NOTES: In Letters from Pegasus, Dr. Weir recorded video condolence messages for the families of all the people she had lost. But what about those who died after that? This is the story of dealing with one especially important death. I adopted this plot bunny. It was given into my care by MurdocsAngel and PurpleYin. I hope I have done it justice, and you don't mind where I went with it. Thank you, PurpleYin, for betaing this.

DISCLAIMER: Stargate: Atlantis and all things associated with it belong to other people.

SPOILERS: through Siege, Part 1 for SGA, Covenant for SG1

RATING: K+


CLARITY

PART 1

THE VISION

I knew.

It was more than flimsy intuition or cool deduction. It was more than accepting the spiritual and psychological implications of waking to see him at the foot of my bed, to hear him say, "I'm sorry," despite his being impossibly far away. It was a deep, inescapable knowledge that seemed to seep from each cell, a mitochondrial frisson that resonated through every fiber of my being with merciless insistence. I knew he was dead.

I knew, yet no one would listen --not my mother or father, not my sister or brothers. Only grandma believed in what I was experiencing, and it made her cry. That set my family against me, forced me to go it alone in this morbid quest of mine.

I knew, yet no one would confirm what I knew. No one would confess the truth. I contacted countless authorities to try tracking him down, even enlisted the help of friends across the Pond, had them badger their own government on my behalf, all to no avail. No one would admit to knowing anything. It was as though some black void had swallowed him whole.

I still don't know which was worse --knowing, having no one believe me or having no one tell me the truth.

And then it arrived.