Title: Whisper
Summary: It's exactly midnight when they can hear the cries of the ancestors echoing through the city.
Rating: PG.
It's exactly midnight when they can hear the cries of the ancestors echoing through the city. At first it's just passed off as wind whistling against the exterior, but after the third ghostly wail, the residents of Atlantis become concerned and people begin to wonder toward the sound. Elizabeth is in her office, standing still, listening to the cries when her radio explodes with sound and she winces. Cries of the investigators drill into her ears, jumbled and afraid as she shares a concerned look with the control room and as John, standing on the other side of her desk, runs out as he always will to save his people. Elizabeth follows him, as does half of the control room, drawn on to what could be a threat in Atlantis as Zelenka does a biometric scan and various technical personnel search through the long-range space sensors. The cries break abruptly as Elizabeth runs, her knee causing a shooting pain every time she steps down from the cold chill that has mysteriously appeared and frozen up the windows.
John has geared up and gathered together a team as they approach an area where the lights had flickered out into darkness, their breaths coming out in sharp bursts of fog.
"This is Major Sheppard. Come in."
There was no answer.
"This is Major John Sheppard. Is anyone out there?"
Still no answer.
John waved at Lorne behind him who began edging into the darkness, P90 raised, the flashlight barely indenting into the thick blackness. Elizabeth stepped slowly in behind John – his back a reassuring presence as they walked in deeper, the hope that they would find the group alive slimming by the second.
"What do you think sir?" Lorne asked as they stepped blindly through, any light gone and darkness surrounding them so much they couldn't see even each other. It seemed to stifle out sound between them as well as they all gripped each other in a hope of not getting lost. Elizabeth was holding onto John's vest firmly, she knew if they had been able to see, he would have sent her back to keep out of danger, but to send her back alone with the chance of getting lost or attacked was downright foolish.
"A few more meters," John said as whisper, but in reality was shouting, "Then we go back and reevaluate from there. Otherwise we may never get out of this." Elizabeth knew it would be hurting him to be considering leaving people behind, but there really was no choice. If they didn't turn back soon, or if this didn't end, the group could end up in an uncharted part of the city and get easily lost. She shuddered at the thought of wondering around the corridors of Atlantis for eternity – corridors she wondered through every day where the only change was the thick darkness.
"What's that?" John voice pulled her out of her thoughts as she looked around him. Immediately she saw what caught his attention, a light, white and more pure then any artificial one she had ever seen was shining through the darkness like a beacon, pulsing and calling them forward out of the darkness. John stumbled in its direction, pulling along the line of people attached, herself included as they all gathered around it. It was small, no bigger then a pin in reality, but it's light was so piercing, it could have easily have been mistaken for a torch. Elizabeth reached for it, drawn on by a sweet music in her mind that made any other music she had ever heard pale in comparison, before a hand gripped her advancing wrist. She looked up in pure annoyance at John, who was watching her with glittering black eyes that seemed more mysterious then ever before.
"Don't." He whispered, a real whisper this time, but his voice carrying a dreadfulness and misery that made hearing it painful and she pulled back her hand like she had been burned. But others did not have the luxury of John telling them not to touch anything. Lorne and his team had all of their wrists extended in a pleasure of curiosity, the sound of the wonderful music eradicating their will as their fingers gently touched the light, which felt warm and deeply comforting before the light exploded – and for a second everyone watched as the darkness was pulled into it, quickly followed by Lorne and his team. Elizabeth tried to grab at the vanishing team members as John's hand held her shoulder, but trying to hold onto them was like trying to hold onto water and they trickled out of her hands and swept toward the light, vanishing in a mixture of colours, mostly a light brown, pale peach and a dark black.
Elizabeth looked at John, but his eyes were no longer fixed on her but on the light.
"Aveet nurosem liete." He said in a deep voice that shocked her to the core. "Anishlee merashnaa."
The light quickly swallowed up the last of the darkness and at John's words it flickered off, and out of sight as if it had never existed. Elizabeth pulled away from her second in command, backing away slightly, her eyes narrowed as he focused back on her, his eyes once more darkened.
