Chapter four – The long goodbye

There she was, in her replicator body, different face and different voice, but it was Elizabeth nonetheless. That he was sure of. Now.

"Hold your fire!" he shouted at the guards with his newly found voice. He exchanged a curious look with McKay and then both men ran down the stairs to meet their ex-leader and friend, who still stood there waiting patiently.

"Elizabeth?" Rodney repeated.

She smiled slightly. "Rodney...and Colonel Sheppard. Congratulations."

"I was also promoted!" McKay protested.

Her smile widened at that. "Good for you Rodney."

An uncomfortable silence set in, neither knowing what to say.

Elizabeth took a deep breath. "Well, I believe the time is of the essence. Talking can wait."

"What do you mean?" Sheppard asked dumbfounded.

She looked in his eyes briefly. "The device the wraith dart beamed down to the ZPM? I can shut it down."

oooSGAooo

He watched her sitting in the briefing room, talking with Rodney, heavy guard standing by the door. Why does his past always come back to haunt him? To re-open the wounds it once made, so they can bleed again.

He didn't know. And he gave up trying to find out.

"You may still think you're Elizabeth…but you're not. "

Holding her at a gun point, that was one of the last words he told her. And he was proven wrong. She was still Elizabeth no matter how hard he tried to convince himself otherwise.

He took a deep breath and entered the room. The two occupants stopped their conversation and turned to face Sheppard.

First one to speak was Elizabeth. "What is the delay John? There's not much time left," she said, her brows raised in question, watching him intently.

"She's right, if we are going to do this, we need to do it soon. And by soon I mean…now!" McKay added urgently.

"Rodney…" Sheppard said, looking at McKay expectantly, and then returning his gaze to Elizabeth.

"Hm?" he hummed, not understanding, looking between the two leaders. "Oh," he exclaimed as he finally got it. "You want me to…?"

"Yes."

He nodded and started for the exit. "Hm."

As the doors shut behind him, Sheppard assumed his previous sitting position in front of Elizabeth. For a moment, there was silence.

Sheppard looked up, staring straight into her eyes. "If you go there, you will die," he spoke frankly.

She watched him with confused expression.

"McKay must have told you. Even if you are…ah…"

"I know. My body will eventually not be able to repair the damage caused by the radiation and the toxins. I will manage to shut the device down, but shortly after, this body will fall apart," she said with not a hint of a single emotion.

Now it was his turn to be confused. "So you know where I see the problem in this plan."

"No I don't, look…this is the only way to save Atlantis. It's not the ZPM you should worry about like I was telling Rodney just now. The device's effects will build up to the point where the generators will not be able to hold it back anymore and when the shield fails…the radiation will suddenly get an opening to expand and engulf the whole city. And everybody will die."

"How do you know all that," he asked in a whisper.

"I just do. Now please. We must hurry," she said, standing up, ready to leave.

He stopped her at the door, grabbing her wrist. "Were you sending those messages to me?"

She looked back at him, perplexed. "What messages?" she asked, confusion written all over her face.

He searched the face for a hint of a lie, but failed to find one. "So who told you? Someone must have told you about this, someone made you come here."

She returned his blazing gaze. "Yes. Someone did," she admitted.

"Who was it?" he pried, almost desperate to know.

oooFLASHBACKooo

She woke up with a start. She didn't know where she was or why is she even awake. The last thing she remembered was a blurry image of the surviving Asurans re-materializing from the Stargate only to be met with the coldness of vacuum space. She remembered their confused faces. The hurt, the sadness, the piercing stab of her betrayal…it was written in their expressions.

She led them to their death.

And then there was nothing. Like she has fallen asleep. Only darkness.

"Doctor Weir," a strange voice spoke deeply, disturbing her trail of thoughts.

She tried to focus her eyes in the dim room and search for the source, just as she noticed she is in fact sitting in a chair, both her hands and legs strapped down with metal chains.

"Please! Do not feel alarmed," the voice spoke again, softly. "These are merely safety measures. I suspected you'd be disoriented after waking up from what you probably considered your death. So I rather took no chances. For the sake of both of us. I can assure you I mean you no harm."

She didn't know why, but the words made her relax. They were spoken in a way she recognized. Rational and succinct. Calm and reassuring. With no obvious hint of an ulterior motive or a lie.

She didn't recognize the voice, but whoever the person was, he spoke like a skilled negotiator. No, there was more. Hearing just the voice, she could tell. This person was a leader.

