Title: Every Now And Then
Author: Rayvin813
Rating: PG13
Pairing: John/Elizabeth, Katie/Rodney
Spoilers/Summary: Twenty years post-Lifeline, John has a family: a wife and a daughter, but his wife is sick, and he feels as if his world is falling apart around him. Then, something happens to remind him that no matter what, no matter how far you go from the person you love, love lasts forever.
Notes/Warnings: HAVE TISSUES READY. I cried as I wrote this...seriously...so keep them with you!

And, last but not least, I am completely honored and humbled for this story to have been nominated for Best Short Story at the 2008 S/W awards on LiveJournal. THANK YOU!

Every Now and Then

His fingers caressed the old, worn out photograph for what had to be the millionth time, tracing the creases and the balding spots on the image lovingly. His finger traced over the delicate lines of her face as a sad smile swept over his own. He closed his eyes, imagining the feel of the curls of her hair as they brushed his face, the taste of her lips as they sealed over his, the way any word she said, every look she gave him, could drive him to the brink of madness, but how she would always bring him back with the barest of touches. She was his anchor.

Dear God, he missed her.

The soft knocking on the mahogany door of his office startled him out of his thoughts, and he shoved the picture back into its place in his old, worn out copy of War and Peace, the same copy he'd read at least a hundred times. The same copy he'd had when he was on Atlantis.

"Dad?"

A tear almost fell at the sound of the soft voice in the doorway behind him. She was twenty-two. Not much younger than he had been when he'd met…the woman he'd named her after. The woman he'd never stopped loving.

"You all right, Dad?"

She inched into the room behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. His hand reached up and covered hers as he forced the burning in his eyes to recede. He tried to convince himself that the twentieth anniversary of her disappearance didn't matter to him, that it was ancient history, despite the fact that the wound still felt as if salt had been poured over it…even now. He nodded, choking on his own words.

"Yeah," he managed to mutter, pulling his daughter around the edge of the heavy wooden desk and into his arms. "Yeah, I'm okay."

Her hands found his chin and she lifted his eyes up to meet hers. Her green eyes. His green eyes. Her hair was an auburn shade of red, something she got from her mother, and the curls that fell over her shoulders elicited an aching from him, that wished – more than anything – to go back in time and right the wrong that he'd done all those years ago.

He shouldn't have left her there. Never mind the fact that she ordered him to.

"Dad?" she asked him, tears fresh in her eyes as well. "Is it mom?"

He shook his head, the silver over his temples glinting in the brief light as he moved, and looked up at her with a solemn look in his eyes. "No, Lisbeth. It's not your mother. I…"

He paused, wondering if he should tell her.

"Is it the woman in the photograph?" she inquired as she sank down beside him in his oversized leather arm chair, making him scoot over. He gave her a surprised look, and she returned the look with a sad smile.

"I found it when I was…sixteen, I think. We had to read a few chapters of War and Peace for literature class, and you had it, so I just borrowed your book…and the picture fell out while I was reading. I'm sorry, Dad…I shouldn't have, but I just figured you wouldn't mind if I borrowed it and…" she explained, and he took her hand in his. The glint off of the ring finger on her left hand surprised him, but he looked up at her with happiness in his eyes. He toyed with the solitaire diamond ring, and she blushed. "Yeah, I was going to tell you that, too."

"You mean…Rodney McKay is going to be your father-in-law? Lisbeth, I thought I taught you better than that," he winked at her, and she giggled. "What are you trying to do to me?"

She looked at him and the smile fell slowly from his face. Hers soon followed.

"Who was she, Dad?" her words were nearly a whisper, and he took a deep breath at her use of past tense. It was something he still wasn't able to do, even twenty years later. He stubbornly refused to believe she was dead.

"I never thought…I could love again, until I met your mother. I'd been out of the Air Force for years, but I never…I never thought I'd get married again, or actually get to have a daughter of my own," he told her, gripping her hand tightly as he began his story.

