Unreliable Things – The City in the Sea
by Bil!

Part 3 of 3

A/N: Thank you very much to those who have sent me encouraging comments; I really appreciate it. I hope the conclusion of the story satisfies you - it certainly isn't where I intended to go when I began this! Sidenote: The mountain bike is an anachronism, but I've chosen to let it stand.

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest
- Edgar Allan Poe, "The City in the Sea"

The city whose tears have haunted his dreams smiles at him. John flinches, shivering against Elizabeth, but doesn't look away. Beyond the forcefield his teammates work in silent desperation; here, Elizabeth supports him without words.

Atlantis smiles. "You have the mark," she says, and for all she looks like a great queen or a goddess, her eagerness is that of a child. "You have woken me." He half expects her to add 'Now can we play?' but she just smiles at him, regal but excited, and he doesn't know what she wants from him.

"How can you be Atlantis?" Elizabeth asks, pulling the woman's attention away from him and giving him a chance to breathe. Her fingers are warm and firm around his and he holds desperately on to the feeling.

Atlantis frowns petulantly. "You do not have the mark," she tells Elizabeth. "You are not even a Maker. How do you come to be here?"

"Who are the Makers?" Elizabeth asks gently, wary and uncertain.

"The ones who made me," Atlantis says in surprise. "How can you not know? They had to leave, so they put me to sleep to wait for them. Where are they? Why are you here?"

"The people who built this city are dead." Elizabeth's voice is soft and sorrowful. "They left this place ten thousand years ago."

"No!" There is fear in her voice, filling her face. Atlantis looks to John, pleading, horrified. "It isn't true. It can not be true."

"It's true," he tells her and doesn't wince at the catch in his voice.

"They have been gone – ten thousand years? But they would never leave me so long. Alida died and I slept, waiting. I knew they would come for me. They always come for me. You have the mark." She points at John, her eyes fierce with fear. "You lie, they sent you to me."

"The people you call the Makers retreated through the Stargate ten thousand years ago and were then wiped out by a plague." Elizabeth's voice is soft but implacable.

Atlantis wavers, anguish and panic on her face. "This isn't how it should be. They were supposed to come for me. I need—" She looks at John, her fear and grief hardening into determination. "You have the mark. You must take Alida's place."

"I don't understand," he says, but even as he says it he's not sure he wants to understand.

"I require the human component. You will become a part of me and together we shall watch over all. That is how it is, that is how it has always been. Every few hundred years on the death they would bring the young people to me, so carefully trained just for me, and I would choose one to be mine. Together we run all. It is an honour that I offer you," she adds sternly when he doesn't speak. "You have the mark, you can help me."

"He isn't trained," Elizabeth says quietly. "Will that affect it?" But Atlantis dismisses her as unimportant and John almost moves to protest because Elizabeth is not unimportant—

"You do not have the mark," Atlantis tells her. "You cannot comprehend." She looks at John and smiles.

He flinches as the chair lights up around him. The mind of the city reaches out to him just as he has so often reached out to control Ancient systems. This isn't like before, when he first sat in the chair, this time they're in his mind instead of hers and it's his own mind he's drowning in...

When he's four he learns about beauty when his mom begins to teach him math and he first sees the elegance and logic of a page full of numbers.

When he's six he learns about cruelty when the other kids laugh at him for liking math and call him a mommy's boy.

When he's twelve his parents give him a mountain bike and he learns about freedom on the trails around home. He learns about speed when he flies down the slopes, his wheels bouncing on the stones, and he learns invulnerability when he only ever gets cuts and bruises.

When he's sixteen he learns about hate when his mom dies and there's nothing he can do to make the equation "two minus one" equal anything but "one". He turns his back on math for its betrayal.

When he's eighteen he joins the military. He learns about strength when he can order a high-powered rifle to do his bidding and he learns about pride when he is the best pilot in his squad. He learns about power when the planes and choppers respond to his touch as if to his thoughts.

