the mirror in the room he was in. He straightened the collar of his Air Force dress blues and sighed. It had been five years since they first arrived and settled on Atlantis and just a week since they destroyed the Wraith. Usually one would be happy, beyond ecstatic, on an occasion like this but he was not. He didn’t see it as an occasion to celebrate and the rest of Atlantis felt the same way. John reached down and took his blue hat to go with his Air Force uniform and set it on his head, hiding his naturally messy hair. With that done, he walked out of the dark room he supposed was his quarters.
As he walked through the dimly lit halls, he passed many people of the Atlantis expedition. They avoided any eye contact with him but he didn’t care. He simply continued to his destination: the control room over looking the Atlantis Stargate.
- One Week Earlier -
They were seated around the debriefing table with Elizabeth at the head of it. Around the table was John, Teyla, Rodney, Ronan, Ford, Zelenka, a couple of different scientists and marines. Elizabeth started the briefing.
“Approximately two weeks ago, we were able to translate a part of the Ancient database and found that they were experimenting on a weapon to eliminate the Wraith. We also found out that they had succeeded on creating a device that could eliminate the Wraith but the scientists working on the device was called back to Atlantis before they could execute the trial test. They left the device on a remote planet and told no one of this because of fear that the weapon would fall into the wrong hands. They did, however, recorded it in the database in an obscure dialect.”
“And only until recently, we discovered that the planet was the Genii home world,” John finished off whilst playing with his pen.
“My men and I have searched the planet in question and confirmed its location,” Ford said as the other people in the room who had taken the enzyme nodded. “From the picture in the database, we located it to be in a museum about five klicks from the Stargate. It is on the outer edge of the town so we shouldn’t draw too much attention.”
Lt. Aiden Ford had been working with them for three years and running. They had come to an agreement that they would help the Atlantis expedition take down the Wraith if they let them stay on Atlantis. The Wraith had become aware of people with stronger abilities, so strong that it could threaten their existence. Since then, the Wraith began to hunt them down in large numbers, forcing them to go into hiding. In return, they had agreed that they’d let Carson wean them off the enzyme when the Wraith was destroyed.
One of Ford’s men spoke up. “They also have no idea that they’re in possession of the only weapon in the known universe that could eliminate the Wraith so they leave the museum relatively unprotected.”
“Our mission is that we break into the museum at night and activate the device.” Elizabeth leaned forward in her chair. “Lt. Ford and his men along with some of the marines will guard the entrance and the Stargate whilst Colonel Sheppard’s team along with Dr. Zelenka and myself will find the device and activate it.” Elizabeth signaled Rodney to take over.
Through the five years that they had been on Atlantis, Elizabeth had eventually learnt how to fire a gun and with Teyla’s help, fight like the rest of them. True, she still didn’t like to resort to violence, but in desperate times, she’d use her gun when needed.
Rodney cleared his throat. “Okay, according to the database, there is a panel over a keypad and the panel is locked with a key. You have to enter the right code in the Ancient dialect the device is in and Elizabeth is the only one who can read and speak the language so that’s why she’s coming, in case any of you didn’t understand. Fortunately, we stumbled upon the key when exploring the southern parts of the city.” Rodney then turned to Elizabeth. “Elizabeth, you will have to translate the writing on the device to find out what the code is.”
Elizabeth nodded and Zelenka took over. “Once the device is activated, it will eliminate a particular DNA strand that only the Wraith carry in their body so no one will be hurt.”
“Right, this mission will go as scheduled, tomorrow at 0800 hours. By then, it should be nightfall on the planet. Dismissed.”
With that, everyone in the cramped room went their separate ways, either to prep for the upcoming mission or relax while they can.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was 0750 on Atlantis and everyone was ready to move out on Elizabeth’s orders. She was talking to one of the gate technicians when John approached her. He still wasn’t sure that she should be going on this mission, or any mission in fact, despite the fact that he knew that she was field trained and knows how to use a gun.
John approached Elizabeth. “Elizabeth? Can I have a word before we leave?”
Elizabeth nodded to the technician before turning to John. “Sure.”
John led her to the balcony where they were bombarded with a burst of wind from outside. Once they were on the balcony, the door shut behind them. Five minutes later, they re-entered the control room. Elizabeth shot John a sideways glance and smiled before making her way to the gate room.