"Was she your first love?"

He blanched at the memory, and shook his head vigorously, answering just a little too quickly. "No!..No, but she was my true love," he looked down at his daughter and almost laughed at the absurdity of the sentence. "As cheesy as it sounds. Don't get me wrong, I love your mother. Very much. I wouldn't trade a moment with her for anything…but it was…"

She smiled at him, knowing exactly what he wanted to say. "She was right for you…I can tell. There's been something different about you some days, and I've always wondered if it was something to do with this mystery woman," she paused a moment before continuing. "What was her name?"

He looked her directly in her eyes and smiled, "Elizabeth. Dr. Elizabeth Weir."

A look of things adding up registered in her eyes, and she got up from the chair to pull the book off of its shelf. She sank back into the chair as she flipped through the yellowed, dog-eared pages gingerly until she came to the picture and pulled it out slowly. Her eyes locked on the woman leaning on the crate next to her father and smiled. "She was beautiful."

He leaned over and laid a kiss on her forehead before clearing his throat, "As are you, my dear. It's time to go see your mother. You ready?"

She nodded, letting a tear slip down her cheek. He could tell that she had more questions, and he wasn't about to deter her from asking them. "We'll talk more when we get back home, if you want...I promise. Your mother just needs us now," he whispered in her ear as he pulled her to his chest for a hug. She nodded against his chest and then pulled out of his embrace to go upstairs and retrieve her coat. He sighed and shrugged his black leather coat on over his shoulders before taking one last glance at the picture and tucking it gently back into the Tolstoy novel. He'd say his goodbyes again later.

He always waited until the last minute to say the most meaningful things. It was one of his worst faults. He walked out of the room with a somber look on his face, and pulled the study doors closed behind him before walking out into the snow.

:x:

He loved the snow. It always reminded him of McMurdo and the Antarctic Outpost, not that he could share the sentiment with anyone that would take him seriously, or without the fear of being taken away from his family by 'super secret' government agents.

His family.

John frowned as he moved the snow on the ground back and forth with the toe of his boot. The hospital doors were right ahead of him, yet he couldn't bring himself to go in. He knew that it would soon be the end of a lot of things that he'd known for the last fifteen years. Fifteen years wasn't long enough to be married, was it? People were supposed to make it to at least fifty these days, weren't they? Something inside him, the same something that had been telling him for the last twenty years that he was worthless, laughed at the fact that he'd never see a fiftieth anniversary with anyone. The tears threatened again, but he pushed them away. He had to be strong. Not only for his daughter, Elizabeth, but for Jamie. Jamie needed him now.

A gloved hand slipped into his and tugged him along gently. "Come on, Dad," she urged him gently, knowing that this was hard on him. It was hard on her, too. He followed her slowly through the electronic doors and around the hospital to the room in the oncology ward, feeling as if the cold winter air had numbed everything that hadn't already been numbed by the ache in his heart.

'Jamie Sheppard, Stage Four Leukemia.'

The words burned through his mind as he read them on her chart that hung on the exterior of the door to her room. He didn't want to go in, but he knew he'd faced worse fates in his time on Atlantis, so he put on a brave face. It was more for himself than anyone else. He knew it was selfish, but he would rather face the Wraith or an Asuran attack than have to deal with this. He'd lost Elizabeth years ago, and now the one other woman who had loved him throughout all of his personal crises, all of his breakdowns, and despite the fact that he had never fallen out of love with the woman he'd lost, was being taken away from him.

It wasn't fair. But then again, he couldn't remember a time in his life that was.

The room was dark as he walked in, and the woman in the bed smiled at him weakly and held out a shaking hand to him. She'd grown incredibly thin, so much so that he hardly recognized her, her hair that was now absent had come and gone several times over the courses of chemotherapy, and the light in her eyes – the light that had attracted him to her in the first place – was almost gone. He took her hand and knelt down beside the bed, pressing her palm to his cheek.