"Where am I?" she asked, still trying to focus her sight.

"Onboard my ship. I picked you up yesterday."

"Why?"

There was a pause, in which the lone person finally appeared in her line of sight. "Because I need your help. To save Atlantis."

She stared into the captivating eyes of her rescuer. Despite the person's low, deep voice, it was in fact a woman. Covered in the darkness of the room, she could tell no more. The only thing she could see clearly were those eyes. Piercing through the shadows with such a vivid shade of green.

"Who are you?"

"There is no need for you to bother with knowing me, Doctor Weir. All you need to know is that Atlantis will be in trouble and I need you to help me. No…I need you to help them," she corrected.

Is Atlantis in such a big trouble? By the slight urgency in her voice, she suspected it is. Elizabeth had no idea how long was she there, floating seemingly dead in space, but she had a feeling a lot has happened in the meantime.

"What do you want me to do?"

The light of her eyes disappeared as she closed them. "Die for them."

oooFLASHBACKooo

She smiled slightly, staring into John's eyes. "I do not know. It is not important. I know what I must do. And I will do it."

His heart raced, he was breathing fast like he's just run for hours. There were so many emotions flickering behind his eyes, there was anger, hate, despair. There was regret. It made his blood boil, it was flowing through him like a poison and for once he feared he'll not be able to control it.

"Elizabeth…"

"What?" she replied softly.

What was he supposed to say? Or better yet, what was it he wanted to say? He didn't know and his gaze lowered from those strange unfamiliar brown ones that remained determined to do what had to be done.

In the end he whispered. "If you go, you will die."

A wave of realization crossed her face as she watched the man in front of her, still holding onto her hand. "I am already dead."

He looked up, her words catching his attention.

"I died the second the Asuran attack hit the control room. When I woke up in the isolation room, I was nothing more but a soul strapped into a body I no longer recognized. I no longer controlled," she paused, remembering their last encounter. "You were right John. I tried to humor myself with the thought I am still alive, that I am still…me. But I'm not. And I don't want to continue on…existing like this."

When he just stared at her, his voice lost, she added: "Elizabeth Weir is dead. So please, let her die the way she would want to. Saving the city and the people she loved so much while she was still alive."

He was having trouble processing all this. He understood her words, but something inside of him refused to accept them. He wasn't right, he was nowhere near right. He was an idiot. He acted like an asshole. No; worse. How can she not see that, why would she just give up like this?

Like she was reading his mind, she smiled sadly. "I know you John. I know you suffer when you lose people, when you have to let go. When you realize, there's nothing you can do. You get angry and blind and you say things you later regret. And you continue beating yourself up over it. Over and over again. Alone."

He gritted his teeth, the said anger once again creeping up to take over. Not anger towards her. Never her. He was angry at himself. How did she know him this well?

"Sheppard, we need to hurry, the shield is not doing well in here," Rodney informed him through his earpiece and John flinched with surprise.

It didn't escape Elizabeth's notice. "It's time. Listen to me," she commanded with a stern voice. "Stop being like this. Stop blaming yourself for what no one can take blame for. I know it is hard for you to talk about…emotions, feelings. But trust me, you can't do this on your own. You'll need someone to annoy you, to tell you what you do wrong, to stand up to you if necessary. Someone like Rodney," she chuckled. "Someone like you. Even someone like…Kavanagh. I know I couldn't do this without each and every one of you. And you will need them too. So don't distance yourself from your friends anymore. They know you better that you think," she pierced him with her brown eyes and waited for her words to sink in. Then, without another word, she opened the door and left accompanied by two guards.

He just stood there, immobile. His mind echoing her words, his heart shattered. All over again.

oooSGAooo

He came up to Rodney, as he was working frantically on his laptop, few feet away from the blazing inferno that was the ZPM room now. The shield was holding. For now.

"Talk to me smart boy."

"Hm? Oh, well it's like I've been explaining to Elizabeth a moment ago. I'll expand the shield a bit, so she can fit in and…she'll turn the thing down," he said, his face blank.

"Right, just that simple."

Rodney flinched at his words. "Yes actually, that simple."

"Before I go, there's one more thing I need to tell you," Elizabeth spoke up, drawing all the attention to her. "All these attacks…this device, the food sabotage, even the re-programmed device that in the end killed Doctors Woolsey and Zelenka…it's all a work of one person. After you have disposed of Michael, someone else took over the leadership of his Hybrids and is now trying to dispose of the one thing, that he still considers a treat in this galaxy. Atlantis."

