"Atlantis?" O'Neill said as the stars started to clear from his vision, and then changed his mind as he glanced up at the monitor. Wraith ships still surrounded them in a wide unyielding circle, but beyond that now.. there was nothing. No Earth fleet, no one coming to help them out, no one fighting at the edges any more.

Just him and Atlantis left at the centre.

"Control?" he said slowly, staring at that screen, hoping for some strange malfunction that would suddenly right itself. "Hey, you guys haven't gone and abandoned us up here, have you?"

There was silence. Worse than that, at the edges of the Wraith fleet, the ships seemed to realize that there was nothing to hold them there any longer. There was no one left to chase them down, other than Atlantis and one little X-302, and there was no way they could chase all of them. Slowly, they started to peel off, one by one heading down towards Earth. Down towards a planet unprepared for them, of people they were meant to be protecting.. and hadn't.

"Shit!" No amount of in-air aerobics was going to prove enough of a threat to pull them back up again, not unless Earth's ships magically reappeared from wherever they'd vanished to. Or from whatever that white light had done to them.

"Control? If this is some kinda secret plan you were all planning to pull out to surprise us with at the last minute, I'd really suggest activating it now. Or thirty seconds ago. Or-"

No response, not even an alarm call, and he stopped, staring again at the radio. He reached out, tapped it, as though that might produce something more than static.

After a few seconds, he said very quietly, testing, "Daniel?"

If the alarms before had been loud, these ones were deafening. A cacophony of shrill sirens, whooping alarms, flashing red lights -- it seemed every warning system the city had was simultaneously activated. Even those who had come with Kolya were starting to look scared, and David stopped clutching at his leg just to try and cover his ears, shielding them from the worst of the racket.

All eyes were on Sam, Radek and Rodney, and the three young scientists had backed away from the machines, moving almost as soon as the flash of light had faded. The two boys were supporting Sam together, the three of them clustering together, whatever arguments they might once have had forgotten now. They looked… terrified, but not surprised, not shocked by the blaring noises and warnings. Whatever they had done, David realized, they had done purposefully, not by mistake. From their expressions, they knew what it might now cost them.

For once, Kolya lost his calm air. He released Jeannie as he stalked back to the machines, leaving the girl in the middle of the room. It meant he had a free hand to grab Radek by the shirt, dragging him away from the other two.

"What," he demanded in a low growl, almost lifting the boy's feet from the floor, "did you do?"

Radek swallowed hard, his eyes following Kolya's gun as though hypnotised. "We uh.. we inverted the reality we were in to throw the ship through several dimensions-"

Kolya hit him with the barrel of the gun. Not hard enough to knock him out, but hard enough to daze, hard enough to send his glasses flying off his face, cracking as they hit the floor. He looked horribly vulnerable without them, blinking rapidly as though this would help him see in a suddenly blurry world. "That is not an explanation."

"Let him alone, Kolya," John said quietly. "That's just how they always talk."

"Is the gate working?" Kolya shook Radek hard, and Radek, stunned and terrified, didn't seem able to find the answer. "Is it?"

He lifted the gun again, threateningly, as though to hit him again, and it was Rodney who stepped forward to try and pull Radek away. "Of course it won't work!" he snapped, stepping between his friend and the gun. "Or, if it does, it won't be going to the same places! Don't you understand? We're not there any more! He just told you!"

It was a brave move, if not a wise one. It made it too, too easy to turn the gun on him. He stopped, and swallowed, suddenly finding himself staring down the barrel. "Not where?" Kolya asked coldly, not releasing Radek.

"Not- not..." Amazing how having a gun pointed at you could make you forget what you meant to say. "Not anywhere. We're in a whole other universe! There's nowhere left here for the gates to go."

Understandable, perhaps, why that statement should make Kolya hesitate, staring at Rodney for a moment. "Take us back."

