Title: I Love You
Author: Rayvin813
Chapter: 6/6
Summary: Elizabeth fights to control her fears and heal her mental wounds, so she goes to the one person she can be herself with...
Pairing: John/Elizabeth
Spoilers: Adrift/Lifeline...otherwise, all AU!
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Implied sexual conduct

I Love You

As she emerges from her quarters, she finds the halls of Atlantis empty. The pads of her bare feet echo along the walls as she walks, and the cold of the cement bites into her toes. She is trying to be stealthy but, try as she might, she can't keep the slap, slap of her feet from sounding like tiny explosions in the darkness. Thankfully, her destination is only a couple of rooms over, a perk of being a member of the leadership of the Atlantis Expedition.

She glances around before placing a hand on the outer sensor of the door. She hears the inner chime faintly and pulls her hand away before glancing down at the floor. A blush creeps up her cheeks as thinks of her purpose for the visit.

A click, and the door slides open before her, and a disheveled John Sheppard appears, clad only in a pair of boxers and a white t-shirt. His hair is even messier than normal as he runs a hand through it to scratch the back of his neck. Confusion mingles with sleepiness on his face as he looks at her curiously. "Lisbeth? Are you all right?"

She nods, a little too quickly, and she looks up at him. "Yeah. I think so," she whispers, afraid to speak out loud in the silent hallway.

"Come on," he motions for her to follow him into his quarters. She moves quickly, entering his private space and looks around as he closes and locks the door behind her. Oddly enough, his room is fairly clean, save for the pile of dirty clothes in the far corner, and a sweatshirt draped over the back of his office chair which had been pulled away from the desk where an open file folder is sitting on top of a stack of others, just waiting to be addressed.

"Mission reports, John?" she asks quietly, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

He clears his throat and leans back against the door. "Yeah, well, I'm a week behind. Those things don't just do themselves, you know."

"I know," she smiles and turns to face him. She brushes her smile away and gazes at him in all seriousness. She knows she's hardly said anything, or even done much socially, since she's been back on Atlantis. The IOA has called her credibility into question multiple times in the last two months, and she's watched as John had fought tooth-and-nail for her to be able to stay on base and not be turned over to the SGC for endless rounds of testing. The thing that hurts her the most is that she hasn't been able to even tell him a simple 'thank you.' The panic rises in her throat and she fights for a smile.

"John? I know I haven't really been the woman who left here all those months ago..."

"Lisbeth," he whispers as he rubs his face with both hands, a sure sign that he's tired of dealing with the whole situation.

"Please, John, let me finish. This is...hard enough for me right now. I've been wanting to tell you what all I've gone through, what all they did to me while I was there with the Replicators, but somehow I just...can't. It makes me feel so weak and I hate it. I have NEVER been a weak woman in my life, so this is all that much harder," she pauses and takes a deep breath in anticipation of her confession. "I want to be able to tell you that they toyed with my emotions, my body, my mind, and the only thing that kept me going...was the thought of you."

The words pour from her mouth too quickly to stop them, and she hopes that he caught every word because she's not sure she'd ever be able to repeat them.

He opens his mouth to speak, but thinks better of it and reaches out a hand to her. She knows that he's afraid she won't take it, that the touch from anyone has seemed like too much to bear since she's been back in the place she calls home. Despite all that she's seen and been through, she swallows her panic and reaches out to him, taking his hand in hers and pressing it to her lips.

After everything that she's been through, every bit of suffering she's endured, she finally finds the words she's been wanting to say to him since she's been home. She looks him right in his eyes, her green eyes filled with sincerity as she speaks, and he feels the weight of that truth under her gaze.

She throws herself against him, collapsing in his arms as he holds her tightly to his chest. He feathers kisses against the top of her head as he holds her so tightly she can hardly breathe. She feels a knuckle under her chin, and struggles to raise her chin so that she can look him in the eyes. He releases her just enough for her to look up at him, and she feels his slight hesitation in the moment before he claims her lips with his.

Something within her screams in panic and wants to pull away, but she fights it. She's sure he can feel the confusion within her, but he doesn't pull away. He's pushing her, and she knows that she needs it. She forces herself to kiss him back.

She feels the vibration of a moan against her lips, and she fights the unease as she nips at his bottom lip. He pulls her closer, his fingers digging into her lower back. The pressure draws a tiny bit of the stress out of her and she leans into him, letting her body urge him on. He moves his hands up to run his fingers through her hair, and she winces at the slight pain of his fingertips catching on the tiny knots in the brown strands. He pulls away slightly and places a light feathering of kisses against her forehead. She's pretty sure that he whispers an 'I'm sorry' somewhere in there, but it gets lost in the moment as she takes his lips again, kissing them, exploring them, possessing them.

She knows it's wrong, she knows that she's on a dangerous edge already, and that taking this step would be the nail in her coffin in the eyes of the IOA. Something inside of her protests, but she squashes that cry just as quickly. The bigger part of her doesn't care, and she kisses him deeper.

She holds the kiss until she's out of breath and pulls away slowly, gasping for the breath she's not entirely sure her body even needs anymore as she looks into his green eyes. For a moment, she's not sure if she remembers his eyes being this green, this inviting. Surely they must have been in the past, right? One thing she is sure of, they have never shown her this much sincerity. John has always hidden behind a mask of bravery, a mask of selflessness. A mask that, now, she knows was only to fool the world around him.

She frowns at the realization of what that mask had meant...that he was alone in the world, and that he truly had only the city to keep him company, despite the masses around him in this beautiful place. She wants to be the one that wiped that aloneness from his eyes, to fill his heart with love, tenderness and be everything that a wife is supposed to be to a husband.

Wait.

Wife? Husband?

Was she sure? Where had that thought come from? Surely, she rationalized, if she'd thought it, she must mean it. She must want that somewhere deep inside herself.

A knuckle touches the bottom of her jawline, just barely, and she jumps, startled out of her thoughts. She sees worry flash across his face as she registers his eyes again, and she pulls him tightly in reassurance as he mumbles a series of 'I'm sorry's' into her hair, over and over again.

Her lips cover the length of the collarbone that is exposed from underneath his worn-out black t-shirt, and he shudders, pulling her tighter to him. She manages to wriggle out of his embrace, just enough to look up into his eyes.

"John, if they take me away..."

"They won't." He tells her simply, and she sees the firmness in his eyes. She knows that the IOA won't get her without a fight, and to the death, if that's what it takes.

"John, please. Just let me...I have to tell you something," she tells him, placing a hand on his chest so that he knows she's trying for a serious moment. She takes in a deep breath and steadies herself. "If they take me away...I need you to know...that I love you, John. And I'm sorry that it took me this long to say it."

She watches as a smile blossoms over his face, the smile that she's grown to fall in love with over the years, and takes her in his arms once more, crushing her to his chest.

"I know," he tells her as he pulls her close, breathing in the very scent of her. She feels his breath, feather soft on the side of her neck as he lays a layer of kisses over her skin. His lips pull away, damp with the perspiration from her neck, and he moves onto her lips. "And I love you, too."

Her eyes lock onto his and her face breaks into a seductive grin, nodding to him that where their relationship is headed is okay with her. As he loosely fists the hair that's grown so much longer during her captivity at the nape of her neck and lays her gently back onto the bed, he trails kisses along her jawline and down into the hollow of her throat.

She closes her eyes and writhes beneath him as he teases her senses and, somewhere in the middle of his touches and hot kisses, a thought crosses her mind. For the first time in a long time, she thinks that maybe everything will be all right after all.