Time Immemorial

Chapter 17: 'Til The End

July 17th
0020 Hours

Fighting through the tangled nest of electrical and data wiring reminded John of forging through the thick vines of some rainforest, only this rainforest was underwater and he had no machete. He held his breath. With a small flashlight clenched between his teeth, he fought the claustrophobia and clawed his way through the small channel.

It wasn't easy. In addition to the poor light, the cobweb of wires obstructed his forward view almost entirely. It was like swimming through spaghetti. He had to simply trust that the passage continued onward. Keenly aware of the importance of speed, the major pulled on. The frigid water tightened his muscles and pained his wounds. The salt stung his eyes. It was good motivation to get the hell out as quickly as possible - not that Elizabeth wasn't incentive enough.

The thought of her forced him to scrutinize his progress. Sheppard didn't know how long he had been in the flooded duct but he was sure it was longer than he could afford. It felt like hours. Out of the approximately thirty feet he needed to swim, he estimated he had travelled twelve.

Not good enough, he told himself. Pick up the pace, John!

He kicked it into high gear. Abandoning strokes, he instead prayed a bundle of wire was anchored somewhere ahead and pulled himself along it, kicking powerfully as he went. It wasn't the most elegant means of travel, but it prevented his hands from being ensnared by outstretched lines. It was certainly faster than-

His movement was abruptly halted. He felt something tug at his ankle. Looking down at his toes, the pilot spotted cables wrapped around his left boot, knotted in an entangled mess. He attempted to shake the bunch free, but his struggles only succeeded in tightening the knot.

Shit, was his only thought. Out of frustration he kicked and thrashed for all he was worth to no avail. He felt like screaming underwater but dared not waste the precious amount of air he carried in his lungs. John knew he could hold his breath for approximately one and a half minutes - but how long had it been already? Thirty seconds? One minute?

Whatever the case, he knew Elizabeth was running out of time.

Dr. Weir stood on the bottom rung of the industrial shelving that lined the right side of the lab. She clung tightly to its corner post. The water level had risen high enough such that she could no longer stand on the floor. Twelve inches was all that remained between the ceiling and the floodwater rising to meet it.

Alone, she found the laboratory to be eerily sinister. It was as if it knew it had beaten her. Several desk lamps, clearly not waterproof, flickered on and off, casting an ominous blue pall into the water below her. The nearly flooded room had turned into an aquarium. Furniture and supplies floated past, uprooted from their homes, now flotsam in the eddies of the incoming stream. The sound of the torrent, now mostly below the waterline, had quieted but reverberated oddly across the walls.

Elizabeth let out a small, terrified cackle as her wide eyes scanned the nightmarish scene around her. This is new, she thought bitterly. Her shoulder wound ached with the cold and the salt. She shook uncontrollably. Her teeth chattered loudly. She was drenched from head to toe, her lips blue and cheeks pale. As she clutched the shelving, facing away from the ocean, she didn't know if she could move if she wanted to, so frozen was she. But she knew it wasn't entirely the temperature that had petrified her solid.

Hot tears off fear streamed down her face as she watched the rising water in front of her. She was afraid, afraid for her people, afraid for John. She prayed he had made it out safely by now. Lastly, she was selfishly afraid of her own impending fate - and she hated herself for it.

Staring at the rippling surface below her, she suddenly caught sight of a curious object floating past. Elizabeth wiped her drenched locks away from her eyes. It was a small, heavy duty, waterproof Pelican case, one designed to protect a very specific piece of equipment.

A flicker of an idea formed in her mind as she watched the current carry the the case down the length of the shelving. She could use that.

Elizabeth suddenly paused and forced herself to reconsider. Her eyes caught sight of the lab's doorway, presently only a dozen yards from her. John would be expecting her to assist with opening it from her side at any moment now. She looked back to the floating black case, driven toward the opposite end of the room. With the water level still rising at an alarming rate, she realized she would not have time to reach the case and make it back to the exit. She could reach either one or the other, but not both.

Fortune favors the brave, she rallied to herself.

