Author's Note: So it's been a while since the last update...sorry! Hope you still enjoy, and an early happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the States!

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The Last To Fall

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Rodney didn't know how they made it through the next few days. After hours of sobbing and mourning, anger and numbness alternatively overtook them. John, his face impassive, reminded them that they needed to leave the camp and go to the city; let everyone know what had transpired here. They'd nodded in agreement, though some masochist part of them wanted to remain here at the site of tragedy. Elizabeth had been the one to bring the question of the bodies up – "What do we do about…" she'd made a wide gesture, "them?"

They couldn't bury their teammates, but they couldn't leave them to the winged scavengers that circled over the camp. After they had collected supplies from the tents, they found several flammable liquids which they spread wherever they could. The four stood on quaking legs at the edge of the camp as John tossed a match into the liquid. Flames burst from the site, and they quickly spread. With silent tears running down their faces, they watched as the bodies were burned. Above, the scavengers shrieked in fury. The repugnant smell of the bodies only intensified as they burned. Eventually, as the fire ravaged on, they made the decision to begin their journey to the city.

The walk took three long days. Talk of the incident was limited at best. John and Teyla were especially silent, years of training bringing them to focus on their current task instead of what had occurred miles ago. When they settled down for the night in the sleeping bags that had belonged to their friends, Elizabeth and Rodney talked to each other in soft voices about what had happened; about what was going to happen. They slept with his arms around her, each of them aching for human comfort after an occurrence so appallingly inhuman.

The city was more of a town that had just started coming onto its own. They walked down the oddly empty sidewalks, each with a gun in their hand or strapped to their thigh, per John's orders, until they reached the government's building. It was when they opened the doors and stepped inside that they were dealt their third blow. Yards away, the secretary was slumped over her wooden desk, dried blood making a path from the wound in her head to the pool around her face. Elizabeth turned away from the gruesome scene to find Rodney standing behind her. He embraced her tightly, his eyes not moving from the corpse before them.

John walked up to her and stared down at her wound. There was no mistaking the cause: a Genii blaster. With a yell of fury, he grabbed her datapad and chucked it toward the nearest glass window. Teyla flinched at the deafening noise as the shards rained down.

Elizabeth stiffened suddenly in Rodney's arms. "President Haren," she said suddenly, remembering the amiable man who'd so warmly welcomed them after they'd left Atlantis. She moved away from Rodney and jogged down a hallway to their right. The three others exchanged silent looks before following her.

Teyla looked around them into the large Opalian cubicles as they walked. Sometimes there was no one there and other times more corpses greeted her eyes. She swallowed the bile and anger rising in her throat as she continued to follow Elizabeth up the stairs and down another hallway.

Voices carried down the hallway, and ahead of them they could see a large, wooden door, open just a crack. In front of the door, a man and woman stood together closely, speaking in soft voices. Elizabeth's heart leapt as they approached. Someone was alive! Someone –

The man turned and began to walk toward them, but stopped in his tracks when his eyes fell on the group making their way toward him. It wasn't until they were just a couple of yards away that they realized who the man was.

"Kolya!" Rodney spat the name as John's lifted his gun, his finger already squeezing the trigger, eyes burning with rage.

"John!" Elizabeth shouted. He pulled the trigger, and a crack snapped through the air. Kolya's smirk turned into an expression of pain as he collapsed to the floor. Elizabeth's heart pounded in her chest, and she forced herself to open her eyes and look down him.

John had heard her cry in time to shift the position of the gun, and the bullet had torn into Kolya's foot instead of his head. He was grasping said foot, gritting his teeth in pain, when Elizabeth looked at him. A sick sort of satisfaction at his pain ran through her, and she moved her eyes to the woman. She was wearing Genii clothing, but it was clear she wasn't a soldier in the way she shook with fright, too scared to move.

With a stony expression, John pointed his gun at Kolya's head, his finger aching to pull the trigger again.

No one told him to put his gun down.

"Kolya. How nice to see you again," he said acidly.

"Yes, it's a real pleasure," Kolya replied, trying to ignore the burning pain in his foot. "How've you been?" he questioned with a crooked grin. John's hand moved faster than the eye could perceive as he slammed the butt of his pistol into Kolya's cheekbone. The other man chuckled, a small trail of blood escaping his mouth. "Not so moral now, are you?" he whispered.

"Why did you do it?" Elizabeth interjected hotly. She moved to curl her hands into tight fists when she remembered the pistol in her right hand.

Kolya looked up. "Isn't it obvious? You…" he winced as he sat up, "terrorized my people. Made war with us. Collaborated to overthrow our government. You got what you deserved."

Elizabeth had to struggle to prevent herself from saying the words that were about to leave her mouth. She waited a moment to formulate a different thought. "How did you know we'd evacuate Atlantis?" Kolya just grinned in reply.

Rodney caught on. "You stole those codes," he said slowly, and Kolya nodded.