"Can't." Rodney shook his head, starting to tremble, realizing perhaps that shifting Kolya's attention to him might not have been the best move. "Not enough power. Not if you want to come out with life support functions at the other end. That's.. that's why the alarms are going off."

Kolya lifted the gun's barrel as though to strike him this time, then seemed to think again as Rodney flinched back. "How long do we have?"

"As we're operating now? Maybe... maybe ten hours," Rodney managed nervously. "If we cut back to vital support functions, just in here... maybe a couple of days."

"And you say there's nowhere to go?" Kolya asked slowly, holding his gaze like a predator staring down a rabbit.

"The odds of- of this universe having life at all are.. are astronomical," Rodney agreed unhappily. "Even if it existed, it's likely it would be nowhere near advanced enough to build the stargates."

"So, tell me," Kolya asked slowly, and grimly, taking a step towards him, "tell me why I shouldn't just spend our last two days making your lives here as miserable as possible?"

There was no one left. No one to stop the Wraith swooping down and taking the earth, no one to fight them other than O'Neill. Even Atlantis seemed to have stopped fighting, the drones suddenly at an end. There was nothing to do other than watch as Wraith-ship after Wraith-ship swooped down on a helpless planet.

Nothing but one thing.

He'd fought against the idea of it, fought against even the concept of Earth killing its own people. There had to be another way -- there was always another way. In the end, he'd given in only if he had control of it, certain at least that he could trust himself not to tend towards a twitchy trigger finger where that was concerned. It was the one reason they'd let a General out to fly in combat – that and the fact he was a very experience fighter pilot. They had fitted it, and he had remained convinced that he would never have to use it. It never even got to have a name, just a button that Daniel with his morbid sense of humour had scribbled 'Apocalypse Now' underneath in marker pen.

But if there was no one else left to fight, what other choice was there? Was it better to leave Earth's people to the mercy of the Wraith, to the fighting, and the chaos and the suffering which seemed inevitable, or to kill them quickly and mercifully, at a speed which meant that most of them would never even have a chance to understand what was going on? No time to really be afraid, no time to panic, just a quick death in what otherwise might have been a really good day. Would have been, if it weren't for that whole world-ending thing. There was always the possibility some would live, in bunkers or..caves or …something.

There was no reply from Stargate Control, no reply from Atlantis, and no reply from Daniel. It was no good hoping and praying for someone else to provide a solution to save the day. Sometimes you had to just provide the solution yourself, no matter how unpalatable it might be. End of the world by a merciful hand or an apocalyptic reign of terror and agony that could spread throughout the galaxy. Maybe other people would make other choices, but he was the one here and now and he knew his choice.

O'Neill closed his eyes for a moment, said a last good-bye to his planet and all it held, and then dived down into a steep dive, the X-302 just skimming above the earth's atomosphere before he pressed the button that would loose the little two-seater's load.

The explosion that followed threw the ship backwards, spent it spinning helplessly through space, buffeted by the immense force. Hive ships clustered eagerly around the outer atmosphere, cracked open, bleeding plasma fire, exploding in a series of detonations one after another. Above, had O'Neill been able to look, Atlantis too was flung away, even that huge ship unable to resist, as helpless as a leaf in the wind.

Below them, the earth bloomed into flame; bright, beautiful and terrible, Wraith ships tumbling back towards it as they tried to escape the blaze and failed. No one would survive that -- no one could. O'Neill had set fire to the sky itself.

When a miracle occurred, sometimes it was better not to ask how or why. Atlantis rolled, tumbling and lurching sickeningly, and the people inside couldn't help but be knocked off their feet. It didn't matter which side you were on, or how calm and collected you wanted to be, there was no keeping control when the world abruptly turned upside down. Shouts of alarm and dismay came from teenagers both of Earth and of the Genii as the wall was suddenly the floor, and then the ceiling. John heard a familiar yell, which he was certain came from Rodney, and was privately grateful for it. At least it meant he was still alive.