"Hi, John," she whispered, fighting to give him a smile. The ability to speak had been beyond her for days now, but she still managed to greet him every day, to make him feel loved.

His tears managed to escape this time, and he choked on them as he kissed her palm. "Hi, sweetheart," he whispered back, afraid that his voice would crack if he actually used his vocal cords to reply. "You look beautiful."

She dipped her head at him and wagged a finger. "Liar," she gasped, countering with the briefest of glints in her eyes before taking in the sight of her daughter. Elizabeth held out her left hand to her mother, and the pale woman gasped as she picked one hand up to take her daughter's. She toyed with the ring for a moment and then beamed, as much as she could muster in her condition.

She signed an "I love you," to Elizabeth, who brought her mother's hand to her lips and kissed it.

"You'll be there, won't you, Mom?" Elizabeth whispered, and Jamie nodded.

"Wouldn't miss it," she whispered, struggling to catch her breath. Elizabeth's tears fell like rain, and she clutched at her mother's hand as if it were the last lifeline for miles of ocean.

John pulled the hand he still held to his lips and kissed it. He told her that he loved her, that he'd always love her. She smiled and told him the same with her eyes as he said goodbye...for the last time.

:x:

He sighed.

The funeral had been beautiful, a perfect celebration for the life of a woman who had done and loved so much, but he was tired of telling everyone thank you for their well-wishes and condolences. He was already getting annoyed when Rodney came walking up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. For once, McKay didn't say a word.

When Kate caught up to them a moment later, amidst the quiet murmurings and quick, fleeting glances, she pulled John into an embrace and let his tears fall on her shoulder without a word. They both knew what he needed…and neither of them could provide it. That, more than anything, broke their hearts. John quieted his tears and pulled away from Kate, squeezing her hands in thanks, as he turned to see his daughter wrapped up in the arms of their son, James, as they sat on the edge of the fireplace. He nodded his assurances to John as he laid feather-light kisses over her hair, and John returned the nod.

James was a good kid, and he was a McKay. No matter how much John teased him for his lineage, that familiarity alone made his heart lighter as he watched the two of them together. He remembered sitting there, in that exact spot, not too long ago as Jamie had lost her mother. He hadn't expected, couldn't have expected, to have to go through it all over again with his daughter already.

"I told her, Rodney," John murmured to his friend, motioning toward his daughter. "I told her about Lisbeth."

"I thought you weren't…"

"She found the picture when she was in high school, and she asked me about her. I told her everything."

Rodney nodded, as he let the information sink in. "I see. How'd she take it?"

"Curious, mostly," he replied. "I think she wants me to find her."

"Sheppard...you and I both know that's not possible! She's," Rodney protested, his voice rising in volume with every word. He paused at a slap on his arm from his wife and then toned down his volume. "…She's in a completely different galaxy!"

John turned and looked at him. "I know. But I have to try."

He turned around and walked back toward his study, Rodney and Kate following closely behind. They entered the room behind him, and Kate closed the doors behind them as he picked up the book from his shelf and pulled out the picture from its place in the novel, right next to the fading inscription in Elizabeth's handwriting in the margin of one of the last pages of the book. He pointed at the words and looked up at Rodney. "This is why I have to try. This is why I need to rescue her, Rodney."

'I love you, Lt. Col. John Sheppard. Always and forever, and more than life. XOXO - Elizabeth'

Rodney's jaw worked up and down as he tried to process the information. "When did you find this?"

John sighed. "When I finally finished the book. After she was gone, and I was back on Earth." His fist met the thick tabletop in frustration with himself and his situation before he collapsed into his chair. "You know, I never figured I'd retire with a star on my shoulders. I never figured I'd retire with a nameplate that even said 'Colonel.' I figured that I'd be Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard for the rest of my life. Elizabeth changed it all for me…she's the reason I made it to Brigadier General, Rodney. She's the reason I straightened my life out and became the man I am. I have to repay her for that. I may be in my mid-fifties, but, dammit, McKay, I'm not dead…"

He closed his eyes and sank back into the leather as he realized his words. "I have to do this," he muttered.

