Keeper of the Dead 1/6 (Stargate Atlantis/Supernatural/NCIS) PG13
I've been waffling about posting this in pieces, but then I looked back upon my entire fic history and hey, it's all in installments. I'M A SERIAL WRITER. take that as you will.
Keeper of the Dead 1/6
A Stargate Atlantis/Supernatural/NCIS story
by mhalachaiswords
Summary: Elizabeth Weir died. That was just the beginning.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis, NCIS and Supernatural are all owned lock&stock by large media corporations. I am but a humble writer paying homage to those lovely worlds. This is trufax.
Spoilers: All of SGA, NCIS, and ongoing Supernatural (although we won't really get to the NCIS and Supernatch stuff for a few chapters).
Word count: 4,325 this part
Genre: Action/Thriller, Gen
Note: Sequel to Hey Little Sister. The impetus behind this story is that Torri Higginson played both Elizabeth Weir on SGA, and Jordon Hampton on NCIS, which I couldn't leave alone.
~~~~~~~~~~
The kindest thing Oberoth ever did was to leave Elizabeth alone to die.
When Oberoth shut her in the featureless room, isolated from the Replicator collective, left behind by Sheppard and McKay to save Atlantis, something inside of her snapped. She could feel the nanites in her blood multiplying, taking elements from her body and converting her cells into tiny Replicators building blocks. She couldn't stop her hands from clawing at her skin, trying to dig out the alien technology devouring her from the inside. But no nails could cut deep enough to rip free the nanites, nothing could free her from the torment of her unfamiliar body.
No matter how deeply she dug, or how much red blood spilled across the floor of her tomb, her skin healed almost immediately as the nanites knit together smooth, flawless flesh.
Too late, she wished she'd had the courage to order John to kill her.
She lay still, staring at the grey ceiling as her body slowly changed. Her bones would be first, Oberoth had explained before he closed the door on her screams. Nanites needed the minerals in her bones to replicate. Next were her muscles, then her internal organs. Her brain would be last, so the nanites could completely map her synaptic pathways to take all knowledge from her.
Her vision was changing, the tell-tale itch of nanites inside her eyeballs. Elizabeth bit down hard on her fingers to keep from clawing at her eyes with gore-stained fingernails. It did not matter there was no one to see her final minutes. She had succumbed to terror, the drying blood on the floor and her hands testimony to the failure of her will, but she had regained herself before the end.
Elizabeth Weir would die alone in the dark, but she would die in control of herself and with her eyes open.
There would be a replicator in her shape, with her thought patterns, but it would not be her. Already, she could feel the dimming of her senses, memories failing. Whatever spark of life made Elizabeth who she was, would be gone. Nothing could stop it now.
So she lay on her back and waited for the end to come.
Out of silent darkness came an explosion of light and sound, sending Elizabeth scrambling back until her shoulder hit the wall, some last remaining animal instinct screaming run away RUN AWAY. Her alien eyes saw the light, her alien ears heard the noise, and whatever remained of her humanity made her very afraid indeed.
From that shape of light and sound coalesced a figure, emerging from a shroud of shadowed wings into the room.
A man.
Elizabeth felt fear slide into an emotion she knew as purely her own, and it pushed back the onslaught of the nanites for a few moments. Fury.
"Can't you wait longer?" she demanded, her voice curiously flat as nanite-flesh contracted in her throat. "I'm not dead, don't drag me into your Replicator consciousness yet!"
The man cocked his head to the side and stared at her with eyes of fire. "I am not Replicator," he hissed.
True, this didn't feel like the consciousness. Another option struggled out of her memory past the nanites, and if her heart had been her own, it would have sunk. "Are you an Ancient?" she asked, not even letting herself hope. If this was an Ascended Ancient, it wouldn't be allowed to help her.
Her last moments alive were to be a torment. Very well.
"I am ancient, but not as you mean." The man knelt at Elizabeth's side, his hand reaching out. The caress would have charred normal flesh, but her nanites healed the burns on her cheek instantly as Elizabeth jerked away. "Fascinating."
Elizabeth scrambled back. Ancient or Replicator, he was still a threat, and Elizabeth wasn't dead yet. "What do you want?"
The man was suddenly on his feet, grabbing her wrists and forcing her against the wall. Even as she struggled with Replicator-strength, Elizabeth could not free herself. The man pressed against her, so close she could feel the heat from the fire in his eyes. "I want the last living blood relative of Dean Winchester," he said, voice filling Elizabeth's ears with the pressure of a hurricane.
Elizabeth's mind couldn't reach past the haze of the nanites to remember anyone named Dean Winchester. Everything was fading, her body shutting down as her last remaining brain cells were dismantled by nanites.
With what little of herself she had left, she spat in the man's face. "You're too late," she said.
The man smiled then, sharp as knives in her belly. "I am not offering you a choice," he said.
Then he ripped her out of her body.
~~~
The pain went on forever.
~~~
She fell.
Hands and knees hit something hard and soft at the same time, limbs jerking stiff just in time to keep her face from smashing into the unseen surface.
She had no time to think before a wave of ice broke over her. She gasped, and water flooded her mouth. Choking on salt, Elizabeth fought against the water and gravity until the water receded.
She opened her eyes, only to be blinded by a flash of brilliant red sunlight.
Sunrise.