Meanwhile, he finally had his arms free, and that meant he could start groping through the crush of people, hunting desperately for anything that felt weapon-shaped. Most people seemed too dazed to protest, dizzied by the sudden tumble, and much to John's relief, after a few moments his fingers touched familiar cold metal.

Now they were in business.

He rolled, trying to untangle himself from the crowd, pulling himself out of the heap of stunned people. He wasn't alone -- several others had already managed to regain their feet, some of them members of Kolya's gang. The glances at him were first stunned, and then accusing, certain he must have something to do with this new turn of events. John raised the gun, trying to work out how many of them he could take down before being taken down himself. A few, at least.

The sound of shots startled him, and it startled him more when the guys he'd been certain were about to shoot at him collapsed instead. His first instinct was to dive for the floor again, getting out of the way, and it was some relief to look up and see Teyla and Ronon standing at the doorway, weapons in hand. It seemed that, finally, the cavalry had arrived.

"You guys took your time," he complained lightly, cautiously getting back to his feet, senses still on high alert. If he was feeling ready enough to get back up and start fighting, chances were high that so were some of the guys on the other side.

"Waiting for our moment?" Teyla offered him a brief smile, her eyes darting around, seeking out any threatening movement.

"What, five seconds after we'd all been blown up?" But there was no real question that if they had a chance at all it was now, now when everything was in confusion.

It was the battle-room all over again, except that, unlike the battle-room, there was no chance someone would bring an end to it if someone got seriously hurt. There was an art to it, not just to knowing when to shoot, but knowing when not to. You had to know when your people were too close to risk firing, know without looking when someone was aiming at you and to move. You had to know who you could rely on -- and John was startled, at one point, to see one of the Genii kids drop down in front of him and twist around to see David, propping himself up with a gun in his hand.

David just smiled at him; a tired, pained sort of smile, one hand still clamped down on the wound in his leg. "You thought Dad never taught me how to shoot?"

There was no answer to that, or at least none that John could come up with in the time available right now. He had to keep moving instead, brain automatically cataloguing people as he passed them, ticking off where they were, how they were doing. Jeannie was with Rodney; Radek with Sam, looking lost without his glasses as she fought one-armed; David was shooting with more capability than John had supposed him capable of; Elizabeth handling a gun with an awkward sort of determination; Kolya was..

Kolya.

Kolya was in front of him, gun trained on John, even as John's was trained on him. They stared at each other, Kolya smiling an odd twisted sort of little smile as they met each other's eyes.

So easy, just to press down on the trigger, but John hesitated. "You realize, we're just fighting here for the last two days?"

"Yes," Kolya agreed calmly, not dropping his gaze. "Apparently you think it worth fighting for."

Another second, that seemed to stretch over a lifetime. "I don't suppose yours is set to stun?"

The reply was a low chuckle, and John saw the movement as the other boy moved to fire, and tightened his own finger on the trigger, throwing himself sideways.

Fire seemed to spread through his shoulder, and he heard someone -- Rodney? -- shout in alarm. But Kolya was staggering backwards, stumbling, clutching his chest as he fell.

He did not get up again.

"Why was he just standing around talking at him?" Rodney demanded of the world, fear translating into anger as he pushed his way through to John. With Kolya down, the other Genii seemed frozen, unsure what to do next, but that didn't make him feel better, not when John was just lying there like that. "He could have shot him half a dozen times over in the time he stood there chatting!"

"I didn't see you shooting so many people!" David was only a short distance behind him, moving awkwardly as he tried not to put weight on his injured leg.

"I'm a scientist! I deal with science! There are other people to deal with the shooting part!" There was an awful cold fear in Rodney's chest as he crouched down by John's side, reaching tentatively to turn him over. "C'mon, John, if you're okay I'll work out a way out of here, I swear I will, just--"

"I heard that." Rodney pulled back a little as John shifted, trying to push himself up and then flopping back down with a grunt of pain. "Shit, that hurts."

