It's a long time dark, John thought as he lay in dark limbo unable to move, barely even breathing.

Is this death? he wondered, Am I dead?

He could not hear a thing, and even though he was sure his eyes were open, he could see nothing. His body seemed to be held in nothingness. It was as if he was floating on an air current, though he felt no movement, nor air passing over his body. He tried to move, but nothing worked anymore, almost as if his brain had been disconnected from his body and it was that which floated in the void. With a frosty chill in his heart, he decided that he was, in fact, dead.

Well, the afterlife sucks, he thought.

His mind seemed to be empty, as for a long time he did not seem to have a single thought in his head, only a sense of existence and loneliness.

After an unquantifiable passing of time, a confusing, yet hugely intense feeling of relief washed over him. At first, he was not sure why he was feeling it, but it made him happy regardless. And then, with this happiness came the understanding that he was relived because he was no longer suffering the effects of the Moha poison.

When he was younger, he had read a theory somewhere that a person's final moments would be replayed into eternity. Be a person's death a mere slipping peacefully away, or a horrific endurance of terrible death throes, the very final moments of a person's life would be repeated over and over again like a never ending echo of death.

John had not much liked that idea, and being a soldier whose job should include the words 'huge possibility of dying a horrible death' in its lengthy description, the thought of forever living his death had always scared him. He was immensely pleased that the theory seemed to be a load of bull, owing to the fact he was not replaying the final massive seizure that had ended his life.

He continued to float in the dark emptiness, his thoughts nothing really more than sad remembrance of what he had left behind. His team, his three friends who had become more like family to him than his real blood family had ever really been. He wished he could have stayed with them, enjoyed more adventures and laughter, have more times to tease McKay and times to fight hard and spar strongly with Teyla and Ronon. If this was his existence now, he sure was going to miss life and his Lantean family terribly.

Something began to bother him, some strange sensation that seemed to be building up until he began to feel a warmth in what he assumed was his chest. The warmth grew to cover his entire, now fully aware, body in prolonged and sustained burning waves of pins and needles that slowly threatened to drive him insane. The burning grew to an intolerable level and he believed they must have placed him on a funeral pyre.

The darkness was fading and he realised his eyes were closed and that there was light on the other side of his lids, if only he could open them. The fire burned through his body and he wanted to scream as every muscle twitched and throbbed in increasing waves of intensity. He suddenly didn't want to open his eyes, he could not bear to see the flames he was sure were licking his body and feeding upon his skin. Was it this, then, that was to be his eternal replay? Was this his actual death that he would need to endure forever?

Then abruptly, everything stopped. No pain, no heat, no feeling other than a chilled numbness and a beautiful nothingness. John floated peacefully until muffled noises began to pull him from his isolation.

He began to make out voices, various voices chattering around him. Some were angry, some were sad and someone was crying, he was sure of it. The sound of the crying filled him with melancholy and he felt a wet warmth trickle from his eye. He so very much wanted to waken and hold that crying person as they sounded so despondent, so heart-broken that his own heart was hurting for them.

Then, he recognised the crying person to be Teyla. He could hear her now, could hear all his team mates, speaking words of regret and grief. She was attempting to say the words of an ancient prayer near him, her voice breaking as her breathing hitched in her tight throat. He could hear Rodney's sorrowful voice saying "If only I had fixed it sooner." over and over. He could also hear Ronon attempting to soothe them both, but even his gruff voice was breaking.

Who has died? he wondered. Who are they grieving for?

It couldn't possibly be himself, he was right here, right here in front of them, alive and ready to wake up! He had only just realised it himself, but surely they could see it!

He heard another voice, that of Thedila.

"His heart, it be weakened too much. It not being beating there now. I be sorry, people of Atlantis, but John Sheppard be gone to death, now."

More cries from Teyla, more moans from Rodney, and a sudden crunching noise that he suspected was Ronon punching something. He was proven correct when Teyla's voice scolded and told Ronon to sit down and let her attend to his now, probably, broken hand.

But I am here! he shouted and roared silently, immobile, powerless.

"It's all my fault," Rodney lamented. "I...I should have...oh God..." He fell silent, no doubt doing his usual and disappearing inside himself where he could berate and punish himself privately, John thought.

It was the small younger voice of Canor that finally broke the grief in the room.

"You been checking John Sheppard's heart beat on the regular, Thedila? At times, the cure be taking toll on body and it be seeming to be gone to death but no."

There was a flurry beside him and he felt pressure on his neck. For a few moments there was silence that seemed to stretch to eternity.

"I be praising the Gods that be living!" Thedila exclaimed after a moment. "His heart be beating strong!"

He heard McKay exclaim; "Oh, thank God!" followed by; "He's going to be okay, isn't he?" John could just imagine the look on McKay's face, the large wide eyes with the one-sided smile that he was sure would be pulling at his mouth.