The ground under her hands gave way as she pushed, wet sand shifting under her weight as she scrambled up the shoreline from the crashing surf. Her adrenaline rush vanished as she reached the high tide mark, sand only slightly damp as the water retreated back into the sea for the day.
The memory of pain was a pain in itself, a grinding wooziness that drew out the beat of every moment into an eternity of wondering if it would happen again as she choked up salt water from her lungs, the harsh scour of sand under her hands, clothing icy against her skin.
Only as she coughed up a mouthful of water from her lungs did she realize that it was her lungs, her eyes seeing the dots in the sand, her skin warmed by the distant sun rising.
Her.
With a determined push, Elizabeth staggered to her feet. She was on a deserted beach on a world that looked and smelled so much like Earth, with the sun rising over the ocean. The salt air was broken only by the unmistakable cry of a sea gull.
"Oberoth!" she screamed, the effort of the name catching in her throat. She doubled over, coughing again. Was this another Replicator-induced fantasy, now that the Replicators had taken over her mind completely? Was she going to be locked away forever in her own head?
"He is not here," came the same voice from the featureless room. Elizabeth spun around, to find that man occupying a spot on the sand that seemed crowded yet vacant at the same time. "You are no longer there."
Elizabeth backed away, sand moving underfoot. It was all too real, the sun and the sand and the ocean crashing onto the beach a few steps away. "What is this place?" she demanded, gratified that her voice was growing more solid as she spoke. "Who are you?"
The man looked out at the ocean. He just didn't seem real. "You are needed."
"For what?"
"Dean Winchester."
This time, Elizabeth knew exactly of whom the man spoke. Her cousin John Winchester's son. The last time Elizabeth had seen Dean, had been in a family portrait when the boy was still a baby. Not a boy anymore, Elizabeth realized. He was nearly twenty-eight. "What do you mean?" she deflected.
The man looked back at Elizabeth. "You are restored to help in God's merciful plans for mankind."
That came so far from out of left field that Elizabeth stopped dead. "What? Who's plan?" she repeated. Why was some ascended Ancient speaking about God?
Earth's God?
"Dean Winchester holds the key for God's plans, in His infinite knowledge and mercy," the man recited. "You are Dean Winchester's only pure blood relation and as such, you are a part of Heaven's plan."
"What about his father? Or his brother?" Elizabeth demanded. She hadn't heard much from John in the years since Mary died, but John's last letter had said that Sam and Dean were in high school and they were all alive.
And seriously.
God?
The man did not respond to her question. "You will become the keeper of the dead, as Satan's armies are battled below."
"What are you talking about?" Elizabeth asked, angry now. She stepped forward to try and grab at the man, fury overwhelming her common sense, but between one instant and the next he was behind her.
Instinctive terror crawled up Elizabeth's spine, that part of the brain that had everything to do with millions of years of humanity huddling in the dark and waiting for the monsters to attack.
"Go," the man commanded, pointing at a spot far down the beach. Elizabeth automatically looked in the direction he indicated, and when she looked back, he was gone.
Elizabeth lasted a full moment before she took off down the beach, fear and the remembrance of pain pushing her beyond what she thought she could endure.
~~~
The spot indicated turned out to be a parking lot overlooking the water. There was only one car in the parking lot, a small worn sedan with New Jersey plates.
It was unlocked.
Elizabeth paused with her hand on the open passenger door. What exactly was going on here? Most likely, this was a hallucination brought on by the nanite change, a never-ending nightmare created by her own psyche. In which case, it didn't matter what she did, because there was no escaping it until her death.
Another option was that she had been pulled into the Replicator consciousness and this was pure manipulation, but to what end, Elizabeth had no idea. If they wanted information about Atlantis or Earth, they were going about it in a strange way. And no Replicator would know about Earth's God, let along use phrases like Satan's army.
There was a very thin chance that this was real, that some Ancient really had pulled her out of the Replicator's body and restored her to herself, and put them down on an Earth beach with some misguided idea that he was helping.
That last was so unlikely that Elizabeth could barely think of it.
Feeling very much like Alice directed to drink me, Elizabeth opened the car's glove box.
What she found there only confused her more. The car keys lay on top of registration papers, in the name of Dr. Jordan Hampton of Newark. Under the papers was a thin wallet, containing fifty dollars in cash, a credit card, as well as a New Jersey driver's license Jordan Hampton's name and Elizabeth's picture.
Elizabeth let the license rest against her fingers. This didn't make any sense. Jordan Hampton, MD, was a burn alias she'd used a decade before when she was trying to smuggle information out of Bhutan without alerting the authorities to a diplomat's presence. The alias had been a one-time thing, set to lapse eight years before. But this was a current license, with current insurance papers and up-to-date tags on the car's plate.
Elizabeth looked out at the sun, rising over the horizon. An hour ago by her calculations, she had been dying on the floor of a Replicator city. Now she was staring at her own face on an ID card issued in New Jersey.
What was going on?
Further searching in the car produced a motel key tucked on top of the sun visor. Given the way things had played out so far, Elizabeth would bet at least part of her fifty dollars that the room was booked in the name of Jordan Hampton.
Seeing no other real option other than sitting here, Elizabeth slid behind the steering wheel and putting the car into gear.
