Away from Atlantis

Disclaimer I don't own John, or Ronon, or Rodney, or Sam, or Teyla, or anyone... yet. I don't own Life line.

Simple I own nothing but how I torture the characters.

This story starts up after The Game and ignores Irresponsible. So Kolya is still alive.

Chapter 10 song Here Without You by Three Doors Down

John didn't remember how he made it to the Jumper with Ronon over his shoulder, he did it, but his mind was still watching Elizabeth's body arc backwards after he shot her with the ARG.

He felt drained, tried, achy. He blinked at Rodney, only now noticing the noise. "What did you say again?"

"I asked wheres Elizabeth?"

He blinked again, picturing her graceless fall, "Dead."

"Oh..."

John shook his head, dumping Ronon on the floor, he headed for the pilot's chair.

"Have we got the cloak?"

"No, not yet we drained too much power from the cloak to power the anti-Replicator field."

He sighed, "Then hold on."

"What?"

"Sit down and hold on I have a feeling this will get bumpy."

"But I can't work if I'm sitting..." Rodney threw himself in his seat, as the Jumper took off.

John pushed the Jumper to it's limits, it took a hit as he pulled away from the tower, but then he was able to weave in and around the buildings.

"Rodney, how soon can we jump into hyperspace?"

"No time soon, we need more power which means I need to be able to work on interfacing the ZPM so we even have a chance."

"Fine!"

However once he started going for space, they became better targets. They'd just made it off the planet when something appeared ahead of them, a Replicator war ship, it opened fire.

They were taking a beating, and just when he thought the shields were going to fail, help arrived.

"Colonel Sheppard, this is the Apollo, do you read?"

He sighed relived, as the Apollo drew the war ship's fire.

"This is Colonel Sheppard, and may I say you have some Damn good timing. Sir."

Ellis chuckled, "That you may, the 302 bay is open and you have permission to come aboard."

"Thank you Col. Ellis."

"Yeah you saved our asses," Rodney cheered.

"Sorry we might have been here sooner but it was hard to find Atlantis." said women's voice.

"Carter is that you?"

"Yeah it's me Rodney."

He landed the Jumper aboard, once inside Ellis checked to make sure he had everyone, before jumping into hyperspace.

In the half an hour it took to get back to Atlantis, John had reported that Elizabeth Weir was dead. Ellis offered no solutions, but he offered a cold comfort in that John could know she had not become the enemy. He smiled a little and thanked the man, Rodney had been horrified that John had shot her, until he came clean about her having ordered him to. But Rodney's reaction had brought a seed of resentment to the surface, it had been bad enough when it had been Col. Sumner but Elizabeth, his friend, his confident, his leader whom he respected.

But now that they were back in the city he had other things to worry about, picking a new planet being among them.

He stood in the corner, listening well the others disused pros and cons of the new planets.

"Here's a good one, M35-117," Rodney suggested.

"Did Dr. Weir know about it?" Samantha Carter asked.

"No, it was not a either list of planets we'd considered before, I purposely searched for ones we never had looked at."

The silence was heavy, the off chance the Replicators had found where they'd been going to land Atlantis was now covered, they simply wouldn't be there.

"Yes, well, it has a stable atmosphere, large ocean, besides the big particularly venomous snake like creature that inhabits the mainland, it seems to be a welcoming environment." Rodney spoke like he was a Realtor.

"Yes, we'll take it," he said dryly

"Hun?" Rodney looked at him confused, while Carter chuckled.

"You sound as if you wanted us to buy it or something."

"Oh, well, right." Rodney shook his head, "Radek, hows it coming?"

"All set here, the ZPM is online."

"Okay, here we go." Rodney said heading over the control panel, Dr. Bill Lee helped him, Atlantis made the second jump into hyperspace.

Three Hours Later, They'd Arrived

In that time John had begged for a nap, but what he'd really done was think, how should he go from here? By the end of his 'nap' he still hadn't decided, his thoughts kept returning to Elizabeth's face as she fell, he still couldn't believe she was gone.

Rodney was the one to come and get him from his nap, "Rise and shine Pilot!"

"I'm already up Rodney," he said, ignoring the fact he'd never really been down.

"Oh, darn. The time to land has come!"

"How much coffee have you had in the last hour?"

"Eight cups or more. What's it matter?"

"Nothing much, I just wondered... because you seem hyper." He knew the implied childishness of such a thing would drive Rodney up the wall.

"Hyper! I am no such thing."

"Which is why you skipped in." he wouldn't smile, he wouldn't give the game up.

"Ack!" Rodney cried, "I didn't. I... I... I walked quickly."

"You skipped."

"I didn't!"

"You did." He was smirking, he couldn't help it, bating Rodney was far too much fun.

"I Didn't... Nice try, you won't draw me in to such a childish debate."

"But I just did."

"You most certainly did not."

