Disclaimer: Dude. They're so not mine. Which is unfortunate... for me at least. Because I would love to have the money now. Believe you me.

Author Note: Another one of my fics that I initially published a while ago, but I'm now transferring to . So technically it's not "new" to the Internet, but it is new to this site/account.

Many many thanks to my beta phrenitis! Yes, my tenses do suck. I hated to put you through that *hangs head in shame* This one's for Naushika who wanted spilled coffee, a kiss (at the least), and angst. So I may have concentrated more on the third thing than the first two. Oops. And yea, she didn't want rape, babies (I'm assuming the mention of children in general doesn't count), or Elizabeth crying alot. No worries mate.

"You're so cold, keep your hand in mine.

Wise men wonder, while strong men die/

You're so cold, but you feel alive.

Lay your hands on me one last time."

Eulogy

It's three weeks before she finally realizes that she has yet to cry.

She wishes she could say that it is because she has been trying to put on a strong front in front of her diminished expedition team. She wishes that she could use the explanation that they need to continue to push forward, to move on and overcome the horror of the past.

In reality though, she just doesn't have the time to grieve.

The hierarchy of her responsibilities is simple to her. A long list of what her people need displaces any personal weaknesses until 'taking care of Elizabeth Weir' rounds out the bottom of her priorities. There are too few of them left and too many obstacles in their way for her to be selfish in any aspect. She reined in concern her own wellbeing years ago when she first became a diplomat, and sacrificed it completely once she became the leader of Atlantis.

Now, she wakes with a list already forming in her head. Firewood needs to be collected, food needs to be found, gate addresses need to be attempted. (She is convinced that Rodney is finding some sort of sick thrill in having to dial everything manually. No one could have known that the DHD had been damaged to the point of being utterly useless) It's enough to make anyone break, but Elizabeth thrives on both the incessant need of something to do and her own physical exhaustion.

It is the end of yet another day now. The fire, well stoked earlier in the evening, have died down to almost nothing more than embers. The cold is a constant enemy and tonight is no exception as a biting wind blows from the mountain ranges far off to the left of the camp. For the hundredth time since they arrived here, Elizabeth curses their barren climate. Vegetation is scarce, as is shelter, and the temperatures are at a steady bitter freezing. During the day (which is, thankfully, substantially longer than the nights), the winds tend to die down and the bright sun overhead can actually be felt. It's never much, but it occasionally warms their numb, frostbitten spirits enough to remind them that they're still human.

And still alive.

But the nights are terrifyingly cold and every morning, Elizabeth waits in sick anticipation to hear the reports of who has survived to see another sunrise. The dead are mourned accordingly each time, although the remembrances are beginning to become disturbingly more monotonous. When they first arrived, supplies had been unbelievably scarce. Blankets and sleeping bags had only been available to a little more than half of the refugees. Now, everyone has at least one layer of protection against the elements. Nothing is wasted. Not even the yellow sleeping bag that they had found the dead Captain Tyler in, too frozen to feel his own limbs being gradually eaten away by some sort of native rodent. They had since had two other cases of the animal sneaking into a sleeping bag, waiting to be joined by some human companion. Or the tattered remains of the red blanket, pulled aside one particularly cold morning last week to reveal three Athosian girls, huddled together for warmth that they would never find.

Elizabeth had never thought that she could get colder in a place like this. But she had been wrong, as the mothers of the children screamed into the still, frigid air. The leader of Atlantis had shivered with some new chill as the women had knelt on the ground, clutching at their daughters and determinedly rocking them back and forth, as if that tender action not used since they were infants would somehow coax the life back into their lifeless bodies.

Elizabeth hasn't felt warm since.

The memories constantly tug at her, and now, as she stands by the edge of the fire circle, they threaten to claw their way completely to the surface. She pushes them away viciously, not strong enough this particular evening to combat the memories of the wailing Athosians, the taste of bile in the back of her throat as she ran from the scene, the feel of Lorne's supportive hand on her back as she doubled-over and retched onto the pristine snowfall underfoot.

Sometimes, she can deal with it.

This evening is not one of those times.

She blinks tightly, pushing herself back into her role as a leader, and looks up from the glowing warmth in front of her. The view is basically the same in all directions. A circle of some sort of Ancient lights (Rodney had 'dumbed it down' for the majority of the soldiers by referring to them as 'glow sticks of a sort') surround them, with a diameter of no more than fifty feet. At this point, almost everyone is already huddled in groups under something or other. Most people have found their particular area and stuck to it, forming a mass of sleeping people centralized around the fire pit. They had hoped to build a few fires spread out more through the encampment but had underestimated how scarce wood truly was on this planet. One of the Majors, a true survivalist, had quickly pointed out how much more efficient one fire would be rather than multiple smaller ones. Thus, the central hub of the camp was created.