And so Dr. Elizabeth Weir, leader of the Atlantis expedition from Earth, made her choice. With a plan forming in her head, she felt centered, calmer. If these were to be her last moments, she would spend them fighting for her people, not cowering, waiting for the end.

With a deep breath, she shuffled along the shelf toward the case. She raised her chin to keep her face above water. The cold made her joints stiff and difficult to move. Eventually, though, she reached the black object. With one hand holding fast to the shelves, the reached gingerly out with the other and snagged the case. She flicked the two clasps open. Inside was what she had hoped: a tablet computer. It must have been stored on one of the lab's desks before its buoyancy had carried it away.

Elizabeth powered it on, hoping against hope that there was enough battery for the task she had in mind. As it went through its startup routine, she eyed the room's doorway once again. Its top sill was barely visible across the water's surface. So this is it, then.She was committed. It was now a race to complete her mission before the room filled completely.

John strained against the cables that had ensnared his ankle. It was no use. They were knotted, and too strong to simply break. Then he remembered that he was carrying one thing on his person that could actually be of some use: Kyros's knife.

He unsheathed the blade from his belt's holster, curled his body such that he could reach his feet, and began cutting cables at random. He prayed he wasn't severing the door actuator control or some equally important system. At the price of ten precious seconds of lost time, Sheppard was free once again. He hurried onward.

At last John came to a t-junction, the underwater channels mirroring the hallways above. He had successfully swum out from under the lab's periphery. To either side of him, the cabling snaked on toward their termini in some far reaching places of the City. More importantly, directly above his head was a square panel identical to the one through which he had entered the service duct. Zelenka had been right. He had found his exit, and not a moment too soon. He was nearly out of air.

Bracing his back against the channel's floor, the major placed both hands flat against the panel above him and pushed. It didn't budge. He tried again, grunting with exertion, but the result was the same. Once more pulling out the trusty Lacedami blade, he attempted to wedge it underneath a free edge but found none.

His lungs began to burn. He was on a mission, a man possessed, and wasn't about to give up. John tried a new tactic, awkwardly rearranging his body in the tight space. He now pushed on the access panel above him with his legs, hoping the stronger muscles would be enough.

Bile began to crawl up the back of his throat. Straining with all of his might, he thought he felt the panel shift against his feet, but he couldn't be sure. He scrunched his legs and pushed again. There - the hatch had definitely moved upward, away from its recessed groove barely a centimeter... before it fell back down flush with other tiles. John was too fatigued. His legs quivered from the exertion.

It suddenly dawned on him that he had just made the biggest mistake of his life, and Elizabeth's. He fought to quell the surge of panic. But he tried the hatch again, kicking sharply this time. His motions were frenzied, anything but coordinated. His vision began to grey out. Another kick. He didn't know how much longer he could fight his lungs, grappling for air. Another kick-

The tile suddenly and gloriously busted free of its recesses. Light poured in from the hallway above. John scrambled, contorting his body up through the square opening. He burst out of the water and gulped in a lungful of air. He practically fell out of the subchannel and collapsed onto the floor, gasping like the fish out of water he'd been. But he didn't delay.

Before the major could do anything else, he snapped the floor tile back into place. The water spewing up from the flooded channel would cover the hallway floor, too, without a plug. He then shoved himself to his feet, feeling like his drenched clothes added an extra ton to his form, and half-stumbled, half-ran the short distance to the outside of the laboratory door. It was still sealed shut.

And, John noticed as he looked around, Zelenka was nowhere to be found.

Elizabeth's tablet computer chirped to life cheerily, oblivious to the discouraging situation around it. She willed it to boot up faster, anger at its sluggishness her only emotion. She knew there was a mere several inches between the ceiling and water's surface now, so little room that she was forced to cock her head to breathe through her mouth, but she gamely ignored it. She held the tablet against the ceiling above her.

At last the computer's home screen faded in. Wasting no time, Elizabeth accessed the program she desired. Her shaking fingers had a hard time inputting the correct characters, causing her to backspace in frustration several times. Her inputs complete, she repeated the commands one final time and pressed the Enter key.

