Chapter 11

John looked at his wife as she sat at her desk. After the meeting with the doctors and Sitnalta, she had come to her office in an effort to work, but he knew her well enough by now to know she wasn't concentrating. Also: she hadn't turned the page of the electronic document in the time he had been watching her and he had been standing in the doorway for at least two minutes now. There were also small frown lines on her forehead that wasn't usually there and he wondered what she was thinking. That she would be thinking of the Becketts' mother and her refusal of the nanites was evident. He just wondered why her decision bothered her so much.

He knew she had not come to her decision lightly, but he had to wonder if perhaps she had not based it too much on her own fears. He loved the way she always tried to be strong and rational and honest, but he was also aware that she was as human as he was and if there was one thing he knew beyond a doubt: he was all too fallible. For some reason the day's events in the meeting room had reminded him of something that had happened in their first year here. It had been a few weeks before the Wraith had attacked Atlantis – before they had even known they would ever be getting back to earth. Now that he thought about it, he was amazed at how hard they had all fought to find a way back to earth; to what they had then considered 'home'. It was only later, when they had been forced off Atlantis by the Ancients, that they had realised perhaps 'home' meant something different. But back then they had been so anxious to get back to earth, unfortunately the Wraith were on their way and they didn't have the same resources they did now: not enough to fend off the Wraith, anyway. He and Teyla had taken a puddle jumper to a planet she had known that had been on the Wraith's route and was to be culled. There Teyla had insisted on waiting for some of the people she knew and considered family – a family that still resided among those on Athosia. He had known they didn't have the time to spare to save those people, but Teyla had been adamant and in the end they had indeed saved some people. But it was only until afterwards that John had understood that sometimes a tactical advantage was the wrong thing to do.

Though this situation seemed much different from that other time, and taken his feelings towards the nanites, he still couldn't shake the feeling that they had made the wrong choice.

"You've been staring at me for almost five minutes," Elizabeth interrupted his thoughts. He scowled as he crossed the small space to the chair he usually sat in. Elizabeth watched him with lowered head as he did.

"Yeah, well, I just didn't want to disturb your intensive...perusal of that page," he told her as he indicated the tablet in front of her. She smiled wryly.

"I'm that obvious?" she gently asked, but he knew she was troubled. Probably as troubled as he was.

"Nah, I just guessed someone with your intellect would read a little quicker than that," he continued the slight bantering. It wasn't the best he had ever been engaged in, but he was reluctant to tell her what was on his mind. The problem was that he really didn't have a reason for what he was feeling.

She cocked her head slightly and narrowed her eyes. "Flattery won't help, you know," she told him. "But I also suspect I won't like the real reason you're here," she added.

John sat forward in his chair as he looked at her; crossing his arms. He wanted her to know he was telling her this as the commanding officer of Atlantis, not her husband.

"Elizabeth, we're making a mistake," he told her. "I don't like the idea of using the nanites any more than you do, but I think this time we need to do it."

For a moment she stared at him before pursing her lips. He really hated it when she did that: part of him thought it was extremely cute when she tried to look serious and this was not the time to be distracted by his feelings.

"And what about the next time?" she demanded. "Where do we draw the line with the use of the nanites?" She leaned forwards as she glared at him. "I won't have any more people exposed to it than need be."

"I'm not saying we use it for every little problem out there, but neither can we afford to lose even one person. Especially not Mum Beckett," he added with the epithet that had attached itself to the mother of the Becketts. He wasn't sure if it was a joke at the expense of the Becketts or if it was merely an endearment, but everyone seemed to use it.

"This is not a negotiation," Elizabeth now firmly told him and pursed her lips even more. As she had, John sat forwards and rested his arms on the edge of her table. It was still the same one they had found in here on that first day.

"Why do I have the feeling this conversation is not exactly just about Mum Beckett?" he softly asked, but his inner soldier made it a demand.

For a moment he thought she would not answer his question, but when she finally did he wasn't prepared for her anger. "Would you have me expose this city to even more danger just because we all like Mum Beckett? How will I explain it to the next patient when someone else needs to draw these things from my blood that we can't just because we don't like them as much as we do Mrs. Beckett?"

"Our children will have the nanites in them," John began, but she interrupted him with a look of pure anger.

"I know!" she nearly yelled. Then she calmed slightly. "Don't you think I don't know that? Every day I worry about whether I'm doing the right thing by allowing me to have these babies," she told him, but this time it was his turn to interrupt her.

"Look, I don't like this any better than you do..."

Her interruption was swift and sharp: "You can't possibly hate this half as much as I do!" she snapped. By now both of them were furious at one another, but despite his feelings of anger and the need to retaliate – to hurt her as she had hurt him – he finally looked into her eyes. He had been looking at her all this time, but somehow he hadn't really been looking and now the pain in her eyes nearly drove him to his knees. Yes, she was correct: he couldn't possibly hate the situation more than she did. And because of her hatred she was blind to anything concerning the nanites.

Frustration at the entire situation had him out of his seat and stalking to the door in an attempt to clear his head. He wanted nothing as much as to rush over and take her in his arms and tell her everything would be okay, but he needed to get her to focus beyond her pain.

He spun around and once more stalked over towards the desk, but this time he put his hands on it and leaned forwards instead of sitting down.

"Elizabeth, we need to do this. Not for the Becketts, but for the city. It's the right thing to do," he lamely tried to explain the certainty in his gut. "Look, you know exactly how I feel – felt – about the nanites in your body and I really worry as much as you do about our children. But we need to start trusting our people. We have the best minds in two galaxies working on the nanites..."

"But so much can still go wrong," she firmly inserted. When she wanted to be stubborn about something she could be unmovable. But John could be stubborn as well.

"Yes, and then we'll deal with it. But we can't bring Mum Beckett back from the dead," he informed her.

He could see defeat in her eyes and the look was as bad as anything he had ever seen. Yet he had been the one to insist he was arguing as her military leader, not her husband. If he went to her now as her husband he would do more damage than good.

Once, just once, she nodded and he knew he had won. Without taking his eyes from her for even a second, he spoke into his earpiece.

"Sheppard to Doctor Beckett," he opened a link.

Yes, Colonel, one of the Becketts responded. As he was staring at her, so did she stare at him and for a moment John forgot what he wanted to say. Colonel? the Beckett prompted a response.

"Prepare your mother, you're doing the procedure," he informed whichever Beckett it was.

Aye, Colonel, the Doctor replied and the line went dead. He stood where he was as Elizabeth slowly stood and walked around the table while never breaking eye contact. When she stood in front of him she proudly lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes. He could see she was angry and a large part of her thought they were doing the wrong thing, but she had conceded and would not back down now.

"Do you know I can see in the dark?" she softly asked him.

Then she turned away from him and walked out of the office; leaving him to follow.