I love SGA AU fics so thought I'd try to write one. It's John/Liz as always and slightly inspired by the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon which is one of my favourite films. Feedback is adored!

The battle was over before it even really began.

She couldn't fully comprehend it. One moment she was being slowly lulled into slumber by the gentle rocking motion of the horse walking steadily beneath her; the next her world was filled with noises of panic, gunshots and screams and she made painful contact with the ground. The horse, until that moment the gentlest animal she had known, had violently thrown her off and fallen on its side next to her, struggling to get back up, legs kicking dangerously close to her head. She ducked, spitting dust from her mouth and peering into the darkening night to make some sense of what was happening around her.

Someone screamed and another sequence of gunshots erupted, very close this time. She saw several figures lying on the ground but couldn't tell who they were, or if they were alive. A horse passed her on full speed; it wasn't hers but she recognized it nevertheless. It was the brown one with kind eyes. The one Simon had been riding on. Where was he?

She dragged herself to her knees and winced at the pain that laced through her leg. She pressed a hand on it and found no blood; it had likely been injured during the fall. Grinding her teeth to will the pain away, she slowly made her way to the nearest person lying on the ground. The gunshots had ceased and the night was calm once more. She couldn't get her head around what had happened.

The figure on the ground let out a low moan and she dropped on her knees next to it, her eyes widening in horror. "Maria?"

Another painful sound escaped the woman's lips. "Elizabeth?"

"I'm here. You'll be all right."

Even when she said the words, she knew she was lying; the jeans and white vest her friend had been wearing were saturated with blood. She had been hit by several bullets.

Maria swallowed. "What…what happened?"

"I don't know. I really don't know." Elizabeth struggled out of her sweater and manoeuvred it under Maria's head. "I'm going to check on the others. Lay still, OK; I'll be right back."

Ignoring the pains that were shooting up her leg, she dragged herself to the others, from one person to the next, desperately hoping to find them alive. By the time she got her fingers to the neck of the man lying furthest from her, however, all hopes had diminished.

Where was Simon? She had counted all the dead and found everyone in her party except for him, herself, Maria and another woman, whom she hadn't got to know that well. Forcing back the tears stinging behind her eyes, she made her way back to Maria and found her much worse than before; she couldn't hold on much longer.

"Did you…find them?" Maria managed to whisper and she nodded, wiping away the tears and gently brushing blonde hair from the other woman's forehead.

"Don't talk. Save your strength."

Maria smiled and moaned in pain again. "There's nothing to save it for, Elizabeth. I'm dying; I know that much."

"No!" She shook her head forcefully. "No, you're not. You'll be fine and we'll get out of here."

"Elizabeth", she sighed. "You will, and you should go. They may come back."

"I'm not leaving you."

Maria turned her eyes away from her and looked up to the sky. Stars were shining brightly and it was almost full moon; it felt impossible that such a beautiful night was now full of blood and death.

"You never really see the stars…in the city", she said quietly, coughing a little. "Listen, do me a favour."

Elizabeth couldn't stop tears flowing to her face now. "Anything."

"When you get back…tell my parents what happened. And Rob…take care of him, OK?"

"I promise." She sniffed. "This is all my fault. I wanted to come here and I wanted you to come with me. If I hadn't…

"Shh." Maria took a shuddering breath. "I wanted to come. And it was lovely. All the way to the end. Liz…"

"Yeah?" She didn't even notice her friend use the nickname she hated.

"Take care of yourself. Promise me. You work too much. And Simon…"

Elizabeth tensed. "What about him?"

Maria smiled faintly. "You know what I think of him. I know there's someone better out there for you."

"Well", she let out a chuckle, nearly choking on her tears. "I couldn't find him. I don't know if he's dead or alive."

"I'm sure he's fine." Maria's eyes closed. "Promise me."

"I'll take care of myself, I promise."

"Good."

Elizabeth pulled the cardigan gently out under Maria's head, a fresh flood of tears falling as she looked at her friend's face, now so peaceful, her life force violently robbed from her.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart", she whispered, pressing a kiss onto her forehead. "I'm sorry."