"What codes?" John questioned, his eyes not leaving Kolya for a moment.

"The Hive Ships didn't appear on our radar long enough to cause the city to react. Their signal had to be on a certain frequency to do so. The Genii gave them that frequency."

"You were always a brilliant man, Doctor McKay," Kolya said with a smirk.

"You're sick, Kolya," Rodney spat back. "What you did was genocide – genocide of our people. You…You son of a bitch." His hands shook as he lifted his own gun and pointed it at Kolya's head. "This isn't half of what you deserve."

A shot rang through the air. John and Teyla turned toward Rodney, whose face was drawn in confusion. He hadn't fired the shot, and nor had it hit Kolya. Instead, the bullet had hit the woman with Kolya, who shrieked as she fell to the floor, clutching her neck and trying to stop the flood of crimson blood that flowed down her uniform. Kolya yelled and scrambled toward her, horror etched onto his face.

"You're right, Rodney," Elizabeth's voice was oddly vacant as she watched a small wisp of smoke curl around the end of the pistol. Her hands trembled slightly from the whiplash of the gun. "He deserves so much more."

Kolya had gathered the woman into his arms and was whispering to her urgently and desperately as he pressed his hand down on her wound. He knew it was a worthless case. Her eyes had begun to glaze. Tears rolled freely down his face.

Elizabeth slowly walked toward the two, her pistol still drawn. Shocked still, John, Teyla, and Rodney did not follow. Elizabeth, who recoiled at the sight of a gun, had just shot someone, had just killed someone.

"You…you…" Kolya couldn't form the words. He looked up at her, rage abundant in his eyes. But there was nothing in Elizabeth's to be intimated; just cold nothing.

"How does it feel?" she questioned, her voice high but her hands and expression calm. "To lose someone you love?" she tilted her head.

"You bitch!" he shouted. "She did nothing! Nothing!"

"She's gone mad," John whispered as Elizabeth's hollow laughter echoed through the hall. But no one moved to take the gun from her hands. No one moved to stop her from inflicting even more damage. Because no matter how well they knew this was wrong, they wanted to see Kolya's pain; wanted him to feel what they felt. And that want was far greater at this moment than any moral values.

"And we did what?" Elizabeth's voice was still frigid and venomous. "You continuously attacked our people. You invaded our home. We fought back. A better faction of government showed up planning on overthrowing Cowen and we supported them. And because of that, you slaughter my people?"

"You ruined the Genii!" he screamed back, his normal, calm demeanor gone. "You're terrorists of my people!"

"I wish we'd killed you all where you stood," she hissed, vengeance eating away at her insides. "We gave you lenience. And this is how you repaid us."

"I did this for my people." He moved to open his mouth again, but Elizabeth cut him off.

"Then it will be your people that will pay." She turned.

"You won't be alive for much longer."

Elizabeth's eyes darted back toward him. There was blood trickling down his mouth, a bruise slowly covering his cheek. His hands glistened with the thick, red liquid She turned.

"You won't be alive for much longer."

"What do you mean?" she questioned.

Kolya looked down at the woman lying motionless in his lap. Her life had stilled and now her eyes gazed upward blankly. He looked back up and replied with a certain malice, "The Wraith on their way as we speak."

"What?" it was the first word John had spoken since Elizabeth fired the shot. "What did you say?"

"They're coming," he said.

"Damn it," John cursed beneath his breath. "Elizabeth, we have to go."

She didn't move.

"Go on," Kolya wheezed, "Do what you have to do. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to her gun. "Kill me. And run. Run for the Stargate." A cool smile curled around his lips as he whispered, "You won't make it."

"John," Elizabeth called.

He walked up beside her and looked down at Kolya for a long minute. With a savage strength, he slammed his foot into Kolya's ribs, sending the other man sprawling backward a few feet. "You want to die," he realized aloud. "It's not that simple, Kolya. You don't just get to bite the bullet and go," he began searching in his vest for something while Kolya grasped his abdomen in pain.

Teyla averted her eyes from the scene, her head tilted away to the right. Rodney watched the happenings, overwhelmed by the sea of emotions within him that threatened to drown him. Feet ahead, John withdrew two cable ties and walked toward Kolya, unceremoniously hauling the other man to his feet and shoving him against the wall. There was a long, metal, cylindrical railing that extended all along the wall and John proceeded to bind Kolya's wrists to it using the ties.

"We're not going to kill you. You're going to stay here, until you die from thirst or until the Wraith find you," John told him, anger seeping into his every word. Fear quietly bled into Kolya's expression.

"You wouldn't do that," he said slowly.

"A couple of weeks ago you would've been right," John replied bitterly before turning and walking away. "Come on," he said toward Rodney, Teyla, and Elizabeth. Rodney glanced back, but said nothing as they quickly walked out of the building.

Revenge was supposed to feel better than this.

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