As Rodney walked into the jumper bay two paces behind Sheppard he could already see Carson and his team assembled and waiting. It was a damn good job Sheppard was around because if Rodney had been in charge the people out on the pier would've had no chance.

As soon as he had learnt that there could be causalities, Sheppard had radioed Carson to tell him to prepare. Then he'd ordered Rodney and Zelenka into action, telling them to get the section reopened whilst he went and organized a rescue team. When he had returned ten minutes later with Teyla, Ronon and half a dozen soldiers in tow, he had told the scientists quite firmly that they had better be ready to go. Rodney was glad Radek was there because his brain seemed to be stuck quite firmly in first gear and he wasn't entirely sure if he was missing something vital. But no, Radek confirmed it; the section could not be reopened. Not from out here anyway. Whilst the city still detected a threat to its citizens it wouldn't let them anywhere near the danger area and trying to override it would likely take days which clearly wasn't an option.

One young captain had suggested that they used the Daedalus to beam out any injured people.

Although a wonderful idea it didn't really work since, as Rodney had caustically pointed out, the Daedalus was still at least a week away.

Whilst Rodney's mind was going over increasingly elaborate plans to disable the Atlantis security protocols, Sheppard had come up with the idea of using the jumpers. The external landing area on the west pier may still be undamaged. If it was, they could land there and get people out that way. And if it wasn't they could always hover over it and winch people up and down.

He had radioed Carson to tell him of the change of plan and had told Rodney he was coming with them.

Rodney had instantly paled at that idea, the first thought that ran through his mind was 'oh my god, but what if she's dead? I don't want to see that.'

"Rodney!" Sheppard had snapped impatiently when he had failed to respond, "Did you hear me? We might need you down there."

He had hurriedly nodded in response, a sense of duty overriding his fears, whilst Radek had offered to stay behind and try to find any possible ways to open the doors. Not that he really had any hope of finding one.

"What's the situation, Colonel?" Carson asked as soon as he spotted them entering the jumper bay.

"There are ten people down there, including Weir," he said grimly.

Rodney noted his use of 'are' instead of 'were'. Sheppard always was an optimist.

Carson nodded as behind him two other medical personnel loaded emergency supplies into the back of one of the jumpers, "Have you heard anything from them?"

"No," he replied, in a firm, businesslike tone, "But McKay reckons that the after effects of the explosion would likely stop any transmissions getting through."

Rodney couldn't help but admire how calm and collected they were being about all this. He wondered if they felt as bad inside as he did and if they were just better at hiding it.

"Hopefully Zelenka will get the doors open down there," Sheppard continued, "But for now we're stuck with airlifting people out. I've got another jumper standing by but I don't want to put any more stress on the structure over there than need's be. We'll go over there and check it out, if it's okay we'll radio for you to join us."

"Right," Carson nodded.

Sheppard walked off into the jumper and Rodney made a move to follow him when Carson lightly gripped his arm.

"Are you alright, Rodney?" he asked with genuine concern.

He wasn't. Really, really wasn't in a way he didn't properly understand, but they didn't exactly have time for it right now.

"Fine," he lied.

Carson looked at him skeptically, but let him go anyway.

----------------------

As soon as the jumper cleared the opening in the roof it was startling obvious where they were headed. Plumes of thick, black smoke were billowing up from the west pier. As they got closer, Teyla and Ronon rose out of their seats to get a closer look at the destruction. Rodney however stuck to his like someone had stapled him there. Even from his position however he could see that at least one of the rooms had been viciously ripped apart and was now little more than twisted and blacked strips of metal. No one in there could have survived.

"The smoke's too thick," Ronon stated grimly, "We won't be able to see where we're landing."

Sheppard frowned, clearly aware of that fact but certainly not liking it.

"We'll go through it and circle around a couple of times," he said, "See if we can thin it out enough to see what's what."

He was sure Sheppard was doing things as quickly as he could, but they seemed to be taking forever. And all the while Rodney was wondering what his life would be like here without Elizabeth and repeatedly coming up with the same answer.

Lonelier.

He knew he took her for granted quite a lot. To be honest he knew he did that to most people but she at least seemed to make more effort than many others. When everyone else snapped at him and got irritated at his manner she was always calm, patient and kind. She understood and accepted that that was who he was and, to his great surprise, it didn't seem to bother her. She had always made him feel at ease where others didn't. She was one of the reasons he had decided to come on this trip in the first place – he had felt more comfortable with her in their first brief talk about the possibilities of the mission than he had with anyone in all his months in Russia. It hadn't taken him long to come to the conclusion that it was better to be stuck off world in a potentially hazardous situation with someone you like, than safely freezing your ass off in Russia whilst despising near everyone around you. She'd given him a chance and he'd never even thanked her for that. And maybe now he had missed that opportunity for good.

He firmly pushed that thought away.

Although in hindsight it was a little better than the other more grim ones that kept assaulting him in its place. Sometimes he cursed his over active brain and this was certainly one of those times. No matter how hard he tried to force it not to, it kept coming up with every horrible possibility as to her fate that it was able to conjure, each gradually worse than the last. He didn't like being a pessimist and he certainly didn't want to be one. He just couldn't help it. Experience had taught him that if you expected the worst then you could only be pleasantly surprised. He just hoped that this was one of those times. He didn't want to contemplate the alternative.

