Elizabeth stumbled on a hidden tree root and felt John's supportive hand on her arm steady her once again. They were walking close together, only the light on his P-90 to guide them. The sky above the trees was bright with stars, or perhaps some orbiting heavenly body they had yet to see directly, but the ground beneath was uneven and hidden in shadow.

It had been at least half an hour since the last sounds of pursuit had died away. They had run until the crunch of enemy footsteps and calls seemed to be all around them, still unseen but frighteningly close. Sheppard had shoved them both down into a twisted pile of rotting wood, the remains of a once massive tree where trembling, Elizabeth fought to control her labored breath lest the noisy panting give them away. Waiting fearfully in the dark, the only thing she could see was the starlit sky above, the only comfort she could draw was from John's warm presence, pressed close as he peered through the branches of their hiding spot, silent and still as a statue.

Closing her eyes, she had tried to ignore the sounds of nearby scuffling and muttering soldiers by concentrating on the sweet scents of the forest: evergreen, rotting leaves, some flowering shrub they had pushed through minutes ago. A hint of masculine sweat and sunscreen mingled with the overpowering natural smells. John had finally whispered, "stay here" and then disappeared so silently, she might have thought he'd never been there if it weren't for the side of her body that now felt chilled.

Several minutes later, the sound of short bursts from a P-90 machine gun followed by several rounds of single-round weapons had driven her even deeper into her nest of tangled tree branches, her heart racing faster than when she had run across the plain. After a few more minutes of agonizing silence, she heard another exchange, this time sounding further away. Unable to stop herself from imagining John's bullet riddled body lying in the forest somewhere, she had nearly jumped out of her skin when he actually dropped down next to her, wiping sweat off his brow with the back of his arm and signaling her to follow him.

As he turned to leave she caught a glimpse of his face in a patch of starlight. "John, you're hurt!" The swipe had left a dark smear from his eyebrow to his temple, and looking more closely had revealed several more scratches on his cheek and neck.

"It's just a scratch. Lucky shot blew some bark in my face…"

Now, still steadily climbing upward, the fear was giving way to dull exhaustion. Even still, Elizabeth couldn't help but dwell on the text she had been translating before Sheppard shoved her out of the obelisk's scanning beam. "Peace be with you who come in peace." Her life had been anything but peaceful since she'd read those words. "Enemies of peace will be driven before the wave of their own violence…" Elizabeth pondered the words closely, not so tired as to miss the connection. If they weren't being "driven before a wave of violence" then she was at home asleep in her own bed.

But she wasn't an enemy of peace! She had spent most of her professional life negotiating for peace. In fact, her very first job had been as a congressional lobbyist trying to convince governments to reduce defense budgets and war spending. Looking back with the wisdom of age and experience in a world much more gray than the black and white idealism of her youth, she recognized that she had probably been a pretty damn annoying kid. The decisions she made on Atlantis seemed to test her ideals on an almost daily basis, and she allowed herself a moment of ironic amusement as she recalled the massive amount of "defense budget" she herself had just requested from Stargate Command on Earth. Yet she still believed she was a proponent of peace at her core, that her work on Atlantis would ultimately lead to peace for Earth and Pegasus.

They walked on, seeming to go slower and slower as the night deepened and the incline grew steeper. At least it felt steeper, it could just be that she found it harder and harder to put one foot in front of the other. At last Sheppard stopped, looking around him carefully, sweeping the small point of light from his weapon's flashlight across the ground and walls surrounding them. Elizabeth blinked. Walls? He had led her to a small outcrop of rock that jutted up from the forest floor. Where it met the relatively bare ground, thick with dead leaves and dried evergreen needles, it created a kind of shallow 3-sided cave in one place.

"Will you be alright here if I go scout out the road?" The words were polite, but there was no question in his tense manner. He intended to go, regardless of what she said. Suddenly wary, she nodded and was about to make a reassuringly meaningless statement of her own when he un-holstered his 9 mil and handed it out to her again. The gesture was pointed: Take it.

