It was a beautiful day Dr Weir thought to herself as she crossed from her office to the balcony just outside. Looking at the way the sunlight hit the calm waters below her always seemed to refocus her, let her relax before returning to another pile of mission reports and the scientist's evaluations. This was not true for today though and nothing, she thought, would settle her mind.

Something had been nagging at her for weeks now, although she couldn't quite pin point what, but she knew deep down that it wasn't a good thing. Elizabeth Weir had been sitting in her office for what seemed like days, in fact it had only been a couple of hours but that's what you get if something bores you senseless.

Nothing much seemed to be occurring since the last little incident, the one where she and John had found themselves in a life or death situation. Maybe that was what was playing on her mind, a constant subconscious reminder of that terrible week. Not only that, but there were some parts of her that still flared with agony if she moved them too quickly. It felt to her as if she would never be rid of some reminder or another. The physical pain, now the gut wrenching feeling and it had been nearly a month since their ordeal.

When Carson released her from his care a few weeks ago he advised her to go and speak to Kate but Elizabeth was adamant that she was ok and didn't need the stress of dragging up all of those memories. She was head strong, strong willed and independent and no one, not even Dr Beckett, was going to convince her to talk to a shrink. Ok, so she was starting to regret not talking to someone but a psychiatrist was just too impersonal for her; more than anything she needed a good friend and definitely not another doctor.

Trying to forget that week, Elizabeth threw herself into the piles of work on her desk. Again time passed so quickly and it was soon time for her to eat something. John would usually come and call on her by this time; they would grab some food from the mess, find an empty balcony somewhere, relax and have a chat. Today more than any other she would be glad of the company.

As predicted, Sheppard walked through the door. Before she even looked up she knew it was John, she knew all the tell tale signs; the fact he didn't knock, the rhythm of his footsteps, the sound of his breathing and most of all that smell, his smell. She looked up at him "Hey," he was looking at her with his usual light hearted smile "I'll be with you in a minute just let me finish this sentence."

"Ok" he replied sitting in the chair opposite her. He knew that somehow they would be here for a while, he knew Elizabeth too well. She'd have to finish the page or even the whole report.

There was a silence for a while but John decided he wasn't going to let her do this to herself, she'd run herself ragged these past couple of weeks she needed rest. In the few minutes that passed between his thought and the action that followed the room was completely silent, not even the sound of the breeze or the crashing of the waves outside.

"That's it!" he piped up "I'm not letting you do this to yourself. As your friend I am forcing you to rest! Now come on we're going to get some lunch and I don't want to hear any refusal from you Miss Weir." He was kind of joking around but her response shocked him. It wasn't very often that Elizabeth Weir shocked him anymore.

She couldn't say anything to that. Almost immediately she stopped what she was doing and left the work behind her as they made their way to the mess.

"Thanks, I needed that."

"Needed what?" he was confused and she could see it in his face.

"I needed to be dragged away!"

"That's ok!" John knew something wasn't right with her, she hadn't been her usual 'do all' self. He was going to sort this out; they were going to talk about it, now while they could.

After both grabbing a tray full of food they set off towards their usually peaceful balcony. Upon arriving they found a crowd of people and made their way to one only they knew about. John had found it a few weeks before their eventful week on one of his days off. He had decided he wanted to explore the other parts of the city and the last place he had found was this balcony. It was absolutely stunning out there; private, shaded and you could smell both the sae air and the flowers from the mainland.

Over the weeks they had managed to sneak a few chairs and a table to their secret area located in the eastern most part of the city. It was here that they could escape to and today was one of those days.

John didn't know how to approach the situation. Should he just bite the bullet and get straight into it or should he gradually slip it into the conversation? He'd decided on slipping it into a conversation but it turned out he didn't have to, it turned out Elizabeth was willing to talk about what was throwing her off voluntarily.

"John," she said softly "can we talk about what happened last month?"

"Sure." He was happy she was talking about it.

"You don't mind?" she was afraid of making it worse for him, bringing it up after all this time.

"Not at all. Go ahead!" he knew what she was thinking, he also knew that she was right but if it helped her why should he care what it did to him?

End of chapter 1.