Jammeke – I'm glad I finally got to write Elizabeth realising her feelings it's a shame she thinks John's in another galaxy. Teyla's thoughts on the team were my favourite part of the last chapter so I'm glad that came out well. Thanks for the review.

Saphire – Thanks for the review, I'm glad you liked the Ronon and Teyla scene, now that Elizabeth has realised her feelings John just has to find her lol. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Sparkly – (looks shifty) of course they'll find her. As for the original search they were searching all the planets within Jumper distance of Atlantis cos they knew Elizabeth had escaped in a Jumper. I'm glad you liked the Spanky scene and it was kinda a sad ending, unfortunately it doesn't get much better in this chapter. Thanks for the review.

Kuroima – I'm glad you liked the Spanky scene in the last chapter, it is a shame didn't give into the urge to kiss him but all in good time lol. Thanks for the review and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Steph – Thanks for the review, I'm glad you enjoyed the Ronon and Teyla scene, everyone keeps telling me off for keeping John and Liz apart so long lol. Thanks for the review and hope you enjoy this update.

- - -

Chapter 17

Sam walked into the briefing room where John and his team were gathered as per her request. She wasn't sure how she was going to do this, she wasn't sure she wanted to do this. She'd tried to fight the order but one again she'd been ignored; the powers that be on earth seemed to be doing that a lot lately. She couldn't even be straight with them, 'do it without them knowing' what the hell kind of order was that?

"Colonel," John greeted as she entered the room, she didn't bother to sit down.

"I know you planned to go to another planet on the search today," she began and everyone seemed to detect the 'but' in her tone before she'd even said it "But I think it's best if you go on a regular mission instead."

Far from the angry argument she'd been expecting the room fell silent which actually worried her more. All eyes were on her and she felt uncomfortable under their scrutiny. They were trying to figure her out, trying to understand why she'd be stopping them from searching for Elizabeth and she needed to forestall any conclusions they might jump to. She needed time; time to convince earth that this was the wrong move.

"I know you all want to find Dr Weir, I do as well but I think it would be best if you just... take a break, take one mission off and do something else. It's just one mission, you can be back to the search in a couple of days," she tried to explain.

The room remained silent for several moments, until Ronon walked out without a word and Teyla followed him. Rodney nodded his head slowly as though he was confirming his own thoughts to himself before he too left the room and Sam once again found herself alone with John after putting yet another dent in his search, it seemed to have almost become a personal crusade for him.

"Where are we going?" he asked her, the others had been unconcerned with the details of their mission.

"You're escorting one of the science teams," Sam told him and she could see him trying not to sigh and roll his eyes, nobody liked escort missions but they were necessary, usually easy and routine and hopefully wouldn't take long.

John said something that she didn't quite catch and then left the room. Sam walked over to one of the chairs and dropped herself into it with a heavy sigh. She'd known when she'd agreed to come here that this wasn't going to be easy, that she'd spend the entire time walking a very fine line. It was going to be impossible to keep both sides happy, earth wanted Atlantis back to normal but Atlantis wasn't ready to let go of its leader.

She'd known today was going to be a bad day from the moment she'd been ordered to try and starting getting John and his team off the search. Did they think that if she stopped them slowly they wouldn't notice and just naturally begin to let Elizabeth go? If there was one thing she'd learnt while she'd been here it was that they were never going to let her go, not until she was back in Atlantis.

- - -

John walked into Rodney's lab, they still had an hour before their babysitting mission and John was going to go stir crazy. He hated sitting around and do nothing under normal circumstances but with Elizabeth still out there he hated it even more. He'd been kept busy for the last few months, barely having time to sit around and do nothing.

Rodney was sitting there with some complicated looking 'thing' in his hand, his attention seemed to be solely focused on it and he hadn't even noticed John enter the room. He walked to the scientist's side and leaned in "What you doing?" he asked suddenly and Rodney jumped, almost dropping the device.

"What am I doing, what are you doing?" Rodney exclaimed "You nearly gave me a heart attack."

"Sorry, saw an opening," John shrugged and moved to sit on the opposite side of the lab bench.

"What are you doing in here anyway?" Rodney asked.

"Nothing else to do with myself, we would have been off world now but since our plans got changed..." John trailed off, bitterness lacing his tone.

"Look, I know you probably don't wanna hear this but maybe Sam's right," Rodney stated and after receiving a raised eyebrow from John he continued. "We've been searching for over two months; we haven't had a single lead on her since the first week."

"What are you saying McKay?" John asked angrily, a dark tone entering his voice that had the scientist momentarily shrinking back. "That we should just give up, that we should just leave her out there."

"You know that's not what I mean!" Rodney replied, he stood up, his voice rising as he found his own anger. "If you'd let me finish, I was gonna say that maybe taking a couple of days to do something

normal would do us all some good. I'm not suggesting we give up but a break might be a good idea, we can carry on the search after."

"Come on McKay!" John shouted "You're a smart man; don't tell me you don't see what they're doing. This isn't about us taking a break; it's about weaning us off. It's about getting us to put all this behind us so we can go back to doing the missions they want us to do. They're not interested in finding Elizabeth; they don't care where she is, as long as Atlantis is functioning they don't care who's in charge."

"Of course I see what they're doing," Rodney replied "But Sam won't just let them stop the search."

"She's following orders Rodney, just like we are," John stated.

"She's been missing for two months," Rodney shouted "You feel guilty for it, I get it. You left her here, you left her in the city and now she's gone. Do you really think you're the only person who feels guilty for that? We all left her here, not just you. Why do you think we've been searching for as long as we have? Why do you think people have been fighting to keep searching for her? Ronon, Teyla, me, Carson, we all left her here too. General O'Neill was the one who suggested she stay, he's been fighting harder than most to keep the search going."

