Disclaimer: I don't own 'Stargate Atlantis' or any related concepts or characters; you know the drill by now. Also, the basic details of the plot were inspired by 'The Phantom of the Opera', although I have naturally put my own spin on things; hope it meets with your approval

Feedback: Always appreciated, trust me

AN: To let you all know, this chapter takes place a couple of weeks after the events of "The Storm"/"The Eye", and approximately during the events of the trip to the Ancient satellite witnessed in "The Defiant One"… with some crucial differences, of course (You'll have to wait and see what they are). I was originally planning to jump straight to "Hot Zone", but it occurred to me that I needed a few more moments showing John and Elizabeth when they're not facing a crisis, so this seemed like the logical thing to do instead

The Phantom of Atlantis

It had been almost two weeks since the city had so narrowly survived a storm that would have easily gone down as the worst hurricane in existence if it had taken place on Earth, but Elizabeth was nevertheless left wondering if she'd suffered some kind of long-term concussion during the Genii invasion of Atlantis.

Even after Colonel Sumner's reconnaissance teams- sent out to survey any potential damage that the city had suffered as a result of the storm- had discovered the bodies of the Genii soldiers that had been killed by the Phantom- one with a missing arm that Doctor Beckett's analysis confirmed had been removed by some as-yet-unidentified energy weapon before the victim had been killed-, leaving clear evidence that the man possessed a brutal nature that could almost be said to be worse than the Wraith- at least their actions could be excused by the need to survive, even if a truly humane race would have found an alternative means of survival than feeding off other sentient beings-, a part of Elizabeth still couldn't help but think about the man she now thought of as 'John' when she was alone and had nothing else to occupy her time.

She knew that he clearly had a potentially dangerous violent nature- the state of some of the bodies he'd left behind him proved that if nothing else-, but, at the same time, she couldn't shake the way he'd acted around her when the two of them had been the only ones left conscious and the city had been nearly destroyed before he'd activated the shield. As well as that, there was his behaviour when dealing with Lieutenant Ford, Doctor Beckett and Teyla to take into account; although the Phantom had stunned the lieutenant rather than attempt to talk to him- something that Sumner clearly objected to-, the fact remained that he had still talked to them rather than trying to force them to do what he wanted. His motives might be uncertain, but so far Elizabeth hadn't seen any evidence that the Phantom meant them any harm; as far as she was concerned, the Phantom's actions so far were enough to earn him at least some kind of reprise from Sumner's attempts to search for him, even if she was reluctant to actually voice that belief in case she gave her military commander the wrong impression.

Elizabeth just wished that Sumner would stop focusing on how things could have gone wrong and instead look at how they had gone right (She sometimes wondered if the fact that the Phantom had stunned him and left her conscious had something to do with it; even after she'd told him that the Phantom had simply needed her help to enter the command codes- she just hadn't felt… comfortable… revealing the Phantom's real name-, Sumner evidently still resented the fact that the Phantom had once again ignored his authority in military-related matters on Atlantis). Admittedly, the Phantom's plan to re-take the city had been risky- from what Kolya had said during his conversation with the Phantom after the grounding station had been shut down, it sounded like Kolya had told the Phantom that she'd been killed; if that didn't reinforce how things might have gone wrong she didn't know what did-, but Elizabeth had her doubts that Sumner could have come up with anything less risky that would have driven the Genii out of Atlantis.

Besides, in the end, both the Phantom's plan and McKay's plan had managed to work out without any apparent problem; actually extracting the ZPM during the lightning storm might not have been something that McKay had been planning to do, but it had deprived the Genii of a vital potential bargaining chip, and the situation had still been resolved with minimal damage to Atlantis. The ZPM- along with the relocated C4 explosives- had been discovered in the teleporter nearest to the control tower after the storm had ended; McKay speculated that the Phantom had put the objects in question in a kind of 'stasis', activating the teleporter to send them to a certain location after shutting the receiving teleporter down, leaving them essentially stored in the teleporter's 'memory' until the receiving end was activated (Much like Earth's Stargate, according to a story McKay had told them as an example of how the 'trick' had been accomplished, had once ended up holding Teal'c's pattern after the Stargate at the other end of the wormhole was damaged and shut down before Teal'c could rematerialise at their end, forcing them to resort to rather… complicated… measures to get Teal'c out; McKay had been rather reluctant to explain how that had happened for some reason, but nobody had seen any point in pressing the matter).