The program prompt blinked blankly before her, waiting for additional data to be entered. But for Elizabeth it meant her job was done. With a sense of finality, she powered off the tablet out of habit, wondering why she even bothered, and let the current carry the computer away.

She had competed her task in the nick of time. The water had risen so high that she had to tilt her head completely back now to take in what little air was left in the room. She pressed her nose against the ceiling. There was no where else to go. Instinctively her breathing quickened as the water rose over and entered her ears.

Elizabeth involuntarily let out a panic-stricken cry. There was no one within earshot. She wouldn't have cared if there was. She was gut-scared. Tremors wracked her body, otherwise paralyzed with the cold and fear.

Seconds to go.

Hot tears streamed down her face as she began to sob profusely. "John!" she screamed out loud, unsure of the reason why. She knew he wouldn't be able to hear her. "Oh my God - John, I'm so-!"

And then it was three rapid breaths before the frigid water rose to meet the ceiling, displacing the room's remaining air and completely engulfing Elizabeth Weir.

Suppressing a growing feeling of powerlessness, John tried to wrap his fingertips on the small raised edge of one of the door halves. He couldn't afford to wait for Zelenka to arrive. Where the Czech scientist was the major couldn't waste the time meditating on. He was going to get her out of there

He pulled with all his strength, but just as before the doors halves wouldn't part. He hoped Elizabeth had heeded his advice and was positioned behind the door, ready to pull in unison.

"Elizabeth?" he yelled, not sure if his voice would carry through the thick structure. Sheppard pressed his ear against the door. All he he could hear was the rush of water, muted by several inches of ancient metal. He didn't hear any knocking, tapping - anything that would indicate a human presence on the other side.

"Elizabeth!" he shouted again, pounding his fist on the door three times. He waited for a response. Nothing. "Dammit, where are you..." John uttered, his mind reeling. He tried pulling the door apart again. Straining with the exertion, he let out a bellow of frustration. The door just wouldn't budge.

Time was something of which John was acutely aware. He scrambled over to the wall-mounted control panel and ripped off the cover panel. Come on, Zelenka, show up, the pilot thought to himself as he eyed the three control crystals. He struggled to remember the only troubleshooting sequence he knew, overheard once during a conversation between McKay and Ford. Take out the middle crystal, move the top one down... and bridge the two with third. Easy.

He looked to the door expectantly. Nothing happened. He reordered the crystals, thinking he had misremembered the arcane sequence. Still, the door halves did not separate.

John tried kicking at the door seam, hoping that the same luck that had allowed him to escape the underwater channel would hold just a little longer. A failed first attempt indicted that it hadn't. And the steadfast structure didn't even quiver with a second kick.

It was at this point John began to feel the knot in his throat, his pulse pounding in his chest. He was in a frenzy. Stepping back a few strides, he ran at the door, turned slightly, and rammed it with his shoulder. It wasn't any sort of calculated move. There was no logic, no plan. He was simply out of options. He couldn't even think clearly anymore as he desperately threw himself bodily at the door a second time, harder. No luck. A third time, even harder. With each unsuccessful attempt he felt the situation slip away more and more. On the fourth assault he heard something pop! in his shoulder and felt a searing pain radiate outward. But he ignored it, pulled back for another run-

"Major!" he heard, called from nearby.

Turning, John caught sight of Zelenka, standing at his side. How long had the scientist been waiting there? He carried a small toolkit and a diagnostic computer in hand. Dr. Beckett had arrived with him, bearing the requested medical equipment. Both stared apprehensively at the drenched Sheppard, undoubtedly concerned about his frantic behavior. John didn't seem to notice.

"Zelenka, you've got to help her," he pleaded, words spewing forth in a panicked rush. He practically pushed the Czech toward the control crystals.

"Svatý..." Radek cursed under his breath. If he had known nothing else about the predicament, just the panic in the normally calm major's voice would have been enough to kick him into gear. He got to work, hurriedly unpacking his tools.

Carson, obviously not briefed by Zelenka on their hasty flight over, just stood wide-eyed and open-mouthed as full understanding of the scene dawned. "Dear Lord..." he breathed.

