Saphire – I don't think Rodney would have the patience to use that white board for long either, glad you liked the mention of Janet, I missed her character in SG1. Thanks for the review and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Lakewater – Yeah, I mentioned the other name for the whales, think I might have spelt it wrong though lol.

Sparkly – I'm glad you think adding Echoes was a good idea, I figured that it's a natural event so it wouldn't be affected by what was happening in Atlantis. The part about how Atlantis had changed everyone practically wrote itself lol. I'm glad you enjoyed the last chapter and thanks for the review.

Kuroima – lol, I like what you imagined by the use of the name Bruce lol. I'm glad you liked Rodney's thoughts in the last chapter and his line about making sure he wasn't dead. Thanks for the review and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Steph7085 – Glad you liked the part with the white boards, thanks for the review.

Jammeke - It was weird writing Echoes in the context of my story, a little more angsty and less spirited. I feel horribly for how much I'm torturing John and Elizabeth and it's far from over I'm afraid lol. I hope you enjoy this chapter, thanks for the review.

- - -

Chapter 14

She had quickly moved the conversation out of the control room and into her temporary office. General Landry's voice could only be heard through her ear piece and her side of the conversation was private now as well.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea sir," she continued trying to protest against the orders she'd been given.

"I don't like this any more than you Colonel, but orders are orders," Landry told her, emphasising the last part. She couldn't blame him for that, the last group he'd passed along orders to had stolen a Jumper and left the galaxy.

"Sir, we know that Dr Weir is out there somewhere..." she began but Landry cut her off.

"What you know, Colonel, is that Dr Weir did escape Atlantis and was spotted on several planets in the days that followed. According to all the reports though there has been no sighting of her for over a month. The IOA wants Atlantis to resume its normal operations and the President agrees with them," Landry explained "It's only because it is Dr Weir that's missing that the search has continued for as long as it has."

Sam bit back the annoyed comments on the tip of her tongue and instead asked "How is General O'Neill taking the news?"

"As well as you'd expect," General Landry told her and Sam figured Jack wouldn't have taken this lightly. "He's been fighting this order since he returned last week."

"Sir, there a lot of benefits to continuing this search, bringing Elizabeth home is just one of them. Having access to the knowledge of the Ancients that are with her is surely of high value to the president and the IOA," she tried to rationalise. To be honest the thought of the Ancients had only crossed her mind a few times but if it could help her convince the powers that be on earth not to abandon the search then she'd be willing to consider it a lot more.

"That has all been considered; the truth is the Ancients – ascended or otherwise – have never been willing to share anything with us. Dr Weir spent six weeks trying to convince them to work with us and they weren't interested," Landry told her and Sam repressed a sigh as she stopped pacing around the office and sat down.

"This isn't going to go down well here sir," she told him, reigning in her anger and annoyance.

"I never expected that it would but we both have our orders, Landry out." With that the radio cut off and through the windows of the office Sam saw the stargate shut down. She finally released the sigh that had been building up throughout the conversation and tried to figure out how she was going to tell the entire city that their priority was no longer searching for their missing leader. It was a task that was only going to be made harder by the fact that she knew there were a few people who she couldn't tell over the radio, some people who she was going to have to tell face to face.

Not yet though, she'd do what she could to fight this order first, perhaps somehow she'd manage to convince the powers that be on earth to change their minds, or at least give them a little longer. First things first, she'd have to dial earth back, try to talk General Landry around whilst glaring at his unseen self for hanging up on her, so to speak. Then she would need to try and talk to Jack, somehow she figured he'd know what to do.

- - -

Elizabeth once again tried to wipe the red stains from her hands, rubbing them on the sides of her trousers as she walked out of the trees and into the village. It was the second time since she had been here that she had seen a Vlaos attack. The first time a villager had been killed before they could take the beast down; this time... it was one of the Ancients.