~~
She had meant to drive until she found a gas station to ask for directions to the motel listed on the keychain, but she found herself driving past the first gas station, taking an off-ramp and five minutes later pulling into the parking lot of the right motel.
A little stunned, Elizabeth took the wallet and the keys and walked up a flight of stairs, let herself into the deserted room, and closed the door behind her. How had she known where to go?
The room was dingy, yet neat. The only sign of personality was a suitcase, lying closed on the bedspread. It might as well have had a sign that read Open Me on it.
Suddenly furious, Elizabeth turned to leave the room, only to realize that her clothing was still wet. She let her forehead rest against the thin wood of the door, all energy leaving her. She let herself slide to the floor as the overwhelming nature of her situation crashed in on her. She had no idea what was going on, if this was real or a waking nightmare from which she could not escape.
In all her time on Atlantis, she never thought it would end like this. She had ordered Sheppard to leave her behind, yet part of her couldn't believe he had really done so.
And now she was alone.
She had no idea how long she sat there before physical discomfort pushed past her mental turmoil. With an effort, she made herself stand, feeling every one of her years. Be this hallucination or reality, the basic laws of physics seemed to be holding. So now what?
An examination of the room only reinforced the message in the wallet. The suitcase held a few changes of clothing, a small paperback book, and a dossier containing the CV of Dr. Jordon Hampton, as well as new-hire papers by the local medical examiner's office.
Elizabeth let the papers fall back to the bed. That was where this whole illusion would fall apart, she knew. Besides the outlandish idea that the burn alias wouldn't attract the attention of the State Department, Elizabeth wasn't a medical doctor. She didn't know the first thing about anatomy.
A shiver down her spine distracted Elizabeth. She was still in wet clothes, and the trauma of the past few days were catching up with her. She lifted a change of clothing out of the suitcase and, after locking the door and pulling the dresser in front of it, went into the bathroom.
The light shone unforgiving as Elizabeth undressed, letting the black Atlantis BDUs slide into a pile on the floor. Her skin had been healed by the nanites, showing her a body familiar and startling at the same time. When had she gotten so old? Part of her still felt like a sixteen-year-old kid, the same kid who'd shown up on her cousin John Winchester's doorstep decades before.
Turning her back on the mirror, Elizabeth stepped into the shower, leaving the curtain half-open to give her a clear line of sight to the door. Hot water and cheap soap helped clear away the blood and salt from her skin. But the chaos in her mind continued unabated.
No matter what she might want to believe, that this was a delusion brought on by the nanites, or some sort of Replicator mind game, this didn't feel like the nanite-induced hallucination she'd experienced before. Everything felt very real, from the hot water spraying over her skin to the wet hair falling against her cheeks.
And the idea that all of this was real was even more terrifying. Because that meant that something or someone with unimaginable powers and a literal God complex had plucked her out of her dying body and pulled her halfway across the universe, warping time and reality to suit his purpose.
Elizabeth scrubbed at the blood covering her skin, feeling something very close to hysteria bubbling up in her chest. What could any of this have to do with John and Dean Winchester? Elizabeth hadn't heard from her cousin in years. He'd sent her letters once a year or so, letting her know that he and the boys were still alive and reminding her to lock her doors at night because of the monsters out there in the dark. She had always put his paranoia down to the lingering trauma from Mary's death... but the last half hour of her life had changed all that.
Because what could explain Ancient interference in Dean Winchester's name?
And Ancient it must be, for Elizabeth could believe many things, but she sure as hell wasn't willing to believe in miracles.
~~~
After she had showered and dressed in clothes from the suitcase, Elizabeth took the wallet and the room key and headed out in search of food. She wasn't remotely hungry, but if she wanted to keep functioning, she knew she needed to eat. Before the nanites took over, Dr. Keller's IVs were the only sustenance she'd had in days.
A small diner sat at the corner down the block, people visible through the window. Elizabeth stepped through the door on the heels of a truck driver, unconsciously hunching into her jacket as she stood by the cash register.
A harried waitress spotted her. "Sit anywhere you want, honey!" the woman called, balancing four plates in her hands as she sped towards a table.
The only clear table was by the window, so Elizabeth slipped across the floor and onto the vinyl bench, unable to keep from staring around the diner in what might have been wonder. This had used to be normal to her, bright colors and brash talk and all the food. Plates heaping with food in front of every customer, a tall rotating display case full of pies by the front door... the excess made her head spin. Things on Atlantis were better now that the Daedalus was on a regular supply run, but there wasn't a week that went by where someone (usually Rodney McKay) wasn't in her office, complaining about the restricted menu offerings.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the waitress. The woman slapped a coffee cup on the table and dropped a handful of creamers on the chipped Formica surface. She grinned a quick greeting at Elizabeth. "What can I getcha?" she asked.
Elizabeth blinked. She hadn't thought this far ahead, although really, what other sort of decision would she be asked to make in a diner? Rather than fumble with the menu, she said, "I'll have the special."
"Bacon or sausage? White, brown or rye toast? Hashbrowns or grits?" the waitress rattled off, scribbling on her notepad.
Elizabeth just stared. The questions wouldn't solidify into any meaning.
The waitress snapped her gum. "You okay, honey?"
Elizabeth ducked her head, trying to calm her breathing. She couldn't let questions about a simple meal knock her down. She had to keep her head about her, regardless of all the impossible things that had happened to her in the last few hours. Or days. Or years. "I'm fine," she lied with a weak smile. "Why don't you surprise me?"