Rodney simply nodded. "All right. What do we do?"

"Meet me at the graveyard tomorrow. We'll discuss it then," he whispered as he tucked the photo back into the book, flipped back to the beginning of the book, and settled in to read.

It was time to start over. On everything.

:x:

The flowers he'd brought with him were bright and lively reds and oranges, very out of place in the expanse of solitude surrounding him. He set the bouquet of Jamie's two favorite flowers, mums and roses, in the grey stone vase next to her marble headstone and poured half of his bottled water into the somber chalice. He stared down at the flowers forlornly and wondered to himself how in the worlds he would be able to pull this off…

"I don't think you have to worry about the 'hows,' Sheppard."

He straightened up at the sound of the voice and held himself so stiffly that he felt as if he would snap in half if he moved too quickly.

That voice…

He turned painfully slow, afraid that he'd been hearing things. A twig snapped behind him, and his head moved faster than his shoulders, bringing his eyes in contact with a pair of green orbs that he hadn't seen in twenty years. His breath caught in his chest and his jaw gaped as she smiled, or rather, beamed at him. A hand went up to cover his mouth, as if he couldn't figure out how to work his jaw. She had always had this effect on him, ever since he had met her, and he hadn't once felt it since her disappearance, not even with Jamie. But now…the butterflies in his stomach reigned over everything else in his world as she stood before him, and he wondered if just maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him or, perhaps, something he was dreaming.

"You're not dreaming, John. Or hallucinating. It's really me." She smiled at him, and he let out his breath in a rush. His hand fell back to his side as he finally found his voice.

"Lisbeth?"

She nodded, her voice coming out in an excited whisper as she stepped closer to him, "Yes."

"It's…you're…?" He stammered as his hand reached out of its own accord. She touched his fingertips tentatively, and as soon as he felt the jolt of electricity in their contact, he moved like a bolt of lightning and wrapped her up in his arms, burying his face in the hollow of her neck, and holding on as if he'd never release her again. He breathed her in as he felt her envelop him in her arms as well, despite the fact that she'd been caught off balance by his sudden movement.

She smelled just as he remembered, with soft hints of vanilla and cocoa wafting from her hair and skin to light his senses on fire. He murmured her name against the bare, soft skin of her neck and held her closely, feeling the moisture gathering on the shoulder of her red tank top.

God, she was still stunning in red.

He looked up and found her eyes. Smiling, he pressed a palm to her face and caressed her cheek with his thumb. Her eyes fluttered closed as she savored the sensation, and the smile that crossed her face next made all of his pain, all of his worries and their time apart just fade away.

"My God, I've missed you, Lisbeth," he whispered as he leaned toward her and rested his forehead against hers. She smiled and ran a hand through the mess of his hair, and then brought her fingers to the corners of his eyes. She traced the crows' feet that extended outward from his eyes and then moved up to trace the streaks of silver in his hair. He felt her hands move, but he'd closed his eyes and didn't dare open them for fear that she might disappear.

He'd missed her hands. He'd missed her scent. He'd missed the feel of her skin under his for much too long. He counted to ten as he fought the urge to kiss her senseless right there. Once he reached ten, he opened his eyes to find her looking at him expectantly.

"Well, John? Aren't you going to kiss me?" She asked him as she placed her hands on her hips in a mock-upset expression, followed by a smirk and a raised eyebrow. He laughed, a thick, rich sound that permeated the endless silence of the cemetery, before he took her face in his hands and brought her lips to his, tasting her gently. She pulled at his hair and clothes impatiently, and hugged him to her tightly, as if she could climb inside him. He felt her teeth nip at his lower lip and he smiled, holding her face to his firmly. He drank from her lips all that she had to give him, warring with lips and teeth and tongues, and only pulled away when he grew dizzy from lack of oxygen. She refused to let go, so she buried herself in his arms once again and held on for dear life. He held her close as he fought to regain his breath, and peppered several light kisses against the top of her head.