"Not really surprised, as you managed to get a bullet in your shoulder." David let himself collapse down next to him, looking as relieved as Rodney felt. "Good shooting, kid brother."

"Yeah?" Even for Rodney, not usually known for his perceptiveness where emotions were concerned, it was difficult to miss the note of pleased surprise in John's voice. John had been waiting a good amount of time for that praise. "Well, you know, not fair play really if it's not at least four to one, but.." He pushed himself up again, one-armed this time, and managed to get himself to a sitting position. He reached to touch his shoulder gingerly, managing a shaky grin at Rodney. "Don't think I'm not holding you to finding a way out of here."

"Things people say when they think you're dead don't count!" Rodney said indignantly. No one on their side was dead it seemed, and Teyla and Ronon were rounding up the Genii survivors. It was probably okay to relax and be indignant without worrying you were going to be shot.

"No? But you're gonna anyway," John said matter-of-factly. "How's the arm?"

Rodney flushed guiltily at the mention, looking away. "I didn't -- he made me call you."

"Hey, not blaming you," John said easily. "Besides, I knew it was a trap anyway. You're the worst liar ever. Just, seriously, how's the arm?"

"Oh." And with John, it seemed, forgiveness really was that quick and easy. "Sore. And I don't think that knife was clean, and I'm not at all certain any of us are up to date with our tetanus jabs.."

"Same old Rodney." For some reason that seemed to be a relief to John, and he glanced around before looking, a little awkwardly, back at his brother. "And your leg.."

"Hurts like hell," David admitted. "Not to worry anyone, but we really need a doctor in here."

"Carson," John half-lifted a hand to call him over, then stopped and looked around again, puzzled. "Where is Carson?"

As though at a signal, the door swung open, and Carson stepped in. He was clutching a gun tightly, his face screwed up in worried determination, clearly ready to face down whatever he might find in there. "Right! I.. uh.." He blinked, taking in the scene -- Ronon and Teyla corralling the Genii into one end of the room, everyone else slumped or sat in various positions, mostly bleeding. It took only a step, and then he'd dropped the gun, already rolling up his sleeves. "What'd I miss?"

He didn't tell them, any of them, how close they'd come to death. Despite the laughter and the joking once everyone realized they'd survived, there was an edge to it all that said they'd known that already. Carson didn't have to spell out how much blood Sam or David had lost, or how easy it would have been for John to have been hit somewhere other than the shoulder, any more than he had to tell Radek that concussion, even minor concussion, was never really a good thing. He knew, and he knew how great the risks were if they couldn't get everyone home and to proper medical facilities before long. Meanwhile, he marshalled Teyla and Elizabeth to help him where they could, and if they needed telling what to do, at least they were uninjured and able to do it. Jeannie he left with Radek, with strict orders to call him over if the boy started to fall asleep, and otherwise he did the best he could, with patients both of Earth and Genii.

No one moved Kolya's body. No one seemed sure what to do with it, and it was ignored, avoided, something that they could leave to acknowledge later when they had made a better attempt at grasping what had occurred. In their own way, the Genii seemed as shocked as the rest, all fight gone out of them now, and it was hard not to wonder if they had known where Kolya was leading them or just followed further than they had meant to go.

Ronon had growled a little over treating them, and he wasn't the only one who had looked askance at the idea, but Carson had ignored it. It wasn't that he didn't share the anger and shock -- it was difficult to see a friend in pain without fighting back fury at the person who had put them in that position. But it was more difficult to see someone in pain and do nothing about it, no matter what they were guilty of themselves. It wasn't in Carson to be able to do it, and so once he was certain that everyone else was safe for now, he turned to see what he could do to help there. If he did it in a stony silence, without any of his usual gentle reassurance for the sick and the hurt, he still did it and that was what mattered.

