Don't Leave Me Drifting
A hot-off-the-press angst fest that turned out longer than I thought it would.
SPOILERS: First Strike, Sunday, SEASON 4.
Italicised sections are flashbacks.
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EDIT: inserting a warning here: major angst, trauma and character death.
Don't Leave Me Drifting
Dr. Keller raised her head slowly and looked around the room. There were only half a dozen people or thereabouts, but it felt like more. Maybe because that many people, standing silently, felt strange and unnatural.
"It's done."
Samantha Carter nodded and looked around the room. She traced a line down one of Elizabeth's forearms and her hand before leaving, eyes bright as she stepped outside and closed the door quietly behind her.
Evan Lorne looked at the ceiling and put his hands behind his back, posture almost iron.
Radek Zelenka stood awkwardly, hands twisting together unconsciously.
Ronon Dex let out an explosive breath and clenched a fist.
Teyla Emmalgan closed her eyes and inclined her head slightly, opening them and raising her head almost defiantly.
Rodney McKay looked around the room almost frantically, as if in disbelief and as if waiting for someone else to save the day at the eleventh hour this time.
John Sheppard took two slow steps forward and placed both hands on her arm, one wrapping around her forearm and the other clasping her fingers.
Elizabeth Weir's heart slowed down, her eyes remained closed, and John was confused whether the tubes being removed were a blessing or a blasphemy.
He forgot the other people in the room. He didn't need to hear the monitor to know her breathing was slowing - his vision was beginning to suffer from breathing with her.
This worked once, he thought, his thumb making circles in her palm.
"There's always something! If we had more time-"
"Rodney! ... This isn't what she would want."
"You're giving up? You? But you -"
"Rodney! .. I know. She's gone already, do you hear me?"
"But-"
"There's nothing left already!"
"You fight for everyone! Why not her?!"
"There's nothing to bring back already! Don't make this-"
He turned away, voice catching. He didn't know he was shaking, his voice rising as Sam and Dr. Keller silently left Elizabeth's office. He didn't know he was losing control.
John wasn't shaking now. He was numb from head to heart to skin and bones. It wasn't that he didn't care, it was exactly that he cared. He wasn't in control, because he was barely there.
Everyone in the room jumped as sirens and announcements drowned out the heart monitor. There was a beat of awkward silence in their wake as people exchanged looks, eyes flickering between the bed and the door and each other.
Sam opened the door a crack, eyes conflicted and apologising.
"Everyone, go," John ordered quietly, eyes on Sam's. She nodded and left, speaking into her comm. as she turned away.
"John-" Teyla started, meeting his eyes. "We'll stay."
John shared a look with Rodney, then with Ronon and Teyla.
"What can we do up there, Sheppard?" Ronon asked, voice quiet.
That was good enough.
John and Rodney left at a run as Teyla and Ronon let out sighs, taking positions on either side of the bed. Dr. Keller murmurred an apology and left.
Samantha Carter had a hand on her ear, announcing to city-wide that all non-essential systems be shut down.
Radek Zelenka shot a sharp retort at the hint of insincere criticism in Rodney's voice.
Evan Lorne stood by the gate technician, watching power readings with a sharp eye.
Ronon Dex and Teyla Emmalgan stood at either side of the bed as the announcement aired, waiting.
Rodney McKay typed frantically and muttered that even the Ancients hadn't built a computer that could keep up with him.
John Sheppard didn't wait for the dismissal or stay for a sigh of relief when Rodney managed to stop the city-shield from failing.
He ran.
The people who flattened themselves to the walls were in the way.
The transporter took too long.
The Ancients built too many corridors.
His feet wouldn't move any faster.
He used the door frame as a lever to turn into the room to find Ronon's hand on Teyla's shoulder, Teyla's forehead on Elizabeth's and a silence that went deeper than the lack of announcements and the absence of that steady beat.
His ears roared as Ronon patted Teyla's shoulder, jerking his head to the door. His throat and eyes burned as Teyla put two hands on his upper arms and he let his forehead fall against hers. His hands shook as she murmurred, "You were here when it mattered."