When he's thirty-four he goes to war. He learns about suffering in the faces of the fallen; he learns about desperation in the eyes of the locals he can't help. He learns about the antithesis of beauty in the hellhole of mud and pain that is the truth of war. He learns to fear.

When he is thirty-seven he learns about hope in the intense, uncritical gaze of a woman with every reason to distrust him and no reason to believe in him.

"Yes," Atlantis says in exultant satisfaction and John clutches at Elizabeth, closing his eyes against the spinning room and focussing on the real, warm, physical thereness of her arm. He's losing focus, forgetting where he is. How does he know he's not back in his cell dreaming, how does he know this isn't some trick of his captors? Is he holding onto Elizabeth or Markus?

Or is he even back in Antarctica and none of this was ever real, just a fevered hallucination that maybe people could still need him as more than just a chauffeur?

But Elizabeth's arm is solid and real under his and he believes in her even if he's not sure whether he should believe in anything else.

The world stills around him and he looks up to see Atlantis smiling triumphantly. "You have the mark," she says. "You will stop the hurt."

That surprises him into laughing, a short, barking chuckle. When was the last time he laughed? When was the last time he thought of laughing? "I can't even stop my own hurt."

"I will love you." He flinches from the stark, honest emotion in her and Elizabeth tenses. "You are mine and I will care for you and protect you. No one will hurt you again."

As much as he wants to believe it he doesn't know how. No one can stop pain. Dimly he's aware Elizabeth is speaking, but all he can do is stare at Atlantis as she ignores the woman at his side to look at him with a terrifying, certain focus.

"You will come with me," she says, caressing every word, joy in her eyes. "You will live with me."

He tries to think about this. It isn't easy, because his brain feels like it's been pulled apart by someone who didn't bother to put it back together properly. "In the computer?"

"If that is how you would describe it. So cold! You will live longer than you ever dared to hope, you will journey to realms far beyond what you can imagine in that limited body of yours."

He licks his lips uncertainly. Beyond the forcefield Rodney snaps at Teyla and glares at the guts of a panel. "Would I be able to leave?"

"Why would you want to leave?"

"But – my friends."

"You won't need them." Atlantis smiles, sharp, almost savage. "Don't you understand? I can give you back what they took from you." Elizabeth's hand tightens around his fingers. "I can make you whole again."

He shakes his head violently, hoping desperately but unwilling to believe and angry at her for making him hope. "Can't do it. Don't you think my friends would have if it was possible?"

"These?" Atlantis gestures at his teammates still trapped behind the forcefield, a sweeping, disdainful motion. "They are not even Makers. What do they know of such things?"

"They tried!" he protests because they're his friends and no one's allowed to scorn them.

"Certainly," she acknowledges patronisingly. "But they failed."

"They—I—"

"Stay with me," she entreats him. "Let me help you."

"But I won't be able to leave?"

This time she answers plainly: "No."

Beside him Elizabeth tenses, but she stays silent and lets him find his own way. "Not ever?"

"You will never want to leave," she says simply. "But what does it matter? I can make you whole. Stay with these and you will be lucky to survive."

"I'm not afraid of dying," he tells her honestly. "I'm afraid of getting left behind again. I don't like being the one that lives."

Atlantis steps forward impulsively, her hand out and her face pleading. "Yes!" she says. "Always they die and I go on. Please—" She hesitates. "If you stay with me I won't be lonely any more."

The gap in the city where a presence should be; the hole in his cell where Markus once was. The piece of his soul he has lost.

He wants to be whole again. He doesn't want to be alone ever again – he wants to take away her loneliness and keep her from grieving.

"What about my friends?"

"You won't need them. Why do you persist? They can do nothing for you." She smiles winningly, like a little child wheedling a treat from a favourite uncle. "You will have me and I will care for you and love you. You will be whole again."

"I want that," he admits, but he can't let himself believe it's possible. He looks at Elizabeth because he wants her to tell him what to do. He wants her to make the choice so that he doesn't have to.