"Atlantius." He said slowly. He raised his hand and ran it against her cheek, which made her shiver because Elizabeth realised this wasn't John Sheppard she was talking to, before he placed his hand against the wall of Atlantis and something white pulsed through his veins, through his hand and out into the wall before John's eyes rolled back into his head and he fell back, unconscious.
The lights above her brightened for a single second before fading back to their usual brightness as Elizabeth stood shocked, her mind not even registering the radio screaming in her ear.
"Will he be alright?" Elizabeth asked several hours later, watching John from outside the infirmary isolation lab, Caron Beckett at her side, pulling off his gloves.
"Aye. His vitals are stable, as far as I can tell he has nothing wrong with him."
"Yeah. All except he began speaking an alien language and sucked away several members of our team."
"How many did we lose?" Carson asked, throwing the gloves into a sterile can beside him on a wheelie cart and watching through the window as well at John talking to some nurses, sitting on a bed.
"Six. Lorne, Teyla, Roberts, Ronon, Cadman and Kilman."
"And we still have no idea where they were taken?"
"No, I had Rodney go through the area to search for residue radiation or anything suspicious, but whatever sucked them away seems to have vanished without a trace. I still have a scientific team there doing research in the surrounding area and I have the technicians going through the Atlantis records for anything resembling a power surge."
"Must be hard for Major Sheppard…" Carson said slowly, weighing each word, "Having known something happened but not remembering what."
Elizabeth looked up at him. It was written into his very pose that he thought John should be told what happened, but Elizabeth, looking back at him through the window, couldn't bring herself to let him know he was at fault for a half of his team vanishing off the side of the planet, as well as the others.
"I know." She said slowly, just as cautious, "but we don't know what happened to him, and until we do, I don't want to risk giving him any information."
"Aye…" Carson said, shuffling through his pockets, obviously deciding to end the conversation as soon as possible as not to reveal he wasn't happy with her decision.
"I'll let you get back to work." Elizabeth said, giving him an out. Carson smiled slightly, his eyes grateful.
"Sure thing. I'll tell you if anything changes."
"Thanks Carson."
With that conversation over, Elizabeth walked back to the control room, her head throbbing with a deep pain. She had a full physical when John was taken in and everything, even the blood work all came back with slightly elevated stress levels ("After that ordeal, who wouldn't be stressed?" Carson had commented.), but other then that she was perfectly healthy. She desperately tried to remember the music that had played in her head prior to the others vanishing, but trying to remember it was impossible, and although it's tune eluded her, the memory of it's beauty was something she would always compare to music she heard in the future.
"Doctor Weir!" Rodney's voice broke to her like parents admonishment to a misbehaving child as she snapped from her thoughts and mentally shook herself; she had far too much to do to be wasting it in thought.
"Yes Rodney?" She asked, approaching him. He was dressed in a HAZMAT suit, which she had ordered all of the scientific crews working at the sight to be wearing, without its helmet, which was hanging from his side.
"We found this power residue on the walls of the lab. I thought you would want to see it before I hand it over to the labs for analysis."
He held out a small plastic container, which Elizabeth took, looking at the black substance at the bottom. It strikingly resembled the black cloud which they had walked through; only it was in power form and obviously less effective. But just the sight of it made her skin crawl as she remembered the feel of her team slipping through her fingers and she shuddered, handing it back to Rodney with a grimace.
"Make sure the highest precautions are taken when you're testing it." She ordered, ignoring his slightly worried frown and walking away from him and to her office.
She had barely sat down behind her desk when John walked through the glass doors, his eyes looking slightly lost, Carson at his side.
"Well, looks like the lad is perfectly fine." Carson said at Elizabeth's enquiring look. "Everything is perfectly normal. Of course I've ordered he remain in his quarters for a day at least, other then that I've taken him off active duty for the time being. Oh, and I've ordered that a guard escort him around for this week, just to make sure he has no relapses."