Once the ZPM had been reconnected and the C4 returned to the storage rooms, the rest of the expedition members and the Athosians had returned to Atlantis- thankfully unharmed; whether the Manarians didn't know about the Genii's failure and had simply been waiting for a signal or had learned about the failed invasion and decided to try and act as though they'd never known about it nobody knew or was bothered in finding out-, leaving them with little to do but try and recuperate in the aftermath of the Genii assault and find out if their presence had caused any damage that they should be aware of.

So far the worst damage that the scans had picked up was some flooding in the north and west piers before the shield had been activated, although the few Genii corpses they'd discovered so far hadn't been pleasant either; the lightning that had been channelled through the conduits had all but incinerated the bodies, leaving them in a state that was best described as 'extra crispy'. The most disturbing discovery was the body of a young woman in a Genii uniform, located somewhere in the corridors between the grounding station and the gateship bay (Elizabeth hadn't asked for information about the specific location where the body had been discovered, mostly because she didn't want to know); unlike the other Genii bodies, the autopsy Carson had carried out showed that the woman had still been alive when she'd been practically fried by the lightning.

As far as they could determine, the woman in question was Sora, the Genii soldier whose father had been killed by the Wraith during the joint Atlantis/Genii attempt to infiltrate a Wraith hive-ship; based on the body, it looked like she'd unfortunately been in the corridors when the lightning had first struck the lightning rods and been electrocuted when the power had been channelled through the conduits. The most likely explanation that anyone had been able to come up with for her presence was that she'd been attempting to ambush Teyla, but she'd fallen behind while Teyla and Doctor Beckett were heading for the gateship bay- Teyla had privately admitted to Elizabeth that she believed the presence of the Phantom had prompted Sora to hold back until she was sure she wouldn't have to confront him-, and the lightning had struck before she could get to safety.

It was a tragedy, of course, but at the same time there was nothing anybody could do about it; all they could do was move on from that and try and ensure that nothing like that happened again (Personally, Elizabeth hoped they wouldn't have to be in that position the next time that storm struck Atlantis; the sooner they found a new ZPM the better as far as she and the rest of the expedition were concerned). It left them in a difficult position with the rest of the Genii, of course- over seventy of their men had been killed while on Atlantis, while the expedition had escaped with only a couple of casualties-, but in all fairness that would probably have been the case even if they'd had a couple of 'hostages'. Besides, after this last encounter, Elizabeth was strongly disinclined to try and contact the Genii again, no matter how desperate the situation became; given how their last two encounters with that particular group had turned out, it was evident that they had little interest in ensuring the survival of nobody except themselves, regardless of who was hurt in the process. As far as Elizabeth could see, if the Atlantis expedition was ever going to hope to survive the Wraith's seemingly inevitable attack, their best chance was to learn how to use the Ancient technology that remained in the city, as well as discover any possible Ancient research facilities that might provide them with further clues to developing a defence against the Wraith.

Currently Colonel Sumner and Doctor McKay were investigating a recent discovery that one of the junior scientists- Doctor Brendan Gaul, Elizabeth recalled his name was- had made while studying the Ancient database; an abandoned Ancient defence satellite, apparently the only one left from a network of similar satellites that the Ancients had once used to help them defend Atlantis, located on the edge of the solar system where Atlantis was located. Accompanied by Doctor Abrams and Sergeant Markham- Abrams to provide another perspective on the discovery and Markham to pilot the gateship; Sumner had only insisted on accompanying them because, as military commander, he felt it important to be kept aware of any new information regarding Atlantis's defences-, McKay and the scientists had gone to look at the satellite in a gateship. They had recently transmitted a message informing Atlantis that they had arrived at the satellite, but no sooner had they begun to study it than they had picked up a Wraith distress call from a nearby planet, apparently from a ship that had apparently been shot down during the final siege of Atlantis.

