AN: Here's chapter two. Enjoy!

Chapter Two:

Balcony Confessional

Sitting alone on the balcony outside the Gate room, Sheppard looked out over the vast ocean that surrounded the city. Now back from his father's funeral, he had been left mostly to himself, though he guessed that was more thanks to Carter's orders rather than the Atlantis crew's sense of propriety. Still, he was grateful for the silence, even if it was fleeting.

He glanced over at the railing, at the spot just beside the last support but before the wall. It was where she had been standing the first time they had really spoken since coming here.

Argued, you mean, her voice echoed in his head, and he subconsciously smirked. Even in his own imagination, she still had to play Devil's Advocate.

Okay, fine, he mentally replied. We argued. You thought I was being immature, hot tempered and hard-headed. I thought you were being too cold, distant and diplomatic.

He shook his head, glad that for the moment, no one could see him out here. She had been right about him then; he had been on a personal mission of self-destruction, more concerned with burning as many bridges as he could than doing what was truly right. Oh, he did care, that was for damned sure, but his joining the Atlantis expedition had ultimately come down to a coin flip. Heads up, he would go; tails up and he would stay where he was, piloting helicopters in Antarctica, playing ferryman for Air Force generals and other such mucky-mucks. Destiny had chosen for him when the coin landed on the back of his hand, and so he packed everything up and left. When they had discovered that their trip to the Pegasus galaxy had been one-way, he had secretly rejoiced. For him, it was almost like starting from scratch. He had a black mark on his record, true, but he figured that if he proved himself out here, it might at least fade to a dusty gray.

I was wrong, he heard her say then, and the sudden admission startled him enough that he sat up straight.

About what? He wondered silently.

You weren't just a fly-boy with a death wish. You were, and still are, an honorable man who feels a deep need to protect those who can't protect themselves.

But there was one person I couldn't protect, he argued. As he thought those words, he peered again at the railing and could almost see her standing there, her slender hands folded in front of her. Her auburn hair fanned away from her face as the breeze blew, its curls bobbing just like the surf below them. Sadness choked him then, twining around his stomach like an iron fist. His vision of her flickered and then disappeared, and the silence left in her wake was deafening.

Just before he feared that he would start screaming and never stop, the door to the Gate room swished open and Rodney McKay stepped outside. He started over to where Sheppard sat but then suddenly stopped, a puzzled expression on his rounded face. Sheppard noticed, and shot him a questioning look.

"I could have sworn I smelled roses..." McKay muttered in reply.

Though his insides turned to jelly, Sheppard merely nodded and then stood up. Her favorite perfume had been rose-scented. He had thought that she had been a figment of his imagination. Had she really been there, after all? It couldn't be, he reasoned; she was dead. But if that was true then how did he explain Rodney sensing her, too? As nonchalantly as he could, Sheppard replied, "Me, too. Must be the flowers from the mainland or something."

It was a terrible explanation, and he knew it. The mainland was much too far away for any floral breezes to make their way to Atlantis. Mentally kicking himself, Sheppard readied himself for the barrage of insults and snarky comments he knew were coming.

But they never came. McKay still stood where he had stopped, uttering a soft, "Hmm." Then, with a final shake of his head, he seemed to recall his reason for finding the colonel. "Movie night is guy's choice. It's down to Jaws or Alien."

Sheppard shrugged. "Which Jaws, and which Alien?"

McKay scoffed. "Please. The sequels don't even count as movies!"

That drew a smile from the dark-haired man. "I vote Jaws."

"Thank God!" His friend breathed. "I don't think I can live through the William Hurt scene again."

As McKay stepped back through the door, muttering the whole way about who would win in a battle between aliens and sharks, Sheppard turned back to glance one last time at the empty balcony.

Hoping that somehow she could hear him, he silently said, I'm sorry, Elizabeth.

The door slid closed behind him, and so he never heard the soft reply – nothing more than a whisper that anyone else would have thought was the wind – but it was there.

Nothing to forgive.