Jack had a section of the wall in the hallway to himself. Elizabeth almost went past him, but John recognized the graying hair and stopped them. Kneeling down in front of him, Elizabeth put her hand on his shoulder.
"How's she doing?" Elizabeth asked softly. John looked up and down the hallway, the more mobile injured were treating their fellow patients. The whole hallway reeked of blood and the disgusting odor of singed flesh.
"Got moved to the front of the line when she threw up blood," Jack reported monotonically. He fidgeted with a scrap of metal, turning it over and over in his hands.
"I'm sorry," Elizabeth apologized tentatively, taking a place on the wall next to him. "Carson's an excellent surgeon."
Jack shrugged, keeping his eyes on his piece of metal. "Suppose..." he trailed off, studying the edges of the fragment. "There's a point where you realize you've been sitting outside hospitals for the longest moments of your life, and it's really a waste." He stopped moving his hands and met Elizabeth's eyes with his own haunted ones. "I wonder why I can't remember fishing where the hours turned into weeks. Or why Charlie laughing isn't in the front of my brain.
"When I lie alone at night too long before sleeping I can hear the people that I've lost. Charlie, Kowalski, Janet...Daniel, then not Daniel, then Daniel again..." he let the words drop. "Do you know what they say?"
John thought he could guess. Colonel Sumner had haunted his dreams for more than a year. Elizabeth just waited, silently listening.
"They tell me life is short," Jack explained as he tossed the fragment into the wall across from him as hard as he could.
Elizabeth jumped, wincing as the shards fell softly to the floor. John reached for her knee, taking what he could of her to hold onto.
"And I don't listen," Jack admitted harshly, looking at his dirty hands and the blood drying on his uniform. "I move to Washington, I get promoted, I forget what's important." Slapping John's face suddenly startled the hell out of the younger man. "Don't do that," he ordered. "Don't be a bitter old man in an empty hallway."
John said nothing because nothing seemed to be right. He felt Elizabeth's little fingers slip inside of his and knew his hallway moments wouldn't be alone anymore. His chest tightened, threatening to keep him from breathing.
"And you," Jack pointed to Elizabeth, his hand shaking as he looked into her eyes. "You..."
She hugged him, cradling him as the world stopped within him. John sat back, watching as the man who stood up to so many monsters crumbled in the face of being alone.
Rodney had to send a lieutenant to fetch them. When Carson let the general into the infirmary, Elizabeth's watch had slipped past seven hundred. By the time someone came looking for the two of them it was nearly eight. John held her as she lay curled in his lap. Her eyes were open; her breath was slow and regular, but neither of them could sleep. Their quarters waited for them, but neither of them tried to stand up.
The poor lieutenant had stood over them for nearly a minute before John noticed. "We're receiving a signal from the Daedalus, Sir;" he began to report, "Colonel Caldwell says he'll only speak to Doctor Weir or General O'Neill."
"Thank you," Elizabeth murmured as she sat up. Getting to her feet and waiting for John, she tossed a glance back towards the infirmary. Carson still had hours of work ahead of him, and she knew he wouldn't rest until all his patients had his best efforts. "Do me a favor and make sure Carson and his staff all get something to eat?"
"Yes, Ma'am," the lieutenant said as he nodded quickly and headed for the cafeteria.
"So, control room?" Elizabeth ventured sleepily.
John nodded and started to walk; being with her gave him a reason to continue. He barely even felt his own exhaustion when he watched her smile bravely at the people they passed. The people of Atlantis had paid a bigger price than the city this time, and people took longer to repair. Silence was easier than speaking; he couldn't say how his heart would stop if he'd switched places with the general and Elizabeth lay in surgery.
"Eleven dead?" Elizabeth whispered to him when the doors of the transporter shut them away from the people under her command. "We've never buried so many."
"Carter will make it," John predicted as hopefully as he could. "She's got a lot to live for."
"God, I don't think..." Elizabeth left the end unsaid. "She'll make it," she agreed as she managed to smile at him.
John was trying to decide where she found the strength when he realized the transporter was about to open onto the control room. She was smiling for Rodney. So that when she stepped out of the doors, Elizabeth was as reassuring as she could be.
"Elizabeth, good, Caldwell refuses to tell me what's happened," Rodney said, glaring at Caldwell's image on the screen. "It was a bit of genius to bounce your signal off one of the Milky Way gates and then trigger my gate-dialing macro."
"You can thank Hermiod for that," Caldwell noted, glancing at McKay.