John heard the doctor and suppressed the urge to snap at him. He realized it would have been completely unwarranted, but he was on edge. He knew there was nothing Beckett could do while Elizabeth remained locked in the lab... and hopefully nothing for him to do once she was out.

All John could do was watch, useless, as Zelenka connected his small diagnostic device to the door's control panel. John tapped his foot restlessly. He couldn't recall ever being so wrought with worry.

"Come on, come on..." John prodded. He took up pacing behind the scientist, his hands clasped nervously behind his head.

Zelenka muttered something discouraging that John couldn't quite catch and quickly disconnected his computer from one of the crystals. He then rearranged them and keyed in a command to his device. As before, nothing happened. But Zelenka was prepared, expecting the result. He hooked up what looked like a small power supply to a port on the bottom of the control housing. Although this area of the City was currently powered, the door was not. It must have been damaged in the flood. He hoped to bypass the faulty circuit with the portable power unit he had brought. It didn't hold a lot of juice, but it would be enough to do the job.

Zelenka finally typed in a new command. But there was no resulting movement from the door. Zelenka frowned.

To John it wasn't as academic. "Come on, Zelenka, get her the hell out of there!"

"I am trying, Major, but this is slightly more difficult than anticipated," Radek responded calmly. His tone was neither acerbic nor defensive, but measured and collected. Though it was his friend, too, locked behind the door, he understood that the best thing he could offer both her and Sheppard at the moment was composure.

"Jesus..." Sheppard breathed, eyes glued to the door. This was taking far too long.

As if on cue, the door halves parted, but only an inch. It was all that John needed. He busted through the eight foot tall geyser that blasted through the narrow gap at an extraordinary pressure. Yelling for Zelenka to give him a hand, John grabbed one half's edge while Zelenka manned the opposite. They pulled apart in unison.

The geyser grew in intensity as the mouth of the doorway widened. The doors parted easily and quickly, too quickly in fact. Within seconds the flow rate surging from inside the lab intensified to the point where John and Radek could no longer keep their footing. The floodwater knocked them both over like bowling pins. Carson, although doused, managed to stay upright and scurried to the side.

John hastily got back up. They all stood in an inch of water, a thin sheet of the stuff cascading down the hallways in either direction like a small flash flood. His gaze scanned the lab's outrush. He was having trouble keeping up with the rate. Seconds passed. Boxes, equipment, and papers poured out. But there was no sign of Elizabeth-

There, in a blink-and-you'll-miss instant, a flash of red half-submerged in the torrent rode the current out of the lab. It washed along the hall's opposite wall like a piece of flotsam on a riverbed and fell amongst the other laboratory debris. A mat of brown hair swirled to a standstill. Black expedition pants laid unmoving on the floor.

In an instant John was there. He rolled her over and brushed her soaking hair out of her face. Her eyes were closed; he couldn't feel her chest rise and fall. Scooping Elizabeth's limp form up into his arms, he shouted to Zelenka. "Radek, get that door shut!"

The Czech did as ordered. He was still catching his breath from his earlier tumble but he scrambled to the control panel with urgency. Thankfully the troublesome door closed with ease. The flood was dammed.

"She's not breathing, Beckett..." warned John as he ran the doctor's way. His feet pattered heavily on the wet floor. Elizabeth lolled inanimately in his arms.

"Put her down, here," the Scot directed. He prepped his equipment. "Gently, gently," he cautioned, sensing the major's urgency.

John did as he was told. Tenderly he lowered her to the floor next to Carson's pack. Her arms flopped to the ground like a marionette. Her head hung to one side. Carson shooed John out of the way. Begrudgingly, he relented. He gave the doctor the space to do his work and stood above them, foiled by his uselessness. He noticed how ghost-white Elizabeth's skin was, how blue her icy lips were.

"Aye, she's not breathin'," Carson confirmed, more to himself than anyone else. "And I canna get a pulse, either." A quick check of her pupils revealed them to be dilated, fixed and unresponsive.

"Quickly, help me turn her over," commanded Carson.

