She was on her feet again, seemingly fully recovered, before they let him out of isolation.

He only found out afterwards what had happened as he'd cooled his heels for hours, through multiple scans and blood tests; how she'd woken just briefly at first, her body exhausted from the fight; how Carson had kept her for observation after she'd woken properly; her description of the fantasy world the nanites had created in their attempt to subjugate her will, her consciousness.

The whole thing, from Elizabeth's collapse to her eventual awakening, had taken only five hours. They kept him in quarantine for eight, just to be on the safe side, re-scanning him every hour. It had been a long, slow, restless wait with only hazmat-suited medics for company. His team had been busy, their concern naturally focused on Elizabeth. Once she was discharged from the infirmary he'd had a few brief visits; Rodney had waved a datapad vaguely and rattled off a stream of incomprehensible technobabble before dashing off, his attention clearly already focused on interpreting the data they had collected from the nanite attack; Teyla had attempted to make small talk through the glass windows, her smile of relief belying her mild scolding about the risks he had taken; Ronon had simply nodded, his silent regard conveying an understanding and acceptance of John's actions.

Carson, on the other hand, had suited up and come into the isolation room to check for himself the scan results and to chastise John in person for his "irresponsible" behaviour. John had schooled his face into a neutral expression, neither too remorseful (because he didn't regret his actions for a second) nor too stubborn (if Carson thought John wasn't taking the lecture on board it would just go on for longer) and nodded at appropriate intervals, whilst inside he just felt like grinning. It had worked; that was all that mattered.

Eventually Carson had left, the fatigue evident in his posture, the warmth of relief in his eyes, saying without words that, risky and foolish or not, Carson was as glad as John of the successful outcome of his actions. The only person who hadn't come by was Elizabeth and Carson had explained that he'd sent her to her quarters to get some rest; her body had recovered quickly from the nanite infestation but the experience had left her understandably shaken. John didn't know then what she had seen, what she had experienced during her coma, only that his theory had been right; the nanites had been messing with her mind, trapping her in an imagined scenario designed to undermine her body's natural defences, to subliminally persuade her not to fight them.

The thought of what she might have experienced, might have lived through, in those short (endless) five hours had sent a chill of apprehension through him. As time had passed he had allowed himself a cautious hope that his continued lack of symptoms was a good sign, indicating that the nanites had not spread to him, but the medics had remained sternly non-committal, refusing to release him and continuing their periodic scan and checks. The lurking fear that he would share Elizabeth's fate had still lingered in the back of his mind, his imagination throwing out scenarios of what might happen to him, what insidious fantasies the nanites might create to entrap him. Would knowing what had happened to Elizabeth help him, he'd wondered? Would he retain that memory, that knowledge, if they invaded his brain? Would he know that something was wrong, that what he saw wasn't real? Or would he be as lost as Elizabeth, living an imagined life while his body lay still and dying in a plastic tent?

He'd pushed those thoughts aside and slipped from his perch on the exam bed, a feeling of barely contained restlessness thrumming through him. Bored and restless from his enforced confinement, he'd paced the room for a while, his thoughts brooding, trying to work off his excess energy. The room was too small though, barely 15 paces in each direction, not enough space to hit any kind of stride, to even stretch his muscles, and with an exam bed, a bulky scanner and anywhere up to five hazmat-suited medics sharing the confined space it wasn't long before his restless wandering was earning him irritated looks from behind tinted faceplates. He'd given up and settled back on the exam bed again when Dr Nielsen informed him in a rather snappish tone that it was time his next blood test – a full 10 minutes before it was due.

As she'd placed another full sample tube to one side and carefully withdrawn the needle, he'd seen her stern expression soften in sympathy. "Not much longer, Colonel," she'd tried to reassure him. He'd nodded, offering her a half-hearted grin. It wasn't her fault he was stuck in here. He had only himself to blame for that… didn't make it any less frustrating though.

He'd moped for a while, perched on the exam bed, his legs swinging absently as he dwelled fruitlessly on what-ifs and might-have-beens. Eventually, annoyed at himself, he'd stretched out on the firm mattress and tried to pass the time by catching a much-needed nap. He'd been awake since the early hours, his nightmares pulling him from a restless sleep, and it was now getting into early evening Atlantis time. The intervening hours had been filled with stress and worry and he'd felt suddenly exhausted, his body crashing as the adrenalin of urgency deserted him. He'd been too wired to rest though, his body still tense from the long hours of growing desperation, his mind unable to switch off from the worry, the excitement, the fear. He'd tossed and turned restlessly, never achieving more than a restless half-doze, plagued by half-formed dreams and fragments of memory.