His knees almost buckled when the door clicked closed.
"If..."
She took a deep breath and opened her eyes stubbornly wider.
"Elizabeth," John stalled her, "It's going to be fine."
"Save that for the SFs, John," she shot back, "I have a headache."
"It's-"
"It's a risk," she overrode, "But it's that or die slowly and painfully. I could die either way."
"So what-"
"If it comes to it, don't hesitate," Elizabeth said sharply, "If there's no way back, don't-" She took another deep breath and he unconsciously put a hand on hers.
"It won't come to that." John looked away, eyes burning and taking a steadying breath, then forced himself to look back with a nod. "And shouldn't you be talking to Keller about this?"
She nodded. "I already have, and I had a living will made up before I came to Atlantis."
"Well, there you go then."
"But Rodney will want to try some new toy," Elizabeth said with a tired and indulgent smile. "Would," she corrected herself sharply, "He would want to try some toy on me. John, if there's nothing-"
"You'd give in?" He tried to keep the anger out of his voice, but couldn't quite manage.
"No," she shook her head vehemently. "But if there's nothing else that can be done - and let me finish - if there's nothing else, don't let me rot like this. I trust you and I won't be neither here nor there."
Something in the way she said it made him pause in his protests and meet her eyes. "You have places to be?"
The corner of her mouth twitched, but her eyes stayed serious and steady. "Don't leave me drifting, John."
He nodded, taking her hand and squeezing it.
A soft knock interrupted and Dr. Keller stepped into the room. "Dr. Weir? It's time."
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and smiled at John as two orderlies raised the sides of the bed. "I'll see you around, then."
He rolled his eyes and squinted a little at her, letting go of her hand after a final squeeze. "You'll be fine."
She grinned. "Here's hoping."
John leaned down from the side of the bed, putting his forehead against Elizabeth's in the Athosian fashion without letting go of her hand.
"Elizabeth?"
"In surgery," John replied shortly.
He and Rodney stopped in the corridor as the lights flickered overhead. John tapped his comm. quickly. "What's going on up there?"
"Power's sinking - we need to cut all non-essential systems or the shield's going to go."
"John," Sam's voice said over the comm. directly into his ear, "That might have to include the medical bay as a last resort."
He froze. "Elizabeth's in the middle of surgery," he hissed.
Rodney, pale, shot him an apologetic and panicked glance as he tapped his own earpiece. "The medical systems are hooked into the secondary systems. You cut them, you cut the Ancient diagnostic equipment and scanners."
"Power is down to 35%!"
Rodney muttered aside to John, "Twenty and we're all dead."
"Dr. Keller," Sam asked, "Are you using those?"
"Yes, but it's our equipment keeping her alive. She should be fine."
"Except the power conduits are in that panel, not a separate power line," Rodney protested. "You're essentially cutting all the power to that section except for atmospheric and lights - it wasn't built to be an infirmary, that's what we made it."
John shot Rodney a worried glance in the silence.
"Power is at 25% ... five percent more and the shield is going to collapse!"
"Do it," he ordered harshly.
"John?"
"Sheppard?"
"She'd never take that risk for one of us," John answered, voice tight, cutting off his comm. and hitting the side of his fist off of the wall.
John stared down at Elizabeth's pale face and refused to wonder if he could have prevented it. He knew as surely as he knew he'd feel guilt later anyway that she would have done the same, that she'd have felt the kick of it later anyway.
"Elizabeth?" he whispered hoarsely, looking up from his chair beside her bed.
"John?"
"Elizabeth... the surgery..."
"John?"
"It didn't go so well."
"My head hurts."
He nodded, voice thick. "Dr. Keller's doing what she can. I can ask her for some more-"
"I'm dying, aren't I?"
"They're doing what they can," John repeated, edges of his voice ragged. "You have to fight this."
"I'm tired."
"You've never been too tired. Since when do you sleep?"
"Soon, I suppose."
She even had the cheek to smile.
John looked away, swallowed and looked back.
"John? Do something?"