He rested a hand on the back of her head and toyed with the soft brown curls that now fell almost to her waist as he studied her, just as she had done to him mere minutes before. A frown creased his brow as he realized that she hadn't aged a day since she'd demanded he leave her behind in the Asuran city. As if she knew what he was thinking she looked up and smoothed out the wrinkles in his forehead with her fingertips.

"I've learned a lot about what I can do these last several years, John. And I've learned that I can age…or not age…at will. I can even hear your thoughts, should I choose to listen. It took years for our people to kill off the Asurans and the Wraith, but we did it. We won, John! It took the better part of twenty years to do it, but we won!" The smile that blossomed on her face enticed one from him as she continued, telling him where she'd been and the conflicts that had been waged around her…and how she had led the final battle between humans and Asurans herself. She had killed off the last of the Asuran army by her own hand, and his smile widened as his pride for the woman in his arms swelled with every word she spoke. She told him how he had changed her, made her a braver, more loyal individual, and how everything they had shared had made her a more loving person.

"And I never once gave up on us, John. I never thought…" She trailed off as she read the name on the tombstone behind him. The look on her face registered shock as she gazed at him curiously. He turned to look and the panic rose inside his throat as he feared that she'd run away before he could explain anything.

"Lisbeth…"

She held a finger to his lips and smiled sadly. "I knew, John. I know everything that you've gone through, everything that you've had to fight for to be able to have this life. I'm not here to take it away from you. I'm here to love you, to help you through this, and most of all, to live out the rest of our lives together."

He fell to his knees before her and let the tears he'd held back over the last twenty years fall freely. She was the only one who he could really express his emotions in front of, and he'd missed that freedom. He cried for everything he'd missed with her over the last twenty years, and for everything that he would have missed if he had had her all this time. He wrapped his arms around her waist as he cried and laid tiny kisses across her stomach. She smiled above him and ran her hands through his hair lovingly, knowing what every tear was for, every sob. She sank to her knees beside him and lifted his chin up to meet her eyes.

"I love you, John Sheppard. Don't you ever forget that," she whispered to him as she wiped the tear tracks off of his cheeks and laid her own soft kisses over the canvas of his face. "I've always loved you."

He smiled through his tears and caressed her face once again. "I love you, Elizabeth Weir. I've never stopped loving you." He kissed her long and deep, and full of passion this time, taking his time as he pushed all of his love, all of his passion into that searing kiss.

Farther away, over the other side of the clearing, four figures watched the exchange between two star-crossed lovers with smiles on their faces. Kate leaned into Rodney as a lazy smile held fast across her face. Rodney leaned down and kissed the top of her head softly, smiling himself. Beside them, Elizabeth and James stood side-by-side, with their hands clasped tightly together. Elizabeth made a mental note to ask her father eventually for the story of his love for this woman named Elizabeth Weir, because try as she might to shake it, she felt for all the world as if she had missed out on the best love story ever written.

And perhaps it was the best love story ever penned, but not by the hands of men like Hawthorne, Shelley or Yeats, and not even by composers the likes of Beethoven or Mozart, but by fate itself. Fate has an odd way of painting two souls together, now and in the hereafter, but the girl knew – somehow – that none of them would ever complain about anything in their lives again, because no matter how hard or complicated things got in their lives, the solution to every problem that they would ever face…would be as simple as love, because love lasts forever.

:x:

"...For fate is an unmerciful queen
It made a quest out of you, and a soldier of me
I curse the stars that take you away,
Take you away from my side
Condemned to burn, my chariot wheels
I'm chasing the love of my life..."

-"Sarah," Grant Lee Philips