Once again, Sheppard obeyed the doctor and the pair rolled Elizabeth over to her stomach. Carson placed two hands on the center of her back and pushed. Water was expelled from her lungs and out through her mouth. Another press and more water gushed out. Radek watched tensely from several feet away.

"Turn her back over - hurry now," Caron said. He maintained his professionalism, but even the calm and collected doctor couldn't help a trace of worry enter his voice. "The paddles need to contact bare skin - get her shirt off, now."

John spent a split second reaching for his knife, but he didn't trust a sharp blade against her body, not in his shaky hands. Screw it, he thought. He ripped into her shirt, tearing it away and exposing her icy white chest. Her wan skin looked so cold, so sickly pallid, so unnatural... so lifeless. He swallowed and buried the thought.

Meanwhile, Carson held a syringe cap in his teeth while examining a 10 cc shot of adrenaline against the hallway lights. He depressed the plunger slightly, expelling any air trapped in the barrel. Then, with great force, Carson drove the needle into Elizabeth's heart and injected its contents. He carelessly tossed the spent syringe over his shoulder and spit out the cap.

"Major," Beckett called to the pilot. He noticed how his wide eyes were locked onto Dr. Weir's prone form. He dared think that he was seeing the major afraid for the first time in his life. "Major Sheppard," the doctor tried more assertively, trying to get his friend to focus. It seemed to work. "I need you to fetch me the oxygen mask from my bag, an' grab the BVM - the mechanical respirator as well, understand?"

Nodding, more as an attempt to shake himself out of the nightmare than in comprehension, John retrieved the mask. A coiled, clear tygon tube ran from it to inside Carson's pack, presumably to a small oxygen bottle. He also snatched up what he assumed was the mechanical respirator - a semi-rigid bag about the size of a football attached to its own mask. Items in hand, he fell to his knees beside Elizabeth. Beckett prepped the portable defibrillator's two paddles.

"Charging," Carson called out. "Major, place the oxygen mask over her nose and mouth, then turn the small valve on its front fully open. Hurry, hurry." He snapped his fingers.

Carson placed the two paddles on opposite sides of her heart. A fast-tempo beep-beep-beep annunciated as the machine continued to charge.

"Dinna leave us now, Elizabeth..." the doctor whispered.

The beeps gave way to a steady tone.

"Clear!"

Elizabeth's body convulsed, the jolt of electricity throwing her back into a rigid arch. But the reaction was purely an electromuscular reflex. When it was over, her body retook its unmoving form on the floor. There was still no sign of life.

"Mask, off, now," Beckett directed, the tense situation reducing him to one-word commands. As the major pulled off the oxygen, the doctor replaced it with the mechanical respirator. He squeezed the bag multiple times, counting aloud with each compression. Air was forced from the bag into Elizabeth's lungs.

"Come on, Beckett, bring her back," John willed desperately. His eyes were still wide, expectant, hopeful and terrified all at once.

But Beckett just shook his head in vexation as the tenth squeeze of the bag yielded no different results than the previous nine. He removed the apparatus.

"Charging," Carson announced for the second time as he pushed a button on the defibrillator. "Oxygen," he ordered the major. The few seconds it took the machine to charge was always an eternity with any patient, doubly so as he tried to save his friend's life.

Dinna give up, Elizabeth, he silently beseeched. But he was a doctor. That meant that out of the three men present, he was perhaps the only one to understand the odds she was up against. Assuming they had been lucky enough to get to her within five minutes of cardiac arrest, she only boasted a 30% chance of survival... and those odds dropped off exponentially with each unsuccessful discharge of the paddles.

Carson saw John grab her delicate, frigid hand in his own and give it a small squeeze. "Come on, come on, come on..." he heard the major chant under his breath.

An electronic tone jolted the doctor out of his trance.

"Clear!"

As before, Elizabeth's torso levitated as if possessed and crashed back to the floor, unresponsive.

"Damn it," Carson muttered. He started a second round of artificial respiration. Ten pumps of the BVM later and there was no change.

"Jesus Christ, this isn't happening," mumbled John to himself. "Hit her again, Beckett."