"Anything."
He replied without thinking. She paused, smiling wider and unfurling a hand. He took it.
"Don't leave me drifting?"
"I promise."
She smiled and closed her eyes as his lips brushed her forehead.
When the scans came back the next morning, he thought, I didn't realise it was goodbye.
He brushed his lips against hers without a thought. When he looked up, he saw Sam in the doorway, mouth curved in the ghost of a smile and eyes understanding. He held her gaze a moment before she nodded and left.
The next night, Teyla and Rodney pretended not to notice how red his eyes and knuckles were when they forced dinner on him.
Two months later:
John leaned on the doorframe.
"You shouldn't be here," he announced.
Sam looked up and fixed him with a glare. "Excuse me?"
"There's a perfectly good and empty office up there. You should start using it."
Sam raised an eyebrow and held his gaze. "You mean that?"
He nodded, lips forming a thin line as he thought it over. "She loved that office. It's a waste, it sitting empty." He forced a smile. "Besides, you need some sun if you're going to keep the same hours she did. The joke was that she had that office so she'd be forced to see natural light occasionally."
Sam laughed quietly and he turned to leave.
"John?"
"Hmm?"
"I'll need... a little help to pack up her things from the office."
John blinked. "I'll see what I can do."
Later, after Ronon, Teyla, Rodney, Lorne and Zelenka had helped Sam and John pack up Elizabeth's things to be sent to Earth, Rodney found him on the balcony.
"You look disgruntled," he began, tactfully as ever.
"When we were packing, did you see-"
Rodney held out the brown jar. John met his eyes as he took it.
Rodney shrugged. "I took it the day after she ... I figured you'd want it, and none of us wanted some anthropologist at Area 51 getting their grubby little hands on it. Don't break it."
John just nodded, taking the jar in both hands as Rodney waved and left. Turning back to the ocean, he smiled softly.
"I know you're here."
"Oh, really?"
He turned to her and smiled, eyes burning. She leaned on the railing and raised an eyebrow at the jar.
"Rodney told me to be expecting a visit," John replied, waving one hand in a gesture at the city. "Something about Atlantis caring about us... said he saw Carson, you know, after."
She nodded, looking at him. "So..."
He smiled crookedly. "So..."
"Elizabeth-"
"John-"
They stopped and laughed, looking at each other sheepishly.
"Where are you going to put that?" Elizabeth asked, gesturing at the jar.
"Oh, I don't know," John retorted, "I'll find somewhere."
"You need to empty it first," she prodded, then looked around.
"Memorial was last week," John answered quietly. "Celebration, actually. Your life, us surviving and getting back here, the promotion of the new commander all in one."
"Good party?"
He nodded, "Great party." He lifted the urn, "This they're letting me do on my own."
"Tell me Sam took the office," Elizabeth remarked lightly.
He grinned. "She took the office."
"That's good. Now, are you going to get on with it?"
He paused and looked at her suspiciously. "When I do, you'll fade, right?"
She shrugged, her shirt her usual red. "I'll fade anyway, sooner or later. You can choose not to leave me drifting, though."
He nodded. "I did promise."
"You were willing to promise 'anything,' if I remember correctly," Elizabeth teased, then sobered with only a hint of a smirk remaining. "I wish I'd had time to take you up on that."
"Me too," John replied, a hoarse edge on his voice.
"Someday I will."
He reached out and touched the back of her hand, then her cheek. "Someday."
"Until then take care of that jar, and don't do anything too silly like-"
"Suicide missions, being captured by the enemy, get infected by viruses or-"
"And stay away from insects," Elizabeth finished with a grin.
"Get some rest," he shot back.
"Make sure I'm going to need it." He'd never seen that wicked glint in her eyes before.
"Enough stalling?"
"I think so."
He met her eyes and smiled. Elizabeth smiled in return before narrowing her eyes at him. He tilted his head as he nodded, taking the hint.
She watched as he spread her ashes on the Atlantis ocean. When he turned back, she was gone.
THE END
A/n: And this is what happens when I feel rotten.