A/N: After the episode "Lifeline" at the beginning of season four, spoilers. I just couldn't help writing this. John's POV, to Elizabeth. Everything belongs to MGM.
I'm standing on the balcony of Atlantis- you know, that city you saved- and looking out without seeing. It's strange, unfamiliar. Wrong. Because you're not beside me anymore. You know how it is, right? I'm standing out here alone, going over the day's wreckage in my mind, cursing myself, and then you're next to me. "It wasn't your fault, John," you say.
"I know," I answer. It's become our little ritual, to comfort each other and then just watch the beauty of the Atlantean sky before us. We're both leaders. We both need comfort too much, or at least to feel someone near us who understands. So where are you now?
Samantha Carter comes instead. She's talking too much as she tries to step gracefully around the subject of you, so I bring you up. Hard. Tactlessly. Because I just want to beat her with loss, so that she never tries to make me forget you again and so that she never forgets you and so that no one forgets you. So that everyone knows as well as I do, this isn't just the Ancient's city anymore. It's your city, too.
In your city, in your office, at your desk, the mementos of your life on Earth are being packed away slowly and with too much care, like you're still watching. Like each of them still holds a piece of you. Somehow, I feel like I won't be able to go into that room anymore, to stand in front of that desk at-ease when all of Sam's notes and trinkets and photos are spread out across it in your place. I don't know the people in those pictures. It occurs to me that I never knew the ones in your photos either, even when it would have been so easy to find out; and then I wish I could go back in time, just a week ago, just to ask who those people are, because suddenly it seems so important. I want to see that quirked smile on your face again. Your hand coming up and pushing itself into your dark hair. One eyebrow raised and pursed lips.
But I still have no idea who the people most important to you were.
Or what your favorite color was.
Or what you were thinking the last time we really looked at each other before we went our divided ways.
Do you remember that one thing Rodney was babbling on about the other day? I know, I know. He does that so often it's hard to distinguish one babble from another, but this time was different. Relevant.
He told us that there are infinite universes. That at each crossroads, our universe splits off and another is created, so that each choice it was ever possible to make has been made somewhere. At the time I said something along the lines of, "That's great, McKay, so this thing won't blow us up if we turn it on?" But standing out in front of the shattered windows, the sound of a new ocean whispering around me, and two moons (out of five) dangling above me in a deathly dark sky… I wonder about all those other me's. All those other you's.
In another universe, maybe the tablet registered the first time I plugged it in, and we escaped with plenty of time. Maybe the anti-replicator shield extended farther, or lasted longer, or maybe our little anomaly in the collective went undetected. Maybe Atlantis never even needed a ZPM. We never disturbed the replicator ships and they never sent a satellite that never shattered the windows in the control room and never sent you flying.
In another universe, maybe I said goodbye with more than my eyes.
But in this one, all I can do is hope someday I have the chance to say hello.