He'd woken up sweating, a cry dying on his lips, his skin itching with the imagined sensation of millions of tiny robots scurrying around his body, swimming in his blood, harvesting his cells to replicate themselves and swarm and spread and…

He'd sat up abruptly, ignoring the hesitant, uncomfortable concern of the ever-present medics as he swung his legs over the edge of the exam bed and rested his elbows on his knees, letting his head hang down loosely as he focused on calming his thundering pulse, his breathing still a little rapid and shaky. He'd felt a shudder ripple through him and had straightened up, unconsciously rubbing his arms. He'd been in isolation for hours, with hours more to go until he could be given the all clear and for the first time it had hit him what it really meant, the risk he'd taken. Not the risk to himself but the risk to Atlantis; to the expedition, to the lives of his friends. If his desperate move hadn't worked then Elizabeth would probably have died – or worse, been wholly consumed and taken over by nanites, becoming a human form replicator… one who wore a friend's face. And worse than that… he could have been infected too – could still be infected, he'd reminded himself – and could have shared the same fate… leaving the Atlantis team dealing with two devastating personal losses and a possible threat to the city with no-one there to lead them.

He'd felt the sweat turn cold on his skin and in that moment he'd really understood, as no-one else could, the burden of command and the furious chewing out his CO in Afghanistan had given him after he'd risked everything in an effort to save one man…He had put personal feelings over the safety of the base and everyone in it. He had taken chances on not just his survival but that of every single man and woman in the city and everyone back on Earth… and all for the sake of his reluctance to lose a friend, his conviction that you didn't leave people behind. And he still believed that. And he knew in his heart that, given the choice, he'd do the same thing again. And he didn't know whether he should be proud of that… or terrified by it.

The next few hours in the isolation room had felt like an eternity.

Eventually Carson and his medical team had decided that, based on the timescale of Elizabeth's collapse following the attack by Niam, if John had been infected, there'd be signs of it by now and they'd cut him loose.

The first thing he did was go looking for Elizabeth. It was kinda dumb really… he knew she was okay, had been assured by Carson that she was fully recovered, 100 clear of nanites, but he needed to see for himself. He needed to talk to her, to see her awake and aware and alive… he needed a picture in his head to replace the last memory he had of talking with Elizabeth… the one that had ended with him cradling her unresponsive body in his arms and screaming for Carson.

He found her, of course, in the control room – ironically, right where she'd been when he'd last spoken to her, so many hours ago. The sense of relief at seeing her back on her feet was tempered by the unwelcome flood of memories… of the distant look in her eyes, of the control room shuddering around him, Elizabeth dropping suddenly to the floor, of the gate shutting down, leaving him alone in the doomed city… Memories, some of them real, some of them not; all of them vivid and disturbing.

He fixed a smile on his face and kept his tone light as he spoke, jolting Elizabeth from her reverie. She was shaken too, he could see it, and the pair of them stepped carefully around the conversation, shying away from the real depth of emotion lurking beneath. When she turned contemplative he cut her off, offering platitudes, and when she grew melancholy he tried to joke but it fell flat and he saw the real fear in her eyes as she told him, "John ... don't."

He felt like he wanted to say something, wanted to explain to her… to make her understand that he knew what he had risked, that he'd done it anyway, that'd he'd do it again in a heartbeat… and that that scared him. But the words stuck in his chest, just like they always did, and so he offered her the best he could give, an apology and a smile, and left her to her sombre thoughts.

When he finally went to bed, he dreamed of Atlantis exploding and dying. And in his dreams, he saw not the false memories of the Asuran mindprobe, not the ticking bomb that would end his life along with the city's in a last effort to protect Earth. Instead he saw the city fall by his own hand, by his negligence, because of his recklessness. And he saw it over and over again as he made the same choice over and over again; one risk too many, one bullet he couldn't dodge, one final, fatal choice that resulted in disaster.

He woke early and didn't bother trying to go back to sleep.

Fin.