Not that any of it would matter if they stayed here for long. He'd gathered that much from Rodney, when he'd babbled excuses as to why he and John couldn't just rest as Carson wanted them to. It hadn't left Carson entirely easy -- the pair of them had an inclination towards believing that if there were no pain they were capable of doing whatever they wanted, with no regards to the fact that painkillers were not a magical cure. But if the alternative was that everybody died, there seemed little else to do but keep a stern eye on them, ready to intervene if they did more than, as Rodney had explained, cutting off the life-support systems to the rest of the city.

Apparently, that had bought them two days. No one was talking much about what happened when the two days were up.

"Carson?" The voice interrupting his thoughts was shy, and he turned to look at its originator, his expression turning worried when he saw who it was.

"What is it, Jeannie? Is Radek all right?" He glanced around, looking for Radek, and was relieved to see him sitting behind a computer, broken glasses balanced awkwardly on his nose. At least he hadn't passed out or started throwing up then. Still.. "He shouldn't be working!"

"He said he heard something beep!" Jeannie chased at his heels as he strode back over. "And we knew you'd said that John and Rodney weren't to work, so.."

"None of them are healthy enough to work," Carson said exasperated. "Head injuries aren't something to play around with!" And usually Radek was one of the better ones at listening when he told people things like that, which was why Carson hadn't thought to watch to make sure he actually did as he was told. Sometimes people just seemed determined to make themselves worse.

"What do you think you're doing, lad?" he demanded as he reached the computer. "I'm sure I told you to rest."

Radek looked up, sheepish as he peered through the cracked lens. "I am only being up for a little while," he said apologetically. "Just while we were noticing something."

"Noticing what?" He was too pale still, and Carson frowned at him anxiously. "Does your head ache?"

"A little?" Which usually meant a lot. Carson touched his hand, worried by the cool clamminess of the skin.

"But the computers," Jeannie insisted, before he could hurry Radek away. "You're not listening about the computers. Look," she gestured at the screen, where an alert blinked urgently. "Doesn't that mean someone has landed?"

He'd set fire to the planet. It felt as though everything after that should be unimportant, as though nothing should matter, but there was a basic survival sense that made it hard to give up on living even when everything else was gone. Just allowing himself to drift through space until everything else stopped didn't feel as though it was an option, which meant O'Neill had to find somewhere to go.

Earth obviously wasn't an option, and there was no way he had fuel enough to make it to anywhere else. That left one obvious choice, but considering how they'd stopped responding, who knew what was going on there?

Well, it wasn't as though he had anywhere better to go.

He guided the little ship deftly into the landing bay, allowing himself a brief moment to marvel at its resilience. A fire large enough to take out most of Earth, and the X-302 had survived it -- scorched, battered, but still functional, and with its passenger intact.

It was a shame that the same couldn't be said about the earth itself.

He took a moment to take stock of things after landing, leaning back in his seat and trying to remember to breathe. A bit banged-up, much like the ship, cuts, bruises, and the glowing warmth from his skin said that he too had taken a scorching from the heat, but in surprisingly good condition really.

Actually, considering what he'd done, just being alive probably counted as surprisingly good condition.

"Atlantis," he said aloud, voice sounding rougher than it usually did. "I don't care what your status is anymore, but I'm gonna come up, okay? And if you don't like that... well, live with it."

He'd grown so accustomed to getting silence as a response that it was a surprise to get anything else. "Sir!" Elizabeth? So, Elizabeth Weir was still alive? He'd wondered, after everything had gone quiet there. "We didn't realize you'd come with us! We had to turn the life support off -- just stay there, sir. We'll come and get you."

O'Neill raised his eyebrows, but for once arguing was beyond him. "Copy that," he agreed. "And I hope you've got a damn good explanation for why you stopped answering, Atlantis, because right now, only something on the level of "we died and got resurrected as zombies" is gonna make the grade."