Bren had barely seen it coming, none of them had. It had attacked so fast and without warning, they hadn't even known that there was one in the area. Everyone had tried to stop it, one of the villagers had gone so far as to try and distract its attention but it had been no good. Bren had been killed and two of the villager's had been badly injured. Bren's blood was still on her hands and clothes and the mere sight of it made her feel sick.

Behind her the surviving members of the hunting party were not only helping the injured but carrying Bren's body. Malaine was beside her, she looked shook up and a little stunned, the same way Elizabeth felt. They walked though the village, word spread quickly that someone had been killed and by the time they were nearing the centre of the village the other Ancients were stood there, waiting to see if the rumour that had spread with the news was true. Unfortunately it was; the Ancients had lost one of their own.

"Malaine?" Taros questioned as the body came around the corner. She bowed her head silently, staring at the floor with a look of sorrow she hadn't even had when the rest of her people had been killed on Atlantis.

She realised then that the surviving Ancients had become a family; that they had become very dependant on each other and losing one of them now was like tearing off a limb. Whether she felt like it or not, Elizabeth was a part of that group as well now and while she knew if it had been her instead of Bren it would not have hit them as hard, she knew they would have been saddened by her loss.

"How did it happen?" Malar asked his voice calmer than his face suggested he actually was.

"Vlaos," Elizabeth replied when it became apparent that Malaine couldn't. "We didn't see it coming, we tried to save him but there was nothing anyone could have done."

"Where are you taking him?" Taros asked the men who were still carrying their friend's body.

"To be prepared for burial, it is our custom but if you wish for something else to be done..." a middle aged man began but Taros cut him off.

"No, no, please continue," he told them and they could do nothing but watch as Bren's body was carried away.

- - -

John looked around the briefing room where his team had gathered along with Carson. They'd come here on Sam's request and were now waiting on her to show up. He knew something was wrong, had been able to tell from the lack of information she'd given him when she'd ordered him to gather his team and meet her here. She'd been evasive and unspecific and he knew she'd been in contact with earth this morning. He was excellent at math, adding all this up brought him to the conclusion that he wasn't going to like this.

Sam finally walked into the room and Ronon, Carson and Rodney stopped bickering with each other and joined John and Teyla in looking at Sam expectantly. "I'm gonna get straight to the point," she told them "This morning we were ordered to return to normal operations."

"What exactly does that mean?" Ronon asked gruffly.

"What about Elizabeth?" Teyla questioned.

Sam sighed before she answered "Earth feels we haven't found any strong leads on her whereabouts and we're no closer to finding her than we had been at the start."

"So finding her is no longer a priority?" Carson asked with more anger in his voice than anyone was used to hearing from the good natured doctor.

"Not for them," Sam told them.

"That's not fair," Rodney stated in annoyance "Elizabeth has done a lot for Atlantis and for them, they can't just abandon her."

"No one's abandoning her Rodney," Sam tried to explain "We'll still be searching for her but we can't dedicate all of resources to it anymore. Some of the teams will have to go back to exploring the Pegasus Galaxy and looking for technology to help us fight the Wraith and the Replicators. I'll be keeping your team on the search; you can still look for her."

"We'll just have less chance of finding her," Ronon finished and silence filled the room for several tense moments before Sam broke it.

"I know this isn't what any of you want to hear and I tried to fight this. You know I've opened the gate to earth more times today than in the last month. General O'Neill is still trying to get them to divert more resources back to the search on earth but for right now we have to start getting Atlantis back to normal," Sam told them and probably realised the second that the words were out that they were the wrong ones to say.

"Normal means having Elizabeth here," Rodney stated and then walked out of the office. Carson was quick to follow him along with Ronon and Teyla.

John still stood there, routed to the spot, having been completely silent since Sam had walked into the room. He wasn't sure what to make of this, somewhere in him he knew that Atlantis had to start returning to its normal operations at some point, they were lucky they'd been able to search as long as they had. At the same time this was Elizabeth that was missing and he wasn't ready to admit defeat.

