Sorry for the long wait for the chapter, hope you like it. Thanks for the alerts and reviews so far.

Chapter 2

The sun stretched across the sky in a lazy arch, it had risen and set to the same sight almost everyday, the person changed but the meaning was the same. Each time one lone figure stood on a pier of the city of the ancestors, the pier was a favourite past time of a lone soldier that had gone missing in action. It wasn't the first time it had happened but the feel of it now made it seem worse, like he was important, and he was, he was the glue that held the people together and stopped the slight difference of the marines and scientists get out of hand. He even helped build the moral.

For each cycle of the sun around where the city lay, the people within hoped that with each coming day they would find that tiniest bit of information that they needed to find their friend, part of their very dysfunctional family. And for each cycle of the night, the people tired to sleep away their worries about the member that had been missing for 30 cycles of the sun around the planet and for the complete cycle of one of the moons.

Dr Weir sighed heavily as she watched the swirl of the water beneath her; she somehow hoped that she would see some semblance of an idea in the calming nature of the waves. Getting none for the millionth time she looked away, not daring to think of the thoughts that said he wasn't coming back. It had already been a month and they were no closer to finding him now, than they had been that first week after endless searches.

The IOA had since all but told her to stop hoping, stop looking, but she couldn't. He wouldn't stop if it were any of the others. He never left anyone behind, so she refused to let the IOA win, she still sent teams on search missions, but the moral and hope on the base was dwindling. They all knew that chances of still being alive after this long, I mean this was the Pegasus galaxy, the odds were, if anything, worse here than they were on earth. At least on Earth they only had one planet to search, here, they had hundreds of planets, ranging from the barren to almost ice age, even prisoner planets, all the ones you only heard about in fantasy books.

Each time they got anything that sparked hope within them, they'd only find themselves at a dead end and it tore them down the more times they tried to hope. The military contingent was surviving, yes, but only just. Major Lorne was doing a great job but it shouldn't be his job to shoulder, they could only hope it was temporary. To hers and others' dismay, Col Caldwell kept trying to change things like he had when John was infected with the wraith nano-virus. Everyone knew that he was only trying to help but the message he was sending, none of them wanted to hear. He was there more often that they liked but they still sent the teams out anytime they got a lead.

Elizabeth knew that the people that were taking this the hardest were his team, she remembered when they had appeared through the gate looking exhausted and close to collapse.

x-X-x

After hearing the alarms go off, Dr Weir swiftly moved out of her office and down to the gate floor. Taking in the appearance of the number one team, she became worried. They were all barring some minor injuries, that isn't what scared her; it was the looks in their eyes. Even Teyla and Ronon looked shocked at something they had obviously seen, McKay was just silent, that saying more for him than the shock in his eyes and features. Just as the gate shut down she realised that she hadn't seen John.

"Where's John?" For a moment she wondered if they had even heard her, they didn't answer, instead the look changed from shock to something she couldn't place. She could feel their hesitation, and she knew before the words left Teyla's mouth.

"We do not know." Teyla said calmly.

"What happened out there?" Elizabeth questioned, she at least needed to know what happened to them.

"What do you think happened? Sheppard pulled his hero act again." A now irate McKay chipped in, she was glad that he'd found his voice but it was the desperation that forced her next question.

"What happened to John?"

"He…they…said they'd punish him for our transgressions and well took him away, we tried to fight back but they caught us when we tried to run, he went and gave himself up for us. Of all the idiotic things to do he gave himself up to them people." With McKay's triad over, he calmed a little but the intense fear of what them people…no barbarians would do to his friend was still there. They needed to get Sheppard back and quickly. But they knew that as soon as they left the planet that Sheppard would be gone and it would be impossible to find him.

x-X-x

That had been a month ago and still the searches came up empty, the team still continued to look, Teyla asked her contacts if they had heard anything, as did Ronon. McKay did what he usually did when a friend was in trouble and sunk himself into his work, trying to locate Sheppard's locator beacon, searching each grid of space, waiting for the flicker of the signal.

They all had the feeling that he wasn't dead but as the month turned into two and the team started going back on missions, finding supplies for Atlantis and making friends to trade with, they could only wait for anything that may lead them closer to finding their wayward friend.

That same moon had completed two cycles now and the sun saw the lone figure disappear, it only retuned ever couple of nights now, like they had given up on the person as they had given up on that same person's favourite place to go.

Thousands, if not millions of miles away a hunched figure asked himself why he was even still alive, he still hadn't given in to the questions but…he wasn't even sure he knew the answers anymore, the faces, sights and sounds he knew had faded and been replaced by the gothic arches, almost lion looking heads of the creatures, and the now constant screaming in his head.

He still resisted when they came, but he didn't know why. What was it he was fighting for? This was his life wasn't it, the dreams of a city and people that seemed like a family, were just that, a dream. Weren't they?

TBC

Have they really given up? Has he? Thanks for reading and please review.