For his part Rodney shrugged; "I would have come up with that," he pointed out.
Elizabeth patted his shoulder, nodding at Caldwell's resolute expression. "I'm here Colonel, what happened out there?" she said, waiting with John at her side.
"We're currently on route to the Alpha site," Caldwell began as all the emotion drained from his face. John watched his eyes grow cold and wondered what was coming. Even Elizabeth was getting stiff. "We tried to raise Earth as soon as we came out of hyper-space, but we got no response. At my discretion we tried to get close enough for a fly-by..." he stopped, swallowing slowly and looking down before he could continue. "Earth is..."
He paused again, leaning forward in his chair and resting his hands on his thighs. "...I've never seen anything like it."
"What did you see, Steven?" Elizabeth coaxed, feeling her heart sink cold into her stomach.
"There's nothing left," he whispered dully, like his voice came from a tomb.
"Nothing?" Rodney repeated softly. He jumped from his chair, turning to the screen in desperation. "The SGC? Underground? There have to be some survivors...I mean...nothing, nothing?"
Elizabeth took a step forward, unable to feel her body. "Who?"
"Replicators," he stammered, trying to find the strength to keep speaking. "At least twenty, maybe thirty or more battleships. They must have been planning to take both city-ships when they defeated Atlantis."
"We have to take it back!" Rodney realized suddenly. He whirled on Elizabeth, grabbing her shoulder and shoving her a step backwards. "We have the shield-weapon, we took out their city, we can take out their ships..."
"We can't," John explained grimly as he pried Rodney's hand from her shoulder. "We can't take twenty of those ships, the shield's running on minimum power as it is right now."
"We have to!" Rodney screamed at him. "That's our home, our home planet, my parents...my sister..."
Elizabeth nodded to John, asking him to back off with her eyes. She put a quiet hand on Rodney's trembling shoulder. "We can't..." her own voice failed her for a moment, "...we can't help them."
"There's no one to help, Doctor," Caldwell finished as he dropped his head into his hands. "We circled the planet as long as Hermiod thought our shield would hold. We scanned, poured as much into the sensors as we could. Earth, is a wasteland. A lifeless ball of rock crawling with Replicator recovery teams." He looked up with disgust painted all over his face. "They're mining it for raw materials."
John shivered and felt like all the heat had left the room. His car, his crappy apartment in Antarctica, and everywhere he'd ever been was gone.
Elizabeth kept her eyes on the screen, as if nothing could pry her away. "The Alpha site? Surely some of them..."
"We contacted them as soon as we got clear," Caldwell forced himself to focus. "We're on our way as soon as we finish."
"I want you to loan them the ZPM," Elizabeth ordered stoically. John watched her sink deeper into her quietest strength. "Gate as many of the survivors here as you can, before the Replicators can find you. Then come home, Steven," she urged. "Come straight back, we'll need you."
"It doesn't even look like Earth from space," Caldwell's thoughts slipped unbidden from his lips. "I couldn't recognize anything. The oceans boiled in the onslaught and the whole planet's buried in a haze of dust."
"Where's the Odyssey?" Elizabeth pressed gently. "Do you think it was destroyed?"
"She made it to the Alpha site," Caldwell replied with some hope. "Colonel Emerson executed General Landry's standing order Omega before he left orbit."
"Do you know who was recovered?" Elizabeth asked softly, ignoring John and Rodney's confused looks.
"No," Caldwell confessed as he turned to consult with one of his crew. "We can't risk being detected. We expect to reach the Alpha site within the next two hours. We will contact you then." He paused, searching for the right thing to say. "I'm so sorry..."
"Keep everyone safe, don't let them think..." Elizabeth's voice cracked under the strain, but she pulled herself back together. "...don't let anyone give up. We're still alive. There's still hope."
Caldwell didn't say anything before he signed off. John had never seen him look so empty. Rodney deflated, sinking into his chair as if all the strength had been sucked out of him. "I was going to see Jeannie for Christmas; she made me promise to get it off and with the gate bridge..."
Elizabeth reached for his shoulder again, but he pulled away like she'd burned him.
"What's standing order Omega?" he demanded angrily. "Why have I never heard of it?"
"It's classified," Elizabeth sighed heavily, feeling her head start to fog with exhaustion. "John, could you please?" she pointed weakly at the water pitcher in the corner and he returned immediately with a glass. He hauled her back, forcing her into the chair next to Rodney. "General Landry, General O'Neill, Colonel Caldwell, Colonel Emerson, and I are the only ones who know. I don't even think the president knows."
