A/N: This chapter is much darker than previous, for this reason I changed the rating to T. Nothing is very explicit, but I felt the rating change might be necessary.
I have little else to do with this story. Quite frankly, I believe SGA is an awful, awful show and noooo not just because they killed Beckett or Weir blah blah blah. The writing and plots are contrived; they have good characters, but they have no unique dynamic that set SG1 apart. They also don't have a single romantic relationship going for them. I have received very few reviews; those I have received I have loved and thank ya'll for them.
These are all vignettes, which I do much better with, of what might have been longer chapters.
Enjoy.
These are only images, but they are what remain.
McKay, sleepless, hitting random buttons at a nameless, run-of-the-mill Lantean console. He has not slept in days, eaten in a week, and he is not troubled by the Wraith or other such distractions. Instead, tormented, he seeks the invisible answer to the disappearance of their two commanders.
He buries his head in his hands, curling around his hair, and lets out a low shriek of frustration.
"God, there's got to be an answer somewhere…!"
Elizabeth Weir is resolute. She trusts John's assertions; they make sense. There is truly little they can do. She follows him to the makeshift market several miles away. Some have horses; they have legs. He buys supplies, clothes; she buys white paint and a brush.
He always walks in front of her and her always several feet behind. She has little to say these days; she feels her silence is a dam filling to burst. They traverse the moor, formerly Colorado, prairie grasses shushing in the wind.
The days pass slowly, they wake at dawn and sleep at sundown. Firelights dot the horizon on some occasions; flickering enigmas in a silent world.
She finds him back down in the grasses, busy at something she understands but feels no need to imitate. Maybe she is a temptation, or maybe he's just lonely.
Sleep comes fast, if hours are fast. At dusk, they creep up the winding stairs to the "apartment." It is a large room with a large window; tattered curtains adorning a sometimes view of the moon. Some days the weather is brutally hot, and they lay on the single full sized mattress apart, sweating in as few clothes as they can bear. Others, like some of the first nights, it freezes. John pulls her close under the ragged blankets so they can keep warm.
Elizabeth paints on the soot-blackened wall in Huckleberry white paint. She writes, in large, bold letters:
E. WEIR + J SHEP. HERE
DO NOT COME
NO DHD
TIME DELAY
2 WK HERE 1 YR ATL
She kneels in front of her handiwork and stares transfixed at a dead gate and tries to will a wormhole to take its place.
She finds him back down in the grasses, busy at something she understands but feels no need to imitate. Maybe she is a temptation, or maybe he's just lonely.
She tells him, you know you don't have to be so alone.
That night, everything is wrong. It is rushed and painful for her; he apologizes afterwards, spent and sweating.
She cries silently in the dark, curled inward.
She can be found kneeling in front of the stargate, skeletons surrounding her in macabre glory.
John works at the kiln, day in, day out. He makes gorgeous works of art, Grecian urns and busts and such out of glass. Where he gets his supplies, she does not know. Where he gets his talent, she does not know. She watches him and catalogues her memories of old Earth on recycled parchment and bloodwater pen.
He finds her standing in a field, gazing listlessly at the distance towards the ocean.
John asks her, voice grumbling softly, "How are you doing?"
The words seem so loud in a world where there is so little sound, and she turns, intending to be cool and collected.
But his eyes are pained too, and she starts to cry, words trembling, "Not well," she breaks, stifling a sob, "…John, I just, oh John—"
And that is when she starts to fall and instead crumples into his arms. The sky and clouds are some kind of red dawn orange sunset haze, and she is sobbing in his strong arms.
They find themselves falling in love. It is forced, to be sure, but she does not know it begins, only when she recognizes it. It is a sunny day, and Elizabeth smiles as she watches John work at the kiln, muscles rippling under his skin. She smiles at his figure and thinks there are some perfect moments.
The world passes, Elizabeth clings to John at night as her lifeline. He loves her tenderly, tentatively. Their romance is quiet and old fashioned. They sneak smiles at each other throughout the day, eyes twinkling.
John finds Elizabeth kneeling before the Stargate. Elizabeth realizes at some point—some poor distant travelers, once upon a time, must have wound up far from home with no return. They sat and hoped, day after day, that the portal would reopen and salvation would come.
She thinks that, after resettlement and generations, people emulated their movements. They assumed those movements to be in worship.
Laughter and conversations sometimes ring out over the desolate plains and stormy sky.
Rodney eventually finds them. He works out everything; with the same horror that Elizabeth and John faced. Shipments of technology and knowledge are shipped in droves to past Earth, with transmissions explaining what will happen. Many on the expedition return home. Many come to Atlantis to survive, or to be alone.
They come back after two years of their time—three for John—but only four to six weeks for Atlantis. They walk through the gate and personnel cheer. John wearily smiles, isolation hardened. Tears course down Elizabeth's cheeks and others give her strange stares. They just don't understand.
Elizabeth steps down as expedition leader, John returns to life as a soldier.
He distracts himself, Elizabeth gets lost.
She is distant, haunted, and sad.