"Okay," the waitress said, ripping a slip of paper off her order pad. "You let me know when you want more coffee," was her parting shot.
Once the waitress was gone and Elizabeth was as alone as she was going to get in a crowded diner, she rested her forehead against her palm. What the hell was she doing wasting time in a New Jersey diner? She needed to get back to Atlantis, and the only way to do that was thought the SGC. She seized on the thought. She had to get to the SGC. Never mind the fake life that had been built up for her; she'd get in Jordon Hampton's car and drive to Colorado. General Landry would see her if she made enough of a nuisance of herself at the Mountain, and the SGC would prove to their satisfaction that she wasn't a Replicator and then she could catch a ride with the Daedalus on its next trip to Pegasus.
Although... Elizabeth took a cautious sip of coffee, relieved that it tasted like American coffee should - scalding and weak and on the edge of sour. Landry might not be too keen to see her. After all, the last time they had been face to face, she, Beckett, McKay and Sheppard stole a jumper and were about to take Atlantis back from the Replicators by force. Maybe General Jack O'Neill would be a better bet. It would be a shorter drive to Washington than to Colorado. She knew vaguely where he lived. She could just park her car in his driveway and wait for him to show up.
A plate was placed in front of her, the waitress gave Elizabeth a quick "Enjoy," then spun off again towards a crowded table.
The sight of all the food, eggs still steaming from the pan, awoke a raging hunger in Elizabeth. The eggs were delicious, the toast still hot, the bacon salty and crisp. She had to force herself to eat slowly so she didn't make herself sick.
When she was half finished her meal, between one blink of the eye and the next, he appeared in the other side of the booth.
Elizabeth barely had time to drop her fork when he said in a voice so low only Elizabeth could hear him, "If you attempt to approach Jack O'Neill, every person in this diner will die."
Elizabeth tried to breathe thorough the spike of adrenaline the man's words caused. "What do you know of Jack O'Neill?" she asked, pressing her shoulders back into the booth. Before, she'd run from this man, but now her body was telling her freeze and he won't see you.
He cocked his head to the side, staring at her with such unnatural eyes. "'If you attempt to contact anyone from Elizabeth Weir's life, people will die."
How was their conversation not attracting any attention? Elizabeth looked around. It was as if they didn't exist. The world continued on around the booth -- children yelling at the tops of their lungs, men arguing over the paper, the waitress and cook bantering across the diner. All these people...
"Why are you doing this?" Elizabeth hissed, forcing herself to flatten her hands on the tabletop. The food she'd eaten lay like lead in her stomach. "What the hell does it matter if I contact people I know?"
The man looked at her unblinking. "You are no longer of that world," he finally said. "I pulled you back from the brink of death, gave you life anew in the service of the Lord your God, and you will heed His command."
Elizabeth glared back. "What about the Winchesters?" she demanded. "If I'm supposed to help Dean Winchester--"
"You are not to approach the Winchesters," the man interrupted. His head twitched to the side, just enough like a Wraith for Elizabeth's gut to clench. "Dean and Sam Winchester do not need you at this time."
That was the second time the man had omitted John Winchester's name from the list. As much as she didn't want to ask, in case she could somehow contact her cousin, she had to know. "What about their father?"
The man didn't hesitate. "John Winchester is dead."
Elizabeth's stomach dropped. "No," she said immediately, pushing the idea away. "He's not-- he can't be--"
"He made a deal with a demon to resurrect his son," the man went on, disgust on his face. "He is dead." And before Elizabeth could process any of the concepts thrown at her, he said, "As you do not believe that I will keep my word if you attempt to step back into the life of Elizabeth Weir, I will provide you with the proof of my conviction."
And just like that, he was gone.
Across the diner, a chair crashed against the floor. "Help!" a woman screamed. "Oh God, she's choking!"
Elizabeth was on her feet in an instant, pushing through the gathering crowd of onlookers, all the time something in her head screaming you you you this is all because of you. When she elbowed aside a trucker, she found a young woman patting the back of a small girl, who was struggling to breathe as she turned grey.
Not even stopping to think, Elizabeth dropped to her knees in front of the child. "Can she cough?" she demanded of the frantic mother.
"No! Help her, please!"
Elizabeth pulled the child off the chair, turning the small body around and bracing her before grasping her hands together and pulling up against the child's diaphragm.
Nothing.
She tried the Heimlich maneuver again --
I won't go to Jack O'Neill! Elizabeth thought frantically. Don't kill this child just to prove your point!
-- and then a third time. The child jerked and started coughing and crying. She was breathing again.
As Elizabeth handed the girl back to her weeping mother, the child spat a small strawberry onto the diner floor.
"Oh, thank you!" the woman exclaimed, rocking her child back and forth. The little girl couldn't have been older than four years old. "Thank you!"
Elizabeth tried to smile, but the fading adrenaline rush was making her ill. "I'm happy I could help." She smoothed the little girl's dark curls back from her face. "What's your name?"
The girl coughed and her mother answered for her. "She's Jennifer."
"Jennifer," Elizabeth repeated. "Well, Jennifer, you're going to be just fine."
"Who are you?" the mother asked.
