So his heaven was Atlantis base. If this place was what he wanted to make of it - he'd toured every paradise of his imagination, and he kept coming back to a floating city in the Pegasus galaxy.

The exhilaration of living out his fantasies faded all too quickly. He saved his friends in Afghanistan, piloted the space shuttle, and his father even told him he loved him, but the hollow ache in his heart didn't go away.

At first he talked to them, went on missions with them, sparred and played. But he didn't have the heart to force his friends into being his fantasy companions, and he couldn't shake the feeling that he was violating them, or his memory of them, by doing so. So he simply stood in Atlantis, desperately alone.

It was night, and the control room was quiet, a skeleton crew manning the stations. Elizabeth walked in, and stood looking at the Stargate with a faraway look in her eyes. John closed his own eyes. No. You weren't going to do this any more. He firmly banished the fantasy from his mind and opened his eyes.

She was still there. She didn't see him, but – was this the real Weir? He tried to stifle his leap of hope. Breaking his own rule, he imagined her turning to see him. She didn't move.

Sheppard closed his eyes. You're losing it. You want this so much you're deceiving your own mind. You don't want to go back there. It's not worth your sanity, get it together. His heart was pounding. But when he opened his eyes, she was still there, and she didn't look like a desperate hallucination.

"Elizabeth?" he questioned. No response. She was still looking at the floor at base of the gate with that lost expression. "Elizabeth!" he shouted. "Can you hear me?" She clearly couldn't, but she glanced around the room as though searching for something. She drew a deep breath and collected herself before striding out of the room.

Sheppard continued through the city, exploring the familiar halls in the quiet of night. His former living quarters were empty, and he sat down on the bed, finally lying down and pulling the covers around his body. If this was the real Atlantis, he couldn't stay away. It was the only place that made him whole….the only place he loved. The only family he had.

His paradise.

Beckett blinked his eyes open and lay there in the dark, not wiping away the dampness from them. It had only been couple of weeks since John's death, and he knew that having dreams about a departed friend was – not abnormal. But these – these were so vivid as to be a bittersweet form of emotional torture. Sheppard was there, in his head. It didn't seem like a memory, it was like he was there. But he was sad, and – no, Carson, he's not haunting you. He smiled and wiped his eyes. "No, I'm not forgetting you, my friend," he said softly, feeling like a fool.

Sheppard closed his eyes in relief. I heard that. Thank you. He was getting better at this, at communicating. Not with Teyla or Ronon yet; Teyla's mental defenses against the wraith were too strong, and Ronan threw him out with a sharp cry of grief and anger. But Wier, McKay, Carson – they all wanted him there, all let him pierce their dreams. Despite himself, Sheppard smiled. Now if only he could control it, communicate the actual images and words he wanted them to hear. The effort had been tiring, and he wanted to sleep. Odd thing, wanting to sleep when you didn't have an actual body to speak of.

He sat gingerly on the chair beside Elizabeth's bed and sat for a long time, watching her sleep. "You – I don't know if you know this about me, but I don't do being alone very well." He shifted uncomfortably. He knew she couldn't hear him, but the words still came awkwardly to his lips.

"Look – you've read my files. So – maybe you know what you've done for me –" he paused to correct himself, still not used to being dead, "- what you did for me. Giving me a second chance all the way out here in another galaxy…"

He stood and paced. "There was never anything for me but the military. It was my whole life. But then – one break from orders, and I wasn't one of them any more. I was just a guy with so much on his record I was lucky to be flying choppers in the Antarctic."

When he faced her again, she was awake and sitting up in bed, the covers draped loosely around her shoulders. She looked at him for a long time, studying his face with interest. "I thought – am I interacting with you? You can hear me?"

She nodded, fascinated. Sheppard stared back. Was this another of his fantasies, his mind giving him what he longed for? Or had it worked? Had he become something more than a dream?

After a moment of silence between them, she spoke, continuing the conversation as if unwilling to break the thread that had brought him there. "I always found it remarkable that you were so comfortable taking orders from a civilian. A civilian woman, even. That's not very – military."

"Well, I'm not very military," said Sheppard, smiling. "Look at me –the team I put together was a civilian scientist, a civilian doctor, an alien head of state, and a warrior with dreadlocks."

"True," said Weir, smiling. Tears were starting to form in the corners of her eyes. "John –"

"It's okay," he said softly. "I'm kinda sad for me too. But I'm actually in a nice place…."

Now it was Elizabeth who couldn't meet his eyes. "We aren't." Her voice lacked it's usual strength. "We miss you. I don't know who's going to kill Caldwell first, me or Rodney, and Ronon won't do anything but pace around and talk about what he's going to do with Taggart when we find him."

She took a deep breath to steady herself. "Rodney's having nightmares. Carson's being treated for depression, and refuses to go off-world. Teyla's trying to pretend this isn't like losing her father all over again. And I – I lost the one man I truly trusted with the protection of this base.'

"You guys all need to buck up," said Sheppard, his voice gentle. "I'm glad to know I'm missed and all, but it's not going to help if this place starts falling to pieces without me to yell at you guys."

He left, heartsick. His team. That was his team, and it was falling apart. It wrenched at him almost as much as hearing one of them had been killed. He cherished these people, and the idea of them working with a leader they didn't trust – he swung furiously at a golf ball, sending it winging out of bounds across the perfect green course.

He was running, trying to shed the pain, unable to control his surroundings. He ran through Afghanistan, through wraith hive ships, through forests and cells and finally into that infuriating cloud of white. Finally he collapsed, his chest heaving. He looked upward and screamed for help. "Let me out of here!" Nobody answered, and he went limp on the floor, surrounded by blackness and fighting tears.

"John Sheppard."

"Hmmm?!" The unfamiliar voice was gentle, but he was startled. He'd gotten out of the habit of hearing voices he hadn't created. He sat up, infuriated. "Do you have any idea what you're doing to me?" he asked. "Of course you do, you're ascended. You sadistic, twis –"

"I'm sorry for your suffering, John. We've never known someone to cling to their former life with such tenacity. You must have truly loved those people."

"I loved my life," Sheppard replied fiercely.

"Most people have an image in their head of how they are destined to die. What was yours?"

"Surrounded by beautiful women, on my own private –" there were no words rebuking him, but he felt it sharply. He spoke more softly. "I – always thought I would sacrifice my life for something, maybe someone – worth more than me."

"And you did," said the voice, a comforting presence near him. "Your death was an act of courage and sacrifice."

"Then why are you keeping me here?" asked Sheppard, the growl he felt inside lowering his tone of voice.

"You – are not –" there was a hesitation, and the voice continued with more certainty. "You are a good person, John Sheppard. But you carry with you the flaws of humanity in your willingness to kill, to steal, to make the suffering of others inconsequential when it serves your goals. You meet adversity with anger. You have not evolved to a plane where we could in good conscience allow you the power of the ascended."

Sheppard glared. The words stung. "I was never aiming for ascension, maybe that has something to do with it. The highest goal in my life has been to stay alive and protect the people I can. It's not so black and white down there, and I'm kind of okay with making the best of two bad choices when I have to."

He lowered his head for a split second, knowing this was safe despite his anger. It was the closest thing to a confessional he was every going to find. "Even though they give me nightmares sometimes."

There was that comforting presence again. "You will have no more nightmares," said the voice gently. "We're not judging you, John, or asking you to atone for your actions. This is not a punishment. It is simply a decision."