Elizabeth looked from Carson to John, taking in his lost look, like a child missing it's parent in a supermarket.
"You okay lad?" Carson said placing his hand on John's arm, noticing Elizabeth's concerned stare. John seemed roused by the touch, his eyes stopped wondering the office and solidly focused on Elizabeth, a small nod the answer the Carson's question.
"Do you want me to walk you to your quarters?" Carson asked, frowning. John shook his head slightly, continuing to stare at Elizabeth. Elizabeth frowned.
"It's okay Carson, I'll walk him there."
The doctor nodded, glancing at both Patient and leader before turning heel and walking out, stopping in the control to obviously ask for an update on the search for the missing team.
"Are you sure your okay?" She asked lightly, walking around her desk and touching John lightly on the arm as Carson had done.
John continued to stare into her eyes, cocking his head slightly to the side.
"I remember you." He said in barely a whisper. Elizabeth frowned.
"Of course you do. You're my second in command."
John shook his head.
"No, I mean, I remember you. You were reaching for- for something. I stopped you. Earlier, in the darkness."
Elizabeth's frown deepened.
"I thought you didn't remember that?"
"I didn't. I don't. I mean, it just came back to me then. I remember seeing your face. You looked so innocent, like a child. I wanted to protect you."
"Do you know where the others were taken?" Elizabeth asked, rubbing his bicep with her hand. He shook his head, his face paling.
"N-No. What others?"
Elizabeth paled; remembering that she had deliberately forbade anyone telling John about the missing people. She sighed; it would be no use denying it now.
"There were some others with us walking through the darkness. Major Lorne, Teyla, Lieutenant Roberts, Ronon, Cadman and Major Kilman were sucked away into the light."
"We- we were following the sounds of people…they were lost." Said John, scrunching up his face. Elizabeth nodded.
"Yes. We did a personnel count after I got back. Everyone besides the missing people who were sucked away was accounted for. Whoever created that light must have been using it to lure us there."
"No." Said John shortly, surprising her. "No, no one created the light. I remember that much. It…It does something. There's a purpose there."
"Do you know if the others were harmed?" Asked Elizabeth, watching out of the corner of her eye as Carson in the control room pointed John's direction to the soldier assigned to escorting him.
John shook his head, gripping the sides of his forehead with his hands.
"N-No, No, No. It hurts to remember."
Elizabeth, worried, pulled his hands away.
"Don't worry about it then, alright?" she said reassuringly, "Let's get you back to your quarters, you look like you need some sleep."
He nodded weakly as Elizabeth led him past the control room as the soldier fell in at a respectable distance behind them.
"Ma'am?" He finally asked as Elizabeth led John into his quarters.
"I'll be fine." She dismissed him as the soldier settled in a stand to the side of John's door. The door slid shut as the room fell into darkness, Elizabeth's hand reaching for the light scanner, her own lack of the ancient gene and the fact she never bothered to get the injection meaning she couldn't just think the lights on like many others on base. John almost fell onto the bed fully clothed as Elizabeth untied his boots and pulled the covers over his limp form, stopping for a few seconds to run her hand through his hair before turning and walking from the room. She was just about the open the door when John's sleep-induced voice mumbled; "Atlantius."
Elizabeth blanched, looking back, but John was fast asleep and shivering, Elizabeth walked quickly from the room, the minute she was out of sight, her hurried footsteps transformed into speedy running as she jogged into her office and sat behind her desk, the only place she felt safe, determined on spending the night working on piled up reports then face going to her dark, lonely and creepy bedroom.
""Aveet nurosem liete." The dreadful voice announced, "Anishlee merashnaa." Elizabeth trembled, watching through the blackness as a figure stood just in the amount of darkness that his outline was visible but his features were darkened. "Atlantius…" He whispered, trailing off. "Atlantius…"
Elizabeth stumbled back, gasping as the dark figure advanced on her, visible, the glittering black eyes.
"No!" She said loudly, "No!" Before it turned into a scream as his hand advanced toward her throat.