"I'm supposed to protect her Rodney!" John shouted, anger at himself coming to the surface. That was it, all laid out in front of him, in front of Rodney.

"I know," Rodney said calmly, lowering his voice "But you weren't here, you can't protect her from everything."

"That's the problem," John replied, his own voice calm and thick with emotions he'd spent too long trying to repress. "I wasn't here; I couldn't protect her when it mattered."

- - -

The science team had collected their soil samples and Ronon had tried to ignore their constant attempts to explain. Something about particles in the soil, he really didn't care and he really didn't want to be there. He'd been with the people of earth for almost two years now; he felt more at home than he had since Sateda had been destroyed but he was never going to be able to get used to some of these more boring tasks that seemed to be part of the package.

He was bored out of his mind as they returned to the gate and then wanted nothing more than to take those thoughts back when all of a sudden they came under fire. One of the scientists was hit straight away, a bullet slammed into the young woman's thigh and she fell to the ground with a cry. Another of the scientists, a slightly more military minded one grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet and supporting her as they continued their run for the gate.

Bullets continued to fly in their direction, too many coming from too many places and it was almost impossible to avoid them all. The trees around them provided a limited cover as Ronon along with Teyla and John provided cover fire for the retreating scientists. He spotted movement through the leaves and aimed his weapon, firing several shots, he could only hope they'd hit their target because there was no time to stop and make sure. He kept running, firing behind him at every opportunity he got and trying to be aware of the rest of his team.

He felt the stab of pain in his leg several seconds before it actually caused him to fall. He hit the ground with a thud and immediately turned onto his back. Teyla was by his side before he'd even sat up and he could hear the gunfire continuing as John tried to provide cover. Glancing at Teyla's face he could see the concern there before he turned to his leg. The bullet had hit him just above his ankle and there was a lot of blood seeping out of it. They were almost back at the gate, he could get it seen to once they were back in the safety of the city.

Looking to the side of him, Teyla was already back on her feet firing at the advancing locals and Ronon quickly joined her. They continued toward the gate, Ronon with a slight limp as he forced himself to ignore the pain that shot through his leg with each step. They emerged in the clearing in time to hear the stargate engage and he sensed more than saw the science team go through.

"Come on," he heard Rodney shout when the three of them struggled to break from the fire fight and make it to the gate.

A cry of pain then shot through him more painfully than the bullet that had gone through his leg. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Teyla go down and his mind registered the red blood that was already covering her neck and shoulder. He didn't know where she'd been hit but he did know that for there to be so much blood so quickly, it had to be a bad.

He stopped his cover fire, dropping to Teyla's side and lifting her into his arms in just a few seconds. Rodney had moved forward, picking up the slack in cover left by Ronon as he ran to the gate with Teyla. When he arrived in the gate room there was already a medical team waiting for them, they hurriedly took Teyla from him, placing her on a gurney and rushing her from the room.

The sound of the stargate shutting down caught his attention and he turned around, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw that both John and Rodney had made it through the gate safely.

- - -

Carson's face said it all as the doctor walked into the briefing room, they'd put off the briefing for over and hour hoping to get word on Teyla but Sam had called them all to the briefing room, telling them she would make it as quick as possible. They'd only been there for ten minutes when Carson joined them.

"How is she?" John asked a trace of nervousness in his tone.

"The bullet hit her in the neck," he told her and the dark cloud that was hanging over the team seemed to get just a little bit bigger. "The injury appears to have been entirely vascular; there's been no damage to her nerves. She lost a lot of blood though, we're transfusing her now but it's gonna be touch and go."

"Can we see her?" Ronon questioned and Carson hesitated for a moment before nodding his head slowly.

"Aye, but be prepared," he told them before he left the room and they finished up the debriefing quickly.

The first thing Ronon noticed was how pale she was, the whitish tinge was something he wasn't used to seeing on her usually tanned skin. There were wires all around her, machines beeping away reassuring everyone in the room that she was still alive. It scared him how much it hurt to see her that way.

"Wake up," he whispered so quietly no one would have heard him.

- - -

"I could not have known the hole was there," Taros tried to protest and Elizabeth stifled a laugh at the unfortunate Ancient whose luck did not seem to be getting any better. The memory of his fall during their last hunting trip had become a source of great amusement for her and Malaine both of whom had been present for the incident.

"Nobody else fell down it and I do remember someone shouting something about looking out for the hole," Elizabeth told him in amusement, the poor man had had fallen down a narrow but very deep hole. It had been just wide enough for a person to fall into it but small enough and covered by enough of the long grass surrounding it that he hadn't seen it.

"Why do those creatures need to dig such large holes anyway, they are very small and it's such a waste of space," Taros continued and Elizabeth laughed softly as they continued their walk through the village. When they reached the edge of the village they changed their direction, walking along the edge of the tree line rather than venturing into the woods.

"Don't worry," she said quietly "I'm sure everyone will find something else to entertain them sooner or later."

"In the mean time I will have to continue suffering the humiliation," he stated solemnly.

Elizabeth smiled and then froze when she heard something; it was a faint sound, so distant she could barely hear it. She felt her stomach turn, she had a horrible feeling she knew what the sound was. She heard Taros' questioning voice beside her, could feel his concerned gaze but she ignored it, choosing instead to concentrate on the sound. As it got closer she knew for sure what it was, could easily recognise the sound she'd heard too many times.

A Wraith dart.

TBC