She knows that Carson is with a small group of Athosian mothers and sons on the opposite side of the circle from her. Rodney, for all of his seeming lack of survival skills, managed to fashion some unusable firewood into a lean-to of sorts. At one point, Elizabeth knew that both Kate and Radek had fit in there with him. Now, Rodney is the only human in the shelter and he shares it with a handful of orphaned Athosian children, whom he profusely complain about but ruffles their hair in affection when he thinks no one is looking.

Elizabeth's sleeping spot is back a ways from the rest. She had felt they needed the warmth of the fire more than she. She resides on the outskirts with the majority of the soldiers (everyone but Lorne sleeps on the outermost fringes of the group; he's a bit further in, holding on to a young brunette civilian scientist from the Daedalus under a mound of undistinguishable blankets). Elizabeth doesn't mind her position in the sleeping arrangements, only jealous for a moment on exceptionally cold mornings, but then immediately guilty about her thoughts.

'Besides', she thinks, grinning wryly into the darkness, 'at least I have a good sleeping buddy.'

Her thoughts remind her of how long he's been gone and she quells the moment of unnecessary panic that is inevitable every time that he's out of her sight for a certain amount of time. It's somewhat understandable here, a place where people wander beyond the safety of the lights and are never seen again. They were initially worried about predators, until they realized that there weren't any (other than those eerily large rodents), and the few larger animals that they had seen were something akin to mammoths, much more worried about their own survival than the new human inhabitants on the frozen tundra.

When they had first explored this planet months ago, John had joked that "at least there aren't any dinosaurs".

Now, Elizabeth thanks God for small favors like those.

Months ago seem like decades, a lifetime that she can only remember through vague mental pictures of people that she barely recognizes anymore. Before the Wraith had come to Atlantis for a final time, after their initial siege, the ancestors of the Ancients had tried to rebuild. They had been doing so well for so long, assured of their continued safety as they eluded more and more of their enemy.

None of them had suspected the apocalypse; the moment when a dozen hive ships had decloaked themselves, hovering in anticipation just outside of the planet's outermost atmosphere. She recalls Rodney babbling incoherently about how they managed to slip by the long range sensors, and the moment when they realized it was due to a Wraith virus that had infiltrated the entirety of their network. Everything was corrupt, nothing could be trusted, and next to nothing responded.

They had been so cocky, thinking that they had triumphed where the infallible Ancients had failed.

They were wrong.

Much later, sitting on this icy planet with hours of mindless activity, the scientists would come to the conclusion that the Wraith had been planning this for months. In fact, they had probably implanted it during their initial attack on Atlantis when patrols had streamed through the city. Transferring data to the hive ships, the Wraith would have known from the beginning that Atlantis was never truly destroyed.

But they had used it to their advantage, playing the ignorance card until the city was lulled back into a false state of security.

The soldiers had begun to run to their stations, ready to sacrifice themselves in order to blow just a few darts out of the sky, but Elizabeth had called them back almost immediately. She wasn't a military strategist by any means, but even she could already see the plan of their enemy.

Atlantis was beyond vulnerable. The virus had knocked out the shields and weapons. Communication to the Daedalus, cloaked and waiting further out near the moon of the planet, was non-existent. They watched, horrified, as the blip on their screen designating their only line of defense suddenly disappeared amidst a barrage of fire from the Wraith armada.

The Daedalus was gone, the ZPM needed to connect them to Earth had been depleted only days before, and the position of Earth itself may have been compromised. From the beginning, they had always erased all records of Earth's location and entered that information manually with this specific case in mind.

But nothing was a certainty in the Pegasus galaxy.

People stood still, in some sort of shock, looking at Elizabeth. They needed a decision, they needed guidance. She set her jaw, ready to order evacuation to the Alpha site before she realized that they couldn't go there. The addresses of all of their possible Alpha and Beta sites had been in their computer files. Any or all of them could now be crawling with Wraith.

She sucked in a sharp breath, realizing that for the first time in a long time, she was at a complete loss. Control of the situation was rapidly slipping away and she grasped the edge of the nearest control panel tightly, leaning against it even as her arms trembled in terror.

And, suddenly, he was there next to her. One hand on the small of her back while he barked out orders to his men. The soldiers jumped at his commands, gathering supplies quickly as the civilians assisted them, following Sheppard's orders as though they wore the uniform themselves.