Carson wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. He hesitated a second, questioning the futility of the trying a third time.

"Hit her again," the major repeated, his words deadly. It had not been a request.

Carson nodded and swallowed. "Charging." He put the oxygen mask over her face once again.

"Come on, Elizabeth, you can do this," John urged, hoping she could somehow hear his rallying cry. "I'm right here with you. Don't you quit on me."

"Clear!"

Elizabeth's back arched for a third time, and for a third time it crashed back down to the wet tiles, inert.

"Hit her again," John ordered once more. He was in his own manic reality now, driven to bring her back, somehow.

Carson sat in silence with the paddles laying on the floor beside him. He just hung his head.

"Beckett!" John shouted. "Hit her again, goddammit! What the hell are you waiting for?"

The doctor looked at the frenetic major, then to Zelenka for verification. The Czech just held a hand over his mouth in disbelief. "Major, I'm sorry... but she's gone."

The steady, electronic tone of the idle defib was the only sound in the empty, dank hallway. Flatline. All three of them somehow knew that it was over, that Elizabeth was well and truly gone. But John couldn't accept it. He looked to his colleagues imploringly, silently begging Carson to keep trying, and Radek to share in and corroborate his own hope.

"It's over." He heard Carson gently say the words he had been dreading. "There's nothin' more I can do."

But John wasn't listening. He stared down rigidly at Elizabeth's cold, ashen face. This wasn't supposed to happen, not to her. Not on his watch. It was he who always put himself in foolishly risky situations, dammit, not her. And she had always been there for him, hauling his ass out of the fire time and time the very least he could return the favor.

John set his jaw, determined. He had made her a promise and he intended to keep it.

He felt Zelenka place a supportive hand on his shoulder. But the action caused him to snap. John tore the hand away. He grabbed the respirator irritably away from Carson, placed it over Elizabeth's face, and feverishly pumped it ten times.

Carson saw what he was doing. "Major Sheppard," Dr. Beckett tried, "I'm sorry, but we're too late."

"No!" the major rallied on him. A look in his eye said he was not to be trifled with. "Don't tell me we're too late - we are not too late!"

He pushed a button that he hoped set the defibrillator to charge. He looked possessed, frantic.

"Major-"

The now familiar tone of the charged defib cut Beckett off. John didn't bother to yell "clear" as he discharged the paddles on Elizabeth's chest.

The dismal result was all too familiar as well.

"Goddammit!" John yelled. He furiously tossed the paddles aside and crawled atop her motionless body. Remembering back to the CPR course administered during his basic training, he tilted her head back and brought his mouth to hers. After two long breaths of mouth-to-mouth respiration, he placed his hands over her heart and pressed down forcefully, repeating rapidly.

"Come on, Elizabeth," he urged between chest compressions. "I didn't come this far to lose you now."

He neared the thirty counts. Her body swayed limply with each compression. Her eyes remained closed.

As John fought to bring her back, he became oblivious to anyone else in the room. He didn't notice Zelenka turn away and slump against the wall, unable to watch any longer, unable to accept what was happening.

Carson remained seated on the floor beside his colleagues. He wore a dispirited look upon his face. The sight before him damn near broke his own heart, but he didn't know if anything he told the major would stop the man from trying to bring her back. He didn't even know if Sheppard could hear him anymore.

John breathed air into Elizabeth's lungs two more times. "I won't let you go," he said matter-of-factly, like he was debating her on the issue.

Thirty more chest compressions and still no change. His face contorted from an expression of earnest to one of burning ire. He grabbed her shoulders and shook, as if to wake her from a nightmare. Her head jounced back and forth. He brought his face inches from hers, like he was going to berate her. "You listen to me, and you listen good," he growled. He breathed for her once. "You've never backed down from a fight, not once. And you never gave up on me. I'm sure as hell not giving up on you."

He completed a second respiration and once again tried to coax her heart back to life.

"Now you need to fight - you hear me? Fight, Elizabeth!"

He pressed down on her naked chest so hard he was sure it would have pained her had she been conscious.