Drinking her water too quickly only made her head less connected to her body. John steadied her hand, slowing her down. "Careful," he cautioned. "You're pushing too hard."
"I need to," Elizabeth argued weakly, but let him rest his hand on her shoulder. "I will tell you when Caldwell radios back. I don't want to hurt you, Rodney...please believe me that it's best that you don't know."
He shoved his chair aside, leaving her and John alone in the control room. Elizabeth started to stand, but John held her down. "Let him go," he suggested softly. "He just needs to be alone."
"I want to tell him," Elizabeth whispered to the water in her glass. "I just don't want him, or anyone to hurt more than need be."
"Or get their hopes up?" John offered, wondering if he'd guessed correctly. "You can tell me, I don't have anyone on the next of kin list."
"I just can't stop thinking about my mother," Elizabeth whispered, finally losing her control. "She was so concerned when my father died; she always thought if I lost her, I'd be alone."
"You're not alone," John promised quickly, sinking down to his knees in front of her. "You'll never be alone."
"I just keep thinking I was avoiding telling her," she said, sliding off her chair and joining him on the floor. "I mean, I wrote the message a thousand times for the next data burst home. I meant to tell her. I just switched it out at the last minute, told myself I should wait."
"It's okay," John said, reaching out to brush her hair back from her eyes.
"How can it be okay?" she asked, losing her control and dropping her head to his chest. "They got to Earth."
"They didn't get us," John offered back. "I know it's not that comforting, but we're alive and we can still make them sorry they ever went to the Milky Way."
"Do you think that's the answer?" Elizabeth lifted her head slowly. Her eyes were too tired to cry. "Revenge?"
"Sometimes," John admitted, retrieving her glass of water from the console where she'd left it. "Sometimes you just need to kill the bastards who flew across galaxies to destroy your planet. Sometimes they need to suffer."
"They're machines," Elizabeth reminded him as she forced herself to drink. "How will they suffer?"
"Maybe they won't suffer," he said, feeling his stomach knot into a cold mass. "Maybe they'll just turn off and we'll never have to deal with them again."
"Can you trust me?" she begged, taking his hands and uncurling the fists he'd balled them into. "We have to be better than them. If we kill them it has to be because they're a danger to everything living in this galaxy, not because we're on a sick quest for revenge." Elizabeth stared into his eyes, searching for understanding. "Please, John."
"You can say that?" he wondered in astonishment. "You can sit there, knowing they murdered your mother, Rodney's sister, Beckett's family, and all the people of Earth in cold blood, and then ask me not to avenge them?" He got to his feet, shaking his head in disgust. "Do you know what you're asking me to do?"
"Be the man I love," Elizabeth whispered as she stared up at him. Getting to her feet was significantly harder than she expected, and without his aid she really wouldn't have made it. "I need to make it this way. I will not lead what's left of humanity on an empty quest for revenge. We do not kill indiscriminately."
"This is not the time to be on the moral high ground!" his voice rose just enough to make her wince. "We've been wiped out and we didn't stand a chance."
"We will not kill out of anger," she said resolutely, keeping her voice purposely beneath his. "We will not hate. We will be better."
"We won't survive!" John hissed back. "Everyone else out there is going to kill us the moment our guard comes down. We have to be ready to do the same thing."
"Taking advantage of an opportunity doesn't mean you have to enjoy it," Elizabeth argued, clinging to the console let her keep her feet beneath her.
"And you won't?" he accused her, knowing she couldn't claim that the death of all the Replicators meant nothing to her.
"I'll be relieved when we're safe..." Elizabeth replied, bringing her hand unknowingly to her stomach. "I'll sleep again knowing every, last, one of those things is dust." She took a shaky step towards him. "I will not have this become a crusade. John..."
He started to back away from her touch, but she caught his hand.
"...we have to think beyond ourselves," Elizabeth challenged him, bringing his hand to rest on her stomach. "What do you want this baby to be born into? A hate-filled war against a brutally aggressive enemy? If that's what you want, maybe I should stop trying to take care of myself now..."
Both of his hands flew to catch her shoulders, digging into her skin so tightly they threatened to leave marks. "Don't," he whispered, feeling the anger lodge in his throat.
"I will fight the Replicators because they're a threat to innocent lives in both galaxies," Elizabeth swore without fear. "I will not slaughter them because they destroyed my people. I will not be that leader."