Teyla and Ronon saw this from the gate room as smirked to each other. They had new something was up between them and that little glance made them more suspicious of them than before. They observed Elizabeth make her way down the stairs leading to the gate room with John before they were called to attention.
“I know everyone here is nervous of the outcome of this mission, so I’ll make this short so we can get it over and done with. Every one of you people here are very brave and if any lives are lost today, you will always be remembered throughout time. Always.” Elizabeth nodded to the gate technician and he started to dial the Stargate.
Once the seventh chevron was locked in and the wormhole was established, the marines positioned their gun in front of them and entered the wormhole with Atlantis-One, Ford and his men, Zelenka and Elizabeth following shortly after them.
They reappeared on the other side of the Stargate to be greeted with darkness of the night and the silence of the trees. The marines panned out and secured the Stargate whilst everyone crouched behind something, incase the Genii were expecting them. Once it was confirmed that they were alone, Atlantis-One plus Ford, Elizabeth, Zelenka and some of Ford’s men stood up and started making their way to the museum, leaving behind the marines to guard the Stargate in case something unexpected happened.
It took them just under an hour before they reached the dark facility. Outside the entrance, three guards stood there talking to each other. Each held a gun. John held up his fist, signaling them to drop low in the bushes. He then nodded to Elizabeth who stood up with Zelenka and three of Ford’s men. They all swung pale piece of cloth to cover their weapons and Atlantis uniform, and tied a bandanna over their head. They moved forward towards the guards, with Elizabeth and Zelenka taking lead.
When the guards heard a stick snap, they swung their weapons at the sound of the source but lowered their guns when they mistook them for Genii people. One of the guards sighed, clearly annoyed.
“What are you doing here?”
“Um, we were just wondering if the museum was open.” Elizabeth was speaking with Zelenka next to her.
The guards looked at them as if they were stupid and the only reply they got was, “What?”
Zelenka spoke up, hoping that his accent didn’t give him away. “The museum, is it still open?”
The guards obviously didn’t know how to respond to such a question, since it was nighttime, so Ford’s men took advantage of the situation. They stepped forward and knocked the guards unconscious in five seconds flat. Elizabeth and Zelenka pulled off the cloth and rushed inside to the device in the middle of the room. Elizabeth started translating the language on the device while Zelenka opened the panel with the key. Moments later, John and the others came in leaving the Wraith enzyme induced men outside to guard the entrance.
Rodney pushed John aside and plugged in three laptops into the device using Atlantean conductors. Two of the three laptops were used to access the device, searching for the password through machine code. Rodney and Zelenka were on those laptops while Elizabeth was on the last, translating the text and manually finding the password.
While they got on with their job, John walked over to Ford who was looking at the device. Ford sighed.
“Hopefully by the time this day is over, the Wraith will be gone, for good,” Ford said as he and John stared at the device. It was a plain statue of a male, one in which they assumed was the Ancient that built the device, holding a staff over his head. On top of the staff was a light blue jewel and the keypad with all the laptops connected to it was near the bottom of the statue.
“Yeah, ‘cause I hated lying to your family.” Ford chuckled as Teyla clicked over the radio.
“Colonel, something does not feel right.” Teyla was outside on watch with Ford’s men.
“Teyla’s right. It’s too quiet here.” Ronon was with her.
John shot a glance to Ford before he clicked on his radio. “ Okay, I’ll come out and see the problem.” He turned to Elizabeth who was typing away on her laptop. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going to take some time. I’m literally looking for a needle in a haystack.” She didn’t look up from her work.
“And she’s not exaggerating about that too. The information here is extensive. If it was in English, it probably would be easier but…” Zelenka trailed off and Rodney took it upon himself to finish his sentence.
“But since it’s in Ancient, and we can’t read Ancient, we’re stuck here sorting through machine code.”
John nodded. “Okay, Teyla and Ronon has reported something odd and I’m going to check it out. You guys will be fine while I’m gone right?”
“I’m field trained, Colonel.” Elizabeth didn’t sound too happy.
“Yes Elizabeth, I know but just in case…” Elizabeth sighed and shook her head but she had a small smile dancing on her lips. John worried about her too much and that was one of the things that she loved about him.
Rodney jumped in. “Besides, we have Super Ford here!”
Ford came towards them at the sound of his name. “That’s right Sheppard! I’m here!” He patted Rodney on the shoulder roughly who coughed in reply.