Elizabeth touched the little girl's shoulder, remembering the deal she'd just made for this child's life. "I'm Jordan."
The name felt like surrender in her mouth.
to be continued
Keeper of the Dead 1/6
A Stargate Atlantis/Supernatural/NCIS story
by mhalachaiswords
Summary: Elizabeth Weir died. That was just the beginning.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Stargate Atlantis, NCIS and Supernatural are all owned lock&stock by large media corporations. I am but a humble writer paying homage to those lovely worlds. This is trufax.
Spoilers: All of SGA, NCIS, and ongoing Supernatural (although we won't really get to the NCIS and Supernatch stuff for a few chapters).
Word count: 4,325 this part
Genre: Action/Thriller, Gen
Note: Sequel to Hey Little Sister. The impetus behind this story is that Torri Higginson played both Elizabeth Weir on SGA, and Jordon Hampton on NCIS, which I couldn't leave alone.
~~~~~~~~~~
The kindest thing Oberoth ever did was to leave Elizabeth alone to die.
When Oberoth shut her in the featureless room, isolated from the Replicator collective, left behind by Sheppard and McKay to save Atlantis, something inside of her snapped. She could feel the nanites in her blood multiplying, taking elements from her body and converting her cells into tiny Replicators building blocks. She couldn't stop her hands from clawing at her skin, trying to dig out the alien technology devouring her from the inside. But no nails could cut deep enough to rip free the nanites, nothing could free her from the torment of her unfamiliar body.
No matter how deeply she dug, or how much red blood spilled across the floor of her tomb, her skin healed almost immediately as the nanites knit together smooth, flawless flesh.
Too late, she wished she'd had the courage to order John to kill her.
She lay still, staring at the grey ceiling as her body slowly changed. Her bones would be first, Oberoth had explained before he closed the door on her screams. Nanites needed the minerals in her bones to replicate. Next were her muscles, then her internal organs. Her brain would be last, so the nanites could completely map her synaptic pathways to take all knowledge from her.
Her vision was changing, the tell-tale itch of nanites inside her eyeballs. Elizabeth bit down hard on her fingers to keep from clawing at her eyes with gore-stained fingernails. It did not matter there was no one to see her final minutes. She had succumbed to terror, the drying blood on the floor and her hands testimony to the failure of her will, but she had regained herself before the end.
Elizabeth Weir would die alone in the dark, but she would die in control of herself and with her eyes open.
There would be a replicator in her shape, with her thought patterns, but it would not be her. Already, she could feel the dimming of her senses, memories failing. Whatever spark of life made Elizabeth who she was, would be gone. Nothing could stop it now.
So she lay on her back and waited for the end to come.
Out of silent darkness came an explosion of light and sound, sending Elizabeth scrambling back until her shoulder hit the wall, some last remaining animal instinct screaming run away RUN AWAY. Her alien eyes saw the light, her alien ears heard the noise, and whatever remained of her humanity made her very afraid indeed.
From that shape of light and sound coalesced a figure, emerging from a shroud of shadowed wings into the room.
A man.
Elizabeth felt fear slide into an emotion she knew as purely her own, and it pushed back the onslaught of the nanites for a few moments. Fury.
"Can't you wait longer?" she demanded, her voice curiously flat as nanite-flesh contracted in her throat. "I'm not dead, don't drag me into your Replicator consciousness yet!"
The man cocked his head to the side and stared at her with eyes of fire. "I am not Replicator," he hissed.
True, this didn't feel like the consciousness. Another option struggled out of her memory past the nanites, and if her heart had been her own, it would have sunk. "Are you an Ancient?" she asked, not even letting herself hope. If this was an Ascended Ancient, it wouldn't be allowed to help her.
Her last moments alive were to be a torment. Very well.
"I am ancient, but not as you mean." The man knelt at Elizabeth's side, his hand reaching out. The caress would have charred normal flesh, but her nanites healed the burns on her cheek instantly as Elizabeth jerked away. "Fascinating."
Elizabeth scrambled back. Ancient or Replicator, he was still a threat, and Elizabeth wasn't dead yet. "What do you want?"
The man was suddenly on his feet, grabbing her wrists and forcing her against the wall. Even as she struggled with Replicator-strength, Elizabeth could not free herself. The man pressed against her, so close she could feel the heat from the fire in his eyes. "I want the last living blood relative of Dean Winchester," he said, voice filling Elizabeth's ears with the pressure of a hurricane.
Elizabeth's mind couldn't reach past the haze of the nanites to remember anyone named Dean Winchester. Everything was fading, her body shutting down as her last remaining brain cells were dismantled by nanites.
With what little of herself she had left, she spat in the man's face. "You're too late," she said.
The man smiled then, sharp as knives in her belly. "I am not offering you a choice," he said.
Then he ripped her out of her body.
~~~
The pain went on forever.
~~~
She fell.
Hands and knees hit something hard and soft at the same time, limbs jerking stiff just in time to keep her face from smashing into the unseen surface.
She had no time to think before a wave of ice broke over her. She gasped, and water flooded her mouth. Choking on salt, Elizabeth fought against the water and gravity until the water receded.
She opened her eyes, only to be blinded by a flash of brilliant red sunlight.
Sunrise.
The ground under her hands gave way as she pushed, wet sand shifting under her weight as she scrambled up the shoreline from the crashing surf. Her adrenaline rush vanished as she reached the high tide mark, sand only slightly damp as the water retreated back into the sea for the day.