---------------------

When Elizabeth gingerly opened an eye the world spun so violently that she nearly retched. Okay, she had to take it easy. Little steps, that's what was needed right now.

She kept her eyes tightly shut, knowing that opening them would likely make her throw up, and instead just concentrated on regaining her other senses and ignoring the intense throbbing in her head. She was lying on the floor in a rather awkward position that much she was aware of from the cold hardness under her cheek and the rapidly forming ache in her back and limbs. Her lungs felt labored and uncomfortable, the smell of smoke in the air making her instantly cough when she attempted a deep breath, sending a jolt of pain up her spine. She closed her mouth firmly, determined not to do that again. Ever so slowly she rolled over from her uncomfortable, face down position and onto her back. After taking a few moments to get used to that, she slowly opened her eyes, taking a few calm but shallow breaths to ease the nausea that had risen up once more. She blinked a couple of times as light shone down upon her and it took her a long moment to realise that she was looking through gaping hole in the ceiling, sunlight poking through a drifting haze of smoke that was partly obscuring the sky.

That wasn't right.

A sudden chill ran straight through the heart of her as she realised that she had no idea what had happened. Really thinking about it, the last thing she remembered was walking with Dr Harding back towards the transporter, giving her strict instructions on how some investigation should be carried out - although she was having a hard time remember what was being investigated in the first place. She thought she had said something about consulting Rodney, then she had a vague memory of sudden activity, an alarm going off, some shouting and then…..nothing. She felt suddenly panicked at the idea. What on earth had happened? Had the Wraith discovered they were still here and attacked? No, that couldn't be it. They'd have known they were coming long ago, the deep space sensors…

For a moment she considered the Genii, but quickly dismissed that. They didn't have the technology for an attack like this. Besides, last time they had taken Atlantis it had been when numbers on the base were far depleted. They'd have more commonsense than to attack when they place was heavily defended.

Fear ran through her, hand in hand with her confusion. She didn't even know how long she'd been unconscious. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Why hadn't anyone come down to help? Did they even know she was in trouble? Or were they in trouble themselves?

Elizabeth shook her head, immediately regretting it as her nausea returned. Lying here wondering wasn't going to help anyone, especially not her. She had to get up and do something if she was going to be of use to herself or others.

Carefully she sat up, trying hard to ignore the way her vision made everything seem to spin and tilt as she did so, concentrating on getting herself vertical at least. When she made it, she gave herself time to sit there and breathe steadily, settling her balance so she could tell up from down and the whole thing wasn't just a swirling mess. As her vision returned to some semblance of normality, she quickly checked herself over, squeezing her limbs as a rather crude way of searching for broken bones. Whilst all her prodding and poking made her wince, she was rather relieved to realise that was likely from bruising rather than anything more serious. The only problem area seemed to be her pounding head and, when she carefully pressed her fingers against the area and took them away again, she was unsurprised to see blood. Still, she was conscious and could remember her name so it could be that bad. All in all, it looked like she'd been remarkably fortunate.

It certainly didn't feel that way however as she stiffly got to her feet, almost able to disregard the now familiar sense of nausea any movement seemed to provoke. She let out a long sigh as she surveyed the destruction around her. There was rubble and twisted metal everywhere. It looked like some kind of bomb had gone off. Though, she realized, it hadn't been anywhere in the immediate vicinity as there was no sign of charring or burning.

That and she wasn't dead.

If this had been caused by some kind of explosion, as she suspected, then the shockwave that it had created had done this. And it must've been one hell of a bang to cause this type of damage to an Ancient construction. She just hoped no people had been in the vicinity at the time.

Oddly enough amongst all her aches and pains, she suddenly realised that her ear felt hot and uncomfortable, like it did sometimes when she fell asleep with earrings on and they pressed against her all night. She reached up to touch it with a frown, her eyes scanning the floor for the source of the problem. She quickly hit upon something she could have scolded herself for forgetting. Bending down to pick up her headset, she was dismayed to find it bent and twisted out of shape. She decided to try regardless, pressing it to her ear.

"This is Dr Weir, can anyone hear me?"

Silence.

"Colonel Sheppard?...Teyla?...Rodney?"

Still nothing.

She sighed, knowing it was likely that the thing had been broken. Surely a massive explosion would hardly have gone unnoticed though. There had to be help on the way. Still, it didn't hurt to be cautious.

"Look," she said into the device, "I can't hear anyone, but if someone can hear me, there seems to have been some kind of explosion on the west pier. Cause as yet unknown. There appears to be quite extensive structural damage and there may be casualties."

She paused. The words had come to her lips before she had consciously considered the idea. Her memory may be patchy but she was certain that other people had been down here too. The likelihood was that some were also injured. Possibly badly.

"We need help as soon as possible," she hurriedly finished, "Weir out."

She pulled the device away from her ear, pocketing it just in case it did decide to start working later. If there were casualties around she had to try to find them and do what she could until proper help arrived. Looking left and right down the corridor, she figured it would be best to go right, back towards the edge of the pier. The damage seemed to be more extensive in that direction and any people trapped down there were more likely to need her help.

If they weren't already beyond it.