a/n: It was just going to be a oneshot, but a comment from Ilovetoship inspired just this tiny bit more. Thanks, ILTS!

Antarctica, 2004

"Doctor Weir! Doctor Weir! You have to see this!"

Carson is yelling even as he skids into the lab, interrupting whatever Rodney was just saying, and oh, for heaven's sake -

Rodney, Jack, and Daniel hot on her heels, Elizabeth runs through the hallways, mentally cataloguing the hundreds and millions of things that could be going wrong. After Carson very narrowly managed not to blow Jack O'Neill out of the sky just twenty minutes ago, she'd really assumed today was going to get better. She'd figured it couldn't get too much worse, at least.

That was stupid.

She skids to a halt to find someone in the chair. It's not one of the expedition.

But it's not a stranger.

Her heart's been racing since she watched a ten-thousand-year-old drone fly past her, but suddenly there's a rush of adrenaline in her veins that has nothing to do with fear.

Jack climbs up the platform, glaring at the man in the chair. "I said don't touch anything!"

"I - I just sat down -"

She finds her voice.

"John?"

It's only then that his eyes meet hers, and she doesn't really think she's ever seen someone's jaw actually drop like this. Not literally.

"Elizabeth?"

Every head in the room swivels back and forth between them, until Daniel obtrusively clears his throat. "Uh...what's going on here?"

"Major," Rodney cuts in. "Think about where we are in the solar system."

John blinks and looks up, and suddenly a shimmer of light appears above him, a vivid, glowing image of stars and planets, sprawling across the room.

Incredible.

"Did I do that?"

His eyes are bright, curious, even though he's clearly still bewildered by the entire situation.

Elizabeth swallows hard, heart pounding, her whole body alight with amazement. No one's ever been able to do that. They didn't even realize it was possible.

And now John Sheppard walks back into her life, five years later, and he's sitting in a chair in the middle of nowhere in Antarctica, lighting up the world so absurdly literally that she wants to laugh. Because he is, quite literally, her one-in-a-million shot at making this whole plan work.

There's fate. And then there's fate.