Elizabeth's eyes opened with a start, sitting up as her knees slammed into the top of the inside of her desk and she gasped, breathing heavily, tears running down her cheeks. She had fallen asleep in her office, her keyboard a pillow as she hastily wiped at her face looking up and jumping backwards, terrified at seeing John Sheppard standing in her doorway.
Controlling her emotions with sheer will, she ignored the concerned looks being given to her by the personnel in the control room and tampered down on everything in an effort to regain her equilibrium.
John walked over to the small table in the corner of the room and poured Elizabeth a glass of water from the jug there before handing it to her, placing a hand against her forehead and then against her neck, before rubbing her shoulder slightly and going to sit down.
"Are you alright?" he asked as Elizabeth sipped at the water. He was watching her with a studying look in his eye lined with concern and Elizabeth noticed the drastic change since that worried look he had held before she tucked him into his quarters.
"You're looking well." She said quietly, looking at him and trying not to see the glittering black eyes from her dream.
"And you look like hell." He chuckled. Elizabeth forced a small smile at his joke.
"Thanks." She said quietly, "How long was I out?" John looked at his watch.
"Well, I've been asleep about six hours, so for you about seven."
Elizabeth groaned. There was no way to get these reports finished now.
"At least you had a nights sleep." He said as way of consolation, catching her long gaze at the computer screen which where the report ended now had hundreds of pages of various letters caused by her head resting on the keyboard.
"If you can call it that." She said quietly, thinking of the dream.
"Atlantius." John said suddenly, as Elizabeth jumped in shock, sloshing half of the water over her desk.
"Oh god, I'm sorry." He said quickly, getting to his feet and grabbing a towel. Elizabeth ignored the mess and stared at him.
"Where did you get that?" She asked harshly, pushing him away as he tried to wipe up the mess.
He stared at her, worried.
"I remembered it. I was thinking of Atlantis and the light, and then suddenly I thought of Atlantius. I don't know what it means though."
"Oh." Said Elizabeth quietly, staring at the water dripping onto her hand with intense concentration.
"Why?" Said John, his tone leaving no broker for arguments.
"You said it." Elizabeth whispered, "When we were in the darkness. Then you touched the wall and something happened – light went into the wall and you collapsed."
"Oh." Said John thoughtfully. Elizabeth looked at him.
"Oh? That's it? No profound words of wisdom?"
John looked at her.
"Nope. No- wait a minute, I feel something."
Elizabeth stood up and almost fell around the desk, gripping his hand.
"What is it? What?"
John looked at her.
"I think it's lunch related."
Elizabeth hit him on the arm, sighing.
"Great. I have work to do."
John looked at her, studying her again no doubt, before gripping her hand.
"What?" Elizabeth asked, exasperated, looking at him. His eyes had gone strangely unfocused and Elizabeth began to feel her heart beat faster.
"Adventus." Was all he said, turning away from her, still gripping her hand, and pointed toward the Stargate. "Adventus."
Elizabeth looked at him, before looking at the Stargate. She didn't understand.
"I don't understand." She said quickly. John just continued to stare at her, something white shining behind his eyes.
"Orellius?" He asked, staring at Elizabeth's confused look. He quickly touched her heart, before pointing at his eyes, and then placed her hand over his own heart.
"I don't-" she began, but he interrupted her.
"Orellius." He said again, repeating the actions. She didn't know quite what she was supposed to do, but the actions of pointing at their eyes then at their hearts obviously meant looking into them somehow. She suddenly remembered how the ancients shared their innermost feelings with humans as found by SG-1 and slapped her forehead.
"Your ancient." She said quickly. She held up her hand to mean one second, before pulling a book from her bookcase and flicking through the passages.
"Orellius…" She said to herself, flipping through the pages. "Sharing. Of course I should have known!"
Suddenly faced with a new question, Elizabeth bit her lip, before giving a tiny nod.
