I had intended for this to be a one-shot... but watching the season opener got me started all over again. Some spoiling for Siege III, I'm afraid.

OoOoOoOoO

It had been days since Elizabeth was able to sit down at her computer, and it felt more like weeks. Once everything had settled down she had slept briefly, and when she woke, oddly enough, it was hunger that encouraged her to climb out of bed. With a yawn she pulled on the bottoms of her soft knit pj's, deciding to brave the halls and walk down to the mess for something healthy. Some fruit, perhaps.

Who am I kidding. Ice cream... chocolate...a glass of that wine Teyla brought... she chuckled quietly at herself, and found that instead of walking out the door she had automatically parked herself in front of the laptop. As she opened her private files, she thought back over the last several days with a sigh.

OoOoO

She stood, unmoving as a stone, watching the sensors indicate that Major John Sheppard was drawing closer and closer to the huge hive ship. She watched as the dot onscreen vanished, taking a larger dot with it.
So simple. Dots. So... meaningless.
"He did it."
The head of Atlantis Doctor Weir felt a brief victory in the destruction of this seemingly unbeatable foe, but the woman Elizabeth felt a tremble run through her. He did it. He beat them, he won.
He was gone.

OoOoO

For a moment, sitting at her desk, she felt the way she had at that moment. Felt the shock run through her, knowing what it truly meant to be stunned. Felt the – she hesitated to admit it - despair.

But everything had happened so quickly, and even though it felt like months, it had only been a matter of hours before Major John Sheppard had appeared with a compliment of guards, walking toward her. She remembered how they looked into each other's eyes. How somehow, neither one believed the other was alive and safe until they saw each other in the flesh.

She had walked toward him, her eyes not leaving his. Without thinking beyond her relief, she put her arms around him, reveling in the tactile reassurance of his presence, radiating thankfulness for what he had been willing to do, and even more so for his return. She felt him stiffen momentarily in military surprise, then gently return her embrace. She remembered their quiet admissions of their fear.

Elizabeth sighed. She opened a new document.

thinking we had lost you

She stopped, frowned. Part of the deal she had with herself was that when she wrote in this poetry journal, she was absolutely honest. A quick deletion and retype, and she continued.

thinking I had lost you
a part of myself died there with you
scattered over this ancient ocean world
death once more reared his ugly head
unwelcome, frequent visitor that he is

She stopped again, wiped at her eyes quickly.

yet there you stand, survivor that you are
eyes dark with the weariness of battle
yet bright somehow with something more
unless, foolish and fond, I misinterpret that gaze

Elizabeth stared for a few minutes at the screen, shook her head. With practiced ease, she saved put the work in progress away. Saving her work, even if she never actually worked on it again, was another part of the deal. Stretching and brushing her fingers back through her hair, she decided to give the mess a try after all.

It wasn't until she was halfway there that she realized she was padding down the hall barefoot. She heard herself giggle and was trying to stop, when she heard a voice. "I'm afraid I can't recommend barefoot giggling in the corridors, Doctor Weir."

Her lips pursed in a suppressed grin as she turned to see the unkempt hair and smiling eyes of John Sheppard.

"Is that a military recommendation, Major?"

"Simple common sense." He let the smile reach his lips and glanced down at the floor for a moment, almost shy. "At least, that's what my mother always said."

"I see."

They looked at each other for a few moments, until something gave them both a case of embarrassed look-aways. Perhaps it was the fact that they were both standing in the corridor, alone, at night... in their pajamas.

"Listen, Elizabeth. I wanted to tell you..."

"Yes?"

He tilted his head to the side, scratched his head. "I didn't want you to think that I didn't – that I wasn't –'

John stopped with an exasperated sigh and Elizabeth frowned. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just wanted to – oh, what the hell." He stepped forward and gave her a huge hug, lifting her right off the ground and squeezing her so tightly that she squeaked a laugh.

"John!"

He set her down more gently, but kept his arms around her. "That's what I wanted to do when I saw you. It's just... you know. Protocol. The uniform."

She gave an amused grin. "The guys."

"Right."

Slowly the formality settled back over them, and he squeezed her shoulders before letting her go.

They both began to speak at once.

"I was just going –"

"No, go ahead-"

They stopped, stared at each other, and John coughed a laugh. "You wanna get something to eat?"

"That's what I was hoping for."

They walked shoulder to shoulder down to the mess hall. As they reached the steps into the large, sparsely populated room, Elizabeth looked down at the floor.

"John." He looked at her, his eyebrows questioning her stern tone. "You're barefoot too."

"Yeah, but I'm a professional. You have to have years of training to walk barefoot in an alien galaxy."

"I see."

Their smirking expressions grew more formal as the few men on break from the night crew looked up and acknowledged the presence of their leaders. John stopped automatically to check in with the night watch, and Elizabeth discussed possibilities with the research staff that was taking a break, too excited to sleep yet.

But eventually they found a bottle of Teyla's wine, taking it out on a balcony along with some cheese and fruit. They sat quietly for a long time under the stars, until John pointed up at a particularly bright grouping. "I think that looks like a turtle."

"A turtle?" She squinted up at it, sipped her wine.

"Yeah. See?" He gestured with a slice of what he would always think of as Althosian apple, even though it looked purple and tasted more like peach. "It's even got the little red mark on the side of it's head."

Elizabeth stared, then smiled easily. "Okay. I give. It's a nebula, though."

"Nebula?"

"The red mark."

"Then it should be the Turtle's Head nebula, and the constellation should be called The Turtle." He paused a moment and sipped. "And I think that as military head of Atlantis, I should get final word in naming... everything." He looked at her with such smug assurance, she had to laugh. "What? It's a matter of... security."

"Of course."

For a while they looked up at the stars, finding pictures like children looking at clouds on a summer day. Soon they were lying on their backs, side by side, pointing and arguing about what they saw, enjoying the ease of the moment.

And eventually, Elizabeth wrote more poetry.