Somewhere inside his rage something cracked and he knew, instantly, that he'd follow her to the ends of the universe. Releasing her shoulders, he started to apologize.
Elizabeth stopped him, hanging on to his hands. "I'm not..." she faded, momentarily losing her footing. "...entirely sure I can stand on my own." Her confession cut through his anger.
"You need sleep," he proposed as concern melted the last of his fury. "I should..."
Elizabeth cut him off as she clung to his arms. "I promised Caldwell. Jack's down in the infirmary...I can't..."
"Will you eat?" John asked, changing tactics. "If I bring you something?"
She let him walk her over the little catwalk to her office. Her laptop computer sat forlornly on the lone chair, so John lowered her against the wall.
"I'll eat," she promised weakly. "Just hurry back." Wrapping her arms slowly around her knees Elizabeth prayed Rodney had the good sense not to speak to anyone. She would make the announcement that destroyed everyone's hopes after she'd heard back from the Daedalus. Landry's last order might give them some hope after all.
"Did anyone tell you why we seeded a second evolution of our form?" Mab began as she wandered lazily around the edge of the catwalk, sneaking towards Elizabeth's office.
"What are you doing here?" Elizabeth demanded as she tried to drag herself to her feet.
Mab moved faster than she could track, keeping her on the floor with a hand so warm it seemed to burn through her uniform. "Stay, you're not well." She waved her hand across Elizabeth's body, pulling something out of her and forming it out of fire in the air.
"I'm all..." Elizabeth stopped short. The nagging pinching in her stomach blossomed into a stinging pain.
Mab spun the fire in the air, letting it form into a tiny knot. It pulsed as it hung there, beating almost too quickly to see. "You're not being very careful," she chastised. "It's been a hard few days for this little one."
"Don't do this," Elizabeth pleaded, feeling her hands start to sweat.
"I promised not to take your child," Mab lowered herself to the floor next to Elizabeth, letting go of her regal disguise and appearing in a simple black dress. "I didn't promise to keep you from losing it. You really should be more careful."
"You sound like John," Elizabeth muttered, trying to understand what was happening. Surely someone would see the strange woman through the glass in her office.
Mab crossed her legs and set her hands neatly on them. "He's a wise man," she offered, closing her eyes lazily and letting the fire drift away. "He's very thoughtful, taking care of you the way he does."
The pain in Elizabeth's stomach faded with the smoke. Glaring at the other woman, she crossed her arms protectively over her stomach. "We're in love," she retaliated angrily.
"You'd be wise to keep him," Mab suggested grimly, keeping her eyes lazily closed. "You cannot bring it to birth alone."
"Why did your people seed the galaxies?" Elizabeth changed the subject, wishing she could do without cryptic messages about her child.
"We needed to understand," the queen's eyes opened, glowing orange in her head. "We only knew how we were, not how we had been. In order to reach the future, sometimes you must visit the past."
"To find ascension, you needed to watch yourselves," Elizabeth realized, letting go of the breath she'd been holding. None of the queen's dire musings seemed to have any bearing on a future with John in it. "So you seeded humanity."
"We were facing a terrible death," Mab's face flushed with fever suddenly, her hair hung over her eyes, wet with sweat. Her arm convulsed as she lifted it. "Plague ran rampant through our cities; ascension was the only way out. Out of desperation we gave birth to ourselves, tucking all that we had gained into the beginning of a new way."
As she shook stood a wreath of fire burned the plague from her body and returned her majestic purple velvets. "We were vain," she explained remorsefully. "We sought only to avoid the plague. We didn't realize that we were not the beings who created us. In birthing humanity we unwittingly brought the Wraith."
Elizabeth watched, horrified, as blood ran from the queen's hands, spoiling her dress as it began to pool on the floor.
"The Wraith were not meant to be," Mab explained sadly, watching the blood on her hands leave dark droplets on the metal floor. "We tried to stop them. I devoted my life to it, and all we wrought was another enemy."
The blood on the floor turned silver, rising up until Niam stood leering beside Mab.
"He was my favorite," she whispered sadly. "He was so gentle in the beginning. The only Asuran I knew where I had hope he'd ascend someday."
"He isn't now," Elizabeth corrected, remembering his hands around her neck as she finally dragged herself to her feet. She had to hang onto the wall to keep herself up, but she was standing.
"He's your plague," Mab sighed. "It was only after ascension that we learned our plague had been an accident in our creation. Just as the Wraith and the Replicators were mistakes of yours."