She closed her eyes and stifled a sigh. She had hoped he would let it go, that he had seen enough in her surprised panic before. Trying first for gentle self-deprecation, she said "Really, John. It's ok. I'd only drop it or lose it or…"

"It's 50 miles to the gate." Elizabeth was shocked by the suppressed anger in John's voice and immediately became wary again, wondering what his point would be. "It will take us at least 36 hours to get there if we stop at night. I need to know you can defend yourself some of that time without me."

Trying hard to understand his concern rather than feel scolded, she tried again with, "I appreciate everything you've done, everything you are doing. But I can't accept it, it's just not in me to. I've spent half my life trying to get people and governments to melt the damn things…" How did one explain to a soldier a lifetime of convictions that suddenly seemed so fragile here in the frightening real world. Or that the truth at the heart of the matter was that she was just simply afraid of the things.

"You sit on Atlantis, you sign the orders every day to send people into danger, into combat. But when it comes to your own protection, you won't defend yourself? You'll stand there and let me and men like me do the dirty work for you, is that it?"

Horrified and angry at how he'd twisted her words she snapped "Look, I know I will never make it to the gate without your help; I have to follow your lead. But just because I don't want to shoot everything in sight doesn't mean I'm defenseless. Nor some…damsel in distress for you to rescue, John Sheppard. I shouldn't have to prove my motives to you after all we've been through. Something is going on here that neither of us understands. And I won't endanger either of us by trying to be someone I'm not."

Still glaring, but seemingly out of words, John slammed the offending weapon down on a ledge of rock near the "entrance" to the shelter. Shouldering his P-90 and preparing to leave, he finally spoke again, quiet anger seething beneath the words. "You've heard the expression, there are no atheists in foxholes? …There are no damn pacifists either. Stay put. Get some sleep. I'll be back in 3 or 4 hours." And with that he was gone, a shadow against the shadows.

For a long while she paced back and forth, angrily continuing the argument in her mind. It was so sudden and unexpected. She and Sheppard usually got along well, their daily interaction rarely pushing the careful boundaries they had created around their roles and responsibilities on Atlantis. She suddenly flopped into the soft compost under the comforting shelter of the outcrop. The shelter he had led her to through unimaginable danger. With a frustrated sigh, she mulled over the message on the marker again, "Peace be with those who come in peace…" She was sure that rest would never find her she felt so wound up and agitated…

In 5 minutes she was fast asleep.
Sheppard prowled through the dark woods, only survival instinct preventing him from kicking at rocks and twigs. He had mostly been trying to bully Elizabeth; sometimes she just needed a push off her high horse to do the right thing. Instead, between the weight of his responsibility for her, a worry bordering on panic, and her damned stubborn pig-headedness, he had lost his temper. And that annoyed him as much as the argument itself. Settling for a good hard hike up the steepest incline he could find, the exertion finally bled away some of his frustration, and he was able to continue towards his destination with only a muttered curse worthy of the Air Force barracks now and then, an occasional "thick-headed mule" thrown in for added effect.

Every quarter hour or so, he would stop to listen carefully to the sounds around him, and realign his bearings. He knew basically where he wanted to go, but his only references were from the air. After about 45 minutes, he dropped to his knee when he heard the chatter of soft conversation and the distant crunch of several pairs of feet patrolling the darkness. He had already switched off his flashlight, finding the forest canopy thinner, therefore the ground brighter at the top of the hill and preferring the cover of darkness anyway. Assuring himself that the group was moving away from Elizabeth, he stealthily moved closer, stalking them like a lion stalks prey.

Moving if possible even more silently, he eventually was following near enough to make out individuals in the group and observe their uniforms and any weapons that happened to reveal themselves. There were four men walking loosely in a group, and he realized their speech wasn't so much conversation as a running commentary on their movements and observations. It was very odd, he decided, listening for a while.

Their uniforms were plain generic beige, and tailored in a style that reminded him of old-fashioned WWII designs. He could see no emblems, symbols or rank insignia. Again, it was odd. Every army he had ever encountered, on Earth anyway, no matter how illegitimate in the eyes of the international community had some symbolic design somewhere. Whatever their affiliations, whoever they were, they seemed to be heading back down the hill, following the course Sheppard intended to take tomorrow that would eventually lead to the main and only road.