"Fight, Elizabeth! Fight, damn it!"

Another round of mouth-to-mouth.

"Fight! Fight!" He was screaming at her at the top of his lungs now, harder than he had ever screamed before, losing his own voice in the process. His eyes were bloodshot and moist from the physical and emotional exertion. Yet still he continued the CPR.

Beckett watched him toil, saw him begin another round of chest compressions. It was heart-rending. The doctor saw him finish another thirty presses... and keep going. Carson continued to watch him. It was a full minute later that Beckett realized Sheppard hadn't said anything in some time. He had stopped shouting. Well past thirty or even one-hundred compressions now, Carson was fairly certain the major hadn't simply lost track.

Warily, Carson repositioned himself and knelt in front of John. He looked the major in the eye, concerned. What he saw was something he had never seen before on his friend's face: a look of defeat.

It became clear to Beckett. Even John knew by now that it was over, that she was dead. But John couldn't handle it - didn't know how to. So he did the only thing he did know how to do: to keep trying.

Gently, Beckett placed a hand on one of John's outstretched arms. Unlike before, the action centered him. John stopped. His shoulders slumped immediately as a sense of finality hit him. His hands remained frozen on her heart, still unwilling to part.

Carson gently tugged John's wrists, beckoning him to take his leave of the nightmare. "It's okay," the Scot assured him in earnest. "It's okay."

John peeled his hands off her cold skin. They hovered above her, shaking. He stared at them as if they were covered in blood.

"Come on now, lad," Beckett insisted. "You did all you could. Let's let her rest in peace."

John numbly fell to the ground beside her body and caught his breath. He just sat awkwardly in the position he'd landed, propped up by an elbow on the wet floor, lacking the energy and impetus to remained frozen, unsure of what to do, of what he was feeling. His mind may have still been processing the events, but he already felt in his heart and his gut that she truly wasn't coming back. He suddenly felt out of place, a foreigner in the City she had brought him to.

Carson kept a careful eye on the major, ready to intercept a reaction.

John stared at the body before him, soaking wet and unnaturally pale. He suddenly couldn't breathe. He had experienced more than his fair share of death before. He had come face-to-face with the corpses of his teammates, had said goodbye to his friends, and had somehow handled it all. But not this one. Not her. She should not be lying there.

The emotions he hadn't yet processed, hadn't known how to express, finally surfaced. He pushed himself to his feet. He stumbled, uncoordinated, looking drunk with agony. Suddenly he felt ill, overcome by a sense of nausea. He couldn't walk straight, couldn't see straight. John only made it several yards before slipping on the slick tiles. A feeble attempt to right himself caused him to careen over a crate that had washed into the hallway. He crashed to the ground again as the contents of his stomach spilled out onto the floor. He vomited a second time. A feeling of disgust poisoned him to the core. He threw up until the pain of dry heaves wracked his lungs and stomach.

Spent, John crawled pathetically to a nearby wall. Collapsing heavily against it, he let his head fall into his trembling hands and squeezed his eyes shut. He fought to control his breathing.

Carson decided to give the man his space. He turned back to Elizabeth. Respectfully, he covered her bare breasts with the tattered halves of her drenched shirt. Out of habit, he checked his watch and noted the time of death. How impersonal this damned act of his profession was, he realized. This was his friend he was pronouncing dead.

Zelenka remained where he had been, several yards down the hall. He slumped down to a crouch, despair weighing him down. Occasionally he would remove his glasses to wipe his eyes. The Czech scientist, though not an especially religious man, silently mouthed the words of a prayer. "Otče náš, jenž jsi v nebesích..."

By now, the adrenaline in John's system was wearing off, causing him to shiver. He was suddenly acutely aware of how wet and freezing he was. A sheet of sweat covered his face. The pains in his arm and shoulder returned full force. But he didn't care. He felt as if his very own heart and soul had been ripped from him. He felt hollow.

And then, with his face still buried in his hands, he felt the cold metal of a gun press against his head.

TBC

Author's note: I am so, so sorry!
We're just over a third of the way through, and there's plenty more that happens. I hope you are enjoying it!