Teyla was thanking the Ancestors, he could hear the way her smile was pulling her mouth, her voice happy and released of strain.

He listened as someone approached and felt it as they leaned close to him. He sensed the man was frightened, yet he was still able to growl his words out like an angry giant.

"Come on, Buddy, you get back here and say sorry for my hand," Ronon said gruffly. "You get back here, now."

John could hardly refuse the big man, the words stirring a strength deep inside him that spurred his body to waken.

He was unsure how long it took between Thedila's statement of his being very much alive, until his body began to catch up, but it sure as hell seemed like an eternity to him.

It was as if his body was thawing rather than wakening, almost like it had been frozen inside a large block of ice which was now melting around him. Any cold numbness he had felt before was quickly leaving to be replaced with a heat that neither burned nor hurt him. The warmth rippled through his muscles and he felt his body tremble slightly at the sensation.

He became impatient and urged his tired stiff body to begin to work again, realising that what he had been going through since he became aware and conscious, had been a cleansing of the toxin from his body. John could feel strength returning to him, a new, invigorating strength that was as much in his mind as his body. He could hear the thumping of his heart in his ears, a steady loud beat that seemed to vibrate within the fibers of his very being.

His eyes fluttered and he could feel the tension in the room heighten. He knew they were watching him, awaiting his return expectantly. When he finally managed to open them and focus on the people around him, he took a deep breath and looked squarely at Ronon, who sat with his elbows on his bed, one hand cradled in the other.

"You did that yourself, big guy, I'd nothing to do with it." he whispered in retort for Ronon's earlier words.

Ronon grinned, then burst out laughing so heartily that it infected the room with a sense of happiness that even Rodney McKay had to join in.

John felt as weak as a new born kitten, washed out and exhausted. His muscles ached, but not even that could stop him smiling, the feelings in the room infecting his tired mind. He was alive and nothing was going to ruin this moment for him, not even his tired and throbbing body.

Teyla moved closer and placed her hand on John's shoulder, the tears falling freely down her cheeks.

"Welcome back, John." she said as she smiled brightly through her tears.

"Good to be back." he managed, smiling weakly.

Rodney hung around the bottom of John's bed, the smile that John had expected to be there, tugging at the corners of his mouth like he knew it would be. John regarded the man whose furious work had saved his life, again. The lines of worry and the markers of the extreme stress these past hours of work had put him through were highlighted by the dark circles beneath his bloodshot eyes. He stood there with the air of a man on the verge of collapse from exhaustion, whose sheer bloody mindedness just damn well refused to allow his body to go down anytime soon.

"Rodney, I owe you a large flask of coffee and a box of energy bars." John said.

"Oh...Coffee..." McKay said with a wistful look in his eyes, to which the others smilingly shook their heads.

"We be glad that you being better in health, John Sheppard. We be thanking the Gods that you are being healthy once more." Thedila spoke from the doorway, Canor beside him, grinning widely.

"I be thanking your Gods, also." he replied, grateful of all the help they had given.

"Rodney McKay now also being able to fix the Gate to take you home," Thedila announced. "I be taking him to stores in Nasheta for parts to be helping him."

"Yes, I am pretty sure that I have it all figured out, and now that there is not such an...uh..urgency, I expect to have the Gate up and running by tomorrow evening." Rodney grinned proudly.

"Take your time, McKay, I'm in no hurry now." John said, slurring slightly with tiredness.

"And with that, I shall go and get on with it. Now that Sheppard owes me a flask of coffee, I want to get home to collect on it." He winked and left.

John yawned long and loud, unable to stifle the impolite reflex. Teyla said that they should leave and let him rest properly, yet he felt he did not want to be left alone and wanted to tell them to stay. He had just dragged himself back through the gates of death to return to them and he felt almost scared that they would leave and he would fall back through those gates when no one was looking. She sensed this in him, her head cocked to the side as if she was listening to his unspoken words.

"You would rather we stayed a little longer?" she said, her knowing smile that had comforted John so many times through the years, warming his heart as it always did.

John simply nodded, finding that his voice had escaped him, leaving him mute in the moment.

He knew that even if he drifted off, they would not leave him now until he woke again, stronger. He knew that eventually Rodney would drift back here to join them, to lend his support in the silence of the night while his mind calculated his work for tomorrow.

That was what it was to be part of his team. To understand each others unspoken thoughts, to be able to tell in a heartbeat what the other was thinking, feeling, needing. To stay together and work together for the good of the team and each other. To be part of a family that would never leave you alone when you were scared nor leave you to suffer and die on a planet far from home.

As his eyes closed, an old favorite Rolling Stones song floated through his head and John smiled as he fell asleep.

Wild Horses, couldn't drag him away...nor wild Moha for that matter.

:) The End