Satisfied that he had learned all he could from the group…alive… he stopped to let them draw ahead. Still silent, he planted his footing and sighted carefully through the scope on his P-90. Planning his shots, he just as carefully practiced the motion; pop, pop, pop, pop…1,2,3,4. Noting that they would soon take a turn and drop out of sight down a creek bank, he took a final slow breath, held it…

And hesitated.

"Something is going on here that neither of us understands."

Still conversing softly, the soldiers continued on unaware of Sheppard's private struggle. A few more steps and they would be out of range. Still he waited.

When the last one walked out of sight, he slowly lowered his weapon. "Well, damn…" he whispered.

An hour later he was standing on a rocky point overlooking the road as it emerged from its unnatural canyon bed and twisted its way into the distance towards the Stargate. The twinkling lights of campfires dotted the road, evenly, if only widely spaced along its path. In some places, two or three sparks of what must have been torches were moving between them. The road was apparently well guarded.

Feeling a sudden, poignant sense of hopelessness he closed his eyes, counting on his natural buoyant optimism to fight the despair. When he opened them again, they lingered on the distant point where the Stargate sat, hidden by hills and mist. He could almost imagine a flicker of blue against the clear bright sky, but he blinked and it was gone. Not even checking his watch to confirm the time, he knew the window of opportunity was closed. No one had come…yet. With one last glance back at the road to burn its path and obstacles into his memory, he turned away and tiredly headed back to Elizabeth…

She woke suddenly but not startled. Some quiet movement of air or inadvertent rustle of fabric had roused her and she blinked, looking around for something familiar to anchor her. She finally settled on John's exhausted form dropping down on both knees to drink greedily from a canteen. "Hi…" she whispered sleepily, and he rolled his head in apology.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't." she managed to sit up, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees. Studying him closely, she was half watching for any signs of the anger she had seen boiling in him when he stalked away. Instead, he just seemed…weary, his whole body slumped with fatigue and a faint sense of defeat. She couldn't imagine how tired he must be. He had walked God knows how far just during the time she was sleeping, and she happened to know that he had put in a full duty day prior to even leaving Atlantis. His expression seemed haunted, and he stared into space not really seeing anything but the visions in his own mind. "Your turn." she decided firmly, patting the ground next to her and then trying to stand up against the protest of sore muscles. She managed with a stiff lurch.

He seemed to consider for a mere fraction of a second, then nodding, he walked along the rock wall. Choosing a slope he found acceptable he sat down against it, making a show of situating his P-90 just so. At last he closed his eyes and she watched his breathing even out, finally slowing with sleep.

Determined to stand guard, Elizabeth paced a bit to shake off drowsiness and stay awake. Stubbornly avoiding the ledge with the 9mil resting on it, she spotted a thick stick and hefted it happily, giving it an experimental swing or two. As she sat down again in the entrance to their shelter, shifting so as to keep an eye on both the forest and on John, she caught a low chuckle coming from the supposedly asleep man. "Damsel in distress, my Ass."
"Sir! We've got a lock!" the excited technician shouted across the control room, then realizing sheepishly that he didn't even know if Lorne was in the room at the moment he looked around for the Major. Everyone was watching the flickering blue puddle of light with happy expressions, it had remained stubbornly dark for so long.

Lorne was running across the "bridge" from Weir's office to the gateroom even as he was chanting orders into his headset. "Recon team leader, we have a go! Get to the jumper ASAP. Lorne out." He paused, both hands on the railing overlooking the Stargate as if to prove to himself that it really had made a connection. 7 hours had passed since they had initially lost contact with the planet and Sheppard's team. 7 long, horrid hours Lorne had been in charge, trying to understand what in the world Dr. so and so was complaining about, and what the chef needed that he didn't have and should've arrived with the Dedalus and on and on and on.

Zelenka and that astronomer…Pesch, it was, had been soaking sensor time all morning to the complaints of the rest of the Atlantis research team until vexed, Lorne had finally snapped and given everyone but the control room crew the day off. Which of course caused a lot of grousing in the control room.