From the control panel behind them, Rodney screamed that the hive ships had deployed Darts. They would reach the city within minutes and the limited control he had on basic Atlantis systems was slipping. His frantic "I don't know how strongly I can stress this Elizabeth, but if we're going to do something, we have to do it NOW!" finally snapped her out of her daze. She locked her eyes with John's, leaning back into the support of his hand while she read his expression. Even before his slight nod of agreement, she already knew how this situation was going to end.

She barked out the order for the self-destruct to be initiated. Bending over the nearest computer terminal to input her code, John followed in a similar fashion, leaning over in front of her to type his code beneath hers. She called to Rodney, telling him to dial a planet, any planet that they had in their system. They watched the chevrons light up one by one, holding their breaths, hoping that the wormhole would engage, hearing the distant scream of the Darts drawing ever closer.

They only had one shot, according to Rodney. After that, the virus would have complete control of all systems.

The seventh chevron locked, a familiar shimmering pool basking them in a pale blue glow. She yelled at them to run and they did, grabbing as many supplies as they could along the way. Important survival gear was kept in the gate room itself, in hidden cabinets all throughout the walls, for such circumstances. They raided as many as they could before diving through the gate and stepping onto a random planet.

The final three in the control room hurried down the steps, but pulled up short as a side door opened and dozens more people flooded into the room. The Athosians were in a panic, having no idea what was happening, and Sheppard and McKay yelled at them to get through the gate because the Wraith had come. They needed no further encouragement, and sprinted up the steps through the puddle.

Elizabeth reached for her headset, certain that it would not work, since everything else in Atlantis was no longer in their control. She couldn't mask her surprise when Teyla answered her call. The Athosian leader was far away on the other side of Atlantis with a small group of her people and several of the Marines. They had left earlier that morning to scout for new places for the Athosians to live in the city.

The decision had been made only last month to return from the mainland.

There was no way for the explorers to make it back in time. Everyone present on both sides of the conversation were aware of this fact. Teyla quietly told them to go, and Elizabeth knew that there was no room for argument. The darts were drawing nearer, and the self-destruct (the one thing that the virus was unable to corrupt) was quickly approaching zero.

Rodney ran for the gate, not able to stand it any longer. He called to the other two over his shoulder, reminding them that they had a limited window of opportunity. He disappeared through the gate as John took her hand, pulling her gently, yet urgently, to the event horizon. Tears sprang into the corner of her eyes as she thinks of the innocent lives that she was leaving behind, that she had condemned.

Little did she know how many more would die.

But John was there, insistently tugging and entwining his fingers through hers, roughly reminding, "We have to go."

She nodded numbly, turning to follow docilely. Before she stepped through, she could make out the static whisper of, "May the gods be with you."

Elizabeth wasn't sure if Teyla heard her response of "And also with you" before she stepped out of Hell... and into Purgatory.

She shivers, pulling the heavy jacket tighter around her lean form. 'Davids' is embroidered on the breast ID and Elizabeth has a faint memory of a quiet, dark haired Lieutenant who came to Atlantis with the first arrival of the Daedalus. He was twenty-three. He is dead now. The lingering aroma of shampoo and some sort of cologne waft up from the fabric, making her crinkle her nose against it. She shuts her eyes tightly, willing it to go away.

The scent of a ghost.

It makes her want to vomit. Her nausea is a steadily increasing occurrence these days. Most of the time, her mind doesn't even register it anymore.

Elizabeth can suddenly feel the presence of someone beside, and for one terrifyingly irrational moment, she thinks that it might be the dead Lieutenant himself coming to retrieve his jacket. Or accuse her, pointing to her with one bony lifeless hand, of leaving him to his death.

But her company is much too warm to be a ghost and sits far too close to be anyone other than one person.

John is back from his mission, accompanied by all five of the men who left with him earlier in the day. That alone is an anomaly, but the large bounty of firewood that they have pulled along behind them delights her further. He's grinning as he stands beside her, something that she hasn't seen in weeks and didn't realize how much she missed until now.

He extends one gloved hand, handing her a steaming cup of coffee (although it is little more than water strained through the last, reused bit of their stash) in some sort of salvaged tin cup. She knows without drinking it that it's not appetizing. But it's hot and she accepts it gratefully, feeling the heat of his body even through layers of clothing as their fingers brush together. "You looked cold," he explains.

She doesn't think she should tell him that was due less to the weather and more to the fact that he was gone.

The cocky grin that was for so long his trademark returns for an instant as he relates to her what they found. A grove of some sort of native vegetation had been growing just beyond the edge of their explorations. John and his team had discovered it only as they were making their way back to camp, quickly hacking at any and all bushes they could grab.