"Who's that?" Ronon voiced everyone's question.

She shrugged. "This is all I have been told."

"By that person," Sheppard spitted out, disgust evident in his voice.

Elizabeth looked at him with sad eyes. "Whatever it is you believe this person to be, I think you are wrong."

"He is toying with us from his little comfortable fortress somewhere far away! He's playing some sort of sick game with us and you, that's what I think!" Sheppard almost shouted, his control slowly crumbling.

"Maybe. I believe, there's more to…him than you can observe from afar. There's something bothering him too. Something painful. That much I figured even from the brief conversation we had."

oooFLASHBACKooo

"I'm ready," she said decisively and faced the woman behind her.

She only nodded. "You will not have much time before it reaches critical mass but…you will have enough time to spend it with…a goodbye. Make sure you say everything you need to."

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked confused at her sudden compassionate words.

She raised her chin, her eyes shifting to look somewhere far away. "In a way…you are lucky, Elizabeth. In the end, you'll be able to say your goodbyes. Believe me…they will want to know, they will want to hear. Don't leave them with nothing but the sad memories of the past. Don't leave them thinking they have sent you to die. It would be easy to die like that. But they would have to live with it. That's why you need to use that time. Tell them, until all they can do is stand speechless in front of you, close to crying. Tell them, so they remember your words rather than your death."

Her voice was distant as she spoke. Her usual calmness was disturbed with the hint of sadness behind the stunning green of her eyes. For a moment there, she reminded her of him. That look, it was just like his. There she was, another solitary person crawling through life with nothing but regrets of the past that cannot be returned nor changed. Alone. Distant.

For a moment there, she reminded him of the one man she once loved. She reminded him of John Sheppard.

"I will," she replied in the end, not knowing what to say to this woman that seemed to know how to save everyone, but herself.

oooFLASHBACKooo

"Trust that person John, no matter what. Do that…for me."

As she said that, she exchanged a brief look with each person present, her final goodbye, and moved to stand close to the shield signaling she is ready.

"Let's do this Rodney."

McKay eyed Sheppard, expecting to be given a green light, but seeing the man watching the woman that was once Elizabeth Weir, his eyes betraying emotions kept away for so long, he dared not disturb him.

Instead he all too slowly hit the button on his laptop that set the shield in motion, engulfing Elizabeth and stopping in front of them.

And as she headed towards the device, feeling the pieces of her body being disintegrated, her mind was at peace. For the first time in two years.

As the fog lifted and the dark clouds marched away, the sun shone through them on its descent to the horizon. For a moment, light pierced the darkness of this day. If only for a while.

Sheppard sat in his office chair for an hour after everything was cleaned up and the ZPM reconnected. When he came here, he was full of bottled up anger and he was ready to spill it out on the first person viable. And the laptop seemed just so inviting at the time.

Sitting down, ready to write the stalker to oblivion, he had found a message for him instead.

And so he sat there now, taking deep breaths, calm, his eyes shining with unshed tears, watching the words on the screen.

'Hate me all you want. Beat me up all you want. But don't let her sacrifice come in vain. Don't let her words be unheard…again. Because she is never coming back to repeat them.'

A/N: I'm glad you're enjoying the story so far and I hope you liked the new chap ;) As promised, it featured the one person we all wonder about, and the one person I SO hoped to see more of in season five. Even though Torri declined the offer to continue in SGA for S5, Elizabeth Weir deserved so much more in the end and none of the sh...in Ghost in the machine. It's the one episode I hate the most, because it somehow felt...unreal. Like everyone was suddenly out of character, especially Sheppard. Argh...can't even think about the ep, I'd rather pretend it never happened. Because I'm no longer in the angsty mood for dealing with her character, and Sparky, I didn't make her the mysterious stalker person, but still decided to give her an appearance, that would somehow fit into the story. A proper goodbye to this once great character that made SGA the SGA.

As for the stalker, which I can now safely reveal as the OC hinted in the description, she'll be making more appearance in the next chapters. She's sort of a twisty character, so watch out, she's gonna be troublesome :D Hope you'll like her though :)

Up Next: Chapter five – Of Lurking Devils and Guardian Angel

Love ya,

Lantia