Title: Still Adrift
Author: Jo. R
Rating: PG.
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Lifeline'
Pairings: John/Elizabeth
Summary: John's thoughts during a brief scene in 'Lifeline'. 242 words - just a mini!ficlet.
It was over; Atlantis was safe.
He waited for the happiness, the relief, to wash over him and assure him that the danger had passed. Waited a few minutes more before realising that it wasn't going to come.
Not this time. Maybe never again.
Atlantis was safe but it wasn't the Atlantis he knew anymore. It wasn't home.
Not without her.
Sitting in the chair, John heard the relief in Colonel Carter's voice when she told him it had worked, that he'd landed the city safely.
It was the wrong voice, he thought grimly. It wasn't the one he'd somehow been expecting, been hoping for.
Elizabeth would be declared missing, he knew. Missing in action, though he'd spent too much time in the Air Force, with the military, to know that MIA was just a not-so-secret code for 'lost to us'.
Gone.
He couldn't bring himself to think of her as dead. Couldn't let himself think it, not even for a second. There was something inside of him, something that stirred and fluttered and was still alive.
Something that would have died with her.
She was out there somewhere, still fighting the good fight. He'd made a habit of making sure he didn't let her down over the years, unable to stomach seeing the disappointment in those eyes of hers; he wasn't about to start now.
Elizabeth was alive and he would find her.
He wouldn't -couldn't - stop until he had.