He looks at the ground, dropping his voice so that only she can hear it, as he explains apologetically that this was why they were late. His eyes flick up to meet hers and any worry that she had felt about his late return quickly vanishes. He knows how much she worries about the safety of her charges. Especially him. She smiles at him and they both know that, at least for now, they are both ok.

He grabs her free hand, the one not wrapped around her coffee cup, and squeezes it gently before nodding his head over his shoulder in the direction of his men. They stand in a tight group around one of the Athosian men who has set up a small fire with a pot of water and is distributing his coffee concoction to them all. The wood waits in a cluttered pile just outside the edge of camp and Sheppard pulls away from her to go help with the organization of different piles. From under the blankets, people emerge to help with no one needing to ask them. Everyone knows what needs to be done.

The fire is stoked again, blazing up to feed on the tender dry shoots that they've added. Elizabeth smiles into the renewed light, letting her body thaw out just slightly. John and his team disperse quickly, one older Captain left at the fireside to tend to it through the night. She knows that in three hours someone else will take the Captain's place.

The military and civilian leaders of the Atlantis expedition walk side-by-side to their spot on the ground. She takes a sip of her drink, quickly hiding her grimace as the bitter water hits her tongue and hopes that her companion doesn't notice. He doesn't though, too intent on rearranging their sleeping bag as he kneels down on the ground in front of her. She takes another tentative sip, cataloguing her surroundings to make sure her people are settled in for the long night. Other than the Captain at the fire and the Athosian packing up his coffee supplies, everyone else seems to be asleep.

She turns back to John and her eyes immediately catch the flicker of movement to her right. She should be used to it. But even now he continues to startle her.

From his perch on the perimeter of the encampment, Ronan keeps a constant vigil tonight, as he has since the beginning of their exodus. Elizabeth has watched him do it for days ('Twenty one', she thinks absentmindedly) as he stares into the nothingness around them, breath smoking in the frigid air, fingers unconsciously playing with the leather strap around his wrist. Elizabeth knows that an identical bond bracelet is back in the ruins of Atlantis, defiantly attached to the lifeless arm of an Athosian leader even as the ocean water crushes down upon it.

Ronan is been on patrol when she wakes, and still keeping watch as she falls asleep. Elizabeth has yet to figure out whether he's doing so in an act of protection against the next inevitable attack, or some painful hope that the dead might actually return to him, walking ghosts reuniting with their loved ones.

She doesn't know when, or if, he sleeps. Although, judging from the degree of her own nightmares, she can see why he would prefer to forego slumber altogether.

Among them, he is the lone survivor of two Holocausts.

Being the survivor of only one is more than enough for her.

John suddenly rises to his feet beside her and his movement spooks her. Her body starts, arm jerking back, and she watches as the coffee she didn't even really want spills on the ground.

She feels overwhelmingly guilty, swallowing back the urge to sob. The few supplies they have left are precious and here she is, Doctor Elizabeth Weir, throwing them around like some cheap knickknacks.

He is next to her in a second, wrapping one arm securely around her waist while he uses one foot to kick powdery snow over the offensive stain. Out of sight, out of mind.

It affects her more than it should and she knows that it is a sign of the first cracks in her armor. The strain is finally catching up to her and she is unsure of how much longer she can stay this strong.

Before she realizes it, she is on the ground, burrowed deep within the thermal sleeping bag and under a handful of other blankets. John quickly joins her, lying beside her so perfectly that she cannot imagine how she used to sleep without him.

The darkness is welcome as he zips up the top flap of the bag, shutting out any light from the resurrected fire blazing yards away. She sighs, resting her eyes for a moment before his sudden activity motivates her to follow suit. Now, under the protection of their blankets, is the only time that they are sheltered enough to strip down to some degree. Socks, underwear, and usually a the bottom-most layer of their clothes almost always remain. But their thick jackets, hats, and gloves are pushed haphazardly to a mass at the bottom of their feet.

They gradually settle down, facing one another, and Elizabeth reaches out to place a hand on his chest. The soft material of the wifebeater he wears is depressingly thin and Elizabeth knows that it has seen better days. Although she has no doubt that the T-shirt she wears probably doesn't look much better. It's one of John's, unknowingly swiped back in Atlantis while he was gone on a mission for longer than she had initially anticipated. The original smell is almost completely gone by now, drowned by weeks of her sweat. But, deep beneath the unwashed odor of her, she can make out the faintest traces of what used to be.

It makes her miss home. She briefly wanders when she began considering Atlantis 'home', rather than Earth.