It was weird how fast you could go from being "guys who were trying to save the world" to "kids who'd stolen a city, ignored orders and done a whole lot of stuff they really oughtn't". John squirmed, abruptly reminded that he was just fifteen years old. From the corner of his eye, he could see that Elizabeth had gone red, Rodney looked as though he were only just biting back the urge to argue, Carson was shifting from foot to foot, and David, who had been included in the group of 'ringleaders' on account of his age, was looking very uncomfortable.

The consolation was that General O'Neill seemed just as thrown by the answers to his questions as they were discomforted by the questions.

"So, you didn't just decide to go fight with the Wraith, you decided to have a whole little war with the Genii while you were up here?" he asked disbelievingly. "Were the Wraith not gonna be enough for you or something?"

"It wasn't exactly intentional, sir," John admitted. "We think they were hiding in the tunnels when we evacuated everyone." They hadn't come back through the gate anyway -- Rodney had determined that much by checking where it had been last activated.

"You didn't check?"

"No, sir. We kinda assumed that a message that we were heading into a situation where everyone left in the city might die might be enough to get most people to leave," John said, fighting the flash of irritation. He could see Elizabeth glare at him, a sign that by now he really should have learned about Not Answering Back.

But where Woolsey would have given him a lecture on respect, O'Neill just gave him a hard look for a moment. "And you say that thing I just set fire to wasn't Earth? Because I gotta tell you, it looked a lot like it from where I was sitting."

"It was and it wasn't," Rodney jumped in eagerly. "The whole point is that it was a parallel Earth -- exactly like it, but not in our universe. We figured that any amount of chasing the Wraith away from Earth would only make them come back looking, and we couldn't evacuate everyone from the planet, so.." he shrugged, "we gave them a different planet."

O'Neill stared at him for a moment. "And I take it you young geniuses have a plan for getting back then, do you?"

"Well.." Rodney sagged a little at that question, looking down.

"We're working on it, sir," John jumped in hastily. "Just working out the fine details." Like how to actually make it possible at all.

It didn't seem to work. O'Neill just kept looking at them steadily, waiting for a better explanation.

"Uh," Rodney swallowed. "We thought we'd have a bit more power now."

It didn't seem to surprise O'Neill, but then, having been given a spacesuit in order to get to the one room which still had life support, it probably was a bit less than surprising. "How much you got left?"

"Not enough to get us home," Rodney admitted unhappily. "Maybe uh -- better make it one and a half days' worth if we stay here."

"And how much would it take to get Atlantis back home?" O'Neill asked. "You can't just.. make it stretch?"

"Well, if you don't want to do anything like breathing when we get there, sure!" Rodney said sharply. "It's not like taking a battery out and putting it back in again to get an extra five minutes out of it. We might get there, maybe, but we wouldn't have life support when we got there. But hey, I suppose at least they'd have our bodies in the right universe for the funeral."

"How about something smaller?" John suggested patiently, well-used to these angry little explosions. "A puddle-jumper maybe?" It would hurt his heart to leave the giant friendly presence of the city behind, but it was better than everyone staying here to die.

"It doesn't work like that," Rodney said, sounding frustrated. "Look, the centre of the quantum mirror is here, okay? In this room. Do you see a puddle-jumper in here? Do you even see any way to get a puddlejumper in here? So we'd have to transport a puddlejumper and just.. a random chunk of the city, just to get the right radius."

"Okay, so that's a bad plan," O'Neill surrendered, but didn't seem ready to give up just yet. "What if we didn't need life-support?"

John and Rodney looked at each other. "Well, we've got spacesuits," John said slowly. "Only about a dozen of them though."

"That would be enough to get us back," Rodney added, sounding hopeful for the first time.

"Don't even think about it," Carson caught that, and the implications of it. "We are not just leaving the Genii to die."

"They were ready to kill us!" Rodney protested. "They nearly did!"

"But we're not them," Carson lifted his chin stubbornly. "I'm not being part of any plan where we leave people to die."

"Carson's right," Elizabeth put her vote in quietly. "We can't just do that."