Admittedly, the ship was probably out of date by now- ten thousand years was too long a time for there not to have been some slight changes in Wraith technology- but personally Elizabeth doubted that there had been too many 'upgrades'; given that the gateship's weapons had so far proven to still be effective against Wraith ships, it seemed likely to her that the Wraith wouldn't have bothered to work on improving their technology after the Ancients had been defeated. After all, from what she'd heard from Teyla's stories, the Wraith- much like the Goa'uld- tended to come down particularly hard on any planet that had reached a technological level that might even have a chance of rivalling the Wraith; why would they want to waste time trying to improve on what worked when they were already at the top of the Pegasus Galaxy's food chain? Even with the Phantom's actions over the last decade, Elizabeth doubted that the Phantom- John- had made enough of an impact on Wraith society to merit them attempting to upgrade. No matter how many Wraith ships he might have destroyed over the last few years, the fact remained that he was only one man going up against an entire species; from what she'd seen of the Wraith, they were so arrogant that they would probably be convinced that he couldn't do that much damage to them until they were actually facing him, and even then they'd most likely underestimate him until it was too late.

Actually, that raised a question she'd never considered before; how did the Wraith perceive the Phantom (Even though she knew his real name now, she found it easier to think of the Phantom as just 'the Phantom' when thinking about what he'd done in the galaxy; somehow, she thought of him as 'John' only when his actions more directly affected her, most likely to make it easier for her to think of him as the legend and the man simultaneously)? From what Teyla had told her, the Phantom had saved a significant number of planets from being culled by the Wraith, but she had no way of knowing whether it had been as significant a number as Teyla seemed to think it was- she'd never been able to provide Elizabeth with specifics about how many planets the Phantom had saved; most people were content just to know that he was there- or if it only represented a small amount of the planets that the Wraith had attacked and the planets where he'd never shown up had simply never had any survivors to tell the story.

Had the Phantom made enough of an impact on the Wraith to make even them take notice, or did they simply regard him as an annoyance up to the point where he proved that he was anything but something they could just dismiss out of hand… at which point it was probably already too late for them to do anything about it?

"Doctor Weir?" Doctor Grodin's voice suddenly said, causing her to look up inquiringly at him. "We've just received word from Gateship One; they're leaving the planet and wanted to fill us in on their discoveries."

"Right," Elizabeth said, stepping out from behind her desk and walking into the main control room- the gateship had told them after sending the transmission that the planet's atmosphere would make radio communication difficult-, nodding briefly at the technician currently sitting at the control panel as he turned to activate the radio. "This is Weir; what's the situation?"

"We've completed our investigation of the crashed Wraith ship," Colonel Sumner's voice said, his tone as neutral as ever, refusing to give Elizabeth any more information than was absolutely necessary for her to do her job. "As far as Doctors McKay, Gaul and Abrams can determine, the ship was almost certainly shot down during the Wraith's final battle with the Ancients. The evidence suggests that it was a supply ship; there were minimal weapons on the vessel itself, but the interior was filled with various chambers like those used on Wraith hive ships to hold recently culled acquisitions before they're fed upon-"

"Yes, yes, all in all an interesting bit of information but not of any real benefit to us in terms of giving us information about their defensive weaknesses; just let me tell her the interesting bit now?" McKay's voice suddenly cut in, the Canadian scientist evidently excited at the implications of whatever he'd discovered. "While we were looking around the ship, we discovered a few Wraith corpses that looked like they had been fed upon- it would seem that the Wraith can drain life energy from each other as well as from humans-, but most of them look like they died a while ago; initially, the most likely theory is that the last Wraith standing ran out of food, but…"

"'But'?" Elizabeth asked, wondering what the reason for McKay's current uncertainty was. "What is it?"

