Hey all! Summer homework is running about, and I again find myself in need of a way to procrastinate. And, of course, ever since I started watching Atlantis, this plot has been running around in my head.

Yes, I know it starts out somewhat depressing. I'm sorry. It gets better. Life has to suck first though.

Anywho, enjoy!

Compromising Positions: Chapter 1
Protector

Elizabeth could barely breathe. It had started out as a mere tickle, but within minutes, she had realized that her body didn't tickle: it was burning with a deep-seated ache that seemed to envelop every part of her, ripping her rather violently from blissful unconsciousness.

"Her heart rate is spiking, I need Nurse Ling over here now!"

It was Carson. Even if she couldn't see him, Elizabeth would know that voice anywhere.

God, it hurt.

But Elizabeth didn't understand. Carson shouldn't be anywhere near here. He was on Atlantis, while she, Colonel Sheppard's team, a small group of military personnel, and a few scientists translated the writings in some abandoned temple ruins on the planet M51-237. It didn't make any sense.

Doing her best to ignore the heat racing along what felt like every nerve ending she had in her body, Elizabeth concentrated. Vaguely, she began to recall what she had last experienced.
Dusty rooms, a flash of light. Terror, blood, screaming and running… running… irrelevant pain. Being trapped as the light came closer. Her own voice whispering that she was afraid, and a sad voice answering back. Clinging to John and crying as she waited to die… John!

With a start, Elizabeth screamed into the waking world, arching her back against the mattress as if a giant, invisible hand was tearing her heart right out of her chest.

"Dr. Weir, you need to relax. You're back in Atlantis, in the infirmary." Cool hands brushed her skin as the nurse tried to calm her. "Dr. Weir, you are going to hurt yourself!"

"Dead! They're all dead! It was coming and I could do nothing but watch them die!" Elizabeth choked out through accelerated breathing and short wails of pain, not really knowing where the words came from but knowing them to be true. Her eyes were open, but she couldn't really see much but shapes and dull colors. Blackness was swirling across her vision as she struggled to remain conscious, her hearing punctuated with her own gasps and whimpers.

Numbness was slowly creeping up her arm. "There you are lass," Carson's voice emanated from the side, gentle and concerned. "I can only hope that takes the pain away."

Elizabeth didn't really care, or listen. "John!" she cried out to the Scottish doctor. "Where's John? I need—" She was cut short here as a particularly aggressive wave of agony washed over her, causing her to convulse briefly and arch her back again. "to know if he is alive!"

"Certainly Elizabeth. He wanted to know the same of you not an hour ago," Carson replied quickly. "See here, he's not five feet away from you, lass."

Allowing her head to fall to the right, the woman could indeed identify the messy shock of dark hair standing out against the white sheets of the infirmary pillows. Relief flooded her, even as she fought against the darkness that was seeping across more of her vision. "We're alive," she forced out, her voice tight. "I thought we were dead…"

With that, Elizabeth fell limp.

28 hours earlier…

"Thank you so much for coming Dr. Weir, you've really helped us quite a bit with these translations," Anna told her, beaming. Leaning in a little closer, the mousey anthropologist added in a lower voice, "and McKay is so much more tolerable when he knows he has to behave!"

"I heard that!" the indignant scientist snapped from his crouch by the foot of the pedestal at the end of the room.

Elizabeth grinned.

Teyla chose that moment to intervene. Smiling gently in her 'you had better listen to me Rodney, or you will be trying to pull your head out of your ass for the next two weeks' kind of way (how she managed to convey such a threat through such a pleasant expression, Elizabeth had never been able to fathom), Teyla suggested firmly, "It is already well passed midday. Let us go and have lunch with the marines outside.

She only had to finish the word 'lunch' and Rodney was sprinting for the exit of the ruins. Not ones to look a gift horse in the mouth, Anna and the other non-military personnel were soon to follow. Even Ronon shrugged and followed, jogging lightly for a few steps so he could catch up to Teyla. This left only Elizabeth, Sheppard, Captain Evan Montega, and Lts. Miller, Sean, and Beyermaltsze (Beyermaltze being affectionately known as Bob, seeing as no one could actually pronounce his name in a time-efficient manner) in the central room of the temple ruins.

The temple on M51-237 wasn't a particularly subtle affair. It was large and made out of several different types of stone, and would have once been a magnificent piece of architecture. However, centuries had passed since that time. The human population on the planet had been completely wiped out, presumably by the Wraith. They had been considerably more advanced than most of the societies the Atlantis expedition usually encountered in the Pegasus Galaxy, which was probably the reason that the Wraith had no longer tolerated them. It was also the reason Elizabeth was here now, helping to uncover the secrets of the temple and hoping to find something they could use to fight the Wraith. What they had found written on the walls and in logbooks so far didn't seem to be particularly promising, but Elizabeth hadn't honestly expected it to be. She was, however, more than glad to have an excuse to take a much-needed field trip away from her office.

"So, do you think that this god of living souls these walls are rambling about hates me? Because it is seriously hot in here."