“Yes well, don’t get too cocky. Remember what happened when you did? I almost got killed for that.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you didn’t!” John rolled his eyes and made his way to the entrance.
Teyla looked into the museum when she heard footsteps and John had finally made his appearance. Ronon stepped out from behind her.
“What took you? It can’t take that long to walk a couple of meters.”
“I had to double check on something with Elizabeth.” Teyla and Ronon looked at each other. “What?” They looked up at him, both with a raised brow. “Oh no, it’s nothing like that. Our relationship is strictly professional.” He held up his hands in defense.
“That was not we were implying.” Teyla smirked an identical smirk to Ronon’s.
John coughed. “So, what’s happening out here?”
“Like I said before, it’s too quiet. There’s no birds and I can’t see any movement in the city from here,” Ronon said.
Suddenly, they heard the familiar buzz above their heads as everyone ran for cover in the bushes and trees. Above them and the whole city was hundreds of Wraith darts flying over them.
One of the marines guarding the Stargate reported. “Colonel!! They’re coming through the Stargate and aerial. I think there may be a Hive Ship in orbit of this planet!”
“Okay, take cover but still be in the vicinity of the Stargate, do you understand?” John had to yell over the noise of the darts to get them to hear.
“Yes sir!!”
John then changed his frequencies of his radio and contacted Elizabeth.
Elizabeth heard the dreaded buzzing of Wraith darts and typed faster. Just as she narrowed down the code, her radio crackled. “Elizabeth, have you got the code yet? The Wraith has started culling this world!”
“Not yet! Almost done though…just give…me…five minutes! Ten the most!!” Elizabeth bit her lip as she scanned through the alien text. At hearing this, Zelenka and Rodney stopped their work and started wiring up the naquadah reactor to the device. It was one thing to have to codes to operate the device, but another to actually fire the device, and for that they needed to get into the system before connecting the naquadah reactor, enabling them to actually power up enough power to fire a shot.
John looked out at the city to see it being culled by the Wraith. He heard screams of the people and saw them running. Unfortunately, some ran towards them and the darts got close enough to see him and the others. The Wraith picked up the Genii people and beamed down five Wraiths. Another dart swept by and beamed down an extra five. The Wraith started shooting at everyone while John, Teyla and Ronon opened fire. They killed three before Ford’s men jumped forward with their knives and started slitting and stabbing the Wraiths. More darts flew by; one dropped more Wraiths while others started firing at them.
“Elizabeth!! Are you done yet?” Elizabeth paused in her typing when she heard John scream into the radio. Despite the fact that he was screaming his lungs out, she barely heard him over the gunfire.
“Almost!” She licked her lips nervously as she hit enter on the keyboard. The whole screen went blank before a single Ancient word blinked across the screen. She reached over her laptop and carefully typed in the password on the ten thousand year old keypad. When she heard a beep of confirmation that they were in, Zelenka hooked up the naquadah reactor while Rodney matched the power frequency with theirs. “John! It’s done! We’ll activate the device soon, just hang tight!”
When John heard this, he was so relieved and yelled over the noise of battle to the others. “Word just got in! Elizabeth got the device up and running. It won’t be too long until this fight is over!”
“Great ‘cos these Wraith is getting to me!” Ronon gritted his teeth as he shot blasts at the Wraith but more just seemed to be coming. By now, Ford had come out and helped in the fight.
“Aren’t you meant to be protected them?” John squinted through the dust.
“Yeah, but I figured that I’d be more useful out here!!”
Elizabeth was configuring the right settings when this was happening. Since Zelenka and Rodney’s job was done, they were just pacing around the small room. “Erm, Elizabeth? Do you need help or anything?”
“No, Rodney, I’ll be fine.” Rodney nodded and went back to pacing with Zelenka. Just as she was about to enter the command of the device, a notice flashed on the screen. She quickly read and translated it and was horrified to find what was there. Unfortunately Rodney saw this.
“What? Elizabeth, what’s wrong?” His voice was squeaky.
“It says we need to enter something but there shouldn’t be anything else!!” Just as she said that, a new box opened up on the screen, which was basically three numbers. “Now there’s numbers on the screen.”
“Wait, let me look at that.” Zelenka and Rodney leant over and looked at the screen. “This looks like a code.”
“Can you translate it?”
“This looks familiar but I can’t place my finger on it…” Zelenka trailed off and Rodney snapped his figures.