"Well," McKay continued, his voice clearly displaying his uncertainty about the discovery, "the freshest Wraith corpse we found was in such good shape that the thing could only have been dead for a few years or so- according to Doctor Beckett's reports they take quite a long time to decay once they're actually dead; their ability to heal keeps the cells going long after the brain dies and cause the Wraith to apparently take a good few decades to even start to decay-, and it's pretty clear that something killed it deliberately."

"You're sure it didn't just die of hunger?" Elizabeth asked, even as she contemplated the implications of that statement; could it be that the Phantom- John- had been to that planet at some point in the past and defeated a Wraith in a one-on-one confrontation? "You said yourself that all the other Wraith and humans on that ship were dead; maybe it just ran out of food and died before you got there-"

"Given that its entire head has been cut off- along with both of its hands; they're all only lying a few feet away from the body-, I'd say it's pretty clear this thing didn't go because it hadn't fed in a while," McKay replied, his tone evidently sounding annoyed at the implication that he might have made a mistake on the scale of what Elizabeth was implying. "Trust me, Elizabeth; whoever- or whatever- took that Wraith out, they knew exactly what they were doing and- given the lack of any other body anywhere near that one- they knew just how to do it without getting killed themselves."

"In other words," Sumner's voice added, his tone the same precise one that she was already coming to think of as Sumner's 'Phantom tone'- the tone of voice that he always used when discussing matters relating to the Phantom-, "it would appear that, in light of new evidence, I need to upgrade the danger the Phantom could pose to this expedition."

Elizabeth blinked, exchanging a brief, concerned glance with Doctor Grodin- after he had learned about the events of the Genii invasion and the Phantom's actions in the expedition's defence, the British man had admitted to Elizabeth that he was also beginning to have his doubts about the hunt for the Phantom- before she turned her attention back to the current conversation.

"Can I ask why this information in particular should change anything?" she asked, doing everything she could to sound neutral; given Sumner's repeatedly-stated dislike of the Phantom's independent status, she had a strong feeling that nothing she could say would be sufficient to make him change that opinion.

"Doctor, assuming that the Phantom is the only person to have been in this system for the last couple of decades- which, given that there is literally no other inhabited planets in this system, would seem to be correct-, we have just discovered evidence to suggest that he is capable of surviving against a Wraith in what all evidence would suggest was hand-to-hand combat; I think it's safe to say that he's potentially far more dangerous than we could have expected," Sumner stated, his tone now almost laced with a slight trace of contempt, as though he couldn't believe Elizabeth wasn't seeing the situation the way he was. "He was potentially dangerous enough when all we thought he could do was control Ancient technology to an- according to all sources- significant degree, but when factoring in his possession of combat skills sufficient to take down a Wraith without any back-up and apparently no advanced weapons, as well as his attitude towards his enemies during the Genii invasion, it's becoming increasingly clear that we're dealing with a highly disturbed individual with a dangerous knowledge of combat."

Elizabeth had nothing to say to that, so she simply remained silent.

"Instruct the security teams to be ready for a briefing from me when I return to the city; Doctors McKay, Gaul and Abrams can study their research well enough without my presence now," Sumner said briefly, before he terminated the connection, leaving Elizabeth staring at the console in thought even as she nodded at Grodin to alert the security teams like Sumner had requested.

She knew that Sumner's line of reasoning was fundamentally correct; the evidence of the Phantom's brutality against the Genii wasn't exactly the most comforting discovery she'd ever made, and their lack of knowledge about the man's final long-term plans failed to help his standing with the expedition as a whole. All they really knew for certain about him was that the man clearly had no qualms about resorting to any means necessary to get what he wanted (Elizabeth had a suspicion that he'd… injured- she refused to even think the word 'mutilated'; given that the injuries had apparently been caused relatively quickly, the context just didn't feel right to her-… had been attacked like that because he wanted information out of them), and could be almost frighteningly cold when confronting his enemies; the look in his eyes when he'd shot Kolya- as though he'd like nothing better than to tear the Genii commander limb from limb- would always stay with her.