O'Neill had been studying them silently, an odd expression on his face as he observed the exchange. "Well, I'm glad to see you've managed to retain some morals at least," he said abruptly. "But I'm not sure where you got into spacesuits. The city still has ships, right? You didn't manage to fly them all off and evacuate everyone in them?"

"Puddlejumpers," John agreed, using the pet name they'd become accustomed to for the little ships. "And," he added, voice rising a little in excitement as he understood what the man was getting at, "they have life support systems, all right."

"Would it work?" O'Neill asked, and suddenly they were all looking at Rodney, hopeful and excited, because that sounded as though it actually might.

"Maybe," Rodney allowed grudgingly, "I mean, we're going to be pushed right to the limits of what power we have and there's every chance that it'll give in part way through, and if we end up stuck between universes, and-"

"That means "yes"," John informed the general cheerfully, and ignored Rodney's splutters of protest. They were going to live.

"You can't," Carson said flatly, staring at John in frank disbelief that it even sounded like a good idea to him. "I don't know if you noticed but you've got a bloody great hole in your shoulder. That does tend to limit your ability to do certain things."

"I feel fine now," John objected, already climbing back into a spacesuit. That spoke volumes about just how well Carson's persuasion was going. "No problem."

"You feel fine now, because you are on drugs, John," Carson snapped. It was rare that he lifted his voice, but he was shouting now, unable to get his point across any other way. "If painkillers keep convincing you to do anything you want, I swear, next time I won't give them to you! You're not in a state to -- to fly a puddlejumper, let alone a city!"

"Someone's gotta get us down," John said reasonably. "You and I are the only ones able to fly it, and I bet you don't want to. Especially not when it's more going to be gliding than flying."

"More like falling, from what Rodney said," Carson said glumly. The mere thought of it made his stomach turn over, but that didn't mean he could let the subject drop. "There's the general."

"It's not his city," John said, his first reaction possessiveness. "And didn't you say he had pretty bad burns?"

"He set light to Earth's atmophere. He's probably lucky he wasn't barbecued completely," Carson admitted. That had been a surprise too - he'd thought that adults, proper adults, would have been more sensible about accepting medical treatment, but O'Neill was as stubborn as John ever had been. "I don't actually know how he's still managing to act normally. He ought to be unconscious."

"Right," John agreed. "And you hate flying. I don't. So, you just go sit in the puddlejumper while Rodney does his thing, and I'll get us down."

It was tempting, it was the easy thing to do, and he couldn't do it. "John," he said quietly. "You know your flying, but I know your body. Trust me when I tell you you're not well enough for this."

"But we still have to get down, so it doesn't really matter," John said, and sighed, looking back at Carson, spacesuit helmet in his arms. "Look, if you're so worried, why don't you come with me?"

"To watch?" Carson's insides leaped uncomfortably again at the thought.

"Sure!" John agreed. "Just grab one of the other spacesuits." He grinned. "Besides, it means you'll be able to answer for me when Rodney's sending panicked messages through about how I'm doing it wrong."

"Everyone ready?" Rodney asked nervously, before the city started to shift again. Once it was moving, he knew, he would have only seconds to re-activate the turning of the mirror. The fraction of a ZPM they could have left could be used so, so quickly.

Nods came from most of those present. The Genii, still guarded by Ronon and Teyla, were silent, huddling together. Rodney spared a moment to worry that they might try something when the mirror went into effect, then changed his mind. Ronon alone was likely enough to stop an army of them. Ronon alone practically was an army.

"So, uh," Rodney said, "I just want you to know that if this doesn't work, uh, it -- it was really awesome knowing you guys. I mean, if we had to go save the world -- I mean, most of it was me, obviously, but --"

"Rodney?" John's voice crackled over the radio.

"Yeah?" he answered, clutching tightly at his laptop, ready for John's own goodbye. Probably, it would be filled with appreciation for everything he'd managed to achieve and what good friends they had been and...

"Get ready to go."