But finally, they had a lock. And Lorne was not going to waste a minute in getting his team through to search for Dr. Weir and drag her back here kicking and screaming if necessary. Glancing to the communications console he inquired with a look, and received a sad shake in reply. No radio contact. Feeling a faint sense of déjà vu he next moved to the MALP station to watch the incoming video. It was daybreak on the planet, judging by the mostly still dark picture, the sky behind the trees at the distant forest line seemed bright compared to the shadowy meadow the gate sat in.

Looking upward involuntarily at the iris to the jumper bay, he impatiently waited for his team to descend. When jumper 2 finally lowered itself gracefully into the gate room, he signaled the go-ahead and with a sense of relief watched it dive into the wormhole. "Not bad," he thought, checking his watch and not above being proud of the speed with which his team had boarded and launched the mission.

Seconds later, a ripple of alarm went through the control room as those watching the MALP relay saw the jumper appear on the other side, then vanish without a trace. Lorne cocked his head closer in confusion, looked at the tech next to him, then back at the monitor which displayed a perfect jumper-free dawn on the planet.

It was then, while Lorne waited for someone to say something, that Zelenka and a short, older man came pelting onto the control platform. The Czech looked worried and breathless as he rushed up to the ruffled Major. "Don't send anyone through the gate!" were Zelenka's first words, spoken with a gasp.

"Too late," replied Lorne gruffly. "What's going on?"

Another shout overlapped Lorne's question, "Sir! We have long-range sensor contact in our solar system. A ship just appeared on the monitors!" Turning from one baffling situation to another, Lorne took a moment to shift gears, and finally snapped, "Can you identify it?"

The technician at communications frowned and touched his ear receiver, listening intently, "We have a signal coming in…It's jumper 2?" The confused expression on the junior officer's face was mirrored on every expression in the room.

"Patch them through," said Lorne, because that was the only thing he could think of to say. A moment later, the slightly static filled radio signal of his recon commander's voice broadcast through the control room speakers.

"Atlantis, this is Jumper 2, do you read? Is the gate still open, do you read?"

"This is Lorne, Jumper 2, how the hell did you get back here?"

The voice on the other end of the radio was confused, "Back here sir? We exited the gate on the ground, then the next second found ourselves in space…Where the hell are we sir?"

"Atlantis just picked you up on the edge of our solar system."

"Atlanis's solar system?" The lieutenant repeated the information, sounding even more confused than before. From the background in the jumper, Lorne could hear another voice say "Confirmed sir, our navigation computer just figured it out."

There was a long pause where no one seemed to be able to speak. Finally Lorne just said, "Set a course and return home Jumper 2. Atlantis out." Whirling on Zelenka, the very frustrated Major practically snarled at the nervous scientist, "What's going on here?"

Zelenka was so startled that he didn't reply for a long moment. Deciding he could only report on what he originally came to say, he finally said, "We've just completed an observational cycle of the area the missing team's planet is located in. More specifically we've been studying the orbit of the black hole that interferes with the gate network's connection to the planet."

"Get to the point gentlemen."

"The black hole's orbit is…varying…more than could possibly be predicted by our earlier observations. In fact, it is behaving most irregularly. Something that is clearly worth an ongoing investigation…"

"Zelenka!" Lorne was nearing another meltdown. Radek must have recognized the signs because he concluded hastily, "Meaning that gate travel between here and there is very unstable. Rather than being predictable cycles, the windows of opportunity are opening randomly, while also growing shorter and further apart. When the black hole reaches the apex of it's orbit, they will close altogether."

Lorne struggled to understand and sort through the technobabble. "So… how long before the windows close altogether?"

"In two days, we will be cut off completely."

"And the jumper we just sent. How did they wind up back in our own neighborhood?"

Zelenka shot a worried glance at the astronomer he had dragged in with him, then looked warily back at Lorne, knowing he wouldn't like the answer. "I have no idea, I can't imagine the gate itself performing that particular…feat, even in the proximity of such an unusual black hole. But…if someone on that planet doesn't want us there, and has the ability to transport a ship so far so fast…" he let the thought trail off.

Lorne finished it for him, "Then we may have no way of finding out what happened to our people…or if they're even still there."