So why, even after all that evidence was taken into account and the picture it created was presented to her- the picture of a violent, ruthless man that she knew she would normally have run away from if she'd ever encountered him back on Earth-, did she still feel this strange… interest in him?


Unknown to even Elizabeth, the subject of her bleak thoughts was currently crouched above her, sitting in one of the tunnels he regularly used to travel around the city, a slightly grim smile on his face as he recalled the confrontation that Sumner and McKay's latest discovery had called to the forefront of his mind once again. It had been one of the first times he'd gone up against a Wraith in hand-to-hand combat- he'd spent some time working out, of course, but all his previous encounters had been long-range fights while he was in a jumper-, and hence one of those occasions that would always remain in his memory no matter what other strange and remarkable things happened in his life as he continued to travel throughout the Pegasus galaxy.

He'd discovered reference to the Ancient satellite in Atlantis's databanks and taken a jumper to investigate, and had just been about to depart the satellite- he'd been planning to take a more in-depth look, but the lack of a spacesuit or the Ancient equivalent meant that he was unable to do so- when he'd picked up the Wraith distress call. Deciding to take a look- while also arming himself with an Ancient energy pistol, along with a makeshift sword he'd forged in his spare time in case he ever needed to get up close with a Wraith in a fight-, he'd taken his jumper down to the planet, landing it a decent distance away from the Wraith ship- also activating the force field via a 'remote control'-like device he'd picked up in one of the labs, in case of any unexpected 'guests'- and subsequently entered the ship to investigate it.

He'd quickly discovered the ship's sole survivor- a Wraith who seemed to have been feeding on both the ship's human cargo and his fellows, keeping them in stasis until he needed them-, but had fortunately caught him some time after his last meal, when the sucker was at his weakest. The guy might have been the toughest Wraith on the ship, but he'd been stuck there for so long without any fresh food that his healing abilities had apparently 'worn down' by the time John came to the planet. Absorbing other Wraith rather than humans might have made him harder to put down than the average Wraith was- based on something he'd read in the Ancient database, something about Wraith metabolism caused their healing factor to be 'amplified' if they resorted to cannibalism-, but the lack of food for so long had left the guy a bit slow. All John had needed to do was stay back until he'd managed to use his sword to injure the thing's hands- he'd cut them off properly once he'd weakened it enough, of course; he had no way of knowing if death would stop the Wraith's body attempting to feed or if it would operate on instinct like a headless chicken that kept on running about-, subsequently decapitating the creature while it was temporarily out-of-focus from the pain.

It hadn't been as easy at it seemed when he looked back at it, of course- he'd come close more than once to being fed on; it was one of the reasons he'd started to wear his current 'costume', as the material he used it provided him with an extra layer that could prevent the Wraith from easily feeding on him-, but it had still marked the first occasion where he'd managed to overcome a Wraith in a one-on-one fight. He'd kept the sword as part of his regular off-world 'armoury' ever since, finding it a useful weapon in case he ever came face-to-face with a Wraith and his gun had run out of energy for some reason, but he always took care to stay in shape with it; he'd been lucky when facing the Wraith at that time, but his encounters with the Wraith over the years since had left him with the knowledge that he couldn't depend on luck constantly.

And speaking of important memories…

He sighed slightly, reaching into his pocket to pull out the makeshift calendar that he'd put together shortly after his arrival; it was getting a bit worn after all these years, but it had helped him to maintain some sense of chronology while he was alone, allowing him to keep track of important dates…

Such as today.

In many ways, today was the anniversary of the day that had simultaneously destroyed and made his life; if those incredible events that had taken place twenty years ago had never happened, he would have probably lived a more peaceful life than he had done for these last few years, but, at the same time, it would have been far less interesting…

Plus, of course, if he'd lived the life he would have lived without that experience, who was to say that he would have met her?

