Chapter 10: Dawn

John blinked. His ears rang, and his whole body ached, but then, surely that was a good thing? Because, while he wasn't an expert, he was pretty sure muscles didn't complain when you were dead. Gingerly, he picked himself up. A charred, empty crater, about a metre across, sat smoking where the device had been. Next to him lay Rodney and Carson, both dazed but alive. The staff weapon was nowhere to be seen.

The sky was blue, clear and alive, while the forest swayed gently in the light spring breeze. "Is it over?" Carson asked, his voice raw and scratchy from the heat of the air that now all seemed to have faded away.

"I think so. You both okay?" John asked. The question was asked only from an immediate perspective. Of course they weren't okay – they were the only survivors. How were they to tell those on the Alpha Site that no one else was left? That no one was going home?

"Colonel?" John twisted around, the tension from their last stand fuelling his instinctual need for a gun, even though he was unarmed. He froze when he saw who it was who had spoken.

"Lorne?" John stared in disbelief. That wasn't possible. He had heard the Major's Jumper go down, he had felt it crash into the tower. The rest of Major Lorne's team stood cautiously behind him. Two of them would have been at the stand in the Gateroom, the civilian should be at the Alpha Site, "No way. This is just...no way!"

"Sir?" Lorne looked thoroughly confused, "No offence Colonel, but how the hell did you get here? And – are you injured?" He had noticed the blood that coated them.

John ignored him, grinning from ear to ear, "We've gone back to before it happened."

"I'm sorry sir?"

Carson caught on, overcoming the shock, "So Atlantis..?"

"And Elizabeth. Ronon, Teyla. Zelenka...McKay, did you know this could happen?"

Rodney shrugged, picking himself up, helping Carson to his feet, "It was a possibility. We were the closest to the point of the tear when we closed it; the eye of the storm. Everything else has reverted to back before time and matter were corrupted by Laura."

"Thank God." Carson breathed.

Rodney walked towards the crater, "God rarely has a part in these things." He murmured, passing his hand over the residual heat haze.

Major Lorne frowned, "Sir, you understand we have to follow protocol? We have no proof you're, well, you."

John nodded, grinning in sheer relief, "I really don't care. Whatever tests you've got for me. Though, there'll be no Carson to do them. At least, I guess so. McKay? There won't be two of us running around will there?"

Rodney shook his head, "No. Time was never rewritten for us." He remained where he was, tuning out John trying to give a vaguely understandable explanation to Lorne and his team.

Rodney sighed. Somehow, incredibly, it was over. Laura, Hannah, Xac, Yarek – they might as well have been a dream, a distant shadow at the back of his mind, just as before, just as they had been for the last three years.

But he wasn't sure if that would work this time. Last time round, he had never known for sure what had happened, but now he knew. Hannah was dead. Laura had lived, and likely still would, a survivor in a world of mayflies.

He closed his hand into a loose fist, letting it drop to his side. Carson placed a hand on his shoulder, "Time to go."

Rodney nodded, turning away and heading back to the Stargate, and Atlantis.

Far away, and yet close at the same time, a woman did the same, murmuring a goodbye to the still, stagnant air, before turning her back to once again find her place in the broken Earth bathed in the blood red sun.

FIN

Author Notes: Final chapter, short little epilogue, and I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to everyone reviewed, put on story alert and even just stuck with this fic until the end. I would really appreciate any last comments you have. :)