Then realizes that it doesn't matter anymore.

"I miss it too." His deep voice makes her jump. She had forgotten how accustomed she had become to the dark silence in their sleeping quarters. In the beginning of this exodus, they had stayed up for hours talking. She had learned more about him in a handful of nights on a frozen planet than she had during the months of their relationship on Atlantis.

But now, they both enjoy the silence. There is always so much noise during the day with people shouting, duties fulfilled, the wind howling that she yearns for a privacy which she didn't even realize she missed. It's a mutual understanding as they settle in to sleep, finding so much more comfort in the touch of bare skin than any conversation could ever possibly offer.

She smiles sadly into the darkness at his words, even though she knows he can't see it. In another time, she may have played dumb, with a confused 'What are you talking about?'. But he knows her too well now and there is no reason to play games in a place like this.

She nods, her hair swishing gently across the fabric beneath her head. "I know."

His hand moves from its spot on her hip to cover the hand she has resting on his chest. When his fingers squeeze hers there is no more need for conversation.

For a moment she contemplates sex, moving flush against him, stripping off the few garments they still wear, plundering his mouth with her tongue even as her fingers grab greedily for the waistline of his pants. They have done it often enough in this situation and though it's not the prettiest or the easiest of circumstances, she revels in the sensations that he is always able to coax out of her.

But she can sense his fatigue (she doesn't need to be able to see him to feel that) and the thought is quickly extinguished. The sex itself has always been overwhelmingly good, making her forget about their hardships for at least a few minutes. But recently, the energy required has left her feeling more exhausted than satiated. She knows that in the morning, as usual, she will be needing all of that energy to survive another day.

The hand encasing hers releases its hold and she instantly misses its warmth.

He reaches over to rest against her cheek, thumb reaching down to lightly trace the outline of her lips, and her face feels like it's on fire.

He doesn't say anything for a second and she can feel his eyes trying to study her even through the darkness. "C'mere." It is a plea without begging and she responds instantly, sliding over as he rolls onto his back. Her one hand lays on his chest, the other down the length of his side. His arm loops around her shoulder to pull her upper body up, so that her head fits into the crook of his neck.

Each breath is filled with the scent of him as she buries herself against him, fighting back the urge let her hand stray just a bit too low. She cannot help but sneak her tongue out and flick the heated skin of his throat. Below her, she feels rather than hears his slight moan.

He places one finger beneath her chin and pushes it up, bending down to kiss his lips to hers. It is an insanely awkward angle but she has never been more comfortable. Their tongues dance languidly across one another, mimicking a rhythm that reminds them of so much more.

But this is already becoming taxing on their exhausted bodies and they break away slowly, quick shallow breaths mingling for a pregnant moment. He lifts his lips up to place a single, chaste kiss to her forehead before wrapping his arms securely around her and rubbing his cheek against the coarseness of her uncombed hair. They both breathe deeply, settling down for the final time that night.

"Love you," he mumbles, one hand playing gently with her hair while the other rubs slowly along the length of her back.

She doesn't have much room for selfishness as the leader of Atlantis. But she has a moment of it as her eyes close drowsily, her head resting on the chest of the warm lover beneath her, hearing his heart beat a soothing lullaby.

She prays that of all people in their encampment, he be spared.

Because as much as it hurts her to lose a member of her team, losing him would be worse than dying herself.

She falls asleep before she has the chance to regret her thoughts.

It's much later, nestled in the safe haven of his arms, that she finds herself inexplicably wide awake and staring into the darkness around them. She knows from the shallow, hot breaths on the back of her neck that he is still awake and at some point slipped around to spoon behind her. Elizabeth will never admit it, but very early in their relationship she had determined that he was always awake when she was (although she still isn't quite sure whom wakes whom and why exactly that is).

The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them. A moment of weakness slipping through before she can gather herself completely.

"I've never cried John. People keep dying. Every day. And... I don't know what kind of a monster that makes me."

His arms tighten slightly with their possessive hold around her waist and Elizabeth can feel the sting of tears prick the corners of her eyes, as if his grip is squeezing them from her. He cranes his head slightly forward, lips and the stubble of a five-o'clock shadow scraping roughly against her jaw, his nose nuzzling the outer curve of her ear.

He whispers into her ear that it's going to be alright, and she finds hollow comfort in his words.

She blinks rapidly, fighting the urge to sniffle, not wanting him to see the weakness that she's been trying so hard to hide.

"It's okay," he repeats, pausing slightly before whispering a confession. "I've cried enough for the both of us."

As the salty tears burn down her cheeks, she wonders how she can simultaneously feel so alive and so dead inside.