"I was just uh -- saying, if it didn't work --"

"It's going to work." No goodbye, just John's usual cheerful confidence. "Get ready to go."

"Right." It was probably a lot easier to be confident if you didn't understand the complexities of what was required. "Ready."

Slowly, they felt Atlantis begin to move, smooth steady motion, slowly building. Rodney swallowed hard, quickly typing the last few instructions required to take them back through the mirror. He hesitated, finger balanced on the Enter button for the last time. "Right," he said again. "Goodb-"

And the world vanished once more in a blinding flash of light.

"And out we come," John said triumphantly, turning Atlantis towards the earth. "And now to fly -- uh- plummet down."

It really was more of a fall than a flight, and Carson had to fight the urge to cover his eyes as the speed started to build and the G-forces pressed them down hard against chairs and floor. The idea that they had survived the Wraith, the Genii, and return from an alternate universe only to die in the crash landing on the earth briefly crossed his mind and he flinched at the idea. "Uh, John," he said nervously over the radio com in his suit. "You don't think this is a little fast? John?"

There was no reply, and he glanced quickly at his friend, only to stagger to his feet in alarm, panting with effort. He felt like he was made of lead. John was slumped in the chair, his face pale, eyes closed.

"John?" Carson was certain he knew what was wrong almost immediately. Painkillers could only do so much, and protecting him when facing these kind of G-forces with a fresh bullet-wound in his shoulder was simply too much to ask of them. There was no way it was possible without passing out.

It would need seeing to, the medical part of his brain noted clinically, and the rest of him knew that there was no way to do that without getting them to Earth safely. With only fractions of a second to make his decision he heaved John out of the chair, taking his place quickly by virtue of falling into place

The earth was speeding towards them at a sickening rate, and Carson was half-aware of Rodney's voice screaming over the radio, demanding to know what was going on, what were they doing? There was land, there were buildings, there were ships speeding after them, sending alarmed messages, and, they were going to die. The world looked big and hard, a really awful way to die, and what about all the people underneath? How many people could be crushed by a city falling on them?

Carson fought it, turning the ship desperately, aiming for the ocean. If they couldn't make it, they could at least avoid taking anyone else with them, and there was water, there was clear space, and Carson put in one last-gasp effort pulling, pleading with Atlantis to slow, trying to take as much force out of the landing as he could.

The waters rose like a tidal wave as they landed, splashing up in all directions. John was thrown like a rag-doll to the other side of the room, and Carson himself was flung out of the chair, hitting the wall with a thud that left him unsure for a minute whether he was dead or alive.

There was a moment of complete stillness, a moment where Carson lay too stunned to know where he was, whether he had succeeded, or if anyone was alive.

The radio crackled, Rodney's indignant voice filling the room. "What the hell was that? I said, go for as slow as you can make it! Have you people never heard of whiplash?"

An incoherent groan came from the other side of the room, before John reached up, slowly tugging off his helmet. "We're fine, Rodney," he managed. "Thank you for asking."

And Carson felt himself start to laugh, and wasn't sure if he would ever be able to stop again.

"Atlantis, come in. This is Stargate Control. Are you receiving us?"

Jack stared at the intercom for a second, and then reached to take the radio before Elizabeth could pick it up. "Control, this is Atlantis, receiving you loud and clear. Are you folks missing a buttload of Wraith-ships by any chance? Say, most of a fleet?"

There was stunned silence on the other end, before the reply came -- Jackson's voice this time, stunned and incredulous and hoping beyond hope. "Jack, is that you? Where the hell did you go?"

"I was uh -- over-seeing an apocalypse," O'Neill replied slowly knowing Daniel would know exactly what that meant. "There's a hell of a lot you're going to want me to explain -- all alternate universes, and earths that weren't." He paused, taking a look at the kids around him -- shocked and injured mostly, sure, but with more of them alive and okay than they had any right to expect. "But, for now, I think we'll be coming home."