"The Replicators just destroyed my planet!" Elizabeth growled as she shoved herself off the wall. "They murdered six billion people."
"The plague nearly wiped us out," Mab replied sympathetically. "Death must come before the rebirth. I'm sure you've felt it. The over-crowding of the galaxy, the terrors stalking you around every corner. The first evolution fell to a plague of the blood; the second will fall to a plague of metal. The universe must be as it was."
Elizabeth caught her hand, feeling the blood come off on her own fingers. "A third evolution?"
Mab smiled, leaving a bloody trail on Elizabeth's face as she caressed it. She cringed in response, feeling the fluid stick to her cheek.
"John's here now," Mab whispered, leaving Elizabeth's question to hang unanswered. "He wants you to wake up."
Elizabeth woke with a start, John's hands were on both of her shoulders and her uniform was soaked with sweat.
"Hey..." his relief lit his eyes when hers opened. "You okay?"
Elizabeth tried to sit up. She must have fallen asleep; seen Mab in a dream . She hoped it hadn't been a hallucination, John and Carson would never forgive her if she was that worn down. "Bad dreams," she explained non-committaly, hoping he'd just leave it at that.
"Brought you something," John teased as his eyes lit up, hoping his excitement would shine through her exhaustion. "Made it myself."
"By grabbing it out of the case of rations?" Elizabeth sighed, wiping sweat from her hair.
"Actually, it was some assembly required," John admitted, handing over a sandwich wrapped in a brown paper towel.
As she opened it, Elizabeth couldn't help smiling when she smelled what it was. "Peanut butter?" she asked.
"And re-hydrated banana," John said, nodding proudly. "Use to eat them down in Antarctica, helped keep me warm."
"And I need to stay warm?" she wondered as she took a bite tentatively. "I haven't had peanut butter..."
"...comfort food," John interrupted, setting a water bottle down by her leg. "And juice."
"I think you're skipping ahead a little bit in parenting," Elizabeth mused as she forced herself to eat her sandwich. She could barely taste it, except for the sensation of swallowing she was entirely disconnected from her body. "I'm pregnant, not a five-year-old."
"I bet you were a cute five-year-old," John said, tilting his head and studying her as if he could rewind time with just his eyes. "Curly hair, dimples..."
Shaking her head slowly, Elizabeth pried the water bottle open and gulped some of it down. As the sweat from her nightmares dried, she shivered.
Tired as he was, John took a moment to notice. Yanking his jacket free from his shoulders, he tucked it around hers. "When this is over, we're going to bed, locking the door, and throwing the radios out onto the balcony where we can't hear them," John promised. Clasping his hands lazily, he waited for her to finish chewing. "What's standing order Omega?"
Elizabeth sighed heavily, taking a moment before she spoke. "It's something General Landry borrowed from an ancient Persian tradition," she set the last of her sandwich down and fidgeted with the paper towel nervously. "If the country seemed to be about to fall, round up the families of the men on your farthest outpost and send them to join their husbands and fathers..." she choked, fighting the tears in her throat. "That way something of your people survives."
"So the list?" John baited gently.
"Is who Colonel Emerson managed to save in the time he had," Elizabeth replied. Tearing a corner from the paper towel and rubbing it across her eyes. The paper was rough on already sensitive skin.
"Do you think?" He asked. Stealing a bite of her sandwich as she tried to send her tears back where they came from.
"God..." she shook her head, losing the battle and letting her tears baptize the floor of her office. "...I want my mother to be on that list."
John brushed her shoulder tentatively, feeling how fragile she was beneath his jacket. "Maybe she will be."
"I should be thinking about my people," Elizabeth whispered accusingly. "How Atlantis is going to feed and house so many refugees who have all lost so much..."
John moved the remnant of her sandwich, keeping her from squishing it into the floor when he pulled her into his arms.
"...but I want Mum." Her voice breaking as she finished, Elizabeth clung to him. Digging her hands into his back reminded her that there was one person she loved that she hadn't lost.
At first he wanted to tell her not to cry, that everything would be all right, but he didn't believe that. John felt numb, like his emotions were all off. He hadn't lost anyone. He'd lost places, things, memories of a lifetime before. Atlantis was his home. His team was his family and the woman soaking his chest with her tears was his future. The smile he buried in her hair was entirely inappropriate, but he couldn't hold it in any more than she could stem her sobbing.
