Author's Note: I really did mean to get this up a few days ago! It was all set to go up and...I forgot. Lol. I'm sorry. Anyway, the next chapter will be up in about a week, depending on how RL goes. It's been hectic lately. Hope you enjoy, though!

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The Last To Fall

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John woke up to a burning sensation in his abdomen. Hissing in pain, he immediately moved his hand to the wound, applying pressure to it. The memory of what happened the night before sprang to his mind. Kolya.

If he'd failed in stopping him, then –

He opened his eyes. It took a moment for them to adjust to the bright, burning sunshine, but when they did, he desperately wished they hadn't. Slowly, he moved his eyes around the area, his stomach lurching unpleasantly.

No.

He was a military man. He had seen gruesome deaths, corpses lying forgotten on the edge of dirt roads, seen his friends die. But none of it could have prepared him for this.

John stood there for a long stretch of time, unable to function properly. He hardly registered the throbbing pain from the wound on his abdomen. His eyes roamed over every corpse, imprinting the horrid image into his mind. Names and memories flashed through his thoughts.

Half of these people had been under his command. He'd failed them.

A muffled groan from behind him distracted him from his reverie. He turned to see Teyla slowly sitting up. "Teyla!" he cried, running to her and kneeling down in front of her. "Are you okay?" he questioned, his fingertips grazing her cheek.

"I am…" she winced at the sudden surge of pain that rushed to her head as she sat up. "I will be fine."

"I'm glad," John told her. His jaw clenched tightly, trying not to display the varying, intense emotions racking through him. Anger, guilt, sadness… A strong urge to stop Teyla from seeing what lay just behind them surged through him, but he knew that there was nothing he could do to protect her from this.

"Are you…?" Teyla gestured toward him, her eyes locked on his gunshot wound. John nodded, noting the haze that his normally swift companion was burdened with. She must've been hit with a stunner, he realized, anger burning through him.

"Listen, Teyla…" John gently grasped her shoulders, keeping his eyes locked onto hers. "I have to tell you something." He could tell that the events of the night before were slowly coming to her; fear building in her eyes. Maybe if he broke the news to her it would be easier, easier than seeing all of their bodies lying haphazardly on the ground like broken marionettes cast away by a bored child.

"Sora," Teyla said, and the fear in her eyes was clear. "She was in my tent. Her and another soldier," her eyebrows drew together. "John…what happened?"

Her eyes traveled from John's grim face to his gunshot wound once more.

"No," she whispered, her voice soft.

"Teyla–"

"No!" the word came louder this time. She pushed John's arms away and stood before he could stop her. Her eyes slowly moved over the corpses piled atop each other. Clumsy and disorientated, she stumbled forward.

John was silent, his eyes on the ground. He knew the pain pulsing through him was nothing compared to what Teyla must be feeling. She was the leader of the Athosian people; people she had known since birth; children and adults that now lay massacred just yards away.

Before his grief could consume him again, a thought occurred to John: why had the Genii left he and Teyla alive? Revenge, he answered almost immediately. They'd thought of the cruelest way to punish him and Teyla and executed it. But if they were alive…who else was? Who else had been chosen to bear this excruciating burden?

John slowly stood, looking around the area. His stomach lurched unpleasantly, but he clenched his jaw and fought the rising nausea. Hopelessness gripped his heart. He was close to giving up when he spotted Elizabeth lying just feet away from the bodies. John walked forward quickly, sliding to his knees and immediately pressing two fingers above her jugular.

"She's alive!" He didn't move for a long moment, making sure that the strong pulse beneath his fingertips was not imagined. His other hand gently pushed back her eyelid. Her pupil contracted, and John just barely suppressed a cry of relief.

It made sense. Who had angered the Genii most? Who would they want to suffer?

Elizabeth. John. His team.

But if Ronon had perished in the Wraith invasion and Teyla was here…what had happened to Rodney? After a fleeting look at the empty expression on Teyla's face, John stood and ran ahead for the tents, almost stumbling as he fought the pain.

"Rodney!" His hoarse voice echoed through the camp. John's eyes skittered over the ground, trying not to settle too long on a lifeless face. If he did, military instinct he thought he'd suppressed years ago started to connect with the present, and he hated it.

Lieutenant Laura Cadman. Multiple gun wounds.

Best poker player in all of Atlantis.

"Rodney!" John shouted again, desperation bleeding into his voice. He stumbled over cold limbs but never stopped, his boots thudding heavily against the ground as he ran.

He didn't know how long he'd been searching when he finally came upon the tent on the edges of the camp. A rancid smell assaulted his nostrils as he pushed back the tent flap, and as soon as his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light inside, he discovered why.

Burnt flesh.

His eyes flew from the grotesque corpse to the man kneeling next to him, sobbing.

"Rodney?" he whispered, daring not to believe it.

"John?" Rodney looked up, his red eyes meeting John's.

John had never seen Rodney like this before. Not this…vulnerable. Tear tracks were clearly visible on his face, and he appeared to be nothing more than a broken man. John knew that his own face mirrored the same devastated image.

Without a second thought, he walked forward and knelt in front of Rodney, hugging him tightly.

"Y-You're alive," Rodney stuttered, hugging him back just as forcefully. "I s-saw you…when I came to…but…" he let out a strangled sob. "Everyone else is…"

"I know, Rodney," John said softly. "I know."

Neither of them said anything more. There was nothing to say, no appearances to keep. They were raw and broken, lost in a place between time and space where nothing could ever heal them.

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