The memory of pain was a pain in itself, a grinding wooziness that drew out the beat of every moment into an eternity of wondering if it would happen again as she choked up salt water from her lungs, the harsh scour of sand under her hands, clothing icy against her skin.
Only as she coughed up a mouthful of water from her lungs did she realize that it was her lungs, her eyes seeing the dots in the sand, her skin warmed by the distant sun rising.
Her.
With a determined push, Elizabeth staggered to her feet. She was on a deserted beach on a world that looked and smelled so much like Earth, with the sun rising over the ocean. The salt air was broken only by the unmistakable cry of a sea gull.
"Oberoth!" she screamed, the effort of the name catching in her throat. She doubled over, coughing again. Was this another Replicator-induced fantasy, now that the Replicators had taken over her mind completely? Was she going to be locked away forever in her own head?
"He is not here," came the same voice from the featureless room. Elizabeth spun around, to find that man occupying a spot on the sand that seemed crowded yet vacant at the same time. "You are no longer there."
Elizabeth backed away, sand moving underfoot. It was all too real, the sun and the sand and the ocean crashing onto the beach a few steps away. "What is this place?" she demanded, gratified that her voice was growing more solid as she spoke. "Who are you?"
The man looked out at the ocean. He just didn't seem real. "You are needed."
"For what?"
"Dean Winchester."
This time, Elizabeth knew exactly of whom the man spoke. Her cousin John Winchester's son. The last time Elizabeth had seen Dean, had been in a family portrait when the boy was still a baby. Not a boy anymore, Elizabeth realized. He was nearly twenty-eight. "What do you mean?" she deflected.
The man looked back at Elizabeth. "You are restored to help in God's merciful plans for mankind."
That came so far from out of left field that Elizabeth stopped dead. "What? Who's plan?" she repeated. Why was some ascended Ancient speaking about God?
Earth's God?
"Dean Winchester holds the key for God's plans, in His infinite knowledge and mercy," the man recited. "You are Dean Winchester's only pure blood relation and as such, you are a part of Heaven's plan."
"What about his father? Or his brother?" Elizabeth demanded. She hadn't heard much from John in the years since Mary died, but John's last letter had said that Sam and Dean were in high school and they were all alive.
And seriously.
God?
The man did not respond to her question. "You will become the keeper of the dead, as Satan's armies are battled below."
"What are you talking about?" Elizabeth asked, angry now. She stepped forward to try and grab at the man, fury overwhelming her common sense, but between one instant and the next he was behind her.
Instinctive terror crawled up Elizabeth's spine, that part of the brain that had everything to do with millions of years of humanity huddling in the dark and waiting for the monsters to attack.
"Go," the man commanded, pointing at a spot far down the beach. Elizabeth automatically looked in the direction he indicated, and when she looked back, he was gone.
Elizabeth lasted a full moment before she took off down the beach, fear and the remembrance of pain pushing her beyond what she thought she could endure.
~~~
The spot indicated turned out to be a parking lot overlooking the water. There was only one car in the parking lot, a small worn sedan with New Jersey plates.
It was unlocked.
Elizabeth paused with her hand on the open passenger door. What exactly was going on here? Most likely, this was a hallucination brought on by the nanite change, a never-ending nightmare created by her own psyche. In which case, it didn't matter what she did, because there was no escaping it until her death.
Another option was that she had been pulled into the Replicator consciousness and this was pure manipulation, but to what end, Elizabeth had no idea. If they wanted information about Atlantis or Earth, they were going about it in a strange way. And no Replicator would know about Earth's God, let along use phrases like Satan's army.
There was a very thin chance that this was real, that some Ancient really had pulled her out of the Replicator's body and restored her to herself, and put them down on an Earth beach with some misguided idea that he was helping.
That last was so unlikely that Elizabeth could barely think of it.
Feeling very much like Alice directed to drink me, Elizabeth opened the car's glove box.
What she found there only confused her more. The car keys lay on top of registration papers, in the name of Dr. Jordan Hampton of Newark. Under the papers was a thin wallet, containing fifty dollars in cash, a credit card, as well as a New Jersey driver's license Jordan Hampton's name and Elizabeth's picture.
Elizabeth let the license rest against her fingers. This didn't make any sense. Jordan Hampton, MD, was a burn alias she'd used a decade before when she was trying to smuggle information out of Bhutan without alerting the authorities to a diplomat's presence. The alias had been a one-time thing, set to lapse eight years before. But this was a current license, with current insurance papers and up-to-date tags on the car's plate.
Elizabeth looked out at the sun, rising over the horizon. An hour ago by her calculations, she had been dying on the floor of a Replicator city. Now she was staring at her own face on an ID card issued in New Jersey.
What was going on?
Further searching in the car produced a motel key tucked on top of the sun visor. Given the way things had played out so far, Elizabeth would bet at least part of her fifty dollars that the room was booked in the name of Jordan Hampton.
Seeing no other real option other than sitting here, Elizabeth slid behind the steering wheel and putting the car into gear.
~~
She had meant to drive until she found a gas station to ask for directions to the motel listed on the keychain, but she found herself driving past the first gas station, taking an off-ramp and five minutes later pulling into the parking lot of the right motel.