No matter what else had happened in his life, if it was the only way he could ever have met the most compassionate, caring, courageous woman he'd ever known, how could he not be grateful for what had happened?

It was why he always made it a point to take today off whenever it came around; no matter how bad the past year had been, a few hours spent with what he had left of the woman who had given his life the purpose that he had once believed he would never find somehow always managed to make him feel better about himself.

Satisfied that Atlantis could manage without him for the next few hours- with the expedition's current efforts focused on tracking down any damage done by the storm, there weren't any teams offworld at the moment, and the Wraith didn't even know where Atlantis actually was anyway-, he turned around and began to make his towards the one room in the city where he could always be sure of having privacy, due to the fact that he'd taken it off Atlantis's sensor grid years ago.

It hadn't been easy programming the room so that it would never be discovered, of course- it had taken the better part of three years' worth of 'spare time' just to work out how to re-wire it so that the power for the internal sensors was diverted to generating a low-level force field around the room instead, simultaneously protecting it from damage and preventing anyone even realising that it was there-, but, as he hurried through the small 'maze' of tunnels that would lead him to the room, he considered it worth the effort.

After all, if it wasn't for the individual whose mortal remains were kept within this room, he'd probably have been dead almost twenty years ago; since he couldn't give her any kind of actual burial due to his lack of knowledge about what she'd have preferred, keeping her in stasis like this until he had the chance to ask the only person who'd know for certain what she would have wanted only made sense.

After everything she'd done for the city- and, albeit unintentionally, after everything she'd done for him-, giving her that chance was the least he could do to thank her for saving them both.

As he finally reached the mall door that would grant him access to the room, he opened it as quickly as he could- the system unfortunately still registered his presence as he entered and exited the room, meaning that he had to be sure to be quick to avoid registering on the sensors as anything more than a glitch- before he dived into the room, the door closing behind him as soon as he'd entered.

After waiting a few seconds in case any alarms had been set off- if anything was triggered he'd have plenty of time to get out of there before somebody else managed to get there-, he automatically made his way towards the chair that he'd set up here long ago. As he sat down in the chair, he allowed himself a slightly indulgent smile as he saw the sight of the old woman lying in the stasis chamber before him; even after all the years since they'd first met, her presence continued to have a calming effect on him.

Her younger self might be more beautiful in the conventional sense- smooth skin, thick dark hair, a light in her eyes that grew more incredible whenever some new discovery was made or a new victory achieved, an inner strength that belied her pacifistic nature-, but the woman now lying before him had, in her own way, a certain timeless beauty to her that would always appeal to him. Maybe it was the white robe she wore and the way her long white hair lay against it- combined with the soft lighting in the room; he'd had to dim the power requirements for that system to the minimum necessary amount to allow him to see in order to limit the power being drawn by this part of the city-, giving her an almost ethereal, angelic quality about her…

Or maybe, he though to himself, as he reached out to lay a hand on the chamber, I just see her as an angel because she was one to me.

She might have waited over ten thousand years to save Atlantis…

But she'd also saved him when he'd been nothing more than a young boy with no clue what had happened to him, giving him a chance and a purpose that he would never have possessed without her.

How could she be anything less than an angel to him?

The age gap might have been ridiculous at the time they'd met, of course- coupled with the fact that he'd been too young to seriously think of girls like that back then-, but he'd known even then that there was something special about her; it had just taken him several years to realise just what that was and why it had affected him so much.

It was one reason he was glad thing had turned out the way they did; how many people could honestly say that they'd had the chance to be with their first…

No.

He wouldn't- couldn't- go there; after what he'd done to the Genii during their invasion, he barely even deserved to think that he might have a chance with her in… that sense of the word.

All he could do was hope that he could at least see him as a friend, even if he could never forgive the brutality of his actions back then.