"I did."

"You... Come, just fly the city," Rodney stormed off.

He arrived up in the control room just in time for the city to drop out of hyperspace. He found he was drawn to the windows, it was funny to think I'm in space and to see the windows blown out, little shards still sitting in windows or on the sills.

Carter joined him, he was amazed they'd done it, he didn't realize he'd spoken aloud till she answered him.

"No, the hard part is still coming, we have to land."

Rodney joined them, "Yeah, she's right, we still could die in the atmosphere."

"I'll just jump in the chair and ease us down."

"That might be harder then you think," Carter said. "After all the ZPM just used a lot of it's power get us here."

He went with the more diplomatic answer, "We have more then enough power to keep the shield up for reentry."

"As long as you don't put to much presser on the shield causing it to buckle, or go in to fast, which could make us crash or burn or..." Rodney said, still irked about the teasing.

"You just never stop, do you?"

"What?"

"Make sure everyone is ready, I'll go get in the chair," he jogged off. It was funny he thought, as he jogged; he knew now that they were here nothing would go wrong. It was stupid, but he was sure.

Ten Minutes Later

The city once again embraced him, he told her what to do and she carried out his plan, Rodney of course tried to back seat drive, but he knew it was not as bad as Rodney swore it was, so he didn't even answer.

She brought them down, slowly, carefully, John was amused Rodney was yelling in his ear about horrible deaths and what not, but the city, she knew what she was doing.

But something else he found funny, was his change had changed not how the city treated him but how he treated the city. He'd felt her before, but now... she'd become real, a person someone to, well, it, she wasn't just a city now, not to him.

They splashed down, it was a soft landing, barely a bounce.

The chair sat him up, everything was good, no serious flooding, the ZPM still had some power, at least according to the city.

He sat in the chair for a moment thinking to himself, now that this was done. What was he going to do?

He got up, helped get everyone back on Atlantis from the Apollo, as he talked to everyone, he felt strangely distant, he accepted the complements on the landing, he did what was needed. But he felt like there was a distance to everyone, he waited till he wasn't needed. Then he retreated, to the balcony where he and Elizabeth talked, staring at the sky. It was still unreal to know she was gone, at any moment she'd walk through the door and tell him he was being silly, but she wouldn't. She was gone. By his hand.

He stood there, he didn't now how long, then the door behind him opened.

He turned half expecting to see Elizabeth, but no, it was Carter. He turned back to the railing, he couldn't hide his feelings at the moment.

"I can't imagine how you feel at the moment, I think if I'd had to do what you did I... she trailed off, probably imagining doing it to one of her team mates, he'd read some of the reports on SG-1, he knew enough.

I don't know what I'd do, all I have to say at the moment is..." She paused as if looking for the words.

"Is Elizabeth would say thank you."

He bobbed his head, he couldn't speak, to thank her, he could only nod, because no matter what he felt, she was right.

"But! But she, probably wouldn't want you to feel guilt. Now I may not have known her but, she did order you to." she finished softly.

He only now became aware of the tears coursing down his face, he took a deep shuddering breath, and self-consciously wiped at his tears. He knew she was right, about all of that, but he never followed orders well, so in the end it had been his choice. He turned around, "Thank you for the bit of comfort." his voice was embarrassingly hoarse.

She nodded, self-consciously. "I need to get back to work," she thumbed over her shoulder.

He nodded and she left, he alone again.

But she was right, Elizabeth would want him to decide was he going to come clean or hide?

Come clean... he didn't like where that thought lead him, tell just his team? Tell everyone? Everyone, that thought told him he was in trouble, with Stargate command, with his friends, Atlantis. If he told everyone he'd be blacklisted so fast he would have trouble knowing what hit him, then they'd send him to Area 51, that was not something to consider.

Or he could come clean with just his friends... Rodney would freak, if not because of what he'd become, because it was his fault. That would not be fun to handle. Ronon... He just couldn't see that going well, if Ronon didn't try to kill him... he would treat him like he treated Michael when Michael had been human. Or maybe he had the slightest chance Ronon would think of it like he thought of Teyla's abilities. A slight chance.

Teyla was the one he saw taking it well, till she realized he'd been hiding it for months. But that would be the thing that pissed them all off if he told, he hadn't told them in all of the months he'd known. Months.

He was so screwed.

Hide...

He felt like that was his only choice, no one would know... but that had it's own draw backs. There was always the what if I go crazy thing or what if I get hungry thing. But he really had no choice, he'd lied to his friends even if it was only the lie of omission.

If he did this there would be no going back, he'd have to lie more than before, before Elizabeth had covered for him, but now it would be just him.

Well if nothing else, he now knew what what he was going to chose.

But he had no clue what he was getting into.

Hope you liked the song, but if you didn't tough.

Sorry this chapter is so short but the last one was really long and hard to write.

Dark shadowed rose