A little stunned, Elizabeth took the wallet and the keys and walked up a flight of stairs, let herself into the deserted room, and closed the door behind her. How had she known where to go?
The room was dingy, yet neat. The only sign of personality was a suitcase, lying closed on the bedspread. It might as well have had a sign that read Open Me on it.
Suddenly furious, Elizabeth turned to leave the room, only to realize that her clothing was still wet. She let her forehead rest against the thin wood of the door, all energy leaving her. She let herself slide to the floor as the overwhelming nature of her situation crashed in on her. She had no idea what was going on, if this was real or a waking nightmare from which she could not escape.
In all her time on Atlantis, she never thought it would end like this. She had ordered Sheppard to leave her behind, yet part of her couldn't believe he had really done so.
And now she was alone.
She had no idea how long she sat there before physical discomfort pushed past her mental turmoil. With an effort, she made herself stand, feeling every one of her years. Be this hallucination or reality, the basic laws of physics seemed to be holding. So now what?
An examination of the room only reinforced the message in the wallet. The suitcase held a few changes of clothing, a small paperback book, and a dossier containing the CV of Dr. Jordon Hampton, as well as new-hire papers by the local medical examiner's office.
Elizabeth let the papers fall back to the bed. That was where this whole illusion would fall apart, she knew. Besides the outlandish idea that the burn alias wouldn't attract the attention of the State Department, Elizabeth wasn't a medical doctor. She didn't know the first thing about anatomy.
A shiver down her spine distracted Elizabeth. She was still in wet clothes, and the trauma of the past few days were catching up with her. She lifted a change of clothing out of the suitcase and, after locking the door and pulling the dresser in front of it, went into the bathroom.
The light shone unforgiving as Elizabeth undressed, letting the black Atlantis BDUs slide into a pile on the floor. Her skin had been healed by the nanites, showing her a body familiar and startling at the same time. When had she gotten so old? Part of her still felt like a sixteen-year-old kid, the same kid who'd shown up on her cousin John Winchester's doorstep decades before.
Turning her back on the mirror, Elizabeth stepped into the shower, leaving the curtain half-open to give her a clear line of sight to the door. Hot water and cheap soap helped clear away the blood and salt from her skin. But the chaos in her mind continued unabated.
No matter what she might want to believe, that this was a delusion brought on by the nanites, or some sort of Replicator mind game, this didn't feel like the nanite-induced hallucination she'd experienced before. Everything felt very real, from the hot water spraying over her skin to the wet hair falling against her cheeks.
And the idea that all of this was real was even more terrifying. Because that meant that something or someone with unimaginable powers and a literal God complex had plucked her out of her dying body and pulled her halfway across the universe, warping time and reality to suit his purpose.
Elizabeth scrubbed at the blood covering her skin, feeling something very close to hysteria bubbling up in her chest. What could any of this have to do with John and Dean Winchester? Elizabeth hadn't heard from her cousin in years. He'd sent her letters once a year or so, letting her know that he and the boys were still alive and reminding her to lock her doors at night because of the monsters out there in the dark. She had always put his paranoia down to the lingering trauma from Mary's death... but the last half hour of her life had changed all that.
Because what could explain Ancient interference in Dean Winchester's name?
And Ancient it must be, for Elizabeth could believe many things, but she sure as hell wasn't willing to believe in miracles.
~~~
After she had showered and dressed in clothes from the suitcase, Elizabeth took the wallet and the room key and headed out in search of food. She wasn't remotely hungry, but if she wanted to keep functioning, she knew she needed to eat. Before the nanites took over, Dr. Keller's IVs were the only sustenance she'd had in days.
A small diner sat at the corner down the block, people visible through the window. Elizabeth stepped through the door on the heels of a truck driver, unconsciously hunching into her jacket as she stood by the cash register.
A harried waitress spotted her. "Sit anywhere you want, honey!" the woman called, balancing four plates in her hands as she sped towards a table.
The only clear table was by the window, so Elizabeth slipped across the floor and onto the vinyl bench, unable to keep from staring around the diner in what might have been wonder. This had used to be normal to her, bright colors and brash talk and all the food. Plates heaping with food in front of every customer, a tall rotating display case full of pies by the front door... the excess made her head spin. Things on Atlantis were better now that the Daedalus was on a regular supply run, but there wasn't a week that went by where someone (usually Rodney McKay) wasn't in her office, complaining about the restricted menu offerings.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the waitress. The woman slapped a coffee cup on the table and dropped a handful of creamers on the chipped Formica surface. She grinned a quick greeting at Elizabeth. "What can I getcha?" she asked.
Elizabeth blinked. She hadn't thought this far ahead, although really, what other sort of decision would she be asked to make in a diner? Rather than fumble with the menu, she said, "I'll have the special."
"Bacon or sausage? White, brown or rye toast? Hashbrowns or grits?" the waitress rattled off, scribbling on her notepad.
Elizabeth just stared. The questions wouldn't solidify into any meaning.
The waitress snapped her gum. "You okay, honey?"
Elizabeth ducked her head, trying to calm her breathing. She couldn't let questions about a simple meal knock her down. She had to keep her head about her, regardless of all the impossible things that had happened to her in the last few hours. Or days. Or years. "I'm fine," she lied with a weak smile. "Why don't you surprise me?"
