AN: Written for the Sparktober 2022 Drabblefest challenge on AO3. Prompt was "each are the other's lighthouse in the dark." (An (almost) double drabble.)


He knows none of it is real. His ability to read when something's ticked off the 'too good to be true' meter has always been excellent. And this illusion is breaking the dial. Everything is hollow.

Except for her.

He sees her face around corners, lost in crowds. He barely even knows who he is anymore, but in his gut he knows her, knows he'd follow her anywhere. He tries, but she always slips away.

Until, one day, his jailers get tired of his resistance and replace the lotus flowers with darkness, a void. And suddenly she's there; he doesn't have to chase her anymore. She holds out her hand, but he's so, so tired…

"I never told you this," she says, kneeling beside him, "but I saw you when I was trapped. They tried to make me forget too, but you wouldn't let me. You led me home. Let me do the same for you." She caresses his face. "Wake up, John."

Everything shatters and when he opens his eyes to the Atlantis infirmary, his first sensation is Elizabeth's hand wrapped around his.

Too good to be true. But real.


AN2: What's happening here? Is it a tag to TRW where John gets infected too? Is it later and an Ascended Elizabeth comes to help him out? Or he got infected in The Return and we get to pretend like the last two seasons were all a bad dream? You decide.