"Hi, Elizabeth," he said at last, his voice the same low tone that he always used when he spoke to her. It might have been a strange habit, but when half the population of the galaxy he was in wanted him dead and the other half would freak out if he simply unmasked in their presence, the body before him had quickly become the closest thing he had in his situation to a confidant. "Sorry I haven't been here much lately, but, well…"

He smiled slightly at her. "The expedition came through the Stargate."

After a moment's pause- he always liked to wait a few seconds in a situation like this; even with the Ancients' vague research on the topic, he didn't know if there was an afterlife, but he liked to pretend that, if there was, the older Elizabeth was listening to him and 'responding' in some way-, he continued. "They're all just as you described them, you'll be glad to know; apart from the detail of the city not flooding this time around, history seems to have gone exactly the same way it did before."

For a short while he simply sat in silence, looking reflectively at the still form before him, before he spoke again. "You… the other you…"

He sighed. "She's… she's everything you worried you couldn't manage to be; you'd be proud to see how far she's come."

He still recalled their brief conversations before the old woman before him had died; given that they'd been the last truly friendly conversations he'd have for over twenty years, it would have been impossible for them not to leave a lasting impression on him.

After she'd told him what little she could about the challenges that would face him once he began to travel to the rest of the Pegasus Galaxy- while simultaneously making him promise her that he wouldn't even think about going through the Stargate until he was certain that he could defend himself-, she'd spent her last few hours talking to him about more personal matters… including her own personal fear that, even if the expedition had managed to survive their arrival in Atlantis, she would have failed to lead them against the Wraith when they encountered the vampire-like race for the first time. He'd tried to assure her that, in his opinion, she would have done a great job at holding the city together- given how far she'd gone to save it, his young mind hadn't been able to conceive even the possibility that she wouldn't do just as good a job at running the city as she'd done when saving it-, but his youth had been against him and he'd been unable to present her with a convincing argument in her last few hours.

If he'd had that time over again…

He shook that particular thought off as quickly as he could; he'd already managed to get one second chance with her already, and the odds of getting that one alone had been so high that it was almost ridiculous to think about.

He'd come here for a few moments of peace; he wouldn't ruin that by thinking of what he might have said or done differently to make the woman now lying before him feel better in her last moments.

She'd died as satisfied as she could given the circumstances, her last words being to wish him well in the new life that he would now have to create for himself; all he could do was live that life to the best of his abilities with the aid of what she had managed to teach him, while simultaneously fulfilling his personal promise to protect her younger self when she finally arrived on Atlantis.

Even if her younger self could never feel for him what he had felt for her for almost as long as he had been in Atlantis…

No! he berated himself, fighting to halt that thought before it could much further.

That old dream didn't matter.

Nothing mattered except that she stayed alive, living the life that her other self had never had the chance to have herself.

After everything he'd had to do over the years since he'd arrived here, he'd long ago accepted the fact that his dream would remain simply a dream; the fact that he'd blown it before he'd had the chance to even try and have a few… moments… with her was just one of those things that sometimes happened.

He'd done terrible things to guarantee Atlantis's continued survival- as well as the safety of several planets less capable of defending themselves-; the fact that they'd been done for the best of reasons in no ay excused the brutality of the acts in question.

Even if she could ever understand his reasons, she could never bring herself to be with someone who could do something like that; she was too good a person to allow herself to 'sink' that low as to be with such a monster…

He had long since accept that; it didn't matter any more.

Only her safety mattered.

As far as he was concerned, everything else was secondary to that.

Only now, when he was alone and no dangers threatened the city that she had given her entire life to protect, in the room where his presence could definitively never be detected by any kind of outside clues, could he allow himself to be weak and feel the pain of that loss (If you could be said to lose something that you'd never really had in the first place)…

So he did.

For the first time since the expedition had come to Atlantis and Colonel Sumner had given the order to hunt him down before he endangered the city he had guarded for them, the man known to the Pegasus Galaxy as the Phantom lowered his head into his hands, and began to cry for the dream that had been ended by his own actions before it had really had a chance to begin.