But he sees the pain in her face as she offers him a reassuring smile and steps back, giving the choice up to him. It's his decision and she won't force him to choose how she wishes. Atlantis whispers to him, promising, begging... and Elizabeth watches him with quiet eyes.

She'll let him go if that's what he wants.

Atlantis senses the retreat and pounces. "You'll just give him up?" she demands, triumphant and uncomprehending. "You won't fight for him?" She looks at John as if to say 'And this is what you were arguing for?'

Elizabeth looks them both in the eye and then looks at the floor, not in defeat but in contemplation. "When you love someone," she says quietly, and he isn't sure if her words are meant for him, Atlantis, or even herself. "When you love someone you must let him go." She meets Atlantis's eyes again and smiles as if suddenly released of a burden. "Love is not a cage."

John remembers Markus, broken and down-trodden but never quite defeated.

"Love?" Atlantis demands. "What do you know of love? You who live such short lives and touch in such bland ways. Skin on skin? This is nothing to mind on mind." She turns to John and he shrinks away from the intensity of her gaze. "Come with me. I will love you and make you whole."

"I—" It seems like the whole universe is listening in, waiting for his decision, and he doesn't know how to choose. She can fix him and isn't that worth—

Love is not a cage. That's why he killed Markus.

"No," he says, and something inside him breaks. "I won't do it." He wants to, he wants what she offers – but not in the way she offers.

Atlantis stares at him. Elizabeth comes forward to stand beside him again, no triumph in her face, only relief and a little hope. Only when she takes his hand again does he realise he's shaking once more.

Tearing his eyes from her, he looks to Atlantis. "I can't be what you want."

"I need you," she said plaintively, and he can see her disbelief. She never really believed he'd turn her down; she never really thought he'd do anything but what she wanted. She doesn't understand. Neither does John, but he thinks he might one day.

"My friends need me," he says and as Elizabeth's fingers tighten on his he knows he speaks the truth.

Atlantis sneers, hurt and angry. "Friends! What can they give you? I offer you the world!"

"Thanks," he says quietly, "but I don't need it."

Atlantis, beloved pet of the previous inhabitants of the city, can't understand this. So she turns on Elizabeth instead. "You did this! You tricked him!"

Elizabeth shakes her head.

"He is mine," Atlantis snarls.

"No," says Elizabeth.

Atlantis's hands clench into fists as if she's going to throw a tantrum. "He is mine! He bears my mark!" She glares at John and accuses, "You're afraid!"

"Maybe," he says, leaning on Elizabeth and seeing his team still working on the other side of the forcefield.

"And because of this fear you will give up all that I offer you? For fear you will reject me? You fool! I can love you! I can offer you so much more than she can!"

"This isn't about Elizabeth, this is about me."

But it's not just about him now, not for Atlantis. This is about dominance over the upstart little woman, not even a Maker, who dares to defy her will. Perhaps she saw something in his mind that marked Elizabeth as a threat or maybe she's just realising the steel under the diplomat's soft glove. In John's experience, Elizabeth is unthreatening until the moment she's suddenly terrifying.

"I won't let you take him from me!" Atlantis challenges.

"I'm not afraid of you," Elizabeth says. And she isn't, he can hear it in her voice.

"I could kill you," Atlantis says through gritted teeth.

"I know," she says simply. "Should that make me fear you?"

Atlantis doesn't know how to react to that. "I'll kill everyone! Everyone in the city! I am the city!"

"If you had enough power to do that you would have woken up before now," Elizabeth parries. John wonders if she knows it or if she's just making it up. It's true, from the look on Atlantis's face, but he doesn't see how she could have known it.

"He's mine!" the city wails and the force of the cry reverberates in his head.

He must have cried out in sympathy because they both turn sharply to look at him – and now he sees fear in Elizabeth's eyes. Not for her, for him.

Atlantis snarls. "You are mine!" she shouts at him. "You are mine and I will love you and you will make all the hurt go away!"

