For twenty minutes, I thought you were dead and the world stopped…
Everything felt cold.
John toyed with the lace on his boot, the ends still slightly damp from his time outside on the pier. His shirt was damp, too, though not nearly as much as the one Elizabeth Weir was wearing, which was still tinged a deep scarlet from the moisture. Her hair was only half dry at this point, a bob of wild curls that swung heavily around her head.
She was typing furiously on her laptop, sniffling a little and shivering, too. He thought about suggesting a change of clothes, but he couldn't seem to find a way to get the words out.
Periodically she'd glance up at him; when she caught him watching her, her eyes flickered back down to the computer in front of her timidly, like she was uncomfortable with him sitting there, though she'd asked him to come.
"I thought I'd have the first group return this afternoon," she said suddenly, sniffling again as she looked up at him. Her eyes flickered away from his face. "We'll have to deal with the Minerians, of course, but right now I'd just like to have everyone back safe and sound."
"Sounds good," he murmured, dropping his foot to the floor. "We're back to status quo, then?"
"Will we ever be back to status quo?" she returned off-handedly, though her expression froze as she looked up at him again.
He frowned. "Hope so."
She sighed a little, settling back in her chair. "Well, saving the city while dealing the Genii a serious blow feels like a good start."
John's grip on the chair tightened; Kolya's face blazed through his mind for a moment, his voice echoing through memory. The blur of events seemed far away and yet he could see it all at once, everything from those first horrific moments of the invasion to the very last glimpse of the Genii leader staggering backward through the gate.
His chest suddenly felt tight and he swallowed, trying to edge the faces of the men he'd killed out of his memory. Everything had been a dark blur when it happened; a rush of anger and adrenaline and disbelief. The world had stopped.
"John?"
When he looked up Doctor Weir was half out of her chair, her eyes wearing the same unreadable expression they had when he'd freed her from Kolya. Like she'd never seen him before. "Major Sheppard, are you alright?"
"He told me he killed you," he choked out.
She sat back, confusion replacing the shock. "What?"
"Kolya. He said he'd killed you. He bluffed your death."
She was silent for a moment, putting the pieces together in her mind. "When he asked me to speak to you on the radio…"
John swallowed. "For twenty minutes I thought you were dead. I didn't know…what to…"
Her expression softened, and she leaned her elbows on the desktop. "Well, thanks to you, and Rodney, I'm not."
He studied her for a moment, the half-dry hair tucked behind her ears; the pale, weary face which offered up a reassuring smile. It had infuriated him—infuriated and shattered him—that he'd failed that smile. Little else had mattered in the moments after. Not McKay, not Atlantis—not even himself. Life had been meaningless. Sixty lives had been.
"You did what you had to do, Major," she said quietly, echoing his thoughts as he found she so often did.
He nodded, feeling suddenly damp and uncomfortable. "I know."
"You did it well."
John glanced up.
She met his gaze for a moment then dropped hers down to the desk, where her fingers were toying with the computer. "I'm not…used…to this."
"To what?"
"This. Hostages…combat. Kill or be killed."
He studied her confusedly.
"I don't mean I'm naïve about it, I've been to situations where it was dangerous, to open combat—but not like today. I was afraid."
"Yeah, well…anyone would have been..."
"I know. But your being out there…it honestly gave me hope. I was less afraid. And every time Kolya lost one of his team—John, I was happy. When you raised the shield and he lost his battalion…I was glad. It scares me to think how glad I was."
"Scares me, too…being glad, I mean," he murmured. He looked into her eyes for a moment, and then the cold seemed to pass; her smile softened and there was true warmth in her expression.
The memories of the day wouldn't fade so easily, but that bitter fear of the unknown was gone and he knew it wouldn't return—it had been accepted, that part of him that dwelt in a cold, dark place. Accepted, and matched, and understood.
"Why don't we go and get out people back?" she asked, rising from her chair.
He smiled back. "Sounds like a plan."