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Hey, this is the last chapter, so thanks to everyone who's read it and reviewed. Hope it doesn't disappoint, you guys both rock and roll...Be warned, teensy bit of swearing...

Chapter 5

Point zero

Who the hell was that, and why were they sitting in the single most dangerous weapon on the planet looking like they'd just been unexpectedly strapped in for a ride on Space Mountain? Elizabeth fought the urge to swear out loud, already reaching for her walkie-talkie to call security and get this guy thrown in the brig when he made the chair light up.

She stopped, amazed. The guy clearly didn't know what he was doing, because he looked like he seriously needed to enhance his calm, but the chair didn't seem to mind. Words were being had; General O'Neill knew who he was, knew he shouldn't be here. She actually felt a twinge of pity for the guy, he looked so scared… The connection wasn't difficult to make: obviously this pilot was just like General O'Neill, a natural with Ancient technology… "Can you show me our position in the solar system?" Rodney asked, and she found herself as curious about what he would show them as about whether he would make the chair perform the task. Instantly, the ceiling above her lit up, and mentally she gaped.

He was a natural.

Tallish, well-built (though what did she expect from a soldier?) Messy hair that made him look slightly like the Hallmark Channel's idea of an eccentric scientist. Trouble in a pair of combats. But the look on his face when he made the display appear mirrored her own the first time she'd ever seen the Stargate. And despite herself, despite everything, Elizabeth felt a connection.

She wanted him for Atlantis, because he clearly thought that this was as amazing as she did. And trouble loved company.

Two Years Later

"But why didn't you just tell us what happened?" He was lying in the infirmary once again, and once again Elizabeth was trying desperately to understand why he had done what he had just done: why he had yet again pulled another stunt of epically idiotic proportions. "Do you think I like having to see you like this? Do you think you're really making things easier for me by letting me wonder every time you speak to me what version of the truth I'm getting?" It had taken her hours to get him out of the Infirmary; she'd eventually had to drug him to get the gun off him. She could kill him! She could shoot him, or beat him, or tie him up in a sack and throw him from the walls of Atlantis into the deep blue sea!

But she couldn't reach him.

Elizabeth stood up to go, knowing she'd get no more from him, knowing if she stayed she'd only say something she'd regret. Her words were failing her.

"I can't tell you." He sounded like she felt.

"Why the hell not?" She was staring him down, her eyes wide and commanding. She hoped.

"If I tell you you'll never look at me like that again."

She sat down, seeing her opening. "And how is that a bad thing?"

He took her hand, squeezed it. She was surprised by how much strength he had in his fingers. "Lizbeth, I… I told you about what happened. About the other life they showed me in the Hive ship. The life Erised showed me…"

"Erised?"

"The Queen, her name was Erised. Not sure what it means in Wraith, but far as I'm concerned it means evil hell bitch." He stopped, coughed harshly. She went to get him the water pitcher, but he knocked her hand away. "I'm telling you a story!" he snapped. She remembered sitting beneath the desk in the Infirmary.

"Tell me your story," she whispered, trying her best to look small and inconsequential, to let him forget she was there, to let him get lost in the memory.

"It wasn't a story: it didn't have a beginning, a middle and an end. It was… every day. Life. It seemed real… Like flying, like Johnny Cash and blue skies and the snow in Chicago in winter. Good things, bad things. Fights and stuff… Knew Carson would end up married to Cadman, it just had a whole karmic chi thing about it, y'know? Knew when Teyla left with Ronan to go to New Sateda that she wouldn't ever really some back… Knew McKay'd follow her, tell her how he felt." He paused, lost in thought "You nearly lost your job when they found out about us, it was awful. I ended up resigning my commission, and the only reason I was allowed to stay was because General O'Neill said they'd need a good pilot against the Wraith." He was babbling, words tumbling over one another, but Elizabeth was now sitting bolt upright, all thought of looking inconspicuous forgotten. She must be mistaken, what he said…

"I stayed, I stayed with you, we had twins, can you imagine that? Sarah had your eyes and my mouth, the poor kid…Joshua, named after-"

"My father," she whispered, ashen. He nodded, getting more worked up-

"I remember them, Lizzy, I remember watching them grow up! I remember glaring at Pavel Zelenka the night he took Sarah to her first dance. I remember walking in on Josh and Sophia McKay the first time they snuck into the back seat of a puddle jumper. I remember being a goddamn paterfamilias Liz, and none of it really happened…"

"You thought of a family, of a family of…us?"

"She wanted information Liz, she wanted to know everything about the city and their new goddamn Feeding Ground… She'd pretend, take on other forms, first my mom, Colonel Sumner, and then when that didn't work…"

"Me."

He grabbed her wrist, so hard it hurt. "Not you! That's what she didn't get, why I never stayed under for long: she didn't, couldn't, fool me into thinking she was you." His laugh sounded cold, bitter. "My wishful thinking never deluded me that much… Me and you and a family are not a possibility."

Elizabeth looked down at her wrist, where she was sure tomorrow a bruise would form. She looked down at the bloodied fingers that held it. She was his weakness, just as he had always been hers. And now that she knew, she would not allow another moment of her time with him to be wasted. If she had to fight Caldwell single-handed, she would never allow anyone to hurt him ever again.

The walls around her heart, her mind, began to tumble as she smiled, delighted, at the man before her. "John," she whispered "John…"

Words failed her; only actions mattered now…

His eyes open, he saw it, saw it all… Saw Elizabeth's smile, saw her lean forward towards Erised, throw her arms around the Queen's neck. She was talking animatedly now, talking about what they were going to do with the city, how Rodney had come up with new codes to keep the gate from dialling earth. She was happy, joyful, lighter and more luminous than he had ever seen her in all his life, and certainly in the six months they had been here. Declared dead, he knew that Rodney and Carson and Teyla would have moved on, would have brought the codes she was describing online. Beside him the three surviving prisoners were breathing as softly as peacefully as he. But they were not peaceful. She had been his weakness, it was true, but he never thought he could be hers.

The Wraith had turned her joy against her.

The Wraith had made her into a puppet, who even now slumped as the Queen fed, just a taste, from her newest toy.

The halls of prisoners spread out in all directions, contented, peaceful, lethally relaxed as Liz fell forward like one asleep.

God John wished he could close his eyes.

A/N I know, Angst McAngst, but not all stories can have a happy ending. Thanksyou so much to everyone who has read and reviewed