"What do you think?" Sam asked him and John sighed.

"I think that Elizabeth deserves better," was all the answer he could give before he left the room.

He hadn't seen Elizabeth for two and half months now; he couldn't believe that's how long it had been since the expedition team had been summarily kicked out of Atlantis. She may only have been missing a month but it had been two and half months since he'd seen her. Two and a half months since he had last spoke to her, two and a half months since he had left her in what he had thought was the safety of the city. He hated himself for leaving her here though he knew there was nothing else he could have done. She was supposed to be safe, she was supposed to be protected in this city and he'd thought that having the Ancients operating the city at a level they'd never been able to would make up for him not being here to do it himself.

He'd even considered going to talk to Dr Heightmeyer about all of this, he knew Rodney had been to see her and Carson and Teyla had been through a session with her as well. There was no point though, he knew what she'd say if he went. 'It wasn't your fault, you couldn't have done anything differently, you couldn't have changed anything.' The truth was he'd never know if he could have changed anything, if somewhere along the way he could have done something differently and maybe none of this would have happened.

- - -

"Bren was a good man; he served his people to the best of his ability which was a phenomenal amount. When we first returned to this galaxy, we were ill prepared for how much it had changed and soon found ourselves as refugees. Our people are gone, we are all that remains of them and we have become in many ways a family. Events have brought us closer, strengthened the bonds between us in ways we could not have imagined. To lose Bren now, when those bonds are so strong is so much harder than any of us would have expected. We send you on dear brother."

Taros moved back to the side of the grave where Elizabeth and the other Ancients were standing. They all watched in silence as the coffin containing the body of Bren was lowered into the grave that had been dug for him. It felt cheap, as though he'd been cheated out of a proper send off, it just felt as though he deserved more than an unmarked grave on an alien world.

When the funeral was over Elizabeth walked away alone, would that be her one day? Would the only testament to her life be an unmarked grave on some planet no one she knew would ever find and a piece of paper back on earth? She wanted so badly to be back on earth at that moment, to be with her friends. It wasn't Atlantis but at least there she would have had them.

She had been around so much death in the last few months and she wasn't sure how she was actually getting through it all. Bren shouldn't have died, he didn't deserve that, he'd survived a war with the Wraith and the slaughter of his people by the Replicators, this felt wrong.

Bren had only been on a couple hunting parties since they had come here over a month ago, why did he have to be on the one where a Vlaos had attacked. Elizabeth had been on five, she went almost every week and had always returned without a scratch, it wasn't fair.

She couldn't believe how long she had been here, couldn't believe how normal things like hunting had become for her. At first killing those animals had been hard, she'd felt guilty for it even though she knew it had to be done. After a while though she stopped feeling guilty, she almost became numb to it, that itself told her how much this place was changing her and it just made her want to leave it even more.

She couldn't though, especially not right now. The group had already lost one member and she couldn't walk away from it now. Besides, as she'd already figured out, it would be too hard to uproot herself and start again somewhere else.

- - -

Sam sighed as she dropped down onto her bed and stared at the ceiling. She had no idea what to do now, no idea what her next move should be. She knew that Atlantis needed to resume its normal functioning; that they needed to start going back to their usual missions and exploration but it did feel like she was abandoning Dr Weir.

She didn't want to take people off the search but they couldn't continue searching every planet in the galaxy and hope they just happened to stumble onto the right one. For now, she was more than happy to let John's team continue to do just that, at least until they came up with a better plan. However, she also knew that they couldn't continue looking forever and the thought of ever having to stop them wasn't one she relished.

Maybe she wouldn't have to, maybe they really would get lucky and just happen to stumble across the missing diplomat. It was an unlikely scenario but in her experience with the stargate programme, the unlikely was usually what they got. That was especially true for SG1 and from everything she'd heard and read; Atlantis' flagship team was no different to earths.

She'd told Jack she wouldn't give up, promised him without words that she would find Elizabeth... she couldn't fail.

TBC