She couldn't walk. That dawned on her the moment she rose from Maria's body and tried to take a few steps to the direction the horses had escaped to. Falling back down, she let out a frustrated moan and pounded the ground with her fist. In five minutes she had gone from heaven to hell and now here she was, in the middle of the desert, unable to move and with enough water to last one day, if even that. She wasn't that worried about food but water was at the essence here. Her best friend was dead; her boyfriend was nowhere to be seen and to be honest, she didn't have a clue where she was.

She tried to remember what the group leader had said minutes before they'd been attacked; something about the campsite not being very far away. But even if she found that, it wouldn't be much good without all the equipment that had been strapped onto the horses. Her backpack had some water, the remainders of the lunch she'd eaten earlier, sunscreen and a guidebook of Australia; that one would not be very useful right now unless she used it to keep a fire going.

Her first proper holiday in years had not supposed to turn out like this. She had chosen Australia, just because she had never been there and had always wanted to; she had chosen to go on this five-day camping trip because she wanted to test if she could still ride a horse. And because it had sounded like an amazing adventure. Which was exactly what it had been until now.

Shaking her head, she let out a hysterical laughter, completely unsuitable for this situation. She was in shock; that much she realized. The next thing that came to her was the bitter coldness that had crept up on her unnoticed. She had to find shelter and start a fire and soon, if she wished to live to see the morning.

Elizabeth jerked awake, for a moment completely unaware of where she was or what had happened, until everything flooded back to her. It was morning, the sky bright blue and the sun high and hot. For a moment she was sure it was laughing at her derisively, robbing her of any chance she had of making it out of here.

She had managed to find something like a cave after dragging herself along as well as she could, alternating between hopping on one leg and crawling. She had been quite sure last night, and definitely now that she nowhere near any kind of civilization. All she could see was sand and the distant outline of a rain forest not too far away. Unless it was a hallucination; that wouldn't have surprised her.

Elizabeth carefully tested her leg; it was still very sore but she could place a little more weight on it. If she managed to get to the forest, she'd have to find a sturdy enough branch to use as a kind of a walking stick. Then again, she wasn't sure which would be safer, wandering into the forest or staying out here where there was a better chance of somebody finding her. They had been in the beginning on the trip which meant it would take days before anyone would be worried about them.

She took a sip of water and ate the remainders of her sandwich left over from the day before. Where and when the next meal would come, she didn't know and didn't even want to allow herself to think about it. She was not a depression-prone person, but with everything that had happened the day before, she knew that trying to keep her spirits high was very, very important. There was a part of her that wondered, a lot, about why she had been the one to survive, why the bullets hadn't hit her like the rest of her companions.

Before leaving the others, Elizabeth had crawled around a little more, looking for Simon, calling his name until her voice had gone; there was nothing. He must have managed to catch one of the horses and escaped, that or been killed somewhere further away. It bothered her less than she cared to confess and she frowned; it wasn't like her to think like this. Simon had been in her life for a good ten years now, first as a friend, then as a lover and he had been important to her. She didn't know why she couldn't bring herself to care more about him right now.

The heat of the sun started really getting to her after a few hours of forcing herself to keep moving, and the forest didn't seem to be coming any closer. She realized now it had probably been a mistake to leave the cave; she didn't think she'd have enough strength to make her way back and there wasn't much of water left. The sunscreen she had slathered on her face and bare arms was doing nothing against the blazing sun and she could feel the skin starting to burn.

"I don't think this trip was a very good idea", Elizabeth whispered to herself, dropping to her knees. "Not a good idea at all."

She needed to pick herself up, needed to keep going but her knees gave in every time she tried and finally she abandoned her futile attempts. Expecting her life to start flashing in front of her eyes any minute now, she dropped down to her back on the hot sand, bringing the water bottle to her lips to drain the few remaining drops of liquid just before her eyes closed and she could feel herself drifting away.

And that was where John Sheppard found her.