They stand together, at the balcony overlooking the Stargate and watch their people evacuate. The ZPM was enough for them to be able to make the trip back to Earth, carrying the horrors they had witnessed with them.

The underlying background steady thrum of multiple Wraith weapons hitting the shields, that will only protect them for a few more precious hours, underpins everything.

They stand shoulder to shoulder. If even one of them moves only half an inch their shoulders would touch, arms pressed together.

Neither of them move.

Both of them want to.

He looks at her every now and again, but out of the corner of his eye.

The bombardment had started straight after they had dropped out of hyperspace.

Despite the risks the Atlantis residents had taken to warn Earth of the danger the Wraith presented, the military had taken the position that their shiny new ship could take anything thrown at it. John wondered if they’d learned nothing from the Goa’uld Actually, he wondered more if the Goa’uld had made the humans complacent. There had been those that had been fighting the Goa’uld for hundreds if not thousands of years and yet the Tau’ri stepped in and their whole system was destabilized in nine.

They credited their military prowess but John knew that it was more the Goa’uld’s complacency and arrogance that had been their undoing. They had died the death of a thousand cuts, not noticing the damage until it was too late.

It seemed that two more Hive ships had turned up between the message sent out and the Deadalus’ departure and they hadn’t stood a chance. The Deadalus limped across the threshold between shielded space and non-shielded and shuddered to a halt.

Her crew knew she would never make it back into the sky.

There’d been relief that a functioning ZPM was brought, but disappointment that the Earth’s great ship had been so easily defeated. The last of the hope that the Atlantis explorers had been holding onto had vanished.

“That’s the last of them.” Doctor Weir says with finality, her voice carefully neutral, like she is reporting a fact. John can tell after only the short time of knowing her that this evacuation is tearing her apart. She would see it as a personal failure, no matter what the circumstance.

“Self-destruct set?” John asks, more for something to say than from any doubt that it had been done.

“Rod… Doctor McKay set it this morning. We just have to press a button.”

“Turn off the stove and switch off the lights.” John sighs.

“I’m sorry you came.” Elizabeth says and John looks at her and sees the tightness around her eyes that indicates she’s said something and it hasn’t come out like intended. “What I mean is-“

“I know.” He says softly. “Seems like a waste. I didn’t do anything.”

He hears an exhalation of breath, the minutest pause. “You came.” Elizabeth’s voice is barely above a whisper and has a note of wonder in it. She finally turns to him and he can see in her face a fine etching of regret.

Another time, another place…

“We’re ready.” The scientist, a Canadian that John can tell Elizabeth holds in high regard and with a great deal of affection and patience bustles up behind them, laptop in hand and a pack slung over his shoulder.

“Good. You go through. We’ll be right behind you.” Elizabeth nods and Doctor McKay pauses for only a second, before nodding and making his way down the stairs and to the ‘gate.

Three minutes later and they are standing on either side of the main console, hands hovering over the trigger mechanisms Rodney had built to start the self-destruct. “Oh, wait!” Elizabeth exclaims and ducks into her office. John watches her hunt around before she emerges and can’t help the bark of laughter when he sees the bottle of whisky and the two glasses.

“I was keeping this for a special occasion.” Elizabeth says, waggling the bottle.

Only when each has a glass in hand does Elizabeth give the nod.