"Okay," the waitress said, ripping a slip of paper off her order pad. "You let me know when you want more coffee," was her parting shot.
Once the waitress was gone and Elizabeth was as alone as she was going to get in a crowded diner, she rested her forehead against her palm. What the hell was she doing wasting time in a New Jersey diner? She needed to get back to Atlantis, and the only way to do that was thought the SGC. She seized on the thought. She had to get to the SGC. Never mind the fake life that had been built up for her; she'd get in Jordon Hampton's car and drive to Colorado. General Landry would see her if she made enough of a nuisance of herself at the Mountain, and the SGC would prove to their satisfaction that she wasn't a Replicator and then she could catch a ride with the Daedalus on its next trip to Pegasus.
Although... Elizabeth took a cautious sip of coffee, relieved that it tasted like American coffee should - scalding and weak and on the edge of sour. Landry might not be too keen to see her. After all, the last time they had been face to face, she, Beckett, McKay and Sheppard stole a jumper and were about to take Atlantis back from the Replicators by force. Maybe General Jack O'Neill would be a better bet. It would be a shorter drive to Washington than to Colorado. She knew vaguely where he lived. She could just park her car in his driveway and wait for him to show up.
A plate was placed in front of her, the waitress gave Elizabeth a quick "Enjoy," then spun off again towards a crowded table.
The sight of all the food, eggs still steaming from the pan, awoke a raging hunger in Elizabeth. The eggs were delicious, the toast still hot, the bacon salty and crisp. She had to force herself to eat slowly so she didn't make herself sick.
When she was half finished her meal, between one blink of the eye and the next, he appeared in the other side of the booth.
Elizabeth barely had time to drop her fork when he said in a voice so low only Elizabeth could hear him, "If you attempt to approach Jack O'Neill, every person in this diner will die."
Elizabeth tried to breathe thorough the spike of adrenaline the man's words caused. "What do you know of Jack O'Neill?" she asked, pressing her shoulders back into the booth. Before, she'd run from this man, but now her body was telling her freeze and he won't see you.
He cocked his head to the side, staring at her with such unnatural eyes. "'If you attempt to contact anyone from Elizabeth Weir's life, people will die."
How was their conversation not attracting any attention? Elizabeth looked around. It was as if they didn't exist. The world continued on around the booth -- children yelling at the tops of their lungs, men arguing over the paper, the waitress and cook bantering across the diner. All these people...
"Why are you doing this?" Elizabeth hissed, forcing herself to flatten her hands on the tabletop. The food she'd eaten lay like lead in her stomach. "What the hell does it matter if I contact people I know?"
The man looked at her unblinking. "You are no longer of that world," he finally said. "I pulled you back from the brink of death, gave you life anew in the service of the Lord your God, and you will heed His command."
Elizabeth glared back. "What about the Winchesters?" she demanded. "If I'm supposed to help Dean Winchester--"
"You are not to approach the Winchesters," the man interrupted. His head twitched to the side, just enough like a Wraith for Elizabeth's gut to clench. "Dean and Sam Winchester do not need you at this time."
That was the second time the man had omitted John Winchester's name from the list. As much as she didn't want to ask, in case she could somehow contact her cousin, she had to know. "What about their father?"
The man didn't hesitate. "John Winchester is dead."
Elizabeth's stomach dropped. "No," she said immediately, pushing the idea away. "He's not-- he can't be--"
"He made a deal with a demon to resurrect his son," the man went on, disgust on his face. "He is dead." And before Elizabeth could process any of the concepts thrown at her, he said, "As you do not believe that I will keep my word if you attempt to step back into the life of Elizabeth Weir, I will provide you with the proof of my conviction."
And just like that, he was gone.
Across the diner, a chair crashed against the floor. "Help!" a woman screamed. "Oh God, she's choking!"
Elizabeth was on her feet in an instant, pushing through the gathering crowd of onlookers, all the time something in her head screaming you you you this is all because of you. When she elbowed aside a trucker, she found a young woman patting the back of a small girl, who was struggling to breathe as she turned grey.
Not even stopping to think, Elizabeth dropped to her knees in front of the child. "Can she cough?" she demanded of the frantic mother.
"No! Help her, please!"
Elizabeth pulled the child off the chair, turning the small body around and bracing her before grasping her hands together and pulling up against the child's diaphragm.
Nothing.
She tried the Heimlich maneuver again --
I won't go to Jack O'Neill! Elizabeth thought frantically. Don't kill this child just to prove your point!
-- and then a third time. The child jerked and started coughing and crying. She was breathing again.
As Elizabeth handed the girl back to her weeping mother, the child spat a small strawberry onto the diner floor.
"Oh, thank you!" the woman exclaimed, rocking her child back and forth. The little girl couldn't have been older than four years old. "Thank you!"
Elizabeth tried to smile, but the fading adrenaline rush was making her ill. "I'm happy I could help." She smoothed the little girl's dark curls back from her face. "What's your name?"
The girl coughed and her mother answered for her. "She's Jennifer."
"Jennifer," Elizabeth repeated. "Well, Jennifer, you're going to be just fine."
"Who are you?" the mother asked.
Elizabeth touched the little girl's shoulder, remembering the deal she'd just made for this child's life. "I'm Jordan."
The name felt like surrender in her mouth.
to be continued