"I can't!" he flings back. "I can't! I don't know how and I can't be what you want me to be."

She narrows her eyes, the avenging goddess. "You are mine."

She runs at him. John instinctively lifts his arm to ward her away, Elizabeth jumps forward to stop her – but she isn't real. She goes through them both and then he's screaming, writhing on the chair until he would fall off if it wasn't for Elizabeth's restraining hands, as Atlantis tears through his mind.

Desperately he tries to fight back, but it was easier to fight off his and Markus's captors than it is to fight someone in his head. He gets flashes of his teammates beating on the forcefield but mostly he's too busy shouting and fighting and thrashing about. Elizabeth is practically sitting on him to keep him from falling and his world is the pain in his head and the fierce grip of her hands around his wrists.

"Mine," he can hear Atlantis's voice in his head, trying to make him into whatever it is she wants him to be.

"No!" he gasps. He can feel her loneliness and her grief and her fear but he's too scared to want to help her. He doesn't want to be a part of her, he wants to stay himself. "You're hurting me," he keens, grabbing at Elizabeth to ground himself but talking to Atlantis. "Please!"

Elizabeth is shouting far away but he can't hear what she's saying. Then there are other voices too, overlapping in a harmony of shouts, but they can't drown out Atlantis's voice in his head. "You will be mine and I will love you and we will be happy together. You'll see. We'll be happy and safe and I won't let anyone hurt you and—"

"You're hurting me!" he gasps. "Get out of my head, get out of my head!"

"I will love you," she says furiously.

"You don't understand love!" he spits and feels her quiver with fury.

"You need me!"

"No, no, no..."

"John! John!" Voices he should recognise, voices he should—

"Get out of my head," he moans, pushing helplessly at the overwhelming force that is squashing him down and down and down. He doesn't know how to stop fighting, his friends taught him to fight and he doesn't know how to stop. Elizabeth and Markus taught him to fight – but Markus is dead.

In the moment of weakness he nearly gives in, but he opens his eyes wide against the pain and the fear and through his tears he sees Elizabeth's face, blurry and worried, and he doesn't want her to be worried any more. He's tired of worrying her. "Stop. Hurting. Me!"

Atlantis hesitates. And in that moment of hesitation something snaps, something outside of either of them. John feels her fear, her confusion... and then in the last moment there is something that feels like relief and freedom. Then she is gone.

"Oops," McKay says at a great distance.

John drifts back into his body. Elizabeth and Teyla are practically smothering him like a warm, heavy blanket, startled by his sudden lack of resistance, and Ford and McKay are buried in the guts of the chair, circuits strewn about them. John blinks at them, too tired to think.

Elizabeth and Teyla hastily slide off him and if he'd had any energy left he might have made a comment that probably would have gotten him slapped.

"John?" Elizabeth runs cool fingers over his burning face. "John, are you all right?"

"No," he wheezes honestly. But he's going to be. Half an hour ago he couldn't have said that.

"You will be," she tells him as if she can read his mind, and he remembers faintly a storm of a different kind and those words in his mouth. She smiles, and maybe it's only a pale imitation of the real thing but it's a good smile because it means he's here and alive and safe. "You will be."

"Is it over?" Rodney demands.

"She's gone," John whispers, leaning into Elizabeth's hand because the contact reminds him that what just happened was real. "Atlantis is dead."

"Look, it's not my fault! I was just—and then Ford here—and that—that wasn't supposed to happen!"

"It's good, Rodney," he says, letting Elizabeth and Teyla pull him up into a sitting position. "You set her free."

"Oh. Good." Rodney peers at him to make sure he's not really in trouble. "Who are we talking about?"

John just smiles weakly and lets Elizabeth and Teyla pull him off the chair. "Let's get you to the infirmary," Elizabeth says, as in control as ever – but he can feel the relief thrumming through her as he leans against her, an arm around each woman as they hold him up.

Teyla looks at him worriedly. "Are you sure you are well enough to move?"