Jack slept with his head on her bed. He should have tried to stay awake, but he couldn't. He'd spent too much time waiting, fighting the Replicators, and trying to keep himself alive to fight off sleep right now. He was too tired to dream so his mind insisted the hand on his head didn't make sense. The fingers in his hair were too real to be part of some exhausted dream.
He groaned, opening his eyes and rolling his head to look up. Carter smiled at him. Her lips were nearly white, but her eyes glistened with life. "Comfortable, Sir?" she wondered, pulling her hand back to her side.
"The bed's not bad," Jack teased with a trembling smile. "The chair..." he waved his hand back and forth, "...not as special." Watching her smile broaden was worth the years it had been since she'd gone into surgery. "How you feeling?"
"Like someone's been rearranging my insides, Sir," Carter admitted without taking her eyes off him. "How's my ship?"
"Slightly better off than her captain," Jack assured her as he lifted his head and sat up. "The Czech, Ze-whatsit-"
"-Zelenka," Carter filled in.
"Zelenka," he continued. "He's got a team working on it. Replicators did a number on it, and you. Should learn to duck better."
"Thank you, Sir," Carter acknowledged as tears threatened her eyes. "Glad to see you in one piece."
"I duck well," he joked. "Comes with being a general." He fidgeted with the white sheet over her body. "Doctor Beckett tells me you're going to be fine, even up and around in a few days."
"What did I-?" she asked as she forced her eyes to focus on him.
"Tore up your stomach," he explained, wincing and pointing at the bandages covering her body. "Nasty business with broken ribs. You'll hurt, but you'll heal."
"Remind me to thank Beckett, when I see him," Carter closed her eyes, thanking whatever powers existed that she was still alive. "Missed you, Sir."
"I missed you too," her name went unsaid at the end of his admission. "Sir, I want to say..."
Elizabeth's voice interrupted over the public address system. "This is Doctor Weir," she began.
Jack felt something cold grab his heart. He'd heard this tone. He knew what generals said when an entire battalion had been lost. He saw Carter wince and realized she felt it too.
"With the ZPM in place..." Elizabeth paused, searching for strength. "Colonel Caldwell arrived in orbit of Earth a few hours ago. It is my terrible duty to inform you all..."
Jack found Sam's hand on the blanket and clutched it because the knot in his gut told him something more awful than anything he'd seen was coming.
"...that while we engaged the Replicator city, the Replicator armada attacked..." Elizabeth's voice lost more life as she finished without emotion, "...and decimated Earth. I have no words to convey what we all are feeling because I cannot even force myself to fathom what it means."
Carter's eyes went wide before they glazed over in shock. Jack stared at her hand, watching his knuckles go white without feeling the tension. Earth had fallen. For as many times as he'd saved the planet in the eleventh hour, he always thought somehow, Earth was invincible. That something would always happen that allowed life to go on.
"But, even in this darkest hour, I need you all be join me in believing we are not without hope. The survivors of our home world will be arriving shortly via the Stargate from the Alpha site in the Milky Way. Some of our families are among this group and Colonel Caldwell provided me with this tentative list of names."
Elizabeth paused again, "I know we are all in shock, and that our grief will need our attention. I cannot ask you not to feel anymore than I can stop myself, but I have to ask you all to pull together. If we have any chance to survive, any chance to hang on to what it is that we call human, we have to be united in caring for each other. If there is any way for this tragedy not to be the end of us, we must come together. For all our sakes."
"Eileen Anderson, Tyomi Asukga, Nora Beckett..." The names faded into a haze in Jack's ears. He lost anything Elizabeth said until he saw Carter crumple. Her brother, his wife, and children had gone without mention. The last of her family was gone.
"Carter," his voice seemed pathetic, not nearly strong enough to reach through the agony she must be in. He slid farther up, trying to be closer to her, maybe he could do something. She was quiet. Still, as if she'd fallen out of time.
Slowly, careful of her bandages, Jack dropped his head to her chest. If all he had left in the universe to care about was her, he didn't give a damn who knew it.
"...Edmund and Catherine Lorne..."
Jack only heard a few scattered names; people he recognized from mission reports. So much of it was a blur.
"...Jeannie and Madison Miller..." Elizabeth's voice was raspy near the end, exhausted and worn. "Simon Wallace, Petrov and Mileva Zelenka." She paused again, and Jack had to give her credit for managing to finish at all.
"I will see that everyone is notified when their loved ones arrive," for a moment it sounded like she had something to add, but Elizabeth's voice was too near breaking. "Weir out."