Disclaimer: I own nothing, for fun not profit, etc.
Spoilers: Season 5's Ghost in the Machine.
Notes: Written and edited in half an hour. This is reaction fic at its rawest.
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"You may think you're still Elizabeth, but you're not."
John Sheppard to Elizabeth Weir, Ghost in the Machine
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"It's okay," she was saying. "I'll go first."
If he was searching too hard for someone else's voice and intonations in a familiar cadence, he was sure he wasn't the only one.
John didn't regret his earlier words for two reasons. For one, Elizabeth never stayed down. She took what was thrown at her and gave as good as she got. And two – as much as he didn't want to admit it, it was true.
Even so, knowing exactly what was going to happen to her this time didn't make it easier to just let her walk into it.
There had been one brief moment where everything could have been righted, even if it wasn't right: Carson, Elizabeth, Teyla and her baby, Ronon, Rodney, Atlantis.
Alive.
Here.
His body moved around Woolsey without his consent to – to what? Question and answer, this game, they'd played it before. Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised, and hell, maybe he wasn't, when she stopped to look at him, giving up silent conversation as easily as Elizabeth ever had, her gaze just as firm.
They'd discussed sacrifice years ago, in hard terms, when he'd tried to convince her to carry a weapon. She wasn't unfamiliar with the concept; and she was telling him right now that despite not having been told what she was walking into, she knew.
Knowing her, he really shouldn't have been surprised; but, she was reminding him, that was half of it right there. Proof incontrovertible to anyone professing to have ever known her, a declaration, I'm here.
To right things, if they can't be right, he saw her thinking.
If he saw green eyes, gentle and unyielding, in that moment, he was pretty sure he was the only one.
Give as good as you get, he thought; goodbye, blessing, and benediction all in one.
Elizabeth smiled, turned, and left.