His feet are dragging and his neck isn't strong enough to hold his head up, but John hasn't felt this well in a very long time. "I'm good," he says and he means it.

"Is someone going to explain what just happened?" Rodney persists. "Or am I going to be left out of the loop again?"

"Later, Rodney," Elizabeth says firmly.

He grumbles. "Fine. Do you want this data core, then? It's never going to work again. Not even for me."

The familiar arrogance makes John smile. Apparently this makes him look completely dopey because Ford eyes him warily. "You sure you're okay, sir?"

He meets Elizabeth's eyes. "I will be." She smiles. "Hey, McKay." He's slurring but doesn't much care. "That data core. Bring it."

"What? Did you hear what I said? Ne-ver go-ing to work a-gain," he says in his talking-to-idiots voice.

"Just bring it, Rodney," Elizabeth orders.

John concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other until they're met in the hall by Beckett and a stretcher. As he's moved on his back, too weary to protest the indignity, Elizabeth walks beside him with one hand on his arm and he wonders if he looks even worse than he feels. The words spinning around between Beckett and his team don't sound too pleased. But then she smiles at him and he thinks that maybe she's just as relieved as he is and as uncertain as to quite what is reality.

But he's alive. He's survived this just as he survived the slavers.

And maybe that's the most important thing his friends ever taught him, something Atlantis could never understand. Not lessons about family and faith and love, but just how to see one little fact he hadn't understood about himself: he wants to live. Really live. Everything else just follows on from that.

He falls asleep before they reach the infirmary, Elizabeth's hand warm through his sleeve.

There is no weeping.

End Part 3

Epilogue

The story doesn't end there, of course. There are tests and scoldings and explanations, there's a long, slow recovery where he has to rebuild himself back into what he once was. But it's possible now, he can do it now.

He's not broken anymore.

Much much later, long after his admission into the infirmary, after his often-delayed release, John stands alone on a low balcony with the dead data core in his hands. It isn't Atlantis, for Atlantis was as much the city as anything else, but it was a part of her and she is gone now. He leans on the railing, turning the data core over and over in his hands, and remembers her as the heart of a great city who has been freed now from immeasurable years of loneliness and not as the frightened child she was near the end. Because if he'd been like her, if he'd lost himself to the pain and loss and fear, then he'd have wanted to be remembered how he lived, not how he died.

Atlantis is dead but the city she was a part of lives on. That is her memorial.

Markus is dead too, but she has no memorial: Markus is lost in a slave trader's mass grave with her unborn baby. But John will be her memorial because he remembers her and he loves her – and one day he will speak of her to another woman who believes him to be better than he knows he really is. And that will be all the memorial Markus would ask. He will live, he will go on... and he will remember.

He holds the data core out at arm's length, hesitating a moment as the sun dances across the metal. He couldn't help her, but at least Atlantis has been set free. For her there is no more pain. He drops it.

The data core tumbles down to the waiting waves, the last reminder of the being who watched over the city that is now his home. The sea that hid her city for ten thousand years welcomes the small box into its waters, accepting the proof of his failure and his success, easing that hard chunk of grief that claws under his ribcage.

Probably he should give a speech or something, but he's not Elizabeth. He's not good with words. So he just says: "Goodbye."

Elizabeth waits for his team in the gateroom, ready to see them off on his first mission since his forever-ago capture, and John can see the fear in her eyes. Because this is how they lost him last time – and this time he might never come back. But more than fear, he sees pride and delight and anticipation, because this is what he wants, what he needs. Love, a wise woman told him once, is not a cage.

He nods to her in wordless thanks as his team flank him, protective and supportive – and he is not afraid. The slavers broke him but with his friends he has put himself back together. This is where he should be.

"Major Sheppard," Elizabeth says firmly, "you and your team have a go." She smiles at them. "Come home safely."

John steps into the stargate.

Fin

Copyright 2008

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lasts for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
- Algernon Swinburne, "The Garden of Proserpine"