“It’s in computer code, but one where the alphabet operates on. Remember how we found that place a couple of years ago with all those numbers all over it and we figured out that each one of those numbers here represented a letter of the alphabet? Well, since that place was made by the Ancients, why wouldn’t they use it here?”
“Assuming Rodney is correct-” Rodney cut in.
“I am.” Zelenka merely continued.
“It should say kei.” They stared blankly at the screen. “That doesn’t sound like English to me…”
“Sounds like Japanese to me.” Zelenka raised a brow at Rodney. “What?”
“Old English.” They looked at Elizabeth in confusion. “In old English, it means key.” She looked for a keyhole near the keypad but found none. “This doesn’t make sense.”
Teyla’s P-90 ran out of ammo and so she reloaded her gun. Just as she hit the edge of her palm onto the ammo to secure the bullets in place, a stun blast caught her in the chest.
“Teyla!!” Ronon slowly made his way towards her, not once pausing from shooting the target. He continued to shoot as he crouched beside her and started to shake her lightly. She groaned softly and sat up, holding onto her P-90. “You okay?”
Teyla nodded before positioning her gun towards Ronon. His brows furrowed in confusion for a millisecond before she pulled the trigger and her gun shot the bullets. He spun around and saw a Wraith behind him, drop dead before he turned back to her and helped her up from the ground. “Thanks.” Teyla nodded and they continued to shoot at the enemy.
“Well maybe we can just get the key to touch every surface of this keypad!” Rodney was clearly frustrated and yanked the key out of the keyhole on the panel. The screen started to beep continuously whilst the jewel on the top of the staff glowed before a burst of energy was emitted.
Wraith was closing in around them. By now, there were at least twenty Wraith around them, all shooting their stunners at them. Some of Ford’s men were knocked out unconscious while the others were still shooting blindly in any direction, hoping that any bullet that they fire will hit a Wraith eventually.
John didn’t even lift his finger from the trigger of his gun and continued to shoot madly at the Wraith. Suddenly, no more bullets shot out of his gun indicating that he had no more bullets left in the gun to shoot. He felt his thigh pocket to see is he had another magazine left. When he felt nothing in his pocket, he dropped his P-90 on the ground and quickly grabbed his 9mil from his gun suspender. He shot a couple of rounds before he came up with an empty click. He looked at the gun in disdain and went to his vest pocket for a spare clip.
He was forced down to his feet when a stun blast caught him on his right leg. He groaned and looked up to see the Wraith coming closer to him. The Wraith paused in front of him before it raised its stun gun, getting ready to strike him with it.
He looked away but looked up again when he felt no impact. The Wraith above him was standing there, shaking as if it got stun with one of their tazers. John looked all around him and saw that all of the Wraiths were acting that way. Only a second or two had passed before they collapsed on the dirt ground, unmoving, and the Wraith darts started flying out of control and crashing towards the ground. John took a couple of breaths before he clicked his radio.
“Elizabeth, did you activate the device?”
There was a moment’s pause before Elizabeth reported. “Yeah, we did. Did it work?”
“Yep, the Wraith are dead here and the darts are crashing from the sky. We did it.”
There was a brief struggle heard over the radio before he heard a reply. “Ah, if you haven’t noticed, Colonel, Zelenka and I did help you know!” John chuckled at Rodney’s remark.
John then heard Zelenka talking in the background. “Why thank you Rodney, for including my for the credit!”
“Okay kids, come out so we can go home. I’ll get what’s left of Ford’s men and Ford to bring it with us to Atlantis for further study,” John said.
“Aye, aye Colonel!”
However, once the three doctors exited the building, there was an explosion, which knocked everyone off their feet. Once the fire had calmed down a bit, Elizabeth got up from the ground and looked behind her. In the middle of the room that she could see, the bottom of the statue was charred but the top part was no longer there.
Zelenka groaned beside her while Rodney coughed and rolled over onto his back. “There must have been sensors to destroy the device after it was activated.”
“I guess they didn’t want anyone who had enough knowledge to activate the device to use it against humans,” Elizabeth said breathlessly.
John ran towards them. “You guys alright?” They nodded and slowly stood up. “We should get back to Atlantis. We don’t want the Genii to find out that we were here.”