An exasperated smile split Elizabeth's face. "John!" she scolded, turning to him as he shrugged off his heavy gear and dropped it to the floor, wiping his brow dramatically. "The temple is dedicated to a god of living souls, yes, but it's a god of living souls. That means capriciously rewarding or punishing people while they're alive, not weather control!"

"Right. I knew that," the man insisted, rolling his eyes. "Come on, Doctor," he said, heading for the door. "I'll race you to the entrance foyer, as McKay so righteously insists that the room is called."

Elizabeth was tempted to call him out on his unprofessional attitude, but John's good mood was infectious, and lunch was calling for her too strongly for Elizabeth to do anything but shoot her 2IC a look and hurry to catch up to him, feet scuffling on the dusty stone floor. But just as the pair was passing into the twisting hallway that led to the other rooms in the temple as well as the entrance, Lt. Sean let out a shout.

Suddenly all business, John whipped around, tense, firmly placing Elizabeth behind him as he glared at the poor man.

"Lt…" he said dangerously. "I thought I told you not to touch anything."

The Lt. guiltily took his hand off of the circle in the center of a medallion carved into the back wall, but continued to stare at the pulsating ball of light that had suddenly appeared atop the pedestal Rodney had been studying.

Elizabeth, irritated that Sheppard had been blocking with his body her every attempt to come out from behind him, finally just stood on her tiptoes and peeked over his shoulder at the light. It was approximately the size of a bowling ball and glowed with a gentle lavender hue, hovering sedately perhaps two inches from the surface of the top of its pedestal and effervescing peaceful little blue bubbles. A humming noise filled the room, growing a little louder every moment. It was rather pretty, but something about it twisted inside of Elizabeth's gut, causing her to grip Colonel Sheppard's arm rather tightly. "John, I don't think that—"

Elizabeth never had time to finish her warning. The orb abruptly exploded.

Blue and violet flames licked at the four men closer to it, but John and Elizabeth were lucky enough to escape their range. They did not, however, escape the concussive blasting effect and wave of heat, and John, still protectively standing in front of Elizabeth, was thrown backwards into the hall like a rag doll. They impacted roughly onto one of the walls, and Elizabeth felt the breath knocked out of her as she cushioned the fall for the both of them, crushed between her military commander and the course stone of the wall.

"Elizabeth! Are you all right?" John wheezed, rolling off of her quickly as soon as they hit the floor and pulling her upright, blinking furiously. "Are they alive? The Captain and his boys?" He paused looking apologetic. "The light from the explosion, I can't see very far," he admitted, still blinking.

Dazed, Elizabeth let her hand wander to the back of her head and it pulled away bloody.

"Elizabeth, are you all right?"

Focusing, she gazed silently over his shoulder, eyes sliding despairingly over the charred remains of Montega, Miller, Sean, and Beyermaltsze. Well, what she assumed were Montega, Miller, Sean, and Beyermaltze. "There aren't even pieces big enough to take home," Elizabeth murmured in shock.

"Elizabeth." John's tone was gentler now. She looked into his heat-blistered face immediately, knowing he needed her to listen to him. "Can you run?"

"Yes."

Almost before she could process what was happening, Elizabeth was on her feet and stumbling after the Colonel as he dragged her along, skidding frantically through the temple towards the exit. He kept a running dialogue of swearing going, cursing himself for taking off his gear and cursing just about everything else for good measure. As they moved, Elizabeth noted with horror that a soft purple light was slowly illuminating the walls ahead of them.

The glowing orb was chasing them.

Still going at full tilt, John and Elizabeth burst into the tiny room that McKay insisted was an entrance foyer. Freedom was literally three feet ahead of them when the doors to the temple slammed shut in their faces. Frantically, they tried to open them again, but they wouldn't budge a millimeter, no matter what they tried.

A second pair of doors slammed close by, and the pair realized with growing dismay that they were trapped. The doors separating the little foyer from the rest of the temple had sealed shut, effectively killing any chance of escape they'd ever had. It was just them and the glowing orb, locked in an eight by eight stone tomb.

Queasy, Elizabeth sank to the floor, and John swiftly shoved her into a corner and did his best to shield her body with his own as the orb once again began to hum and pulsate, floating high out of reach in the opposite corner. It didn't matter what he did though. Elizabeth knew that they would both die in the second explosion anyways.

"John," she whispered to the body covering hers, green eyes sad. "I… I'm scared." It didn't hurt to admit it. They were about to die for goodness' sake!

He answered her immediately. "Don't worry," he murmured to her in a pained tone, "I'm here to protect you."

Hearing John say that… that was something that Elizabeth just couldn't bear. She reached out and hugged him to her, and he clung to her as tightly as he could in response. Elizabeth didn't even care at this point that she was crying. The humming grew even louder, and the room was illuminated with a blinding flash of light. Searing pain consumed her, and Elizabeth Weir knew no more.

If you didn't pick up on this, they are alive. (Ya know, hence the whole "28 hours earlier" thing.)

Reviews are SO welcome you don't even KNOW. Seriously. I will write ten billion times faster if you review. It makes me feel less guilty about using plot bunnies to procrastinate on my homework.