It was only a second before her vision was overtaken with a glowing white and suddenly she felt like she was swimming. It was indescribable, the feeling of this sharing and how much I would like to write it down here, only Elizabeth could think of the feelings it provoked and have some sense of what she was talking about. And as soon as it began, it was over and Elizabeth was staring into John Sheppard's eyes, or whoever was empowering John Sheppard at the moment, quite unaware as people peered through the windows of her office completely overtaken by interest over the strange going's on with Elizabeth Weir and her second in command.
"Wow." Was all she said, staring into his glittering black eyes. "Wow. Your – your one of the ancestors."
"Atlantius." He whispered again, something deep running through his eyes.
She stared at him.
"You are Atlantis. This is unbelievable."
He cocked his head to the side; profoundly more mysteriously then when John Sheppard did it.
"Viridus." He whispered, running a hand along her cheek. She flipped through her book, but he placed his hand on it to stop her.
She nodded slowly, accepting from it the clearness that it was something she would never understand, before she realised something.
"What you said earlier, with the light!" She flipped through the book. "Avete something…Avat? Avate?"
John looked at her deeply, and when he did, it was almost like she felt he could see into her soul.
"Aveet nurosem liete." He said slowly for her, repeating each word several times as she flicked through the book.
"By…By…" She whispered, flipping through endless Ancient words, "By the lords. Is it by the lords?" John nodded only slightly, before reciting the next words "Anishlee merashnaa."
"By the lords," Elizabeth began having translated it all after a short time, "The Iiabiale Garden awaits?"
Sheppard nodded.
"Iiabiale. I don't know what that means."
John touched her cheek softly, softness in his eyes as he leaned forward, his breath against her cheek.
"Iiabiale." And pulled away, pointing past the gathered crowd who seemed to have no intention of entering, who seemed to be frozen, possibly by John's power, to the gate, which suddenly engaged. And as if having cut the strings of a puppet, John slumped to the ground and the crowd suddenly shook themselves, rushing to their responsibilities as the event horizon splashed out and the missing members of Atlantis stepped through, the shield inactive. As soon as they stepped through, everyone watching, everything came back online as Elizabeth knew it would, as she checked John's pulse, which remained strong and steady, before rushing down the stairs to greet them.
"What happened?" She asked, eyeing the bundled clothes in Cadman's arms as Rodney arrived at Elizabeth's elbow.
"It- it was amazing." Cadman stuttered, "We were sucked away and suddenly we were in this garden, it was amazing, and perfect and – and look what we found!"
She unwrapped the bundle of clothes to reveal a glowing, fully charged ZPM.
"It was a beautiful place." Teyla said nodding, even Ronon looking surprising content, which he never looked after having visited a dangerous planet.
"Go get checked out." Elizabeth said with a smile, "Then we'll debrief later on."
They all shuffled out as Elizabeth exchanged a glace with Rodney.
"I would have sworn the entire Gateroom filled with black fog just a few minutes ago." He said, looking confused as Elizabeth remembered seeing him as one of the almost motionless ones a few minutes before. "Scared me." He grumbled quickly. Elizabeth patted his arm.
"Don't worry about it. I have a good feeling about it. I'll tell you about it in the debrief later." She rushed back up the stairs to her office where she found John Sheppard sitting up, rubbing his head and looking very confused.
"Hey," she said, slowly approaching him and holding his shoulder. He looked at her.
"Hey. Do you know what happened – a minute ago I was-" But he didn't get to finish as Elizabeth threw her arms around him and hugged him tight.
When she finally pulled away, John awkwardly patting her back as she did, he looked at her and smiled.
"What was that for?" He asked, amused. She grinned and kissed him on the cheek.
"Never change." Was all she said, helping him to his unsteady feet. He stumbled to the side and she caught him quickly.
"Woah, let's get you to the infirmary."
"Yay." John said sarcastically. "I just want to know what the hell is going on."
"Later." Elizabeth said, the smile never leaving her face.
She would never look at Atlantis the same way again. And she didn't, every time since that moment, Elizabeth Weir has fought for the fact that Atlantis is more then just a tool for defeating their enemies. And to her, the lights have never shone brighter.
The end.