Everyone in the vicinity that was from Atlantis stood up and made their way to the direction of the Stargate as quickly as possible, aware of their surroundings. It had taken them just over an hour to get back to the Stargate because they were carrying any casualties that were knocked unconscious during the firefight.
Once the marines saw that they were alive, they started to dial Atlantis and entered the code. Ford’s men along with the unconscious and wounded went through the gate first, shortly followed by the rest. Ford and some of the marines stayed behind to guard the Stargate incase any unwanted people showed up before stepping through the Stargate.
John and Elizabeth stood at the stairs leading to the event horizon and stared at each other. They smiled before they kissed each other passionately, arms around each other. A smile played across Elizabeth’s lips as John swung her around in a circle. She laughed as he set her back on the ground.
“They’re gone, Elizabeth, we’re free.” They stood there, hugging, with John kissing her forehead now and again.
Ford smiled at the affection he saw between the two leaders. He had known about the secret relationship between the two people when he accidentally stumbled upon them having a picnic together in the northern pier. Thankfully, they were too busy making out to notice he was there. Ford slipped back inside before they noticed him. Of course, he wasn’t stupid enough to risk their happiness so he kept his mouth closed.
Just as he was about to tell them to break it up and step through the Stargate, a bullet zipped passed him and hit Elizabeth. Ford swung around and saw a Genii soldier with more closing in on them about a klick behind.
When John felt a weight in his arms, he looked down to see Elizabeth; eyes wide open, also looking down at the blood tickling down her vest. She looked up at John, on the verge of tears and blood sliding down her chin, and sniffed before falling onto the leaves that covered the ground. John grabbed hold of her but she fell anyways and what was in his hand was a silver necklace with a gem on the silver encrusted key pendant.
- Present Day -
What happened afterwards, John didn’t remember clearly, just flashes of scattered memories. He was told by Ford that John had picked up a P-90 and shot the Genii soldier before cradling the body of the person he loved. He was told that they had to force him to pick up Elizabeth’s body and go through the Stargate before they too were shot.
John blinked away the tears at the memory and stood at the top of the stairs leading down to the gate room. One of the marines blew the trumpet horn from the control room and John put his hands on the podium that was in front of him. Before him was the entire population of Atlantis and Athosians, all with their heads down. As soon as the trumpet was sound, the funeral began.
“Dr. Elizabeth Weir was a leader, a strong one at best. When we first came to Atlantis and when the marines found out that they’d have a civilian as the commander, I bet you guys, marines, felt that whoever was in command, wouldn’t think they’d be able to control this population and Atlantis. I know that the first year into our stay here, you all found that that thought had disappeared. She was the best leader anyone could have asked for, and for that, we were glad that she was our leader for the time she was with us.” John looked down at the dark silver podium in front of him before looking up at the people of Atlantis.
“Some of you may think how are we going to get through this? How are we going to get over this? All I can say is that we will. Now some of you are probably thinking that I’m talking stupid and gibberish, but I am the one person here that has lost the most from her death.” He bit his lip before continuing. “Today was our fourth year anniversary and I was going to propose to her at the end of this day, if all went well. She didn’t want anyone to live by the rules once the Wraith were destroyed so, officially, today, she was going to, basically, throw the rule book out of the window. Even though she couldn’t make that announcement herself, doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. Be happy while you can and make it so that she did not die in vain.”
John stood there and recalled the memory of what they discussed about earlier the day of the mission.
He had led her to the balcony connecting to the control room, their balcony. They leaned over and looked at the city below them, enjoying the early morning breeze. He told her that he had to say something and took out a small box. Elizabeth looked up at him with a small smile before taking the box and opening it.
Inside was a silver necklace with a sapphire on a silver encrusted key pendant: her birthstone. Elizabeth looked at the necklace in awe and ran her thumb down the gem and the side of the key.
“Where did you get this?”
“Last time we were on Earth, I stopped by one of the jewellers. You have no idea how hard it was to pick out that necklace.” Elizabeth chuckled as John lifted the necklace and closed that clasp around her neck. “Happy fourth year anniversary,” John said and he kissed her softly on the lips.
John was pulled out of the memory at the sound of the farewell sounding of the trumpet. As the trumpet played, he placed his hand in his pocket and held the box in his pocket, the box that contained a white gold ring with a single diamond on it.
Very angst, I know, but I hoped you enjoyed it!
Please comment! =)
Also posted at Fanfiction.net